Mickey - The View From Here PART TWO - Gallavich

West Side Story - Part Two

Once again, I found myself at the Gallagher house, letting myself inside so I could sneak upstairs. In the living room, Lip caught me.

Arching a brow, he scratched his head and wondered, “again?”

“Shut the fuck up,” I huffed grumpily, ascending the staircase to take refuge in what had been, for almost a year, my marriage bed. Shutting the new door Lip had installed, an exhale escaped my lungs with relief. Home. Even once they sold this place, South Side would forever be where I belonged.

It took all day for Ian to come looking for me, the streets already dark and dimly lit by old streetlights. I could hear his heavy steps as they jogged up the stairs and approached the bedroom door. Scrambling, I grabbed my phone and turned on a video, hoping to look distracted and unbothered.

Filling the doorway with his tall, toned frame, he tried to give me a casual, “hey.”

I pretended not to hear him, my eyes fixed on the tiny screen I held in front on me as I sat in bed.

“What are you doin' over here?”

“Watchin' a bunch of jackasses try the cinnamon challenge,” I replied before chuckling at the poor soul on my screen coughing up clouds of cinnamon.

Taking a step into the room, Ian inquired, “you comin' back to the apartment?”

“I like it better on the South Side.”

“You haven’t really given the West Side a shot,” he pointed out.

“Look, I don’t fit in over there, man,” I leveled with him, a fact he was already well aware of.

“Neither do I,” he claimed, unaware of just how well he already seemed to fit in within our new community. “But…you know, I’d like to try.”

Easy for him to say. Everyone loved Ian while I was this crude, unpredictable ball of panic that had tendency to default into violence and crime. Ian wanted to belong in the West Side, but that wasn’t the life I wanted. “Guess that’s the difference between you and me.”

Growing stern, my husband reminded me that, “we paid first, last, and security.”

“And they were supposed to give us some fuckin' furniture.”

“We could buy our own.”

“We're not gonna agree on anything--we'll have different tastes and shit,” I ranted, my anxiety mounting yet again.

Ian paused, processing. “So you’re gonna stay here and I’m gonna live over there.”

“Looks like it,” I said, already arming myself for the oncoming heartache.

I’m gonna lose him again, I thought before I swallowed back my emotions.

Ian wouldn’t relent. “It’s nicer there.”

“Well, I guess I don’t like nice,” I sighed, hopeless.

“Don’t you want a better life?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“’Cause it’s too much--" I cut myself off, sorting my thoughts so the right words would come out. “It’s too much fuckin' pressure, all right?”

Finally, my husband seemed to hear me. “Okay,” he said softly. “I understand.”

“Shit makes me feel uncomfortable,” I confessed, immediately ashamed of my admission once it was out.

“Fine,” he said, sitting next to me on our old bed.

“Fine what?” I grumbled.

“Fine, we’ll stay here, then.”

Suspicious, I turned my head to look him in the eye. “Why?”

“Well, ’cause you're my husband,” Ian reminded me, sincerity woven into his voice . “If you’re not happy there, then we don’t have to be there.”

I didn’t trust it. “Don’t do that shit.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Guilt trippin' me.”

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are—you’re doing the whole reverse fuckin' psychiatric whatever the fuck.”

Ian set a gentle hand onto my bicep. “I swear…I’m not.” Shifting his attention to my phone, he tried to change the subject. “What cinnamon challenge things are you watching?”

Fuckin' Gallagher…he's lucky I love him so much, I thought. I could live with being uncomfortable. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself for forcing Ian to stay on the South Side. All I wanted was for him to be happy, so I decided to tough it out. “God damn it. All right, we'll go back,” I conceded begrudgingly.

“What?”

“I’m not changin' for anybody though,” I said, drawing my line in the sand.

“Nobody wants you to change,” Ian tried to reassure me.

“Those gentrifyin' motherfuckers do!”

“All right, maybe you could change an eensy, teensy little bit and not steal anything in the apartment complex--"

“That’s what I’m sayin’. I feel fuckin’ handcuffed!”

Ian held up his hands defenselessly. “That’s all I’m asking for. You can do anything else you want.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I piss in the pool?” I challenged with the first thought to pop into my head.

“Ugh. Really?”

“Yup.”

“All right, fine,” he allowed, “but I want you to come to a yoga class.”

I thought he didn’t want me to change?!

“Yo—no fuckin' way!” I exclaimed.

“All right, Whole Foods so we can stare at the organic fruit,” he bartered.

Is he fucking serious?

“Jesus, really? That’s what you wanna fuckin' do?”

Ian stubbornly held my gaze and said, “I’m letting you piss in the pool.”

I scoffed before caving. “Fine.”

 A beautiful smirk emerged on his face and he put me into a headlock. With lust and affection, he said, “you are such a fuckin' barbarian.”

“Thank you,” I beamed before he closed his mouth over mine to give me a passionate kiss. As he held my face in his big hands, the stress and anxiety from that day melted away, and all that mattered was us.