I Am Not Yours

Fresh and New

August 1914

The man and woman had finished their dinner and stood, heading into Henry's lounge to sit in front of the fireplace together while the housekeepers cleared the table and finished up their chores for the night, the maid bringing Abigail and Henry a tray of tea before Henry dismissed her and the other workers from his home so they could head to their own homes for the evening.

"Thank you again, Henry, for dinner. It was lovely." Abigail said to him as she sipped on her tea. "Though I am still a bit curious."

"Curious?" Henry looked at her.

"As to why you asked me here tonight." She replied.

"I told you. I am taking your advice on opening up more." He half lied.

"Yes, but Henry, when I said that, I did not necessarily mean for you to open up more TO ME." She told him.

"I know. But you are the only one I WANT to open up to." He admitted.

"And why is that?"

"I honestly cannot answer that question, because I do not know the answer myself."

"I hope you still do not feel angry with me for what happened when my family and I first moved here." The woman set her tea cup back on the tray in front of the couch, between them and the fireplace.

"I beg your pardon?" Henry asked, a bit confused.

"Come on, Henry. I know that all these years, you have treated me a certain way because you thought that there was a chance that you and I could-"

"I have forgotten all about that." He lied again. "Why don't we start fresh and new? I am tired of arguing with you. And especially now that I am the Mayor again...I don't see why we can't just get along, you and I." He told her. "You did well as mayor, Abigail. But let's face it...you were not cut out for a job with so many responsibilities."

"That right there, Henry, is why you and I can never start over 'fresh and new.' Every fourth sentence is some type of insult toward me and how differently we both view the world."

"That's not true."

"Oh, yes, it is." She sighed as they heard the back door shut as the last housekeeper finally left for home and Henry and Abigail knew they were in his big house, alone...once again. "Every part of me wishes that we COULD start over. I would love to speak with the man that I met in the mercantile and went fishing with. But the truth is that I can never see you that way again after everything that's happened. After the way you treated my Noah. After the mine. Henry, starting over is only possible for you and perhaps Nora....but it is most certainly not possible for US. You and I have too much bad blood and too much of a negative history to try and fix it now."

"If that were true, then why did you come here tonight?" He asked.

"I'm not quite sure anymore." She lifted her tea cup again and took another sip of it as Henry examined her movements in silence for almost a minute.

"That's not true. You came here to use me to get back at Frank."

"I would never use somebody." Abigail protested.

"Yes, you would." He studied her a bit longer before he chuckled a bit to himself. "You won't admit it, but you are a lot more like me than we both thought."

"What is that supposed to mean?" She wondered.

"The only difference between us is that whatever you are doing is working." Henry stood up from the couch and went over to his drink tray in the corner of the room, grabbing a glass and pouring some hard liquor into it. Abigail's eyes followed his every move and landed on the brown liquid in his glass. She now wished she had something stronger than tea to drink considering every word Henry was saying caused her heart to beat a bit faster as she could already read his mind and anticipate what he was going to say next.