"Everyday I spend away my soul's inside out
Gotta be some way that I can make it up to you now, somehow"
-I'd Come for You, Nickelback
Thursday, May 24, 2013
Afternoon
Sometimes he really, really wonders about his life choices. He can't think about it too hard, not when he's busy trying to prevent drunk twelve-year-olds from falling into a pool that's larger than his apartment, not when his wife is tickled fucking pink over his ridiculous paychecks and the designer clothes she can buy for their five-year-old and he's just glad that the maybe one weekend he's home each month, Kathy isn't fucking nagging him because she's too busy spending all the money.
He tries not to resent it, to pretend he didn't spend years feeling guilty over wanting to be somewhere else while she wanted him home because she didn't even really want him home. It's not her fault he misunderstood that she was bored and tired of being broke and only wanted to stay married to preserve a second income because being single would make money even tighter.
He's watching these children who are drinking and partying like fucking rock stars and he's sure there's worse than drinking going on inside the house, but he's been assigned to watch the gate to the pool and though every fiber of his being wants to drag these out of control brats to their parents and say what the hell is wrong with all of you, but he's been corrected repeatedly that his job is to protect the rich kids from being kidnapped, not from themselves, and so unless someone is convulsing or drowning, he's not going to risk his damn paycheck by moving an inch from this gate.
There is one bright spot, he thinks to himself as a very high, very rich pair of parents trips past him and winds up losing their balance and toppling into the pool where they come up sputtering and mom is shrieking about her ruined dress and dad is puking into the water, at least he knows he isn't the worst father on Earth, even if he's absent so much he's not sure he's still a father. He sees Eli for a few hours on his weekend home if Eli isn't off at a playdate, but he hasn't talked to his other kids for months because he's not allowed to carry a personal cell at work and he always forgets to plug it in when he's home and so he gets updates from Kathy, but it's not the same, but he still doesn't want to complain because Kathy is happy and so his life is quiet and he tells himself that quiet is good and that he doesn't miss the adrenaline rush of the chase and capturing bad guys because despite what was sold to him as an exciting job opportunity, he's a glorified security guard and while these fuckers are rich, they're apparently not rich enough for the sorts of nefarious things they'd need protection from, and Elliot has caught on to the fact that a private security army isn't actually hired for safety, but rather as an accessory to show off just how rich they are, but he doesn't mind the fancy suits bought on someone else's dime because they're certainly more comfortable than the off-the-rack cheap shit he used to wear.
The party is winding down by sunset, most of the people either passed out or leaving or retreating into the house to change from their pool party attire to their fancy dinner party attire and Elliot is glad for that because once everyone is inside, they'll be absolutely nothing for him to do besides lean on the damn gate and sleep standing up for a few more hours and then he's actually got three straight days off and he's looking forward to not having to politely smile at anyone for seventy-two hours in a row.
There's one person left outside, a sole figure on a lounge chair, and Elliot recognizes him as the birthday boy himself, a few hours past twelve years old having partied himself into a booze and coke fueled stupor, and Elliot wonders if he should do something, check on the kid who hasn't moved and hasn't gone inside and hasn't made a sound in quite some time, but he reminds himself that his job is to watch this damn gate and so he watches the damn gate and eventually, one of the tuxedoed house staff emerges to wake the kid and drag him into the house for his birthday dinner and while Elliot is congratulating himself for being a better father than birthday boy's father, he remembers that birthday boy is growing up with absolutely everything he wants and needs and can imagine and he'll grow up without a single fucking care in the world and he'll inherit so much that he'll never experience a single minute of worrying about how to pay the mortgage and Elliot feels shitty about his parenting again.
It's nearly midnight by the time he's back home, between the requisite debrief of the next shift and the forty minute plane ride back to Rome and Kathy's asleep on the sofa when he comes in and Eli is tucked in his bed and so he hops in the shower to try to feel like a human before he can start to decompress. By the time he's changed into sweats, Kathy is awake and he knows she has something she wants to say or ask or whatever because she's nervous and she's never nervous and so he sits down at the computer and waits for her to spit it out.
He checks his email while she's making small talk and he's not hearing a thing she's saying while he's noticing that someone has deleted nearly everything out of his inbox. Kathy has access and he doesn't care if she reads it because he knows there's nothing even remotely interesting for her to find and he's not cheating and he's not secretly talking to anyone and he finds it strange that there's only one message in the box, a spam email that only arrived in the last thirty minutes while Kathy was asleep and he checks the deleted items and that is empty too and he knows something is up but he's too fucking tired to start an argument and he figures whatever happened, whoever tried to reach him - he won't allow himself to think maybe it was her reaching out - will try again, hopefully this weekend while he's home and might get the message.
He opens the browser and starts to type in his local news station but he's too tired to try to translate Italian right now and he's barely on a first-grade reading level when he's wide awake, and instead decides he'll check the New York headlines because his kids and his mom and most of his friends live there, but all of a sudden, Kathy is there and she's looping her arms over his shoulders and whispering in his ear how much she missed him and she never acts like this and he's not in the mood and coupled with the deleted emails, his cop instincts are telling him there's something she's trying to keep him from finding out and he immediately thinks of his department friends, his abandoned squad who all have no idea what happened to him because he just fucking disappeared and he's assuming one of them is dead and Kathy will eventually tell him and she's probably just trying to make sure he finds out from her and not from a website.
He shrugs her off and shuts down the computer, heading to the balcony with a bottle of rum. Kathy seems irritated that her awkward seduction didn't work, but she doesn't press it and leaves him alone to go back to sleep.
He's sitting on the balcony and staring up at the stars and he feels tears on his cheeks and makes no move to wipe them away. He wonders who. Munch isn't a young man and neither is Cragen and Fin would jump in front of gun to protect Olivia and fuck Olivia… he can't bear the idea that something happened to her, even if he's not supposed to be thinking about her, and he doesn't because it fucking hurts to think about her and maybe this is his punishment, that he's here living Kathy's dream and Olivia is gone and he'll have to hear it from Kathy and he'll be upset about the news but he'll mask it with anger and accuse Kathy of smirking while she says it and Kathy will deny it and then she'll insist they do something as a family so he can't even cry because she's a sore fucking winner as though Elliot is some kind of prize.
He's already resigned to his fate and so he cries now, grieves now, lets the tears pour down his cheeks while the rum pours down his throat and he lets himself think of her because it can't be a sin to grieve his friend now that fate has permanently intervened. It's almost dawn by the time he drags himself back inside and he curls up on the couch instead of joining his wife in bed because he wants to think about her and pretend she's here with him in Italy and fantasize that they're on their honeymoon and it's just a fucking dream so it can't be a sin.
Kathy insists on dragging him and Eli museum-hopping in the morning. Elliot is hungover and angry because he stands up all day every day at work and he'd like to just sit on the damn sofa and he suspects Kathy is going to share whatever news she has when they're out in public so he can't make a damn scene and he just wants to shout at her to tell him, but he doesn't because the longer she doesn't say it, the longer it isn't true.
And somehow, the day passes without any shared information from Kathy and the next day too and on Sunday he's getting ready for Mass and Kathy still hasn't said anything and he's certain she'd tell him if it had been something bad and so he decides either he was wrong about someone dying or he was right about someone reaching out and he tells himself his wife is right to protect him from the temptation because he knows he would fold instantly.
He finds himself on his knees in the church, trying not to think of her, trying to make himself believe that Kathy will ever fill that hole in his heart, begging for the strength to continue on this path he hopes will eventually turn his heart.