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To Be Seen Again

By: Contrasting



Elizabeth stopped at the door to Clemmons High School. She was late, perhaps a statement of her emotional inertia, her reluctance, her bone-deep dread. The blunt doors were still painted the school colors, yellow and orange which still clashed with her yellow-blond hair. She left Keller five years ago, not all that long but still it seemed like forever. She took a full breath and let it hiss between her teeth, squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and waited for the resolve to well up in her. When it did, she pulled open the door and walked into the dirty light of the hall. The sound of music, familiar music touched her and all the times she had gone through that door—albeit in the morning and like now, arriving late—flooded into her mind. She turned to the trophy case and found her reflection, smoothed her taffeta dress, puffy and pink. She did not know why she wore the dress. It made her look like a school girl again but it seemed to capture the surreal feeling of returning to her high school. She thought about Tyler Torrance, her old flame. She had heard of the accident that took his sight, a terse email that referenced it in passing from one of the girls, women she still kept contact with. 

She began the long walk past the procession of closed lockers standing like stolid soldiers awaiting her arrival at attention. Elizabeth smiled at the old fantasy; one she had developed the first time she got sent to the principal's office and found herself walking through the empty, mute halls of lockers and closed doors. Only then, she dreamed she was going to her execution. It had lifted the mood and the sense of injustice at how Mr. Abernathy treated her in class, like she was a dumb blond. It had made her so angry and finally his smirk when he addressed her as 'your blondness' broke her resolution to keep quiet and endure. Her ire rose and her sharp tongue got her into deep trouble; addressing your teacher as 'your dicklessness' was never going to be acceptable no matter how justified. But he was such a jerk! She wept in Mr. Halas' office and the old man did not know what to do but patiently waited till the tears passed and then reprimanded her for her thoughtlessness and gave her a strategy to deal with men like Abject Abernathy. When he called the English teacher that, she laughed through the tears. Short, balding and skinny as a chicken wing, the man was bitter and contemptuous but, Mr. Halas had said with a cute sigh, 'I just cannot get rid of him—union contracts.' He shrugged. 

Elizabeth heard the music change and the door to the gym opened followed by a red-headed shriek as Cheryl saw her. The girl, woman flung herself down the hall, her long, form-fitting green dress dragging behind her and what a form! Cheryl had developed the curves that had been obscured by excess body weight in high school. The transformation was beginning senior year but now it appeared totally complete. The girl was gone and a full-figured woman had emerged, but the girl still shined in Cheryl's excited blue eyes. 

"Lizzzzzzzzzy Boooooorrrrrden!" Cheryl shrieked and then they were hugging and dancing around each other. "Everyone is asking about you, wondering if you were coming and no one knew. What a mystery you have been!" Then she sobered. "I am so sorry about your parents. I know," tears appeared in her eyes, "I know it must have been so terrible! When you got into Princeton and they moved to be close to you, we felt the loss here and when we heard they had been killed in the accident . . . oh, Lizzy!" Cheryl pulled her into another embrace. When they broke, she said, "I should have been there, come to New Jersey but things were so, we left things so ugly. I said awful things . . . "

Elizabeth held up a hand, patting the air. "The past is the past, Cheryl. Now is now. I am here to bury the past and move into the shining future." She sounded more even-tempered then she felt. Her ears rang with tension and she shuddered with it.  

Behind them the door opened and three more girls, women . . . Lizzy usually thought of herself as a woman but here it was so easy to morph back into the girlness of high school and the constant throb of anticipation about just everything! So far, life after high school was a mixed bag. The three women, ah hell, Elizabeth thought, we are girls here and likely always will be. The three girls boiled out the double doors, banging one hard against the wall, jabbering like hens let out of the hen house first thing in the morning. Bailey, Claryce and Alma joined Lizzy and Cheryl, breathlessly hugging and then each in turn sobering and passing on delayed condolences. 

Claryce hugged her the hardest; the black girl was taller and leaner than she had been in high school but more fully a woman, her breasts proudly displayed enviable cleavage in her red dress. Her face had cleared and smoothed to become as beautiful as her luxurious black hair, elegantly coifed. "Girl, no one has heard from you since graduation. You knocked the dust off your sandals and never looked back! Whatchu been doing?" 

