Sometimes it Does - Chapter 2
My first thoughts as I woke up that next morning were of everything Elizabeth and I had done the night before and I was immediately happy. But that only lasted for a few seconds. Then I realized I was alone. Well, I was tired and the amount of light in the room told me it was already late. No big deal, right?
That's when I noticed that my clothes had been brought up from downstairs and nicely folded on the bed. But then again, Elizabeth would not want us to be walking around naked in broad daylight, even if we were in the house. Someone could come to the door or see through a window. Still nothing to worry about, right?
When I got down to the kitchen, Elizabeth was making breakfast and she had me sit and eat. When I started to talk about the previous evening, she cut me off and said, "We can talk when you're finished eating." Nothing about going back upstairs or even on the couch but just talking. There were no two ways about it, this was not good.
I started to wonder if maybe last night had been a dream. Had I wanted it to happen so badly that I had convinced myself that it happened when it hadn't? No, whatever else last night had been, it had not been a dream.
Then I started to think "
maybe this was a nightmare
." Maybe I was still asleep in the bed upstairs wrapped in Elizabeth's arms? No. I was definitely awake. However, just because I was awake did not mean this was not a nightmare.
As soon as the last bit of breakfast was off the plate, Elizabeth jumped up and cleared the table. It was like she could not get it done fast enough and was primed to strike the first moment she could. I sat with my hands out in front of me. I was not exactly reaching out toward her, but my hands were out in her direction. I was hoping she would take them into her own. She didn't.
"Rosemary (Ouch, not sweetheart this morning), I want you to know how special last night was for me. You've told me how you feel and you expressed it to me physically last night in a way that was incredibly meaningful."
"
Incredibly meaningful? How about hot? How about mind-blowing?
"
"I hope that you don't feel like I took advantage of you. That is the last thing I would want. And I don't want to say that what we did was wrong. However, I don't think we should do that again. There are just too many things about our situation that would make a relationship like that untenable between us. I am truly sorry because I know how you feel and so I can only begin to imagine what you are thinking at this moment. I do hope we can stay friends with each other and if not, I can understand that. I would ask you to not stop being friends with Cynthia if you don't wish to stay friends with me."
I sat there for a few seconds taking it all in. I am sure she had rehearsed that speech a few times while I was still sleeping. I am sure she envisioned a number of responses from me. I just hoped at least one of them was what I was about to say.
"Elizabeth, you certainly did not take advantage of me. I gave myself to you freely and without reservation. And I even told you that I was aware that you might never feel the same way in return and I accepted that possibility before I told you how I felt. I would like to stay friends. I am not angry with you. I am disappointed that you are going to let what other people think deprive us of the opportunity to see where the path that we started on so amazingly last night would have led.
"I do want to ask though; you set up the events for last night. You moved Thursday night to Friday night. You asked me to stay the night when we were done. We both had huge orgasms without taking all our clothes off. Now you say that what we shared last night was so incredibly meaningful to you. So why the take back? Why the u-turn? Why can't we ever do it again? I think I deserve to have you tell me why?"
"Don't you already know?"
"I have a guess, but I think I am entitled to not have to wonder. I feel like I have a right to hear it from you so that maybe I can understand it. Because right now I don't."
Elizabeth looked at me for a while. There was clearly anguish in her eyes. And while I was not happy that I was the cause of it, part of me did hope maybe it was enough to get her to change her mind back.
Unfortunately, she seemed to steel herself and then she said, "You're right. You do deserve that. You are handling all this so maturely Rosemary. I apologize because I was expecting a very different response. And in a way, that's the problem. You are the one who is being so mature about all this and maybe I am being childish. But the fact is that I do not have the courage or the strength that you have. I cannot put out of my mind how other people would react to us. I am terrified of what people would say and what they would think.
"I am sorry because I lack the courage to face that. I feel like I am failing you here. I just cannot be with a young woman, young enough to be my own daughter and who is in fact my daughter's best friend. As incredible as last night was, I cannot handle anyone else ever finding out about it. And so that's why we cannot do that again. We cannot go down that path Rosemary. Or at least I can't. I'm sorry. So where do we go from here?"
"I still love you, Elizabeth. That doesn't just stop because you don't feel the same or because you won't feel the same because of what other people would think about it. I promise that I will respect your decision. I won't try to whine or complain or manipulate you into something you don't want. Even though my love is unrequited, I would still like to stay friends. We can just go back to how things were back in September when Cynthia first left and restart from there."
"I would love it if...it would be great if we could stay friends."
I would be lying if I said it didn't crush my heart when she stopped her sentence and reworded it to take out "love."
So, for the next few weeks, it was back to how it had been in September. There were no more massages. When I came to the house, Elizabeth would shout from the kitchen for me to come in and would be making dinner. I would sit in the one armchair (I could not bring myself to sit on that couch anymore) and we would talk between the rooms until it was time to eat. When dinner was finished, we cleaned up and stayed at the dining room table talking until it was time for me to leave.
There were no more bingeing television shows or sleepovers. But we did still see each other and we did have a good time when we did and a veneer of normalcy descended around us. It was not everything I had hoped for but we tried to pretend that night had never happened. The pain was still there but I was keeping it under control.
My calls with Cynthia were a little bit stressful. She kept saying how her mom seemed really unhappy and asking me if I knew what had happened. I hated lying to my best friend, but I could not tell her that I knew exactly what had happened.
Plus, Cynthia could tell I was miserable as well. She never seemed to make the connection that both Elizabeth and I being unhappy was related. For me, the problem was that Cynthia and Elizabeth were probably the only two people I felt I could talk to about how I was feeling. And for obvious reasons I could not talk to either one of them.
And if I was not feeling bad enough, it also hurt me that Elizabeth was in pain. Part of me kept saying that Elizabeth's pain was self-inflicted. I was right there and all she had to do was reach out and take me in and I would ease all of her pain. The thing was I did not understand that was what she desperately wanted to do and the pain for her was because she could not bring herself to do it.
As we got into March, I was looking forward to Cynthia coming home for her spring break. I missed her and I also thought that things might be a little easier for Elizabeth and me if Cythina were around to distract us from each other.
I was surprised when Cynthia told me that she was going down to Florida with a bunch of her friends from school. I knew she was a smart girl. I knew that thousands of girls went to spring break and never got undressed in public, never entered a wet tee shirt contest and never got filmed doing crazy things in a party bus. I know it happened, but not to most of the girls who went. And Cynthia promised she had no intention of doing any of that.
I got the call from Cynthia that she had made it down to Florida and was already having a great time. When I got off the phone with her, I quickly got another call, this one from Elizabeth. She told me that she had a date for Tuesday night and would have to cancel our Tuesday night dinner.
I told her I understood and that was great and that I hoped she had a wonderful time and I would see her on Thursday. When we hung up the call, I cried for over an hour and then sobbed and sobbed until I finally dropped off to sleep from exhaustion.
I called Elizabeth on Thursday afternoon with an excuse about schoolwork and not being able to come over that night. I could hear in her voice she was sad when she said, "Okay, but we are still friends, right?"
There was a sound that I could only identify as fear in her voice. Despite everything, part of me still wanted to be friends. At least that is what I told myself. I am sure somewhere in there was also still some fools' hope that she might change her mind. "Of course we're still friends Elizabeth, I just have this thing for school."
