Guys, this is not a cute, sweet romance or a hot, sexy angst like I typically write. It's sad, it's bitter, it's bittersweet, it sucks, and it's basically just emotional vomit I almost didn't share.
Anyway, as a small few of you are aware, my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer back in November of 2017. I saw the writing on the wall last July, after her first round of chemo. She was declared cancer free, and then three weeks later, they discovered another tumor. By November of 2018, it had spread to her peritoneal cavity. Mid-December, she was told they weren't doing anymore chemo treatments, was given a life expectancy of 2-4 weeks, and was set up for hospice. She lasted 6 more spectacularly shitty weeks, because she was as strong and stubborn in the bitter end as she ever was, and finally let go 1/29/19.
This miserable fic is basically just me coping. Obviously, my relationship with my mother is not mirrored here, and this is a bit...rambly in flow? Sometimes doesn't make sense? Kind of like the sort of weird headspace I've been in since my mom's passing. So, not my best work, but… Anyway it is a Romy, but there's no fluff, and don't even bother squinting for the romance.
—•oOo•—
It only figures I'd wind up right where I'm at, right this very moment. So many storeys up, starin' out from the top of a rich man's roof, threatening tears screwin' up a perfectly fine view. Can't even begin to count the number of times I've done that, whether it be this roof or that one. Seems like a camp on a building at night has always been a go-to of mine for a good angst-out, clear back to when I was a gawky teen, moonin' over her first crush.
Heh, I'd even mooned over my first crush from a rooftop with said crush. Which would kinda make my current situation comical, if it actually didn't suck so bad.
All things considered, I was kinda-maybe-really dumb for comin' out here.
Actually, all things considered, maybe I wasn't so dumb, after all. And if I was, it certainly wouldn't be the dumbest thing I ever did.
"Don't be like your stupid mama," I mutter, remembering a shrugged, parting shot from Raven not so long ago. Then I snort at myself and wipe at my eyes again. "Gal, of all the shit that woman ever said to you, that's what sticks out now?"
And it hurts, and I can actually hear her voice sayin' it, I can picture her expression so clearly, and it hurts...
—•oOo•—
She hears her phone go off, and her shoulders twitch up in irritation. She's currently floating in the middle of her room, legs crossed, eyes closed, attempting at meditation.
Attempting being an apt description. The psyches have been loud again lately, and she's long figured out the correlation between the crazy whipping upstairs and her stress levels. To say that her stress levels are at an all-time high these days is an understatement, her affiliation with the Avengers seemingly one disaster after another.
And goddammit, she's homesick. She misses the X-men. She misses her brother. She misses—
Well, she'd rather not think of him. That always leads to such a mixed bag of feelings, and—
"Well, shit, this ain't workin'," she sighs with a slump, eyes opening. "Guess I ain't so surprised, I couldn't sit through grace at the dinner table, either."
Her phone chirps again, reminding her of that missed text, and she glances at it sulkily, as if it's the interruption's fault she can't be still for ten minutes.
"Might as well," she grumps at the next reminder, already dreading whatever message is there, and whoever it's from.
Avenging just might not suit her so well after all.
She floats over and plucks the phone out of her coat pocket. A fast punch-in of her passcode, and she's hissing at the caller ID.
Erik. Not at all who she wishes to talk to. They hadn't exactly ended on the worst of terms, and he'll always have his little corner in her heart, but…
He's exhausting. Too heavy with purpose and too forceful with personality, he's exhausting just knowing he exists. Not what her head needs today, for sure…
—•oOo•—
It also figures that both shitty news and an indirect push toward something to hope for, to need so badly, it almost crushes you, came from him. Because Erik Lensherr, ever the glum harbinger of getting your ass whooped, but with a for the greater good spin on the end.
Or some shit like that. I doubt this is a for the greater good of anything, least of all my heart. Especially the given state it's in.
But it's guaranteed to feel some kinda good trying, and honestly…
I might could do with a bit of that right about now.
—•oOo•—
"Do what, now?!" She's demanding, and she's getting loud and in that tone she knows he hates, but doesn't care. "Run that by me one time, huh?"
