When The Heartache is Over

"I can't help it," I said. "Do you know how bad I hurt?"

"Elvina, why do you think Danny or whatever the hell we're supposed to call him beat the shit out of Dufus?" she asked. "I mean think about it, he has the slinky chick, a successful business, a great life and probably a Gazillion dollars. But he didn't look like he was very happy. If his life was all sunshine and roses and he's moved on like you seem to think, why did he go ape shit on Lou?" I just looked at her.

"Come on, Elvina. Connect the dots. Lou is no threat to him and he doesn't know it but Lou never was. There you have poor old broken down Lou, crawling to him on his hands and knees. Lou probably would have sucked the guy's dick for that account. But all he does is takes one look at Lou and does what you just described wanting to do to the slinky bitch. That takes us full circle back to where we started. Your husband still loves you."

She looked at her watch and shook her head. "It's a good thing that I'm smart instead of pretty. Most people never pay much attention to me. But I notice everything. Did you notice the little girl?"

"The smaller version of the slinky bitch," I said. "Yeah, she's just like her mom already."

"I'll bet you fifty bucks that little girl isn't her kid," said Mary.

"I'll take that bet," I said. "...Although it doesn't matter to me. Didn't you see her eyes and the shape of her face? It was like looking at a picture of her when she was younger."

"Remember that," said Mary. "You'd better go get ready. Put a lot of moisturizer on to cover up those bags under your eyes. You look like hell." She crossed the room and hooked her foot behind Lou's waist and rolled him off of the couch and onto the floor. While he slept, the bruises on his face had swollen up and he looked awful. His lips were swollen and his cheeks were bruised and both of his eyes were blackened.

"Why'd you do that?" he whined. "That hurt."

"Because it's time for us to get ready," she spat at him.

"You could have just said so," he said. "I'm in a lot of pain right now. My head hurts and I can barely see out my right eye."

"You're the lucky one," she laughed. "Your face is pretty fucked up. At least you don't have to look at it. Elvina, call room service for me, I need a big paper bag."

"Okay," I said. "But I'm pretty sure they're not expecting us to bring anything."

"I don't need it to carry anything in," she smirked. "It's for Lou's face. That way I don't have to look at him."

"Mary, can I have one more chance," whined Lou. "I don't want a divorce. I love you. I always have."

She just shook her head and walked into the bathroom to start getting ready.

An hour later, we were in the elevator heading up to the top floor of the WellWen building. My stomach was tying itself more into knots with every passing second. The people downstairs seemed to know exactly who we were and why we were here. When we'd gotten to the fifth floor, the elevator had stopped. We'd had to go to a different elevator with a special key to go to the top floor.

When the doors to the elevator opened, there she was. She studied me intently.

"You look like shit," she said. Then she shook her head. She looked at Lou and started laughing. "He looks like a raccoon with syphilis."

Mary laughed too. "I was going to make him wear a bag over his head but I thought it would be less embarrassing and better for him in the long run to just learn how to deal with the consequences of his actions," she said.

"Okay, we have a lot to discuss," said Grace. "I've made reservations at a great restaurant. We may as well eat while we deal. I love negotiations." She got on the elevator.

"Is Danny or Cal meeting us there?" asked Mary.

"Oh, hell no!" said Grace. "If he even saw your husband, he'd go ballistic. You know how men are. I have trouble controlling him sometimes. We don't need to make things worse. But don't worry, whatever we decide on, he'll go along with. He can't say no to me." She was looking me straight in the eye when she said that. I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. She smiled when she saw my pain. I couldn't help it, tears rolled down my cheeks.

"Oh shit," she said. She reached into her purse and got out a tissue. She very gently dabbed at my face and wiped the tears. "If you fuck this up...I'll fuck you up," she hissed. Then she stepped on the elevator. I wondered why she cared so much about the dinner if Danny wasn't going to be there. Maybe it was about keeping up the company image.

They were one of those up and coming young companies. I guess projecting the image that they were a fun place to work and that all of their employees were ridiculously happy was a part of their corporate strategy. I stepped on the elevator or tried to. She stepped in front of me and barred my way. I was about to tell her that I could pretend to be happy if she gave me a second, when she practically growled at me.

