Well, this is the conclusion. It's a bit of a slower burn than the first part but there are feelings and stuff to deal with first. Enjoy, and don't be shy with the voting button, and the favorite button, and the...
I've made everything exponentially worse.
The thought ran through Aria Evanstone's head at least once every fifteen minutes for the next few weeks; it just would not leave her alone. Though she might admittedly have a pessimistic personality, it wasn't her defeatist nature which supplied her with such morbid thoughts. The cold, hard fact was that things were much worse than they had been before she'd temporarily gone crazy and fucked the entire situation.
She'd left her father's room and run straight for the shower as he'd instructed. She'd done everything as he'd instructed, staying in her room until she heard Laurel come home, followed his lead at the dinner table as he turned their sex act into an embarrassing episode of a 'don't ask, just pull one hand and get out of here' scenario. And when, after the dust had settled on the disastrous evening, he'd had no more instructions to give, she'd shut off like a mars rover past its prime.
He wasn't speaking to her. The two days she'd spent before that evening moping about how awkward their situation had been were nothing compared to the great divide between them now. Before embarrassment had kept him at a distance but space could not dampen the antipathy she felt coming from him now. The blowback from her mistake of kissing him that night would have passed its expiration date with time, but what she had done days later...
It was hard for her not to feel sorry for herself in such a situation. She felt a bit like the anti-Midas, everything she touched was turning to shit. She tried focusing on her studies. She was in her second year at UC Berkeley; the time for fluctuating grades was over. But her Astro 10 lecturer had already picked her out for censure twice because of the distracted look she couldn't help.
It had been her proximity to their home on Panoramic Hill which had made Laurel call her that day. Laurel practiced in San Francisco, and had opted to drive Mrs. Oderbelle to the hospital associated with her office. She had known Aria had no classes that day; she was only on campus to use the library facilities, so she had been able to leave for home and get there within a matter of minutes.
She had already known what to expect by what Laurel had said. Her mouth had tightened as the older woman had sheepishly explained how she'd left her father, pleading for Aria to do her this 'huge one' and promising to lay off about her dress for the renewal. She'd accepted without need for duress though, but it hadn't been because she'd felt it was an opportunity for... things. She'd merely wanted to help her father. But when she'd come up to his bedroom door and seen him, chest bare and rippling unavoidably because of his position, the knowledge of what had been happening in that room, the kinkiness of it all, had seduced her into some sort of a trance where the incantation 'take him, take him' had played in her head like a subliminal message on a broken record.
"You've been distracted all week. Mr. Hayes isn't the first to have noticed, just the first to say something about it. What's up with you?" Alex, her closest friend at school, had pushed herself into the lunch line before Aria. She squelched her face up at the bottle of water and yogurt Aria had on her tray. "Is that all you're having?"
"I'm not very hungry today," she explained, hoping that by answering the last question first she could deflect.
"Something is definitely wrong with you," Alex concluded then, making up her mind and going for the slice of pizza she'd been making goo-goo eyes at.
Aria shook her head in wonder. Only Alex could have got at her answer in such a way. She would have to deflect some more. "Is that a fat joke?" She asked, insecurely picking up a bag of crisps and hoping her friend wouldn't notice if she crushed them in favor of eating them.
Alex rolled her eyes. She was the least likely person to make such a joke. A journalism major, she made it her business to advocate for the rights of everything from pins to anchors. Also, weighing in at nearly two hundred pounds and fine with it, she thought little Aria with her 'two ounces' of baby fat was practically anorexic. "Is
that
a fat joke?" she quipped back, putting a smile on Aria's face.
Aria felt her spirits lift a little around her friend. She needed this. This was good. She could handle this. In her classes, where no one was looking at her, where no one was really seeing her she could get lost between the words being thrown around. Whenever that happened she would be drowning in a sea of sorrow. Alex talking to her one on one was like a lifeline. With her Dad's malice, her regular avoidance of all things Laurel, and Claire being too young – and too like her mother – for Aria to want her company, she had found out that a man could indeed make himself an island.
She spent the rest of her lunch with Alex and then resumed classes as well as her regular funk. When her day ended at two-thirty, as it did every Wednesday, she drove herself to the Cineplex and bought a ticket for their classic film series. They were showing A Place in the Sun, and at a running time of 122 minutes, it was the ticket surest to keep her away from home the longest. Inside the dark, almost empty cocoon of the amphitheatre she'd realized her mistake in picking a film with a lead whose cheekbones were structured much like her daddy's. From then on she'd faced just over two hours of pure hell.
