Don't Stop Believing
PART 1:
Hard Rock Hotel – 7:30
"Stupid…fucking…thing."
Struggling to keep his tongue and mouth at hers and reach through darkness for the card slide on the door of the room, Jeff growled, sucking at her lips as he held her against the wall nearest the doorknob, his knee pressing between her separated thighs. He didn't give a damn who saw the inappropriate movement; in fact, he rather enjoyed the thought of an audience.
"It won't open."
Lily laughed at him as she pulled away from his lips and moved her hand to where his was forcing the key card through the slot in the doorway rather than the lock.
"Let me do it, or we'll be in the hall all night."
She took the card as he pushed her harder against the wall, licking clear from her open breasts to the back of her ear without stopping.
"Wouldn't be the first time."
"Or the last with you I fear."
She smiled and forced the key to click and unlock the door. Jeff lifted her body in a turn toward the dark room, slamming her back into another wall as soon as they were inside. His hands kept firm at her waist, sliding in ease against the sides of her dress as it lifted higher on her thighs.
He hadn't planned to take her at the corner of the doorway, pressed into the cool stones of the wall. He hadn't wanted it to be so violent or sudden. He had concocted the idea much better on the ride back to the hotel, but his desperation and his body's unwillingness to cooperate were making it difficult on him. He had to bring himself to stop though, because he had to make his reasoning work, he had to make her understand tonight instead of just accepting things forever.
Falling away from slowly, her lips still clinging and begging for his rather than oxygen, he held her to the wall. Lily eyed him suspiciously, worried that she had done something wrong already.
"I think we need to talk first."
His statement was focused, driven, and as serious as she had ever seen him. It was a sign he meant it. She smiled and let her heels fall back down to earth, fixing her dress and hair.
"I want to talk to you, Lily. I seriously do this time."
"Breakthrough on my part perhaps?"
"You're a fucking brilliant physician, what else can I say?"
He raised his palm to feel the warmth of her cheek, brushing away the loose strands of hair he felt tangled in his fingers. Leaning into him again, his arm came around the small of her back, allowing for her to lead the way out to the balcony of the room. It was cold, but necessarily so.
Lily took a seat on one of the long, cushioned lounge chairs, but Jeff remained standing in the wind, hands in the pockets of his jeans, eyebrows creased into the icy air in thought. She waited for him, knowing it was what he needed, the time to determine his thoughts, the time to just simply collect himself then and now.
With a final puff of cloudy breath, he stumbled upon the words.
"You really picked the winner again, Lily."
His hands twisted into his pockets as she watched him rise and fall off of the heels of his boots.
"I would say I don't know what you see in a messed up bastard like me, but Jesus…" he chuckled briefly, "...I wouldn't be able to see it anyway."
"It's still you, you know."
Her words hit him difficultly, but he accepted them with a sigh. "Just a hell of a lot meaner though, right?"
"It's not like you don't have a reason to be upset."
"Pitiful, pussy excuse."
"If you say so."
Immediately, he turned on his heels toward her and lifted his shades away from his face in the dark sky overhead. Unable to make out much of his wounds, Lily focused on the way his lips pursed in the exposed mode, the way his eyebrows, barely remaining, tightened against the tanned skin of his forehead and then relaxed with another sigh.
"Sometimes I swear I could open them up again, like sleeping and opening your eyes, you know. Just blink and it'll all be over."
Sands tapped his boot into a short walk from around the patio table, following her breath in the wind like a breadcrumb trail. When he found the leg of a close chair, he pulled back and slumped into it, inches from her body and her warmth.
"It's the single most frustrating thing in the world not being able to see people when they talk to me. Screw the ocean or the ability to drive a car, I used to read people, I used to know them. I used to know you so well, just by looking in your eyes."
Lily felt tears begin to crease the corners of her eyes when his head fell into his hands.
"I can't tell what you're thinking. I hate it so damn much. When you're quiet, it's like I'm the last person left on earth."
"Well, I'm here." She replied in a whisper as her hand came across to caress his leg.
"As if I can understand why. I know even being blind that you're still the most beautiful thing I've ever touched. I know Carter's getting his mind set on you too. You're something else." She laughed back her tears and brought her chair closer to his as he continued. "I just don't get it, all these years and no ring, no suit and tie lover, no kids. What the hell's your deal?"
She paused in reflection, wondering how the conversation had turned so rapidly onto her.
"You can't tell me you didn't want all that shit. The big house full of screaming kids, sex with your husband in the afternoon…Stepford syndrome."
" And who says I don't still want sex in the afternoon with my husband?"
Jeff took her hand in his with a short chuckle, tangling fingers and waiting until she spoke again.
"Jeff, I don't know what to tell you."
"Tell me anything. Talk to me. Just say words so I can hear you."
With a sigh, she deliberated the truth. There was only truth behind her still being alone and in search of life. "I ruined my chances. All of them." It came out quickly and muted, like an answer to a test question, like a second thought.
