Author: Priscilla
Chapter 1: Time Lost
I sat at my desk, my back to the beautiful view of the East River in New York, completely lost in my thoughts. Once again thinking about him..... and what could have been different in the way we parted. But what could I have done different? I asked myself. The truth was that I had walked away from him.
After I left, I spent almost all of my time in school, immersing myself in work so that I wouldn't have to justify it anymore. And it had paid off. I had earned a Masters Degree from UCLA in English and Literature. Who would of thought that little Jane Hanley from Glasgow, Scotland could now be one the world's best-known celebrity reporters and be owner of Entertainment Weekly magazine, one of the most prestigious in the world?
Not me that's for sure. But no matter how much success and wealth I acquired, I could not shake the feeling that he was missing in my life. A special part of my soul that I had ripped from my chest and left behind in pursuit of wealth and happiness. How ironic, because I have wealth now, but always fall short of happiness. Sure, there have been men in my life, a string of empty relationships and heartbreaks, all because they could never compare to him.....
I met him two days after arriving from the hospital. He was two years old at the time and even then we seemed to be automatically attracted to one another. Our parents joked about us getting married one day, because we were practically joined at the hip. By the time we made it to grade school we were inseparable. Sure, we had friends, but there was a special bond between us that no one could get past. I remember the night when all that changed like it was yesterday.........
*****************
I was absolutely stunned when she told me. Margaret sat me down across from her on the couch. Tears streaming down her pale face, eyes red rimmed from harboring a painful secret, and relief for now being able to tell someone. She was one of my closest friends. We had known each other since the 5th grade. I had introduced them to one another. They had been so happy that it was almost impossible to not smile when they were around. But this girl before me was not the happy, vibrant, friend that I had cherished for so long. No, this was a desperate, cornered human being afraid for her future and her life.
"I'm pregnant." She whispered to me in the dim light of her family home. Nobody was there at the time, that is why she had rushed me over. My jaw dropped and my eyes pratically bulged out of my head in shock.
"What! You can't be." I said in a harsh whisper. My incredibility came off as reprimanding, and she started to shake and sob. I immediately felt guilty; this was not what she needed. I took her in my arms and told her that everything would be ok. But I knew it wouldn't be.... her father was a Priest. He would shun her, and the entire town along with him.
"Does Gerard know?" I asked almost afraid of her answer, if he didn't then he had to be told, and if he did and hadn't confided in me.......
I stopped my train of thought when the girl in my arms pulled back suddenly and grabbed both my shoulders so that my blue eyes were locked with her green.
"No. And he isn't going to." She said, her voice steady with a hint of harsh menace.
"What! We have to, he has to know before it's too late!" I said almost screaming it at her. I sounded like an idiot, and felt like one, but I didn't care.
"Listen....Listen to me! I know a mid-wife who can relieve me of the baby before anyone knows anything. Everything CAN be back to normal." She said.
"You can't be serious, this baby is a gift! Besides Gerry is the father, he should have a say in this too."
"You don't understand! My father is a Priest; he will think this a sin. You and I both know that intercourse without marriage is looked down upon here. I would be shunned, my future would be destroyed, and as much as I DON'T want to, Jane, I cannot have this baby take that from me."
"But--" Was the only thing I got out before she stopped me.
"I have always thought of you as the sister I never had....I would of never told you this if I didn't trust you. Promise me that you will not tell anyone, especially Gerard about the baby. I need some time to figure out what I am going to do."
"I can't--"
"PROMISE me." She begged, despair noticeable in her voice. I looked up at her giant tear filled, doe shaped eyes, and couldn't bring myself to say no.
"I promise." I whispered. "But, if you don't tell Gerard within a week I'll tell him myself." I added to our agreement. She nodded in compromise.
I didn't know it then, but that agreement, would cost me everything I held dear. Including Gerard.
Title: Across The Tracks
Author: Priscilla
Chapter 2: The Point Of No Return
Continuation of Chapter 1
3 Days Later..........
I sat in my room, putting the last finishing touches on a paper that was due the following morning. I was so enthralled in my work that I almost fell out of the chair when my older brother burst through my door. Eyes wild and gleaming with tears.
"Margaret is dead!"
"What!" I screamed, my heart thumping in my chest as I pushed past him, down the hall and down the spiraling stairs that led to the living room. Only to be met by the uncontrollable sobbing of Margaret's mother and pale faced father. My mother stroked the hair back from the woman's face, trying to soothe her, to no avail. No one noticed me until I walked fully into the room from the doorway. My mother looked up and opened her arms to me. I practically ran into her embrace, hoping that I would wake up soon from this horrible nightmare.
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The burial was unbearable for me. We sat in a semi circle. All the family and friends that Maggie had acquired during her short time on this earth huddled together against the cold of the winter and the sudden ice in our hearts. Or was it just me?
Maggie's father had taken on the task of being the priest for the service, to much protest. "To pay homage to his lost only daughter", he'd argued. Occasionally, he would choke on his grief and stop for a moment to compose himself. I had a white rose in my hand, they were her favorite. I waited for everyone else to pay their last respects, told my parents to go home without me, that I would follow soon after.
