smolwildfire:
A bright future. If there was anything Sally had kept herself focused on since she was a little girl ( aside from what her cousin’s always got for Christmas, versus what she always got ) it was her future and where she planned to be by the age the she was now. Frankly, sitting by her cell phone all night waiting on a phone call as to why her boyfriend hadn’t shown up was not exactly the future she’d foreseen. Waiting for a public service award, perhaps… Maybe even a letter from the residential mayor to personally thank her for her charitable town contributions. Either of those two things, Sally Redmayne would happily — albeit impatiently — wait for. But this, she simply didn’t stand for anymore. This… this new waiting game… she was getting sick of.
In the early, still uncharted waters of her relationship with Brandon, she had to admit that she gave him a lot of second chances. Her infatuation with him had been something of a slow burn that when finally ignited into something more, she simply had adorned his worst traits with personally handcrafted benefit of the doubt. For anything about him that previously had gotten on her nerves, the thrill of attraction and the excitement of something new had dulled that reality for her. For a while, she simply just liked him flaws and all and the more she’d gotten to know parts of his personality he’d hidden from her, the more she felt more privileged than she ever had before.
But as time went on and their lives began to mirror each other, Sally began to worry about the little things. Like the way he never really seemed to talk about life after Lakewood, or how he seemed so comfortable in this routine they’d unmistakably made, she wondered if she was to change it tomorrow, could he have coped? In a plain psychoanalysis of herself, she was starting to feel stuck and she hated it. By now, she wanted to be in a leadership position, she wanted to be living in a grand city and dictating a company of minions beneath her in order to give the fashion world her very best. Instead, though, she still lived with her parents and had only just attained her driver’s license at the embarrassing age of twenty-six. Pulling her hair into an uncharacteristically lazy bun that signaled she was done with the outside world for the day, she’d gotten dressed in her nightgown and robe and settled on the reality. Whatever Brandon was doing this evening it was clearly more important than showing up on time to catch a weekly airing of some reality TV show they both loved to hate-watch, and providing her with a new and challenging recipe. Riddled with irritation at the amount of missed calls she left on his phone, by the time she even thought about leaving a voicemail she knew radio silence would be better. Cinching her robe tightly at her waist as she meandered around her bedroom, Sally began to organize her things for work tomorrow, shooting an occasional salty look at her phone that lit up once, but by now, she was too bitter to check it. No, if that was him, he could suffer. He’d wasted part of her night already, she was going to make good use of what was left of it.
She felt Ana’s presence at her doorway before even turning to see her, the housekeeper having become something of a lingering ghostly presence in the last few weeks. One might argue it might be a reflection of Sally’s short fuse s of late, though she would also be the first to deny it. “What, Ana? I’m really not in the mood for whatever it is you’re over there hunching about.” Sally snapped, having only glanced at the older woman for a second before turning back to her laptop and slamming down the pink lid a little too hard. When she didn’t get a reply, however, Sally turned around to look at the housekeeper once more though behind her now stood Brandon, and for a moment, Sally had a whole new argument in her head about letting people in without first consulting her. “Oh, good. It’s only,” Sally lifted her wrist then to look at her watch before realizing she’d already rid herself of her jewelry, so then turned to the clock on the wall. “Four hours later than you said you would come over.”
Brandon had known Ana from the many times he had visited Sally and he usually enjoyed telling her all about the things hated and being a general pain in the ass, but this time their short walk up to Sally’s room only had silence. Brandon’s mind was very clear for someone who had screwed things up pretty badly. For once, Brandon saw things for what they were. He should have called Sally to reschedule, especially when he knew how much organization and order meant to her, but he didn’t. That was something he had already accepted the blame for and wouldn’t argue against. He genuinely felt guilty for not updating her but things had gone so fast and his mind had been on other things at the time. Still, he recognized it had been his fault and that in itself was something he didn’t always do. As they reached Sally’s room, Brandon stepped from behind Ana and entered inside, figuring he shouldn’t be hiding from the scolding Sally probably prepared ahead of time. “Actually it’s four hours and seventeen minutes, but I’m sure you knew that already too” Brandon said, though the snarky comment was more of a natural response than it was him trying to get under her skin. Realizing the nature of his words, Brandon shook his head a little ashamed before stepping closer towards Sally to remove the large space between them.
“Something important came up” Brandon began in an attempt to explain himself before he suddenly stopped and back tracked. For someone who alway chose his words very carefully, tonight Brandon was speaking like a rough draft –– raw and true but with many mishaps. “It was my dad” He added, feeling the need to clarify. He knew Sally would interpret his words to mean that something more important than her had come up, and he didn’t feel like burying himself by letting her believe that, especially when it wasn’t necessarily true. “I should have called but... I don’t know” He said, this time letting a deep sigh escape from his mouth as he tried to gather his thoughts once again. He didn’t like talking about his father very much, other than to complain about him and his choices. As far as Sally was probably concerned, Brandon still despised his father and would never forgive him for things that happened in the past. But Brandon didn’t necessarily feel that way tonight. “I just... he needed me to bail him out of some trouble. And I know that most of the time I say I don’t care about him or what he does, but I do. He’s still my dad and when I came back from New York as a disgraced author he was there for me so...” He said, the explanation coming out a little more rattled and jumbled than he intended but he wanted her to know and he wanted to expose the truths buried deep inside that he very rarely chose to speak about. “I know this sounds like some sort of bullshit excuse but I just want you to know because I want you to know all of me, not just the pieces I choose to show” That had always been the problem with his past relationships, eventually the other person would feel like they had reached a wall that they couldn’t climb over and one he refused to take down. He didn’t want that to happen with Sally.
“... I’m sorry” He finally said. Apologies were very rare for Brandon, hence the million words and explanations prior, but he had made it there eventually and he hoped it’d be a start to getting pass this issue. “... I should have called” He said again, completely unaware of the fact that he was now repeating himself again. Truthfully, Brandon was trying, probably a lot harder than he had with anyone else. For now, all he could do was apologize and explain himself and hope for the best.










