Alicia Spinnet {don't get caught on her edges} (moreofarelapse) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-01-22 08:35:00 |
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The time had come. Alicia could no longer excuse lying to George. For years, it hadn’t seemed like a big deal, even if she’d felt guilty every time they kissed. Now that Terence was back, well. He was going to find out sooner or later, and she knew that it would hurt a lot worse if he ‘happened’ to find out, and especially if anyone else told him. No, it had to be Alicia, and it had to be now. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him, but they’d long past that point. Hurt was inevitable. The only thing she could do was try to minimize the damage. The other day, she’d hoped to be able to tell him, but had chickened out. That wasn’t an option this time. Inviting him over to her place, so that it would be easier for him to choose to stay or leave, she didn’t know if she hoped he would leave, because that would be better for him, or if he’d stay, because Alicia was apparently always going to be in need of a hug. And that was the problem with their relationship, wasn’t it? It wasn’t even that she was married, because they could get over that. She could get a divorce at any time and be done with Terence Higgs. No, the problem was that Alicia asked for things she knew George would give her just because she knew he would give them to her. It would be a lie to say she didn’t love him, because she did. But in the end, she was still using him, and that was why she had to make him break up with her; she didn’t know if she had the strength and discipline to draw the line herself. The tea kettle began to shriek loudly as she waited for her boyfriend to show up, drawing her out of her thoughts and causing her to jump just the slightest amount. It was nearly dark outside, but still light enough that she could see the street outside the front window. A familiar figure came up the walk and she steeled himself for what was going to come. But first, the tea. She took the kettle off the stove and began to pour the water into mugs with teabags, making George’s the way she knew he liked (because she was a terrible girlfriend, but she wasn’t that terrible), while she waited for him to walk up the stairs and knock. -- The words ‘can we talk’ had never in the history of ever meant anything good. George knew this, small silly monkeys knew this. It was a pretend-neutral way of saying ‘this is gonna suck.’ Well, he wasn’t a Gryffindor for nothing. With a twisting, sharp pain somewhere in his middle, George shuffled up the walk, hands deep in his pockets. He paused on the steps, looking up at the windows. This was her place, it smelled of her, it felt like her. He liked it here, surrounded by her things. But it had still been the place she’d shared with him. That made it a little odd sometimes, like he could never be quite at home. He had a feeling that wouldn’t help matters if she really was going to say something he didn’t like. Putting on his most pleasant outward expression, which wasn’t hard because seeing Alicia always put a doofy smile on his face, he raised a hand to knock. -- “Hey,” she greeted him, letting him in. “I made some tea, did you want some?” Alicia was well aware of the implications of ‘Let’s talk,’ especially with the situation they were in, but there was really no way to avoid anything now. She could have just asked him to come over, but then he might think everything was fine because she hadn’t really let anything on the previous two days (so she thought, anyway), and it wasn’t like she could say ‘yeah we need to talk but no it isn’t bad.’ It was bad. She’d fucked up. Now it was time to face the consequences of her actions. -- “I absolutely would,” George replied as he stepped into her home. He had a brief look around before heading toward the kitchen. Not because he felt like he was super comfortable in the place, but because that’s where tea was usually kept, and he didn’t want to stand around in the foyer like a doofus. Better to get it through with, right? “So, uh, how was your day?” Wow, laaaame. -- While she knew she needed to get it out of the way quickly, before she lost her nerve (again), she didn’t want to be so rude as to blurt it out the second he walked in the door. So she walked him back to the kitchen, plucked the mugs off the counter, and handed George his. “It was alright. Better yesterday and today than earlier in the week.” She looked at him, like really looked at him, and waited until she had his full attention. “Thanks for staying with me the other night. It really helped.” Running the next morning with Terence had also helped, but more than both of those things, being able to talk about some of the things going on in her head had been the most helpful. And as hard as it had been to get started, she really did feel better after talking. -- “That’s good to hear,” George said with a smile, leaning back against the counter with the cup cradled in his hands. It was a nice, warm change from the January air of outside. He didn’t have to smell or taste the liquid to know that it was perfect. He liked to think that, by now, they knew each other and their preferences pretty well. “You know it’s no problem,” he said, then paused to take a sip. Heaven. Half a dozen examples of just what he would do if asked ran through his head before he settled on: “You’re important to me, I’d do anything to help you.” A little sigh as something tightened in his chest. It was an old, familiar feeling, but one that always caught him off guard. It wasn’t a bad feeling, just the old ache. Stupid heart. -- She did know, and she appreciated it, though she wasn’t sure just how well she’d conveyed that during their talk on Wednesday. Even when she was able to come up with good responses and explanations in her head, actually verbalizing the words didn’t usually turn out the way she wanted. Which was why they were still standing there in her kitchen, sipping tea and not actually talking about her marriage. “I know. It’s why…” she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s why I have to tell you