I Want (8 page)

“Fine. Can you at least tell her that
I bear her no ill-will for leaving, and just give her these for me?” William
responded, sounding resigned to the fact that his need to see her would not be
satisfied on this occasion.

Elle peered around the wall, to see
if she could view what he handed to Cate without him seeing her. She gulped, seeing
a large bouquet of lilies in Cate’s arms. She felt the significance of the gift
cause a deep, stabbing pain in her chest.

Closing her eyes briefly in reluctant
acceptance, Elle knew what she needed to do next.

“Of course, I...” Cate stopped
speaking in midsentence, becoming distracted by the noise of Elle’s heels
tapping on the floor. As Elle moved into focus, Cate turned her head, shooting
her sister an inquisitive look.

“Cate, its fine. Let him in.” Elle
said walking into view of the front door, her pulse racing, as she lifted her calm
gaze to meet William’s surprised one. Blue met green equally, as Cate continued
to look from Elle, and back to William, trying to get a measure of what each
was thinking.

Slowly, Cate moved to the side of the
doorframe, to allow William entrance into the hallway. He stepped forward as
she did so, keeping his eyes fully locked on Elle, ignoring Cate’s presence for
a moment, until she broke his silent trance. “Take Will into the drawing room.”
Cate instructed as she turned to her sister. “I will go and place these in a
vase in the kitchen.”

Waiting until they were alone, he finally
uttered softly, “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

Elle could not find her voice yet,
and simply nodded, before gesturing to the ajar door leading to the drawing room.

With a nervous smile, William moved
past her, and into the indicated room. She breathed in a waft of his cologne as
he did so. Elle took another deep breath, trying to hold back the welling up of
tears, as the familiarity of the smell, and the fact it would be the last time
she would smell it on him, overwhelmed her.

Entering the room, she pushed the door
partially closed, leaving enough of a gap, that Cate would hear if it were wise
to enter when she returned. William was standing in his usual pose, with his
back to the room by the window, staring out at the view. Taking a seat, she waited
for several moments, before he turned and spoke.

“As I said to your sister, this will
take just a few minutes.” His voice trembled with obvious emotion.

Elle stared down at her hands, allowing
him to continue without interruption.

“I accept that there is no going back
from your decision to leave, but I just needed to see you one last...” He paused,
obviously struggling to get his words out. “...one last time, to say sorry,
sorry for not being supportive enough. I know I am guilty of letting business
get in the way of us being able to grieve together.”

Elle looked up for the first time since
he started talking, an expression of wonder written on her face. For weeks, she
felt guilty for not being able to express her grief into words with him. She
had thought his anger had been over the frustration of her endless crying,
rather than talking it through. Hearing that he felt blameable, for not being
able to spend enough time to help get them through their grief together, threw
her thoughts totally off balance. “You should not feel guilty for having to go
to work. I am just sorry for all the nights; I kept you up with my endless
crying, rather than talking about it. Maybe if, I had been able to open up
more, we would not be in this position today,” she said looking away from his
gaze.

“Do not tear yourself up about it –
each of us could have done things better in hindsight, but losing your parents,
and the baby in a short space of time is enough to make anyone struggle to
discuss things. I know I went into a shutdown mode when my mother and father
died.”

Elle offered him a weak smile, as she
did not trust herself to speak. She was trying her utmost to resist listening
to the inner voice screaming in her head to ask for another chance since he
seemed to share her regret. But, this misunderstanding had hit her with the
cold reality that, no matter how much she still loved him, she needed to be
alone, to do some growing up.

“Anyway,” He said letting out a deep
sigh. “I think my few minutes are up. I guess I will be seeing you at Charlie’s
from time to time.”

“You might be relieved to know that
I will not be there often at all, I have accepted a job in New York.”

William’s face fell. The thought of
knowing he would be seeing her from time to time, when Jess and Charlie had parties,
was the one thing that had kept him from begging her not to leave him. He
hoped, in time, he would have been able to draw her back into his life, but now,
with that opportunity gone, he felt the acute pain of separation truly for the
first time. “Oh...I see, well...umm good luck,” he stammered.

She gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”
She tried to sound casual as she added, “By the way, I appreciate the flowers.”
Her understanding why he bought that type of flower was written all over her
face for him to see.

William shrugged, seemingly trying
to match her casualness. “I bought them before...before I saw your note.”

Elle reddened at this, looking away
from his gaze again, with embarrassment.

“I thought you may appreciate them,
better than I do, under the circumstances.” Looking down, as he fiddled with
something bulking out his jacket pocket, he struggled to compose himself once
more. When he looked up again a moment later, he caught Elle staring at him
wistfully. “I will leave you in peace. I had better get going before the traffic
gets too heavy as I am heading to Kent.” He continued to stand in the same
spot, rather than moving towards the door, as if still deliberating something
in his head.

As Elle stood up from the sofa, William
finally moved from his spot, catching her unaware - he was standing in front of
her, before she had time to react. He brought his arms up to rest on either
side of her waist, pulling her close, as his lips brushed against hers urgently
before releasing her from his grip. “As much as this hurts, I know loving you
means I have to let you go, so you will come back to me of your own accord.”

Dazed by the turmoil of emotions the
kiss invoked, Elle did not get a chance to reply as Cate interrupted them by
entering the room.

