The Passion Play (23 page)

"I don't have to stay over, or to come every night. I can give you more space if you've been . . . bothered."

"I don't see the point, really. I don't like you that much. I mean, it's been fun but I've had enough."

He'd thought he had the will to fight, but he'd never imagined her looking at him like that, her face closed, and saying 'I don't like you that much,' to him. So coldly, so dispassionately; like it was a matter of fact. Like he was the idiot to have misinterpreted the signals.

"But we've been so happy together," he said, a rope thrown over a yawning chasm of heartbreak, and her face twisted up into a grimace that after a moment became a sneer.

"That's naïve, Luke. We've had a fun time, and we've scratched an itch, and you've solved a problem I had. Like I said, I'm grateful, but let's not turn it into something it's not."

"I don't understand, Felicity. How can you stand there and say-"

She lost her patience. "For God's sake, Luke, grow up. Just because you're infatuated with a girl doesn't mean she feels the same way. It's all in your head.
Your
head. Not mine. I don't want to hurt you but I just don't like you that much, and certainly not in that way. Can you please stop hounding me? I don't want this to get ugly."

He sat and looked at her, numb, his breath coming in shallow huffs of air. He couldn't think it through anymore. The emotions were too big. They crippled his thought processes. He couldn't see if there was a way through this back to her.

Ugly. She didn't want it to get ugly. She thought it could get ugly. Her and him. He was hounding her. Damn, he couldn't think. It was all in his head. She didn't like him.

He got up. He walked to the door. He picked up his shoes. Stood and looked at them for a long moment.

Contact details. He was supposed to leave her with contact details. He went to her phone and on the notepad next to it he wrote down his address, his email, his phone number, and put them under a magnet on her fridge.

He tried to look at her again, one last time, but he couldn't.

He couldn't bear to lift his head and look at that face. To see the emptiness where he had imagined the beginning of love.

He turned toward the door, walked to it, opened it, went through it and softly, so softly, closed it behind him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Three weeks went by, the weight of them heavier than lead. The withdrawal symptoms were bad. Luke left such a massive hole in her life. So stupid of her to let it happen.

During the day she could function almost like normal, but the evenings were much harder. The house was so empty. She stared out the open window at the gray sky.

She was so cold.
So cold and sad and lonely without him. It was pathetic. She had tried to fight it but she could not really concentrate on anything else so she had finally given up and laid down in a little ball on the bed they had shared so many nights. Warm nights of frivolous fun and sex, laughing under the covers together like children, poking and prodding and teasing and tickling, then stroking and sighing and coming together with that huge heat of conflagration.

It made her feel even colder to remember it, by contrast.

She welcomed the cold. It was fitting. It felt like a purging sort of thing, a kind of physical flagellation to turn the heat off in the house, to open the windows wide then lie and shiver, all alone on top of the covers. As if she could extinguish the glow of those memories by extinguishing warmth itself. It did not make a lot of sense but then nothing did. It felt right.

It was a
gray day outside, the sort that would mean snow in only a few weeks. Weeks? Maybe even less time, with the days slipping by so fast, in a blur. The bite of the air was bitter. She felt her nose grow numb, her teeth begin to chatter. Soon she would go and run a hot bath to warm up again. She should really get it started now, so it would be ready. She would just lie here a minute longer. It hurt as her fingers cooled, then her toes, the temperature in the room dropping towards freezing.

The pain felt good.

"Felicity? Felicity?"

She opened her eyes, slowly, like she was coming up through layers, her thoughts grown misty and unfocused.

What had she been thinking? Dreaming? She could not quite grasp it, though she was sad at the loss. It had been something lovely but it was gone now.

She frowned at the window, heard her name called again.
A woman's voice.

There was a silhouette against the glass,
then Caroline stuck her head through.

"God, Felicity, what are you doing, you weirdo?
You can't just lie about freezing your ass off. What are you thinking?" She climbed in laboriously, wrapped up thick against the cold, came over to the bed, and leaned over with her palms flat on the bedspread to get a good look at Felicity, who just lay there and stared at her blankly. "You look awful. What are you thinking? Get up."

"Caroline?"