"Am I worthy of an explanation, Hanson?"
She breathed in deep, exhaling, and tracing the outline of each of his fingertips, attempting to focus and hone in on her point.
"I have this dress in my mother's house back home, and it's just collecting dust. I was supposed to wear it, oh God, four years ago. I was going to be…Mrs. Ryan McAllister."
The flighty notation in her voice gave Sands every reason in the world to expect the terrible ending he pictured, but he was reserved enough to listen to her words and keep his attention on the pressure points in her hand alone.
"He was a lawyer, suit and tie, five to five every day. I met him at a Christmas party. We moved in together after a few months, when I was just finishing up grad school. And I was really excited, I really thought I was happy, I guess."
"You guess? Sounds real convincing there Aristotle…" His teasing caused her head to turn upward and see the coy smile she so loved plastering his cheeks.
"Well I was stupid. I didn't know what I wanted, I only thought I did. He offered to marry me, I said yes. He bought a house outside of the city, I said yes to that. It was a really immature decision on my part."
"And I suppose you learned you're lesson well?"
Choking back the emotion she had allowed her face to drain without his knowing so, Lily glanced up from his face to see the iced Florida stars behind him, focused her vision on one, and then spoke quietly.
"I learned it the same way I learn all of my lessons, Jeff."
He tightened his hand around hers and gently smoothed over her bare arm.
"How's that?"
. "By losing the person who teaches them to me."
Her breathing changed again and he noticed the anxious tone, the one that said she was already uncomfortable but unwilling to quit. He brushed her knuckles and tried to picture the sight of the tears falling down her cheeks and then she spoke again in a murmur.
"Ryan was killed in a car accident three weeks before the wedding."
The universe temporarily tumbled apart to allow them space and peace of mind; for Lily to collect her bearings into the tightly woven cage they'd been stocked into for years and for Sands to sit studying her breathing pattern by teardrops and deliberation. He knew the sound of sincere pain when it came from Lillian Hanson, he had known it, and feared greatly in this moment, that he always would. No matter what he did to try and ease the swelling of her heart, she would always have breaks and cracks in places he could never fully lift away. No one could. And as she tried to do the same for him, their paths of care crossed through force and grief, leaving them at opposite ends of the chain.
"Lily, I didn't know," he whispered as he stroked the backs of her cold hands. She knew better than to expect ritualistic sympathy from him, and in a way, it made her feel better without having it.
"How did this whole thing become about me anyway?"
She giggled the tears off her cheeks and shuffled in her chair. Sands called it as a moment of passing grief, one Lily was able to move away from quickly, the kind that she had taught herself to move from quickly.
He smiled, fixed his glasses and took her hands further into his lap. "I'm a prying bastard, remember?"
"Oh right, CIA…almost forgot."
Her short laugh brightened him in places left dark by her tears, but after another moment, Sands couldn't hear her breathing as defiantly, and knew she was looking away from him.
"Lily, there's a lot of things I won't apologize for. I'm not going to apologize for your fiancé dying and I'm not going to let myself apologize for acting the way I have, the way I do. If you were with that guy then you wouldn't be here now with me, and if I were too laid back with you actually being here, you could get yourself killed."
"So it's a catch 22 with us?"
"Wasn't it always?"
"Not all the time."
"Well, things change right?"
"Sometimes."
"They have with us."
"Have they, Jeff? Really?"
Frustrated at his own inability to respond, he let go of her hands and kicked back and away from the chair he sat in. He managed to stumble around the iron patio table and back to the balcony rail, the wind shooting rough onto his nose and cheeks. From behind him, he quietly heard her voice shake.
"Y-you said you wanted to talk."
"I need to. And it's not working."
"I'm not going anywhere. You don't have to sleep with me or be with me again, but I am your doctor. It's my job to get you through this."
His face perked up quickly, "What the hell did you say?"
Lily paused a two feet away from him, rubbed her cold nose and returned, "I said it's my job to help you get over this."
"No. Before that."
"Before I said that I don't expect you to sleep with me? Or want to be with me, again? Because I don't."
Sands stood up tall in front of her, measured her height by the patter of her iced breath on his neck and tilted his head downward.
"Lost all faith, have we doc?"
"Or willingness to fight, like I told you earlier."
"Fight for what?"
"You know what."
Her eyes squinted into tight seams as she looked high into his face, forcing herself to picture his solid, overcast eyes behind the shades.
"I just want to hear you say it, all I have left is my hearing. Give me a reason to praise its usefulness for once."
Lily tucked her cold nose into the palm of her hand for a moment, thinking about all of things she could say, all of things she knew she had to eventually. Seconds, minutes passed with nothing to go on, nothing to generate truth for him except a jumbled mess of inner collective thoughts. He waited, impatiently by nature and concern.
"Well…? Got anything for me?"
"You can't force me to say what you want to hear. And why do you want to hear it anyway…what do you really care, Jeff? I'm sure it's just going to come back to bite me in the ass every time I'm with you."
