My situations - not my characters.
Edited as of 07/08/07 - renamed this chapter due to some story re-structuring and a title I thought was more fitting. Originally this story was going to follow a seven-chapter arc, but I changed it to eight. In case you are interested. But since I kind of think no one is reading this, you probably are not.
----
Record
----
Late morning sunlight was flooding the room when Ellie opened her eyes. Recalling the events of last night, she smiled to herself, streching her arms sleepily over her head. To her surprise, when they came to rest, she realized that she was alone in the double bed normally shared with Jesse.
"Craig?" she called, worried.
A few seconds' silence made her wonder if he'd excused himself mid-morning and walked home alone. In an instant, the girl who had been hurt so many times before surfaced in her mind, deciding he'd gotten what he came for and she, like an idiot, had given it to him.
But before her concerns could further themselves, Craig stepped out of the bathroom, shirtless and with her pink toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. "Thorry, buh it'sh noh like I braugh one," he said, through a toothpaste grin.
The worried look on Ellie's face instantly broke into a grin, followed by a few happy, disbelieving giggles when he disappeared back into the bathroom. In seconds flat, Craig had returned and made his way toward the bed, where Ellie self-conciously held the bedsheet over her bare top. He lowered himself next to her, their faces at the same level. "Last night was perfect," he whispered gratefully, "I am so, so, still in love wi-"
The sentence was cut short because the moment that four-letter-word left his lips, her own were there to meet it. She'd waited years to hear him say that, and then months to hear him mean it, but now that that moment was upon her, her head was full of doubts. While being with Craig felt so undeniably right, Ellie couldn't fully ignore the fact that their first sexual experience together had taken place in a bed Jesse bought for her to share with him. She couldn't just switch off her relationship with a live-in boyfriend after one admittedly perfect night with her ex-best friend.
"I've gotta go, though," Craig said mournfully, interrupting her thoughts. "I have to be to the store in an hour and a half and, plus, I'd hate to be here when you-know-who gets back." There was a pause, as the mention of Jesse settled in over them. Craig's voice dropped to a whisper, as if the man was standing in the room with them, "You are going to break up with him, aren't you?" he asked confidently.
Perhaps trying to prolong the time before her answer, she kissed his lips a few short times, mulling her options over. "I don't know, Craig... It's not an easy situation..."
As her voice trailed off, he felt the anger rising in his chest. "I love you Ellie! I fucking love you more than I've ever loved anyone in my entire life! I don't think you understand what I went through while I was waiting for you and,"
"Whoa!" she yelled, pulling the sheet snugly over her chest as she backed away from him, "You are not going to yell at me like that in my own house! You can't just waltz back into my life and expect me to rearrange everything immediately to suit your desires! It's preposterous!" Suddenly feeling unsafe around him, she rolled out of bed, still wrapped in the sheet and began rooting around in her dresser for some clothes.
The realization that his anger was driving away hit Craig like a ton of bricks as he slid off the bed and crawled toward her on his knees, a few tears beginning to well in his eyes. "Please, Elle... please just say you love me... you don't have to..." his voice cracked as he searched for the words, "You don't have to break up with him as long as you promise that you love me."
His good behavior on their
date had all but allowed her to forget about his bipolar tendencies -
how horrible his lows could be when he clearly wasn't taking his
medication. "Craig," she said softly, now half-dressed in a
t-shirt and underwear, "You know I love you, it's just -"
Not
waiting to hear anymore, he stood and took her face in his, kissing
her with all the passion and fury of someone who finally got what
they wanted. "Alright, okay. Just make up your mind... please,
please, please make up your mind and, and call me at Marco's tonight.
I really have to get going." He kissed her again. "I love
you, Elle."
Craig turned and headed
toward the door before turning around and grabbing his shirt off the
bedroom floor. "Bye Ellie," he said through a grin.
Ellie
couldn't help but smile back. "Bye Craig."
--
Work, Craig learned, consisted of wandering around the large sales floor, looking busy and answering questions from customers who could not seem to figure out the alphabetical order in which the compact discs and vinyl records had been placed. The first half of his eight-hour shift progressed uneventfully, if not slower than hell, while his mind tossed and turned with thoughts of the previous night and Ellie: what she was doing right now, if she'd kissed Jesse since his return, if they'd fucked in the same bed, or - he hardly even dared to think it - if she'd dumped him on the spot, confessed that Craig was the man for her, and told him to take a hike. A smile crossed his face as he headed toward the store's back room to punch out for his break, thinking of Ellie packing all of her things into boxes, ready to move back in with Marco and, more importantly, him.
