A one-shot, my first R/L writing since the end of Best Friend's Girl, and I enjoyed it. Short, sad, and fairly angsty… here it is.
She asked me, once, what I thought was in the future.
It was in our third year, when we were the young innocent children that we might have been forever, and we were sitting outside by the lake. it was one of those days of close, perfect friendship that nothing can get between, not even the mutual wish for more than that. The sky was gray-purple, turning reddish as the sun began to set, and she smiled at the possibility of the rain. She loved the rain, she had told me once, how every raindrop felt like a new and perfect beginning. Before her, the rain had been nothing to me. Now, it had become my favorite sort of weather.
As the water in the lake sloshed around with the stirring movements of the angry Giant-Squid, she looked at me quizzically, silently begging me to answer her question, and I smiled.
You.
The rain began to fall, softly at first, then louder and angrier, until we were both soaking and shivering and laughing, until her shimmering hair was plastered to her, and I realized how pretty she was in the rain. Until we came together, still soaking and shivering and laughing, and our lips met in that awkward, sweet, rainy first kiss.
O.o.0.o.O
She asked me, once, what I thought I'd be. What we'd be.
It was on a Sunday afternoon, one of those golden days where everything seems perfect because reality is irrelevant. We managed to find so many of those, over the course of those three years that seem like much shorter yet so much more, where everything sped up and slowed down at the same time. I thought- prayed- wished- that life could go on that way forever.
As we laid together in the grass, our hands intertwined as we gazed up at the clouds above us, I thought I knew. I thought that we'd be together, somehow, married or just madly in love. I thought that we'd be able to tell everyone, one day, and it would all be all right, that they'd understand, somehow. I thought that it would be us, she and I, for the rest of our lives. For always.
Everything.
We didn't wait for the rain that day, but it came for us, and we stood there, soaking and shivering and laughing, like we had all those years ago. Like I always thought that we would for the rest of our lives.
O.o.0.o.O
She asked me, once, where we were going with this.
It was in the hallway where we often met, talking and kissing and being us, away from the world, like we always had. Like we always would. I frowned at her, at her doubts and her wonderings, and I tried to kiss them all away, but it wasn't working this time. I was keeping something from her, she insisted, I was lying to her, and she needed to know. I looked down at her pretty face, hurt and crying and wondering and doubting, doubting me- I shook my head.
There's nothing.
I was lying, and she knew it. I'd fooled people before, fooled them all, but she was different. She knew everything. She knew me. Sometimes she was the only one who did.
O.o.0.o.O
She asked me, once, if I thought she was making the right decision.
It was three years later and we were all grown up and the future wasn't something to wonder about anymore. The future was here, and if you were lucky and you stayed away, the future would continue. She was marrying my best friend, and I was alone, for the first time since I was thirteen. She had insisted that we stay best friends, because we always had to be best friends, and I had agreed, putting the broken-heart aside. I'd watched carefully, as she'd started to look at him, in that special way that she used to look at me.
As we sat in the little kitchen of her flat, the one where they would sit and talk and kiss and be them, I knew what I wanted to say. I wanted to say no. Because how could she forget about me, forget about us, for him and for them? But things had changed and we were grown-ups now, and grown-ups didn't say such things. Grown-ups weren't selfish. Grown-ups didn't whine and ask why and cry when they were heart-broken. Grown-ups dealt with things.
Of course you are.
She smiled at me, but she knew, of course. She could always tell, even if she should have been blinded by him. She knew I was lying even when I didn't. I smiled at her, and that was the biggest lie of all, but she said nothing. I got up to leave, and she stood up with me, and she slowly pressed her lips to my cheek. She turned around to face the window as I left, and the rain pounded down.
O.o.0.o.O
She asked me, once, what was in the future.
It was in the lobby of the church where she grew up, on a Sunday afternoon that was perfectly cloudless; I held her hand and smiled, almost sincerely. I knew, of course, what was in the future for her. She would marry him, and they would have children, and they would be perfectly cloudless, too. There was no rain for them.
She would look beautiful everyday, just like at that moment, with her brilliant hair tumbling over her shoulders and her glittering eyes glancing through the glass doors, smiling at him. Perfect. I thought, bitterly, her entire existence had always been and would always be. She turned back to me, hesitating before we walked through those doors, before I handed her off to her new life. I was giving her away properly now; though I had done that years before. She looked up into my amber eyes and she frowned. Well?
Him.
She smiled then, looking up at me. I knew you'd understand. But I didn't, I had never understood and it was unlikely I could ever begin to; I had simply accepted. Maybe I had gotten better at pretending, over the years. Maybe she had gotten worse at noticing. We had both changed so much since that day, all those years ago, when we were young and innocent, laughing and shivering and kissing in the rain.
O.o.0.o.O
Ten months go by. They've had their first child.
A year and a half. He's after them.
Two years. They've gone into hiding, and suddenly, I don't know where they are. They think I'm the traitor.
Just a bit longer, and he arrives. It's over. She's over.
She asked me, once, what was in the future.