The Florencia Lozano Homepage - Fan Fiction
AFFLICTION
BY TROG |
CHAPTER
6 |
CHAPTER 6
“Hello, Carlotta,” said Vicki as she walked over to the bed and gave her friend a hug. Tea was sitting beside Carlotta’s bed looking stylish in a black leather skirt and black turtle-neck sweater. She got up when Vicki walked in.
“Hello, to you to, Tea, again,” she said, giving her a quick hug.
“Thanks for coming Vicki, Tea told me you stopped by a few nights back, after my surgery. What lovely flowers,” said Carlotta, admiring the lovely bouquet of pale pink, carnations she was holding.
“They’re from my green house. I thought they’d cheer you up--a touch of Spring and all that.”
“Let me put those in water, Vicki,” said Tea, taking the flowers and reaching for a large plastic-issue, blue hospital pitcher from a near-by table. As Tea walked into the bathroom and filled the pitcher with water, she listened to these two old friends talk about life, family...illness. As Tea arranged the lovely flowers in the makeshift vase, Vicki told Carlotta about her own recovery from breast cancer and it seemed to put Carlotta at ease.
“I’m going to go and grab a cup of coffee while you two catch up,” said Tea, grabbing her purse and walking toward the door.
“Excuse me for one second, Carlotta,” said Vicki getting up. “I’ll be right back.”
Vicki walked quickly out into the corridor and looked for Tea.
“Tea!”
Tea turned and saw Vicki coming up behind her.
“What is it, Vicki?”
“Can we talk for a minute.”
Tea nodded curiously and walked her into the waiting area where she and Todd had been the day before. A chill ran through Tea, still remembering his vicious words, as she sat down beside Vicki.
“I know Todd saw you yesterday and I gather things did not go well between you.”
Tea was stunned by her forwardness and stood up quickly, pacing a little.
“Vicki...I don’t want to talk about that. Frankly, I’m surprised Todd told you about it....I want to forget it ever happened.”
“Tea, I don’t mean to pry. And Todd didn’t tell me what transpired, only that he saw you.”
Tea eyed Vicki in her pale yellow sweater and skirt, her classic jewelry--all politeness and kindness. She was Todd’s great defender, the one who never walked away from him. Her capacity for forgiveness had always impressed Tea.
“He came to tell me how happy he is with Blair...and their children...and that my leaving him was the best thing that ever happened to him. He told me he’d never loved me...or wanted me...and that I had always been a substitute for Blair. Of course, he said it in a much more cruel and Toddian fashion,” she said looking away from Vicki.
Vicki sighed and shook her head, getting up to face Tea.
“Oh, my dear, you have to know those words were all lies.”
Tea looked up at her, her eyes filled with tears.
“Yes, Vicki, I know. I know Todd well enough to know when he’s lashing out. But his intent to hurt me...that was very real...and it frightened me--his need for vengeance after all this time. And it doesn’t change anything. We’ve both moved on...and I hope he can find some happiness with Blair.”
“I hoped that too...but he’s miserable with Blair.”
Tea stared at her.
“Not miserable enough to prevent him from having another child with her,” said Tea, turning away before her tears could spill, wiping them quickly before Vicki could see them.
“Well, I don’t have an explanation for that, but I know he hasn’t slept with her since that child was conceived fourteen months ago...not even since their wedding.”
Tea turned around, looking confused by her statement and remembering the great emphasis Todd had put on his and Blair’s sex life in his sadistic tirade yesterday. She should have known he was lying about that too.
“Well than why did he marry her?”
“He says for his children...to give them some semblance of a family. Who knows how Todd thinks. All I know is that this situation with Blair is making him ill. He’s developed a bleeding ulcer and yesterday he collapsed in a bar across the street.”
Tea rushed over and grabbed Vicki’s arm unknowingly.
“What? Is he okay” asked Tea.
“No! He’s here, Tea. He was admitted last night, brought in by ambulance.”
Tea pressed Vicki’s arm recalling the strange feeling that overtook her when that ambulance arrived yesterday as she looked out of Carlotta’s window.
“But he’s okay?” she asked again, pressing her fingers into Vicki’s arm urgently, almost painfully.
