Flashback (17 page)

“No, David. Because of me.” Her eyes were sick. He sucked in a deep breath. “It’s me. You probably would have been able to have your nice little crisis, all by yourself, all alone like you’d planned. Do you think I don’t know? That’s why you took a break away from work, isn’t it, because you felt the pressure and the rage and the memory building? Only I stupidly interfered, didn’t I? I wasn’t something you’d expected. And the dreams that plagued you
I
had, and I couldn’t handle them. You were the strong one; if it hadn’t been for you and your self-containment, I would have broken under the pressure long ago. I was the weak one—”

“You shouldn’t have had to handle it,” he said achingly.

She looked at him and echoed, “You shouldn’t have had to handle all of that, either.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth! Remember that dream when you said that you didn’t believe in hell? You still keep denying it, and it’s what has festered over the years! David, there is a hell. No matter how you must have wanted to, you couldn’t save the world from it, then.”

She closed her fist over her heart, as if taking a hold of something. It was wholly unconscious. His eyes were closed, his throat worked. “You can’t cut that out of you. Vietnam is a part of you, and it’s a part of me now. I don’t know, it may be a part of everyone. It may be in the past, but it’s there, and you may try to block it all you like. It’s there.”

“It doesn’t have to be a part of you!” he grated, shaking his head like a stubborn bull. “I can stop that at least. It won’t be a part of you, too! Not you.” He looked up, the piercing of his glance lancing her through. She ached so. “Peter told you, I’m sure, that he thought we were entwined in this—this crisis together because we’d needed what the other had. God only knows what you needed from me. I don’t.” Don’t you? she asked silently. Don’t you yet? “But I must have needed your weakness. I must have needed someone else to show me that. I’m sorry it had to be you that helped me to exorcise my ghosts. At least it’s over now.”

“I’m not!” she cried. “It isn’t.” He stood, and the finality of his stance, along with the long look he gave her, filled her with the oddest kind of fear. “David? No, wait! Don’t walk away!” This, before he’d even made a move.

He smiled. “I can’t do anything around you without you knowing of it, can I? But I must, sweet Dana. I have to, for the both of us, and especially for you. You don’t really think that I couldn’t feel your lie, when you said to me that it wouldn’t matter if I went away, do you? It took me a while to understand what I was sensing, but I have. You don’t really think that I don’t know?”

She felt as if she’d been kicked. “David? If you know that, then you know that I—”

“Don’t say it! Please don’t say it,” he said harshly. “This can’t happen, not to you, not to me. This can’t be allowed.”

He’s doing it again, she thought dazedly. He’s blocking himself off, only this time he’s blocking himself off from me. She put both hands over her shaking mouth, eyes filled with tears, watching the blur of him that seemed suddenly miles and miles away.

“Don’t look at me that way, girl!” he roared at her furiously. “Do you realise what we’d do to each other, what I’d do to you? For the love of Heaven, get out of my life before it’s too late!”

She stumbled to her feet. Get out of his life, you heard him, Dana. She turned like an automaton. He knew. He knew all the time. And he was right there, pulling her into his arms, surrounding her, kissing her like a madman, thrusting his tongue into her mouth ferociously, trying to eat every bit of her in that last embrace. Then he thrust her from him, whispering, “Get out of my life, Dana.”

Some time later she managed to walk into the kitchen with some degree of calm. Her mother, who was reading a magazine, looked up with an encouraging smile. “Oh, good, it’s you. I started to get a bit worried,” said Denise. Her expression changed as she took in the utterly blank façade on her daughter’s face. “What’s happened now?”

Dana just looked at her. “I gave my love,” she replied flatly, “and had it thrown back in my face.”

Chapter Nine

In the next few days, Dana’s schedule managed to right itself well enough. The tense feeling of imminent disaster eased, as did the nightmares, and she began to relax, feeling that the crisis was well and truly over with. She talked to Peter once on the phone, and she told him that her days seemed to be slipping into a certain peacefulness which was soul healing and revitalising. Her mind was at ease like never before, for the one thing that she honestly felt that David had been able to somehow convey to her was his mental ability to block. It gave her a measure of control that she’d never had; it soothed her mind like nothing she’d ever known. She listened to the mental silence, reveled in it, and blossomed. She had achieved an apparently surpassable barrier, and could reach out with her mind. If she was sensitive to a person, like her mother, then she could feel their presence. It gave her a retreat, an important feeling of detachment.