"I went to Princeton and got a fellowship to the London School of Economics. I will go there to finish my Master's in International Economics next summer." Elizabeth could not keep the pride out of her voice. It was a huge deal to her and she realized she wanted it to be huge to them as well. 

"London! You're going to London!" Claryce squealed and hugged her again, nearly lifting Elizabeth off the floor. She rose to her tippy toes to keep from losing all contact with the ground. "You sure showed them, didn't you!" Then the laughing eyes sobered. "You got your diploma all right, after you went on to Princeton?"

"We had to sue but I got it fine. The school buckled when our attorney demonstrated the foolishness of their case against me. I did not cheat and their proof was one teacher's vendetta against me. The shit!" Abel Portnoy had accused her of cheating on her final phyics exam, a test she could have opted out of but wanted to nail it to complete her 4.0. His accusations had prevented her from graduating with her class and celebrating on one hand or on the other, as Claryce said, allowed her to knock the dust of Keller off her sandals and never look back. At the time, she thought it was possible to leave and never look back. She was shattered that the young teacher would be so cruel for no reason. She left town, moving to New Jersey for the summer just to avoid the issue while her parents fought the battle for her. Despite the fact she was eighteen, her father had allowed her to leave to escape not only the scandal of the accusation but the heartbreak she endured that last semester. The next year, just when she was getting her equilibrium back again, things went from bad to worse when her parents were killed in a snowy pile-up on the freeway into Pennsylvania. They were two of seven people killed on the icy roads that day. Since then, she had gradually reconstructed herself and her life. This visit back to Keller would tell her how strong that reconstruction would prove to be by challenging her to deal with a past she would rather forget but simply could not. 

Elizabeth realized the four girls were silent and looking at her. She shook her head and smiled. "Let's party!" She did not get the reaction from anyone she expected and sought. 

Bailey, a girl with the finest light brown hair and the best skin in their class, put a hand her arm. "Lizzy, Tyler is here." She said softly. "You know what happened, right?"

Elizabeth felt her smile fade, but suddenly the reality of her life suffused her, like a slug of brandy on a cold night. She nodded. Her eyes dropped to the dull tan linoleum floor, heart tapping in her temples. "Yes, I think I heard the story. An accident in the service, with a grenade or something? He was in Iraq, right?"

The four girls nodded together. 

It was so unlikely, so campy, Elizabeth could not help but laugh. "You guys, don't worry! That is all in the past. There are worse things than to be left at the alter!" She did not say the rest of the thought in her mind. Worse things like being alone in a strange town and needing to arrange her parent's funeral; keeping her grades up so she could keep her scholarship while haunted by her past, things like that. Telling her boyfriend, Tyler Torrence she had a miscarriage the week before her scheduled wedding and then discovering he was only marrying her because she was pregnant, but not till he failed to show up at the church, those things were difficult to forgive and impossible to forget. Her part in them haunted her. 

The memories all crashed into her but the pain, the sting, the slash and burn anger no longer boiled up in her, at herself or at Tyler. Elizabeth Cambray was ready to move on and she was in Keller to prove it. "I am fine. It is horrible what happened to him. I feel terrible. But that is past too. I'll be in London next year and you girls should come visit!" 

For a moment, no one responded and Elizabeth feared she had misjudged the situation again but then Bailey screamed and hugged her. "That would be fabulous!" The others joined in and she walked with them through the door. The reunion was in full swing, decorated like the prom, the infamous prom when she had given herself to Tyler. He had already signed up for the Marines and she thought she would never see him again, that he would find someone else. Then she told him the result, that she was pregnant and his face lit with excitement. Then he left her waiting in the room of the church, waiting for him to appear for five hours till finally, she faced that fact that he was not coming. She had thought her world had come to an end, that this was the result of her actions. Never could she have imagined how terrible things could actually get . . . for them both. Her mind shied away from the whole situation. 

