Chapter 26—
Ziva was frighteningly silent for most of the evening. She went to Tali after Tony left, and cooked her dinner. They ate quietly. Tali was too worried to say anything, or to eat much, really. But she did not want to hurt Ziva's feelings, so she gobbled up every last bite. They watched TV together afterwards, but Tali kept turning to watch her sister. This was not the happy, in-love girl she'd seen the day before. And Ziva knew that she could not be fooled. She had barely tried to hide the fact that she felt miserable. But of course, that backfired on her.
"Ziva, what's wrong? Are you sick?" Tali asked. Ziva shook her head, and feeling a pang of guilt that she was worrying her sister. God, she was being selfish. She couldn't do that. She wished she could, sometimes. But it wasn't an option. "D-did you and Tony have a fight?"
"We did," Ziva answered with a crack in her voice.
Tali did not point out that just yesterday things had been perfect. Tali had learned that perfection's biggest flaw was that it was always temporary – which meant it wasn't really perfection, after all. Ziva and Tony had seemed perfect together, though. Their time couldn't be over this quickly, could it? Surely Ziva had earned longer happiness that what she received.
"He loves you," Tali promised.
"I know he does."
"Then what's wrong?"
"It is complicated."
"Maybe it doesn't have to be."
Tali kissed her sister's temple in the way that made Ziva feel like the roles should be reversed. She didn't say anything else. She didn't ask what had happened. She just left.
Ziva heard the taps running in the bathroom and Tali brushing her teeth, and she heard the rustling of sheets, but after that, she didn't hear anything. The silence consumed her and she pulled her knees, covered by thinned sweats, up to her chin.
Anything that would have made Ziva feel better on a hard night – which was typically the time-consuming task of watching The Sound of Music or whatever was on TV, really. Something she could lose herself in. But now all that just reminded her of him. That was the irritating thing about connotations – they were either joyous or pitiful and there was little resting room between the two.
The worst part was knowing that she almost wanted to be reminded of him every second. She had let herself fall, and thinking about him had become habit. This had never been her intention.
She fell onto her bed on top of the covers. Her hand moved to her hair, running her fingers through her own messy curls. Tony had touched her there only two nights ago. Her fingers followed his path – down her neck, across her collarbone, ghosting down her ribcage and settling at her hip. She ached to have his hands on her more than she cared to admit. Nobody had touched her like he had touched her. Nobody had ravished in the sight of her, and nobody had told her that he liked how soft she was.
She thought back to that night – it seemed forever ago now, though it wasn't – the night that they had first met. She'd pinpointed him, and she'd analysed him. Yes, he had just been another client, another guy, but from the get-go, there had been something different about him.
She'd strutted over to him and parted her legs to dance over him, her hips circling to the sound of the music, and he'd visibly fought himself not to make a sound, not to objectify her. He hadn't touched her until she told him to do so. He'd been nervous.
For a guy whose reputation was with girls in similar occupations, he had seemed apprehensive.
Maybe he had been trying to turn away from that lifestyle after all. Make a clean break.
She discarded these thoughts out of fatigue and fell asleep against her pillow.
...
Tony had kicked a hole in the wall beside the outside door of her apartment after leaving. He was furious. Not with her – he could never be – with himself.
The odds had been against from the beginning. Maybe this was best. Maybe being apart would save them the heartbreak. But nothing truly worth it came without heartbreak, and he knew that. He knew the second he saw her that she would be worth heartbreak, and yet the universe told them no. Everyone told them no.
Was he crazy? Was falling in love with her his way of convincing himself that he was better than the women and the drinking and the partying, or had he really changed? These questions repeated themselves over and over in his head on the way home.
He couldn't believe Danny had said anything, for a start. He had tried to tell her – he knew that if not told properly it would . . . well, it would go down like this. But he knew it was going to be important. He was waiting for the right time, and for the correct phrasing to come to mind.
And he couldn't believe the way he'd acted in his own defence. He'd been so desperate to try and make her not so unbelievably angry that he had actually made it worse.
He'd lost her. The only girl he'd ever loved and he'd lost her.
Even the strongest drink in his cabinet did not soothe the aching. A glass rim was much more unforgiving than her soft lips were.
...
Work the next day just sucked. It was eight hours of avoiding gazes and running away from each other and it drove both of them completely crazy.
As soon as Danny walked into the office, Tony had pulled him aside.
"I would just like to sincerely thank you for killing my relationship," Tony said, bluntly.
"She ended it?"
"Don't you get it? She was a stripper!" his voice was harsh and whispered. "To think that I was some kind of mindless, drooling hormone machine, worthlessly objectifying women who don't deserve it . . . does nothing for the relationship."
"She took it really personally, huh?"
Tony's face remained still as stone. "You are supposed to be my best friend, Dan. You've done nothing to cause me anything but trouble."
"I didn't wanna see you get hurt."
"Bet it's satisfying to know that you are the one responsible for hurting me, but thanks. Really." Not really.
...
In spite of it all, just past noon, there was a sandwich on her desk. She looked across the office floor at him. There was nobody around.
"Tony," she said, and he turned his head, like he was forgetting that they hadn't spoken. "Did you –"
"It's not a gesture or anything," he interrupted. "It's not my version of flowers or something. Not that I wouldn't send you flowers – I mean, I would if I thought it would make a difference but you're smarter than that. I just thought you might be hungry."
She gave him a grateful nod and bit into her sandwich and he looked at her, happy, for a lingering moment.