Disclaimer: I don't own Scott or Shelby or Horizon, etc.
Author's Note: Oh goodness. Now, see, I wanted to write a story with no commitment and I could just write more chapters when and if I wanted to...but with the last chapter I PROMISED another one, so here it is. Just be forewarned: this could be the last chapter, or it might not. I'm not making any promises...but I'm glad you're enjoying it...you are, right? Ack! You might hate me after this chapter...but, oh well ;)
He hadn't even noticed the ring on her finger, but he hadn't particularly been looking. His mind can't make the right connections fast enough; it just seems so illogical. The image of her he had preserved in his mind for ten years was immaculate and impeccable, and it seems so silly now that he thinks about it. Because, it turns out, she's married. For a moment he dares to imagine asking her to leave her husband. All they did was kiss, and now he feels so betrayed.
His artsy television romance is decaying.
He stares at her for a long time, and she's staring at her hands. She looks ashamed, and he's angry with himself for that—he should be the one who's ashamed, because he's the one who abandoned her, and he's the one who's thrown things completely off balance by returning. He hadn't even meant to run into her. He was just on a business trip. If he hadn't walked into the bar, if he had decided to wait a few miles before getting a drink, none of this would have even happened. She never would have kissed him, and he never would have found out that she'd moved on.
"Scott, I'm really sorry—" she begins, but he cuts her off.
"No, Shelby, I'm the one who should be sorry," and suddenly they are both groping for apologetic words.
They look away from each other, avoiding eye contact. Her gaze settles on the coffee-stained carpet, while his finds the television screen. The flashing images are distracting and obnoxious, and he wants to turn it off; but the remote control is gone, and he doesn't want to get up because the silence feels so thick and heavy that he would drown if he were to stand.
"I don't know what to do," he states dumbly.
"What do you want me to do?" she asks, and he doesn't know why she's saying that. He has no right to tell her what she should do.
"Don't ask me."
He glances at the clock, and it's five o'clock in the morning. His meeting is in an hour, and while he's sure he should, he doesn't want to leave. He wants to stay and get her to love him again.
He lights up another cigarette so he doesn't feel so obsolete, but it doesn't help. He sighs and pleads, "Can't we just—" but he stops when he realizes he doesn't know what to say. Can't we just pretend like we're sixteen again, and you're not married?
"Do you blame me?"
He's not quite sure what she means. "What?"
"Do you blame me for getting married?" Her voice is tenuous and her face has a look of growing trepidation, as if she were afraid of his answer.
No, he thinks immediately, but if he said it out loud he would be lying. If you look beyond the shock and the disappointment and the regret, yes, he does blame her, because they made some sort of a pact when they were sixteen. He had told her his secret, and she had told him hers, and they understood each other, and they loved each other, and how could she just throw that all away for someone else? She had said it herself. She had spent the last ten years thinking about him.
"It's just . . . " he searches for the right words to say, because everything seems to be going so hideously wrong. "I mean, I thought everything we had counted for something . . . "
"It did," she says quickly, but then adds, "But after ten years I didn't expect to see you again."
He feels like crying because everything feels so hopeless.
"I'm sorry."
He stands and shuts off the muted television. There's a pen lying on the nightstand, so he grabs it and searches for something to write on, almost frantic because he knows he has to leave. He wants to leave her something so she'll remember him, so it won't be another ten years before they accidentally run into each other at a bar. He's stretched thin after ten years, and if that ten becomes twenty he fears he'll disappear.
There's nothing for him to write on. He grabs her hand, palm-up, his own palms sweating again. Her skin almost burns against his, but he'll endure it. He writes his phone number on her hand, the characters sloppy and smudged.
"Call me sometime," he says, his voice more of a plea than a suggestion. "Please."
She nods, not looking at him.
"Goodbye, Shelby," he says, and wants to add, I love you, but he stops short. "Let's not let another ten years pass before we talk again, okay?"
He turns toward the door, not seeing her answer. His fingers slip on the latch and the doorknob is icy. He's not quite sure if he's making a mistake by leaving, or whether the mistake would be the promise that he'll see her again. He is numb as he stumbles into the cold night air, and his suit jacket is not nearly thick enough to warm his body. A shudder squeezes his throat, but for some reason it sounds more like a sob.
His car is by the dumpster, and, shivering, he twists the key in the ignition and sits in the parking lot, waiting for the car to warm up. He feels like there's a bomb back in that hotel room, and he's not sure what would set it off, which is the scariest part of all.
Then, with a great wheeze, the engine dies.
"Great," he mutters.
He doesn't move from his seat, because maybe the car will start again magically. It's not even his car; it's a rental. So he feels no remorse kicking his foot against the interior, scraping the plastic and his knee. He curses his incredible bad luck and wonders if fate is conspiring against him, because he is desperate to get away from the black hole back in that hotel room and he can't quite work out how he feels about her just yet.
Before it was merely a question of if he would allow himself to indulge in her; but now, everything is complicated and he's not sure what it is exactly that he's done.
A minute passes; and then five, and suddenly he's been sitting in that car for fifteen minutes and his teeth are chattering, but he hardly notices. He's staring at the hotel room door, hoping that Shelby doesn't see him because he doesn't trust himself to stay in control around her anymore. For fifteen minutes he succeeds, but then she emerges from the room, frowning. She motions for him to come over.
