Even though it was Saturday, his mother had already left for the office by the time Boone woke up the next morning.
Sabrina had recovered from the momentary lapse of sentimentality that she'd experienced the night before, chalking it up to too much wine and the lateness of the hour. After a good nights' sleep, in the clarity of early morning, she'd reconsidered. The mess that she thought Boone had made of his life was entirely his own doing, or undoing more accurately she reasoned. She wasn't going to forget that again, or let him forget it either.
He and Andrew had a leisurely breakfast with Mrs. Simpson, that he insisted on preparing himself, and then headed back home.
On their arrival, Heather informed him that the computer had been hit with a virus, so he spent the rest of Saturday dealing with that. Then on Sunday he had what seemed to be a million and one chores to attend to. After dealing with most of them, including cutting the lawn, trimming some bushes, and grocery shopping, it was late Sunday before he had a chance to call Pamela.
"Hey," he greeted her warmly.
"Boone," she said his name then squeezed her brows together, she'd been dreading this call.
He didn't like the sound of her voice, "I did something wrong, didn't I? What did I do?" He had no clue at all why she sounded so sad.
Pamela took a deep breath before continuing, "I need to see you."
"Okay. You want me to come over there?" This was sounding worse by the moment.
Pamela had considered meeting someplace neutral, like the coffee shop they frequented, but felt that her home turf would give her a bit of an advantage, and keep her from caving. "Please."
She watched from her apartment window as he parked the bike at the curb; then buzzed him up from the lobby. When she greeted him at the door he leaned in to give her a kiss, but she pulled away.
"Pamela?" Boone still held out the hope that her mood wasn't because of him, that maybe there was a family problem and she was just distracted.
Her next words dashed his optimism completely.
She crossed to her desk and turned her laptop around so the screen was in view. "This is you." She'd spent the last forty-eight hours alternatively fascinated and horrified as the details of his life scrolled up her display screen.
Boone moved closer so he could read the monitor. It was the results of a Google search on his name; he was surprised how many hits it had returned, "You Googled me? Why?"
"Well I guess it was because you sprung it on me that Sabrina Carlyle's your mother." She replied.
The sinking feeling in his stomach intensified. "Why should it matter who my mother is? I don't know who your mother is."
Pamela rolled her eyes, "Oh please Boone! My mother's a retired schoolteacher in Long Island; your mother's a well known, wealthy public figure. It's hardly the same."
He bit his lip, his face starting to crumple.
"And you're rich." She said it like it was an accusation. "I know you told me you're not a grounds keeper and handyman like I thought, but I still assumed you were a financially struggling single father, working two jobs and sharing accommodations with another couple to help make ends meet."
Two jobs?" Boone asked, still working to hold back the tears, the realization that she was breaking up with him hitting him hard.
"The car I've seen you drive, I thought you were a chauffeur on the side, but it's yours, isn't it?" She wanted to hold him so badly he looked so wounded, but she forced herself to stay strong in her resolve.
He nodded, suddenly unreasonably ashamed of his own car.
"And the store, you own it. There was an article in the local paper from when you bought it. Why did you tell me you just worked there?" She managed to keep her own tears at bay.
"Because I do, you asked me what I do and I told you the truth." Boone protested.
"Oh come on, I know you're not that stupid, or that literal, you knew very well what I meant." Pamela continued to berate him.
He put a hand to his face, his tears starting to fall.
"I saw some old magazine ads for did for your mothers' company, your sister certainly is pretty. You make a very convincing couple, but then I guess that only makes sense." She'd been struck immediately by the look of naked lust in his eyes as he'd posed with the haughty appearing, but undeniably beautiful blonde. A look that the girl had mirrored only in the shots where he wasn't looking directly at her, in all the other pictures she appeared cold and superior, almost a sneer on her face. Pamela realized that she was probably imagining most of this as she reviewed the print ads, applying her own biases based on her knowledge of the relationship as Boone had described it to her.
Boone fumbled behind himself, finding a chair. He sat on it, missing it slightly, only just managing not to fall to the floor on his butt.
"I read several accounts of the plane crash, and quite a bit about what you all went through on the island. Your friend Charlie certainly must like the sound of his own voice; most of the interviews were with him." Pamela hated how cruel she was sounding, but she was so hurt by it all that she couldn't keep a rein on it.
