It was just a day like any other when it happened.
Gilbert had dragged his two 'friends' to the beach, insisting that they needed to let loose, or in his words "take those sticks out of their asses for a while.'
The majority of the day was spent trying to get the two into the water, but Roderich was being an uber-un-awesome-killjoy and of course, Elizabeta followed his lead like always.
But Gilbert, determined to have a decent beach day persisted. He even went as far as trying to pants Roderich down to his swim trunks, but that had ended with Elizabeta's infamous frying pan leaving several nasty bumps on his head and face.
"Fine!" he finally gave up, "I'm too awesome to hang around you losers anyway!"
He went off to buy some iced refreshment and maybe hit on those cute girls over there while he was at it, leaving the two sitting on a blanket under an umbrella (that Gilbert and Elizabeta had set up because Roderich was 'delicate', as Elizabeta said- in other words, a prissy little spoiled brat who had never worked a day in his life.)
A couple of girls walked by the two, wearing what you commonly wore to places like the beach- bikinis.
"Look at them, Elizabeta," Roderich scoffed, "How indecent. Proper young ladies should not expose that much skin."
"Yes, of course, Roderich," Elizabeta agreed.
However, she watched the girls enviously. Deep down, she wanted nothing more than to shed the blasted, long skirt and cardigan she was wearing; it was so hot and she was roasting, even in the shade. How Roderich was surviving in his blasted pea coat of all things, she had no idea. But, if he could do this, so could she, because she was determined to show him that she was not like the other girls, even if the only thing she wanted to do at that moment was tear of all of her stifling layers and run straight into the clear, sparkling, cool ocean.
"This is so dull," the brunette, bespectacled teen sighed in exasperation, "I am going to sleep, so vake me up vhen ve are leaving."
"Yes, of course, Roderich."
Elizabeta sighed adoringly as she watched him lay down and almost instantly fall asleep. It was no secret, well to everyone but Roderich, that she had a huge crush on the dark-haired Austrian teen.
The peaceful moment was ruined when something freezing slid down her back and she had to stifle a squeal in order not to wake the sleeping boy.
"Gilbert!" she hissed, turning to glare at the silvery-haired teen that was having silent fits of laughter after putting on ice cube down the back of her sweater.
She tried to be mad, but the ice felt so wonderfully cool, she found herself struggling to keep up her glare.
"Kesesese~, is zhis Dummkopf asleep? How unawesome. Anyvay, let's go svimming."
"No!" Elizabeta whisper-yelled, "I don't vant to go svimming. Leave me alone!"
"Oh, please, you're sveating under all zhose clozhes. C'mon, Elizabeta!"
"No," she crossed her arms and looked away.
But, she was rather hot, and the water looked so tempting…but, Roderich might wake up and see her…maybe if she just went to the bathroom and splashed some water on her face, maybe that would help.
She stood up abruptly.
"I'm going to the restroom."
"Oooo~h, I see, are you not going in zhe vater because it's zhat time of month?" Gilbert teased.
"No, it's not!" she blushed and stormed off, almost running.
"Vhatever," he mumbled, finishing off the rest of his icy lemonade. He considered dumping the rest of the ice on Roderich, but that would be a perfectly good waste…and, he didn't want to get beat up with a frying pan once Elizabeta came back from the bathrooms.
Thinking about it, he had to use the restroom as well, so with a final look at Roderich (he even managed to look stuck up in his sleep), he got up and followed after Elizabeta.
The bathrooms were anything you'd expect from public beach bathrooms- unisex with wet sand covering the cement floors.
Without bothering to knock, Gilbert opened the first door he came to and froze at what he saw- Elizabeta leaning over the sink, wearing nothing but her green bikini that made her body look nothing but amazing.
He stood there, gaping, until she glanced up and saw him in the mirror.
"AH! GILBERT!" she screamed, spinning around to face him.
And that's when it happened.
He stood there in the doorway, staring at the girl he had known since kinder garden, who thought she was a girl for the first eleven years of her life, who he teased mercilessly when they went through the excruciatingly painful years of puberty, who could hand his ass to him without breaking a sweat, whom he knew had the biggest crush on a prissy Austrian who barely glanced at her, and it happened.
It felt like the world had shifted, like everything had changed in that one moment.
"GILBERT! VHAT ZHE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?!"
He snapped out of his daze at her scream.
"Kesesese, nice boobies, Eliza," he laughed, trying to brush off what had just happened to him by saying something he would usually be expected to say.
She blushed and covered up her chest.
"Go avay!"
He smirked as he slowly approached her.
"Come here, frau, ve're going svimming!"
