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vifilms · 13 days ago

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THE SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDERS STICKING LIKE HONEY

feat. contractor!abby x exgf!reader

content warning. eighteen+, smut, angst, some fluff sprinkled in, devastating dykes, nickname for reader (cherry), jealousy, long lost love trope, hazel (spoiler alert, she’s a cunt), just an emotional ass fic.

THE SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDERS STICKING LIKE HONEY, she was the healing in a world that struck so much pain, a life you would like to forget, but can you truly forget just how much you loved her?

rayray sesh. been working on this baby for over a month and i’m very happy to post it on time! happy birthday, pookie �� @sinstear ♡ this is my special crafted gift i wrote just for you on a day to celebrate just how amazing you are. erenboo, you deserve all the love in the world. i hope you enjoy this as much as i took joy in writing it for you. my love, sweat, tears, and cum are laced in it. special delivery. i love you so much, bub. always and forever.

✶ special shoutout to @hypnagogics aka my co-yap captain. thank you for proofreading my bigger projects. you are a godsend. my nonsensical typos would surely make it if it wasn’t for you. mwahmwah! you’re the sweetest, ily ♡

✶ header heavily inspired by the lovely @hcneymooners

word count, 14k.

❝ ⋮ ⌗ ┆𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞: 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐨 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝 ❞

The more you try to hide from it, the harder it’ll be when you face it — at least those are the words Abby had heard from her old man for as long as she could remember. Suddenly, nearly thirty-years later, they reverberated in her mind like a ring of a bell. A vibrating reminder of how her life remained the same, your love having limitations, requirements she never could have been aware of at the ripe age of eighteen.

All she needed was more time, more understanding, and a patient heart that was never reciprocated. On a day like today, she’s reminded of

In Jacksonville, there wasn’t much going on, and talk travels faster than the speed of lightning. Murmurs of your return started the moment Dina found out, then it spread like wildfire. All of it feels just like yesterday but the spring of her youth is a far cry away, just dust and bones to be found on the ashes of adolescence.

If the world was perfect, Abby could avoid all of this.

Maybe if her life had turned out the way she envisioned.

But it didn’t and neither did yours. Not as of late. Although Abby had to be tightlipped about it, business and pleasure entangled, all of that nonsense floating around her pretty head. A voice she once thought she had forgotten comes back with a violent need to be recognized, a calming notion before it punches her in the gut.

Not to mention, she just had to be on your father’s payroll, had to face the person she was never good enough for. All of it feels nauseating. Excruciating.

Reminder of a wound she’s never recovered from. Memories high and low come flooding, and with you in her line of vision, it only gets worse.

Way fucking worse.

“What is she doing back?”

“As if anyone would want her here.”

“Abby, was she even supposed to be here?”

The questions pile along with the bile collecting in the back of Abby’s throat. The pit in her stomach manifests a black hole, feeling herself succumb to the spin of everyone’s empty threats spilling from her friends to you. Abby can tell just by the way you’re downing the glass of champagne and picking up the next, coming here wasn’t your choice.

If you could have helped it, you would have never come back in such a public setting.

“Abby, are you listening?” She sighs, but still unable to take her eyes off you.

“Do I need to rea—”

“Yeah yeah, all of you hate them. I get it.”

“It’s not that simple. They aren’t good for you.”

There’d been murmurs through the small town of your return. That’s what happens when your mom gets sick, you come home and that you did. The anniversary of your parents, forty years strong, is the first public appearance. The absence of your brother’s appearance isn’t talked about, it’s brushed over, just like everything else, just like you.

“Yep, I got it.”

“I’m just looking out for you. They don’t appreciate you and—” Abby shoots her a knowing glare, annoyed with the intrusion of everyone thinking they knew best instead of herself.

“Yeah, like I said, I hear you, but you don’t fucking know her. Neither do I, certainly not anymore.”

