Saving the Doctor Pt. 07

Carly sat stiff and silent, trying to fathom what she was hearing.

Elaina sighed, "I'm sorry Carly but I can't help but feel I might have contributed to him taking his own life. I obviously didn't think I'd hurt him that badly... Also, I promise you, at no point did I intentionally send him any signals. I mean we had conversations, at our party, at Grace and Jeff's party, at the Christmas gala... and in hindsight I can now remember some things that might have been signals from him. At the Christmas gala he found me while you all were dancing and we had what I thought was an innocent chat, but then I remember I turned down his offer to dance, and then I thought I had misheard him when he asked if I wanted to leave the party and get a drink somewhere else, and I told him to go have fun with that,...and the look on his face... he almost seemed ill."

Carly was too busy focusing on not falling out of her chair to reply.

"I'm so sorry Carly. I'm not naive, I know the effect I can have on men, and I should really be more observant with people I suppose. I'm sorry any of this happened, and I know this is all probably very hard to hear, but I thought you deserved to know."

Elaina sighed and sipped her tea.

Carly finally got her brain working well enough to lift her cup to her lips and fill her dry mouth with the latte. She swallowed and cleared her throat, trying to think of what she could possibly say. Too many confused thoughts and emotions were bouncing around for her to grasp on to.

...the woman I love, is in love with another man.

It hadn't been her... He hadn't known about her and Jon... Neither does Elaina, she realized.

Elaina reached out and brushed her hand. "Can you forgive me?"

Carly looked up at her, fascinated at the bizarre situation.

"Y...Yeah. Um... Yeah Elaina, I appreciate you telling me all of this and it's...not your fault."

Elaina gave her an appreciative smile, and Carly found herself almost starting to smile back.

"You can't blame yourself for his suicide," Carly said. "...or for how he thought about you, or anyone else. Like you said, they're grown-ass men and we can't take responsibility for their actions," she said, almost to herself as much as to Elaina, and seeming to finally relax a bit as she said it.

Elaina scoffed, "Well that's not EXACTLY how I said it, but yes..."

Carly smirked and sipped her drink, sniffling a bit and still in disbelief at everything.

Elaina looked at her with a supportive smile, "If I was in your shoes, I would try to at least find solace in the fact that you're not still shackled down with a man who didn't love you. Don't get me wrong, as much as he was a... troubled man to say the least, he didn't deserve to die, but you definitely deserved to be out of that marriage from what I can tell."

"I guess that's true," Carly whispered.

"It stings realizing the man you love has his sights on someone else. To know he's been swept up by a woman who by all accounts is better than you, even if she's not better for him... as I've come to experience firsthand myself," she said bitterly, testing the teaspoon's limits in her hand again.

Carly raised an eyebrow at her implication, but decided not to respond.

"But... all we can do is move forward. Try not to take it too personally Carly. I'm sure there's someone out there who will be able to appreciate you for who you are. You might not have it as easy as some of us but I know there must be someone, somewhere."

Carly blinked awkwardly at her and forced herself to simply say a polite, "thanks."

"Well... I suppose there's not much more to say about it. I hope this wasn't too painful for you, and that it eventually helps you to move on. You're a good woman Carly, and I thought you deserved to know."

"Um, yeah thanks Elaina, I do appreciate all your... honesty," she said.

Her brain was finally settling down enough to realize she hadn't said what she had come here to say. To apologize... and now, that meant to confess. So much had changed. She had been so sure of what she thought had happened, and now...

Before she could figure out the words to start into it, Elaina spoke up again.

"So, aside from that, there is one more thing that I wanted to ask. A bit of a favor from you."

"Okay?..."

"It's about Jonathon. I'm not sure if you're aware, but he's not doing well. He was hopelessly depressed for a long time after the holidays, but now he's clearly in denial and acting recklessly. And... at the risk of embarrassing him... he's decided to take up with... Beth. Can you believe it?"

Carly widened her eyes in what she hoped was the right amount of surprised.

"I mean they're just such different people. Yes, she has... qualities, but there's simply no way it could last, and I fear for when his heart inevitably gets broken, so the sooner it ends the better. I'm sure you'd agree."

Carly gave an embarrassed look.

"I know you two are good friends, or at least you were before you went and hid away these last few weeks. You made yourself difficult to find, I must say."

"Yeah I wanted to ask you, how did y-"

"So I'm asking two things of you really. The first one is that I really think it would help if you reached out to him. I don't think he has many mature, supportive friends in his life right now, and that's probably making it easier for that little wench to wrap him around her finger. I've gotten the sense that you two were fairly close and you seemed to understand him, and I'm sure he would feel a lot better if you were back in his life again."

Carly stared and decided to simply sip her coffee again.

"Secondly, I've done a bit of sleuthing and it turns out the girl's applying for college. Wants to be a nurse... of course, and she's applied to a few schools, only one of which is close enough for her not to have to move away. And, that one just happens to be the college where your husband used to teach at."

Carly looked at her with concern.

"So I'm wondering if there's any chance that you have any ties with anyone who might know something about nursing school admissions there, or who has involvement in the process? I know it wasn't Brent's faculty, but it's a smaller college, probably fairly tightly knit and I thought maybe...?" Elaina raised an eyebrow hopefully.

Carly simply stared in shock.

