ceesimz - Tumblr blog

ceesimz · 7 hours ago

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lonely shade of blue.

it was supposed to be just another friday, but it turned out to be so much more.

it's sad, but also very soft and happy, don't let the title and summary scare you🙃 hope you enjoy <3

Fridays were, unexpectedly, nothing to write home about.

Men in shirts and ties with the top button undone and knot loosened filtered in and out, slumping over the bar with a whiskey, complaining to anyone within earshot about their office jobs with the mindset that they were saving the world with each marketing success. The bartender swore there were only three variations of suits and ties in the world; no one should see that many shades of grey and blue in their life, it was unhealthy on the eye. Women came in with their waterproof mascara that simply never worked, proven by the tears of laughter and the tears of sorrow that raced down their faces after three drinks in streaky black lines.

The regulars weren’t the ones that sparked excitement, the bartender could bet his life that each person, each stereotype, lived exactly the same routines outside of the bar, as well as within it. It was a rhythm that was only bearable when someone stand-out walked in.

It didn’t happen much, but when it did, it was something to come to work for. Oftentimes, his imagination did most of the work as it filled out the blanks that were left in silences between sips. Some loved to ramble, some didn’t speak. Some were memorable, some… simply blurred into the lacklustre and barely-there memories of past visitors.

One Friday, just as evening turned to night, the door opened gently, as if the person walking in didn’t quite have the confidence to do it. But they stuck with it and headed to the bar, sitting on the fourth stool from the left. She ordered a dry martini with two olives, before sighing, resting her elbows on the woodtop, and running her hands through her hair. Her black polo shirt was slightly creased. There was a faded tattoo on her hand. But the detail that stuck out most to the bartender, that one singular thing that hooked him in, was the perfectly circular tan line that wrapped around her left ring finger.

She wasn’t a one-time visitor either. Every Friday at the same time, the door opened to reveal her again, each time looking more and more comfortable in her surroundings. She ordered the same drink twice, sat in the same chair. Stayed for roughly the same amount of time. Though, she didn’t speak, nor give much away about herself.

Not until another person that piqued the same intrigue entered a few weeks down the line.

You walked in with a little more certainty in your surroundings than she did. The bartender didn’t recognise you, though you entered like you owned the place. You threw yourself down in a stool three chairs down from the other woman, crossed your arms, and leaned forward to get the guy’s attention. You ordered a bottle of Estrella Galicia, taking a swig from it like it was the antidote for whatever was happening in your life. The woman on your left watched in amusement, taking a sip of her own drink but with a bit less desperation, and had to hold in a laugh at the grimace on your face when you finally put the bottle down.

Why you ordered beer, you didn’t know. It wasn’t your favouri– actually, you did know. You just didn’t have the strength to admit whose favourite it actually was.

So the two of you, metaphorically worlds apart in your lives, physically only about three metres away, were both none the wiser to what was in store. The bartender, however? He knew by now that the universe often had things in store that no one could foresee.

—

It became routine, at this point, and you weren’t sure why. Maybe because there was no one to go home to anymore. Fridays used to mean something when there was warmth, laughter, and leftover homemade food waiting for you. Now it was nothing but a sofa with only a one-sided dent and a bottle of wine waiting for you, as well as the most sickening silence you couldn’t stomach anymore. You got sick of wilting in it, so you started showing up at the bar.

When you were there, you were in your own world, not paying a single mind to who was in there apart from the bartender when he placed a drink in front of you. Even then, it was just a quick smile and a quiet thanks. Other than that, you just sat there, with nothing but the drink in your hand and the longing memories that ran rampant still, two years on. They were fading, slowly, and it broke you. The feelings got weaker, the moments turned blurry. More importantly, more devastatingly, you’d lost her voice. Couldn’t remember it like it once was.

The bar held no importance to your past, and that was its entire appeal. There wasn’t a single part of it tethered to your old life, it was just neutral. Safe in all its unfamiliarity. It was the same for Alexia too.

Dry martinis hadn’t been on her radar until the love of her life ordered one and demanded she try it. Since then, she didn’t drink anything else when it came to alcohol. The only thing that changed was the sharpness of the gin each time she took her first sip; not just the strength of it, but the dagger-like pain that nostalgia was. How easier things were back then. How much happier she was. How much brighter the days felt, and how getting out of bed didn’t seem so pointless like it was now.

