A TWIST OF FATE
Chapter Nine
Jean was packing her belongings into a suitcase on the bed, when Warren walked in.
"Well I just talked to my captain, he should be bringing the plane in at JFK Airport within the hour and I'll have the limo driver come pick us up."
"That sounds good." She replied.
"Yeah." He agreed. He sat on the bed.
"Jean…" He started.
She looked to him as she finished folding a shirt. "Yeah."
"Look about what I said earlier, that I believe you should stop running away from your life when things get tough,"
She nodded as she remembered.
"Well if you're intent on leaving tonight, as I know you are, I really think you need to straighten things out with Scott."
She shrugged. "Warren I told you, there's nothing between us to straighten out."
He shook his head. "No, I don't believe that. And I know you don't believe that."
"Well, You know, I think things have been as straightened out as they're gonna get between us."
"Maybe. But you need to try. I really don't think it's a good idea to leave things this way. To leave so much unsaid and unresolved. You really need to talk to him."
She dropped the shirt into the suitcase and stopped what she was doing. "Why are you pushing this? Why are you pressuring me to talk to him?"
"Because I care about you. And I can clearly see that whatever you have with Scott, whatever's between you two, I can see that it's hurting you, it's tearing you up inside. I know you try to hide it, try to put up this wall, this façade of strength. But you can't keep it up. You can't stay strong forever. And I really just went you to have to not fight it anymore."
She sighed. He was right. She knew he was.
"I'm that transparent, huh?" She asked feebly.
He nodded. "Yes."
She shrugged. "Okay, if you want me to, Warren."
"I want you to." He answered immeadiately.
"Alright, I will. I'll do it, I'll talk to him."
"Good." He stood up and held her by the shoulders. "I want you to be happy, Jean. Truly and utterly happy. I want you to be free of your past, you aren't yet. Work it out with him, okay? For me." He said.
She nodded. "Yeah. Only for you, Warren."
"Hey Kitty you haven't seen Scott anywhere have you?" Jean asked walking into the living room where Kitty was sitting on the couch typing on her laptop.
She looked up from the monitor. "Like it's so weird. Everytime somebody wants Scott they can never find him." She recalled.
Jean sighed. "Yeah I know. I really think he's avoiding me, actually."
Kitty shrugged. "Well I haven't seen him recently, like, he skipped the whole pool party, but you could check upstairs. He might be there."
"Okay, thanks. I was just in the kitchen looking for him. Remy and Warren are talking now and Remy hadn't seen him, either."
"You know like, come to think of it," Kitty recalled. "I think he was looking for you earlier."
"He was?"
She nodded. "Yeah, shortly after we came in from the pool. I think he was." She offered.
"Well I'll check upstairs then. Thanks." She said leaving the room.
Kitty watched her go and sighed as she turned back to the computer screen,
Like I was saying… Today I overheard Scott and Jean arguing in the pool house and now they're looking for each other. Hmmm I wonder what that's all about…
Kitty had told Jean that Scott was looking for her. In that case, if he couldn't find her, there was only once place he'd be.
She walked to her old bedroom knowing Scott would be there waiting for her.
"Don't you have a plane to catch?" She asked leaning on her door pane.
He turned around hearing her approach.
"Yeah it sets off in a while. But it's getting bad out there." He said looking to the balcony where the clouds had turned a darkish black-gray and light sprinkles of rain began to pour down as thundered rumbled.
"It's more than possible it could be delayed. Do you want something?" He asked.
"No. Kitty told me you were looking for me. I knew this is where you'd be."
"Of course you did." He answered.
She folded her arms and walked into the room. "I came to talk to you."
"About something specific?" He asked.
"I wouldn't disturb you for no reason."
"You're not disturbing me. I also you didn't come here on your own accord. Warren put you up to this?" he asked.
She ignored his question. "Since I'm not disturbing you, I'll get right to the point. I want to tell you this before you left for Hawaii, and I just want to make sure we're clear."
"Clear on what?"
"On where we stand." She answered coolly.
