Fire ignited within her again when her eyes met his, and she quickly turned away.
She hadn't eaten anything all day. She needed to eat. She needed to eat and then she needed to go to bed. She was tired. She had had a long day. She knew that she must look haggard and just as gaunt as she used to after working all day in the fields. I just need to eat and sleep, she thought as Mammy followed her up the stairs and helped her undress and slip into a robe.
"Mammy, I am starving. Would you get something ready for me, please?" Scarlett's voice was weak and she knew that her exhaustion made her sound somber.
"Wud ya like Mammy ta brang ittup ta ya so's you's can eat's it while's ya lied down, lamb?" Mammy said in her sweetest voice, and Scarlett knew that she was going to try to sweet talk her into taking her dinner upstairs. Scarlett looked at the bed, and quickly looked away. She knew she would never be able to eat up here, in this room. Lying on that bed.
"No, Mammy. I will take it in the dining room." Her voice was so weak; her words came out in a whisper. Scarlett was surprised that Mammy did not argue. Perhaps the old woman was surprised too. Her mistress had never had a soft-spoken bone in her body.
Mammy made her way downstairs as Scarlett finished undressing.
Eat and Sleep. Eat and Sleep. That is all. Nothing else. There was nothing else but her need for food and her need for sleep.
She made her way down the stairs. By now it was completely dark outside and the house was dark and quiet as well. The only light that she saw was coming from the dining room, so she followed it.
Rhett was there. And though she felt that she should have been surprised, she wasn't. He was leaning back in a chair, the two front legs hovering above the ground, and cradling a nightcap between his hands. He looked up from the contents of the cup and stood when she entered. When he nodded at her, there was no malice or mockery in his gesture and so she smiled slightly in response. The food that Mammy had prepared for her was already set out. Scarlett made her way to the setting and Rhett met her there, pulling out her chair for her. He was the closest to her he had been since this morning and Scarlett could hear his breathing.
She was hungry and tired. She needed to eat and sleep. Nothing else existed. No feelings or emotions but her hunger and her fatigue.
She sat down. "Thank you". Her voice was still very soft, to the point that it made her sound meek.
"You're welcome." Rhett walked back to his place, settled a few chairs down from Scarlett's.
Scarlett vigorously consumed the food on her plate, all the while exceedingly aware of Rhett's eyes on her. The silence and the awkwardness of the situation was driving her mad and she simply wanted for him to talk rather than look at her like that. Looking at her with those eyes.
"Did you have a good day, Rhett?" She spoke hastily, looking at him through the corner of her eye as she took another bite of her meal.
He took a minute to respond and only replied with a, "Umhm." He looked at his cup again. When his eyes left her she eased, though she hadn't realized that she had been so tense.
"Did you have a good day, Scarlett?" Rhett looked at her again, his eyes more intense than before. Scarlett glanced at him through the corner of her eye but looked away quickly when she felt the heat again.
She started to rise from the table as she spoke and Rhett rose with her. "Yes, I did. It was a…nice day." Her voice was still soft, and she hated that it made her sound vulnerable.
"Where did you go, Scarlett?" His voice was firm but soft.
Scarlett went to pick up her plate, as if to take it to the kitchen, "I just went for a ride. Sometimes it's nice to…" She tried to make her voice stronger so as not to sound so weak. But she failed miserably when she trailed off, not knowing how to finish her thought.
"Scarlett, let one of the servants do that," Rhett reached out and touched her arm as he spoke. His fingertips had barely grazed her skin when she quickly threw her arm back, dropping the plate with a crash.
Rhett let out a harsh laugh and put his glass on the table. Both bent down to pick up the pieces of glass strewn across the floor.
Rhett's voice was full of mockery and sarcasm when he spoke again. "It seems that my touch is more than a little disturbing to you, my dear. It's a wonder that you could initiate the things you did last night when you'd ruin a perfectly good piece of china rather than allow my contact."
Scarlett threw the pieces of glass she had picked up back down onto the floor again. "Go to hell!" she hissed, as she stood and made her way for the door.
Rhett laughed a bitter laugh. "Aren't we already there, Scarlett? Haven't you put us there?" His voice got harder as he spoke.
Scarlett whipped around to face him. "I put us in hell Rhett? Why is it that I can't do or say anything without you throwing it back in my face? That's hell." She turned for the door again, refusing to acknowledge the tears on her cheeks.
She was stopped by Rhett's hand gently wrapping around her wrist. She allowed him to stop her because as soon as he touched her, she calmed down. She didn't turn around but she felt him raise her hand and barely graze her palm with a kiss. She closed her eyes, reveling in the feel of him so close.
Scarlett knew that she needed him, though she didn't know why. She also knew that the relationship that she and Rhett shared had always been terribly fragile. Their life could be easily compared to the life of the shattered plate on the floor. Everything they were balanced on the edge of a table between them both. If either of them shifted even the tiniest bit, the plate would topple to the floor and break. And they would go with it.
