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A/N 1: Umm, so this is more like a songfic based on Back To December by Taylor Swift. I doubt anyone not having heard it!
A/N 2: I posted it in 3 parts on ff, but its here in its entirety.
A/N 3: This is un-beta-ed, so all mistakes are mine.
Back To December
I'm so glad you made time to see me.
August 13th, 2008
It’s been almost eight months since I last saw you. It’s a wonderful day today; the sun is shining warmly on my back through the glass panel of the restaurant window and yet there is a slight nip in the air which titillates the atmosphere and heightens all my senses.
However what makes it most beautiful is your face, which I have seen after exactly 7 months and 13 days.
You walk in five minutes late for our scheduled meeting and for a moment my heart falls to my feet thinking about how I had not considered you not showing up at all! I still trust you as much as I did. After all you’ve never let me down, that’s been my domain. I release a shaky breath which I didn’t realize I was holding as you walk towards me with your million watt smile.
I take in your appearance, trying to memorize each and every detail, as if to make up for all the time that I haven’t seen you. You look chic, handsome even, in your blue pin striped pant-suit and crisp white cotton shirt with your lustrous hair cascading down your shoulders. I can’t quite place the designer, although knowing you I’m willing to bet it’s from that super-mart three blocks down the road you live on. Or lived on. It’s been too long and I can’t hide my joy at seeing you, and uncharacteristically I reach forward to kiss your cheek or do something equally ridiculous but you stall me, and stick out your right hand for a handshake. I deflate a little but recover quickly as I extend my hand to take yours.
It’s a clash of temperatures, my warm hand against your still cold one betraying New York’s weather. Even before I can feel the smoothness of your palm you retract it from my gasp, as if, as if I have burnt them. For my part I feel electricity course through my body and a little shiver runs down my spine to change into a warm feeling somewhere in the solar plexus.
We sit down while you place your order for a coffee-an espresso with steamed milk, mocha sauce and peppermint-flavored syrup, topped with sweetened whipped cream and dark chocolate curls.
How's life? Tell me how's your family?
I haven't seen them in a while.
You've been good, busier than ever,
We small talk, work and the weather,
Your guard is up and I know why.
You look at me with something akin to tenderness and for a moment all I want to do is to run into your arms and cry you a river, because behind all this, behind this mask, the icy façade, the dragon exterior, I am still your Mira. The same woman you tried to mend, almost haplessly in an attempt to bring her back to living. The same woman who broke your heart and ripped your soul into pieces, the same woman who did the same to herself.
Instead, I ask you about your sister Catherine and how she is liking NYU and the city and whether your parents have started to feel the empty nester’s syndrome yet.
You ask me about Caroline and Cassidy and I’m glad to talk about them, because they are the only things that keep me sane these days. I regret that they are growing up much too fast for my own liking. I smile a real smile when I tell you about their grades and achievements because I am so proud of them and I know that you too take delight in their success. You focus on my smile and suddenly I see a little twinkle in your eyes. In that moment I realize that you are still in love with me and there is hope that you might forgive me after everything that I’ve done. Hope.
When I begin to ask you questions my hope takes a back-seat. You’re curt with your replies. We talk about work and the weather. I tell you that I’ve read every single piece of your writing and that I am very proud of your work. At some other time you might have gotten delirious with joy at such a compliment, but today, you only nod and thank me. I can feel the feeling of hope shrivel and die inside of me with every passing minute.
I do not blame you.
I know you’re trying to guard yourself from me-the Ice Queen, the Devil incarnate, and the heartless woman.
I’ve hurt you once and you have no guarantee that I won’t again. So, you take precautions this time. You will not lay your heart in my palm again, because you know that I might throw it away, again, mercilessly.
I do not blame you.
Yet, yet it kills me inside. To know that you don’t trust me anymore, that you don’t dare to show your true self to the Devil because all that she will do is hurt you.
Because the last time you saw me
Is still burned in the back of your mind.
You gave me roses and I left them there to die.
