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GEMINI
BY TROG
CHAPTER
11



Chapter 11

Tea disentangled herself from Paul gently in order not to awaken him. They’d had dinner and were watching the news on the sofa when she felt him drifting off to sleep. He’d been working exhausting hours trying to finish a huge project in Albany before their wedding and she’d hardly seen him for weeks.

Grabbing the remote she shut off the television and sat in a chair across from him, watching him sleep. Sitting back and hugging her legs she observed him quietly, clinically noticing his lip twitching a bit and his eyelashes fluttering lightly, sleeping soundly without a care.

“I bet you’ve never even had a nightmare...” she whispered.

He was the antithesis of Todd: open and honest, affectionate and caring. There were no dark corners lurking in his psyche threatening to unbalance their happiness, no destructive secrets from his past stalking their future. There was no history of abuse that would cast an oppressive shadow over their lives forever or heinous sins that guaranteed a lifetime of self-hatred. Paul didn’t play games, or test the loyalties of those he loved and trusted. In business he was astute and driven, but in his personal life he was astoundingly simple and guileless: he wanted to be happy and to make her happy. That was all.

Paul was an architect and a master carpenter, a builder like his father and his father before him. His was a world of order and design with strong foundations, balance and structure. Todd reigned in a world of chaos where bridges suspended from billowing clouds and held together by invisible trusses swayed unsteadily above valleys of raging fire. When she’d taken the hand he’d offered, she lived life on a dare, taking those perilous paths right along with him as he baited her with his relentless promises of everlasting love. She’d taken the gamble he’d offered, willing to risk her very life for the thrill of being in his presence, for the privilege of sharing his dark world, for the pure joy of loving him...but...in the end, her recklessness had proved her folly, leaving her devastated and the loser with nothing more than a decimated heart. She had risked everything for him and in the end, he’d still chosen Blair, a woman she couldn’t even bring herself to respect.

Perhaps it was hubris on her part, thinking that her love was so righteous, so superior to anything he’d ever felt before that Todd would never want or need anyone else...but...that’s not how it ended. Watching him paddle away on that raft, risking everything to be with Blair still caused her a pain so great, she was almost ashamed of it, a pain born of an urequited love that had morphed into a monstrous personal failure like some grotesque deformity that everyone could see in her. How could the love she’d felt for that man have been so one-sided? How could she still feel such profound concern for him after how he’d rejected her? These questions haunted her like restless spirits.

Wiping her eyes quickly and with a shake of her head, she struggled to push Todd out of her mind.

When Paul’s deep, blue eyes opened, he smiled at her, and she smiled back, loving the little clusters of crinkled skin that fanned out on their outer corners.

“Did I fall asleep on you again?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Sorry, darling...I’m just beat,” he said with a trace of an English accent, yawning, and sitting up.”

Tea got up and sat next to him, touching his neatly styled and cut, brown hair.

“I know. When is this project going to end?”

“Actually, we’re a bit behind schedule. I’m afraid I’m going to be working night and day for the next week or so, Tea. I’m probably going to be staying in one of the construction trailers for a few days so I don’t waste so much time commuting back and forth. It’s so damned unfair of me to leave you with all the last minute preparations, darling. I’m so dreadfully sorry.”

“Don’t worry. There are no last minute preparations. Everything’s arranged. All we have to do is show up at the church.”

“Good. And may I just say...I can’t wait,” he said, kissing her forehead.

Tea leaned against him.

“Paul...I...uh...I....may need to go out of town for a few days.”

“Now? Why?”

Tea played with the buttons on his pale blue oxford, her fingertips circling the edge of the plastic nervously. Suddenly she got up and turned away from him.

“Tea?”

“Something personal. A...friend...someone I know is in trouble. I think they may be ill...and I need to make sure they’re okay.”

“Who? Someone I know?”

“No. It’s complicated. And...I can’t say much more than that accept...I need to do this,” she said, turning to him with tears in her eyes.

Paul got up and took her hand.

“Darling, you’re frightening me. Obviously you’re very troubled by this. Why so mysterious?”

Tea shook her head.

“I don’t want to be. I...I just don’t want to lie to you. Please don’t put me in the position of having to by asking a lot of questions I can’t answer. This is personal...and private. Just know that I need to take care of this before we get married.”

Paul stared into her dark eyes, noticing a trace of sadness in their depth that never disappeared completely despite all his efforts, knowing that a great deal of her past was still unkown to him.

If the concept of love-at-first-site existed, it had happened for him one morning at a Starbuck’s coffee shop, a life altering moment that shook him to his soul. He’d hurried the courtship and practically dragged her to the altar because he didn’t want to risk losing her, but he was also sure it was what they both wanted.

“Alright, I won’t press you. I’ll trust you. But...how long will this take?”

“It shouldn’t take more than a few days. I’ll be back in plenty of time for our rehearsal dinner...and the wedding, of course.”

“Well...all I’ll be doing is keeping my nose to the grindstone anyway...so...I guess it won’t matter. But...this friend of yours...is she going to be alright?”

Tea heard his use of the pronoun “she” and ignored its implication as she looked away unable to look him in the eye. She’d never lied to him directly but she had omitted much, revealing very little about her past, and almost nothing about Todd.

“I’m not sure...I hope so. I need to make sure of it.”

Paul put his arms around her and held her closely.

“It’s just like you to go to the aid of some lost soul, darling. You’re so devoted to those you love, so compassionate...it is one of the things I love best about you. I’d better go before I break that stupid promise...you know, the one where we agreed not to share a bed until our wedding night? What idiot came up with that atrocious idea?”

Tea laughed.

“That idiot would be you. You thought it was romantic.”

“Lord...I am an idiot. But, a romantic idiot never the less.”

“Don’t worry, it will make the honeymoon worth waiting for,” she said, kissing him softly and pulling away, but Paul grabbed her and pulled her closer into a more forceful kiss.

“Alright. Now I’d better go, darling. Another of your kisses and you can kiss that stupid promise good-by. I’ve got to drive back up to Albany tonight, the water department is sending an inspector to the site at 7:00 AM and I’ve got to be there.”

Tea helped him with his jacket and walked him to the door.

He touched her face with the back of his hand.

“I can’t wait to marry you, my darling. I can’t wait to knock you up, till your enormously fat...bursting with our bratty brood,” he said.

Tea laughed.

“Well, that sounds pleasant.”

“Oh, it will be...I promise you. We’ll have a splendid life together,” he said, leaning over and kissing her again. “Good night, Mrs. Adams.”

“Good night, Mr. Adams,” she said.

Finally he let go of her hand and she watched him walking into the elevator and with a final wave...he was gone. When she closed the door behind her she touched her cheek and realized she was crying...guilty, salty tears.

“Dios mio...what am I doing? I need to let this go!”

Walking over to her desk, she opened the file that Ivan Dexter had given her, rereading the part where Todd was taken away in an ambulance. Grabbing an old address book and rifling through it quickly, she picked up the phone and dialed...then, put it to her ear, listening to each ring with the dread of it being answered as she leaned back against the wall and shut her eyes.

“Yeah,” said Blair in a bitchy tone, as if the phone itself was an offensive rival. “Hello? Hello! Who the hell is this?”

Perhaps if she told Blair what she had found out about Todd, she would try and locate him, try to help him, she thought...but when she heard her voice, she couldn’t bring herself to speak. And she hung up.

“Damn you, Tea...”

*****

2003 Copyright by Trog







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