"Think so?"
"I know so." She shot back at him.
"You have lost faith in me…"
"It's kind of hard not to when you treat me the way you do."
"I told you, I push you away to protect you. We're not kids anymore, Lily. If you only knew how fucking dangerous it can be."
"Oh you pain in the ass," she granted a harsh whisper before easing to turn on her heels inside again. He caught her tiny wrist in his though, firmly, and pulled her back into him.
"Yes, I am." He murmured high above her nose, his chest rising and falling against her body, his arms holding her waist to his. "Would you love me half as much if I were any other way?"
Lily's mind stopped in a jolt as she lay restless and standing in his arms. His grin was sincere and determined, the same as her brother's was on so many occasions, on so many days and nights of saying the same exact thing to her. Tom knew Jeff was a pain in the ass, it was why they were such close friends, the counter opposite of everything he was at times. And Tom knew Lily loved Jeff because he was that way, because he was crude and selfish and never took excuses as answers. Because he could protect her willingly and ask questions later. Because he never let her win a fight easily; she always needed to be challenged, just the same as him.
"Would you love Jeff half as much if he was any other way…?"
"What…" she tried, catching her words in a twisted mess before they left her mouth completely. "…what makes you think I really feel something for you anymore? Cocky much?"
"I guess I was just sort of hoping you would make this easier on me."
A gulp soaked her throat with what felt like venom, and she eased into his touch. "Make what easier on you?"
Nothing and no one could be heard from where they stood, tangled, weaved together uncomfortably from a viewer's eye, and yet as primly as possible from inside of their bubble. It was breathing without noise and seeing without color and in a single, solitary flash, it drained them of all inhibitions. Jeff held onto Lily's waist until she felt she had become part of him, a fashioned, phantom limb of some kind.
"I want for you to know something and I'm really hoping it's going to end all of this judgment you have over me."
"I'm not trying to--"
His hand pressed to her lips urged the quiet he needed, forcing her to listen to him without interruption. Sands dragged her back the twenty two steps he counted from the open rail to the sliding doorway of the room, inside another fifteen steps until they reach the bed's fluffed edge, and feeling around to knock off his mess of stuff, he pushed her down calmly into a seat.
"Just sit."
Lily said nothing and watched him step away a good three feet from the bed.
"I don't want you to think about anything. Just listen to me."
She nodded out of habit and then caught herself to reply for him, "Okay."
"Good."
Her hands rested on her lap, her eyes on his form moving back and forth in the darkness of the room, and her heart passing through tunnels in the space between them. Lily took a solemn breath as she heard him begin, keeping her mind tuned in on his every noise, his every word or statement.
"A couple of years after Tommy died…I uh, well I drove back through Chatham. It was the end of my first official year with the Agency, I had two weeks off, and I went down the Cape to stay."
He kicked his boots off aimlessly as he talked, ran his fingers through his hair and then tucked them back into his jeans.
"I needed to go somewhere and think, I'd killed something like thirty guys in a month down in Brazil. I was just doing it out of anger at that point, not because I thought it was my job. I wanted to kill every single fucking person who had ever killed anyone innocent or put a cop in their grave. It was my way of losing my mind all over again I guess."
He chuckled and moved down to sit cross legged on the floor, like a child, a lost one. Lily couldn't tear her eyes away for a second.
"I came back to Washington and was so afraid to be around people, I thought I would kill just about anyone who got in my way at that point; it was an addiction to hear bullets fly through skin. So Shane convinced me to pack up my shit and drive somewhere, anywhere really, just to get into safer and less populated territory. I didn't plan on going to Chatham. I sort of ended up there without knowing it."
Lily half smiled down at him and curled her legs up to the mattress more comfortably.
"I went as far as the coast and got a room in that place your mom's friend owned, Carriage House Inn. Since I got there on a Tuesday, I figured you were back in Boston till at least the weekend, and even then I didn't know if you'd be home. Funny thing was I didn't care, at least I thought I didn't care at all. I wanted to be near you but not see you. It made no fucking sense."
From out of his pocket, he anxiously drew a prematurely rolled cigarette and tipped it into the corner of his mouth, searching out his lighter. She kept silent in all of this, knowing he wasn't finished and only easing the sting of telling her any of it at all. He lit the paper with a sizzling heat, seared out a drag of smoke through the quiet air of the room, and then sighed into speaking again.
"I stuck around the Inn for most of the week, walked the beach probably a dozen times, and then finally decided to drive into town on that Friday. I remember Pate's being closed for the boat races and so I ended up down at Marley's, got a beer and hung around the back deck watching the trawlers come in to unload their catch. I forgot how cool it was to just sit there and watch them, you know? It was what I needed."
Lily sat still with all of her years and memories without him washed away to know that he had been there in a time when she imagined him long gone. To know now, that he was there, near her, in her hometown when she thought him all but lost to the wind and his wild ambitions.
"Well, it was one of the things I needed. I didn't realize it till it happened, but I needed to see you too."
