Chapter 4: Reflections

His shoulders tightening again, Troy sat up straight, though his arms remained on the table. "About—what?"

She shook her head, her face truly serious now as she frowned. "Gavin, don't pretend—"

"Cully, I know what you mean, but—why." His jacket rustled as he shrank further into the chair. He already knew the words were ill advised, but they still tumbled out. "It's not as though I didn't enjoy it—"

"I never doubted that for a minute, not even then." She managed to smile now, and it chased away a bit of the embarrassment he felt on his cheeks even as it disappeared so quickly. "That's not the point."

"Then what is?"

"What it was, in my own mind...It was a disaster, the two of us, a while ago..." She drifted into silence, tapping her fingers as if debating what to say next. "And for my own—peace of mind, I guess, I wanted to see what those—problems meant, now. Or then, I guess." Quiet again, she crossed her arms against her body, almost protectively. "Call it what you will, but I felt I was in the right, wanting to know."

Troy wasn't certain what to call the tightness in his chest: annoyance, frustration, anger...Whatever it was, he knew it was obvious to her as well. "So what was it, some sort of bloody audition?" he asked, hearing that same emotion in his words. One of his legs was jumping, smacking the heel of his shoe on the tiled floor. "A test?"

"If you want to, call it that."

"I'd call it an unfair one."

She turned away for a moment, and when she looked back, Troy knew she was seething. Her fair skin was slightly flushed and her blue-grey eyes were narrowed, whatever prompted that brief grin long forgotten. "Like what you did to me before was fair?"

"Cully—"

"You were afraid, Gavin, and you put that before me!" She stopped, taking a breath before she went on, softer, "Before both of us."

The words cut through his own anger—he had decided to call it that—because wasn't she right? He was still, finally, the anger ebbing away, transforming into something else. "So, what, I should have just forgotten everything else?" Troy asked. Bloody hell, did she want him to feel this guilty? Yes, guilt. He had excoriated himself over it long ago and here it was again, like she believed he had never thought about it.

"I didn't—"

"If you could have seen any way around it, I would have been be happy to hear it." That was the truth of it: neither of them could escape how the world had brought them together, and the same catalyst had sent them on separate paths. "Because I couldn't."

"Then what was the point of it?" she asked. The brief fury was gone, replaced with a bit of sadness as she looked away again, leaning against the table's edge. "It was never going to change, so why bother at all?"

Hell and wrath and a scorned woman...If they were right, Troy was happy just to be quickly raged at. But the silence was almost worse as he scraped his chair on the floor, pushing away from the table. He needed the space, more room to breathe.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I shouldn't..." She sighed, pressing a hand against her cheek, like she needed to support herself. "But...I have to talk to you, about that night. It wasn't—right, doing that to you, and then leaving without any explanation." Now, she brushed the same hand through her hair—was it longer?—before dropping it to her lap. "It was just...afterward, then Dad being attacked...I shouldn't have left like I did, but I couldn't stay." She met his gaze again but her eyes were empty and her face was paler, as though she was in the sitting room again, watching the blue-black bruise darken around the base of her father's throat. "When you brought him back to the house, I don't think I've ever been more frightened in my life."

"You'd be mad, otherwise." It was terrifying enough for him, seeing Barnaby collapsed to his knees in the grass, desperate for air. But when he had driven the man home and seen their faces, the utter fear and sadness and relief just deepened the ache. He had never known Cully to cry. To be upset and frightened, yes, but never to cry; the sight only hardened the determination to solve the damn thing.

"And when the audition came up," she continued, her mind finally back in the tea shop, "it seemed that if I didn't have time to worry, maybe I wouldn't. If I stayed busy enough, I wouldn't think about it."

"Cully..." Troy stopped, leaning in closer to her again. Shut up, he hissed to himself, don't you be a bloody fool, now.

She bit her lip. "But, no matter how busy I was with rehearsals and performances..."

He knew what she wasn't saying. "Well, did it help?" he asked softly.

She nodded after a moment. "Yes. By opening night, at least, I knew how to ignore it." Her fingers were drumming on the table again, shoving the remembered fear aside. "He always kept that part of his work separate. I mean, I've known it's unavoidable—"

Troy shrugged a bit, and wished he hadn't. What would she think, that he was dismissing her worry? "It goes with the job," he said. He had learned to ignore it; he had to, or it would overwhelm him.

"But that was the first time I really saw it, Gavin, what could happen. It's not that he hadn't been hurt before—knocked about, things like that—but that...I'm sorry," she said, rubbing at one eye. "I didn't mean—" She stopped, drawing a deep breath; her face was calmer and a touch of the color returned to her skin, but both her eyes were tinged red. "That wasn't what I wanted to talk about."

"No, don't worry about it." Troy swallowed, finally noticing how dry his mouth had become. Now he did fancy another cup of tea, when it was certainly out of the question.

"While I was gone, though, I realized something," she said, her mouth twitching like she was considering whether to continue.

"What?" Whatever the answer, not knowing was probably worse.

"I—I missed you, Gavin, more than I thought I would."

It was suddenly quiet despite the growing bustle around them, a few more sets of friends drifting in, filling empty tables, laughing, talking, whispering. But it was silence in the cacophony of voices, a hollow, deadened pressure in his ears. The sun burned his eyes as it waned, nearer and nearer to its daily death, but he would not move an inch, now. A sharp ache—almost a pain—seared his chest, not felt but endured. What a mess, he thought. How many times had he said that to himself, and now she only buried him again. That torrent of emotions, she had dragged them all out from behind the wall.

"I didn't think it would end like...but I had to know. I had to settle the question, for myself."

