I sometimes wonder if there's something wrong with the wiring of my brain. As I stand here, tightly clutching the thin red fabric of Rick's shirt in my fists, my nose buried in his chest, the only thing that I can think of is a freshman year biology lecture at SU. 'Fight or flight is the mechanism by which the brain prepares the body to respond to a stressful situation', I hear Professor Carr saying as clearly as if he were standing right beside me. My mind screams for me to flee... to run from the kitchen as fast and as far as my legs will carry me. But my feet betray me... remaining rooted to the pale blue tiles of the floor. The suspension of time is surreal. My heart is pumping wildly within my chest, and I can feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Rick must feel it too, I think, as he brackets my face in his hands and lifts my eyes to his, relief washing over him when he sees that I'm not crying. I shed my last tear over Jesse Blue long ago.
"Michelle? You and I need to talk," Jesse says softly, and I step away from the comfort of Rick's arms in time to see Danny's hand make contact with his shoulder, forcing him back down in the chair.
He must have dropped ten pounds since the last time I saw him, I notice, as my eyes skate over the clothing which hangs limply on his frame. His face looks drawn and gaunt, a shell of his former self shadowed by a thick coating of stubble that extends across his jaw and down his throat. There's a hollowness behind his eyes that I don't recognize, and as he looks at me pleadingly, I can't help but worry about this man that I once thought that I loved more than my own life.
Praying that Danny understands why I have to do this, I nod my head in agreement. Abby makes her displeasure known by drawing in a deep breath behind me, and I have to avert my eyes from Rick's questioning ones. Despite the fact that my split from Jesse was amicable, they both remember how hard I took it, and neither wants to see me get hurt again. "Why don't the two of you get back to the barbecue? I can handle this," I say, looking first at Rick and then back at Abby. "Phillip and Harley are here," I add, pointing towards the window as I hear Phillip's boisterous laughter rising above the roar of the crowd.
Reluctantly, they both start to leave, each giving me a reassuring pat on the back as they pass before pausing long enough to cut warning glances in Jesse's direction. He shifts nervously in his chair under their penetrating stares, and Abby relents, tugging on Rick's arm as she reaches for the doorknob. I wish that Danny would look up so that I could see his eyes and read what is in his heart, but he remains motionless in his spot, his head lowered and his arms folded across his chest as if in deep thought.
The door swings open, and as Bill walks in with his eyes fixed on the cumbersome bags of dripping ice in his arms, I can hear someone outside... Holly, I think... ask about my whereabouts. Setting the bags down in the sink, he turns as if sensing an ominous presence in the room, and I can see the shock register across his face when his eyes skate over Jesse. "What the hell are you doing here, Blue?" he spits, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulders.
Regaining his animation, Danny concurs, "I'd like an answer to that myself, Mr. Blue."
Jesse is hopelessly outnumbered, and he looks as if his spirit is broken under this inquisition as he answers feebly, "I just want a few minutes alone with Michelle. I don't think that's too much to ask after I've flown all this way."
Bill's grip on my shoulder tightens, and I watch as Danny points a finger mere inches from Jesse's face and says, "She doesn't owe you a thing, man. No one invited you, and you aren't welcome here. Hit the road!"
I wiggle out from under Bill's hand as Danny's voice becomes raised in anger, and I walk over to him, stroking the throbbing vein in his temple until he relaxes slightly. "Give me a few minutes, Danny," I plead, my heart breaking when I see the hurt cross his face. "For me?" I beg, and he hesitantly nods his head.
Gesturing for Jesse to rise and follow me when I see Lillian and Lizzie walking towards the kitchen door, I say over my shoulder, "Let's talk upstairs, Jesse. This place is like grand central station." Stealing one final glance in Danny's direction before I disappear around the corner, I watch him take a seat at the breakfast table, his shoulders slouched. As I ascend the steps, I hear him accept Bill's offer of a beer. If no more good comes of this day, at least Danny and Bill seem to have bonded in their mutual quest to protect me from Jesse.
Jesse looks defeated, slumping into the soft mattress of my bed as I lean against my lingerie chest, studying him warily. The silence in the room is deafening, and I concentrate on the ticking of my bedside clock, counting the seconds as two full minutes pass. "I don't know how to say this, Michelle," he finally begins, cradling his head in his hands as he leans over and presses his elbows into his thighs. "I just had to see you in person, and I knew that I'd find you here today," he finishes, raking his fingers through his hair which is in desperate need of a trim.
Unable to tolerate this beating around the bush, I ask shortly, "What exactly is it that you want, Jesse?"