"Where do we stand?" He questioned.
"Scott… whatever happened between us…whatever is happening between us now…it has to stop."
He looked at her slightly surprised. "What?"
"This…whatever it is… can't happen." She stressed further.
"What is it? What can't happen?" He asked for clarification.
"Us." She answered. "We can't happen."
He was about to protest so Jean quickly continued, "I know it sounds crazy, after all that has happened, after what happened the other night…" She trailed off.
"Jean…what happened the other night was wonderful. In that moment, we reaffirmed our love for each other. I love you, Jean. I love you with everything I have. I want you, I want you very much."
His remark struck a chord within her. "How much are you willing to lose to have me?" She snapped irritably.
He didn't seem to notice her irritated mood as he hesitated, but only for a moment. "…Anything."
"No matter what the cost!" She asked him, her irritation turning into anger.
"Whoa…Jean where is this coming from?" Scott asked, now noticing her mood.
"This isn't you!" He continued. "Why are you questioning my feelings for you! What happened to make you feel this way?"
She held her gaze on him for a moment than turned away as she crossed the room.
"This is me Scott…It's me now! It's just how I feel. I can't explain it… I don't know…I just feel different now. I mean I've had time to think of what was…and than all that happened…I mean after Rachel died…"
Her voice faded and she walked away, distancing herself from him even more. She shook her head in frustration and looked at the floor.
"It just…it seems to me like you-you seem to have your own set of rules for the way the world operates, don't you?"
He frowned. "Jean…What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
She turned around to face him and explain. "I am engaged to a man who is wonderful to me. Why is it you think that I wouldn't choose to stay with him?"
He stepped closer and looked into her eyes. "It's not that. But I know damn well that you don't love him, that you love me."
She shook her head. "No! Scott…it's-it just- It has nothing to do with my feelings for you at all!" She turned away her eyes threatening to fill with tears.
"Than what is it about?" He shouted.
When she didn't answer Scott gently took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him. He noticed her tears.
"Jean, looks at this. You're crying, obviously I'm right about something I'm saying."
She pulled away from him as she walked closer to the bed. Tears fell down Jean's cheek as she shakes her head.
"Scott, you want to make everything so simple. You believe it's so simple. 'You don't love him, you love me.' But it's just not that simple."
"Why isn't it that simple?" He asked forcefully.
"Because life isn't that simple!" Her voice became fainter as she struggled with her tears.
"Life is very complicated sometimes."
"Well then don't let it be!" He suggested to her.
She broke away in frustration, and tried to stop crying. "Scott!…It's just not like that…"
She struggled with her composure and rested her hands against her dresser to maintain her strength.
"Like what Jean! What is so complicated about this? Don't you understand? I didn't realized what I had until you were gone…and by than it was too late. I want you Jean. I would've given anything to tell you than what I'm telling you now. I know it's late…I know I should have said these things to you earlier when you needed to hear it most, but I'm saying them now. So Jean, please, I need you…now more than ever. Why can't you understand that?"
He stood behind her and pleaded with her to understand him, and yelled at her in frustration because she couldn't.
She shook her head as she tried desperately to find something to say to him, something that could make him understand how she was feeling.
She stared at her reflection in a glass crystalline bowl laying on her dresser as she answered quietly,
"Warren loves me."
"I love you too." He reminded her, his voice tense and forceful, with a hint of yearning.
She closed her eyes and held her head up as she twirled the bowl in her hands and shook her head, "Please don't tell me that."
He approached her from behind. "Why shouldn't I tell you that? Jean, you know it's true, as you love me."
A tear fell down Jean's cheek as she tried to convince both Scott and herself, "That is over, all of that is over."
Scott whispers, "You damn well know that whatever exists between the two of us will never be over. Never be over. Why the hell do you fight that?"
She sighed heavily and no longer able to contain her emotions, in a moment of anger, frustration and simply pure exhaustion, Jean slammed the crystal bowl that she had been holding, down unto the dresser, glass pieces swirling everywhere to the floor.