"Raven is dying, my dear," Erik repeats, his gaze as unyielding as ever, completely at odds with the compassion in his quiet-spoken words.
"I-I don't get it," she stammers, "she has a healing factor, a damn good one—"
"And it does her little good now." He gently cuts her off, his expression going uncharacteristically soft…
—•oOo•—
Pancreatic cancer.
A death sentence if there ever was one. And apparently, Raven's particular biochemistry, the very nature of her mutation, her specific genetic set-up, had started the clock a-ticking clear back to when her power had manifested.
To say that I'd been shocked at the news would be an understatement. Raven can't die from cancer, I'd screamed in my head, over and over again, it's impossible, she heals, she shifts out of illnesses, I've seen her do it…!
Except it apparently hadn't ever been that simple, 'cause nothing with us mutants ever is.
To say that it'd messed me up a little to learn Raven was terminally ill is an even grosser understatement. I'd flip flopped madly between utter disbelief (and fuck me, I know I made a complete ass out of myself with Erik that day...ugh, I've got to apologize for that, 'cause bless the man, he'd taken every bit of it on the chin) and an already blooming sense of loss. That feelin' of loss hadn't made sense, either, not if you think about it. For one, she wasn't even gone yet, and for two, Raven and I ain't been close since I was maybe nineteen or so.
My stupid heart doesn't give a damn about that, 'cause fact of the matter is, Raven is still my mama no matter how you slice it, and despite the complications of our relationship, I've always loved her. And it'd stung like a sonovabitch to have found out from Erik, and not her.
If only that'd been the worst of it...
—•oOo•—
"Cancer?" She stares at the painfully thin woman sitting across the kitchen from her. "So, when were you gonna tell me, huh?"
Raven doesn't even blink. "I wasn't."
Her breath lodges in her chest, and she grips the countertop hard enough to crack the granite. "The hell you mean, you weren't?"
"Exactly what you heard, dear." The woman gives a brittle smile, her yellow-gold eyes holding no regrets, and no more warmth than they ever have. "I wasn't going to tell you at all."
—•oOo•—
Erik hadn't known for certain where Raven had holed up at, seein' as how she'd kept her private affairs dark as she could, but I'd figured on where to find her.
Georgia, right on the coast, and not too far from Savannah, sits a pretty little cottage. It hadn't been Raven's absolute favorite estate, she actually preferred her home in the Alps, but it'd been Irene's. Say whatever you will about her, but Raven had adored mama Irene, and so that's the home both women had taken me into after I'd run off from Mississippi. It's also the home Irene had passed in, and after that, Raven had clung tight to the property.
Unless Raven had opted to die off in a medical facility somewhere, which would've been a wildly out of character decision on her end, our old home had been the obvious hidey-hole.
I'd flown down the next day and knocked on the door to find a less-than-thrilled Raven already seven months into cancer, and lookin' like… well, absolutely nothing like the woman I've loved-hated-loved half my life.
Helluva shock, that, and a sharp stab of guilt, too. Last time I'd seen my mama, she'd been seemingly fit as a fiddle and up to her usual shenanigans, sneakin' in as my nurse to give me one of those injections to counteract the effects of terrigen mist exposure.
That'd been just over a year prior. One year, and I hadn't seen my own mother (irrelevant that seein' her usually meant trouble, and that we ain't exactly been close for the longest).
What kinda daughter does that make me, huh?
And damn, it only been like, what, fourteen months or so, and then, she'd already had a foot in the grave?
Heh, yeah, ain't nothing ever so simple with us in this life, for sure. I'd known that much, but it sure would've been nice to know the rest of the story, that she'd been walkin' around on borrowed time all along.
Or maybe it wouldn't have made any difference today at all...
—•oOo•—
"Cancer. It happens when a cell goes retarded, and it then divides and multiplies uncontrollably. When the cells clump together, it forms a tumor—"
"Yeah, thanks for the biology lesson, mama," she snaps, "I already knew all that—"
"Stop it, Anna-Marie," Raven bites back. "Ever the dramatic, I swear. You sought me out, demanding answers, so sit down and hear them, or get the fuck out."
