She doesn’t like the subtle jabs she takes to her conscience every time he smiles at her. Half of her revels in it, half of her despises him and herself, and all of her never knows how she should react. So, she acts indifferent. She reminds herself that they weren’t in love; they weren’t even pretending to be in love. She couldn’t let feelings become a factor. Sometimes, she wishes he would make demands that were too complicated for her to fulfill. Sometimes, she wishes he would give her a reason to end it all. She knows he won’t, though. Their encounters have never been about things such as feelings and emotions. The only thing they share with each other is passion.
Movement III: This Thing Called Trust
They were at a stalemate, neither retreating nor advancing. Days had passed since they had a decent conversation. Any words they exchanged were limited to civil chitchat”most of which contained three words or less. Enjoying the weather? Sure am. Me too. It was the kind of bullshit that never got them anywhere and always ended with them awkwardly gravitating away from each other. Well, gotta go. Important stuff. Yeah, me too. It was pathetic.
Sometimes, he’d come to her room at night, standing outside the door, listening to the sound of her tears. He was prepared to tell her that none of it mattered. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her they could move beyond this. Their bond was stronger than a deception. He was just fooling himself, though. Part of him wanted to believe that things could go back to the way they used to be, but the odds were slim that would happen. There would always be trust issues. Every time she so much as took a walk, he knew what he would think in his heart. What kind of relationship was that if he had to constantly second guess her as well as himself?
He didn’t want to be part of a relationship where every thought was riddled with images of her and some faceless man together. He didn’t want to feel like she was silently laughing at him behind his back. He didn’t want to know if she was thinking about this other man while they were together. At the same time, he knew he would miss waking up with her curled in his arms, her promises that she would never abandon him, the laughter they shared, the tears they’d cried privately together.
He crept into her room while she was off playing referee for another one of Bobby and Alex’s verbal sparring matches, telling himself that he would wait for her. They needed to get this straightened out now. But he found himself face to face with her open journal, and temptation was a sonuvabitch. He tried to prod himself go back out the door and maybe watch on half-amused while Alex and Bobby got all up in one another’s face.
This one promised to get physical, someone said. It always “promised” to be the fight of the century. He knew better, and unless they were shedding blood this time, he’d rather watch the grass grow or the clouds float by or whatever. He’d seen Bobby and Alex fight before. It was the equivalent of watching two grade school girls pull each other’s hair. Nope, he wouldn’t waste his fucking time on that one.
Besides, the prospect of accidentally reading her journal was much more important. He wasn’t snooping, not really. It wasn’t like he’d gone in her drawer and gotten it out. It was right there on her bed, opened for the whole world to see. That made it public domain. If she was that worried about it, she should’ve taken care to put it away. Who was he kidding? He was snooping and he didn’t have one regret about it.
She used to give him access to her most private thoughts, even her journal. There wasn’t much she’d written about him that she hadn’t told him aloud, and the things she hadn’t said, he already knew, from one heart to another.
He’d lie across her bed, his eyes chasing her flowery script across the faux antiquated page. He smiled thinking about one of her entries concerning her very strong”why didn’t she just use the word hate?”dislike of Emma Frost. It was the same night he’d let her sweet talk him into letting her try out her new nail polish on his toes. (“Geez, ‘Ro, ya never told me ya were so full o’ teenage rage,” he’d joked, which she countered by threatening to tell everyone he’d let her paint his toes alternating colors of “Vixen” and “Berry Persistent.”)
Now, it was just like that first day when he’d thought she was an uppity bitch and she’d thought he was a complete animal. She didn’t say anything personal to him, anymore, clamming up completely whenever they were in the same room alone for more than ten minutes.
He wasn’t interested in the other person. He was only interested in the things concerning them. He wanted to understand where it all went wrong. And, okay, maybe he was more than slightly interested in who the other person was, but he convinced himself that that was really secondary. He leaned on the bed, turning back the pages, taking in as much as he could, trying to spot the vital parts by picking out the “important” words.
She was smart. She never mentioned the other man by name, but he could feel his disgust, his anger, growing with some of the entries he’d read. Some of them revealed how close he’d really been to the other man”literally close enough to rip his balls off. Still, she was careful in her writing. She was descriptive, detailing every forbidden detail down to the last sigh, but that was only with the action. She never gave anything away that might spark an “aha!” moment. Maybe this was intentional on her part. Maybe she knew he would eventually read it, and this was the only way she felt she could confess.
Her latest entry detailed a recent night out a group of them had taken”just for a little R&R. They’d gone to some high-priced restaurant where they gave you one shrimp on a cracker and some dribble that looked like diarrhea and charged you $200 bucks for it. Of course, that hadn’t been his idea. But he’d gone along with it because she wanted to go, glad to do it for her, actually, but he had to hem and haw about it for appearances sake.
And he remembered her going to the restroom before the meal, and he remembered thinking she’d gotten lost after about ten minutes. He remembered how flustered she was when she came back to the table. He remembered she smelled like raw desire, and she would never meet his eyes during dinner. Yeah, it stuck out in his mind because even then he already had his suspicions, but he didn’t dwell on it.
