we were worth it

1

It was like she was caught in a "fuck you" kaleidoscope. It was her face, eight different ways, but each one reminding her that she should have ended things a year ago like she had wanted to.

"Paige, honey, I know it's a little cliche to ask you this on our first anniversary."

Oh, right, she had not meant to see Katie again after their night together. Their one night stand was supposed to end with a quick gathering of clothes and an awkward promise to call. Instead, Katie was kneeling in front of her, shoving a diamond ring in her face, and promising to love her forever. She glared back at her eight faces, all stretched and distorted. Laughter bubbled up inside of her knowing that the ring was the only thing that knew how she truly felt inside.

"Honey, could you..." Katie groaned and adjusted her weight to give her knee a break, "could you give me an answer, please? People are looking at us."

No, not "us" they were looking at Katie because the window of opportunity to say yes had long since passed. Everyone knew at this point the only possible outcome was a rejection. Yes was fast, rejections took planning - at least the careful ones did. Her face twisted with frustration because Katie was still kneeling in front of her, all nervous green eyes and twitchy red lips. Her focus shifted on the reflection in the floor-to-ceiling windows. They could be mistaken for a happy couple in the best moment of their lives. Lying windows.

"I wasn't going to call you." Not the answer Katie was probably ready to stab someone for at that moment, but it was all she could think about. She never planned on calling Katie, but they ran into each other the next night. Dammit, that thick hair and blinding smile lured her in again. When she found out that Katie was an airline pilot and would be gone most of the time, she convinced herself she could keep seeing her. It had been easy. Absence makes the libido go crazy and all Katie wanted to do was make up for lost time when she was home. Easy ended almost five minutes ago, though.

"But you're glad you did because I'm the love of your life?" And then there was that blinding smile.

It was the hopeful lift in Katie's voice that made her stomach twist. "No, I regret it, because I wasted a year of yours." She wished she was better at acting. Maybe it would be better for Katie if she had been able to make up some sob story about how she loved Katie, but it was all happening too fast. How much more of that poor girl's time could she waste, though? "I meet the love of my life years ago and -"

"Emily, right?" Katie lifted herself off the ground, take a moment to wipe whatever might be stuck to her knee. She was calm. As calm as Paige had ever seen her. To anyone still watching them Katie's face gave nothing away. They could just be discussing the timing of the proposal. They could be hopelessly in love, but the housing market is slowing and is not the best time to have a new wife and a new house. It was only the crease in Katie's brow and the way she downed the rest of the brown liquor in her glass in a single, heroic gulp, that told Paige the real story. "Emily from high school?"

The judgment practically dripped from each letter of Katie's last question. High school was such a long time ago, after all, and everyone is just teenaged idiots during that phase. She stared hard at Katie's gorgeous profile, the sharp angles of her jaw, the gentle slope of her nose. It was this aloof demeanor that drew her in the first time when Katie was the most beautiful woman in the bar and wouldn't give her the time of day. It amazed her, really, how Katie could go from proposing to seeming completely unfazed by it all. She certainly had a type. "And college." That made it better, at least she could inform Katie that they had been adult idiots too. "I never told you about her."

"Then how do I know everything about her, Paige," Katie asked as the waiter slipped another drink in front of her.

She shrugged and Katie rolled her eyes. "You told me all about her in your sleep. I'm pretty sure you even sleep fucked me once when you were dreaming about her." Katie scoffed then and looked at her. The exposed Edison bulb lighting casting a dark shadow over her eyes, hiding all the hurt she was feeling in that moment. It was probably better that way. "I thought about stopping you, but it was the most...present you've ever been." Katie started twirling the ice blocks around in her glass, stalling to let the catch in her throat pass. "Almost every night it was like being held hostage at a poetry slam on misunderstood teenager night. Constant prose about her face, her eyes, her lips, her lips, and her lips. You were really focused on her lips."

Paige blushed then knowing that the focus was most likely on what those lips could do to her.

"One night, I found you sleeping with your high school yearbook when I had tried to surprise you at your house. I just knew that I would find her in there so I looked at the pages you had stuck your thumb between before you fell asleep. There were four smiling Emilies and I wondered which one was yours. When I got to the fifth one, I knew, she was stunning." Paige couldn't think of a time when she had ever heard Katie speak with a voice so quiet. "I could understand why I had to hear about those sculpted lips every night. Then I imagined how I'd likely break my hand swinging my fist into those cheekbones." Katie laughed at the absurdity of the fantasy, not because any of what was happening was funny.

"Why did you just ask me to marry you then," Paige asked, her eyes shifted to the velvet ring box sitting between them on the table. She wondered if she could throw it far enough to make this whole night never happen. All she wanted was easy.

"Sorry, I thought I was clear, I'm in love you. Head over heels, really. Even if you live in the past." It was then Katie's eyes went glassy with tears waiting to slip passed her eyelashes.

Paige was doing to someone else what had been done to her. She had let Katie hope for a future with her when there was never going to be one. The worst part was that she didn't know why she gave herself permission to be with Katie in this way and for so long. She had treated the women in her life like they were precious and fragile, well aware of the fact that she would never fully allow herself to be with any of them. Maybe she thought Katie could take it. Maybe it was the fact that she was sure Katie could have anyone that she wanted. Paige saw a lot of Emily in Kaite, someone who would leave her anytime the opportunity presented itself. Only, she had misjudged, because Katie had been fighting to stay all along.

The waiter dropped the check in front of Katie, but Paige picked it up before Katie could. Paying for dinner was the least she could do after pretending her heart was available for so long.