She levels her mother a stare to curdle milk, knowing full well she won't be bothered by it in the slightest. She finally concedes with a scowl and arms crossing her chest.
"My mutation allows me to change form. Shift my cells into other cells. Some not even human." She shrugs. "Starting from my very first shift, my cells were altered. Inevitable that some of them didn't shift back." Finally, she breaks her gaze and stares at her hands. "Lucky me, the next shift tended to shift out abnormalities, sometimes triggering cells to change altogether and either die, or go back to normal, or simply disappear." She meets Rogue's gaze again. "That, plus my healing factor has kept it in check all these years, beating this cancer and that one."
She stares at her mother for three beats, tears already burning and words escaping her. Finally, "and none of that's helpin' you now?"
"No." Raven's expression remains maddeningly blank, and that pisses her off even more, because it's not fair, not fair that she knew all this time, had all this goddamn time to prepare, and she wasn't even going to— "it's beyond what my healing can do. At this point, each shift may or may not work in my favor. No one knows for sure, cancer in mutants is still an unknown, and my cellular make-up isn't especially stable, anyway."
She looks down at her feet. "So how long they tellin' you ya got left? And who's 'they', anyway?"
Raven shoots up a brow at her terse tone, and snips right back. "Who 'they' are isn't important, only that they're the best I can see." She taps her coffee mug irritably. "And I've been told anywhere from four weeks to four months, depending on what my mutation does for or against me."
She stares and the tears threaten, and she bites her lip to stop the fall…
—•oOo•—
It still smarts like all hell, that she'd tried to run me off from the start. That she'd rejected every damn move I'd made to help her during those last weeks. That she'd been sick for longer than I'd been alive, and hadn't said a thing to anyone about it. That I'd been losin' her before she'd even taken me in, and speakin' from experience, losin' mamas sucks.
Of course, I don't hold it against her, takin' me in knowing her end was eventually this; that's just one of those irrational spurts of anger I keep feeling these days, right alongside the righteous anger, the hurt, the disbelief, the unfairness of it all…
I dash a hand at my runny nose and lean back against the windowpane of the apartment's skylight, head tilted up at the sky. I ain't lookin' for Raven or God or any of that cliché kinda thing, I'm just...lookin' up. Not much in the way of a starscape here in the city, not like I know how one can be, but I always did find some sort of comfort in watchin' the sky, and now's no different. As a kid, it was a sort of freedom from boring old Caldecott, like the sheer expanse of the sky lifted the suffocating feeling a place like that can bring. Then after my power erupted, it was a different kinda freedom from a different kinda trap, but the comfort it brought was much the same.
"Don't know why I'm lookin' up at you," I mutter, forcing my eyes from the sky to my toes. "Ain't like I'm feeling all that trapped right now. Hell," I shoot a watery smile back up at the moon, "one might say I'm free of one trap for good now."
'Cause being trapped in a never-ending cycle of wantin' to love someone who doesn't ever want to be loved is a nightmare.
"Don't be like my stupid mama, indeed," I choke out softly, squeezing my eyes shut from the stars, 'cause I'm still in that cycle, and perpetuating it around me.
Like mama, like daughter, huh?
And right now, I just really miss her. Well, not exactly miss her, just...I miss knowin' she's still here, just around the next problematic turn.
—•oOo•—
"Mama, I done told you, I came over to help, and I'm damn well gonna help. And I'm gonna keep comin' back down to help, so you might as lie back and be quiet about it."
She smiles tightly at the bedridden woman glaring at her, gently adjusting her blankets just the way she likes it. It won't please her in the least, but in an honest moment, she can say that's just par for the course. She's never been able to please her mother before, why should now be any different?
"And I've told you time and again that I don't need your help," Raven snaps ungraciously, predictably trying to shove her blankets down. Trying, since she no longer has the strength to actually do anything with them other than shrug them down maybe five whole inches..
Nine solid weeks of puking up everything eaten, followed by the last three weeks of not even trying to eat at all will do that to a body.
