The Passion Play

by Amelia Hart

  Was it King? Had he come by? Had he said something to worry her?

  Not seeing anything that would have caused that expression, he looked down at her, his hand cupping her face to tilt it up towards him, but she resisted and now he perceived the stiffness in her, the subtle rejection of his hold. He could only see the top of her head but the bad feeling immediately deepened.

  He took a step back then went down on one knee so she couldn't avoid him, looking a question up into her face.

  "Sweetheart?" he asked her, his hands loosely clasping her elbows.

  She didn't like that. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and then turned away, pulled out of his hold and walked to the couch, sat down at the far end and oriented her body stiffly towards the seat she left open for him.

  Oh.

  She wanted to talk to him.

  Or rather: she needed to talk to him and dreaded it.

  Not good at all.

  She was waiting and slowly – agonizingly slowly – he bent to unlace his shoes, to take them off as if they were too dirty to come into the house, lingering over the task, his mind racing as he tried to think what he'd done wrong. Nothing came to mind. Nothing at all. She had been a little preoccupied that morning when he left but not unhappy; had turned her face up like a flower when he came to kiss her goodbye for the day.

  Something had happened in the meantime.

  Had she been thinking again? Was he about to get another brush-off 'for your own good?' He steeled himself against the possibility, knowing she meant well, knowing she had no idea what even the threat of it did to his insides, how fast his heart beat and how he broke into a cold sweat . . .

  He had to stay calm. If that's what she planned on he just had to outwit her. Just for long enough she'd come to realize how right they were together. He could see it. Every day he could see her get a little happier, her smile more ready, her step lighter. He wanted to see her glowing. He was sure he could do it. He could make her happy if she just gave him long enough, gave herself a chance.

  His gut was roiling as he walked towards her, took that awful empty spot on the couch and tried to look casual, relaxed, to lean back as if everything was okay when he just wanted to grab onto her and hold on tight and never let go.

  Now he was the one waiting for her, and he saw whatever it was she had to say was hard to spit out. Her eyes flickered left to right and back again. In her lap, her hands clasped each other and her knuckles stood out white, pressed tight against her skin.

  He could even hear the shake in her breath, the faint quiver of it.

  "I'm pregnant."

  Now they both sat still, their eyes trained on each other. He waited for her to tell him why this was terrible, frightening news.

  As the moments slipped away and she didn't say anything more it occurred to him maybe she was afraid of how he'd react, and relief came crashing over him, lifting him up like a wave, euphoric with relief.

  He reached out and took hold of her shoulders, then scooted over the couch to wrap her up in his arms, such a fragile package freighted with so much potential for joy. "Pregnant? Oh sweetheart, that's fantastic! Wow. You must be so happy," he urged, pulled back to look for her smile, for her own relief.

  Wasn't this exactly what she'd been aiming for? Wasn't it perfect, so quick, so easy? No trouble at all. He felt a very private thrill of pride he'd come up with the goods for her, and also a great swell of emotion about being a father, a feeling he'd consider at another time. Another time when the woman he loved wasn't looking like the idea of having his baby was a tragedy.

  She was stiff, still, not curving into him the way she usually did when he held her. He stroked the fine silk of her hair back from her face, tucked it behind her ears, then stopped when he saw his fingers were shaking.

  "Why aren't you happy about this, sweetheart?" he asked her, dreading her answer.

  "I am," she said, and in another situation he would have laughed at the barefaced lie.

  There was nothing funny about it now.

  "Okay," he said.

  There was a long pause, and when she finally opened her mouth he thought 'here it comes' and he wanted to shout at her not to say it.

  "I don't need you anymore," she said. "It’s been great. You've been great. Very . . . helpful. I can't really thank you enough. I'll give you a call after the baby is born and we can set up some sort of arrangement." She was gaining momentum now as he sat there, stunned and silent; astonished by the intensity of the pain. "Only if you want to of course. You don't have to be involved if you don't want. There's no obligation. So yeah, if you can just give me a number or email address or some sort of contact where I can definitely reach you in eight or nine months, no matter what your other plans are . . . Luke."

  He tried to breathe. Didn't really succeed. Tried again. Did a little better this time. Enough to try and talk.

  "There's no need for me to go anywhere," he said, trying to sound relaxed. He failed at that too. "I can be plenty of help around here-"

  "Luke, no. I'm just not going to do that. I mean I like you and all, but just not that much. You know? I don't know if you've realized, but I'm a very private person. I had good reason to let you into my home but that reason is done with now. So I'm just going to say no, I'd rather not."

  "Actually the reason you let me in to start with was sex, Felicity," he said, and he didn't even recognize his own voice. "That hasn't changed." He stroked his hands down her sides, then back up, moved them to her breasts to rub those super-sensitive nipples of hers, willing her to rouse, to respond. "We can go on enjoying that indefinitely." He bent to nuzzle at her neck and then moved one hand to her knee to slide it under her skirt. She jumped away as if scalded, finished up standing on the far side of the rug, halfway to the kitchen.

  "No!" she said, too loudly. "No. That's been quite enjoyable. You've shown me a few new things. You've been a good lover, Luke. I'd be happy to give you a recommend anytime," she said, a crudeness that wasn't like her, and ended on a grating little laugh, thin and false. "But I don't need any more. It was just a means to an end. You know? I've had enough. Now I just want my privacy back. I want the house to myself."

  "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. H
e 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 sort
s 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?"