“Well...yes...for now. But I know he won’t take care of himself and it will just get worse. It’s almost like he wants to hurt himself. I’m really afraid for him in his present state.”
Tea turned away from Vicki and closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around herself for courage, fighting an overwhelming desire to run and find him, to comfort him as she had so often in the past. But she could not. Not this time.
“I can’t get involved, Vicki. I have a husband...a marriage. That’s where my loyalties are right now. I’m not a part of his life anymore. I’m sorry.”
Vicki walked around her and placed her hands on Tea’s shoulders, looking into her dark, dejected eyes.
“I know, Tea. And I understand that Todd has made a mess of his life and he’s the only one who can fix it. I just wanted you to know about him, that’s all. Now, I’m going to go back and finish my visit with Carlotta. Take care, my dear.”
Vicki headed for the door, but before exiting she turned around.
“You know, Tea, I always thought you were the one for Todd. I’ll always wished that things had turned out differently for you two,” she said sadly before walking out.
Tea walked toward the window and looked out at the gloomy sky, letting her tears fall slowly down her face.
*************
“Daddy! Daddy!” screamed Starr as she ran into the hospital room. Todd was sitting up looking pale and exhausted from a long, sleepless night.
“Hey, Starr,” said Todd as he scooped her onto the bed and took her in his arms. Blair walked in right behind her carrying their 5 month old baby in her arms.
“Good morning, Todd,” she said, with forced and exaggerated pleasantness.
“Give me my son,” he said without looking at her.
Blair deposited the sleepy baby in his arms and watched him settle comfortably there. Todd kissed his son’s forehead with simple affection and smiled at him.
“Do you feel better, Daddy? Mommy said you had a bad tummy ache,” said Starr.
Todd looked over at Blair who shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, Starr, I’m feeling better.”
“Can you come home now?”
“Well, they want me to stay until tomorrow, but I’ll see what I can do.”
As Blair stared out his window, her back to the door, Todd looked over at the doorway and saw Tea standing there. She was all in black and her golden, brown hair hung loosely all around her shoulders. A wave of excitement ran through his body and their eyes connected for an instance but than he saw her beautiful dark eyes drift to the baby, then to Starr and finally to Blair. She lowered her eyes and left quickly but not before he saw the anguish in them. Todd pushed Starr off of him and started to get up as an IV tower fell over suddenly with a loud crash causing Blair to turn around.
“Todd...are you crazy? You can’t get up...you’re connected to all those IVs for God’s sake. You’re scaring Starr! What the hell is wrong with you,” she shouted as she picked up the fallen tower .
Todd looked at the IV lines strung across the air, preventing him from running after her, like chains. Blair, Starr, his baby, everything in this room felt like a shackle--a chain which he had forged with his anger and his jealousy and his stupidity. Looking back at the doorway where she had been standing, he felt her pain inside him...the pain she must have felt seeing him with his family. All the lies he had told her yesterday had taken on an ugly validity, turned into truths right before her eyes. It seemed all he did was hurt her--intentionally and unintentionally.
He laid back and closed his eyes.
“Poetic justice,” he said out loud.
“Poetic justice? What are you talking about, Todd.”
“Nothing you could possibly understand with that brain of yours, Blair.”
“Mommy, can I go and get a soda from the machine down the hall?”
Blair fished though her bag for some change and handed it to Starr.
“Sure, sweetie, but you come right back, you here?”
When Starr was out of ear-shot Blair came toward the bed.
“Don’t you talk down to me in front of my little girl, do you understand me, Todd?”
“Or what, Blair? You’ll leave me? Be my guest! Just know that these kids are mine...and if you leave you leave alone!”
“I’m not leaving my children with a psycho like you, not after what you did to our son!”
“Well, let’s not forget the one who actually got committed to a lunatic asylum. Now gee...I wonder who the courts would give custody to.”
“Are you threatening me, Todd?”
“Yeah!”
Starr listened at the door sadly and walked away quickly, tears streaming down her face just as Vicki came around the corner.
“Hi, Starr...honey, what’s the matter?” asked Vicki, kneeling down to give her a hug.
“Mommy and Daddy are mad again. They’re yelling at each other,” she said, between sobs.
