67 - The Ticking of the Clock

Lilah frowned, shaking her head grumpily.  Something had woken her up.

There.  There it was again.

What was that noise?  It sounded like a baby crying, but that was impossible.  She hadn’t had a baby in her house for almost two decades.  Was it a horny cat?  Maybe the one that  left the paw prints on her car?

Pushing the hair from her face, sat up in bed ready to go in search of the mysterious noise.  She had just pulled the covers back and was about to swing her feet to the floor when a big, warm hand halted her momentum.

“Don’t get up,” came Tony’s sleep-thick voice through the darkness as he gave her thigh a gentle squeeze, and then reached for his glasses.  “I’ll feed and change her this time.  You can go back to sleep.”

Regret smothered Lilah into consciousness and she rubbed an open palm over her chest, massaging air back into her lungs. 

Life was full of regrets.  She certainly had her own fair share, but she hadn’t planned on recruiting any new ones.  The past was gone and, along with it, her mistakes.  There was nothing to be done about it.  But Europe…  Europe wasn’t supposed to have a single regret.

One more thing you’ve screwed up, Lilah Jane.  What number does that take you up to?  Can a dumb redneck like you even count that high?

✧✧✧

TO: misslilahjane

From: aussie_angel

August 5, 2011

It’s been THREE DAYS.  You get home and don’t even bother to email?  Hmpf!  So much for the daily Lilah updates. 

*pushing bitterness aside*

Well hello Miss Lilah!  I've been wondering how you're doing now that you're home from your whirlwind tour?  Did you hug the stuffing out of Andrew?     Is life back to "normal"?

How many times have you talked to Tony?  I know you can’t just quit him cold turkey.  Can you??  There’s no way you can just walk away after a summer like that and never look back. 

No.  Freaking.  Way!

Now I’m making myself crazy thinking that you really HAVEN’T talked to him.  This is worse than thinking you talked to him and hadn’t shared.

What’s going on??? I need an update!!!!  Pronto!!

xoxo

~A~

TO: misslilahjane

From: Morgan_Prince

August 7, 2011

ARE YOU ALIVE?

TO: misslilahjane

From: aussie_angel

August 8, 2011

Okay, seriously, Lilah.  SIX DAYS?!?!?!  This isn’t funny.  What’s going on? 

Email me, dammit!

~A~

TO: misslilahjane

From: Morgan_Prince

August 10, 2011

I assume from the lack of response that you are NOT alive and that your memorial service was both tasteful and elegant.  If you ARE alive, at this point I’m going to kill you, so starting making arrangements.  K?

A wave of guilt ate away at Lilah like an ugly acid.

You suck, Lilah Jane.  You completely and totally SUCK.  You were so involved in your own little world of denial and avoidance that you didn’t have the common courtesy to let Angel and Morgan know you’d gotten home alive. 

Even after promising her on-line friends that she would be back to normal as soon as she got to Lexington, she turned right around and avoided her email like the plague.   Because of Tony.

At first, the punch of adrenaline – and hope – that came with each sing-songy notification of a text message or phone call was exhilarating.  Was it Tony?  Just a quick “Hello” or “How ya doing?”?  Despite the logical part of her mind shouting quite firmly that she wouldn’t be hearing from him, there was a stubborn soft patch in her head that she was convinced connected directly to her heart. 

That squishy bit of brain was sorely disappointed – repeatedly – when logic reigned supreme, as it so often did.  He didn’t call, nor did he text.   Really, why would he?  By her count, he should be smack dab in the middle of that motorcycle event he loved so much.  He would be having a ball without a spare moment to think.

Her pride wouldn’t allow her to admit it to anyone, but Lilah was…  Well, she wouldn’t go so far as to use the word devastated, but it was a pretty intense disappointment.   No, she hadn’t expected him to fall at her feet over a pithy ‘I love you’.  Lilah made a point not to expect anything from anybody. 

But sometimes she foolishly hoped.

Her hopes had been dashed enough by lack of phone communication.  She hadn’t been eager to add a Tony-less email inbox to the list, and her friends are the ones who had suffered.

Suck it up, Buttercup.  You set yourself up for this fall.  Don’t make everyone else pay for it.

For the most part, she thought she did a good job and the day-to-day of her regular life had resumed with very little effort. 

Several evenings she had fixed dinner for Andrew, and even Zach on a couple of occasions.  Lilah loved those evenings.  It was such fun to have the two boys together discussing their ‘career’, and they were both thrilled to death with the feedback they’d received from Richie.  While he wasn’t personally going to do anything with the songs, he agreed to pass them onto a producer friend with a request to give them ‘extra special’ attention.  What more could two budding musicians ask for? 