Looking up at me, he says meekly, "You, Michelle. I want you back." Clasping my hands together in front of me, I press the tips of my index fingers against my lips as I pace the floor. "I've been miserable without you these past four months, Michelle... I can't sleep... I can't eat... I can't live without you," he pleads, his eyes boring into my back as I trace a fingertip over a picture of mom on my desk.
Shaking my head 'no', I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off, imploring, "Just hear me out, Michelle. Ok?" His attempts to persuade me to rekindle our relationship are futile, but I nod in agreement, letting him speak his peace. A part of me is actually relieved to finally get a shred of closure. "I know that the decision for us to split up was mine, not yours... but it was a mistake, Michelle... a terrible mistake. It wasn't you... us... that I was unhappy with, Michelle. It was my work... I know that now. Mr. Endicott barely ever gave my art a showing, and I never felt like my talents were appreciated here in Springfield."
Hearing the pain in his voice, I take a seat on my hope chest and lean against the sun-warmed window, watching his lips form each word carefully as he speaks. "When I moved to Manhattan and started getting the recognition that I craved professionally, I realized that there was still a void in my personal life. I shouldn't have left you, Michelle. I regret that mistake every day of my life." Leaning back, he digs deeply into his pocket, finishing, "I've come here today to make things right."
My eyes fly to his and worry consumes me as I pray that he's not about to propose to me for a second time. Breathing a huge sigh of relief as he retracts his hand, I stare intently at the slightly crumpled letter that he's clutching as he extends it to me, explaining, "I've been in contact with the physical therapy licensure board in New York, and they've faxed me this protocol that you need to follow in order to get your license transferred from Illinois." My jaw drops as I accept the letter from his trembling hand, and even though my eyes are stretched wide with shock, I can't seem to read one word. "I've got an apartment on the lower east side that's only eight blocks from Beth Israel Medical Center, Michelle. I hope you don't mind, but I found your resume on one of the files on my hard drive and sent it to the chief of orthopedic medicine there, and he's very interested in scheduling an interview with you, Michelle."
Of course I mind... I'm so livid that I can barely see straight. Closing my eyes, I count to ten, trying to restrain myself from hitting the roof as I swallow past the dryness in my throat. His hand on my shoulder startles me, and I look up into his eyes, suddenly feeling very intimidated by his looming presence as he finishes, "I've got a room at the Springfield Inn. My flight leaves at nine forty tomorrow morning... please tell me that you'll be on it with me."
Standing up abruptly, I jam the letter in my balled, angry fist against his shoulder and wait for him to accept it. Completely floored by his arrogance and presumptuousness, I put a safe distance between us as I walk to the door, feeling more than a little unsettled by his active pursuit of me. "Danny?" I call as I open the door, and I can hear the squeaking of chair feet as they slide across the tile floor before I even finish, "Could you come up here, please?"
He is beside me in a heartbeat, and I feel empowered by his possessive embrace, my trembling subsiding. "Are you ok?" he whispers. Before I get a chance to say anything, he barks over my shoulder, "So help me God... if you did anything to hurt her, I'll kill you with my bare hands."
Turning in his arms, I see the loathing in his eyes as he shoots daggers at Jesse, and I lovingly stroke his cheek, reassuring, "I'm fine. I just needed you here with me, that's all." When his arm slips down to encircle my waist and pull me against him, I close my eyes and exhale sharply, explaining, "He wants me to move back to New York with him."
Trying desperately to hold his arms back as he attempts to lunge across the room at Jesse, I drown out the expletives that fall from his lips as I say, "I wanted you to be here when I explained to him why that's never going to happen." Fixing my eyes on Jesse over Danny's shoulder, I reiterate, "Never."
Acting as mediator, I stand between them as they both relax, waiting until Jesse reclaims his spot on my bed and Danny takes a seat on the edge of my desk. When both sets of eyes fall upon me, I begin, "Jesse... I should have introduced the two of you downstairs so there would be no confusion. This is Danny Santos..." My voice trails off briefly as I search for the right words to articulate how much he means to me. Not wanting to trivialize what we have by proclaiming him my boyfriend or even my lover, I lock eyes with Danny and we share a warm smile as I continue, "He is my everything... my future."
His ego bruised and his pride deflated, Jesse says venomously, "Get off it, Michelle. You turned to him on the rebound. You couldn't possibly have fallen in love with someone so quickly. I haven't."
