#bgally11

  Being back in Brendan’s apartment felt surreal. Nothing had really changed; he kept all your artwork, the throw blankets were still on the couches that you put them on, each room had scented candles or fairy lights to add “a little something” as you used to say. 

  It was as if you never left.

  “Wow, Bren,” you giggled, “you didn’t change anything”

  “I couldn’t. I knew you’d be back home soon and I wanted you to be comfortable..” You smiled at his admission, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek quickly and wandered into the kitchen. You weren’t really sure what you were looking for, so you opened the fridge and stared at the items until Brendan asked you what was wrong

  “Nothing, no. I just..” you started, “I think you need some groceries. I’ll head over to the store and get some stuff. Anything you want? That you’re craving?”

  “I can go, you just stay here and rest” he smiled 

  “I don’t need to rest, I’m fine. Really. Honestly, I should be doing more. It’s been three months since I’ve been out of the hospital, it’s probably time that my life gets back to normal” you admitted

  “I just don’t want you to overexert yourself and end up getting hurt,” he said as he leaned his forehead against yours, “I worry about you”

  “There’s no need to worry, trust me,” you laughed, “if you’re so worried, you can come with me.” You knew you didn’t need him to come with you but it was obvious that he wasn’t going to let you go alone, so you told him what you knew he needed to hear. Something you’d done so many times before. When you got to the store, he let you lead him through the aisles and you picked up all of the things that you’d been craving for months as well as a few things that you knew you’d need for meals. You were glad that this felt normal, like you truly were just picking up where you left off and not pretending to live someone else’s life but you could tell Brendan was being extremely cautious with you.

  “I’m not gonna break” you laughed, breaking the silence and the careful looks you could feel him giving you

  “Huh?” he questioned, unconvincingly

  “I can feel you watching me, Bren,” you looked back once, before setting your eyes forward to see where you were going, “I’m fine. I feel fine, I won’t break just from walking through the grocery store…”

  “Maybe I’m just watching you because I like looking at you, ever think of that?” he joked and you rolled your eyes as you continued walking, picking up a bag of chips as you passed them

  “Sure, okay” you said

  “Hey,” he stopped you and pulled you closer to him, leaving you to raise your eyebrows in shock, “I was serious you know?”

  “What? that you like looking at me?” you laughed, trying to turn away but he didn’t let you

  “Well yeah,” he smiled faintly, “but that I want you to be careful. I don’t want you getting hurt because you think you can do more than you can right now.”

  “Brendan, please,” you finally escaped his hold and continued walking, “I told you, it’s been three months. If I stop doing things, I’ll never get better and I’ll end up having the bone density of a 90 year old grandma. Just trust me, I know what I’m doing.” He didn’t argue with you the rest of the trip and he only asked once how you were feeling in the car on the way home. He was trying, you could tell, to start fresh. To make it as though the relationship you ended was not the relationship you were starting, but you couldn’t tell if you wanted that or not. The rest of the night, the two of you sat in almost complete, comfortable silence with each other -- eating dinner, catching up on Orange is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, cuddling up next to each other on the couch -- but you couldn’t help feeling like there was an itch you needed to scratch.

  “What’s wrong?” Brendan finally asked, “are you okay? Feeling some pain somewhere? I knew it, you should’ve rested, I should’ve made you rest”

  “No, stop!” you said, louder than you meant to, “why would you think something is wrong?” 

  “You’re just being really quiet. You haven’t been this quiet since…” you waited for his answer but rolled your eyes at what he gave you, “since we broke up”

  “Since we broke up? You mean since I left and wouldn’t return your calls?” you questioned and he nodded, “everything’s fine, Brendan, don’t worry. I’m not in any pain. I don’t need any rest. Everything’s fine.” Your words were abrupt on purpose. You wanted him to feel them and understand that something really was wrong, even if you weren’t sure what it was, but he didn’t. He just went back to watching the screen and pulling you close to cuddle with him. You tried to push whatever you were feeling out of your head for now, so you told Brendan you were going to head to bed and walked up the stairs to his bedroom. He came in shortly after you laid down, having cleaned and locked up everything downstairs, and tucked himself into you. When you woke up the next morning, you were surprised to see his side of the bed was empty and a note was left on the pillow.

