The One Where The Lines Get Kinda Blurry

The One With Yawning 'til Morning

"Hey, sorry it's so late. We overran again" Jen said, stifling a mixture of yawn and tears as she spoke. She'd stood under the shower for almost twenty minutes, hoping it would both revive and calm her. It had done neither. But she knew avoiding the inevitable conversation was ridiculous and the only thing that would make her feel better in any way right now was speaking to him.

"Oh thank God you called" he replied, his emotions running as close to the surface as hers were, a fact that didn't go unnoticed. "I was so worried something was wrong ... or you'd decided you couldn't face calling me. And I wouldn't blame you if you had. I was bang out of order with what I said and again, I'm really, really sorry."

"I'm sorry too" she sighed, wandering over to the window and peering out towards the distant Eiffel Tower which was illuminated by blue and yellow lights in a show of solidarity with Ukraine. It was still raining hard and the horizontal water slamming relentlessly against the glass made her feel strangely uneasy. "You were right as usual, I should have said no."

"No, I wasn't right. I wasn't right at all. I have no place to tell you who you should or shouldn't see, no matter what my reason or belief is." David found himself still walking aimlessly around the room, wiping at surfaces with his finger and making a mental note which ones needed dusting.

"You were trying to protect me, I get it" she replied, walking around the room, away from the noisy windows and the insistent weather. "It just felt like you didn't trust me. And that's fair, after what happened back then because of him. But while it's fair... it doesn't mean what you said didn't hurt."

"I trust you with my life. It's him I have an issue with" David fired back, feeling the anger beginning to bubble beneath the surface again. "I can't believe after everything he put you through he actually had the audacity to ask for your help. But that aside, there's no excuse for speaking to you like that and I'm truly devastated that I hurt you."

"Yeah well, I told him straight that it wasn't going to happen" she said, stifling another yawn as she entered her bedroom and perched on the edge of the mattress. "I can stick up for myself when I need to you know. I like that you're protective of me and I know your concern absolutely comes from a place of love... but I can't change who I am David. Or at least, I don't want to change who I am. Maybe I am too forgiving and maybe I do allow people to walk over me sometimes. But I'd rather that than risk turning into my mom and being eaten up by paranoia and bitterness."

"I don't want you to change" came his quiet reply, "I just didn't want you to get played. But it turns out, this time at least, I was the one you needed protecting from, lashing out at you in frustration like I did. It was unkind, unfair and completely unjustifiable. I'm so sorry, especially what I said about not having kids to tie you together. That was incredibly insensitive and I'm disgusted with myself."

"We all say things we regret in the heat of the moment... although I'm not going to lie, that was a low blow I didn't expect from you." She flopped backwards so she was horizontal on the bed, her white hotel bathrobe flapping open as she did, revealing a pair of light grey pyjama pants and a dark purple T-shirt. "I miss you" she said softly, a single tear escaping from her overtired eyes. "There's no way we'd be having this fight, if it even is a fight, if we were actually together."

"I miss you too" he said, finally stopping the pacing he'd been doing for well over an hour and sinking down onto his leather couch. "And you're right, this disagreement is as much about the fact we're thousands of miles apart and barely able to keep in touch as anything else. If you'd said you were meeting him for lunch in LA, I don't think I'd have said anything. I'm mean, I'm not going to lie and pretend I'd have been jumping for joy about it, but I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have been so horribly unkind and utterly unfair."