Title: A Future Taken For Granted
Pairing: Alicia/Will
Author's Note: Response to "It's a Lockhart-Gardner Tradition" 2012 Summer Ficathon
Prompt: sweetjamielee at 2012-07-02 06:54 pm (UTC); Peter, Will (or Peter/Will) - something in common
Words: 586
"It's romantic because it didn't happen."
Could she be right? She usually is right about most things but I can't hope to think that she is very wrong about this. Very wrong. It's not like "nothing" happened when we were in school. There were . . . "moments."
It started off only on cold nights, when she would loop her arm around mine, snugging into me as the wind picked up. Then it continued on our walks back from the bar or library. She had no problem holding my hand to prevent us from being separated from each other while moving around a crowded party. We went to dinners, movies, classes, parties, everywhere . . . together. It was like dating, everything but the sex. There were kisses though. Drunk kisses usually, but amazing nevertheless. Once, during a summer vacation, there was a completely sober kiss in the driveway of her mom's house. I don't remember who initiated the kiss but I remember her response: "if you had kissed me earlier, we would have more time to do this, now you have to go home because it's almost 2AM and we both have work in the morning." She was right about that.
Her mom thought we were together, I remember hearing her brother in the background of phone calls, teasing her about me. Everyone on campus thought we were sleeping together and maybe because it was so natural for her to be in my life, that's why I took her for granted. Or maybe, I was just chicken. Alicia was not the type of girl you "dated," she was the kind of girl you "married." I remember she told me that someone had told her that during her freshman year of undergrad. She hated that description but I don't think I've ever heard her described more accurately.
I used to go around telling people that Alicia and I were going to open a law firm, Gardner and Cavanaugh. That used to make her laugh so much. I miss her laugh. Never once did she say that it would be a bad idea for us to go into business together. But then again, she never said it would be a good idea, or that she wanted to share a firm.
We never talked about the future. I guess I just assumed she would always be in my life. I never pictured myself surrounded by kids, changing diapers or even attending my own wedding but I always pictured this montage of moments where I was making Alicia laugh. They were always different, sometimes we would be dancing, and I would whisper something in her ear that would immediately stop her dancing and force her out of my arms to look at me with exasperation. Sometimes, we would be doing something domestic, like cleaning the kitchen, and she would squirt me with water from the faucet and laugh at herself for catching me by surprise. These moments never actually happened but I saw them so clearly, there was no reason for me to believe they wouldn't actually happen in the future.
But I never told her any of this. Now that I think of it, I guess I'm not so different from Peter after all. We both took Alicia for granted. Peter slept with hookers because he took it for granted that Alicia loved him enough to forgive him. I never told Alicia how I felt about her because I took it for granted that our future was together.