Disclaimer: everything belongs to Susie, I can't claim a bit of it. The title and lyrics for the song "Miss me, baby" belong to Chris Cagle, another one of this punk's guilty pleasures. :) (god, what is it with me and associating things to country songs lately?)
A/N: This is a sequel of sorts to "Tonight I wanna cry." It's sort of loosely connected, you might not really get a paragraph in here if you don't read that one first, but you shouldn't stumble too much if you haven't read it. Thanks goes to RileysMomma for her lovely comments and beta work. :)
I stared at the shoebox filled with old love letters and pictures, almost paralyzed by the memories they held. I was supposed to be cleaning out the closet, but the memories beckoned to me. And, like a moth to a flame, I obeyed their call.
Miss me, baby.
When you hear our favorite song,
Miss me, baby.
And when you start to sing along,
Think about all the times that we danced
In the light to it all night long.
Oh …
Then miss me, baby.
Sandy had left almost seven months ago. Seven; I had kept count. No matter what I did, every day my heart wandered back to her. Maybe I was naïve, but a part of me refused to believe that she cheated or that the baby she carried wasn't mine. There was something in her eyes when she had told me … She wasn't exactly the best liar and her eyes had given it all away. That brief moment when I forced her to look me in the eyes and tell me again, I'd seen that look, and it had given me hope.
I smoothed out a rumpled letter and discovered that it was one that Sandy had written me right after we had started going steady. The smile on my face came unbidden as my fingers caressed the paper, tracing the curly letters.
Want me, honey,
Like you did the night you told
Me that you loved me.
We couldn't wait anymore,
Left the keys in the door,
Took my hand, pulled me down
On the kitchen floor.
Yeah, we were that crazy.
Miss me, baby.
We had been a crazy couple; crazy in love, most folks had said. No one could have imagined we'd end up the way we did.
Tears stung my eyes briefly as I closed them and held the letter to my face, inhaling the sweet perfume she had sprayed on it all those months ago. For a moment, she was in my arms again, and my face was buried in that golden hair of hers. I could almost feel her head resting on my chest and her soft skin under my fingers. My chest tightened and that familiar ache returned; that ache that I felt whenever I thought about her.
The first time I'd felt that ache, I had tried to drink it away. But all it did was make me feel things more intensely, and I'd ended up crying myself to sleep, clutching Ponyboy's pillow to my face. Darry had found me like that when he came home from work that day. I couldn't even form a coherent sentence at the time, but somehow he knew. And, after carefully navigating the broken glass on the floor, he'd wrapped his arms around me like Dad would have done and let me cry it out until I was reduced to sniffles and hiccups.
That night was one of the worst nights of my life. But even though she had caused me so much pain, I couldn't help but think about her. I wondered if she ever thought about me anymore, about my offer and what she'd left behind. I wondered if she missed me, if she still thought of me. I wondered if the baby banished all thoughts of me from her head. Or maybe the baby's face reminded her of me too much, and she felt an ache in her chest that wasn't unlike mine.
Despite all that had happened, I couldn't find it in me to wish anything bad on her. I loved her, and deep down, I knew she felt the same way, whether she realized it or not.
'Cause I love you,
Yes I need you.
Miss me, baby