Nothing Really Matters

We had decided to stay in Georgia over Thanksgiving, celebrating it with Andy and his family before they got back to the U.K and Norman and I went back to New York to pick up Mingus, who would be joining us for a week in Italy. As far as I knew, they didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving in England but Andy and his wife must have spent enough time in the US, because they had made everything I remembered Thanksgiving was like way back in Boston. Even the kids knew what it was all about.

“Dad, you start.”
“Start what?”

Andy turned to his son a while after we had started eating.

“Say what you’re thankful for.”
“Right, of course…. Ok. I’m thankful for you and your sister, for being healthy and happy and so smart and just the best kids ever.”
“Dad!”

The boy protested when his father messed up his hair.

“And I’m thankful for you, my beautiful wife, for putting up with me another year. And I’m really, really thankful that you’re here with us today, London… I remember last year, when we had just wrapped up as well and we were having dinner just like now and you were here then too.”

Andy turned and looked at his best friend, sitting next to me.

“I really don’t remember that.”
“That’s because you drank way too much.”

Gale informed him with a smile.

“Why?”

I had to ask, because I knew he usually didn’t get drunk unless it was a reason for it.

“I don’t quite remember, but I think… Didn’t you just get dumped? Like the day before, this chick dumped you over the phone?”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Yeah and you were just pissed as hell and you said you’d never date anyone ever again and the only thing you were thankful for was a large bottle of tequila…. A lot has changed since then, man.”
“Sure has. I got a lot to be thankful for this year.”
“We both do.”

I said and took his hand.

“What are you most thankful for, London?”

The question came from the girl sitting across from me. She was a perfect mixture of both her parents and she made me smile every time I saw her.

“I’m most thankful for meeting all you guys and letting me be part of your family. I’m thankful for having a roof over my head and food on the table every night and I’m really thankful for being able to share that with you, that you’re still here.”
“I ain’t going anywhere, baby.”
“Your turn, Norman!”
“Alright… I’m thankful for your parents actually.”
“No way!”
“Yes way! You guys have pretty awesome parents, you know that, right? I know I put you both through hell this year and I’m just thankful I’m still allowed inside the house…. And I’m thankful I actually didn’t keep the promise from last year that I would never date again.”
“Did you guys ever date though? “

Andy asked, making us look at each other, both of us thinking back to the beginning of our relationship.

“You know, if you actually have to think this hard about it, you didn’t date.”
“No, we did. Sort of. You took me over to Queens, that’s was sort of a date, right? And I bought you breakfast the day after. That’s gotta count.”
“What did you do in Queens?”
“Talked….”
“You had to go all the way out to Queens to talk?”
“I had this place over in Queens, you know where I could always be alone, disappear. I took him there to tell him everything that had happened before. It was easier to be somewhere that was familiar to me and not in his apartment.”
“Guess that make sense.”
“Dad, I’m done.”
“Me too.”

The kids scattered from the table within seconds and the TV was soon entertaining them. After I had helped Gale clean up after the most amazing dinner we rejoined the table, where the men were discussing getaways in Europe.

“When are you leaving?”

Gale asked as both of us sat down at the table again.

“December 1st. Driving back to New York on Saturday to pick up Mingus first.”
“Thought this would be a honeymoon?”

Andy smirked at the pair of us.

“He’s only staying for a week.”
“How long are you staying then?”
“Not sure, we haven’t decided yet. We will be back in New York for Christmas though, right?”

We hadn’t actually talked about it yet, but I really wanted to celebrate our first Christmas together back home in New York with Mingus.

“Yeah, sure.”

He said.

“Still need to work on your communication I hear.”
“Shut up, Andy… We just haven’t had time to talk about it yet. You know, just taken one day at the time right now.”
“Have you talked to Dr. Carter?”
“Yesterday actually. We do video chats most of the times now, it’s a lot easier than having her flying down here every time. You’ve been talking to her more than me lately.”

Norman had been talking with Dr. Carter almost every other day for the past 2 weeks. He said he needed to get his head straight and understanding what had happened and why things had happened. He had been a bit emotional damaged from the start, and although he was far from having to deal with my issues, I knew he needed every minute he got with the doctor. I knew my issues and everything that came with loving me, had made things worse for him, but he had assured me he was working it out.

“Yeah… There’s been a lot of shit to set straight. I really like having a lot of things going on but the last couple of months have been absolutely insane.”
“You really haven’t had that much time alone ether. The weekends don’t really give much quality time. You deserve a break from everyone and everything else. Is it still insane? The press? The Internet?”
“Yeah… We went to see a movie last night… Well, we tried to see a movie last night. We didn’t even get inside the damn theater cause of all the photographers. After all the fucking stories coming left and right from people back in Boston lately, it’s… More insane then before.”
“I saw some of them. How much is true?”
“They’re probably all true to some extent. All the arrests and mug shots are true, I mean they’re apparently public record now so not much I can do about it.”
“There’re a lot of ex boyfriends.”
“That on the other hand is bullshit…. I never had boyfriends back in Boston, I wasn’t allowed. I just slept with them, trying to piss my dad off as much as possible.”
“A rebel already then, huh?”
“Yes, sir and proud of it.”

