Chapter 11
But making a decision, and following through with it, were two different things. Shawna put it off, and that Sunday, she found herself teaching Ryan again, having dinner with Elijah again.
She didn’t know how to behave with him. She didn’t know how to act around him, because…
Were they lovers? Were they friends? He had emailed her, cordial and friendly, but there had been no words of love. He hadn’t asked her to meet him before their Sunday dinner. And yet, when they did meet, he was...
“Come here, Shawna,” he said, and she knew what he wanted.
She wanted to tell herself that she didn’t want it, but she did. She needed…
Why not? Why not take that pleasure, one last time, and then say goodbye?
Shawna knew that she was rationalizing, but in that moment, as she found herself in his arms, she didn’t care.
She didn’t care, because he was kissing her, his lips moving over hers so softly, so sweetly, and she moaned with the pleasure of it.
“I missed touching you,” whispered Elijah, and she tried to respond to him as his hands cupped her breasts, and he stroked her, softly, pressing and soothing.
His fingers moved over her nipples, touching her so intimately, and she moaned with the pleasure of it.
“Maybe we can have dessert first. You are delectable,” said Elijah, and Shawna felt him unzip her dress and slip his hands in, tugging her breasts out of her bra and teasing her nipples, hard and tight.
“Elijah… Oh God, that feels so good,” said Shawna as he stroked and teased her, and his lips moved down her neck, licking and nibbling at her.
He moaned her name, and she felt his hand slide down to cup her mound, and she trembled with longing for him.
But it wasn’t just longing.
She found the words, the words that she knew were forbidden to him, trembling on her lips. She felt them there, longing to be said.
I need you. I love you. I love you.
But she couldn’t say them, and suddenly, her body seemed to go cold.
Abruptly, she pulled away from him.
His hands fell away, and she avoided his eyes as she pulled her bra back on straight and zipped her dress back up.
“Shawna?”
“Elijah… Elijah, I can’t do this. I can’t.”
His expression became closely guarded, and she knew she had crossed the line. She had referred to them – to what they were doing.
They were supposed to do it, not talk about it. That had always been unsaid and she had gone along with it. But now…
She couldn’t do it anymore.
She couldn’t.
“I apologize, Shawna. I overstepped my boundaries. I didn’t mean to. You were free to stop me, any time.”
Shawna nodded, feeling even colder. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if to keep herself warm.
“I can’t do this. Elijah, I… I’m not the sophisticated, worldly woman who can have affairs where you do this… Where you have separate lives, where time together is scheduled, and we never talk about what we’re doing.”
Elijah’s expression became so closed and guarded, and she knew that she didn’t have to say the words, not really. It was already over.
It was already over because she had crossed his lines.
But they had always been his lines, never hers. Whatever they had had been on his terms, not hers. She couldn’t live with them anymore.
Shawna sat down, carefully and she could’ve wept for what they might’ve had if he’d been willing to open his heart to her, even a little bit. But she didn’t weep. She kept her spine straight, and her eyes steady.
“I must quit.”
Elijah frowned.
“Why?”
Could he really have asked that? Shawna told herself to be strong and get it out. Do it while it’s still fresh, she told herself.
“Because I cannot do this anymore. It’s too much. I… I don’t want Ryan to stop getting lessons. I’ll get you a list of people who would be excellent for Ryan. They will teach him well. He’ll fulfill his potential with any of them. But I can’t teach him anymore.”
Now he did look surprised. Did he really compartmentalize everything so well? She could still feel his hands on her, and he looked so distant and unruffled.
“I thought you wanted to teach him.”
Shawna shrugged.
“I did. I do. But… Oh, what’s the point of beating around the bush? I can’t be around you, around this house, like this. I don’t know what you want from me, Elijah, but in my world… In my world, intimacy matters. You don’t have affairs with employees, and you don’t have sex with them and then pretend nothing like that had happened. You don’t let yourself blur lines like that. A lot of it is my fault. I admit that. I blurred many of those lines by agreeing to those evenings with you. But I can’t do it anymore. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Shawna looked at him, startled.
