A/N : I suggest downloading and listening to 'Come On Closer' by Jem while reading. The lyrics do not necessarily fit but the tone of the music does.
Enjoy! This is unlike anything I have ever written before.
Un-beta'd. All mistakes are my own.
Disclaimer : I own nothing!
Six months.
He had been without her for six months.
She had been without him for six months.
He missed her terribly.
She missed him terribly.
The six months felt like forever.
He had never cried so much.
She had never cried so much.
They had returned to that bliss again. Set things right. Things were perfect. With the kids in college, they were acting like they were in college again. Well, minus the mailtruck.
They were doing great. Probably the best they had been ever. Things were really working out. The kids were coming back for the wedding.
Everything was perfect.
But it all came to a screeching halt.
The Coopers had been invited over to the Cohen's for dinner. Once they had arrived, Kirsten and Jimmy went to retrieve the food, thinking it humorous to leave their spouses with one another despite their lack in interests.
No one could have predicted that the Cohen's Range Rover would be demolished that night. A few may have predicted that Kirsten and Jimmy would die with their first love. Everyone would talk about it.
'They were meant to be with one another. Did Sandy really think that he stood a chance? Don't get me wrong. Sandy worshiped her but he's from a different world. He's no Jimmy. Although now with whatever Kirsten left him, maybe he can be. At least her father is finally happy.'
'Who did Julie think she was fooling? Jimmy has always been head over heels for Kirsten. They just make sense together. Julie is from Riverside! Jimmy only stayed with her because she got knocked up.'
'It should have been Kirsten Cooper.'
'They were probably having an affair this whole time. Remember when they were teenagers, how they couldn't keep their hands off of one another?'
'Of course their significant others won't have it, they live in fantasy lands. But they should have just had joint funerals for Jimmy and Kirsten. They should be buried next to each other. That's how it's supposed to be.'
"What if they are right, Sandy? What if they were soulmates and we were just road blocks? What if the only reason they broke up was because she found out about me?"
Sandy wanted so badly to tell Julie and everyone else why Kirsten broke up with Jimmy all those years ago. It was not because she hated the fact that he had cheated on her. She did not even know about Julie at the time. He wanted to squash the rumor by telling everyone that she did not want to be with Jimmy so badly that she killed his child. Sandy wanted to scream from the rooftop that he was good enough to have reproduced with Kirsten Nichol while she aborted Jimmy Cooper's child.
But he could not do that. Not to Kirsten. So he clenched his jaw and pressed his lips further together so he could protect Kirsten's deepest secret.
"She loved me. She still loves me. I can feel it."
On the seventh month anniversary of the car accident, Julie stumbled drunkenly to the door of her new apartment to find out who was knocking. She was met with the drunken stare of a man who once could not stand the sight of her.
"Sandy…"
"I miss her." He slurred.
"I know." She slurred back, sympathetic. She went through the same misery every day.
And now she was standing at the front door, sharing a stare with Sandy Cohen. The desperate stare of two people who just want someone to take away their pain.
Suddenly, Sandy's hands were on Julie's face, holding her lips to his own, and she was immediately letting his tongue into her mouth.
She did not kiss anything like his Kirsten. Her lips were so different.
He did not hold her like her Jimmy. His hands were so different.
Neither of them could figure out if these were good things or not. They just knew that they wanted the pain to stop. They wanted, needed to feel better.
Sandy took control quickly. He was possessive, forcing her to submit, which she appreciated. She needed to be controlled by something other than grief.
They moved together, both thinking of other people but trying their hardest not to. This was supposed to be their escape from the painful memories of the ones they loved. They wanted to escape with someone who could really understand what the other was going through.
Her body was nothing like Kirsten's. His was nothing like Jimmy's.
She did not move like Kirsten. He did not do anything like Jimmy did.
Eventually, they lay beside each other, trying to regulate their breathing. Neither said a word and it was evident that they were in different worlds.
Sandy suddenly turned to Julie. "Feel better?"
Julie slowly shut her eyes and shook her head.
"Me neither."
Sandy sat up and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose while he and Julie drifted to their separate worlds again.
Julie wordlessly got up and left her bed, getting into the shower. She could not believe that she had just slept with Sandy Cohen, at one time her sworn enemy. When she was finished with her shower, Julie crawled back into the bed where it had happened and went to sleep. Sandy had left while she was in the shower.
Exactly a month later, he was drunk at her front door again. She stumbled to the door again. They repeated the process again just like they would next month and then the next. Every anniversary he showed up at her house. Never his. They would not defile Kirsten's house, not even the guest room.
They still did not like each other as people.
They did not even like each other as sexual partners.
But they returned to one another. Every month, like clockwork.
Because he knew what she was going through and vice versa. Because they both hurt from their loss and from the words of their neighbors.
Because she was his escape and he was hers.