Ersatz

April 30, 1996 - Marlena Find's John's Letter in a Book

"Tell me how you feel."

Marlena held the letter gripped in her hand tightly. She walked towards her bedroom window looking down into the garden. She could see Kristen down there with John, and she turned away quickly, saying to herself, "He was so emotional that night night in Aremid. Maybe he was just caught up in the past...maybe once he had time to think about the future, he...maybe he decided that he wanted to be with Kristen..." But as she thought about it, she realized that it didn't fit, "No. No. John is with Kristen...because he thinks that I don't love him...and I do. I do!" The tears in her eyes, were making everything blurry, but the joy in her heart, had her smiling. Deciding that she couldn't be silent any longer, Marlena said, "It's time that I told him that."

Downstairs, she saw John enter the house, and Marlena ducked back behind the door. Her doubts returned with a vengeance. She wondered to herself, Can I do this? Can I stand the pain, if John says he's changed his mind? That he loves Kristen more than he loves me? I know John! He wouldn't have written this letter, if he hadn't meant every word. I can't spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been. Standing up straighter, and shaking out her hair, she stepped around the door, and walked into the living room, straight towards John.

John looked up, and smiled. Her hair looked soft, and shiny. Her clothes are impeccable. All he wanted to do was mess it all up, shove her against the nearest wall, and shove his fingers into her hair. His mind had been having the most vivid fantasies, and dreams about her. He felt like it was taking over his life, and living with Doc in the house, seeing her when he walked into a room, smelling her perfume in the hallway, it was all so much harder when he had to constantly control his impulse to reach for her. Forcing himself to be casual, he said, "Heya, Doc. Going out to enjoy the weather?"

"No. I came to talk to you," she said. "About something really important."

Fuck, John thought to himself. Her lips are so fucking pouty. I just want to lick over them. Shaking his head slightly, he glanced up, and said, "What?"

Marlena smiled. He'd been staring at her lips, and she felt satisfaction in that. "I wanted to talk to you...about us. About you and me.." Suddenly feeling nervous, she turned away from him.

John was curious. She wanted to talk about them? He approached her from behind, "What about you and me, Doc?"

She was so nervous, she could barely think, "Well, I—I've been going over some things in my head, uh, conversations that we've had—"

"—what conversations?" he asked her. While her back was turned, John allowed his eyes to freely roam over her body.

"Well, oh...nothing really quite specific...but I..."

His heart started to pound a little faster, and he stepped closer, staring at the back of her head, "What?"

Marlena swallows thickly, and as she begins to turn back around, she said, "I think it's time...that we be honest with each other. I have the feeling, from time to time, that you've been saying one thing to me, and maybe...feeling something else...and—and, of course, I can't be entirely sure of that, but I think that's part of our problem...we—we never really, um, exactly say what we're feeling—I know why...we do that. It's-it's because so many people have been hurt in the past by, uh, by us acting on our feelings. I—I just think that we've learned to be very...cautious, and I guess, and that..."

John had never seen her so flustered, and now she was barely able to line up her words, and form a coherent sentence. Looking down at her, trying to catch her eyes, since she wouldn't look at him, John said, "You guess what?"