I walked out of my room, brushing the tears off my face, to check on my roast and when I exited I noticed the form of Scott sitting on the couch with the television turned to the fishing channel. He obviously wasn't watching it but he sat there, staring into the screen like a zombie. The roast was done, very done actually, it was a little burnt on the top but suddenly I didn't feel hungry and I doubted seriously that anyone else in the house was. Maybe Heather, but by the looks of her I seriously doubted if she ate anything at all.
"Hungry?" Scott turned his head at my question.
"Not really."
I put the roast back in the oven and when to join him on the couch. I tucked my legs up underneath me and shifted my body so that it rested slightly on Scott.
"Me neither…rough night?"
"Yup. I figure you must be having a similar one since I heard you throw something at the wall again."
"Where's Heather?" I ignored the comment and instead glanced around, expecting to see her at any moment but luckily she didn't surface.
"Getting her beauty sleep. I guess all of that arguing tired her out."
I nodded and silence sat between us for a moment until I gathered the strength to break it.
"You know Ethan called today." I attempted to sound as causal as possible but I knew I was failing miserably. Scott raised an eyebrow in my direction while I stared down into my hands, he didn't say anything, he just patiently waited for me to continue.
"He's in New York."
He raised both eyebrows in silent question and then rested a hand lightly over mine.
"You knew it would happen eventually, Mo but are you sure your ready for this?"
I sighed deeply but I felt a surge of resolve in me.
"Yeah, I guess. I knew I'd have to face it sometime so I guess now is a good a time as any."
Scott nodded and then leaned his head back, letting his eyes drop closed and there was companionable quiet between us until I ventured to breach it again.
"Have you talked to Shelby yet?" I asked carefully even though I already knew the answer. His head snapped up and I immediately noticed a change in his demeanor.
"No. I really have nothing to say to her, I wasn't the one who walked out."
"Don't you want to know why?"
"You know the first couple months after she left all I did was ask myself why. I racked my brain to think of something that I did or said to make her want to leave me and every time I could think of nothing but now I don't even care anymore. I'm getting married, starting a new life, she's apart of my past…a past that I've decided to put behind me."
I stared at him in disbelief because it seemed as if someone had taken over his body and was speaking for him. He was clearly upset but the firmness of his voice frightened me a little but I wouldn't give up hope so I decided to tell him my story, hoping that he wouldn't make the same mistakes I had. I started slowly, measured my words carefully, all the while praying for strength.
"I remember when I first met Ethan. I was leaving the Dr.'s office when I backed up into a shiny brand new red Porsche. All I could think was, oh my god this guy is going to come outside and kill me. Even though there was just a tiny scratch I was terrified and then I saw him striding over. I wanted to curl up and die, he turned out to be the son of my doctor and I thought that it couldn't get any worse but the next thing I know he was laughing with me and asked me out to dinner. It just snowballed from there, we were completely inseparable for two years and then on one night, we were dancing underneath the stars and he got down on one knee and proposed. The ring was his grandmother's and it is engraved with the family crest on the band, it has to be the most beautiful ring I've ever seen, incredibly expensive too. It was passed down from a long list of generations beginning with a distant grandmother who was a Duchess."
"Around the same time I got a contract with the studio and I was filming my first movie. I had no idea it would be a hit and the next thing I know I'm flying to California and Paris for months at a time. We rarely saw each other and when we did it wasn't for a long time. It took its toll on both of us, especially with him finishing medical school etc. and then one day he confesses that he kissed another woman after she came on to him at a dinner at his father's country club. I felt like my life was over, he said he didn't feel anything for her, that he loved me only but everything, all the stress, all the traveling, everything, came crashing down on me and the next thing I know I'm sending back all of his stuff and my engagement ring on a Fed Ex truck. He sent the ring back because he said he had given it to me so it was mine so I tucked it away and didn't look at it again until last night. There are times when I know I did the right thing but then there are times, when I'm sitting in my apartment alone for a brief second or walking the red carpet with some random Hollywood hunk on my arm, that I wish I could go back. When I wish I could take back everything I said and start again and not wonder what might have been."
"Listen to someone who knows, Scott, holding all the pain in your heart will eat you up inside until you don't even know who you are anymore. And if you think marrying someone else will chase away the hurt then you're wrong. On the other hand if your bent on marrying her then fine but how can expect to give your life to someone else when you haven't even closed the door to your old one? You owe this to Heather, you owe this to Shelby and you owe this to you. Don't make the same mistakes I did, fix it before you find yourself trying to escape the one person that you love most."
I bent down and kissed his forehead lightly then walked away, leaving him with his own thoughts and fighting with his own soul. I guess my story had made somewhat of a difference because his hard features had softened slightly and he was deep in contemplative thought. In that moment he looked just like he did when we were sixteen and I didn't realize until then just how much I missed those days.
~Scott~
I spent the whole night tossing and turning, trying to figure out what to do but every time the answer came I chased it away with my bitterness and doubt. It was when the sun rose, intruding into the bedroom, that I knew that it was inevitable, there was no way I was going to be able to avoid Shelby anymore and the thought terrified me.
I got up and numbly went through the usual morning ritual with my mind constantly on what I was going to say. Then I slowly made my way across the hall and knocked lightly on her door.
"Shelby?"