Cheryl grabbed her by the arm and leaned into her. "What are you going to do with Tyler?" She whispered.

Elizabeth pushed her away a little and looked into her freckled face. "Dance with him, I suppose." In that moment, the throbbing sound of Eminem ended to be replaced by the throaty cooing of Barry White, a party constant at the dances in Keller. Elizabeth squared her shoulders as couple after couple flowed out into the dance area. She slipped free of the girls and walked towards where Tyler stood talking to guys from the football team. 

Her approach silenced them. Tyler wore the cliché dark glasses but even then, the scarring on his face as still visible, shiny gouges in his once smooth skin somehow did not change his attractiveness. It made him more rugged, manlier. He remained handsome but in a different way.

"What is it? Why did everyone stop talking?" Tyler asked, turning his head this way and that. "Hello? Anyone there?"

Constantine Johnson and Avery Lambert glanced at each other.

"Hello, Tyler." Elizabeth said softly, ignoring the fidgeting guys around Tyler. "I'd ask how have you been but it is pretty obvious life has been cruel to you. Would you care to dance?"

For a moment the little world which encompassed her and Tyler simply stopped. His face struggled, his cheeks flinched and his lips trembled. "Oh Lizzy! You came!" Tyler breathed, his voice seemed a small step away from a sob. "I am blind, Lizzy."

Elizabeth reached for his hand and found it unchanged, big and strong, broad across the knuckles just as she remembered. "When we danced at the prom you closed your eyes and we did just fine. Come on, dance with me!" 

The guys around Tyler looked up at him. Tyler was six-three. He had been the quarterback and star forward for the basketball team. He bowed his head but he did not take back his hand. "Okay, Lizzy. No one can keep up with me like you can." 

She led Tyler onto the dance floor and sure enough, they swayed and the old voodoo that you do returned. 

"You'll have to steer some, so we don't run anyone over." Tyler said. 

Before she could answer, he pivoted and dipped her, lowering her till her blond curls brushed the floor and then pulled her back to her feet and into a slow, graceful spin. When she was back in his arms and she regained her breath, she said brightly, "See, you have not lost it. Not even a little bit!" 

He grinned but it faded quickly. "Just keep us from running into anyone." Tyler muttered. 

Elizabeth glanced around the floor. One after another the other couples were leaving the floor. Someone up in the technical balcony turned on a spot light and lit them and suddenly they were all alone in the spot light. She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder. "I don't think that will be a problem. Just dance like you are the only guy on the floor." 

Tyler took the idea literally and began to turn them, not violently but constantly, interspersing lady-unders and then pulling her back into his arms only to dip her. The old thrill of dancing with someone who knew how to lead warmed her, the pleasure made her smile as though all the things which had happened to her and between them was . . . was . . . Elizabeth lifted her head and looked at the man holding her in his arms. He felt the movement and his hand brushed her hair, stroking down the back of her head and onto her back, lightly but with a comforting familiarity. Her thoughts stopped till his hand drifted down her back to her waist, then the small of her back and then lower to cup her left buttock.

"Hey, buster!" Elizabeth whispered. "Everyone is watching!" 

"They can't see us through the crowd." Tyler said, squeezing her ass again.

"Ugh." Elizabeth groaned and dropped her head onto his shoulder. It was a gentle groan, a little groan, a small sound that was whipped away by the music. The feel of his hand on her body like that felt so good, so familiar; her body began to respond. She moved her hand up his shoulder, still rock-solid and if anything, broader than the last time she had seen him, more filled out. She found her hand caressing the back of his neck the way he liked it, loved it. He pulled her closer, pressing them together so that she felt his response. She pulled back a bit, realizing what was happening. "No, really, they have turned the spot on and everyone else has left the floor. Everyone really is watching us." 

"Oh. Oh!" Tyler said and removed his hand from her ass and turned her into a graceful twirl and then dipped her. When she was upright again, they were a respectable distance apart once more. The music began to end and he dipped her into the last strains of the ending song and suddenly the whole room was clapping. 

