Love Untold

Love Untold: Chapter 6

Love Untold: Chapter 6

Chrissie submerged her exhausted body in the hot water.  Bubbles tickled her chin, and she closed her eyes, shutting out this nightmare for just these few minutes.  It was a relief to finally be home, but he -- Race -- rode along in the backseat of Dena’s Explorer and had no qualms about walking right into her house again.

Chrissie sighed.  She guessed she should stop thinking about her house as only hers.  She’d been shown proof that he owned it right alongside with her.  He had a right to be here, she figured, but she didn’t feel any better about it.  

In different circumstances, she might have gotten along quite well with him.  He was handsome, obviously caring, and he didn’t put up with her crap.  She liked that in a man.  She like that a lot.  However, she didn’t care so much for people telling her how to live her life -- like all of a sudden being married and she just had to deal with it.

Not that Dena said such a thing, but neither did she protest when he sauntered right inside ahead of them and proceeded to make himself at home.  Chrissie said nothing to either of them.  She went straight to her room, locked the door and sat down on the bed, hugging her midsection to stave off the tears that she knew were about to erupt.  After an hour of staring at the wall, she slowly approached the closet.

Along one wall, her clothes lined the rail with precision, organized by color, style and season.  On the other side, men’s jeans, t-shirts, and a few suits hung jumbled up without any rhyme or reason, and in the very back, a plastic garment bag held the wedding dress she recognized from their wedding photo and a dark gray tuxedo.  Chrissie pulled the dress out and held it up to her body, staring into the full length mirror, urging her brain to remember it.  

That was when Dena knocked on the door and asked if she was alright.  Chrissie hurriedly stuffed the gown back into the closet, not bothering to hang it up properly.  

“I’m okay,” she answered, unlocking the door to her sister.  She peeked out, wondering if Race was with her.

Dena smiled gently.  “He’s down in the basement.  I told him he needed to stay away for a while, but he refused to leave the house...thinks that you might come to your senses or something.”

Chrissie said, “I’m not acting, Dena...I really don’t know who he is.”

Dena hugged her.  “I know, Chris...and he knows that, too.  I guess he’s just wishful thinking.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Chrissie said with a sigh.  “D...what am I going to do?”

“Take it one day at a time.  Believe me, we’re just as confused about this as you are,,” her sister replied.  “And...uh, I called Mom.  She said she’s on the first flight out of Denver.”

Chrissie groaned.  Just what she needed.  Her mother here, telling her to stop all this foolishness.  “I know...I’m sorry,” Dena said, “but she needed to know.”

“I’m not mad at you...I’m just...I don’t know.”

“Trust me, I do know,” Dena said.  “I may not understand why your memory all of a sudden got hazy, but I do understand your feelings about Race right now...this is what I got a degree in, you know.”

Chrissie smiled and dropped down on her bed again.  Dena did the same, and they stared up at the ceiling.  It never ceased to amaze Chrissie on Dena’s choice of careers.  A marriage and family counselor.  The woman couldn’t keep a boyfriend for longer than a few months.  And yet she helped other couples solve their marital problems.

She twisted her head around to look at her sister.  “So...my all-knowing sister...what is your diagnosis for dealing with my proclaimed husband?”

Dena rolled her eyes.  “Don’t be a pain in the ass...and if you really want to know, I’ll tell you.”

Chrissie rose up on her elbow, a serious frown on her face.  “Yeah, I really want to know.”

“Well, think of it this way...you may not remember marrying him, but you did, so there must be something about him that appeals to you.”

Chrissie thought about her earlier conclusions on the man.  Yeah, he appealed to her, but he scared her, too.

“So...any thoughts on that?” Dena asked.  Chrissie glanced briefly at Dena.  Dena’s eyes widened as she grinned.  “You do, don’t you?”

“He’s alright,” Chrissie admitted.  “If I were looking for a husband, then yes, he’d be a good candidate.”

“But?”

Chrissie shrugged.  “But I really don’t know who he is, and you know me, I need a guy’s resume and a journal of his childhood history before I decide to go out with him.  If I had just met him today, it would be weeks of talking and getting to know one another before anything else happens.  What if he...what if he tries to...you know?”

“Sleep with you?”

Chrissie nodded.

“And that would be a bad thing?”

“Were you not listening?!  I don’t know anything about him!  I don’t remember how we met.  I don’t remember our wedding.  I don’t even know what he does for a living.”

Dena pursed her lips.  “He rides bikes.”

Chrissie blinked.  “What?”

Her sister nodded.  “Yeah, you married a guy that rides bicycles.”

“Like Tour de France kind of bike riding?”

Dena grinned.  “Yup...and you’ve been there...to France, I mean.  And to Italy and Japan.”

“I have?”