“Andrea, where are you taking me? I promised the girls I’d be back in time before the New Year starts. You will have to let me get back home before twelve.” Miranda said, as she got into the passenger seat of a Cadillac which God knows where Andy had borrowed from.
“Miranda, Miranda! Stop! I promised your guardians a.k.a Caro and Cass that I’d get you back in time and will not try out anything inappropriate, because they’ve threatened to kill me if I do. So, chill!” Andy said, as she got into the driver’s seat as she revved up the engine.
Miranda let out a full throated laugh and at that moment Andy forgot all about how to drive a car and stared at the beautiful woman next to her.
It had all started in Paris. During Fashion Week. That night when...and then everything, everything from that moment had been leading up to this, tonight. New Year’s Eve. Chilly, pristine, white, breathtaking. Them in a car. Miranda laughing, not like Miranda Priestly, priestess of fashion, but just Miranda, a woman replete with quirks and failings. The sound of her laughter echoes in the air and Andy forgets how to breathe.
These days, it’s been happening to her too often. She forgets how to breathe when their fingers brush while exchanging a cup of coffee or when Miranda decides to clean the kitchen slab and that stubborn white forelock falls on her face or just when it’s the break of dawn and her eyes are moving in R.E.M. and a ghost of a smile is grazing her lips Andy falls in love with her once again.
Every day, each day Andy falls in love with Miranda. Yes love, she’s known that for a while now. She wonders how Miranda will react to what she has planned for tonight.
Even before Miranda knows it they’re at some place downtown that she hardly recognizes. It looks like someone’s home, a really big someone with lots of money. Someone like Miranda herself.
Andy gets out of the driver’s seat and holds open the door for Miranda while extending her arm so that Miranda can link hers in Andy.
‘Are we being gallant now?’ Miranda smirks as she links her arm into Andy’s and then devours her with her eyes.
Andy is wearing a plain black Gucci pantsuit with a crisp and spotless white shirt. Her hair which is left loose around her shoulders is flailing in the wind and her makeup is minimal, except around the eyes where she has taken special care to add a lot of eyeliner and mascara because she knows that Miranda loves getting lost in them.
Miranda for her part looks like the earthly version of Aphrodite. She’s wearing a plain prussian blue off-shoulder velvet evening gown which hugs her body like a second skin. A dazzling diamond stud graces each ear and the glint in her cerulean eyes are enhanced by that sparkle from the diamonds. Her silver hair looks softer tonight falling lightly onto her face as she moves her face to take in her surroundings.
‘Pray tell me Andrea, where are we?’
‘New York! Where else?!’ Andy chimes in
‘My, none of my previous lovers had this much cheek!’
‘Well, aren’t you glad then? Is that what I am, your lover?’
‘Well, what would you have me call you? Girlfriend? Last I remember you haven’t asked me out and considering the amount of time you spend at the town-house, lover sounds absolutely acceptable.’
‘Umm, yeah, whatever, we’ll see? Shall we?’
With that they made their way towards this mysterious place.
‘My boss owns this place! His family and he is away for New Years, and he said he’d let me use his terrace.’
‘Why? Do you have plans to throw me down from there? Have my employees bribed you?’
‘No, I plan to throw you onto the ground and have my way with you!’ Andy smirked.
‘Well, you’ll be breaking your promise to my guardians then, who would ground you, I on the other hand might love to see you suffer.’ Miranda said while looking sideways to meet Andrea’s chocolate brown gaze.
And everytime, everytime Miranda gazed into those endless pools of brown the world stopped; she ceased to be Miranda Priestly and turned into Andy Sachs’ lover.
Today as she glanced into them she saw something akin to excitement, apprehension, love and sincerity. Too much sincerity. And in that moment Miranda Priestly felt scared and a shiver ran down her spine. This kind of sincerity could kill.
Andy had been planning this night for days. She wanted to make it special and start the New Year as a new person. As the wife of Miranda Priestly.
