The Florencia Lozano Homepage - Fan Fiction
| REACHING OUT BY TIMA |
CHAPTER 12 |
PREVIOUSLY:
Tea's phone finally stops ringing as Todd gives up and hangs up the phone, frustrated as he has been for the last week, with Tea shutting him out. He doesn't know if he's doing the right thing. He stayed in Puerto Rico, despite his initial anger at feeling like she made a fool out of him. He considered leaving. He almost did. Something kept him from leaving. Something has made him refuse to give up.
If he looked deeply within himself, he would know that it is his heart that keeps him near her, that keeps him trying to connect to her again, that refuses to allow him to give up on another chance to love her and be loved by her. Despite her words the last time he saw her, he senses that she needs him and he's determined not to let her down this time.
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chapter 12:
[The next day...
Tea is alone in her room, following a meeting with a staff psychiatrist. The staff had clearly reported that she was isolating herself too much and was putting too much focus on her physical recovery and not enough on her emotional recovery following the plane crash.
The psychiatrist tried to convince Tea that she needs to put more focus on her mental health but Tea refused to acknowledge that anything was wrong with her emotionally.
The psychiatrist had been informed that Tea had received a visit from her husband and tried to discern why her husband, according to the staff, had left abruptly, amid some yelling.
Tea explained that the visitor had only pretended to be her husband as a ruse to visit her and insisted that he held no emotional investment for her. He was simply a long ago acquaintance who no longer had a place in her life. The psychiatrist had sensed that Tea wasn't facing her true feelings about this man, whether her husband or not, but chose to delay further discussion about him until their next session. Tea left their meeting determined to never give the psychiatrist the answers that were being sought about Todd, or anything else for that matter.
As Tea sits in her room, a nurse rushes in and informs Tea that her husband has returned and is insisting on seeing her.
Tea had left instructions with the staff that they were not to allow anyone matching Todd's description in to visit her again. Clearly, Todd is having a difficult time accepting that, as the nurse informs Tea that a security officer had to tackle him, to keep him from Tea's room.
After the nurse leaves, Tea is torn. She wants to rush to Todd before he leaves, fearing that if she doesn't, she may never see him again. Her heart aches for his presence. She longs to feel her hand safely held in his again, to feel his fingers lightly touch her cheek, to see him smile, to hear him laugh.
She knows that she shouldn't give in to that desire, though. She doesn't deserve the happiness that she wants from him. She knows from past experience that she wouldn't be likely to receive it, anyway.
Every time they've tried to make it work between them in the past, they could only last for a brief time before everything would fall apart and her heart would be enveloped by more pain than she thought it possible to survive. She's in enough pain now. She can't handle the additional pain of hoping for, and failing to receive, Todd's love again.
She had sincerely hoped that Todd had returned to his life in Llanview, a life that she had once wanted so desperately to be a part of, but had come to accept that she never would.
But, Todd had come to see her when he heard that she was injured. He had wanted to stay, to help her with her recovery. She had been the one this time who was doing the pushing away.
As she stares out the small window that offers the only visual relief from her dreary room, from her dreary existence, she wonders if Todd felt as torn as she does now, each time he had been the one to push her away. She wonders if he had felt the same guilt, the same pain, as if pushing away, and denying the needs of, his own heart.
For several minutes, Tea does nothing but stare out the window. She knows that Todd must be gone by now. She missed her chance to change her mind and choose to cling to the possibility of a life with him, instead of exacting the punishment upon herself that she has determined she deserves.
As soon as she's well enough to leave the rehabilitation clinic and be on her own, she is giving serious consideration to ending her own life. She hasn't determined yet how she'll do it, but she knows that she can't continue on in the overwhelming agony she's currently in. She doesn't feel like she deserves to live after so many others lost their lives. Two of those lives were lost because of her. She feels certain that she was supposed to die, too. A mistake was made when she survived...a mistake she is now contemplating a remedy for.
As she continues to look out her window while she considers some of the possible ways to accomplish her latest goal, she suddenly screams. Her heart races with fright for a moment before she starts yelling.]
