Didn't we almost have it all? [Completed]

Christmas

30 months earlier

December 2013

We were in the car, Mini Mansions blaring over the speakers. Noel was driving and I was on DJ-duty. We were set to spend Christmas with my mom and my sisters family before heading back to New York to spend boxing day with Noel's parents.

It was just over three and a half hours to my mother's house in Rhode Island, and we had opted to spend the time in the car together instead of flying there.

"Look at it like quality time with me!" Noel had told me enthusiastically. "It will be a mini road trip, and we can stop and do touristy stuff along the way."

Of course as soon as we sat down in the car, the only thing on our minds were to get to my mom's house on time, and the 'touristy' things we were going to do slipped our minds just as quickly as it had entered them.

As I looked out through the window of the car, I couldn't help but think it was a good thing we abandoned the plans to stop along the way. It was currently pouring down with snow, and we were driving in a speed that barely could have constituted as the legal minimum speed.

At this pace I was wondering if we would even get to my mom's place for dinner on time.

∞

It was well after midnight Christmas eve' morning and everyone else was sound asleep. We were out by the swings in the back yard.

"Today was just perfect" I sat down on the swing and he went behind me started pushing it.

"Yeah, your mom's cooking was great. I am a little bit upset I missed Thanksgiving."

I hadn't even come home for Thanksgiving this year, instead I had stayed in New York with Noel, and we had had a quiet spa weekend. So much for being 'rock stars'. My mom had been upset, but I just couldn't bear going home. Thanksgiving was always my dad's favorite holiday and he would stay up all night preparing his famous smoked turkey. I had told her she had Aubrey and her family and blamed it all on the fact that Noel and I had recently reconciled after breaking up again. This time the split had been longer, lasting from September to right before thanksgiving. 'I want to meet that boy one day' she had told me. And now she had met him. She had even whispered into my ear about how much she liked him before going to bed.

He had even given her the perfect gift of the most beautiful handmade quilt that he had bought while on tour in South America. And for my sister I had warned him about her vanity and he had taken it to heart showing up with a Birkin bag. If my mother liked him my sister now loved him more than she loved me.

I had completely gone off in my head thinking about my mom and sister, and what they thought about Noel when he surprised me by breaking the comfortable silence we had lulled into.

"I know we have just been back together for a little over a month."

"Yeah?"

"But I can't imagine my life without you." By this point he had moved in front of me. "I know you are the love of my life. The only real light in it, and the only person who truly makes me want to better myself." As I saw the emotion in his eyes as he slowly bent down onto one knee, I started crying.

"Noel, no." I knew it was too early. My heart was screaming at me that his drug use made him unreliable. He had promised me when we got back together that he wasn't going to use anything other than alcohol and cigarettes, but he had refused to go to rehab.