“Yeah, you have.  I’m kind of jealous of that, by the way...I’ve never been out of the country, even on a cruise ship, but you’ve traveled all around the world with him.”

Chrissie swallowed.  “Is he any good?”  Her husband would have to be good at whatever he did.

“For his age.”

“Um...how old is he?”

“Thirty-four.”

“Oh...”

Dena smiled.  “That’s it?  Just ‘oh’?”

“What else is there?  Besides that and his name and what he does, I still don’t know much about him.”  Chrissie paused for a moment.  “Um...is there any money in bike racing?”

Dena laughed.  “He does fairly well.  I think most of his winnings go to paying for his crew, and his sponsors pick up the traveling tabs, but he also owns a bike shop across town.”

“So, he’s not rich.”

Dena scowled at her.  “Really?  Is that what you’re worried about right now?”

“I didn’t mean it that way...I just want to know what I’ve gotten myself into.”

“Well, no.  He’s not rich, and neither are you,” Dena huffed.  “I really thought I knew you better than that.”

Chrissie blinked back those stupid tears.  “Dena, please...I’m just trying to understand all of this.  I don’t care about the money, I really don’t.”

“Then why did you ask?”

Chrissie stared down at the ring on her finger.  She knew that if she had it appraised, her eyeballs would pop out of their sockets.  The fact that she wore it said that he didn’t care about the money either.  He gave her something he knew she’d love, and that went a long way to helping her understand why she married him.  

“Who picked out this ring set?” she asked her sister, flashing her hand at Dena.

Dena studied her for a moment.  “Race did.  Do you want to know how?”

Chrissie nodded, twisting the bands around and around on her finger.  Dena leaned back against the headboard and grinned.  “You met him in Denver, while we were visiting Mom.  I wanted to spend my spring break on the slopes and I talked you into going with me.  The first day up there, you sat in the ski lodge sulking because you couldn’t convince Mom to redecorate the place.  You’ve been hounding her for years about it...”

Chrissie smiled because she remembered many arguments with her mom on revamping the ski lodge that had been in their family for thirty years.

“So, anyway...this guy is sitting at the bar, listening to your hissy fit about the hotel, and you sit down next to him after giving up on Mom...he pulls this cheesy come-on...”

Chrissie rolled her eyes.  Typical.

“And then you kissed him,” Dena finished with a smug, Cheshire cat grin.  Chrissie stared unbelieving at Dena.  No, no...she would never kiss a stranger.  Oh, but you did, her very remembering mind crooned.  Chrissie shook her head.  Oh, God, she had!  This morning!  Dena added, “Three days later, the two of you were almost inseparable.  He asked you to marry him one night in the middle of Mom’s annual Snowball Battle.”  Dena laughed.  “You said no and pounded him with snowballs.”

A turbulent daze settled around Chrissie.  She swallowed back a bout of vertigo and whispered,“What happened then?”

“You guys talked on the phone for a few months, and then he up and relocated here so he could be closer to you.  He bought the bike shop, and spent the next six weeks trying to get you to agree to marry him.  Every time he saw you, the first thing out of his mouth was, ‘Marry me, Chris.’”

Chrissie glanced down at her wedding rings again.  Her head cleared a little, enough for her to see them clearly.  “And these?”

A teasing smile tugged on the corners of Dena’s mouth.  “He told me once that those nights when he stayed over, he poured through your jewelry box, learning what you liked and didn’t like.  He said he paid for them by emptying his retirement fund.”

Chrissie sat, appalled at what her sister just told her.  No, no, no...never touch the retirement fund...that was like her maxing out her credit cards.  Completely irresponsible, and she married this man?!  Dena pointed at her.  “When you found out, you gave him that exact same look.”

“What did he say?”

“He said you were his retirement.  He said as long as he had you by his side, he didn’t need anything else.”

“Oh, Dena!” Chrissie wailed falling forward to bury her face in the pillows.  Irresponsible, but sweet.

“What?”

“He sounds like a wonderful man...and I don’t remember him!”

“He is a wonderful man,” Dena said.  “I wouldn’t marry him, but he’s perfect for you.”

Chrissie raised her face.  “Why wouldn’t you marry him?”

Dena shrugged.  “He’s needy.”

That didn’t sound good.  “Needy, how?”  She knew it!  He was a sex addict or something.  Chrissie didn’t have anything against sex.  She liked sex.  She liked it a lot, but she’d never had the greatest of experiences with it.  Joe, at best, had been an adequate lover.  And all the men before him were just...men who preferred to do it as quickly and as selfishly as possible.

Dena said, “Now, don’t go judging him just yet...but he needs you.  He says that the only person who could work the aches and pains out of his muscles after a long race is you.  He’s addicted to your massaging skills...and other things.”  She added that last part in a bare mutter.

“What other things?!”

