Just a little something to mark the occasion. Bigger and better (much better, I promise) things coming soon.
It's one of her best days ever so far. They have a mutual friend and he'd been wanting to talk to her. He says he thinks she's pretty and he likes her a lot and she knows her face is red, but she doesn't mind. She can't stop giggling and her cheeks hurt from smiling too much she can tell that this is going to be the beginning of something incredible.
He's not much, with his mess of dark curls and his slightly crooked teeth and his sparkling brown eyes that squint when he smiles at her, but he's the most beautiful boy she's ever seen. She's had butterflies in her stomach before but never ones like this, never ones so excited and joyful and not at all as nervous and jumpy as her usual butterflies. She likes these ones a lot better, she decides, as she watches him laugh at a joke she'd made. His shirt is not particularly nice – one of those weird scratchy ones that she just doesn't think could possibly be comfortable – but as she looks at him she gets this feeling like she wants nothing more in the whole world than to cuddle up to him and nuzzle her face into his shirt and breathe him in and feel his arms around her and just listen to him breathe because she's sure it must be the most beautiful sound in the world.
He stumbles all over his words and wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans every so often and gives her the same compliment one too many times, but every time he blushes she just smiles at him and he smiles back, comfortable, and she wonders if he has those butterflies, too.
It feels like they talk forever, but when she hears a couple of boys yelling his name and his smile takes on a hint of sadness she suddenly feels like they've only had seconds together. They exchange numbers and promise to meet up later on and before he walks off he gives her one more hug and a last crooked grin, and then no more than a few feet away from her he trips over his own feet and almost falls. She brings a hand up to her mouth to hide her laughter and watches the tips of his ears go red from behind, and thinks that he is absolutely perfectly imperfect.
Their first anniversary is quite the affair. She'd never had a boyfriend before him, not a real one, and he'd never had a girlfriend either, and she's pretty sure no one had really expected them to keep their little thing going for a whole year. But they'd proven everyone wrong, and she likes that feeling, which is good because she thinks the two of them are going to be proving everyone wrong for a very long time.
She giggles at him from across the table while he tells her a story with animated hand gestures. His eyes are wide and his mouth is full and she absolutely loves how relaxed and free he is around her. He's so reserved with everyone else, so serious and quiet and shy. But not with her, never with her.
With her he makes funny faces and sings off-key on purpose and throws his head back and laughs hard and doesn't care what anyone has to say about any of it. He's comfortable with her and she's comfortable with him, too, more so than she's ever been with anyone else. The butterflies have taken up permanent residence in her stomach, so fluttery and happy and excited, and she feels them when he wraps his arm around her during a movie and when it's late at night and he whispers to her over the phone so his mom won't hear and and when he lets her run her fingers through his hair even though no one else is allowed to and when they sneak little kisses whenever their parents turn away, smiling against each others' lips. She's so, so ridiculously young but she's so, so ridiculously in love and she knows that she wants this, wants him, for the rest of her life.
They hold hands across the table and he strokes her fingers with his thumb and she leans over and dabs some sauce off of his chin while he laughs and the waitress tells them they're just the cutest couple she's ever seen, and when he walks her home that night he kisses her long and hard on her front porch and whispers in her ear that he can't wait for the rest of their anniversaries.
The first one without him is even worse than she'd expected, and that's saying something. They'd ended things nearly six months before, and everyone tells her she should be over it by now but she isn't and doesn't think she ever will be. It hurts, physically hurts how much she misses him, how much she needs him, how much she just wants things to go back to the way they were. She spends all day hoping he'll call and betting she knows him well enough to know he's waiting for her to call too, but neither one of them will step up to the plate and they both know it. She's really not sure why she allows herself to want something so badly and not go fight for it. She guesses it's just that she doesn't know what she could possibly say to him that would change things. Partly it's probably a pride thing, she figures, something about not wanting to embarrass herself by crawling back to her ex-boyfriend.
Really, though, she knows it's much more of a fear thing. Because what if she's the only one doing all the missing and wanting and crying? What if he's moved on and doesn't care about her anymore? What if he stays up late whispering to another girl and sneaking kisses whenever her parents turn their backs?
