A/N:
this idea just kind of came to me. i don't think i've seen a story like this but maybe i'm subconsciously stealing the idea, so let me know if someone already did a story like this. essentially it's going to be alex looking through photo albums and the story behind each photo. the italics represent memories and the regular font is present tense. i don't usually like writing so much in italics but i'm not sure how else to separate the past and present. if anyone has any ideas i'm all ears :)
i'm not abandoning PWTLO! but i'm a little stuck there and i wanted to get this on paper before i lost it in the mess that is my brain.
i didn't mean for this first chapter to be so christmasy but it just kind of happened. i hope you guys like it!
I traced my fingers over the spines of the albums carefully, as if pushing too hard would somehow taint the memories that they held. I knew exactly which photos were in each album but I read the perfect cursive writing on the labels anyways. When she put them together I never understood why she put so much effort into it. Babe, we're just going to look at the pictures. It doesn't matter how pretty each page is, I would tell her. Now it made me smile, though, as I thought back to her sitting in front of the fireplace right after we moved in, using the glue gun and her fancy scissors for hours on end to make the perfect scrapbooks. I looked over at the little spot on the carpet that had hardened after she forgot to turn off the glue gun and it dripped onto the floor. It used to bother me, but now every little stain and dent just brought a smile to my face because it was so her to leave her flat iron on all day and melt the trim on the sink or try to mount the damn TV while I was gone but completely miss the stud and rip a hole in the wall. Of course we repaired most of the damage but I could still see each mark she left behind over the years.
I grabbed one of my favorite of the albums and took a seat in front of the fireplace where she had sat so many years ago putting it together. I had the entire album memorized from front to back, but I could still spend days on end flipping through the pages. The cover was a dark brown leather and had various marks and bends in it. It was the first one she made after we moved in together and it was definitely the most well put together of the many albums she had created over the years. She had a habit of pittering out rather quickly when it came to projects like this. I opened the cover carefully and traced my fingers over the first page that was trimmed with a film pattern carefully cut out of black cardstock. The page consisted of two movie tickets to see Castaway in theaters and a strip of photos from the booth at the theater. It was one of our first cliché dates.
I sat on the couch and tapped my foot impatiently as I listened to Piper humming a Backstreet Boys song (yeah, I know, but it was 2001 and I couldn't find anything she did annoying) while she got ready in her bathroom. We had about an hour to get to the theater so we weren't in too much of a hurry, but I didn't want to miss the movie. And she knew I would be here at 6, so she should have been ready 14 minutes ago. But as impatient as I was, I still couldn't find it in myself to be mad at her. Even my worst pet peeves were endearing when she was the culprit.
"-so I think it would be best if we take a cab because parking might take a while and it shouldn't take too long to get one." Piper emerged from her bathroom and looked at me expectantly. Her blue eyes were so huge and innocent looking and her stick straight hair just begged to be touched. Her makeup was a little more heavy-handed than usual and it just made those enticing eyes even more irresistible.
"Were you talking to me? Because I didn't even hear you until the part about the cab." I tried to play it cool and keep up the nonchalant attitude that I pulled her in with, but I was having trouble holding back my grin. So fucking cute.
"Oh. I was saying that the weather is too bad to walk. Don't you think?" She looked at me like I held all the answers to the world. I could probably tell her we should swim there and she would go put on my favorite bikini. I was her personal guide through everyday life and we had only met months ago.
"Probably," I glanced out the window and looked at the dusting of snow on the ground. "Cab it is."
I already had my shoes on because I didn't expect her to take so long to get ready, so I grabbed her jacket while she hopped on one foot to get her other tennis shoe on. It was just a movie date, so we didn't get too dressed up. Most of the dates we had gone on so far had been to exclusive clubs or expensive restaurants, but Piper insisted that we do something a little less fancy as she put it. Worked for me.
