The Wall (27 page)

shadow that came periodically to the edge of the beach to stand

silently, tensely, watchful and unobtrusive. She had almost forgotten

Greg, incredible as it seemed later to her. She was wrapped up totally

in her self.

It was the hardest and longest night of her life. Not even the eve of

her mother's death had been as bad as this was to her. Eternity

weighed on her like a stifling burden. Time meant nothing to her, and

the passage of the night was merely an unimportant occurrence. She

was, however, genuinely shocked when she looked out over the quiet

water and found that she was able to see the far-off lake horizon. She

turned exhausted, sleep- blurred eyes in astonishment to the east, and

found the grey lightening of the pre-dawn creeping over the dark

treeline. A sense of panic invaded her. She had pleaded for time from

Greg, and he had let her go.

She had been on the beach all night.

It was time to go back, and time to decide. She couldn't waste any

more time prolonging the inevitable. She had known her own

response to Greg's ultimatum when he had issued it, had known and

had run away from the pain of the choice, and had stayed away the

entire night. She couldn't let him go through any more pain, couldn't

put him through the agony of the wait any longer.

Feeling a hundred years old, she rose stiffly to her feet and shook out

the sandy blanket, slowly making her way back to the house. It was a

long, lonely journey all by herself, just as the passage of the night

had been. She was so tired, the battle with her emotions taking her

past the point of exhaustion. All she wanted to do was to go and lay

her head on Greg's strong, broad shoulder and cry out her

uncertainties and weaknesses and let his strength carry the burden of

her choice.

She reached the door and put out a shaking hand to grasp the knob. It

turned easily, and she pushed it open and went in.

GREG was leaning against the counter, his shoulders hunched over a

stale cup of coffee, and he was staring down into it, his hair tousled

and his face grey and haggard. The quiet torment in his eyes as he

turned to look at her made her nearly cry out. His night had been a

slow torture too, and from the looks of things, he hadn't slept a wink.

There was coffee made, and things strewn about the counter, the

coffee can open. It looked as if it was one of several pots made, and

Sara dropped the blanket to go over and pour herself some. The

liquid tasted much too strong, and was very hot, and she sipped it

gratefully. The warmth seeped slowly through her insides.

She turned and found Greg watching her silently. Her slight smile

was involuntary and sympathetic. 'It's hell, isn't it?' she murmured,

her tired eyes staring down into the warm black depths of her own

mug. 'Letting down your guard to finally care for someone—it's hell!

Greg, I shouldn't have run out on you last night like I did, and put

you through all of this worry and waiting. I'm sorry. I knew when I

went out that door what my answer had to be to your ultimatum, but I

just didn't have the courage to face it.'

He put down his cup slowly, his dark gaze on her face. She couldn't

meet his eyes, but she knew he was looking at her anyway. The

intensity of it burned her like fire.

'Do you know why I flew back to California?' she asked him,

laughing a little shakily at the irony of life. He shook his head, his

silence prompting her answer. 'I went to sign a new contract to do a

prime time television special. Isn't that rich? The coverage and the

publicity would be tremendous. I could get out of the contract. It

would just about break me financially—and I do have quite a bit of

money, you know, plus the future royalties from the album that's to

be released in a months' time. It would just about take everything in a

lawsuit, and it would ruin my reputation as a professional, to break

that contract. I could do it, though. It would be a clean, irrevocable

break, because no one would come near me with anything remotely

resembling a business contract again. It would be just like you want,

I'm sure.' Her eyes finally lifted to meet his, and they were so stony,

so full of hurt and bitterness, that he flinched from the sight.

'You know, don't you?' she continued, in that deadly quiet voice.

'You knew from the beginning that I couldn't do it, you knew when

you laid down those terms. Is that why you made such a demand,

Greg? Is that why you put me through so much pain? You made your

demands so completely impossible for me, so that the responsibility

for us breaking up would be Wholly mine, didn't you?'

'No!' he bit out harshly, his face so lined with pain that she nearly

broke down at the sight of it. 'I am what I am, Sara. You can't change

what I am, even if you'd like to! It was a choice that you had to

make—between me and your career!'

'That's a damned lie!' she burst out raggedly. 'Will you just listen to

yourself a minute? Did you really hear what you just said? You've

got it all backwards, mister. You haven't always been this way.

You've let yourself become so embittered by your bad experiences,

you've let this great big wall grow up around you. It's got so big, you

can't even get close to anyone any more! You've made this whole

relationship so impossible because of it, you—Greg, didn't we have

something good? Couldn't you like what we had? We—we shared.'

Tears blurred her vision, and she turned away from him abruptly so

that he wouldn't see, but of course he did, and with an animalistic

.sound of pain he jerked forward to pull her into his arms. She turned

and clung to him for a moment, and their lips met in a fierce, intense,

despairing way, then she was struggling to get out of his arms as

though he was about to choke her to death.

'Sara, reconsider, will you -' he began hoarsely, but she whirled on

him in such a fury that he stepped back from the intensity of the

blast.

'My God!' she raged. 'Don't you dare ask me again, Greg Pierson!

