Chapter 6. Author's note - so sorry for the long wait on this update! But if you ARE reading it, please, please, please vote and comment! This story's lack of support is really getting me down. But those of you who have voted and commented should know that your support means the world to be.

Aaron was astonished at the fact that, the moment Anne left, he felt at peace. He was not filled with hatred or despair or loathing. He felt happy. He was even more astonished when that feeling lasted well into Sunday night.

He had fallen asleep in his bed, curled next to Anne's nightgown, and had slept like the most affable of babies until late Sunday morning. And when he had awoken, he had not felt angry or sad, not even happy or elated. He simply felt whole, like some missing part of him had finally been replaced.

It was a wonderful feeling, one that made him elated. He sashayed about the house on Sunday, humming and acting like a complete dolt.

The good feeling lasted until Sunday night, when a hollow ache, not unlike hunger, began to gnaw at his insides. It did not take him long to realize what it was:

He missed Anne. It had then been over a day since he had seen her, and, like a drug, his high had worn off and he was beginning to crave her presence. 

And so he sat there in the living room that was now entirely devoid of empty liquor bottles on Sunday night, staring at where the name "Anne" - he could not bear to fill out the full "Anne Graeme", it was far too painful to realize that she no longer belonged to him - was sitting, staring out at him blithely from the list of his contacts.

"Oh, fuck it," he growled, and decided to call her. Lifting the phone to his ear, he listened as it rang. And rang. And rang. And rang. Every ring without a response, without hearing Anne's melodious voice answer on the other line was like a punch to the stomach.

After seven punches, it went to voicemail. Hearing Anne's recorded voice was only half as good as her real one, as he knew she wasn't actually there.

"Hello. You've reached Anne Graeme. I'm not able to come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message I'll try to call you back," said the automated voice.

Aaron was so focused on the duality of emotion he felt, the mix of elation at hearing her voice and despair that she evidently did not want to actually speak to him, that he barely noticed as there was a beep.

"Oh!" he said, jumping up, all of a sudden flustered and angry. "It's me, Aaron. I'm just calling because I...feel low. But you obviously don't want to talk. Goodbye."

Then he hung up. Feeling anger suddenly burst inside him, seeming to flood his brain with fire and his limbs with fury, he dropped his phone to the sofa cushion and kicked the leg of the sofa very hard. Hearing a resounding crack, he wondered if it was his toe or the sofa complaining at his abuse.

And the fact that Anne, when they were married, once told him that she often kicked that sofa to vent her rage, did help assuage his temper.

With a roar of pure, mad fury, he fell upon the sofa. He kicked and punched and pummelled the unoffending piece of furniture, his own violence frightening him but unable to put a stopper in the stream of his rage.

As he landed a punch to a cushion, he imagined it was Jack's face. As he kicked the arm of the sofa, he imagined he was delivering a sharp kick to Jack's oh-so-fucking-fertile loins, the very thing responsible for the man knocking up Anne while she was still married to Aaron.

"How do you like that, you stupid, fucking wife-stealing, good-for-nothing bastard?" he howled.

But, as his rage burned and went out, he was left there, standing before a sofa, not the man he hated with all his heart and soul. He was left there, with his chest heaving in exertion, realizing that he had, in fact, gone mad.

Upon consideration of his newly found madness, Aaron chuckled acerbically.

"I need a goddamned drink," he muttered. And off he went into the kitchen, rooting around through closets. Now, with the tidying Anne had done, he had no clue where his booze had gotten to. He was tearing apart the kitchen, his ire increasing with every minute that he did not come across some of the blessed, numbing alcohol, when he heard it.

It was a small, innocently peevish sound. One he usually associated with work. But at the sound, he stopped dead.

His phone was ringing. Hoping, praying it was Anne, it took him all of a second and a half to make it back into the living room, as he covered the distance in only two or three long-legged bounds.

He fumbled with the insistent little phone, listening to it trill imperiously as he picked it up, but it shot out of his hands as though it were made entirely of soap.

"Hello?" he asked breathlessly.

