Holly Lindsey was happily engaged and in a tropical paradise with the man she couldn't get out of her head. It would be her ideal life except that the man she was with wasn't her fiance.
She wasn't 100% sure when her life got this complicated but she would be willing to bet that it was around the time she met Roger Thorpe (the man on the trip with her, not her fiance). Their history was messy, to say the least, and she was planning to get rid of him once and for all. While that would mean getting close to him—closer than she wanted to be and closer than she had been in ages—it would lead to his downfall and her freedom. Then she could marry Ross and see what a happy and easy life would feel like.
She just needed to get through this one last thing first.
When he came to her room to get her for dinner, she invited him in. "We can't stay here," she said softly. "There are too many people and too many distractions. We should go to this place someone on the staff told me about. We can be completely alone. No phone calls; no one disturbing us."
"What's going on?" he asked, looking more than a little suspicious.
She decided to tell him part of the truth. "I need to get you out from under my skin. I keep thinking about you, about us, and I need a…resolution…so that I can move on with my life. I want to marry Ross and be happy and I can't do that if I'm still thinking about you all the time."
"Holly…"
"You owe me this," she said. "Please. I need you out of my head."
"Are you sure you want this?"
She rolled her eyes. "Go pack. I'll meet you in the lobby in 15 minutes." She kissed him and he said, "Let's make it 10 minutes."
Holly felt sick every time she had to touch him or kiss him. Every fiber of her being wanted to recoil away from him and it took so much concentration to override that instinct. She worried that it was obvious and that her words sounded hollow, but he seemed to be buying it. She wasn't sure if that meant that she was a better liar than she thought or if he didn't really care how she actually felt so long as she was saying what he wanted to hear. She didn't particularly like either of those explanations.
When they checked out of the hotel to go to the more secluded second location, she caught the eye of the private eye who was going to follow them and take pictures of them for Roger's wife to prove that he had been unfaithful.
It was a longer walk than she was expecting, but she couldn't argue with the fact that it was both beautiful and very, very isolated. After their guide left them there, Roger asked if she wanted them to unpack.
"We've waited long enough, don't you think?"
She walked over to him and kissed him, then led him over to the bed. They were all hands and mouths, exploring bodies they already knew very well. As he kissed her neck, Holly looked over at the clock. It was 9:30 but the private eye wasn't coming until 10.
She eased out from under him to try and slow things down.
"We've got all night in this beautiful place," she said. "You don't want to rush things, do you?"
From the look on his face, yes, he really did. He sat up and reached for her and pulled her onto his lap. They kissed and then she was on her back again. Feeling him on top of her made her feel claustrophobic. There was nowhere to go and no way to move.
"Roger, wait…it's so hot all of a sudden."
"I think the heat's coming from us," he murmured, moving down her body, teasing her with kisses.
"Wait, stop, no, I can't think."
He murmured, "Stop thinking. I checked my brain hours ago." He punctuated his words with more kisses.
She was responding to what he was doing but at the same time, she kept having flashbacks to when he raped her. Suddenly, she felt like she couldn't breathe and she hated herself for enjoying any of what was happening.
"NO" tore from her throat. "I said no, didn't you hear me?"
She was shaking and he stopped immediately, and moved several feet away from her.
"I'm sorry," he said. His voice was ragged. "Please forgive me."
He got up and went outside as Holly tried to catch her breath. She was so furious at herself; all she had to do was let some pictures get taken and she couldn't even do that much without having a panic attack.
"This is the only thing you have to do," she told herself sternly. "You deserve the chance to be free of him forever. Just a few minutes of this and then it's over. And you can have everything you want if you just do this one thing. But it's now or never," she said, seeing that it was now almost 10.
She took a deep breath and went outside.
He was standing facing away from her and she walked over, gently touching his back. He jerked away like her touch burned him. "Holly, please give me a minute."
"Roger…"
"I don't know how to tell you how sorry I am. I misread the whole situation. I'm just so sorry."
"No," she whispered. "You didn't misread anything. You know what I want. I want you; I've always wanted you. I just wanted everything to be perfect tonight; we've waited so long…" she slipped her dress off, then walked over to him again.
He bent over and picked it up, then held it out to her. "Put your dress on."
"What are you doing?" She started unbuttoning his shirt. "Take what you want, come on."