Running a hand through her blonde-glistening locks, the sunset saturates her golden as she ignores Hazel, taking a sip of her beer as she takes you in. Everyone always has shit to say about you. Your parents, her friends, Abby’s parents, but no one really knows you.

It’s not easy for you to let people in, you seem as harsh as can be to others, but Abby knows you’re quite the opposite.

Different from everyone in the room, a polished cream suit and open collared button up shirt with your delectable collarbones exposed, your rings twinkle as you pet the husky, one you don't know belongs to Abby. If you did, your hand might feel repelled.

It’s what you always wanted. A life out of here, out of the small town where you’ve always felt judged, persecuted, even ostracized when you came out — and you succeeded — leaving Abby behind in the process. Even if you didn’t intend to, it sort of just…happens. We leave the ones we love behind, even if it’s our last possible intention.

Goodbye notions simmer and we forget about the love we once had.

“Hazel, Dina was asking for you, she mentioned needing some help finding JJ’s pacifier?”

“On it!” Abby chuckles as the cherry-haired girl flees into the other direction as Ellie laughs harder when she’s gone.

“You’re welcome. She's like a dog with a bone when it comes to your beautiful ex-girlfriend.”

“Watch it. Calling another woman beautiful, Dina might just skin you alive.”

“Nope. She loves me too much.”

Ellie chuckles as they watch you down another glass of champagne. Freeing your hair from the tight bun, your hair springs to life as it falls around your shoulders, framing your jawline as piercing eyes find the weeds poking through the freshly cut grass.

A few people had offered up a sloppy introduction, a grievance of pity, before returning to their groups. Anxiously, you tear at the loose thread on the cuff of your sleeve. It gets longer and longer, avoiding everyone watching you.

Pretending you don’t exist. You never do. Not in this wretched town where all dreams get sucked into a bottomless pit, where believers go to die.

Abby nods, the feeling builds in the pit of her stomach as she yearns to get closer to you. Even after all the hurtful insults thrown her way years back, she’s conflicted. A missile is thrown into her life with your arrival and all of her friends, besides Ellie, tell her not to fall back into old patterns. Not to fall for your charm, not to be a victim to reckless love.

The kind that left her empty for years. Abby knew the moment she fell, from the very first time they met, if you ever left her she’d never be the same again. You don't forget a love like this. It tears a hole within you before you even get a chance to think about it, their presence consuming your entirety, an empty promise of endless salvation dies on the tip of your tongue.

Impossible shoes to ever be filled.

Truly, Abby thought she had been in love before you, but she wasn’t. The feeling she’s been chasing for the rest of her life returns when she looks at you. Those bright eyes when you play with the pup, the gentle hand as your scrap his chin with the crescent of your blunt nails.

She feels more looking at you for one moment than anyone she’s dated after you.

It’s sickening.

Still, her friends ridicule her any chance they get. Telling her of what you’re like, how you hurt her, what you’ll do when your claws sink into Abby. It falls on a hyper fixated heart. She can’t think of anything when all the blood comes rushing to her head, how beautiful you look when she sees you anxiously biting your bottom lip, something you do when you’re attempting to stop the tears from spilling.

None of them knew what it meant to look in your eyes and wonder how someone so good couldn’t recognize the purity in your eyes, the love you give out when the world feels like it’s crumbling around you. They didn’t see the years of torture, the family that wasn’t so perfect, the anger you held wound so tight. You didn’t have anywhere to put it. Never could. Not when the image of the perfect daughter is meant to be upheld.

Not a soul knows the information Abby does. There’s nothing more you love than to hide in the shadows, hoping to be forgotten, how you nearly crave to be eaten alive if it means an end to your misery. It isn’t lost on her how much she wants to shield you from it all.

“Why don’t you go and talk to her?”

Ellie points the glass of wine she’s been nursing to you, watching as you excuse yourself into the empty guest house. Your body is still viewable through the tall glass windows, your body disappearing from the common area of the small home. The exact one she’s been renovating per your mother’s request.

