A/N : This is the same story as some of you may have seen before - but my account was going crazy and...oh well. I hope this works this time around. Sorry. And I just wanted to apologize for any mistakes: non-native English speaker on this side of the screen, but I've tried my best. Reviews are welcomed here! I hope you enjoy this...see you!
[Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of its characters. Everything belongs to their respective owners.]
Prologue: Apologies & Stories
I'm sorry.
He would say to her every now and then, when they stood quietly on the rooftop of their house, after he screwed something up. She'd have her cigarette and he'd have nothing at all but his letterman jacket, protecting him from the chilly nights.
Sometimes, he would really mean it—usually when he really screwed something up and got her sad. (She never got sad—never.) Sometimes, he wouldn't. He would say it awkwardly and then shrug it off as if it was nothing, laying on the tiles and looking up at the sky. Other times, though, he would just say it and left things at it.
It was like a routine of theirs: she would ask him for something, anything. Sometimes, something silly, easy to do; other times, something not so easy, that would take time and effort to happen. Then, he would try to make her happy, proud of him. A few times he could, others, he couldn't. Some things were just hard to do, he would say to her on their rooftop, eyes focused on the stars. And finally, he would mess everything up.
Usually forgetting about what she had asked, or simply ignoring it. Later, when she looked at him hurt and betrayed, he would remember the promises he'd done and regret the small things he did that had broken them.
And he would climb up his window to the roof and walk like a cat to where she usually stood, smoking and stargazing.
She, sometimes, would take his apology and they'd fall on a quiet silence through the night, falling asleep on the rooftop and coming down to their respective rooms when the sun was starting to break through the night. Other times she wouldn't accept them and ignored him throughout the week, making him beg for her forgiveness. (She really liked when people begged her. She really, really did.)
His words were usually raspy and quiet, and she had to stand very still to hear them after he had settled beside her. And then she only had to take his words or not—a small brush of her hand against his, a meaningful look, a quiet smile, no gesture at all.
When those things happened (his forgetfulness, her betrayed eyes), it wasn't like they fought: for all that their parents could remember, they had never fought. Not over toys, or attention, or anything at all—they had never fought each other. But she relied on him for certain things and would be upset when he couldn't fulfill the only thing she had asked him to. And sometimes, their parents (them) reasoned, her silence was worst than fights they could ever have.
Maybe it hurt to have her silence because she trusted him and he was afraid to break that. He knew how fragile she could be sometimes, how delicate she really was. It was hard for her to trust, and he knew it upset her when he messed things up.
Don't, please.
She'd beg sometimes, when she saw one of his weak moments. One of the promises he'd find hard to keep. Stop doing this, stop doing that. Stop hurting that boy, stop calling that girl names—they're my friends. Don't do this, don't do that. You're going to get hurt.
And those were hard things to do, when he would mess up and she would ignore him, hurt. They'd stood on their rooftop for hours on end, awake, thinking about his mess, about her broken trust. He knew she didn't trust him the way she did before. He knew that, if he kept disappointing her, making her trust break little by little with his failures, she would never trust him again: the thin string would break and he would lost her trust forever.
And her trust was the only thing that really mattered.
But sometimes—sometimes it was so hard to be strong, to keep the promises he had made to her. It was easier to give up, give in into the weakness. Everything would disappear for some moments and he'd be free, he'd have no worries. No promises, no commitments, no nothing. Everything would be easy.
It didn't last long, though. And when that ended, the world would come crashing down on him and he'd feel week and broken and sorry. And he'd say his truthful 'sorry' to her because he meant them.
When he'd break promises for stupid, silly reasons, where he knew her trust wouldn't be broken, he'd give his meaningless 'sorry'. Because it really didn't matter whether she forgave him or not on those matters: they were silly anyway, and didn't involve trust. And it was only up to her to forgive him or not. His words were out there for her to take, she just needed to choose.
I'm really, really sorry,
He said to her one night. It was summer and the night was damp and quiet, and the sky was so clear that they could count all the stars up there. The lit cigarette on her hands kept going from one finger to the other, being played by her; she didn't really feel like smoking that night.