I helped her put on her favorite snow jacket and we walked down the stairs side by side. When I opened the door she immediately shivered and it brought a smile to my face. She was always cold. It was understandable though, because it was only a week after Christmas and it was freezing outside. I put my arm around her and stepped out toward the sidewalk, immediately successful in hailing a cab. I held the door for her to enter first and, as usual, those WASPy manners caused her to thank me for my action that most people just considered common courtesy. She sat on my left and stared out the window as I stared at her. Her eyes followed various cars and occasionally looked up to the sky to watch the small snowflakes fall. The way she was amazed by such simple things made my heart swell in my chest and gave me a weird feeling in my stomach.
When we arrived I quickly paid the driver before she could pull out her money. Piper had this adorable thing where she would try to pay for stuff even though we both knew I was way better off than her at her current jobless state.
"So I heard this movie is supposed to be really good. I mean obviously Tom Hanks is in it so it's going to be good, but yeah." She always seemed to have trouble ending sentences properly and usually trailed off or threw a "yeah" on the end to complete her statements. I laughed and pulled her toward the photo booth.
"You wanted a sappy date? I'll give you a sappy date." I took a seat and guided her next to me. She squinted her eyes and read the instructions. Sheread the instructions on thephoto booth.
"Stop reading the instructions! You just have to pose."
"Don't we have to press a button or something?" She was still trying to read the instructions with her brows furrowed but it was dark due to the curtains surrounding us and she clearly couldn't see anything.
"No, it just goes off a few seconds after we pay." As if on cue, the light flashed.
"I wasn't ready!" She shouted this as if there was a little person inside that should have warned her and now owed her a new picture. Then, just in time, she threw on her practiced grin exposing most of her teeth and creating those adorable dimples in her cheeks that just begged to be pinched. I looked right at her, barely remembering the camera even existed. The flash went off again. I pulled her in for a kiss because that's what couples do in these things. She just smiled against my lips.
"You have to kiss me," I mumbled against her lips wanting to get her that cliché picture we both knew she wanted, but it was too late and the flash went off again. She started kissing me then, probably realizing that the picture was of her smiling against my lips but I decided that she had already blown her chance at that picture and pinched her side, causing her to immediately break out into laughter which immediately made me to join her. The flash went off for the last time.
I looked at each photo in great detail. The first one was hilarious. Her brow was furrowed and her eyes narrowed. She looked so determined for being in a photo booth. I was looking at her with a smirk on my face, so the picture was of my profile. She was looking a little below the camera and it showed off her carefully applied makeup. It was fun to think back to the days when we would work so hard applying eyeliner and mascara and eye shadow just to go to the movies. Now she usually went without makeup and I only applied my usual eyeliner because we didn't care what anyone else thought anymore.
In the second picture I pretty much looked the exact same. I briefly wondered how much of my time I spent looking at her instead of the world around me, but then I realized that I still do that and it wasn't going to change any time soon. That familiar smile was plastered on her face and I took time to look at the details, from the crinkle in her nose to the glint in her eye and even though this was her photo smile she was radiant. The smile hadn't changed much over the years. A few laugh lines appeared over time but those teeth were still as white as snow and remained straight as ever, and her eyes still had that familiar glint that never seemed to go away.
In the third picture was our profiles, hers smiling with her eyes open putting her long eyelashes on display. My lips were puckered in an attempt to receive a chaste kiss, eyes shut as I waited for her to return it.
The fourth photo was one of my favorites. Her head was completely thrown back exposing her neck which showed off a rather impressive hickey that I had given her the night before. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her mouth was wide open. Her cheeks were a little more pink than in the previous photos and her hair was tousled. I was laughing too, facing the camera with my head tilted toward her. My eyes were directed sideways at her and both of my arms were reached over to her side of the booth as I poked and prodded her relentlessly.
I thought back to how hard she had cried just an hour later when Tom Hanks called out for Wilson and how it made my chest hurt so bad that I almost cried too, but not because of the movie. Thinking back, that was the first time I ever saw her cry. I always thought it was funny when people cried during movies but seeing her look so sad made me dig my fingernails into my palms and clench my jaw to try to keep my shit together. I remembered reaching for her hand and she turned to look at me and all I could see was her protruding lower lip and watery eyes. Her makeup was a disaster now and she sniffled like a little kid and I couldn't tell if it made me want to laugh or cry, so I busied myself fixing her makeup and wiping the tears off her cheeks.
