Title:Past Experiences.
Rating:K+
Summary: The path which brought you here isn't worthy of being written up as a fairy tale, but you don't mind. You're still here.
A/N:Don't ask me where this came from. It's not my 'usual' style, and while not my favorite piece of writing, I hope it doesn't disappoint too much. Thank you Carmen for the beta.
There's an emotional canyon in front of me, but I'm finally standing a safe distance from the edge, away from the cliff which drops down into that vast nothingness. Those past months I have walked away from the edge, retreated onto safer, more stable grounds. I had been so close to falling, I realize that now. I think I even realized it while it was happening; every time another gulp of beer slid down my throat, each time my hand fingered the pistol that hung from my hip. But there was no energy left in me to stop the cycle, to stop the slow crumbling of who I was.
I've never been the carefree type. Perhaps to the outside world my façade has been strong enough to fool others. I had even fooled myself at times, but the bubble always quickly burst. Seeing my classmates in elementary school with their parents showing up at the science fairs, or the customary parent teacher conferences. Sometimes my mother showed up, but often there was no one. My grades were too good for the teachers to be interested in a chat with them, and besides, there were more pressing matters at school than wondering why the smart brunette was quiet and off in her own world so often, not bothering to really connect with her fellow students.
It was a good thing, I suppose. Mom showing up with a split lip and a hunched stance because of her bruised ribs might have raised eyebrows, but nothing else. Life would have continued on as it had. Yet I can't get the 'what if's' out of my head. What if she had shown up bruised and battered? What if my beloved math teacher had seen through the lies and silence and knocked on our door, what then? Maybe life would have turned out differently for everyone, including me. Perhaps better, perhaps worse. But it's no use contemplating that which has never happened.
High school wasn't too bad. I still wasn't the party-animal that I would become for a short while in college, but it wasn't hell either. The football and basketball games with all the craziness that they entailed were wasted on me, though I did join the track team. Running was something I could do. Still can, I suppose, though I haven't done so in a while. Physically, at least. Mentally, I have run a thousand miles, away from the oppressive despair work sometimes left me with. Yet I haven't seemed able to run from no-good men. I've had my share of relationships, even casual nights of sex. Those happened mostly in college, where somehow, for some reason, I became a party girl. I could keep up with the best of them, drink 'em right under the table. It wasn't me, but it was an escape which I gladly accepted.
The drinking, the casual sex, the first crushes which I never let grow into more. It was all part of college, of trying to get as far away from the real 'me' as possible. Sometimes it worked, oftentimes it didn't. Course material came relatively easily to me; I didn't have to struggle as some of the others did. Physics was logic, and logic meant equations and straightforwardness and predictability; all ingredients which I was good at. And the results were top marks and a more-than-professional liking by several esteemed professors.
And he, too, was esteemed amongst the ranks. A week long course of seminars and he got me hooked. Not just me, but quite a few others alongside with me. Intelligent, off-beat, passionate, well spoken. Attractive. It started out so innocently, a mild case of hero-worshipping. Perhaps he was flattered by my attention, or intrigued by my bulldog-like grip of the material he presented. Or maybe he was just interested in me, Sara Sidle, the young woman. Whatever it was, it was enjoyable, and only fuelled my increasing feelings for him. Keeping in touch after he left was one of the cleverest, enjoyable, but dumbest things I have ever done; it seemed as though something akin to faith stepped in every time I was about to banish my feelings for him from my mind.
I distinctly recall being asked to dinner by Tom. Handsome, funny, moving up quickly through the police ranks. How could I refuse? Well, I didn't, and the dinner was lovely. Over the course of weeks it progressed quite rapidly into more. Until he called. Bags were packed in no time, and minutes later I was on a plane to Las Vegas. He made me the job offer, and Tom and I broke up by phone.
So now I'm here, in this quasi relationship with my supervisor; fluctuating dangerously between elation and despair. Except now I've laid down the line. All he has to do is tell me if there's a true chance for something 'real' to grow, something more than a lingering look, or a holding of hands when things get too tough. If what we have now is all that he is capable of giving, then I will give up. I'm not a slave of my feelings any longer.
When it's time to move on, I will.
Finis.