“Well why don’t you just sit here and drink your soda and I’ll go and see if I can fix things,” said Vicki gently, wiping Starr’s eyes with a tissue.
As Starr sat on a bench, Vicki walked toward Todd’s room and could hear their voices in the hallway before she entered.
“Why the hell did you marry me Todd? Was it to torture me for lying to you? You won’t talk to me! You won’t touch me! You’re a sick sadist...you’re insane, Todd!”
“THAT‘S ENOUGH FROM BOTH OF YOU,” shouted Vicki from the doorway. “Your daughter is out there crying her eyes out because her parents can’t have one civilized conversation--even in a hospital.”
Blair threw Todd an evil look.
“Now see what you’ve done,” she said, ripping the baby from his arms and heading for the door. “I have to clean up all your messes, Todd. You deal with him, Vicki...I’ve had it,” she said as she walked past her and out the door.
“Todd...you and Blair have to learn to control your hostility around that child...and around your baby!”
Todd laid back and rubbed his eyes, feeling guilty and angry.
“What the hell am I suppose to do, Vicki! You trying living with that...that lying hyena.”
“That...hyena...is the woman you chose to marry! No one put a gun to your head, Todd, so stop playing the victim. If you indeed married her for your children, as you claim, than you’re not living up to that promise. You have to make it work with Blair, or you will make your children miserable. Do you want your children to grow up watching their parents hate one another? I think we both know the pain of that Todd. I think we owe it to our children not to repeat that cycle,” she said with intense anger, almost shouting.
Todd closed his eyes. He wanted to shut out her voice, the voice which spoke the truth like some oracle prophesying his doom. Of course, she was right. He owed this to his children irregardless of his feelings for Blair, irregardless of the pain in his belly which flared every time she came near him. The night he slept with her had sealed his sad fate forever. In a moment of weakness and loneliness he had betrayed his heart and his body for a little comfort--a reprieve from his desperate solitude--and now they had a child, another tie binding them forever.
“I know...you’re right,” said Todd quietly.
Vicki looked astonished as she playfully put a hand to his forehead, checking for a sign of fever.
“You must not be feeling well, Todd, because you just said I was right,” she joked, as Todd pushed her hand away pretending to be annoyed.
“How do I make this work, Vicki, when I don’t want to be with Blair.”
“Well, you wanted to be with her before you found out about the lie. Has something changed since then, Todd? Like Tea being back, perhaps?”
Todd turned away from her.
“Todd...sweetheart...Tea’s married. She’s moved on...and you have to accept that.”
Vicki watched Todd hit the call button with his finger as his hand traveled to his stomach, rubbing it lightly. A nurse came walking in and Todd turned to her.
“I need a pill...NOW!” he shouted at her. The skittish nurse looked at Vicki, then left quickly and returned a few moments later with some pills in a little paper cup and some water. Todd swallowed them and laid back looking at the ceiling as the nurse hurried away to get away from the most difficult patient on the floor.
“Tea’s not happy. I can tell...I see it in her eyes,” said Todd, still staring at the ceiling.
“Even if that were true...and I’m not saying it is...that has nothing to do with you!”
“You’re wrong! It has everything to do with me. I let her down,” he said, closing his eyes. “We had everything...and in one, stupid moment of blind jealousy, I wrecked it all.”
Vicki shook her head and stood up, throwing her hands into the air.
“I just can’t seem to get through to you, Todd. Tea wants you to be happy with Blair...she told me so.”
“That’s bullshit! You don’t know her!” he yelled, “ Tea wants me to be miserable, which I am, and I want her to be miserable with that loser she married! I’m not going to pretend I want her happy with someone else--I don’t!”
“Well that’s very selfish, Todd...and very immature.”
Todd laughed.
“Well...that’s me isn’t it. Selfish and immature.”
Vicki sighed deeply and just shook her head defeatedly.
“Why don’t you get some rest, Todd. I’ll come by tomorrow,” she said , reaching down and kissing him before walking out the door.
As soon as Vicki was out of the room Todd jumped quickly out of bed and yanked the IV from his hand, grunting with the painful sting. Walking over to the closet and pulling out his clothing, he dressed quickly before walking out of the room.
to be continued...
2001 Copyright by Trog
FanFiction Home
Home
