Fic: We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try) (4/5)
We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try)
Part Four
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It’s second nature to call Nathan, now, when she gets out of the meeting and knows he has the afternoon free.
It’s not quite second nature that she knows his schedule so well, but she has a strange feeling that it could be, if given the chance.
‘Should we meet at the cafe?’ he asks, his voice a deep rumble across the line, and she smiles to herself, content that no one can see it and know what it means, but strangely... cold, at the thought that Nathan isn’t there to watch it unfold, and return its heat in kind.
‘I’m on my way home,’ she answers, quick, thoughtless - natural -- ‘meet me there.’
It’s after she walks in, sits down, waits for the knock on her door that she realizes, suddenly, that she’s never had a man who wasn’t Edmund in this house.
Sure, he’s picked her up in the morning once or twice, driven her home and kissed her goodnight on the porch like a black-and-white romance with the wind in her hair, but he’s never crossed the threshold, never stepped inside.
When she opens the door and waves him in, it feels immense; anti-climactic. He grins at her, pulls her in for a kiss, lets his palms linger on the points of her elbows before he pulls away and follows her to the kitchen; it feels right, she thinks, having him here.
He fits, here.
She ducks into the refrigerator, grabbing a bottled water and a beer for Nathan, hiding her surprise, her uncertainty against the rush of cool that escapes the open door, letting it soak against her skin to camouflage the blush that rises in her cheeks.
“How’d it go?” he asks her, surreptitiously eyeing the lightly-feminine decor, lavender shades against pale yellows, sunny accents here and there around the room, as he settles at the table, takes the glass of iced tea that Juliet hands him before sitting down herself.
“Well, I think.” He smiles, tips his glass toward her for a congratulatory toast out of the cheap colored cups she’d bought at Winn-Dixie a lifetime ago; she can’t quite swallow her giggle as she taps her drink against his.
“Think you’re going to go for it?”
She sips, swallows, mulls around an answer. “I don’t know,” she finally says, honest, as she folds her hands and rests her chin against her knuckles. “It really is an excellent opportunity. But I don’t know how I feel about being so far away from...” she trails, thinks of Rachel, of Nathan, and coughs, uncertain, “everything, you know?”
Nathan nods, seems to pick up on what she wants him to, the things she doesn’t say; seems to miss what she keeps hidden with intention. “I mean,” he starts, “and don’t take this the wrong way, but I could, you know, talk to some people. Set you up with something, if it’s the University you’re looking to get away from.” There’s understanding, compassion in his eyes as he says it, and she thinks she’s lucky, to have run into him not just the once.
“Trying to win me away from the competition?” she teases, jabbing an accusatory finger at him in jest. “I don’t need anyone doing me any favors.”
He laughs at her, stretches his legs out across the tile, drapes his ankles over the legs of the table. “No,” he says, grinning around the lip of his cup, “no, you don’t.”
She doesn’t know how it’s meant, but she takes it as a compliment, a vote of confidence, and it radiates through her from head to foot.
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From that point, things begin to shift, to bow and give to the new presence, the new course her life seems to be taking without her permission, without her instruction. He spends the night in her bed more often than she spends it in his; and they sleep together more than they sleep apart. She buys an extra razor, and a bottle of mouthwash to keep at his house, and his toothbrush sits next to hers on the sink-top; he buys her oatmeal to keep at his place, and she makes sure that she picks up white bread when she’s out shopping, and not just wheat -- they both learn to turn the toaster down and up accordingly, after she burns her bagel and he has to toast a waffle four times to get the proper scorch.
It’s gradual, the way her paradigm shifts to accommodate this new rhythm, this new ebb and flow that’s so foreign to her, so familiar; and overall, it’s exhilarating, and a little terrifying, the way they learn each other in the little ways, the unspoken, simple way - nowadays she notices the thrumming of her heart more often than she ever did, as if she’s always anticipating something unspoken, unlooked for, and the adrenaline sets her off-balance, off-kilter; even so, though, she’s never felt more alive.
And that’s what kills her; what kills her -- she’d never wanted to feel this again, and she can’t quite shake that resolve, even when feeling it again feels so good.
But then she learns to expect the way he smells, rubbing off and lingering on the pillow that used to lie untouched next to her; she expects the way he sets his phone to vibrate in the mornings, because he needs an extra half-an-hour to get ready, and he thinks it’s quiet enough, the buzzing against the bedside table, to keep from waking her. She expects the padding of his feet in her dreams when he gets up for the bathroom in the middle of the night, and the subtle squeak of the mattress when he settles back in next to her. She learns to expect the feel of her next to her, the way he pulls her close -- loose, but still sure -- as he drifts back off beneath the sheets.
She learns to appreciate anew the taste of sunlight and the echo, the tang of his seed on her lips when he leaves; the ghost of his touch on her skin, between her thighs. She learns to miss the feel of his lips on hers, his weight atop of her -- his mouth kissing her hello as much as goodbye. She relearns how to gravitate, how to live in a concentric sort of orbit with another, versus spinning by herself, and she finds the world is vivid again, infused with zest and vibrancy. It’s almost painful, almost a curse -- she’s exposed beneath the color and the shade of so much life, and it’s awful and wonderful, all agony and terror and the flutter of her heart in her chest when his hand brushes hers as she stirs a dinner made for two.
Because reaching for her toothpaste and grabbing his on accident, or taking a sip out of his coffee in the morning when he’s buttering his toast, because his is warmer and the creamer in hers has taken the edge off too soon -- they’re all gears, spokes on a bike she’d ridden once before, had crashed and mangled and barely survived, if she’s honest, and she’s gripping the handlebars now to the point of blisters, to breaking; her hands are still burned from the first time around, knees still skinned; and she’ll be damned if she reopens those wounds when she’s only just managed to staunch them.
She’ll be damned.
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Perhaps it was naive -- no, not perhaps; it was naive -- but she hadn’t thought about the fact that this was not where he belonged; that he had a home, a profession, a life somewhere else that had nothing to do with her, nothing to do with here, and someday, inevitably, he’d have to go back.
And it’s not as if it’s a sordid affair, where he slips off into the night without a trace. He tells her, the day he finds out -- or so he states -- while threading cufflinks into his sleeves and pulling the starched material straight at the wrists.
“They need me at the firm,” is his lead-in, and Juliet, she doesn’t react, merely remains in bed, relishing the way that the sunlight flitters, crosses the threshold of the window sill and warms the sheets so that when her skin starts to cool as the words sink in, and the night seeps away, she doesn’t notice the chill.
“It’ll be a couple of weeks, if I’m lucky,” and Juliet, she just picks at the threads in the bedding, pulls them until they fray further, come undone. “Month at the most.”
“But I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promises, sounds sincere. He eyes her in the mirror, and she can feel the gravity of his gaze on her top of her head where it’s bowed in his direction.
She hears his steps pad softly on the carpet, and she feels him settle at her back, the mattress pulling her into the dip of his weight. And when his hands rest tenderly, carefully at the globes of her shoulders, cupping them with wide palms and massaging at them warmly; when his lips press gently at the line of her clavicle, his nose dragging slow at the curve of her neck as he breathes, when he holds her to him and buries his face against her, the line of his glasses hard and cool against her skin; as she clutches the sheet to her naked chest, it’s a strange, yet fitting, sort of goodbye.
She tells herself she’s glad he didn’t ask her to come with him; knows she’d have had to say no. She tries to convince herself that it doesn’t matter.
It’s not a particularly winning argument.
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“So this guy,” Rachel starts in one evening, her hair budding in a beautiful shade of strawberry blonde, nearing auburn at the roots. She pauses, balancing a slice from the block of muenster cheese she’s cutting on the edge of her knife and raising it gingerly to her lips, flicking the piece between her teeth with the aid of her tongue. “Do I get to meet him anytime soon?” The words are muffled as she chews nonchalantly, returns to slicing her pieces and arranging them between the squares of sharp cheddar and the sloppy chunks of brie she’s already finished.
“Maybe,” Juliet says between munching at crackers, laughing as Rachel swats her hand away from her well-manicured stacks of cheese. “He’s out of town.”
Rachel shoots a knowing smirk in her direction, and Juliet can feel the hint of blush creep up in her cheeks before she even hears her sister’s smart remark. “Oh, so that’s why you’ve decided to come spend a lonely Saturday night with me, is it?”
“I came to spend a lonely Saturday night with you because you’re my favorite sister in the world,” Juliet protests airily, dredging up her favorite argument from their childhood.
“Cute,” Rachel deadpans, obviously unimpressed, but the quirk of her lips betrays something of amusement, and Juliet grins at it, the flush in her cheeks turning pleased now, versus embarrassed. “That would mean so much more if Mom and Dad had even thought about having more children.”
“Hey,” Juliet gestures with a Wheat Thin between her fingers, “Dad almost knocked Larissa up the year after the wedding, remember?”
“That so doesn’t count,” Rachel counters, turning up her nose in disgust; Juliet had never loved their stepmother, but Rachel outright hated the woman.
“So,” Rachel picks up again, her tone serious and firm as she sets down her Cutco and leans against the counter, arms crossed as she stares Juliet down with a little bit of sternness, a little bit of knowing affection curling in her lips, “do you like him?”
“Do I like him?” Juliet parrots sarcastically as she swallows down the corner of a Triscuit. “What are we, twelve?”
She’s rewarded with square of cheese aimed expertly at her face; it connects, and sticks for a moment of the bridge of her nose before it falls to the countertop.
She picks it up and eats it triumphantly, which earns a laugh from her sister, and yes, in fact, she does feel about twelve years old at that exact moment.
“I like him, yes.” And that statement, little confession: it feels both wildly inadequate and far too soon, and it sends an uneasy, uncertain sort of flutter through her as she chews, swallows heavy and tight as the implications, the emotions constrict her throat.