"Oh, damn it Scott! You want to know the truth? Fine. I can't do this anymore! I can't keep going around in circles with you! It's time to move on! How much clearer to I have to make it? I've divorced you, moved away from you, I'm marrying Warren…so tell me Scott… "
Tears still streaming down her face, Jean asked him doubtfully, "Do you still want me now?"
There was a long pause between them as Scott walked away surprised and shocked at her outburst,
"Well? You still haven't answered me." She said coolly.
He whipped around to face her. "Jean, I don't understand what you're asking me!"
"I think the question was pretty clear." She replied.
He shook his head. "No it wasn't! Not to me."
"Look Scott…I don't know what exactly it is I have to tell you before you understand that we can't keep doing this."
He sighed and answered, "Of course I still want you! I want you very much."
"And you always get what you want…is that it?"
"No! That's not it at all! Look you're making your feelings noticeably clear but it still doesn't change the way I feel about you! Nothing ever will!"
"Scott! You're not getting it! Things can't ever be the way they were! It's just all too complicated!"
Her voice faded as she continued. "No matter what our feelings are."
Scott shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, wondering;
"What is wrong with wanting to be with the woman I love?"
He continues his voice choking; "A woman who loves me?"
He turned her around and whispers as his eyes searched her face;
"Look at me. I know you love me! I can sense it, I can feel it, I know it."
Jean looked at him with tears in her eyes. "Scott, I will always, always, love you. I'm not even going to try to deny that anymore…."
She pushed closer to Scott and met his lips with hers in a short soft kiss.
She pulled away from him and shook her head trying to explain.
"…But Scott, if you had any idea how much I soul-searched, how much I tried to deny everything but my feelings for you… and I just couldn't do it."
Tears fall down her face as she continues, "Life is not always neat and simple, it gets very complicated."
"It doesn't have to be complicated, not with you and me. Things can be very simple for us, so very simple for us." Scott whispered his voice pleading.
Jean turned away. "You know all Warren ever asked of me… was my love…"
Scott looks up and interrupts her. "That's a hell of a lot you know. Especially when you don't love him."
"But I do! Maybe I don't love him like I love you, but I do love him. I mean you didn't live through what he did with me."
Scott sadly looked away and said in a quiet but urgent voice. "Jean I know how you feel about me! What about all those feelings? You can't just turn your back on them!"
"I have too! I can and I will. I have no choice Scott. My life is no longer with you…no matter how much I love you. I have to love Warren now."
"Yeah but-I don't understand why you feel you must love him! Why you feel an obligation to him! I don't understand! Why can't you stop running away from me!"
"I'm not running away from anything!"
"Than what would you say you're doing?"
Jean ran a hand across her face and shook her head in exasperation. "I don't know…But Scott…do you even care how I feel? What I want?"
"Of course I care how you feel! But how do you expect to know what you want?"
"Exactly! You don't know what I want!"
"So tell me!"
"You wouldn't understand!"
"Of course I would! But Jean you can't tell me that a part of you doesn't want this."
"You're right a part of me does. But I'm not that person anymore!"
"No…see you are! That's why you're here!"
"You're wrong Scott! I came here to talk to you…I felt bad the way we left things…I mean I know I'm the one who left in the end…but I felt we needed closure."
"I don't even know what the hell happened that night!"
"Scott… I don't really want to get into it."
"Well I do…to get closure…right?"
"Alright, look. I didn't come here just to rehash all of this… I think I better go." Jean turned around to leave.
Scott rolled his head to the side. "Jean…wait! I just want to talk."
Jean spun around obviously upset. "Talk or argue?"
"I just-I want to know…I need closure too."
"You know what I want? I want to marry Warren…I want a life with him. That's what I want."
"Look I understand your feelings I do…and I won't stand in the way of your happiness…
"So back off Scott!" She shouted.
"All I'm saying is that I want to know what want wrong. I need to know what want wrong."