Tyler righted her and despite herself, Elizabeth hugged him, pressing her body into the rigid lines of his. Tyler smiled and waved, recalling his victory wave when he left the football field or basketball court, victorious. When the clapping persisted, he dipped her again and when he drew her up, breathless, he kissed her lightly on the lips. The crowd roared and the clapping redoubled, with just the slightest hint of relief running through the on-lookers who were in-the-know.

For a moment, Elizabeth was nonplussed. 

"Ah, sorry, Lizzy. Old habits die hard, especially the ones a guy really loved." Tyler released her and they stood hand in hand, bathed in the brilliant white light for another moment while the clapping began to recede. She pulled him off the floor, out of the light and when her eyes adjusted, she could see her friends and old schoolmates smiling and nodding at her. 

Cheryl came up to them and took Elizabeth's free hand. "You two were great! Just like old times. Tyler, can I steal her away from you for a moment?" 

"No. No stealing, only borrowing and only for a minute. Then we must dance again! Lizzy is still the best dancer I have ever dipped, even to this day."

Elizabeth laughed and dropped his strong hand, feeling the lingering reluctance in it, echoing her own. She felt warm and happy, recalling the days when all seemed right with the world while she danced in this very gym beneath the watchful eyes of the teachers and parents sponsoring the senior prom. Keller was not a large enough town to have a hotel so the prom always happened in the gym. 

Cheryl pulled her away. She held up a jangling wad of keys in front them. "Know what this is?"

Elizabeth pulled her head back a little. "Ah, keys?"

"To the music room and guess what? The new music teacher said that old silver sax is still there. Remember, the one Tyler used at the talent show to play that medley ending with 'Chaple of Love' before he knelt down and asked you to marry him, in front of everybody?"

Elizabeth's heart lurched. She remembered. It has been the most romantic thing. This was his response to hearing her tell him she was pregnant; no one knew about their conversation that week, or later that she told him of a miscarriage that had scuttled her wedding and ended their romance the previous week. She left soon after to New Jersey, under the shadow of disgrace. She wondered if Tyler had ever let on what had happened and why. Who knew, who else had learned of what had destroyed them and perhaps had been damaged by it as well? "Okay, so? Is it still there?"

"Oh Lizzy, I hope you don't think am being pushy but you two looked so great out there. I thought you could bring him the sax and ask him to play something for us. You used to love that sax and how he played it. I think it is wonderful that you have forgiven him."

Elizabeth sensed immediately that 'the question' was around the corner, waiting; the one about 'what happened' and 'why did you leave so suddenly'. The answer was simple, to avoid those questions. She grabbed at the keys and said, "Great idea! I'll be back." 

Cheryl pulled them out of her reach then showed her the two she would need and told her where the cabinet with the old battered sax was. Legend had it that it had first come to the school from a teacher returning from the First World War, a man missing his left leg and right eye who began the tradition of both football and the marching band. Gale Goddard was the patriarch of everything beloved at Keller High. 

Elizabeth found the sax and discovered it was clean and beautiful. The instrument was shiny silver instead of the brassy yellow saxophones usually possessed. It almost seemed as if someone had anticipated that moment when she presented it to Tyler. "Tyler, I have something for you."

"Oh?" He said cocking his head, "is it going to explode? I already made that mistake once." 

Elizabeth heard gasps but plunged into the brittle silence, her heart thrumming in her chest. "It's the saxophone. I want you to play something for us. Do you still play? Please tell me you do!"

Tyler put out both hands; one found her elbow and the other the kinked curve of the sax. They moved till he held it like a jazz man and he smiled. "I still play. I managed to get one over in Iraq and I played a lot. I cleaned that sax as much as I cleaned my weapons. Sand in a sax is terrible. What shall I play?"

The music and dancing behind them stopped and the murmur and hubbub of the crowd returned, interspersed with jags of laughter. 

"Whatever you like, Tyler." Elizabeth said softly, "Whatever you like."