"You're not going," she said.

"I'll be okay," I said. "I can get it together. I won't embarrass you. I need to talk to you about something too." I sounded desperate.

"Shh," she said. Her voice sounded almost compassionate. "I went through a lot for you. Don't make me regret it. Remember what I said."

Then the elevator door closed in front of me. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Was I supposed to go back to the hotel?

Apparently, no one remembered to tell me what I was supposed to do.

* * * * * *

Cal/Danny

"Apparently, no one remembered to tell you what you're supposed to do," I said.

Even seeing her, from across the room had an effect on me. She'd taken to wearing her hair back in one long ponytail the way I'd always loved for her to wear it. Her face looked a bit older than it should have considering the fact that it had only been 5 years. My heart beat even faster as she turned towards me.

She reached out for the wall to steady herself. I really thought that she was going to fall.

"I thought that I was going out to dinner," she said.

"No, we're staying in," I told her looking for her reaction.

"You...you and me?" she said hesitantly.

"That was what I thought WE meant," I said.

She walked over to me very slowly and looked like it was all she could do not to run over and hug me. She tentatively started to lift her arms towards me and I took a step back. "Please don't," I said. I don't know if I said it more for her benefit or mine. My heart was beating like a fucking drum. And I was almost dizzy being this close to her again. I'd thought that I was over all of this shit.

"Danny...I..." she started to say something but there was a loud ping. The elevator opened right behind her and the guy on it with a cart rolled it off of the elevator noisily and headed for the dining room.

"It's a warm night Frankie," I said. "Could you please take it up to the garden?"

Her eyes opened and she smiled. As Frankie got back on the elevator, cart and all; she looked back at me.

"I can't believe this is happening," she said. "I mean I don't know what is happening. I don't know what we're doing or why. I'm just glad to..." then she started crying. I just wanted to take her in my arms and make all of her tears go away.

"Actually, Grace arranged all of this," I said. Her eyes widened again. "She thought that we should talk. She said it would be good for both of us. She seems to think that you need to tell me about things and I need to hear them. She says that it will give us both the ability to move forward in life. I guess she thinks that if you get it off of your chest, it will give you closure. And for some reason it will help me deal with all of the pain and anger that she thinks I'm still carrying around with me."

Her smile faded a bit. I don't think that was what she wanted to hear.

"Okay, Frankie should have everything set up by now," I said. The polite thing to do would have been to put my hand on her waist and gently lead her up the circular stairs to the roof. But I wasn't sure what would happen if I touched her.

Once we got to the roof, the gardens and play area amazed her. No one ever expects to find a veritable jungle growing on a rooftop. I think the Gazebo and the pool are a bit much, but they were Grace's idea.

"Do you still like lobster?" I asked. She smiled and nodded her head. She did it then, that little thing where she nibbled her bottom lip that always made me want to fuck her on sight.

"Do you still hate it?" she asked.

"That's why I'm having steak," I smiled.

We sat across from each other and began to eat. She looked over at me as the sun started to go down. "Danny, I never stopped..."

"Vina, maybe you should go ahead and say what you've wanted to tell me," I said.

Her eyes narrowed a little bit because she wasn't used to me dictating the way things would go. But I make my own decisions now. And she was just going to have to get used to that...or not.

"Danny, I know what you saw; and I'm so sorry. You have no idea of how sorry I am or how much I wish it had never happened. But there's a reason...and you're...I just fucked everything up. I ruined my whole life for something I already had and..."

Tears just erupted from her eyes like nothing I had ever seen. I hadn't seen or heard that kind of pain since the night I drove away from her. I began to realize that somehow the pain she went through was at least as bad as mine.

"Vina, we have all of the time you need," I said. I held out my hand to her and she took it. Her touch was like grabbing a live wire. My brain instantly re-forged synaptic connections that had been dormant. All kinds of things were going on. I led her to the Gazebo and the soft cushions there. I sat down and she sat down next to me. She not only refused to let go of my hand but lay herself across me the way we sometimes did in bed when we were really together.