Her hands were shaking and she could tell he noticed. She tried to calm down, but her thoughts wouldn't stop.
He continued to hold the dress out and she took a few steps back.
"C'mon, please. Put your dress back on. You love someone else," he said.
"That never stopped you before." She slid the strap of her slip down one shoulder. "Take what you want; what's stopping you?"
"This isn't you, Holly. What's happened to you? Why are you so twisted up inside?"
The question broke her.
"How dare you?" She started hitting him. He didn't try to stop her or defend himself; he just stood there, absorbing the blows. "You had no right. YOU DID THIS TO ME; you had no right…" she realized she was crying and covered her face with her hands. "You did this to me," she whispered.
He pulled her into his arms and tried to calm her down. She wasn't expecting it and it reinforced her panic. She was sure that he would start kissing and touching her again, but waiting for it was making her feel sick. She just wanted it to stop.
"Why don't you just do it and get it over with?"
He stepped back like she had punched him. "It's already over," he said.
She wrenched away from him and turned away, leaning against the rail, gasping for breath.
"Oh, Holly," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. I think about it all the time. It's burned into my brain and all I've done is hope for a chance to atone for it. It feels like tonight is that chance. You don't want to make love to me and I can't make love to you because in a way that I don't understand, it would be forcing you against your will and I will never do that to you again."
He saw that Holly was still crying and he sighed.
"I didn't know how to love when we were married. All I knew how to do was control and when I realized you loved Ed, I just wanted to hurt you the way I was hurt. I have regretted it every day since. And if this is my chance to even start to heal what happened between us, I'm grateful for the chance to do it."
She turned around to look at him and he held her again, then picked her up and carried her back inside.
He gently eased her down on the bed and then quickly moved over to where the suitcases were dropped. "Do you want to shower and get in pajamas? I'll wait outside while you shower and change and I'll sleep on the couch."
She did, but she also wanted answers. They were already more honest with each other than they had been in decades and, she thought, possibly ever. This was also the first time she could remember hearing him admit what he had done without blaming her at all.
She got up and walked over to him and she saw him tense.
She stopped several feet away and held up her hands.
"I think we need to keep talking. Why did you marry me?" she asked.
"Why does anyone marry anyone?" he asked with a laugh. "I was crazy about you. You're…you were the girl of my dreams."
"No, why did you marry ME? Me, specifically. I think you had this idealized image of me and I think maybe anyone could've fit the bill there. I think your idea of me was a lot better than the reality."
He shook his head. "No, it wasn't idealized. It was all you. You in that sky blue sundress you used to wear. You, carrying all those books all the time. You with your head in the clouds and me trying to get you to come back to earth, to me."
"But you cheated on me all the time. I always felt like I wasn't enough for you. I didn't understand how to make you want to stay, how to make you look at me like that." She bit her lip, annoyed at how much it still hurt her, the feeling that she wasn't worth much in his eyes. He wasn't worth anything to her, so why did his opinion still matter so much?
"Because when I was home, I felt like such a failure. Everything I did felt like it was wrong. You were so angry with me and I didn't know how to fix it so I stopped trying."
Her heart broke a little at the look on his face when he admitted that.
"Why didn't you ask me?" she said, reaching out to take his hand.
"Why couldn't you just tell me?"
"I couldn't. I didn't know. We were so impossibly young, Roger. We didn't know anything. But I think if I had known that you cared enough to try, that would've meant the world to me back then. I felt like I was always your last choice, what you came home to when there was no other option."
"You always seemed happier when I wasn't home. And I know every time we fought, it made it worse. You didn't want to look at me, let alone touch me."
"I couldn't. You were so angry and then it was like a switch was flipped and you would want to have sex and I couldn't do that. The fights never turned me on. And then you'd get even madder. You scared me and that didn't excite me the way it did you."
She sighed and sat back down on the bed.
"I need to ask you something and I want you to tell me the truth. Do you think we could've made it? If we had really tried, if we had been honest with each other then like we are now?"
"That's what breaks my heart," he said softly.
Suddenly, she felt like her heart was breaking, too. She tried to remind herself that this was all going according to her plan, but she knew that a real discussion was never part of it. Viewing Roger as a person instead of a monster would only make everything harder, and it was definitely hurting her now.