He trilled on the sax for a moment and then began to play the ancient song from World War Two. Elizabeth was not sure of the title but it started with the line, "Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me". It was a jaunty tune and Tyler slid off the table he was sitting on to play it. A crowd formed and when he stopped, they clapped. He looked over them, his black glasses tilted so he appeared to be looking over them, his head turning back and forth as though trying to catch some sound, some particular sound. The crowd began to chant 'more, more, more!' and Tyler laughed delightedly and started to play. It was the classic from the Four Tops. The strains of 'Baby I need your Lovin' caught Elizabeth and shook her. She could not help it, she felt it was for her, that it was their song, his song for her. 


To Be Seen Again



She loved the song and Tyler had played it the night after the talent show, just before offering her the ring, the ring she still had on a chain around her neck, the ring she had come to Keller to return to him as part of her absolution. Despite her best intentions, Elizabeth wept. She did not sob, she did not break down but the tears rolled down her cheeks, one after the other, beading on the distinct line of her elegant chin till they swelled and dropped. She left them, proud to be able to finally cry again. She glanced at Cheryl and Claryce and saw tears on their cheeks too. 

When the song ended, Tyler handed it to Charlie Prater and held out a hand, "Elizabeth, if you are still there, would you care to dance again?"

She giggled and took his hand, the music started, a suitably slow song, the DJ was cogent and aware. This time everyone joined them on the floor. Elizabeth steered them gently through the throng, holding onto his strong arms, amazed that he was still in such good shape. "When did it happen?" She finally spoke, trying to get past the immensity of the moment without ignoring it and repressing it. That was not why she was here. It was to address it, to deal with the past before she began her career as an Economist and returned to the academic world. No the truth was she needed to heal, to regain the ability to love and trust another person, specifically a man but mostly, to trust herself again when it came to men. She had found it impossible to open up to anyone, to allow herself to feel close to another man in the intervening time and she finally determined it was the lack of closure with Tyler and indeed, through him, with all of Keller. She had to return and set things right, an emotional pilgrimage.

Tyler danced in silence for a while and then stopped. "Is there somewhere we can talk, Liz? I owe you an apology and this is the time but not the place."

Elizabeth responded by guiding them from the floor and straight to the doors and into the hall beyond. She turned down the hall toward the security gate sealing them into this part of the school. She fumbled in her little purse and found the keys, found the right key which opened the gate and pulled Tyler through and closed it tight before anyone saw them. She pulled him around the corner and stopped. "Did you ever get out onto the balcony outside Mr. Halas' office? At night, it is beautiful. Mr. Halas took me there the night after the school board meeting when they refused to dismiss those accusations and let me graduate. I thought we could go there and talk. It is quiet and," she jingled the keys, "through some administrative oversight, I have the keys."

Tyler only nodded in the dimness of the hall. Elizabeth took his arm and guided him through the familiar warren of corridors and up the three flights of stairs in the old building to the office. While she sorted through the keys trying to find the office key, Tyler stood and waited. 

"You're different, Liz." He said softly.

"Got it." The door clicked and she pushed it in, a small light from a water cooler lit the outer office, with the long counter where Mrs. Gillen had greeted every visitor with a stern look and a 'what do you want?' which put everyone in their place. Elizabeth guided Tyler through the office to the door of the principal's office and again searched the keys. 

"You would never have done this in high school. You always played by the rules, did what was expected and did it very, very well. And look what happened." Tyler whispered. 

Elizabeth's breath caught, her chest ached. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "You don't have to whisper, Tyler. No one is here and what happens if we get caught? I doubt anyone would throw the town hero into jail." She found the key and the door opened. 

"The town heel, more like. Everyone remembers what I did to you. I ran from it as hard as I could till the grenade took my eyes. I had to stop running or I was going to crash into something so hard it would kill me. Running blind is almost as dangerous as running stupid."

She knew all about running. Elizabeth listened to his voice and heard the sadness, the loss in his tone. The buoyant, boisterous youth to whom she had given her virginity was gone. Before her stood a man fighting against a shattering experience and she understood that fight. Hers had been different but she understood the pain and the wish to escape which would never come true. Impulsively, she hooked a hand behind his neck and pulled him down to her lips, fitting hers against his, she kissed him. For a moment, he resisted, pulled back but then he released the reluctance and his arm went around her waist and the other hand took firm hold of her shoulder. He kissed her and kissed her thoroughly, deeply and well. 