It wasn’t just a routine, it was a dance. The two of you never drifted far; whenever you were there, she was there. Friday evenings. She arrived first and you followed, without realising, shortly after. You didn’t speak– hardly shared a glance, actually. But the company you shared didn’t need words.

Apart from when that company was broken.

One week, you didn’t show. And Alexia, when she got there and waited her standard half hour before you usually came, felt… empty. It didn’t make sense to her, she didn’t even know your name. She knew absolutely nothing about you apart from your standard order, which was not beer, but instead a strawberry daiquiri. It took some trial and error, a string of three visits to the bar where you tried just about every cocktail on the menu before finding one you liked. She sat there and watched every reaction you had, smiling and holding back laughter at not only your winces and sour faces, but the unimpressed look on the bartender’s face too with every failure. That was over a month ago, four visits since, and the strawberry daiquiris were officially the one.

But that day you didn’t show, something felt amiss within her. She found serenity in your company. She didn’t know why you were there every week at the same time as her, nursing a single drink and not saying a word. All she did know was that it calmed some part of her that hadn’t been reached in a long while. You, sat three seats down, gave her peace and made her feel less… alone. Sure, there were plenty of other unsuspecting suspects she could have randomly grown attached to, but there was just something about you. She couldn’t put a finger on it, apart from the fact it made her sound a little weird and stalker-ish. Something she’d learnt in the past three or more years, however, was that any internal peace she could find was good for her. She didn’t find much of it anymore.

Even though you weren’t there, because you weren’t there, she stayed longer that night. Her eyes drifted back to the door more times than she could count or care to admit. The only company she had was the new, aching, hollow feeling in her chest. Different to anything she could recall. And god had she spent so long in therapy identifying every single fucking emotion that’d ripped through her over the years, so she really knew what she was talking.

When she finally decided to leave, an hour later than she normally did, she walked a little slower in hopes of catching even just a glimpse of you, somehow. Then she got to the door, grabbed the handle, and hesitated. The bartender saw her look back at your empty chair, and it might’ve been the most exciting thing to happen to him in months.

—

The next week, things are different again. Alexia can’t stay this time, duty calls with the national team. She’s a senior player now, two decades older than the youngest ones at Barca, but still enough of a difference maker for there to be a notable absence on the pitch when she isn’t there.

The bar, however, is still a priority for her before she goes. The thought of leaving you there, even if you didn’t think about her the same way she thought about you, set something amiss within her. She didn’t want you to feel the same way she felt when you were gone. So she showed up over an hour earlier than she normally would, even earlier still than the time you would, and spoke to the bartender for the first time. But, of course, it wasn’t about her, or him for that matter.

It was a short conversation that led to the outcome of there being a freshly prepared cocktail waiting for you, set down only a few seconds before you walked in. Still perfectly chilled and hardly melting at all. You walked in the sound of the gentle notes of jazz that always played, went straight through the bustle of conversations and laughter, and headed towards the little pocket of tranquility that the bar offered you. Except this time, things weren’t the same. The stool that was always occupied at that time was empty, and there your drink was, waiting for you.

You looked around in confusion, eyes flicking between the space to your left, the drink in front of you, and the bartender who whistled quietly as he dried some glasses with the flannel always on his shoulder.

“Sorry, did you get me this?”

He didn’t seem startled in the slightest. He turned to you, shrugged a shoulder, a tiny quirk to the corner of his lips.

“That woman bought it for you. She came in a while ago, said she couldn’t be here tonight. So she bought your drink as an apology.”

With that, he turned back to his task. He didn’t need to see you to know you were a little flustered, though you tried to brush it off and cool your face down by taking a sip of your pre-paid, pre-ordered, strawberry daiquiri.

So when she, the unnamed drink-buyer to you, was there and waiting the week after like normal, it was about time you said something. You were a little reluctant to do so, not because she was intimidating or scary, but because it would make these strange meetings where the two of you were nothing but two ghosts coexisting into something more. Something where you had to be human and sociable, rather than being someone sitting with their grief.

“You bought my drink last week.” You stated simply, attention focused on where your fingers mindlessly traced shapes in the condensation of your glass.

For the first time, properly, Alexia let her eyes rake over you. Your shoulders that tried to hold themselves up but were weighed down by burdens you didn’t have the energy to share. The bags under your eyes. The downward turns at the corner of your lips you didn’t mean to leave there. All these things, she knew like the back of her hand, because she adorned them too.

She thought you were beautiful.

“I did.” She replied with ease, a gentleness to her voice.