"I've hated you for so long, I don't know what to do now," she said, almost to herself.
"I guess we both just move on," Roger said. "See what life is like if we're not fighting all the time. But…this week, it felt like you didn't hate me. And we weren't fighting at all. It's already felt like a new beginning for me."
She shrugged. "It does feel different to me, too. But we're out of the country. That always makes things feel different, right?"
"I don't think that's it. Or at least not all of it. The idea of us being able to be friends…I would love that."
"I don't think we could ever be friends, Roger. I think maybe the best we can hope for is great coworkers, you know? And we are good at what we do at WSPR. But I'd like us to get along better for Blake's sake, too."
"I hope that's not true, great coworkers and nothing else," he said, looking sad. "You're one of the most important people in my life, Holly. I've been in love with you for decades."
She arched an eyebrow. "You're married, Roger. And I'm engaged."
"That was true earlier," he said. "Didn't stop you from…"
"Oh, here we go," she said. Holly was furious with herself for lowering her guard with Roger. Whatever kind moments they had, he was always up for spoiling them.
"I just never know what you want, Holly," he said. The honesty in his voice stopped her dead in her tracks.
He walked over to the bed. "I want you. I always have and I don't think it'll ever change. But you want me until you don't and you hate me until you don't. I'm always off balance around you and I just…I never know how to make you happy and that's all I've wanted to do."
The energy of the room shifted and Holly and Roger stared at each other for a few seconds, both knowing what was happening.
"Tell me to stop," he said softly, leaning over to kiss her.
She shook her head and kissed him.
"Holly, please," he whispered, easing her back onto the bed. "Just tell me what you want. Please."
She pulled him closer. "Don't stop."
The next morning, she woke up to the sound of the door closing. She grudgingly opened her eyes and saw Roger, wearing a very un-Roger outfit and carrying a tray.
"Sorry," he said.
"What are you wearing?"
"I had to borrow these."
She had a lot of questions but he kept talking as he put the tray down on the bed. "You take your coffee black, right?"
"Yeah, thanks."
He walked over to the table and poured coffee, then brought her a cup.
She started eating a piece of the bacon as he kept talking.
"I took a walk this morning."
"You've got energy. I was exhausted."
"I was too, but I couldn't sleep. So finally I got up and just started walking. It's been forever since I took a walk with no destination in mind. Anyway, right at daybreak, I found this little stream. It was crystal-clear and I just kept staring at it, at the way the light played off the water, and then I saw that it was teeming with fish and I decided to get some fresh fish for breakfast."
Holly looked down at the tray. She saw french toast and bacon and fruit, but…
"There's no fish on this tray," she said. She fought a smile as she started to get suspicious. "What happened to your clothes?"
"They're drying. That's not the point, Holly."
She gave up the battle against the smile. "You didn't think to roll up your pant legs?"
He looked down. "I fell in. Stop focusing on the fish. I need you to picture the setting."
She started laughing. "Oh, I am. Believe me, I'm picturing it. Big, bad Roger Thorpe humbled by a trout?"
He mocked her laugh but she could tell he wasn't angry.
"You're so bad," she said.
He reached over and tousled her hair. "You're so good."
She tossed a piece of bacon at him.
"Don't waste bacon, Holly."
She scoffed. "Worth it."
He leaned over and kissed her.
"We need to get ready. We have to head to the airport soon," she said.
She stood up and stretched. "I'm going to hop in the shower." She walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower, then poked her head back into the room. "You coming?"
"Right behind you," he said, pulling off his borrowed clothes.
They were in the shower until the water went cold.
She was brushing her hair when she caught his eye in the mirror.
He smiled.
"What?" she asked, smiling back.
"I can't remember the last time I was this happy," he said.
"Me either," she admitted.
"I don't want to ruin anything, but…what does this mean?"
"Do you mean where we go from here?" she asked.
"Well…yeah. This can't be the end, right?" The hope was all over his face.
She bit her lip. "Well, all you've ever wanted is Spaulding so you can't divorce Alexandra. You can't tell me that you'd be willing to walk away from it."
"I could. For you, I could."
She reached out and caressed his face. "You're a liar," she said, as gently as she could. "You couldn't. And you wouldn't want to. Besides, that's only one problem. Ross is a good man and I love him. We'll be happy together. It'll be easy and that sounds wonderful to me."
