(I'm going to go ahead and rate this part R just because of some language and events.)
Feedback: Please!!
Parts: 4 of undetermined!!
Never The Same Again
Part 4
By: Ashley
She had fallen asleep in the passenger side of the van, sniffling the entire time. Funny, he thought to himself. One of the most confusing aspects of Laverne's personality had always been the shield she wore. You know the shield -- if you made her mad, she'd just as well shove your teeth down your own throat than talk to you. But sometimes -- sometimes she wasn't that. Sometimes she just looked like a confused, lost little child with nowhere to turn. That's what she had looked like when he found her that night. But there was something more to her than that. When he looked into her eyes in the same deep manner he was accustomed to doing, he saw pain. He saw blinding hate. And he still saw that lost little girl.
He'd caried her quietly to her apartment. Lenny had no trouble remembering where they kept the spare key. Turning the key in the lock had awoken her, and she let out a small yelp -- the kind of yelp you hear from a little puppy when it's af raid. Upon her command, he put her down to walk, but she collapsed.
"It hurts! It hurts!" she screamed as she tried to walk forward.
"You want me to pick you up again?" he asked quietly.
"No!" She drew a deep breath and collapsed to the floor, again in tears. "Dammit!" she screamed and placed the backside of her hand against her mouth.
Lenny knelt beside her. "Vernie, let me take you to the doctor."
"I don't want to go to any stupid doctor!"
God. She hadn't changed a bit, had she? She was still the same old Laverne. Stubborn Laverne.
"But ya need to."
"And then what'll they do?! Call the cops!"
Suddenly, he found himself enraged at her impertinence and stood up, towering over her. "WELL WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO THEN?!" He paused. He'd yelled at her. He'd never yelled at her like that before in his life. But time had changed him. Just a little... but it had changed him.
"Why the hell did you leave?!" she asked him, a moment later.
"What?" he asked. She apparently had cared, and he was caught off-guard.
"You heard me."
"Yeah I just..." he sighed. "Sometimes, people have to leave things, all right?"
"Yeah, but usually people leave a note or somethin'." That was a lie, and she knew it. No one she had ever known, with the exception of Shirley, had ever left her a note in her life. And she knew it. Not Edna. Not her own mother. Nobody. "What'd you want to leave for anyway?"
He couldn't answer that question honestly. Not and maintain any dignity. He turned, his back to her, his head held downward. "I just had to leave, okay?"
"Why, Lenny?" she demanded.
"Look, it doesn't really concern you, so why should it matter?"
"Well, ya certainly walked out on everybody! I think that does concern me!"
"Laverne, I don't want to talk about it..."
"Tell me!"
"Laverne..."
"Now!"
"Laverne, have you ever loved somebody so much -- I mean, really loved somebody -- it made you sick? It made you sick because... because you knew that no matter what, you could never be with them. And you thanked God every day that you were alive because you thought maybe you could live without them?"
She rolled her eyes. "Don't be stupid. You know I have."
"Good."
She quietly added,"...and then he died."
He heaved a deep breath. "Yeah, well, mine didn't die. She might have tonight. But I couldn't let her." Laverne stopped. She could feel her heart, palpitating rapidly in her chest. Her eyes were bulging. He knelt back down beside her. "I could never let her die. And that's the reason I left, Laverne." He stood back up and began to walk toward the door. And with every footstep he made, she could feel her stomach twist and turn.
"Len!" she called after him. He turned around. Everything was quiet and still. "You wouldn't leave her again, would you?"
"You're a big girl, Laverne. You can take care of yourself. You won't let me take you to the doctor. There's nothing more I can do."
"You can stay."
He buried his head in his hands. "That's just it! I can't stay. I only came back to get the rest of what I left behind." He saw the look in her eyes. What did that look mean, anyway? "And don't you look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like that!" he said, pointing. "With your eyes all big and... lookin' like somebody's orphan... lost child... like you're some dumb little fragile petal off of some dumb flower. I -- I can't do this again." He started for the door.
Finally, she knew, he had come to understand how she could use him. But she couldn't anymore. He wouldn't let her. She knew that now. But why did it hurt so badly? Was it merely because everyone left her in the end? Could that be it?
"LENNY!" she screamed, something incredibly painful sounding in her voice. "Don't leave me! Please... don't leave me..." she said. Her face was buried in a couch cushion, and he could hear the tears in her voice.
Slowly, he walked back over to her. Somehow, she was a drug to him. She was his shot of heroin. He was an addict. He sat beside her on the floor and held her close, stroking her hair as he tried to calm her. "Shhhhh..."
She looked up at him, through tears. "Len?"
"What is it?"
"There's something different about you."
He nodded. "Yeah. I grew up."
To Part 3
To Part 5