A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, it means so much to me. I'm not going to do huge author's notes in this story, but I wanted to let everyone know that this is slightly AU, something I don't usually do. I just didn't want to have to let places, actual real estate values, the fact that America doesn't have a good soccer team or a huge amount of people who follow said soccer team, to get in the way of the story. I just want to tell it. So when I say that certain areas are less expensive, or make up place names, it's not because I'm an idiot, I'm just creating a work of fiction based in very little geographical and societal reality.
Cheers,
Dinah
Rochelle finds me lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Two hours have passed since I left the living room, enough time for Mr. Clay to hash things out for the future. I have become an expert in tuning out the arguments or the sounds of parties going on in this house, so I hardly notice when Rochelle knocks on my door. It is only when she enters that I in any way register her presence.
"He was too harsh with you, Anne," she says, coming to sit next to me on the bed. I continue to look up at the ceiling. I don't want to have yet another talk about how much my father actually loves me, but can't show it. After twenty-two years, I know the truth. "He's under an extreme amount of stress right now, and I'm sure he'll thank you for your hard work at the end."
I address my roof, "You don't have to make excuses for him, Rochelle. My mother already did that enough for both of you." I'm in a bitter mood, and I don't feel like hiding my thoughts. She can just deal with them or leave. She's the one person I treat like that. No one else gets that kind of honesty. Not since—
"I know you're angry, Anne Elliot, but do not take it out on me. I've done nothing to you except try to steer you in the right direction, and help you deal with your father and sisters, and lend you money when you needed it—"
"—Rochelle—"
"—Not that I'm asking for it back, mind. I barely even notice it's gone. But my point is, don't get angry at me for trying to help this situation you have going on here, all right? I'm the only one who understands who doesn't have to worry about getting fired if she makes the Great Walter Elliot angry." There is a pause as she looks at me, and I trace the cracks in my ceiling with my eyes. Then she says, "Mr. Clay has them looking at real estate in Bath."
An involuntary shudder runs through me. "Super."
"I know how much you hate it there, but I think you have to stop associating it with your mother. You just have to take it as a place, not the place where—where she—you know." I nod, not trusting myself to say more. I miss my mother now so much that I can feel a physical pain somewhere in my abdomen.
"I hate this break-up of your family. You know that you are the only friends I have here now. And now you're leaving, too. I don't think I'll be able to come here again, not even to greet the new tenants. Not until you come back to live here with a fantastic, rich, beautiful husband and your twenty babies." I don't react externally. Internally, though, it feels like all my organs have shrunk back in pain. She, of all people, should know me better than that.
"Anne, darling," she says, this time with a bit of diffidence in her voice, something strange and new for me, "you need to take better care of yourself." I turn my head to look at her face, and she meets my gaze and says, "I've never seen you so unhappy in my entire life. And I know that you've never been very happy since You-Know-What happened…and I know that it was a huge disappointment to you, the way things worked out, but I think you need to pull yourself together, move on with your life. It has been five years, after all, and I think that you should—"
"I really don't want to talk about this, Rochelle—"
"—try to get back to where you were before. It would be best for you, you know. You need to eat more, you look like a stick, sweetie—"
"—Thanks, and I know I need to gain weight, but please, hear me out—"
"—And I think this time away from your father and Elizabeth might do you a world of good." She concluds. I wait, making sure she is finished, before I move on, speaking slowly and clearly.
"Rochelle. I appreciate your concern, and believe me, I share your opinions on a lot. And don't think that I blame you for…for what happened, because I don't. But now, after everything, I'm starting to realize…I'm understanding that I shouldn't have cared what my father thought, that I should have done what I wanted to, because—because—"
"Anne, you were nineteen. And what was he, twenty? He was a soccer player trying to get on the National Team, on any team, for that matter. He didn't have a bright-looking future, he didn't have many prospects, and he didn't seem like the kind of man your father would have let you see anyway. You were too young for that kind of relationship. You made the right decision, I promise you."
I want to yell at her, to tell her that there was no gauge on how old a person has to be before she is old enough to fall in love with someone. I want to tell her that the right thing to have done would have been to do what I thought was right, not what Dad wanted. I want to tell how much I still love him, even now.
