A/N: It might be because it's 6 am and I stayed up all night to write this chapter, but I think it's really nice! so please tell me what you think c: and also the idea of burning the paper, and the phrase in which Darren explains it, it's from the spanish movie "I want you" ("Tengo ganas de tí"), i just stole it shhhh.
Song: Corner of your heart - Ingrid Michaelson ( /watch?v=4wBU_GgE3xc )
XIII. Corner of your heart
As everything, time made things better. After a few weeks; Darren was offered to record an album as soloist. It wasn't a hundred percent settled up, but it was most likely to happen. He called Lauren from work to tell her (She decided to quit being secretary at the office. She wasn't actually really happy or in need to work, any less in the situation she found herself in; so she decided to take a break until she found something she feel like she belonged to do.) She screamed so loud from exciting, that he had to put his phone away from his ear until she finished. When he got home, she ran and jumped to him to give him a long, tight hug; crossing her legs around him. He held her, shocked but amused and flattered. She knew how much he had been wanting that, and his hard work and passion definitely made him deserving of that success.
Instead of going to a fancy restaurant to celebrate that deserved award; they decided to spend the evening before the sun went down at a park a few blocks away from the house. They carried a few snacks, and improvised a nice spot for them. Darren extended the tablecloth on the grass under a big tree.
"What a romantic." Lauren joked, flattering him.
The day was perfect. It was just a little cold, but nothing out of mind. There was an amount of people at the park, but it wasn't fully crowded. They could still enjoy their date. Lauren sat down on the tablecloth, smartly collocated; while Darren went to buy two orange juices for the toast.
He sat down next to her, and gave her one of the cardboard package of the little juice. Lauren was wearing a flowered dress that just fit perfectly with that kind of day, and she looked really pretty.
"Well," Lauren started, "I'd like to call this toast for the most special reason for the most special person." She winked at him in a hilarious way, and he couldn't help but to laugh and shake his head. She was so amazing. "You really deserve this, honey, I'm so happy. It was worth the wait, after all." She stated, turning serious. They hit their orange juices together to finish the toast.
"By the way," Darren commented, after taking a sip from his juice. "Brian is throwing a party for him and Meredith's engagement next week. We are officially invited." He raised his eyebrows, but she was surprised of hearing that proposal.
"Are you sure you want me to go? I mean, there's no problem if you want to go alone, really." She didn't want to make another mess of it again; having in mind all of the consequences that a conversation about him brought them not a long time ago.
But Darren was a million miles ahead of that path. "I really want you to go." He explained, and Lauren realized he was being honest. She smiled slightly before giving a little kiss on the lips. This kiss was interrupted, though, when Lauren felt someone bumped with her legs.
When she turned her head to see who was the douche who couldn't possibly see her lying on the grass, her anger disappeared. She saw a little girl, who couldn't be more than 3 years old, which struggled with her amateur (obviously just learnt) walking to escape from her parents and ran to their little picnic.
"Oh, hey." Lauren greeted the child, smiling. She looked adorable, literally sprawled and laughing on her legs. She helped her to get up; and when she did, the little girl grabbed Lauren's index finger with her tiny hand; and didn't let it go, whether on purpose or not. That little gesture just froze for a moment in Lauren's head. She wasn't sure why, but her heart skipped a beat, and that moment was captured forever in her memories.
The parents walked quickly to them and, between apologizes, they carried her in their arms and walked away again.
Darren saw that special bright on Lauren's eyes when she made that contact with the little girl; and he noticed.
"I didn't know you like children." He observed, with a smirk barely showing in his lips.
Lauren rolled her eyes, avoiding to meet his. "When I was little, I used to dream with having a typical nice, well-looking family." She smiled at the thought. "But as I grew up and I saw how difficult was for my mom to take care of us, we didn't have a father so I started thinking my picture of a family wasn't possible, and even more with the kind of life I took at my youth; I just completely abandoned the idea. I've actually never thought about it anymore, I've never considerate it again. Well, not until…" She stopped herself from finishing that phrase.