“She’ll just—” Absentmindedly, Abby kicks the dirt with the toe of her boot, rooting her heel in the ground as she bites the wall of her gums, trying to center herself. Attempting to not let her mind wander into what if’s, what could have been.

“What? Figure out you’re scared?”

“I’m not scared.” Sighing into the palm of her hands as she can’t help but bite into Ellie’s comment, “It’s been years. For all I know, Cherry hates my guts. Not that it fucking matters, but I’m the last person they want to talk to. Plus, when she’s upset the last thing they want is to talk.”

“You’ll do just fine, can’t be too bad. They were always sweet on you.”

“It’s been years, Hazel’s right, in some sense I—”

“Please, even you know the only thing she wants is to get in your pants. That part is lost on me, you’re too beefy for my taste.”

“Some people like that, dick.”

“Your girlfriend sure did.”

“Ex-girlfriend.”

The rest of the night Abby avoids all of her friends, especially the meddling junkie, Hazel; fucking hazel. She wouldn’t let her rest. They never had done more than share a friendly hug and for some reason she always looked at Abby like she hung all the stars spreading across the galaxy.

“Are you going to let Hazel think she has a chance forever?”

Abby just shakes her head in omission.

“There’s no chance, I’m not—”

“Abby! I got you a glass of lemonade. Sweet with just a few cubes of ice, just the way you like it!” Ellie wiggles her eyebrows at Abby as if she has proved her point.

As soon as Hazel turns around, Ellie goes right back to the pitch of her ex-girlfriend, trying to sell Abby on the past. The only woman Dina and her had liked in her mess of a dating scene. A long line of hookups, one serious relationship that ended so horrifically the cops had to be called, and then there was Hazel. A naive girl who had been harboring a crush for nearly a year, the time Dina had adopted her into their little makeshift family.

You walk out of the guest house more comfortably. A pair of dark denim and a black graphic tee with the sleeves cut off. Abby smiles at how much you look like the woman she fell in love with, the youthful ache she still feels with every beat of her heart. The one you crushed in the palm of her hands without thinking twice.

Abby’s throat constricts when you catch her staring, quickly looking away, biting at your fingernails before your father introduces you to the new neighbors.

“What’s so important, Hazel?” Ellie bites.

Hazel ignores her. All she can see is Abby looking right at you.

Abby had realized she completely zoned out, her energy and focus harbored on you. Five minutes within your arrival and her head was already feeling the rapid hum of her heartbeat caught in the bottom of her throat as you looked at her again, just for a second longer before you turned the other direction, away from her gaze.

“Abby—”

Abby hums absentmindedly with you on her mind, infecting her thoughts like a former addict getting their first fix for years. The high. It feels even better than her mind could remember. The curious gaze in bright eyes feels intoxicating, too good to be true, and the fall feels higher than it ever was to begin with.

“Yeah?”

“She’s coming over here.”

It only takes a few minutes before Abby takes a swig at her beer, wipes the sweat collecting on the palm of her hands. When you get closer, she notices the engraving of A.A. engraved on a glimmering silver ring.

Did you keep it after all this time?

“Tell her to leave—”

“Hazel, for the love of god, would you shut your mouth?” Ellie barks as you make your way over to Abby.

Abby tries to make her resolve hard, icy even, but it’s not. Her electrified blue eyes are warm, full of curiosity and wonder, her freckled cheeks are flushed from the heat of the sun and her barely there grin has you offering one of your own.

“Abigail, hey.”

Abby is surprised you hug her and she doesn't want to accept but it feels too rude not to. But the second her arms envelop around your body you fit perfectly into her. Just like all those years ago, you’re everything she loves. Like no time has passed, as if you didn’t rip her heart and stump out the love it once held.

“It’s just Abby now.” Hazel interjects.

“Sorry, I didn’t know, Abby, right.”

“How could you? You’d have to be around—”

Ellie gently elbows Hazel in the stomach, trying to silence her best efforts to scare you away from the treasury stock of a blonde she believes to be hers.

