Rebirth – Chapter 38: Downfall

Warf. Sorry, chapter written quickly. Anyway—one quick note to NightmareFX: Thanks very much for your interest! Unfortunately, I'm sorry to say that you do have me confused with someone else on LJ. I go there by 'morning(underscore, which for some reason won't show up when I type it here)hell', same as here. You really had me confused there for a minute:D Just out of curiousity, what made you think that they were me? Anyway, I hope you continue to read. Thanks to all as well.


Lawrence must have tried every key on his key ring at the lock of his front door, a door that he had unlocked thousands upon thousands of times before some time in an average life. But now the damn key just wouldn't fit. Nothing seemed to fit now. Even when he found the right key, it took him a few moments to put it in the right way. And when the door opened, for all his effort, it didn't even seem to matter. …Was this his home? Was this where he lived? …It must have been, if the key fit the lock. How he despised metaphors.

There were no sounds as he entered the main hallway, but he didn't notice this. It was quiet enough in his head that he wondered which reality was which. So he and Adam had ended it. They had ended. It seemed so horrible. If it was the right thing to do, like Adam said, then why did it feel so fucking horrible? It was awful enough to think of the relationship as ending, let alone remembering what terms it had ended on. This couldn't possibly be the right thing. It just couldn't. Lawrence trudged to the end of the hallway and leaned the side of his head against the wall, overwhelmed by far too much that had happened in such a short time. How could I have said that to him? …And why did I leave, why didn't I say something? I let him think that he meant nothing to me. When I met him he had no one, and now he's right back to the start. All I ever wanted was to be there for him…

Well he's the one that ended it. Ah. The old retaliation of a mind too torn to come to a conclusion about feelings interpretated from the heart. What was the point?

I didn't give him a choice. I wouldn't act. And I lost him, just like I knew I would.

So now you don't have to leave your home, or your daughter. You don't have to worry your wife.

Sure. Great.

That's what you wanted, isn't it?

I wanted Adam.

Over Allison and Diana?

No. I just want him, is that really so bad? The detective was right—why can't I just end this marriage and get it over with? What exactly is holding me back?

You're a coward. Does that surprise you? Didn't you suspect you'd take the easy way out? You're a damn good liar Lawrence, and you know it.

I never lied to Adam. That has to count for something.

He wouldn't take you back after what you said, anyway. You burned that bridge, don't burn this one too.

I never meant to say that, it's not true! Jigsaw was not right about him…he has to know that. I was the only one he had, and look how I betrayed him.

"Lawrence, I need you…don't leave me…" a cold echo from a past occurrence.

You didn't even apologize, not really. Who knows, he could be downing the nearest bottle of pills right now because of you.

Lawrence felt that a cruel blow. He's got more sense than that.

Yeah, maybe he'll learn to get on without you. Alone again, he's got to be used to it by now.

I don't want him to be alone…He doesn't deserve to be alone.

But it's okay to leave Allison and Diana alone.

Lawrence was suddenly fed up. No! Ah! I'm tired of this same damn argument! I love Diana and Allison, they'll always know that, but I want to be with Adam and there's nothing wrong with that! I've never been happier than I was when I was with him, I've never felt for anyone the things I feel for him and how many people can say that at my age? There isn't anything wrong with caring about him. There isn't, so stop, just stop it, why should I have to choose one, how is that fair to anyone? …

Then what are you waiting for?

Lawrence dizzily shook his head before numbly jerking a bit when something hit him in the chest. Blinking in shock, he looked down at the ground to see…a condom package? He stared down at it and furrowed his brow, then jerked his head up to see Allison standing before him. …Why did she throw that at him?

As he looked at her, slowly his confusion abated with concern in its stead. She was clearly angry. "Allison?" he questioned, his throat dry.

"Didn't expect you home for a couple of hours at least." She snapped dangerously, and Lawrence was almost prompted to step away.

"What are you talking about? I just left a little while ago—I-I went to go check on Adam…" he reminded.

"Did you really?" she responded in accusation. She gestured roughly to the floor at the condom. "I found those in your pants while I was doing the laundry, mind telling me where the hell they came from? We damn well haven't needed any in the past few years!"

