#tinychemicals

I know who it is when my text alert sounds, I know its her, and I know I should ignore it because nothing good will come from this exchange. Nothing good ever happens after 2 am. I just wish she wasn’t who she was, because if it was any other girl I would be strong enough to say no, I’d be strong enough to ignore the phone. But this time, like all the other times before, I wont ignore it, I’ll answer it and I’ll go wherever she is and I’ll be whatever she needs me to be in this moment.

‘I miss you’ it reads, I roll my eyes, she has said this before, and she’ll say it again and I’ll fall for it every time.

‘Do you miss us?’ So she hasn’t been drinking, its legible, she’s either up too late and thinking or, she’s up too late and she’s not thinking.

‘I’m sorry ‘bout last time; you know I love you, answer me’ three in a row, she’s getting persistent. Sometimes I like to see how many she’ll send before I respond, because this will be the only time tonight when I will hold any of the power in this relationship. Five more minutes and no new message, so I’ll need to respond soon or I might lose this moment.

‘Course I do’ its all I can muster; I wish someone would take her phone away; in the end she’ll be the death of me, and I wont survive her.

‘I knew you did.’ Did you see that? All of the power I had is now gone, she’ll have it all now. ‘Have you been thinking about me?’ All the time, constantly, I wake up thinking about you and spend most of the night lying in my bed, and looking at the ceiling wishing you would make up your mind. I can’t respond with that though, because she can’t handle that much truth, she can only handle the childish back and forth.

‘Yes, Rae, I’ve been thinking about you’ too many words, I’m saying too many words.

‘Come over’ I shake my head no, I will not do this again, she is going to destroy me. I run my hands through my hair, I am showered and ready for bed, not ready for a 20-minute car ride to hers.

‘You think that’s a good idea?’ I ask tentatively, most of me wants her to say no, it’s a horrible idea, but I want you to anyway. But then there’s that voice in my head saying, you know this is a terrible idea and that you’ll be worse after this is over.

‘It’s an excellent idea, see you in 20’ and she’s right, she will see me in 20 because I’m the fool, and she’s got me on a string. Deep down I know this should be the last time I come over. She’ll say she misses me that she loves me and then in the morning, in the morning she’ll be different. I wont be though, I’ll still be the same stupid Finn making these same stupid decisions, maybe I’ll be a little different I’ll be a little more broken.

After spending 30 seconds pretending like I wasn’t going to go, I found myself in my car driving straight to her. After sitting in the car, looking at the light on in her bedroom window I found myself heading up the walk and knocking on the door without hesitation. I’ll save the hesitation for another time, cause right now she’s gonna open this door, pull me in by my jacket and kiss me as hard as she can and all I’m going to taste for the rest of this night is whatever cheap wine she’s got, her mouth, and her body.

“I’m so happy you came” she smiles and it breaks me even more.

“Course I did” by the time the door has shut behind us, and she’s flipped the lock I know I’m in trouble. This night’s gonna be different, because she’s made popcorn and she’s readied a movie and spending quality time with her not just the tiny pieces of herself she’s only ever given me, never all of her, I’m not going to make it out of this night with the rest of my heart.

“I thought we’d watch some TV, yeah?” I’d agree to anything, any amount of time she let me spend just being around her. I shake my head in agreement and we settle in on the sofa. She’s in my head, and I don’t know if this is a new trick or if she’s changed, and she’s going to give me more of her.

Wait ten minutes Nelson, you’ll find out.

“You’re so far away from me,” she says tucking one hand under my arm drawing me in closer to her perfection. I let her consume my space and I am flooded with how she smells and my stomach wont stop doing somersaults waiting for what will come next. She’s gonna leave me such a mess.

If this wasn’t my fault, if I hadn’t broken her first, maybe it wouldn’t be like this, and maybe one day she’ll trust me with more of her. Until then I’m gonna take what she offers me.

Warm kisses trace my jawline, and I can feel her hands all over me, and I can’t breathe, and I’m so happy in this moment because I am in love with her, and she; she only gives me pieces of her love now.

