Don't Look Back in Anger
((post-series; angst - Rating: K+; Words: 711))
"What the hell was I thinking when I chose you?" There are times when Mindy feels like breaking something—a dish, a glass, a lamp, a tchotchke—like it's right for that moment, as if it will make her feel better.
"Oh, well, clearly you weren't! Maybe you can chalk it up to temporary insanity—oh wait, your insanity isn't temporary, is it?"
Two years in and they have fallen into a pattern of having these all-consuming blow-ups, never break-ups—not yet at least—over the most miniscule of things. He eventually storms out, slamming the door behind him and she fights to keep furious tears at bay.
When things are good, they are lovely and wonderful and fantastic; when things are bad, they are bad. Depending on how big, how bad, their fight was, Drake might spend the night at his parents' house or at Josh's. Other times, the majority of the time, when the fight is one that is simply par for the course that is their volatile relationship, he comes back home around two or three in the morning and slides into bed next to Mindy. She's always restless after these fights and she can't fall asleep for the life of her because she's counting down the minutes until Drake returns because these fights always end the same way. Frantic kisses and quick sloppy sex that leaves them both feeling unfulfilled. It's always better in the morning when Mindy's alarm goes off so that she can get ready for work, no matter which of them initiates it, whispered, desperate apologies and assurances, declarations of love.
They don't happen all of the time, months pass between fights, but it's part of who they are as a couple. Petty squabbles, lovers' spats, and serious conflicts—it's not all that they are but it is ingrained in them. They always make up afterwards. To date, the longest it's taken them to make-up after a fight was nineteen days and that was due to something completely beyond their control.
The love is never in question.
Fidelity is never an issue except for the few times when it was; he's never actually been unfaithful and neither has she. Drake can't help that women throw themselves at him and Mindy's always known that; she knows that he's always been a player but she has always refused to play his game, at least not by his rules. There are times when Drake can't stop himself from flirting back and Mindy believes that turnabout is fair play. She's always satisfied when she sees his jaw tighten because she knows it's one of the signals of the onset of his jealousy; then she'll smirk at him, her eyes beckoning him. He admits that he was wrong and she says that she knows.
In the beginning whenever he screwed up, which was often, he'd try to buy her forgiveness with gifts or dinner at a fancy restaurant until she finally got frustrated and told him that he was going about things all wrong. All she needed was for him to apologize and be sincere about it, to acknowledge that he knew he'd done or said something wrong and what it was. Mindy is always contrite and straightforward whenever it comes time for her to apologize, the words leave her mouth quickly and softly.
There are times when they both wonder if it's all worth it, the fights and the arguments that they have, that have them.
He keeps waiting for her to realize that she wants someone smarter than him, someone who doesn't toss her brief stint in a mental facility in her face when they're angry, someone more grounded; someone more like her.
She waits for him to tire of her, just like he has tired of every girl he dated before her. She expects that the time he spends on the road, the time he spends away from her, is one of the reasons that he hasn't yet. The absence allows his heart to remain fond of her.
They fight so that they can remind themselves just how much they care. They fight so that it will be easier to bear when it all falls apart because neither one of them expects their love to last.
*** Finis ***