something. I...haven’t just been lying about how bad I really feel, I…” Alicia looked down at her hands, her eye catching the tattoo on her ring finger. The one she’d gotten for Terence. “I’m still married.” -- George had expected bad news. Something about the way their talk had gone. Even though he had assured her that it was fine. that she didn't feel like he did, that it was okay, that what they had was good enough, he'd known something was coming. Hard not to. But he was completely unprepared. He'd followed her gaze down to that tattoo. Oh, he hated that thing, loathed it, it was a reminder that someone else had been there first, that he, George, had been too damn cowardly not to say something before she'd eloped with someone else. And then she was talking, saying the last thing he'd ever expected. He went quite still and then very, painfully slowly, set his mug down so that he didn't crush it or throw it or drop it or something else equally stupid. "Excuse me?" --- She still didn’t look at him. Once it sunk in, surely he would hate her. She didn’t want to see the hurt and anger in his eyes, didn’t think she could handle it. George was so...good, and honest, and having to break his heart like this was going to be the end of her. “I told you and everyone that I divorced him so everyone would get off my back about it. But I never filed the paperwork. I still have a husband, technically.” To her credit, Alicia didn’t really offer him any excuses for her behavior, she simply gave him the one reason she had for why she lied. It was really more complicated than that, as she’d realized very quickly that divorced was not something she’d wanted to be, that she’d made a mistake and had still wanted to be with Terence, but hadn’t been able to crawl back to him, that every time she thought about taking that step and actually formalizing it, she got a little sick to her stomach. Perhaps a small part of her had been hoping that by never formally ending things, if or when he came back, she’d be able to make it up to him and ask him to take her back. Either way, she definitely hadn’t thought it would happen so soon, and certainly hadn’t expected everything to come to a head so abruptly. “I am so sorry, George.” -- "Dammit," George said. It was all he could say. He was feeling more things than he thought were possible. Anger, soul-crushing disappointment, disbelief, pure misery. It was all he could do not to just sink to the floor and howl like some sort of fatally wounded herd animal. Anger was the easiest, oh that one was easy. Shouting and throwing and breaking. Those were things he did well. But anger burned bridges, it closed doors, it pushed away the people he didn't want to lose, even when they were the source. Numbness. That's where he settled. Let him feel cold and numb and get through this and then handle the complicated stuff later, when he was alone and no one could hear him cry. "Are you really, though?" A sigh. That came out more angry than he wanted. He closed his eyes, counted to four, and tried again for calm reason. It was hard. "Why?" Why him and not me? Why is it always him? -- Alicia flinched at the anger he was so entitled to. She felt very small in that moment, and more ashamed than she’d ever felt about anything in her life. Her mug, too, joined his on the counter, as she crossed her arms over her stomach and stared at the floor; her lip was well on its way to being worn through from her teeth as she waited for the swearing and throwing things to start. “Yes, I am. I don’t really...I just couldn’t do it.” She finally chanced a glance up at him. “I didn’t know this was going to happen. I thought...I thought he wasn’t ever coming back.” That was not a good enough reason, Alicia knew that, but she didn’t have a good reason. All she had were excuses he wouldn’t want to hear, because she avoided doing things she didn’t want to do until it became a huge problem. --- "So, what, you thought it wouldn't matter? Oh, no big deal that you're still fucking married," Oh, there was the anger. Yeah, that was definitely easier. "He's never coming back! Oh, but if he ever does, you can just..." He cut off short as something was shoved through him. He actually looked down, expecting to see a sword or spear sticking out of where his heart had been. Nothing, just heaving chest and a sharp ache of realization. "You want to go back to him, don't you? You always have." He would not cry. "I always knew I was convenient, why bother going through getting to know someone when there's a readymade, lovesick sap just begging to do anything to win your affection, I just didn't realize I was a placeholder." -- He wasn't wrong to accuse her of using him; she had used him, even if it hadn't been quite like he imagined. For the most part, he was right. This had all started because he was there, because he loved her and would do whatever she wanted or needed. But it wasn't quite as convenient as all that. She'd always cared about him, and in the last two years, she had definitely come to love him. She didn't want to have to say goodbye to him. She just knew it was better for George if they did. He didn't deserve someone as terrible as Alicia. “That's not true!” she insisted of the last thing he said. “George you...it's...You have meant everything to me. I would not have made it the last three years without you. It's not convenient at all to feel this way about you. To want to be able to honestly tell you that I love you, because I do, I just...I don't yet mean it the way you do.” --- George was very close to hitting something. The wall was looking like a good target, with its smug paint and stupid structure. It would hurt like hell and leave a hole and he'd much rather break his own things. "You say 'yet' like there's still a shot," he said coldly, "like you could with enough time, and I'd believe that until the day it killed me if you weren't so obviously hung up on someone else that you can't divorce them. And I have clung to that belief through the worst of it, when it's hurt too much to breathe." He closed his eyes for a steadying breath. "Alicia," he went on, softer now, "I will love you to my grave, but if he's