“Did you miss me?” She asks again, and I can’t answer her, so I’ll show her this time how much. She tells me she loves how I make her feel, and that no one knows her body like I do, and how to make her feel good. But I want to make her feel good all the time and she only wants me to make her feel good when she calls me at 2 am.

After she’s gotten what it is she needed from me tonight we’ll fall asleep in her bed, this she always gives me. She’ll afford me the luxury of sleeping next to her, and waking up surrounded by that mess of dark hair on my shoulder. But after we’ve had coffee and she’s awake enough to realize that I’m still here and she has to say those same words to me again, the air gets thicker, and I can feel it change when that happens.

“You don’t have to say it again this time” I’ll save her a few words this time.

“I know” she half smiles, and wraps herself up tighter in that ratty bathrobe “but I’m still sorry.” And it’ll sting just as hard every time she says it, and I’m going to keep coming back when she calls every time because I know one day she’s going to wake up and not feel like she made a mistake with me.

“I do love you” she huffs “and I know you want it all, but I’m not ready for that.”

“I know,” it’s my turn to half smile with my reply “I love you too.” It’ll be all I can do to get out of this place without breaking down in front of her. “Let me just get dressed and I’ll get out of your hair.” Her pretty little head tilts and she looks at me like I’ve said the most offensive sentence she’s ever heard.

“I didn’t ask you to leave,” and I’ve never been told this in the morning. She’s always hurried me out; she’s never ready to let me be there with her in a way that wasn’t in the bedroom, not since I let her down. “I’m not asking you to leave, I’m actually asking you to stay. I cant promise that I’ll be better this time, that I wont push you away again but I feel better about this now and I’m always going to love you so I either need to forget about you or give you another chance because this back and fourth is exhausting for both of us and frankly I’m shocked you’ve put up with it for this long.”

“You’d be surprised what I’d put up with when it comes to you” I smiled and kissed her lightly on the lips.

feelavalanche says:

some kind of karmic-chi love thing by llassah

“Stiles, uh. You know I’m totally on your side? Like, I’ll never not be on your side, ever. But you know that weed’s kind of different for werewolves, right?”

Stiles mashes his face into Scott’s chest, tries to burrow down under the comforter. Scott sighs, pulls back and waits until Stiles is looking at him.

“I know. Just—don’t try and make me be the adult here,” he says, hates the plaintive tone his voice has taken on.

“He’s happy, Stiles. And I can’t believe you’d ever think I’d do that to you, buddy,” he says, ruffling Stiles’s hair with a grin as Stiles slaps his hand away and hunkers down again, his ear against Scott’s chest, their feet tangled together.

lovedandintroverted says

And I May Be Foolish To Fall As I Do by refuse_to_sink (8/8 | 77,682 | E)

chasinthepayne tagged me in a thing. 

url: statichopestorm

real life name: Grace

nickname: Entity. ;)

birthday: February 14th.

gender: Female

sexuality: Asexual.

height: 5'6"

time zone: Mountain.

local time and date: 3:51 p.m. September 15th, 2014.

average hours of sleep a night: 5 to 8-ish.

last thing googled: With Six You Get Eggroll... don't judge.

most used phrases: "Come on" and "no."

what I last said to a family member: "It's hot," to my Mom because she had a bad headache and I warmed a rag to put on her forehead.

one place that makes me happy and why: Grand Canyon. It's such an inspiring beautiful, vast place and a great time to communion with oneself.

how many blankets I sleep under: One.

favourite beverage: Water. What? I can't help it. I like it.  Possibly Tea. 

last movie I watched in cinemas: The Avengers.

three things I can’t live without: Book(s), my doggies and a pillow.

something I plan on learning: How to be an Adult.

It was actually nicer than I expected spending time with Archie and I’d never admit this out loud but I didn’t even mind doing all the stupid wedding stuff, it was worth it to get to spend time with him. I had almost forgotten how much I missed him and how big the role was he use to play in my life, it was really nice having him fill that role again. I can't remember the last time I actually enjoyed being called an asshole, I get it for other reasons these days. Maybe this is why I had decided to keep everyone at arm’s length in the first place, even having this one little piece of home was making me nostalgic for the other pieces.

