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| REACHING OUT BY TIMA |
CHAPTER 48 |
PREVIOUSLY: Todd: Because it's your games that you're playing with me.
Tea: Exactly!
Todd: You keep yours, I'll keep mine.
Tea: We both should stop.
Todd: So, you won't pretend to push me away anymore?
Tea: I'll try not to.
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chapter 48:
Todd: Okay. I'll answer one question.
Tea: Really? Any question I ask, you'll answer?
Todd: Yes...as soon as you ask one that I'm willing to answer.
Tea: Okay. I'll choose a relatively safe one. Is your shrink Rae Cummings?
Todd: How did you know? Are you working with her, and everyone else in Llanview, to do me in?
Tea: You can rest your paranoia.
Todd: No, I can't. Everyone's out to get me.
Tea: You've been thinking that for years now. None of your fears have ever come to fruition.
Todd: Maybe you weren't paying attention all the times every single person in Llanview joined together to try to pin another crimes on me that they all knew I didn't do. They're still doing it.
Tea: Is that the real reason you're here?
Todd: I felt like fleeing the country so I figured I'd see what you've been up to.
Tea: If you're truly running from something, this isn't the place for you to be. You need to go where they won't send you back if they catch you.
Todd: You'll come with me?
Tea: Are you really in trouble?
Todd: Not really. I'm just trying to get you to shack up with me. I'm tired of patiently waiting for you to finally move in with me again.
Tea: Patiently?
Todd: This is as patient as I get when it comes to wanting to be with you again.
Tea: Why couldn't you be so determined to make it work the other times we were together?
Todd: I was. You were the one who kept running off.
Tea: That's not true and we both know it.
Todd: It is true. We both know that.
Tea: This must be the part where I tell you to leave.
Todd: No, this is the part where you tell me how you know who my shrink is. You couldn't have been a patient of hers. I didn't see your file, and I went through all of them.
Tea: You went through her patient files?
Todd: I'm a newspaperman. I gather news. That's what I do.
Tea: So, that's why you were pretending to see her professionally? You were trying to dig up dirt on someone?
Todd: Not exactly.
Tea: You thought it would score points with Blair?
Todd: Starr wanted us to be together. But, Blair kept picking Max over me. How nuts is that?
Tea: So, you thought pretending to see a psychologist would sway her in your direction?
Todd: It worked...for a few weeks. Then she figured out I hadn't been fixed like she thought and everything kind of blew up.
Tea: I don't think that therapy is meant to fix you. It could help you deal with some of your issues better, I suppose, but only if you take it seriously.
Todd: I like being broken.
Tea: I know you do.
Todd: You like me this way, too, don't you?
Tea: I do...at times...in a weird way.
Todd: Seeing Dr. Rae didn't fix you either, if you like being with someone as screwed up as me?
Tea: Given your childhood, it's understandable that your brain works differently. As long as you control your anger, I do like being with you. And, I was never Rae's patient. Let's get that straight.
Todd: You don't need to be embarrassed. You're in therapy now and I'm still willing to be seen in public with you. I know you don't enjoy being broken as much as I do.
Tea: That's true. But, I would never be so far gone that I would seek out Rae Cummings for help with any mental health needs. Her sanity's more questionable than that of most of her patients.
Todd: If she wasn't your shrink, how do you know how nuts she is?
Tea: You don't want to know.
Todd: Sure, I don't.
Tea: Trust me, you don't.
Todd: Now you'll have to tell me.
Tea: If I don't your paranoia will give you a worse answer, I suppose.
Todd: Dr. Rae tried to tell me that paranoia was a bad thing. That's when I knew for sure that she didn't know what the hell she was talking about.
Tea: Because, paranoia is your friend?
Todd: It's the only friend that's never turned on me.
Tea: I don't think that's true.
Todd: Name one person in my life who has never turned on me.
Tea: I meant that following the path your paranoia sends you on hasn't always led you down the best path.