She hides from the world under the covers, feeling so sick and weak she honestly thinks she might throw up. She keeps her door locked and doesn't let anyone in, because she doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want the pity, she doesn't want the judgement, she doesn't want the heavy sighs or the unsympathetic eye-rolls. She doesn't want her parents or her siblings or her friends or anyone anywhere near her. She barely even wants herself.
If she can't have him, she doesn't want anyone at all.
They're calling it a reconnection. A vague word for back together, she supposes, but they really haven't taken the time to talk about the technicalities much. Whatever their current situation is, she's certainly happy with it. She traces her fingertips lightly across his face - his nose, his lips, his cheeks. He sleeps soundly the whole time, his heavy breathing so calming and lovely of a sound that she can't help but smile every time she watches his chest rise and then fall. He's sleeping on his side, facing her, the cool white hotel sheets pulled up around him and his bare shoulders peeking out from under them. His hair is all wild and his face is so serene and she can feel herself falling in love with him all over again.
She doesn't know how much time passes before he sighs lightly and blinks his sleepy eyes open, giving her a lazy smile that has her biting her lip and cuddling up closer to him, and she lets out a little noise of contentment as his arms wrap around her tightly. For a while they just rest there against the pillows and snuggle, and then suddenly he tilts her chin up and captures her lips with his and sparks shoot through her body, the way they still do every single time. She sighs his name out against his lips and grins when he shivers, and before she knows what's happening he's maneuvered them so she's flat on her back and he's on top of her, leaving soft gentle kisses all over her skin.
She gasps, tangles her fingers in his curls, arches up into him. He groans lightly and nibbles at her ear and she says his name again, and who knows how long they spend like that, softly kissing and gently touching, whispering loving words to each other for no one else to ever know. She tries to breathe him in, memorize him, remember all the little sounds he makes when something feels good and how he brushes his fingers so lightly against her smooth skin and then digs them in a bit when she rolls them over and makes herself comfortable on top of him. She watches his face, etches his pleasured expressions into her memory, and then leans down and leaves her mark on his neck.
His hips rock against hers and he gasps out that he loves her, breathless and quiet, and she whispers it back before he captures her in an incredible kiss - passionate, loving, needy but gentle. They spend all day wrapped up in the sheets and slowly, carefully, they mend each other's broken hearts.
The first time their day passes while she's with someone else, she locks herself in her bedroom and cries for hours. This isn't how things were supposed to turn out. They'd worked so hard on each other, on their relationship, and then they'd ruined it all over again - she'd ruined it, she knows she did, even though she knows he doesn't blame her for it and quite probably blames himself, because that's just what he does.
They were both so busy and they both had careers, and they tried to make the most of their time together but eventually he'd had to leave, and she'd had to stay. He'd wanted so badly to make the distance work and she had too but she knew it would only hurt even worse in the end. And so he'd left her, with a gentle goodbye kiss and blurry eyes and a warm thumb brushing her tears away, and she'd cried for a few days and then taken comfort in her coworker and as far as anyone knows hasn't looked back since.
Truthfully she wishes things were that easy. That she could just be charmed off her feet by the first guy with an accent to walk by and all the heartache would suddenly vanish. That she could be over her first - and only - love so quickly and easily. It would hurt a lot less.
Her life sucks. She hates thinking this way because she knows she's in no position to complain about her life - she has a successful career and a loving family and caring friends and a sweet boyfriend who she really does like, even if he's essentially a replacement. Her life is great and she should be happy.
But she can't be, not without him. Not when she knows what it's like to love someone with your whole heart and then lose them, and lose part of yourself with them. Not when she got to have such perfect happiness for so long and now has to live without it. Not when there are so very many things she wishes she'd done differently.
She wonders what he's doing right now. Hanging around with his stupid little rebound girl, maybe (not that she's jealous about that, because she's not). Or maybe just getting some work done or hanging out with his brothers just like any other day, as if this one wasn't special. That's probably it, really. Why should she think that he even remembers? Why should she think that he even cares anymore?
If he doesn't, she doesn't blame him. She wipes her eyes and cuddles into her blankets, and his shirt is still so big on her it hangs off one shoulder and she thinks about how he used to smile and softly kiss the skin there before he fixed it for her and she can't help but hope with everything in her that somewhere out in the world he's locked up in his bedroom crying the day away, too.
She's happy. Really, she is. She's so so happy. She's happy with her life the way it is and she's happy that she's getting married and she's happy with the man she's getting married to.
