Disclaimer: I don't own Community, or the song Someone Like You by Adele which was the inspiration for this fic.
Sometimes it Hurts Instead
I heard that you're settled down.
That you found a guy and you're married now.
I heard that your dreams came true.
Guess he gave you things I didn't give to you.
Jeff watched himself in the mirror as he slid the knot of his black tie up to meet the collar of his dark blue shirt. His stomach was in knots and his chest hurt.
The years since Greendale had been a rollercoaster for Jeff. After finally graduating and retaking the bar exam, he found out he'd been blacklisted by all of the major law firms in the Greendale area. Not even his old firm, Tango, Sundance and Kramer would take him back on a full-time basis, despite the consulting work he'd been doing for them for the better part of three years. He was disappointed when he showed up for work only to be rebuffed by his former colleagues and friends. Consulting was one thing—your name was nowhere to be seen on the paperwork— but they drew the line at giving him an office and a caseload.
After a few months of being turned down over and over again in Greendale, he expanded his search to the rest of the state. Almost a year after leaving college, he was finally offered a job with a small firm in Denver. Unable to turn down a position, he packed up his belongings and made the move to the city more than three hours away from his old stomping grounds.
Jeff's life changed immensely after he moved. His new job kept him extremely busy, as the law firm was an upstart and everyone was tasked with bringing in as much business as they could possibly handle. With his new responsibilities, other things he usually made time for began to slip—primarily his relationships. Soon Annie was the only person he was talking to from the group on a regular basis, and conversations with her were growing further and further apart.
About a year after Jeff moved to Denver he received a call from Annie that he, in retrospect, should have been expecting. She was calling to tell him that she and her boyfriend, Kevin, were getting married.
Kevin wasn't as big an asshole as Jeff kind of wished he was. At least if he was a jerk, Jeff could have tried to convince Annie not to marry him, but instead he was a perfectly nice guy. He was five years Annie's senior (rather than the 14 years that Jeff had on her), and he had a promising career in real estate. He loved kids, and had two dogs and a small house in the suburbs with a backyard, a porch and an actual white picket fence. If Jeff had to pick a man to marry Annie, Kevin would probably have been the one.
But it still felt like a kick to the gut when she told him.
He and Annie had never managed to make something happen between them. They'd kissed a few times, and had almost gone further than just kissing on one drunken occasion, but it always ended before it could begin, usually because Jeff was too self-involved to see that his detachment was hurting her. It wasn't until she began dating Kevin seriously that Jeff realized he might actually want something more. By then, it was too late.
The engagement seemed to go by very quickly. It was just under a year after
her announcement that he found himself sitting between Britta and Pierce, watching Annie walk down the aisle.
The wedding itself had been planned out meticulously by Annie, and it was, as expected, perfectly perfect. Jeff even found himself having fun during the reception with the rest of the study group. They hadn't seen each other in a while, so dancing and drinking with them turned out to be the highlight of the evening. None of them realized when they hugged goodbye that Jeff wouldn't be seeing any of them again for the next five years.
I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
but I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.
I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded
that for me it isn't over.
Jeff let out a long breath, attempting to calm his nerves. He rested his hands on the vanity in his bathroom and leaned in closer to the mirror, taking in his appearance. The fine lines that had begun to lick at the corners of his eyes at 35 had become much more pronounced at 43. His dark blond hair had sprouted a handful of greys that only served to make his generally severe countenance seem all the more tired and empty. Or at least that's what he saw; the women who came home with him every few weeks said he looked distinguished, a word he shuttered at the first time he heard it used to describe himself.
He looked a little closer at his reflection, noting the way his eyes seemed a paler blue than they used to be. They looked sad, which was appropriate considering the despair that had found a permanent home inside of him ever since he'd gone to Annie two nights earlier in a fit of drunken clarity.
Kevin hadn't been home, and for that, he was grateful. Annie could handle a drunken Jeff, but Kevin would probably have done something more than just put him in a cab and send him on his way.
