* This story is a conclusion to Love Lies Bleeding. It would sit approximately ONE WEEK after The Storm Part II.
* These are not my characters and this isn’t my show. I do this for fun and gain no money from it.
* The song featured is ‘Hold Me’ by Savage Garden, taken from the Affirmation album.
* Comment and constructive criticism is always appreciated.
* Many thanks to Jordan and Ruth for lending their advice and for Americanising my English idiosyncrasies. Cheers, guys!
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‘The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction’
William Blake,
Proverb of the Devil
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The bed was empty, cleared of its sheets and duvet, the pillows resting against the wall. The door to the big oak closet hung open, advertising its emptiness with cold-hearted intent. Doug sat at the head of the bed, his feet tucked up underneath him, staring at his packed bags. Even they seemed out of place, so full when this room felt so bare.
It was late morning. Carol had left for work at seven thirty, and he had made his plans to slip away quietly sometime around noon. He’d even arranged his flights and his taxi to the airport. But, despite the frosty atmosphere in the house and though everything had been said between them, something was stopping him. It had not taken him long to realise that he simply didn’t want to leave. There was too much here that he now called home…
The birds had tracked him as he’d walked. Even the evil dog in the garden of Number 447 had stopped barking as he passed, watching him with huge brown eyes that, if he’d been in a better frame of mind, would have communicated some kind of fateful surrender. People side-stepped him, as if his sadness was repulsive, and he walked all the way with his head in knots.
He made his way in through the double doors, dodging the paramedics in the bay putting away their equipment and replenishing with new supplies. Even they turned their heads and followed him with their eyes, making him feel like the loser made to parade in front of all the sympathetic, successful ones.
Randi was painting her nails at the admit desk, and missed him as he purposefully slipped along the corridor, head down, trying to attract as little attention as possible. Kerry’s shouts could be heard from down the corridor, letting him know that there was a trauma in. He lifted his head and listened, hearing for Carol, or maybe Mark. "Hey, why’s he got through!?" an angry voice shouted over the crowds. A large, bustling black woman appeared before him and placed her hands on his stomach, pushing him back. "Excuse me! Someone’s let dis guy through! Ah’ve ben sat ‘ere for two hours and ma boy’s finger’s still bleedin’! Dis guy’s just walked straight in!" Doug quickly pushed the woman’s hands away from him.
"Ma’am, I’m a doctor… I," He paused, about to say that he worked here. "I’m a doctor…" he said slowly, instead, looking closely at the woman.
"Y’are, are you? Well, look at ma son, then!" She grabbed Doug’s shirt sleeve and began tugging at it.
"Ma’am, I’m not on duty at the moment. I’m not allowed to look at your son."
"Ah don’t care. Ah’ve been sat ‘ere for two hours!" She paused, turned her head down the corridor and bellowed, "Tommy! Get ‘ere now!"
A small, rotund child with chocolate stains around his mouth tumbled out of chairs and arrived puffing at his mother’s side. "Yeah, Mom?"
"De doctor is gonna look at your finger. Show de doctor your finger, Tommy." The child looked up at Doug, smiled, and then raised his middle finger at him. Doug narrowed his eyes, and the mother turned a deep shade of scarlet. "Thomas John!" She bent down and gave the child a clout across the backside, at which he burst into floods of angry tears and started to stomp his feet. The mother grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and began shouting. Doug, seeing this as the best moment to make a back-door escape, slipped off down the corridor.
"What’s going on in the hall?!" He heard Kerry shout from Trauma One. Doug checked the window in the doctor’s lounge, and on seeing it empty, went inside. He hadn’t been in there for a long few days, but nothing had changed. Coffee cups still festered in the sink, and the refrigerator was still bare. He sank down into the sofa and put his feet up on the table, taking a long look around the room. He’d never been the type to get sentimental about objects, but the thought that this would probably be the last time he would set foot in here did nothing but add to his feeling that he was throwing everything that was good in his life away. The lounge had been the site of so many good times; parties and celebrations, quiet cups of coffee, moments of relaxation amid heavy shifts, sneaky kisses with Carol and… where she’d let him know that she wasn’t going to come with him.