Dena avoided her gaze.  “Just some things you’ve told me.”

“What things?!”

“Things that pertain to the bedroom...I really don’t think its important at the moment.”

Chrissie jerked up to her knees.  “It is if he’s going to start insisting I do them!”

Dena’s eyes rolled back.  “He would never do that, I can promise you.  That man jumps at the snap of your fingers.  Whenever you mention something you want, he hurdles the moon to get it for you.  And he’ll tear apart Heaven and Hell to make you feel better when you’re unhappy.  He won’t pressure you for sex.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Chrissie argued in a petulant tone.

Dena said, “Yes, I’m absolutely sure about it, and I didn’t want to tell you about your marital sex life because I don’t want you expecting things that might not happen.  I’m thinking clearer about this than you are, because I am the one person out of all three of us that can distance myself from it.  Chrissie, if you never get your memory back, then it’s best that you and Race start over...fall in love all over again.”

Chrissie clasped her hands together, hiding the wedding bands in the tangle of her fingers.  “What if I don’t want to fall in love with him?”

Dena sighed and scooted off the bed.  “I think the first thing we need to concentrate on is figuring out what caused your memory loss.  We can worry about the rest of it later, okay?”

“I kissed him.”

Dena froze.  “When?”

“This morning...well, he kissed me, and I kissed him back,” Chrissie said, breathing deeply at the memory of that kiss.

“And?”

Chrissie looked up.  “And I enjoyed it...what does that say about me?  I kissed a stranger and I liked it, after all I just said.”

Dena grinned, but not in her usual mischievous way.  “It means you’re not as immune to his charms as you want to be.”

Maybe so, but it still bothered Chrissie.  She’d never been one to subjugate her morals like that.  That was Dena’s arena.  Her sister was a good person, yet Dena’s relationships were like a bottle rocket...it shot up quickly, making a lot of noise, then fizzled out.  Chrissie’s had always been more like a pot of homemade spaghetti sauce.  It took a lot of preparation and a good, long simmer, and then she enjoyed it for several days afterward.  Eventually, she ate up all the sauce and it was finally gone...or it just sat in her refrigerator, going bad.  

What little she knew about Race told her he wasn’t the kind who sat around waiting for her to take a bite.

She looked up at her younger sister, imploringly.  “Will you stay with me, D?  I need you here.”

“I’m supposed to be in Chicago for an job interview next week,” Dena began.  Chrissie jumped up and grabbed her hand.  

“No!  I need you here!  I can’t do this without you!”

Dena smiled sadly.  “Don’t worry.  I’m going to call them today and reschedule.  It’s no big deal.  Besides if a family counseling center can’t understand a family emergency, then I wouldn’t want to work for them anyway.”

Chrissie’s eyes swelled.  “Thank you.”

Dena gave her a quick hug.  “We’ll talk more later, okay?  Why don’t you go take a bath and I’ll make some lunch?”

She watched her sister leave the bedroom, closing the door behind her, and Chrissie immediately locked it again.  The rings on her finger glinted at her.  She sighed, took them off and put them in the bottom of her jewelry case.  First, figure out why she can’t remember her marriage...and then worry about the marriage.

Chrissie went into the bathroom and drew a bath...and tried not to think about the “things” that Race needed from her.

*****

Race pressed his forehead to the wall outside of his bedroom.  When Dena comes out of there, he was going to strangle her.  Telling Chrissie that he needed a certain kind of sex from her!  What was Dena thinking?!

Right now, sex was the least important thought in his head...he couldn’t get rid of it completely, because he was a guy and guys thought about it hundreds of times a day, but he’d never in his life press Chrissie for sex or insist that she do certain acts for him.  Of course, he had to remind himself, Chrissie didn’t realize that because she doesn’t remember any part of their life together.

But Dena wasn’t making the matter any better.  

And -- oh, God! -- Chrissie admitted that she didn’t want to be in love with him.  She did love him!  She told him so everyday since he convinced her to marry him.  Everyday for a year and a half!  She loved him, dammit!  They were talking about having babies and turning the spare bedroom into a nursery...she even had the colors and bedding picked out!  She made an appointment with her doctor to discuss getting off her birth control.  They had plans for the future!

But he just had to go to Pennsylvania!  He just had to do that one last international race.  He couldn’t help but think that if he’d just stayed home, none of this would be happening right now.  His wife wouldn’t be locking herself in their bedroom, refusing to talk to him...maybe, she wouldn’t have lost her memory of him.

He sighed.  Too many Maybe’s and What If’s.  He couldn’t change any of it now.  In the span of a few hours, the woman he crossed oceans for no longer loved him...and a part of him perished inside.

*****

(This story is a finalist for the Non-Teen category of the 2011 Watty's.  Vote and support if you love it.)