~S~
I really did cook that night, and he actually helped. We spent an hour or more in the kitchen together, and then, at almost one in the morning, we lit a couple of candles in the living room, sat down on an old blanket with two of glasses of wine, and a record spinning on the turntable.
It felt like we were twenty-two again, sitting around, laughing about anything and everything that came to mind. The only real difference was that by then, at almost sixty, we really had nothing to argue over. When we were young we would fight about bills, and working, and music, and then it all just sort of escalated when we joined the band and had a baby. But at that point, many moons later, we were simply learning how to be friends, which is something that we really hadn't been before.
"You're so handsome..." I was staring down at him, index finger tracing the curves of his face as he looked right back up at me.
I was sitting crisscross- applesauce, leaning back against the couch as he laid next to me with his head in my lap, which allowed me to really scan over his facial features... Those eyes, the grin, the dimples and the curls.
"Even with wrinkles and gray hair?" He teased, giving me a crooked little smile, which only made my heart skip a beat.
Nodding softly, I leaned in to press a kiss to his head. "Even with a few wrinkles and some gray hair, you still take my breath away..." I never said things like to him, so I think we were both a little surprised when I started dishing out those kinds of compliments.
He paused for a moment and then he reached up, taking my chin in his hand. "No one has ever been as beautiful as you." Lindsey was the only man in the entire world that could tell me something like that and I would believe it.
He had loved me at my worst and at my best, so if anyone was going to be honest with me about how they felt, I knew it would be him.
Chewing on my bottom lip, I let my head fall back against the sofa. "Don't you ever wonder what it would have been like if we had done it the right way?" I was looking up at the ceiling fan spin in circles... if I looked at him for another second longer, I would have wanted to kiss him. "What if we had just gotten married when I found out that I was pregnant?" I didn't think about that very often and I don't know what possessed me to ask him that....
I always figured that if it was meant to be, it would have happened... If we were destined for that life together, everything would have just naturally fallen into place, but it didn't.
"We would have been happy." He didn't hesitate to reply, which made me wonder if he thought about it too... I think he did, maybe even more than me. "We would have found a way to make each other happy, even on the hard days." He clarified in such a soft, sentimental tone of voice.
My gaze fell back down, a soft smile trailing across my face when I locked eyes with those blue storms. "You really think so?" I wasn't totally certain of that... Not with our history.
Nodding his head, he chuckled lightly. "I mean, we would have fought, of course, but we could have done it..." he said that like he had traveled to that alternate universe once before, just to check it out. "I do know one thing, for sure..." he lingered after a moment of silence.
"And what is that?" I was still grinning a little as my hand met his chest to rub.
"I would have come home to you every night." He told me. "And I would have woken up a little more in love every morning."
~L~
I remember looking up at the clock that used to hang on the wall in the break room at the hospital and thinking that it was the perfect time to call her... It was six in the morning on the East coast, so that meant that it was only three out in LA and she would still be awake.
I figured that she was probably writing in her journal, or watching a weird documentary, or moving her living room furniture all by herself- the same random things that she always did in the middle of the night, while the rest of the world was asleep.
"Hello?" His voice surprised me, it really did and not in a good way.
"Lindsey...?" I creased a brow, pulling the phone away from my ear to make sure that I had called the right number.
He paused for a second and I can assume that he was having a full on panic attack on the other end... I would have too. And then, since I'm sure that he didn't want to respond, I heard him shuffle around, obviously just waking up... The very last thing in the entire world that I really wanted to know.
"Lark?" The tone in her voice was so groggy and gentle- it made me roll my eyes. "Honey, is everything okay?" She wondered, trying to avoid that fact that my dad was there, at her house in the middle of the night.
"No." I admitted, not at all enthused with either of them. "No, it's not alright." I could be mean sometimes... Mean and harsh, even when I didn't try, intentionally. "You know, I send my kid out there for the summer to spend time with you two and this is where it goes...?" I was shocked, even though I shouldn't have been.
I knew them. I knew how they were... I was just hoping that as they got older, they'd also get over each other.
They never did... They never will.
She let out a deep sigh, and looking back now, I feel bad. "It isn't like that, Lark." It had been a long time since I had heard that crack in her voice... I was getting to her. "We just had dinner and we fell-"
"I'm going to see if Bonnie can swing by and get Ruth tomorrow." I was really unhappy with them. "She needs to spend time with her other grandparents too, so that'll work best."
