A/N: And finally, we have a conversation that has been long overdue. Enjoy :)
I don't know what I was expecting, but standing at the pier and letting the breeze of wind hit me, cooling down my slightly overheated skin felt good. Reviewing last night's events, I wasn't sure what to make of any of it. I didn't regret what had been said, seeing that maybe it had been time for me to a speak my mind and not skit away from awkward conversations. Ever since our confrontation in Ranger's office all these weeks ago, I had been dancing around the topic, expecting for him to magically come to his senses and actually make a first step. Last night, it came obviously clear that this was a fruitless venture, and I had wasted weeks by assuming he might have thought about us.
Watching out on the ocean it gave me a feeling of tranquility. And maybe guide me towards a direction for my life to head. It wasn't like I was hiding out here, but I figured I needed time to think and technically I had one of the trackers on me, so if Ranger wanted to find me, he could.
Seeing the way our relationship had gone over the past few weeks and months, I didn't really trust in him looking for me. Not after the way I had left and definitely not after my conditions for his next approach in contact – should that ever come to begin with.
A couple of early tourists walked along the beach below me, vanishing eventually under the boardwalk I was standing on and I could hear the girl laughing about something. Scenes like that reminded me that not everything in life needed to be complicated, muddled and tangled and that sometimes things could be simple. But then again, it somehow seemed a universal rule for me and my life that nothing ever was supposed to be simple for me.
Turning my back to the water, I watched the other side of the street and the few people that were around. I saw an ice cream parlor a few houses down and decided to get myself over there, indulging in some of it. And just spent the day doing nothing. I had no plans, and it was mid-week. My skips could wait a day or two for my return and Mary Lou did say to use their Point Pleasant condo for as long as I felt like it. So, there was no rush on my part, but I also knew sooner or later I needed to get back to my life and job and Trenton.
I had just left the parlor and enjoyed the first taste of my first ice cream cone of the season when my phone rang. Having it still in my hand, I was surprised to see a familiar name pop up. So surprised that I almost dropped my cone.
"Hello?" I asked into the phone, not sure what to expect.
"Let's sit down and lay it all bare," I heard him, surprising me that he cut right to the chase and not even started the conversation with his customary Babe or Yo. Not even a sorry. Alight then, looks like he hadn't learned an awful lot. And as promising as that sounded, I had learned from my last mistake, when he had called and told me he needed me, just to follow up with 'for a distraction'. So, I was definitely cautious and not getting ahead of myself. Turns out I didn't need to. "Let's sit down and lay it all bare," he repeated himself, "because it turns out that I actually really need you."
"If you want to talk, you need to come to me for a change," I said and heard his agreement a second later.
"Sure, just tell me when to meet you at your place and I get started right away."
"I'm not at my place."
"Where are you?" he asked and for once, I figured I wouldn't make this easy.
"You always seem to know and follow up on me, so why don't you just use your powers and find me," I said, hanging up a moment later. His powers had always been his trackers and since I was still wearing mine, I knew it wasn't much of a challenge that I posed. I can't even explain why I didn't just tell him straight out where to find me, but maybe it was time to show Carlos Manoso that he needed to work from here on out a little.
Since I was almost certain it would take him less than hour - and that already included the forty minutes the drive would take – to come to me, I decided on returning to the condo and wait. I could make myself a coffee, sit out on the patio and watched the ocean.
Turns out it didn't even take him half an hour, which shouldn't even surprise me since Ranger's driving style was rather speedy yet safe. It wasn't as if I ever had worried about my life whenever I had been in a passenger seat of one of his vehicles. What surprised me even more was that he actually used a doorbell instead of just letting himself into the place. Maybe he wasn't sure whether I was by myself or whether he was actually in the right spot to begin with.
"I… um… hi," he said once I opened the door, seeming uncertain of himself for the first time since we met all these years ago. Stepping aside, I let him in, closing the door a moment later and walking towards the kitchen after that. Ranger was following me and as uncertain as he had seemed, as uncertain was I feeling. This was a really odd situation, where it seemed neither of us really knew how to move along. It wasn't hard, but Ranger and I had proven over the years that talking with each other wasn't really our forte.
"Would you like a coffee?" I asked, pressing a second later the button for my own cup of joe. I knew I needed something that could give me something to do in case this was going from awkward to weird.
"No, thanks. I had two on the way," was his reply and a moment later he sat down at the table, waiting for me to join with my coffee in hand.