The light in Rachel’s eyes as the words settle is almost worth saying them, almost worth the way she feels a little lightheaded. “And?” she asks earnestly, propping her elbows on the countertop and resting her chin on her palms as she stares Juliet down like they used to when Rachel had started dating Albert Winford in eighth grade and Juliet had wanted to know exactly how it felt to kiss a boy, or when Juliet made out behind the bleachers with Ryan Samson before sophomore Homecoming, and Rachel’d thought it was the most adorably romantic thing in the world and refused to let her sleep until she’d recounted every pointless detail, from the bruise the metal bars had left on her hip to the fact that there were Kit-Kat wrappers on the ground next to them.
And she wants to tell Rachel something, wants to give her a nugget of information, something good to keep the brightness in her gaze alive a little longer, but when she opens her mouth, she pauses; and she never gets any farther than that, because she closes her lips, parts them, closes them again, and realizes that to go any further, to say any more -- it would require a little more soul searching than she’s willing to engage right now. She doesn’t have the energy, doesn’t have the will; and she’s still absolutely incapable of outright lying to Rachel without giving herself away.
She snaps out of her daze when Rachel heaves a heavy sigh, catches the roll of her eyes as she straightens, groans and stretches backward with the heels of her palms digging hard into her back as she tries to loosen her muscles, release the tension pooled at the base of her spine; she grimaces, shudders the tightness away as best she can, and shrugs before she turns away, humming idly to herself as if nothing had happened, when Juliet had just sat before her wrestling with her own helping of internal conflict.
“Where are you going?” she asks, a little indignant, because she’s conflicted, damnit; she’s floundering and she’s flying and she’s lost, and Rachel’s cracking the seal on a bottle of water and humming to herself what sounds a little like an insurance company’s commercial jingle.
“Well,” Rachel huffs, “if you’re not going to spill the juicy details, I’m going to watch Big Brother and eat delicious food, because my feet hurt. And I’m pregnant, so I’m allowed to be a lazy glutton who watches reality television, and no one can judge me. At least for another few months.” She rubs her belly fondly before reaching over Juliet and grabbing for the cheese, balancing awkwardly on her toes while Juliet simply stares at her, still a bit baffled at why, exactly, her sister watches that godawful show.
“Oh, you wanted some?” Rachel asks innocently as Juliet stares after her as she carries the whole plate, cradled possessively against her chest and balanced against her baby bump with deft care as she saunters into the living room, still getting her sea legs, adjusting to the weight at her middle; “Sorry. Looks as if the cheese is spoken for.”
Juliet simply laughs, forgets about the pesky ‘and’ that’s been tagged on the tail end of whatever it is she has with Nathan -- ‘relationship’ seems trite and uncertain, or maybe just too fucking terrifying to ponder just now -- and takes the knife and the cutting board to the sink, her sister’s off-hand comment of “There’s a can of Easy Cheese in the ‘fridge, though, that you’re more than welcome to,” echoing from the couch.
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She’s called in on an emergency procedure for a colleague's patient; she’s being briefed on the details of the case as she scrubs in, and even as a nurse ties her surgical mask at the base of her skull, she knows that it’s a long shot, even for her. They’re working with a three-percent survival rate, if they’re lucky; she’s beaten worse odds, she’ll grant it -- but it doesn’t look particularly good for either the mother or the baby.
She loses them both within the first fifteen minutes.
And it’s not as if she hadn’t lost patients before -- she’s always know that, doing what she does, and how she does it, she’ll always lose more than she saves. It’s who she is, in her bones.
It’s in her bones; and her bones fucking ache with it.
She calls Nathan’s cell; the first time she’s used the number he gave her to call him, and not the other way around -- the first time, it goes straight to voicemail, and she closes her phone before the message even gets past the greeting.
She orders a latte on her way home, runs a palm over her face, but the coffee tastes stale, smacks too bitter. Goes down too rough. Burns.
She sits in her living room, wedges into the corner of her couch, and she contemplates calling Rachel for a dangerous minute before she realizes she only smells the air freshener, and the hint of her perfume on the fabric of the sofa; the scent is that of months before, like nothing had changed, and it’s in that moment that she realizes just how much has, just how different things are.
Everything’s changed, despite her efforts to the contrary.
Her phone fits, falls into the cup of her palm, the shape of it wavering as her eyes glaze over, watering with everything and nothing she can ever understand, everything she wants to pretend isn’t happening, not again. She focuses on anything but the way the gloves on her hands had snapped at her skin as she’d scrubbed out, stained red; the way her breath feels choked against the throb of her heart; the way his hands feel at her waist, just above her breasts -- comfort and safety and warmth.
Love's a funny thing -- terrible, insidious, heartsick thing. She can’t say the word anymore -- not like that, not out loud -- it still hurts too much where it should feel light, but she remembers what it’s like, what it does, how it swirls and dives and lingers, takes her by surprise. She remembers what love is like, and as much as she wants to hate the thing that’s heavy and whole inside her chest, wants it to be gone; as much as it kills her, she knows what it feels like.
She knows.
And before she realizes what’s happening, before she can make it stop, she’s bleeding, in her own way; tears streaming until she can’t make out her hand in front of her face as she wipes them away flowing freely -- and goddamn; but she’d tried so fucking hard.
She knows he’ll be back on Friday -- back, she reminds herself firmly, not home -- and she doesn’t know if that’s enough time; doesn’t think it’s soon enough.
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She’s not quite asleep -- not quite awake, either -- so the sounds of entrance, of approach are muddled in between dreaming and waking; they don’t catch her attention like they should.
She starts, for a moment, when his weight dips behind her in the bed, when he reaches for her; it’s the sound of his voice that keeps her from panic, though, a low greeting that jostles her away from the edge of dreaming. His palm on her hip, his chest braced against her shoulder blades, it sends a shiver through her as she feels the tension swell in her throat, strangle before it dissipates in a subtle, quiet sob that gets lost as he leans in, as she turns, pushes to sit on the mattress -- they meet in the middle, torsos pressed flush as she falls back, and he follows, caught between her legs, taking her mouth against his, her tongue alongside his own.
She aches lazily against him, her breasts loose underneath her sleepshirt, pushed to the sides as he lays his body against her chest, pillowed against his pecs as she ravages his mouth, clenches her thighs against his sides, feels the cut of his abs against the fleshy insides of her legs, hard where he meets her soft, and she swallows a moan when she rocks forward, forceful enough so that the crease of her gives against his growing erection, even through her panties.
Whatever little restraint, little hesitance remains between them: it’s gone between heady breaths as he pinches the edges of her underwear and slides them to her knees where they bend, leans in to inhale the scent of her as he presses a kiss -- a promise -- just behind the joint, lets his tongue slide dark against the fold of her skin. He slides his hands up against her thighs, bears some of her weight as she scoots up, back -- lets her spine align at the center of the headboard, banging the wood hard and hallow against the wall.
He’s in her quick -- the lapse between the last time they were together and the moment they’re in now too long, too lonely -- and if either of them had any presence of mind, the time it takes for the friction between them to drive them both to completion is nothing at all; to them, though, it lasts a lifetime, and their pulses hammer hard in their lips as they kiss through the shuddering descent, one unlike the other but thrumming, making their own kind of time.
“Maybe I should go away more often,” he whispers, chokes in strained tones as he fights for mastery, for the air in his lungs; “if this is the kind of welcome I receive when I get back.”
“No,” she moans, and he holds her closer like it’s instinct, second nature. “No.”
There’s no pretending this away anymore.
“Don’t go away.”
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He’d asked her in passing, but something about his eyes when he’d said it had betrayed the weight of it, the importance; she hadn’t yet met anyone who knew him.
Funny; he’d never met anyone who knew her, either.
She wears a skirt and a nice blouse -- the gap between work and their reservations at seven shrinking with every signature she needed to give and case she had to review -- and Nathan, bless him, does nothing but smile when she answers the door and barely bothers to usher him in as she scrambles for wherever she left her purse.
He’s still grinning at her, leaning up against the walls as she smoothes her clothes, dressed in a suit that fits him just so, clings just right, and leaves her mouth a little dry as she stares openly for a good few moments before she blinks and looks away.
“Should I change?” she asks, suddenly self-conscious. He only crosses the distance between them and presses a quick kiss to each corner of her mouth; says she looks gorgeous, which in hindsight isn’t an answer at all.
She should really have changed.
If it’s not the impeccable black-and-white perfection of the establishment’s staff as they mill about, from the bartender to the maître d' and the valet out front nods at Nathan with a certain respect that Juliet can’t quite decipher, then it’s the veiled looks that shoot, crackle in their direction from every which way, from nowhere in particular, that bore under Juliet’s skin and fester, and she fidgets a bit even as Nathan puts a hand at the small of her back, settles her nerves.
She’s only just composed herself when they reach the small side room -- a private reservation, and she’s staring down the coldest eyes she’s ever seen.
“Nathan,” their owner says, his white mustache moving with the words, his teeth gleaming predatorily, as he claps a hand against Nathan’s shoulder. She barely hears as Nathan introduces him as Mr. Linderman. She hardly remembers to hold on her hand when he moves to shake it.
“Nonsense,” the man says, smile so tight it can be barely be called a smile. “Call me Daniel.”
She doesn’t.
Linderman asks inane questions of them both -- was there traffic on the way, wasn’t the weather gorgeous today -- speaking at his leisure before turning to the stoic-looking man and woman already seated at the table, introducing the middle-aged male as ‘my associate, Mr. Paik’ in an way that didn’t invite reaction or response, and ignoring the woman entirely. The woman, for her part -- a young lady of Asian descent, with a conservatively-cut evening gown and dangling crystals hanging from her ears - avoids making eye-contact of any kind, in a deliberate way that makes Juliet particularly uncomfortable.
