Scott and Sheila (Space In Between #1)

(This is an exercise in which the first and last lines were given and the assignment was to fill in the space in between.) 

Scott and Sheila sat staring at each other, knowing this was a conversation they could not put off any longer.  Each knew it was inevitable, yet each one wished it could be avoided.

“Listen Scott, I know this is going to sound strange, coming from me, but I think you owe me an explanation,” Sheila looked down, not wanting to look at his face, that face she had known and loved for so many years.

“Why would it sound strange coming from you?” Scott, even now, cornered as he was, still tried to avoid the discussion by going off on a tangent.

“Well, I’m the one that has always believed you.  I’ve never cared what you’ve done or what you’ve said.  I have always taken you at your word.  Always.  Til now,” Sheila looked up, trying to find his eyes.

“Yeah.  You’ve always believed in me.  I know,” he stopped talking and reached for her hand.  She pulled it away from him and he knew that he couldn’t avoid it.  He had to discuss it.  He had to be honest.  He owed her that much.

“Sheila, I’m sorry.  That’s the first thing I have to say to you.  I’m sorry that I hurt you so much.  I’m sorry that I ruined everything.  But Sheila, I had to do it.  I didn’t start out to hurt anyone.  It just happened.  After all these years of living the life everyone else wanted me to live, I had to do what I wanted...what I felt...what I wanted for me and for my life,” he tried to look her in the eye but as her tears neared the brim of her eyes, he looked away.  He could never stand to see a woman cry and watching Sheila cry was the worst.  No, he took that back.  Knowing that Sheila’s tears were his fault, that was the worst.  He looked down.

“Look at me.  You owe me that,” Sheila’s voice broke as she uttered the painful demand.

“I’m sorry.  You are the one that always believed in me.  You are the one that stuck by my side and look what I’ve done to you.  I don’t know how it happened.  Believe me.  If you have ever believed me before, believe me now.  I never meant for it to happen,” his voice cracked.  He paused ‘til he could regain control of his voice and he began again.

“We were working together.  You knew about that work.  I told you.  Mary was at her worst.  Our marriage was ending.  It had ended before it started.  You know that.  You were so far away from me.  I needed you.  But you weren’t there.  She was.  She was in trouble and needed help.  She turned to me and I couldn’t not help her.  What he did to her was so wrong.  She was small and childlike.  She needed me.  She asked me to help and I couldn’t refuse.  I didn’t know that besides wanting me to help her, she wanted me,” he looked at Sheila.  Her face was beautiful.  It was many years older than it had been the first time he’d seen it, the first time he’d fallen in love with her.  But it was beautiful. 

“The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.  I was trying to help her.  I listened to her and I got her to tell me what she wanted to do.  I couldn’t tell her what to do.  It was her life.  Her decision.  It was a choice she had to make.  When she decided, she asked me to go with her and I couldn’t say no.  After I went her, after the procedure, she cried in my arms.  I drove her home and made sure she was okay then I left.  A day later, I heard from her.  She was different.  She wasn’t the independent woman I knew.  She was a little girl that needed help.  I couldn’t say no to her,” he again tried to hold her hand.  This time, she didn’t pull away.

“I can understand all that.  What I don’t get is what happened next.  How did you let that happen?  How did you forget about me?  How did you forget that I needed you, too?  How could you deny us the chance we deserved?” Sheila’s voice trailed off as she tried to hide the pain in it.

“I don’t know.  She expected me to be there for her and I couldn’t say no to her.  I tried.  I really did.  Then I found that I didn’t really want to say no to her.  I really wanted to say yes but it was all the outside things in my life that kept saying no, like they always had said no to what I needed, what I wanted,” he looked at her and she returned his look of pain.

“Before I knew it, I was admitting to myself, for the first time, that I wanted things too.  I wanted things that would make me happy.  I had lived my life doing what others wanted me to do. It was my turn to do what I wanted, what I needed.  I didn’t forget you.  I didn’t stop loving you.  I just realized that I wanted a chance to explore what would make me happy.  And I admitted to myself that she might be a little part of that.  She might be the way to my future.  She needed me and I finally realized that I needed her too,” he held her hand tightly.  He needed Sheila’s approval; he needed her to forgive him; he needed to know that she’d go on.  He needed to know that she’d make it and that she’d be happy without him.  He couldn’t bear anything different.

“So instead of turning to me when your life was falling apart, you turned to her.  Instead of realizing that I needed you as much as she did, you turned to her needs.  You let me go.  You gave me no chance to respond.  You gave me no choice.  You took control of my life by letting me go.  Do you know how much that hurts?” Sheila’s voice cracked again, even though it was clear that she was trying to hang on.  She was being as strong as she could be.  He knew it.  She knew it.

“I’m sorry.  I don’t know what else to say.  I’m sorry that I hurt you.  Everything else is secondary to that,” he tried to catch her eye and tried to smile at her.  He had always been able to make her smile, even in the saddest of times.  He had called it “the mantra” and they had both hung on to it over the years.

“Can you forgive me?” he looked at her and tried to tweak her nose; trying to make her smile.

“The real question is if you will be able to forgive yourself in a few years.  Will you be able to pick up and create your life all over again?  Will you be able to say that you did what you wanted and needed and go on?  Will you be able to look back and see the pain you’ve caused us both and go on?  Will be able to go on, knowing you didn’t give us the chance we deserved and that you, quite possibly ruined the only chance either of us ever had to be happy?” She stopped long enough to look in his eyes and see the shame.  She didn’t want him to feel shame.  She didn’t want him to feel sorry for her.  She only wanted him to think about what he done and the consequences.  She wanted him to know that he had made the wrong choice, again.
“So when she gets tired of you, what will you do?  When she realizes that she wants someone closer to her age, what will you do?  When she realizes that you look more like her father than her lover, what will you do?  When she decides that the twenty-two year difference in your ages is too much, what will you do?” Sheila hated herself for saying this but she had held it in for all these months and she just needed to get it out.

Scott looked at her with a pained look and got up. 

“I’ve got to go.  I’m late.  Listen, just know that I never meant to hurt you and that I will always love you,” he smiled her and willed her to smile back.  That would make it all okay.  Her smile.

Sheila looked at him.  She tried to smile but couldn’t.

“Take care.  Be happy.  Remember that I will always be here for you.  And know that I will always love you.  Be happy.  I’d like to know that at least one of us made it to happiness,” she looked down at him as the pain in his eyes stabbed her.  She didn’t want him to see that she was crying, too.

He denied his instinct to slam the door, and instead he just walked out.