True, they’d only been formally dating for about three months, but she knew, from the deepest core of her heart that this was it for her.
It had of course been difficult for her-coming out to her parents and letting them know she liked women or at least one woman in particular, her much older, divorced ex-boss Miranda Priestly. It had been a battleground initially, but things had subsided and they’d even accepted Andy’s decision and resigned to it. Andy’s sister had been enamoured by Miranda when she had come to New York for a trip to look at different colleges in the city and that had helped a lot in changing all the bitchy things that Andy had said about Miranda before.
Andy knew that this was it for her. Every single morning the same realization dawned on her, that the primary reason for her existence was to make Miranda happy and it made Andy extremely giddy and happy to know how much she loved doing just that.
So she decided to take a chance. She’d seen Miranda at her most vulnerable, in Paris, and had come to realize that she was like a fragile flower which could overpower anybody with its mesmerizing fragrance, but it needed water, manure and sunlight. Andy would provide that and protect the flower, Miranda, from all grief.
They had been pretty serious about the whole thing right from the beginning, especially because they had been internally pining for each other for a very long time. That night in Paris, Miranda on that couch-pale, lonely, sad, crying like a wounded animal, grieving the demise of another marriage, another Mr. Priestly, her twins and the woman that she had become had been Andy’s undoing. She had made the decision that very night that no matter what she would never ever leave Miranda come what may.
So today, after three and a half months it only felt logical to Andy to propose Miranda and ask her to marry her. She has everything ready-the ring, the speech, the flowers, everything! Nothing can go wrong; she will not allow anything to go wrong.
When they reach the balcony of the house Miranda is stupefied, spellbound by what lies ahead of her.
The whole terrace is illuminated with small white lights glowing like fireflies against the night sky and at the centre is a table adorned with candles and wine and food and what not!
There is a smaller seating for two to its right. It’s a hue of colours-red and gold and black drapes are hung all over the place and are dancing to the wind’s rhythm.
Bach, Miranda’s favourite, is playing softly in the background luring you into the night’s beauty.
Suddenly Miranda has this sense of déjà vu and then realization dawns on her. She turns to look at Andrea and finds her on her knees. She seems to have produced a bouquet of roses out of nowhere and nestled safely at its centre is a ring. It’s plain looking, a thin band of platinum with a diamond at the centre accompanied by two minute lapis lazuli crystals on either side.
‘I promise I’ll buy you a better ring when I’m rich. Marry me?’
Miranda looks her squarely in the eye and she knows that this isn’t a joke! This is the most serious Andrea has ever been, ever since they’ve been lovers.
‘Please don’t say no!’ there is almost a pleading note in Andy’s voice.
Miranda stares at the flowers and the ring for the longest time and then everything comes thrashing back to her—the failure of each marriage, the betrayals, the little untruths, the fights, the humiliation and before she knows it she abandons Andrea and runs towards some desperate attempt to get back her sanity with one last:
‘Sorry! I’m sorry!’
So this is me swallowing my pride,
Standing in front of you saying, "I'm sorry for that night,"
And I go back to December all the time.
It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you.
Wishing I'd realized what I had when you were mine.
I'd go back to December, turn around and make it all right.
I go back to December all the time.
I lose myself in tracing the movement of the coffee cup against your lips. I can feel your eyes on me and all I want to see in your eyes is the burning desire which roared in them last December but I’m afraid that all I’ll see is loathing, pity or hatred.
When I will myself to look up, our eyes meet only for a second but you avert your gaze immediately to the coffee cup.
I hear a voice squeaking out a ‘Sorry’, a very faint one, hardly audible and it takes a while for me to comprehend that it’s my vocal chords that are at work because the words catch your attention at once.
Like that, just like that you know why I’ve asked to meet you.
This time you don’t avert your gaze but look at me square in the face. I didn’t think I’d have the courage to look you in the eye, but I do. I pray to whichever being is listening to me that my eyes betray everything that is in my mind and body, so that I don’t have to string words, but they’ve always called my eyes icy and emotionless for a reason. It’s the fort that I’ve been building for all these years which prevent you from seeing my actual feelings. All I want to tell you is to forgive me for last December. I’d tell it to you a million times if I had enough courage.