"Doug?" He turned around. It was Chuny, standing just inside the door. "What are you doing here? Carol told us you’d gone…"
"I know." He smiled wanly. "I just came to say bye, and then I’m going… I didn’t think it was right to leave without… you know…" He stopped, and flicked his head inside, smiling to try to hide his sad expression.
Chuny grinned. "You’re lucky she told us you’d already gone, cos we were planning a going-away party!" Doug shrugged his shoulders, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief,
"Ah, well…"
Chuny shook her head, tutting under her breath. "She’s in Trauma One…" she said quietly, still grinning, and slipped back out through the door.
"Okay," Doug said to the empty space where she’d been standing.
He bundled his coat off, and stepped out into the corridor. The hysterical child was still screaming in chairs, but, turning his back on it, he walked towards Trauma One. He saw Haleh and Yosh with Carter, and tried not to look at them. Carter smiled and shouted out, "Hey, Doctor Ross!?"
"Later, Carter." Doug replied, and carried on walking. It seemed like the walk down Death Row, familiar faces turning to look at him, casting him meaningful smiles; each face harking back to a thousand memories so wonderful they were sad to recall. He reached the glass doors of Trauma One and paused for a moment. Carol was on her knees, tying up the yards of drip-tube and casting it into the middle of the floor. She stood, and pushed the metal stand towards the head of the gurney, and then, she caught sight of him.
A moment passed as they both stared, neither knowing what to do, and then she smiled, and he pushed open the door and walked inside.
To an unknowing onlooker, it seemed like they were two lovers who had been apart for years, finally meeting again. They embraced, tentatively, and then separated, unsure of one another, and he moved around to stand on the other side of the gurney, as if it would offer him protection.
"I thought you’d left…" she said, breaking the initial silence. He shrugged,
"So did I…" His fingers played with the sheet on the gurney, pulling it loose. His eyes met hers, "My flight was forty minutes ago."
"Oh," she dropped her head. Even though she could never admit it to his face, or to anyone else for that matter, as he said those words, her heart soared. But, as she looked back to his face, she dared not voice what she was dying to say. "Why did you miss it?" she said instead.
Doug gazed at her, taking in the sweet pleading in her eyes. "Cos I came here to say bye… I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye." He swallowed and tried to gauge her reaction. A sad smile slowly crept onto her face. She looked down, hiding.
"Have you seen Mark?"
"Not since last night. I didn’t know he was working…"
"Yeah," she smiled, "but he’s in a foul mood." Chuckling, Doug allowed,
"Now there’s something…"
There was a long silence as they both inspected the room and its contents. "When are you leaving?" She broke it again, looking up, her face as pale as a china doll’s, her eyes wider than moons. Doug sighed under his breath, asking himself whether she wanted him to leave, or whether she wanted him to stay.
"I don’t know… I’ll have to book another flight…" He cleared his throat, bracing himself for a rebuff. "Can I stay a little longer?" She nodded.
"Yeah, of course you can." She smiled, trying to not show the happiness she felt inside. She glanced up at him, and met his gaze. Each look felt like a dagger to her heart, but as she stared beyond his perfect face and penetrated the unmoving sparkles in his brown eyes, she would never realise that it was she who was wielding the dagger. Bobbing her head in agreement, she made a quick decision to change the mood. "Hey, do you want a coffee?"
Doug blinked, mildly surprised at her change of tempo. "Okay," She smiled at him, and then headed out towards the lounge. He followed her.
She pushed the door open with her foot, acutely aware of his presence right behind her. As she stepped to one side, Doug entered to her right, and they all screamed. He jumped unwittingly, but quickly recovered himself and glanced around, seeing the throng of bodies, holding up a banner bearing the words: ‘Good Luck Doug’. He allowed himself a grin, but couldn’t shake the sadness in his heart. Their efforts served only to remind him of what would soon be lost forever.
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Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such grief
At any hand but hers?