“Abby, sorry. I’m just—”

“You’ve always called me, Abigail. It’s alright. Promise.”

There she is.

The charm that makes you fall when you don’t need to. It’s laughable that Abigail can make years of therapy, years of dating other people to get over her seem like a dream, as if it’d only just been the two of you all of this time. Like nothing had changed.

But everything has.

“Um, do you mind if we talk in private?”

Abigail follows your lead into the empty house, the party rages outside as the two of you sit in the living room, neither of you knowing what way to take your best foot forward.

“Sorry if I made things awkward with you and your girlfriend—”

“Oh, uh, she’s not….we’re not dating or anything.”

Shit.

You wish she was.

Abby doesn’t know what to think when the expression on your face wasn’t instant relief but instead turmoil within yourself. Your eyebrows furrowed as if you expected her to be in a relationship. It would leave you to escape from the overflow of feelings you had rushing through your core.

“You look shocked.”

“I just—” You bite your lip, looking anywhere but her, trying to put your best foot forward, like your father says, he’s the whole reason this conversation is even happening. “I can’t lie, it would have made this…easier? I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

“What are you trying to do?” Abby has a bubbly laugh threatening to burst but she swallows it for the sake of your dignity.

“Okay, well that’s not nice.”

“Do you want me to be?”

“Well, my dad he just thought that—”

“Wait, you’re talking to me because of your dad?” Abby stands up from the couch, rubbing her hands over her flushed face. “Not even because it’s been years, but because — well, why?”

“He was just encouraging me. I’m nervous, isn’t that fucking obvious? I can’t even look at you without feeling like I’m eighteen again.”

She’s standing at her tall height, looking down at you as you begin to cry.

Well shit.

“Hey, hey—” Abby sinks to the floor on her knees, her body between your legs. “C’mon, there’s no need for all of that.”

“I hate that you haven’t changed.”

“Did you want me to?”

No, you say just to yourself. Not trusting the waver of your voice to give her the truth. There’s always so much on the line with her. Everything feels heavy, final, an anchor to hold you down but also drag everything you are, tangled with her sweet, honey-filled baby blues.

“Can’t you be mean to me or something? Even the playing field a little bit.”

“Not even a little, sweetheart. We both know I never could.” Her fingertips trace your forearm, a shiver courses throughout your body, “I will admit, everyone says I should.”

“They’re right. I deserve it.”

“If we all got what we deserved, well, that would be such an ugly world, wouldn’t it? Just because you did something hurtful doesn’t make you cruel. It makes you human.”

“But I do deserve the cruelty.”

“Fine, I hate you.” Abby says with a smirk on her face, wiping away a stray tear, looking too fondly on the woman who broke her heart. She’s too kind for her own good.

The giggle Abby omits rivals sunshine.

“I just didn’t want it to affect the work on the house, everything between us, it’s complicated and I’ll be in the guest house while my mom’s—”

“I know, you don’t have to say it. Your dad may have mentioned it to me. I’m sorry, I truly am.”

“I am too. For everything. I shouldn’t have left the way I did. I was so young, scared, and I wanted you to hate me. It just seemed easier than having you actually miss me.”

“I did miss you.” Abby's warm palm might as well be burning your denim jeans through as she touches your thigh. “You could have done the worst thing imaginable and I still would have. I’ve never had, uh, reason with you I guess. Love doesn’t know scorn, like a child with a knife, even if you can get hurt — sometimes it’s worth it.”

The stars in her blue eyes hold the same light in them, too full of love, her older and refined spirit lays beneath them and she has become someone you have even more love for. It’s too damning. Abigail Anderson has always been more than you can handle, always outshining everyone in this small town even if she couldn’t see it for herself.

“I’m surprised you came back for them, you know, after everything.”

It’s not just them.