Her gaze focused down and deeper on him at his statement.
"I was leaving the bar when you were coming out of the bookstore across the street. You didn't see me. You were so focused on your feet, or the ground, or something completely unimportant. I remember it like it was an hour ago, you were wearing that same blue flannel shirt of your dad's, three sizes too big and covering your old jeans, your hair was such a mess, from the cold and the wind and whatever else you'd been dealing with that day. And for half a second you looked like the saddest thing in the world. And that made me the second saddest thing in the world."
Lily felt her throat close up on her, her hands clench into the cotton of her dress, her heart stop pattering to thump as loudly as a drum.
"You never looked up or saw me standing there. I moved one boot to walk across and catch you, to shout something out and you just got in your dad's old truck and drove off. It was so quick, like it never happened. It was the worst fucking thing to ever happen to me though. The fact that I was beaten and losing my mind and I had to see you like that, no better off than me. Suicide had never been so appealing as it did on that day, Lily. It's the last time I saw you; it's the last memory I have of you to go on."
She held back every tear and every sob to stand from the edge of the bed, and lower herself down to only knees before him on the floor.
"That's why I push you back when you come closer. I'm so fucking scared of breaking you down to that again, I feel like I could ruin the little strength you have left. And to know that I did it, I would gladly kill myself."
"Don't say that." She finally spoke as she rested her hands on his crossed legs and leaned closer in to him. "You can't say that to me. Please."
"Like it's that easy."
"It is." Lily commanded firmly. "It is that easy. If you're afraid of hurting me then don't think about killing yourself. You know that would just kill me too. Do you want to kill me, Sheldon?"
The tears met with her words, a few lone drops falling onto his rumbled jeans legs.
"Don't be stupid, Lily."
Immediately, as if a gutless will had come over her, she raised her hand from his lap to smack him roughly against the face. Sands' let his head drop back and away with her palm, accepting the sting of pain it caused, reveling in her strength under all given conditions. Moving her face into his, she fixed his glasses and brought her hand to his opposite cheek to move his head in her direction again, softly.
"You don't be stupid, Jeff. Say what you mean. Say what you're trying to already, get it over with and stop making me suffer. Don't you dare let me walk away a third time, because I promise you, at this rate, I eventually will."
She struck him hard with her words, made him concentrate on nothing and no one but her, left him sitting there beneath her invisible glare like a sinner in a storm of guilt and faithlessness. He knew exactly what was left between them, the only thing that hadn't been stated clearly in the ruff of a week's long argument and brawl of hearts. He knew all too well and all too damn clear.
"You ought to know how much I want to be near you by now. I can't stand when you aren't in the same room with me, or when you get mad and walk away. You want me to die? I only will if you don't stop me from getting away again; it's your call."
It was hot and cold and quiet and loud, ringing, blaring, soft, and sensational all at once. He sat there, her breath warm and cool on his nose and cheeks, her hands firm and gentle on his legs, her curiosity consuming him in both good and bad ways. And as much as he felt it all, he couldn't bring himself to the brink yet, he just couldn't say it. Not again, not after Mexico and losing trust, and especially not so easily after the eight years of tired agony he had been without her. Sands knew what he wanted and at the same time knew that what he wanted and needed was what would kill him if he didn't test the waters correctly, slowly.
"I don't want you to leave." He replied softly. "But I don't want you to think that everything is just going to smooth itself over after all this time."
"I don't think that."
"And yet you stay?"
Lily brushed the back of her hand against his tight jaw, her nerves shaking, "Yeah. I stay."
PART 2:
Chatham High School
February 13th, 1993
The last bell of the day rang and Lily could have sworn it was a Monday by the pace, never remembering it to be Friday at all. She tore off her apron and cleaned up a few dirtied beakers before grabbing her bag and meeting a few friends near the doorway of the Chem. lab.
"Bonfire tonight, Lil?" Her good and closest friend Bobby asked with a crooked smile as they wandered down the crowded halls. She still hadn't, in four years, picked up on his true feelings.
"Umm…I didn't hear about one."
"Yeah, down at White Pond about 9 or so."
It had been almost 3 years since her dad had passed away, shot down in a diner in East Boston. Valentine's night, the night Tommy had gone to his senior dance, the night everything changed. She had chosen not to go to this year's dance for obvious and emotional reasons, and instead had simply planned on staying in with her mother, and playing everything incredibly safe. It was what she needed, especially with it being Friday the 13th. She had no right to take chances.
"I don't know Bobby, I was sort of thinking about just staying home tonight."
"You…stay home? Yeah right." He laughed as they stepped down into the front parking lot of the school together, a few other friends attached behind, begging her to reconsider the beach and party. "Come on Lily, it will be fun!"