“Cate, thank you for allowing me to
descend upon your home uninvited; I will not intrude any longer,” William said
turning stiffly from Elle, to focus on her sister, his unreadable mask of emotions
in place once more, as he strode from the room.

Cate followed him out into the hallway,
leaving behind a quivering Elle, sobbing in the drawing room, as she finally released
the tears she had been holding back, since he arrived.

After shutting the door behind a retreating
William, Cate had stood outside the drawing room, listening to Elle’s sobbing
for a couple of minutes, allowing her to get the worst out of her system,
before she re-entered the room to comfort her.

Outside in the driveway, a desolate William got back into the
driver’s seat of his car. Clutching so hard at the steering wheel, he made his
knuckles go white, as he tried to compose himself. Pulling the object from his
jacket that he had been fiddling with earlier, he hurled it across the car in
frustration with such force that it fell into the foot well of the passenger side.
The outer box breaking and creaking, revealing its contents; a double banded single
solitaire diamond ring. 

Seeing the ring sparkling in the remains
of the box, cracked his composure altogether as he brought both hands up to his
face and sobbed uncontrollably.

December 2003

On the second
day after William’s visit, Elle pulled off a controlled performance of a lifetime
worthy of any award-winning actress, as she stepped onto the plane leaving her
life in England behind for a fresh start. 

After a gruelling six-hour flight,
the wife of her mother’s brother, Annette, greeted her at the other end of the flight.
Despite losing her mother just six weeks before, Elle had never been exceptionally
close to her, and looked upon Annette as more of a mother so it did not take
her long to get behind the facade of her cheerfulness.

“Elle, you know you don’t have to put
a front on for me. William contacted Lorry yesterday saying you had parted ways
extremely distressed -” Annette began softly as Elle’s smile was replaced by
uneasiness. “Do you want to tell me about it?” The older woman leaned over and
touched her niece’s arm, as an offer of comfort.

“There is nothing much to tell, other
than I have left him, as I cannot stand the pain, we both blame the other for
any longer.” Elle's expression became unreadable. She was not ready to open up
fully yet. Her hormones were all over the place still. The doctor had warned her
that it might take up to two months for everything to settle down after the miscarriage.
It was four weeks so far.

“He blames you for losing the baby?”
Annette looked shocked.

Elle shook her head. “No, not exactly,
more than anything I could not talk to him about it, until it was too late.”

“But now you have started talking,
can you not work through the pain together?”

Elle shook her head again. “No, it
has become far more now. The shock of all these events, and my handling of them
have made me realise, I need to grow up more before re-entering into any relationship.”

Annette
sighed,
sad
for
the
pain,
her
niece
was
evidently
going
through,
and
disappointed
to
see
two
people
who so
obviously
were
meant
for
each
other,
part
ways.
“Well, I am here,
if you want to talk things through further.” 

“Thanks.”

Excusing herself from the room, Elle
headed to the guest room, where she always stayed. Throwing herself on the bed,
she contemplated the coming weeks, as she knew the only way to cope with the
emptiness was to bury herself into a heavy workload.

~~~

Settling into a routine of working and playing at a diligent
pace, Christmas and New Year were soon forgotten. Elle began to build a name on
the global modelling stage. The exposure of doing a campaign with a company
with Dexter Media's reputation gave her a solid foundation to build upon. 

As much as Elle kept busy during the
daytime and evenings, the stark hours after midnight still dragged by slowly,
as she tossed and turned, reliving the painful memories of losing the baby, and
William in quick succession. To a lesser degree, she was also grieving her
parent’s deaths as well, but the lack of love they had shown her during her
childhood had dampened any sorrow.

As the end of January beckoned, Elle
was still living reluctantly in her relatives’ apartment, despite her earlier
idea of moving into her own place. It was not for want of looking for a new
place, but her aunt and uncle made her agree to stay for the near future, as
they were still concerned about her health, in particular, her continued sickness
in the morning.

Her London doctor had given her the
recommendation of a particular doctor in New York, in whose care she now was.
The recommended doctor was a female gynaecologist that specialised in after
care of trauma-induced miscarriages and high-risk pregnancies. 

Despite reassurances that the loss
of the pregnancy was not her fault, the dark nightmares sweeping through her sleeping
mind each night, continued to thrive, leading to problems starting to appear in
her work. Her new agent knew of Elle’s reputation of always being highly
versatile in her work, but the on-going fatigue and sickness were beginning to
hinder Elle getting work. One client had said Elle was getting too fat for them
to consider.

This criticism was the final straw
in allowing her agent, and family, to convince her to see the doctor. Several days
later, a downcast Elle found herself in front of her new doctor for the first
time.

 “I am going to organise another
round of blood tests, since you are still suffering from disrupted sleep and
sickness.” The doctor began after silently perusing the notes Elle’s old doctor
had faxed over. “Have you menstruated since your surgery?”

Elle shook her head.

“And that was about ten weeks ago?”
The doctor said peering down at the papers again.

“Yes.”

“Do you experience any residual pain
around the injury area?”

“Slight soreness, but not any pain
as such, but I do experience a strange fluttering at times.”

 The doctor looked at her strangely
for a moment, “Flutterings?"

“Yes, not quite where the wound was,
but in the abdomen surrounding it.”