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| SOULMATES BY CAROL |
CHAPTER 18 |
Tea looks at Todd incredulously. How could he possibly want her as much as she wants him? How could he have comparable feelings of love toward her?
Todd continues with his words. Words that seem to be coming so easy to him tonight.
Todd: Don’t you think I’ve thought of the different ways to do it? Don’t you think I know it would be great to do it in front of an audience, and leave them happy? Actually, come to think of it, I guess everyone would be happy with my performance, including me.
Tea: (interrupting)…..Todd…what “it” are we talking about?
Todd: Killing ones’ self, of course.
Tea bursts into laughter. This catches Todd by surprise and he releases his hold of her. She turns and stares at him, just filled with laughter.
Todd: I really didn’t expect you to speak to me about your suicidal feelings, but I certainly admit, I wasn’t prepared for your laughing at my admission this way. I wanted you to react, but not like this.
Todd is visibly hurt and confused. Tea can see that Todd doesn’t have any idea that she thought he was talking about sex. Now. “How,” she thinks to herself, “will I ever convince him that I thought he was talking sex and not suicide.” He is visibly turned away from her and Tea can see the outward confusion written all over his face.
Tea: (apprehensively) Todd. Think about what you said. You said you understood my feelings about doing it. You said you of all people knew how I felt. Your arms were rapped around me at the time and you were whispering into my ear.
Todd: I think you hit your head when you fell.
Tea: Todd.
Todd: No. Seriously. I think you must have popped a blood vessel or something.
Tea: I guess that’s what happens to me when you start unbuttoning my clothes and I feel your breath on my neck like that. I guess I just got all confused in the moment.
Todd: I’ll say. Listen. I just wanted to get you to open up about your suicidal comments outside. You seemed to be giving up on me, well, actually, you were giving up on you and even if there isn’t an us, there has to be a you. Ya know?
Tea: I don’t think I understood a word of what you just said.
Todd: Okay. You want the cliff notes version. I didn’t want you offing yourself over me. I’m just not worth it Tea.
Tea: (approaching him, his back still facing her) Look at me Todd. Todd. Look at me.
Todd: (Todd slowly turns around and makes eye contact with Tea.) What?
Tea: I was angry. I’m still angry. But you tried so hard to be tender at a time when I really needed you to be tender. You read my emotions like a book. I needed to feel like you cared and you did. And you conveyed those emotions at the perfect moment. You made me forget, by holding me tightly, that I was angry with you. Then you started talking about “doing it,” and you were taking my clothes off of me……
Todd: (raising his voice) You were wet. And tired. And cold. And I just didn’t want you to go dying on me, because you had lost faith in me. In us.
Tea: I could never loose faith in us. I just didn’t understand your anger earlier out at the car, when I was dancing in the snow.
Todd: You want to know what that was all about? I’ll tell you. You and I were having a great time. We stopped at a place that was very special between me and my mother. And then HE showed up.
Tea: Who?
Todd: (flustered) The man. The man that always ruins everything in my life. The one who hides under my bed at night, waiting to get me.
Tea: Your father.
Todd: My supposed father. The man who taught me everything I didn’t need and nothing I do need.
Tea: What do you need Todd?
Todd: I need to know how to love you. I need to know how to make you stay with me not because it’s what I want, but because it’s what you want.
Tea: How about because it’s what we both want?
Todd: I don’t understand that mentality Delgado. I don’t understand how you could ever want us to be, well, an us.
Tea: Just like we can’t choose who our parents are, we don’t always choose who we fall in love with. It just happens. And you have to learn how to deal with the feelings that go along with it.
Todd: What if I can’t?
Tea: You already started when you came back for me. When you told me you couldn’t erase me from your head. Don’t you know why you came back for me?
Todd: Sure. I wanted you to be miserable with me again.
Tea: Todd.
Todd: I’m not saying that word Tea. I just don’t understand it as a concept. Everytime I’ve ever loved, said I loved, felt I loved, thought I loved, it only came back as a weapon to destroy me.
Tea: How did I destroy you?
Todd: Because you told me to go.
Tea: When? When did I ever tell you to go?
Todd: In the cabana. You told me that you wanted me out of your life forever. How did you expect me to do that if you thought that I even remotely had feelings of that word for you?
Tea: Do you remember what you said back to me that night?
Todd: No. Well, sort of. Is this a test?
Tea: Do YOU REMEMBER what you said that night?
Todd: I told you as long as you were alive, you would never be out of my life.
Tea: And?
Todd: And what?
Tea: And what did you mean by that?
Todd: I don’t know. I just wanted to have the last word.
Tea: I don’t believe you. You know why you said it.
Todd: I didn’t want it to be over.
Tea: Why not?
Todd: We’re going in circles.
Tea: Todd, why not?
Todd: I don’t know what you’re looking for from me Tea.
Tea: Todd, why didn’t you want me to be out of your life?
Todd: You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?
Tea: Todd. Why didn’t you want me gone?
Todd: Because
Tea: Yes
Todd: Because
Tea: You can do this Todd.
Todd: Because I….I love you Tea.
Tea just smiles. She knows that Todd’s had a harder work out this evening than Mr. America doing his heaviest bench presses.
Tea: I think I’ll just let you sit and stew on that one for a bit.
