Work Text:
Ella Sommers
My hand shook a bit as they reached for the cabinet below the marble counters of the spacious bathroom. I took the test and forced my hand to be steady as I set down the test on the counter.
It’s the same day. A voice kept whispering in the back of my mind. It’s the same day…
I was going through these motions for what was nothing short of the fiftieth time, each time shattering my heart into particles so tiny, I could swear I felt the pain of each and every one of the muscles torn from my body. Bit by bit.
It’d all started as a dream one fateful night when the little girl with piercing green eyes and soft brown hair started running through the meadows, fighting to catch my Aaron—who was effortlessly running infront for her—with those chubby little legs of hers.
She never truly left my mind after that, she kept coming again and again—each time her laugh a little bit brighter, a little bit more lively.
The day after that she’d come in my dreams again, but this time I was the one chasing behind the little girl, but everytime I’d get close to pick her up, she’d pick up the speed—reappearing somewhere else in an instant.
Each time the second line refused to come, she run yet again—faster.
I’d wonder sometimes, won’t her little legs get tired and wary? Those moments make me want more than anything in the world to pick her up, snuggle her against my chest and rock her to sleep.
But the time rolled on and each time she ran farther.
And farther,
farther
farther
And
Y e t f a r t h e r
Until all that was left of her was her laugher trapped in a corner of my mind, torturing me each living moment, threatening to swallow me whole and raw.
But someone of my position, couldn’t break. Not when the whole world is shattered beyond belief and many more trying to shatter it yet further. So I did what I used to do—all those years back in the asylum—I trapped her voice in the far corner of my mind and built walls around them.
Again.
And again.
And again, until I accepted the truth that Once-upon-a-time-fairy-tales ends with the magic kiss that sets her free, and, that perhaps, was the ultimate happiness of the happily ever afters—living a life so unbelievably beautiful with your other half that you couldn’t have even fathomed in the days of engulfing darkness.
And the show went on, the girl who killed the supreme commanders showed up for her meetings, she showed up and did what had to be done.
But she never truly left my mind.
I saw her in the bubbling smiles of little Gigi.
I saw her in the beautiful, radiant eyes of my Aaron.
I saw her everywhere—and yet nowhere.
My thought were interrupted my the soft clamouring of plates and water running downstairs.
Aaron.
A smile spreading my face—no matter how many years, he’d insisted that Sundays were his spoiling-my-gorgeous-wife-with-pancakes-and-extra-honey days.
One time I’d tried to wake up early to surprise him. And I ended up carried back to bed, dangling on the shoulders of my half-asleep husband, murmuring in my ears Sundays were his to spoil me.
My heart feels lighter as though his very name, by some magic lifted the weight crushing me to the ground and through it, off my shoulders.
With him I’m safe.
With him I’m happy.
And somehow that gave me the courage to face the test, what it’ll inevitable tell me again, the pain I’ll feel.
A thousand times over.
And over.
And over again.
My legs tremble as walk towards the counter, my heart beating a merciless rhythm—threatening to tear out of my skin, maybe, that’ll lessen the pain
My throat is sandpaper dry.
My chest feels impossibly tight.
My eyes trail their way from the wooden cabinets towards the countertop where the test lie
And w h a t
I
s e e
t a k e s
m e
o u t
Two lines.
Two.
This can’t be real.
This can’t be real.
This can’t be real.
My knees give out, dropping me onto the hard tiles, tears freely streams down my face like small raindrops blessing the earth with water. Every part of my being screams, as though on fire.
This can’t be real. It feels as though the fate is playing a cruel joke on me, forcing me to accept only to give hope.
I force my legs to be steady, pulling myself off the ground. I need to know.
The test is in my trembling hands and two. Still two lines.
I
S h a t t e r
I clutch the test to my chest, heaving in and out like a fish out of water.
My hands shake so badly as I reach for the second test. Two is sure, I remember the doctors saying.
I wait for someone to wake me up.
I wait for someone to tear this away from my hands.
I wait for her to run away again.
I wait
And
I wait
But this time she doesn’t run.
I might be a mom.
I might be a mom.
I might be a mom.
The thoughts send a fresh wave of tears down my face. Bliss, happiness and uncertainty all tangled together.
My legs react before my mind could catch up, taking my body out of the bathroom and into the stairs at the end of the halls.
The smell of sweet honey and pancakes hits me first, followed by the clatter of plates and a feeble hum of “Like a rolling stone”
Aaron turns around at the sound of my footsteps, a plate full of pancakes and spatula still in hand.
“Good morning, love,” He says, gently placing down the pancakes and offering me a sweet smile. Dimples.
And just like that the last of my restraint gives out, tears flowing out of my eyes hysterically.
T h e
w o r l d
t i l t s
The smile vanishes from his face the moment he sees my tears. The spatula clatters to the ground.
And I before can breathe, he’s running the ten feet between us to reach me.
He cups my face in his hand, thumbs trembling as he gently kisses away the tears as fast as they fall.
“What happened, love? Who did this to you?” He asks, his voice—a strange mix of fear and fury.
“I—Aaron,”
I will my voice to come out, to form the words, but all that escapes me are choked sobs, tearing out of my chest before I can stop them.
Wordlessly, I take his hand from my cheek and place the tests on it.
For a moment the assurances he was murmuring in my ear stopped, his whole frame went unnaturally still.
Like for a moment, the earth itself stopped moving.
The birds stopped chirping.
The winds stopped blowing.
For a moment nothing exists outside of the two of us.
And then—
His face split into the most radiant smile in the world. I could see the sun in his brilliant face.
In the next beat, he scoops me up from the ground and spins me in the air, kissing my abdomen, and whispering all sorts of sweet things to our child.
Our child.
Aaron Warner Anderson, the steady rhythm of my life.
The boy with a smile that lights up the world.
The boy who wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice his life for mine,
The boy who stayed by my side through the ups and downs and the wild boomerangs life throws at us.
The boy who stayed.
For me.
And I know that as long as I have him by my side—as long as time is an entity—I’ll be okay.