“They say she doesn’t have a lot of time, so—” You sigh heavily into your palms, “And that’s not your problem, but thank you for being so cool about everything. Maybe we can be friends?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Abby knows neither of you can’t. It’s never worked out that way. It’s all or nothing and she’s always been the all-in type of girl. She loves big, not caring if her own heart gets trampled in the process.

Her love blinds like the sun, but it settles over your heart like the moonlight kissing the waves — you just hope the tide is strong enough to bring you home.

❝ ⋮ ⌗ ┆𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨: 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐧, 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 ❞

The first few weeks back at home felt like a breath of fresh air. As much as you disdained being home, the cracks of your family nearly breaking you in the process, you had her.

Even if you didn’t really have her.

The definite silence was not so, Abby still soaked in her warm heart, the one you hoped she kept. The best part of her. She’s too kind, even when you don’t deserve it, she still freely gives it.

It bleeds into her work.

Clearly, your father was more than fond of her. Several occasions they would be chumming it up, your father even grilling a few patty hamburgers up for them both when the clock struck noon. They always did love her, possibly even more than you, but to say they were devastated about the break would be a tragic understatement.

Get her back.

She’s a prize in this town.

Abigail Anderson is the best you can do, you’re not doing better than Dr. Anderson’s daughter.

But you never did try. You trusted the universe as a sign given. The people driving you out of this town sided with the woman you had broken up with, so you left and didn’t look back twice.

Yet, she did, in more ways than you were even aware of.

Because of her stupidly built physique, you couldn’t stop looking.

Anchored into the heat, her muscles constrict as she helps the crew demo the tile of the master suite, the last touch of the renovation needs. Besides the final paint job in the guest house, Abby had finished it all. In all honesty, Abby was hoping all of it would be complete by the time you arrived back in town. Being around you on a daily basis, her friends telling her it’s only a matter of time before she’s back in your arms, it feels like a slap in the face.

As if she has no self restraint.

To be fair, she doesn’t.

Abby’s gone to lunch with you three times, had coffee with you once, and she exhibits her obsessive memory — still having your order memorized — even if it's the most pathetic thing you’ve ever heard of. She still finds herself stuck between your teeth like cotton candy.

It’s all friendly, supposedly, but it’s the easiest thing to slip back.

Old habits do die hard.

Right now, you’re just watching her work.

You’ve been doing it a lot lately.

Out of habit, nervousness, maybe it’s the anxiety flooding through your bloodstream. All of this feels erasable. Too much thrown at you, with her, it always happens to be too irreplaceable.

The ghost you’ve been running from, the one that hides in the shadow, even if you’ve tried to stay on the path you’ve created. Dug from the ashes of all your failures, she’s the one thing you haven’t made right. The nights where you got too drunk, nearly texting her or calling her, the picture you still curated in a specific folder, the one you would look for when you’re the weakest.

Being back in your hometown, the first person who ever truly loved you, it feels suffocating.

It doesn’t help that she looks so good. Or that she’s even kinder. The love in her eyes is even more whole-hearted than they were ten years ago. Part of you tells yourself you couldn’t even help yourself if you tried. This is just how it’s supposed to be. The heartbreaker pining for the woman’s heart you shattered into pieces.

All it took, a few cups of coffee and Abby taking you to lunch and paying — it feels awfully like a date but you keep your mouth shut. Her being present in your life is already confusing enough; the added weight would just be unbearable.

But after today, you won’t see her again. Painting the final room in the guest house is the last duty she has to fulfill and the renovation is done on your parent’s property. The ache in the pit of your stomach is unsettling as you attempt to simmer through and wonder why the pain becomes so deep. As if the woman in front of you was scorning you alive.

“You need something or are you gonna stare at me all day?”

You watch Abby throw the paint roller back in the tray, running the brush in the sage green, before turning the attention back to the wall, waiting for you to respond.

“No, I wasn’t staring.” Abby chuckles at that.

Chuckles.

“Yeah, sure.”

