How to Save A Life (Anthony Rizzo)

43- Just the Way You Are

Anthony

"Is this the one" I ask Clara as she smiles big. A incredible grey two story house sat on the screen of my computer as we both turn back to it.

"Yeah, I think this is the one" she admits.

"Alright. Then Ms. Clara Simpson, you and I have officially just bought our first house together" I announce as I send the email off confirming that we purchased the house back in Chicago. It was all paid for and the house was now in our names.

We ended up going with the house closest to Wrigley and agree to have a pool put in since it didn't have one. It had five bedrooms and three bathrooms. One room would be a art studio and Clara couldn't wait to get started in it. She had some art things here but nothing like the set up she had back in Chicago. And now she will have somewhere she can always go to which gave me a piece of mind. Then the master bedroom was ours and there was still three spare rooms left over. One would eventually be a nursery and one will be a spare for when we have guests. Then we had a extra room for whatever we need. It was a nice two story house that has furniture in it and was already painted. They just built it and it wasn't bad priced either, but Clara still insisted on paying for it all upfront so we wouldn't have to worry about it in the future and she was just happy to get the money from her paintings off her hands. She likes that her paintings were worth so much but doesn't like to carry around that money.

"What do we do now" she wonders as I close the laptop.

"Want to go to my parents house to celebrate? It's Christmas movie night tonight" I offer.

Clara was out getting the rest of the Christmas presents this morning so that was taken care of. Now all we need was for it to be Christmas Day then we were ready to move into our new home.

"A Christmas movie night sounds great" she admits.

"Awesome. Go grab some pajamas and we'll head over" I tell her and she happily nods her head.

"Awesome" she repeats.

We get changed and head over to my parents house at about 8 o clock. We had slowly started dropping off Christmas presents for Christmas Day but we didn't get the last of them until today so those will probably come over with some food in just a little over a week. But for tonight my parents had a bunch of Christmas movies set up for this fine December evening. It never got really cold in Florida, not like in Chicago at least. So we were able to come over in our PJs and grab a hot chocolate and that was enough.

"Oh, I forgot to mention" I start as we all sit down in the living room for the movie. "Clara and I finally bought a house today" I announce and my mother gasps.

"Oh really" she asks.

"Yeah. It took a while to find one because neither of us were too picky so we didn't know which one to get. So we got one that was all ready to be moved in to then if we don't like something we can change it. But I think we're both pretty satisfied with how everything turned out" I admit as I squeeze Clara's hand that was resting in my lap.

"This calls for a celebration" my dad announces as he raises from his seat. He disappears from his spot in the living room and heads down to the basement.

"Should I be worried" Clara asks me.

"As long as he doesn't come back with any old photo albums were safe" I joke and she rolls her eyes.

"Come on. You were the cutest baby" she insists.

"You're only saying that because you love me" I argue.

"And don't you forget that" she smiles.

Eventually my dad comes back with a unopened bottle of champagne. He always keeps a bunch of old champagne bottles around in case of a special occasion, then when nothing happens he finds some silly excuse like buying a house as a excuse to pop it open and drink.

"Laurie, will you grab four wine glasses" my dad asks.

"Just three" Clara insists. "I don't drink" she explains.

After watching what drinking did to Eddie she swore off any and all alcoholic beverages. I can't say I blame her, if the guy who beat me always had a beer in his hand I wouldn't want anything to do with the drinks either.

But she has to know no one will be mad at her if she drinks. It's not a sin.

"Come on, you can a glass this one time" I insist.

"I really can't" she defends.

"This is such a big milestone in your life and our relationship, you should have a drink" I defend.

"Im fine, really. I don't like the taste of champagne and would rather celebrate with hot chocolate anyway. It's less predictable and I can stay sober to drive us home" she says and I sigh.

"If you say so" I shrug and she smiles.

My parents pour three glasses of wine and we raise them to the air. Clara puts her hot chocolate mug up there too and that made me laugh.

"Here's to Clara and Anthony. May they have good fortune as they continue on this journey of life together. Bring them nothing but happy times and me lots of grandchildren" my mom says and I send her a glare. "But mostly good times" she teases.

"Here's to the future" I say.

"To the future" everyone repeats as we clink our glasses together.

After we finish off our drinks we cuddle up to watch a list of Christmas movies. We start with Rudolph and move to Frosty the Snowman and then the Grinch. Eventually it gets really late and I was starting to get tired. So we take the short drive back to my place and crawl right straight to bed.

As I lay there I watch Clara peacefully exist. Her chest slowly rising and falling under the sheets of our bed. I wasn't sure if she was still awake or not.

"Claire" I whisper. She slowly turns around so she's facing me. She softly cups my cheek as she searches my face.

"Is something wrong" she wonders.

"No. I just wanted to apologize for the whole drinking thing earlier. I know why don't like to drink and I shouldn't make you feel bad about it" I insist.

"You don't have to apologize for the way I am" she says.

"I'm not. I'm apologizing for not realizing why you are the way you are. It's not fair for me to think that you would be any different because something in the future has changed knowing that the past, the reason why you're like this, is still the same. I need to respect that you're not going to do the things everyone else does. I love you because you're not like everyone else and I shouldn't ask you to do something just because everyone else is" I explain.

"I will never drink, not you or your parents or anyone would convince me that there's a good enough reason to consume alcohol. There's so many normal human things that I am not capable of doing because of what I went through. And no matter how many times you apologize that is never going to change" she insists.

"Good" I reply and she gives me a small smile. "Because I love you just the way you are."