You still don't have any idea of what you've done to me, do you? You

really don't know! Do you want me to tell you just how badly you've

hurt me? You've become something so isolated, so alien and

inhuman, so incredibly unkind -'

'That's enough!' he barked out savagely, but she was too enraged to

heed him.

'Not by a long shot, it isn't!' she shot back swiftly. 'Look at me, for

God's sake, just look at me! Do you know what I am? I'm a singer!

I'm a performer! I live to make music for other people, dammit! You

want me to tear that out of myself, to give it up completely, never to

look back? Greg, it's not a job for me, it's my whole life! You're

asking me to cripple myself to accommodate your inhibitions, and

I—just—can't! Oh, I don't need to tell you that I was sorely tempted.

I want you so badly, it—it tears at my insides. I wanted to reach out

and take what you're offering me, but it would all be a lie. How long

would we last together, do you think? How long of the good before I

would get to be resentful and restless? How long before the fighting

would start? How long before my love would turn to hate?' She

swallowed painfully, grasping her trembling hands in front of her. 'I

think I hate you already, for even asking it of me!'

Greg had turned his back to her while she was speaking, and it was

symbolic of his entire life. She stared at the broad expanse with a

look that was indeed almost hatred; she could see the wall in front of

her, coming between them, cutting her in half and killing whatever

they had once had. He was rigid, and he looked uncompromising.

She felt the utter hopelessness of what she was trying to impart to

him, and the bitterness of defeat. He would never come out from

behind his wall. It had fused itself irrevocably to his personality.

'I almost said yes to you,' she said quietly, her voice hoarse from

tiredness and pain, and his back grew even more rigid. 'But then it

occurred to me, Greg, that you couldn't really love me after all and

still ask that of me, and it was all so much more of a lie than I'd ever

realised,' her voice shook horribly, and she saw his shoulders jerk.

'Some day, some day you're going to wake up and realise what you're

doing to yourself, and do you know what's going to happen? That

wall will have grown so much by then, and be so monstrously huge,

that you'll never be able to get out again, no matter how you try.

You're going to die of starvation, just waste away from lack of

human companionship and understanding, and no one will ever

know.' She hesitated and waited for some kind of response, but he

was as if he were dead, so still did he stand, and she turned away to

the open doorway that led out to the hall. 'Goodbye, Greg.'

She didn't see his face, for he was turned away from her, and so she

was unaware of the silent tears that streamed down his granite-hard

face, of the lips that were drawn back tight over teeth clenched with

pain. She hadn't seen his fists, drawn down by his sides, and didn't

know that his knuckles were white and the fingers bloodless from the

tension of his tight grip. She was in the hall after saying goodbye,

and the words he mouthed were a bare thread of sound anyway, so

she wasn't to know that he whispered hopelessly, 'Don't go. Sara,

don't go. Sara!' But he didn't call after her, and she trudged upstairs

with a heavy heart.

Her clothes went into her suitcase with an agonising quickness. She

kept hoping against hope that she would hear a sound at her open

door and turn to see Greg there, accepting her for what she was,

loving and supportive of her needs. The house was so unbearably

silent. She knew that Greg would not come up those stairs. She rather

suspected that he was already too far gone behind that barrier of his.

It all was so hopeless.

She would have given her life for him. If he had been in trouble, or in

danger, she would have gladly given her life. She simply could not

forsake herself, though, give up her whole nature for him, or anyone

else. Relationships, ' she reflected sadly, are a lot like alcoholism.

You get addicted to a person, and no relationship is going to be pure

pleasure or pure pain, and that's why it's so hard to leave. It's when

the pain outweighs the pleasure that you have to go, and the pain of

leaving is the hardest of all.

Divorce has got to be the ugliest word in the English language.

She had all her things together, and she went downstairs with her

suitcases in hand. It felt like a betrayal, which was hard to justify. If

she stayed, she betrayed herself, and if she went she betrayed her

love.

The house was a tomb. Greg had apparently gone out, for which she

was thankful; she didn't know what she would do if she had to face

him again. A sudden feeling of panic came over her, and she stowed

her luggage away swiftly in the trunk of her car. She felt the need to

get out before she destroyed herself with her own need. She backed

the car out of the garage, shut it, and was soon driving back to her

own cabin. Her footsteps echoed eerily when she entered the front

door, and she knew that for her own sanity's sake she couldn't stay

long. A phone call to the airport secured her a flight in the afternoon,

and she made other calls concerning her car being shipped back,

careless of the cost and anxious only to get out of Michigan and as

far away from Greg as she could.

It was perhaps revealing of her state of mind to know that she had

called in her plane reservation as Sara Bertelli. That alone was a

statement and an affirmation of her own self.

With a few hours on her hands, she went and stood in the bathroom

to look at herself in the mirror. It had been a very painful vacation.

Her huge and tired eyes stared at herself thoughtfully. She had come

away from her work to find out who she really was, and had fallen in

love. She had found herself, but at such an emotional cost. She knew

her core, and it was the loneliest knowledge in the world, for she had

no one to share herself with. It could have been wonderful with Greg.