Every night, every single night it’s the same nightmare I have---we’re on that terrace, I can feel the chill in my veins, Bach, the aromas of the night and then out of nowhere the most exquisite looking bird flies in and perches itself on the railing. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and I whisper into your ears ‘Fetch me that and I’m yours.’ You tell me ‘but Miranda that would mean I’d have to take it’s freedom’ and I say ‘Freedom isn’t anything’ and even before I know I see you running after it as it flies away. You’re at the edge of the railing, one mis-step and you’ll fall over. Before I can warn you, you shout out my name ‘Miranda’. I run and I run and I run but I can’t see you anymore because it’s all foggy ahead----and---and---
This is when I wake up. Every night, every single one. The sound of your voice calling out my name haunts me every waking moment, even right now, sitting here, looking at you sitting in front of me. Your endless pools of brown are distant and reserved and I understand. Andrea, I’d do anything to go back in time and pull you back, to say yes. I hope that you will understand the explanation that I have to offer—that, that I had no choice.
I am shaken out of my reverie when you utter a shaky ‘What?’
I will myself to not waver, to put my fear and pride aside and to offer you all that I have even if it’s only an apology that you’ll take. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry for that night, for everything that I’ve done and been. You must know I’d do anything to change everything that happened that night. Now. I didn’t have a choice. Then.'
You look at me as if I’ve said the most bemusing words in the history of mankind with this unreadable expression on your face and all I can do is to look at you and hope that my eyes, for once, betray me and tell you all that I feel right now.
These days I haven't been sleeping,
Staying up, playing back myself leavin'.
When your birthday passed and I didn't call.
And I think about summer, all the beautiful times,
I watched you laughing from the passenger side.
Realized that I loved you in the fall.
Moments pass and all we can do is to stare at each other. A million things keep playing in my mind just like it does when I can’t sleep, which is very often these days.
Memories flash by, the whiteness of that night, you with that bouquet of roses, me running away as the world seemed to crash around me, the smell of your perfume, the sounds of the night. Everything, everything all mixed up. Everything about you reminds me of summer; after all you are a child of May. I hope I could have garnered enough courage to call you on your birthday, but I couldn’t. Instead, I sat around that day and thought about everything we’d been; how last summer had been different from this one.
You’d only been working for me for a few months when my Mercedes decided to act stubborn the very afternoon that I was supposed to attend the twins recital.
I’d called Emily to send me a new car because you’d proved to be an invalid by acquiring food poisoning from eating in one of those godforsaken food trucks near your house, where you forced me to have tacos from, later on.
I’d expected Emily to send me a chauffeur driven Mercedes instead 15 minutes later I got a ‘Andy driven pick-up truck’.
‘Look I know you asked Emily to send you a car but there is too much traffic out there and the car will not reach here before a good half an hour and the twins recital starts in 20. Emily called me and I figured since I live close by, this is going to be faster and umm---’
‘Oh, spare me the explanations! I’m not going to Dalton in a pick-up truck Andrea! I’ll wait for the car to come. You may leave. That’s All.’ with that Miranda Priestly returned to looking into space and stomping her foot impatiently on the pavement.
Andy Sachs suddenly found courage lodged somewhere in her solar plexus and said ‘Look Miranda, you think it was my mistake that you’d couldn’t attend their last recital, now when I have a chance there is no way in hell, excuse my language, that will I allow you to miss this one.
There was a certain determination in her assistant’s eyes which told Miranda she wasn’t kidding and weirdly it gave rise to this warm feeling which spread through her.
Miranda looked at Andy who didn’t look away but had the gall to raise an eyebrow and look mighty sure of herself. Then just as unexpected as you’d expect Miranda Priestly to be-she got into a pick-up truck for the first time in her life and just as efficient you’d expect Andy to be she was, as sped off.