Symptoms of Love,
Robert Graves
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The party was Mark’s idea. He said Doug had told him years ago he’d never had a surprise party. Flushed with the thought of planning the occasion, he’d caught Carol in the store cupboard that morning and persuaded her to hand over her house. She’d told him bluntly that Doug was leaving that day, and the idea had been quickly torched. That evening, Mark had quickly put the celebrations back together, and they had all gathered at the end of their shifts and headed over to the house. The people who were on in the morning had declined and so there were now only about a dozen people in the lounge. Doug was almost pitifully disinterested, sitting on the sofa, laughing only when he had to and refusing to get up and join the dancing. In the kitchen, Carol was fretting over what everyone was going to eat and drink, and Mark finally gave in and admitted it wasn’t the best idea. "Carol, you can’t let him fly two thousand miles without giving him a send-off." He had protested, opening the fridge. "Look at him. He looks like he’s lost a dollar and found a dime."
"I don’t think he’s really in the mood for this, Mark…" Carol whispered, glancing over at Doug, being dragged to his feet by Chuny, begrudgingly dancing for a few minutes and then extracting himself and returning to his hollow on the sofa. He looked over to the kitchen and smiled at her, his eyes tolerating it all.
"Want some help?" he mouthed. She nodded, and Doug stood willingly for the first time that night. As he made his way past the dancing people, he set Carter off balance, and was promptly decked with red wine. "Carter!" he exclaimed. Carter turned around, saw the mess on Doug’s pants, and began apologising and offering to have them dry-cleaned. Carol saw Doug shaking his head, and then he stepped out of the kitchen, motioned to the bedroom and disappeared.
"Damn…" he cursed as he pulled the doors shut and stared at the violent splash of wine down his Dockers. He turned around in the room, located his bags where Carol had moved them to, beside the bed, and searched through for a change of clothes. He took the Dockers off and pulled on his jeans, then slipped into the bathroom. He washed his face, and blinked water up, soaking his T-shirt. He mopped himself with a towel, and then pressed it to his face. God, it smelled of her. She must have used it for her hair that morning.
He hadn’t had a chance to be alone with her today at all. When he’d woken, she had already left, and their conversation at the hospital was hardly what he was looking for. The sight of her when she told him he could stay a little while longer, and the look on her face as she said the words had made him want to go to her and hold her. Not being able to touch her was almost more than he could bear. And the thought of being without her was so cruel that each time he thought of it, he felt like he’d been shot in the belly.
He put his shoes on slowly and lingered in the room, listening to the music change, the laugher, the shouting and someone singing over the chaos. They would not miss him, he thought, if he stayed here all night. He stepped up to the window and peered out. It was a fine, clear evening. The lights were beginning to flick on throughout the street, and he could hear cars pulling into drives; husbands home from work to their beautiful settled families.
He could smell Carol cooking in the kitchen, he guessed it was some quickly adapted party treat. He looked through the gap in the door and saw her standing by the hob, talking with Mark. She was wearing a dress he’d not seen before, changed from the scrubs she’d arrived home in. It was black, calf-length and had spaghetti straps, but she’d pulled a stone-coloured cardigan over the top and buttoned it to half-way. As he watched, she threw her head back and laughed at something Mark said. Doug thought how beautiful she was. He’d never felt less like laughing in his life.
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Hey, if we can’t find a way out of these problems
Then maybe we don’t need this
Standing face to face
Enemies at war we build defences
And secret hiding places
I might need you to hold me tonight
I might need you to say it’s alright
I might need you to make the first stand
Because tonight I’m finding it hard to be your man
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She saw him as soon as he stepped out into the crowd. Chuny was coming to the breakfast bar with her hands filled with empty glasses, a bottle tucked under one arm, and momentarily blocked her view. When she located him again, he was taking a bottle of beer from the dining table and heading over to where Carter was standing, staring out of the window absently. They passed smiles and took up conversation. Carol searched to find his eyes again, but he was facing away from her now. She smiled, but suddenly realised that Mark had just asked her a question. "Sorry, Mark, what was that?"