Lawrence gaped. "…I…"

"You're sleeping with someone else." Allison said in disbelief, but still she was looking at him as though she was begging him to deny it.

Lawrence only shut his mouth and looked away painfully. Well here it was.

"I don't believe this. I can't believe this!" Allison yelled out, making Lawrence jump. "You are having an affair! You are! After all this time, after I felt like such shit for accusing you in the first place, after all the hell we went through you're still having an affair?"

"Allison…" Lawrence shook his head, unable to find the words to explain himself.

"This is perfect, wonderful. You prick, how could you do this?" she continued, and Lawrence was silenced in his shock and his shame. "All this time you were out with some whore, you were out getting off on some other woman while we sat here and waited for you? You even had Adam covering for you, I'm gonna be sick!" she threw up her arms and looked at him incredulously.

"I know, please, let me…"

"Explain? Forget it, Larry. What can you say? How can you justify this—this is—I-I should've gone with my gut instinct to begin with!" she shook her head.

"Allison, just—"

"I don't know what I must have been thinking. God, I'm so pathetic! I honestly thought things were gonna be different, I really thought you changed, or something! I was willing to trust you, Larry, I did trust you! How could I be so blind, so stupid? I didn't even question how weird it was that you seemed to want to spend every night at 'Adam's'!"

"It…was Adam." Lawrence barely whispered. What did it matter that she knew now? He felt his concern for the situation slipping.

That was enough to force Allison to pause in her anger, as if she'd collided into a brick wall, stunned confusion taking its place. "…What was Adam?"

Lawrence met her eyes at a slow pace, and he wondered what she saw in them. The way she looked back at him it must have been something, but not something tremendous. Not enough, anyway. She couldn't possibly knew how he felt. He took in a deep breath… "…I've been sleeping with Adam…" and drew it out.

Allison's shock was obvious. But then that was something of a brutal understatement. She couldn't seem to speak, utterly floored, left absorbing this fact with wonder. He could see it now. Her husband? Sleeping with a man? He had had far too many grave conversations today, and he was by now used to this astounded silence. He would have allowed her to do just about anything right now and still consider it to be nothing if not completely justified. Let her scream, let her hit him, let her cry, anything. She deserved to do, to be, to feel…anything. For just a moment, he wondered if she would simply drop dead given that look on her face.

"…You're…gay?" was all she could stutter.

"No one was more surprised than me…" he almost gave out one bitter chuckle, but he didn't have the energy. Gay. It was weird to think of it that way when standing in the presence of his wife. …But it was true.

Allison hesitantly placed a hand on the wall, but then removed it, fidgeting with her foot as though she meant to move somewhere. "You're…H-how…? I-I mean…" it took a few moments to sink in, but sure enough…there was the anger he had been expecting. "The whole time…you've been out having sex with…Adam?"

He knew that she was looking for some excuse, some defense. Looking for him to pour upon her his sad little story in a desperate plea for her to understand—hoping that he had some divine reason for all of this, or at least to just think that he did. But he didn't have one. "Yes." He answered back bluntly, voice heavy and worn from mental restlessness.

Allison blinked repeatedly at him. "How could you not know you were gay? How could you not know that, how could you ever say that you loved me…?" she sneered as though the word were some profound lie.

"I didn't know, it just never…" Lawrence swallowed and trailed his gaze to the hardwood floor beneath him with a whimpering sigh. "Allison…oh Allison, I need a divorce…"

She could only gape at him. Her horror was clear, and he couldn't bring himself to look at her. But he shouldn't have to do this anymore—and neither should she. It had all been said, and there was no turning back now.

"I don't believe what I'm hearing…" she uttered in a semi-broken tone. "This is what I get, this is what I've earned. This is what I deserve? After everything that's happened, I find out that you—you've been having sex with a man? I'm so fucking undesirable that you'd really go for the very next person to offer it?"

"It's not like that." Lawrence looked up at her now.

"Spare me, Larry. Hell! Well what am I supposed to think, what would you think? If you caught me sleeping around with another woman?"

Despite the situation, a very small part of him cracked a little chuckle deep down.

"Like you would even care." Allison continued. "I could move to Africa and you wouldn't even notice until Diana brought it up!"

