Chapter Two

[AnnieMcD]

 

Chapter Two

 

            He answered the phone on the first ring.  "Guess what I'm not doing anymore?" I said before even saying hello.  His rich deep laugh filled the telephone lines, and I couldn't help but laugh along.  "So, am I a complete whore, or just a total fool?"  I tried to make this question a joke, but I couldn't quite manage it, and he knew it.

            "Brig, neither." He used my nickname, pronouncing it like the word bridge.  In truth, while most people called me "Bridgette" the traditional pronunciation of my name is "Breed".  I'm named after a Celtic Mother Goddess, and I love it.  But I've stopped correcting people.    I loved that he had slipped into my nickname again, as though no time had passed.  "You're just a sweet girl, in a tough place.  You're confused about your relationship, and that's ok.  Please, if you don't want to we never have to mention it again.  You didn't do anything wrong.  Seriously." I nearly started crying again right there on the phone.  Why was he being so nice?  So understanding?  It didn't make any sense to me.  "Are you there still Brig?"

            "Oh, yeah, I'm here." I laughed lightly, in an attempt to hide my confusion at this whole situation.  Because here it was, days later, and I was completely sober.  But those damn feelings hadn't faded yet like they should have in the light of day.  "I'm just a bit tired Xander, it's been a long week, you know?  And now Owen's out of town, and I'm feeling all conflicted, and it's exhausting." WHAT WAS I DOING? Why was I telling him that I'm conflicted?  Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

            "Conflicted?  What about?"

            "What do you think?  About the other night. About what I said, and what I did.  About you."  My voice trailed off.  I couldn't believe that I was being this honest with him, and with myself.  I had carefully taught myself over the past years to sidestep any conversations which might hit one of Owen's triggers, and here I was taking down all the walls.  "I just, I just don't know why Xander, but when I'm with you it's like you never left.  Like you never said you loved me, and then disappeared off the face of the planet." I trailed off, not knowing what to say next. 

            I had promised myself I wouldn't remind him of that.  That I wouldn't even mention it to him.  I didn't want to risk him doing the same thing again.  As crazy as it sounded, even as I knew I could never be with him, he had always been in my thoughts.  At completely random moments, he would just pop up, and I would be back then, and I would be putting on my cutest outfit to go visit him, knowing what was going to happen, and that it didn't mean nearly as much to him as it did to me.  And then, one night, we were on the phone.  It was the same as it always was, we were chatting about stupid stuff, and deciding who was going to make the colossal trip across town to visit the other, and then it changed.  He started talking about the future, things I had never imagined he had even thought of.  And he said in ten years he saw us, married with kids running around in the yard.  Just before he hung up the phone that night he told me he loved me.  I didn't speak to him again for nearly ten years. 

            After that call I didn't know what to do.  I waited a couple of days before calling him back.  I didn't want to know if he regretted the words he had said.  I didn't want to know that he meant that he loved me like a friend.  After three days of not hearing from him, I called his cell phone.  The number was disconnected.  So I called his home phone.  That number was disconnected too.  A little worried at this point, I called his mother.  She said that he had left, with no explanation of where he was going or when he would be back.  She said that he had called a few times from pay phones, but that he hadn't left a number where anyone could reach him.  My heart dropped.  He did regret it, everything he had said that night.  He left because he couldn't face me after that, I just knew it.  I cried for a week.  Because I had finally heard the words I had hoped for, for so long, and they were the end. 

            All of these memories went through my head in the moments it took for him to process my last statement, and respond.  "I'm sorry" he said simply.  And then he elaborated.  "I was afraid Brig.  I didn't even know I had those feelings for you until I spoke them aloud.  I didn't know if you felt the same way, and I was afraid I had ruined everything we had.  So I ran, it's what I do.  You knew that." He was speaking quietly, clearly ashamed of what he was saying. "And then, when I finally got up the nerve to call mom and see how you were, she said you had just gotten married.  How could I call you after that?  I told myself it was good that I had left, so that you could find someone who deserved you, who was willing to get married."

            I was stunned as he continued speaking, just kept talking like I had the other night.  It was his turn to let everything out, so I let him.  He told me where he had been for the last decade, and Gods was it weird to think we'd been apart for a decade!  He had been in landscaping when he left, and he kept that up.  He now ran a prominent landscaping business in our hometown.  A landscaping business that I had actually considered calling in the past because I liked the name, but I never did.  "Stone Circle Landscaping" it was called, and it cried out that it was another pagan owned business.  I always tried to give my business to other practitioners, but Owen had gone out and bought a lawnmower and started doing our yard himself.  I never argued because I loved that he did it.  To me there is no sexier smell on a man than fresh cut grass, dirt, and a little sweat.  I wonder where I came by that affinity.

            I told him what I had been up to for the years we had been apart as well, and we just talked into the wee hours of the morning.  It was amazing having new stories to share with someone again.  After five years together with Owen, he knew all of my stories, and I knew all of his.  Gods above did I know all of his; I had heard them all at least 20 times.  When I finally looked at the clock and realized the time, I was surprised.  It was three in the morning, and I had to be up to go to work in four hours.  I laughed as I told him this, and hung up. 

            That night I dreamed of a massive tug-of-war battle.  The field was a beautiful sunlit garden, and the teams consisted of five copies of each man.  As I watched the five Owens tugging mightily against the five Xanders, I was distracted by the "rope" and puddle in the center.  The men pulled on a gruesome bloody red mess.  The knot in the center was beating; it was a heart, in the very literal sense.  Below that was the puddle, which was a clear pool.  While I watched, the blood dripped into the pool making it muddy and terrifying.  I woke up in the world's most cliché pool of sweat, shaking and gasping.  It didn't take a psychiatrist or a psychic to analyze that dream. 

 

 

Add A Comment