If person + person is okay, can I ask for Ray + Anna? If not, could you please do Ray + happiness?
(I can do both.)
When he was young, happiness was something Ray felt like he needed to earn. Being lonely was not happiness, that much he’s certain. And so he worked, and worked, and worked, until he pulled himself out of his isolated childhood.
But it wasn’t until he was 30, when he met Anna, that he truly felt he knew exactly what happiness was.
Anna was passionate, kind, a bit hotheaded, stubborn, sometimes forgetful, plump, and a terrible, terrible cook (they used to joke that between the two of them, they’d give their child food poisoning before they could learn their first word). She was perfect, and Ray was in love. And Anna returned that love, just as much, just as deep, and it was the best feeling in the world.
They dated for two years, two of the best years of Ray’s life, and finally got engaged in early 2014. And Ray had felt like he’d done it, he’d gotten there, he at last had taken a step through the threshold of happiness, and he couldn’t wait to see where he and Anna were headed next.
He never expected it all to be so violently ripped away from him, two months later.
Losing Anna was losing a part of his soul. It hurt, it hurt, and suddenly happiness wasn’t within reach anymore. It was lost the moment Anna died, somewhere high above the abyss he’d fallen into. So he stopped thinking about it, placed it in the very back of his mind. It was unattainable, and Ray made peace with that.
Time went on, and more people entered into Ray’s life. Felicity, Kendra, almost Leonard, and while Ray loved them with all his heart, in his soul he never expected them to last, to stay. That’d be the good ending, the happy ending, and God knows Ray was never meant to head that way. He’d tried that, once, and he was pretty sure Anna would have preferred to still be alive.
Everyone leaves in the end. Ray loses them all, one way or another. He’s also pretty certain that that’s not how happiness works, either.
But then Leonard comes back.
He comes back, and Ray can’t believe it. Can’t believe this miracle, this second chance, this sheer improbable turn of events. Tentatively, Ray reaches out. Slowly, slowly, until Leonard responds, until they talk things out, until one night they’re wrapped around each other, holding on like their lives depend on it, and as they drift off into sleep together, Ray thinks maybe, maybe, happiness isn’t that far away after all.
(Maybe he’s finally ready to give it another try.)
