Living Forward – Chapter 4/7
By Midnight Caller
Rated: PG-13
See chapter 1 for disclaimers and summary...
*****
The streetlight streaming in from her window woke me a few hours later, and I was only disoriented for a moment before it all came back to me, washing over my conscience as it replayed itself in my head. I swallowed hard and looked beside me, my heart sinking.
She was still asleep, facing me, her hair splayed out over the pillow and over her cheeks, wild yet so naturally innocent. For a while I just watched her sleep, observed how her eyelids fluttered, how her mouth opened slightly before closing again. I wanted to reach over and touch her but I was afraid of what I'd have to say if she woke up.
I'm sorry, Sam. I'm sorry for being selfish, for dragging you into my life in this way, for making you the other woman, for using you, for making you do this, for automatically making your life a thousand times more complicated. I'm sorry for everything.
It was as if all the air in the room was suddenly sucked out, and I felt like I was gasping for even the tiniest breath. I sat up, hand on my chest, mouth wide open, drawing in as much air as I could. Eventually, I just shut my eyes and exhaled slowly, trying to contain the voice inside my head that wanted to scream as loud as possible. I had to get out of there before I started hyperventilating so loudly that she woke up and I'd have to—
"Hey..."
Oh, no. Nonononononono... please. But it was too late.
"Jesus, Jack, what's wrong?" She sat up next to me, her hand on my back. Her hand... so warm... so very warm and... "Are you alright, you're shak—"
She stopped talking when I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and I hated myself as I did so. "This was stupid," I said quietly, my back to her.
The words hit me as hard as I know they must have hit her, like landing smack on your back on the pavement, the air leaving your body in one terrifying instant.
Her hand fell from my back.
Shit.
I closed my eyes. "I'm sorry, Sam, I just have to g—"
"Stop." I looked back at her and she stared me down, waving me off with a flick of her wrist. "Just..." She ran her hand over her mouth before she gestured with it again. "Just go."
I'd never felt such heavy silence as when I gathered my clothes from around her place, avoiding her eyes, wanting to explain, needing to touch her again but being too afraid for too many reasons to count. She didn't move from her sitting position on the bed, even when I reentered her room, dressed, my tie hanging loosely from my collar, my shirt half-tucked into my pants. I was going to just walk out, but I thought I should at least tell her I was leaving.
A long, stiff moment passed in the five feet between us. I opened my mouth to say something but there wasn't anything to say. Instead, I just stood there in her doorway, my eyes unable to stop themselves from seeking out hers. When I still hadn't moved, she looked up at me, her eyes full of pain and hurt and confusion, all of which I had caused. I tried to tell her with my eyes that I was sorry, but she just looked away, and so I turned and walked out the door.
I managed to slip into my apartment quietly enough, and had a fitful three hours of sleep on the sofa before waking again. I saw the questions in Maria's eyes when she came downstairs and saw me folding the blanket back onto the couch, but I didn't offer an excuse, and she never asked. Instead, I walked past her to the bedroom, changed, and then silently left for the office.
Work became nearly unbearable for the days following that night. To save us both the grief of having to face the situation head-on, I continually assigned her to work with Vivian or Danny, anyone but me. I know they noticed, but I couldn't help it. As much as I wanted to be near her, to touch her, to explain what had really happened that night, I couldn't bear the thought that I'd look into her eyes and see no hope for forgiveness.
Samantha was remarkably resilient considering how I treated her at the office. While I just avoided going with her anywhere, she still had protocol to follow – every lead still had to pass through me, so we did have to speak to one another. A few times when I leaned over her at the computer, I would catch a trace of her shampoo, or I'd be distracted by mentally tracing a line along her jaw, around to her chin and then up to her mouth. If she noticed, she didn't say anything, though a couple of times I made the mistake of catching her glance with my own, and the conversation would come to a screeching halt until one of us tore our eyes away.
