What Can I Do? (renee rapp x reader)

Re(neé)conciliation (Part One)

A/N: Wake up babe, new chapter dropped. 

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The Present Day (March, 2023)

Coffee (Not) Date

Reneé's POV

My hands are shaking. I genuinely cannot get them to sit still. You'd think that my hands were the ones with ADHD. They're also sweating, like fucking high school kids doing a Fitness Gram Pacer Test. My heart is racing and I'm fiddling with my rings like my life depends on it. I grip the steering wheel in such a way that I can feel the leather encasing stick to my sweaty palms, fearing that they'll fuse with my skin. I don't dare look at the woman in my passenger seat. I know that I'm the one who invited her to apologize and yet...I don't know what to say.

Sorry, that's incorrect.

I do know what to say. I just don't know if I'll have the balls to say it. It's taken me so long to get over her, and to rehash my experience of heartbreak with her, tell her I've regretted my poor choice of words that night ever since, tell her about the way I cried, the way I left a part of me with her. She was my first love. And even though it's insanely embarrassing, she has probably been my only love.

I like Alissa, don't get me wrong, it's just...I don't love them. I've tried to. I really have. When they said 'I love you' I said it back, trying hard to convince myself that it was true. They just don't make me feel like Y/N did, from the first time we met eyes on that fateful plane to New York; sparks flying like a newly lit match, to the first time we ever kissed; kissed like we were all we needed in this dying world, to the first time we had sex; inside each other in a physical as well as metaphorical way, to when we said I love you; love warming our bodies like a fire in the winter.

Even when we broke up.

Maybe even especially when we broke up.

The Past (November, 2020)

In the Kitchen

Reneé's POV

I don't think I like my apartment very much.

It's pretty, don't get me wrong. It has high ceilings with beautiful windows overlooking the LA skyline. The walls are painted a beautiful pristine white that makes the entire room feel clean just by looking at it. The details are painted in a stormy blue color which combined with the white walls reminds me of a dark ocean crashing against shore, foaming up. It's decorated just like I've decided, artistically. Funky furniture, music posters hung up all over the room, art from my friends, my vinyl collection, a towering shelf next to the TV. It's just not home.

It doesn't look like my apartment back in New York. The walls don't have cracks in the paint because a certain someone kept bumping into them while moving furniture. It doesn't have a hole in the wall that was most definitely used to install outlets despite a certain someone insisting it was for mice to live in. The floorboards aren't slightly shiny because a certain someone had thought that putting oil on the ground and sliding around would be funny. The table doesn't have splotches of colorful paint from the times me and a certain someone tried to make portraits of each other. It doesn't have little doodles on post notes all around the house.

It doesn't smell like my apartment back in New York. The bathroom doesn't smell like coconut and neither do my sheets. The living room doesn't smell of the candles she used to buy off of 'artisanal' markets. It doesn't smell like her home cooking. It doesn't smell like crinkly old books she used to shove in my face, telling me, insisting that they smelled good. My clothes don't smell like that detergent she specifically got from Mexico because she can't bear to travel without it. It doesn't smell like her perfume. Doesn't smell like her.

It doesn't feel like my apartment back in New York.

Whoever said that home isn't a place and is a person; 1. Fuck you because there are all kinds of merchandise with your quote and also 2. Fuck you because you're right.

I've been crying for three weeks straight because I lost my home.

The Present Day (March, 2023)

Forgiveness

Reneé's POV

We get there and I instinctively get out first to attempt to open Y/N's door only to be met with a flustered face.

"I'm sure I can open my own doors. Thank you though." She murmurs, passive aggressively, still refusing eye contact. For someone so eager to meet me so I can explain, she seems kind of reluctant to actually give me a chance.

We get to the coffee shop and she finds a table while I order.

"Hot chocolate." I say as I bring her cup and place it in front of her. I flush when I realize that she hadn't even asked me for it and I had just assumed that she'd still have the same drink as she did all those years ago.

"How'd you know I still don't like coffee?" She asks quizzically, almost reading my mind.

"Well was I wrong?"

She takes a sip from her drink and blushes, and gives me a short head shake. I smile internally. Maybe we do in fact still know each other.

"Look I'm sorry for the way things ended between us." I start to speak after a few moments of intense not eye contact which basically means looking at the ground.

"Cool." She mutters, stone-faced.

"Let me finish." I say and she unglues her eyes from the ground to make eye contact with me.

"I didn't mean what I said. About it not being worth it." I sigh and reach out for her hand which she does not give me. "I knew we were both destined to be stars in this industry, Clyde. And I knew that I couldn't be the one to stop you from pursuing your dreams. When you came to me about your role in Dickinson I had already signed the contract with HBO. There was no going back." This causes her to tilt her head ever so slightly, her eyes lighting up with surprise. "And even though we could both make it, I know you would have sacrificed your career for me." My voice cracks and I look away. "I couldn't let you do that."

"When I said that 'it' wasn't worth it, I didn't mean you." I looked at her in the eyes, my sclera likely red with tears. "I meant me."

"Don't say that." She murmurs, her eyebrows furrowing in distress. "That wasn't true. That isn't true. You were worth everything and more."

"Maybe." I sigh defeated, knowing I'd never win this argument. "But I couldn't be the one to hold you back from the world, from your dream. And I felt like I couldn't hold you back from being happy, because I know you and you wouldn't have been happy in a long distance relationship."

"Maybe." She mimics me and looks sad. "But that wasn't for you to decide. I would have been happy simply by knowing you were mine." We both linger for a moment, looking into each other's eyes before looking away and blushing.

I want to say something. I want to tell her about how she was my first love. My only love. The person who I've thought of consistently for three years. That I wrote songs about her. That there is nothing I want more than to go back then when we were together.

"But that was a long time ago. We were both young and naive." She murmurs, squeezing my hands.

But she's right. It is in the past.

"I forgive you Reneé." She says, smiling.

So maybe we can move on, it can't be that hard right?

"Friends?" I say, extending my hand as I lift myself from my chair.

"Friends." She says, shaking my hand and standing up as well.

"I can't wait to work with you Regina~" She teases, winking at me as she walks out of the door.

Okay so maybe it can be that hard.

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A/N: Tomorrow I'll work on two more chaps for this fic and a chap for the new regina george story. I wouldn't have posted this chapter today if it wasn't for @anothergaylesbain who comments inspired me lol and I wouldn't have started the regina one if people hadn't commented so I guess what I'm saying is PLEASE COMMENT.