“Why?” You glanced over at her then, the end of your question dropping off when you saw her face and the way she looked at you. Her voice, paired with her gaze, made it feel like she was the only person in the room with you.

“I didn’t want you to be alone.”

That, there, struck a chord in your chest which hadn’t been played in years.

All you could do in reply was nod because you weren’t sure you could get through a sentence without your voice cracking in two. Instead, you moved on, and decided to say something that could have possibly ended with you getting a drink thrown in your face.

“How long since that happened?”

Alexia briefly pulled a confused face, until you gestured at your own ring finger in reference to hers. Then she frowned, her right hand going to fiddle with a ring that didn’t sit there anymore.

“Three years.” She mumbled. You were about to apologise for overstepping due to her dejected reaction, but then she spoke again. “How did you know?”

The way her eyes looked at yours, it was like having a mirror put in front of you. They were delicate, reserved, and held so much vulnerability, you felt obligated in a tender way to match it.

“Takes one to know one.” You smiled sadly. “Two years last month.”

You caught the way she glanced at your hand and noticed the lack of ring too, not impressed as such that you took it off sooner than she did, but surprised by the strength you showed, even if you didn’t realise it.

“What did you do with yours?”

There was no exchange of ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ or awkward pauses where neither of you knew what to say because no words could amount to the pain of what’d happened. But that was only because you both knew it too well to waste time apologising for the other.

“Both of ours live on a jewelry dish on my bedside table that she made at a pottery class we went on a date to for our first anniversary.”

Alexia smiled at the memory, not only because it was bittersweet, but because she had her own stories from her relationship just like that. It also made her smile because she could feel the happiness exuding from you even as you just briefly retold the story. She related to that more than anyone but you would understand.

You waited for her to answer it too, which came in the form of her getting her keys out her pocket and sliding them across the bartop towards you. At first you were confused, until you saw the rings, and your heart ached for her.

“I keep them there, tied with the ribbon that was around the napkins from our table on our wedding day.” Your melancholic smile sunk deep into your face at such a beautiful sentiment. You didn’t know her but it seemed like the most her thing to do. “I only took mine off last week. That’s why the stupid tan line is still there.”

A breathy laugh left your throat, and Alexia hummed her amusement too at the cruelness of it; she finally found the strength to take it off, just for her to be reminded of what she’s lost, again. It was a harsh joke the world had pulled on her. The whole thing was a harsh joke on the two of you.

“Well,” You started, grabbing your glass and raising it. “Cheers to us then.”

What you were cheersing to was left unsaid, but you both knew.

Alexia raised her glass with you, before you both took a sip of your drinks.

After that, you didn’t speak again for the rest of the night. Only when Alexia stood from her stool and slipped on her coat, firing a farewell smile your way, one that looked like it held an awful lot of gratitude in it, before putting some cash in the tip jar like she always did, and walking away.

…only to come walking back gingerly no more than a minute later to ask for your name. You gave her yours, and she gave you hers. She said it, tested it out on her tongue, before tapping her knuckle twice on the bar in thought and heading out for a second time.

You tested out her name too, later that night where you lay in bed on your side, hand outstretched to the empty space left, talking out loud like you often did. You retold the conversation that you and Alexia had, said I love you, and rolled over to go to sleep. For the first time, it wasn’t just one face you saw as you closed your eyes, but two.

—

Fridays were still nothing to write home about. Yet, lately, the bartender found himself lingering a little longer when the two of you were in.

He wasn’t in the business of interfering, but the job did ask for the habit of noticing. And now, there was a lot to notice.

He had seen a lot over the years he’d worked there, but nothing like the two of you. Not total strangers that seemed to have their own language. Could be the language of grief, sure, which wasn’t all that uncommon. But whatever was brewing between the two of you was something of its own.

Not much changed after that first conversation– the routine continued with the arrivals and the stools and the drinks. The bartender, on the other hand, he noticed the air between you both was lighter than it was before. Conversation wasn’t a feature of every week, it was still smiles shared and contentment in company, but there were more subtle glances. At one point, you could feel Alexia’s gaze on you, goosebumps rippled along your skin and there was the slightest of shivers down your spine. When you turned to catch her, she was already looking away again.

The reason being; there were boundaries you were both afraid to cross. It didn’t feel like the start of a friendship, it felt like something more. Neither of you had ever prepared yourselves for that possibility. So for a little while, you danced around this new territory.

Until there was one night that called for it.