I had just finished my Thursday night shift and was pretty much dead on my feet, wanting nothing more than to go home and collapse into bed. I had managed to get out of working Friday night so I could pretend to get some sleep before the wedding. I was in exactly no way ready for what was waiting on me at the steps of my apartment building. In any other time I would have recognized her, I was still having a hard time from 30 feet away convincing myself that Izzy was waiting for me and even more aware of very obvious pregnancy. After rubbing my eyes, shaking my head and blinking for several seconds I decided I was not actually hallucinating and it was real.

“Hey Izzy” I tried to make myself smile, I don’t know how it translated

“Hey Izzy, 5 years Finn and all you can muster is Hey Izzy” she slapped my shoulder and shook her head at me “I’m very pregnant and its hot outside, so take me in and offer me something to drink”. The must have all coordinated how they were planning on giving me shit in the exact same way. This I thought I’d be able to handle a little better, she was the nice one, she was the one who didn’t make you talk about things if you didn’t want to, she was the ‘I’m here if you need me friend’ but I didn’t know if any of these people even still considered me a friend.

“Do you know he’s making me work on Saturday, can you even believe that? He’s making me do the guestbook.”

“Don’t you just have to sit at the table and ask people to sign that huge picture of them? You’ll be able to direct them to his forehead or something, that’ll be fun”

“I am pregnant and miserable, I am in the last actual month they will allow pregnant women to fly in. I had to get a doctor’s note for the airline just to get on the plane Finn, I should not have to work. I should be allowed to sit in some room with air-conditioning and let people tell me how I look like I’m glowing and have strangers rub my belly”

“Where’s Chop?”

“I don’t know, it’s officially not my time to keep up with him today, I think he’s playing golf with Todd, which is sad really because he cannot play golf and he’s just going to embarrass himself and probably Archie too. But Todd’s a good guy, so I’m hoping he’ll take one for the team and not decide to bail just because Archie has annoying friends.”

“You sound like you guys are definitely still in the honeymoon phase”                          

“Oh shut up” she huffed “where is my drink? Jeez are you always this poor a host?”

“My apologies” I replied laughing, I filled a tall glass with lemonade and her level of annoyance seemed to drop at least 15 points. She settled into the sofa and propped her feet up on the table

“I’m sorry okay” she looked at her feet and then back up at me “it’s just my feet are swollen, I feel like I’m suffocating and it’s just so miserably hot here, I don’t know how you do it.”

“You get used to it” I sat down next to her “and you can keep your feet on the table, it does not offend me”

“Good because I wasn’t moving them, in fact I had decided to cry a little if you tried making me” I only responded with a laugh “so” she said glancing around the room “have you seen her yet?”

“She’s here already?”

“Well that answers my question”

“I…I didn’t know she was here…and” great what an amazing time to develop a stutter “and I’m not sure she’d want to see me either way”

“Why wouldn’t she?” the look on her face was complete confusion and for a few seconds there we just stared back and forth at each other looking quite similar. “Do you remember the night at Rae’s party, when you two fell asleep in her bed?”

I smiled without really meaning to thinking back about that night, it had gone from really bad to, extremely shitty and ended up being as okay as it could possibly have been, all thanks to Rae.

“Yeah I remember”

“Do you also recall that I was asleep at the foot of that bed?”

“How could I forget I spent half the night thinking I’d end up kicking you off the end at some point?”

“That’s beside the point” she laughed “you two always had this weird connection, it drove Chloe mad for years. She was so jealous that Rae had made this connection with some other person and I think she was even a little jealous you liked Rae more than her.” 

“It was never like that with Chloe”

“I know it wasn’t, because it was always like that with Rae”

“Izzy I don’t want to talk about this”

“I know you don’t want to talk, which is why you need to listen” she was firm and in no way taking no for an answer and I was feeling the tight squeeze of being backed up into the same corner again. I panicked again shaking my head no.