"Well," the sound of Katie's chair scraping against the stained concrete floor sounded like a car accident as it echoed off the walls of the quiet restaurant. For a place that was normally buzzing, it was obvious all the attention was still on them, "this ranks in my top-5 worst ideas at least." Katie jammed her arms into the sleeve of her leather jacket. Paige didn't have the heart to remind her that the jacket was actually hers. Before she turned to go she paused, bringing her shaking hand up to her forehead. She opened and closed her mouth a couple times, already looking disgusted with herself. "Let me know if you change your mind."

It was nights like this when she hated herself for deciding to purchase a small home with some land in the country instead of just living in the city - even one that could only be considered a city by Iowa standards. Thick clouds were bringing the promise of another stormy night and preventing the moonlight from illuminating the road for her. The blackness surrounded her on all sides except for the two dull beams from dirty headlights keeping her on the right path.

The restaurant was over an hour away from her house. If things had gone well she would already be tucked into Katie's bed, wrapped up in slim arms and strong thighs. "But no, she just had to propose." She shook her head to knock that thought out of her mind, none of this was Katie's fault. Her hands were already hurting from the death grip she had on the steering wheel, but she squeezed tighter as her thoughts of watery green eyes were interrupted with memories of eyes that were soft and brown. Her nerves were unraveling faster than she could drive. It all just hurt too much. In a world where Emily never existed, she could see herself marrying someone like Katie. The truth was, though, that she couldn't lie to herself enough to deny that if Katie couldn't break through her Emily-reinforced walls, no one ever would.

The trees whipped by as she pressed harder on the gas pedal, faster and faster than the narrow, country road was intended for. She wanted to scream. She wanted to drive off the road and smash head first into one of those mighty oaks. Not enough to die she told herself, but just enough to not feel numb. Only then did the hot tears start to roll down her face, because she knew at this speed it was enough to die. Still, she stared at the trees, silently begging her hands to just move to the left. Do it for her. Just a twitch to the left and she could -

"Shit." Smoke billowed in clouds engulfing her truck as she slammed both feet onto the brake. Sitting there, in the middle of the road, enveloped in her own smoky world, she thought about giving herself a moment to reflect on where her mind had been going just minutes ago. Instead, she backed up passed her driveway and turned onto the gravel path that led to her home. "It's all right. I'm just tired," she told herself, "long night, long year...long life."

Then, there it was, the shine of silver paint just at the edge of headlights. It had lost some of its luster over the years, but she would recognize it anywhere at any time. It could have been a bucket of rust and bolts sitting in her driveway, she'd still know. "Emily..."

She wished her heart would stop beating for a second so she could hear herself think. How was so supposed to focus with all that thundering going on in her ears? The blue and yellow Pennsylvania plates came into focus. Then the Rosewood High swim team sticker. Then it was as if she had crashed into one of those trees after all. A weight pressed right in the center of her chest and she gasped in all the air she could, but it didn't feel like enough. Bolts of pain shot around in her skull causing her to wince each time they collided with each other. Her muscled tensed. She was spring loaded and ready to run because standing beside her little silver car was the woman who made her life hell.

Her truck hadn't even come to a complete stop before she swung open the door and jumped out. "Leave. Now."

"Paige, before you say anything please let me explain." Emily clasped her hands in front of her, pleading to be heard.

"You're going to show up at my door and then start telling me what to do. I told you when you chose that woman over me," she forced her hands into her own hair enjoying the string of some of the strands being ripped out by the roots. Anything was better than the feeling of being blindsided by Emily, "the day after you told me that you wanted me, that you wanted us, that I was done with you." The pressure was building behind her eyes and she knew that if she didn't get into the safety of her home she was going to break down in front of Emily. Never again was she going to give Emily a glimpse into the pain she caused.

She pointed her finger back to the end of the driveway. Ready to tell Emily off. That she meant everything she said when she told Emily that she never wanted to see her again. Until she noticed two small pairs of big brown eyes that stopped her. Little copies of the eyes that she knew so well. Paige felt her heart thump, just once, just enough to sting a little.

"I chose my babies," Emily said with just enough breath to get the words out.

Paige wasn't listening, though, too stunned to pay attention anymore. There had been a time when she imagined raising children with Emily. Back then, she had hoped they would look exactly like the woman she loved so much. It was as if the future she dreamed for herself and Emily was gazing up at her with sleepy, blinking eyes

"We don't have anywhere else to go. Paige, please..."

An epic battle raged inside of her. Her heart was fighting for Emily, the girl she had love and the woman that she had once wanted to marry, but her head was firmly against Emily, the one who shattered her every chance she got. She knew the best thing to do to her own sake would be to tell Emily to go, but the words just wouldn't come so instead she just stepped around Emily, opened the car door, and scooped the girls into her arms. "You and the girls can take my room, but just for tonight. I want you gone tomorrow."

"Thank you, Paige, this means -"

She cut Emily off with a wave of her hand. "Save it. Just to be clear, I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for these two precious, innocent girls that you've dragged out to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night for whatever reason. A reason that I don't care to hear." She turned to walk into the house, leaving Emily standing there in the dark, not even noticing the steady flow of tears down her face.

12.31.18

AN: *peaks through the cracks in the boards covering the windows of the Paily fandom clubhouse* "This feels like a Pink Floyd song." It's your old pal, Endworldpeas. Anyway, I've been writing again. Not sure if anyone is still around to read about the shipwreck that is Paily, but there you go and I admire your loyality to the endgame that should have been.

Almost forgot about the actual story: you guys, it's sad. You're probably going to hate it. Honestly, if you remember my writing at all add alone at a buffet on Thankgiving levels of sadness to what I'd already write. Someone might die (no, I wouldn't (I would)).