She was so confused. She suddenly needed him in a way that she never had before, and without understanding any of it, she didn't know how it could possibly work. She couldn't bring herself to lie to him, yet she couldn't bring herself to trust him either.
After a moment, Rhett spoke. "Scarlett…" He pulled her wrist, silently asking her to turn to him. She obliged. "Honey, where did you go?"
He had called her 'honey'. He rarely called her 'honey', but he had before. The memory came to her as soon as she felt the déjà vu. Scarlett, sitting in Aunt Pittypat's library, had been half drunk and had spilled her darkest secrets to Rhett in a rush of emotion and tears. He had been so kind and sympathetic that day and had made everything better. She remembered thinking that everyone else was a stranger except for Rhett, and now she was reminded again of how well he knew her.
She looked down at his hand on her wrist. Rhett was touching her and she knew that in his own way he was apologizing for his hasty words. He was surrendering his pride. And Scarlett knew that the only way for this to work was for her to release herself from her inhibitions as well.
So she tried.
"I-I went for a ride, Rhett. I needed to-to think." Scarlett continued to look at his hand on her arm as she spoke.
"What did you need to think about, Scarlett?" Rhett's voice was husky and he had started to caress her wrist slowly. Scarlett dared to look at him again. His eyes were full of understanding, just as they had been a few nights ago, when she had poured all of her sorrows out to him. The way he was looking at her now made her feel that she could tell him her darkest dreams and desires and he would understand.
She wanted so badly to trust him, but doubts still lingered in her mind. She remembered with clarity every hateful thing he had ever said to her. Every barb that had escaped from those lips…
She also remembered other things that had escaped from those lips. Things that had been whispered rather than jeered. Things that had been done with those lips only hours before and she abruptly realized that she could no longer concentrate while he touched her. She softly pulled her arm out of his grasp and in spite of her doubts, she started to speak.
"I-I needed to think. I have had a lot on my mind lately. Pa's death and…eh-" She closed her eyes in embarrassment. But when she opened them again to look at Rhett, he was standing just as before. Full of understanding and patiently waiting to hear what she had to say. It made her feel a little more confident as she continued.
"I woke up and you were still asleep," She paused as she remembered how delicious it had felt to wake up to his arm draped across her bare waist, and his face snuggled into the crook of her neck. "I-I wasn't ready to face you… So I had my horse readied and I went out and just rode." She looked at him again, his expression still as patient as ever.
"At first, I didn't think about anything. I just felt. I felt the reins in my hands. And I felt…" She stopped, unable to find the right words to convey her feelings. She had never been very articulate, and it didn't help matters that she wasn't presently in the dining room. She was riding again, feeling the wind in her hair and the horse beneath her. "I just rode and just let myself go. But it eventually led to memories of when I used to do that as a child, at Tara. Then I started to think." She closed her eyes tightly as the memories bombarded her again. "I thought about my friends, that I had grown up with. I thought about the many horse races we had had while we were children. I had often raced with the boys, " Scarlett smiled.
"I always beat them. I was always way out in front of them. Now that I look back, I think part of it was that I was on a horse just as big as theirs and yet I weighed a good forty pounds less than many of them.
"And while I was riding, I went back to that time. I pretended that I was way out in front, and that they were all behind me. I rode that way for a long time. In my mind I was back at Tara, a child again, heading for my mother and father with my friends tailing behind me in a race."
She paused, knowing that she was only going to get more and more vulnerable in his eyes as she went on. Rhett was smiling gently at her confession. He had always said that she was a child at heart, and that she had had to grow up too quickly. She could only imagine that he was thinking these things now, and she wondered if he was laughing at her. But as she looked into his eyes, still tenderly amused, she couldn't find any malice or any of that cynical laughter present. Instead he looked as if he thought her endearing, and it gave her the strength to continue in spite of her lingering doubts.
"I eventually stopped at this-this pond. I had to let the horse water and I was getting restless. I got off and stood there for a few minutes, just staring at the water. Then all of the sudden it hit me. No one was behind me. They weren't going to catch up because they weren't there, Rhett! And my mother and father weren't just a few minutes away. They were gone! They are...gone!" Tears had starting running down her face, and Scarlett had started to pace in front of Rhett.
"And I-", She looked at Rhett contemplating whether she should reveal the next part of her story to him. Beautiful understanding was shining in his eyes as he intently looked at her. " I cried!" She started to sob then, still pacing across the floor. "I cried for everything I had lost, and for everything that I had been forced upon me that I had never wanted! For my Pa and my mother! I cried because all of my friends were dead and because things were never going to be the same! I never got to say good-bye to them and things were never coming back, Rhett!" Her voice had risen until she was almost yelling, frenzied as she tried to convey her thoughts.
"I wanted so many things, and I didn't have any of the things that I had dreamed about! And I was looking at my life, Rhett. I felt like I could see things for the first time." She had calmed a little, though her tears continued to pour. Her words were scrambled now as she tried to frantically put her thoughts together. "My life…I have everything. Everything that anyone could want. And I have money and a big house. I have children and a husband. And I had always thought that I was happy with that!
