Disclaimer: Trust me, Desperate Housewives is NOT mine. You all know that things would have turned out a lot differently tonight if it was.
Story Summary: Giving up isn't so easy. Spoilers for the finale.
A/n: I won't even get into the 1000 ways this show broke my heart tonight. I'm sure most of you feel similarly. But I will say that I was completely disgusted by the whole thing (and once I regain my bearings, I'll probably rant about it on my blog). This is a response to how overwhelmingly disappointed I am (in the writers—the actors blew me out of the water).
I'm pretty sure this will be a multi-chapter fic (as long as I don't become completely dispirited over the summer). Based very loosely on two songs: "You Are My Sunshine" by Liliana Rose and "The Hill" from the Once soundtrack, just because every time I hear those songs now, I think about this tragedy.
Please let me know what you think.
The Sun Sets Grey Over the Hills Tonight
A story by Ryeloza
It starts with a letter.
She's digging through the bedroom closet looking for the graduation present they bought for Parker eons ago and trying to fight the overwhelming feelings that have been building all day. It's too much, everything going on inside of her, and she can slowly feel her insides going numb in an attempt to shield her from emotional overload. This should be exciting: her baby is graduating from high school. Instead she feels something that can only be most closely akin to dread.
Tonight is the end. They've been lying to everyone for the past week, claiming that Tom has been out of town, some uneasy agreement they came to born of so many excuses. Not wanting to ruin Parker's graduation; wanting to get him and Penny through the end of the school year before they broke their hearts; an unspoken dread of actually telling the kids at all: a million little reasons that they could drag out forever if they wanted. But this can't go on—they can't lie forever—and they agreed.
After tonight.
After tonight, they'll fracture their family, probably forever. After tonight, they'll hurt their kids in irreparable ways. After tonight, they really will be going through with this.
In so many ways she just wants to get it over with; just rip off the bandage and slowly move on, slowly begin to heal. And at the same time, she wishes she could freeze this moment forever and never let it go. Their last night as a family.
If she had any strength left, she might let herself cry.
Her hand skates over the edge of a box, and she tugs at it a little too hard. Without warning it topples over, its contents nearly careening into her head; she ducks just in time. She ignores the mess, going back up on her toes to pat down the shelf, but she doesn't feel the brightly wrapped package. Wearily, she resigns herself to the fact that she must have tucked the gift away elsewhere—under the bed maybe?—and crouches down to begin to clean up the mess.
It's a box of her old stuff; what few mementos she saved from her childhood. She sighs heavily—the last thing she wants to think of is her past (any part of her past)—and haphazardly begins to throw things back into the box. An award she won for an essay contest; an old trophy from a speech debate; a playbill from her tragically bad foray into high school musical theater: remnants of a woman she scarcely feels is a part of her now. She barely glances at any of it; she hardly pays attention until she comes across the letter.
The paper escaped an old poetry book she tucked away in this box for whatever reason, the edges curled and the creases so worn that the paper nearly falls apart in her hands as she opens it. The print is almost illegible, faded after so many years of seclusion, but she can just make out the signature. Adam—her first serious boyfriend. The first boy who ever broke her heart. She laughs, but it's only to keep from crying.
The irony is horrid.
For some reason, she finds herself scanning the words, wondering why she kept this, why it is still tucked among her few youthful possessions. And then, as her eyes skim, her whole body seems to still, slowing down in an almost violent manner, and suddenly she's reading and re-reading this old letter again and again. It is unstoppable in its power over her.
Babe, I've been thinking and you're definitely right—we should try again. I know things got a little heated last night, but I don't know…There was just something about the way you were yelling at me. All that passion was hot as hell. Like most girls would have just broke down crying, but you're different. You actually fought for me. That was cool.
I so totally don't care if my friends think you're a bitch. They're idiots.
Let's get back together.
Adam
PS: That girl totally meant nothing. You know you're the only one I care about, baby.
She raises a trembling hand to her mouth. The tears come now, unbidden and without warning, and it's just about the most pathetic she's ever been in her life. Sitting in her closet, reading a thirty year old "love" letter and crying her eyes out.
But it's not really about Adam.
And it's not about Tom either. Not really.
You actually fought for me.
She fought.
She fought for a guy she'd been dating three months. She fought for a guy who, yes, she had cried over and mourned, but also forgot in a matter of weeks. She fought for a guy whose most significant contribution to her life was buying her lunch when she didn't have enough money one time.
She fought.
And she realizes with sudden, horrible clarity that somewhere along the way, she lost that instinct. Somewhere in the past few weeks—months?—years?—it simply disappeared. She hasn't been fighting for anything. She and Tom argued; they picked one another raw with heated words and pointed comments and plain old meanness. But they hadn't fought. They hadn't fought for each other. They hadn't fought for their marriage.
They just gave up.
She just gave up.
She gave up on the guy she's spent twenty-two years with. She gave up on the guy she shares five children with. She gave up on the guy she's built an entire life with.
For the first time, she feels this horrible wave of grief—one she has been anticipating for so long now that she feared it might never come. But it surprises her because it is nothing she thought it would be.
It is grief for herself.
Because she no longer has any idea who she is.