We played a few board games that evening, just talking and laughing, enjoying each other’s company to the last minute. It would be weird not seeing them pretty much every single day. They really were family, in some ways they treated me like a daughter. Andy was always worrying and Gale was fussing over me with everything from eating right to spending quality time on my own. I pretended to be annoyed every time she did, but I secretly enjoyed it and she knew that as well.
So much had changed but at the same time everything was the same. We checked in on the same hotel on our way driving back home to New York, as we had stayed at driving down to Georgia a million years ago. We had probably been through more than most people go through in a lifetime, the past 6 months. I found myself being extremely emotional that night when we crawled down in the exact same bed, in the same room as before, but I wasn’t the only one. He was quite and in deep thought as he wrapped his arms around and neither of us spoke for a long time. I had almost fallen asleep when he began to talk. We talked for hours that night. He talked a lot about what he had discussed with Dr. Carter when I hadn’t been there. I told him some more about growing up in Boston, about my first time having sex and what happened afterward. And we talked about the future.

………………………………..

I had given her free reins about decorating the apartment for Christmas, but I had never expected to walk inside an amazing winter wonderland after leaving her alone a few days before the holidays. I had been over in L.A., catching up with some friends, including Sean. I knew she loved Christmas, but I thought I had walked inside the wrong apartment when I got home Wednesday morning. Mingus and she were decorating a huge tree, wearing matching America flag onesis.

“How the hell did you get that inside? That’s one big ass tree!”
“Home delivery has gotten a whole other meaning the past couple of days. How was L.A?”

She walked up and hugged me before kissing me. We had only been away from each other for 3 days but it was too much. I had missed her like crazy. I could see Mingus rolling his eyes at us when we starting making out, but it was with a smile on his face.

“How are you?”
“Great, dad. How are you?”
“It’s good to be home. When did you get here?”
“Yesterday. We were out shopping pretty much the entire day yesterday.”
“Yeah, I know I said you had free reins, but damn, baby this is….”
“Too much…?”
“Unexpected. It’s absolutely amazing, I feel like a stepped inside Disney World or something.”
“No.”

She stopped me when I turned to put an ornament in the tree.

“What?”
“You need to change first. We’re starting our own Christmas traditions.”
“Matching onesis, decorating the tree is our family tradition?”
“Yes.”

They spoke together, making my happy place over flood.

“I don’t have the same looking…”
“Yes you do. We bought them yesterday, yours is on the bed.”
“Ok.”

When I had finally been approved by both of them after changing, we decorated the tree together. It
took most of the morning.

“Come here. Picture time.”

I could hear both of them sigh when we were finally done with the tree and I collected a camera and my phone.

“No, no complaining. We need a family picture. It’s our first Christmas together.”

For being pretty reluctant to taking pictures at first, they quickly got into it and we ended up spending an hour taking picture around the tree. One ended up being our Christmas card on Instagram to all the fans.

“This is by far the most liked picture I’ve ever gotten.”

As night fell and she joined me in bed, I showed her the picture.

“Wow, more than half a million, not bad…Feeling good now, huh?”
“Hell yeah…! Thank you for all this, it really is beautiful.”
“I did it for me mostly, but you’re welcome. How’s Sean?”
“Good. I told him we would visit soon, he really want to get to know you.”
“Yeah, me too. I keep having weird dreams about him.”
“You’re dreaming about Sean?”
“Yeah… Well, I don’t know, maybe they’re memories. I just have these dreams about him telling absolutely insane stories about you and him.”
“Yeah, he does that… He did that when he was visiting in Georgia. He tried to lightened the mood I guess…. I got you something. I was going to wait until Christmas but I really can’t so…”

When I handed her the blue book with a white ribbon tied around it, she sat up before taking it to her lap.

“What’s this?”
“It’s you… You know I always hated that you didn’t have any photo albums growing up or happy memories from being a kid so I figured I could help making some.”
“You did a scrapbook?”
“Something like that.”
“Wow…That’s our very first conversation. You saved all the texts?”
“Of course.”

Her eyes scanned the first pages, reading the first couple of text messages we had sent to each other back in May. She didn’t even know it but I had taken a picture of her the very first day she had been in the apartment. She watched the picture of herself crawled up on the barstool by the kitchen counter with a mixture of confusion and wonder.

“You took my picture? I never noticed…”
“That was kinda the point.”
“I look terrified. How did you even have the guts to let me stay in the first place?”
“I knew from the beginning that I could change your life. I had to save you.”
“My knight in shinny armor.”
“I like to believe that.”
“It’s been like a fairytale…”

I had not only included pictures, but a lot of the things she had said or we had talked about or texted took up a big place on pretty much every page of the book. So much she had said or done had stuck with me and so much of what she had said meant so much to the both of us, it had changed so much. “It’s been like a fucking fairytale”, was the words she had used the first time she had left. And although it didn’t bring any happy memories whatsoever for ether of us, it meant a lot. It was part of what had gotten us to the point we were at, at this very moment. Sean had asked if I really wanted to remind her of all the bad stuff as well, but I had explained that we both needed to be reminded of the bad times now and then to realize how far we had come.

“I'm gonna choose to look at all your scares as one step closer to what we have right now. Without them you wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be the same person as you are now."

She spoke the words I had spoken the first time we had had sex. When she looked up from the
picture of her naked body, she had tears in her eyes.

“You made me a better person. You said that I was the strong one but I always said that it was really you that were the strong one, that I was still learning to crawl. You made me crawl, you taught me what life was really about. No one else can take credit for that, it was always just you that saved me.”

Tears where falling down her face when she leaned in to kiss me softly. I tried to speak but I couldn’t get a word out. She wiped her tears with the back of her hand before returning to the book in her lap, but as she looked through the pages she was still crying quietly. The entire lyrics of our wedding song were attached to the last page along with 50 somewhat small pictures of the two of us doing what we did best; kissing.

“Merry Christmas, London.”
“Merry Christmas, Norman.”

She said before closing the book and placing it on the nightstand. When she kissed me I could taste the salty tears on her lips but I knew that they were happy tears. She was happy. I had made her happy. And it had all started with stealing a phone…

The End.