"Listen, I'm not asking you to break in anywhere or do anything nefarious, I'm just wondering if there's someone you might know. Someone you could introduce me to, so they would listen to me seriously, and we could have... a conversation," Elaina said calmly sipping her tea.

"...you want to sabotage her nursing school application? So she ends up moving away?" Carly asked in disbelief.

"Oh don't look at me like that, I'm just trying to make everyone's life better. I want to... inform them of the type of candidate they're considering for their school. That's all," Elaina said defensively. "The other schools are far larger and probably have better education anyway, so in the long run I'd be doing the girl a favor."

Carly looked away while she sipped her latte uncomfortably.

"So...?" Elaina raised an eyebrow and smiled, looking genuinely hopeful.

Carly realized she was hopeless.

"Elaina I... I mean the short answer is just, no."

Elaina squinted in annoyance, "And the long answer?..."

Carly sighed, "First of all I DON'T know anyone who has anything to do with that, but even if I did I-"

"Oh well that makes it simple, never mind then."

Carly was quickly getting more than annoyed.

"...and even if I did, Elaina, I wouldn't feel comfortable at all, it's really slimy and b-"

"I JUST explained to you why it's win-win for everyone, why can't y-"

"From YOUR perspective! Elaina, you said you were trying to improve yourself as a person, can't you see this is toxic behaviour?"

Elaina's face suddenly turned dark. "It's what?..."

"You ALSO just explained how we can't treat our partners like puppets and act like we control their decisions, and-"

"I SAID... that we can't blame ourselves for their decisions, but I will make NO apologies for trying to help him make the right one. To guide him and coax him along the path to happiness and success."

Carly couldn't help let out a loud scoff in disbelief.

Elaina's face contorted in anger. "Sometimes you have to fight for your man! To do whatever it takes to make it work. I would have thought someone like you would have been forced to learn that lesson by now."

Carly had had enough. "EXCUSE me?..."

"You know what I mean," Elaina said coldly and then gathered herself up calmly. "Carly I appreciate you meeting with me, but if you're not going to help me then fine. I'll figure this out on my own."

"Elaina can you even consider that you might just need to move on? He doesn't love you."

"Yes he FUCKING does, where the hell do you get off-"

"He cheated on you!"

Elaina's eyes tried to pierce through her as she spoke softly, "Yes... I know that dear, but just because that pathetic little pipsqueak Tabitha was able to lead him astray for a while, doesn't mean anything. He got tired of her in no time, and I almost had him back when that slut waitress swooped in. If you love someone you fight for them, you forgive them, you forgive yourself, you get up off your ass and go after them, and to hell with whatever mistakes were made in the past. Because it's your future together that matters."

Carly's anger broke for a second as the accidental advice sunk in. Elaina saw her silence and stood up to leave but Carly finally broke out of her trance and blurted it out.

"Elaina, I fucked your fiance."

"...What?"

"I fucked Jon. He cheated on you with me," Carly said bluntly, surprised at how calm her voice was as her body went stiff in suspense, meeting Elaina's frigid eyes.

Elaina loomed overtop of her and and squinted down with a frown, almost like she was examining her.

"Hmm... I guess he WAS telling the truth. I really didn't believe him."

"He... told you?"

"Yes dear, and don't take it too hard, but honestly I don't really care at this point. Good for you I suppose if you were somehow able to get him drunk enough to look at you that way, but he was obviously going through a low, desperate time and I would put it out of your mind if I were you."

Carly shook herself out of her confusion and felt like she was officially sick of her shit.

"No. Elaina it was more than once. It was more than just a drunken mistake."

Elaina smirked and shook her head patronizingly, "Oh Carly don't do this to yourself please... what could you have possibly given him? Listen to me, j-"

"No! You listen to ME, you...crazy, stuck up bitch! I gave him... I gave him everything that you couldn't," Carly said, starting to tear up through her anger.

Elaina gave a derisive scoff.

"I gave him... kindness. I gave him support. I gave him a shoulder to lean on. I gave him... love. Real, open, compassionate love, and he took it from me like he was starving for it. It wasn't even about sex, it was having someone to finally connect with, to-"

"Oh Enough!" Elaina's biting words cut her off. "Quit embarrassing yourself. Look at you. You really think he'd leave ME for YOU, let alone leave Beth for you? So you made a friend and he took pity on you a couple times. Good for you. Move on. Go lose some weight and learn some basic fashion sense and then maybe eventually you'll find a man half as good as Jon, but until then stay in your league. You're just going to hurt yourself."

Carly tried her best to match the coldness in Elaina's stare.

"You know what? I think I WILL actually do one of your favors for you. I think I WILL call him up and reconnect with him."

Elaina smiled down at her menacingly, "Be my guest. I can't wait to see you crying in the crowd at our wedding."

Elaina turned away and walked to the till to pay. She gave one last confident glance at Carly's exhausted tear-stained face, and headed out the door.

Carly let out a massive sigh. Tears started to flow again and she started to shake. She stared down at the table, completely overwhelmed by everything that had just happened. Everything she had thought was true, or right, or wrong, had turned upside down so quickly it was giving her vertigo. She let out another shuddering breath. She closed her eyes, trying to put everything together in her mind. To decide what it all meant. She squeezed her eyes tight and more tears streamed down. Finally, her face fell into her hands. What she did next felt insane, but her body had seemed to lose control, and without knowing what else to do, without a care for anyone else in the cafe, and for the first time in weeks...

She laughed.