You arrived after her, of course. Got yourself settled in your stool, ordered your drink, shrugged off your jacket. Then you looked over at her and smiled at first, before you noticed the redness to her eyes and the pain on her face that resonated so deeply with you, you swore you felt it too.

She had been crying, anyone could tell that she had. And it didn’t take you any time at all to wonder what had caused it.

You took a couple moments to think, during which your drink was placed in front of you. She needed cheering up, you decided, so that’s what you dedicated that Friday night to.

“Have you ever tried this drink, Alexia?” You hummed, mixing it with your straw. She looked over, chin resting on her hand, fingertips pressing into the skin of her cheekbones, and shook her head.

With a sly grin, you moved up two stools, leaving just the one between you as your drink left a trail of condensation along the varnished wood that the bartender swiftly wiped away. Alexia eyed you in her peripheral, suspicious about your behaviour, until you nudged your drink closer to her. You reached over to get another straw from the box in front of you and placed it in your drink.

“Try it.”

The athlete within her grimaced.

“I’ll get cavities.” Her voice was hoarse and cracked slightly as she spoke.

“Shut up, no you won’t. How many have I had of these over the last few months? My dentist said my teeth are as healthy as can be.” You teased, pulling the first smile of the night from her.

“Only if you try a martini.” She acquiesced with the daiquiri glass already in her hand.

“No way. I hate gin. And olives.” You shivered at the thought of such a disgusting combination.

“Remind me to never take you for tapas.” The midfielder muttered before putting the straw in her mouth and having a drink. You swore she only had the tiniest bit before her face pinched in disgust. “That has more sugar in it than I’ve had all year.”

“You have a miserable diet then.”

This back and forth continued for quite some time, to your surprise.

First, it was about your choice of drink still. Then Alexia thought it fit to rehash that period of time where you wasted your wages trying out every cocktail on the menu to see which one you liked most, a jab at you that had her laughing so much her stomach muscles started to ache. At some point, the pair of you found yourselves laughing at everything and nothing. Once at a guy that walked in with an air to him that exuded dickhead, and on another occasion, the situations you were in as widows. How strange it was that you’d both gravitated towards this random bar when in the past it’d be the last place you would be in.

More drinks were bought than normal– usually you both stuck to two, three at a push. But at four, with number five threatening, you collectively decided to call it a night. The idea of walking home wasn’t so unappealing before you got to the door, but that changed when you saw the utter downpour happening on the streets. It was hammering it down with rain, and you stood there like a fool, cowering under the doorway with your hoodless coat. Alexia smirked behind you, then reached into the bucket by the door, where she had left her umbrella.

“At least one of us came prepared.” You grumbled when she stepped outside with it above her head, the light from the street lamp reflecting off of the water that ran off the top of the nylon fabric.

“Let me walk you home.” She responded softly, rather than teasing you.

The notion took you by surprise. So far, this… whatever it was between you, it hadn’t existed outside the bar. Hell, it hadn’t ever made it to the door before. Having her walk you home was uncharted ground.

“So you can share your umbrella with me?” You wondered with an eyebrow raised dramatically.

“What does it look like?” She deadpanned, making you laugh. A sound she’d gotten used to over the course of the evening and one she was quickly beginning to adore. “I’m not standing here for fun.”

“Fine. Don’t hog it though.”

You quickly scampered the short distance from the door to Alexia, though soon realised you would have to stand on her toes almost to get under it– much closer than you thought. That idea spooked you a little. Your heart wanted it, your brain tried to welcome it, but a deeply uncomfortable feeling settled in your bones. It felt wrong. So wrong. You recognised that feeling not too long after; it was guilt. And with one realisation, came another.

You were starting to fall for Alexia.

That guilt increased tenfold, so intensely you feared for a moment that you were going to throw up on her shoes. But then she chuckled under her breath, something that made your breath hitch when you heard it so close to your ear for the first time, and shoved all emotions to the side for later. When you were in the safety of your own bed, your once shared bed, where you could hate yourself with no interruptions from someone you wanted but didn’t feel like you could have.

“Come on, get in. Otherwise this whole walk will be for nothing.”

Even though it felt wrong to do so, you huddled closer to her. If she noticed you were quieter on the walk back, she didn’t say anything.

Unbeknownst to you, these same thoughts had plagued Alexia ever since that night she found herself missing you at the bar when you were gone. They weren’t so strong back then as they were now, but it meant she had more time than you to adjust to them. Two weeks prior, she had brought it up whilst having dinner with her closest friends, who had been just as close with her late partner, and even they were quick to reassure her that there was nothing wrong with exploring a new relationship.