Secure in my profession of love for him, Danny says nothing, letting me fight my own battle. Ignoring Jesse's angry tone of voice, I defend, "I have, Jesse. I love him more than life itself. He's the man that I've been searching for my entire life, and in a strange way, I've got you to thank for leading me to him." Turning to Danny when Jesse shoots me an incredulous look, I gather strength from him as I place my hands in his and explain, "If you hadn't left, Danny and I never would have found each other, and I can't even begin to imagine my life without him." Standing up, he walks to the window and leans a shoulder against it, muttering something under his breath as he shakes his head in bewilderment. "If you ever loved me, Jesse," I begin, waiting for him to turn his eyes to mine before continuing, "If you ever loved me... be proud that I'm finally truly happy." Seeing him try to mask the hurt in his eyes before he turns from me, I say to his back, "Because that's all I want for you, Jesse. I want you to find the kind of love that Danny and I have."
After a brief silence and some stolen glances back at Danny, Jesse finally speaks, keeping his back to us as he says, "You and I were truly happy. We had that kind of love once, Michelle."
Taking a deep breath, I chose my words carefully, not wanting to add to the pain that I hear lacing his voice. "We didn't, Jesse... we couldn't have. Think about it. When you love someone, you love them with every fiber in your body. They become a part of you... an extension that you can't live without. If you loved me like that, you would never have been able to leave me and start a new life without me so easily."
Folding his arms across his chest, he turns eyes filled with unshed tears to mine and answers indignantly, "It wasn't easy!"
"Maybe not," I say, shrugging my shoulders as I concede to his confession. "But," I begin as he turns his back to me again, "You still left, Jesse. You packed up your things and you left me... us... behind. Our apartment... our engagement... our life." Speaking from my heart, I say, "And I didn't think that I'd be able to go on... to live without you. And I didn't for the longest time. I simply went through the motions during the day and cried myself to sleep every night, secretly hoping that I wouldn't wake up the next morning." I've never said those words aloud, and the admission feels cathartic. Danny stands behind me, placing reassuring hands on my shoulders as I continue, "But I finally picked myself up and dusted myself off, and started searching for a new beginning that would erase the pain of existing without you. And that's when God or fate or a combination of the two led me to Danny."
"Spare me the love story, will you?" he mutters under his breath sarcastically.
I had no intention of sharing the intimate details of the convoluted and sometimes painful journey that Danny and I embarked on that afternoon in early June in the courtyard of his home. Shaking my head 'no', I correct, "You're missing the point, Jesse. The point is that I moved on. As much as the thought of a life without you frightened me... I moved on. And in the process, I found my heart and my soul." I can hear the contempt in his voice as he throws his head back and a low cackle escapes his throat. Incensed, I raise a hand to cover Danny's on my shoulder as I say, "I don't get you, Jesse. Were you hoping that I'd been sitting alone in my bedroom these past four months, pining away for you?" When he shakes his head 'no', I plead, "Then be happy for me. Out of respect for what we once had... be happy for me."
An excruciatingly long silence falls between us, and I match Danny's slow, steady breathing with my own as I sag against his chest. Without so much as a glance back at us, Jesse stands and walks to the door, his hand hovering above the knob as he says, "Maybe someday, Michelle. I just... I can't right now." Shutting the door behind him as he leaves the room, he quickly descends the stairs, and as I listen to his footsteps, I know that I've seen Jesse Blue for the last time.
Exhaustion from the confrontation finally setting in, I remove the shoes from my aching feet and flop across the bed, stretching my tense muscles as Danny lies beside me, facing me as he kicks the shoes from his feet and sends them tumbling to the floor. Smoothing a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers linger over my cheek as he whispers, "I'm sorry this was so hard for you."
Unwilling to let Jesse come between us for a second more, I wrap my arm around his waist and pull him against me, silencing his words of comfort with a passionate kiss. I've always heard that actions speak louder than words, but I've never believed that more than I do right now, consumed by an overwhelming urge to prove the truth behind the words that I spoke earlier.
As my tongue feasts on the sweetness of his mouth, I slide my hand up his thigh over the tight bulge of his crotch. I can feel him stiffening under my touch, straining against the oppressive material of his shorts. Pressing my breasts against his chest as my nipples strain underneath my bikini top, I unsnap his shorts and carefully ease the zipper down as he begins to unbutton my blouse. Bypassing the long, slow, sweet dance of foreplay to which I've grown accustomed, I massage him roughly, ripping a low, guttural moan from his throat which only intensifies the primal urgency building within me.