“I don’t want to know”

“I wish at some point you’d figure out how to get over yourself” she huffed

“I wish everyone would stop huffing at me all the time”

“Well you’re infuriating so you may as well accept that it’ll be a running theme for the rest of your life”

“Good to know”

“Look at me” she said sitting up, taking my hands and folding them up in her warm palms “I want you to look at me and really listen to what I’m going to say to you”

“Izzy please stop” I couldn’t meet her eyes, I knew it was going to be bad

“Finn” it was only a whisper and she let me take my own time lifting my head to finally look up at her “that girl loves you and she has loved you her entire life, I know that scares you and I know you think you ruined things but at the very least please just talk to her this weekend. Try and remember how you felt just being around her.” I jerked my hands away from her and stood up, across the room before I had even registered I was doing it

“She doesn’t love me Izzy, she loves him and I won’t ruin that for her.”

“Finn you’re wrong and you don’t even know how wrong you are”

“I think you should go, it was nice seeing you but I have things to do and” I searched for the words, something I had to do to just make her leave “and I just, I just want you to leave now”. She rolled off the sofa and walked over to me, she smiled that same happy-go-lucky smile that was contagious and pushed my hair back off my forehead

“Okay, I’ll go” she leaned over and kissed my cheek “I’ll see you Saturday, I’m sorry if I upset you”

“Yeah” I stammered “I’ll see you Saturday”

This one's a bit slower but the next one gets better.

               Most like you would have expected, I did not sleep very well. I could fall asleep but woke up several times after having the same dream 3 times, luckily each time I woke up right before she murdered me. They started the same each time, she’s standing on the deck of some amazing house, her husband, 2 perfect children and dog surrounded by friends and I walk right up to her and kiss her hard on the mouth. Fingers tangled up in her hair, her soft plump lips feel like satin and just when I’m working on perfecting the amount of suction to be applied to her bottom lip she knees me right in the business. Then her perfect husband suggests I take myself home, while she screams at me for running her daughters first birthday. This is a real life situation, this is not a dream, this is the exact type of shit I would have pulled had I stayed. This is what I had to do to avoid making an asshole out of myself and this is probably extremely similar to what was going to happen at Archie’s wedding and then I’d have the added pleasure of running that day for him. It is basically impossible for me to decipher why he would want to include me in this day when he very well knows this is a possible outcome.

                There was no real point in trying to sleep because anything I was thinking while being awake I was now dreaming about. So after watching the clock for another hour I just said fuck it and got up for the day, the day being 8 pm. I ran the rest of the day like a robot, trying to keep my mind as numb as possible. That worked out pretty well for me for the rest of the night, I even managed to come home after work and fall directly into bed, thanks to the assistance of a sleeping pill I banked a solid 7 hours of Rae-dream free zzz’s. I thought I was getting a grasp on my sanity. My sanity was gone quickly after my phone call with Archie.

“Are you just getting up?”

“I work at night, it’s perfectly normal for me to be just waking up right now.”

“Perfectly normal” he huffed out a laugh “I don’t think that’s something I’d associate with you”

“Thank you for your glowing support, you’re a huge pain in my ass”

“I hardly ever top”

“Jesus, Archie I just woke up I cannot deal with these digs, I don’t have my wits about me yet.” His only response was total silence and a laugh so loud that I had to actually remove the phone from my ear.

“Okay” he continued laughing “okay, so I made you an appointment to get fitted for your tux and I need you to be there at 9 am tomorrow morning, can you do that?”

“Yeah I can swing by after work, just text me the address”

“Great thanks, I’ve been pushing through these RSVP’s all day”

“How many people are gonna be at this thing?”