Especially when her partner had voiced to Alexia that she wishes she could fall in love again afterwards.

Her anxiety ate away at her less, but it was still there. Being in such close proximity with someone she liked romantically, those thoughts were loud and clear in the back of her mind. The only way around that, she knew, was by facing it. And as she was beginning to see, she liked being close to you. Having just the one seat between you rather than three was a welcome surprise, and that paled in comparison to getting to walk you home.

Except, the same couldn’t be said for you. With the tears that fell that night, you were struck with the sickening reminder that no matter how healed you think you are, there was always something with grief that summoned the fact that missing someone isn’t something you ever outgrow.

—

Some days you found the beauty in that fact, though. Grief isn’t something you finish or get over, you have to learn to carry it. That was something you were proud of, how you never let the person you loved be someone of the past. They were still very much a part of you as a living being.

This is something that cropped up a couple weeks after the rainy walk home. Since then, the two of you spoke endlessly each time you showed up at the bar. There was now just one seat between you rather than three. You took turns walking the other home.

Still, it was a growing friendship that never ventured out of its confines of Fridays on the same streets. It’d been happening for months now, and neither of you found a problem with it. It was the one part of your lives that was regular and routine, but most importantly, comforting. Nothing else in your lives came close to these nights.

Work had overrun for you, and due to not wanting to be late for Alexia, you’d rushed straight over from there to the bar, leaving no time to stop off at home for dinner. Drinking on an empty stomach was never a good choice, so you limited yourself to only the one drink before switching to something non-alcoholic. Alexia noticed but didn’t say much, only when your stomach rumbled so loud in a lull of conversation that you worried the entire bar might have heard it. She laughed for far too long about it, even as you reached over the stool between you and hit her lightly on the shoulder.

“If you’re gonna laugh like that, you can pay for my dinner.” You told her, not quite catching the meaning of your own words. Asking her to dinner.

“Of course I’ll pay for dinner.” Alexia said when she finally calmed down. “Where were you thinking of taking us?”

You weren’t thinking about it at all, actually. Not until that very moment. Your first instinct was to shut it down, play off your own suggestions.

Deep down, however, that wasn’t something you wanted. What you did want was to stop feeling guilty everyday. Not just for spending time with Alexia, but for breathing. Blinking. All the mundane things your partner didn’t get to do anymore. But guilt wasn’t grief, she didn’t want you to feel guilty, she wanted you to live. You had promised her that back then, when she could still ask for them, and smile when you gave them.

So, you breathed through the knot in your chest, and stood from your chair.

“You’ll see when we get there.” You smiled slyly, shrugging on your jacket and heading to the door. Alexia followed suit, a grin on her face that seemed cheeky on the surface but was shy and nervous underneath.

This felt like a big step in whatever it was between you.

And the way that your grief carried itself that day was in the way you chose a tiny, unsuspecting restaurant ten minutes down the road. Alexia didn’t trust it, but you knew just how incredible it was. Even if it had been over two years since you’d been.

“What is this place.” Alexia muttered as you led her in, holding the door for her.

“The best Thai food in the country.” You sighed dramatically, practically drooling at the sight of the menu.

There were a few new additions on the board, but one meal remained.

“That. We have to share that. It’s the best thing they do.” You tapped her shoulder and pointed to it, rolling your eyes at the face she pulled.

“Really?” She couldn’t have said it in a more dreading tone.

“Yes. Really. Go sit down, I’ll order.”

Doing as you said, Alexia headed for the booth in the corner right by the window. Rather than looking out of it, her eyes were stuck on you. She didn’t know how the months had slipped by so fast, but she couldn’t have picked a time during all that, other than then for the two of you to step outside the comfort and familiarity of the bar and do something new. She felt ready. She just desperately hoped you were too.

When you came over, she erased all that from the forefront of her mind so she could be present with you. It wasn’t difficult to do when you sat across from her and spoke so animatedly with such excitement, it might’ve been the most upbeat she had seen you. Her heart thumped away in her chest at the sight.

You were like that for a reason; it was the first time you had visited somewhere that had been so intrinsically sacred to your relationship without bawling your eyes out. And each time the doubts creeped in about you painting over those memories with new ones, you shut that train of thought right up, because it wasn’t true. Nothing could paint over those memories, you had to remind yourself of that. You were just making new ones with someone that had… saved you over these months. Whether she knew that, whether you knew the extent of it, you weren’t sure. You just found it hard to picture a life now without Alexia in it.