For once, he didn't wear his letterman jacket, and she didn't have her blanket wrapped around her slim legs like she usually did. Their neighborhood was unusually quiet, and not even the loud neighbors by their left were making a sound. She wasn't worried, though, with the unusual quietness of the place; she took it as a gift from all the sleepless nights she'd have for the last months with the neighbors.
He played with the hem of his jeans, looking down at his legs instead of the sky, like she was doing. She didn't look down though. Her last (broken) request quickly came to their minds and they knew she wasn't going to forgive him—not now.
I'm sorry,
He said again and, with that, got up, unusually so.
She didn't spare a second glance towards him, putting the cigarette between her full lips and dragging the smoke in, letting it fill her lungs, quiet her nerves, erase her feelings. When it worked, he was gone.
After some time, when she had already finished her cigarette, she fell asleep. She felt tired and hurt and wondered how much longer she would forgive him. Promise after promise after promise was broken, and countless times she had forgiven him. She didn't want to, now. She felt tired and broken, and it hurt. She didn't want to hurt over him anymore. But before she could figure if she was going or not to forgive him, she fell asleep—and for once it was a dreamless sleep.
I'm sorry,
It rang in her ears when she woke up to the sound of sirens. She rubbed her eyes, sleepily, and look down, finding an ambulance in front of her house. What had happened while she was asleep? The sun was starting to rise. It wasn't like her parents had woken up yet. She usually was up before them, eating her bowl of cereals when they made their way through the kitchen.
What had happened?
She walked as fast as she could to her room, careful not to step over a loose tile and slip all the way to the ground. When she stepped on the beige carpet of her room, his words echoed through her head once more. What had he done? He said he was sorry. He had said he was sorry.
Running through the corridor, she opened the door abruptly. He wasn't there. She ran to the bathroom—he wasn't there either. When she ran downstairs, she found her father holding her mother tightly, while she sobbed. She let a shriek escape her lips.
Her father turned her head, his eyes hurt and surprised. Without a second thought, she ran past her parents and to the ambulance, where the paramedic had just closed the door.
He had said he was sorry. He had said he was really sorry. Why would he do…Someone wrapped their arms around her tiny figure and yanked her out of the paramedics reach. Cries made their way through her body, cracking her rib cage open. He said he was sorry. The ambulance's engine started and they went away. Not long after her parents' car followed behind.
She wanted to go with them. Was he alright? Was he…A sob erupted and she fought the person holding her tightly. It was Mr. Carlson, the loud neighbor. She wanted to go with them. She needed to go with them.
He said he was really sorry. "Shh, kid, everything's gonna be fine." She shook her head; she realized she had never heard his voice. He said he was sorry.
He was sorry.
She used to lay her only daughter on the grass on their backyard and tell her stories about little bears and polite dragons and princesses that fought great tyrants. She too used to lie beside her daughter, their yellow hair mingling while the only thing they could hear was her quiet voice telling fairy-tales. Every once in a while the little girl asked questions regarding the heritage of a certain bear and the true purposes of a princess.
The two of them used to spend long afternoons like that, looking up at the clouds trying to find the characters there. Mr. Dinkles, the bear, was a constant in those fairy-tales—and, if they were to be honest, one of their favorite characters in any fairy-tale they had ever heard.
The little girl liked to spend those afternoons next to her mom because they were peaceful and easy and because no one ever called her stupid on those moments. She would just lie there with her mom, watching the clouds drift by in the shape of their favorite fairy-tale character and sometimes don't speak, because the cloud characters would tell their own stories.
She enjoyed those afternoons because she didn't have to worry about her classmates picking on her and ruining her drawings. She didn't have to worry with that mean boy pushing her against the wall and ruining her favorite backpack because he thought she was stupid. It was just her and her mom, and everything was simple and happy.
Her mom would hug her, sometimes, so, so tightly that it hurt, and then would kiss her forehead saying she was the most perfect little girl in the entire world. Both of them would laugh at that and then the little girl would ask for some tea, because, the same way her daddy loved coffee, she loved tea. Cinnamon tea, that is.
