Just Give Me A Reason [ROBSTEN]

8

Another sleepless night.

When was it going to end?

Kristen wasn't in her bed. She knew that if she had gone to, she could not move, or she risked waking Dylan up. And she was not in the mood to explain why she was struggling to fall asleep and how the thoughts of the project she was working on with no other than her ex-boyfriend and first true love were occupying her mind.

Besides, was it Dylan's business? At all?

Of course, it was. After all, that was the woman Kristen was planning to propose to... right?

She was beginning to question everything, and not only because of the pandemic. Was marriage to Dylan a good idea? Were they truly meant to be?

The actress sighed and almost pulled a cigarette from its box. She then hesitated. If she smoked, she would increase her chances of lung cancer. And now that she was enjoying herself while singing, she wasn't so sure if smoking was a good idea anymore.

That night, Kristen made one of the first big changes in her life. She threw away the cigarette. And not only that. All of the boxes of cigarettes in her stash were now gone forever. It was going to be difficult, but knowing herself and how stubborn she was, she knew she would succeed. And all she wanted now was to stop smoking. She didn't need to. She had plenty of other hobbies to occupy herself with whenever she was bored.

*

On the next day, the first one to learn about Kristen's new life-changing decision was Robert. For some reason, the actress didn't want to tell her girlfriend yet. Surprisingly, she felt it was more important to tell her ex-boyfriend. At the same time, not so much. she had known Robert for longer. They had had a long history together. It made more sense to her to tell him first. Besides, Dylan was probably going to babble around to their current group of friends and she was not in the mood to address every issue in her life. Not that she had to. It was nobody's business but hers, after all.

Robert was shocked, "You stopped smoking?"

Kristen nodded her head, smiling. While she didn't feel any different than usual, she knew that her hard work would pay off in the future. Her family would be thankful, especially her future children. And her body as well, "I know, right? It just happened. I threw the cigarette and then all of the boxes I had laying around."

Nobody said anything else after that. Usually, one of them would have interrupted the silence, proposing to go back to work. But today, both of them weren't quite ready to sit back down and to sing. They much preferred hanging out, catching up.

Robert impatiently spoke, hating it whenever awkwardness began to dominate the atmosphere, "How does it feel, I mean, to not want to smoke?", He was beginning to think that perhaps he could quit too. If Kristen could, then so could he.

She looked down, the smile on her face slowly disappearing as she spoke: "If I have to be honest, it's pretty weird. The green little human being inside of me craves nicotine. But then, I remember that my lungs are already infected and I have a bigger chance of dying from lung cancer," she saddened, as her imagination took her to a dark future where she was battling for her life but losing. She didn't want any of it for herself. She wanted to have a long, happy life. After almost losing her own father to cancer, it would be a good idea to reconsider all of her plans for the future and to be more careful. Health came first.

"I'm incredibly proud of you," he spoke sincerely, with a small smile on his face.

Unexpectedly for both of them, she threw her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder, inhaling his scent - it took her back to the good old days.

Suddenly, she wished she could go back in time and fix everything.