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.