Generally speaking, it’s a decent gauge of the evening as a whole.
The conversation ebbs and flows, with the occasional aside to translate for the mysterious Mr. Paik -- who seems to understand English well enough, but seem decidedly less interested in speaking it himself, for reasons Juliet can only guess at. For her part, she nods as she feels it’s appropriate, following the conversation as far as she can, cares to; most of it’s outside her realm of expertise, mostly investments and numbers versus what the investments themselves entail, but she manages an expression of polite disinterest that she hopes conveys something favorable -- she hasn’t felt the need to impress so keenly since she was in high school.
She scans the menu when the waiter comes, starts with her -- of course; the words kiwi and lime and prawn jump out at her, and she immediately decides on that dish, in hopes that it’s not too pedestrian for their evening’s company. No one looks at her too strangely as orders -- or else, no more strangely than they had been already -- so she takes that as a good sign.
She almost feels human, really, until Linderman decides to turn talk to more personal matters, namely Nathan’s current pattern of residence.
“It’s best to take time now and again,” he comments sagely as Nathan mentions enjoying himself in Florida. “Overdoing things cannot lead to happiness, after all. But sooner or later, Nathan,” and here, he nods his head, his eyes taking on a sheen of wisdom that doesn’t quite soothe or suit, “you will have to come home.”
Nathan extends the pause that lingers after with a sip from his drink. “I have a lot of options,” he finally replies, an answer that betrays nothing for sure, his eyes unreadable. “Here and there, wherever really. Think I’ll just cross those bridges when I get to them.”
“You should be at home, Nathan. Your family,” and Linderman stops, emphasizes the words in a way that seems to mean something layered, something hidden, “misses you.”
Nathan scoffs, takes a deeper drink from his glass. “They’ll survive,” he quips with unbridled sarcasm. “They’ve been surviving, just fine.”
“Whatever distractions you’ve entertained here,” and Juliet doesn’t miss the rapid-fire flick of that frigid gaze in her direction, doesn’t miss the way it settles hard in her stomach and tight in her throat. “They’re fleeting, Nathan. Your future, your birthright, is in New York. It always has been.”
“The future can change,” Nathan says shortly, and Juliet’s not sure if he leans toward her, or if she imagines it. “You of all people should know that.”
Linderman seems content to let the matter drop in favor of eating his caviar when it arrives, but the tension that pervades is stifling, and Juliet can barely bring herself to nibble at the crab cakes that the server sets before her.
It doesn’t take long before the thick unrest is shot through with urgency once more, as the course disappears steadily from the platters littering the table; and of course it’s Linderman who sets the strain alight.
“I do believe I could use a cigar before our meals arrive,” and even Juliet can tell it’s half posturing, half an excuse. “You’ll be good enough to indulge me, Nathan?” And Linderman stands, regal and overbearing, without apology to his guests or pause to see that Nathan would actually follow. Her eyes trail him as he exits the room for the corridor beyond, and she only turns away when Nathan lifts her hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. She wonders if this is how it would be with him, beyond the fantasy or the pretense; wonders if he’s cut from a different cloth, something more refined than what she’d come to expect.
She stares at her plate instead of at Nathan’s retreating form as he, too, leaves.
She samples the selection of hors d'oeuvres littering the table with careful elegance -- something that doesn’t come nearly as easily as it seems to for her companions; she chews slowly and bites daintily, and she has the strange feeling that she looks like a little girl trying to have tea with the Queen, having only practiced with a Fisher-Price tea set full of apple juice, serving her collection of stuffed animals.
She only manages to try three of the ornate morsels still left on the table before the weight becomes too much; cornered -- and a little bit uncomfortable, to be honest -- Juliet doesn’t wait for the man and his guest to make eye contact with her. She merely murmurs something ironic about needing to powder her nose, laughs in fractured, strained little bouts at a joke they might, but probably don’t find amusing as she stands and hurries from the room, the fall of her heels too loud in the silence.
It’s not that she means to find Nathan, really -- though she wants to, for certain; it’s more that he and Linderman are a bit hard to miss when she exits the private dining area and breathes a deep sigh against the scents of cooking things clashing with expensive perfumes.
She hears them -- tones, though, not words -- before she sees them, tucked around the corner. They’re pinned together, huddled against the wall near what she suspects must be the kitchen.
“You’re being childish, hiding here,” Linderman snaps in an undertone, all hints of civility gone. “Your... indiscretions-”
“You can stop there.” And she’s never heard Nathan sound quite that harsh, that cold. “I somehow remember you telling me once that I should mind my own affairs. I’d suggest you did the same.”
Linderman leans in closer, drops his voice to a dangerous hush that Juliet has to strain to hear. “Need I remind you that you work for me, Nathan?”
“I work for you,” Nathan spits, and she can see the twisted lines of his face in the shadows. “My life outside of that is my own.”
“Your family has been my family for decades, Nathan.” He looks like he means to say more, but Nathan neck is bowed low, his face turned to look Linderman in the eyes, gaze serious and stony as he forces his words past a rigid jaw, the syllables clipped beyond the point of debate.
“What I choose to do is none of your concern, do you understand?”
Linderman looks at him, eyes hard, for the sparest moment before he sneers, lets loose a bitter laugh. “Don’t be so eager to bite the hand that feeds,” he admonishes shrewdly, his threatening features narrowed with a laughing sort of cruelty that sends shivers down Juliet’s spine.
Nathan, though, seems only offended, only enraged. “I don’t need your money.”
“You need your father’s,” Linderman parries, and there’s something knowing in his eyes, something that lights the flames brighter in the Nathan’s.
“I don’t need anyone’s charity.”
“You’ll have to hope, at least, for Heidi’s won’t you?” And if the name, and the gravity, the sense of a weighty blow attached to it, hadn’t been enough to send Juliet’s stomach plummeting, the way Nathan flinches, goes silent as the fire in his gaze turns frosty, lethal, and the color drains just a little from his face -- well, that would have been plenty.
“You’re crossing a line,” Nathan retorts, and his voice doesn’t sound anything like him, all thin and sharp like a blade drawing blood.
Linderman doesn’t seem fazed; he merely mocks with a withering, sparkling kind of glare. “What would she say, I wonder, if she saw you? If she knew?”
Nathan shakes his head, turns, runs a hand over his face, and even from a distance, Juliet can see the way it shakes. “She’s in no position to judge, anymore.”
“Isn’t she?” Linderman baits.
“No.” And Nathan’s tone is final, livid. “She isn’t.”
“We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?” Nathan looks as if he’s about to walk away, but Linderman grabs his arm and keeps him there; Juliet, for reasons she doesn’t comprehend, decides to make good on her claims of needing the ladies room and ducks away before they see her, before they notice she was ever there at all.
She stands before the mirror, one hand clenched against the smooth marble sink while the other rests high on her chest as she catches her breath, revels in the deep soak of oxygen in her lungs. She blinks at herself, runs water she doesn’t dare to touch; tells herself that eavesdropping is frowned upon for good reasons, and she needs to let it go. She doesn’t know what she heard -- what it means, if anything. She sighs and splashes water across the flush of her cheeks, mindless of the way it tracks through her foundation, runs lines across her mask.
It’s only after repeating over and over, soundlessly as she moves her lips at her reflection, that she simply doesn’t want to know, that she’s able to make her legs move, make them carry her to the door and back to her dinner.
The food is there, she notices first; the next thing she sees is the way Nathan lights up when she walks in the room, and it puts her at ease for the moment, to see how he seems to really want her there. The shrimp is light, slick on her tongue, the flavors rich, full and cascading with each bite, and she thinks it might be okay, thinks she might be able to last out the night.
Until she glances up, unawares -- put a little more at ease by Nathan’s hand on her thigh beneath the table, out of sight -- and catches Linderman staring at her from across the table, the food in her mouth turning to ash in the heat, the hate in his gaze.
She tries to smile when Nathan asks her if she’s alright, tries to graciously deflect his attention as she sets her fork down and folds the napkin on her lap; she tells him she’s full and hopes he believes her.
Frankly, though, she's lost her appetite.
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The day had been a rough one to begin with: Nathan having to leave unexpectedly after the infamous Linderman Affair -- as she liked to think of it, at least -- being the most obvious of her problems. He’d promised to be back by week’s end, asked her to water his plants -- or else, those of her plants that were now in his home -- and kissed her for a good ten minutes before and after the quickie they’d managed in the car when she’d convinced him to leave the driver and let her drop him at Departures; all in all, despite the sort of empty, hollow feeling at her center, it was a a good enough goodbye.
And while it should comfort her, she supposes -- that he blew her a kiss as he walked into the airport, that his eyes behind his glasses looked genuinely sad to leave her behind -- it does the exact opposite; it reminds her, once again, that they’ve never talked about what this is, what they have or don’t have, what it could be, might be.
Could become.
When she’d gotten into work, things hadn’t much improved. The coffee machine was broken, and she hadn’t had enough time to so much as stop for something wildly caloric and shot through with espresso from a drive-thru after getting Nathan to his terminal. She’d been swamped with patients on the one day she’d set aside for shoring up some loose ends on her research -- the very research that needed to be summarized in a draft to send for publication by the end of next week. Her labs we taking forever, and the damn techs were gabbing without working significantly more than their paychecks warranted, she was sure of it. She’d run out of birth control, and had forgotten to call in her scrip.