The movie finished and it was just after five. She was still flustered from the direction her thoughts had turned after the epic failure watching that movie had been. She'd been wet the entire time remembering how she'd kissed his chin, licked his cheek, and bitten his shoulder. So, she went to the bathroom, emptied her bladder, and refilled her slush before walking into another amphitheatre boasting some new Pixar flick. The brilliancy of her idea lay in the fact that the room was swarming with tiny tots who giggled at every cute talking animal; the lunacy was in how she'd neglected to see how little tykes watching movies with their fathers would correlate to her and her own sorry life.
*****
Matthew Evanstone frowned over his last paragraph. He was writing complete shit; had been for days. He shut his laptop lid and yawned, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. He rolled his head to one side and then the next; slowly trying to work through the kinks he'd developed in his neck after being tied up for so long. He sighed in frustration for having, yet again, reminded himself of that evening. Still, it wasn't likely that he would ever forget.
He checked his watch, it was nearly seven. He had a few minutes before Laurel would come with the announcement of dinner. He decided to spend that time washing away some of the excrement he'd been spewing out all morning. Most of it had been on paper, but he felt that if he sniffed hard enough...
He switched the light off and shut the door of his study behind him. Detouring to the kitchen he stole a kiss on the back of Laurel's neck before she realized he was behind her. Claire giggled, having been co-conspirator to his sneak attacked as Laurel jumped from surprise.
"Matt!" she scolded playfully. But she turned to give him a proper kiss and they lost their audience of one with a disgusted 'ugh' and an entreaty for them to find a room.
He loved Laurel. She was so close to perfection he'd known on their first date he'd probably ask her to marry him if he ever asked anyone again. She was smart, beautiful, supportive, and kinky almost to a fault. He'd thought the last couple of months had been heaven incarnate. He had a hefty commission from his publishers, his girls had seemed to be, if not coming along spiffily, at least making a concerted effort.
He'd realized soon that Aria had been the bent spoke in their wheel. Laurel wasn't blameless, what with her ornery insistence on everything being just so she was almost the natural enemy of a free spirit like Aria. But Aria had met Laurel's attempts, which, though intrusive and sometimes obnoxious, had come from a good place, with Aria-like malevolence. His daughter had never been mean, but when she chose to shut you out, you were shut out.
Frosty politeness had been almost twice as caustic as straightforward dislike might have been. Laurel had tried, with her pushy 'I need to fix things' attitude which only ever served to drive the wedge deeper between her and Aria. He'd tried, many times, talking to them both separately and together. He tried to make them see that they just had different personalities, and while they might never be the best of friends, compromising could go a long way to ameliorating many of their problems with each other. But, such a cool, level calculation of the battles between his daughter and his wife had become indecipherable after what had happened the day Laurel had left him tied.
"Dinner's almost done," she said as she relinquished his lips. "I was just about to come call you."
He dipped his finger into the hot sauté pot and came away with sauce to taste and a clunk from a wooden spoon to nurse. He smiled at her; she'd caught him this time. "You're getting quicker," he teased.
"No, you're getting more predictable." She threw her head back and laughed as she caught him on the knuckles again, making for the pot. The front door opened and closed and the two stopped short of their play, looking towards the hallway where any newcomers would invariably have to pass by.
Aria came into view and, though he'd known it had to be her, had prepared himself for seeing her, his breath stuck in an upswing. She said a barely audible 'hello' from the doorway, stopping only as briefly as decency allowed and started off up the stairs.
"Dinner's in ten minutes, Aria!" Laurel shouted after her. They exchanged a look, Laurel's plainly expressed frustration at the continued strain between her and her stepdaughter.
Matthew tried his best to not convey any kind of expression. Laurel resumed her cooking but she had the general air of someone who hadn't done talking so he stuck around until she was ready to speak.
"Has she bought her dress yet?" she asked, not looking at him.
"She hasn't come to me for the money; I don't think so." How could she, when he'd been avoiding her like she was carrying something bubonic?
"Well I think you should go give it to her." She looked at him over her shoulder though technically he was standing beside her. She always did that. It was a move he saw celebrities do on the red carpet when they took pictures. He figured she'd fixed enough of them for some of their habits to have stuck. "It would be a subtle way of reminding her that getting her dress this time is her responsibility."