"Yes of course." She pulled off her gloves, stretched out her hand and put it on Felicity's cheek in assessment and her eyebrows went up in shock. "You're ice cold. And no wonder. It's freezing in here. How long have you been here?" She got off the bed and went to close the windows, then stood pressing buttons on the thermostat control on the wall. "How do you work this thing? There are too many buttons. Felicity? How do you . . . oh, here it is. There. That should be better."

She came back and picked up Felicity's hands, folded together and a delicate shade of lilac. She chafed them between her own. "Look, seriously, you're way too cold. You're worrying me. Come and take a shower or something to warm up."

"I'll be fine," said Felicity, her voice cracking then emerging in a whisper.

"Oh sure, yeah, whatever, crazy lady.
Come on, get up." She put her arms around Felicity, tried to lift her bodily and nearly managed it, despite the awkwardness of the position. After a moment Felicity's brain slid into gear and she joined in the struggle with a strange feebleness, stiff and aching.

They nearly fell out of bed and then hobbled across the floor to the
ensuite bathroom, Caroline's arms wrapped right around Felicity's body, holding her upright and pulling her along.

"Nearly there. We'll put you in the shower while I run the bath. Your hot water pressure's up to it, isn't it? I'll make the shower just a bit warm because hot won't be comfortable yet anyway. We'll crank it up slowly then transfer you. Can you get your clothes off? Never mind. I'll do it. Don't worry. When you're a mom you spend entirely too much time dressing and undressing people. You're just a bigger version."

But Felicity managed to get most of her own clothes off, sensation coming back to her fingers in an uncomfortable prickling. She climbed into the shower – mildly warm as promised – and wondered what exactly had happened just then. She had not meant to put herself in danger. She had just been looking for a way to stop the ache of missing Luke. To distract herself or maybe accept it that ache, that pain into her and sink into it so deeply that it could not hurt anymore.

It did not make sense. 

When Caroline had her up to her neck in a steaming bath, Felicity finally met her friend's gaze, embarrassed and worried about the expression she might see on her face.

Caroline was frowning slightly, her muddy green eyes clouded with concern.

"Sorry," said Felicity.

"No, no don't apologize to me. I'm just glad I picked today to come over for that crafting session. That was pretty lucky. Did you . . . uh . . . did you have a plan about what you were doing?"

"I can't really explain it. The cold felt good. The pain was . . . I guess I was trying to punish myself."

"Punish yourself. Why?" Her tone was so carefully neutral Felicity was certain she
strove not to color it with worry or judgment. A wasted effort. Felicity heard both even if they were not overt. But there was no judgment there. Caroline really cared.

She did
not know what to say to that. She had never mentioned Luke to Caroline. He had been her guilty little secret. She did not want to break the news now, but neither did she want her friend to think that . . . what? That this was a random event that might happen again at any time?

"I've . . . uh . . . I've been seeing someone," she said guiltily, "But I broke it off and I'm feeling bad about it."

"Oh. Ah . . . okay. Bad about what part of it?"

"The whole of it, really.
Or nearly all of it. I just really screwed things up. It was such a stupid thing to do."

"To get involved?
Or to break up?"

"To get involved of course.
I mean, I know people are not supposed to go straight from one long-term relationship into another one, because it's all going to end badly. You know. Rebound relationships never last. People get hurt, everything about them is just wrong. I knew that. Everyone does. I told you I wasn't going to. But I just let myself get sucked in."

"Rebound relationships aren't all bad," murmured Caroline.

"Close enough. Clichés are clichés because they're true. Anyway I went ahead with it. I mean really he talked me into it but I didn't put up much of a fight."

"I don't see why you should have fought it. I mean you deserved someone nice to enjoy. Or wasn't he nice? Is that why you broke up?"

"No, he was definitely nice. Great really. Too great."

"Oh, you poor thing.
A guy who was too great. I can see how that would be a major problem."

"But it was," said Felicity, hearing herself sound plaintive and not liking it. "I felt so guilty about him getting hurt when I'm so emotionally unavailable right now, and he wouldn't let me break it off with him for his own sake – he kept saying that was up to him, not me – but in the end I knew I just had to. I didn't want to destroy the guy's heart. I think I did anyway. I feel distraught."

"So . . . he was in love with you, then?"

"Yes."

"He told you so?"

