Disclaimer: Don’t own a thing! The lyrics belong to Natalie Imbruglia.
Rating: ‘A’ for pure and utter angst ;-)
Important Note: Sher’s point of view. This is from the time when Sheridan and Luis arrive home after delivering Pat’s baby.
Sometimes I think I’ll explode. Could life be anymore difficult? I lie here in my bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for dreams to consume me. Not that that’ll do me any good. My dreams are so emotional that I wake up exhausted, anyway.
I know the reason for my insomnia.
One man. Luis Lopez Fitzgerald.
He’s a walking contradiction. Sometimes I feel like killing him. No, that’s a lie – but I’ll settle for hurting him just like he hurt me. Sometimes I want to kiss him and others I want to slap him.
I’d love to hate him and I hate that I love him.
I do. Love him, that is.
Of all the damnable things I can do, I have to fall in love with Luis. God, I’m so messed up. I’m so conflicted. I feel like I’m caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between my heart and my mind. It’s tearing me apart.
‘I thought I saw a man brought to life.
He was warm, he came around like he was dignified.’
I turn to my side facing the wall connected to the living room. The room where he’s sleeping right at this moment. He’s putting his life on hold, making everything come second for my safety. He’s protecting me. My own personal hero.
Too bad he can’t protect me from himself. A single tear slips down my cheek.
‘He showed me what it was to cry.
When you couldn’t be that man I adored,’
Why did he have to be like all the rest? But in a way he’s like no man I have ever met before. He is unique. Gentle. Kind. Caring. He’s Luis.
But it’s all a lie. He isn’t whom I thought, at all.
‘You don’t seem to know seem to care.
what your heart is for.
I don’t know him anymore.’
How can it be? How can he be so cold and heartless one minute and then the most compassionate person in the world the next? Is he telling the truth? Did I read him wrong? Or am I just crazy?
‘There’s nothing where he used to lie.
My conversation has run dry’
Maybe I’m doomed. Doomed to fall in love with the wrong men. Doomed to that the one man I can’t live without be nothing more than a cold, heartless, manipulative bastard.
‘So I guess the fortuned teller’s right,
I should’ve seen just what was there
and not some holy light.’
Then how can I love him? How can he mean so much to me when I can’t trust him? Is Pat right? Can I trust him?
‘Of course you can’t trust him.’ a voice inside my head says. My mind won’t let me trust him. But my heart, my heart is screaming for me to let him love me. He gets to my heart.
‘You crawled beneath my veins and now,
I don’t care I have no luck.
I don’t listen all that much.’
I get up and walk outside to the living room, despite my mind’s protest. I have to see him. I have to talk to him. I need to know the truth. I need to know how he feels.
‘There’s just so many thing’s that I can’t touch.’
I see him sleeping on the couch, a blanket covering him from the waist down. Involuntarily I bite on my lower lip. I wish it were just his infuriating good looks that got to me. I wish I could blame this heartache on my hormones.
But I can’t. His beauty is skin deep. I’ve seen the way he is with other people. The children at the Youth Center. His sister Theresa. His brother Miguel. I remember how terrified he was when Miguel almost drowned at the pond on Valentine’s Day. And how absolutely relieved he was when he got out alive.
I remember how good he’s been to me. He saved my life. Over and over again – risking his own. Santa Fe, Paris, the cabin. He was there for me. He saved me instead of the man he thought was his father on New Year’s Eve.
But he used me. He said it loud and clear on the phone to one of his buddies. I can still hear the words ringing in my ears. Oh God how they hurt.
‘I’m torn I’m all out of faith,
this is how I feel. I’m cold and I’m
ashamed lying naked on the floor.
Illusions never changed into something real
I’m wide-awake and I can see
The perfect sky is torn.’
I’m in deep. Way too deep. I don’t know if I’ll get out.
I sit on the edge of the couch, right in the hook of his arm; gently I stroke his cheek and smile when he murmurs in his sleep. He’s so gorgeous. I can spend my life watching him sleep. I want to wake him and tell him to make wild, passionate love to me. Or maybe just kiss me like he did on the wharf so I can pretend he never said those things about me.
He stirs in his sleep and then slowly opens his eyes. He sees me and smiles crookedly. Oh, be still my beating heart. I smile back resisting the urge to beg him to take me right then and there, on my couch. He brings his hand and clasps my hand that is resting on his cheek.
“Sheridan,” he whispers softly. I can hear the emotion in his voice and the truth and love in his hazel depths.
And I’m torn.
THE END