He was smiling slightly when she looked at him. "I said, so you haven’t changed your mind?"
"No," she murmured.
"You mean the thought of a new city doesn’t tempt you at all? Doesn’t make you want to shed all your inhibitions and go wild?" Mark was grinning, teasing.
Carol laughed, a little too loudly, as she’d been doing all evening. She told herself again to calm down. Across the crowd, she saw Doug had been hijacked by Haleh, who was busy trying to make him enjoy the bottle of beer he was still clutching, untouched. Mark changed direction.
"That food smells good," he said. "How ‘bout getting some of that on plates?" He pulled out the grill pan and began picking up little sausages and flipping them onto a piece of kitchen paper.
Haleh had finished pestering Doug, and he was now standing alone by the window, staring onto the porch. "Can you handle that, Mark?" she said, barely even turning to look at him. Mark made a grunting noise, his mouth full of hot-dog and, juggling a box of cocktail sticks, pushed her away. Not that she exactly needed pushing.
She came up behind him as he stood, and, trying to be casual, slipped her hands around his waist. She felt him suck in air at her touch. "Pity it’s not raining," she whispered. "Maybe they’d go home then…"
He smiled at her remark. "Maybe." They passed a minute in silence, staring absently outside, but yet again, she broke it.
"Come and dance with me," she said. And took hold of him by the forearm and steered him into the middle of the lounge, which, with the sofa pushed back, was serving as the temporary dance floor.
At first, the music was quick, and they danced slightly apart, eyes meeting only for the occasional flirty glance, like teenagers at their first dance. To Doug, to have her so close, but so far away was like some kind of torture. After the second number, someone changed the CD, putting on Carol’s soul collection. Marvin Gaye began to croon from the speakers. Doug swallowed, and they gravitated to one another as if attached to strings.
The speakers hummed, feet shuffled, and Doug silently breathed a sigh of release. The touch of her skin and the light press of her body through his clothes made him reel and for a moment, he had to hide his face in her hair and close his eyes. He knew people were watching, but he didn’t care.
The floor was crammed with everyone up to dance to the slow tune. Carol slowly pulled his face up with her shoulder, and then her finger and looked him deep in the eyes. "I need to talk to you. How can we get to talk… alone?"
He felt like saying what it there to talk about? You aren’t going to change your mind. That’s all there is to say. Instead he murmured, "Let’s go outside…"
They got separated on their way out, Carol being called to deal with spilt beer on the dining table, but Doug picked up his coat and stepped outside anyway. The evening was cold, but certainly not as bone-chilling as usual. He went out to the back garden, swinging open the gate and heading down to the patio. The air smelled of smoke; someone nearby was having a bonfire. The strike of his shoes on the slabs echoed around the garden. He leaned against the Beech tree and sighed as he felt its rough coolness permeate through his T-shirt. A square of pale yellow light was spilling out from the kitchen window, and he watched the shadows of people change within its halo. In the other world indoors, the Marvin Gaye song ended, and an Otis Redding one picked up, barely distinguishable from the other. Shouts went up, and the track was stopped. Someone moved it on and a second later, he heard Smokey Robinson sing: ‘I don’t care what they think about me…’
It seemed impossible to make anything any better. They’d talked, briefly, about the situation in the preceding days, but as was par for the course with their relationship, the subject had been discarded in favour of something less demanding or difficult. He’d tried reasoning with her, and she had him, but the reality was they hadn’t changed a bit. They were still both as stubborn as each other, and neither was willing to back down, despite both recognising that they were doing one another no favours. He knew that if someone turned around to him and told him he could work in one of the other hospitals in Chicago, he would stay without a second thought. He wasn’t going for the sake of ambition. He wasn’t an ambitious person. He didn’t want a lot from life, only happiness, and yet, it always seemed to elude him so cruelly.
He’d seen it today, with the screaming child. He would have seen to his cut, if he’d not known that if he had treated the kid, Kerry would have descended on him like a ton of bricks, and he’d have found himself in even more trouble than he already was.