Still recovering from her bout of absentee mother-ism, one day she found herself knocking on Andrew’s apartment door and begging to be allowed to clean it from top to bottom.  They were both eager and appreciative until they realized that their huge piles of dirty clothes were no longer dirty.  What was it about teenage boys and dirty clothes?  Seriously.

When she wasn’t being a clean-freak parent, she fell back into a routine with Joanna.  Pitching in at the shop to pass the time, cooking the odd dinner her friend recovered from a day at ‘the office’, and generally just hanging out, it was much like old times – with one notable exception.  Lilah didn’t feel pressured.  She was doing what she wanted to do and Joanna was exceptionally laid back as of late.  There were no ‘polite games’ and Lilah was loving that!

Two nights ago there had been the potential for such an instance.  With Joanna feeling exceptionally well that evening, the two of them had decided to go out for drinks and dinner.  That meant a little ‘bling’ in Lilah’s language and she decided to kick up the dress code a notch by wearing the same outfit she’d worn to the wrap party in Lisbon.  Form-fitting jeans that had more form to fit thanks to her homemade casseroles,  the Harley shirt and the boots Tony had bought for her came out of the closet.

“Oh,” was Joanna’s slightly flabbergasted response.  “I’ve never seen you wear that outfit before.”

“I bought it all while I was gone.”  A twinge of sadness tried to dull her pleasure.  “Well, except for the boots.  Tony actually got them for me.”

“Tony, huh?”

Lilah held her breath, waiting for a snide comment. 

“You think you’ll ever get over him?”

Wow.  I’m impressed.  Genuine interest.

“I don’t know,” she admitted quietly.  “I’m tryin’ to, seein’ as it’s a one-sided thing, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to or not.”

Jo slipped her arm around Lilah’s waist for a silent hug and that was that.  Things were definitely better between the friends nowadays.

Speaking of friends…

It was time to check in with her long-distance girls and do some electronic groveling.

TO: aussie_angel; Morgan_Prince

FROM: misslilahjane

August 13, 2011

Hey my darling girls!  I have not fallen off the face of the earth.  I have not died (sorry Morgan.  I’ll make sure and document your wishes for my funeral though).  Nothing tragic at all.  I just suck.

Truth?  I’ve been avoiding coming to my email and finding nothing there from TBJ.  At least if I didn’t check, I had the hopeful delusion that he’d written me this huge, long, chatty email.  You know the kind, right?  Where he declares his undying love for me and gives up life as he knows it to come to bum-fucked-Kentucky for a silly redneck dreamer?  I’ve gotten those from several other men, but not him.  ;-)

It’s all good and I truly do apologize for being neglectful.  Things have been busy getting back to the ‘real world’.  Errands, shopping, cooking, housekeeping, Andrew, Joanna, gearing up for work.  All that really fun stuff. 

So the answer to your question (spoken or unspoken) is no.  While I dream crazy, lifelike dreams about him every night, I haven’t heard a peep from the man and don’t really expect to.  It would be nice, but I’m a realist girls.  I had my eyes wide-open going into this mess.  If there’s any blame to be laid, it’s on me. 

I just…  I haven’t said this out loud.  It’s so much easier to type things you would never say, so I’m going to type it.  If you all give me crap over this, well…  I’m blaming it on a psychotic episode and claiming no recollection of the event whatsoever.  *narrows eyes menacingly*  Do you hear me??

Good. 

Now my embarrassing revelation.  I wish I knew that I’d accomplished what I set out to do and ‘saved his life’ like he saved mine.  Melodramatic and stupid, yes?  Well, duh.  That’s me. 

Seriously though, if I knew I’d made a real difference, I would never look back again.  Before I left, he was smoking and drinking less and I think he’d lost some weight.  (Lots of exercise, you know.  *blush*) Those are good things in short or long term, but…  Does he know that he’s lovable?  That what he wants matters?  That he’s every bit as important as the ‘famous’ Bongiovi?

Ugh.  I’m officially the biggest dork ever.  Save his life.  *rolls eyes*  Lord, Lilah.  Think much of yourself? 

Moving on to the recap:  I’m alive, I suck, I miss my summer fling and I love you both to pieces.  That pretty much covers it.

Now…  Tell me about YOU!!

LJ  xoxo

She knew that her friends’ simple answer to the problem would be for Lilah to call him, but she wasn’t going to.  Absolutely not.  It wasn’t fair to Tony.  She’d made a deal with him and she would honor it without nipping at his heels like a begging puppy.

Besides…  Rejection had been painful enough the first time.  She wasn’t interested in repeating the experience.