"No. He
was just really loving. I mean it was obvious, really. He did all sorts of nice things for me and put up with me being moody and bossy and not wanting to go out or introduce him to people or anything. He just stuck around and was there for me, you know?"

"I'm still listening for the part where
him being so great was a problem."

"I was getting too attached to him.
Too comfortable. It's nice being treated like that. I was using him to make me feel good."

Caroline was looking at her like she was crazy again.

"What?" asked Felicity.

"Tell me again about the
problem
," said Caroline slowly as if she was talking to an imbecile.

"It was just all going to go to a really bad place, you know? I'd be all attached to being cared for and loved like that,
and he'd be all attached to me – though really I wasn't all that nice to him so I don't know why he liked me so much-"

Caroline blew a raspberry and flipped her hand dismissively. "Don't give me that nonsense. I saw you with Dan. Your version of treating him well was waiting on him hand and foot. Dial that back to what you consider 'not very nice' and I'll bet you're most people's version of devoted."

"Well I . . . I don't
think
so," said Felicity cautiously.

"
Liss, people don't call you sweet for nothing. I'll just
bet
this guy of yours wasn't complaining."

"Not so you'd notice," said Felicity, thinking it over, prepared to reassess her own actions in this light. Not that it really changed anything significant but she would like to imagine he had not felt mistreated by her while they were together.

"So just to recap, you were worried that time would go by and you would both be even more attached and would then continue to inflict more of this awful love and devotion on each other?" Caroline rolled her eyes. "Still waiting on that bad part, you know."

"None of it was going to last. I know I was just feeling that way because of Dan and the way he used to be. Just that Luke was so much the opposite of Dan and I'd had so many years of Dan that anything different seemed wonderful, you know? But those feelings don't last forever."

"So Luke isn't really your type? He's not one of those big, hulking, athletic guys you like?"

"Well that's just physique. It's not really important in the greater scheme of things."

"So he's a little guy?"

"Not exactly."

"How not exactly?"

"He's on the team," said Felicity, and ducked her head to stare at her underwater fingertips.

"On the . . . on
the
team?
Dan's
team?"

"Yes."

"Oh my God! Does Dan know about this? I hope he does! I bet he's spitting tacks!" Caroline laughed an evil cackle, and Felicity frowned at her.

"I don't think so. He might. Dan saw a little bit of Luke when he showed up on the doorstep unexpectedly one time, but he didn't recognize him right away. So I don't know but I think Luke would have said something to me if Dan knew."

"Okay, so actually he is your type." Her eyes were still sparkling with inappropriate glee. "And this must mean he's younger too."

"Twenty-seven."

"Yum! A twenty-seven-year-old professional athlete. You must have been making up for some lost time then." She grinned wickedly.

"Um . . ."

"Oh you did, you did! You go girl! So all right, spit it out. What was wrong with him? What would you not find charming when you finally got over Dan – who I might remind you didn't have you heartbroken in the first place."

"Pardon?" asked Felicity, confused.

"You told me you weren't all that upset when Dan broke up with you. I mean, my guess is you really didn't have much to get over in the first place. You'd been over him for years. You were just going through the motions because you're . . . well, unnaturally tolerant. Or you have low expectations or something. Or you hold marriage sacred."

"Maybe all three."

"Precisely. So anyway what did Luke do that made him so refreshingly different from Dan?"

"He just . . . he wanted to spend time with me. He wanted to talk, and he really listened to what I said. Every time we . . . uh . . . had sex . . . he wanted to," she waved her hand back and forth in front of her chest to describe a meeting of hearts, "connect with me. He wanted to give me what I wanted, whatever it was. He watched me and he'd figure out what I liked and then just fall into line with it . . ." she trailed off. Caroline
’s eyes had gone all round and she was giving Felicity a puppy-dog look. "What?"

"Can't you hear yourself? You're saying you were worried you would get attached to being treated right. To being treated like you were in an actual, real, loving partnership. I think you are certifiably insane. Can you seriously not see that?"

"I don't . . . I just . . . that's not the way it works. You can't go from being peacefully married to one man, to being in love with another man in less than three months. That's just not realistic.
What?"
she finished in exasperation, seeing Caroline’s eyes open even wider.

"In love?"

"I . . . what?"