On the second day after her climactic confrontation with David, she went to see Grace Cessler, for the first time without a mental flinch at the visit. She indeed had a nice time; she’d inched out once with her mind and assured herself of the older woman’s easing of pain, for she was sure that Grace would not hesitate to lie about it. They both had a pleasant hour, with only one uncomfortable spot when Grace mentioned that David was planning on moving at the end of the month. The news jolted Dana. She hadn’t any warning of his coming departure, and this told her that he must be working hard at blocking her totally. The feeling of rejection hurt like an open wound.

On the way back from seeing Grace, Dana stopped at the grocery store, more confident than ever about stepping out into a public place. She came upon a young married woman in one of the aisles, who had over the last several months made overtures of friendliness to her. Dana responded to the sight of Jenny with pleasure, and soon the two were talking comfortably away while Dana held Jenny’s young daughter on her hip and laughed to see the child’s contortions as she chomped on a teething ring.

Jenny, who lived down the street from Dana, mentioned to her brightly, “Did you know that the local Garden Club is sponsoring a great monster of a party down in the gymnasium across from the court house?”

Dana shook her head, smilingly. “Why are they doing that?” she asked. “Is there a chance to make money out of it?”

Jenny sent her a look that was droll. “Of course. They’re selling tickets, which by the way, happen to be pretty reasonable. I have a few with me, if your mother and you would care to go. There’ve been other parties in the past, but I’ve always been afraid to invite you two, because you seemed so shy. Silly, isn’t it? I’m glad I’ve found you really aren’t hard to talk to. Isn’t it strange, the ideas we form of people without really knowing them?”

Dana’s smile turned wry. If only Jenny knew. “How much are the tickets?” she asked, digging into her jeans pocket. “Why don’t you give me two of them?”

“They’re only four dollars apiece, which will get you in and get you supper. There will be alcoholic drinks, and of course other types of drinks, but you have to pay for those.” They exchanged tickets for money, and Jenny beamed at Dana happily. “Two more tickets sold! My mother makes me so mad! She volunteers to sell more tickets than she can, and gives half to me, and I don’t even belong to the Club! Oh, Dana, I’m glad you’re going! You need some nightlife, although this isn’t quite the definitive of the word! It still should be fun, though. See you Saturday!”

Dana had to grin at herself and the eagerness that she felt at the prospect of going to the party on Saturday. Previously, the old Dana would have cringed in horror at the very thought of being with so many people in one place, but now, with her new found assurance, she felt excited and happy at the thought, feeling for the first time in her life burden free of her fears.

Grabbing her notebook when she got home, she lightly kissed her mother on the cheek and headed out of doors to do some sketching. Instead of taking a familiar route, she delved into the wood and ended up on the far side of Grace’s property, in a little pocket of land she’d never really explored before. The land dipped into a hollow, at the bottom of the cliff, and then some distance away rose to the peak of a very gentle hill. She was able to position herself on the top of the hill at the break of some trees and obtain a perfect view of the rocky cliff, with the green, perpetually swaying pines above it and the jutting line of the edged rock below. It was a perspective she had never seen before, and beautiful. She drew out her pencil to capture it on paper.

After a time of solitude and silence, she looked up and to her left. Just coming into view from a thick line of trees was a dark, slow moving figure of a man. Her pencil plopped to the ground and she stood clumsily. Her movement attracted his attention, and his head reared up at the sight of her. He jerked to a halt.

Suddenly the feelings that she’d kept at bay for the last few days threatened to make her sight blur, and she mumbled, “Excuse me. I’ll leave now.” Almost at random, she reached and found her pad and pencil, and with her head ducked, she started to scurry away, intent on leaving before he could reject her again.

“Dana?” he called out lowly, the sound urgent. She quivered to a halt, shoulders held stiff. She didn’t dare turn around to look at him. Even the sight of David was enough to break through her barriers. No matter how she may try, she knew that he was the one she couldn’t keep out of her mind and her heart. “Dana, please, look at me.”

