a second chance - Hotchniss

Pain [Aaron]

We just sat there, next to each other, both shivering, both remaining silent. Suddenly, I felt her head carefully laying down on my shoulder. I did not expect that, especially not after her guarded behavior during the day. But I didn't mind, not at all.

"How did we even get here? In this situation?", she asked me.

"I don't know", I said honestly. "I wish I could just turn back time."

"Me too", she whispered. "Me too... Sometimes I wonder if things would be different now, you know, if we would have worked it out. Would we be happy now? Would Alaska be okay, would she ever become anorexic?"

"I guess we will never find out", I sighed. "But I'm asking myself the same questions everyday."

"Have you ever wondered what we are right now?", she mumbled, like she was not sure if she should ask a question like this.

I nodded. "Everyday since-" I did not finish the sentence, but I knew that she knew what I was talking about. Ever since the kiss.

"Me too", she then whispered. "I lay awake every night, remembering how happy we were."

"Yea", I smiled. "Do you know what's gonna be in some days?"

"Sure", she smiled, but tears came to her eyes as well. Our wedding anniversary was coming up. In two days, we would be married for exactly 13 years.  We remained silent, both remembering our wedding.

"For better or for worse", I whispered to myself, but she had heard it, too. She lifted her head from my shoulder looking into my eyes.

"You may kiss the bride", she quoted as well, still looking into my eyes. A part of me wanted to kiss her just in that moment, but I resisted. She wouldn't want that, would she? It seemed to me like she regretted what had happened the night before, so why would she want me to kiss her again?

As soon as she realized that I was not going to do something, she broke our eye-contact and looked away.

"I cannot do this anymore", she then sighed. "I cannot do this on-off-thing anymore. Sometimes I want you back so badly, but then I come back to sins and remember that we would cause each other so much pain if we would get back together. I don't know, but maybe-", her voice cracked and tears ran down her cheeks. "Everytime you touch me I remember why I fell in love with you, all over again. But how can this love be so painful?"

"I wish I could answer that", I mumbled. "But I feel the same way. It keeps destroying me."

"It destroys both of us", she nodded.

We both knew what this meant, but nobody wanted to say it out loud. Getting up silently, we walked back into the house, returning to our divorce documents. Without another word, we both signed the papers. I could not believe that I was actually doing this, but she did the same. It hurt so much to just look at my signature that I just turned the documents up-side-down.

"I'm gonna send them in tomorrow", she whispered, her cheeks still wet from all these tears.

I was not able to say anything. This had be done so quick, even though both of us had hesitated for so long.

"So that's it", she sobbed, biting her lower lip in order to calm herself down. I felt tears in my eyes as well, and without realizing it, I pulled her into a tight hug. I wish I could keep her in my arms forever, but I knew that this was not going to happen. As soon as she would throw these papers into the mailbox, we would go separated ways. Both starting a new life, without each other. Of course, we would still kinda stay in contact since we had a daughter, but still..

She hugged me back, clinging her arms around me. I placed a soft kiss on her hair as she whispered "This feels too real. Please don't go" into my chest. "I'm not going anywhere", I answered and she raised her head to look up at me. "I cannot live without you", she then said. "But what if I have to?"

I did not answer this time, I just kissed her. I kissed her as soft as I could, showing her all my love, showing her how much I cared about her, how much I needed her as well, showing her how perfect we were together.

At first, she did not move at all, but after some seconds she kissed me back. She let herself fall again, pulling me closer to her, not wanting to let me go either.

We were broken. No one knew what was wrong or right, neither did anyone know what was going to happen in the future. But in this moment, we were infinite. We just forgot about the world around, about all the trouble, about all the unanswered questions. It was just her and me, clutching to a part of our old life which we wanted to have back so badly. We were a mess, we were two wrongs. But somehow two wrongs made a twisted right.

She pulled my shirt over my head as I ripped her blouse open, both of us did not want to waste any time, since no one knew how much time we had left. We blended out the famous 'What is going to happen after this?'-question as we moved towards our bedroom, losing more and more clothes on our way.

-

As she laid in my arms, sleeping peacefully, I stroke some of her dark hair behind her ear. She was so beautiful, it was insane. Carefully, I dragged her out of my arms. Luckily she did not wake up, so I covered her with the blanket and pulled on my clothes. "I love you", I whispered before kissing her on the cheek softly.

I headed to the kitchen and found our signed documents on the kitchen table. Without another thought I teared the papers in two and threw them into the dustbin. Then, I grabbed my jacket and my bag before leaving the house quietly.

As a famous quote says 'In the end, some of your greatest pain become your greatest strengths'. I just hoped that this would become true for my family one day.
I would not give up.