Providence Part Eight
Part Eight
Hours felt like days for Helen. She told Thomas the truth. And they fought verbally and talked and talked....both of them ending up in tears.
He didn't understand her at all. Thomas understood love. But he could not grasp why she had to lie. For months on end.
And she didn't know how to let him inside her fears about loving Nikki or to actually be sharing a *life* with Nikki.
Once he was gone, leaving Helen with nothing but the painful image of him in her mind, she walked.
She ended up at a familiar haunt of hers, drinking her sorrow. In retrospect, this was always going to happen.
She would have hurt Thomas years from now, if not sooner. An affair perhaps. Or just ignoring the gulf that would have grown between them.
It wasn't just Nikki.
But then...it was. Nikki Wade held residence in Helen's heart. Sleeping with her the night before was merely an action. Not the whole matter at all.
There was love and sex, pain and distrust, empathy and humor.
Time will not diminish it, Helen concluded. But that doesn't mean it should just happen like this...tumbling into bed, physical gratification without thinking of the future.
Helen didn't do that. And that wasn't cowardice. It was honesty.
I just hope Nikki can be this honest as well, Helen thought worriedly as she ordered another pint.
But Nikki was having an even harder time. She paced the floor waiting for Trisha and thinking on what she would say to the woman.
The woman who left me yet still loved me. Who believed me when I said I really did love her.
Nikki prided herself with being truthful. And now she was lying. She had *been* lying the whole time.
And how do you handle this? Just blurt it all out and run? Or take the anger that was sure to come?
Then she heard the car door slam and Nikki went to the door. Trisha greeted her with a long kiss.
"God, am I glad to be back here! Mum says hello...." She smiles at me and I feel like such an ass.
I take her bags and she cannot keep her hands off of me. I feel warm fingertips go under my shirt and my body tingles with sensation.
My mind is screaming at me to stop and say what needs to be said. My body doesn't really care who is touching me, it just wants to give in to lust.
And my heart.....my heart bleeds for Trisha and begs for Helen.
So I kiss Trisha, holding her head in my hands. Weaving my fingers into her blonde hair lightly and then pull away, my breathing labored. She is grinning at me happily.
And I shatter her.
And I stand there and watch her disbelief. I let her cry opposite me. And I cry too.
I let her shun me, push me, shout at me.
I let her hate me if she wants to. And I leave, trembling.
For it's over.
I told the truth. Finally.
Just like that party, it was coincidence. And we saw each other, pain reflected back into our eyes. Red-rimmed eyes. Weak smiles.
And we drink, not to get drunk, but to settle our nerves.
Or to avoid what happens next.
The two of us...it's like providence. Letting each other go, only to meet again and again.
A lifetime of neverending chances to get it right.
"We'll take things slow..." Nikki says quietly. And Helen smiles softly.
"Yea..dead slow."
END
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