“No. What do you want?” Heart ache. Her pencil snapped in her hand and brought back a strange feeling of
déjà vu.

“Don’t go. I’m sorry for disturbing you. I—really hadn’t realised, at least consciously that you were here. I’ll leave.” His voice was gentle, but it wasn’t his gentleness she wanted. She didn’t want his empathy either. She just wanted his love.

There was nothing but silence behind her and she turned around, eyes full of longing and hand involuntarily stretched out—and he was still there, and the barriers she’d let drop were totally swept away as she was filled with the essence of his intensity, his own turbulent emotions. She hissed as she sucked in her breath and jerked her hand to her side, and suddenly he was rushing for her, pulling at her, dragging her down to the ground and covering her with his superior weight. Then his hands were fastening in her hair and yanking her head around as his hungry mouth searched her face for her lips.

She could have been frightened. She very well could have been alarmed, having never experienced the overwhelming physical aspect of a relationship. Whether it was him that she was attuned to, or herself, she later couldn’t say. All she knew was her own instinctive desire to mate, and her own physical need she had to fill, and her own hands found their way to the back of David’s head. She eagerly arched her back against the hard ground, pressing her body to his, a timeless invitation.

After a flash of eternity, she felt him drag back his hands from under her top and roll away, breathing unsteadily. She took a deep, unsteady breath herself and stared up at the swaying green oak branches overhead, with blue sky peeping through. Her chest and ribs were damp from the heat of the day and her own passion, and she raised a limp hand to wipe her sticky hair off her forehead. The fingers shook.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, still sucking in his breath and striving for control. “It won’t hap—”

“But of course you’re sorry,” Dana said calmly, and Dana being calm after the powerful storm of sexuality that had just shuddered through her was enough to make him stare, head lifted, strong muscles in his neck taut. She turned her head as she lay there and just looked at him, face almost amused. “That’s all you’ve ever been, isn’t it? All your adult life you’ve been sorry that you didn’t save the kid who died, sorry that you weren’t the great hero that saved the world, sorry that you couldn’t control the emotion that was uncontrollable. I wonder if every man is like this, always on a god trip and never able to take time to be human and fallible. Of course you’re sorry, you’ve never let yourself be anything but.”

“Don’t lecture me, Dana,” he grated, eyes turning hard. “God, look at you, you’re so young and inexperienced, how the hell can you expect to know what I’m all about?”

“Oh, to be sure,” she said sardonically, very quietly. “I don’t know anything. Especially me, of all people. I wouldn’t know what it felt like to have a knife slide into my gut, I wouldn’t know the utter hell of futility and my own incapacity to save five bleeding kids from death. I don’t know what it’s like to—”

“
No, you don’t
!” he roared, surging up and above her. She cowered away instinctively, but he wouldn’t let her slip away as he planted his two hands on either side of her, pinning her to the ground. “You didn’t have to live with that for thirteen years!”

“Neither did you,” she came back, implacable.

“What the hell do you want from me?” he jerked out angrily. She’d never seen a man so cornered and so free to move away.

“That’s just it, I don’t want anything from you,” she replied earnestly. “No, really, I don’t. I’ve learned a great deal from you and from some things you’ve taught me, I’ll be eternally grateful. You didn’t know that I’d managed to pick up something of your ability to block things, did you? It’s been wonderful, the most peace I’ve enjoyed in my life, and for that I thank you.” She pushed at one of his arms and he fell back to stare at her while she sat up, leaves in her chestnut hair still tumbled from his rough and urgent hands. She looked at him with clear eyes and gestured behind her. “But what almost happened here wasn’t right, because you’d have felt a burden of guilt for it and probably would have conveyed it to me, and making wonderful love is something I don’t want to feel guilty about. Do you understand me? I don’t want your guilt. That’s why I’m not going to ask for one thing from you, I won’t have that guilt on me. You’re not prepared to give anything freely. No, I’m going to sit back and do nothing, and let the burden of decision fall on you. You seem to like burdens well enough. You see, I may not be very strong for some of the things that you’ve had to endure, but this is one thing I’m strong enough for. I’m not going to back out and walk away. I’m willing to stay and take the risk of whatever might happen. You can stay or leave, it’s up to you. It’s always been up to you.”