ii) Sydney
You'd never imagined this happening.
Not now.
Not here.
Not with him.
You'd never considered him anything else except Vaughn's best friend before…but now you think that maybe he could rapidly becoming something more to you.
You get together to drink tequila and make dinner about once a week.
You talk about everything.
Music, movies, TV shows….how Friends had finally finished.
You talk about everything.
Except his best friend's marriage and what it was like while you were dead.
That's off limits, by some unspoken accord, and it's the way both of you like it.
Because talking about Vaughn and Lauren will only result in talking about Vaughn and you, and his feelings for you and your feelings for him…..and that's entirely too raw, too painful a topic to be discussed right now.
But there are some things that you just can't escape forever, and this is one of them.
And so one day you talk about what it was like when they met.
He had been there.
Watching them.
And he tells you that he had been happy to see Vaughn actually smiling.
Actually happy.
And it kills you.
Because you don't want him to be happy.
Not if it's without you.
Not if it's with her.
It's so selfish, so narrow-minded, so cruel.
But it's ohsotrue.
*
He tells you more about them.
About the time he went out to dinner with them.
How they spent the entire night looking at one another.
Touching one another.
Talking together.
How he had watched them.
You don't need to know this.
But you can't stop listening.
*
He tells you about their wedding, on her father's massive Virginia property.
It was a big wedding, with people from the Agency and from the NSC, and some of her father's colleagues in the Senate all present.
She wore a dress by an obscure Australian designer whose name is now forever imprinted in your head – 'Collette Dinnigan.' You don't know why you can't erase this trivial detail, not when there are so many more important things that you could remember.
But you know that she wore an off-white Collette Dinnigan gown with beading and lace and, as Weiss says, some sort of feathery thing. And you can't get the image of her walking down the aisle on her father's arm, a smile on her face underneath a beautiful white veil, in the most stunning fairytale dress you've ever seen.
You've replayed their wedding day in your head a thousand times. But every time round they're smiling, and the sun is shining, and everything is perfect for them.
And you hate it.
*
It is late at night when it happens, totally out of the blue and completely unplanned by both of you.
Because really, you're still in shock, and his best friend's ex-girlfriend.
It's not like you were really going to plan to sleep together.
You had been crying in his arms again, drunk on tequila and pain and loneliness.
That's what gets to you the most, you think. Not the fact that he's moved on. Not the fact that you have to work with his wife. Not the fact that you've missed two years of your own life.
It's the loneliness that makes you cry yourself to sleep late at night. You miss him, you miss Will, you miss Francie, you miss fitting in somewhere.
You used to have friends who loved and respected you before. You used to know where you were, knew who you were in the whole scheme of things. You didn't used to be the one that they all pointed to and whispered behind their hands about [ohdidyouhearamnesiatwoyearsgoneboyfriendmarrieddreadfulshameisn'tit?].
But you are now.
They've all moved on, and you're still two years in the past, thinkinghopingdesperately that somehow this has all been a terrible nightmare and that anytime now he'll walk through the door and you'll be back in your ordinary life.
But it's not a nightmare, is it?
It's fucked up and it's twisted and it's wrong….but it's real.
It's real and nothing's right anymore and you just want your old life back.
You plead with whatever God there is in the world, late at night, crying, sobbing, screaming, desperately pleading for your own life back.
You don't want this life. You don't want this house, this bed, these clothes. It's not yours.
Nothing's yours anymore.
And that's why you're crying.
Your head is buried in his chest, tears running down your face, shoulders shaking.
But you're no longer sure whether or not you're crying in pain or laughing with the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
"Syd, are you laughing?"
"Think about it," laughsob, "Eric. I was a spy and a college student….and then I lost two years of my life. How on earth do you lose time itself?" laughsob "It's not really like losing your car keys or anything, is it?"
"And then I get back….and my boyfriend, the love of my life," soblaughsob "Well, this is the funny part – he's gotten married! And, oh, one of my best friends is in Witness Protection somewhere in Hicksville, USA, and the other one is dead except there's this crazy clone running around with her face….C'mon, Eric. What's not to laugh about?"
"This," he says quietly, before lowering his lips to yours.
And it's really not anything to laugh about, because the emotions running through you at that moment are really not very funny.
You'd honestly never thought about Eric Weiss in this way. Or in any way except Vaughn's best friend, really.
But as he kisses you, gently at first but then with increasing fervour, you're finding that the last way that you're thinking about Eric Weiss is as your ex-boyfriend's best friend.
Not with the way he kisses. Not with the way his hand is buried in your hair, pulling you closer. Not with the way you're suddenly on his lap, straddling him, responding to his actions with ever rising passion.
You end up in his bed.
And really, all that you can think about after that point is exactly how underappreciated Eric Weiss is.
*
He was gentle, but you're not surprised by that.
He was good with his hands – but he considered being a magician, so you think that he was probably always good with his hands. So you're not surprised by that either, really.
No, what you're surprised by is exactly how much you enjoy waking up in Eric Weiss's arms, and not just because you're sick of waking up cold and depressed and alone.
"Syd?"
"Yeah?"
"What did we just…you know…do?"
"Eric…I think you know what we just did…you were there, after all."
"I wasn't talking about that. Where…where do you want this to go?"
"Where do you want this to go, Eric?"
"Syd…I can't be your rebound guy. I can't be your Vaughn substitute."
"I know," you reply quietly.
Yes, you do know.
You know he's not him.
That he'll never be him.
But you want him, want someone in your life who might love you.
You need someone in your life to be real.
And he seems to be it.
"Really?"
"Eric…I can't deny that if Vaughn wasn't married, the chances of us doing this are pretty slim. But…are you interested in seeing if we can make something out of this?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
And then you kiss him, and snake your arms around his neck, and relationships and Vaughn and amnesia are the last things on your mind.
*
So you're going to try and make it work. Going to try to make something out of what you both seem to feel.
You told him that he wasn't a rebound guy. That he wasn't going to be a Vaughn substitute.
But the reality is that you are on the rebound, and the reality is that you still think about Vaughn far too much too be healthy.
The reality is- -
You think you're still in love with Vaughn. But you think that you could get used to waking up in Eric Weiss's arms very easily.
In short, the reality is --
You have no idea what you're going to do.
[Although you think that not drinking tequila ever again is a pretty good step.]