The sound of water pelting against the shower stall woke Todd from his dreamless sleep. He stretched first, then his eyes caught sight of the glaring red from the clock, which read 1:00, and the little dot indicated it was in the afternoon. "Oh," he groaned, turning onto his stomach.
He couldn't believe he slept through the night, chastising himself for missing the opportunity to engage in one of his favorite pastimes, watching her sleep. Both of their bodies crashed, and as much as she enjoyed sleeping, it was amazing that she had gotten up before him. Leon's face flashed through his mind and he became more alert as he thought about what he was going to do to him.
He wanted to find him, grab him by the head and bash it into the well-worn cement. Bash it until it split in two and leave him there for the vultures swarm around and devour. As the pattern of late had become, his mind immediately focused on how it would affect Tea and what she would want. What she wouldn't want was for him to go to jail for killing her father, but that didn't mean she didn't want him to pay.
There had to be another way of getting him to pay. If he hired someone to hurt him, nobody would care. He was one of the forgotten homeless, a waste of space. Then again, he wanted to be the inflictor of Leon's pain, he wanted to be the last face he saw before he passed out, or better yet, died.
Todd reached for the cordless and dialed the number to his private investigator. Marcelli had a way of making people pay; used his "muscle" was what he said. "Muscle" meant re-tying those mob connections and getting the work done without getting a drop of blood on his hands.
"Marcelli."
"Yeah, Manning. I need you to find that guy again. Put down everything else you're doing and find him NOW!"
*****
The cold water cascaded from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. Felt almost like the mini-waterfalls that she'd bathed under the Jamaican sun. Only this water was cold, just as soothing, but cold. She'd spent most of the night awake, watching over Todd, holding him when she needed comfort. That was the best feeling in the world. All good things had to come to an end, so she rolled out of bed and stumbled into the shower.
She had to tell Todd all about her father and the baby and everything that resulted from that one stupid day in her life. No use in hiding it anymore and she owed him that much. The water, as she watched it spiral down the drain, could have been symbolic of her life, as she knew it, steadily going downward. She sort of propped herself against the wall, begging for strength to re-live the most painful experience of her life.
"Hey, Delgado, you alright," Todd called through the closed door.
She squeezed her eye shut at the sound of her pet name. How long had it been since he'd called her that? "I'm fine. I'll be out in a few," she called back at him. This was domestication in the way she'd imagined it. A husband calling through the door to his primping wife, eager to see what she looked like after such a long time pampering herself.
She turned the water off and stepped out onto the black, fluffly storm-cloud looking bath rug. Grabbed a matching black bath towel and wrapped it tightly around her body. She laughed at the irony of black all around. The black matched the bags that sagged underneath her eyes and the tinny bruise that was the last remaining trace of her father. Matched her mood and perception of herself. It matched the storm cloud that hovered above her and the pain that coursed through her body like cancer. Matched her soul. When she opened the door wearing nothing but a towel, Todd eyed her like he had never done before. There was no hiding or pretending, he openly admired her beauty. His gaze made her more than a little uncomfortable and not because she was half dressed but because he never looked at her that way before, at least not without hiding.
"Um, do you have, um, something I can borrow?" she asked as beads of sweat began to form on her brow.
His eyes never left her. "Yeah, top drawer, over there," he pointed to the dresser in the corner and watched her as she quickly extracted what she needed and headed back to the bathroom.
"Thanks," she yelled through the door.
A few minutes later, she came back out, dressed in a pair of his shorts and a t-shirt. His clothes swallowed her and with her hair in a ponytail, she could have passed for a teenager. She was an innocent, untainted, angel on his earth. "We need to talk," his angel said with that soft voice of hers.
He hopped up from the bed just as she sat down, putting distance between them. Conversations that began with those four words were always trouble; he wanted to avoid it for as long as possible. It took everything he had not to break down crying because he was going to lose her again and go back to the hellish life he led before and without her. It's not like he didn't expect it; Todd Manning didn't get to be happy, nor did he deserve it.
"Todd, what's wrong? Did I do something?"
"No, I just need to take a shower, that's all." With that, he bolted to the room and took the longest shower of his life.
When he emerged, Tea was in the living room, making some calls to her office. As Todd watched her from the doorway, he noted how her eyebrows creased with stress and her smile was long gone.
"What's up Delgado?" he asked when she hung up the phone.
She ran her fingers through her hair repeatedly and sighed heavily. Since she had been neglecting her practice, work had been piling up. To her surprise, she didn't care as much as she would have only a year before. In fact, she didn't care much at all. Work had been too high of a priority, which was why her personal life was such a mess. Only problem was the clients were not happy with having their attorney missing in-action. They had been calling and leaving messages, asking for updates on their case, asking about their lawyer, asking all of these questions that Caitlin could not answer. Asking all these things of her, from her, about her, pulling and prodding and begging for answers and all she wanted to do was let it all go.
"Earth to Delgado."
"Yeah, it's nothing, just work."
"Is it getting' to ya?"
"When I actually make it to the office it does." She took another deep breath and let it out as she melted into the leather couch. The oversized cushions molded themselves to fit her body, hugged her the way all fine materials should. She'd dreamed of the smell of leather when she was a child but had to be satisfied with some cheap and unreasonable facsimile. She closed her eyes and sank further into the material, listening to the sound it made whenever she moved an inch.
"Anything I can help with?"
She shook her head "no" and savored the few moments before she had to confess all her sins. "Sit next to me," she said, patting the empty space to her right. He did, snuggling into her warm body.