When he released her, she was panting and he gasped, "Oh god, I can't be doing this!" 

Elizabeth shivered, the feeling of his hands on her again, his lips and the need in his kiss touched her, shook her, aroused her, the sweeting longing welled up in her loins. The attraction, the need, the desire all piled together behind the dam of her control and threatened her hold on herself. She had not come to Keller to kiss Tyler Torrence she said to herself but he was such a great kisser. 

She shook herself. "Stand right there. I am going to see if I can get the door to the outside open." The door was a fire door with a window with the lattice of wire in the glass. She tried and it was locked. She unlocked it and the door swung open and the cool night air ruffled her dress. She went back to Tyler and led him to the door. "There is a high threshold here," she said. 

Tyler stepped over it. "I remember. Mr. Halas took me out her around that time too, before I left for the Marines." 

The 'balcony' was the roof of the science room down below and a fire escape ran down the side of the building past the classroom window. A waist high brick wall surrounded the area with a gravel and tar roof that crunched under their shoes as they walked to the edge. The breeze was cool and pleasant. 

Tyler felt the wall and stopped. His hand ran up her body and took her by her shoulders and turned her. He bent and Elizabeth met his lips with hers and they kissed again. 

It's just chemistry. Chemistry, it's just chemistry! Lizzy told herself, but despite the mantra in her brain, her hand lifted to his cheek and caressed it, lightly and lovingly as she had a hundred times during their years in high school. Tyler pulled back as though her touch burned him. 

"Oh god, oh god, Lizzy I cannot be doing this! I am engaged."

For a moment, Lizzy felt like she had been hit in the stomach. The dance, the sax, their friends, it all seemed to be soaked in the rain of the past. It felt so real, so familiar, so comfortable. "I know. Not that you are engaged . . . congratulations, by the way. But you are right, I am different. No one calls me 'Lizzy' at Princeton. I am Elizabeth Cambray to them. I am sorry, I should not have kissed you . . . ."

"I think I started it. I am not really engaged but I am living with someone. Chris is the nurse that got me through rehab with my sanity intact. We . . . I was going to say 'fell in love' but that is what you and I did, though it snuck up on us. With Chris it is different, complicated. Not like you and me. You and I, we just knew we would end up together, never questioned it. It was not like we got struck by lightning or anything but one day I woke up and knew I wanted you and only you. And then . . . ." Tyler's voice constricted, he choked back something and swallowed, a loud sound in the silent night. 

Elizabeth laid a hand on his, the one resting on the cool concrete cap of the red brick wall. "Tyler, you should be happy. I am glad you found someone. I, I did not intend for this to happen. While I was at Princeton I was exposed to the idea that sexual attraction is really just a chemical reaction. Don't get me wrong, it is real and fun and wonderfully powerful but it is just chemistry. The chemistry is real and that is why we were so good together. That kiss just proves it. I, I felt it down to my toes and if I thought you could kiss me now and not feel guilty, I would kiss you again, just because it feels good. But growing up is usually the process of learning that things which feel good are not always the things which are good for you."

"And marrying a blind man would not be good for someone like you." Tyler answered. 

Elizabeth laid her hand against his lips, stopping any more words of that sort. He grasped her by the wrist but neither of them moved to change the tableau they formed. When his lips kissed her fingers, Elizabeth shivered with a need she had lived without for so long and it made her ache with longing.

Tyler pulled her hand down to hold it. "I have regretted what I did to you every moment of every day since I woke up the day after and realized what I had done to you, to us. I am so, so terribly sorry. I deserve to be blind and worse for what I did to you, Lizzy . . . er . . . Elizabeth."

Elizabeth caressed his face and he folded his head against her hand. That was when she felt the dampness, no, the tears on his cheeks. His eyes were not damaged so badly that he could not cry, she thought. "Nothing could be worse than being blind, don't say that!"