Her day had brightened when Rachel stopped in for her appointment -- not that she didn’t have enough doctors, as Juliet often reminded her, but she was adamant that her sister see to her on at least a semi-regular basis, and Juliet wasn’t particularly inclined to argue; the first time she smiled since that morning was when Rachel started griping on how damn cold the ultrasound gel always seemed to be, and simple as it was, it seemed like a turning point in her day, her mood. She bought a can of soda from the machine with enough caffeine in it to keep her going for the rest of the afternoon. She convinced a few colleagues to take some of the afternoon patients off her hands so that she could fit in an hour or two to work on her article. Even the labs she’d rushed for Rachel had been completed ahead of schedule. Things seemed to be looking up.
Scanning the results, though; she wishes they hadn’t.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So, doc,” Rachel rubs an idle hand across the ever-growing swell of her belly as Juliet walks in, lets her hand linger on the handle of the door, the lean of her weight more than actual intention of force pushing the door closed behind maybe. The cool metal seeps beneath her pores as she grips it harder, stills as the latch clicks shut, lets the contact, the smoothness under her palms steady her, soothe her as she eyes the results in her hands; “what’s the verdict?”
The day had been rough to begin with. She lets her eyes scan over the paperwork in her hand, familiar numbers and levels she’s had memorized since med school, hoping that with one more look, one more cursory glance, the words and the digits won’t imply that possibilities they do; that the longer she looks, something might change.
It doesn’t.
“What’s your schedule look like later this week?”
Rachel’s expression doesn’t dampen by degrees; it crumbles in on itself, a collapse, and it’s more than heartbreaking to watch, because regardless of everything, she knows that Rachel still hadn’t trusted this, still wasn’t willing to believe in a miracle after so many promises had been broken, after so many chances had been lost. “Why,” she asks immediately, her voice tight and her eyes narrowed, lips thin, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Juliet answers, glances up and makes eye contact for the barest of instants before she has to look away. She doesn’t know, yet -- it might be a bad read; she thinks back to the number of technical errors and inaccuracies that she’s encountered in her career, just how many people have been the victims of clerical errors or technical malfunctions, but it’s not enough -- not enough to quell the lump her throat, to calm the heavy throb of her pulse as she tucks her hair behind her ear, a nervous tick. She hopes Rachel wasn’t looking, didn’t see it. “Just a few things on your labs, is all. I want to run a few more tests.” She tries to lean against the wall with casual nonchalance, like she’s not panicking inside. She tries to remember how she keeps composed for every other patient she sees, everyone who isn’t her sister, her only real family. “I just want to make sure nothing’s going on that shouldn’t be.”
“Is it serious?” Rachel’s not stupid. She’s more observant than any one person has a right to be, and she knows Juliet, knows her. Denial had obviously failed; perhaps damage control was her best course of action, at this point.
“It’s probably nothing,” Juliet backtracks, forces a smile, infuses every syllable with false confidence that she tries to keep steady, keep sure as her lips form the words, as her voice threatens to waver. “I just want to be sure.”
“Juliet,” Rachel starts, and there they are -- the beginnings, the first hints of tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as she blinks, keeps her eyes closed as the color drains from her cheeks and she steels herself, forces through tight lips. “Don’t...” She takes a shaky breath, squeezes her eyes, exhales; looks at Juliet with grim acceptance, prepared for the worst, and even if Juliet could have managed to tell her the possibilities before -- the possibilities that would have been probabilities with anyone else -- there’s no way she can do it now. “Is it serious?”
She sits next to Rachel on the exam table. “You’re my sister,” she says simply, as if it’s an explanation; and it is, it truly is. “And this...” she slings an arm around Rachel’s shoulders and pulls her close, kisses the top of her head with all of the love and solidarity she can possibly convey. “This is something that’s never been done before. It’s risky, Rache. I want to make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Rachel sniffles, leans into Juliet’s embrace. “You didn’t answer my question.” And Juliet knows it, may have been more cognizant of it -- may have tried better to mask her evasion -- if she weren’t trying to remember the phone number of Rachel’s oncologist.
“It’s not serious.” Yet. “And it might be nothing.” But it isn’t. She’s pretty damn sure that it isn’t.
It has to be nothing. It has to be.
The sinking in her stomach, though, as she gathers her sister’s hands between her own, notes how cool they are at the palms -- clammy against the heat of her wrists, but alive, alive; the sinking tells her otherwise.
“And if it isn’t nothing? We’ll fix it.” Because that’s what she does, is fix people. Fix people who are beyond repair, beyond hope. She fixes people.
Because if she can’t fix them, what use is she? What’s the point of her at all, if she can’t fix what’s broken?
If she can’t fix her fucking sister, after everything, what was the point of any of it?
“So there’s no need to worry, okay?” She strokes an open palm rhythmically over Rachel’s almost-bob, combing through the locks, losing her fingers in the soft wave of curls. Rachel doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, and she’s tense enough to break beneath Juliet’s touch, about to shatter at just too harsh a motion, too brash a word.
“Okay?” Juliet repeats, her hand stilling, cupping the back of Rachel’s head and holding her just that little bit closer.
“I’m just...” Rachel whispers, all but broken -- and it’s Juliet’s fault. “I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“I mean,” and Rachel sniffs, all the feeling she’s holding back, that’s pooled hard behind her eyes -- bloodshot, without any salt on her cheeks. “At first, I was just so shocked that it worked. And I was so happy. But now...” She swipes her forearm across both eyes, dabs at the tears before they have a chance to escape, to shatter whatever illusion is left. “Now all I can think of are all the things that could go wrong.”
“Shhh...” Juliet soothes as Rachel starts to shake, as her eyes clench and she falls back into the safety of Juliet’s shoulder, buried away from everything, everyone. “Look at me.” Rachel stays put, and Juliet brings a hand to her cheek, notes the dampness, the fact that they’ve both lost something precious in this moment -- a sense of idealism, a level of hope they’ll never reach again.
“Look at me,” she urges again, runs her hand tenderly across Rachel’s jaw until she looks up, meets Juliet’s eyes, and Juliet doesn’t have to feign anything, doesn’t have to manufacture the warmth in her gaze, the affection and the kind of foolhardy, fathomless devotion that only her sister has ever been able to inspire. “I am going to get you through this,” she says firmly, keeps their eyes locked tight as slides a hand down to Rachel’s belly. “Both of you. I will do whatever I have to. I promise. I’m going to make sure that you get to be a mother, Rachel,” she vows, knowing it’s hopeless, knowing she’ll fail; never caring, not once. “Whatever it takes.”
“All right?” And Rachel nods, breathes, speaks without sound before choking on a sob; she shakes her head, and Juliet rubs her thumb patiently, rhythmically against Rachel cheek until she heaves a gasping, shuddering breath that catches, but endures.
“All right,” she trembles, and Juliet just keeps her breathing calm, lets Rachel match her own to the cadence. “All right.”
Rachel nods idly, silently for another few minutes, building enough resolve for the both of them as they sit there, one holding the other -- and Juliet draws on that solidity, that certainty, even as it flickers, shivers; as always, it’s Rachel who’s the strong one, even if she doesn’t know it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She’s distracted, unsettled -- the thought of Rachel still weighing heavily on her thoughts, on her heart atop everything else; she doesn’t think before she has the key in the lock and the door already opened that Nathan won’t be back until tomorrow, and running to him for comfort, for a place to shut the world away, would require more miles than she can afford to cross.
She sighs heavily, leans in against the kitchen counter, flips her PDA out, and runs the stylus over the screen. She has exactly three hours before she needs to meet with Mittelos, let them down gently -- she thinks it’s probably for the best.
She grabs a glass from the cupboard, fills it with tap water, testing the temperature with her fingertip, interrupting the spray and scattering droplets to the sides. She darts around to the spider-plant the in corner, its leaves crisp and yellowed from too much sun and not enough love, to the African violets above the television, back over to the prayer plant -- which sadly wasn’t “praying,” and in fact looked rather pathetic and wilted -- before the rhythmic, high-pitched beeping from Nathan’s landline answering machine got the better of her.
With a sigh, she walks to the display on the machine -- only one missed called, which makes sense, seeing as Nathan’s mobile is his main form of communication -- and she vows silently to only let the message play far enough to skip it, to stop that infernal beeping so that it doesn’t split her head in two before she leaves; she promises herself she won’t listen, before she ever presses the playback button. It’s a promise she means to keep.
Until she hears the voice on the recording; then it’s a promise she breaks.
“Nathan,” and the voice -- a female voice -- is exasperated, devastated, disappointed, hurt -- all at once. “It’s me. Look...” the woman trails off, and something hangs in the silence, the rustle of static on the recording -- shifts and coils in Juliet’s stomach.
“Nathan, I know things between us haven’t been good lately, but we’ve been together for a long time.” She tries to think of all the ways that two people can be together -- business partners, friends -- but she doesn’t quite buy it, doesn’t quite believe, and the doubt runs cold in her blood as she fights the urge to turn it off, to delete the message and forget the unforgettable.
“And I know you. I know you, and I know how much you like being away on business.” She flinches at the tone, the intimacy and the resignation that bleed across the line; she can’t help it.
“Because you don’t like it. You hate being away on business, Nathan. So, you being gone for the better part of the past seven months?” Had it only been seven months? Had it been seven months already? “That was the first red flag. And I’m not stupid,” and there’s a sigh that follows, that echoes, filled with things that deepen the fracture gaping in her chest.
“I’m not an idiot. I know what it means when I see my husband three times in the space of half a fucking year.” There are more words, more things said, but it’s that single word that takes the fracture and cracks it in two, leaves her reeling and falling and exposed, clutching at the ledge of the countertop just to stay standing.
There are questions that cycle through her mind. Of course there are questions.
Only it feels like she has the answers already, without asking them. She’s never felt so sure of what she doesn’t know.
The woman, on the machine; it’s strange, but she sounds like a Heidi.
She grabs for her keys and leaves just as she entered; she doesn’t lock the door.