Instead of a conversation as I would have had expected, we sat across from each other in silence, making this just a tad bit weirder than it had already been. It wasn't like I was trying to make this particularly hard for him, but for once I didn't know what to say and secondly, it had been him who wanted to talk. It would seem rather ridiculous if I took the floor now, wouldn't it?
"Someone mentioned I should maybe start with a sorry to make this a little easier and start a conversation, but it seems… harder than anticipated," Carlos said after a while and I needed to raise my eyebrows.
"Someone mentioned?" I asked, confused and wondering whether he was here because someone made him. Someone who wasn't me.
I heard him let out a sigh, looking at me for a long moment seconds later, before he spoke once more. "This… isn't easy, mainly, because I'm not particularly good at it, at the whole saying sorry thing."
"Why's that?" I wondered.
"I'd like to think because I don't have enough of practice because I don't make a lot of mistakes. But people somehow never expect me to… come clean, so to speak."
"While you don't make a lot of mistakes or screw up as much as I do, it is natural that you also aren't king of everything. And that's technically totally okay."
"I want to be better for you," he admitted, though it sounded almost like a confession to me.
"I don't expect you to be perfect," I laughed. "Quite the opposite, actually. I think I'd go stir-crazy if you were any more perfect."
"I'm not perfect, actually far from it, to be honest."
"In my books you are. And I will gladly provide a list of people you come up against. Then you can come to that same conclusion all by yourself."
"If I was as perfect as you claim me to be, we would not find us in the current situation. A situation in which I scramble for words in order for you to see that this is all my fault and that I try to make amends. I'm sorry it took me so long to actually get here, to this point, where I can admit to my wrongful behavior."
"Which one exactly?" I wondered, seeing that there technically had been a few this could refer to, and I needed to hear that he actually also thought about this and wasn't just here because he felt I was after a sorry.
"What I said during the distraction was wrong. And while I'd like to believe you need me more than I need you or that I can wait this out longer than you, we both know that I'm wrong. We both need each other equally bad and I actually reach a point where I now longer care whether I could wait this out. Because the truth is, I shouldn't. I mean, why should I? What would I actually gain? Other than you maybe coming to me? Nothing. I would waste both our times when we could just move forward and get all of this behind us. I don't want to be the one who can sit this out anymore."
"So, you don't think I would haven broken sooner or later? That I'm the weak one in this relationship and equation?"
He let out a long breath and hung his head, which was a very rare sight. Carlos Manoso usually was always I charge and barely ever let you see any side that didn't display that image.
"Truth is, Babe, you are probably one of the strongest people I know. The crap you have to deal with on a daily basis and that doesn't do you in, is astonishing. I know a hundred guys that would have given up a long time ago would have given in to the nagging, the naysayers and the pessimists. And yet, you meet each one of your foes head on, set out to prove them wrong again and again. Physically speaking, I guess we can agree that I have you beat," he smiled, and I needed to laugh.
"You hurt me with what you said. I… I have enough people in my life that talk down on me, belittle me and make me feel like a failure. I don't need you to join that club and list."
If possible, Carlos hung his head even lower, seeming embarrassed.
"If I could, I would take these words back and turn back time, making this all… into something that never happened."
"I don't. I am in a way glad it happened, and that you said what you said," I admitted, after thinking about his words for a moment.
Looking at me confused, he said: "You lost me. What I said was… bad. Really bad. And it hurt you – as you just stated so yourself."
"Yes, it hurt and yes, it was bad, but I believe we needed to come to that point. I know that you don't necessarily see me the way you told Tank, or whoever was actually listening in during that conversation. But hearing your thoughts pushed me to be strong when it comes to you for a change. I needed to hear it to tell you what I thought about… this entire situation and about us and what happened between us. I needed you to infuriate me and hurt me that way to find my strength to tell you off and walk away without looking back and without feeling bad and like I wanted to come crawling back and giving in. You pushed me in the direction that I needed to take sooner or later."
"While that does sound like a compliment, I don't think I want that sort of credit. I could have done gladly without it," he admitted and I nodded, knowing what he meaning. But the truth was, we needed to get here this way. Otherwise, we'd probably be evading and dancing around certain topics for a whole lot longer.
"You do know that in the end we will be all good and alright, don't you?" I asked, finding it astonishing that I was the one out of the two of us to reassure us.
"Well…," he started, making this an odd answer to my question. "Why don't we wait after we cleared the elephant in the room and actually have spoken about Cal?"
Taking a sip of my coffee, I halted my mug midair. Crap, I knew I had forgotten about something!