Tea: You jerk! You scared the hell out of me.
[Outside her window stands Todd, knee deep in shrubbery that is scraping uncomfortably at his legs. He wishes he hadn't dared to wear shorts today. This is one day when more clothing would have been better.
Todd has his face pressed against the window, a determined look on his face. He yells, ensuring that Tea hears him through the closed window.]
Todd: Delgado, tell them you want to see me.
Tea (speaking softly): I don't.
Todd (yelling): What?
[Tea stares at his face for several moments, again torn between following her heart or continuing her self-imposed punishment.
Several staff members enter her room, responding to the loud scream she had emitted seconds earlier. One of the staff members rushes down the hallway to alert security to Todd's presence outside her window.
One of the staff members moves to Tea's window and opens it. In Spanish, she tells Todd to leave or the police will be called and he will be arrested.]
Tea: You need to leave, Todd.
Todd: I need to see you.
Tea: You've seen me. Now, leave before they send for the police. You don't want to go to jail, do you?
Todd: My lawyer would come and bail me out. It wouldn't be the first time she left a hospital bed to save my butt.
Tea: I'm not your lawyer.
Todd: Yes, you are. I offered you the job and you accepted.
Tea: I did not.
Todd: We have a verbal agreement. You can't get out of it.
[Todd looks to the side as he hears security officers approaching.]
Todd: Besides, I'll need a bilingual lawyer if I'm going to live here.
Tea: Go home, Todd.
Todd: I haven't found a place for us yet, but I'm looking.
[Tea watches, slightly amused, as Todd's hands grip the inside of her opened window, while a security officer pulls on his body, trying to pull him away from the building. Todd acts as if nothing unusual is going on behind him as he continues his conversation with Tea.]
Todd: You need a place that will work with a wheelchair, right? Maybe you should come with me and make sure that whatever place we get has whatever you need. You never did fill me in on exactly what your injuries are.
Tea: Todd, don't do this. Leave on your own, right now. I'll make certain that charges aren't brought against you.
Todd: I'm just trying to see my wife. I should be allowed to do that.
Tea: I'm not your wife anymore.
Todd: You get too caught up on technicalities sometimes.
[Todd makes an unpleasant noise for a moment as he looks down at his lower body. Seconds later, the lower part of Todd's body leaves the ground. Todd pushes his upper body further into Tea's room and braces himself with his arms stretched out on either side of her window.]
Todd: Translate for me. Tell this buffoon that if he touches me there again, his manly parts won't be so manly anymore.
Tea: You need to stop this.
Todd: No problem. Just tell them that there's been a mistake and that when you told them that you never wanted me anywhere near you again what you really meant was that you never wanted me to be anywhere but near you.
Tea: I can't do this, Todd. I don't have the strength.
Todd: I could help you, Tea.
[For a moment they share intense eye contact. Tea is tempted to invite him inside, into her life again. She's still terrified of risking her feelings again.
Her guilt and depression ultimately speak to her with the loudest internal voice. The love she feels for him is easily silenced by the pain and is unable to battle forth and win in this moment.
Todd is relieved when Tea says something in Spanish and the person pulling on his body lowers his feet to the ground and lets go of him.
Todd begins to pull himself further into the room, thinking that Tea has relented and has decided to allow him back into her life.]
Tea: Stop!
Todd: I'm practically in already. There's no point in me walking all the way around the building just to walk in through the front door.
Tea: You're not coming in.
Todd: If that's what you want, you better tell that guy to start grabbing me again because I am coming in.
Tea: You're not. I told him that you would leave on your own if he stopped trying to force you. I need you to do that. I need you to leave.
Todd: No way. You can't get rid of me. I know you don't want to.
Tea: I don't want you here, Todd. I can't do this. I don't have the strength.
Todd: I'll be your strength. I'll be whatever you need me to be.
Tea: I need you to go back to Llanview. I need you to go back to your life there. I need you to leave me alone.
Todd: You need me. I'm not letting you down this time.
to be continued...
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2001 COPYRIGHT BY TIMA
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