"I don't know, Scott. From the very beginning so many things were wrong. Maybe they were right, I believe them now. We were too young to get married, too young to have a child. Maybe it was too soon for everything and now it's too late."
"So you're telling me that you believe it was meant to be this way?" He asked.
"Yes. It was doomed from the start. We were blind, too much in love to see anything but what we wanted to see. We didn't heed the warnings, we didn't listen."
"We were in love, Jean. We were happy. It didn't matter what everyone else thought."
"It does now though, when I realize that they were all right and we were wrong."
"Jean, love like ours… It happens. Kids getting married young happens. It's not all written in stone. Not all young marriages are doomed from the start, they don't all end in disaster. They survive because their love survives. Our love has survived. You can't tell me that's not enough for us."
"I'm telling you, that's not enough." She answered harshly.
"Jean…I love you. I wanted you in my life. But you wouldn't have it!" He shouted frustrated.
"I wouldn't have it? I wanted it more than anything!" She retorted, clenching her teeth.
"Than why did you go?" He asked sternly.
"I told you why. That day, when I left, I tried to talk to you. I wanted you to come with me. I begged you to come with me. And do you remember what you said?" She asked, her eyes glossing.
He shook his head and bit his lower lip, he remembered full well what he had said he waited as she answered for him.
"You said, 'Just go, Jean. There's nothing left for you here.'" She sniffed as tears rolled down her cheeks at the memory.
"That's what you said to me, I was your wife! And that's what you said. So I did, I went. Yourwords hurt me, Scott. I had loved you, I wanted us to get away, to try to work it out, but in the end you weren't man enough, you couldn't be there for me when I needed you."
"I'm sorry, Jean. I know. I'm sorry."
"No. No, Scott, it's too late for that. I know you're sorry, I know you are. But it's no consolation to me anymore. These demons—my demons, go beyond your apologies."
"I know I vowed to take care of you. I know I did. And I didn't. I couldn't handle the burden, I couldn't face up to the choices I had made in my life, and for that, no matter how consoling it is to you, I'm very sorry." He answered.
"Yes, you did. For Better or For Worse, remember? That time was the worst part, Scott. Where were you then?"
He didn't answer, he couldn't answer. He didn't know what else to say.
She glared at him through her tears, in disbelief.
"I loved you Scott. I had loved you for as long as I could remember. When we married, I promised to love you forever. I promised. But that love, it isn't all-consuming anymore. You're such a big part of me that I truly believe I'd love you even if I didn't want too. You're in my blood, and I can't change that. I loved you once, Scott. I had truly and deeply loved you."
"Loved, Loved, Loved, you keep saying that! What does that mean?" Scott asked her intensely.
"What it means…It means that I had loved you. It means that I did, that I had, but that love no longer defines who I am."
"Why, Jean? Why did you file for divorce?" He asked the question that he had been wondering for years.
"Do you even have to ask? I couldn't compete with your demons, Scott. I couldn't watch as the man I loved let his life slip away. I couldn't let myself be a part of that. You signed the papers without a fight, you gave me no inclination that you wanted to save our marriage. You let me go, Scott…You gave up on yourself and our marriage, our life together. So I gave up on you. You have no one to blame but yourself for that."
"You don't think you're even a little at fault for it? You want to blame me for our daughter's death, than fine! But as far as the dissolution of our marriage, you have some blame in that too, it wasn't just me."
"Oh…no, no, no, don't you dare imply that I had something to do with that! I didn't do that to us…You did! You ruined it for yourself! Scott, you told me to go! You told me there was nothing left for me! By saying that, what did you think I would feel? I felt that you were telling me that you were no longer there for me. You gave me no choice! I did what I had to do! "
She was irritated that he was trying to blame her for their ruined marriage.
"I gave you no choice? You threw the damn ring at me!" He shouted back.
She nodded as she remembered and let her anger get the better of her. "Yeah in the middle of a heated argument. And you know something, I'd do it again!"
Scott pulled back slightly, the impact of her words hitting him hard in the chest. She was angry he could tell, her eyes were blazing with fury. He knew that she had only said that in the heat of the moment, but it hurt, it really hurt him.
