Paige Dineen lounged on her couch in her condo wearing her silk robe after taking a hot, relaxing bath. Most of her weight on her right hip with her legs pulled up under her left side. She had a glass of red wine in her hand and the bottle sitting on the end table next to her. It had been two weeks since she last saw Walter as he came out of the job bid following breaking up with him and starting a new company. It was Friday night as she sat there, her eyes heavy with tears as she couldn't understand how she kept getting betrayed by those she'd given her heart too.
Admittedly Walter hadn't really done anything bad, but it made her wonder. After his dream of being married to Florence and how he always seemed to want to stay at the Garage instead of coming back to her condo, it left her with questions. She knew the words she flung at Walter that night weren't true, it was mostly her anger. She simply did not want to be dumped and abandoned yet again, and so she was preemptive. But it made her wonder in those split few seconds, was there something else behind it? She shook her head. Did it really matter now? Walter hadn't tried to contact her for over a week and why should he? She'd completely ignored his attempts as far as he knew. But she obsessed over each message, whether it had been a text, email or voice. She'd just got done listening to his last voicemail eight times before she broke out the wine.
Had Walter just told her instead of letting her discover the fact herself, they could have gotten through it. She was convinced of that, which is why she had begged him to be honest in the desert. In front of Happy, on coms with everyone else, she had begged Walter. She felt like such a fool that night, after having begged him, then to find out the truth. If she was honest that was probably the bitterest part of the pill to swallow. Paige Dineen didn't beg anyone, she didn't beg Drew, and she didn't beg Tim or anyone else her entire life. But Walter was different. He was the one man she was willing to humble herself for and beg to save their relationship. She'd been so mad at the other three geniuses she drove off that night leaving them standing on the sidewalk talking about what they were going to do now.
When she woke Monday she ignored all three of them as they called and sent her texts trying to talk to her. She'd gotten dolled up to the maximum and gone to see Richard Elia. Even though Richard had told her he understood why she quit and went back to Scorpion he still held a grudge about it and he politely declined hiring her back. She drove home dejected. She thought for sure she'd be able to wrangle a new job from him, what with helping save his company yet again, last time from high tech robbers. But he shook his head when she asked and denied having even spoken to Walter in a couple of months.
Sylvester was at her door waiting when she got home and she was half tempted to just drive off. She saw Toby's handiwork in Sylvester being there. She knew Toby would figure she couldn't just ignore Sylvester face to face and she hated that he was right.
She glared at him as he stammered a good morning to her. She couldn't believe she got sucked back into the genius world. Thanks to Walter and Scorpion she finally had savings, and she had a nest egg building for retirement. Her bills were up to date, and her condo was paid for, for the next six months, so she wasn't hurting, by any stretch of the word. She had the thirty thousand dollars her Mother had given her in that bank account overseas if she really needed money.
She sometimes blamed Sylvester and Toby as to why she hadn't really tried to contact Walter since that night. They constantly brought up the little things that drove them crazy, and the one big thing that had derailed her happiness. And she kept circling around and around to the fact that everyone but Cabe had known as well. She felt humiliated that the people she called friends, family even, all lied to her face and helped hide the truth from her.
She was thankful for Cabe. While he was supporting Walter he still reached out and they talked and occasionally got together for lunch. He'd given her space most of the time on the issue but he would always bring up how miserable Walter was without her by the end of lunch or phone call. She'd really worried that she'd lost him in the deal as well. He was the closest thing to a grandfather for Ralph and he was the best role model for proper emotional expression for Ralph as far as she was concerned. When he called earlier in the week to say that he was taking Allie camping at his friend's cabin that weekend, he extended an invitation for Ralph to join them. Ralph jumped at the chance to go along with them.
And at first Paige was happy as it would give her some alone time. But now that she'd been alone for exactly an hour and a half she knew that being alone was not what she wanted. She was a glass of wine away from being comfortably intoxicated. But what she hadn't counted on was the time had quickly let her realize just how sorry she was that she had blown up with Walter. She's been lonely before so she knew it wasn't because she wished she was with someone. She had plenty of friends she could be with if that was all she wanted.
But she knew just what the loneliness she felt was about. She'd thought those four weeks after Walter fired her were agonizing for being away from him. Now having known him as a lover as well, it had opened up whole other levels to what she missed. She missed Walter, his bizarre food choices, his almost overwhelming wealth of knowledge when it came to sciences. She missed the way he struggled emotionally with others. She missed the nearly overwhelming expressions, at times, of his desires for her. She'd never been loved before like he loved her.
Most of her past lovers had been like gentle waves, sometimes the love and attention from them rose up and sometimes it sunk down. But with Walter the swells were unbelievable. His baseline was a little lower than the average she had come to expect from people but his plateaus blew her mind, both in good and bad ways. He turned out to be the most passionate partner she'd ever had. And he'd hold her up there for so long. What was so hard to get used to was when he'd switch gears because an idea would strike him and it was like he dropped her like a hot potato and she'd found herself in a pit deeper than any previous love. Thankfully he never switched gears while they were together, usually she'd wake up to an empty bed and Walter was back in logical Walter mode. But it still struck her hard. She never doubted that he loved her, but she worried if their love was enough to keep him interested in her long term.