"Aaron, are you okay?" he heard a female voice ask. And the simple words nearly made him cry with joy.

"Yeah," he replied. "Never been better, Anne. Hey, what are you doing right now?"

"Um, Jack's family just left," she said. Based on the awkward intonation of her voice, he wondered if she was being entirely truthful. "And you sound out of breath," she added.

"So what?" he asked. "Did you get my message?"

"Yes. Which is why I'm calling. Aaron, are you drunk?" she asked, her voice riddled with worry.

Aaron didn't know whether to feel elated that she was worried about him or devastated that she was worrying at all. As much as he loved her agony over what she had done to him, he hated to know that she was in pain.

"No. I can't find any of my booze," he grunted.

"I'm not surprised," she replied, and she sounded smug. That confused Aaron.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"While you were cleaning the floor in the upstairs bathroom, I poured it all down the sink," she said. She sounded just as Aaron remembered sounding when, as a child, he proudly announced to his father that he had flushed his father's cigarettes down the toilet. It had been an attempt to help his father quit smoking. And although he hadn't appreciated it at the time, Richard had eventually given it up.

Aaron reacted in a was similar to what he remembered of his father's response. "You did what?" he yelled, nearly hitting the ceiling in indignation. "Why you utter-"

He tried to retrain himself from using words that were horrifically vile in the string of insults that came next, but he was sure that the expletive "bitch" found its way in there at least once.

"You heard me. Go buy more booze if you want, but at least you won't be driving drunk," she said calmly. She'd weathered his outburst and was now chiding him in a manner reminiscent of the way she had during their marriage.

"That worried about the pedestrians, are you?" he snarled.

"The pedestrians can go to hell," she retorted indignantly. "It's you I care about."

Aaron wondered who was cutting the damned onions as he felt his eyes prick and begin to tear at her words.

"And, based on the fact that you only discovered now that the lack of alcohol in your house would do a Puritan proud, it lets me know that you haven't had anything since I left. I'm proud of you, sweetie," she said, her voice growing winsome at the end.

Aaron's throat nearly closed, so touched was he by her gentle affection. "Anne," he choked out awkardly. As always, he found it difficult to express how he felt. And so he settled with only using her name.

She seemed to understand his sentiments, as her next words were even sweeter than those before.

"You don't have to say anything. I know what you're thinking," she murmured, her voice charming in its gloating.

"You always have," he said sadly.

"Anne? Who are you - oh, not again," he suddenly heard a voice groan from Anne's end. Based on how loud the voice was, he knew the source of it had to be nearby.

"Jack?" he growled. His fists clenched and his jaw locked, as though he were some wild animal prepared to fight.

"Yes. And don't use that tone," reprimanded Anne.

"Do you honestly think I can use a different one?" he fired back aggressively.

"I suppose not," she said. "Though please make a concerted effort not to sound as though you're about to kill him."

"Why? Would that give away my plans?" asked Aaron. The moment his deadpan sarcasm left his mouth, he realized it might have been a mistake.

But Anne laughed. Hearing the sound, he realized how much he had missed the little things about her; the way she walked, the way she bit her lip when agitated, the way she laughed.

"When can I see you?" he asked, sounding for all the world like a desperate lover. Which he was, he supposed, minus the fun part of actually being able to sleep with her.

"Aaron," she said uneasily, her voice like the unhappy, nervous whine of a dog.

"You said I could see you. Now I'm asking." He reminded her of her promise.

"That's true," she admitted.

"So, do you have plans for tomorrow night?" he pressed.

"No. Listen, I'll tell you what. How about you and I go out to dinner with Marta and Dorian?" she suggested. Aaron wondered if she was afraid to be in the same room with him. And if she was, was that a good thing or a bad thing?

"Sure," he said, agreeing meekly. "Anything you say. It'll be just like old times."

"Yeah, I know," she said. "Anything else?"

"Nope."

"Goodbye, Aaron," she said. She hung up so quickly that Aaron's goodbye was left lodged in his throat.

"Goodbye," he muttered to the empty room. With a sigh, he placed his phone on the sofa and trudged up the stairs, and up to bed.