"What about now?" Darren asked gently, looking at her. The sun, about to go down, highlighted her beauty. "Would you like to have children?"
Lauren raised her eyebrows this time, looking at him. "I wouldn't be exactly a good mother."
"Why do you say that?" he said, surreptitiously getting closer.
"Come on, Darren, look at me. What kind of example could I give to a child? I've made all kinds of wrong decisions I could've took." She explained, but Darren replied instantly.
"That's why I think you'd be a great mother. You have all the experience on your side."
"I don't even know what to think of that." She responded, refining her peek. "What are you trying to say? Do you want to have kids with me?"
Darren shrugged. "I consider it a possibility."
She released a grin without noticing it. "Are you serious?"
"I love you." He admitted. The bright on his eyes was mesmerizing. "If I'm going to start a family, I'd just do it with you. If I don't, I'm anyway spending the rest of my life with you."
Lauren hated him for having the skills to turn any moment into a movie scene.
"How do you make up those things you say?" She asked, placing a hand on his chest. "The most romantic thing I could say would involve a dirty casual sex encounter in the park's bathroom."
"Is that an option?" he seductively whispered, messing with her.
She burst into laughs, punching him on the arm. Then she looked down again and didn't say anything for a while.
Yes, she was a lot better, but Darren knew she still had some troubles with herself. Her nightmares were getting worse. She was bottling up things that she didn't know how to push away. But, this time, he thought he maybe could help.
"When I was in fourth grade, I spent way too much time in the library that what I'm proud to tell. You'd be surprised that I wasn't the cool kid I am now." Darren told her, and she just laughed at that revelation. "And there was this attractive lady who was the librarian, and I had this big crush on her. I'm ashamed to admit that I always pretended I was kind of stupid so I could ask her to explain some things to me."
"That's adorable, and lame." Lauren commented sweetly.
"Fair enough." He said. "However, I found out when I was older that she was a victim of breast cancer. My parents waited until I was more mature to tell me, because they knew I felt something for her… even if it was this silly kid crush. She just stopped showing up one day at the library, and I was highly disappointed I wouldn't see her again. I never told her what I felt, because I was afraid she'd laugh at me, due this little age difference, you could say." Lauren raised her eyebrows. He continued "However, I always felt I needed to finish that phase, I was really sad for a while, and my mom realized. So one day she confessed me about a method you can… complete those unfinished talks. She said…" he made a pause so he could remember it correctly. Lauren put all of her attention into his words. "When someone disappears from your life, that you might never see this person again, you can tell them all the things you have left inside, that you'd like to tell them. You take a pencil and a paper, and you write them down a letter. It can be endless, or it can be just one word. You write it to that person that went away, but no, you don't send it to them. You fold it up, put it close to a flame and you burn it. Then you let it the wind takes it away, and so the pain doesn't stay inside."
"Did she… Was she just really sick or you know if she… died?" Lauren asked, intrigued.
"I have no idea. I never knew another thing about her." He replied.
"And it worked?" She said. You could tell that question was important for her.
"I'm still curious about her sometimes. But yes, it worked for me. I think it works either that person is still somewhere out there, or is not here anymore." He explained. Lauren bit her lower lip. "Do you want to try it?" he asked kindly.
She nodded, not being capable to talk. Luckily, Darren had been thinking about making that confession to her before they decided to walk to the park, so he had brought pencil and paper.
Darren walked through the same paths over and over for ten minutes, giving that time to Lauren to think and write down her thoughts by herself. It was important to not push her or hurry her, because she only had one shot, and she had a lot of words inside of herself.
Lauren wrote and wrote nonstop for those ten minutes with a desperate quick calligraphy, it seemed like if she didn't even think, because she didn't look around or made a pause in any moment. She seemed in her own little bubble, the world around her didn't exist for her in that moment. She obviously made a rough cut to her heart, and the words were just flowing out one through another, like a therapy session. Darren glanced every few minutes to check if she was done, until she finally was staring at him and nodding, holding strongly the paper in her hands.