"I'm going to start from the beginning," she said. "It's probably going to make you hate me more but I need to get all of this off of my chest. Do you remember your girlfriend back in college?"

"Yes," I said. "She broke up with me for some football player. She tried to get back with me after he dumped her, but I was with you by then. She whined about how he'd never really wanted her. He never took her out or let her meet his friends. He just fucked her and then suddenly didn't want to have anything to do with her."

"Danny, that was me," she said. "You gave me my locket..." She opened the top of her dress and pulled it out. I couldn't help it, I looked at her boobs and they had to be even bigger than I remembered. Even through the bra, I could see how engorged her nipples were, but I looked at the locket. She opened it and what I expected to see was not in it. There were two pictures of me. She noticed my shock.

"What did you think would be there?" she asked.

"Probably Lou," I hissed.

"Danny, you're an asshole," she said. "I only love YOU. That's my problem."

"Anyway, when you gave me that locket, it wasn't the locket. You could have given me flowers, or candy or whatever. It just made me realize that you were something that I had to have. I was suddenly obsessed with you. I didn't care what you looked like. I didn't care what anyone else thought about you, I wanted you. But you were such a nice guy. I practically threw myself at you and you stayed true to that fucking Belinda."

"I realized that you didn't care about my tits or the way I looked, you cared about me. Shit, Danny, my mom was an older version of me, and you remember what happened to her. I needed someone who would love me for me, forever. You were the person I wanted and Belinda was just in the way."

"I got one of the guys on the football team to go after with the express intent of breaking you two up. I promised to have sex with him if he did it." She started crying as she told me this. I knew that it was hard for her to tell me all of this. I started running my fingers through her long golden hair. She held her head up and I took the scrunchy out of her hair and let it all out.

"Danny, I know you went through hell, getting over that girl. I tried to make it as easy on you as possible. I visited you every day and I learned so much about you. I also constantly let you know that you could have me anytime, anyplace or anyway that you wanted but you didn't. I started to think that you only wanted me as a friend. And you need to know a couple of more things because they're important."

"First off, I did have sex with the football guy. I'd promised to do it and let's face it, I'm a healthy girl and I needed sex then too. But it was only once and it led to the longest dry spell I ever had in life while I waited for you to...decide that you wanted me. If you remember, I almost lost you. I don't think that you would have had sex with that girl on your first date. But if things had clicked between the two of you, I might have had to do something bad to her. I'd already felt like I didn't deserve you and I had stolen you, but Danny, I love you so much. And everything worked out between us didn't it?"

I nodded and smiled.

"In a way, it's kind of flattering," I said. "And like you said, things did work out between us so if you're looking for forgiveness or something from me over that, you can forget about it."

"Why?" she asked in shock. "We were happy..."

"Vina..."

"I love it when you call me that," she said. "I don't let anyone else call me that."

"Vina, what I meant was, I have no idea of how things between Belinda and I would have gone. Very few people marry their college girlfriends. There's also the fact that if she was willing to dump me just because another guy was interested in her, then she obviously didn't love me very much. And..."

I was rubbing her temples and she was holding onto my hand. Her left breast was pressing against my stomach. Her eyes clicked open then. "And what?" she asked.

"And I guess I thought that you did love me until..." I began.

"Until what?" she asked.

"Until I realized you didn't," I said. I've been in sudden storms out on the ocean that roll in from nowhere. One second the sun is out and the next you're paddling your board back towards land as lightning strikes all around you and the waves get huge.

I've never seen a change as abrupt as Elvina went through when I said that she didn't love me.

Her hand move faster than anything I've ever seen. She slapped me so hard and so fast that I was dizzy and out of it.

"Don't you ever fucking say that," she spat and she was crying again. "You can say that you don't love me. You can call me a whore. You can tell me that you never want to see me again, Danny. But don't ever say that I don't love YOU, because it just fucking isn't true. Why the fuck do you think that I'm so God damned miserable all the time? I lost our fucking house. I live in a tiny shitty apartment just so I can spend a big chunk of what I make and whatever I can get from Lou on PI's to try to find you. I spent more than twelve thousand dollars last year alone trying to find you. I have all kinds of guys chasing me and sniffing after me and I turn them all down because they're not YOU." The she looked at me and I could see the anger in her eyes and the pain.

