Behind the Green Curtain (21 page)

Failing to keep the dejection from
her voice, she lowered her eyes to the bed, noticing a snag in the sheet, and
wondered if it had been there before, or if it had been put there by Amelia’s
clipped but uncommonly sharp nails, which seemed to leave marks on everything.

Bed dipping, Caton glanced up as Amelia
sat down, and, an instant later, Amelia’s hand was on her chin and Amelia’s
mouth was on hers, kissing her with such ferocity, Caton was certain she didn’t
want to leave. It didn’t stop Amelia from pulling away, though, from pushing up
from the bed and walking out on Caton without another word.

Listening to the door quietly click
shut in the next room, Caton rolled to her back in the cold space left behind
her, the emptiness that sank in on her nothing less than she deserved.

Chapter 31

At the sound of her phone, Caton
rolled out of bed so quickly, she forgot to breathe. Rushing light-headed into
the living room, the air pricked her bare skin as she followed the sound to the
counter, disappointment stabbing her, followed by a jab of guilt, as she read
the name on the screen. She considered not picking up, turning around and
walking right back to the bed to wallow, but decided that would be worse than
the sentiment she had unfairly attached to the caller for no other reason than
she wasn’t Amelia.

“Laura, hi,” she answered, moving
back toward her bedroom as the cold settled painfully in.

“Hi.” Laura sounded too happy to be
talking to her, and Caton grimaced as the pang of guilt reared back up. “I’m
home.”

Pausing, Caton looked around for a
calendar, knowing there were none in the room. For weeks, she had known when
Laura was returning, but, somehow, in a single night with Amelia, she had
forgotten. “That’s good.” Caton hoped she sounded more pleased than she felt as
she climbed back into bed and pulled the covers around her. “How was your
trip?”

“It was fantastic,” Laura
exclaimed. “I want to tell you about it. Are you busy tonight?”

Glaring toward the rumpled sheets
beside her, it occurred to Caton she would never be as busy as she wanted to be
as long as she was fucking someone else’s wife. “No, I’m not busy,” she
responded, not sure whom the reply was the most unfair to, Laura, Amelia, or
herself.

“So, should I come over?” Laura had
to ask, though Caton knew she should have extended the invitation.

Leaning back against her pillow,
she no longer knew how to answer. She couldn’t keep doing this, knowing and
then not knowing what she wanted. “Sure, come over,” she finally responded,
deciding that avoiding Laura until she figured it out was the most selfish
possible course of action, and she was already spending enough time running
circles on that particular track. “What time?”

“Seven?”

“Sounds good,” Caton returned,
wishing it did.

“Okay, I’ll see you tonight,” Laura
replied. “And Caton?” The words stopped Caton’s hand just as she was ready to
hang up.

“Yeah?”

“I missed you.”

Eyes closing at the declaration,
Caton wondered at what point she had become a truly horrible person, completely
corrupt and irredeemable. “I missed you too,” she whispered.

Her goodbye robotic, Caton dropped
her cell to the bed beside her, fingers moving to the suddenly throbbing vein
in her forehead. It was true, at least. She didn’t have to lie. And she didn’t
have to compare. Missing Laura may have been a blip on the radar next to the
desperate need that consumed her in the absence of Amelia, but she had thought
about her. Just not as much as she should have thought about her, considering
how much time they had invested in each other.

Deciding those thoughts pointless,
Caton veered from them enough to climb out of bed and find her clothes on the
floor. Each piece eliciting the memory of its removal the night before, she
scowled at her inability to control her brain when it came to Amelia.

It was late, almost lunch time for
most normal people, she realized, looking toward the clock. Not that she had
anything particularly pressing to do. Pulling the sheets from the bed as if to
hide the evidence of a crime, she couldn’t help but wonder if she had alienated
herself from normal life forever.

Having made her cleaning rounds the
night before, there was little that needed doing in the apartment, so, despite
her best efforts, Caton kept getting dragged back into thought, overtaken by
recent memory, and ended up rushing to get herself ready before Laura’s
arrival. When the call box buzzed a few minutes after seven, she started at the
sound, surprised by the formality of it, and buzzed Laura in, answering the
door with a sincere smile seconds after Laura knocked.

“Hey.” Laura smiled.

“Hey,” Caton returned.

Stepping through the doorway, Laura
balanced herself with a hand on Caton’s side to kiss her hello, and Caton
relished the ease with which everything happened with Laura.