There was brief flooding of light now at the top of the porch. He stopped and scanned for her in the darkness. He heard the door shut, and the light filtered away. He stood up straight at the sound, and saw her, standing in the shadow on the porch, looking down at him with a small smile on her face. He smiled back, and she began descending the steps to the patio. With each agonisingly slow step, Doug’s heart thumped faster in his chest.
He took a step towards her, making the distance less, and she sped up, tripping into his embrace. Doug’s heart leapt into his throat as she wrapped her arms around his back and he felt her release the same sigh that had been building within him all night. Their breathing slipped into unison, as if coming from the same lungs. "Hey," Doug managed to murmur, and felt her smile in his neck. She stepped slightly away, so she could look at him. His eyes were so tired, they were almost closing as she stared at him.
"You okay?" she asked him carefully, holding his upper arms. He murmured a yes, and she hugged him again. Doug had no idea how long they stood like that, but it must have been a long time because when they separated and he looked around again, a frost was visible on the grass.
"I want them to go…" he said slowly, his voice hoarse. "I don’t wanna go back in there again." He looked away across the garden. Inside, the volume had been lowered. He looked back to her and she saw his head wilt, as if he were holding a tremendous weight on it.
"You don’t have to…" she whispered, taking his face in her hands, and, for the first time in the last two weeks, feeling genuine compassion for his predicament. "I’ll go back in and tell them."
He sighed heavily. "Tell them what? That I don’t want them to be here? I can’t do that, it’s not… fair…"
"I won’t say any of that…" she allowed, holding his head up for him. "I’ll just tell them that we need a bit of time alone. They’ll understand." He tried to object, but she was having none of it. She gently eased herself away from his embrace, and giving him what she hoped was a comforting smile, she headed back up the steps to the house.
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I might need you to hold me tonight
I might need you to say it’s alright
I might need you to make the first stand
Because tonight I’m finding it hard to be your man.
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Carol opened the back door and stepped into an empty house. "What?" she murmured, mostly to herself, and stared at the lines of empty beer bottles on the kitchen counter. The music hummed softly in the background, and, aside from the slight mess, she could not have guessed that a dozen or more people had been in the room just a short while ago. "Mark?" she called, a little unnecessarily, and flung the back door open again. "Doug, they’ve gone…"
He looked up to the door and flicked his head. "They’ve gone?"
"Yeah. Nobody’s around, the place is sort of tidied, and there’s no-one here." She stepped back inside, and he followed her. "They didn’t hear us, did they?" she asked, worried.
"Nah. They couldn’t have over that music…" He shut the door quietly, and walked through to the kitchen. "Hey… there’s a note. It’s Mark’s writing…" He held it up. "Says that it was late and they all felt it was time to leave. Says he’ll see us tomorrow." He sighed. "I think he’s been trying to do the good buddy thing again."
"Oh,"
The mood stifled as Doug uttered those words, the smile on his face suggesting that he believed Mark’s actions to be a good idea. Carol balked. She had been dreading this moment all day, knowing that he would want to talk again, and knowing that she just couldn’t give him the answer he wanted to hear. "Do you want a drink? I’m gonna put the kettle on," she said, avoiding the suggestion, and picked it up from the counter. "Doug?"
"What?" he said, narrowing his eyes at her. She stopped, and stared up at him with questioning eyes.
"Do you want a drink before bed?" Doug shook his head. Sometimes all he wanted to do was grab her by the shoulders and shake her. She saw his expression, but she ignored it. "They’ve gone now," she said instead, blankly. "What’s wrong this time?"
He shook his head. "Nothing. Never-mind."
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Hey, yeah, more than angry words I hate this silence
It’s getting so loud
Well I want to scream
But bitterness has silenced these emotions
It’s getting hard to breathe
So tell me isn’t happiness
Worth more than a gold and diamond ring
I’m willing to do anything
To calm the storm in my heart
I’ve never been the praying kind
But lately I’ve been down upon my knees
Not looking for a miracle
Just a reason to believe.
