Chapter 105
She sat there for a minute. Her love someone else, where did that come from. Did she want to know? She got up and walked inside, "why do you think that I am going to fall in love with someone else? Tell me what I did that gave you the impression that once I was seeing someone that I would do something like that, especially to you. Can you promise me that Doug; can you promise me that in a week, a month, a year that you won't find someone else to love?" She hated this but she didn't raise her voice she didn't yell she kept her tone soft. "You don't want to get hurt, I can understand that, really I can, but I am not a mind reader. If you don't think that loving me is going to be enough and if me giving you my love in return..." She didn't want to finish that sentence ever again. She looked him right in the eyes, "is this about our relationship or is this because you can't trust me anymore?"
Doug closed his eyes when she said that. Boy did she hit the nail on the head. He stood and thought about it for a moment. "I don't think you want me to answer that." he said leaning against the counter. 'Please don't let us get into a fight' he thought to himself. 'Not tonight'
She didn't say anything. There was nothing that she could say. He had said it all right there. "It's going to take time, if we are going to try this, and if it's going to work we're going to have to take it slow, very slow." She said. She wasn't looking for a fight tonight, but she was beginning to get the feeling that this was hopeless. She was probably going to regret saying this, "could you just get my stethoscope and I am going to go, we need some time to figure out what we are going to do. I'm walking away from you; there is just nothing that I have to say in my defense. When you're wrong you're wrong, and I was."
Doug bit his lip. He really wasn't expecting that. He didn't want to assign blame because they had both messed up, not just her. "Fine" he said with a little more disdain than he meant too. He got up from the counter and walked to his living room where he picked up her stethoscope. He tossed it at her and grabbed his laptop. Doug set it down on the counter and turned it on. 'At least i can pretend like i have better things to do' he said to himself. He didn't know if she'd believe it or not but it was a lot easier for him then opening himself up to being hurt. He wished she could see how scared and alone he was without him saying it. 'Wish she could read me now and know I'm not as tough as i seem' he said in his head.
Out of habit she threw it around her neck pulling on the ends of it. She lowered her voice, "you're not the only one who doesn't want to be alone, or who's scared of getting hurt." She rested her head against the door, "I'd do anything for you. I'd leave Chicago if that would make things easier on you. It might be hard to believe but I want to find the way to fix all of this."
'Then why don't you fix it' he mumbled to himself low enough that she wouldn't hear. "That's a stupid thing to say Anna. I wouldn't want you to leave your job, much less the city." he sighed clicking hard at the keys on the keyboard. He didn't know what else to say to her. He was tired of always being the one left to fix things. He didn't want to be the one to do it this time. If she wanted this she could step up to the plate and win his trust back. "Night Anna" he said without looking at her. He didn't know why but he thought if he did she would see through his act. See that he really didn't want her to go, but he was going to play it that way. It was his best defense and he was sticking to it.
She stayed right where she was her feet wouldn't move out the door for her. There was one more thing that she needed to say before she walked out that door. She walked over to him, letting her heart talk for her, "how do I undo what I did, how can I repair the hurt that I've done, what is it that you need to see from me to repair the trust?" She was being honest with him, "I know that I have to fix it, tell me what you need from me to get it back. I can't read your mind on this one Doug. I know you don't like serious conversations, and if I could spare you this one I would. God knows that you and I have had enough for two lifetimes. You're the one thing in my life that I have that's worth fighting for, the one thing that I should have fought harder for a long time ago."
He knew he shouldn't but he looked up at her anyway. he could tell in her eyes that what she was saying was true but something in him just couldn't give in. "Anna, you shouldn't have to ask me what you need to do to make it up..." he realized how cold that sounded and knew he had to add something. "It's not all you either. I have some things i need to work out, and i don't really want to do it alone. It just...pisses me off that i can't find a meaningful relationship because you're always in my head. And if we don... if we don't work out i don't know what I'm going to do." weakness slipped into his voice at the end. 'Damn it Doug you should have shut up' he told himself. His eyes slipped from her and back down to the table. He didn't even have a guess on how she was going to react to that.