She looks at her once cold, hard, admittedly beautiful mother, and she has to bite her lip to keep from crying. She looks utterly pathetic now, indigo skin now grayish, flaking, spotted, bruising, every bone in her body standing out in sharp relief…
"I've told you I have help, Anna-Marie, the very best available," Raven fusses at her, reaching for her cup of crushed ice. "You don't need to keep coming down."
She softens at her mother's tone, her native German dialect coming through as she deepens into her morphine. "I know that. I want to."
Watery, yellow eyes roll at her. "I don't."
She fights the gasping sting of her words, stops the flinch away from them. "Yeah, I know," she clips back, "you've made that abundantly clear every time I came down." Her mouth twists bitterly as she adds, "well. Too dang bad. Even you don't deserve to just go off and die alone like an ol' dog nobody wanted."
"Pfft," Raven snorts, pride hardening her stark features as she struggles to move up in the bed. "Don't you have the world to go save? Better hurry, I hear it's burning."
"Christ, mama," she grits out, ignoring the woman's grunt in protest as she carefully slides her up into a proper semi-Fowler's position, "is it really that dang hard to not be a witch all the time?"
"Oh, cry about it," Raven hisses. "Better yet, go cry about it on that worthless Cajun of yours, yes?"
Her chest constricts, and her brows clap down like a thunderstorm, because that's a goddamn loss, him, a huge chunk missing, and how dare— "Raven, don't you even start on him. He's—"
"Darling, that man is good for exactly three things: lying, stealing, and fucking," Raven interrupts impatiently. Then she stops and eyes her daughter sharply before adding with an irritable shrug, "not that you'll listen to me about him. You never have, and you never will."
She pulls in a deep breath, ready to bite Raven's face of for having the nerve—
"Nevermind that, though," Raven snaps with a careless wave of her hand, "you'll need someone, and he's as good as anyone." She fixes unsteady, glazing eyes on her for a moment, pinching her mouth down in age-old resentment. "Irene told me that much."
She perks up at mention of her other mother. She hadn't seen the older woman in her last years, mostly because of Raven, and she misses her. Perhaps now more than ever. "Irene? What did she-"
"Ha! Like you ever gave a fuck about what she had to say," Raven practically spits at her. "You ran from her, just like you ran from me, and everything else." Then her lashes flick up at her, and her gaze softens somewhat. "Just like I did her, too. Don't be like your stupid mother, my darling, be more like the smart one was. It'll serve you better in the end."
—•oOo•—
I still ain't gotta clue what it was Raven meant by saying what she had about Irene telling her whatever about Remy. Obviously, it'd been something positive, which is surprising in and of itself; Irene hadn't liked any man I'd ever been interested in, Remy included.
Whatever she'd told Raven, it'd finally made her let up on that topic, as she'd never picked it up again.
I might be just a tad nettled at the hint dropped, but without any context to make it mean much. I can only imagine what Raven must've felt like, living with and loving a dead-ass accurate pre-cog pullin' that same cryptic shit on her all these years.
No wonder she'd gone a little batty over those stupid diaries.
I wonder if those diaries had foretold of any of this. If that's why mama had been so calm about things. If that's why she'd be so decisive in how she'd played it out, so adamant in not seeing me or Kurt in the end. She'd certainly had it all planned out and ready.
Of course, that could easily just be 'cause she'd had a long time to do it. Literal centuries, actually.
And then there's pride. If one thing can be said about cancer, it is that it'll cruelly tear away every shred of dignity and joy you possess. In the end, all your left with is your pride, and mama'd had that in spades. I suppose I can't blame her there, clinging to it so ferociously; she'd always been such a force to reckon with, so in control of her scene, and always havin' the upper hand, and then…
Well, she didn't have any of that. And there I was, havin' been on an opposing side for years, watchin' her die off, and it'd been hideous.
No, I don't guess I can't blame her too harshly for it, but it doesn't take away the absolute bitter, last feeling of betrayal at the end of it all...
—•oOo•—
She stands in her mama's bedroom, her jaw hanging open, her heart hitting the floor as her eyes dart from one pristine clean, barren corner of the room to another.