I stood up slowly, everything in me suddenly acking for closure, and not being really sure if I wanted it. I walked slowly towards where she now lay, a casket covered the tell tale signs of the horrors she had experienced before her death, and finally let the tears that I had been holding for days run freely down my face.
She had been found in one of the shallow water ways where the water meets the river that feeds our small town. Her body, a pale blue canvas. I say this because the only reason she was recognized was by facial features and dental records. She had been de-entrailed. Her major organs, including her beautiful green eyes, stolen from her body, baby and all. It seems that the "old midwife" she had planned to see about the baby had been a fraud.
The police believed it was a band of smugglers that worked in grisly killings like this. They would kill young, unsuspecting women and children of all kinds for their organs, to be sold on the Black Market to hospitals and rich people in great need of organs for dying relatives who would do anything to get them. What if I had just ignored her wishes and just told some one?....anyone? Would she still be lying in a grave right now?
The grief and guilt that I felt enveloped me in it's icy grip like fog on a cold gray winter morning as I fell to my knees, head in my hands. He kneeled down next to me, took me in his arms and we sobbed together. I knew it was Gerry without looking, but how could I look at him ever again? He walked me home when it had started to rain.
Hours later, I was putting the little trinkets and mementos of our friendship on a shelf in the living room. A constant and undeniable reminder that I had been proud to love and know a girl such as she had been. I absently looked out the window and noticed a thunderstorm was now raging outside. The sudden gust of cold, unforgiving wind, made me turn my head abruptly. There in the middle of my doorway, stood a soaking wet, and irate James Gerard Butler.
I could tell he was extremely angry; his hair was plastered against his face, which seemed to become a deeper shade of red with each passing moment. The air became almost unbearably thick with tension and electricity. I could feel it by just looking at him. He looked like a dam with a long thick crack edging it's way to the top, and soon it would explode its contents all over its surroundings. I had to know what was wrong.
"James what's a matter?" I asked, the fear evident in my voice. I put my hand on his strong arm and he jerked it away, almost throwing me half way across the room.
"Don't touch me again." He seethed, his face contorted in a mask of un-leashed rage.
"What's wrong with you?" I asked almost incredibly from where I had stumbled. Never in the years that I'd known him, had he ever been violent with me, physically or otherwise. I'd never even heard him raise his voice.
"You knew." He stated. My heart stopped suddenly. Oh God....
"Gerry I--"
"You knew she was carrying my child and you kept it from me. Now they're both gone, and there's nothing I can do about it. You betrayed me Jane." He said tears sliding down his face, unblinking green eyes as flat as glass stared at me. His words cut through me like a knife. He thought I'd betrayed him.
"I promised her that--"
"What about the promise you made to ME!?! Huh? To never keep anything from each other, even if it hurt to say it. You of all people should know how much I detest being lied to. You know the pain I felt when I lost my father. He'd never spoken a word of truth to me in his life but I still loved him. The only reason I came back to the human race was because YOU wouldn't give up on me. I never thought you would do this." He said. His voice crackling at odd moments.
"Gerry I'm so sorry I was just trying to honor her wishes--" He put his hand up as if to silence me.
"I'm through with you woman......never speak to me again." He said barely above a whisper, then he turned his back on me and walked straight out of my life.
I left Glasgow, two and a half months later, escaping the pain of James acting like he could see through me, using the scholarship as my release. I'd told my parents it was just for the four years, that I would come back. I was seventeen then. It'll be six years the 28th of this month and I have not returned. I changed my name the same day I turned 18. More from fear of recognition that anything else. I felt I should start over. Nothing too dramatic a change, so I changed from Jane Hanley to Janet Doherty and I did start over......
*****************
"Jane....JANE!" Maria, my secretary said trying to get my attention. She'd startled me out of my reverie before my brain could catch up, and for a moment I saw Margaret's face on her body.
"Yes, Maria?"
"Are you ok boss?" She asked, concern in her voice. I smiled. She was so genuinely good, it hurt sometimes.
"I'm fine. What is it?"
"Well, the layout for the interview tomorrow is ready if you want to look at it."
"Ok bring it in." She did, and I began to read through it. When I was done, I put it in my brief case, locked my office door, said goodbye to my fellow workers and walked out into the crisp evening to my car. One of the small luxuries I had allowed myself to have. A cherry red Nissan Skyline. I got in and drove home.
********************
Sitting on a black leather couch, his hair a tangle of black/brown curls in a disarray that framed his face, was a man talking on his cell phone.
"Yeah. I'll talk to you after the interview with EW magazine tomorrow." He listened as his sister asked whom would be the person conducting it.
"I don't know, but I think it'll be a woman. They're always women." He said absently. His sister made a joke about him getting too used to being drooled over by American women.
"It's just that I'm so darn cute." He said and they both laughed continuing their conversation about his adaptation to American life. Little did he know, the blow life would deal him just the next morning...........