It was just as her Converse hit the bottom step of the schoolyard that she glanced out to see the sun gleaming off the black tint of a closely parked Trans Am. On the 77' restored hood, the slender and distinguished body of someone who barely passed for anyone old enough to be allowed on school campus leaned coolly. Jeff relaxed with a tight and glowing grin on his face, a single hole in the right knee of his jeans, and his muscles flexed without much effort through the thin cotton of his white tee. Lily stood for a moment longer, awkwardly smiling over at him, a hundred different whispering people in front and at her sides when she carefully walked in his direction.
"Lily…" Bobby tried once more, "What about tonight?"
But she was too lost inside of her college admirer and family friend of five months to care much about a silly high school bonfire. She walked away and met Jeff at the hood as he stood taller than her, his glasses pushed up and through his messy curls.
"Quite an audience for one girl."
She glanced back at the crowd embarrassed and then to him again. "I think you're the subject matter, Jeff."
"Oh." He replied proudly, curiously and raised his head higher to smile and wave at everyone. "Thanks for the greeting everyone…it's much appreciated!"
Lily shoved on his stomach for him to stop, laughing along.
"Cut it out…I'm mortified enough, thanks."
Looking down at her in the afternoon sunlight, her auburn curls floating at her neck and the blue-green of her eyes aglow like the waves off the coast, he could only smile.
"Will a ride help?"
"It's a start."
She nodded jokingly and took off toward the passenger's side, throwing her bag through the back window. She didn't think twice about her friends and what they were wondering. She didn't think twice about Tommy and what he'd say. She didn't think twice about whether Jeff was taking her home or taking her to Israel. She was unconcerned with details for the first time in three years.
Inside, the radio blared a toxic beat of classic something or other, the smoke rising from the back of the car was a billow she remembered a few times from Jeff's visits to the house, and the rattle of the engine around her was more exciting than anything she'd known before. As he backed out of the parking lot and streamed from the crowd loudly, he leaned over toward her for the first of many rides together, and grinned wickedly.
"I'm yours for the afternoon, Miss Hanson."
Rolling her eyes with a giggle, she stopped to look him straight in the eye; her lips pursed teasingly.
"Well if I'm not the luckiest girl there ever was…"
"Tell me why you want me to stay, Jeff."
"You don't believe me?"
"I do…" she urged, the small tip of her index finger tracing over his full, soft lips. "…I just want to hear you tell me. I want to know."
"It would probably be a hell of a lot easier to just list why I wouldn't."
She giggled and curled further into him, feeling eighteen again. His arms came around her the same as if it were a day at the beach or an afternoon at the docks or even a fourth inning stretch on a freezing Boston night. It had always seemed to stay just the same, no matter what he did to try and grow up and away from her, all these years later, the effect remained.
"I want you for this right now." He finally stated, quietly in her ear, less than a whisper even. She smiled into his arm and held him closer. "I want you here to put up with my bullshit. You're the only one that will."
"That's a good one." She laughed.
"I want you here to fight with me. To fight for me."
She watched as his face turned down with a wicked smile.
"I have to admit, I do love fighting with you."
"Don't I know it," he cackled with a firm grasp of her waist in his lap, moving his lips down to cover her forehead and nose.
"What else?"
"I want you to stay because I'm tired of thinking about you with other men, thinking about all those guys in bars trying to take you home every night."
"I assure you there aren't many."
"Yeah right," he murmured.
"As if you couldn't take them all anyway."
She whispered dreamily into his ear, her hands in his hair as Sands found he was unable to stall and covered her body until they landed one atop the other on the soft carpet. He felt around for any nearby furniture or items, to find the space available and waiting for whatever he wanted to do to her.
"I'll take them to the cleaners one by one if it means I get to have you to myself."
His hand brushed down her sides to feel out the warmth, the sedation of the moment. He needed to know it was real by touch and sense, the same as her eyes must have been. In a slow drape of his body, he came toward her breath and lowered his mouth to where he heard nervous hesitation, something he understood all too well at this point.
"I have to kiss you now…before I lose my mind."
She said nothing and waited, watching his body drop down; his lips separated and encased her own in a gentle swoop. There was nothing but heat, cloudiness blocking out the brightest of lights in the darkest of the spaces, her toes tingling against the carpet under him, her chest rising and falling shortly into his own as he held her to his mouth harder.
Lily wondered if any man without the simple skill of sight would ever be as capable of leaving her as restless as he did. She wondered how Jeff even cared enough to react this way anymore, and how he seemed to have found a subtle control in the chaos of their reunion…finally.
Offering his tongue to the inside of her mouth only as carefully as he knew his pressing mind could manage, Sands felt the tip of hers tingle and pulled back into darkness, his hand still holding her cheek from the ground. The sensation of her tongue, of her taste was clever. It took him to places he hadn't been in years, to things and feelings and conversations that had escaped his immediate thought process for far too long. It was like they had never made love before, eight years ago or that week. It jolted him in ways he hadn't known could remain.
Lily looked at him concerned, "Everything okay?"
He sat perched above her a moment longer, aggravating his mind with the question, letting it sink in, swirl about for answers, and then easily turned back to her steady breathing and whispered with a coy smirk.
