Paper Houses |NH|

2:33 PM

"God, that banging is so fucking loud!" Vada stated from her side of the elevator.

We had both been quiet for while. Our hopes of getting unstuck from this elevator quickly evaporated when about ten minutes after the noise began, her phone rang. It was the receptionist who then handed the phone off to some other guy who was in charge of maintenance who said he'd had to call in a specialist who was looking at it now but was thinking it could take an hour or two.  We both groaned but there was nothing we could do about it.

"Hey, um, do you remember how we met?" I asked, the memory suddenly coming to my head.

"Of course, I do. You came up to me in a bar, drunk off your ass, and gave me the cheesiest pick up line."

"Hey now, I wasn't drunk. I was tipsy. And had I not been, I never would have talked to you. And second, my "pick up line" as you said wasn't cheesy. It was the truth."

"Do you even remember what you said to me?"

"I said that you were the prettiest girl I had ever seen." I smiled a bit. "And I meant every word of it." And more quietly, I said, "And I still do." And then I laughed, remembering what she had me do afterwards.

"What are you laughing about?"

"Remember what you had me do after that?"

She looked at me a moment but then her face brightened a bit and a small smile curved onto her face. She giggled a little. "Yeah, I do. I gave you three chances to use the worst pick up lines in history and make me laugh."

"God, what lines did I use?"

"You tried to use the age old "What's your sign?" line first."

"Oh yeah. You shut that one down real quick."

"And then you said something about wishes?"

"Yeah acting like I was one of your three wishes and asking what the other two were." I laughed a little remembering the embarrassment of it all.

"And then, then you cinched it. I don't think I had ever heard that third one before or since."

"Oh god, what was it?" I asked, looking at her. I couldn't believe we were actually reminiscing about this while stuck in an elevator in the offices of our divorce mediator.

"Think about it, Niall. It was one that Tara had some guy use on her once before."

"Oh yeah. You got an innie or an outie?"

"Innie."

And then together, with smiles on our faces we both said, "I've got an outie. You wanna play snap?"

Both of us then burst into laughter remembering how fucking awful that line is. "God, I can't believe you let me buy you a drink after that."

"Eh, I was going to let you buy me a drink, anyway."

"Really?" I asked, arching an eyebrow at her. This was new information.

"Yeah. I quite liked the first thing you said to me. Even if it was cheesy, I could also tell it wasn't a lie. Plus, I had been slightly eyeballing you and had watched as Deo pushed you towards me."

"How did you see all of that? By the time I got the nerve to come talk to you, your back was to me."

"Yeah, but not the entire time."

"So, you just made me say terrible, horrendous lines to you for the fun of it?"

"Yeah, pretty much. And it worked, didn't it? You loosened up a bit. And you ended up coming home with me."

"And staying for, like, a week."

"Haha, yeah, you did. All of our friends thought we were nuts."

"We were young and dumb."

"I don't think I had ever had someone make that much of an impact on my life in such a short amount of time. I mean, I brought you home with me the night we met and you stayed a week."

"Young, dumb, and in love." I smiled at her.

She laughed a little at that as she brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them while propping her chin on the tops of her knees.

"You know, I know this doesn't much matter now, or maybe it does, I don't know. But, I want you to know that despite how our story is ending, I wouldn't change our beginning for anything."

And there it was, the reminder that our story was ending; the reminder that she had given up on us. And with that, the small space we were confined to, got even smaller.