Part Three // Master Post // Part Five
Part Four
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s second nature to call Nathan, now, when she gets out of the meeting and knows he has the afternoon free.
It’s not quite second nature that she knows his schedule so well, but she has a strange feeling that it could be, if given the chance.
‘Should we meet at the cafe?’ he asks, his voice a deep rumble across the line, and she smiles to herself, content that no one can see it and know what it means, but strangely... cold, at the thought that Nathan isn’t there to watch it unfold, and return its heat in kind.
‘I’m on my way home,’ she answers, quick, thoughtless - natural -- ‘meet me there.’
It’s after she walks in, sits down, waits for the knock on her door that she realizes, suddenly, that she’s never had a man who wasn’t Edmund in this house.
Sure, he’s picked her up in the morning once or twice, driven her home and kissed her goodnight on the porch like a black-and-white romance with the wind in her hair, but he’s never crossed the threshold, never stepped inside.
When she opens the door and waves him in, it feels immense; anti-climactic. He grins at her, pulls her in for a kiss, lets his palms linger on the points of her elbows before he pulls away and follows her to the kitchen; it feels right, she thinks, having him here.
He fits, here.
She ducks into the refrigerator, grabbing a bottled water and a beer for Nathan, hiding her surprise, her uncertainty against the rush of cool that escapes the open door, letting it soak against her skin to camouflage the blush that rises in her cheeks.
“How’d it go?” he asks her, surreptitiously eyeing the lightly-feminine decor, lavender shades against pale yellows, sunny accents here and there around the room, as he settles at the table, takes the glass of iced tea that Juliet hands him before sitting down herself.
“Well, I think.” He smiles, tips his glass toward her for a congratulatory toast out of the cheap colored cups she’d bought at Winn-Dixie a lifetime ago; she can’t quite swallow her giggle as she taps her drink against his.
“Think you’re going to go for it?”
She sips, swallows, mulls around an answer. “I don’t know,” she finally says, honest, as she folds her hands and rests her chin against her knuckles. “It really is an excellent opportunity. But I don’t know how I feel about being so far away from...” she trails, thinks of Rachel, of Nathan, and coughs, uncertain, “everything, you know?”
Nathan nods, seems to pick up on what she wants him to, the things she doesn’t say; seems to miss what she keeps hidden with intention. “I mean,” he starts, “and don’t take this the wrong way, but I could, you know, talk to some people. Set you up with something, if it’s the University you’re looking to get away from.” There’s understanding, compassion in his eyes as he says it, and she thinks she’s lucky, to have run into him not just the once.
“Trying to win me away from the competition?” she teases, jabbing an accusatory finger at him in jest. “I don’t need anyone doing me any favors.”
He laughs at her, stretches his legs out across the tile, drapes his ankles over the legs of the table. “No,” he says, grinning around the lip of his cup, “no, you don’t.”
She doesn’t know how it’s meant, but she takes it as a compliment, a vote of confidence, and it radiates through her from head to foot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From that point, things begin to shift, to bow and give to the new presence, the new course her life seems to be taking without her permission, without her instruction. He spends the night in her bed more often than she spends it in his; and they sleep together more than they sleep apart. She buys an extra razor, and a bottle of mouthwash to keep at his house, and his toothbrush sits next to hers on the sink-top; he buys her oatmeal to keep at his place, and she makes sure that she picks up white bread when she’s out shopping, and not just wheat -- they both learn to turn the toaster down and up accordingly, after she burns her bagel and he has to toast a waffle four times to get the proper scorch.
It’s gradual, the way her paradigm shifts to accommodate this new rhythm, this new ebb and flow that’s so foreign to her, so familiar; and overall, it’s exhilarating, and a little terrifying, the way they learn each other in the little ways, the unspoken, simple way - nowadays she notices the thrumming of her heart more often than she ever did, as if she’s always anticipating something unspoken, unlooked for, and the adrenaline sets her off-balance, off-kilter; even so, though, she’s never felt more alive.
And that’s what kills her; what kills her -- she’d never wanted to feel this again, and she can’t quite shake that resolve, even when feeling it again feels so good.
But then she learns to expect the way he smells, rubbing off and lingering on the pillow that used to lie untouched next to her; she expects the way he sets his phone to vibrate in the mornings, because he needs an extra half-an-hour to get ready, and he thinks it’s quiet enough, the buzzing against the bedside table, to keep from waking her. She expects the padding of his feet in her dreams when he gets up for the bathroom in the middle of the night, and the subtle squeak of the mattress when he settles back in next to her. She learns to expect the feel of her next to her, the way he pulls her close -- loose, but still sure -- as he drifts back off beneath the sheets.
She learns to appreciate anew the taste of sunlight and the echo, the tang of his seed on her lips when he leaves; the ghost of his touch on her skin, between her thighs. She learns to miss the feel of his lips on hers, his weight atop of her -- his mouth kissing her hello as much as goodbye. She relearns how to gravitate, how to live in a concentric sort of orbit with another, versus spinning by herself, and she finds the world is vivid again, infused with zest and vibrancy. It’s almost painful, almost a curse -- she’s exposed beneath the color and the shade of so much life, and it’s awful and wonderful, all agony and terror and the flutter of her heart in her chest when his hand brushes hers as she stirs a dinner made for two.
Because reaching for her toothpaste and grabbing his on accident, or taking a sip out of his coffee in the morning when he’s buttering his toast, because his is warmer and the creamer in hers has taken the edge off too soon -- they’re all gears, spokes on a bike she’d ridden once before, had crashed and mangled and barely survived, if she’s honest, and she’s gripping the handlebars now to the point of blisters, to breaking; her hands are still burned from the first time around, knees still skinned; and she’ll be damned if she reopens those wounds when she’s only just managed to staunch them.
She’ll be damned.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perhaps it was naive -- no, not perhaps; it was naive -- but she hadn’t thought about the fact that this was not where he belonged; that he had a home, a profession, a life somewhere else that had nothing to do with her, nothing to do with here, and someday, inevitably, he’d have to go back.
And it’s not as if it’s a sordid affair, where he slips off into the night without a trace. He tells her, the day he finds out -- or so he states -- while threading cufflinks into his sleeves and pulling the starched material straight at the wrists.
“They need me at the firm,” is his lead-in, and Juliet, she doesn’t react, merely remains in bed, relishing the way that the sunlight flitters, crosses the threshold of the window sill and warms the sheets so that when her skin starts to cool as the words sink in, and the night seeps away, she doesn’t notice the chill.
“It’ll be a couple of weeks, if I’m lucky,” and Juliet, she just picks at the threads in the bedding, pulls them until they fray further, come undone. “Month at the most.”
“But I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promises, sounds sincere. He eyes her in the mirror, and she can feel the gravity of his gaze on her top of her head where it’s bowed in his direction.
She hears his steps pad softly on the carpet, and she feels him settle at her back, the mattress pulling her into the dip of his weight. And when his hands rest tenderly, carefully at the globes of her shoulders, cupping them with wide palms and massaging at them warmly; when his lips press gently at the line of her clavicle, his nose dragging slow at the curve of her neck as he breathes, when he holds her to him and buries his face against her, the line of his glasses hard and cool against her skin; as she clutches the sheet to her naked chest, it’s a strange, yet fitting, sort of goodbye.
She tells herself she’s glad he didn’t ask her to come with him; knows she’d have had to say no. She tries to convince herself that it doesn’t matter.
It’s not a particularly winning argument.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So this guy,” Rachel starts in one evening, her hair budding in a beautiful shade of strawberry blonde, nearing auburn at the roots. She pauses, balancing a slice from the block of muenster cheese she’s cutting on the edge of her knife and raising it gingerly to her lips, flicking the piece between her teeth with the aid of her tongue. “Do I get to meet him anytime soon?” The words are muffled as she chews nonchalantly, returns to slicing her pieces and arranging them between the squares of sharp cheddar and the sloppy chunks of brie she’s already finished.
“Maybe,” Juliet says between munching at crackers, laughing as Rachel swats her hand away from her well-manicured stacks of cheese. “He’s out of town.”
Rachel shoots a knowing smirk in her direction, and Juliet can feel the hint of blush creep up in her cheeks before she even hears her sister’s smart remark. “Oh, so that’s why you’ve decided to come spend a lonely Saturday night with me, is it?”
“I came to spend a lonely Saturday night with you because you’re my favorite sister in the world,” Juliet protests airily, dredging up her favorite argument from their childhood.
“Cute,” Rachel deadpans, obviously unimpressed, but the quirk of her lips betrays something of amusement, and Juliet grins at it, the flush in her cheeks turning pleased now, versus embarrassed. “That would mean so much more if Mom and Dad had even thought about having more children.”
“Hey,” Juliet gestures with a Wheat Thin between her fingers, “Dad almost knocked Larissa up the year after the wedding, remember?”
“That so doesn’t count,” Rachel counters, turning up her nose in disgust; Juliet had never loved their stepmother, but Rachel outright hated the woman.
“So,” Rachel picks up again, her tone serious and firm as she sets down her Cutco and leans against the counter, arms crossed as she stares Juliet down with a little bit of sternness, a little bit of knowing affection curling in her lips, “do you like him?”
“Do I like him?” Juliet parrots sarcastically as she swallows down the corner of a Triscuit. “What are we, twelve?”
She’s rewarded with square of cheese aimed expertly at her face; it connects, and sticks for a moment of the bridge of her nose before it falls to the countertop.
She picks it up and eats it triumphantly, which earns a laugh from her sister, and yes, in fact, she does feel about twelve years old at that exact moment.
“I like him, yes.” And that statement, little confession: it feels both wildly inadequate and far too soon, and it sends an uneasy, uncertain sort of flutter through her as she chews, swallows heavy and tight as the implications, the emotions constrict her throat.