“Not many I think we’re up to 64 people”

“64 people, how do you even know 64 people?” I yelled

“Todd has a lot of family, in reality this is actually a smaller affair than he wanted it to be” I exhaled every single bit of air inside of my body. “Would you relax I’m not asking you for much, get fitted for a tux, by the way that we’re buying you and you get to keep, did I mention it will be custom fitted? You’ll show up, stand up front with me, make a 2 minute speech about how awesome I am, then you can call it a night. I won’t even give you a hard time for bailing early”

“I just don’t want to ruin this for you, I want your day to be perfect. I know that’s what you want”

“I wish I could wrap my head around this idea of perfection you’ve created in your head for everyone.”

“You all have these perfect lives and I’m really happy for you but I don’t know how I fit into that kind of world.”

“You don’t honestly think we all have perfect lives do you? You are exaggerating right?”

“You guys just have it all figured out” I huffed

“No one has a perfect life, not one single person from the gang has a perfect life and they would all tell you that if you bothered to ask, fuck Finn, Chop and Izzy broke up, they separated for 3 months. We are not perfect, have you met Chloe? She’d be the first to remind you that we do not exist in perfection.”

“She’s perfect”

“She is not perfect Finn, fuck, you don’t know anything. She’s-“

“I don’t want to know Archie”

“If you could just listen to me for like 5 minutes I think you’d feel a lot better”

“I don’t want to know, it will not make it better”  

“Why do you think everything is better by being in the dark?”

“I moved to get away from this what makes you think I want you to just show up and give me all the details about it. I don’t want to know, about any of it, even if I beg you to tell me. I want you to promise me that you will refuse to tell me anything before this goes any farther.”

“Alright” he sighed heavily “I promise, I won’t say anything else about it.”

“Thank you”

“It’s just” he stopped and again with the sigh “you’re not going to ruin this, I want you to be there, I need my best friend for this”

“Well as your best friend you have me here for whatever you need, to the best of my abilities.”

“That’s all I ask” I could actually hear the relief pour out of him

“I’ll be right on time for my fitting”

“You better be” was the last thing he said before hanging up on me.

 I’m not gonna sugar coat this, I pretty much spent the next 5 days wallowing in my misery and coming up with different scenarios in which this would implode, crash and burn and/or be completely ruined. I spoke to a therapist once, she told me that I wasn’t actually psychic and that maybe 200% of the time I was horribly wrong in how I made up in my mind how things would work out. As it turned out she was right pretty often, at least all those times I tested her theory. Mostly things like I won’t like that cereal or is 2% milk really all that different from 1% but at least she was sort of right, even if we’re only discussing breakfast foods. But mostly doesn’t really satisfy my over-active brain.

                6 years ago sitting across the table of a dive bar, she was laughing so hard that she actually had a tear run down her cheek. I couldn’t stop myself, I had leaned over and used my thumb to swipe it from her cheek.

“You’re such an ass” she laughed

“You enjoy my smart-ass come backs”

“I think you’re right Nelson, I do actually like you” once my cheeks returned to a normal color

“Yeah I’m pretty fond of you too Rae” Once Chop and Izzy returned to the table, he started in on this very elaborate story about orgasms in which we were all disgusted and really sure that Izzy was in for a pretty vanilla sex life. Rae kept shooting me glances, we were having an entire conversation via eyebrows and for a brief moment I actually thought she was flirting with me, her hand was on my thigh tracing out extremely horribly descriptive words about how crude his opinion of the female orgasm would be. She leaned over and whispered, her lips just ghosting across the shell of my ear, I was about to lose it. “How bad do you feel for Izzy after they have sex for the first time?”

“Maybe it’s not that bad, she might have to school him” I laughed

“What are you two love birds on about?” Chloe asked with that sly grin across her face.

“Uh we’re not-“

“Nothing” Rae responded quickly cutting me off, if she didn’t feel the need to correct them then there was no way I hell it would ever be me to do it.

“Didn’t look like nothing” She said smiling, cocking her head to one side, her side eye was legendary.

“Leave em’ alone Chloe” Izzy said laughing, pulling her back into the conversation, Izzy smiled and looked across to Rae and winked. Then, oddly enough Rae blushed and then excused herself to the restroom. It was one of the weirder experiences even though they gave us shit about our friendship constantly. It was hard for me to listen to them joke about us being together when that was all I wanted from her, I just could never work up the courage to tell her how I actually felt.

