Upon first arrival, Westview was nothing special. Less than that, really. Rundown. Dingy. Almost all of the buildings were old with paint flaking, some of them even having chunks of brick missing from the sides, business signs hanging on the will of rusted screws. The people there looked miserable-- like they hadn’t spent a day living in the world, like they were run down from their repetitive routines of a small town they never left after growing up. It smelled like old asphalt, sewage, and a sad excuse for a pizzaeria. Every house she passed in the tragic suburbia looked almost uninhabited, dead grass and leaves made up the lawns and overgrowth creeping up the panels and shingles of the roofs. Not a single soul seemed to care for this place. But something about it must have spoke to Vision for him to buy the vacant lot. Whatever it was, though, Wanda couldn’t see it. She didn’t have The Vision.
Would it have been different had he been the one to introduce her to it? Would it have felt different if he were standing behind her with the ideas he envisioned for the place? Maybe the scattered pieces of an unassembled foundation would have felt like building from the ground up instead of the sight of his disassembled body. What did stand behind her was that wave-- that wave of grief, knocking her to her knees onto the stiff ground. That feeling of drowning was taking root and spreading so rapidly, she wasn’t sure she could fight to stay afloat this time.
This wasn’t how life was supposed to be. In her legs. No family, no friends, no home, no shenanigans with happy endings. In her belly. This wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted a small, but happy little town. In her fingers. She wanted a beautiful home comfortable enough to raise a children with Vision. In her lungs. She wanted the opportunity to make real friends. In her arms. Most of all, she wanted to be happy.
In her heart.
And then it burst. Burst out of her chest with every desire she had building up around her like a dam to contain the wave and keep it from drowning her. Vision now stood in front of her across the room of a beautiful house, his eyes met hers and suddenly she was floating. He called her name and she didn’t even notice the leaking in the corners of her creation. All she saw was him and the future that could finally be possible in the house she made in Westview.