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She had given him half a mug of hot chocolate anyway, and he’d sat with her and drunk it so quickly he burnt his mouth. He was tired, his muscles ached, and all he wanted to do was to sleep, but he knew that even though they were sat in silence, she’d have been hurt if he’d got up and left. He’d finally slipped away when she’d switched on the television for the late evening news.
In the cool of the bedroom, Doug stripped down to his skin, and then headed for the bathroom. He turned on the shower, allowed the water to run through, and then stepped underneath the spray. Tipping his head back, he squeezed the muscles in his neck, wincing in pain as they objected to the pressure.
When he was finished, he towelled himself, and wandered out into the bedroom. There she was, lying on the bed, in her pyjamas, staring at the ceiling. Doug paused in the doorway and watched her as she fidgeted, unaware he was watching. She pulled her legs up and pushed her hands under her waistband, pulling out the elastic until it was several inches from her natural stomach line. She appeared to contemplate this, and then released the elastic with a peeved snap, and rolled over to see him standing behind her. "Hey," he said quietly, glancing down.
"Hey,"
"Any news I ought to know about?"
"Not really. More trouble in Northern Ireland, Clinton, Hilary, earthquakes, you know, the usual." She sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear. He nodded, and went to his bags. He took out clean shorts and a clean T-shirt, and dressed for bed. She was watching him scientifically, and it unnerved him. He settled in beside her, silently, waiting for her to say something, do something, or even acknowledge that he’d actually moved to being next to her.
Finally, she rolled over, and reached over to him. Her hand rested itself on his cheek, and her eyes searched him. In that moment, everything changed. They say that time and tides may change, but love will always remain, but as they stared each other down, two victims separated by a war that was the fault of neither, something changed forever. He blinked, and the sparks flew…
He loved her and she loved him. With each little kiss, each faint touch of her lips, she seemed to suck out every second but the present, his past, his future, vanished as she kissed him. It seemed she had no other desire. She bit his neck, gripped his head in a vice-like embrace; she took his mouth and sealed it off. Tonight, she would have his all. Tonight, he would be transferred to her core, safe and sure within her, forever and ever. And as the walls watched, their little cries echoed into history.
She wanted to capture him with her eyes; she wanted nothing to change, nothing to get away from her. With each half-closed look, she nailed him to the bed.
And, in return, he took her in his arms, locked her in his grasp, squeezing the will from her every pore, searching to stop that thing called conscience that would surely drag her from the moment. He wanted to put a foot in the cogs of time, wanted to stop the future from arriving. He wanted to fall, thousands of miles off the edge, foundering into forever and everlasting.
Her arms snaked around him, enclosing him and pressing him onto her, imprinting his sweat and the pattern of his skin onto her bones.
That night, it was all promised… and all lost. His smiles promised wedding dresses, happy, smiling children, new houses and barbecues with friends, a lifetime of pleasure. Her touch promised forever and a day, a passage to paradise. When he spoke, he wanted to snare her like a hunter would its prey. When she caught his eyes, she wanted to show him the ghosts; her every casting glance was an assassins vengeful bullet. They held each other like wrestlers in the thick, grasping, groping and grinding, finding new strength as the hours past and they became weary of the fight. In the darkness, the moon heard them cry, wounded creatures starving for hope, desperate to defy the death. And over the sheets they dragged one another, pulling their chains along with them.
The house sighed as his vows pulled her heart to pieces. In return, she lopped at him with her own affirmation, burying him at the back of her mind, in the recesses of her secret heart. In the silence of sleep, he showed her how to make a love-knot. And in the morning, they wore each other’s faces.
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Do you remember not long ago?
When we used to live for the night-time
Cherish each moment
Now we don’t live we exist
We just run for our lives
So alone
That’s why you’ve gotta hold me.
