not mine. blah blah blah.
onward.
He sat alone, nursing a scotch in the dimly lit bar. He usually drank at home. Alone. Tonight he wanted the company. Not anyone to talk to or entertain. Just... people to fill the spaces of the background.
She was back in town.
He took a sip of his drink as he thought back to the day she'd told him she was leaving. He'd ignored his own rules, started a relationship with her, then was reminded of why he set those rules in the first place. I can't keep doing this, she'd said. I have to, she'd said. Goodbye, she'd said.
He sighed. The bartender came to refill his empty glass. He'd spent thirteen years rebuilding his walls, pushing her memory out of his life. It took her thirteen minutes to bring them all crumbling back down. Someone took the stool next to him.
"Thought I might find you here." Roxy.
"Not exactly hiding." He replied, lifting his drink to his lips.
She snorted. "Like hell."
"Whattya want, Rox?" He was suddenly tired.
"Wanted to make sure you were alright."
"Why wouldn't I be?"
She paused, studying him. He'd spent thirteen years silently destroying himself. She'd spent thirteen years picking up the pieces.
He was growing irritated at her scrutiny. "I'm fine, Roxy."
"Yeah, well," She finally looked away, turned to face the mirror in front of her. "Not every day George Lass comes waltzing back into town."
He considered brushing her off. Insisting he was okay. Insisting it was no big deal. But she knew him too well for that. And she had been the one who helped him in the months following the departure. Comforted him. Fixed him. They understood each other in a way. They always had. He used to wonder if they ever would have worked. If they'd met at a different time. In a different life. He never thought about it long. It did no good to dwell on could-have-beens.
"I don't know what to do, Rox." His admission was soft. She almost didn't hear it.
She knew he didn't expect her to say anything. There was nothing she could say. She laid a gentle hand on his back.
"Well... you could start by talking to her."
She was up and out of her seat before he could respond, someone else taking her place. He heard her mutter something lowly before heading for the exit.
"Hey." The voice beside him was soft. Not the way he was used to. New. Different. "Are you going to ignore me forever or will you actually talk to me?" And yet exactly the same.
He turned to face the women sitting next to him. She looked the same. So did he. He used to wonder if it was blessing or a curse to be eighteen forever. Looking at her now he decided it was a curse.
"Look," She sighed. "I know... you're mad. I know that... you have every right to be. I just... I missed you." The last three words came out as a whisper, he wasn't sure she'd meant for them to at all.
"I don't know what you want me to say." He bit the inside of his cheek when peanut threatened to slip out at the end.
They fell silent. She sighed. After a moment of quiet musing she waved the bartender over. He smiled softly when she ordered his own drink of choice, suddenly flooded with memories of when she hardly knew one alcoholic beverage from another.
"What happened to us, Rube?" She asked quietly.
He shook his head sadly. "You left."
She turned to him again. "I had to, there was... there was no way... nothing was changing, we were just getting worse!"
"So why'd you come back?" He was angry. Angry she left. Angry she came back. Angry she was pulling the same shit she had thirteen years ago.
She stared at him. Her voice was broken. "I don't know. I..." She shook her head, pushed away from the bar. He last words were muttered to herself. "I don't know."
She headed for the door.
"George." He turned. She paused, her back to him. He sighed, ran a hand down his face. "Sit down."
She debated with herself a moment. Then hesitantly returned to her seat. Silence descended once more.
When she'd shown up that morning he'd been taken by surprise. He'd been late in waking and grabbed his daily list to write at Der Waffle Haus. He hadn't had a chance to read about the last minute transfer. His group was already seated, eating breakfast and picking at one another. Amber got up to let him take his usual spot. Roxy eyed him with concern. She'd been doing that a lot since George left. Waiting for the next crash. Ready to fix the next break. Kiffany had shown up shortly after and his list went forgotten as he became preoccupied with ordering breakfast and appeasing the squabbling reapers beside him. That's when she'd shown up.
His immediate reaction was to freeze, question whether she was really there or if he'd finally gone insane. He snapped out of it when Mason noticed the new arrival too. The man had let out a yelp and sprung from his seat like a rocket. Georgie! he'd cried. He could tell Mason had been wondering if he had gone crazy when he first spied her, at the way his arms were currently crushing her to his chest. She'd laughed lowly and hugged back as best she could. Roxy's eyes had gone wide. Well I'll be dammed, She muttered. Mason finally let her go, asked what she was doing there. She'd paused. Her eyes flicked to him. I've been transferred, she'd said. Roxy's eyes were on him now. Amber and Nick were at a loss. Mason was suddenly asking why he hadn't told them. His own eyes hadn't left her since she arrived.
Roxy had taken over then. He doesn't remember her explanation. He wasn't listening. He'd flipped his book open, eyes scanning the list, the attached message saying they were getting a new transfer. Her name burned a hole in his eyes as he stared helplessly at the paper. He needed to leave. He needed space. He needed out of her sudden intoxicating presence. He passed his book to Roxy and muttered some excuse he couldn't even remember now, brushed past her quickly as he made his way out of the restaurant. He didn't notice the flash of hurt in her eyes as he passed.
"What happened to Daisy?" Her soft voice broke him from his thoughts, returned him to the bar they were currently sitting at instead of the restaurant he had fled.
"Got her lights." He muttered.
"When?"
"Year or so after you left."
She nodded softly. "I was worried you... none of you... were gonna be here."
"Roxy's only been around twenty years longer than you." He muttered.
"Since when has anything about this job ever made sense?" She retorted.
He grunted. She sure as hell had a point there.
