disclaimer: i do not own Switched at Birth or the characters, just a big fan who loves to imagine what could be.
authors note: I started a story similar to this last year but never got around to finishing it. After a quick chat with an old friend she encouraged me to start writing again but after re-reading the last one I couldn't even begin to continue that so I thought I would maybe start fresh and try a new approach with my writing style as well as the general direction of the story even though the idea is relatively the same. Hoping it's an easy, enjoyable summer read for other Bay and Emmett lovers! :)
The pictures from last summer had been replaced with new friends, new boys, and new memories. Bay sets them up temporarily knowing that within the next three months they'll be back in a box on their way to her new studio apartment just blocks away from campus.
It was crazy; the changes, the places that everyone had gone. She recalls the last night she had spent in this room and how unfair it had all felt at the time.
Maybe we should just break up.
No. He did not want that. She did not want that.
Why did she always say the harshest things to him when he was the most undeserving? It wasn't fair; it wasn't right yet she caught herself time after time. He had tried to hold her close, tell her his words were in the moment and that hers were too but the stubborn in her busted through and away she ran. Back to her second story bedroom, curled into a mass of blankets and emotions and she wept for the past and for the future.
The humming of his motorcycle was outside but he didn't pull away, he sat for what felt like eternity before the noise disappeared.
He was inside the house; she could tell by the clunky footsteps working their way up to the childhood bedroom of an artist who was moving on for better or worse. The door cracked open, a leather shoe accompanied by a pair of denim and a button up- he was always so presentable unlike her a smeared make up short skirt mess.
"Do you want help packing your things into the car?" His eyes are stained with tears, a rare sight.
Her eyes catch his and a sob escapes into the silence. No Bay does not want help with her things, she wants a hug- the type of hug that sweeps her off her feet like the one she had received after her high school diploma was photographed for the hundredth time and the type that happened after the fake French dinner that had been prepared just days prior. She wants a kiss, a dip, two lips connected by stiches, painful to pull apart but passionate and romantic and even the slightest bit sloppy.
"Well?" He couldn't yell but his hands managed to get the tension across.
Her head drops, "No…. no… no…." She's screaming it, "NO!"
Even the fights they had were packed with the sincerest of emotions, the most intense words, and feelings- how was it that either of them were still alive? The past flashes through her head quickly as she ponders that thought; every break up, and make up, and unplanned kiss. All the awkward run in's in the hallway and all the other boys and girls they had tried to date and it all added up to this moment.
"I don't want to go away to school Emmett…." She glances at the boxes of canvas secured tightly with packing tape, "I don't need anybody," She emphasizes that, "To tell me how to paint, I just need you, to inspire me, to motivate me…." Her hand runs down her face before continuing, "Is that too cheesy?"
The two chuckle in unison.
"You're going to go, and you're going to have a GREAT time…" He steps forward, hands catching her cheeks and her tears, the softest kiss on the forehead.
Her head shakes back and forth, "Come with me!"
They both knew that wasn't possible.
"Thanksgiving?" He signs ever so tentatively as he thinks about being all the way in Washington, Bay spending her days on the east coast- a whole country apart.
"Thanksgiving…" She nods, longing for a kiss that would only hurt more than it would heal.
She had seen him for ten minutes on Thanksgiving; her new boyfriend had been with her, more like her new fling. It had been painful and awkward but she realized within the two months apart that it would NEVER work out and the best solution to moving on was literally moving on.
Ash had been a phase, just like Ty, just like Emmett had in his own right and she wondered if she would catch him at the country club over the summer with Daphne who would be returning within the next week as well. At college she wasn't the girl switched at birth, she no longer signed, she no longer felt like an outsider in her own family. The identity search had ended as abruptly as it had started and her paintings grew to be flowers and sunshine instead of lines with an unguided figure.
"Oh Bay, sweetie!" Her mom trots in, as thin as ever, glasses hanging tightly to the bridge of her nose, "I scheduled a little salon trip, to get that purple out of your hair…."
"Or more put in it…" Bay mumbles under her breath.
"And maybe a little back massage- I'm sure you could use it after your long flight!" She looks delighted as ever, kids back under her roof. It had killed Katherine to be an empty nester for even the shortest amount of time.
"Yeah that sounds great!" A Kennish smile, as fake as it was wide.
"Alright…." She claps her hands together awkwardly, long red hair trailing across her shoulder, "I'm going to go finish up dinner, your father should be back any minute, and your brother is flying in next week and oh…." She trails on as she leaves the room, her energy modeling that of a whole pot of coffee.
Bay scrunches her nose together; she already misses school.