“Because… Because I don’t know how to deal with any of this. You told me about your past. I respect that. But I cannot compete with your memory or with the past. I don’t know how to separate myself from that. I cannot fall in love with somebody who will not even consider loving me back, Elijah. And because of that, I have to leave before I get in deeper than I already have. To keep what part of my sanity I still have.”
His eyes hardened, and Shawna shivered.
“I never made any promises to you.”
Shawna nodded.
“I know. You didn’t. I thought I could live with that. I thought that maybe I could live in the moment and let the future take care of itself. But it turns out that I cannot. Because the future never takes care of itself. You have to do what you need to do if you’re to have any chance of having a future you want. Please, let me go, Elijah. You can have anything you want in this whole world. Surely you can’t want to cause me pain?”
“What is it that you want, Shawna?”
She looked up at him, and she couldn’t find enough pride in her to lie about it.
“I want it to be real. That day that we spent together… I want that to be real. But it wasn’t real. We were pretending.”
Oh, she saw the moment those shutters came down. Those eyes, that had let her in, closed her out completely in that moment.
“I cannot be more than I am.”
Shawna looked away.
“I’m not asking you to. I’m only asking you to let me go. I’ll repay the money, Elijah. No matter how long it takes, I’ll pay you back. But please, don’t hold me to this. Let me go. Please, let me go.”
She wished he would hold her tight, tell her that he’d make it all real, that he would never let her go.
But of course, he didn’t.
“Of course. I regret that I have caused you so much distress. You’re free, of all obligations, and I will consider your recommendations.”
Elijah rose to his feet, and Shawna, shocked, was left with no choice but to do the same and let herself be ushered out.
She felt numb.
Just like that, it was over. A lovers’ interlude had turned into a business meeting that had lasted all of about fifteen minutes, and it was over. It didn’t feel like a breakup. It had been…
She didn’t know what it had been. But he had just let her go.
He hadn’t even considered fighting for her, because nothing about her had truly mattered, after all.
What a fool she had been, all along!
The last few months felt like a waking dream of some sort. Now, looking back, she could hardly believe that it had all happened.
She had discovered a musical genius, started teaching him, developed some kind of odd relationship with his moody and strange father, fallen in love with him, and put an end to all of it.
Well, she was quite done with all things dramatic.
All she wanted now was to be left alone to be at peace.
But it wasn’t over. Shawna knew that it wasn’t over.
Because she owed Elijah a lot of money, and he could use that, if he felt like it. He could hold it over her head and demand that she fulfill the obligations to which she had agreed.
Would he do something so cruel?
Shawna wanted to believe that he wouldn’t. But he had looked at her so blankly as he had politely asked her to leave, and there had been no compassion or sweetness there.
Did he understand how much it had hurt for her to do what she’d done?
Did he understand that she’d had no choice – no real choice?
She doubted that, too.
But it was over.
It had been an untenable situation, and she would find a way to pay him back. There would be nothing more between them.
She would explain to Ryan that he would have a new teacher, and that would be that.
She had been an idiot to build castles in the air. What had she expected?
A fairytale ending?
She knew that life was no fairytale. She had enough experience to know that castles in the air always ended up tumbling down, burying you underneath the rubble of your futile dreams. A clean break, thought Shawna, and clapped a hand over her mouth to keep down the hysterical laugh that threatened to bubble up from inside her.
There was no such thing. Life was messy, and her life was messier than most now. But there was always solace where there was love, and she knew where she could find unconditional love. Where she always had found it.
So Shawna went home, and found her sister waiting for her.
“Shawna? I just got an email from the school. Apparently my tuition has been paid for the entire time. All of it. Did you know about this?”
Shawna was stunned. All she could do was shake her head. So he wouldn’t hold that over her.
She would forever be grateful for that, though the gratitude, being beholden to him, left a bitter taste in her mouth.
“Well, I guess you’ll have to thank Elijah when you see him next.”
Shawna shook her head again, and Layla saw, finally, that all wasn’t right.
“What happened?”
“I won’t be seeing him again.”
“What happened?” repeated Layla.
Shawna sighed and sat down, feeling as if the weight of the entire world was on her shoulders.
She couldn’t take it.
She couldn’t deal with it.
How could she?
“I quit.”
“But… Why? What about Ryan?”