"Don't say it Tea. We could just be like this, you know, without all the words."
"I don't know you'll still want to be with me after I say what I have to say."
Relief washed over his body because she was not letting him go and there was nothing she could say to make him leave her again. He realized, right then, what true love meant. Just as suddenly as she'd come into his life, he'd just as suddenly understood the definition of true love.
She closed her eyes and counted to three before letting each breath out. She could hear the sound of her own heart thumping against her chest. Will he still love me, she asked herself.
"Spit it out."
She looked at him for a long time without saying anything. Simply memorized all of his features in case the unthinkable happened. "Todd," she began, "I was pregnant a long time ago."
"Yeah, I know."
"I didn't tell anybody. I mean, I told the guy and he wasn't very happy about it. He threw some money my way and told me to take care of it." She sniffled as the tears started streaming from her eyes.
"That guy was a jerk."
"Yeah," she laughed, "he was. And I used that jerk's money to go to Planned Parenthood-"
"You don't have to say anymore."
Tea looked at the hurt in his eyes and the tears came faster. Have I just lost him? She shook the thoughts from her head and continued. "I made it all the way there and I was so close, so close to taking the easy way out. But I couldn't do it."
"So, what happened?"
"Jose happened. We hated each other. We really, really hated each other something fierce. When our mother left, it was all out war."
"Well, I didn't grow up with any brothers or sisters, but I hate Viki sometimes," he halfway joked. What she might say next terrified him. If Jose laid a hand on her, he was dead. Todd wrapped his arms around her and gave her a reassuring hug.
She laughed again, "but you and Viki love each other."
"Whatever."
"Whatever," she mocked. "Somehow, he found out about the baby and he said I was going to pay. He told our father-"
"No, Tea."
"He came into my bedroom and," that's when she broke down crying. Never thought she'd have to go back to that place. She could see everything unfolding in her head, could feel the impact of her father's hand against her as he proceeded to hit her repeatedly.
"Shhh." He pulled her to him and let her cry in his chest. There was a time when she wouldn't let herself be that vulnerable, but here she was, crying in him and here he was, letting her.
She tried the breathing exercises she'd learned in therapy but they didn't seem to be working. She couldn't catch her breath until she felt his hand caressing her back and telling her everything was going to be okay. Gradually, her body began to calm. "Del came home and saw all this blood, my blood, and he took me to the hospital. They said there was nothing they could do."
Todd's head ached with the thought that she went through all of that alone. For years she'd carried that emotional baggage by herself, and then she met him and carried his baggage too, both of which were far too heavy for her small shoulders. He kept rubbing her back without words because nothing he could say would make it any better for her.
"So after that, I went through this whole period of depression."
"Depression?"
"Yes."
"Did you go through it after we, you know, broke up?"
"I still go through it."
He sat quietly, watching her as she tried to discreetly wipe away the tears that kept rolling down her face. She was the strongest woman he knew and for her to have suffered through that all alone, and to have survived, spoke volumes. His eyes roamed over her body from the top of her head on down and she was so small, no one would ever have thought she suffered so much. Most would have crumbled from the weight but not his Tea. No, she fought back with love and hope, she fought back and she won.
Tea almost didn't finish the story. It hurt too much; Misty had hurt her too much, but she kept on burrowing through her brick wall of secrets, "I know you wondered why Misty and I hate each other so much." She continued without giving him a chance to respond, "I caught her screwing my boyfriend, the father of my child while I was pregnant. So, I know what it was like when you saw Blair with Patrick. I know how much that must have hurt you."
Somehow, hearing once again about Blair and Patrick garnered no response. He could almost laugh at it. The part that got to him was the pain that Tea must have felt seeing someone she trusted betraying her trust. His head fell in shame because he had done the exact same thing to her. She trusted him with everything and what did he do? He chose to deceive her, to shut her out of his life, push her away, throw her out…break her heart.
"Todd?"
"Yeah, I'm here."
"What's wrong?"
"I just hear you talking about that guy and all the shit he did to you, well Tea, I did some fucked up shit to you too. I'm no better than him."
She took his face into her hands and forced him to look at her. "Don't compare yourself to him, Todd. You are so much better than any man I have ever been involved with."
"Yeah, whatever."
"No, not whatever. You are and I love you so much. Don't you know that by now?" He didn't reply. "You know, I thought my greatest fear had happened when my mother left us but that's not true, not even close to the truth. My greatest fear is not having you in my life and when you left on our wedding day, that was my worst fear coming true."
Todd let her words sink in. No one had ever said anything to him remotely like that to him before. Nobody had faith in him or counted on him the way she did. She was telling the truth, it was all in her eyes the way they shone with sincerity and tears of honesty dripped from her cheeks. "I'm confused."
"About what?"
"Why would you think I would leave you for stuff that wasn't in your control?"
"I don't know. I guess I kinda thought you might look at me differently after I told you about the pregnancy and what I was going to do. Or maybe I thought you didn't want to deal with someone with so much baggage." She took a breath and ran her fingers through her hair. "Okay, you know what? Let me quit bullshitting. The reason I thought you might not want to live with me after everything I told you is because I can't live with me."
"God, Tea, don't say that," he said before kissing her lips. "Don't you say that. You didn't do anything wrong. It's those assholes, they're the ones that fucked you over. You can't think any of what happened was your fault." He continued to kiss her, afraid to touch her with anything other than his lips and his tongue.