'Do slow down Andrea, firstly I don’t want to die because my children would deeply regret my not making it to their recital and secondly I still have about a million people left who I’d like to terrorize.’
Andy gave out a hearty laugh which reverberated through the car and sounded more melodious than the jazz on the radio ‘Yes, that you do. Irving Ravitz must be the first person on your list. Although I’d say you’re hardly capable of terrorizing people once they get to know you. And don’t worry, I’m a world class driver, I won’t harm a hair on your head.’ and then Andy looked towards Miranda with an expression akin to tenderness and added ‘I couldn’t’
As much as Miranda wanted to understand the look on her assistant’s face something told her it was better left that way. Instead she said ‘Excuse me? Are you insinuating that I don’t scare—terrorize you?’
'Yup, you tried. It worked. Doesn’t anymore. Like consider right now: You’re in my pick-up truck, I’m driving the car at 100 kmph, and I’m looking at you while weaving through New York traffic and all you can do is stare at me and be at my mercy. Ain’t I the one terrorizing you?’
'You’re a nefarious creature!’ Miranda said with false anger.
This time again, Andy broke into another fit of laughter louder than the previous one. Something inside Miranda stirred and she kept staring at this beautiful girl—no woman in the driver’s seat and knew something inside her had changed. She felt differently for this girl. How different, she had no clue, and didn’t want to have one too, for the moment atleast.
Only when she looked into the rear-view mirror she found a face smiling back at her. She almost felt alive again.
I break out of this day-dream again when you utter something. I miss the first part and all that I hear is: ‘No time for this!’
You look at me and you know I’d zoned out, so you repeat ‘Miranda, look all this is over, that was last December, and it’s been over 6 months now. Forget all about it. You don’t need my forgiveness. I have to get back to work; I have no time for all this!’ she sounds impatient, almost, but also something else.
‘I need your forgiveness and one chance. Just one. I can explain myself, which I never do. You don’t understand, do you? I fell in love with you-hard and fast---September, that night—everything just came crashing down. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to love you, or even like you because my life was a mess. The divorce, the whole failed Paris coup d’état, that night with you. I didn’t know whether I was clinging onto you like some last ray of hope. I didn’t want to do that to you. I needed to know that I loved you, that I’d love you when everything was over. And then that night in December---it was the greatest night----and I spoilt it, because I had no other choice---I cou---’
‘You had a choice, Miranda! You decided to end it and that’s that! All this doesn’t matter anymore! It’s history, long forgotten. I can’t be grateful enough for you wanting to explain yourself, but save it. I don’t need it.’ Miranda could see tears running down her cheeks.
And suddenly, without notice, Andy got up and said ‘Goodbye Miranda!’ and stormed out of the restaurant.
And then the cold came, the dark days when fear crept into my mind
You gave me all your love and all I gave you was "Goodbye".
For a moment I’m frozen in place and that December night comes rushing back to me. Those irrational thoughts of not actually being in love with you, you being a rebound, a rope to pull me up and help me survive cloud my mind for about a nanosecond. I can’t see clearly anymore because I too am silently crying but I know this isn’t a solution. My goodbye to you last December could not have been the final one.
So this is me swallowing my pride
Standing in front of you saying, "I'm sorry for that night."
And I go back to December all the time.
It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you,
Wishing I'd realized what I had when you were mine.
I'd go back to December, turn around and change my own mind
I go back to December all the time.
So I let go of everything, my pride, my mind, my normal self and run, run for my life, for you, my Andrea. Because this is it, it is now or never. I realize my life is walking away from me like I walked away from it last December. I will simply not allow it this time. Not if I can.
I don’t really realize but suddenly I’m running through the glass doors and screaming at the top of my voice ‘Andrea! Andrea! Please wait.’ I can hardly see anything anymore because the tears are falling much too freely now and even my body is failing to cooperate because I can feel your legs give way as I stand on the pavement looking at your retreating form.