There was silence and then movement on the other side. The door opened and he face, obviously shocked, appeared on the other side. She was dressed and I suspected that it had been as much of a difficult night for her as it had been for me but even with her rumpled hair and tear stained eyes she was beautiful.
"Scott…I…is everyone okay? Is something wrong?" Her expression was contorted into worried lines and I shook my head.
"No, nothings wrong. I just think that maybe its time we talk. You want to talk a walk around the indoor gardens?
She looked shocked and then questioning, maybe even a little relieved afterwards but regardless of any of these emotions she nodded and shut the door to her room behind her. We exited the apartment, went down the stairs and then walked silently next to each other neither brave enough to speak but both to apprehensive to stay quiet.
"It's nice down here." She said in a tiny voice, I stopped and looked straight into her eyes.
"Why?"
I had caught her off guard but when she regained her footing she answered.
"Why what?" She said innocently.
"Why did you leave?"
Shelby shrugged her shoulders with downcast eyes. Her blonde hair fell into them and trailed down her shoulders, I noticed then that it was longer than it had been before but it was still the same silk sun sort of color, I even remembered how it smelled, like fresh flowers.
"It's not that easy to explain, Scott."
I pushed her chin up so that she her eyes were forced to meet mine, they were blurred but I wouldn't let her look away.
"Try. I think you owe me some kind of explanation."
She sighed deeply and leaned against the white brick wall behind her that was adorned with pictures of various flowers housed in the greenhouse. Her head rested slightly on a plaque for a white rose.
"You wouldn't understand." She said simply.
"Well at least let me try to understand." I could feel the anger slowly building in me and I knew that if I didn't calm I would explode. "You left without a trace, of course I don't understand! You never gave me a chance to understand!"
She jerked up and shot angry darts at me with her sea blue eyes.
"Don't stand there and tell me that I owe you anything, Scott! I gave up everything because I loved you! I left because I loved you!"
I stood there, staring at her and trying to process the words.
"What?"
"Yeah, you heard me," Then her voice quieted and the tears started to form behind her eyes again. "I went to the doctor and I found out I was pregnant."
I felt like I had been punched in the stomach and I found myself having to lean against the white brick wall as well. The air was knocked out of me and all I could was watch as Shelby began to cry softly.
"I was going to tell you but that night you came home all happy. You had passed your semester finals and you were a shoe in for the big firm you wanted and I just couldn't do that to you. We had barely enough money to survive because all of it went to your tuition and we were both still paying for college. You were so excited, so ready to start, you had such an incredibly bright future and a baby would have ruined everything for you but I also knew that I couldn't just get rid of it. He was a part of you, a part of you that I carried inside of me, like the most perfect expression of love possible, the only problem was that you didn't know about it. That day, after going to the doctor. I locked myself in the bathroom and cried the whole afternoon, when you came home I put on a happy face but the next morning I knew what I had to do. I went into the bedroom, packed my bags and was gone before your next class. Then I got in my car and just drove, I had no idea where I was going. I just left."
She said this all in a dead tone, like she had lost the ability to feel and was going through the motions for my benefit. I couldn't tell what she was thinking from the expression in her eyes but I could almost sense a deep but hindered pain that seemed to reverberate from her and into me but I still had unanswered questions.
"What…what happened to the baby?
"I lost him in some motel bathroom in Indiana."
A strong urge to throw up in engulfed me suddenly but I held it in and searched her in disbelief.
"Why didn't you just tell me? It was mine too, I had a right to know."
"It's not that simple and would you stop calling him "it"! I named him Luke, it means the light of god."
A small smile made its way across her face and I suspected that she was thinking of some distant memory that I wasn't apart of, which caused a slight pang of unexpected resentment, but it quickly returned somber.
"I would have dropped out and provided for both of you. I had a college degree, I would have made it work."
"That's exactly what I didn't want, Scott! For you to give up all of your dreams and aspirations, I could see it in your eyes every time you conquered another test or shined in your classes, you loved what you did and I knew I couldn't force you to choose between two things that you love. You deserved a future and I just thought that I would go away for a while, contact you as soon as you finished law school and then all three of us could start over. It seemed like the perfect solution then."
Deadened silence sat between us as I tried to digest this latest development in my already complicated life. It seemed unbelievable to me that she would leave with our child without telling me. There was something in me that wanted to understand, wanted to believe that she did the right thing but now that I knew I felt free in a way. I knew the truth and as much as it hurt I was glad I had discovered it, the only problem was, I still loved her.
"Well, now you know." She said. Her voice possessed a hardened edge to it.
"I guess this doesn't change anything."
"No, I guess it doesn't but I'm glad we got it out of the way before I left for my flight today."
I raised an eyebrow involuntarily.
"You're leaving?"
"Yeah, I woke up early to pack, by some small miracle they found a flight leaving New York but there's only one and it leaves in two hours. So this is probably good-bye."
"Uhhh…yeah…probably…."
Hesitantly, she wrapped her long arms around me and with her body pressed against me I suddenly felt weak and very vulnerable but I prayed she didn't detect it. It was taking all of the strength I had in me to let her go but I had to deal with everything and I couldn't do it with her here.
"Goodbye, Scott."
With that she was gone and I was left watching the gentle swaying of her blonde hair as she walked out of the greenhouse and subsequently out of my life. Again.
