Second Chances

David

AN: thx for joining me on this again MeganPerk89

"Her name was Lola..."

There she was. The most beautiful girl in the world, in the most ridiculous pink bridesmaids dress.

"She was a showgirl..."

God, how many years had passed since they had shot that scene, he wondered.

"With yellow feathers, feathers in her hair and her dress cut down to there..."

David was unable to tear his eyes from the small screen in front of him. So much time had passed since then, so much happened, and yet, so little had changed.

Now, sitting on his couch in his New York living room, hardly 24 hours after returning from LA after taping the Reunion, he still was unable to process what had happened in the last days, and neither was he able to tell what this meant for his future either.

What he had known though, was that even if he had thought his romantic feelings for this very girl - now a wildly attractive and incredibly successful woman - had passed or transitioned into something resembling a platonic friendship (at least that was what he was trying to tell himself), he could not have been more wrong. The flame was still there, maybe as a mere glimmer in the back of his heart for a few years, but it never died down completely. And somehow, right now, it burned brighter than it ever had, in a way.

His mind flashed back to the sensation of feeling her wrapped up in his tight embrace for the first time in years... which was still sending a shiver down his spine.

He moved on to the next reel that account held. When the song began to play, he was hooked immediately.

"What's gonna be left of the world if you're not in it?"

What followed was basically a compilation of her public appearances, being her beautiful, bubbly self, wearing a warm smile for literally everyone around her... not having one even remotely bad cell in her body.

Really, how much more of a gloomy place would this world be without her?

Thinking of it, over all those years they spent apart... whenever he thought of her... it had always given him a comforting feeling that, even though she was not with him, he knew that she was out there, enriching the world of whoever was close to her.

His heart had always been filled with a certain degree of sadness that it wasn't him though. But it had been too hard.

He could not remember he had never met anyone else quite like her. And he sure never experienced this magnetic pull towards another person with anybody else. Not before her, and if he was being honest, never again after. But at the same, this gave her a power to hurt him in a way no other person on this planet could. Which had happened, time and time again.

The biggest scar she left on his heart even carried the name of a third person - and when he had to mention that person’s name while they were in front of the camera the other day, it still took all of his willpower to speak his name in a civil way and not just spit it out like he wanted to - this was for a TV show after all that should make people feel good.

He was very aware that she had just tried to do a healthy thing and move on from this complicated dynamic they had going on for years - being deeply in love with each other, still deciding not to be together for all the rational reasons (that seemed so silly looking back at them now), but taking every chance they got to put all of that energy and love into the characters, living this love through them - not healthy for sure. He got that. Going out, trying to find a person you clicked with and then opening your heart to them to overcome this - that sounded like something you SHOULD do.