He heard her footsteps, as she neared the room, but he couldn’t resist reading just one more line. Why did you let your eyes rest on me like that, and smile at me with that smile, and speak to me in that voice? Now, nothing can ever be the same again, she’d scrawled, the writing wobbling slightly, a tear smearing one of the words. Anger gripped him tightly, pushing insane thoughts through his head.
He stood up straight again, making sure everything was in place before taking a few steps away from the bed. How suspect was he going to look standing in her bedroom for no particular reason at all? He tried to look at it different. He’d surprised her many times by being in her bedroom when she was least expecting, but they hadn’t been fighting then.
The door swung open, and she stopped short when she saw him, bringing a hand to her chest. “What are you doing?” she asked accusingly, her eyes sliding to the journal on the bed.
“Nothin’,” he’d said like a scolded dog, trying to use what little shred of control he had left to keep from demanding to know exactly whose eyes rested on her like that, and who smiled at her with that smile, and who spoke to her in that voice.
One look told him that she didn’t believe him, but she didn’t accuse him of anything, as she walked toward the bed. Putting her pen between the spine to serve as a bookmark, she closed the journal, cradling it in her hands like a long lost child. She walked toward her dresser and put it in the top drawer, closing it softly behind her. He thought if she’d had the nerve to slam the drawer, he might’ve snapped. In fact, he’d hoped that she would slam the drawer, but she knew how to pick and choose her battles.
She took an audible breath before turning to face him. “You read it. Am I right?” she asked him. He didn’t know why she would ask him that, but she continued to wait on eternally for his answer.
“Yeah,” he finally said. He’d never been good at lying. “Didn’t get ta read much, though.”
“But you read what mattered,” she said, pushing herself against the wall next to the dresser as if that would keep her safe from him if things got out of control.
He nodded, folding his arms across his chest. “Yeah.”
She pushed off the wall, walking toward him, seduction causing a slight sway in her hips. He steeled himself against her, wondering when she’d learn to be so goddamn deceiving. There would not be a repeat of the other day. “Logan””
“I trusted ya, y’know.” He snapped at her angrily. She paused in her tracks, eye guarded, brows furrowing together.
“I know you did, and I have beaten myself up over this thing a million times over.” The lines in her face deepened as she frowned and looked almost sorry.
“That ain’t enough. That’ll never be enough.” She would never understand the pain in his heart at that moment, a pain so excruciating he wished he could die. Did she even fucking care?
“I know. And I know there is nothing I can do to make this right.” She rocked on heels a bit as if she was bored, but her face still held that half-sorry look. He didn’t know what to make of it.
She seemed awfully damn resigned. She showed enough sorrow for him to wonder if she did care anymore. Maybe the thought of having another man waiting in the wings made her eager to be rid of him. “Are ya still seein’ him?”
“Oh,” she said softly, drawing it out longer than necessary, caught off-guard by the question. The word seemed to propel him forward until he was standing only steps away from her. She shrank back from him a bit.
“Oh?” That was never a good response when it came from her. “Oh ain’t a acceptable response, Ro.” She was tearing him apart.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered.
“Sorry?” He grabbed her arms suddenly, too roughly. He shook her once and she let out a slight shocked sign, turning her electric blue eyes back to his eyes; the first inklings of real terror crowning them. “That’s all ya got ta say is yer sorry?” he said, shaking her again.
“Yes, I am sorry.” Her voice was thick with tears that threatened to erupt at any moment, but her answer was defiant.
“What the hell is that s’pose ta mean?” He was shaking her too hard, and she was crying. Words were coming out of her mouth, but none of it made sense, not to him, anyway. The room darkened quickly, as the nice, summer afternoon turned into a dreadful mess.
And someone was knocking on the door frantically, irritating Logan to the very depths of his soul. “Ororo, are you okay?” he heard Scott call through the door in typical asswipe commander-in-chief mode. This was none of his business.
“Go away!” Logan bellowed, silently daring the man to even try to come through that door, no longer shaking her. His anger had a new focus for the time being.
“Please, Scott. We are fine.” She was still looking at him, eyes watering, but she controlled her voice. There wasn’t a trace of quaver in it.
“Are you sure?” Scott asked worriedly. “I’m coming in.”
Oh, you do that, Logan thought to himself.
“No! We are okay. I will be down in a moment,” she said, trying to add some cheerfulness in her voice”failing miserably.
Scott finally relented. Logan waited to hear his retreating steps before speaking again. “What’s wrong wit’ me? Why would ya go an’ do somethin’ like that?”
“There is nothing wrong with you, my love. I am afraid there is something wrong with me.” She pulled her arms away from his angry hands, rubbing the livid fingerprints blazed on her skin.
“Do ya love him?” he asked softly”more softly that he was used to speaking.
“No, I do not,” she said, swallowing hard.