the one you choose, I need to know so I can leave you to it and figure how to live the rest of my life." -- “George…” she said when he paused, his words hurting her almost too much to breathe. This was a great big fucking mess. Alicia knew that telling him after all this time was the best way, so that he didn’t find out on accident from someone else, but it still hurt so much she didn’t hardly know what to do or say. No matter what she wanted to happen or to be true, the absolute, very last thing she’d ever wanted in the world was to hurt the man in front of her. Something she did want to be able to do was give him a straight answer. Their lives would be so much easier if she could just tell him yes she wanted Terence or no she didn’t. She wanted to be able to tell him that she didn’t want to give up on them, because she didn’t think she did; it certainly looked, sometimes, like Terence had moved on and was happy without her. But unless, and until, he told her that no, it was never going to happen, that they should just file the paperwork, she wasn’t going to be able to move on. “I don’t know what I want,” she said softly. Well, she didn’t know who she wanted, to be more clear. Alicia knew she wanted to find a way to be happy. She knew she wanted to be healthy and cope and not feel so devastated by her mistakes. She wanted to enjoy the things she used to, to be a good friend, a good girlfriend, a good wife. But she was a woman who loved two men. She didn’t know who she wanted more, or who she couldn’t live without. -- George hated to see her in such agony. His instincts were to pull her into a hug, to squeeze away the pained look on her face. But his instincts were stupid. His anger said that she'd done this to herself, that it served her right for making him feel like he wanted to scream and vomit and die all in one go. Anger was so smart. "I've known what I've wanted since I was eleven," he said, voice colder than he'd ever heard it. "And apparently you knew that." He sighed and pushed away from the counter, shoving his hands into his pockets so he didn't go and do anything stupid and irreversible. "You need to figure it out," he said after a beat, "because if you don't, it's going to be figured out for you, and no matter how badly you've hurt me, I don't want you sad. Ever. I just can’t be with you when you’re not completely with me." He looked toward the ceiling until he was sure his able to speak steadily. “I can’t do that to myself anymore.” -- His words said one thing, but his tone said something completely different. Alicia wanted to believe that he meant what he said, and that he was just protecting himself in sounding so goddamn angry and cold and hurtful, but she wasn’t quite in the right headspace to believe it. No, what she believed was that she’d finally made him hate her, and while that made her want to cry and curl up in bed, she knew she deserved it. She deserved everything he had to hurl at her for lying and hurting him. She couldn’t even look at him anymore as he talked at her. Could he break up with her when they hadn’t even been together? He could if they had, in fact, actually been together. “I didn’t know,” she replied, voice still very, very small. “Not when we started...If I had, I never would’ve…” She couldn’t even finish her statement, so she switched tracks. “I don’t want you to do that to yourself.” -- “Would have what, Alicia?” George asked, sounding tired now. He was so tired. Tired of arguing, tired of being lied to, tired of hurting, tired of wanting her so badly that he couldn’t function. Just exhausted. “You know what, nevermind.” He took a step toward the hallway, but it was hard. He didn’t want to walk out of her life but he didn't want to stay here, either. The walls were closing in on him. "Yeah, well, I think I brought it on myself." He believed that. If he'd just been braver in school, asked her out one of the thirty times he'd almost had the courage, they wouldn't be here. He couldn't look at her. "I should go." -- Alicia buried her face in her hands. ‘Would have what’ indeed. She couldn’t deny that, yes, part of the reason the whole thing had happened was because he’d been there. Because he’d loved her enough to give her what she needed when Terence couldn’t. And maybe none of it had been right, but none of it had felt wrong, either. The only part that had ever felt wrong to Alicia was that George thought she was divorced. And maybe that was why she never told him. If he knew she was still married, he probably would have never agreed to anything until the papers were signed. Alicia had no idea if she’d have done it so she could be with him just for comfort. She hadn’t yet loved him as anything more than her friend. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes; the tears had formed and begun to fall before she even knew they were there. “Probably,” she responded, because that was all she had. She didn’t want him to go. She didn’t want him gone from her life. But she also knew it would be better for him in the long run if he left and never looked back. George deserved to be with a nice girl, one who wouldn’t lie to him about her marital status or use him to feel better. He deserved so much better than her. -- George couldn’t do this. He absolutely could not look her in the eyes while she was crying and not ache to fix it. His heart, bruised and betrayed as it was, urged him to sweep her up and tell her she was forgiven and that it would all be okay and that he would never, ever, ever leave her. His heart was either stupid or a liar. He closed his eyes and turned away. “We’ll talk later,” he said finally, he didn’t want to nail shut anything before they’d had a chance to calm down, “I promise.” He hesitated, resisting again the impulse to at least touch her, then made his way toward the door. -- She let him leave, and stayed rooted in her spot until long after the door closed behind him. The tears hadn’t stopped, no matter how much she tried to stem the flow; eventually, Alicia just gave up and went to her room, closed the door, and crawled into bed, ignoring the fact that she was still wearing her work clothes, and cried herself to sleep. |