"Yeah. Just a little déjà vu."
Harwich Port
February 13th, 1993
The sun had ceased to exist in the short fifteen minute drive from the school parking lot to the Harwich coast. The wind had picked up steadily, brushing against the sides of the car in haste, as if they were begging for them to turn around, to ignore the urge to keep driving. But Jeff did not stop and Lily did not ask why.
The Trans Am came to a disturbing halt in the middle of the empty dock lot, screeching with the ending edge of Don't Look Back. Jeff's fingers tapped to the last beat on the steering wheel as Lily shuffled to relax with the lack of movement, the nearing silence, the low rumble of the engine versus her heart beat and the sound of her brother's best friend humming in the seat beside her. She tried and only failed against the disturbing wind outside of the car, waiting for Jeff to speak, waiting for Jeff to say all of things she was curious about without having to ask questions.
He turned an instant later with a sidelong smile. "Good sailing wind today."
Lily could only briefly nod and hope her eyes weren't landing too closely on his lips as they moved.
He tilted his face away from her for a moment to peer up and out of the windshield of the car at the sky, "Shouldn't rain till late tonight."
"Hm." She hummed nervously in agreement.
"Feel like testing the waters?" His smile was back and his gaze upon hers then, as coolly as she had ever known any guy to act, as intimidating as she had ever known as guy to be. Lily had to admit though, that past the tension, she liked it.
"You mean on a boat?"
He chuckled loudly and tore the keys from the ignition. "Yeah. On a boat."
"I didn't know you had--"
Jeff cut her off with a hand on the back of her headrest and a leathery lean toward her. "It belongs to my old man."
"Oh."
"But he's out of town."
"Hm." She hummed again, anxious to get to some point in the conversation.
"Do you like boats?"
Her thoughts were instantly thrown forward, a deep breath loosening from her lungs as she giggled with a smile. "I'm sorry, yeah I do. I used to go out with my dad and Tommy all the time."
"So I heard." His words were soft, acknowledgeable, just. And following them was a clear silence, an almost necessary one before he returned to finish and seal the action. "Can you trust me to take you out on one?"
Lily's eyes darted from the wind filled sails and flags of the distant boats, to the small, fading green radio station numbers still half illuminated from the powerless car, and then up to his face again, gently. "I trust you," she said with a firm hand on the car door handle.
No more than a minute had passed further than they were both out of the car and headed down the docks. Five more minutes carried on with sporadic and humorous conversation to which they arrived at the sailboat, Jeff giving a tour while working on hauling its anchorage, and Lily mesmerized by the size, the beauty of the vessel with each step she took across it. Another ten minutes of laughing and musical debate continued while they slowly and steadily parted ways with the docks and met the fierceness of the Cape's wind head on. Jeff kept firm and barefooted behind the large wheel, his eye on only Lily and the rocking waves beyond her gust strewn curls, and Lily, seated comfortably in the center of the boats wooden deck, legs outstretched, jacket tight around her, and a smile that accepted every harsh slap from the stormy winds and every narrow bank of the coasts' outer tilts.
From behind her, she could eventually hear a call. "Not bad for a kid from Kentucky, huh?!"
She laughed and turned her head back to him at the same time. Lily noted the spray of water that landed in the same three places at his right cheek, neck and knuckles with every drop the boat made, as well as the tiny holes creeping out of the neckline to his shirt. Without his sunglasses on Jeff looked even darker, although his eyes were calm when they caught hers, begging for her to come closer, to be near him.
She got up carefully, her fingers latched onto all sorts of lines and railings until she reached the lower deck where he stood gripping the forceful wheel. "I'm impressed," she shouted back at him as her Converse sneakers landed beside his bare toes, still keeping her a whole foot shorter than him. Lily looked up into the grey haze to see him chuckling. The moment continued to a hesitated peace as they both looked out on the fogged horizon, catching short glimpses of porch lights, docks lights, and the glimmer of the lighthouse another mile or so out.
Relieving himself of one view to focus on another, Jeff drew his hand out from the wheel to catch Lily's at her side and tug gently back. "Come here a sec."
"What for?"
"I want you to feel something."
Only half accepting of the response, Lily gave him an awkward and twisted glance before she stepped in closer to him and the wheel. Jeff placed her hand gently onto the wooden spindle as his covered it and her body came to an easy stance between the two. She said nothing and moved nowhere, only focusing on his shallow breathing and the adjustment of the situation as he spoke deeply in her ear.
"Let me see your other hand too."
She prized him with her tender and cool palm as he drew it under his second hand as well.
"It's pretty choppy water…you feel that groaning at the hull?"
"Yeah."
"She's mad at me for taking her out in the storm." Lily laughed softly, catching his heart in a quick trap, even though she was unaware. "We have to be gentle with her."
"Or what?"
"Or she'll teach us a lesson…she can be mean when you don't expect it."
"Yeah?"