Some days her mom would have to go away for doctor's appointments her dad would schedule and the little girl would have to spend the day at the Mason's. They were nice people, the Mason's, and their kids were alright, but the girl really missed the time she would have with her mom. But, when her mom and daddy would come back, picking her up at the Mason's a few houses away from theirs, they would give her tons of candy-bars, and all the small sadness the girl had developed during the day because her mom had went away would disappear.
From time to time her daddy joined them on the backyard holding his little girl on his arms and listening to his wife told those small fairy-tales. She liked when her daddy joined, because usually he was so busy with his works that there were days that she didn't even get to see him.
And one day the little girl grew up and asked if she could take dance classes.
Why not?
Her mom had laughed, kissing her forehead and going to finish off some things. She wasn't as small as she used to be, but she also knew she wasn't as grown up as some people thought her to be.
That year her parents gave her a cat and, remembering those lazy summer afternoons she used to spend with her mom, she called him Lord Tubbington—because of one of Mr. Dinkles friends. And because Mr. Dinkles was a bear and friends with this lord cat, why shouldn't she call her small baby cat Lord Tubbington?
People still called her dumb and stupid in school. But it didn't matter now: she had her dance classes where she was really good at, and had Lord Tubbs to play with her when she got home and she had her mom to tell her small stories before she went to bed.
When summer arrived, they didn't spend so much time on the backyard watching the clouds as they used to do; daddy took her mom to much more appointments than before, and now that she was a little grown up, she didn't have to stay at the Mason's.
Those days were the days where she would clean her room from anything that could obstruct her way and would make small dance recitals for Lord Tubbington to watch. And when her mom and daddy arrived from the doctor her mom had to go to, she would show them her dance recital too, because Lord Tubbington thought it was worth watching.
Her mother would applause her excitedly, a wide grin on her face, and her blue eyes shining even more brightly than the sun. Her daddy would clap also, smiling and kissing her cheeks after, when she was out of breath and smiling widely, saying that those were the moments where he knew the dance classes were worth it.
One day her mom showed up on her room looking scared and small and it freaked the girl a little bit. Her mom was never scared or small: she was serene and big and was the most comforting person in the entire world. She walked up to her mom asking what was wrong and the only answer she got was that Mr. Dinkles was no longer their friend.
After that, her mom almost every day went to doctor appointments, and wouldn't show up to see her dancing recitals. One day, her mom just didn't come back home.
Daddy said it was because the doctor needed to help her really, really bad, and for that, he needed her to be in the hospital for a few days. And a few days turned into a few weeks and weeks into months.
She visited her mom every now and then, in that big white hospital that smelled funny. Her mom looked fine, to her, just a bit weird—she would say funny things every once in a while, and sometimes she would forget small things. One time she started to scream and some big guys in white clothes had to hold her tightly until she got calm again.
At some point, daddy started to fill up some papers, and go out with this sweet lady from work. And then they were marrying and her mom's things were put into a few boxes and stacked up on the basement. She still visited her mom, every weekend, and would tell her what was happening on the outside.
Then the sweet lady, her stepmother, got pregnant and everyone was excited about the baby's birth. And after much thought, they let her pick the little baby's name: Remy.
When she told her mom about her new baby sister, at first she was happy, excited that her little daughter would get to play with another child. But then she got sad, and then angry—and when she got angry, she started yelling at her and she had to call the big guys because her mom wasn't her mom anymore. Little by little, she could see, her mom was starting to get smaller and smaller, and would talk less and less.
And, not longer after that sad outburst and those quiet moments where they both would just look at each other (her looking out of her window, thinking about things not even her daughter could imagine; the girl looking at her in hopes to see her smile and be her mom again), she lost herself, becoming this fragile small thing that wasn't her mom.
Why did she have to rotten?
She would ask every now and then to her stepmother and daddy while she played with Remy. They would exchange looks and say that that was how life went, that some people had to get old so others could be born.
But that wasn't really the question. Daddy had gotten older, and she had gotten older too—be they hadn't rotten like her mom had. They hadn't become small fragile things that could break if someone squeezed it too much. Her mom could. She could break with every hug, with every hard word, with every sad thought.
Why did she have to rotten?