Forever, starting now

Forever, starting now - Penny Elmwood

Regret is such a funny feeling when you really think about it, because you don't even realize that you're feeling it until you've already done the thing that you're going to regret; the thing that will change the trajectory of your life forever. 

 Penny realized that quite vividly as she laid in her bed later one night, letting music blare loudly in her ears as she stared at her ceiling, at the posters that she'd put on the slant to cover the crack, even though there was no reason to cover it aside from the fact that it was a little ugly... That was what clung to her mind as she sunk into a burning feeling of regret, her arms splayed out... it felt like she was begging the ceiling to fall down on her, exposing her more vulnerable organs so that it would be a quick and painless death...

Perhaps the regret would crush her before the ceiling - that was honestly more probable.

She was regretting wasting so much time on Derek, so much energy on a man who didn't care about her enough to actually get to know her, who tried to get her to quit the band, to leave mostly Emma behind so that she could have a life with him... He was threatened by their friendship, that was clear, and as much as she tried to reassure him that nothing would happen, he just didn't trust her, which was crazy because she wasn't lying... When they were dating, nothing was going to happen. Penny respected that she'd entered herself into a monogamous relationship, even if it wasn't something that she ever wanted to do again. 

If he'd just stuck to talking about her like she was some kind of heinous monster, she probably could have excused it, but he made one mistake... Well, two technically, but one had corrected itself late one night when Esme was on a bender and told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn't going to be taking Penny from him, in her words, 'even if she could', because she wasn't interested in anything long term...  That had been enough for Derek, he wasn't as threatened by Esme, honestly.

But Emma?  He never shut the fuck up about them, and Penny couldn't stand the disrespectful way that he would talk about them - about someone who'd saved her life, who'd helped foster the community that had grown around her... Someone who loved her even when she wasn't sure that she deserved it.

Emma was unshakably good; they wore their heart on their sleeve... And Penny hated that she hadn't seen that earlier.

Honestly, that was part of this - the regret also stemmed from the fact that she'd chosen the wrong person, plain and simple... There was no other way to say it. Derek was not the man that she should have fallen for, Derek was someone that she should've walked away from the second that he opened his mouth... She could remember the day that he convinced her to go out with him.

It'd been in the two weeks after New Years, when things had been incredibly awkward between her and Emma after kissing on New Years, but they were slowly getting back to normal and all she wanted was to make sure that she had her friend back... She also desperately wanted it to happen again, but she wasn't going to say that out loud. 

 She didn't want to scare Emma away... It'd felt like their first kiss in the shed at camp all over again, but this time there actually was a friendship to lose - the most important friendship she'd ever had.

In short... Penny had been incredibly shakable at that time.

She'd been vulnerable, that was something that Derek fed on, something that he craved as he sought her out, speaking to her with sweet words, bringing her gifts and tokens of his affection... He wooed her, and Penny had never been properly wooed before, so she fell head over heels pretty quick despite not being that attracted to him... He was handsome enough, but he wasn't striking... Not like Emma.