"The worst. Which is why I love her." He chuckled in a growl just over her head, and Lily noted the way he spoke of the boat, as if it were a close friend, a lover, something that entitled him to at least some happiness in the world. She knew he had very little elsewhere. In a second though, her thoughts were pulled away and her mind was captured on his soft words. "Do you feel that?"
Lily paused to focus.
"Feel that kick in the sails?"
"Yeah."
"Amazing huh?"
"Amazing." She agreed with a careful smile out to sea.
"What are you thinking about?"
Her whispering voice and the sensation of her hand on his cheek as he pulled away to sit beside her, were as confusing as the ideas tossing in his head. He could hear waves, and smell salt, air; her perfume caught in a taut sail and feel the misty wax under his bare feet. There she was, tiny and innocent in his arms. There she was for the first time and here now, as he listens to her breathe, he knows he has to answer to the memory and all of the subsequent thoughts of what could have been and what almost was.
They said nothing to each other, and eventually Jeff crawled away from her arms to stand and stumble back out to the balcony. His head was still reeling desperately, needing to know everything, needing to go back and mend things broken for far too long. Half of which, he admitted whole heartedly, he knew not a single aspect of doing.
Lily eventually followed his scent out through the doors to where the wind was picking up and growing colder, as a rumble of thunder threatened the skies at a distance. She sat on the edge of one of the patio chairs, her knees shaking together, her eyes fixed on the muscle protruding through the back of his shirt as he leaned into the rail, gripping the iron bars tight. She'd been here before and knew how it felt a long time ago, and had he not interrupted her imagery a second later, she might have gone on remembering it all.
With an almost hushed tone, but angry nonetheless, he spoke toward the wind.
"You didn't tell me you thought you were pregnant."
It was a shocking way to end the silence, a statement that cut like a knife from behind. She never saw it coming at all, mostly because she had no idea he even knew. He had been so lively and accepting through the afternoon and night, and yet it seemed their conversation, their interests in one another's, still weren't done. He wasn't quite done with the inquisition.
"Shane told you."
"No. She didn't."
"Then how did you--"
He slammed the palm of his hand against the iron top railing, "Damn it, Lily," and hid his face further into the shadows of his shoulders. His moods were on edge again, from one extreme to another in a flash. Minutes before he was admitting he wanted her to stay with him, and moments before that, he was ready to make love to her in the doorway. Now, he was attacking her for something that had 'almost' and 'never' happened, eight years ago.
"Just tell me why you never said anything about it. Don't you think I had a right to know?"
"Jeff, it was a long time ago." She whispered back, unwilling to raise her voice to him.
"How about when it was happening? That doesn't count for anything?"
"No."
"Why?" He demanded soundly.
"Because nothing happened. It was a false alarm."
He shook his head at this and returned to lean against the rail, eyes imagining a view of the streets and city below. Lily slumped back into the chairs high cushions, her knees pressed tightly into her body for warmth. She wanted to cry, but knew better than to bother with it yet. Instead she traced circles on the draping hem of her sundress where it fell over her bent knees, and listened intently to the sound of his labored, tired breathing. He wasn't getting the rest he needed when he could get it. He wasn't following his doctors - her - orders.
One more second passed with utter motionless in the universe, and he returned peaceably.
"Were you planning on telling me if it hadn't been a false alarm?"
Lily's eyes quickly darted to see his low face, weak with the pain of too many memories.
"Of course. I only wanted to know it was true first." She rose from the bench, but didn't move any closer to him. "I didn't want you to worry if it was nothing."
"Either way…" he began quietly, whispering into the wind, "It would have been something to me."
And it was this, more than anything else that be said thus far, which made the tears finally formulate in the ducts of her eyes, filling and choking her in a single moment. The worst part was that the way she saw him standing there, hurt and distressed, she knew he could have easily cried too. And yet he couldn't, ever.
She could barely stand, too feeble to continue the words being shared, and knowing that they must, knowing that it was a long time coming, this entire night and every feeling expressed in it already. Part of her wanted to fill in the gap between them, wrap her arms around him and never let go. And an even louder voice kept telling her somewhere deep inside, to wait, be patient, and let him see that he needs you just as much first. Let him make every necessary move on this chess board.
So she waited quietly.
"You must have been scared shitless." He hummed his concern and pushed his body from the rail to stand in a slouched limp on his good leg.
Lily replied simply, "I was."
"With Tommy…and then that." He made two slow, wobbling steps toward her and stopped again.
"All the more reason for me not to worry you with it too, Jeff."
He sighed deep and took another small step. "I could have been there for you. I tried to be there…"
She cut him off fast and shallow. "I know you did."
"But you didn't want me. You walked away." He moved in closer to her, just able to feel her breath on his neck and through his thin white cotton shirt.
"I had to let you go. I couldn't hurt you anymore."
"Now doesn't that sound familiar…?" he motioned with a faint smirk, thinking back on his own confessions in the hotel room an minutes before.
"So we both admit to concerning ourselves with each other's emotions too much."
"I guess so."