I made a note to myself to suggest Castaway for our next movie night as a tribute to our first movie date together. That would make her day.
I flipped to the next page and even though I knew what was coming I broke out into laughter. The pictures were taken a few weeks after our movie date from the first page. There were detailed paper snowflakes and I thought back to when Piper had made them.
I walked in the door and instead of my normal greeting I could hear the snipping of scissors over the crackling of the fireplace that was always on.
"Pipes?" I called out as I dropped the grocery bags on the floor outside of the kitchen. She hated when I didn't immediately unload the groceries, but I was going to do it before everything thawed out so she would get over it. I was more curious to see what she was up to than anything. Apparently she didn't even notice me, though, because when I peeked around the corner she didn't look up. She was sitting cross legged in the spot in front of the fire that we always fought over with her hair in a messy bun on top of her head. The bun was kind of pointless, though, because as she looked down her hair almost completely curtained her face. She snipped away at a folded white piece of paper carefully but quickly, sending tiny white pieces of paper fluttering across the carpet. I briefly wanted to run over and tell her to at least put a towel down to catch the pieces but I wouldn't dare interrupt her right now - I was having way too much fun watching her concentrate. She eventually unfolded the paper and lifted her head up to see what she had created. A proud expression was on her face and she rotated the shape around in her fingers and held it up to the light. Apparently satisfied, she used the glue stick to carefully press it onto the page before starting on another.
I realized she could be at this for hours so I made my presence known, walking toward her with a smile on my face.
"When did you get here?" She looked up at me like I was the center of her universe.
"I don't know, a few minutes ago." I saw Piper glance over at the grocery bags on the floor and back at me and I sighed, redirecting my focus to putting the food away.
It was almost impressive how wrapped around her finger I had been. She hadn't even needed to say anything and I immediately did what she wanted me to do. Then I realized that it was still this way and probably would be for the rest of our life together.
There were 6 photos on the open pages in my lap. There were her snowflakes and white and blue glitter completely covering the page. It almost looked like a Christmas card made by a child but it was too carefully constructed to be true. I returned my focus to the photographs laid out on the page.
It was the first real snow since we had started dating. She was from Connecticut so she was used to the weather. I, on the other hand, moved around frequently as a child. Somehow, I had never ended up anywhere that got more than a few inches of snow. So when I woke up in her bed that morning, alone as usual because she could never seem to sit in one place for more than a few minutes, I was definitely awestruck as I looked out the window. I didn't bother calling out for her because, as small as her apartment was, she was always too wrapped up in a task to notice. I gave myself about 5 minutes to wake up before finding my glasses and going to see what she was up to now.
When I got out to the living area she was curled up on the couch with a white blanket (somehow it had managed to stay perfectly white despite how clumsy and messy she could be) with a cup of either hot chocolate or coffee on the coffee table. More like cold chocolate, actually, because she was snoring like she usually does when she sleeps in a weird position and had clearly been out for a while. The blanket was wrapped around her back and tucked under her feet and she looked like a little snowball sitting on that old couch that we both loved so much. I glanced over at the TV to see the menu to How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the Jim Carrey version that made her snort with laughter at almost every scene) replaying itself over and over. It was weeks past Christmas but the movie was still new and I had a feeling it was one she would never get sick of (And I was right because she has watched it at least every couple months since we bought it back in early 2001.)