                To report back accurately I had met Todd and while he had a douchebag name, he was not actually a douchebag. He looked at Archie the way I had always looked at Rae and since I knew for a fact that the sun did not shine directly from Archie’s face, I knew that he was honestly in love with him. I am able to gather this fact to share because, unlike I was previously told, I was now sitting in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, cake tasting.

“When you gave me my list of duties, I don’t believe this was on them.”

“Shut up you’re eating free cake, even you cannot complain about that.”

“You’d be surprised what I can complain about” I responded smiling

“Well it’s less hurtful because you have icing on your nose”

“Dickhead”

“How can you even be waiting this late to pick a cake, the wedding is in 6 days”

“I have narrowed it down to this selection” he waves his hand over the 13 different cake options we have set out before us on the table “we’re making the final decision today” the volume of his voice increased as he shouted “if Todd will ever get off the phone so we can make this decision together” He threw back an apologetic smile and mouthed ‘I’m sorry’

“Won’t you have to deal with him having to take business calls at any given moment once you’re…how did you put it? Summering in the Hampton’s?”

I’d never really thought Archie would end up with a guy named Todd. The guy part not so shocking but seriously? Todd? It’s a douchebag name. Any way, it’s not like I just knew running away was the best decision, it just felt like the only one I could make with the least amount of damage to everyone around me. Guys have too much responsibility, I had to be the one to confess all my feelings to her and I just didn’t think she would want to hear it. It’s not like I could have stayed in that town and watched her amazing life unfold in front of me and play along. I can't be strong when I have to see it all but I can hide away here and try and make something for myself, even if it can't include her. If I’d stayed I know exactly what would have happened. We would have ended up alone together at some point and she’d be married to some guy in love and I’d kiss her because I just couldn’t stand it anymore and then I’d ruin everything. At least this way I was far enough not to ruin anything, I could deal with disappointing people from far away. Dad would come to NY eventually, I’m wearing him down slowly. 

At least I can still hold my liquor better than Archie, I drank him under the table, yet managed to stay sober enough to make it to work and had just put him to bed on the sofa. He’d managed to get me on the phone with Todd earlier and they’d made me promise to agree to be Archie’s best man. I had no other option, running away from it at this point would be impossible and I’m pretty sure Todd was loaded enough to hire a private investigator and find me no matter how far I went. There’s no way that she’d come all the way here for this wedding any way, I was probably safe. At the very least I’ll probably have to endure the annoying details of their perfect life from Chloe, she wouldn’t miss a wedding for anything. So I’m giving up for tonight, I’m going to work and I’ll face the gory details of what I’m going to have to do tomorrow, when I’m not just making them up myself.

As it turns out I didn’t really have to wait that long to find out exactly how far into this rabbit hole I was going to fall. Archie was up and apparently ready for the day when I managed to get myself back into the apartment.

“How are you not still drunk?”

“How did you go to work drunk?”

“I didn’t drink that much, is answering a question with a question your new thing?”

“It was tequila, I don’t get hangovers from tequila” he paced across the floor, clearly he had something big to drop now and had run out of time waiting for the right moment. Moments are funny like that, never really scheduling themselves perfectly.

“Can you just spit out whatever it is that you’re clearly avoiding telling me?”

“I don’t want you to get worked up”

“I’m already worked up, I’ve been awake for almost 24 hours, so whatever it is that you’re gonna tell me just say it because at least now my reaction time will be so delayed that it’ll give me time to think of a response to get out of it.”

“I don’t want you to try to find a way to get out of it” he huffed and then actually, in 5 year old fashion, stopped his foot. I probably shouldn’t have laughed when he did.

“Damnit Finn, I gave you your space, I didn’t pressure you about why you did all this, I never asked you any questions. I haven’t asked you for anything in the last 5 years and I just need you to do this one little thing for me without jumping in front of or on a bus.”

