The Florencia Lozano Homepage - Fan Fiction
| REACHING OUT BY TIMA |
CHAPTER 55 |
PREVIOUSLY:
Tea: I do seem to sleep better when you're here. Now, close your eyes and let's find out if you still sleep better when I'm next to you.
Todd: Trust, huh?
Tea: Trust.
[Todd takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. A few seconds later, he opens them again.]
Todd: Just checking.
[Todd closes his eyes again. Tea strokes his cheek softly with her finger and speaks to him in Spanish, assuring him that she'll still be next to him when he awakens.]
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chapter 55:
[Tea can feel herself drifting somewhere between being asleep and being awake when she feels a hand touch her arm and gently shake her. A female voice speaks to her in Spanish, telling her that it's time to wake up. For a moment, her mind plays a trick on her, convincing her that she's a small child again and her mother is trying to awaken her.
Quickly, Tea returns to the reality of her present situation. She opens her eyes and turns her head to look up at the nurse standing beside her bed. She converses with the nurse in whispers, not yet wanting to wake the man lying beside her.
After the nurse leaves the room, Tea turns her gaze to a sleeping Todd. She hates to wake him, but she knows that she has to. He looks so peaceful, though. She wishes that the brief peace he found sleeping beside her could stay with him beyond this moment, but she knows that's not likely to happen.
Tea moves the strands of hair that have fallen into his face while he slept and smoothes her hand over his hair several times before forcing herself to wake him.]
Tea: Querido? Querido? It's time to get up.
[Todd grumbles in his sleep, not wanting to leave the rare peaceful cocoon that he currently finds himself in.]
Tea: Querido, it's time to see the psychiatrist.
Todd (as he startles out of his sleep): No! No more Dr. Rae! No more psychobabble! No more spiky hair! No!
[Tea smiles, uncertain if he's being serious, but still finding it amusing. Todd opens his eyes and takes in his surroundings.]
Todd: Oh, good! You're the one getting shrunk, not me.
Tea: I have to go now.
Todd: Blow it off.
Tea: I can't.
Todd: We'll get in the van and make a run for it. All those people ever do is make everyone feel lousy, anyway.
Tea: I felt lousy to begin with. This will help me feel less lousy.
Todd: That's their pitch but once they get a hold on you, they screw with your brain and convince you that you're worse off than you really are, and they convince you that you don't need the people in your life that you really need.
Tea: No one could convince me that I don't need you.
Todd: He'll try. Everyone will try.
Tea: They would be wasting their time.
Todd: That's what shrinks specialize in...wasting time.
Tea: I don't have time for this right now. I need to get up. You can help me.
Todd: Now you want me doing everything for you?
Tea: Not everything. You can help me sit up, though.
Todd: Did you screw up your back again?
Tea: Not that I can tell so far. I can get up by myself if you don't want to help.
Todd: No. As long as I'm here, I'll do my job.
Tea: It's not your job, Todd.
[Todd gets out of bed and walks around to the other side.]
Todd: Sure, it is. It's all I'm good for.
Tea: Now, that is not true.
[Todd gently repositions Tea onto her back.]
Todd: How's that?
Tea: It's fine. Help me the rest of the way.
Todd: I kind of like you this way.
Tea: This isn't the time.
Todd: When will it be the time?
Tea: I don't know.
Todd: We can fool around without going all the way to the ecstasy galaxy.
Tea: Why is this so important to you all of a sudden?
Todd: It's not sudden.
Tea: Right! You were back with Blair. I guess you must have gotten into the habit of constant sexual stimulation.
Todd: Hardly!
Tea: Then, why the change?
Todd: The last time we were together...
Tea: We did use sex as a substitute for verbal communication, but...
Todd: Those were some of the best conversations I've ever had in my life.
Tea: We were simply masking our problems.
Todd: No shrink talk.
Tea: Maybe you should join me for a session.
Todd: I'll do that.
[Todd helps Tea sit up at the edge of her bed.]
Tea (surprised): You will?
Todd: Sure. If your shrink doesn't speak English so I don't have to actually listen to any more psychobabble. I've had enough of that already this year.
Tea: But, you told me yourself that you didn't take your therapy seriously.
Todd: So?
Tea: So, it can't help you, unless you take it seriously.
Todd: You think I should have spilled my guts to Dr. Rae?
Tea: Well, not to her, but seeing someone you trust, and can open up to, might help you.
Todd: I'm looking directly at you. I'm seeing you.
Tea: You know what I mean.
Todd: What is it with people trying to make therapy a contagious disease? Viki was always doing that to me, too.
Tea: Your sister must have been happy thinking you were in therapy.
Todd: My sister hasn't been happy about anything to do with me for a long time.
Tea: Things are really bad between the two of you?
Todd: Only horribly so.
Tea: I'm sorry. I know how much you care about her.
Todd: I didn't have any siblings for a long time. I managed.
Tea: But, you liked having Viki on your side. I know that you did, even if you wouldn't openly admit it, most of the time.
Todd: I'm a disappointment. She expected a perfect brother. Instead, she got me.
Tea: I don't think she wants you to be perfect. She wants you to stop shooting yourself in the foot, and injuring other people in the process.
Todd: Do you realize what you're doing?
Tea: What?
Todd: You're using me to avoid your own stuff. You should talk to a shrink about that.
Tea: I'd rather stay here, talking to you.
Todd: Good! We'll go looking for a house together, instead.
Tea: I'd prefer to spend the rest of the day with you, but I need to do this. I need to get better, in every way. Go and find us a house. Nothing too outlandish, though.
Todd: What do you consider outlandish? Not a moat, I hope.
Tea: You always have wanted a moat.
Todd: So, you're not going to give me a hard time about it?
Tea: If you can find a house with a moat, that is also already wheelchair accessible I'll agree to it.
Todd: There's got to be at least one of those somewhere in the world.
Tea: On this island. No more long boat rides.
Todd: We could live on a boat.
Tea: I'd rather not.
Todd: Why not?
Tea: I don't have time to debate this with you right now. Maybe you should wait to go house hunting until later.
Todd: You don't trust me?
Tea: Del hasn't called yet.
Todd: Are you worried?
Tea: I'm trying not to think negatively about it. He may call during my session, though, and I want to know that he got there okay.
Todd: You could cancel your shrink thing and get back into bed with me and wait for his call, while I distract you in ways that you enjoyed in the past.
Tea: I'm going to my session, and I'm trusting you to stay here and answer the phone when Del calls. I'm also trusting you to be civil to Del.
Todd: If I was, he wouldn't believe it was me.
Tea (smiling): That may be true, but try, okay? When Del brings his girlfriend, and her children, to visit, I don't want our home becoming a battle ground between you two little boys.
Todd: I agreed that your relatives could stay with us. Chicks so desperate they'd settle for Del, and a bunch of brats, weren't part of the deal.
Tea: Tough! I already invited them.
Todd: Fine! I'll invite my family...Briggs and his entire boring brood.
Tea: Why not your real family?
Todd: None of them are speaking to me. At least Briggs speaks to me, and does everything I tell him to do.
Tea: Hasn't his employment contract expired already?
Todd: He's too greedy to ever quit.
Tea: I really have to go now. Would you like to help me into my chair?
Todd: You don't want to do that pretending to be an independent chick thing?
Tea: Do you want to hold me in your arms for a few seconds, or not?
Todd: I guess I can force myself.
[Todd feigns annoyance at the inconvenience. They both enjoy a few moments of Todd holding her while her arms hug him around his neck, before he places her in her wheelchair and she leaves for her psychiatrist appointment.]
to be continued...
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