He thought back to their beginning. She'd fallen for another boy. Hard. He remembers walking into Der Waffle Haus and seeing her slumped at the front bar, absently running her finger around the lip of her coffee mug. He'd walked over (he should have left), sat next to her (should have left her to work through this alone like he had the last three times she'd had her heart broken). I can't do this anymore, she'd whispered. Her voice cracked. Betty's old ring was sitting on the counter in front of her. He'd panicked. She turned her tear stained face towards him and he grabbed it, kissed her with everything he had. He'd taken her back to his apartment that night. She ended up staying the next two years. When she left, she left for good. Until she showed up at Der Waffle Haus again that morning.
"How long are you here for?"
She looked up from where her finger was currently running around the lip of her glass. "I dunno. I can... go... if you want."
He considered her words for a moment. Did he want her to leave? Did he want her back on his team? Could he handle her leaving again? Could he handle having her back again?
The last three months of their relationship had been a mess. They'd spent more and more time yelling at each other. I can't be who you want me to be, she'd screamed one night. They'd stared at each other in the silence that followed, their heavy breathing the only sound in the otherwise empty apartment. He remembers grabbing his jacket and slamming the door closed behind him. She was curled in bed when he returned three hours later, fresh tear stains painting her cheeks. I can't keep doing this, she'd whispered once he was laying beside her. He nodded. She was gone following week.
"Where are you staying?" He asked.
"I dunno, I haven't... I'll probably go check into a hotel when I leave." She checked her watch. It was a little passed midnight. "I could always stay with Mason."
Mason. He (grudgingly) loved the man, but he'd been off since Daisy's departure. They'd grown closer since then, understood each other's loss and silent suffering. Mason had come a long way since their first meeting. Mason was part of the reason for George's leaving, he mused. Indirectly. Directly it was his own fault. He'd always been slightly jealous of the easy camaraderie they'd shared. He'd spent a lot of the past thirteen years wondering what would have happened if George had still been around after Daisy left. Would she have left him for Mason? Would that have been worse than her leaving them all? He never pondered it long. When he started down that road the broken look that's haunted the Brit's eyes for the past eleven years would enter his mind and he'd scold himself for even thinking such a thing. Mason's heart belonged to Daisy. George's had belonged to him. He remembers listening to Mason mutter it during the first anniversary of Daisy's passing, during a drunk stupor. They'd gone to an old pier, a bottle of Jack Daniels each, and drank until they could no longer remember the women who haunted their nightmares.
"Mason'll be unconscious by now." He spun his glass absently on the bar.
"Well then I'll go to a hotel, I dunno! Jeez, do we have to discuss this right now? I just want to drink and not think about anything."
He sighed, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows. "Then why did you come here?"
She turned to him. "What d'you mean? I came here to drink."
"Why did you come here, where I am? Why sit next to me if you don't want to talk?"
She watched him silently and for a moment he thought she might leave. She raised her glass, nodded at the bartender before knocking the remaining drink back. "Misery loves company."
He shook his head. "George."
"What?"
He remembered when she told him she was leaving. I have to, she'd said. We're a fucking mess anymore, Rube! Her words echoed through his mind everyday for the past thirteen years. We're going to end up destroying each other. He'd lost his temper, told her she was right. There never was anything between them. They were just a quick fuck in a never ending life. She was just a footnote in a life he never asked for. Maybe it had been too late. Maybe they already had destroyed each other. Goodbye, she'd whispered before closing the door softly behind her. She was gone the next day. It wasn't until Nick showed up in her place the following week that he finally realized she was gone.
"I can't do this."
"What?" She asked again.
"I cannot sit here and pretend that everything is alright between us. I can't sit here and pretend that I'm not scared shitless that you're here for good." He paused. His next words were softer. "That I'm not terrified that you'll leave again."
"So don't." Her voice matched his. "Fuck this. When did we become so pussyfooted around each other?"
He shook his head, trying to dispel all the memories that were fighting for dominance in his mind. His voice was low when he answered, cracking softly. "When I told you you were a mistake."
She tensed next to him, watching him from the corner of her eye.
"I never... I never should have said that. I was angry."
She shifted in her seat. "You were right. We were never... meant for each other. We were just... a fun time while it lasted."
He watched as she gently swirled the liquid around her glass. "Your family's gone."
"I didn't come back for them." He watched her closely as she set her drink down. "I let them go a long time ago."
"What did you come back for?" She turned to face him. They studied each other silently. She turned away again, smiled sadly at her glass.
"Doesn't matter. Everything I once had here is gone now." Her gaze returned to his. "You look good, Rube."
She stood from her stool, threw a few bills down for her drinks.
"Where're you going?"
She sighed. "To find a hotel, I guess." She turned to leave for the second time that night.
"George." She faced him once more.
He studied her silently. Flashes of memories flew through his mind. She looked the same. He used to wonder if it was blessing or a curse to be eighteen forever. Looking at her now he decided it was a blessing.
"Come home with me."
She drew a breath as he held his. She looked fragile. She looked hardened. She looked broken and tired and weary. She looked beautiful. He knew from the moment she walked into Der Waffle Haus that morning that he wouldn't be able to let her walk out of his life again. He knew that he was just as broken with her as he was without, but like she'd said, misery loves company.
She walked the few steps back to him, came to stand between his knees. Her eyes were locked on his and he did all he could to hold them for as long as he could. His hand came up to cup her cheek and her eyes fell closed. She leaned into his touch, he leaned into her. His final words were muttered softly against her lips.
I missed you.