She had to admit the biggest worry she had when they were together was for his passion, for her, to wane. That those plateaus he took her too would lose altitude over time and that the length of time he kept her there would decrease. That the time in between those plateaus would grow and that one day they wouldn't even rise up to where her normal relationships rose up to. She worried about that one day he'd realize she wasn't stimulating him enough and he'd walk away from her completely. How that thought always sent chills down her back.
For two years they denied their passion for each other. Then he'd finally confessed he loved her. Paige frowned as she took a big gulp of her wine. Thanks to Toby she backed off of Walter, in trying to make him remember what happened in the rocket. If she had just done what she'd felt was right, she could have helped him back to that confession and she could confess her love for him again. And they could have moved forward earlier in their relationship. It might have even made them stronger together. For sure she wouldn't have wasted more time on Tim. He was a good man and if she hadn't known Walter, he'd have been a good partner to move forward with. But there was something about Walter that called to her in a way she never felt before from anyone else.
Her thoughts turned to the failed attempts he made with her friends. She smiled remembering how he struggled to fit in socially with her friends. He was at least willing to try which meant more to her than anything else. Since breaking up with him she hadn't even spent one evening with her friends. She'd spent them all working on Centipede Partners or trying to help Ralph.
Ralph, what a conflict of emotions wrapped up in about eighty pounds of adolescent male flesh. He was furious with all of them but Cabe. And he took every opportunity to let them all know just what he thought of them. To his credit Walter took the abuse hurled at him by the young man and just responded back how sorry he was that he failed him and his Mother. He wanted nothing more than to be able to show Paige how sorry he was and that Florence never meant anything to him. That he was willing to try anything to make her feel secure with him again. He always made it clear to Ralph that no matter what, he loved him and he'd always be there for him if he ever needed or wanted anything from him.
Ralph usually replied back that all he wanted from him was one hundred and eighty five pounds of his flesh.
The first time she'd seen the message she worried Ralph was going down a dark path and took all the messages between him, Walter and the rest of the team as well as writing down everything he'd ever said that she knew to Dr. Rizzuto. Dr. Rizzuto was mildly concerned. Not so much for Ralph, he thought the young man was dealing with everything well. He pointed out that in his opinion what he was saying in a graphic way, was that he wanted Walter back in his life. Had he meant he wanted physical harm to Walter he'd have said something different, perhaps only wanting thirty pounds of his flesh. Some amount of flesh that would be fatal for Walter to be without.
No, what he had really been concerned over was how the break up was affecting Paige, and from reading Walter's messages, Walter too. He did his best to get her to agree to couples counseling but Paige refused each time. But she did agree to private counseling with him. But she was very guarded over certain areas and Cecil was having a hard time breaking through that barrier.
He offered many times to act as mediator if not counselor but Paige refused. It seemed like she was at his office every day just to talk. She didn't trust Toby anymore, though to be honest, she didn't trust any of them. All three had shown they couldn't be trusted to act as her friend and tell her what was really going on. And Toby and Sylvester were not trying to help her deal with what happened. Cecil had always welcomed her at the end of his day as it was the easiest time for her to get away from Centipede and her partners.
Paige laughed without mirth thinking of them as partners. While Happy wasn't as bad as the others, still she was rather childish in a partnership role. She knew it was mostly because Toby's habits were rubbing off onto her mentally. She treated things more as a joke, but not in a funny way. More and more of the business was falling on Paige's shoulders alone and along with wrangling the three geniuses it was growing more and more exhausting. She couldn't believe Walter put up with them for so long. At first she had thought her relationship with Walter had been so taxing on her. But in the short month since the collapse of Scorpion and starting up CP, her partners had worn her down deeper than Walter ever had. Because with him, he lifted her up more than he wore her down, but the three of them just drained her and didn't give back.
The first week after their break up Paige had felt like a weight was lifted off of her. For three years she worked so hard bridging the gap between Scorpion and the normal world. Then a year of adding on the pressure of a relationship with the most emotionally challenging partner she'd ever had. But no matter how much it had weighed on her she still smiled at every memory. She couldn't understand why she couldn't break through the feelings of humiliation.
Then she realized while Walter was really challenging he was far from the most challenging of her lovers as she thought of Drew. Now he had challenged her on so many levels, mostly emotionally and mentally. She still couldn't believe she'd put up with the abuse with him for so long. No, he was never physically or verbally abusive, but emotionally. Constantly going out with his friends from the ball team he played on. How many times did he come back reeking of booze and cheap perfume?
And she put up with it, all because she had gotten pregnant with Ralph. Then instead of continuing her college path she dropped out and had Ralph. Then it seemed like Drew couldn't stay away long enough, constantly coming home late, going to practice early. He'd leave to try out for other teams before and after the normal season. Then there were Ralph's challenges as she now knew, they were as an enabled, were almost more than she was capable of dealing with. But she refused to ever give up. She loved Ralph too much. She took him to Dr after Dr and got differing opinions on what was going on with Ralph.
Drew's ball club's insurance wasn't worth much when it came to helping Ralph, and she'd ended up having to get Ralph and herself on Medicaid. Then just after his second birthday Drew threw in the towel and walked away from them. He didn't even leave her with anything to help them. She stood by Drew for over three years, loving and caring for him and he walked out on them both.
Greetings! Well, I really have no idea if this is the right story to post, but, none of them are really talking much and I really want to start posting them so, maybe this will spur me on. I hope anyway. lol Don't want to post chapter 4 and not have anything else to post. lol But that will give me a week to get through this mood and hopefully back to writing.
To the Adventure! -Tim