"Don't you understand, Danny? Didn't you listen to your own God damned song?"

"Huh?" I asked. "What song?"

"When the heartache is over," she said. "Don't you remember the part about, "Won't look over my shoulder, I know that I can live without you?"

I was puzzled.

"Yes Danny," she hissed. "You drove away and you never looked back. You built yourself a wonderful life here in paradise. You can, like the song said, "Live without me." Shit, you're doing better...far better without me. But did you ever once consider the fact that I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOU?"

"Elvina, it broke my heart to see you with Lou. And the two of you were..."

"Calling you names and making fun of you," she said softly. "Danny, I didn't mean a word of that. If I could take it back I would. You just don't understand how much I loved you. Do you remember how often we skipped work and just stayed home lying around in bed together after being married for twelve years? Fuck, neither one of us had any sick days or vacation time left."

I smiled thinking about it. Somehow, even after her blow up, we were back to cuddling with each other as we spoke.

"Danny, the whole thing with Lou was about you. I thought that I was using him but he manipulated me. I wanted to have you working with me in the same company. Maybe we wouldn't be in the same department, but I hated us being apart for even eight hours a day. I always said, "I wish Danny worked here."

"Lou knew the owner of the company you worked for. They loved you and weren't considering letting you go. And you were so loyal that you'd have never quit. So just like with Belinda, I had to have you with me. Lou promised to provide your company with a replacement for you who would do just as good a job, but being younger and fresh out of school, would do it for far less money. Lou even got our company to pay for the training costs. Then you'd come to work for us and I could just walk down the hall and see you anytime I wanted. I had never cheated on you Danny and I know it was wrong but, I just wanted you so badly.

I thought the whole thing was my idea but Lou had just manipulated me. I never enjoyed having sex with him and his ego couldn't take it. That was where the "oh your husband is a wimp," shit came from. And that was why I knew that you were going to be fired. I didn't care about you being fired because I wanted you with me. I also never had any idea that you would ever see or hear any of that. Danny, if I felt the way you think, would I have run out of that office the way I did? You were everything to me. I know that I was wrong. But I've always been a schemer. That was the last of my schemes though, because it blew up in my fucking face and ruined my life."

"Danny, I would do anything to take that back. I would do anything to have you in my life again. I'd be your whore, your booty call, anything you want as long as I can be yours again.

"What about Grace?" I asked. "She seems to think that you don't like her?"

"Fuck Grace, Danny. If I have to share you with her that's way better than nothing, but you have to remember that in my perfect view of things, everything revolves around the two of us, together alone. Maybe she can have her time with you and I can have mine but I'm not gay or bi or any of that shit and in my mind, you belong to me and me alone. There's no room for anyone else. She may be there and I'll accept it. But in my mind there will only ever be the two of us.

* * * * * *

Elvina

"There will only ever be the two of us," he said echoing what I'd just told him.

"I love you Danny. You completely fill my heart. And I want to completely fill yours. I'm going to be honest with you. I will try to take over every square inch of space in your heart until there isn't any room for anyone else. In the time that we've been apart, the only person I've dealt with, the only man I've even spoken to, let alone had sex with was Lou. I figured that you already knew about him. Plus, there was the fact that he pays for the PI's to find you. I also hate having sex with him. He doesn't make me feel the way you do. There's nothing to it, it's like the punishment I have to take for what I did to you. Do you think that you could forgive me? I promise...I swear to you that for the rest of our lives from this moment forward, I'll never touch another man or let one touch me. No other man has ever touched my heart anyway."

"There will only ever be the two of us," he repeated again. Then his face got sad. He stopped stroking my hair and moved a little so my titty was pressing against him. Talk about sudden storms. I knew that somehow I had made a mistake. One moment it seemed like he was about to make love to me; he was going to make me his again, and the next he was giving me the bum's rush.