He looked stricken. "`He's a good man?'" he echoed. "Not like me, is that it?"
"Saying Ross is a good man isn't me calling you a bad one. You're two different people."
"Don't you think we could be happy together?"
She sighed. "Honestly? I don't know. We're…complicated. I don't want that. And even if I wanted to break off my engagement to Ross for you—which I don't—I don't believe you'd be willing to leave Alexandra and Spaulding. I've known you too long to buy into that fairy tale. So where am I in this story? Are we together? Am I the woman you see every so often, whenever your wife leaves town? I don't want to be someone's dirty secret, Roger. That doesn't appeal to me in the slightest."
"So you don't even want to try?"
"You're asking me to blow up my entire life and hurt a man who doesn't deserve it and in exchange…what? You won't even tell me where my place in your life would be."
"Well, what if we went back and you end things with Ross and I divorce Alexandra and then we give us a shot? A real, honest shot."
"Are you asking me to do An Affair to Remember? That's your solution here? And also don't take this the wrong way, but you aren't Cary Grant."
He laughed and shrugged. "I don't want us to be over when we just barely began."
She realized she didn't, either, and that scared her a little bit. "I think if we're being honest with ourselves and each other, we know that there's no happy ending for us here. You're this close to getting Spaulding, which is what you've always wanted. I've got a great life. This was a wonderful trip, but I think we need to go back to our real lives now, and we need to do it before we ruin today and the progress we've made."
He started to protest but then sighed and nodded. "You're probably right."
"I always am," she said, with a wry smile, then checked the clock. "We just have a few hours left before we're back home; I think we can stay pleasant for that long. Don't you?"
"In case I didn't say it before, congratulations. I'm sure you and Ross will be very happy together."
He said it with a slight trace of mockery but Holly was pretty sure he meant it. She decided to believe he did, anyway.
"Congratulations in advance on getting control of Spaulding; I'm sure you'll be great. I hope it's everything you dreamed of…and I know that Alex loves you. It's everything you want."
"Not everything," he said, quietly. But before she could say anything, he continued. "1991 will be our year," he said, clinking his cup of coffee against hers.
"We're due for great things," she agreed, smiling.
"You deserve them," he said, taking her hand and squeezing it.
"We deserve them," she said, squeezing back.
They didn't talk on the ride to the airport and Roger fell asleep shortly after the plane took off. Holly was exhausted but she didn't want to miss this last little bit of time before they had to go back to pretending they were nothing but friendly coworkers at best. She very lightly touched his face and he stirred, then moved closer to her, nestling his head against her shoulder.
The flight attendant came by to take the drink orders. "Do you need me to accidentally drop something? That can't be comfortable."
"No, but thank you. He's fine."
"It must be love," she said, laughing, then kept moving.
Holly bit her lip and looked out the window. They'd be landing soon, and she was more than ready to get back to her real life.
Roger awoke with a start as the wheels touched down.
"How long was I asleep?"
"The whole flight, pretty much," she said.
"Was I…there the whole time?"
She laughed. "The whole flight, pretty much."
"Sorry about that."
"Don't be."
Once the pilot turned off the fasten seatbelt sign, they stood up. Holly could practically hear her spine crack as it realigned itself. Roger passed her her carry-on, brushing her fingers with his own as he did.
"Ross will be at the gate, right?" he asked.
"He said he would be. Will Alex?"
"I think so. We probably shouldn't leave together."
"They know we were there together. It would probably look worse if we didn't."
They made their way off the plane and Ross and Alex were waiting there for them.
Holly went over and hugged Ross. She felt more than a little guilty but she was also happy to see him.
"Welcome back! I missed you," he said.
"I missed you, too," she said.
They made their way to baggage claim and waited. Roger's suitcase came off first and he and Alex left. Once Holly's appeared, Ross grabbed it and then said, "You ready?"
"Yeah. Let's go home."
The thing with the fish in the stream is actually from the show. The episode's on a YouTube channel from "Blake Marler," and the date is November 8, 1990; it's the sweetest and most adorable thing I have ever seen. (I don't know who "Blake Marler" is on YouTube, but her channel is doing the Lord's work. They're currently working their way through uploading the episodes from 1994—now up through May—and it's fantastic. So if that's you or someone you know, thank you!)