“It’s good to see you,” Laura said.

That was easy too, how Laura said
what she was thinking, without the need for translation and examination of
every syllable to determine what she really meant. Caton didn’t need to
compare, but the memory of the almost painful conversation with Amelia the
night before fresh on her mind, it was difficult not to note the difference.

“You too,” Caton replied.

Smiling brightly, Laura looked
revitalized by life as she walked past Caton into the living room, shedding her
jacket and tossing it on the nearby chair, before sinking down on the couch.

“Do you want a drink?” Caton
offered, watching Laura kick her shoes off and settle in as if she belonged
there.

“Sure,” Laura returned. “Whatever
you’re having.”

Going to the refrigerator, Caton
retrieved two pumpkin ales and uncapped them, walking to the sofa and handing
one to Laura as she dropped down next to her. “‘Tis the season,” she uttered,
and, with a laugh, Laura pressed the bottle to her lips.

It was so easy.

“So, tell me about your trip,”
Caton coaxed, sinking into the cushion, arm resting along the back of the couch
to give Laura her undivided attention. As undivided as it could be.

Laura’s hair was slightly longer,
her skin slightly darker, but everything else was the same. Scooting across the
inches between them to settle against Caton’s side, Laura’s hand fell to her
thigh without reservation, and Caton felt herself relax into the familiarity as
she lifted the bottle to her lips.

After Laura launched into her
holiday tale, all the things she did overseas, the projects she helped work on,
the kids who told her about the everyday horrors of their lives, Caton got up
only once, for a box of tissues and more drinks, before returning to her
position at Laura’s side. Watching Laura soldier through the more difficult
parts, tears falling openly, she was struck again by what an incredible person
she had sitting beside her on the couch in her living room.

“I’m here overeating with my family
and you’re off saving the world,” Caton declared when it was clear Laura was
finished.

Laughing lightly, Laura leaned
forward to set her bottle on the table, sliding Caton’s out of her hand to put
beside it. “Well, you can’t save the world all the time,” she said, turning to
Caton with a look that was clearly readable, because Laura had nothing to hide.
“Sometimes you have to do something that makes you happy.”

“Yeah, of course,” Caton murmured,
watching Laura move closer.

When Laura kissed her, deeply and
slowly, it was with such sweetness, it was as if her lips were made of honey.
Nice, as always, but only nice. Not amazing. Not consuming. Not intoxicating or
overwhelming. None of those things were sustainable anyway, Caton knew, not
with anyone. Eventually, they would fade, and it was what would be left behind
that mattered.

Pulling back, Caton studied Laura,
watched the easy smile come to her face. She should love Laura by now, she
realized. Laura was the kind of woman who was easy to love. She wondered if she
would love Laura if their relationship hadn’t been disrupted in its early
stages. She wondered if it was possible to love her still, once she got away
from Amelia and had time to get the other woman out of her head.

“Are you okay?” Laura softly asked.

“I’m fine,” Caton lied, hands
sliding onto Laura’s cheeks, letting out a desperate breath as their lips met
again. Wanting nothing more, she tried to find the feeling, and, when she
couldn’t find it, she tried to force it. Laura was incredible and open and
available. Laura wanted to be with her. Laura should have been the one for whom
she spent the holidays pining, the one she couldn’t wait to see again. It was
so easy with Laura. If only she could find something to feel.

Breaking away on a frustrated
exhalation, Caton couldn’t look at Laura as she stood from the couch. Taking a
few steps away, she tried to sort through her thoughts. She needed some time,
time to think before she made a huge mistake and threw away something she knew
she didn’t really deserve anymore.

“Caton?” The worry in Laura’s voice
prompted Caton to face her before she was ready. “Did I do something?”

“No,” Caton said more sharply than
she intended. Laura even thinking that was so unfair, she couldn’t even begin
to wrap her head around it. “It’s not you.”

“Yeah.” Laura looked suddenly
nervous as she tossed her head to one side, hand moving anxiously through her
hair. “When people say that, they usually mean it is you.”

“Not this time,” Caton uttered
quietly, acknowledging to herself that she couldn’t possibly be more to blame
for her own tangled life.

Wishing she could get over it in an
instant, that she could shake Amelia’s hold on her, or lie until she found a
way, Caton cursed beneath her breath, knowing she couldn’t stop the
conversation now that it had started. Truth had been elusive for her of late,
and it was starting to eat away at every part of her. With every lie, she was
becoming a worse person, she was becoming less worthy of Laura. She was
becoming less worthy of anyone.