Pressing a hand under his chin for a moment—his entire face was suddenly cold—Troy sighed. The same bloody mess. "You could have just asked."

"I wasn't thinking."

A few minutes ago, she would have snapped at him, but now it was just spoken, something hiding in the words that he could not identify, and he could not resist a smile. The memory bubbled up into the front of his mind: warmth, insanity, desire, and more. "I knew that." At that, she too smiled a bit, almost mischievous. "Well, was it? Your question?"

And again, the same expression, consideration. "Yes. Or at least half of it was. Your half," she said, twisting her fingers round one another. "I'm not certain it helped me any."

Troy had never doubted his side was left a mystery, though he didn't know what he had expected—perhaps even wanted—from her. "What—would have happened, then, if we hadn't found the body?" No, it was the wrong thing to ask, or at least those were the wrong words. What might have been then was unimportant, almost trivial. "I mean, now?"

Another deep breath. "I don't know, Gavin. I think, no, I know I wouldn't have rushed off, though." She was looking around again, searching for time to think. "Finding him like that, I could see—the way things really were, not the way I wanted them to be. I guess—how things were supposed to be." With a shrug, she met his eyes; he recognized the guilt. "Now I guess you can be angry. I did the same as you, thinking about—everything else, rather than you."

The silence prickled the back of his neck, worse than her anger before. "You said it was answered," Troy said, shifting awkwardly in his chair. "So what was my mark on your little test: pass or fail?"

Tossing a bit of hair behind an ear, she said, "Do I really need to tell you?"

"No, you don't. But why are you telling me about it at all? You didn't have to tell me anything. You don't—have to be here, Cully. Why are you?" She didn't answer.

When they first sat, he would have thought better of it, discarded the idea after brief consideration, but Troy reached across the table, just touching her hand. The skin was soft and smooth, warm. To hell with it, he thought. If she drew hers away or flinched or frowned, he would pretend it never happened, call it a mistake or an error in judgment.

She didn't move, didn't speak, didn't react.

"It's fine," he added, wishing once more for something better to say, covering her hand entirely. It would have to be enough.

With another sigh, almost resigned, she said, "I couldn't stand not knowing, Gavin." And now she shifted her hand beneath his, turning the palm up, pressing it against his. "Or not being honest with you."

The air was too heavy, thick and syrupy, too much to bear any longer. "Well, I can tell you what would have come of it, if we're being honest." The vice in his chest loosened slightly. "He'd have broken my neck."

The unhappy expression broke when she laughed, the first moment of levity in an eternity. "Would it really have been as bad as that?"

"Probably." Simply breathing was less of a challenge. "As it was, I only got more than my share of the worst parts of the job."

She laughed again, even smiled—and both were a relief. "Well, I'm happy to hear you put up with it."

"I couldn't complain too much, could I?" Her cheeks flushed quickly, though it vanished almost before he noticed. "It still wasn't as bad with the worst job you ever stuck me with."

Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. "What?"

"Keeping your dad on that crazy diet? Don't think I've ever seen him so grumpy. And he's had some foul moods."

She moved her hand at last, slapping his lightly before crossing her arms behind her empty tea cup. "Well, I trust you feel you've been compensated."

"Oh no, no complaints."

It was so much easier, now, finding words. They drifted here and there, finally speaking about nothing of importance: the simple things friends discussed without a care. Her fellow performers in the modernized Hamlet; the other men on the new cricket team he had joined; a terse discussion of the prime minister...Those darkened evenings so many months in the past hardly existed. Or at least they talked around them.

He didn't want to ask, and perhaps it was better that way; it really was too much to hope for. Twice already they had ignored the sensible path of mere friendship, and twice it had fallen apart, the center of that maddening, wonderful storm collapsing under the weight of the real world, unable to hold together. If Cully preferred to avoid it all again, it was a nod to sanity. But the possibility was like an itch in his mind, demanding the salve of improbable dreams. Not from where they had last parted—that was ludicrous—but must it be from the beginning, from scratch? It was hardly worth the worry yet.

The sun had nearly vanished and the tea shop had almost emptied when they stood, every topic at hand discussed and exhausted. The late evening air was cool when they stepped outside, crisp and fresh and new. Her face was clear, like the worst part of those hours had disappeared from her mind to leave the peace of the end.

"Well, I'll see you around," she said, crossing her arms. He heard truth in her words, not just a meaningless pleasantry.

"Are you busy on Saturday, Cully?" Troy spoke before he thought better of it, but wasn't that fine? Surely one didn't have to debate every word and syllable in talking to a friend?

"I've got nothing planned," she said, turning her cheek away from a sudden breeze. "Why?"

"I was hoping—" He stopped, some part of his mind still demanding caution. No. Hopes and dreams had no time for caution. "There's a cricket match on Saturday."

"Is your side playing?"

"Yes." Troy nodded. "I was just wondering if you'd be interested in coming?"

She lifted her shoulders, bracing herself against the wind. "You'd like someone there to cheer you on?"

"I'd rather it be you than my cousin and his ghastly wife." God, he hated to think about that pair, let alone see them. "Or even..." The rest of his words faded; it didn't matter anymore.

Her face was pretty as ever, almost radiant in the dusk. It always had been, even the first moment they had met. "I'd love to. When is it?"

Troy almost shook his head, pulling back from the memory. Here and now, that was important, not what had gone before. "It starts at one, just on the town pitch."

"I'll be there." She had a final smile before she kissed his cheek—he did not forget that she had not done so earlier—and began to walk away, turning back with a wave as he stood motionless.

He had not drawn away, this time; he had no longer found a reason.