I grabbed her cup and took a drink to find out that it was indeed cold hot chocolate. I gulped it down anyways and padded into the kitchen to find the mess that deep down I knew would be there. It was her apartment, I wasn't going to tell her to clean up after herself, but I couldn't help but shake my head at how clear it made her morning routine. There was the big jar of hot chocolate mix that she had so carefully created, adding way more sugar than the recipe called for. The microwave door was open, a sign that she was too impatient to wait for the water to boil. There was a little ring of hot chocolate on the turntable inside said microwave, telling me that she had gotten distracted and left it in for too long, causing her drink to overflow. Feeling the stickiness on the mug in my hand was more proof that I was correct. The spoon she had used to stir the drink was stuck to the counter, completely forgotten. The cupboard was open, where she had probably looked for marshmallows and been unsuccessful, which explained the canister of whipped cream that sat on the counter next to the spoon. It was like a murder mystery in there, her little trail of breadcrumbs telling me exactly what she did after she woke up. I quickly cleaned up after her (because honestly it only would have taken her two seconds) and placed the mug in the sink before returning to the couch in the living room.
The dip caused by my sitting on the couch woke her up and she stretched like a feline, blinking a few times before those blue eyes finally met mine for the first time since last night. A slow smile grew on her face because she knew I hadn't ever seen this much snow.
"Did you look outside?!" If she were talking to me on the phone I never would have guessed she just woke up from a nap. She sounded wide awake.
"Yeah, it's crazy out there."
"I'm definitely going to make you go play in the snow with me. But can we watch this movie first?" There was that hopeful look in her eyes. Saying no to that face was akin to telling a 4 year old there was no Tooth Fairy.
"What movie?" She had apparently already watched The Grinch and I couldn't think of any other movies that she would want to see.
"The Grinch!" Oh.
"Didn't you just watch it?"
"No. I mean yeah. But I fell asleep. And I want to watch it with you." My heart fluttered and I shook my head at how I felt like such a teenager in love. I practically was at the time.
"Yeah, we can do that. Hold on though." I hopped up off the couch and grabbed a thick pair of socks and a blanket for myself because as much as we liked to share blankets, that white one was far too small and I would end up uncovered by the time the movie was half way over. I felt like I was forgetting something and looked around the room. When I saw her camera sitting on the bookshelf I grabbed it and made my way back to the living room. She was once again curled up and staring hard at the remote. There were only like two buttons that she actually used on the damn thing but it always took her a while to find them. I sneakily took a picture of her from the doorway and returned next to her on the couch.
A couple hours later, after listening to Piper recite nearly every line of the movie, I turned off the TV and stood, helping her up with me.
"So what is it you people do when it's this snowy outside?" I asked as I folded up my blanket and placed it next to hers that was strewn across the couch.
"You people?" She questioned with mock offence before giggling at her own joke. "We get bundled up and have snowball fights and make snow angles and snowmen!" And with that, she was in the bedroom, throwing clothes out of the dresser haphazardly onto the bed. I stood with my arms crossed watching the events unfolding before me. The next thing I knew she was shoving an armful of clothing into my arms.
"Put this stuff on!" Her voice was oozing with excitement. She was understandably excited to be witnessing my first big snow. So far I was the one that had been introducing her to new things and not the other way around.
I was surprised to find that the clothes actually fit me as I stripped down and changed. Piper's back was to me. She seemed to be too excited to think about anything sexual.
Before she could rush us out into the perfect snow I stopped her to take a picture of the scene in front of us.
"I just want to get a picture before we leave tracks all over it and stuff." I answered her questioning look and she just smiled at me. As soon as the camera was back hidden in my jacket she ran (or did her best to run, but in the deep snow it was practically slow motion) and fell back into the snow, leaving a perfect Piper shaped imprint behind as she sunk to the ground. I shook my head in amazement at how someone like her could actually function as an adult because I was pretty sure she was a child and always would be. I was right.
I walked over and looked down at her to see her hands held up, finger tips barely sticking out of the hole that she had made. I hoisted her up easily, throwing her over my shoulder so she wouldn't ruin the design. This snow was a lot for me to take in. I wasn't sure if I was excited or nervous or what. But Piper wriggling out of my grasp and back onto the ground didn't give me time to decide. She began making a path in the snow and I followed her. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing, like this was a practiced routine. I pulled the camera back out and got a picture of her from behind, in her cute winter hat as she focused on making a path to nowhere in the deep snow.