"Craig?" came a familiar voice from behind him, bringing him crashing down from his happily ever after.
He spun around to find his ex-girlfriend Manny Santos, her hair a little shorter than when he'd seen her last, wearing a miniskirt and a low-cut top, begging for him to notice her. "Manny... hey," he said uneasily, sensing trouble coming on.
"I had no idea you worked here!" she said truthfully, "I didn't even know you were even back in TO... what gives?"
He studied the CDs in her hand condescendingly - Black Eyed Peas and The Pussycat Dolls, not something he'd ever pick - or Ellie, for that matter, but somehow it seemed endearing, fitting, that Manny would select such blasé music. "I finished my stint in," his voice dropped, barely audible, "rehab, and, gosh, I just missed everyone like hell, so it seemed right."
"Did you miss me?" she asked brightly.
Manny had crossed his mind
several times while he was in the rehab clinic; mostly on the long,
lonely nights in his cot, when he was shaking for lack of drugs and
could barely even remember what a girl's touch felt like. His hands
would recall the feel of her tan skin; his mouth, the feel of her
tongue probing its depths... in all honesty, he hadn't thought about
one thing she'd ever told him, none of the "I love you"s or
the years of her adoring compliments upon which he'd thrived in his
Downtown Sasquatch days... he'd missed Manny Santos' body more than
anything - the feel of it and how she'd made it readily available to
him for years on end. "Yeah," he smiled thoughtfully, "I
sure did."
Craig's half-hour break was spent eating lunch
with Manny in the cafe across the street from Rubber Soul. He learned
about Damien, Manny's new boyfriend, who was leaving her to study
public relations at Oxford at the end of the summer ("Boy, can I
ever relate to that," he'd said, with a bittersweet laugh,
conjuring up memories of Ashley's disasterous trip to England a few
years earlier). He learned that Manny was living at home once again,
with parents who were still disappointed with her choice to pursue
acting instead of university. Eerily, the set-up reminded him of last
night's meal with Ellie - the girl trying as hard as she can to
convince him her life had gone on without him in it.
"It's funny," she said, after Craig had offered to pick up her check, "I was so, so nervous that when I saw you again, I wouldn't be able to stop hating you or - worse, that I'd love you again... but this is kind of... nice..."
Craig smiled, "It is nice. You know I love spending time with you." The two stood up and as Craig pushed his chair back in, he was caught by the double surprise of Manny laying a kiss on his lips and spotting Jesse, who had been lunching only twenty feet away across the restaurant, a smug smile on his face as he held up what had to be a camera phone, unsubtly pointed in their direction.
"Whoa!" he pulled away from her, alarmed. "Don't get the wrong idea, Manny, I just meant as..." he trailed off, unable even to look at her, for being locked in a staring contest with Jesse, who looked like he'd won the lottery. During those seconds, his world came crashing down around him. If Ellie had told him anything about Craig, Jesse now had photographic proof that he was being unfaithful to her (however unwittingly) only hours after their tryst in her apartment.
Manny turned around,
searching the restaurant until she found what it was at which Craig
was staring so frantically. "Ohmigod..." she breathed,
somehow feeling sorry for stepping on the toes of this thing she
supposed was happening between Craig and Ellie, "Craig, I had no
idea you and Ellie were... I mean, I guess it makes sense and I told
you I have a boyfriend, didn't I? That was just cuckoo bananas of me
because I have a boyfriend and you don't think he'll show that to
Ellie, will he? Ugh, I am sooooo sorry..."
Craig wasn't even
listening to Manny's blathering - he was unable to break Jesse's
gaze. So she had told
him... And now it was all over.
"Come on, Manny," he said, defeatedly, throwing money on the table and grabbing her by the arm as they headed out of the restaurant and walked back across the street. "I have to go back to work. Thanks... thanks for having lunch with me."
"Wait," the girl said, putting a hand on his shoulder as he turned to leave. "Are you in love with her?"
Craig shrugged, "Does it even matter anymore?" he said wildly, "You went and screwed that one up, Santos! I just... You can't do anything good in my life, can you, Manny? It's all gotta be ruin, doesn't it?"
Looking like she was about to cry, Manny tightened her grip on his shoulder. "Craig, I'll make this up to you, I swear. I'll... I'll find a way." Without looking back to watch him enter the building, she turned and walked back up the street, though in the opposite direction of her home, tears beginning to flow from her eyes.
----