Nothing. Nothing in the living room, the kitchen, the bathrooms, either, she'd already looked.
"Mama?" She kind of squeaks out, her throat trying to close off, realization sinking in deep and horrible. Because Raven isn't here, either.
In fact, there's no sign of her having ever been there at all, like this hadn't been hers and Irene's home, like it hadn't been the home they'd adopted her into all those years ago.
"Well, mama," she begins in a shaky voice, tears blinding her as she stares at the empty spot her mothers' bed had always been, still irrationally expecting it, her, and all her belongings, memories, everything, Irene's too, to reappear right before her, like the absence thereof is a trick, her imagination, because what is a world with both her parents no longer in it- "I guess you're long gone now. And I guess you just got the last goddamned word in, too, huh?"
She snorts softly, turns blurry eyes out the window. "Fine. You have it your way, then. I'm gone, too."
With that, she turns and walks out. Out of the room, out of the hallway, out past the living room, and out the front door, not bothering to look at any of it. Nothing she's seeking is there anyway, so why bother?
She takes to the sky, and she knows she's headed back north, but doesn't really know where she's going. She only knows where she's leaving, and it's for good. She'll never set foot in her mothers' Georgia beach home again.
—•oOo•—
And that'd been that.
Or so I'd thought. I'd squalled a good, long cry all the way back up to New York, and then I'd carried all those hurt feelings right on through a horrible phone call to Kurt and into the night's sleep, too. I'd awakened the next morning expectin' my world to be a little...off. Like the planet should've been wrong because Raven was gone. Instead, the world had kept spinning just the same, and my only real blips and been the crap in the mail remindin' me.
Mostly, it'd been legal documents, documents lining out my inheritance from both my mothers. Those had hit hard, 'cause every single one of 'em was like another nail in her coffin, another anchor setting this whole thing into reality. And it'd felt a little like rubbin' salt in an old wound, getting everything from Irene, too.
Not to mention the absolute shittiness of willing everything to me, and nothing to Kurt. Never did understand why mama'd never had any interest in him; Kurt's...well, Kurt's about the most likable X-Man of the bunch. Maybe it's because of that she'd stayed away. Kurt's too good. A real pure-heart. Me, I ain't exactly a rotten person, either, but there's a darkness in me that Kurt ain't got, a certain fine edge that you can lose your step and fall from, and maybe you'll land on the good side rather than the bad.
Raven never had been one for absolutes, instead preferring blurred lines and gray areas, like me, and Kurt's nothing like that.
"Though I guess you did love him in some capacity, huh, mama?" I snort a half smile down at my toes. "At least, if that sorry-not-sorry of yours I read earlier was anything to go on, you did."
'Cause it wasn't only legal paperwork I'd gotten in the mail. There'd been that damn letter, too...
—•oOo•—
"Goddamn you," she chokes on a quiet sob, big, fat, wholly unwanted tears splatting on the paper in her hand, blurring the elegantly penned note.
She starts out not caring if it's ruined, and then suddenly, she does, as it's probably the last thing her mama had written.
She blinks back the tears and quickly flutters the paper back and forth in an effort to dry it out. "Like I even wanted your stupid properties and shit," she fusses, "hell, I didn't even want Irene's, and you knew that."
She stares at the letter again, sniffs back more tears, then scowls at it, flings it into the pile of important documents grown on the floor before her. Documents detailing her inheritance she'd dreaded upon receiving them since Raven's death, and largely ignored until she'd gotten this letter in the mail. Addressed and stamped and mailed as though Raven had gone and done it herself just two days ago.
Honestly, the juxtaposition of reality to denial of the situation is hitting her raw, fast, and with the impact of an oncoming train tonight, and if she'd ever thought being still for grace at the table had been impossible, now she can't even be still in her own skin, she's so emotionally strung.
"Leave it to you to tear me up in every way possible even after you're dead, huh?" She mutters bitterly, dashing the snot dripping from her nose with the back of her hand.
She'd put this off for a solid week, having tossed it all in her usual haphazard fashion on the desk she lets collect dust in a corner of her room. She hadn't been ready, and she'd known that when she tackled any of it, she was going to need solitude and a six pack.