Eventually I made a snowball without her noticing and threw it high up into the air, landing it right next to her with an almost fake sounding shoop noise. She looked up into the sky and then over at me, then down at the hole in the snow and back up at me. She narrowed her eyes and before I knew what was happening she picked up a handful of snow and released it in my direction. It wasn't even a snowball, it was just a handful of snow that blanketed over my head and shoulders.
"Oh hell no." I easily pulled her down into the snow on top of me and we slowly sunk until I felt the snow packed under me.
After a good hour of freezing fun in the snow we ended up walking to a local bar. It was quite the journey to get there but when we were with each other we seemed to become more adventurous than usual. I stopped a couple along the way to get a photo for us with Piper's camera and they captured us kissing under a street light in a very cliché yet adorable photo.
She got more than buzzed while I sipped on a local beer, knowing that one of us had to be sober to make it home alive. We would end up walking because as lucky as I was when it came to hailing cabs, there was no hope in this weather. She drank a fair amount of margaritas and her cheeks became more flushed with each one.
"Babe you should probably slow down if we're going to make it home," I had to be the voice of reason pretty often with her.
"Pfffft..." Okay, that was adorable. "You," she continued, clearly drunk at this point. "Are kind of. A party pooper."
I pressed my lips together in an attempt to stifle my laughter because I knew it would just egg her on, but she saw right through it and tilted her head to the side with a crooked grin. So fucking adorable. I didn't know it was even possible for someone to be so cute.
"Come on, let's get you out of those wet clothes." I knew that would work. She immediately chugged the rest of her drink. Well, chugged was a generous word because most of it ended up dripping down the sides of her mouth and onto her sweater. I put her jacket on for her and slung her arm around my shoulder, guiding her the rest of the way home.
It was certainly a good thing that it was so cold outside and she was tipsy, because if she had seen the pink in my cheeks or noticed my fast pulse she probably would have pulled me into an alley and ripped off my only protection from the weather.
Once we made it inside we made our way to the couch and she put on a movie (I can't remember what it was after so many years) and within 5 minutes she was already asleep, lightly snoring with her face pressed against the tattered leather couch. I took one more picture of the two of us, leaning over her with a dorky grin on my face as she began to drool on the couch. God, she was turning me into such a sap. I never would have taken a picture like that with anyone in my life until now. But I also couldn't remember being this happy in my life, so I guess it made sense.
The first picture made me pretty nostalgic. Looking at her backyard covered in snow brought back so many memories. We were practically invincible back then, never getting hangovers and able to stay up all night without feeling like dying. We could eat whatever we wanted without seeing the effects and could have conversations about the most stupid topics for hours on end.
The second picture brought an unstoppable grin to my face. She looked so small curled up on that couch under her favorite blanket. Her laugh lines weren't present and her skin glowed almost as much as it did when she was pregnant. There weren't any pictures of us around the house yet but we still had that mug that she used for her hot chocolate way back then. The blanket was folded in our closet right now, and I decided that I would pull it out tonight to sleep with. She was staring at that outdated remote like it owed her money.
The third picture was her in the snow with her back to the camera. There wasn't much to be said here. It just brought back the fond memories from that day. Her little red hat stood out and made the photo look way more artsy than it was intended to be.
The photo of us under the street light was one of Piper's favorites. I was usually a fan of the less forced photos where one of us wasn't expecting it or we weren't in a typical pose, but I had to agree that it was a great picture. My hands were on her waist and hers were on my cheeks. She was on her tip toes because even though she was almost the same height as me she always did that when we kissed. Her hat was crooked on her hair with a few strands of blonde hair peeking out and my dark hair was contrasted by the snowflakes that rested on my head. It was cliché and adorable and we both loved it.
I stared at the last photo and took in the beauty of it for a while. This was why I loved these unsuspecting photos so much. Her face was completely relaxed, cheeks still flushed from the drinks that night. I looked so fucking happy.
I smiled as I shut the book and got up from my spot on the floor, knees cracking and back burning from sitting in front of the fire so long. I put the album back into its spot on the shelf and poured myself a glass of wine, sitting on our couch as I waited for my wife to come home.