“Okay no you weren’t, they used a bit naughtier words.” Eric conceded with that youthful smirk, trying to hold down his own laughter. Was life really this easy once upon a time? It seemed alien. In DC, everything was serious, all actions had a cost and a calculation and no day was truly easy, not in Eric’s world. From the moment he woke up, his mind was just a serious of plans and considerations. It was draining if he was honest to himself, and it’s hard to really understand how much it doesn’t have to be like that until you were seeing it in action.
Part of him was already readying himself for when this little coffee meeting was going to end. After that, she’d go on her way and it would all be a distinct memory. That was their way, after all, two lost stars catapulting through the galaxy, brushing one another but never locking orbit. He couldn’t bring himself to be hers, even if she wanted it (and he was sure she didn’t). Eric may have gotten Laurel’s forgiveness today, but he hadn’t forgiven himself, that was a journey to which he wasn’t sure he’d ever get to the other end.
The brooding worries washed away at seeing the blond’s face light up with laughter and he found himself joining her, just letting the mirth fill his body. They probably looked like ageing fools but he didn’t care. Heck, he doubted anyone would recognise the person he was in front of Laurel, that was a version of Eric that only existed in her singular pull.
At her shock of his single status, he just shrugged, looking a moment out of the window as she asked his excuse. There was the real answer, he couldn’t face another marriage after his last. When Laurel left, it took a part of him too, the bit of him that could trust, that could believe in love and happily ever after. Now it had turned to dust, he couldn’t conjure the energy to walk that road again. He’d turned away and sat instead in the desert of bare needs and little thought, where the world was simpler. But that was too honest for a first reunion.
“I know, I know. I blame DC. They clearly ain’t got good tastes for an ole Nebraskan Irish soul like my self.” Eric let his accent slide back him, the one only she knew he had, offering her a wink and a chuckle. Yes, humour, let’s stick with that.
Wandering through memories of her college years was a bittersweet sensation. If Laurel had to choose the moment her life started to fall apart, it surprisingly wasn’t the death of her child or the divorce with Eric, but the singular moment when she was confronted with life’s harsh realities. It was something as simple as the realisation that she wasn’t as good as she thought herself to be, but it was enough to shake her entire belief system. It was a life lesson, one that changed her forever, the turning point into womanhood. It was the cold sensation of reality washing over delusions.
She blushed, her already rosy cheeks turning redder, and the cool air inside of the coffee shop didn’t feel so cold anymore. “You’re making that up.” It wasn’t modesty, exactly. She wasn’t a saint, either, and had also been taught that a woman’s beauty can be her primary weapon, but she had never thought hers polished enough to be anyone’s topic of conversation. Especially in law school, where her eyes gained the permanent hues of black under her eyes, and her clothing choices were as comfortable as they could be, instead of the sophisticated fashion sense working in law later demanded. However, before Eric could mention what those ‘naughtier ways’ could be, not that she thought he would, she warned him. “I don’t want to hear it.” She made a face, an expression of guarded disgust. “If there’s one thing I’m glad I don’t have to deal with anymore is young adult’s hormones.” She punctuated that sentence with laughter.
Then, the notion that he remained unmarried all these years was both a relief and a torment. It was selfish, she knew, to expect someone to wait for you, to trap them in an invisible embrace when you were the one to cast them aside - but she couldn’t help it but feel like it meant something, other than just a sign of his busy life, that his inability to marry was akin to her inability to hold a steady relationship. And oh, had she tried, but she eventually found herself comparing them to Eric, mixing up likes and dislikes, finding substitutes to how she felt when she was with him. It was selfish, again. She was a selfish person.
“Well, if that’s how you talk to the ladies, I’m sure they just don’t understand you.” She joked, the pleasure of hearing his (true) accent again, so uncharacteristic to the person Eric presented to be today, that he morphed into someone else completely. That idea made her wonder if it was possible to know someone, truly, with twenty years of being apart. Laurel allowed herself to really look at him now, this version of Eric she no longer knew. From the bad haircuts and cheap clothes to the infancy of the image he presented to the world now, the truth was, and she had to admit it to herself: she didn’t know him anymore.
God, she wanted a cigarette. She had picked up that bad habit many years ago, and tried to control herself but when her anxiety rose, it was the only thing that could calm her down. Yet, that was a part of Laurel she didn’t want Eric to know. She realised, then, that maybe he didn’t know her anymore, either. It broke her heart to think it. “I know what you mean, though. Everyone in D.C. is just so intimidating.”
