"You aren't supposed to love me." Carol said as she stood up and pulled he shirt back on. She grabbed her bra and jeans and went into the bathroom. She looked in the mirror at herself and ran her hand through her hair. She felt tears threaten to roll down her face, but she wouldn't let them come. This wasn't what she signed up for and she wanted to say it back to him so badly.
She felt it, but was smart enough to know how dangerous it was and that it could never work.
She knew he was going to be trouble from day one and she knew she should have stayed away. She couldn't and now she would have to pay the bill on this indiscretion. Carol didn't do feelings and she didn't do love. It was time to re think things because this time she had gotten burned and she was the one who held the match.
In a few minutes she came back out fully dressed and brushing her hair. He sat on the side of the bed with his pants on and shirt undone. He had gotten up and gotten dressed in the time she was in the bathroom. This didn't go quite like he had thought it would, but then he had uttered those words in complete passion and without thinking. He just said what he felt and then he knew it was a mistake. She never left the room to get dressed before and he knew he had blown it.
So be it, now it was out there. She didn't say anything and he continued tying his boots.
"Take it back." She said.
"I'm not taking it back." He said, but he wouldn't look up at her.
"Then don't call me anymore." She said grabbing her purse. "It was fun, but it's over now, understand." She said with her hand on the door knob.
"Fine, I get it." He looked up at her finally. "I won't bother you anymore, but you're the one missing out. One day you'll be sorry."
She walked out the door but stopped on the other side and leaned back against the door. This man had dragged her right into hell with three words. She was already sorry, but this was never going to work. He crossed that invisible line and once you did, there was no going back.
I love you. What was he thinking?
It had been so easy with Shane because he was on the same page as her. She thought she and Daryl were on the same page but apparently not.
Carol walked down the hall and out of the hotel knowing she would miss him, but there was nothing she could do about that. This was never about love or feelings. And now it was over.
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One night six months or so later on a Saturday night Maggie Greene got a phone call from Carol. She was packing her bags and leaving Ed, and could Maggie come pick her up and take her to a hotel. Ed had taken all the car keys when he left and she didn't want to call a cab. She would explain it all when Maggie got there.
Maggie said no to a hotel, she would take her to her house instead and she rushed over to pick up her friend. The plan was to move Carol in with her and was shocked at what she saw.
That was why Carol didn't want to call a cab.
She answered the door with an ice pack over her eye.
Ed had beat the shit out of her. She had a black eye and part of her hair had been ripped out and cut. He had come home that night in a rage and she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There wasn't even a reason, he had just came home swinging which had never happened before. It was the first time and the last time he would ever lay hands on her.
Carol suspected he had been on something for a while, steroids at the very least, because he was spending so much time at the gym.
Maggie tried to keep the tears at bay when she saw her friend and she wanted to call 911, Carol stopped her for more than a few reasons. This was private and she didn't want to be taken to the hospital she sat on the board of, and she didn't want the local paramedics coming.
She couldn't bear to see him, especially now after he had laid his feelings out to her and she had stomped all over them in her fear.
She had avoided Daryl at every turn. She saw him a few times at the hospital since their break up and had successfully gotten away before he saw her. It was better this way.
She went to live with Maggie in her condo across town and the next day she found a lawyer. She and Ed were divorced in three months. She got a job at the Barns and Noble which was perfect for her she worked afternoons and every other weekend.
Shane had come down to help her move her stuff to Maggie's one weekend when Ed was away. There wasn't much but some furniture she couldn't move alone. So she had called in the muscle.
They sat at a table in the Barns and Noble drinking coffee together and talking about old times before he left the next day. Shane had been a life saver through this, stepping up as her friend without expecting anything in return.
He could very well be her best friend.
"You coming back with me tonight?" He had to try one last time, he was who he was after all.
But he knew the answer already. Carol wasn't the same woman he had known in New York. Something had changed her, or someone. Not her asshole husband either.
"No sweetie, I can't." She said taking his hand.
"I know; I was just giving it a try." He said and they both laughed.
"You're a good friend Shane." She said.
"Whoever he is, he's a lucky man." Shane said.
"There isn't anyone Shane." She said and that was a lie. She still thought about him, but figured he had moved on to the next one by now. "Not for a long time."
She picked up the phone a million times to call him and put it down every time. She had left him and no matter what happened now, at the time it had been the right thing.
She should just leave him alone.
"Carol, I've known you a long time. Don't bullshit me." He said. "Whatever is keeping you and that person apart now that Ed's gone, fix it." He sipped his coffee. "Don't waste time, life is too short for that."
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Shane left, giving her a hug good bye and promises to always keep in touch with each other and she went back to work stacking books in the back of the store. She felt a presence behind her and inhaled slowly. It was that musk oil he always used and she knew.
It was bound to happen eventually and really she was surprised it took him so long to find out she worked here. He was a reader and they had seen each other here in the past.
"Hey." She said as she turned around and looked into the bluest eyes she had ever seen. Eyes that she had missed looking at for a long time.
"I got your text." He said and Carol looked at him confused.
"I didn't…" She said as she pulled out her phone. His number was still there under Jill since he had put it there over a year ago. There was a sent text to him, sent while she was in the bathroom and Shane had been alone with her phone. Can you meet me at Barns and Noble in half an hour?
How had he figured that out? But she knew, Shane was a cop and all he had to do is look for a number she hadn't called in a while. There weren't that many in her phone to begin with, and she had never gotten around to making more friends.
"It doesn't matter." She leaned back against the bookshelf, she couldn't even be mad at Shane. "How are you."
He shrugged. "Ok, you?"
"Doing good, I guess you heard around the hospital, Ed and I got divorced." She said picking up a book and putting it on the shelf.
He nodded, keeping his lips tight. "I heard, I'm happy for you."
"Thanks." She replied.
"Your hair looks great short Carol." He said looking at her with her new short haircut since the night Ed took the scissors to her hair. She still looked beautiful to him, unlike any other woman before her.
Nothing had changed in the ensuing months since she left him in the hotel. He would still give his right arm to be with her again. He had left Marina soon after that night and never regretted it. It had been coming for such a long time.
"So, I moved out." He said. "Marina filed but it's going to take a while."
"Congratulations." She said.
The silence between them was so thick it made her gasp for air. They had both taken the steps to get free without any prompting from the other. True, Ed had belted her that one night and it lit a fire under her ass to get moving, and to come out of the prison she had made for herself.
But he had left Marina, all on his own.
"Do you think we could start over? Just you and me, now that it's different?" He said with hopeful eyes. "It won't be as exciting, I know." He laughed
She nodded and laughed too. Excitement and infidelity was over rated.
"Maybe we could go for a ride on the bike sometime?" He asked.
"I'd like that."
The end
A/N: Thank you to everyone who read this story. It was definitely a different sort of tale.