Then your food was served, and when it was placed between you both, Alexia seemed much more enthusiastic than a terribly coloured, proportioned, heavily contrasted photo on the menu board. You took a bite of it after her, and it was just as good as you remembered.

“God, I haven’t had this in two years, and it’s still incredible.” You groaned in satisfaction after taking another bite. Alexia, however, froze a little.

“Tw… two years?” She asked delicately. You should have known she would put the pieces of the puzzle together far too soon.

“Yeah. Two years, and quite a bit more than a month now.” You tried to joke, though it didn’t land too successfully.

“If I had known it was important, I would not have been so rude about it.” She admitted quietly, not daring to look at you for some reason. She felt it wasn’t just you she had disrespected, but your partner too, and that felt awful.

“Doesn’t matter now, Alexia. We’re here, and I’m happy about it. That’s all that matters.” When she didn’t seem to be taking in your words, you nudged her knee with yours under the table. “Only the most special people in my life get to come here.”

Of course it was then she looked up, the girl was a sucker for a bit of sweet talk.

“Then I guess I should count myself very, very lucky then. And grateful.”

Every time her tone dropped to that soft level, it undid you bit by bit. Months of that was beginning to build up, but you didn’t know what to do with it.

Conversation drifted from topic to topic, with periods of silence between them. Not uncomfortable or awkward, but necessary. They’d become a common theme when you were together. It felt good, it felt relieving, to be able to exist with someone and not need to talk all the time, be someone you weren’t. You had missed that serene existing, and with Alexia, after more than two years without it, you felt you could do it for the rest of your life.

“Are you okay?” She asked in alarm when your fork clattered down onto the table after you had dropped it.

“Y-yeah. Sorry. Went a bit light-headed.”

It was true, you did. Because that revelation was ground-breaking to you. It told you everything and nothing all at once.

It told you what you wanted the rest of your life to look like, but not how to navigate it or live it. How do you get into a relationship with someone, when the last person you thought you’d spend your life with had died? How do you become comfortable with that fact when a relationship feels like cheating?

Two sides of your mind battled constantly. You wanted to feel Alexia’s touch, but the horrible feeling of bile rising in your throat cut you off from that desire every time you thought about it. You wanted to have her in your life for the rest of it, but you didn’t know what that looked like. Or, rather, you did, but were just too afraid to admit it.

You were tired of jumping between two different mindsets; disgust and devotion. Sometimes you thought you would be better off having never met Alexia so that you would’ve never had to deal with this dilemma. Yet, again, the mere thought of that was horrifying. Who would you be now without her?

“If I eat anymore, I might never be able to play football again.” Alexia slumped back in her chair, none the wiser to your inner crisis.

You needed time away from her, but didn’t want the night to end. Not when it had been so… perfect. So much more than you could have asked for.

“Maybe walking it off will help.” You proposed lightly.

“Will it? So you are the know-it-all athlete now?” She smirked, something she often did that had begun to make you blush each time she did, and she knew that.

“Maybe. Can’t let me walk home alone in the dark, that’s all I know.”

“Yeah? What about me?”

“You’re stronger than most people in this town and you know it.” The grin on her face after that let you know she had won this little bout of bickering.

“How do you know that for sure?” You rolled your eyes, balled up a napkin, and threw it at her.

“Walk me home, you idiot.”

The journey back was quiet. Streetlamps casted yellow golden pools across the pavements that you both drifted in and out of as you walked. Your shoulders bumped every so often, hands brushing too on occasion. You swore you felt her stretch her pinky out to reach yours for a second before she pulled away. When you caught her gazing at you, she didn’t look away anymore. Just smiled, soft and beautiful, just her. Unashamed in her feelings, which made you feel confident in your own, but even more terrified too.

What if you couldn’t meet her halfway?

“You remembered your keys this time?” She teased as you reached your doorstep, waiting on the lower step as you headed to the door.

“Yes I did, thank you. You’re not very good service, you know.” A gasp came from behind you, far more dramatic than necessary.

“I don’t walk just anyone home, you know. Only lonely people that think a sugary slushie is a good drink on a Friday night.”

“You should get new material for your jokes. All you do is rip me for my daiquiris.” You turned to her after finally getting your key in the door, but not turning it yet. You looked down at her from the higher step, a childish grin on your face. “Or am I that perfect that there’s nothing for you to work against?”

The footballer had no response for that.

