𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔠𝔯𝔬𝔴 𝔣𝔩𝔦𝔢𝔰

           life is funny sometimes.  he’d lost one love and another almost literally drops back into his lap.  for a long time he’d looked over his shoulder or out the window as if cara was going to be there or like she was going to come back as quick as she’d left.  as he’d grown older opie tried to tell himself it was puppy love.  high school love.  that donna had been it.  they’d built a life together.  had kids.

          but, seeing her so close and the way his heart felt like it was trying to break free of his rib cage told him all of those were lies.  he still cared.  doing anything about it would be nothing but a fool’s errand, though.  their lives probably diverged.  he’d followed in his father’s footsteps ( like he always wanted to ) and he could only hope that life was more kind to her once she’d left charming.  hope had his brain telling him the way she looked meant cara found a good place in life.  maybe even love.  a place she fit into and a family that finally gave her everything she deserved.

          only an actual conversation would reveal the truth but that was assuming she’d stay long enough to have one.  it was a perfectly reasonable explanation to hear she was just driving through when the jeep broke down.

          out of the corner of his eye there were a few bodies readjusting themselves.  bobby and chibs stepped closer, arms raised up and crossing over their chests.  were they whispering to each other?  if opie came to find out they were making bets there’d be hell to pay next fight night.  tig, on the other hand, glanced back only to look....sad?  was that what that was?  seemed like ever since donna died there’d been a flash of guilt every now and then.  opie was a big boy and they lost people on a constant basis.  he’d get over it.  no need for one of his brothers to get all teary-eyed over it.

           life was still surreal.  months later opie felt like he was just going through the motions; like he was hovering outside his body looking down.  he had a hard time looking at his own kids.  he had a hard time being around any of the club.  it was even hard diving head first into any of the vehicles that needed to get fixed because people kept calling in for a god damn tow.  moving on from the image of donna was hard when there wasn’t any external noise to wash it out.

          “ here, “ a box is pressed into his chest as soon as he walks into the office.  eyes lift up, blink, and finally focus on gemma.  opie’s smile is robotic.  automatic.  when the matriarch’s lips start moving it takes fractions of a second for the voice to follow.  chibs needed the break pads, apparently.  then eat something.  

         the latter had the biker furrowing his brows.  there’d been a sandwich, hadn’t there?  at some point.  he remembered eating a sandwich because jax shoved it in his face.  could’ve been yesterday.  or the day before.  lyla had offered to make him a something, opie remembered that, too.  dinner?  lunch?  the fuck was it?