I miss your tanned skin, your sweet smile,
So good to me, so right
And how you held me in your arms that September night –
The first time you ever saw me cry.
And then, then, suddenly out of nowhere, you’re there, beside me holding me up, guiding me towards the silver Mercedes because I have given up, completely. I, Miranda Priestly who prides herself in being brave am being carried almost literally to the car by a strong woman half my age, whom I’ve come to realize I love unconditionally.
I’ve never lost self control this way before, well, on that September night maybe. I’m just a babbling mess today because I’ve come to realize since last December that you’re it. You’re my life and no matter what, I need you and will do anything to get you back.
I allow you to carry me back to the car as I cling onto your coat’s lapels for some physical support and inhale your scent which transports me back to another time.
‘Pray Andrea, do tell me, do you wear the deodorants that your cook boyfriend left behind’ Miranda says as she buries her face into the younger woman’s body while they lay on the creaky single bed in Andy’s dingy apartment wrapped up in blankets on a cold November morning. The girls are having a sleepover through the weekend and Miranda would rather be here (inspite of her constant scathing remarks about the condition of this apparently crumbling apartment) than be in her swanky luxurious townhouse.
‘Please Mira, you weren’t complaining about my scent a while back when you were buried between my legs!’ Andy smirks while nuzzling her nose in the snow white of her lovers head. She can almost sense Miranda blushing profusely and looking super embarrassed.
The older woman playfully hits her chest and says ‘Look at you talk like a caveman. You have no shame, do you?’
‘No, why should I? Besides I’m wearing cade lavender-it’s supposed to be a woman’s perfume but apparently it smells like ‘a man who’s just taken a shower’, but I only came to know it after I had wasted my precious money on it, so I’m gonna use it, like it or not! Do I ever tell you anything when you smell like a rich prostitute with fake tits?’
‘Excuse me?’ Miranda looks furious as she pops up her head from where it was buried in Andy’s body.
‘Yeah, when you wear those expensive perfumes and go to the grand Runway soirees! You smell so beautiful right now- like some heavenly creature-’ she closes her eyes as if to breathe in every smell emanating from the older woman ‘amber, vanilla, bergamot, lemon, iris, sweat and sex! I might be missing something here and there, but it is so much better than that Chanel No.5 or whatever you wear to those places. Now, this smell,’ she wraps her hand around Miranda’s petite frame and pulls her to towards herself as if to inhale her scent ‘reminds me of the woman I love and there is nothing in the world better than this.’ Andy says as she tucks a stray lock which has fallen onto her lovers beautiful face.
A tender look crosses Miranda’s face and her eyes almost cloud over with a mix of unknown emotions, then she smiles, a real smile much unlike the fake party smile, a smile that Andy has come to love, a smile that she associates with the woman she loves and not the editor-in-chief.
She blushes, again (Andy has come to realize that it is really pretty easy to make Miranda blush) and says, ‘I’m glad.’ And that’s all she says.
Then after a quiet moment, she adds, ‘I like you this way too. You smell like, you smell like’ and that blush again ‘home. And everything in my world that is beautiful and right.’
Although we’re in the car and you’ve given Roy directions to take us back to your apartment (which is still the same) I cling onto you like you’re my last ray of hope.
I haven’t cried as much, not since that night in September...
‘Oh.’ Andy realizes she has walked in on something she should never ever have seen.
The moment her eyes rest on the fragile woman with the tear stained cheeks and red rimmed eyes sitting barefoot, in a grey bathrobe on the sofa of the grand hotel suite, she knows her life is irrevocably changed. It is then that Andy accepts and lets in the feeling that she’s been ignoring for quite a while now. That, she cares for Miranda, not at a professional level, but at a personal level and feels different things for her, one of them being love. Yes, love and a fierce sense of protectiveness washes through her whole being seeing Miranda, her Miranda like this. She wants to kill the person who has inflicted so much pain on this invincible woman, who has put those tears in her eyes.