With a pleased hum, you turned back to the door and unlocked it. You pushed it open ajar, and turned once more, to say goodbye to a silent Alexia.

“That one really got you good, huh?” You said with a giggle.

One second you were laughing, the next there was a mouth pressed softly to yours.

You gasped. She pulled away. You stared at each other, breathless from the shock of it. But you wanted it again.

You wrapped your arms around her shoulders and pulled her back in. It’d been years since you kissed someone, but muscle memory kicked in, and it felt good. Her lips moved carefully, nervously, because it meant as much to her as it did to you. She was warm and soft, everything that a kiss should be and everything that you’d missed about doing it.

And when she tilted her head just slightly to deepen it, it was as if the ground shifted beneath you. Your heart grew to make space for her finally. The sheer force of feeling something like this again was almost winding, but the fact you allowed it for yourself made you feel whole again.

After a couple minutes of standing on the doorstep like anxious teenagers doing something they shouldn’t, Alexia finally broke it off. Though, neither of you moved far. Your foreheads rested against each other and you breathed the same cool air of the night’s chill. Her arms stayed around your waist, one hand having slipped under your jacket as she stroked up and down your hip with her thumb where you stayed in the silent aftermath.

She didn’t speak, nor did you. There wasn’t anything to say.

Only the sound of a car passing by broke the moment. And as it did, the marvel of it was stripped from you. Because when you leaned back and it was Alexia looking at you, not her, it terrified you.

You dropped your arms, stepped back in alarm. Forgot who you were, and who it was in front of you. You dashed inside without a word, leaving Alexia standing there, blinking away the sting in her eyes as the door closed in her face, leaving her heart thrown on the floor where you once were. She stayed there for a minute or two, feeling numb.

Numb in a way that didn’t hurt yet, but would come crashing over her the second she got home. Numb in a way that you would understand, but maybe that was the problem with it all. You understood too well.

—

Days passed by in a way that was both slow and far too quick at the same time.

Complete silence between you.

Alexia showed up at the bar the following Friday, a naive hope nestled in her chest that you would be there. It didn’t surprise her when the hours ticked by and you didn’t show.

Even though he didn’t know what had happened, the bartender could sense that it had all come crashing down between you. He saw the eager and anxious way Alexia came in, and how her shoulders slumped more and more with every swing of the door that wasn’t you. He saw the frown deepen, and the way her eyes glossed over before she blinked hastily to cover it. He fixed her a drink that she didn’t finish.

The whole time she stayed, he didn’t ever drift far. He wiped down the bar and kept her in the corner of his eye. The worst part of it all was that he couldn’t even say he was surprised that it had come to this, too much was on the line for it to not end well, he’d seen it before in situations where the lines that hearts were on were twice as strong and stable. Still, it wrecked him a little.

Alexia had an unexpected request for him that night: a piece of paper and a pen. He obliged without hesitation. Ten minutes later, she was handing them both back with drying tear tracks on her cheeks.

“If she comes in at any point, will you give this to her?”

She didn’t even have to say your name, he knew who she was talking about. He tried to hide his sad smile as he took the paper back and tucked it away in the till. His faith in the world and all its good diminished at the outcome of it all.

But it didn’t diminish completely, because you walked in the next week. You looked just as broken as Alexia did. The latter wasn’t there this time, either. But he remembered the letter, and he handed it over to you wordlessly along with your drink of choice for that occasion. Just a water.

You knew who it was from instantly. The first glimpse of jagged handwriting almost tore your heart in two there and then, before you’d even read it.

I’m sorry. For scaring you, for breaking your space by writing this, for pushing you.

I’m sorry I did that with no warning, but I am not sorry for how I feel about you. You are the only person that makes me want to fall in love again. I didn’t think I would ever feel that way again, especially not so soon, because I didn’t think I ever could. Then you showed up at the bar and you made me want to try. I believe she sent you to me for this very reason.

But I have to be honest, because I cannot survive another kind of almost.

I can’t commit to this if you aren’t all in. I’m sorry. I don’t want to push you, or force a decision, I just need honesty. Because I choose you, I do, but only if you choose me too.

It’s you I want. You make me feel alive again. Thank you.

-A

You traced your finger over that last single letter, the one thing that made you feel connected to her. With her note, you didn’t expect anything less from her. Everything she said was entirely understandable, if it was you in the reverse then you would ask for the same. But god, it was terrifying being on this side of it.