He obliges. When he nears her, she pulls him back into the hotel room, and the atmosphere seems to become insufferably hot.
"What are you doing?"
He rubs his palms together to warm his hands, and then answers her. "My car died."
"Why didn't you come inside sooner? You're frozen."
He shrugs. "I was hoping it would start again."
She mutters something indistinct, and then sighs. "Um," she gazes around, as if something in the room will tell her what to do. The TV, maybe? "Is there someone you need to call or anything? What time does your meeting start?"
"I'm going to miss it, either way," he says, sounding pointless. "I can call the rental agency. I'll sue them."
His voice is light and joking, even if his teeth are chattering. He's getting good at pretending that he's all right. He picks up the phone receiver from the nightstand and dials the number, making arrangements as Shelby turns the television back on. She sets the volume on low, so that he could just barely hear the flat television voices.
When he's done, she turns to him and asks, "Well?"
"It'll take a few hours for them to get here," he tells her. He pauses. And then, out of dumb, morbid curiosity, he asks, "So . . . what's he like?"
"Who?" Her voice feigns innocence, implying that maybe she'd rather not talk about it. But he wants to hear about it for some twisted reason.
"Your husband."
She tips her eyes toward the ceiling again, taking a deep breath. "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes," he says, and his voice is quiet and low and surprising to them both.
"His name is Greg Townley," she says, and then hesitates. "We met in college. He was majoring in photographic journalism. We dated a bit . . . I mean, I dated a few guys, but nothing serious." She glances at him as if unsure, but he remains carefully static. "I don't know. I guess I just . . . fell in love with him . . . "
. . . and fell out of love with me.
His thoughts are indignant and a bit hazy, but he's certain that he doesn't know what to make of anything.
"Scott," she says, "When you were out at your car, I needed to get a ride back to my hotel room . . . so, I called him, and he's coming to pick me up soon." She says it as a sort of warning, or as if he'd be insulted by the words.
He swallows. "Alright. We can have a party," he adds with sarcasm.
She smiles, the kind of bland smile that fills up space when you don't know what to say. He notices that her shoes are back on, and is amused. His brain still is in some kind of state of shock, and it reminds him of the days when he used to go out and get so drunk that he felt so pleasantly blank and clueless and as if he were floating, but this time he's slightly weighed down with disappointment. They're not sixteen anymore, that is so painfully clear, but he's halfway to accepting that she's twenty-six and married.
He sits on the bed, the one farthest away from the door, because when her husband knocks he doesn't want to be in the way when she answers. It would be like crossing wires and creating static. He sits on the edge of the bed with his legs hanging off, leaning back and resting his palms against the comforter again. The room is not so dark anymore because she had turned on the light, so the bursts of color from the television are lost on the cheap, patterned wallpaper.
A soft knocking from the door drifts over the noise of the television. He is gripped with some sudden, inexplicable fear that maybe her husband is really better than he could ever be, or something akin to that; so he sits up straighter and tries to stare straight ahead.
He hears Shelby's fingers on the door latch, but he refuses to look over. Her voice murmurs a soft, sweet, "hey," much like she used to do with him, and it makes him wince internally. He doesn't know why he's putting himself through this. There is another voice, obviously masculine, and there is a rustle as they hug or kiss, but he's not looking—her husband makes a comment on how she tastes like alcohol, so he assumes that they kissed—and then Shelby says aloud, "Greg, I'd like you to meet someone."
Scott finally looks up, and Gregory Townley isn't who he had expected him to be. He's tall, but not as tall as Scott, a bit unassuming, with reddish-brown hair that sticks out from odd angles from his head and worn tennis shoes with rubber toes. He looks friendly, intelligent. He looks younger than Scott.
He's polite, too. He offers Scott his hand and says, "Nice to meet you. Shelby's told me a lot about you," but there is no jealousy or malcontent, or anything like that, even if Scott fosters those emotions in his own mind. The three of them strike up conversation, and Scott finds it ever difficult to justify the hate he holds for Gregory Townley, until it melts away completely, leaving behind an empty sensation that he is just never going to be good enough.
Naturally, the subject of conversation shifts toward Shelby's work, and Scott is slowly pushed out of their world. It's only then that he realizes how out of place and outdated he is; she is talking about things that he's never heard of before, and Gregory Townley is understanding every word of it. He feels pitifully obsolete again. Things have changed so much.
After a while, Shelby informs him that she and Greg have to leave. She sends her husband ahead to warm up the car, but she stays behind. He wishes as an impossible fantasy that maybe, just maybe, she'll kiss him again.
"Scott . . . " she says, "It was nice seeing you again. Really." She grabs his hands and slips something into his palm, closing his fingers around it. It feels like paper. He stares at her hand on his, and then his gaze travels up her arm to her face. "Let's not wait another ten years before talking again, okay?"
He nods, half numb, hopeful, and disappointed at the same time. She kisses him on the cheek. They're taking their time, but her husband is patient. Her hands linger on his wrist for just another moment, and then she backs away and the door clicks shut in her wake.
He opens his fingers and stares at the slip of paper she'd left him. On it, in neat, feminine writing, is her phone number. He suddenly misses her terribly, and, wanting to see her just once more, looks up—but the only thing that meets his eyes is the cheap wood of the motel door.