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the love of my life (the darkness, the light)

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Andy spun her engagement ring around her finger as she looked in the mirror. Her hazel-brown eyes were slightly dull and her mouth was unsmiling. This wasn't something Andy was used to seeing reflected back to her from the glass; not even when she'd been broken up with Sam.

The moment Sam had gotten down, holding out a ring and with a "Marry me, McNally?" asked in his rough voice, had blinded her. It'd felt like the culmination of their story—a point Andy had only ever dreamed of (even trying not to), when they'd very first started dating. The secluded cabin, just the two of them, and her love for this one man had allowed her to get caught up in the moment. There could be no other answer than yes.

Now. Now though… In the darkness of her condo, bedroom lit by a single lamp, the doubts began to creep in through the cracks.

She remembered what she'd told him in his truck, how Andy would stand at his side and love his daughter like her own. Yet that was easy in theory. How in the world was she and Sam supposed to start their lives together as newlyweds and slowly begin their own family, while dealing with him becoming a father, figuring out co-parenting. No longer was Andy just marrying a man she loved; she was marrying his child, and up to a point Marlo too.

Too quickly into her marriage there would be moments Andy would simply be a stranger in, stuck on the outside looking in. Because when all was said and done, she would not be this child's parent, or feel that talked about empowering emotion when she was born.

And she honestly got what Traci had said about how important Steve was to Leo and once upon a time what Jerry had been. But by then and now, it had a while and Leo was no longer a baby. Plus Traci had worked out parenting with Dex (or whatever times Dex wanted to be a dad). With Oliver and Celery it was even more different, because Oliver's girls were teenagers.

A laugh escaped her and the bitterness of the sound shocked her, as did the scowl her face was twisted in that reflected back at her.

It all seemed so simple. Andy loved Sam; Sam loved her. His greatest fear was her leaving him—as proved by the night he told her darkest secret, and how emotive Sam was over her leaving to go under still. Thus her heart said the answer was to make them both happy and stay. They'd love each other and then Sam wouldn't have to get his heart broken.

Yet… her brain would whisper unwanted truths when her defenses were down. Like how instead of being her soon-to-be husband's first priority, it would depend on the moment of where in the top three she ranked. How Andy was never getting rid of the ex-girlfriend, the one who watching him with and their open affection almost shattered her fragile heart. Or that his all too simple promise to be there for all three of them, was going to lead to one of them hurt and disappointed, a fact she deeply knew.

Like the other night watching the rain splatter on her window, Andy had been unable to keep herself from thinking darker thoughts. Such as, if years ago—heatwave comfort and kisses, and when she and Luke blew up—Andy knew this was the future, if she'd have then completely closed her heart to Sam. Even knowing the best and loving times they would share. The answer was that she didn't honestly know. But in the darkest minutes of that night, when her tears were pouring down her cheeks almost in time with the rain, Andy wished she could write a letter to the girl she'd been, warning to keep that too breakable heart far away from Sam Swarek.

Despite all of this and that, her dull hazel-brown eyes still shown with a familiar spark of determination. One that tells Andy what the deepest recesses of her heart know—that she will continue to love this man, marry him his drama and all, even knowing the pain and hurt that's guaranteed.

Years ago as a jittery rookie, Andy McNally knocked down and caught her man. Danced around each other longer than needed. Then lost him. Andy was a smart girl; this time she'd be keeping him.

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[End]