“Then, why?” he volleyed.
She sat down in the middle of the floor, Indian-style, resting both elbows on her knees. She was good at biding time. “There is no simple reason why. I wish there was. I guess the simplest answer would be that it just happened.” She looked up at him, her face painted the darkest color of guilt.
“It just happened? What d’ya mean, like ya both walked into a bar an’ decided, ‘Hey, let’s fuck for the helluva it. It’ll be fun.’” He said with a snort, clenching his fists tightly at his side.
“It was not like that,” she said in a low, conspiratorial voice. She closed her lines, putting her fingers to her temple and massaging lightly.
“Then, what was it like?” he snapped, causing her to jump slightly. She jerked her eyes back toward him. She looked far younger than she really was at that moment, reminding him of a scared teenage girl in a horror flick.
“I… do not know.” She was being honest. He could see it in her face, smell it in her scent.
“Ya do love him, don’t ya?” he said, shaking his head, a sharp pain stabbing him right in the heart.
“No, I only love you,” she insisted on the verge of tears again. Outside, the sudden downpour continued to battle, wielding an impressive heavenly artillery.
“Don’t give me that bullshit. That kinda stuff only works in movies, an’ darlin’, this ain’t no movie.” That kind of stuff never worked in practice.
“But I do love you, Logan.” Her words fell on unforgiving ears.
“That ain’t the truth. Yer just shittin’ yerself. If ya loved me, ya woulda never fucked another man. Tell me who it is,” he said, sitting in front of her.
“No, it would only cause more problems. I take full responsibility for my actions”both his and mine.”
“Is it somebody in the mansion, ‘Ro?”
“No,” she said quickly followed with the sharp scent of dishonesty that tickled his nose, clinging to his nose like static.
“Yer lyin’.” He chuckled darkly. She hadn’t been outright dishonest with him until that point. It wasn’t enough that she was cheating on him. No, she had to cheat with someone that he had to look at every single day. BAM! One heavy fist hit the floor in fury. “Ya mean ta tell me that one o’ those assholes is gettin’ off wit’ my woman, and yer gonna just continue ta let me play the fool.”
“No, that is not what I am doing, Logan. If you have to be angry with someone, be angry with me.” She beat the flat of her palm against her chest. “Take your anger out on me if it makes you feel better. I am the one who deserves it. I will accept whatever retribution you wish to exact.”
“Ya mean ta tell me that yer willin’ ta protect”” His words caught in throat as the bitter sting of betrayal punched him hard in the throat. Anguish made his jaw set firmly, eyes widening at the admission. If he didn’t leave, he was going to kill her, or she was going to have to use every ounce of power she had in her to kill him.
She stood and walked to the dresser again, taking the journal from its confines again. She walked back toward him, her face impassive. “Here,” she handed him the journal, “read it. Read every page of it.”
Wasn’t that about some cocky shit? It was like she wanted to flaunt her affair in his face. He should’ve shredded it to bits right in front of her face and go looking for the first guilty looking asshole in the mansion. “What makes ya think I wanna read about ya an’ some other guy?” he asked, barely able to breathe through his anger.
“You said you wanted to understand. Every thought I have ever had about our relationship and about him is all right there. It will not make up for what I have done. It might not make much sense to you, but it is all there.”
He let his eyes roam over her face. She looked sorry, genuinely sorry, but he still flinched away from her touch when she reached out to him.
“I can’t do this anymore.” That’s what she wanted to hear him say, right? She wanted him to be the first to say “uncle.” She sighed deeply, walking away, locking herself away in the adjoining bathroom where he heard the shrill cry of glass breaking.
He turned the journal over and over in his hands, wondering if he really wanted to know now that it was all said and done. People said that hate is such a strong emotion. What about love? Wasn’t it just as strong? Wasn’t it just as passionate as hate? He wanted to hate her, but he couldn’t. He wanted to rip her heart out, so she’d know an iota of how he felt.
Author’s Notes: Written to another psych_30 prompt”“denial.” No need to explain that one. Lines from the “journal” are courtesy of a book called How to Write a Love Letter, which is all about writing love letters. The lines were some of the suggested lines to build from. Hopeless romantic hiding under all this. ;) The inspiration to have him snoop actually came from a question I asked a friend from The Big Book of Questions: Love & Sex. The question basically asked would you read a lover’s personal journal if you were having problems and the communication was poor. She said she would and I used her reasoning as inspiration. Title inspired by “Us” by She Wants Revenge. One more chapter to go”tentatively titled When the Levee Breaks. It may take me a while to update it until I’m absolutely certain where I want it to go. Meanwhile, I may have two new stories up plus a couple of updates for other stories.
Side note to Original Ceenote: Thanks for your review for Waiting for You. I know you’ve wanted to see me update that, and I really do want to. Every time I think I’m ready to update it, I decide that I don’t like what I’ve written. I do want to finish the story, which is why I haven’t taken it down yet. I will find some inspiration from somewhere to finish that story. :)
