{joey tribbiani ff}
•book one•
Heather Bing moves to New York, hoping that her life will continue to be as perfect as it currently is. She has a comfortable place to live, friends to laugh with and a boyfriend that she truly loves.
"I could've reach...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
chapter ninety three ~ the one with compromise Heather's POV
Everyone shared the same opinion when it came to Emily, we didn't like her. I didn't want to rub it in their faces but I knew there was something up with her from the first time that we met, and it was only now that everyone was realising how bad she was. Only after she started taking control of Ross's life, did everyone realise that she wasn't the nicest person in the world but I had taken a deep dislike to her after she refused to let me play a part in the wedding. Everyone else who travelled to London got to play a part: Chandler and Joey were best men; Monica was a bridesmaid and Rachel tried to crash the whole thing. It wasn't fair that I didn't get a part to play, and she had been so uptight about the whole thing, which was why I had worn a very similar dress to the event. However, now everyone could see Emily as the horrible person she was as she forced him to make a decision between her and Rachel, which was stupid because there wasn't anything going on between the two and were just friends.
Then things got worse because Ross refused to make a proper decision, he didn't want to lose his wife, who he loved dearly but he also didn't want to lose one of his closest friends. Not only did we think that this decision making was childish and useless, but it was also taking an effect on the rest of us as this relationship could potentially ruin our whole friendship group and that wasn't fair on any of us. Today, we had all gathered at Ross's apartment because Emily had forced him to move out. She wanted them to start fresh, have a new place and new furniture, which Ross agreed to but we all knew the real reason that this was happening; this was Emily's way of getting Rachel out of the picture. Anything that Rachel may have touched was gone and Ross was leaving behind his home, just to keep this woman happy.
It was obvious that this wasn't what Ross wanted, this apartment was his home and now he was going to have to leave it all behind, just because his wife was an evil cow. This apartment was his first place by himself, without Carol and was his first step in starting the newest chapter in his life and now he was dropping it just because Emily clicked her fingers. I hated it. This apartment was where we had all hung out, laughed and drank as much as possible, getting too drunk so that we couldn't walk back over to the other building. This was where I had looked after Ben, his son had grown up here and even though he was still little; he had grown so much since we had first brought him back here. The furniture which Ross had bought because he liked them, were all gone, just because Emily didn't want to own anything that Rachel could have potentially touched.
As his friends, we had agreed that we weren't happy about this whole thing but agreed not to say anything because if Ross was happy then we needed to support him without question. However, Joey and I had an idea of how to talk him out of this change and waited until the others had left the apartment, their arms full of boxes, to talk to him. Ross's expression wasn't the happiest as he looked around the now, almost empty apartment and it seemed like he wasn't that happy with the changes that he was making either. I tried to make myself look busy, folding away some of his clothes which we were putting into separate boxes for him to take to his temporary place and Joey took the lead on the conversation.
"I'm really going to miss this apartment." Ross said quietly, before turning to Joey and pointing to a corner of the room. "You know, Ben took his first steps right over there."
Joey smiled and pointed to the shutters that divided the kitchen to the main room. "Hey, remember when I ran into this thing and it kind of knocked me out a little?"
"I love this place. Tell you the truth, I wish I didn't have to move."
"Are you saying that you're not entirely happy about this?" Joey questioned; his eyebrows raised as I stood up from my folding station.
"Well, I mean, if Emily gave me a choice..." He trailed off, thinking about how much he wanted to stay here despite what his wife was saying.
I placed my hand on his shoulder, gently nudging him to the conversation. "You do have a choice."
"Ross, why are you listening to her? Are you crazy?"
"What?" Ross asked, his tone slightly angrier than we had wanted it to be and I had a feeling that Joey was going slightly off topic with his dislike of the woman.
"Well, it's not right, what Emily wants you to do. She is totally...Ouch!" He shouted as Phoebe pinched his ear to stop him from speaking and I almost sighed loudly at the fact that our mission had failed miserably. "Stop pinching me!"
Monica and Chandler were behind her as they waited for an explanation of what had just happened whilst they left the room. "Look, now, you guys said I only have to keep my mouth shut as long as Ross was happy, right? Well, he just told me and Heather, that he's not entirely happy."
"What's going on?" Ross asked, seeming confused as to what was going on but I had a feeling that someone was going to have to tell him the truth before he killed us.
Joey ended up being the person who couldn't keep his mouth shut and basically exploded with the announcement. "We all hate Emily!"
"No, we do not hate Emily." Monica tried to explain our real reasoning behind the worries without saying how much we dislike his wife. "We just...we just think that you're having to sacrifice a whole lot to make her happy."
"Yeah!"
Chandler also tried to help but judging by the angry look on Ross's face, we weren't really helping the situation. "We just think that maybe she's being a little unreasonable."
"Unreasonable? How about we have this conversation when one of you guys gets married? You have no idea what it takes to make a marriage work. It's about compromise. Do you always like it? No. Do you do it? Yes. Because it's not all laughing, happy, candy-in-the-sky, drinking-coffee-at-Central Perk all the time. It's real life, okay? It's what grownups do."
"I think he's right." Phoebe shrugged, as we watched Ross storm out of the apartment. "You guys hang out at the Coffee House way too much."
If I was ever going to get married in the future then I didn't want to have the kind of marriage that Ross had. He was my friend and I would always support him, but in this instant none of this felt right. If I was in a relationship like this then I would run in the opposite direction because this wasn't just compromise, this was changing his entire life just to keep Emily happy. I understand that compromise is needed in marriage, but not compromising everything. If I got married then whatever I compromised to make my husband happy, he would also have to compromise things to make me happy. That's what a marriage is, compromising as equals. And looking at the marriage between Ross and Emily, they were anything but equals.