‘Oh, there you are.’ Miranda says trying to sound as authoritative and unaffected as possible, but her voice breaks. Their eyes meet. Miranda’s eyes are a whirlpool of emotions. Andy realizes that the quote ‘eyes are a window to the soul’ is indeed true at this moment because Miranda’s eyes tell her that her soul is wounded and a sharp physical ache courses through Andy’s whole body. She resists the urge to do something entirely stupid.
‘We need to go over the seating, uh, chart for the luncheon.’ She puts on her glasses and tries to get back to her icy self--composed and bored.
‘Okay. Um, yeah, sure. I have it right here.’ Andy ignores everything her heart is telling her to do and works on autopilot mode, but her mind is still elsewhere and she fumbles for a while before she finds the required folder.
‘By all means, move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.’ And the facade is back on.
Andy gives her the folder and takes a seat on the opposite sofa.
‘Okay. So, first of all, we need to move Snoop Dogg to my table.’
‘But your table's full.’
‘Stephen isn't coming.’ Andy notices a sliver of grief in Miranda’s voice, but says nothing.
‘Oh, Stephen isn’t-- So I don't need to fetch Stephen from the airport tomorrow?’ she says nonchalantly while jotting down the change in plans.
There is a pregnant pause and then, ‘Well, if you speak to him and he decides to rethink the divorce then, yes, fetch away. You're very fetching, so go fetch. And then when we get back to New York, we need to contact, umm, Leslie to see what she can do to minimize the press on all this.’
That bastard. Andy wants to kill him. She had always disliked him but to act like a complete asshole and divorce Miranda in the middle of Paris fashion week. She is going to take a flight right this minute and knock all his front teeth down. She can totally visualize doing it but Miranda has more to say.
‘Another divorce splashed across Page Six. I can just imagine what they're gonna write about me. The Dragon Lady, career-obsessed. Snow Queen drives away another Mr. Priestly. Rupert Murdoch should cut me a check for all the papers I sell for him. Anyway, I don't, I don't really care what anybody writes about me.’ She nods her head sideways with a cynical look on her face while she tries to keep herself from crying.
‘But my, my girls, it's just so unfair to the girls. Another disappointment, another letdown, another father- figure,’ a wry chuckle, ‘Gone.’ And with that she breaks down, completely.
She looks defeated, deflated; while she sobs with abandon her whole body shaking from the sobs, the sound of them piercing a huge hole through Andy’s heart.
She lifts a hand weakly to dismiss Andy and then lets it drop callously onto her lap.
Andy knows she should obey her boss’s order and leave the room immediately, because this, this scene is far far removed from seeing the professional Miranda.
This Miranda is human, destroyable and vulnerable and it scares the shit out of Andy, but she can’t get herself to turn her back on this fragile, broken woman.
So, all reason can go to hell. Everything. She does the ‘unthinkable’ in Runway terminology, she reaches out for this woman sitting on the sofa and touches her. Takes her in her arms, literally, and envelops her in her warm embrace.
Without missing a beat Miranda accepts the embrace much unlike what you’d expect the editor to do.
Andy doesn’t bother with soothing words or caresses or attempts to quieten the crying woman, instead, she lets her cry. And she does.
She cries and cries and cries what seems like forever. Andy doesn’t know what Miranda is mourning-her failed marriage, the daughters losing another father figure, or the personal that she has traded for the professional, or something completely different that Andy has not the slightest idea about.
Even when Andy feels like Miranda has spent her entire reservoir of tears for the next million years she still keeps crying and Andy gets scared that she might begin to hyperventilate. But her fears are quelled when suddenly Miranda goes quiet.
She looks down to see Miranda breathing evenly, her eyes closed, as if she’s come to peace with everything in her life at this moment.
Andy wonders how many times Miranda has cried like this before and if there’s been somebody to hold her this way. She also wonders how many times this woman has come to terms with everything she’s lost in her life.