Todd: Maybe not, but it has kept me from taking the path directly into a setup, tons of times. Enough about me, how do you know Dr. Rae?
Tea: She was pursuing John during our brief...uh...
Todd: Error in judgment?
Tea: It was certainly that. Actually, I'm not surprised that Rae wasn't able to help you. She's a lousy psychologist. Although, I question if her credentials are even legitimate.
Todd: You really hold a grudge when a broad steals your guy.
Tea: He wasn't my guy for very long and she's more than welcome to have him.
Todd: So, what's your problem with her?
Tea: She made some snap judgments about me, without bothering to truly get to know me first. She believed every lie that John told her, never considering that the information she received from him might be tainted by his biased perspective. Plus, she was offering him professional advice while we were still together, advising him to end his relationship with me. He was virtually her patient, although not technically. But, it was still unethical for her to use her supposed expert advice to tell someone to end their relationship just so she could pursue a relationship with that same person.
Todd: So, basically, you're still jealous.
Tea: I am not. Certainly not of Rae Cummings, and most definitely, not about anything to do with John Sykes. I just know from experience how judgmental that shrew can be.
Todd: You sound jealous.
Tea: I am not jealous.
Todd: Just like you're not insanely jealous when you think about me and Blair?
Tea: That's different. And, that reminds me, if we are still married, anything you did with Blair, this time around, was cheating.
Todd: You were doing your own stuff, remember?
Tea: But, I didn't know that we were married, unlike you.
Todd: You did when you were doing the sanctimonious sermonizer.
Tea: I thought we agreed to never discuss that again.
Todd: That was before you started dumping on me for doing the same thing that you did.
Tea: The one time that I was...with...Andrew isn't the same. Our only relationship at the time was a business arrangement.
Todd: You knew I was in love with you.
Tea: No, I didn't. If I had known that, if you had shown me that, without putting up one massive wall after another, or denying it profusely every time I tried to determine where our relationship was at, everything would have been different.
Todd: You wouldn't have given him the chance to make your toes curl?
Tea: I don't recall my toes curling with him.
Todd: I guess I won't be able to make your toes curl anymore, either. Unless, while we're going at it, you regain the use of your toes.
Tea: You think you have that much power over my body?
Todd: I'm willing to give your body a thorough workout every day, just in case.
Tea: I've already told you, I'm not ready to be intimate again yet.
Todd: You will be...as soon as I find a place for us.
Tea: It could take months to find a place that fits my needs, and that we both agree on.
Todd: I think I'll find something tomorrow. And, we'll be sleeping there by tomorrow night.
Tea: I won't be ready, Todd. You need to be understanding about that or this won't work between us.
Todd: You're the one who will be jumping me within a couple of day. I guarantee it.
Tea: Jumping isn't really an option for me right now.
Todd: Just let me know when you want to jump me and I'll help you.
Tea: It may not be for a long time.
Todd: I bet you won't make it a week before you get that itch and need me to start scratching you.
Tea: I bet I can go longer than you can without the aid of scratching of any kind.
Todd: This conversation is going in the wrong direction.
Tea: Maybe we should just try to sleep.
Todd: Go ahead.
Tea: It's not easy for me.
Todd: The nightmares?
Tea: Yes.
Todd: They won't bother you tonight.
Tea: They're with me every night, and every morning when I wake up and realize that it all really happened...they're really gone...
[Tea tilts her head and presses her face into his chest as tears threaten her.]
Todd: This morning, when you woke up and saw me here, it felt better, didn't it?
[Tea gives up trying to hold back her tears. She releases tears that are not only filled with pain from the events leading up to, and following, the plane crash, but also tears of relief that Todd came to her and intends to stay with her, despite how difficult she's made it for him.
Todd holds her as she cries and continues to hold her long after she's exhausted herself into sleep.]
to be continued...
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2001 COPYRIGHT BY TIMA
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