Maybe This Time
Chapter 5
.
She's back in his life
And it feels so right
Maybe this time, love won't end
.
.
"Well then let's. Let's finish this, right here, right now. Because I, for one, am tired of this thing hanging between us. We either do this or we don't. There is nothing in between for me." Harvey noticed he had raised his voice as well and he took a step back to create some distance — physically and mentally.
Donna felt her stomach tightening. They hardly ever argued and this was their second shouting match in the handful of times she had seen him in several years. But she had been hurt, badly, hadn't dealt with it and it all came pouring out. Sucking in her cheeks she exclaimed, "It is either your way, me meeting all your needs, or nothing, right?" She shook her head in disbelief.
Harvey's mouth fell open. "You're kidding right?"
"You and our," Donna made a quotation mark gesture with her hands, "friends decided the West Coast doesn't fit your needs so I just need to uproot my life and slip on the old glove that is NYC."
"You told me you missed New York!" Exasperation was palpable in his voice.
"And you said you'd move here."
"Donna," he said in his trademark low voice.
"Don't Donna me." She pointed her index finger at him to emphasize her words. "I spent the past five years trying to cut you out of me. We spent so many years together that I didn't know how to be me anymore." She turned around and set off in the direction of the bleachers surrounding the field.
Harvey was once again left to run after her. But he did and plopped down on the wooden bench next to her.
She looked at him and swallowed several times.
"I carried your pain, helped you accept and process your issues, I made your friends my friends, your enemies became my enemies. Your dreams merged with my dreams, your goals became mine to help happen. You always made sure to tell me your achievements were my achievements, you shared your money with me. I don't know where you begin and I end."
Donna crossed her arms in front of her chest and rubbed her upper arms. It was more a soothing motion than that she was actually cold but Harvey took off his suit jacket and wrapped it around her. He folded his hands into his pockets and stared into the distance.
"I never wanted to be your whole life. Just your favorite part maybe."
He heaved a sigh. "You definitely became mine. You are my favorite chapter but I need to stop re-reading it every night if I ever want to move on."
"You want to move on?" she whispered.
"I wanted to tell you how sorry I am and why I did what I did even though it was wrong. After twelve years, you deserved that much. I am finally someone that can show up emotionally and you laid the groundwork for that. Everything I am, I owe it to you and I never said thank you."
He met her eyes before shifting them back to his feet.
"Every word, every minute after that was just an added bonus. As soon as you walked away it ripped me to shreds but before that, it felt like I'm home." He pinched the bridge of his nose before continuing. "Your kids are your home and rightly so. It is how it should be. So I'll step away. I'm not saying I don't want you." He shook his head. "Because believe me, I do. I'm just not going to chase after you."
"So you acknowledge everything I did for you, you're just not willing to return the favor?" Donna pressed her hand to her temples, biting back the tears that were threatening to spill.
Harvey stood up, looking out over the field. "You are not making a decision, you want me to do it for you. If you don't know what's in your heart to do this yourself—"
"It is not that simple when it involves breaking up your kids' home."
"That is why I'm bowing out." Harvey took a step to the bench below.
Donna's breath hitched, her ribs grew tight. Her clenching stomach was quickly followed by a sudden onset of nausea.
A sob strangled in her throat when she wobbly whispered, "I don't want us to be strangers again."
He spun around, seeing tears welling up in her hazel eyes.
"Our best friends are in love and you'd think they set a wedding date eventually, so we'll see each other."
The field was pitch black but behind them was a streetlamp and Donna's face had gone white as snow.
"Donna," he said hoarsely. "I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you. But I—," the words seemed to catch in his throat. "I have to walk away." He stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep himself from reaching for her.
Silent tears slid down her cheeks. She was kneading her chest with the heel of her left hand.
"If you're gonna go, just go," she hissed, fighting to keep her voice steady.
"Let me take you home," he offered.
"I'll walk."
"It's late, let me—" Harvey put his left foot on the bench to return to her height but she put up her hand.
"Don't," she snapped. "It is only three blocks," she added meekly.
She handed him his jacket. As he took it, his hand brushed hers, and the familiar sense of nerves and warmth shot through their bodies. They had done this so often, a mere light touch left them light-headed, craving for more.
He reached forward, touching her cheek with his thumb, brushing away the teardrops that accumulated quickly.
"I'm scared," he admitted softly. "I'm scared of walking away and never feeling the way I feel when I'm with you for the rest of my life." He swallowed away the lump in his throat with difficulty, hot tears welled in his own eyes as well.
"You're scared?" Her eyes probed into him as she asked the question resentfully. "What do you think you're asking of me?"
"I know, I know."
Harvey felt his stomach churning. He had no other option, but it hurt more than he was able to voice and it felt like the shattering of his heart being broken pierced right through the quietness.
With one last brush of his thumb on her cheek, he made a final request, before stepping back. "Give me a text when you get home safely, okay?" Then he turned around, jumping to the ground, taking large strides to return to the car quickly. He didn't look back.
She listened to the door closing, the engine starting and with each roar, her heart cracked a little. By the time he drove away, her heart was laying on the ground in pieces.
A tear trickled down her cheek again and the rest followed in an unbroken stream. Donna bent forward where she sat on the bench and grabbing the wood tight, she cried like a person who just lost everything. She screamed, she howled, she sobbed, she bawled until ragged breaths slowly filled her lungs again and there were no more tears left to cry.