Not that it makes any difference if she drinks or not. Invulnerable bodies mean invulnerable livers, but it's the principle of the matter. A certain aesthetic she feels, perhaps relates to from borrowed memories, she'd suppose if you ever asked her of it.
"Good thing my stupid ass forgot the six pack at the store and remembered the rum in the pantry instead," she mutters acidly, reaching for the bottle on floor beside her. She heartily swallows the last mouthful, then holds the empty bottle out and smacks her lips at the label. "Malibu rum, shug, you do taste so much better. Heh, it's especially funny, considerin' how Raven hated you." She pauses, then shrugs, "don't take it personally, though; she hated anything what wasn't a Baltic porter that tasted like tar."
She glances back at her mother's letter. Short, brisk, and to the point it is, just like the woman who'd written it. No dramatic words of love or goodbyes, though they are no less loaded, she supposes, especially the last lines.
"I just wanted what was best for you and for Kurt," she reads, mimicking her mother's tone to precision, her lip curling, "and believe me, my darling, that was not watching me die. Better for you both to remember me as Mystique, than to remember me in the end."
She snorts wetly and stands, walking to her window to stare out over the snowy expanse beyond. "Better for who, us, or you
Except Raven perhaps hadn't been entirely selfish in this. She's having the damndest time remembering what she'd looked like past the pitiful woman shriveling up alone and brittle in her own home.
"Ugh," she bursts out, dashing the tears out of her eyes and wiping her nose, as if to dash and wipe the miserable images from her mind. She shoves open the window, sucks in the cold air, and squares her shoulders, pretending she's not absolutely mentally squirming at the moment. "I gotta get outta here…"
—•oOo•—
So, that's how I wound up here.
Here, camped out on top of a rich man's penthouse, half waitin' with my heart in my mouth on him to come home, half waitin' with a pathetic sigh of relief on him not to, and bawlin' my eyes out up at the sky over losing perhaps the most fucked up person I've ever loved and trying stop.
"You're gonna need someone, and he's as good as anyone," I mimic Raven in my snidest tone. I snort and wipe at my my eyes again. "Well, mama, just so you know, I hadn't meant to come here, I didn't fly out to come here, and I surely ain't got any business being here, but here I am." I lay my head back against the window and close my eyes. "Can't ever say I never listened to you, now can ya?" I open my eyes back up to lazy slits at the sky, adding, "I don't suppose you got any great words of wisdom for me now, huh? 'Cause I'm sure feelin' a little like the stupid one right now."
I mean, really. The hell'm I gonna say to him, anyway? Cry all over him for losin' someone he hates? After I been shovin' him off for years now? After runnin' scared from him to the man that tried to kill him? After tearin' him down in a moment of stung feelings?
Hoooo, this is sooooo stupid. Why'd I even come here? I should go. Yeah, I'm goin' now, I'm just gonna stand up, dust off my butt, and go ugly cry and dribble snot on my own somewhere else. God, I can't believe I was silly enough to end up here, hell, I ain't ever been in this place, he didn't live here while we were a thing. I mean, I look like complete ass, too, I'm not a pretty cryer, I get all swollen, red, and blotchy, and all drippy and leaky, and who wants to see their ex again like this after not seein' him for months, and—
It's a faint noise from below, a flicker of movement that freezes me, and it's the flip of lights that turns me to press hands against the window, lookin' in.
"He's home," I breathe out, heart crashing wildly into my ribs as I watch him move into the living room.
God, he's beautiful. Tall, long-legged, and graceful. He's disheveled, too, deliciously rumpled. I know that look on him all too well, and it stings a little. Which is silly, all things considered, but anyway, yeah. Stunning man. I can't see his face, he ain't lookin' up, but I know all the sharp planes and angles of his features, the exotic tip-tilt of his eyes, the fine lines of his sensitive mouth. I don't have to see him to see him.
Miss him.
I watch him shrug out of his leather jacket, kick off his boots. Stop to greet a silver tabby with scratches behind its ears on his way into the kitchen.
