(I've Known You) A Life and A Day

Prologue/A Glooming Peace

  Marvin always thought that in life, the primary goal was to have the perfect family.

As a young child, he was under the impression that this meant a wife, a child or two, and maybe a dog or a bird or something along those lines. That, to him, sounded like the ideal way to spend the rest of his otherwise insignificant life in the grand scheme of the universe. Going through his middle and high school years, however, the vision of his future that he had spent years carefully planning and carving out began to get fuzzy. His attention started to wander from the girls in their short skirts and low cut tops to the boys in gym shorts and leather jackets. This terrified him to an unhealthy degree. He had already gone through years of his life knowing he’d have that “tight-knit” family that was displayed in movies and tv shows. He couldn’t be...shouldn’t be…

So he wasn’t.

It wasn’t until Senior year of high school that he met Trina Silver, a nice Jewish girl and president of student council. They got along throughout the entire year, working together on science projects and planning study dates together. Spending time with Trina somehow helped Marvin divert his attention away from a life he knew he could never live and bring him back on track to his plan. This prompt him to ask her to the homecoming dance, where a kiss during a romantic slow song sealed their relationship from “just friends” to officially together.

Trina often bragged about her boyfriend to her friends about how sweet and patient he was, since he never pressure her to have sex with him. In fact, he never brought up the topic at all. She always thought it was just him being shy. Marvin, on the other hand, just didn’t really think about it too much. He enjoyed holding her hand and kissing her cheek, of course he did. That’s what a boyfriend does. Just the thought that one day, Trina would ask him to sleep with her...that thought would make him tense up and his mouth go dry.

Eventually, just as he thought, Trina asked him to come over one night while her parents were away at a convention for the weekend. He spent the whole day wondering what the hell his girlfriend was planning, and repeatedly calmed himself down by assuring that he would be fine.

Hours later, late at night, the exhausted girl was fast asleep in her bed, laying next to a wide awake, terrified boy on the verge of a nervous breakdown as a million thoughts surged throughout his mind.

Something was definitely not normal.

The couple stayed together after graduation, and even went to college together. On their two year anniversary, Marvin felt like he was obliged to present his girlfriend with a key, asking her hopefully if she would like for them to move in together. She gleefully accepted, and Marvin was ecstatic to finally begin the start of his family.

Boxes were stacked and stuffed and strewn all across the brand new apartment, and the echo that was once there when they first went to view the building had disappeared. Marvin thought it had to be a symbol for something deep down in his subconscious that died when he asked Trina to move in with him.

Living with Trina certainly wasn’t hard by any means, although Marvin soon realized that the quite, reserved girl he met in high school wasn’t just a persona, but her own unbreakable mindset. She often apologized in arguments that weren’t even her fault, and agreed with her boyfriend’s views and opinions that weren’t her own to prevent a fight. He liked that. He wanted a girl who would love him, and go out of her way to make him happy.

Two little lines on a white stick brought Marvin out of his idealistic thoughts of a loving family to the cold, sudden reality. All the time spent thinking about his life in the future with a wife and kids and a normal existence were finally growing like the life growing inside of his girlfriend.