Elena Undone (29 page)

“I can’t!” Explosive.

Barry literally jumped.

“I’m sorry...” Elena made herself calm down. “I’ve just got so much catching up to do, unpacking, the laundry, I have to go shopping—” Elena could hear her voice rising in hysteria, tried to control herself. “I have too many damn errands...I’ll be back, don’t worry.”

“You’ve been jumpy all morning. And don’t even get me started about our trip.”

“I told you…I’m sorry. It’s the new medication.”

“It’s the medication, you’re tired, it’s this, it’s that… Come on, Elena, I don’t pressure you…and I know a lot of husbands who wouldn’t put up with this kind of bullshit for as long as I have—do you even realize how long it’s been? Since we’ve…? You said you didn’t want to talk during the vacation—just wanted everyone to have a nice family outing, and I agreed, it wasn’t the place for anything heavy, but now we’re home, dammit. And we’re going to talk.”

Elena sat stoically, waiting for Barry to get out of the car, but he wasn’t moving.

“Barry, I know you want…that we need to talk, okay? I understand that. But please, I just have so much to take care of before Nash gets back to school, I’ve got to go to the store—”

“Elena, what the hell is going on?!”

“Nothing, Barry. Haven’t you ever noticed before that when we go away for vacation, I do all the travel plans, the packing, I schedule all the outings on the trip, budget everything out—all the planning, and when we return I need to get everything put back as if we’d never left and all that falls on my shoulders. Would you like to have dinner tonight?” Elena put the car into first gear.

He looked at her. “Go ahead…but we ARE going to talk…something’s going on and I want to know what the heck it is.”

“Barry, I’m just…just—Look.” Elena knew if she started, it would not stop and she still could not quite get there. Yes, she knew things were bad. Yes, she knew she was in love with Peyton, a woman. But when she looked at this man with whom she had shared almost half of/p>most ha her life, all the history of Nash and the tragedies they had overcome together, she couldn’t quite come to terms with telling him it was over. Just like that.

He leaned to kiss her. She offered him her cheek.

“Fuck!”

He leaped out of the car and before he could slam the door, Elena had already pulled away.

*

Peyton paced, anxious, hopeful, terrified, barely able to contain the jumble of feelings.

Elena finally walked through the door.

Peyton could barely breathe. Somehow Elena’s beauty always struck her as if she were seeing her for the first time. She almost looked ethereal in a white blouse, the top buttons open, her hair a wild thrill of waves. The moment she saw Peyton, her face burst into a huge smile.

Elena felt like her heart was going to pound from her chest when she saw Peyton.
Her lover
. This woman, standing there, at once looking masculine with her defined swimmer’s arms in a forest green muscle tank top, and yet so beautiful in the same breath. It was that mix of handsome and feminine that was so compelling.

“Oh God, I’ve missed you!” She rushed headlong into Peyton’s arms, began to kiss her, but Peyton, while yearning to do nothing more than throw Elena down upon the chaise beside them and ravage her, could not break away from how shut down she felt, and Elena could feel Peyton’s restraint.

“What is it?” Trying physical seduction, unable to keep her hands off Peyton, again Elena tried to kiss her, then stopped, exasperated. “I...only have an hour...”

But as much as Peyton wanted Elena, she slowly pushed her away and looked directly into her eyes, asking the question she did not necessarily want the answer to.

“He didn’t touch me.” Elena’s eyes seared into Peyton’s. “He didn’t.”

Peyton felt her anxiety ease, and trembling with relief and desire, pulled Elena into her, kissing her as if they would never kiss again, picking her up enveloping her in her arms, owning this woman who belonged to her by a right that was stronger than any other.

They consumed one another, starved for each other after weeks of separation.

Finally, Elena tried to catch her breath, and pulling free she looked into Peyton’s eyes, and began to laugh from sheer giddiness.

“Oh Peyton…” and kissed her again. “I’ve missed you in a way I didn’t even know was possible.”

Peyton let her eyes linger on Elena’s beautiful faheebeautifce, then she broke out into a grin.

They smiled, then, both of them, and Elena, holding Peyton closer, said, “Oh, yes…” and began to move Peyton toward the bedroom.

*

Elena came, hard, intense, a tear escaping down her cheek.

Peyton looked at her, breathless as she witnessed the raw beauty of exposure, seeing Elena’s face as she probably looked ten years earlier, not a line upon her tender face, a youthfulness to her eyes, an elegant purity to her beauty that she had never seen before.

“My God...you are so beautiful.”

“You are...Peyton...” Elena could barely breathe from how deeply she felt her love for Peyton, almost a physical pain. “You are beautiful...”

*

As the Winters family sat at the dinner table, there was a tension in the air that everyone seemed to feel. They were picking at their meals, accompanied by very little conversation, which was unusual. Elena glanced at Nash, pale and turned inward.

“Are you okay, honey?”

He nodded yes.

“You look so pale, are you sure you feel well?”

Again a brief nod.

“You’ve barely touched your hamburger—”

“He’s just not hungry!” Tori snapped.

They all looked at her. And then Barry, frowning, asked her to pass the salt. “Come on buddy, you need to eat. Soccer practice tomorrow,” Barry added, handing the salt to his son.

“Look, I’m just not that hungry.” Nash tapped his fork against his plate. “Is that a federal crime or something?”

Everyone backed off.

“You know it was the Germans that first got the idea to soften meat.” Tori cleared her throat and attempted to ease the tension with the normalcy of one of her riffs. This was conversation they understood and could handle. “Sorta came to them when they noticed the Tartars, a nomadic breed, storing their meat under their saddles while riding—yeah, it just pounded the meat to smithereens. Talk about your tenderizing!”

