To See You Again (18 page)

"We're
ok, we'll be in bed soon anyway," I say, completely failing at my attempt of a
reassuring tone.
Please just go.

"Let's
let them be, Leighton. C'mon." Collin turns and grasps her elbow gently and
begins guiding her back upstairs.

"Collin
is just being modest, you know," she calls out from behind him. "He has some of
his best photographs down here. They're all over the walls. You should check it
out."

"Leighton!"
Collin's tone is uncharacteristically irritated. "They're tired. Let them go to
bed."

"Right,"
she replies, sounding defeated. "Goodnight, guys."

"Goodnight,"
we reply in concert.

*** *** ***

Twenty minutes later Beckett and I are lying in
bed together. He reaches under my nightshirt and grabs my breast. I push him
away. "Stop."

"Mmm…" He nuzzles his head in my hair. "How can I
when you're dressed like this?" He slips his hand down the back of my shorts.

"Beck! Stop it." I shove his arm away and
simultaneously kick him with my foot. "I'm too tired, OK?" I sigh audibly.

"Boy, you're in a foul mood!" He gently pulls me
back into his embrace. "I'll stop, just come here." I relax into his arms. "I
was worried about you today."

"I was OK." My curt reply is a plea for him to
just drop it. I pray he notices.

"I know, but you would've lost your mind if you'd
seen how little they seemed to care about two people trapped in an elevator."
He pulls me tighter toward him.

"Really?" Once Collin and I started truly talking,
I thought surprisingly little about any rescue efforts that might have been
underway. It never occurred to me that they weren't.

 "Yes. I know they had a lot of other problems,
but after awhile I got pissed and raised some hell."

"You did?" He nods into my hair. "Thanks, Beck.
You know, other than getting really thirsty, it wasn't all that bad."

"I'm glad. Couldn't have been fun to be stuck in an
elevator, though. I can tell you're not a huge fan of this Collin guy, either.
I've never seen you be so withdrawn." For a split second I think about
correcting this notion, but what would be the point of that? After a moment of
silence between us he continues talking. "Sorry that we're stuck here, but I
bet you'll be glad to have a hot shower and lights in the morning."

"Yep," I whisper quietly and feign falling asleep.
Soon Beck's breathing changes and I know he's out. I, on the other hand, am still
completely wide-awake.

I can't seem to sleep. This has been the strangest
day, maybe ever. Leighton gave me an earful before bed about my many hosting
faux pas this evening. I knew the best strategy was to appear completely rapt
with interest in everything she said. I pretended that all of my errors had been
the result of fatigue from the elevator ordeal. It became apparent that I could
work the stuck-elevator-traumatized-me angle to an even bigger advantage
tonight, beyond simply getting me out of hot water, but I lacked either the
interest or the desire. I extract myself from Leighton and head downstairs to
the kitchen. I open the fridge and then shut it, and then open it again. I grab
three Cuties from a box I bought last week and squeeze them. They still seem
good. I place two on the island and begin peeling the third. Turning a light on
might help this process, but for some reason I don't.

I begin
stacking the tiny pieces of orange peel on top of one another, tower like, when
I hear a creaking on the staircase. The door to the basement slowly moves open and
there, in the hallway, appears Rachel.

"Shit.
Did I wake you?" I whisper quietly, as if keeping my volume down
now
would
somehow allow her to go back to sleep.

"I
haven't been able to sleep. I'm not too good with the whole getting cut off
from work thing." She shrugs as she saunters into the room, appearing
apologetic. She's still wearing the shorts Leighton gave her, but has thrown on
what must be Beckett's undershirt, over the skimpy top.

"What
are you doing up?" she whispers.

The only
illumination in the room is the moonlight, which pours into the kitchen from
the small window over the sink behind me, and the sliding glass door adjacent
to the kitchen island where we stand. I think how I can see her only marginally
better in this light, than I could earlier today, trapped in the elevator. I
flick the range light on and grin at her. Her returning smile is brief and
fake. She looks like she's regretting her decision to come upstairs and is ready
to dart back down at any given moment.

"Couldn't
sleep either, I guess." I surprise her by tossing her an orange, which she
catches easily and immediately begins unpeeling, our non-verbal shorthand
amazingly still intact. I've been stumbling and falling from the moment Rachel
and I reunited, if you can call it that. I've felt rudderless in a rocky sea
trying to navigate my interactions with her. There have been zero sure-fire
moves, but the two of us in a kitchen together feels right and maybe just
familiar and comforting enough to keep her from bolting. I couldn't risk
Leighton's already suspicious nature in order to obtain details from her about
what happened upstairs when she lent Rachel the clothes, so I didn't bother. But
it was clear to me that a seismic shift in Rachel's demeanor had occurred. She
went from ‘I'm feeling uncomfortable' to "how do I get the fuck out of here?' in
the short span of time they were gone.