"Not so, Lizzy. I saw lots of things which are worse. I saw things I wish I could wash out of my brain, things I cannot even find words to describe. But even if that had happened to me, I do not think it would be punishment enough for the unhappiness I caused you." 

Elizabeth found the chain around her neck and pulled at it till she had the small diamond ring in her fingers. She unfastened the chain and released the ring. "Tyler, I came back to give you this. I want you to take it back, not because I do not want it but because I want it, I want what we had back . . . before, I want the past to change, I want my parents back. I want graduation day and to party with my friends, for my friends to be friends again." She pressed the ring into his hand, then slipped it onto his little finger. "And I want you but that is all in the past and we have to live with it all, just as it is." She almost said more but her courage failed her. 

Tyler gulped, a finger running over the diamond before dropping her hand and holding it with both of his. "I skipped graduation too. I felt everyone hated me. Mr. Halas gave me my diploma before I left for boot camp and told me I had made a terrible mistake but I should not follow it up with another. Adults talk about mistakes that affect the rest of their lives but he told me that was not a rule, that I should learn from what I did and move on." Tyler stopped talking, inhaling deeply. "Is it very beautiful here?"

Elizabeth took his hand, "Tyler is there any hope at all of getting your sight back?"

Tyler shrugged. "They have not said 'never' but they do not offer much encouragement. I have been blind nine months and I am still bumping into things. You know what I regret the most, I regret that I did not make love to you more often after prom night. We had said we would wait and I felt guilty, like I had pushed you and then you told me you thought you were pregnant . . . "

"I wanted it, Tyler, I loved being with you!" Elizabeth spoke, stopping him, deflecting the thoughts behind his words, not yet ready to deal with them. "I have not had sex that good since that night. Until I heard you were blind, I even imagined we would do it one last time before I left town." The moment the words were out of her mouth, Elizabeth regretted them. Tyler's hand found her waist and slipped lower to hold her by the hip, pressing his palm onto the point of her pelvic bone. 

He moved to kiss her, his lips pliable and soft but as the kiss lingered and lengthened, those gentle lips became more insistent, more passionate. Elizabeth opened her mouth and felt his teeth with the tip of her tongue. Tyler pulled her tightly into his arms, a hand massaging her perfect ass. The feeling of his hand squeezing her cheek aroused her, just as it always had. But then he broke the kiss and his lips kissed her cheek and chin and neck, descending with agonizing slowness. Then he kissed the place just below the joint of her jaw and her knees melted, she clung to him, pulling at his shoulders, relying on his strength to keep her upright. She gasped as his lips began to suck at her taut skin but released her without leaving a mark and moved to kiss her ear. Her whole body came alive as he kissed down her neck. A hand pulled the fabric of her dress down the bridge of her shoulder and his lips followed. He pulled at her dress till her shoulder was bare and he was kissing her there. The dress drooped down her arm. He moved to the other side of her body and repeated the action. Then he pulled back, a hand went to the black glasses as though to remove them but then stopped. 

"You must think I am really a heel now, kissing you like this while I live with another woman, a woman I have bought an engagement ring for. But, Elizabeth, I cannot help myself. Except for that terrible day of cowardice, I have always loved you. And I fear I always will. How many times did I wake up from a dream of you, us . . . ."

Elizabeth pulled his mouth down to hers, shrugging her shoulders. The dress shuffled down her arms revealing her dainty bra that covered her breasts. "Tyler, I want you. I always wanted you. The pledge to wait was your idea but when you stood me up at the church, you broke something. But we have this moment. My parents were coming to see me when they, when they died and I thought nothing of the fact they did not arrive on time, not till the next day. By then, I was alone. How I wish I had paid more attention to what I had and less attention to what I had lost. That is why I came back, to give you the ring and to have you once more to cherish. I am yours, Tyler, here and now if you want me."

Tyler responded by kissing her, hard on the mouth but then he found her waist and lifted her up onto the wall and kissed down to the slopes of her breasts. He found the hook on her bra and it relaxed around her. He pulled it down and kissed her breasts. Elizabeth felt the vertigo of passion she had longed for since that one night when he had taken her, overcome with passion and desire. She remembered the feeling as he knelt between her open legs. 