"He has cats," I laugh softly against the skylight as two more run up for attention, a fat orange tabby and a sleek, cream colored cat. "Of course he has cats," I murmur through a stupid smile as he loves on his pets for a second, then turns to feed them.
I'm still in love with him, and it stabs sharp and deep, makes me jerk back, turn away.
I ain't got any business here, ain't got any business gettin' tangled up with him again, all it does is burn us both. Probably him more than me, 'cause I'm still a mess, and it ain't like he's beating down my door anymore, anyway. Hell, he even gave up tryin' to call or text me, those attempts had dwindled off to nothing fairly quickly after I'd blown him off enough times.
But maybe… He had always made it clear his door was open to me. Maybe I haven't completely ruined everything with him. Maybe we can still be friends, 'cause right now, I'm really missin' that friendship.
Hell, I miss him!
I sigh and huff a white curl out of my face, standin' on his rooftop like a dumbass, missin' my best friend (that I'm still ass-over-end for), thinkin' maybe I can salvage that friendship (hoping), 'cause I'm really goddamn selfish right now and need it—him—so bad, it physically aches—
I pull out my phone, and bite my lip. Dithering. Being wishy-washy. Insecure. Just like I've always been with him…
Don't be like your stupid mother…
Don't be stupid…
Ah hell. "Fine," I snap out low and frustrated, pulling up his number, "here goes nothin'. I hope Irene was right, whatever she told you…"
The phone's ringin', once...twice...three times, and I hear my heart thudding in my ears, 'cause what if he doesn't answer—
"Hey, chere," his rich, throaty yat comes over the line, and it sends the warmest zip down my spine clear to my toes.
He answered, I think with relief, tears welling up again as I go back to the window, he answered—
"'Course I answered," he snorts quietly, and I feel even more ridiculous, 'cause I hadn't even realized I'd said anything.
"Heh, yeah, 'course ya did, shug," I huff a wet laugh I couldn't hide if I tried, eyes trained on him leanin' over his countertop, tears already blurrin' 'im out.
He heard it, the crying, I know he did, but bless the man, he lets it go for a moment. Then, "mmm-hm, so what's goin' on that's got y' callin' me at this hour, eh?" And he sounds tired, but not at all put out, and that has to be a good sign...
I shake my head, relief still floodin' from nose to toes, hell, I'm shakin' with it— "nah, i-it's fine, it is," I stammer out, not even sure why I'm tellin' him it's okay when it ain't.
"Yeah, and that didn't sound unconvincin' at all." He goes quiet for a beat, then, "y' sound pretty tore up over there, girl. Want me to come over?"
I give a laugh that chokes a bit at the end (my lord, when did I turn into such a watering pot?), and a couple of stupid tears splat the windowpane. "Nuh-uh, I ain't there, shug."
Something in my voice must've given me away, 'cause he glances up, eyes immediately zeroing in on me.
Hell, he probably already knew I was up here, knowin' him. He's a bitch to sneak up on.
"The fuckin' hell, Anna-Marie, 's cold as a witch's tit out there, and about to start snowin' again," he chides over the phone, and gestures for me to follow him around as he strides to the other end of his apartment and up the stairs to let me in from the loft patio. "So how 'bout you get y' squallin' ass in here where it's warm," he meets me at the door, "an' quit creepin' on your handsome and charmin' ex boyfriend, yeah? 'S weird, chere," he adds, firefly eyes takin' in my mess of a face as he steps back a little and gestures inside.
That does it, that right there does me in, him teasin' me, welcoming in. My heart's sore, and my brain ain't makin' sense of anything, and right now, all I really want is a hug out of him, dammit.
I walk right into his chest instead of past him, face in his shoulder, arms slipping tight around his waist. "Hi, Remy," I sniff at him, eyes going wetter and squeezin' shut as he doesn't even hesitate, doesn't stiffen up, just pulls me into him like we ain't ever missed a beat, and shuts the door.
"And I ain't weird," I add as I hug him a little tighter, enough to make him grunt a little in discomfort, "just maybe kinda stupid."