  “Didn’t want to wake you, had to head to the rink for practice but I’ll see you tonight. Have a good day, love you.” 

  Short and sweet, just like Brendan. Without him hanging around today, you thought you’d be able to relax and do as you pleased; you just weren’t sure where to start. You found yourself wandering around the house to see if anything needed to be cleaned or organized, but oddly enough, he was like he was staying out of certain rooms all together -- it made the house look eerie. You decided to poke around in the guest room, not looking for anything in particular, when you across an old photo album you had never seen before; opening it, you found pictures of you as a baby and Brendan growing up, his family and yours, then you saw pictures of flowers and babies and baby animals when it hit you. It was some kind of wedding scrapbook. You thought only girls planned their lives, or at least their weddings, so far in advance but apparently Brendan had been thinking about spending his life with you for longer than you thought possible. Wandering out of the guest room to the couch, you flipped through the rest of the pages of the book, tossing it aside when you were finished and sighing when you realized what was wrong. A few hours later, Brendan came home to you watching a movie on the couch and circled to sit down, stopping when he saw the scrapbook

  “You found that huh?” he laughed, picking it up and placing it on the table behind the couch as he sat down next you

  “I did” you smiled but not making eye contact, choosing instead to watch your fingers fiddle with the hem of your pants

  “What’s up?” he asked

  “Why do you have this? Why did you make it?” you replied, finally looking up at him and pointing to the book

  “Like you never thought about our future” he joked, smiling his signature smile

  “I did,” you smiled briefly, “I used to”

  “Past tense?” he asked, scrunching his eyebrows

  “Brendan,” you started, grabbing the scrapbook off the table and flipping through it, “look at this. This isn’t who we are anymore. I used to think that I wanted all of this -- the big princess gown, the white lillies, a wedding in Spring with you as the one waiting for me at the altar -- but I can’t picture it anymore. It seems like another lifetime”

  “So.. you can’t see us getting married or having kids? Growing old together.” The expression on his face softened and it looked as though he might cry

  “I’ve been trying to figure out all day what’s been wrong. Why I feel out of place, why things don’t feel… natural, and looking through this scrapbook finally made me realize”

  “That you don’t love me?” he said bluntly, looking at the ground and you brought your hands to his

  “That we haven’t acknowledged anything.” You replied, “we never talked about what happened when I cheated, we never talked about all the fighting and arguing that happened before we broke up. And after my accident, we just picked up where we left off. Which should’ve, and could’ve, been great but it was like there was all of this stuff still unsaid. You’ve never talked about how you felt before we broke up, you never talked about how hurt you were until we started yelling at each other all the time. I love you, B, and I always want you in my life, whatever that looks like, but I can’t just continue on with this relationship if nothing is going to change. If we both just have to continue pretending that we’re the people we were four or five years ago.”

  “Sure, we’re different than when we first met,” he admitted, “but if I can get over what happened in the past, and you can, do we have to bring it back? Can’t it just stay in the past?”

  “Come on, Bren,” you sighed, “I think you know the answer to that”

  “You want me to tell you everything? To be painfully honest with you about everything that went down?” he started, turning his body to yours, “I can’t. Not really. I can tell you that it hurt like hell when I found out you were with someone else. I was pissed off at the two of you because I thought that our relationship was stronger than that but I loved you enough, and I knew you loved me enough, that I knew we would be okay. And we were. And then we weren’t. And then we were. And I never stopped loving you or wanting to spend my life with you and that car accident just made me realize how much I need you in my life. So, yeah. I want to put everything in the past because I believe we can leave it there and still be us. I don’t care about what happened before we broke up, I care about what happens now and what we mean to each other now.” You were a bit shocked by his words and didn’t know what to say, so you were silently staring at him for about five minutes before he called out your name

  “Just promise me, you’ll talk to me,” you finally said, “whenever something is wrong. I don’t want us to be in that place where we just fight all the time. Not again. Okay?”

  “Okay” he smiled before pulling you close to him, wrapping his arms around you and kissing you deeply.

  “We do need to talk about this scrapbook thing though” you joked, pulling away from the kiss for a second

  “Hmm mmm nope,” he mumbled, pecking your lips between words, “not now. Right now, I’m just gonna kiss you until we both fall asleep.”