"Oh god, Tyler, take me." 

He moved his hands from her shoulders and slid them up her legs, leaving trails of desire on her flesh where his skin met hers. When he found her bikinis, she immediately lifted her fanny and he pulled them down over her thighs to her knees and then off, over her 'fuck me' heels. As he untangled her panties from her heels, she smiled, looking up at the sky. She owed him this. She had so much to atone for. She owed him this and more but this, this she could give him. One last time of guilty innocence could not atone but it was the best she had. 

His time blind made Tyler much surer with his hands. He pulled Elizabeth to the edge of the wall. She unfastened his trousers and dropped them down his legs. She pulled his briefs out and over his erect penis, she stroked it with one hand as she had so many times in the distant past. She made to bend to kiss it but he gently pressed her away. 

"Chris is downstairs. I told her to sit and watch. I told her I had to have you one more time. I told her I would have you if I could."

"And she agreed to that?" Elizabeth asked, doubtfully.

"I did not give her a choice. If she is with me from pity, she needs to know that is not enough. I need to know. If she leaves, I will know. But I need to know, is this okay with you. Oh god!" He groaned as her little hand stroked his cock. 

"Tonight I'm yours, but will you love me tomorrow?" Elizabeth asked, pulling him between her legs and opening herself to him, the tune that went with her words playing in her mind. Leaning back on one hand she guided him to her entrance and he pressed into her. They groaned together as they created the double-backed beast. She wrapped her legs around him and they clinched the two people together. Elizabeth began to cry for what had happened, confronted finally with her guilt, her insistence that all the bad things had not been caused by her own lie. The clarity and the fiery passion in their coupling sizzled through her body and then she was coming, just as she felt Tyler tense and thrust into her. 

They held each other for many minutes. Finally, they parted and dressed. In that moment, Elizabeth almost spoke but instead they walked in silence out of the office and back to the gate. There, she saw a woman standing with a sweater looped over her shoulders, staring at them. 

"Tyler, what does Chris look like?" 

"Curly hair cut short, a small nose, full lips, a round chin, she has glasses, military black rimmed NGLs and a skirt. I have never seen her so I cannot do better than that."

"She is looking at us. She is standing down by the gym doors."

"Oh. I better go." He took Elizabeth's face in his big, strong hands and deliberately kissed her lips but lightly and gently. 

Elizabeth opened the gate but then finally, found the courage that had propelled her back to Keller in the first place. "Wait. It was not just the ring that is not the only reason I came back. I did not deserve it. I lied. I did not get pregnant, Tyler. I was scared. You signed up for the Marines without telling me and I know it was to make me proud and I was but it meant you were going away and I would have to go to Princeton alone instead of with you. I wanted to insure that we would be together always, so I lied. I was not pregnant."

Tyler stopped his motion, a hand frozen on the wall. He pulled it back. "What do you mean? Everyone said you were pregnant."

"I lied and I never lie so everyone believed me when I said I did the test and then had a doctor confirm it. I was eighteen, I did not need anyone's permission. When I told you I was not pregnant any longer, I thought you would be thrilled and go through with the wedding because you loved me and we were perfect. But you were so sad, so shocked when I told you I got scared and did not tell you I had lied. You let the wedding go on and I thought everything had worked out fine. I was wrong. I have suffered with this every day since then. I brought out the worst in you but I used the worst in me. I came back here to apologize to you. I did this to you, to us. This is all my fault. No, go to her, she is waiting." Elizabeth pushed him through the gate and closed it behind him. It clicked and seemed to echo between them. Elizabeth felt the sobs, finally after all this time, they came; for her, for him, for them. She wept piteously and silently.

His hand flitted over the metal lattice. He reached out hand through a space but it caught and she moved silently beyond his reach. He waited, saying nothing but finally, he turned and, trailing a hand across the lockers, shambled down the corridor towards the woman who was watching them. Elizabeth watched till that woman spoke to him and turned her back to walk with him, taking him back into the reunion. 

Elizabeth caressed the bars of the lattice, for the first time in five years she felt free.