It's
been several hours since then, and much to my tremendous relief, she seems
significantly calmer, even if still wary. Rachel was never one to let emotions
overtake her easily, so when they did, it often happened in short, explosive
waves—a rush of anger or tears that were quickly followed by a controlled calm,
like a sudden, fierce summer thunderstorm pouring down upon the earth and then
dissipating as quickly as it had formed. Returning to sunshine and chirping
birds so soon afterward that you found yourself wondering if the storm had
happened at all. I'm praying for that sunshine now.

She
looks around my kitchen and gently runs a single finger along the tiled
backsplash. "You have an incredible place here, Collin." Another small grin appears,
but this one feels real.

"Thanks,"
I say leaving out thousands of unspoken words. I want to apologize for the
weirdness of everything, the ridiculous clothes Leighton gave her, the
circumstances we're trapped in, everything, but I halt all of it in my mind. I
don't want to risk the provocation of any thoughts that might return her to the
panicked state she was in before. I have to play this safe and careful and
casual, I know that much. She takes a small bite of orange and gazes into the
living room, and I seize a rare moment to regard her without her noticing. I
have the peculiar urge to pinch myself. I've imagined her in my home, in my
life, so many times over the years, always ultimately dismissing it as a total impossibility.
I'd picture her instead, married, to Spencer of course, with kids possibly. Yet
here she is. Unbelievable. She's so very far from being mine, though.

"You
have everything set up nicely, too. Have you owned it long?" She inquires,
still seeming guarded.

"Um,
yeah, thanks. I bought it a few years ago, and Leighton has added some
decorations and stuff." She continues to take it all in, and I wonder how much
she can see in the dim lighting. She looks back at me and then eases herself up
on the counter. Seeing her sitting there reminds me so much of all the time we
spent hanging out in kitchens together in college. I used to cook for Raven
often, especially while I was crashing at her place. She would always perch up
on the counter, keeping me company, talking about her day. I never said much
about mine, and that time with her was usually the best part of it, anyway. I
reach for another orange and lean on the island across from where she sits.

"Is it
comfortable enough for you down there?" I ask.

"Oh
yeah, definitely. That's not why I'm up. I'm just neurotic. Beckett says I
can't leave work at work. I guess he might be right about that sometimes." As
soon as she says his name her eyes cast downward. No more eye contact.

"Well, I
doubt anyone got much done there today," I offer.

"Yeah,
well, there's all the incoming stuff, too. The outage was just a few blocks of
Chicago, not the rest of the world," she retorts.

"True,"
I say, noting her irritation. "Listen, I'm sorry you got dragged over here. Leighton
can be really persuasive when she wants something. I guess I couldn't figure
out how to tell her no." The look on Rachel's face confounds me. For a brief moment
there I thought I stood a chance of finding some normalcy with her, but
whatever it was that upset her before bed, it's still gnawing away. Screw it.
I'm asking her. What the hell do I have to lose anyway? "Rachel, what is it?
You look…well, you look ticked off." I nearly wince as the words leave my
mouth. I want to be wrong about this, but I can feel she's mad at me.

She
sighs loudly, louder than she must've intended, because then she pauses and
seems to reign herself in a bit. "It's just really awkward that I'm here, I
guess. But more than that, I'm upset with myself for what happened today. I
need to make something clear to you. I'm with Spencer, alright? And what went
on in the elevator today…shouldn't have."

"Beckett,"
I whisper, staring her down.

"What?"
She slides off the counter, tosses her half-eaten orange in the trash, and
glares at me. "What about him, Collin?" Her tone is agitated and her volume is rising.

"You
mean, Beckett," I repeat, taking a step closer to her and willing our eye
contact not to break. "You said ‘Spencer'."

I watch
as her mouth falls open slightly, it's an expression unique to Rachel, which I
could easily conjure in my mind—and
have
—many times over the years.  She
looks so beautiful like that, in those brief moments when she's unguarded and
natural. That look is there for just a moment before I see a new emotion
washing over face. Then she blinks, hard, like she's struggling for control. "I
didn't say Spencer," she whispers, shaking her head, almost as though she's
trying to convince herself, not me.