The one thing she's not happy about is that she can't make the universe skip straight over an entire day so she can pretend it doesn't exist and go on repeating to herself and everyone else how happy she is. Because honestly, for 364 days out of the year she's a great actress, an incredible liar. But on that one day, their day, she just can't do it. On their day she can't lie to anyone else and she especially can't lie to herself.
She shouldn't call it lying, really. She is happy, that's not a lie. She just never mentions how the happy she is now only really seems happy when it's not being compared to the happy she used to be...the one where something as huge as marriage was so far off but still sometimes discussed, the one where they'd cuddled in her tiny tour bus bunk while everyone else slept and talked about how many kids they wanted and what kind of dogs and where they wanted to live. She remembers the excitement she'd felt during those conversations, how happy the mental pictures made her, how she felt so at peace knowing they both really had something to look forward to.
She has these conversations with her fiancé, too, but the feelings are never quite the same. She wouldn't call it excitement, more like...acceptance. This is how her life is going to be and there's really nothing she can do about it now. She knows she shouldn't feel that way and she tries so hard to gather more emotion from their discussions, to feel that same giddy anticipation she'd had so long ago with a different man. She tries desperately to be excited, but she just isn't.
She wishes she could have realized a long time ago, back when she might have been able to do something about it. At this point there's really nothing that can be done. Her parents are so thrilled, her fans are happy for her, and her management loves that she's getting a ton of publicity. She can't disappoint everybody now, especially not for some old teenage romance with a guy who probably doesn't care about her at all anymore. Hell, between his same old rebound girl and his newer older woman, he probably didn't have time to even remember her name.
She buries her missing under sad movies and ice cream and piles of blankets, and she hopes that wherever he is he's much happier than she is.
She shows up at his apartment uninvited and unannounced. His brother answers the door and just stares at her for a long moment, his expression something like shock mixed with distaste, but she doesn't let her strong gaze falter so he finally lets her in and yells upstairs to his brother that he has a visitor before making a quick exit. She holds her breath as she listens to his footfalls on the stairs, growing closer and closer until he's right in front of her, staring at her as if she has two heads.
He says her name once, in a tone that conveys a million unspoken questions, and she takes a deep breath and before she loses her nerve she tells him that she misses him and then asks, point blank, if he misses her too.
He looks at her for what feels like a hundred years before he slowly nods his head up and down, swallowing hard.
She'd meant to ask a lot more questions and give him much more of an explanation, but something in her just snaps and she can't help but fling herself at him. She wraps her arms around his neck and crashes their lips together, rough and yet strangely gentle, and she feels the sparks and the butterflies and a lot of other things she hasn't felt in a long while.
Her engagement is as good as broken. As soon as her management decides they can't milk it any more she'll be allowed to take the ring off full time, and that would be that. She'd been upset at first but now, sadly, she finds she's more relieved than anything. Her mother is upset with her but everyone else is taking it better than expected, really.
It was after a good several weeks of being single and pretending she wasn't and being unhappy and pretending she wasn't when she couldn't stand it anymore. That day, their day, rolled around again and they were both single and just a few months ago he was writing songs about how much he still loved her and she loved him and she missed him and she wanted him back and it was really about time she went out and fought for what she wanted.
It feels like hours that they stand there kissing. He's cautious at first, nervous, but then she feels him melt into the familiar feeling just like her and then his arms are wrapping around her and pulling her tighter to him and they just kiss and kiss and kiss, exploring and learning all over again, and when they've finally had their temporary fill of each other they sit down and talk about things. They have weeks and weeks of talking ahead of them, so much to catch up on and so much to explain, and so many broken things to fix. It's not going to be easy, she already knows that, but together they have something worth fighting for and this time she knows they're not going to surrender quite so easily.
Everyone teased them for their cliché choice of date, but they couldn't have thought of a more perfect one. This is their day already, it always had been and always would be, now it's just going to be made official.
The chaos of the day doesn't worry her one bit. She sits back and watches her family and her bridesmaids flutter about, pinning up someone's dress and letting out the hem on someone else's, replacing a few sets of flowers that somehow ended up being the wrong colors, searching for the flower girl's mysteriously missing basket and trying to coax her into her shoes. She doesn't get why any of it matters so much, really. If her sister's dress is a little too big or her cousin's a little too small, if all the flowers don't match perfectly or the flower girl runs down the aisle barefoot with no petals, it's not going to be the end of the world. None of it will matter. The only thing that matters is that she's finally, finally going to marry the man she loves today and after everything the world had thrown at the two of them over the years, all the obstacles they'd struggled over, the fact that her friends were so distressed over a few little petals was downright laughable to her.
