Dreams in Moonlight

Part 10

"Mallory!" Greg said quietly when he was within hearing distance. She turned, and waited while her pulse raced. She was furious, but was keen that her fury was banked. 

He joined her with a quick couple of strides. "What's going on?" They'd been managing really well. Conversation between the two of them was friendly. He knew that all he had to do was keep to this path and he'd make sure he was really over her. She'd become part of the furniture!

"What do you mean?" She asked calmly while inside, she was crumbling. He raised a brow. Seeing that he was not going to leave it at that, she shook her head, "Nothing's going on." Mallory replied flatly. Best to walk away, she thought, before she smack him!

Over hearing him say he didn't fancy her was akin to having a stake driven through her heart. She was surprised she was still standing. Still able to talk. For inside she was crumbling, slowly falling apart as fury robbed her confidence.

It had taken her years to learn, and to accept that she was not what he wanted. This evening she'd overheard him talk about her and all those feelings she'd thought she'd dealt with, prepared for, suddenly surfaced and swamped her. 

"Come on, Mallory" Greg chided. "I didn't come down in the last shower."

 She wasn't sure she could hold it together for much longer. Not now. "Excuse me." Mallory turned to walk away.

"Hang on!" He reached for her upper arm. "What's going on?" He thought he saw sadness in her eyes. "You've been avoiding me for the last half hour at least." He pointed out, which was odd given they had a wonderful chat earlier.

"Sorry?"

"What is going on here. because for most of the earlier part of the evening, we had managed to be friendly? Remember?" He had stored snippets in his brain, and the fact they had talked, like long term friends,  talking easily, laughing at silly comments, teasing gently. What happened to that, he wondered. Then he remembered the Mallory cold front arrived after Amanda had appeared at the party. Was that it?

Mallory folded her arms. She was surprised he'd noticed that she  had steered clear, given he'd been clinging to Amanda for most of that time, "And you have a problem with that?" She sounded cynical. Her eyes flashed with fury again swamped by disdain.

Mallory wanted to scream out loud. Until half an hour ago, she thought they had turned a corner. He seemed to have forgiven her, and forgotten their past history. In some ways it was like old times, talking to each other came easily. And people and their conversations were just noise. While they had spent a fair amount of time at this party talking, just the two of them. Nothing deep and meaningful. But talking non the less. Just the two of them, chatting. Laughing. Just like old times. 

"People are starting to notice." He told her and frowned when he realised that she had removed all emotion from her eyes and was simply waiting for him to stop talking. Again he recognised this was different from earlier. She had listened, her eyes dancing with laughter at his corny one liners, her eyes thoughtful when they talked about more meaningful topics. Now, her eyes conveyed no emotion.  "I want to know what happened?. This sudden lack of consideration. We were civil most of the evening. Actually more than civil. We were enjoying ourselves."

"True." Mallory stated bluntly. But for her it had been a lot more than just managing to be civil. To her it had marked the change in this new relationship. She had been waiting for that, resurrection  their status as friends. It had seemed as if life was suddenly throwing her a life line. They were talking, almost like they had in the past. And it made her feel good. Baby steps in  the right direction, she had thought.

"So what's changed?" He asked quietly.

"Nothing." She shrugged.

He hesitated. Revisiting the evening. There was only one reason why she would have suddenly gone cold on him. So he took the bull by the horns and said, "Harriet told you what I said." It's what made sense to him, now that he realised that Mallory's behaviour had changed after that conversation with Harriet. No doubt his words had hurt.

"No, she didn't" Mallory looked straight at him. She kept all emotion out of her voice as she added bluntly, "You did. I overheard you."

"Oh." He dropped his hand from her arm. That made things hundred times worse. He'd been mouthing off just to throw Harriet off the scent. "You want me to apologise."

She shook her head. "No." Her eyes remained cool.

"You don't want an apology?" That puzzled him. If she wasn't upset by what she'd overheard why was she avoiding him?

"What for?" Mallory tipped her chin up, "You're entitled to your opinion and your choices." Mallory stated. His opinion and his choices may have the capacity to hurt her, but he was still entitled to them.

That caused him to take a moment. He studied her, then said quietly, "Mallory, we aren't the same people we were ten years ago."

"I agree." Mallory folded her arms and stepped back. She needed him to leave, because she was sure she was going to burst into tears soon.

"We've changed." He stated as if that made perfect sense. He wasn't sure why he was labouring the point. "You're not my type. I'm not your type. But surely that doesn't mean we can't talk to each other?"

"We have chatted, remember."

"Yes, but then you avoided me!" He reminded. "Chats are not rationed! We can talk!"

"Why?" Challenged Mallory quietly. She didn't see the point in remaining friends with a man who by the looks of things did not seem to value her at any level. Now when she knew what he really thought about her, she wasn't sure that she could cope with being in his company. It would hurt too much.

"What do you mean?" Greg was surprised by the question she'd posed, given they had spent a good couple of hours just talking. He'd assumed they were setting up the ground rules for the establishment of a friendship.

"Why should we talk to each other?" She looked him straight in the eyes. That's what he'd always liked about her, the fact she had talked straight. That's why when she had changed her mind about being with him all those years ago he had taken it hard.

"Because it is the normal thing to do." He folded his arms, completely unaware of the fact he'd adopted a defensive pose.