"Don't say that, Allison, just because I screwed up doesn't mean I don't know you're alive." He pleaded.

"Screwed up, screwed up, there's an understatement!" she aimlessly hit the wall with a hand. "You cheated on me! How could you cheat on me, why, y-you just couldn't face up to our problems, you couldn't try and work them out? For Christ's sake, Larry, at least I was willing to try!"

"I don't know…" he gave a helpless shrug and thought about the question for a moment. "I'm just sorry, there's nothing else I can say."

"I geuss that makes it all fucking better then." She returned sarcastically.

"No, it doesn't, but…but it's all I've got…"

"With Adam!" Allison said, not seeming to have heard his comment. "Why Adam? Why him? What about him turned you on, huh? You sick bastard."

"Adam, I just…" Lawrence shook his head again and tried to process it himself. "I don't know. I can't explain that…There are just things that happened between us that—"

"Things don't just happen, Larry." Allison ground out. "People do them!"

"I know, Allison. This is hard, okay?" he pleaded lightly.

"You're right, how could I be so insensative? This must be awful for you, excuse me." She growled, and he could sense her patience at its end. "Do you get off on disasters or something? Something about being in a crisis that makes you jump on the nearest body to you? Is that why you started chasing him?"

Lawrence's mouth dropped a little. "How could you s…say that?" he felt a pang of hurt for a moment before anger started to take its place. "There are just things between us that I can't explain."

"Well you damn well better think of one, Lar, because I deserve an explanation!"

"I know you do, but I-I don't know what to say, okay? You want me to tell you that I planned this? That I've always been attracted to men—that it makes sense I have feelings for him now? In this short of time? I can't tell you that, you have to know that!" Lawrence rubbed his temple and glanced down at the condom on the floor again.

"Sure. How easy. It's that simple, huh? It's just that easy—I guess you can excuse anything with what happened to you, can't you? I know you suffered something traumatic with that killer, but how hard did you hit your head? How did it turn you…like this?" she accused.

"Why do you have to bring that up, Allison?" Lawrence wailed out in frustration. "Someone tried to kill me! I was kidnapped by a phsycopath! I cut off my own foot to get out of there! Christ! And you're throwing that back at me!"

Allison scoffed. "It has to be brought up some time, doesn't it? I'm sorry that happened to you Larry, but get off yourself! You weren't the only one who went through it—it didn't just happen to you! It happened to all of us!"

"You don't have any idea, you couldn't understand what it's like to feel that kind of pain, that kind of terror!" Lawrence fought back.

"I couldn't?" Allison was seething by this point, thrusting a pointing gesture down the hall where Diana's bedroom lay. "Try being tied up and helpless while someone holds a gun to your eight-year-old daughter's head!"

The look in Lawrence's eyes was pure horror as she said that, numbing him...

It was his turn to be stone silent now. Diana…had he almost forgotten what that sick fuck had done to her? He caught the wall as though balance was fading from him, the fight knocked clean out of him…Why am I fighting? He thought in agony. Everyone's right, everyone's right but me. I'm wrong, I know! Why am I fighting about it? Allison's right…and Adam, Adam was right…I'm self-centered, and I'm terrible.

Allison waited for his response, clearly, but when she saw the look on his face, she backed off a little. This was them at their worst, wasn't it? Shaking her head she stepped away with a final statement. "But whatever, Larry. Your life is such a fucking tragedy. Don't let me stop you from feeling sorry for yourself."

Lawrence could only watch as she walked out, his eyes following her from where he leaned against the wall. He slumped against it and cradled his keys in his hand aimlessly, his eyes blurring with tears that wouldn't fall. It was exactly as it had been predicted. It was the way that he knew he would end up. Adam was slipping from him, and so were his wife and daughter. He would have no one. He scolded himself, he told himself that he knew what was right and that he would act and somehow, somehow have everything turn out alright. True to his nature, he hadn't done anything to save himself. He was now at the downfall, when it all came crashing down, did he have any right to be surprised? Shocked? It was so very easy to crush someone. He had done it to two people today with his horrible words. He deserved no less, and he was paying for it in full. Though deserved it may be, he couldn't bring himself to derive any satisfaction from it. For now he had nothing…nothing but memories, and a scar around his ankle.