She turns and looks at herself in the mirror, at her elegant hairstyle and made-up face. Her dress is beautiful. It's a little more lacy and princessy than she'd envisioned, with a fuller skirt and a higher neckline, but the second she'd seen it she'd known it was the one.
The awestruck look on his face as she and her father head down the aisle towards him tells her she made the right choice. She's already crying and by the time she's right in front of him he is, too, and she swears she hardly hears a word throughout the entire ceremony because she was way too lost in those deep brown eyes. She can barely get through her vows and his voice breaks all the way through his, and then suddenly they're saying I do and she's kissing him again and still feeling those sparks and she laughs as they pull apart because she's just so happy and he gets it and laughs too.
In the end they found the petals and bribed the flower girl into wearing her shoes and fixed the dresses and swapped the flowers, but she still didn't care or notice any of it. She kept her eyes on his the whole time and his stayed on her, and she couldn't believe that after so long believing she'd never know true, complete happiness again she'd finally, finally gotten it right.
He's tiny, even tinier than his sister had been - which was to be expected, she guessed, as he was nearly three weeks early. They'd joked about him making his arrival on their anniversary but hadn't actually expected it. She thought it was pretty incredible, honestly. For the most part this day had been very good to her throughout her life. She chuckled slightly as she thought about how eager his uncle probably was to welcome him to the club of anniversary babies, and the thought made her suddenly realize just how many close friendships she'd formed and repaired over the last several years.
She coos down at the baby in her arms, all the pain he'd put her through already forgotten, and he stares up at the two faces in front of him as if he's trying to make sense of them. He has tons of hair, tiny brown curls all over his head, and blue eyes, though those could always change. Secretly she hopes they will, because they already have the blue-eyed kid her husband had wanted, and she wants one with his perfect brown eyes too. She watches her son grip onto his father's finger with his very small hand and she's suddenly crying again, and he wraps an arm around her and kisses her softly and tells her how much he loves them both.
He leaves for just a brief moment and when he returns their little girl is in his arms, staring with wide eyes at the little bundle her mother is holding. He places her on the bed beside them and at the sight of both their kids together, these two amazing little people that she'd thought she'd lost all chances of ever creating, she loses it again and tears slip down her cheeks as she kisses her daughter's head. She looks up beside her into the face of the man she'd loved since she was thirteen, and he gives her this little crooked smirk that sends her back in time to the first time she ever saw it and she smiles back and leans in for a kiss, thinking about all the anniversaries they still have left to look forward to.
She's standing in the kitchen making four school lunches, going over list after list in her head, something she'd mastered in her ten years of motherhood. When she finishes the lunches she'll have to go supervise teeth brushing and help her youngest into his uniform, and of course make sure the birthday boy's cupcakes are ready to take to school. Then -
She jumps a little as his arms wrap around her from behind and he chuckles, kissing her cheek softly before resting his chin on her shoulder. She leans into his embrace, turning her head for a kiss, and he smiles brightly at her. His eyes are tired and his short curls are tangled from sleep and his grin is sloppy, and he's the most beautiful boy she's ever seen.
It's their eleventh wedding anniversary, but it hits her suddenly that it's been exactly twenty years to the day since they met. She looks into his eyes and wonders where she would be right now if any of their past anniversaries hadn't happened. If they hadn't met...she can't even imagine. If they'd never gotten back together, or if they'd never broken up in the first place. She'd never taken the time before to think about how drastically this one day had altered the course of her life. He brings his hand up and strokes her cheek gently with his thumb, before moving both hands down to her stomach, resting them lovingly on the bump there that was just beginning to show.
She smiles at him, nuzzling her nose against his gently, and he makes a little sound of contentment and presses his forehead to hers, gazing into her eyes for a moment. Then he pulls her even closer to him, rubbing gentle circles on her stomach and kissing her softly and sweetly, and after a moment he pulls away and flashes her a smile before he presses his lips to her ear:
"Happy anniversary, baby."
6.11.13
Happy Niley Day.