Before she could do anything, he had scooped her up, thrown her over his shoulder, and was running across the sand towards the water, laughing like a madman.
"Put me down, Gilbert, you stupid little f**k!" she screeched, her more colorful language that she never used around Roderich because it was 'unladylike' coming into play.
He reached the shallow waves and kept on running to the deeper waters, splashing gracelessly through the salty water, and once he was deep enough, he tossed the girl on his shoulder into the sea.
She surfaced, spluttering incoherently, her hair sticking to the back of her neck and her shoulders.
"You should see your face right now!" he laughed, full of mirth.
Elizabeta glared at him, reached under the water, grabbed his ankle, and pulled with all her might.
The red-eyed boy fell into the water with a very unmanly shriek.
When he resurfaced, it was Elizabeta that was laughing.
"You should see your face!" she mocked.
"Oh, it's on frau," he smirked, glad that he finally got her into the water. He had known that she had been extremely hot, but she was too stubborn to admit it because of Roderich. Not a lot of people knew it, but he could be surprisingly observant. Sometimes.
They spent the rest of the time until sunset splashing each other, play wrestling, and chasing each other in the water.
As the sun went down, the two left the ocean, laughing while Elizabeta held Gilbert in a headlock as they walked, and Gilbert trying, more than he had ever tried for anything in his entire life, to ignore the chest his cheek was pressed up against.
'When the hell did she get these?' he thought, 'These were not here yesterday! Wait, why are you freaking out? They're boobs, nothing new. Stop being unawesome, you pussy! But, they are soft…stop it! Brain, why do you have to be so unawesome?'
"Elizabeta!" came Roderich's voice and they halted; or, Elizabeta halted, and since she had Gilbert in a headlock, he was forced to stop as well.
"Oh. Roderich, you're avake," she said nervously, her voice becoming 'girly', "How vas your sleep?"
"Cover yourself up. I should think you'd be ashamed to go around like that."
"Yes, Roderich," she murmured, "Of course."
And just like that, her stiff, polite, 'ladylike' expression was back in place, the one Gilbert hated seeing there and had tried so hard to get rid of that day.
But on that day, it was different.
On the day that it happened, he realized just how much he hated seeing that expression that wasn't hers. It would take him a while to realize exactly why he didn't like it, but while he and Elizabeta, who was wearing that cardigan and stupid skirt again, packed up the blanket and umbrella, he knew that something had changed.
And that was the day, the day that it happened.
That was the first day that he really started to realize what she meant to him.
That she was his life.
And that was the first real day of his life
#####
A few years later, they had all graduated high school, though Gilbert had barely made it.
Roderich went on to become a musician (not a famous one), having gone to a school for music, filled with other self-important pricks.
Gilbert started working as a mechanic immediately after high school, as well as taking up two other jobs so that he could put his younger brother, Ludwig, through college, something he hadn't been able to do.
Elizabeta did not continue her education. Or start working for that matter. No, she basically became a housewife for Roderich, although calling her a maid would have been more accurate.
And it pissed Gilbert off so much.
Elizabeta was a brilliant girl. She would have graduated top of their class if she hadn't purposefully thrown her scores so that they would be just below Roderich's because he liked smart girls, but not when they were smarter than him. She could have gone to a prestigious college and actually done something with her life other than wait on a man who was too full of himself to realize how lucky he was.
Any man should have been honored to have Elizabeta by his side.
Gilbert would have been honored to have her by his side.
After that day, the first day of his life, he felt like he had been blind. It was the only explanation.
Otherwise, how had never realized how funny Elizabeta was, when Roderich wasn't around and she would make some 'crude' remark, one that would have made the Austrian piano player cringe?
How had he never realized how truly kind she was, looking after that one kid from school, Feli, when everyone picked on him because he looked weak and was dating his younger brother, Ludwig?
How had he never realized how beautiful she was, not when she tried to put on makeup or wear dresses, but when she had no time for eye shadow in the morning, when she was too lazy to wear anything but old jeans and a t-shirt?
Granted, it took him a long time to figure out why he suddenly saw Elizabeta, because he had never been good at love. Making love, sure, but the actual emotion? Not so much.
However, when he did figure it out, she was the only thing he saw. She was everywhere, in everything, in every person.
And it hurt.
Because she was hopelessly in love with Roderich.
Because she would never even consider Gilbert.
Because she was changing.
Whenever they saw each other, she had that stiff, polite expression and it became harder to bring out her true self- the tomboy who liked sports, who liked playing sports, who liked swearing, who liked jeans, who liked being natural, who was almost one of the guys, who liked being one of the guys.
Who was the Elizabeta he loved.
