done.”
“Sometimes the only causes worth fighting for are the lost ones.”
“What?”
“If something is easy, why fight for it. The lost causes are the most valuable, the most worthy, because they’re the hardest. You know that for yourself.”
“I don’t understand.”
He smiles. “Why forgive her if there is no point to it? You forgive her because she’s worth forgiving.”
“I’m doing it for our baby.”
“Yes. That’s certainly a good reason, but it’s not the main reason. You said it yourself.”
I close my eyes, try to put her out of my mind but she won’t budge. “I can’t,” I say. “I just can’t. There’s too much between us and it’s too hard.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Grant says.
The hour is over before I know it. He’s leading me back to my car.
“Judd, I’d like you to do something over the week.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to think about what you said. I want you to write down any more thoughts that you might have. Next week we’ll look at those things in a little more detail. Okay?”
“Sure,” I say.
“And you should be quite pleased with yourself,” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “You did very well for your first time. I see good things coming from this, very good things.”
“Thanks,” I say with a smile.
Something occurs to me as I head back down his driveway. I loved my father, but I never really connected to him. I never really understood him. In the space of one hour this man, this stranger, had gone deeper into me than any other person had in all my life, even Quinn. He had become more of a father to me than my own.
Could he be right? Could I still love her? Was it possible?
Was this lost cause worth fighting for?
In the next episode of Twenty Four Weeks…
Judd starts back on the show… A dinner invitation takes a bad turn…
Wade is already there. We’re on air in ten minutes. The early morning crew are winding down. I drag him into the office and tell him how things are going to be.
“Remember how it was before?”
“Sure,” he says with a cocky smile, like he’s trying to smooth talk some new intern.
“Well, you stick to that. None of that other, whatever the hell that was that you were doing. We go back to the way things were.”
He nods and I frown at him.
“Don’t screw this up,” I tell him. “If we get back in line then we get start to get our advertisers back in the stable. You got that?”
---
“It was just talking, you know,” I go on. “I was telling him my story – our story - and out of nowhere I’m crying. I’m crying on his shoulder. I’m telling him things I haven’t even told you. Damn,” I say, looking down, closing my eyes, “I’m starting to cry now.”
I take a deep breath and look up. There are tears in her eyes, not joy but sadness. She did this to me, to us, as much as I had. We both had guilt enough to sink us.
There is distance between us. Only inches, but it seems like miles. It seems like the width of the whole universe, and we can’t bridge it. We can’t reach even those inches to touch, to hold. It’s so hard because I want to, and I know she wants to, but the rules have changed and I think neither of us even know what the rules are anymore. We do nothing for fear of breaking them.
“Anyway,” I say with a sigh. “With all those words you get some insight. You were right when you said I shut down. I do. I’ve always done it, but I don’t want to anymore.”
“You’re not,” she says quietly. “You’re talking to me. You’re sharing yourself with me. That’s something. I just wish you could before.”
---
“Well,” Allan says, “here you are back from the dead, out from the cold. That’s quite a feat. Good for you.”
“Ah,” I say. “Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.”
“So you’re not back with Quinn?”
“Not exactly. We’re still friends. So, we’re here as friends.”
“Are you sure about that?” He points with his tongs in the direction of the window. Through the glass is the kitchen. Quinn is there, looking at us and smiling. “I’ve seen that look on her before.”
“With Wade, right?” I ask him with a slight smile.
“What?”
“With Wade. You remember him? He’s the one she replaced me with. She’s the one she made you all accept so that you’d all forget about me.”
---
I push her back slightly. “I can’t,” I say.
“Can’t? No! Make love to me!” she demands.
“We’re friends.”
“Are you serious?”
“Sorry,” I tell her gently.
And I feel suddenly guilty, because even though she’s broken our marriage and my trust, I’ve done the same and she doesn’t know about it. It probably wasn’t a good idea to tell her right then, but I’m a fool and the words just come out: “I slept with someone.”
“What?” She says, stepping backwards.
“Back home. When we were... when I was sitting Shiva. I’m sorry. I should have told you earlier, but...”
“Who?” she demands.
---
“What?” I ask. “What’s going on here?”
“Listen man, I’ve got to tell you: Quinn called me last night, she asked me to come over.”
I go cold. I feel worse than I did when I walked in on them. I’ve been betrayed twice and I’m a fool.
“What did you do?” I demand, stepping toward him, looking like I’m going to live up to my promise.
He puts up his hands to defend himself, stepping back as he does.
---
“Judd, what are you doing?”
“I know you rang Wade last night.” I don’t accuse her. There’s none of the tone I would have applied before.
“God,” she says, looking down, shaking her head. “Now my humiliation is complete. Thank you, Judd, thank you very much. Rejected by two men in one night. This is a real low for me.”
Download regularly the Episode Guide for updates on this series. Additionally there is an Adult version (contains adult themes, coarse language, sexual references, high-level sex scenes and some violence) and downloadable audio books of these episodes (adult version).
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