Boone raised his tear-stained face and shrugged, wondering why she was being so mean. This was hard enough to hear without her putting down his friends as well. "We needed a spokes person, and Charlie volunteered. Most of us didn't want to talk to the press at all, but we'd been warned that they were going to be there when the ship that rescued us docked. We all knew, of course, that we were going to have to put up with media attention. He was just…he was helping."
"Mmmmhmmm, right." Pamela looked at him appraisingly as she dropped the next bomb. "He said you died."
His eyes widened then narrowed again, as his brow furrowed, his thoughts turned inward and his head dropped.
"So did your friend Jack," she continued casually as he looked back at her again, misery etched on his face. "There was an interview with him in a physicians' journal. It was an article about the medical emergencies he'd been faced with and how he'd dealt with them in such primitive conditions with no supplies. I understand that your sister almost died too, after Andrew was born. He said it was a miracle you'd both pulled through. I'd certainly have to agree with him." She commented, "I mean, what else can you call coming back from the dead, but a miracle?"
He just continued to cry, completely speechless.
"But the worst Boone, the thing I just can't possibly forgive, is the suicide attempts." She thought she was all cried out, but her bottom lip started trembling as the tears welled up in her eyes. At learning of his tries to kill himself, she'd wondered how he'd done it. Now as he glanced down at his covered wrists and pulled them protectively against his stomach, she knew.
He summoned his voice from somewhere and tried to explain how out of his mind he'd been. He knew Pamela had no way of knowing that Shannon had left him as alone mentally as she had physically.
"You have a son." She hissed, her love of children overwhelming her, "you selfish, thoughtless bastard." She approached him and almost spit the last word right him his face.
He flinched away from her fury.
"You would have left that dear sweet boy alone, you selfish prick," she backed away, her hands balled into fists. "His own mother abandoned him and you would have left him without his father too?"
"Pamela please, you don't understand." He stood, "God, it sickens me now to know what I did. I'd never consider it now, you have to know that, but I have to live with it. I have to live with what I did. I've worked so hard to stop hating myself, to stop yearning to make the pain all stop with such a final and irreversible act." He pleaded with her to understand. "A permanent solution for a temporary problem, that's how I've come to view it. Please, I'm so much better now, please don't do this to me."
"To you?" she interrupted. "How did this become all about you? I though I loved you Boone! In spite of everything, all you told me, I still thought I loved you! This isn't about just you Boone, this is about me too, and what's good for me and, sadly, it's not you." She sobbed a few times. "I don't want to see you any more, please leave."
"Pamela, don't please don't. You don't know what it took for me to trust someone again, to let you in." Boone choked out.
"Let me in?" Pamela looked at him dumbfounded. "Boone you didn't let me in. I pretty much had to break the door in with a crowbar, while you hid in a closet with a baseball bat, like a victim of a home invasion waiting for the police to answer your 911 call for help. And I'm betting there's even more things you've managed to keep hidden, even from the invasive nature of the internet." She was fishing now, and she knew it. The panicked look on Boone's face as he thought about the ESP, the abilities of the other survivors, and the extreme measures he'd had to resort to on the island just to help assure their continued survival, told her everything she needed to know.
She breathed a little laugh and shook her head in disappointment. "I see I'm right."
Pamela watched and waited as his eyes pleaded with her to reconsider. Then his expression changed to one of alarm and he bolted for the bathroom. She could hear him heaving, even as he cried.
The toiled flushed and some water ran, then silence.
She waited for five minutes for him to come out; then went to check on him.
He was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, leaning against the tub, his eyes blankly staring at the floor tiles.
"Boone?" she said his name gently.
He raised his head; she could see how hard he was fighting the tears. It suddenly occurred to her that maybe he shouldn't ride in his current state. "You want me to call someone to come and get you?" She didn't want to see him again, but she certainly didn't wish any harm to come to him.
He hiccupped a few times, then the tears started again as he shook his head 'no', then levered himself to his feet.
When he reached her, he stopped for a minute just staring as he cried. "Goodbye," he walked slowly to the door and left, closing it carefully behind him.
She heard the roar as he started the bike and revved it as he pulled away, then a squeal of brakes and the extended blare of a car horn. She rushed to the window expecting to hear a crash any second, but it didn't come. There was a small yellow compact car still sitting beside the spot where he'd been parked, the drivers' hand thrust out the side window, middle finger extended. In his distracted state, with tears blurring his vision, he must have pulled out directly into the guys' path.
She looked the other way and saw his bike wobble a little as he turned the corner and roared away into the night and out of her life.