Shawna sighed.
“I’ll give him plenty of options as far as Ryan is concerned.”
“That isn’t the same. Talk to me, Shawna. Please. I know I’ve been busy, but talk to me.”
Shawna considered it.
She had never burdened her little sister with the really bad stuff. They were friends, but Shawna had always tried her best to protect Layla.
“I’m not a little girl anymore, Shawna. I’m old enough to help you. Please.”
Shawna looked at her sister and smiled.
She was old enough, and strong enough. But Shawna hated admitting that she needed help.
But she did.
She needed a friend.
“Let’s break out the wine and ice cream, shall we?”
The penny dropped when she said that, and Layla’s mouth formed an ‘O’.
“Damn. Wine and ice cream it is,” said Layla, and spent the rest of the evening, for once, taking care of her big sister.
Shawna let herself be coddled, because she needed it.
She needed home.
She needed to remember who she was because somewhere down the line she had started losing sight of that.
“Shawna, can I be honest?”
Shawna sighed.
“Those words are not allowed on break-up nights. Not that this is even a break-up. I mean we weren’t even together. We just slept together a couple of times and I went and fell in love with him and I owe him money. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Layla grinned.
“Well, when you put it that way, it does sound as if you know how to pick ‘em. But I mean… Are you really sure there’s no way it can work?”
Shawna sighed.
“Layla, you’re a sweetheart, but he has never made an attempt to even make it an ‘it’. He’s never been the one to get in touch with me, to open up, to do anything to even make it seem like we might have something. He just… He just manipulated me into the place where he wanted me. Then when I couldn’t deal with the place where we were, he just let me go.”
Layla considered that seriously before speaking again.
“I see your point. No, really, I do, Shawna. But see, I don’t think he actually knows how to talk about this, or how to make it work. You told me that he had given up on love. Well, for somebody who had given up on love, he went to a lot of trouble to spend time with you.”
Shawna considered that.
“Yes, but he never talks about anything.”
Layla rolled her eyes.
“So what? He tried. Didn’t he? You said so, during the picnic.”
Shawna sighed.
“He did, and when he did, it was to warn me that there would be no love for us. That even talking about it wouldn’t be encouraged. So… I want it all, Layla. That day made me feel like we were a family. I was so close to fooling myself into believing that we could be a family. Then we went back, and I felt almost like I was going home. I wasn’t, though. I don’t belong there. I can’t make him love me. So I had to let him go.”
Layla didn’t say anything. She just hugged Shawna, and kissed the top of her head.
“Well, we’ll muddle along, like we did before him. And we’ll pay him back, every cent.”
Shawna nodded.
“We will.”
They would have each other, always.
But Shawna cried herself to sleep that night, and she knew that it was only the first of many such nights.
*****
Two weeks later, Elijah was still angry. It was a cold, hard anger, that had started from the moment Shawna had rejected him, and it hadn’t gone away. It had built when she’d brought up the money, and then when she had walked out and not reached out to him in any way.
But he wasn’t sure if he was angrier with himself, or with Shawna, because he had just gone on a date with one of the many women he had been ignoring for months, and he had hated every moment of it.
He had hated the assumption that their arrangement would continue, and he had hated how it had made him feel to realize that he had no desire for that arrangement to continue at all, in any way, shape or form.
Marie was gorgeous, easy to please, not demanding, and didn’t ask him questions he didn’t want to answer.
She didn’t ask about his son, didn’t talk about music, didn’t talk about her grandparents in tones of almost aching nostalgia coated with pragmatic acceptance that somehow was not cynical.
She didn’t make him chuckle by saying something perfectly outrageous and then looking at him with wide-set, large, dark eyes that dared him not to take her seriously. She didn’t make him want to go out for the day and have picnics by the stream that he used to love.
But then, she didn’t make him confront his demons and his memories, either. It was easy to be with Marie, make light conversation about the theater and about movies, to accept the invitation in her pouting lips and her practiced guileless eyes.
It was easy to take what she offered, all of that voluptuousness, for him.
It was easy to give her a gift – something that sparkled brightly – and send her on her way afterwards.
Except that there had been no afterwards, because it had been empty.