But I don't. Instead, I press my lips together tighter and close my eyes, turning my face skyward again. After a bit, Rochelle pats my leg and quietly gets up to leave, and I sink slowly into troubled, lonely sleep.
Ahmir Wentworth is the greatest soccer player in the world. The best since Zinedine Zidane. Since Thierry Henry. Still young, a solid twenty-five, he has a good ten years before retirement. He is beautiful, he is rich, he is eligible.
In other words, he is the kind of man Rochelle would approve of.
If she didn't already disapprove of him, that is. It was too bad I had met him at nineteen, because if we were to meet now, nothing would stand in our way.
But I'd sufficiently screwed that up now. My only comfort had been that I would never see him again. But now, with his sister and his coach living in my house, there is very little chance that I will be able to avoid him indefinitely.
My eyes open slowly, looking at the same ceiling I had been intent on a few hours before. My clock says two-twenty AM. I roll out of bed, knowing that I'll never be able go back to sleep now. I never can sleep when I think of him.
I pad downstairs, no longer careful to be quiet. My family sleeps so soundly, a tap-dancing, belting Broadway chorus would never be able to stir them. The thought makes my mouth quirk a bit in my newly-acquired version of a smile.
I step up into one of the two gigantic armchairs in the den. I settle down into the chair with my legs pressed up against my chest and my feet flat on the seat. I run my finger up the left arm lightly, thinking that they are the only things I'll miss when I leave. Funny, I think, again with the odd mouth quirk, that was what I thought when I left for college when I was eighteen.
I switch the television on, flipping through infomercials and bad made-for-TV movies, most of which involve teenage pregnancy or last-minute altar confessions of love. My finger pauses as a picture flashes up on one of the many sports channels my father pays for but never watches. I look hungrily at him, at his dark skin, his closely-shaved head, his wide, bright smile, his brutally athletic physique. I sound like a rag mag, like one of the millions of gossip columns.
I am not over him, I tell myself again. It's nothing new. I tell myself this everyday, sometimes multiple times, when I see his picture, when I watch a game on stolen time. I thought I'd never see him again? I see him everyday. That was the only comfort I had.
The commentator goes on and on about Ahmir's prowess, on his teamwork, on his class. He pushes him as the greatest player in the history of the world. As is the fashion of early morning/late night programming, multiple other men in suits jump in to support or refute his suggestions. Ahmir's picture disappears from the screen and I flip the channel impatiently. I finally settle the first movie channel I find, playing something truly melodramatic and badly shot. I get up from my seat, accompanied by the sound of the alcoholic ex-wife begging for forgiveness from her grieving husband, and roam around the first floor of the house. The house that is not my house. I make a note of everything that Elizabeth will want, what my father will want, what I would want. Mine is the smallest of the three. I don't want to take this place with me. I make my way to the basement closet, where a huge collection of cardboard boxes waits. I start bringing them up, labeling them, filling them. I figure that I can't get an early enough start.
By eight o'clock, I have finished boxing the first floor, the CD's and DVD's in alphabetical order, the books by author, the particularly expensive articles that serve no use but to show off our wealth. Those boxes I label "SELL." I get up from the floor, capping my magic marker and stretching, cracking a few bones in my back and in my neck. I reach to scratch my ribcage, feeling with dismay the individual ribs underneath the skin.
You're not over him, I tell myself again. You're not over him, and you don't take care of yourself, and you're miserable. I hope you're happy with that. I make my way to the kitchen to eat a big breakfast for once, when Elizabeth steps into my path.
"Anne, you have to talk to the gardener now. He wants something and I have no idea what he's saying. If these people just learned English, we wouldn't be having this problem." I want to snap at her for her stupidity. Instead, I say, "Can it wait? I was going to have some—"
"No, it can't wait! He's after something, and if we don't get to the bottom of it, we're going to have a disgruntled servant on our hands, and then he's bound to do something bad to us or the Crofts! You know how it is." She folds her arms, and I see she'll scream at me until I do something.
Breakfast will have to wait. I step outside to talk to Jayron, when Elizabeth calls out, "Anne, we're out of milk and bread. Can you go get some when you're done?"