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At the start they had been constant jagged edges scraping against each other. They were constantly going against each other and it took them years for them to smooth down their edges until they fit together like puzzle pieces; adapting against each other’s flaws and curveballs. Now all the turmoil of past years had smoothed out so that they fit together as though they had always meant to be together, despite all of the glaring differences between them.
Max was trash, dirty blacks and blood red lips accentuated by the eyes of a stoner and the bust of a lingerie model. She made by for herself, always doing things for herself even if she was the only one in her corner. She was harsh words and jagged needles, spitting truths out and using them as both armour and weapon.
Caroline was poise and perfection, a porcelain doll complete with dream house and horse. She was smart enough to see goals and chase after them, whether they were for herself or for others. She was numbers and business and a smart brain that did not extend to street smarts on the actual streets. She was a princess in her little world, with a doting daddy providing for her every whim.
They were as different as white and black. They were the polar opposites of each other when they first met, but time had not diluted this. It had just made it easier for them to accommodate to the characteristics that divided them.
It had been six years and now they had built a life together. They had their crappy flat with their beautiful oven and a lavish Murphy bed, with cracks in the ceiling and dirt in the bathroom. They had their home with their baby boy trotting out in the yard. They had a home, a home that had been opened up to a spoilt rich girl six years previously and who had now made it her own. It was theirs.
For all of the middle of the night booty calls, the late nights spent baking, the hiding from landlords and neighbours, the times of happiness and joy and for all the times of sadness and time spent pretending that everything was okay when it was falling apart, it was their home. It was their haven and it was their safe point and no matter how sucky the outside world got they could hid in their crappy sublet apartment that they lived in illegally, but happily.
That was the story of their life really. Things may be illegal in how they started and how they were aided but it was happy, for the most part. It was their little world. It wouldn’t have been built if it wasn’t for a mass case of fraud and scandal. It wouldn’t have started if it wasn’t aided by a drug habit and illegal apartments. Their story was shifting through flour, trying to get rid of the lumps in order to straighten out the mixture to get the perfect cake. The perfect little cake for their little business that they were going to make a success of no matter what they did.
It was their story and it was what they knew. They had spent six years cultivating a story, making a relationship work from simple ingredients until it rose into something so wonderful that it was hard to believe that it came out of the origins that it did.
Now it had been six years. Six long years of smoothing edges down so now they fitted perfectly. Six years of being at each other’s sides and being there when no one else was. Six years of late nights and early starts, of double shifts and opening business to have to close it and move it and change it over and over, pushed them to work out a perfect routine. That was what they had. A perfected routine in their home.
It was a comfort and it was consistent. Even though they were constantly opening and closing and changing and revamping business, they always had each other. They were the constant and they were each other’s comfort and six years down the line comfort was routines and knowing someone so deeply and so intimately in ways they could never have expected six years previously.
They had spent six years committing to a business, to a relationship, to a home and that’s why they could never part. Not for any guy or for any business but for all that they would be leaving behind. They would be leaving behind more than a house and business venture. It was the perfect second half and a home that could only have belonged to two puzzle pieces that curved around each other seamlessly. They couldn’t up and leave that. Nothing that came along could be powerful or potent enough that would separate those two halves. Nothing would be a good enough reason. There was no reason good enough to take apart what should rightfully be together.
So when Max hesitated Caroline knew. She knew without having to ask because in her heart the same answer was beating away. In her head she was forming the reply to a statement not said out loud, to a shared confession hanging in the air. Max screamed it out in to the space between them without having to say a word. Caroline whispered the reply into Max’s soul before she even took another step towards her. They understood each other perfectly. This was the seam where the puzzle pieces met. This was the line between one and the other, the line that made two halves into one whole. This was the line that could not be broken, the tie that could not be severed. They were two halves and they could never be parted.