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“Hey,” Tim says sitting next to Lucy. “I need to clear out my phone.” Lucy sets her own phone down and looks over at him.
“What?”
“Well apparently I have run out of storage.” He says. “And I want to make sure I don’t because of the wedding and all that.” Lucy feels a rush of affection for him. The fact that he wanted to have enough room on his phone for the wedding.
That was her man.
“Okay let me see it.” She says and Tim passes it over to her. She scrolls through the pictures. It’s mostly her, Kojo and pictures of them. He has a few screenshots of stuff from his mom that he sends to Lucy with eye roll emoji and an sos.
It’s mostly about the wedding but still Lucy knows Tim didn’t know how to handle it sometimes.
There are a lot of pictures of her. They stop as the photos get older. She assumes that was during their breakup era.
“You have a lot of pictures of me.” Lucy says. They start up again and she sees a few from Nolan’s wedding. It was after they made up and danced. She’s not sure when Tim had snapped this but it was a candid picture. One of her laughing with someone not in view of the camera.
“Obviously.” Tim says. “You are pretty. I have grown fond of you face.”
“Damn Bradford save it for your vows.” Lucy teases. She keeps scrolling, she deletes some blurry photos. She deletes some that clearly have multiples.
“How is it going?” He asks.
“You clearly have a hard time letting go of pictures.” She says. “You had all these pictures of me even during the breakup?”
“I wasn’t going to get rid of pictures of you.” Tim says. “I messed up. I was stupid. But I never stopped loving you. And keeping pictures made it a little more bearable.”
“Wow.” Lucy says and she feels Tim press a kiss to the top of her head. “I love you too.”
“Keep going.” He says. “There’s more pictures.” She has no doubt about that, she didn’t take time as someone who hoarded pictures. He didn’t hoard anything else in his life but—
There’s a big gap and then she comes across a picture of Isabel. She freezes and looks over at Tim.
He blinks at it and then presses the trashcan and deletes it without a word. “You didn’t have to do that babe.” She says. But Tim shakes his head.
“I did.” He says. Lucy feels a lump in her throat as she continues to scroll. There are more pictures of Isabel. There’s picture of Tim and Isabel. There are videos too.
And they look happy.
It’s not that Lucy didn’t think they were happy at one time but she had never actually seen it with her own two eyes.
Isabel was high when she came back, Tim was frustrated, angry and hurt.
“You look happy.” Lucy says softly. Tim hums softly, and puts a arm around her shoulder. He’s studying the photo with a intense look on his face.
“I’m not going to lie and say we were never happy.” Tim says. “But I don’t know if it was real.”
“Really?”
“Isabel thought I would be disappointed in her. I was never disappointed in her. She held me to a high standard.” Tim says. “I never could make her happy. Truly happy.”
“You told me that I could never disappoint you.” Lucy says. “After the detective’s exam.”
“And I stand by that.” Tim says softly. “You are different. I have always said that. It’s true.”
Lucy nods but she doesn’t know what to say. She’s not insecure that Tim still has photos and videos of Isabel. She’s secure in her relationship with him, she knows Isabel is in his past. But she is a little uncomfortable. It’s like Isabel is always there. Haunting the walls of their house. Haunting the screen of his phone.
She was part of his past, and Lucy was his future. The ring on her finger proved that. But she can’t help but think that there is still a small part of her that wonders what it would be like if Isabel stuck around.
“Do you ever think what would it be like if Isabel stuck around? And didn’t get addicted to drugs? You two would still be married.” Lucy says.
“I don’t know about that.” Tim says. “Maybe it would have last longer but everything about our relationship was superficial. It looked good on the outside but once you dug into it. It was broken, fractured. We were toxic for each other. If we stayed together, we wouldn’t be happy.”
“Oh.”
“Lucy, there’s a lot of stuff about Isabel you don’t know.” Tim says. He puts a hand on her leg. “It was a whirlwind romance. A quick wedding. I thought it’s what she wanted but it wasn’t.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you mad that I still have all those? Honestly I forgot about them. I never scroll that far.” Tim says.
Lucy’s not mad. Not really—she’s just confused. Sometimes she feels like the ghosts of his exes are still around. Especially Isabel. “No.” Lucy says. “No, I have mixed feelings about it.”
“Well that’s better than nothing.” Tim says and she can tell he feels bad. “I’m sorry Lucy.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for Tim. She was your wife. Of course you have videos and pictures of her.” Lucy says. “It’s okay.”
“But they should be gone.” He says. He takes the phone from Lucy and starts deleting before she can stop him.
“Tim wait!” Lucy reaching over to stop him. “Isabel is a part of your past. You don’t have to completely erase her.”
But Tim shakes his head and puts his phone down before he’s pulling her into his arms. “She is my past. That is a fact. I don’t even know why I still have these.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not.” Tim says and he picks up his phone again. He starts deleting the pictures again. He pauses at a video and his finger hovers over it.
Lucy reaches over and presses play without thinking. It’s a video of Tim and Isabel. It starts playing and Lucy sees the smiles on their faces. The way they look at each other. Tim pauses it and then deletes it.
“Tim.”
“That was right before she left me.” Tim says. “I mean I’m talking days before. She told me and she couldn’t wait to get away.” Lucy frowns a little. She’s not sure how Isabel was so eager to leave. She dreaded being away from Tim. Those 4 weeks she was undercover with Nyla were some of the hardest.
It made her realize that undercover really wasn’t in the cards for her. It was just being away from Tim. It was being away from her whole entire life.
“She wanted to get away from you?” Lucy asks. Tim shrugs as he continues to delete the photos. “Why?”
“I guess our life together wasn’t what she thought it would be.” Tim says. “It’s okay. It took me awhile but I accepted that we were never right for one another.”
“Yeah?” Lucy asks and she feels herself relaxing.
“There we go.” Tim says. “They are all gone.” Lucy swallows and lays her head on his shoulder.
“You didn’t have to do that.” She mutters. But she feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.
The ghost of his ex wife was no longer there.
“I know. But I wanted to.” Tim says and leans over to press a kiss to her cheek. “That’s the past. This—” He holds up his phone and she leans in knowing exactly what he was doing. He snaps a picture.
“This is our future.” Lucy finishes for him. Tim nods and she takes a deep breath. She has nothing to be worried about.
“Exactly.” He says. “This is our future.”
This was their future.
And that’s all that matters.