Gilbert also changed.
Not so drastically, but it was enough for people around him to notice. He didn't go to many parties or clubs or proclaim his 'awesomeness' at every possible second.
On most Friday nights, he would go to a bar to drink away his sorrows and find some girl to spend the night with, pretending she was Elizabeta.
Some girls had long, chestnut colored hair, but it wouldn't be a soft as Elizabeta's.
Some girls would have olive green eyes, but they wouldn't be as bright, as beautiful as hers.
He was at a point in his life where he didn't know what to do, where he was going, but he sure as hell knew what he wanted to do, where he wanted to go- to Elizabeta, to be with her, to take her away from Roderich, and love her for all he was worth.
But, not all things work out like we want them to.
And it didn't look like they would for him.
So, he tried to be content with bringing out the side of Elizabeta he loved every time they met, to get her to laugh freely, to smile genuinely.
The times when he could grew to be less and less frequent.
#####
It was a Friday night when it happened.
He had just ordered his first drink when Elizabeta came through the doors.
The second he saw her, he knew something was wrong. If the tears in her eyes weren't a dead give away, then the flaming, angry pink mark on her cheek was.
Abandoning his cheap beer, he swept her out of the bar and towards a nearby park.
There, sitting on a bench underneath a lamp, she told him.
How Roderich had lost his place in the local symphony.
How he had come home in a fury.
How he had slapped her.
She held in the tears bravely, but one or two escaped.
After she finished speaking, they sat in silence.
"Vhat? No 'You should see you face'?" she asked, trying to smile, "No 'You look pathetic'?"
Gilbert gave her a small smile.
Not his arrogant, cocky, shit-eating grin that she always remembered seeing on his face.
No.
Just a small, sad smile.
And she looked at him for what seemed to be the first time in a long time.
Really looked.
His eyes were duller than the vivacious violet-red she remembered, with dark shadows underneath them from working three jobs so he could give Ludwig things he couldn't have being the eldest of two brothers who had been orphaned and hadn't gone through foster care.
His hair was messy, not in the way she remembered when he kept it carefully tousled on purpose, but in the way where you either have no time to run a comb through it or are just so dead tired that you can't.
His expression, one she never remembered or even thought she would ever see on his face- a tired expression. Sad. Gentle.
Defeated.
"I vould never make fun of you vhen you're zhis down, Eliza. Zhat vould be so unawesome of me," he said, quietly, gently, calling her that nickname that she hadn't heard since high school, wearing that expression she had never seen on his face.
She burst into tears and buried her face in his chest and he put his arms around her, knowing she wouldn't understand this as anything but a friendly gesture.
"Can I go home vith you?" she whispered.
"Of course."
And he picked her up, carrying his broken girl home to his shabby apartment while she cried into his neck. He held her through the night until she fell asleep and then kept holding her.
"I just thought you should know," he whispered into her hair, her soft, wavy hair, but she didn't hear him, "I love you. Ich liebe dich."
It took him six years after the first day of his life to say it.
He had never handled romance well, had always been slow understanding it.
But, in that moment, everything made sense and nothing else mattered.
The next day, Roderich called and apologized, asking her to come back.
She smiled her stiff, polite smile and forgave him and said goodbye and thanks to Gilbert.
He smiled and tried to give his signature laugh and said, "Anytime."
He had realized that night how much he needed her.
And how he would never have her.
And so, he watched her go back to the love of her life, the man who was everything Gilbert wasn't, who had everything Gilbert didn't, but only one thing he envied.
Her.
#####
After the 'incident', things only got worse.
He would see her less and less and when he did, she couldn't even bring herself to give him that stiff, polite smile. It was ironic, how he found himself missing that smile; anything would have been better than to see her blank face, her lifeless eyes.
It was a year after the 'incident' when it happened.
It was a Saturday. Gilbert had stopped sleeping around after the 'incident', he couldn't bring himself to. He had an off day, a rare thing in his busy schedule, and he had spent it doing nothing.
He was lying on his worn out couch, staring blankly at the ceiling at 1:00 in the morning when it came.
The phone call.
"Ja?"
"…Gilbert."
"…Ja."
"It's Elizabeta."
She didn't need to tell him; he would have recognized her voice even if he went deaf.
"Ja."
"I…need you."
"Vhat for?"
"I…I'm afraid I might do somezhing."
He sat up.
"Vhere are you?"
"The bridge," she whispered.
"Don't move, I'm coming right now."
He hung up and ran to his car, a beat of piece of junk, and sped down the roads, going a least 40 miles over the speed limit, to the only bridge in the city.