Your first instinct was fear, to run away from it, forget any of it ever happened. To go crawling back to the safety of your bed, where if you closed your eyes hard enough, you could pretend nothing had changed those years ago, and that the perfume that filled the room wasn’t just from the bottle you had sprayed on the pillow.

None of that was possible. None of it was healthy or long-lasting. You had that option served on a silver platter by a person you were falling in love with. And the one other person you loved wanted this for you. It was an easy choice to anyone else on the outside– being on the inside was a whole other story.

You sat with it for a few days. Went about your normal life – work, grocery shopping, walks, all of it – like normal, when underneath the mask, was a dilemma you never imagined you would face in your life. You couldn’t have dreamt it in a month of Sundays. There were sleepless nights, hours spent laying in bed with nothing but this decision as company.

Alexia had saved you. She declared it first but it suddenly became true to you, just under a week after you received the note. She made you feel alive again too.

Those few days where your life was empty knowing everything you’d built with her was on the edge of a precipice were nothing compared to those couple hours a month with her in some bar in the centre of town. Those couple hours were what kept you going, what brought you out of your grief and gave you back to yourself.

The thought of years with her instead of a few hours, god only knows what it would do for you.

Fortunately, the choice was up to you.

“Please do not knock like that on my d-” She cut herself off at the sight of you at her door.

Albeit, you had knocked very desperately, but it was with good reason.

“I’m in, Alexia. I’m all in. It’s you I want too, only you.” You blurted out, not really knowing what you were saying but hoping it was good enough anyway.

Alexia stood there in her pajamas and dressing gown, blinking at you. You were nearly vibrating with anxiety– the time it took for her to respond felt like a lifetime.

“Y… you’re sure?” She asked nervously, not getting her hopes up again.

“Yes. I’m certain, Alexia. Please. Don’t tell me it’s too late.”

There were tears in your eyes and hers.

Of course it wasn’t too late.

She stepped forward and swept you up in a hug you’d craved for years, it was healing and refreshing all in one. You hugged her back just as tight, not daring to let go then, or ever. Not until she did, that was your new rule. You weren’t ever going to let her feel that apprehension again. And just to prove your point, you kept your arms tight around her but leaned back enough to look at her.

“Let me kiss you. Properly this time. I won’t run.” You said with a hopeful smile, relieved when she laughed far too giddily for such a stupid joke.

“I’m gonna hold you to that.” She mumbled, her lips already against yours halfway through the sentence.

You didn’t expect anything less from her.

The time that followed after that, another doorstep kiss, this time without the tears and anxiety, was as good as it could get.

Trips to the bar still happened. And even though the drinks stayed the same, there was less distance between you. Your shoulder and thigh pressed against hers, elbows nudging each other every so often, especially when Alexia said something so stupid you couldn’t help but double over the woodtop laughing.

It turned out to be a soft kind of love. The most treasured kind of love. Your relationship bloomed between the two of you, and your partners were present in ways that weren’t loud, but still there.

Alexia’s drink choice, the two rings on her keys, the way she made her eggs in a morning, and the decor of her house that was hardly chosen by her. Your rings stayed on your bedside table when she came over, she put her shoes on the rack next to pairs she knew weren’t yours, new photos hung up on your living room wall amongst some that’d been there for years. These things had to remain to build a path into the future.

There were two halves of two broken hearts held together by the love left by your late partners. The relationship would be nothing without them, not just in the physical sense. They’d taught you to love, they’d experienced it so wholly, that apparently they felt it necessary that it was too good to not be experienced by anyone else. And who better than someone just as lost as you each were.

The bar was a common choice for date nights. But not even then– just whenever one of you needed it.

“Can I ask you something?”

A month down the line, you found yourselves there. Happy, content. Whole again.

“Of course you can.” You smiled, lifting your head up from where it rested against her shoulder to face her properly.

“What made you realise this is what you wanted?” She wondered, fingers fidgeting with her glass. “After I kissed you for the first time, those days without each other… what changed your mind?”

You couldn’t believe you hadn’t mentioned it yet, to be honest. It was everything to you, it was the entire reason you were where you were with her.

“I take comfort in knowing I loved her for the rest of her life, and that she would want me to be loved for the rest of mine. The only person that could do that is you.”

—

i haven't put out a story in sososo long, i'm so anxious to post this i cant begin to describe it lmao. really really wish i had the energy (and time) to commit to making this a full length fic but i just don't right now, though i hope this will suffice for the time being :)

#alexia putellas x reader #woso x reader #alexia putellas #woso community #woso fic #woso

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