She started the journey home and on her doorstep she touched up her make-up, hoping the darkness would conceal her red puffy eyes. She texted "home" to Harvey and the double entendre the word held was not lost on her. Then she erased his number and with a smile plastered on her face opened her front door, stepping inside.
…
Two weeks later
"Mum, stop riling up the kids, even from 3,000 miles away," Donna shouted at the iPad that was propped up on the dining table with an active facetime connection to grandma Clara.
"Oh shush, it is just a game of rainbow race."
"They are destroying my living room."
"Your mum is such a party pooper who likes to exaggerate."
Aubrey and Ella giggled and clamped their hands to their mouth. "Grandma you said poop!"
"Yes, grandma!" Donna said sternly. Picking up the iPad and turning it around to the kids corner, she added, "How about you come clean this up then?"
The little chairs of their craft table had been knocked over, every book the girls owned was thrown out of the bookcase, their Duplo box had been dumped upside down and a few hundred pieces were sprawled across the floor. The Barbie box had been tipped over too and all those little shoes would be hell to find on her carpet.
"I have done my fair share of cleaning up after you, daughter of mine. But I must admit they seem to have taken it to the next level."
Clara had the decency to look a bit shocked when Donna showed her the part of the living room that hadn't been in her view before.
Donna heaved a sigh, ushering the girls to the backyard to no doubt make a mess there too. She knelt down next to the plastic crate that had contained the Barbies and started scooping up the items that belonged in it.
"I see you are still moping about then," Clara quirked a dark, perfectly manicured eyebrow at her.
Donna drew her lips into a thin line. "I'm not moping," she stated.
"No, you are right. It is a broken heart that hurts every time you breathe."
Donna's head shot up and she stared into her mother's eyes on the screen.
"And you are still burying it. I bet you haven't spoken to anyone about it and you don't even allow yourself to feel this when the girls are asleep."
Donna looked away as she gathered hands full of Duplo, plonking it in the box where it belonged.
"It is time darling. Time to face the music. You cannot heal what you refuse to face."
Her mother's voice had grown softer with each word.
"I just don't know what to do, mom." Donna's voice broke as she whispered the words.
She quickly scanned the space around her but the girls were still outside and wouldn't notice her distress.
"I can't fall apart over a man that wasn't mine to begin with and that no one knows about."
"Well," Clara started, "even though he wasn't willing to take that last step, he was very much yours in many ways, wasn't he?"
Donna sniffled.
"And now he was here, offering you everything, but it was you not willing to risk it this time."
"It is not that simple." Donna's eyes narrowed while blinking back the tears.
"Isn't it?" Clare inquired. "The man you've been in love with for almost two decades shows up, offering you everything you always wanted from him and you send him packing."
Donna huffed and leaned back against the couch. Tiredly, she rubbed the side of her face. "Well, maybe I'm in love with my husband and Harvey. It is an impossible choice."
From the tiny screen Clara stared at her daughter and shook her head. Defeated but still very much in denial, that much was clear to her.
"You can't love two people at the same time with the same intensity. Don't fool yourself and don't fool them too."
Donna closed her eyes and a sigh caught in her throat.
"I'm hopelessly in love with a memory. An echo from another place, another time. I can't base my decisions on that."
"I think," Clara said with a hint of cautiousness in her voice, "that Harvey made exactly the right choice. For once in his life."
Donna's eyes grew wide and a tiny gasp escaped her.
"That man spent years running," her mother continued. "He didn't run away from a great woman. He ran away from parts of himself that he wasn't willing to fix to deserve you."
Donna pulled her knees up to her chest, circling them with her arms, absorbing her mother's observations.
"You do realize he walked away so that you can find your true self and direction again? That you are the one running?"
The words washed over Donna with the force of a tidal wave. She bit her bottom lip hard to keep it from trembling.
"You ran to another state and kept running instead of confronting it. You ran so far away that you forgot to return home to yourself."
Donna shook her head repeatedly, finding it difficult to form a response.
"But didn't you leave because you lost yourself in the process of loving Harvey too much? And isn't history repeating itself by staying in this marriage for the girls?"
"A divorce will— It will," Donna stumbled, unable to form coherent sentences.
"It will what?" Clara looked at her sternly, which still held power even from an iPad's display. "It will not break those girls. Divorce isn't such a tragedy. A tragedy is staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong thing about love. Nobody ever died from a divorce."
Donna dropped her chin to her chest. It was a lot to process but there was no doubt it rang so very true.
"But even if I get a divorce, I still don't know what to do." Donna spoke in a strangled voice.
"Honey, you don't need to know all the answers. You just need to be courageous enough to take the first step and trust where it leads." Clara inched closer to the camera, wanting to reach through the screen. "Maybe right now you're not supposed to be in a relationship with anyone else but yourself. Maybe this is your time for you and you're supposed to be enjoying it for exactly what it is — your time, for you."
Choking back tears, Donna stared at her mother. Desperately wishing there weren't 3,000 miles between them. She opened her mouth to say something but at that moment Aubrey and Ella stormed inside. "Sesame Street time!" Aubrey yelled. "Sesawe, sesawe," Ella chanted as she plopped down next to her sister in front of the TV.
Sensing their talk had to come to an end, Clara wrapped up the call. "I'm here always, darling. Be kind to yourself. Be you."
As she pressed the end call button, Donna took in her two girls snuggled up together on the couch. "I wouldn't even know where to begin to just be me," she muttered as she wiped away a stray tear and headed to the kitchen to start dinner.