She was there, sitting on the railing, her legs dangling on the other side, her hair gently flowing in the wind.
He slowly walked towards her.
When he was behind her, she spoke.
"I feel like I just woke up."
He didn't say anything, just climbed up and sat next to her.
"He told me to leave. Said I vas worthless."
He put his hand over hers.
"He brought some chick home. Asked me to give them some privacy."
He brought her hand in his onto his lap.
"It's strange, because it was only then that I realized how everything had changed. My feelings had changed. I had changed. I feel like I've been sleeping all this time."
They sat there for hours, feet hanging over the cold, rushing water far below them. At some point, he had put his arm around her and she put her head on his shoulder.
"Do you know something, Eliza?"
"Hm?"
"I love you. I love you so goddamn much."
"…How long?'
"Seven years now."
They were silent again and the sky was a pearly gray.
Dawn.
They watched the sun rise together. When it had just peaked over the horizon, Elizabeta stood up on the railing, pulling Gilbert with her.
They stared at the sunrise until she turned to him.
"I'm glad I met you," she told him.
He took her hand and kissed her knuckles softly before jumping down.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
He held out a hand for her to join him on the bridge.
"Coming?" he asked.
And she smiled.
Not a stiff, polite smile, the smile he hated with his whole being.
A genuine, beautiful smile in the rising sun that was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
She took his hand and jumped straight into his arms.
"Vhere are ve going?" she asked.
"I have no idea. But it vill be awesome!" he proclaimed, a sliver of his old self breaking through, "As long as you're happy."
"Alright."
And, that was when it happened, walking away from the bridge with the new day on their backs.
That was the first day of her life.
Of their lives.
Together.
#####
A year after that day, the first day, the day Gilbert and Elizabeta started dating, Gilbert bought a ring.
Things had not been easy at first; no, they had worked hard for everything and earned everything through hard work.
He had become a highly skilled mechanic, with customers willing to pay for those skills. He had regained his old liveliness, his confidence, his laughter, his joy. And his arrogance, but no one minded that much because they were too happy that he was back to being himself.
He and Elizabeta had moved into a nice apartment together.
She had begun working at a bakery that sold pastries from all over the world, and she was wonderful for the job because she knew many Hungarian treats and could make them to perfection. She had started smiling again. She wore jeans and t-shirts and put her hair into messy ponytails and watched sports and could out-swear her boyfriend as well as beat him in arm wrestling.
They went to sports games, to the beach, out on dates, and when they were short on money, they didn't care.
They attended Ludwig's college graduation together, congratulated him, shared old laughs, and even got pictures of him blushing while Feli kissed him on the cheek.
It was a beautiful ring, simple yet elegant, with two small gems, one red and one green, side by side.
Eight years after the first day of his life, he finally proposed.
"Now, don't interrupt me until I'm finished," he said in a mock serious voice, as she stared at him suspiciously, until he got down on one knee, "Elizabeta, you are zhe most awesome woman I could ever hope to have met. I love you, und I'm pretty sure you like me too, because you've put up vith me for god knows how many years. I know you've been treated horribly, but I can promise you, zhis time vill be different. Ve might not get along all zhe time, but ve'll never know if zhis can vork out if ve don't give it a try. So, if you vant to be vith me, vould you do me zhe honor of marrying me und ve can see how zhings turn out?"
She smiled at him with tears in her eyes.
"Goddamnit, Gil, you're so stupid," she said and then laughed, "Of course I'll marry you, you pompous ass."
#####
The wedding was small with only close friends and family in attendance. Ludwig was Gilbert's best man and Feli ended up being the 'man of honor.'
When Elizabeta walked down the aisle in a white dress, Gilbert swore he had never seen anything more beautiful. They stared into each other's eyes, smiling like idiots, the entire ceremony, almost missing the part where they had to say their vows.
When it came time for them to kiss, Elizabeta shoved the bouquet into the priest's chest, nearly knocking the poor man over, grabbed Gilbert, dipped him like he was a girl, and kissed him full on the lips.
In retaliation, he snatched her up, threw her over his shoulder like that first day so many years ago, and walked down the aisle while Ludwig face palmed by the alter, both of them laughing, both completely content to start their new lives together while the exit song played.
This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in this doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach
Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been
But I know where I want to go
And so I thought I'd let you know
Yeah these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home
Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange, you said everything changed
You felt as if you just woke up
And you said
This is the first day of my life
I'm glad I didn't die before I met you
But now I don't care, I could go anywhere with you
And I'd probably be happy
So if you want to be with me
With these things there's no telling
We'll just have to wait and see
But I'd rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery
Besides maybe this time is different
I mean I really think you like me