She sat down next to him and took his hand into her, she needed to find some way to get him to open up to her, he seemed to shut off and distant, "you're not alone." She spoke soft letting what emotions she felt come thru in her voice, "I am right here beside you. I will always be right here." She brought his hand up to her heart, "you have a place in here that no one else can ever get to. I'm not the same person I was, before all of this. "She let go of his hand bringing hers together resting her head against her thumbs as they were now holding in any tears that might fall, almost as if she was lost in prayer sitting there. She softly sighed, "You and I are not good at this talking thing. We're too alike, both short tempered, okay my fuse might be a lot shorter, but this is the only time I am going to say it, and then I am letting it go, once and for all, and if it changes the way that you see me, then it does and there is nothing that I can do about it. I made a mistake in not opening up to you, and there is no excuse for that, and as stupid as this may sound to you, it was because I was afraid, afraid of..." This was so much easier to talk about to other people than to say to him, "if I burdened you will all of what I was feeling that I would push you, not away, but, that it would be the breaking point, that I would shove you down that path just like I did Max. I know now, hindsight is 20/20, and that I am not responsible for his addiction. That is wasn't something that I did or didn't do. I didn't think my heart could break anymore until I...I lost the baby, when Janet showed me that ultrasound I knew what was right in my heart to do. But in a minute it was over, I felt empty, alone, hurt, and it was easier to go completely numb that actually deal with any of it...to share any of it with you. I know that you accepted my apology, but," She had to move, she felt like she was doing nothing but pouring lemon juice on an open cut, "I know it's not easy to forgive. Just know that I am willing to prove myself to you for the rest of my life that I am worthy of you trusting me once again. Why you still love me after everything I've done to you is a mystery to me. But you are so right; love alone isn't going to be enough to get us over this. We have to have something more than that between us. I can say I love you, I can show you that I love you, but without the honestly, the trust, you and I are better friends than lovers. I want to be your best friend, your lover, and the person that you confide your darkest fears in. I love you for the person who you are and the person that you let me be. If fate hadn't brought me back to Chicago, I would have never experienced what it was like to be really loved. I would still be stuck in that place where what I thought love was supposed to hurt, that being with someone meant that no matter what they did, you stayed with them until the end. I thought that I knew what love was, I thought that I had loved, but all this time I've been fooling myself until you came along. I can't help but smile when I see you, my heart skips a beat when you take my hand, what you do to me no one else can do. If I give up on you, I am giving up on me and I can't do that. I will do what I can to make this right baby, but you have to talk to me sometime. You're bottling things up inside of you, whatever it is you can say it to me, even it's painful or it's going to hurt. I have all the time in the world to work this out, please let me in enough to understand what it is that's eating at you." She moved away from him, if this conversation was hurting her this bad she could only imagine how it was making him feel. Maybe she should just give it a rest for now. Not push him to make any kind of decision tonight about where they stood with each other. "If you want to talk I'm here if not I'll be sitting by the phone waiting for you to call when you're ready."
Doug had heard every word she had said but he couldn't look at her. He knew he would loose it if he did. The only way he knew to deal with things that were hard was to keep it inside of him, to be strong and stoic. It would hurt more if he said what he was afraid of, change the way she saw him. He stayed silent trying to decide on what to do. The last thing he wanted was to loose her forever. He knew in his mind that if he stayed with the trust issue, if he put it on her then it would never be about him. He wouldn't have to make it a problem of his to fix...but half of it was. He moved away from the table and sat up. The house seemed like a tiny box closing in. he walked over to the door and leaned against the hinge. He knew it was better to say something than nothing at all. "I...I'm just not sure how to deal with all of this. The past few months have been so up and down, i don't have anyone to talk to...and when the problem is with us i can't talk to you. We are alike, and that's a great thing but it is a problem. Most of that is that i can't say what I'm feeling...tell you whets wrong, because I'm so use to always being the tough one. Sucking it up and putting it away. But these past few months there's just been so much that i can't. It like i just want to go out and..." Doug knew better to finish that and shut up before he did. "The truth is there is so much wrong I don't even know how to vocalize it. its like I know I can tell you parts of my life and that you wouldn't think any less of me but as soon as i start to something shuts down, like i always do." he rolled his neck and smacked his head against the door. "See what i mean? I'm not making any sense...I can't explain this to you."
She looked at the floor rather than at him. "But you are making sense. If you can tell me you can't tell me. I told you awhile ago that I wouldn't push you to talk to me and I meant that. You're right there is a lot that's wrong." She had no idea what to do with him right now. Stay, not stay, her heart was telling her to stay but her head was telling her that they we in way to deep. "Your a guy, guys don't talk, you have to be the strong one. I can't say that I understand it, but I'm used to it. I can't say that it doesn't confuse the hell out of me because it does." She lowered her voice a great deal, and closed her eyes, "do you want me to stay or do you want me to go?" They weren't going to get anything worked out tonight, not if she was the only one who was going to be saying anything.
Doug sighed. "I didn't mean it like that Anna. It's just...I'm not even sure what all is wrong. I can make you a list if you want..." his voice started to elevate a little. "One, I just got dumped, two I'm still in love with you and so afraid I'm going to mess it up that I'm going to mess it up by not doing anything, three, my mom died...my daughters are never going to know their grandmother or any other part of my family and that makes me sad, four, carol wont even let me see the girls so it doesn't really matter anyway, five, i have so much pressure at work and with my social life i haven't been able to sleep the past week, six, i lost...we lost a child..." his voice dropped on that note. Saying it hurt worse than almost anything. "seven, I've gotten into three fights in the past week so my reputation is pretty much shot, eight, in doing all of that my self esteem isn't really all that high right now, nine, I turn forty in a month and a half and that scares me too, and ten, one day I'm really going to get around to finding out the ten other things that are wrong with me and hate myself again for hurting you." Doug cleared his throat to get the emotion out of it. He needed to get out, and yelling was the easiest way for him to do that. He had given her enough problems to distract her from seeing what was truly wrong. "So leave...don't leave I don't know what to tell you anymore. All I can say is I'll be better tomorrow and back to normal if that's what you want. I want us to get back together. I need someone to be with me and I want it to be you." He stopped again for a second and grabbed his jacket from the counter. "Please don't misunderstand this Anna...letting people in isn't easy for me and I don't know if it will ever be." with that he walked outside onto his driveway. He picked up the basketball and made a quick shot. He didn't expect her to follow him anymore; in fact he didn't expect anything. He knew he'd never deserve to have someone like her.