The light in Rachel’s eyes as the words settle is almost worth saying them, almost worth the way she feels a little lightheaded. “And?” she asks earnestly, propping her elbows on the countertop and resting her chin on her palms as she stares Juliet down like they used to when Rachel had started dating Albert Winford in eighth grade and Juliet had wanted to know exactly how it felt to kiss a boy, or when Juliet made out behind the bleachers with Ryan Samson before sophomore Homecoming, and Rachel’d thought it was the most adorably romantic thing in the world and refused to let her sleep until she’d recounted every pointless detail, from the bruise the metal bars had left on her hip to the fact that there were Kit-Kat wrappers on the ground next to them.
And she wants to tell Rachel something, wants to give her a nugget of information, something good to keep the brightness in her gaze alive a little longer, but when she opens her mouth, she pauses; and she never gets any farther than that, because she closes her lips, parts them, closes them again, and realizes that to go any further, to say any more -- it would require a little more soul searching than she’s willing to engage right now. She doesn’t have the energy, doesn’t have the will; and she’s still absolutely incapable of outright lying to Rachel without giving herself away.
She snaps out of her daze when Rachel heaves a heavy sigh, catches the roll of her eyes as she straightens, groans and stretches backward with the heels of her palms digging hard into her back as she tries to loosen her muscles, release the tension pooled at the base of her spine; she grimaces, shudders the tightness away as best she can, and shrugs before she turns away, humming idly to herself as if nothing had happened, when Juliet had just sat before her wrestling with her own helping of internal conflict.
“Where are you going?” she asks, a little indignant, because she’s conflicted, damnit; she’s floundering and she’s flying and she’s lost, and Rachel’s cracking the seal on a bottle of water and humming to herself what sounds a little like an insurance company’s commercial jingle.
“Well,” Rachel huffs, “if you’re not going to spill the juicy details, I’m going to watch Big Brother and eat delicious food, because my feet hurt. And I’m pregnant, so I’m allowed to be a lazy glutton who watches reality television, and no one can judge me. At least for another few months.” She rubs her belly fondly before reaching over Juliet and grabbing for the cheese, balancing awkwardly on her toes while Juliet simply stares at her, still a bit baffled at why, exactly, her sister watches that godawful show.
“Oh, you wanted some?” Rachel asks innocently as Juliet stares after her as she carries the whole plate, cradled possessively against her chest and balanced against her baby bump with deft care as she saunters into the living room, still getting her sea legs, adjusting to the weight at her middle; “Sorry. Looks as if the cheese is spoken for.”
Juliet simply laughs, forgets about the pesky ‘and’ that’s been tagged on the tail end of whatever it is she has with Nathan -- ‘relationship’ seems trite and uncertain, or maybe just too fucking terrifying to ponder just now -- and takes the knife and the cutting board to the sink, her sister’s off-hand comment of “There’s a can of Easy Cheese in the ‘fridge, though, that you’re more than welcome to,” echoing from the couch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She’s called in on an emergency procedure for a colleague's patient; she’s being briefed on the details of the case as she scrubs in, and even as a nurse ties her surgical mask at the base of her skull, she knows that it’s a long shot, even for her. They’re working with a three-percent survival rate, if they’re lucky; she’s beaten worse odds, she’ll grant it -- but it doesn’t look particularly good for either the mother or the baby.
She loses them both within the first fifteen minutes.
And it’s not as if she hadn’t lost patients before -- she’s always know that, doing what she does, and how she does it, she’ll always lose more than she saves. It’s who she is, in her bones.
It’s in her bones; and her bones fucking ache with it.
She calls Nathan’s cell; the first time she’s used the number he gave her to call him, and not the other way around -- the first time, it goes straight to voicemail, and she closes her phone before the message even gets past the greeting.
She orders a latte on her way home, runs a palm over her face, but the coffee tastes stale, smacks too bitter. Goes down too rough. Burns.
She sits in her living room, wedges into the corner of her couch, and she contemplates calling Rachel for a dangerous minute before she realizes she only smells the air freshener, and the hint of her perfume on the fabric of the sofa; the scent is that of months before, like nothing had changed, and it’s in that moment that she realizes just how much has, just how different things are.
Everything’s changed, despite her efforts to the contrary.
Her phone fits, falls into the cup of her palm, the shape of it wavering as her eyes glaze over, watering with everything and nothing she can ever understand, everything she wants to pretend isn’t happening, not again. She focuses on anything but the way the gloves on her hands had snapped at her skin as she’d scrubbed out, stained red; the way her breath feels choked against the throb of her heart; the way his hands feel at her waist, just above her breasts -- comfort and safety and warmth.
Love's a funny thing -- terrible, insidious, heartsick thing. She can’t say the word anymore -- not like that, not out loud -- it still hurts too much where it should feel light, but she remembers what it’s like, what it does, how it swirls and dives and lingers, takes her by surprise. She remembers what love is like, and as much as she wants to hate the thing that’s heavy and whole inside her chest, wants it to be gone; as much as it kills her, she knows what it feels like.
She knows.
And before she realizes what’s happening, before she can make it stop, she’s bleeding, in her own way; tears streaming until she can’t make out her hand in front of her face as she wipes them away flowing freely -- and goddamn; but she’d tried so fucking hard.
She knows he’ll be back on Friday -- back, she reminds herself firmly, not home -- and she doesn’t know if that’s enough time; doesn’t think it’s soon enough.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She’s not quite asleep -- not quite awake, either -- so the sounds of entrance, of approach are muddled in between dreaming and waking; they don’t catch her attention like they should.
She starts, for a moment, when his weight dips behind her in the bed, when he reaches for her; it’s the sound of his voice that keeps her from panic, though, a low greeting that jostles her away from the edge of dreaming. His palm on her hip, his chest braced against her shoulder blades, it sends a shiver through her as she feels the tension swell in her throat, strangle before it dissipates in a subtle, quiet sob that gets lost as he leans in, as she turns, pushes to sit on the mattress -- they meet in the middle, torsos pressed flush as she falls back, and he follows, caught between her legs, taking her mouth against his, her tongue alongside his own.
She aches lazily against him, her breasts loose underneath her sleepshirt, pushed to the sides as he lays his body against her chest, pillowed against his pecs as she ravages his mouth, clenches her thighs against his sides, feels the cut of his abs against the fleshy insides of her legs, hard where he meets her soft, and she swallows a moan when she rocks forward, forceful enough so that the crease of her gives against his growing erection, even through her panties.
Whatever little restraint, little hesitance remains between them: it’s gone between heady breaths as he pinches the edges of her underwear and slides them to her knees where they bend, leans in to inhale the scent of her as he presses a kiss -- a promise -- just behind the joint, lets his tongue slide dark against the fold of her skin. He slides his hands up against her thighs, bears some of her weight as she scoots up, back -- lets her spine align at the center of the headboard, banging the wood hard and hallow against the wall.
He’s in her quick -- the lapse between the last time they were together and the moment they’re in now too long, too lonely -- and if either of them had any presence of mind, the time it takes for the friction between them to drive them both to completion is nothing at all; to them, though, it lasts a lifetime, and their pulses hammer hard in their lips as they kiss through the shuddering descent, one unlike the other but thrumming, making their own kind of time.
“Maybe I should go away more often,” he whispers, chokes in strained tones as he fights for mastery, for the air in his lungs; “if this is the kind of welcome I receive when I get back.”
“No,” she moans, and he holds her closer like it’s instinct, second nature. “No.”
There’s no pretending this away anymore.
“Don’t go away.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He’d asked her in passing, but something about his eyes when he’d said it had betrayed the weight of it, the importance; she hadn’t yet met anyone who knew him.
Funny; he’d never met anyone who knew her, either.
She wears a skirt and a nice blouse -- the gap between work and their reservations at seven shrinking with every signature she needed to give and case she had to review -- and Nathan, bless him, does nothing but smile when she answers the door and barely bothers to usher him in as she scrambles for wherever she left her purse.
He’s still grinning at her, leaning up against the walls as she smoothes her clothes, dressed in a suit that fits him just so, clings just right, and leaves her mouth a little dry as she stares openly for a good few moments before she blinks and looks away.
“Should I change?” she asks, suddenly self-conscious. He only crosses the distance between them and presses a quick kiss to each corner of her mouth; says she looks gorgeous, which in hindsight isn’t an answer at all.
She should really have changed.
If it’s not the impeccable black-and-white perfection of the establishment’s staff as they mill about, from the bartender to the maître d' and the valet out front nods at Nathan with a certain respect that Juliet can’t quite decipher, then it’s the veiled looks that shoot, crackle in their direction from every which way, from nowhere in particular, that bore under Juliet’s skin and fester, and she fidgets a bit even as Nathan puts a hand at the small of her back, settles her nerves.
She’s only just composed herself when they reach the small side room -- a private reservation, and she’s staring down the coldest eyes she’s ever seen.
“Nathan,” their owner says, his white mustache moving with the words, his teeth gleaming predatorily, as he claps a hand against Nathan’s shoulder. She barely hears as Nathan introduces him as Mr. Linderman. She hardly remembers to hold on her hand when he moves to shake it.
“Nonsense,” the man says, smile so tight it can be barely be called a smile. “Call me Daniel.”
She doesn’t.
Linderman asks inane questions of them both -- was there traffic on the way, wasn’t the weather gorgeous today -- speaking at his leisure before turning to the stoic-looking man and woman already seated at the table, introducing the middle-aged male as ‘my associate, Mr. Paik’ in an way that didn’t invite reaction or response, and ignoring the woman entirely. The woman, for her part -- a young lady of Asian descent, with a conservatively-cut evening gown and dangling crystals hanging from her ears - avoids making eye-contact of any kind, in a deliberate way that makes Juliet particularly uncomfortable.