I step
closer to her and I can feel tense energy radiating from her, her breath is erratic.
I take another step so that my face is now just inches from hers. She bows her
head away from mine, gluing her eyes to the floor. "Let
me
be clear
about something, Rachel. I'm not sorry about today. I don't regret a second
spent with you. I never have." She's breathing heavily, and I know it's at
least in part due to my proximity. I'll admit, I'm not sure what I'm doing
right now, but she's trying to pull away and I
can't
let that happen.
I'm affecting her. I can feel it. She knows I can feel it. I reach up and
gently touch her arm. Her eyes immediately rise to mine like the feel of it
sent a bolt of electricity straight through her. A tear streams down her cheek.
I reach to catch it and she intercepts my hand.

"Collin,
no. No." She pushes me away and walks around the island toward the door to the
basement. "I'll stay the night, because there is no way out of this now, but
I'm out of here early tomorrow, and then…" She lets out a shaky sigh and
roughly wipes away another escaped tear. "Then, that's it. We have our separate
lives. We can't go back in time or pretend it's ten years ago." She stares at
me for a second, and then escapes down the stairs before I can respond.

I stand
in the kitchen for a moment and put my hand over my heart, as if doing so would
slow my rapid pulse. She's right. We can't pretend.

Rachel

What the hell is wrong with me? I mean seriously,
what the hell? Collin probably thinks I'm insane. I feel insane. I know I've
been giving him emotional whiplash all day—mixed signals, or whatever you want
to call it, but I didn't ask for any of this. Not really, anyway. I'd evicted
him from my thoughts years ago, and now he's back and breathing down my neck in
his fancy kitchen, and I don't know what the hell to do.

I roll over and face Beckett, who is still sound
asleep, completely unaware of the mental breakdown his girlfriend is having. I
pull the covers up over my face. I don't want to be here. I truly do not want
to mess up my life, or screw up my relationship, and yet I get within a foot of
Collin and I can't see straight. There was a moment there, a genuinely
delusional moment, when I really thought we could just go back to what we had, whatever
that was. But then I thought of Beckett and Leighton and the whole illusion
just shattered.  All I could think was, ‘
what am I doing?'

*** *** ***

I toss and turn for hours. When I check the clock
again it reads 4:03. I haven't slept yet and my plan is to get Beckett up no
later than 5:45. We can shower; get the hell out of here, and grab breakfast
together somewhere on our way to work. I'm not eating with Collin and Leighton
in the morning. No way. I gently trace Beckett's face and then listen to his
slow, methodic breathing. I roll over and try to mimic it, attempting to calm
myself, but my head is a hurricane. Thoughts of work, Collin, and Beckett swirl
around crashing into each other.

*** *** ****

I smell eggs. Someone gently pulls on my arm and I
open my eyes. Beckett sits on the bed next to me, smelling fresh with his hair
damp. "What the…" I bolt up.

"Hey, sleepy head." He grins at me. "It's a rare
day that I'm up before you. You better get in the shower. There's plenty of
girly stuff in there I'm sure you can use, and I think your friends are already
up." He smirks at my horrified expression. I
never
oversleep.

I rip off the sheets and stumble across the room,
grabbing a towel from a stack in the corner. "Oh, my God!" I exclaim. "What
time is it?"

"Easy baby, it's a little before seven," Beckett
soothes. He guides me into the bathroom and starts the shower for me.  The bathroom
is beautiful, all dark granite with a modern shower stall, a long, spotless
glass door and an ornate sink. In the corner there's a mahogany cabinet filled
with toiletries and towels. Beckett removes a couple of bottles and places them
in my hand. "Try not to freak out, baby. You needed the sleep." I refuse to
answer him so he adds, "Take a quick shower, we'll eat, say our thank yous, and
then we can share a cab to work this morning. You can still make it there by
eight. No worries."

By eight? He says that like it's a good thing.

I rip my clothes off and step into the shower. The
water is still a little chilly and I nearly yelp. How on earth did I oversleep?
The last time I looked at the clock, it was a little before five in the
morning.  I must've fallen into a deep sleep right after that. Shit! Shit!
Shit! I'm awake now. Who the hell needs coffee when you have
freak-out-adrenaline coursing through your veins? I shower at lightning speed
and barely dry off before pulling on the clothes Leighton lent to me. Staring
back at my reflection, I have to hand it to her; the outfit looks cute and much
to my shock, it fits. I take a deep breath and exit the bathroom. Beckett is
straightening his tie in the full-length mirror.

"How do I look, baby?" he asks, looking past his
reflection and onto me.

"Handsome. Is that Collin's?"

"Yes. You just missed Leighton. She brought it
down for me. I'm wearing yesterday's pants, but I doubt anyone will notice." He
whirls around to face me. "You ready?"

Ready to get the hell out of here as fast as
possible? You betcha. I reach over and grab my purse and bag and give Beckett a
nod. I glance back at the sheets strewn behind me. "Beck, we should probably make
the bed. Don't you think?"