He wasn't sure why it took him five years since her wedding, and eleven since their meeting to come to the realization that he needed her; that life wasn't good enough, or worth anything without her. Maybe he had realized it deep down, but he never would have acted on it. It was unfair; she'd moved on and her life was good now. Drug addictions, rehab and barely accredited community colleges were behind her. Her feelings for Jeff were behind her too. In spite of his own desperate loneliness, he wouldn't try to take that away from her.
At least not sober.
Jeff wasn't even a hundred per cent sure how he got to Greendale from Denver. The drive was a blur, and the next day he was more than surprised that he'd made it all the way without killing himself or someone else. It was as though all of his common sense disappeared the moment he closed his eyes and her face appeared before him, guiding his hands to his keys and his keys to his car.
When he parked outside of her house, he saw her peek out the window before he pulled his heavy body out of the car and clambered up to her front stoop. When she opened the door, he felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him. She'd been beautiful when she married Kevin at 24, but at 29 she was a new vision entirely. He cursed himself for going so long without seeing this woman.
"You're drunk," she said upon opening the door. He thought he'd been covering it pretty well, with the semi-functional parking job and the lack of screeching tires. She looked disappointed. It hurt.
"I love you," he blurted out. In his mind it had been smoother. He watched her face harden.
"You drove all the way here from Denver drunk to tell me that?" he nodded. "I'm married, Jeff."
"But you didn't have me then," he plead. "You can have me now, Annie. Have me. Please." She crossed her arms over her chest.
"You stay here. I'll call you a cab."
His plan had been to fight for her, but as he watched her retreat into the house, he felt his legs give out and he came to a hard landing on the porch. A few moments passed and she joined him outside, carrying a cup of coffee which she carefully handed to him. He took a sip. There was something comforting about a coffee made by Annie—it was almost enough to cut through the ache rising in his chest. Annie sat down next to him, keeping a bit of distance between them.
"Why would you say that?" she asked after a silent moment.
"That I love you?"
"Yes." Jeff attempted a nonchalant shrug, but it came off as sloppy and exaggerated.
"Because I do. I have. Since forever." His stilted sentences did nothing to appease the woman who seemed alternately sad and angry.
"But why now? I haven't seen or heard from you since my wedding, and suddenly you show up like this?" Jeff had no answer for this. There hadn't been much forethought put into anything he'd done that night. A heavy silence consumed them until Annie broke it. "You and I never happened. You never let it."
"I know," he said, feeling reprimanded. Maybe it was the ache rising in his head or his chest, but each word seemed to cut a little deeper.
"I'm happy, Jeff." She looked at him, finding his eyes, trying to make him focus on her. "I made this life for myself, and I like it. And I don't appreciate you showing up here out of the blue after five goddamn years and trying to screw it all up!" He winced.
"I didn't think that's what I was doing."
"No, Jeff, you didn't think at all! Or at least not about me, or what this might do to my life. My marriage. Do you even care?" she let out a wry chuckle that gave Jeff a bit of a chill. "No, of course you didn't. Jeff Winger doesn't think about anyone but himself. He never has, and he never will."
"I never meant to hurt you," he mumbled. He barely noticed as the cab pulled up in front of the house. Annie stood, looming over him.
"Well, you didn't, Jeff. I stopped letting you hurt me a long time ago. Now go get yourself a motel room or something. You can come get your car in the morning." His eyes were trained to her feet as she walked back into the house. He winced at the slamming of the door, not only because his head had begun to hurt in earnest, but because she had shut him out completely.
Annie hadn't been home the next day when he went to retrieve his car. He didn't bother knocking to see if Kevin was there—he just got in and drove three hours back to Denver; back to life, or his version of it, anyway.
Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you too
Don't forget me, I begged
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."
Jeff stared in the mirror, trying to ignore the pain in his chest. With a final, deep sigh, he pulled himself away, shrugged on his blazer, and headed out for another day of work.
He didn't talk to Annie again.
End
Okay, admittedly this is a bummer. I just heard Adele's song on the radio the other day and suddenly it clicked! Hope you liked it. Let me know.