Generally speaking, it’s a decent gauge of the evening as a whole.
The conversation ebbs and flows, with the occasional aside to translate for the mysterious Mr. Paik -- who seems to understand English well enough, but seem decidedly less interested in speaking it himself, for reasons Juliet can only guess at. For her part, she nods as she feels it’s appropriate, following the conversation as far as she can, cares to; most of it’s outside her realm of expertise, mostly investments and numbers versus what the investments themselves entail, but she manages an expression of polite disinterest that she hopes conveys something favorable -- she hasn’t felt the need to impress so keenly since she was in high school.
She scans the menu when the waiter comes, starts with her -- of course; the words kiwi and lime and prawn jump out at her, and she immediately decides on that dish, in hopes that it’s not too pedestrian for their evening’s company. No one looks at her too strangely as orders -- or else, no more strangely than they had been already -- so she takes that as a good sign.
She almost feels human, really, until Linderman decides to turn talk to more personal matters, namely Nathan’s current pattern of residence.
“It’s best to take time now and again,” he comments sagely as Nathan mentions enjoying himself in Florida. “Overdoing things cannot lead to happiness, after all. But sooner or later, Nathan,” and here, he nods his head, his eyes taking on a sheen of wisdom that doesn’t quite soothe or suit, “you will have to come home.”
Nathan extends the pause that lingers after with a sip from his drink. “I have a lot of options,” he finally replies, an answer that betrays nothing for sure, his eyes unreadable. “Here and there, wherever really. Think I’ll just cross those bridges when I get to them.”
“You should be at home, Nathan. Your family,” and Linderman stops, emphasizes the words in a way that seems to mean something layered, something hidden, “misses you.”
Nathan scoffs, takes a deeper drink from his glass. “They’ll survive,” he quips with unbridled sarcasm. “They’ve been surviving, just fine.”
“Whatever distractions you’ve entertained here,” and Juliet doesn’t miss the rapid-fire flick of that frigid gaze in her direction, doesn’t miss the way it settles hard in her stomach and tight in her throat. “They’re fleeting, Nathan. Your future, your birthright, is in New York. It always has been.”
“The future can change,” Nathan says shortly, and Juliet’s not sure if he leans toward her, or if she imagines it. “You of all people should know that.”
Linderman seems content to let the matter drop in favor of eating his caviar when it arrives, but the tension that pervades is stifling, and Juliet can barely bring herself to nibble at the crab cakes that the server sets before her.
It doesn’t take long before the thick unrest is shot through with urgency once more, as the course disappears steadily from the platters littering the table; and of course it’s Linderman who sets the strain alight.
“I do believe I could use a cigar before our meals arrive,” and even Juliet can tell it’s half posturing, half an excuse. “You’ll be good enough to indulge me, Nathan?” And Linderman stands, regal and overbearing, without apology to his guests or pause to see that Nathan would actually follow. Her eyes trail him as he exits the room for the corridor beyond, and she only turns away when Nathan lifts her hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. She wonders if this is how it would be with him, beyond the fantasy or the pretense; wonders if he’s cut from a different cloth, something more refined than what she’d come to expect.
She stares at her plate instead of at Nathan’s retreating form as he, too, leaves.
She samples the selection of hors d'oeuvres littering the table with careful elegance -- something that doesn’t come nearly as easily as it seems to for her companions; she chews slowly and bites daintily, and she has the strange feeling that she looks like a little girl trying to have tea with the Queen, having only practiced with a Fisher-Price tea set full of apple juice, serving her collection of stuffed animals.
She only manages to try three of the ornate morsels still left on the table before the weight becomes too much; cornered -- and a little bit uncomfortable, to be honest -- Juliet doesn’t wait for the man and his guest to make eye contact with her. She merely murmurs something ironic about needing to powder her nose, laughs in fractured, strained little bouts at a joke they might, but probably don’t find amusing as she stands and hurries from the room, the fall of her heels too loud in the silence.
It’s not that she means to find Nathan, really -- though she wants to, for certain; it’s more that he and Linderman are a bit hard to miss when she exits the private dining area and breathes a deep sigh against the scents of cooking things clashing with expensive perfumes.
She hears them -- tones, though, not words -- before she sees them, tucked around the corner. They’re pinned together, huddled against the wall near what she suspects must be the kitchen.
“You’re being childish, hiding here,” Linderman snaps in an undertone, all hints of civility gone. “Your... indiscretions-”
“You can stop there.” And she’s never heard Nathan sound quite that harsh, that cold. “I somehow remember you telling me once that I should mind my own affairs. I’d suggest you did the same.”
Linderman leans in closer, drops his voice to a dangerous hush that Juliet has to strain to hear. “Need I remind you that you work for me, Nathan?”
“I work for you,” Nathan spits, and she can see the twisted lines of his face in the shadows. “My life outside of that is my own.”
“Your family has been my family for decades, Nathan.” He looks like he means to say more, but Nathan neck is bowed low, his face turned to look Linderman in the eyes, gaze serious and stony as he forces his words past a rigid jaw, the syllables clipped beyond the point of debate.
“What I choose to do is none of your concern, do you understand?”
Linderman looks at him, eyes hard, for the sparest moment before he sneers, lets loose a bitter laugh. “Don’t be so eager to bite the hand that feeds,” he admonishes shrewdly, his threatening features narrowed with a laughing sort of cruelty that sends shivers down Juliet’s spine.
Nathan, though, seems only offended, only enraged. “I don’t need your money.”
“You need your father’s,” Linderman parries, and there’s something knowing in his eyes, something that lights the flames brighter in the Nathan’s.
“I don’t need anyone’s charity.”
“You’ll have to hope, at least, for Heidi’s won’t you?” And if the name, and the gravity, the sense of a weighty blow attached to it, hadn’t been enough to send Juliet’s stomach plummeting, the way Nathan flinches, goes silent as the fire in his gaze turns frosty, lethal, and the color drains just a little from his face -- well, that would have been plenty.
“You’re crossing a line,” Nathan retorts, and his voice doesn’t sound anything like him, all thin and sharp like a blade drawing blood.
Linderman doesn’t seem fazed; he merely mocks with a withering, sparkling kind of glare. “What would she say, I wonder, if she saw you? If she knew?”
Nathan shakes his head, turns, runs a hand over his face, and even from a distance, Juliet can see the way it shakes. “She’s in no position to judge, anymore.”
“Isn’t she?” Linderman baits.
“No.” And Nathan’s tone is final, livid. “She isn’t.”
“We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?” Nathan looks as if he’s about to walk away, but Linderman grabs his arm and keeps him there; Juliet, for reasons she doesn’t comprehend, decides to make good on her claims of needing the ladies room and ducks away before they see her, before they notice she was ever there at all.
She stands before the mirror, one hand clenched against the smooth marble sink while the other rests high on her chest as she catches her breath, revels in the deep soak of oxygen in her lungs. She blinks at herself, runs water she doesn’t dare to touch; tells herself that eavesdropping is frowned upon for good reasons, and she needs to let it go. She doesn’t know what she heard -- what it means, if anything. She sighs and splashes water across the flush of her cheeks, mindless of the way it tracks through her foundation, runs lines across her mask.
It’s only after repeating over and over, soundlessly as she moves her lips at her reflection, that she simply doesn’t want to know, that she’s able to make her legs move, make them carry her to the door and back to her dinner.
The food is there, she notices first; the next thing she sees is the way Nathan lights up when she walks in the room, and it puts her at ease for the moment, to see how he seems to really want her there. The shrimp is light, slick on her tongue, the flavors rich, full and cascading with each bite, and she thinks it might be okay, thinks she might be able to last out the night.
Until she glances up, unawares -- put a little more at ease by Nathan’s hand on her thigh beneath the table, out of sight -- and catches Linderman staring at her from across the table, the food in her mouth turning to ash in the heat, the hate in his gaze.
She tries to smile when Nathan asks her if she’s alright, tries to graciously deflect his attention as she sets her fork down and folds the napkin on her lap; she tells him she’s full and hopes he believes her.
Frankly, though, she's lost her appetite.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The day had been a rough one to begin with: Nathan having to leave unexpectedly after the infamous Linderman Affair -- as she liked to think of it, at least -- being the most obvious of her problems. He’d promised to be back by week’s end, asked her to water his plants -- or else, those of her plants that were now in his home -- and kissed her for a good ten minutes before and after the quickie they’d managed in the car when she’d convinced him to leave the driver and let her drop him at Departures; all in all, despite the sort of empty, hollow feeling at her center, it was a a good enough goodbye.
And while it should comfort her, she supposes -- that he blew her a kiss as he walked into the airport, that his eyes behind his glasses looked genuinely sad to leave her behind -- it does the exact opposite; it reminds her, once again, that they’ve never talked about what this is, what they have or don’t have, what it could be, might be.
Could become.
When she’d gotten into work, things hadn’t much improved. The coffee machine was broken, and she hadn’t had enough time to so much as stop for something wildly caloric and shot through with espresso from a drive-thru after getting Nathan to his terminal. She’d been swamped with patients on the one day she’d set aside for shoring up some loose ends on her research -- the very research that needed to be summarized in a draft to send for publication by the end of next week. Her labs we taking forever, and the damn techs were gabbing without working significantly more than their paychecks warranted, she was sure of it. She’d run out of birth control, and had forgotten to call in her scrip.
