It's Not That Easy

Chapter 29 - The Bucket List

Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'--Erich Fromm

Chapter 29 - The Bucket List

Addy's POV:

The words I spoke to Liv still replay in my head. I can survive without Edward, but I can't live without him, and I want to live. I think of how much different I feel now than I did even at the beginning of the semester. I'm so much stronger now, and not because of Joel's constant reminders, but because Edward won't let me feel weak.

Helen is still in wedding planner mode, even though we start finals this week. She says she will tone it down until the weekend, because I'm a little snippy right now. I told her she hasn't even seen snippy, yet.

She put away the wedding stuff, and begins goofing off with Joel, talking about college and how they blew off steam during finals. I'm not sure how they both graduated, listening to what they used to do. Then, it hit me. That was part of the college experience that most people get to have or choose to have. Mine was quite different.

Two years of living with my brother, I was too emotionally hurt to date at first, and then I just didn't want to. Most of my free time was spent with Mason and his friend, because they lived so close. They were older, and not like the wilder students from my classes. Then...well I know what happened then...Connor. Suffice it to say, I didn't have a typical college experience.

"I can almost hear the wheels turning in that head of yours. What's wrong?" Helen asks me as she and Joel recover from story she had just finished.

"Nothing." She frowns as me, giving me a look that tells me to spill or else. "Just, I never..."

I didn't even finish the sentence, and the room goes deathly quite. For a moment no one says a word, letting the room fill with tension of my unspoken thoughts...I never got to do any of those things, because I didn't have a life.

"Well, by golly. We need to fix that." She goes to grab a small notebook, and hands me a pen. "Let's make a list. I'm sure Joel's up for doing some of this again...I am." She flashes me her mischievous smile, and begins talking about my pre-wedding bucket list.

This is not my attempt to live without Edward, this is me using his strength to live...I can do this.

Edward's POV:

I've been holding on for today. The last day of the term, and then a six-week break for her. She's been sleeping with few interruptions, but I now know what Joel and Helen went through a few weeks ago during midterms with her restlessness.

She has been a little short tempered. I know she's been giving it to me worse than she did them; it's the nature of any close relationship. It's also a test to see if I will leave, or at least that's Joel's theory, because she is constantly pushing me away.

He doesn't think she's aware of it, but she keeps picking little fights trying to get a rise out of me...and she does. Most of them end with humor, but it doesn't mean it's not wearing on me. Joel has taken her to the gym the last two days to blow off steam, and it seems to help.

Joel and Helen haven't been much better. The stress of finals is tough, even if you're a solid student. It doesn't help that I have a lot on my plate, too. There are a few changes happening at work that may affect me, or at least in the short-term...things that I'll have to talk with Addyson about in a few days.

"Edward, change of plans for tonight," Joel tells me as I answer the phone. "Where are you?"

"Just pulling out of the parking deck, headed to pick up Addyson."