Her words were so light, so soft and sincere, and yet they felt like blows to his chest. Jonah didn’t feel like he deserved that title. Not today, not ever. “I remember you, well… us actually.”
“It’s nothing solid, i just remember snippets but… we were arguing over what song to play on the radio, of course we couldn’t come to an agreement, so you just started singing louder than the song itself. I laughed so hard i nearly ran us off the road,” he said, a huff of laughter escaping at the thought. “- and one day i came home and there was a dog,” he said, his eyebrows raising in shock as though he was just seeing it for the first time. “The thing was though, we didn’t own a dog.” The day that Hendrix was welcomed into their home was one that Jonah would never forget.
There was one memory though, that was the most vivid in his mind. It was clearer than almost anything else. “We ordered take out,” he said, his voice an octave lower, somewhat apprehensive as he spoke, “You were in the car and Al asked me if we’d like fortune cookies with our meal. I said yes, but only on the condition that i could choose what fortune he put in there. When we got home you were saying how rubbish fortune cookies were, and that you swore Al always purposely gave you one of the crappy ones,” he said, shaking his head with laughter. “We sat on the couch and I watched you nibble at the cookie before you even got to the note, almost as though you must have known what i’d done. It was excruciating.” Jonah looked towards her face to see if any of this meant anything to her, if she remembered any of it all. So much in his head was hazy, or maybe it was just him in denial, his brain pushing away parts he didn’t want to remember. “You finally got to the note and doubled over in a fit of laughter, clutching at your stomach, wheezing for air. My breath stopped for a minute. I don’t know, i thought maybe i’d made a mistake.” He swallowed, taking a deep breath before he continued. “You asked me to crack mine, and see what other nonsense it contained. So i did - and it read the exact same two words. Your laughing started to die down, i assume because you saw the look on my face. I was terrified, Bea. I shrugged and told you the truth. I had asked Al to give me two of the same, because knowing my luck, i’d end up giving you the wrong one and i’d be sitting there like a fool with a note that read ‘Marry me?’. Thankfully you didn’t think it was quite as crappy as your usual fortunes” Jonah looked down at the tiles and scuffed his feet along them, feeling like a kid again (technically he was a kid again). “-it wasn’t a mistake,” he added, looking up once again to meet her eyes. “It was the best choice i ever made.”
An argument over a song. A mutual home. A dog. He sounded almost crazy at first, and her lips parted to call him out for it but then -- “Hendrix,” she remembered, “oh, God, Hendrix.” How could she miss an animal that hadn’t even been born yet? Ever since she had been a child she’d wanted another dog and Jonah had taken it quite well when she had, with no warning or explanation whatsoever, brought one home with her. He had always taken her spontaneous ideas and outbursts quite well. Not that she would call Hendrix a mistake; if she remembered correctly, they had been damn good pet owners. Beatrice barely had any time to dwell on that thought. The more that he said, the more that came back and it was all so real. Too real. He looked up, and she understood the silent question. Did she remember? But she couldn’t bring herself to answer him, to speak at all, her heart aching until the very last word when once again he met her eyes, a surprising amount of genuineness in them. She had never been anyone’s best choice.
“Damn it Jonah,” she whispered, wiping a stray tear away with her thumb. All of the knowledge was overwhelming, the memories of things they had never done coming back at full force, and he wasn’t making it any easier by saying things like that. But she had asked. She wanted to know. She needed to know. It was a lot too process, maybe too much in the amount of time that she had before she needed to answer. The worst part was knowing that because of some stronger force, something completely out of control, they had lost the life they had worked so hard to build. Something beautiful that rose from the ashes only to be gone in the blink of an eye. It felt like a bad hangover; the frayed emotions, the headache and the fuzzy incomplete flashbacks but if she tried, if she really tried to focus, she could sort out scenes in her head, a movie filmed in her point of view. Sitting on the couch, a paper slip between her fingers that for once was not telling her to do something but asking instead. The floor as she stared down, the sound of her own laughter filling the room. Cookie crumbs that had yet to be brushed away scattered on her jeans. And Jonah, who couldn’t have looked more frightened if he’d seen a ghost.
She remembered saying you’re a nerd (translation: I love you) before leaning forward to place a kiss on his lips. She remembered she had never been more sure of anything as she said I would have to be a fucking idiot to say no (translation: of course I will marry you) and kissed him again. She remembered thinking that she had found it, that her entire life she had not known what she was looking for but it had been under her nose her all along. It was him. Teenage Bea would scoff at the idea and possibly gag -- she’d always had a flare for the dramatics -- but she’d been blind not to see it. He was the person that stood by her during the highs and lows, even though she seemed to have plenty more lows. He reminded her who she was when she forgot. He kept her grounded. He gave her something to cling to, her own beacon of hope and light during the insanity they’d been forced through when they were just kids, not ready for the weight of the things that had been thrown on their shoulders. He was her security blanket, her safety net, her sanctuary. He was the one person in the world that she could trust entirely, with everything that she had. He was her best friend.
“I was happy.” She swallowed the lump in her throat but she did not tear her eyes away from his as she continued. “I was happier than I had ever been. And it felt like... somehow, some way, I had gotten my happy ending. But the best part was that it wasn’t the end. It was only the beginning. And I was scared -- no, I was fucking terrified that I would lose you. That one day you would wake up and you would realize you deserved better or, because life and death are sick and cruel and twisted, you would be ripped away from me and I would be alone. Again.” She shook her head, her eyes finally falling. “But I trusted you. And I thought that maybe karma or God or fate or whatever would realize that you and I had both had our fair share of suffering and it was time that we get a break.” She should have known better. There were missing years that she could not account for, gaps in the story, but that didn’t seem to matter in the moment. Her eyes flickered back to him, lips twitching into the slightest smile. “Saying yes. That was the best choice that I ever made.”
Dog walks in the park. Her hand in his. Ordering takeout and laughing about nothing. Silly fights that were always resolved or forgotten about within minutes. A dream that she would have never been able to put together herself, a dream that she would have been to afraid to even wish for. She wanted to stay in ignorant bliss, cling to the hope and joy she had felt on that evening and every evening with him but something snapped her back to reality and she found it all slipping through her fingers in the blink of an eye. All over again. “But you didn’t ask,” she realized aloud. “And I didn’t say yes.” It must have been a selfish thing to care about during this time, at the wrong age, in the wrong place and no one with any knowledge as to how they had gotten there. But she had to know. Her voice came out much steadier than she felt when she forced her gaze to him again, but even then she wondered if he could hear the break in it. “So where does that leave us?”
blakekathryn
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yousharknotpass
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