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Morning came with a warning sunrise, bleeding into the sky a pool of violent colours. Doug watched from the bedroom window as the sun rose above the roofs, waking the world with its slow warmth. He hadn’t slept much all night. After she had fallen into sleep, he had dragged his wounded body from her arms and taken up in the armchair by the window. A gap in the curtains allowed him to see out, and he’d watched half-heartedly as the scenes had changed. He’d dozed on and off, occasionally glancing around to see that she was still sleeping, but mostly, simply wallowing in his own misery. He knew he couldn’t delay any longer. His new job awaited him half way across the country, and though his heart was begging him to turn it down and stay in Chicago, the thought of being unemployed was frightening.
Of course, he knew that he could do it in a flash. To give everything he valued up for her had at first it had been bone-chilling, but as the time had grown closer, and his feelings remained the same, it had become less than daunting. He could do it; commitment was no longer an issue. And his pride had already been shattered. So what was this thing pulling him away? Why did he feel that if he stayed he would doing the wrong thing?
As the dawn broke, he pinned it down. He wasn’t scared of having nothing but her in his life, what he was scared of was that he couldn’t say that she felt the same. Would she have been able to say she could have done what he had thought so long and hard about? Could she have settled to having nothing in her life but him?
The painful answer, he realised, was that, no, she couldn’t have done the same for him. She hadn’t been willing to move with him. She hadn’t even mentioned it again. He turned in the armchair and gazed at her, lying with her legs tied between twisted sheets, her head thrown onto her pillow, her hair flowing out behind her. She was so beautiful.
His eyes suddenly filled with tears. He’d never been the one who’d had a broken heart. He’d always been the one to do the breaking. But now, feeling his stomach turn a somersault as he looked upon her, he realised that maybe they were into the end-game. Maybe this was the fate of it all, and it had been no different from all the other relationships in his life. Only this time, it had been him who’d been hurt. He was the vanquished one, and she was the victor. Lying there, she was still whole, still harmonised enough to sleep through his silent scream. And, sitting watching her, he thought that for the rest of his life he would be able to hear that noise, that ugly, howling scream, the noise of his heart breaking. It was he who’d lost everything.
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So, we’ll no more go a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
No More A-Roving – Lord Byron
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She was still sleeping soundly when he returned to look at her one last time, his bags and coat waiting by the front door. The thought of leaving her like this numbed his bleeding heart, at least now she wouldn’t see him so wounded and there could be no awful confrontations, no tears, no excuses, no pleading with him to change his mind. He was standing tugging his coat on when she appeared at the door of the bedroom, hair dishevelled, wrapped in a bathrobe. "Doug," she said quietly. He turned, surprised to see her, and stopped in mid-action.
"Hey, sleepyhead…" He tried to smile, but it quickly faded as she stepped towards him.
"You’re leaving…" said Carol.
"Yeah. My HMO is expecting me."
She paused, her face displaying a depth of sadness she had not before betrayed. "I wish you well." She said eventually. Doug swallowed, dropping his gaze.
"I wish you…" He stopped and found the strength to look at her. In her eyes, he saw hollowness, as if all her soul had been sucked away. She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "I wish you could come with me," he said at last. There was an agonising pause, and for a moment, Doug thought that he would have done anything, absolutely anything, to just take them back in time and change what had happened. He’d have given his soul away.
But, perhaps even that wasn’t enough. And so they stood there, face to face, a few yards between them, but separated by a gulf that was so immense it seemed to Doug like she were standing on the other side of the world.
She shook her head. "You know, Doug… it wasn’t so long ago that I changed my whole life for you. I did things that surprised even me… and I don’t surprise myself very often… But now… now things are different, and you’ve changed that." She paused and looked straight at him with a look that would remain imprinted on him forever. "And you can’t change it back." He blinked, trying to understand what she was saying,
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I want the dream."
"The dream?"
She smiled wryly. "I want the white wedding, the house with the picket fence, the picture-book family, the room with a view. I want it to be perfect… and, right now, I don’t think it can…"
Doug said nothing, but then he picked up his bags and smiled, "Goodbye, Carol." He opened the door and stepped onto the porch. She followed him to the door. He started down the steps, but as he neared the bottom, he stopped himself and turned around. "If you change your mind…" He smiled, sadly. "I’ll be waiting for you."
And with that, he took himself from her life.
The End.