It was inevitable that we would eventually have to work together, and one night we both had to stay late to sort through a case report. Vivian had acted as a buffer for a while, but after the fourth page from her husband, I sent her home.
After I walked Vivian to the elevator, I returned to the conference table to find Sam leaning over it slightly, her back to me. I approached her carefully and lightly placed a hand beneath her shoulder blades. She stiffened immediately, but didn't pull away. I stepped closer, pressing against her, and turned to see what she was looking at on the table so it would at least seem somewhat professional if anyone were to walk by.
"I didn't mean what I said," I whispered after a long pause, my hand still on her back as if to keep her from running away. "I'm sorry."
She made a slight chortling sound before turning her head toward me. "I'm sorry, too," she said acerbically, and turned right back to her paperwork, leaning forward onto her hands to get a closer view.
I sighed heavily and brought my hand back to my pocket. That was a long night.
Eventually, we finished the report, and I cornered her at her desk as she was putting on her coat. I think it was the first time we'd been face to face since that night and the proximity was unnerving, though not entirely unpleasant.
"Let me drive you home."
She pulled the bottom of her hair from under her coat's collar and reached for her purse. "I'll catch a cab."
"At this hour? You'll never find—"
"Then I'll walk." This time she looked right at me, and I swallowed, hard.
"I'm driving you home," I said, my voice low.
After another moment of silence, she finally conceded, her lips still unwilling to show me anything but a straight, pursed line of anger.
The car ride was silent until I parked in front of her building. When she tried to get out I locked the door.
"I want to talk to you." I found myself getting angry with her for not letting me explain. When I looked over at her she was staring at me.
"So talk."
I opened my mouth but no words came out. What does one say to one's mistress after your first night together ends in pain instead of staying in the realm of pleasure? I opened my mouth again, hoping that somehow the words would just form themselves on my tongue and be pushed out by the air my lungs were desperately trying to capture.
"What do you want, Jack?"
Wait...
"What do you want?" she repeated. "What do you want ... from me?"
I was still incapable of speech.
She turned in her seat to face me. I think I would have felt safer if she had drawn her gun.
"You want some... diversion from your wife? Is that what you want?"
I swallowed.
She nodded, mostly to herself. "Well, when you figure it out, you let me know. I'll see you on Monday."
She reached for the door again but I hadn't unlocked it, and I wasn't going to. She sighed loudly.
Somehow, my voice returned.
"That night..." The words were there, I just had to let them go. I couldn't lie to both women in my life, and something about this one made me want to be honest, not just with her, but myself. "That night was a diversion."
Her eyes closed and she bit her lip, nodding her head slightly.
"I could live the rest of my life telling myself that, but ... it wouldn't be the truth... " I trailed off, and she turned to look at me.
"Then what was it?" she asked so quietly I could barely hear.
A beat passed before I slowly reached over and ran my hands through some of her hair that had fallen out of place. Instead of tucking it back right away, I rubbed it between my thumb and forefinger, memorizing the texture, the color, the way it rolled against the calloused pads of my skin.
When I eventually placed it back behind her ear, I let my fingers trail down through a larger lock of hair until my hand finally landed on her cheek. Moving down to her chin, my thumb came up to brush over her lips, and I watched her carefully as I did so. Her eyes closed and her mouth opened just enough for me to feel her breath on the tip of my finger.
After a moment, she took my hand in hers and held it against her skin, keeping it there as she finally opened her eyes. In the darkness of the car, they glistened with moisture and some wondrous, unspoken level of compassion that made my heart want to burst.
We made love in her apartment that night, the frenzy having been replaced by an indescribable tenderness. Our mouths caressed, our hands embraced, our symphony of cries and gasps now sparked by a gentle, unhurried kind of pleasure, not a desperate, frantic need.
And when the early morning sun streaked the sky with pink and orange pastel, I stroked her hair until we both agreed it was time to tackle the outside world again.
...tbc...
