incendiarystory's Journal

Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream - CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Trying To Read The Face Of The Angel

The little arms of Emily gripped Scott around the waist for what seemed like hours. She stared up at his face from her vantage point and he could see the overhead lights shining off of the tears in her eyes. How he wanted to wipe those tears away. But, he couldn't break himself away from the embrace of his own. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

He had planned so much for this moment but he hadn't expected it to happen so soon. He had planned so many words to say but he needed none of them. He had planned on her being angry at him, but instead she seemed every bit as joyful to see him as he was her.

"I missed you so much," was all she seemed to be able muster to start the conversation, still gripping onto him like he was a life raft and she was lost at sea.

"Emily I'm so sorry..." he began to say back.

"There's no need for I'm sorry right now," she replied, "just you being here in all I need."

Scott was somewhat saddened at the words that she used. The right now stuck out in his mind from the rest of the sentence. That did mean that she thought he had something to answer for. And, he knew himself that they had a lot to come to terms with, both of them. In this moment, however, this moment he had pictured in his mind, he didn't say anything else. He just pulled her closer in front of everyone at the hostel bar.

Of all the fantasied pictures of their reunion that he had formulated in his mind, none of them could match the reality of this present moment.

Almost by instinct he began to rub his fingers through her hair remembering the events she had hinted at in her e-mails to him. He looked in those eyes again and what he saw told him that there had been a lot more pain in her life than she had let on. Those eyes that had formerly glowed with the fire of passion for life that he so admired had lost those embers. There seemed to be nothing in them of the Emily that he had dubbed without her knowing, "his little insurgent."

From her eyes, he could barely tell that she was alive. But, there was definitely feeling there about him. For that he realized her sentiment was true for him too, "just you being her right now is all I need."

"Do you want to go somewhere and talk?" he asked her as she let him go. It still seemed like the physical joining ended too soon.

"What about your friends?" Emily asked with some reluctance in her voice.

He looked over to the table where he had been sitting and saw the three Australians making whistling noises with the three fingers of their right hands depressed into half fists. As his eyes met their, they waved. He really had been in his own world. Although he figured that he wouldn't have been able to hear them over the previous karaoke song, a song which he wouldn't have been able to pick out through the lock he had on Emily with all of his senses, he didn't know how he had missed their gestures and noises now.

Scott nodded across the room at them and nodded back, in unison.

"Them, oh they'll be fine, let's go somewhere alone and talk about what happened," Scott replied.

Emily seemed to flinch at that prospect and said, "I don't want to talk about what happened Scott." Scott's internal calm took a hit as he worried that Emily meant she didn't want to mend the broken pieces of their relationship. He didn't want to force that issue. If he needed time to win her back, than they he would make all of the time they needed, some other time.

"I meant what happened to you in Paris - with Sandra," he said, hedging his bets.

"That's what I don't want to talk about," Emily said. Scott had expected the disarming laugh that Emily made when she had made a dry joke to follow but it didn't. She began to walk toward the table pausing after Scott momentarily failed to follow. He ran a couple of steps to catch up with her.

When they got to the table, Scott made the formal introductions. "Ian, this is Emily." Ian nodded. "That guy over there Shamus." Emily waved to Shamus. "Looks like you got yourself a groupie mate," he replied. Ian cuffed him on the back of the head. "That's his stella you yobbo!" he said.

"And this guy here," he said pointing to the Australian closest to them, "is Nigel."

Nigel reached out his hand. Emily's met the grasp and shook his hand.

"So," Ian said, "you're not a poofer after all? There really is an Emily."

"In the flesh," Scott said.

Scott noticed Emily recoil at these words too. The action was actually a relief since it meant it wasn't that he wanted to talk early that had precipitated the negative reaction on Emily's part. Something was more wrong with her than he knew.

"So this is your stella, then?" Shamus asked. He obviously answered his own question when he said, "if I had known that all it took was singing the lezzo songs to land such a rip snorter of a stella, I'd be singing the bloody Abba catalogue. I'm gobsmacked. Ya tinny bloke!"

