Boys Don't Cry
Chapter: 4
Rating: R
The next morning the streaming sunlight awoke them both. Mary laid with her head on his chest, listening to the rhythmic beat of his heart. He gently stroked her hair. "You're quiet." he observed. "Are you okay?"
She looked up at him through thick eyelashes. "I'm fine." she assured him. "How long are you going to stay in New York?"
"My flight leaves Sunday evening." he told her. "When do you plan on leaving?"
"Leaving?" she questioned. "I wasn't planning on leaving."
"You mean you're not coming back to Minneapolis?"
"I hadn't really thought about it, but no I guess not." she replied. "I'm happy here, I have a great job through CBS and tons of room for advancement."
"But what about us?"
"What do you mean?" Mary sat up in bed, taking the sheet with her. "You don't mean to tell me that you want me to come back with you and get married."
"You mean you don't want to get married?"
"No." she replied. "Why would you think I would?"
Lou sat up. "I just thought that you would want to do this together." he clarified. "I thought we would be a family."
Mary shook her head. "I can't just go back to Minneapolis with you and we instantly become a family." she argued. "We have nothing to build a relationship on."
"We have the baby."
"I think that's a lot of responsibility to put on a child." she slid back a little, putting some distance between them. "I'm sorry, Lou, I can't come back home with you."
"You mean you won't." he said. "We don't have to get married."
"I want to stay here in New York." she told him. "And I don't expect you to give up everything in Minneapolis and come here."
"Then how is this going to possibly work?"
"You can come see the baby whenever you want."
Lou just shook his head. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "So that's it?" he asked. "You're not even going to give us a chance?"
"You and I have never had that kind of relationship." she said. "I really think it would be best if you just went back home."
He got up out of bed. "Are you asking me to give the baby up?"
"No of course not." she replied. "I'm just asking you not to force me into a life that I don't want."
Lou started getting dressed. "You mean a life with me?"
"No that's not what I meant and you know it." she said. "I can't come back with you just to make you happy, Lou. I can't compromise my happiness to feed your conscience."
"This has nothing to do with my conscience." he started buttoning up his shirt. "I just thought that as a fair and compassionate human being you would want your child's father to be in his or her life."
"I do want you in their life." she got up off the bed and picked up her robe off the chair. "I just don't want to have to pretend to be something that I'm not. I don't want us to pretend to be something that we're not. We'll both just end up miserable."
Lou sat down on the edge of the bed and put on his shoes. "I kinda got the feeling that we were heading for something a little more than just a physical relationship." he told her. "I thought that we were starting over, I guess I was wrong."
"You don't want to be with me, Lou." she said, sitting down beside him. "If you did then we would have been serious about our involvement from the beginning. It would have been more than just sex. It never evolved into anything more. And the only reason you feel differently now is because I'm pregnant and the old fashioned Lou Grant wants to do the right and descent thing."
He couldn't deny it. A part of him did want to do the right thing. He was raised in a generation where if you got a girl in trouble you married her. But there was a part of him that really thought that if they started over they might be able to make something work. "Fine. I'm not about to argue with you." he was defeated. He got up off the bed. "I've gotta get down to the airport and see if I can change my flight. I want out of this city as soon as possible."
She looked up at him, her eyes almost pleading with him. "Don't leave like this, Lou."
"How do you want me to leave it?' he asked, heading for the door. "I'm going to be in Minneapolis and you're going to be here with my son or daughter. How did you think I was going to feel?"
"I'm sorry." she apologized. "I really am. I didn't want things between us to end up like this. I was really hoping that we could work something out."
He placed his hand on the door knob and turned it. "No." he disagreed. "You were hoping that I would see things your way. That's the real reason you didn't tell me you were pregnant."
"I was wrong for not telling you and I'm sorry." she was struggling to fight the tears back. "I don't want to fight with you. I just want things to go back to the way they were."
Lou turned around and looked at her. "Dammit, Mary! I can't do that." he said. "I can't forget about everything and just walk out of here. Too much has happened. I can't go home and pretend like everything is the same as it was a year ago."
"I'm not asking you to."
He turned back around and opened the door. "You know that I love you, right?" he said with his back to her. "I mean I know I've never said it to you, but I do love you."
Mary didn't know what to say. There was nothing she could say. "Goodbye, Lou." she wiped the fallen tears from her face. His slamming of the door actually made her jump and she dissolved into tears on the bed. Nothing had gone as planned and now things were actually worse than before.
There was a soft knock on her open bedroom door. "Mary?" Rhoda called out. "Mind if I come in?" Mary didn't answer she just reached out for her. Rhoda pulled her into her arms and gently stroked her hair. "It's okay." she soothed her. "Everything's going to be okay."
"How?" she choked out.
"I don't know." she replied, honestly. "But everything will work out for the best, I promise."
Mary cried for a little while longer, until she felt like she didn't have any tears left. She pushed herself up into a sitting position. "I can't be someone I'm not."
Rhoda reached over and wiped away her tears. "You don't have to be." she assured her. "You're a strong, resilient, independent woman."
"I don't think I am."
"Of course you are." she said. "Otherwise you would be back on a plane to Minneapolis jumping into marriage and housewife duties. You stood up for what you wanted, what you needed, and that took a lot of guts. I know that going back with Lou would have been the easy thing to do, hell it would have even been the moral thing to do, but you stood your ground."
"Then why do I feel so lousy?"
"Because you love him." she replied. "I don't think you realized how much until he showed up here."
"I do love him." she said. "And he told me that he loves me."
"You can't always build things on love." Rhoda said. "If you want to be with Lou, if you really want to be with him, then you'll build your relationship slowly. Rushing into something just because you're pregnant would be a disaster."
"I know." she agreed. "And I tried to get Lou to understand that, but he wouldn't."
Rhoda shrugged. "He's a man, he's a little slow at these thing." she said. "Just relax and concentrate on the baby. If it's meant to be it'll be."
"I don't know, Rhoda." she sighed. "I've never seen him so upset."
"What happened last night?" she asked, looking back at the disheveled bed. "I mean at some point the two of you were okay."
"He showed up right after you left." she told her. "He was angry at first that I didn't tell him, but then he was kind and caring and loving. He said and did all the right things and it just sort of happened."
"So it was just sex?"
"No." she replied. "It was different this time, like something had changed between us. It was like we were actually making love instead of just having meaningless sex."
"And that's a bad thing?"
"No, of course not." she replied. "I just wasn't expecting it, that's all. The sex between us has always been great, but it was just sex and nothing more. And now I don't know. I think I need some time to think it over." she said. "I need to sort out my feelings. I never thought that he would actually feel this way for me and it's kind of thrown me."
tbc...