Written in 63 minutes.

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Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Vista Point: Parking Lot

Jason was already wrestling with the catch on his seatbelt before Elizabeth’s door had slammed shut, and he almost fell out of his side, slipping on the soaked gravel lot. Why the hell had he pushed her—why hadn’t he just told her what happened and let the whole damn thing die—

By the time he’d got around the side of the SUV, a crack of lightning illuminated the parking lot and he caught sight of her on the steps to the observatory deck. What was her plan? Or maybe she was too upset to even think of one—

He found her at the guardrails, her back to him, her fingers gripping the top railing, long since chipped and flaked from disrepair and disuse, the rain pounding around them, her hood had fallen off and her hair was plastered against her skull and neck. She was just barely visible in the one light post that still worked.

“I’m sorry—” He lifted his voice to be heard over the sluicing drops, slapping into his skin, dripping beneath the collar of his coat, soaking his clothes beneath the open sides. “Elizabeth—”

“For what?” Elizabeth demanded, whirling around, the tips of her hair whipping along with her. “For what? Do you even know?”

“I—” He stepped towards her, wanting to cut the distance, wanting to just touch her, feeling sure if that if he could that, if he could just hold her, this would somehow go away or he would find the words to explain in the explicable—

“You’re sorry I’m upset, okay, fine. Fine. You’re sorry you dragged me out of the house—” Another slap of thunder interrupted her, and she closed her eyes, shook her head. “I don’t want to do this. We aren’t doing this—”

She started past him, and he caught her arm, holding on when she would have shaken him off, careful to keep his grip gentle but firm. Maybe there were no words. No magical phrases that would extricate him from a mess he’d created long ago —

Nothing other than the truth.

“You deserve better.”

She turned more to face him and then stunned him by swinging out with her other hand curled in a fist, arcing towards his face. He caught it, wrapping his hand around her wrist, bringing both her hands to his chest. “You deserve better—” he tried again.

“Stop! Stop! Stop making excuses! You’ve been using that line since I was eighteen goddamn years old and you were too damn afraid to let me make my own choices!” Elizabeth cried. She yanked back and he released his grip on her hands. “You didn’t want me enough, you never want me when there’s another option—”

“That’s not—” Jason scowled when she just shook her head and darted back towards the parking lot. He’d left the SUV running, and he wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t just take off without him.

He caught up with her halfway between the parking lot and the SUV but kept going until he overtook her and was able to get in front to stop her. “Why do you ask questions you don’t want the answer to?”

“Because I’m a goddamn idiot—” Elizabeth stopped, slid her hands over her rain slicked hair. “Fine. Fine, tell me about how I deserve better for the one thousandth time in our lives, and how that somehow explains why that means I end up raising our son alone and Sam gets to share your name, home, bed, money, everything and somehow its because I’m just too damn good for you—”

“She’s what I deserve.”

Elizabeth stared at him, another lightning crack flashing the bewilderment in her expression. “What?”

“You deserve better than me. I’ve always known that, but I can’t—” He stopped, then forced himself to continue. “But I can’t stop wanting that to be wrong. Can’t stop wanting you. Wanting that life we almost had, that we could have had if I’d been a better man. So I went out and found someone I thought I deserved. Someone who wasn’t any damn better than me. Sam was what I deserved.”

“That—” Elizabeth shook her head. “What are you saying? Because of Sam’s past, she somehow gets the life that I begged you for? What kind of bullshit answer is that? Why can’t you just tell me the damned truth? Okay, just tell me! Tell me you loved her more, I can take it—”

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Jason bit out. “Even if it’s what you want to hear. You wanted the truth, I’m giving it to you. I don’t deserve you.” He held out his hands. “I’ve killed people with my bare hands, damn it! I’ve taken lives, and you’ve spent your life saving them! You’ve been back in my life for six months and you’re on trial for murdering a fucking an FBI agent because of me—”

“Don’t—” She stabbed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare act like I don’t know exactly who you are. Do you know how stupid you make me feel when you act like this?”

“You’re not stupid—”

“You did this to me once before. You demanded to know why I loved you, why I wanted to be with you, and I am so sick of having to justify my choices, my feelings—” The words were ragged, dragged from somewhere deep, and even if he couldn’t see the tears on her cheeks, he could hear them. “You don’t think you’re good enough for me. And apparently, you wanted some as dirty as you think you are. Great. Glad we figured that out—” Elizabeth held out her hands. “You know what? This was a mistake. You’re right. I do deserve better than someone who thinks I don’t know my own mind, that I can’t possibly love him. I am done having this conversation. Done. You don’t think you deserve love, and there’s a part of you that doesn’t respect me for trying to giving it to you anyway—”

Stunned, Jason couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and she took that chance to whip open the passenger, but he recovered in time to catch the door before she could get it wide enough. “You think I don’t respect you?” he managed. “Is that—is that what you really think?”