“Great.” Nash shoved his plate aside. “Now I’ve lost what little of my appetite I had left.”

Elena glanced from her son. To Tori. To Barry. The s yoBarry. ilence was deafening.

*

Barry dashed into the house, looking for his wallet. He knew he had left it behind, had taken out the Blockbuster card for Nash the night before, and now had no idea where he’d left it. He glanced through the living room, tore through the kitchen, began rifling through Elena’s papers seeing if his wallet got stuck underneath the piles of papers she always kept in heap when she was paying bills.

He stopped suddenly. Heard something. But no one was supposed to be home.

There it was again.

He slowly looked around, began to stealthily make his way down the hall.

The sound came from Nash’s room. The door was closed. Barry leaned in, thought he heard jagged breathing. Now it sounded like bad porn.

Barry thrust open the door.

Nash jumped as if he’d seen a ghost. He quickly mashed the
Lesbian Heat
porn DVD under a pillow at the same time as he reached for but failed to slam his mother’s computer shut.

Barry almost smiled, but returned to the gravity of the situation and without a lot of tone demanded, “What are you doing home?”

But Nash was too busy blushing to respond. Barry walked to the bed, pulled out the DVD. Again he had to suppress a smile, had to concentrate hard to remain serious and reminded himself it was important for Nash to learn proper morals.

“Really! Couldn’t wait until school was out?”

“Didn’t feel well,” Nash mumbled, then jumped as he saw an e-mail from Peyton announce itself.

The ping stopped both of them.

“And what are you doing with your mom’s computer?”

Nash slammed the laptop shut. “I told you. I don’t feel well. Can you just—”

“Yeah, you look really sick, buddy.” Barry smirked. “What the heck is going on with you? You know better than to cut school. And for something like this?”

“Oh, is this the pot calling the kettle black, Father God Knows All?” Nash lashed back, then stood to confront his father. “And your hypocrisy about all things that keep you in good standing with that stupid church instead of paying attention to what’s going on around here?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Strike a nerve Dad? Do you even have a clue?”

“You will not talk to me this way.”

“Get out of my face!”

“I will not get out of your face. Whatever else I may be or do, I am still your father.” Barry was angry. “And since your mother’s gone half the goddamn time these days, you need someone in your face!”

Barry looked his son in the eye. Nash’s lips were tight, his eyes boldly challenging his dad. “I assume I don’t need to tell you—”

“Oh…
what?
” Nash mouthed the words
You’re grounded.

“You’re damn right. You’re grounded. You can just stay in here and think about missing the ball game this weekend.”

“Whatever…” Nash slumped back on his bed as if nothing in the world mattered.

Barry nabbed Elena’s computer, walked from the room, shut the door loudly enough for impact, but not so loud that Nash would think he’d really lost his temper. He stopped, opened up Elena’s laptop and saw her in-box, but nothing was on the screen. Barry shook his head, confused, trying to figure out why Nash would be using his mom’s computer instead of his own.

He thought about pulling up Elena’s e-mails. Then stopped, considering what that meant. He had to trust her. He had to. If he didn’t—and it was at that moment that he spotted his wallet beneath the folded newspaper he had been reading.

He closed Elena’s laptop, returned it to her little makeshift desk in the dining room, plugged in the power and walked from the house.

*

Elena walked into the house much later than she had intended. This wasn’t the first time she’d ended up coming home after everyone had gone to sleep. She knew she had to stop. Stop pushing the boundaries, but when she was with Peyton, the world ceased, and with Peyton she was happy. Not just happy, but blissfully alive. Being with her was such an intoxicant, Elena found herself strangling her schedule to figure every free moment she could squeeze out, knowing that as she did so, she was getting sloppy, missing appointments, cancelling things that were important. She shook her head. Every time she made mistakes like this, she promised herself she’d be more careful. She had to be. Being discovered was not an option, she declared to herself as she tried to get her bearings in the darkened room.

The light came on as she was stuck in this very thought.

Barry sat in the living room chair, and it appeared he had been sitting there for some time. Waiting.

Thunderstruck, Elena hoped that she looked herself, not like the sex-mussed adulterer she most certainly was.

“While yoare>“Whiu’ve been out finding yourself with your new BFF your son’s on his way to becoming completely unmanageable.”

“Barry—what are you doing up?”

“What were you doing out so late?” He stood up, walked to her.

“We went to a movie...then caught a bite after.”

“A bite? This late? Are you kidding me?”

“No…the movie was longer than we thought…I was starving…” She let her weak lie float between them as Barry, apparently contemplating how to handle this situation, opted for reasonable tones.

“I’ve always let you have a pretty free rein, El...but whatever’s going on, deal with it. Our son’s at a crossroads and I need you to get your head back in the game.”

He stared her down, but Elena had nothing to say.

“I’m going to bed.” He turned, left her in the room.

*

Elena paced quietly in the very early morning hours. She picked up the phone to call Peyton. Stopped and instead headed to her computer.

Peyton...I need some time to get things settled with Nash—I won’t be able to see you tomorrow afternoon…just know how much I love you…E

She sent it and then sat, stared out at the moonlight. But no answers came to her. Except one. She could not continue to do this indefinitely.

The next day Elena was furiously dashing through all the church bills in the church office when Diana popped her head in.

“I’m getting ready to head home, but I wonder if you have a moment.”

“Sure.” Elena put down her pen. “Everything okay?”