"I'll gobsmack you, bloody dill," Ian said back, "you're as useful as tits on a bull."

Emily turned bright red at the analogy. She pulled Scott down and whispered in his ear, "what are they saying?"

Scott replied, matching her volume, "I still don't have any idea myself, but they're really entertaining. When I was in Budapest, I was hanging out with these Kiwis..."

"Oi! Scott!" Ian said, "enough of the earbashing already! It's your shout!"

Scott went up to the bar and brought back some more beers. He offered Emily one and she declined it. "You're not going to have one?" Scott asked. Emily shook her head and put her chin down into her hand. "Emily," Scott said, "we don't have to be here if you don't want to be." "No," Emily said, in a weak voice, "I want to be, it's just that I don't want to drink. I want to be in control, you know?"

Scott nodded gave his beer to Nigel. He chose him of the three Australian stooges since he was thankful that he had kept his gob, er mouth, shut since Emily got to the table. And he had picked up a little of what they had been saying through Nigel's translations earlier. Emily didn't seem to be picking up on the fact that they were already calling her his girlfriend again. He wondered what her reaction would be if she could translate.

As the three men traded verbal spars and fists, Scott couldn't help looking at Emily. He couldn't get over how sullen she looked, especially in comparison to the boisterous rantings of the Aussies. He moved his hand and gently touched her shoulder. She looked at him and he could see that she was on the verge of tears again.

Nigel said to the group, "Bloody mozzies! Oi mates, let's rack off somewhere to a boozer."

"Oi!" Ian replied.

"But I'm grinning like a short fox here," Shamus said to Nigel, "just give 'em the old Aussie salute."

Ian cuffed him on the back of the head again.

"You're looking for a boffo you are, Ian. Too right you are!" Shamus said recovering from the whack. Regardless of his attitude, Shamus stood up immediately when Ian did and the two began to walk off. "Don't spit the dummy," he heard Shamus say as Ian cuffed him again. "Don't do anything with your old fellow I wouldn't do Scott," he yelled back to the three people still at the table. At this, Ian grabbed Shamus in a playful headlock as they went through the door that connected the outdoor bar to its counterpart in the lobby.

Shamus said to Scott as he got up to follow, "not to be a mongrel or anything, but might I have a smoko?"

Scott said, "sure," and went to reach into his pocket. He remembered, however that Emily was at the table and that she didn't know he had started smoking again. He apologized to Shamus as the thought crossed his mind and said, "I'm out, sorry mate."

"No worries," Shamus said in an even tone and smiled. He probably didn't even know Scott was lying since he had been giving Shamus cigarette all night as part of a barter system, nicotine for information on what the hell the Australians were saying.

Nigel turned to Emily and said, "please excuse Shamus, my little stella, he's not a full quid," as he set off to follow behind the departed group.

"A smoko?" Emily asked, her first words in quite some time. "I don't speak whatever it was they were speaking but I know what that one would be. When did you start smoking again?"

Scott turned away in guilt and finally said, "it feels like weeks ago now, but it was only a few days. I'll quit if you want me to."

Emily grinned, not the reaction that Scott expected.

Scott looked down and saw Emily reaching into her bag. She pulled out a pack of long, brown cigarette. She stuck one into her mouth and lit the end. "It looks like we have a lot of catching up to do, doesn't it?"

"It certainly does," Scott replied, "must have been some time in Paris to drive you to that."

Emily now looked guilty at not having offered Scott a cigarette when she had started one. "Do you want one?" she asked, "since you're out."

"No, I actually have a couple left," Scott said, pulling out his own packet of European Marlboros. "I was just worried what you'd think of me seeing as how I broke our promise to quit and all."

Emily expression seemed more disappointed when Scott made this statement than she had looked when she found out moments earlier that he smoked again. "I was worried about the same thing," she said, "but you have to be honest Scott. If there's one thing I learned in Paris through all that shit, it's that people who lie to you just aren't worth being around."

"Ain't that the truth," Scott joked.

He was relieved as Emily laughed at his play on words.

Chapter Word Count: 1738
Daily Word Count: 1738
Total Word Count: 68865

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