Before long Miranda, the woman of her dreams is quite literally sleeping in her arms. Oh how she would have liked the situation to be different, but Andy will take what she has. Her back’s stiff from sitting in the same position but she’d rather be here than anywhere else in the world, least of all on a date with Christian Thompson.
So she sits through the night while Miranda sleeps in her arms-quietly, peacefully, like a baby and Andy falls in love, a little more with this complicated woman.
Then the morning comes; there is no awkwardness, only gratitude from the silver haired beauty, a gratitude that would soon turn into love in the coming months.
It’s déjà vu all over again, because I do the same thing I did that night: I cry in her arms while she holds me, the ever faithful, the unconditional giver of love, the woman who wanted nothing but to make me happy.
She is quiet again like that day, while she holds me securely in her arms in the backseat of the Mercedes.
Maybe this is wishful thinking,
Probably mindless dreaming,
But if we loved again, I swear I'd love you right.
I'd go back in time and change it but I can't.
So if the chain is on your door I understand.
But this is me swallowing my pride
Standing in front of you saying, "I'm sorry for that night."
And I go back to December...
It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you,
Wishing I'd realized what I had when you were mine.
I'd go back to December, turn around and make it all right.
I'd go back to December, turn around and change my own mind
I go back to December all the time.
All the time
This feels all too familiar, something that I’ve missed gravely, something I need for my sustenance. So I will do anything to get her back, but I feel too weak. All I say is ‘Sorry’ and keep repeating it against her chest, because I can’t tell her in words how sorry I am, how much I need her, how much I love her, how much we fit together, how right this is, her and I in the backseat of our car however gravely misplaced this situation is.
So I give her what I have, a simple heartfelt five letter word and I hope against hope that she will accept it. I hope I could turn back in time and accept the most romantic of all the proposals I’ve had but I can’t. All I can do is hope to make my, our, future better and right.
I wake up to birds chirping and beams of sunlight lighting up the room that I have etched in my memory. I don’t remember how I ended up here, Andrea, as usual, must have taken care of it. I look up when I sense something warm against my body and see those ever familiar warm chocolate brown eyes. I look down at our bodies and see we are entirely decent, thank God I didn’t mess it up even before starting out again.
I look up at her again and there is a little smirk on her face which makes me blush.
‘Don’t worry, we did nothing. You cried and slept off, in my arms, again.’
Then she adds after a moment and says quietly, ‘and kept saying sorry again and again.’ With a faraway look on her face.
I blush again. My face is so close to her neck that I can smell the familiar scent again and can hear her beating heart. The warmth emanating from her body makes my mind go delirious with want but I resist. I make an attempt to move away from her, but she stalls me with a strong hand on my back and pulls me up.
Our lips are this close. Our hot breaths intermingling in that little space between us. The blue and brown meet and then they travel to the others lips. Before I know it, we’re kissing, again. But this feels new. The lips are the same, the clash of tongues feel the same, the physicality of it remains same. The spark that courses through my body is the same.
But I’ll tell you what’s different. There is nothing frightening about this kiss, nothing based on a survival instinct, nothing pathetically needy like they were in December and before.
The sensuality, the sweetness, the slow pace, the passion, the want is new. Something I’ve never felt before.
I realize, in that moment that the fear I had in December is gone. I no longer need Andrea like something to cling onto as a last ray of hope. I need her to make me happy, because I’m healed and I’ve come out of that place where I was last December. Now I only need her because I love her, I need her in a different way now.
And Andrea senses this because she smiles while we continue to kiss. She feels something new in me too. It’s been the same for her since beginning, but not for me. Her eyes tell me she feels safer with this new me-less mad, less needy in a desperate pathetic way.
And I have hope.
We pull apart only when we can’t breathe anymore. Our eyes meet again. And she nods a simple yes.
Everything will be alright. I can feel it in my bones. I need nothing more than this. Being here in bed, a creaky one at that and loving the woman who has loved me forever.
This is enough. Enough solace. And that is all.
Hope it wasn’t much of a disappointment! Tell me what you thought?
Thanks for reading!