"Until…Rhett, until…" She looked down, her voice growing softer, and she was sure that the reverence that had been present in her voice as she had whispered his name over and over again last night was there now. She was ashamed that he could probably hear it too. She was sure that he could practically see it bleeding from her lips. "I needed…something. I don't—but you gave me it. I knew that there was something—and you reached out to me and gave me...something…" Scarlett looked up at Rhett, into his eyes.
Two dark, blazing coals.
He reached for her, and she couldn't do anything but reach for him too. It was instinct now, something that she couldn't stop herself from doing, even if it meant losing face. She had to touch him. She grabbed him and threw herself into his arms, even as he pulled her closer. She buried her face into his chest, breathing him in as her hands ran wildly up and down his back. Rhett clutched her too, his hands grasping at her hair, neck, back…
"Even now, my—I'm begging myself to—…I—" She sobbed. "But that is what confuses me the most!" She squeezed her eyes. "How can I...I need you so badly when I love-" She cut herself short, realizing what she was about to say.
Rhett froze, his hands surrendering their hold on her. He started to back away from her and Scarlett already knew he was piecing the rest of her sentence together. When she could see his eyes again, they were hard. The fire had ceased, leaving behind only a harsh film of smoldering ash. "I suppose you are speaking of our noble Mr. Wilkes." His voice was cold, and it stung Scarlett in a way that hurt physically. He had been so understanding! It hurt her deeply that her deepest regret and hurt seemed to mean nothing to him.
She screamed at him through the ache that had settled on her chest from his careless attitude. "Yes! I am talking about Mr. Wilkes. Ashley! I don't understand why I could need you when I love him so much!"
Rhett's eyes were squinted together and he was massaging his forehead as he spoke, "Yes, it is awful to need your husband while you long for another man!"
Scarlett's voice was filled with pain and outrage. "I thought you were going to understand, Rhett…"
"What is there to understand? That my wife is in love with another man?" Rhett snorted. "I have known that since the first day I met you, do you remember? Surely you haven't forgotten! What do you want me to understand, Scarlett? Do you want me to acknowledge what a little idiot you are for assuming you love him?"
"I know I love him!" She screamed again. She raced towards him as she spoke. "I didn't always understand why, but now I do! I have thought about so much today, and if there is anything I understand now it is this! I love Ashley and I will never let him go! He is all I have left!" She sobbed, now face to face with him. "I lost my family and my childhood and my life! He is all that is left of that now! The only part of that person that lived before the bills and taxes had to be paid! He is the part of me, Scarlett, a part of me that I loved and I will never let go! Ever!" She covered her face with her hands and continued to sob.
She stood there with her eyes tightly shut until Rhett pulled her hands away from her face and wiped the tears from her cheeks. And again, he was touching her. Reaching for her. And some part of herself worshipped him for it.
When he spoke, he spoke gently but bluntly. "Scarlett, you are holding on to a dream. A small piece of your childhood that makes you feel connected to everything you lost. Your dream of Ashley is not real. He is not that dream. My darling, you don't love him." Scarlett pulled away from him, shaking her head 'no'.
She turned from him, still shaking her head. "No, a dream is what made me...throw myself at you like a-a wanton woman!" She covered her face in shame, once again. "No…" She walked a few paces from him and turned to face him. She looked at him for a long time before she spoke.
"I don't love you, Rhett." She said, her voice even and clear. Scarlett watched as his shoulders dropped suddenly and his face fell into something that she didn't recognize. He stood there for a moment with that horrible look on his face, and she had to look away. It hurt her to see him looking like that.
"All right." His voice sounded completely different than his face looked, and his words echoed something that was contradictory to his demeanor. He laughed crudely and caustically said, "It's nice to know that all of your 'thinking' this afternoon effectively accomplished nothing, Scarlett. You will never cease to be anything but predictable, my dear. Even after spending all day thinking about your life and then proceeding to examine the fact that you despise it, you refuse to do anything about it."
Scarlett's temper flared at his words. Rhett noticed and reached out and touch her cheek before she could say anything. The fire eased in her chest at the feel of his skin.
The bitterness was gone from his voice, and his eyes were burning intensely again. "But you need me, Scarlett?"
Scarlett didn't answer for a moment, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had such power over her. Rhett placed his hand on her other cheek, forcing her to look at him.
She had jumped at him as soon as she realized what he was doing, assaulting his mouth with her own. He let her for a moment, kissing her back with equal passion before prying his lips from hers. He spoke as he backed away. "It's not enough, Scarlett. I want more…" Scarlett followed him to the dining room door, and watched him climb the stairs. He slumped as if it took great effort. As if every step might as well have been a mountain.
Once he was out of her sight, emptiness consumed her and she fell to the floor, next to the shattered china, and sobbed brokenly.