Abandoning his lips as I sit up, I kneel beside him and shrug the shirt from my shoulders as I force him onto his back, a wicked grin playing upon my lips when I see the wantonness in his eyes that reflects my own. Bowing his hips up off of the mattress, he watches as I divest him of his shorts and briefs, the pulsing, hard heat of him springing forth into my awaiting hand. Teasingly, I dart my tongue over the feverish skin of my lips, and as our eyes lock, he returns the wicked grin, anticipating my next move.
Taking him in my mouth, I close my lips around him tightly, moving them down the length of his shaft and then back up as he slips a hand behind my neck, pressing me closer. With each stroke of my lips, I plunge him a little deeper into my mouth, licking at the sticky wetness as it seeps from the tip. My lips curl into a smile around him as his hips rock under my mouth, and I lift my eyes, watching him sink his teeth into the flesh of his lower lip and press his head into the mattress as his free hand fists around the pale pink material of one of the pillowcases beside him.
He sits up as I roll beside him, and together, our frantic hands remove my shorts and bikini bottom, sliding them down my narrow hips and tossing them to the floor. Pulling his shirt over his head in one sweeping motion, he throws it into the growing pile of clothes on the floor, and he looks at me with eyes filled with lust as I swing a leg over him and straddle his hips. The tip of his penis grazes my inner thigh, already silky with my trickling juices, and I reach down and guide him into my entrance.
Reveling in the union of our bodies, I watch his strong hands guide my hips as I sink down on him, crying out at the sense of fullness as he penetrates me completely. Digging my toes into the mattress for leverage, I rock against him as he thrusts within me. His hands slide up my back and he tugs on the ties of my bikini top, letting it fall between us as he lowers his mouth to my left breast. Drawing the nipple into his mouth, he flicks his tongue over the tight peak as he sucks me forcefully. Pulling his head closer to me, I thread my fingers through his sweaty hair and whimper lightly as his teeth graze the sensitive flesh.
When his mouth abandons me, I press my weight against him, forcing him down on the mattress. Hovering above him, I stare down into the endlessly deep pools of his eyes as I press my palms into the mattress on either side of his head. Letting him slip out of me almost completely before driving myself back over him, I savor the feeling of his throbbing hardness within me as it rubs against my tender, swollen nub. Raising his head slightly off of the mattress, he seizes the nipple of my right breast between his lips as it dangles above him and sucks me greedily.
Intensifying my pleasure tenfold, he reaches down between our bodies, and I lower my head and watch as his agile fingers firmly press the folds of my outer lips together around his thickness. When he releases my nipple, I lay my forehead against his, and he parts my lips with his tongue and plunges it into my mouth, swallowing my screams as he thrusts up into me, eliciting a gloriously painful stimulation against my throbbing clitoris.
Collapsing against him as the first tremors of my orgasm course through me, he rolls me beneath him. Pumping within me frantically, he digs the tips of his fingers into the sweaty flesh of my ass and lifts me against him. I lock my ankles around his hips just as he sends us both over the edge with one final, powerful, penetrating thrust into me, and I scream his name as his hot liquid fills me up. Burying his face between the swell of my breasts, he collapses on top of me, the pressure of his sweaty body against mine exquisite as I disentangle my legs from around him and savor the feel of him as he deflates within me.
"What are you smiling about?" he asks seductively, slipping his shirt over his head as we both stand in my room, redressing after the quickest, most unromantic ten minute shower of our lives.
My smile widening, I answer honestly, "I can't believe that we just made love in the room where I used to play barbies." Despite the animalistic rawness of the sex we just shared, I would never classify our being together as anything but making love. I watch as his eyes skate over the flowery wallpaper and matching bedspread, his own crooked smile beginning to form as I finish, "And in the middle of the annual Bauer barbecue... no less. Rick would die."
Sauntering over to me sexily as I extend his sneakers towards him, he accepts them and presses light kisses to my bare shoulder before lifting his lips to my ear and whispering, "I'll never tell."
Rejoining the festivities outside, a sea of happy, laughing faces, the smell of barbecue, and the sounds of splashing water greet us as we walk through the kitchen door hand in hand. I watch as his fingers slip from mine as Bill pulls him aside... presumably to find out what happened with Jesse upstairs.
As I watch their retreating backs, a small, cold hand tugs on my arm, spinning me around. "Hey, Harley," I manage to say before she shanghais me to a quiet spot underneath an oak tree. "Where've you been? Is it true that Jesse showed up here today?" she asks, sounding like the true detective that she is. Searching for Danny in the huge crowd, I lock eyes with him and we share a small smile as he winks at me enticingly. A tiny bolt of electricity courses through my body as he turns back to Bill and I turn back to Harley, and I relish in the secret that only we share.
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