He reached out to feel for her skin, to find her exact position in the wind between him and the city, between death and life. Lily watched as his hand moved around in the space in front of her, until it came up to rest lightly on her cheek. She leaned into his certain touch hesitantly, the tears rolling from her eyes to his palm. "I had a feeling you were crying." He whispered and stepped in until there was no space left.
"What else is there left to do anymore?" She sniffled and continued when he didn't reply, letting his hand remain on her cold, wet cheek. "We've fought for a week just to get to the point where we can say we care about each other, again. And look…" she stopped herself in embarrassment. "Sorry. I didn't mean that the way it--"
"I know." He whispered, brushing back the tears and distress he could hear and feel on her face.
"It's just that, all of this crap, all these words we keep saying to each other…are they even fixing anything? I still feel so broken. And you look broken."
"But I feel fine."
"You're just saying that. Your mood flips every three seconds. You're happy, then you're mad at me, then you want to sleep with me, then you want to hit me…it's just so…"
"Lily, stop." He urged, grasping onto her face, hands to cheeks holding her still and calm.
"Breathe for me, would ya?" She laughed out the tears into his hands, her eyes settled in confusion as he wiped her nose with the pad of his thumb, and her eyes with the stretched cotton of his shirt. He didn't need to be able to see, to know what to do, and that made her feel better in some respect.
After she took a deep breath, he spoke to her again gently.
"For just a second…think about who we are Lily, you and me. We're not exactly common ground in the world of romance. Let's face it, I'm no Romeo." She wanted to laugh, but held back, realizing he was serious. "The shit's piled up right on top of us, one thing after the other and it's still racking up." He moved his free hand around in motions she hardly paid attention to, she could only focus on his lips moving. "This…us…it's never going to be easy. It's always gonna be really fucking hard. We're gonna have to work on it every day from here on out, because every day it's going to be something else kicking our asses."
He paused for a moment when he felt something hit his nose, a raindrop. Standing tall again and taking in a deep breath of a coming storm, he welcomed it. His hands moved down her cheeks to hold her shoulders, his thumbs brushing her ears to relax her when he felt her body trembling into him. After another moment, he returned, lowering his voice and face to a level where he could feel her breathing on his chin, and spoke again.
"I've seen things in my life and out there that are going to haunt me until the day I die. And no offense Babe, but ink blots and pills aren't going to solve it all."
"I know that." She whispered at the interval, a couple of thicker droplets hitting her forehead and cheek.
"We're going to have to fight for it, same as we have all week. I've been pushing you away to keep you safe, and to see if you'd come back. And you do, every single time. So I know at least you're not ready to give up so easily."
"I'm not."
"Well neither am I. I want all of you again Lily…I want what I had the first time multiplied a hundred times over. I want to know you'll let me be the one to worry about stuff for you, not your mom, not your friends…me. I want to be the first one you think of, good or bad."
He stopped talking and thinking to breathe, to let her say something. But he held onto her, clinging for life, for the effort to be what he had struggled so long to hide under his bullet proof exterior. Lily had made Rome crumble somehow.
She stood under his touch and imaginably pensive gaze, trying to picture it, the thirty year mark from where they were at this moment, where they could be. She saw waves, and a dock on a beach, and she saw a man sitting on an easterly coastline with a guitar in one hand and another one held out for her to take. She saw all of this and too much more to not look up at him and smile, the warm rain beginning to fall loosely between their faces.
"I'm going to fight for you, Sparky."
He smiled with a deep breath. "Yeah?"
"Yes."
She leaned in to where his lips were at her level still, taking hold of his dripping face with her hands and bringing his mouth in a crash upon hers. The water soaked into their kiss, like the freshest memory being made. He let himself go at her will, finding his hands suddenly engulfing her slighter form and pulling her drenched and deep into him. Lily's tongue pierced his lips before he could attempt the same on her, and she met his fiercely, desperate for any and all possible contact. He lifted her body from the wet ground to the even wetter air around him, the skirt of her dress falling away from her legs as she clung to him, kissing his lips hard and running every one of her fingers through his damp, blackened locks.
Somewhere in the distance of the pouring balcony, they both tuned directly into the faint sound of music, drifting up through the raindrops towards them from the hotel pool cabana below. There were voices following a harmony, the distinct nature of a nearby band. Lily pulled away from his lips long enough to hold a hazy gaze into the rain over Jeff's head, glancing out with a breath to take it all in, the thing she still couldn't believe was even real. It never seemed so real to her.
She turned back to his face in the rain, to see that he had torn off his glasses, and that the water was running down over the stitched and bruised skin where his eyes once were. Lily thought she might cry again and it would go unnoticed in the rain, but she didn't. Instead her fingers moved up to brush against the tender patches of skin, followed by her lips, sliding and kissing over them one by one.
"You don't scare me, Sheldon Jeffery Sands. You never have."
He grinned and squeezed her waist tighter to his as he walked her back in the direction he now officially knew the room and their bed to be in.
"You're the first person to tell me that."