Her day had brightened when Rachel stopped in for her appointment -- not that she didn’t have enough doctors, as Juliet often reminded her, but she was adamant that her sister see to her on at least a semi-regular basis, and Juliet wasn’t particularly inclined to argue; the first time she smiled since that morning was when Rachel started griping on how damn cold the ultrasound gel always seemed to be, and simple as it was, it seemed like a turning point in her day, her mood. She bought a can of soda from the machine with enough caffeine in it to keep her going for the rest of the afternoon. She convinced a few colleagues to take some of the afternoon patients off her hands so that she could fit in an hour or two to work on her article. Even the labs she’d rushed for Rachel had been completed ahead of schedule. Things seemed to be looking up.
Scanning the results, though; she wishes they hadn’t.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So, doc,” Rachel rubs an idle hand across the ever-growing swell of her belly as Juliet walks in, lets her hand linger on the handle of the door, the lean of her weight more than actual intention of force pushing the door closed behind maybe. The cool metal seeps beneath her pores as she grips it harder, stills as the latch clicks shut, lets the contact, the smoothness under her palms steady her, soothe her as she eyes the results in her hands; “what’s the verdict?”
The day had been rough to begin with. She lets her eyes scan over the paperwork in her hand, familiar numbers and levels she’s had memorized since med school, hoping that with one more look, one more cursory glance, the words and the digits won’t imply that possibilities they do; that the longer she looks, something might change.
It doesn’t.
“What’s your schedule look like later this week?”
Rachel’s expression doesn’t dampen by degrees; it crumbles in on itself, a collapse, and it’s more than heartbreaking to watch, because regardless of everything, she knows that Rachel still hadn’t trusted this, still wasn’t willing to believe in a miracle after so many promises had been broken, after so many chances had been lost. “Why,” she asks immediately, her voice tight and her eyes narrowed, lips thin, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Juliet answers, glances up and makes eye contact for the barest of instants before she has to look away. She doesn’t know, yet -- it might be a bad read; she thinks back to the number of technical errors and inaccuracies that she’s encountered in her career, just how many people have been the victims of clerical errors or technical malfunctions, but it’s not enough -- not enough to quell the lump her throat, to calm the heavy throb of her pulse as she tucks her hair behind her ear, a nervous tick. She hopes Rachel wasn’t looking, didn’t see it. “Just a few things on your labs, is all. I want to run a few more tests.” She tries to lean against the wall with casual nonchalance, like she’s not panicking inside. She tries to remember how she keeps composed for every other patient she sees, everyone who isn’t her sister, her only real family. “I just want to make sure nothing’s going on that shouldn’t be.”
“Is it serious?” Rachel’s not stupid. She’s more observant than any one person has a right to be, and she knows Juliet, knows her. Denial had obviously failed; perhaps damage control was her best course of action, at this point.
“It’s probably nothing,” Juliet backtracks, forces a smile, infuses every syllable with false confidence that she tries to keep steady, keep sure as her lips form the words, as her voice threatens to waver. “I just want to be sure.”
“Juliet,” Rachel starts, and there they are -- the beginnings, the first hints of tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as she blinks, keeps her eyes closed as the color drains from her cheeks and she steels herself, forces through tight lips. “Don’t...” She takes a shaky breath, squeezes her eyes, exhales; looks at Juliet with grim acceptance, prepared for the worst, and even if Juliet could have managed to tell her the possibilities before -- the possibilities that would have been probabilities with anyone else -- there’s no way she can do it now. “Is it serious?”
She sits next to Rachel on the exam table. “You’re my sister,” she says simply, as if it’s an explanation; and it is, it truly is. “And this...” she slings an arm around Rachel’s shoulders and pulls her close, kisses the top of her head with all of the love and solidarity she can possibly convey. “This is something that’s never been done before. It’s risky, Rache. I want to make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Rachel sniffles, leans into Juliet’s embrace. “You didn’t answer my question.” And Juliet knows it, may have been more cognizant of it -- may have tried better to mask her evasion -- if she weren’t trying to remember the phone number of Rachel’s oncologist.
“It’s not serious.” Yet. “And it might be nothing.” But it isn’t. She’s pretty damn sure that it isn’t.
It has to be nothing. It has to be.
The sinking in her stomach, though, as she gathers her sister’s hands between her own, notes how cool they are at the palms -- clammy against the heat of her wrists, but alive, alive; the sinking tells her otherwise.
“And if it isn’t nothing? We’ll fix it.” Because that’s what she does, is fix people. Fix people who are beyond repair, beyond hope. She fixes people.
Because if she can’t fix them, what use is she? What’s the point of her at all, if she can’t fix what’s broken?
If she can’t fix her fucking sister, after everything, what was the point of any of it?
“So there’s no need to worry, okay?” She strokes an open palm rhythmically over Rachel’s almost-bob, combing through the locks, losing her fingers in the soft wave of curls. Rachel doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, and she’s tense enough to break beneath Juliet’s touch, about to shatter at just too harsh a motion, too brash a word.
“Okay?” Juliet repeats, her hand stilling, cupping the back of Rachel’s head and holding her just that little bit closer.
“I’m just...” Rachel whispers, all but broken -- and it’s Juliet’s fault. “I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“I mean,” and Rachel sniffs, all the feeling she’s holding back, that’s pooled hard behind her eyes -- bloodshot, without any salt on her cheeks. “At first, I was just so shocked that it worked. And I was so happy. But now...” She swipes her forearm across both eyes, dabs at the tears before they have a chance to escape, to shatter whatever illusion is left. “Now all I can think of are all the things that could go wrong.”
“Shhh...” Juliet soothes as Rachel starts to shake, as her eyes clench and she falls back into the safety of Juliet’s shoulder, buried away from everything, everyone. “Look at me.” Rachel stays put, and Juliet brings a hand to her cheek, notes the dampness, the fact that they’ve both lost something precious in this moment -- a sense of idealism, a level of hope they’ll never reach again.
“Look at me,” she urges again, runs her hand tenderly across Rachel’s jaw until she looks up, meets Juliet’s eyes, and Juliet doesn’t have to feign anything, doesn’t have to manufacture the warmth in her gaze, the affection and the kind of foolhardy, fathomless devotion that only her sister has ever been able to inspire. “I am going to get you through this,” she says firmly, keeps their eyes locked tight as slides a hand down to Rachel’s belly. “Both of you. I will do whatever I have to. I promise. I’m going to make sure that you get to be a mother, Rachel,” she vows, knowing it’s hopeless, knowing she’ll fail; never caring, not once. “Whatever it takes.”
“All right?” And Rachel nods, breathes, speaks without sound before choking on a sob; she shakes her head, and Juliet rubs her thumb patiently, rhythmically against Rachel cheek until she heaves a gasping, shuddering breath that catches, but endures.
“All right,” she trembles, and Juliet just keeps her breathing calm, lets Rachel match her own to the cadence. “All right.”
Rachel nods idly, silently for another few minutes, building enough resolve for the both of them as they sit there, one holding the other -- and Juliet draws on that solidity, that certainty, even as it flickers, shivers; as always, it’s Rachel who’s the strong one, even if she doesn’t know it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She’s distracted, unsettled -- the thought of Rachel still weighing heavily on her thoughts, on her heart atop everything else; she doesn’t think before she has the key in the lock and the door already opened that Nathan won’t be back until tomorrow, and running to him for comfort, for a place to shut the world away, would require more miles than she can afford to cross.
She sighs heavily, leans in against the kitchen counter, flips her PDA out, and runs the stylus over the screen. She has exactly three hours before she needs to meet with Mittelos, let them down gently -- she thinks it’s probably for the best.
She grabs a glass from the cupboard, fills it with tap water, testing the temperature with her fingertip, interrupting the spray and scattering droplets to the sides. She darts around to the spider-plant the in corner, its leaves crisp and yellowed from too much sun and not enough love, to the African violets above the television, back over to the prayer plant -- which sadly wasn’t “praying,” and in fact looked rather pathetic and wilted -- before the rhythmic, high-pitched beeping from Nathan’s landline answering machine got the better of her.
With a sigh, she walks to the display on the machine -- only one missed called, which makes sense, seeing as Nathan’s mobile is his main form of communication -- and she vows silently to only let the message play far enough to skip it, to stop that infernal beeping so that it doesn’t split her head in two before she leaves; she promises herself she won’t listen, before she ever presses the playback button. It’s a promise she means to keep.
Until she hears the voice on the recording; then it’s a promise she breaks.
“Nathan,” and the voice -- a female voice -- is exasperated, devastated, disappointed, hurt -- all at once. “It’s me. Look...” the woman trails off, and something hangs in the silence, the rustle of static on the recording -- shifts and coils in Juliet’s stomach.
“Nathan, I know things between us haven’t been good lately, but we’ve been together for a long time.” She tries to think of all the ways that two people can be together -- business partners, friends -- but she doesn’t quite buy it, doesn’t quite believe, and the doubt runs cold in her blood as she fights the urge to turn it off, to delete the message and forget the unforgettable.
“And I know you. I know you, and I know how much you like being away on business.” She flinches at the tone, the intimacy and the resignation that bleed across the line; she can’t help it.
“Because you don’t like it. You hate being away on business, Nathan. So, you being gone for the better part of the past seven months?” Had it only been seven months? Had it been seven months already? “That was the first red flag. And I’m not stupid,” and there’s a sigh that follows, that echoes, filled with things that deepen the fracture gaping in her chest.
“I’m not an idiot. I know what it means when I see my husband three times in the space of half a fucking year.” There are more words, more things said, but it’s that single word that takes the fracture and cracks it in two, leaves her reeling and falling and exposed, clutching at the ledge of the countertop just to stay standing.
There are questions that cycle through her mind. Of course there are questions.
Only it feels like she has the answers already, without asking them. She’s never felt so sure of what she doesn’t know.
The woman, on the machine; it’s strange, but she sounds like a Heidi.
She grabs for her keys and leaves just as she entered; she doesn’t lock the door.
Part Three // Master Post // Part Five