As it turns out, fighting is something they’re decidedly good at. They fight about silly things and serious things and serious things pretending to be silly things. On their first date, they fight about the past, that sharp black that snaps with ferocity, and on many dates after that, they fight about the future, that shimmering white that heals all wounds, because they know now that they have one.
Pam is still insecure despite her outward appearance of change, her growth, and Jim only knows this because he looks hard enough to see it, because he looks beyond the fancy new shirts and shiny hair. He watches her as she paints, as she sketches on lazy Saturdays as they sprawl across the bed, naked save the blinding white sheets surrounding them. Over the black words splayed to the newspaper in his hands, he sees her furrow her brow, pull her bottom lip between her teeth. All too often the ungainly glasses slip down her nose, magnifying the eyes that sometimes beg him to slow down, to wait and let her catch up before she runs completely out of breath. He glances up from the sports page to notice the way her cheeks flush with creation. He frowns as they sometimes redden with irritation when the well of her creativity freezes over, blackens. Those are the moments that he worries, that he fears he’ll never be enough.
Jim still jokes when he shouldn’t and sometimes maddeningly refuses to take himself seriously. She sees it, the way the bright white paper he sells for a living weighs him down. She asks him about it, tentatively broaches the topic, and much like the day she’d discovered his doppelganger, he freezes. Shuts down. Refuses to entertain the idea in any real way. She watches him, though, on lazy Saturdays as she sketches in bed. Her eyes move over the top of her sketch book and past the charcoal-blackened tips of her fingers to rest on his face, to watch him as he reads. His eyes devour the stats and stories on home runs and shots missed and made. He caresses them, pulls them into his embrace, owns them. She knows from experience what this feels like and she wishes he’d take a chance on something other than her. In addition to her. She knows he wants to ask her, has seen the question in his eyes a million times before. Those are the moments that terrify her because it’s then that she knows she can’t be all of him. She can’t be all of him because then there’s nothing left for her but suffocating blackness.
She’s it, and he’s known it for years. She’s the woman he wants to marry, the woman he wants to hold and have and live with and create life with. He wants to push his dreams and hopes and fears into her so that she knows his heart in its entirety. For so long she was the essence of his dreams, the shape of his hope, the putrid taste of his fears. She’s broken his heart and now she’s putting it back together. He knows she knows these things about him, thinks that she’s too much of him. He feels her worry that he’s lost but he’s not. She’s his compass, and while he’s content to live any life as long as she’s by his side and happy, he know’s she’s right. He can’t remain a paper salesman forever, but he doesn’t think about that now, not when all he sees is the promise of her dressed in white.
He’s it, but it’s only a recent discovery. He’s the man she wants to be with, the man she wants inspiring her and standing by her side. She wants to open her heart to him, to release the dreams and hopes and fears that have choked her for what seems like forever so that he might know all of her. For so long the uncertainty of him was the thing she feared, but the firmness of his place in her life now traces him in a new light, forces her to redefine her dreams, to wrap her hope in careful anticipation. She knows she’s broken his heart, and while hers needs healing too, she thrives on the complete shape his is becoming. She’s seen him watching her, knows he’s studied her skin, her heart until they split open to spill her secrets before him. He worries that he isn’t enough, and she finds this ridiculous because he’s everything. She can see him standing at the bright white light of their future, but she’s still closing the distance, enjoying the soft steps she's taking toward him.
Sometimes they fight because they still haven’t quite figure out how to form the words of certain conversations. The road is uncertain between black and white, and gray is not well marked. There are entire sentences and one word in particular that get lost in the back of her throat, trapped behind years of muted suffocation recently alleviated but not eradicated, not yet. There are promises and truths that shine brilliantly behind his eyes, but there are shadows there too.
They fight about the past, though not often. But they fight about the future because it matters.
Author's Chapter Notes:
I read the warning label: You break, you buy. I don't own anything, so I'll be extra careful.
Chapter End Notes:
Holla!
Catie9 is the author of 7 other stories.
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