Darren didn't read the letter, he didn't even ask her if she wanted him to. He knew it was a matter that didn't concern him; it was between her and Joe. He knew that letter would probably include many acknowledgments, many thank you' s, many stories, many recriminations and I hate you' s; many I'm sorry' s, and kind lovingly words, and others not so kind; phrases that could be read as whispered secrets and others as screamed swearings; and overall, a goodbye. But that didn't concern him.
He did have to ask to a stranger who was walking with a cigarette in his mouth for his lighter; because he forgot that. The man awaited impatiently a few steps away from the couple to get his lighter back; but they didn't hurry at all; that was far more important.
The sunset was up their heads. Lauren walked a pair of steps away the tree. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes, and feeling the wind caressing her hair, skin and clothes.
"Are you ready?" Darren whispered, approaching her by behind with the lighter in his hand.
She nodded slowly, without opening her eyes.
"Do you want me to wait somewhere else?" He asked, thinking she might wanted privacy. But she didn't this time.
"No." She responded with confidence, opening her eyes and stretching her hand.
He handed her the lighter. She folded the letter in half, hiding the messy letters from anyone's view. Everything was there.
Old stories carved on her memory (Remember when we first kissed? It was in that garden at your house, your friends were spying and that made me really nervous. You were my first kiss. It felt really nice.), embittered full of sorrow laments (What happened to us? Did we screw it up all ourselves or the world made us to? I've always wondered if it really was our fault be turned out like that, or we were born in the wrong place in the wrong time.), gratitude for the past (You always wanted me to take the risk. You taught me to be a rebel. To stand up on m own, even against you. To say no to my family, to society, to what I was supposed to be. Growing up in that place would've made me a boring stereotype. But you made me break all of that. And it made me so strong. I never thanked you for that. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.), angry long-stored recriminations (You never told me what it was really about… You forbade me to take a chance. You didn't let me to see the real world on my own. You showed me your version and forced me to accept it.), heart-killing questions (Why couldn't you tell me when things weren't okay? Was I too cold? Was I too insensitive? I tried to open you up a million times, and I'd end up hurt over and over.), untold apologizes from whole crying nights (I left you without sitting you down and have a talk. We were in this together. You were just as messed up as I was, and I left you absolutely on your own. You deserved a second chance. You shouldn't have left this world as you did; it's too unfair. I should've helped you, but I turned away and pretended nothing attached us anymore. And nothing can change what I did. It's too late. I'm sorry.), and a final, last goodbye. (I never told you this, but I've loved you. Not like a wife loves his husband, or like a sister loves his brother; ours was different. And even if we made mistakes, we had so much story someone could write a book about us. And I just wanted to say that you were worth it. And I could never forget you.)
Everything.
Her eyes were so full of tears she could barely see. She thought her hands would shake when she tried to light on the flame, but they didn't. Darren was hugging her from behind, wrapping his arm around her belly and resting his head on her shoulder. That was such a supporting gesture for her; it made her feel so safe and confident. She couldn't have done anything without him. She loved him; but to be able to live for the rest of her life with him, she needed to let that go, just as he did with his past too.
She burned the paper, and when the fire started to spread through it, she reached out her arm to the sky and stretched her fingers. The letter flew away in the sky, she thought for a second it'd come back to the ground, but it was just getting higher and higher until it disappeared completely.
She breathed deeply again, and smiled. The tears were still streaming down her face. They didn't even notice people stopped to stare at them, or that the men rudely took the lighter of her hand and quickly walked away. It was like if they were completely alone in the world.
"You are so strong." Darren sweetly said in her ear. "I'm proud of you."
She leaded her arm around his head, caressing softly his curls. And, for the first time in a long time, she felt it.
Everything was fine.
A/N: I hate Miarren with my soul and I don't ship Laurwalk, but I wanted to put these two cute moments between them: the talk between Mia and Darren the night before the wedding, and this letter from Lauren to Joe. To be honest, they ended up being some of my fave moments of the story! thing i've never thought that would happen omg. And there's only 2 chapters left now so I'm kinda sad... but I hope you are enjoying this last part... xoxox