“Well it would be nice to know what this one little thing is” I maybe yelled a little at this point.

“I want you to be my best man”

“Archie I already said yes to that”

“The wedding is next Saturday”

“What the fuck Archie?”

“And she’ll be there” The look on my face was probably the exact thing he was trying to avoid, I’m sure it was a mixture of sheer terror and constipation. I could actually feel myself sweating, my cheeks burning and my heart was beating so fast I was sure it was going to explode.

“I don’t know if I can do this”

“It’ll be fine, you won’t even have to speak to her, you won’t even have to look at her, you’ll just be there for the ceremony and then give your speech at the reception and then you can resume your fucked up version of monkhood.”

“I do not live like a monk” I swore and then rolled my eyes harder than any teenage girl could ever hope to aspire to.

“But you do Finn, you’ve excluded yourself away from every single person you’ve ever known half a world away. You don’t have anything to do with any of us, when’s the last time you even saw your dad? Furthermore when’s the last time you went on a date? Did anything without brooding?”

“I’m really starting to regret those monthly emails.”

“Yeah that’s right, I can physically see you brood via email”

“You don’t understand-“

“I do, I understand perfectly. You’re in love with her, you’ve always been in love with her and then when she found someone she loved you couldn’t stand watching it happen. And then instead of telling her how you feel you thought all of this” he said waving his arms around the apartment “was a better decision than the possibility of ruining that one single friendship. It’s not like you had anyone else in your life that would have missed you.”

“That was almost heartfelt until the sarcasm at the end.”

“It’s either the sarcasm or I hit you and I thought that would go over better for what I’m asking you to do.”

“Good call”

“I know it won’t be easy for you but I know that I’ll regret it and I hope so will you if you aren’t there for me on this day. This is it for me, Todd is it for me, I love him and he loves me and I want you to be a part of our lives together and I hope that once I’m here with him we can work on that but right now I just need to be honest with you about what’s going to take place, I’m not going to surprise you with the details. This should make it easier for you if you know exactly what’s going to happen.”

“None of this is going to be easy”

“I said easier Nelson” it was an awkward silence for about 45 seconds longer than it should have been.

“I am happy for you” I said looking up, giving him a tight lipped smile

“I know I can tell by your level of excitement” In all honesty I had just gotten off work and was in no way ready for this conversation.

“I’m sorry okay, you just show up and spring all this on me, what did you expect? Did you think I was gonna excited about having to see her. I did, as you so nicely put, ‘all of this’ for a reason, it was miserable Archie, I can't see her” I sat down on the sofa and covered my face with my hands.

“I don’t want to cause you more pain, I honestly don’t, but I really want my best friend with me on this one day. I want you to know Todd, he thinks you’re my imaginary friend at this point.” I laughed and sat back leaning my head on the back of the couch.

“I’ll try Archie” I said shaking my head “I can't promise that I’ll be able to keep it together but I’ll try”

“Thank you” he sat down beside me and bumped me with his shoulder “that’s all I need, it’s enough to say you’ll try.”

“Now, since you look like shit and I’m pretty sure it’s hours past time for you to be in bed, I’m going to breakfast with Todd, his plane lands in an hour and I’ll call you tomorrow. You will answer the phone tomorrow, yes?”

“Yes I will answer the phone, I have to work tomorrow night, I can't do this all night shit anymore, I’m too old”

“You’ve always been an old man, since the day you were born”

“Thanks for that, thanks I can see now why I’ve wasted so much of my time these last few years actually missing you”

“You’ve missed me, I don’t need you to admit it out loud”

“So…how is she?”

“Do you want to know? Because I’ll tell you everything, I’ll give you every single detail of her life, if you honestly want to hear it?”  

“No, I don’t deserve to know, don’t tell me” I stood up and walked him to the door, “I’m glad that you still want me there for you after all the shit I put everyone through”

“Sorry Nelson, you’re stuck with me for the rest of your life, no matter what”

“Thank you” I half smiled “I’m glad that you still want to be stuck with me”