Taking a deep breath, Caton crossed
her arms over her chest in preemptive defense, knowing whatever came back at
her, she had coming. “I... I’ve been sleeping with someone,” she confessed,
eyes dropping to the floor, unwilling to witness Laura’s reaction.

It was the disbelieving laugh that
drew her eyes back up, and Caton watched Laura try to formulate a response to
the unexpected proclamation. “I didn’t think I’d been gone that long.” Her
attempt at a joke fell flat, and Caton flinched at the pain the words failed to
obscure, watching Laura push to her feet and put more distance between them.
“We never...” Laura shook her head. “We never actually said we weren’t going to
see anyone else. I just assumed.”

“I wasn’t seeing anyone else,”
Caton replied instantly.

Staring across the room at her,
Laura didn’t move, and Caton tried to guess what she must be thinking. “Who is
it?” she finally asked.

“Does that matter?” Caton replied,
careening at the question she should have seen coming.

“Yes,” Laura replied, voice
hardening slightly. “Oddly enough, it does.”

It wasn’t exactly the kind of
question one could refuse to answer. Laura had a right to know with whom she’d
vicariously shared a bed. Still, Caton searched for a reason Laura didn’t need
to know, unsure whom exactly she was trying to protect.

“My boss,” she admitted when she
couldn’t come up with one.

The revulsion that appeared on
Laura’s face was surprising, instantly kicking in Caton’s defenses. “I knew why
he wanted you there,” Laura began. “But why would you -”

“Not Jack,” Caton interjected on a
sigh.

Disgust evaporating at once,
Laura’s eyes went wide. “The wife?” she questioned. “You’re sleeping with the
wife?”

Cringing internally at the
designation Laura chose to give Amelia, Caton merely nodded, wanting nothing
more than to just get the conversation over as quickly as possible.

For a moment, Laura looked almost
as if she wanted to laugh, as if the surprise and irony were enough to make her
forgive everything. Caton knew when Laura remembered everything, though. She
could see the change on Laura’s face, the sudden indignation as she nodded.
“So, that night she was here...” Laura started to ask, but didn’t need Caton to
answer. “Well, that makes more sense now. I’m sure she had a great laugh at my
expense.”

“No,” Caton breathed. “It wasn’t
like that. It was never about...” Laura. It was never about Laura. When she was
with Amelia, Laura was the last thing Caton thought about, but she doubted
seriously that was what Laura wanted to hear. “It just happened.” She wished
she could retract the flimsy excuse the moment it left her lips. It made no
difference, and it was mostly a lie. The first time just happened. That hardly
explained the times since, or how Caton had felt when Amelia left her bed the
night before.

Taking up the same defensive stance
as Caton, Laura finally seemed to realize she too needed protection. “I thought
we were...” She shook her head, eyes dulled as she returned them to Caton’s. “I
thought we were headed somewhere.”

“We were,” Caton responded
honestly, the cold of the room seeping fully in until she went numb from the
inside out.

“So, is this what you want?” Laura
asked with a helpless shrug. “An open relationship?”

Staring blankly at Laura, Caton
tried to work her mind around the question. She hadn’t even considered it an
option, and it was with some dismay that she realized she could discard it
without any real thought. “No.” She shook her head, and the answer led Laura
directly to the right conclusion.

Channeling some real anger, it
showed in Laura’s eyes, before moving into her shoulders, which Caton had never
seen so firmed. “What do you think is going to happen?” she asked. “Do you
think she's going to leave her rich husband and her mansion and her life to be
with you?”

“No,” Caton returned, the truth of
it sinking in on her. There was no happy ending with Amelia. She had known it
the whole time. With Amelia, she was always riding slipshod into heartbreak.
She was already halfway there.

“But that's what you want,” Laura
surmised.

“I don't know what I want,” Caton
whispered, telling herself it was a lie to spare Laura’s feelings, instead of
to protect herself.

“But you know it's not me,” Laura
stated, and Caton couldn’t deny it.

She wanted to make Laura see that
she was better off, that she was too good for her anyway, that she deserved to
be with someone who wouldn’t even look at another woman when they were together.
She wanted to be that woman. She had let Amelia take too much, though, and she
knew she would never be right for Laura again.