Damn her, thought Elijah, but he wasn’t thinking of Marie, with her beautiful body and her perfect face, with her open acrobatics in bed and her willingness to agree to anything he asked of her.
Marie had always managed to distract him when he needed distraction. She had always been available.
And he didn’t want her anymore.
He had come home early and tucked his son in, instead, and his son had asked him, with wide eyes, why Miss Woods said she wouldn’t come home to teach him anymore.
His son, who was now a person and not a representation of his dead wife, had cried for Miss Woods back, and it had hurt. It had hurt in ways Elijah hadn’t known he could hurt.
He’d thought that he had locked away that vulnerable part of him, forever. He had meant to.
He’d had no intention of ever feeling like that again, as if his happiness hinged on somebody else’s.
But Ryan was a part of him. Ryan would always be a part of him, and even through his anger, he found gratitude that Shawna had made him see that.
But there was plenty of anger, too.
There was anger because he couldn’t lock it all away again. Life had been much more comfortable when he had locked it all away.
She had picked those locks, with that tenacity that you wouldn’t expect from her, and then she had just left, leaving him to deal with the stormy mess she had opened up all alone.
He had been trying.
He really had.
Couldn’t she see that he’d been trying? Couldn’t she see how hard it was for him? He had told her!
He had told her as much as he could.
And she had asked for too much, without seeing that he had already given her as much as he could.
Well, more fool him, thought Elijah. He had known it was a mistake.
But he had done it anyway, because…
Because he hadn’t known how not to, and now….
Elijah sat in the alcove where they had spent so much time together, talking about everything and nothing. He had forgotten that such simple joy was possible.
She had opened everything for him, too. He knew that. He had, at times, asked more of her than he should have.
She had always given, and cheerfully, at that.
Sighing, he walked to the bar and poured himself a drink. It reminded him of the times they had shared, but he needed something to dull the edge of the pain.
She’d said that she was in love with him.
That was a deal-breaker.
They had never spoken of love. They hadn’t spoken much, about what they were doing, to be honest. It had been a deliberate choice from him, and he’d assumed that Shawna had felt the same way.
But she had fallen in love with him.
Knowing that made him feel…
He didn’t know how it made him feel.
Tossing back the whiskey, he poured himself another, and remembered the day he had gotten so drunk, and Shawna had been so kind. He had repaid that kindness by sleeping with her the next day. She had been so giving, so ready to lay herself open, and he had taken everything she had offered.
Even without explanations, without questions or answers, Shawna had given.
And he hadn’t even told her why until she had finally asked, realized Elijah, uncomfortably beginning to feel that this was all his fault.
He hadn’t even told her that he always got blind drunk the day he had lost his Katherine – he had just used Shawna to get over the pain, and she had given, letting him forget about the worst day of his life, even if only for a little while.
The day his heart had died, the day he had lost his soul.
The day he had stopped seeing his son, and started seeing only his dead wife when he looked at the little boy with his golden hair and deep blue eyes, so wide and so innocent.
Katherine had been innocent.
So was Shawna, thought Elijah, feeling even guiltier.
He had been the reason why Katherine died.
He should’ve taken better care. He should’ve used protection every time. He should have, even if Katherine had been on the pill.
He was the reason she’d gotten pregnant even after the doctors said she shouldn’t. He had been…
It had all been his fault.
And now he had hurt the only other woman who had managed to find the person he was, find his heart, and…
And he didn’t know what to do.
He didn’t know how to deal with the loss he felt, or with the dawning knowledge that he wanted her back.
He wanted Shawna back.
But he knew that he would never have her on his terms again. And now that he knew how much he had made that light that shone so bright in her dim, he didn’t want that. He wanted…
What did he want?
There was a knock on the door, jolting him out of his reverie.
Walking to it, he opened it, grumpy, and saw his son.
“Daddy?”
“Ryan? Why aren’t you in bed, honey?”
“I miss Miss Woods. Can you ask her to come back? Please?”
Sighing, Elijah picked his son up and walked to the chair, cuddling him in his arms.
“Maybe she’ll come back if we both ask,” he said, and soothed his son until he fell asleep.
And knew that he had lost his future by living in the past.
It was time to let go.
But was it too late?