“What do you expect me to think?” Elizabeth asked, turning to him, close enough now so that he could see the tears shimmering in her eyes. “You throw my love in my face every chance you get. Don’t you get that? Every time you tell me I deserve better, you tell me you don’t respect my ability to make my own choices. I know what you’ve done, Jason. I know who you are. You’re the only one who can’t seem to handle that fact. I’ve stood by you with gunshots, bomb threats, kidnappings—I have never flinched. Not first. That’s always been you.”

He released the door and put a hand at the nape of her neck tugging her forward, the pad of his thumb sweeping across her jawline. “I know that—”

“Do you?” she demanded. “Because it doesn’t feel like it from here. We’re fine one minute, and then you go see your ex-wife, and now all of a sudden, you don’t deserve me and she’s the filth you do deserve, and I just don’t understand how we always end up back here—”

He cut her off, dragging her against him roughly, covering his mouth with his, her lips cold beneath his, but as sweet and addictive as they’d been the first time he’d finally managed to taste them all those years ago, when he’d cursed himself for ever hesitating in the first place.

Thunder rolled, and lightning cracked again, and he finally released her, leaning his forehead against hers. “I do love you. I hate that you don’t believe me—”

“Love isn’t the problem, though, is it?” she sighed, then kissed him lightly, sliding her fingers through his short, damp hair. “You just don’t want to let me love you. All these years, and you still don’t trust that I can know every inch of who you are and love you anyway.”

“I want to—” Jason exhaled slowly, then stepped back, letting the door fall open more. “Get in. We’re going to drown out here, and I don’t want to scream at you just so you can hear me.”

She bit her lip, then nodded, and turned, jolting slightly when he boosted her slightly to help her up into the SUV faster.

When he was back in the driver’s side and had switched on the heater, he somehow had found the words he’d needed so desperately earlier. “Sam was already angry when I got there, already on the offensive. I guess she’d talked to Alexis, and she knew Danny was with us today.” He stared straight ahead. “She started in on the greatest hits — I’ve spent more time raising Carly’s kids, that the only way to hurt me is to use someone else since I don’t care about myself —” He looked at Elizabeth. “And before I know it, we’re talking about that summer.”

“Jason—”

“I think—I think I knew that you’d asked her to use that show to look for Jake.” Jason stopped,  took a breath. “When she mentioned it, I didn’t remember because it hadn’t seemed important. Or maybe I didn’t know. I don’t know. But I didn’t realize she’d refused.”

Elizabeth’s lips thinned, pressed into an unhappy line. “I don’t know if we need to re-litigate it—”

“You wanted to know why it was fine one minute, and now we’re back having this conversation,” Jason said, and Elizabeth sighed, nodded. “Because you knew she’d refused. You knew she’d come to your house and, I don’t know, did she try to make you think Jake was dead?”

“I—” Elizabeth’s breath was shaky when she spoke again. “I think so. At the time, I just thought she was drunk, and angry about us, about Jake, and I didn’t think about it again. Not even after you told me what she’d known. What she’d let happen. I guess now — going back — it gives it all another texture, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. And you knew all of that. You knew that when she and I — you knew that. And you still—”

“You told me she had changed, and I believed you,” Elizabeth said slowly. “And up until these last few months, Jason, I had mostly believed it, too. Plus,” her lips curved in a humorless smile. “We both know I tried my hand at revenge—”

“Less than a day, you held that truth back about Danny. No one knows that but me,” Jason told her, and she closed her eyes. “You came clean. You told me yourself, even though you knew what might happen. Don’t think that doesn’t make a difference, Elizabeth. You and Sam — that’s not a comparison.”

“So she takes you on a journey of the greatest hits, and we’re arguing up at Vista Point—”

“Because the same reason you’re angry with me — it’s the same anger I have. The same disgust. The life I wanted with you — with the boys — I gave it to her, and I don’t have a good reason. I don’t have the words I need to make you understand, because I don’t understand it either.” He met her gaze. “I looked at her tonight, and I saw the woman I’d chose instead of you, and I hated myself. So maybe it’s hard to understand why you don’t hate me, too.”

Elizabeth bit her lip, looked down at her fingers, at nails that she’d bit down to the quick over the last few weeks, he realized.

“Once upon a time, you offered me the world, and I looked at you, and I told you I didn’t want it. I wanted to be with Lucky.” She looked at him, a ghost of a smile curving her lips. “And then I kissed you in my studio, and turned around and slept with Zander. I looked you in the face and told you my face wouldn’t change, and then I left anyway. I forgave and married Ric after he locked Carly in a panic room. I asked you, on the day you buried your father, to let Lucky raise your son. And then, on the days after you buried your sister, I asked you to let the secret continue.  I married Franco, the man who tormented you and Sam for years. I don’t know, Jason. Should you hate me for all those things, too? Or are you the only person who makes life-altering mistakes?”

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