He tried to hide his feelings and remain strong, so she wouldn't sense that her remark had hurt him a great deal.
"Jean you don't really mean--"
"Please stop! Stop it Scott!" She pleaded with him exhaustedly.
"I can't take this anymore! I'm done rehashing all of this! We can't change it! It's all in our past! It doesn't matter!"
She waved her hands dismissing all that he had said as she tried to calm down.
"It matters to me!" Scott shot back.
She sighed completely washed up. "Scott, I don't know what else to say to you. I don't think this conversation is going anywhere. I am so tired…tired of fighting with you…tired of fighting the past. What more can I say to you to convince you that things won't ever work out between us?"
Scott exhaled deeply, slowly calming down.
"… Jean I don't believe that you believe that. Do you honestly think that you can really love him? Can you love him like you love me?"
Jean shook her head. "It's not about that! Of course I won't. I'll never be able to love someone else the way I loved you. We share too many things, too much history to not have feelings for one another, it's normal, it's expected. I know you don't understand what I'm saying. But our relationship is strained beyond repair.
Too much has been put between us, And I don't have the strength to keep fighting for it. I'm drained. And when I'm with Warren…I don't have to fight."
"So that's why nothing can happen? Because you don't want to fight to save us?"
"I can't Scott. I don't have it in me to keep fighting for something that's already dead!"
"So you're saying this is it than. It's over?"
"Yeah, Yeah Scott I am. I don't know if it will ever truly be over…the feelings will always be there. But yeah…I'm telling you… it's over between us. It's over"
Scott looked at her, heart broken.
Unable to meet his gaze, she lowered her eyes to floor and they settled on her blood stained hand. Things had become so heated that she hadn't even realized the gash running through her palm. She must've cut it when she smashed the glass. She curled her fist numbing the sting the gash caused.
Scott looked at her, then to the floor. There was an awkward silence between them, than finally Jean looked to Scott as he wrapped his arms around her without saying a word.
They clung to each other, as Jean could no longer suppress her emotions and her eyes brimmed harder with tears and she let herself cry.
Scott ended their embrace by pushing away from her. He took a deep breath trying to fight away the lump in his throat as he tried to find the words to speak.
"You know I used to soul-search over and over again. I used to try to figure out what the hell was going on, with you and I…what went wrong, what had changed between us. When you came back, I believed that maybe nothing had. But I guess something did. We clicked so well…but we aren't the same people we were, anymore. We aren't the madly in love teenagers that married against better judgment. We're not those people anymore and that's why this has to happen, I realize that now. But at least-at least I can remember everything we shared together. Jean, I just want you to know, whether it matters or not, I had the greatest time of my life with you."
Jean bit her lip trying to remain as strong as she could. She didn't know what to say, she couldn't say anything to him. So she said the only thing she could; "You should go. You don't want to miss your plane."
His head dropped slightly and for a moment he seemed disappointed that that's all she could say after he shared that revelation with her.
Scott nods before turning to leave. "Yeah…I wouldn't want to miss that."
"Scott--"
She stopped him from walking and he looked back, his gaze shifted on her for a moment.
He mouth formed to say something, anything, but she couldn't manage it, instead her eyes searched his face hopefully.
When he realized her prolonged silence, without saying a word, Scott turned his head and walked out of the room.
It's Over? Is that it? Oooo...I dunno...You'll have to keep reading...:-)
Sorry I just had to have a big fight between the two. I mean they both have very strong personality and feelings I just had to do it. Plus I also used it as a way to finally fill you in on all that happened over the past two years.
Oh and I sure hope I made Jean's reasons for calling it quits between her and Scott clear enough. If I didn't I'm sorry, this chap was totally intended to finally fill the rest of the gap in Jean's past, and help you understand why Jean doesn't want anything to do with Scott anymore. I sure hope it did just that. I can understand it well enough, but that'scause I did write it!
3 more chaps to go till completion! Please string along for me!