If you could see her pouty lips, you’re sure that they’d be pulled into a smirk. Lately, she’s been enjoying this too much. Catching you staring at her for too long, biting the precious bottom lip of yours as she’s putting her muscles to work or when you caught her peeling the sweaty tank of her body for a new one, every inch of her skin glowing in the wake of the blistering sun.

Her abdomen, toned with a not so subtle four pack, her v-line defined as it disappears into her jeans. It’s sickening. Really. It is. She catches your self control slipping through the cracks, dignity along with it as you give in to her adonis-like physique.

The shock going through your body, going completely still as Abby just chuckles, winking at you before she goes about her day. Like it was nothing, like this is a normal occurrence for her. You’re not sure what thought made you feel even more sick.

Women fawning over her or what happened after.

But you didn’t have a right, you know you didn’t.

You swallowed the unflattering buzz of sweeping jealousy until you couldn’t feel in anymore. It’s not an emotion you even deserve to feel. While the two of you had been getting closer the longer you spent with each other, you knew your boundaries well enough to know you still weren’t there, you never would be.

The ghosts from your past made damn sure of it.

“I can pose for you if you’re going to keep looking.”

“I wasn’t—”

Abby wipes the mixture of sweat, oils, and paint on the pair of old blue-denim. She lets her blonde hair out of the bun she wore, despite the icy temperature, her body runs warm.

“It’s okay to admit it.”

“Admit what?” Suddenly you become defensive, arms crossing over your chest.

“That you’re still attracted to me.” Abby takes your curves in and nearly blows a low whistle, “You’re awful at hiding it.”

“I-I’m not, this isn’t….you’re not, like, easy to look at, you know? Uh, ummm….”

Standing there like an idiot as you struggle to get the words out, nearly impossible to get them released, your mouth staggering, unable to even keep them shut as Abby stalks you, your body pressed against the kitchen counter, the new one she installed days ago.

Nothing comes out on the way you intend it to. Fuck. Did you offend her?

“I’m not?”

She whispers into your ear, her lips ghosting your skin. A free hand plays with the buckle of your belt before she pulls you closer by the fastened leather. It’s soft to the touch, making her want to sink her teeth into you, until her canines break the surface of your skin, claiming you as hers once again.

Abby thinks about removing it off you, bending you over the counter and punishing you for it or even fastening the belt around your neck, pulling you along until you’re right where she pleases. The craving in the pit of her belly only stirs into an unmanageable peace the longer you stand there — squirming with satisfaction — waiting to be put out of your misery.

Golden locks tickle your jaw, the static energy radiating off of her shocks your skin, goosebumps come alive on every inch of you as she makes her presence known. One fact you haven’t been able to shake, Abby Anderson is a force to be reckoned with. Ten years, ten full years, and your life means nothing now that she’s right in front of you.

“Abigail, I don’t really think this is a good idea.” Abby waits for you to push her away, but instead you place your hands around her forearms but she’s so big, and it’s intoxicating that she stands taller than you. Her biceps the size of your head, veins protruding as she flexes, as if it didn’t make matters worse.

“Then why don’t you just admit it?” Abby presses her pelvis even closer to yours and you wonder if you’re hallucinating the barely-there kiss to below your ear. “You want me just as much as you did back then. Ten years apart won’t change that. You still care about me, even though you wish you didn’t, you do.”

“Abigail, we can’t go there, we both are—”

“What? I’ve always been a patient girl. I can wait.” Loudly, you groan as she peppers kisses down your neck, before scratching at her skin, when she kisses the one spot behind your ear she certainly didn’t forget about.

Abby digs her teeth in as you hiss, she enjoys the thrill of your soft whimpers, she’s barely started and you’re giving her just what she needs. The two of you know it, there isn’t a fix for this, the thread of a craving pulls until it’s fed.

“Oh–”

Rough hands hoist you on the counter top as she slots herself between your thighs, her frame protecting you as if you were a wild animal trying to be saved from extinction. The greed in Abby’s palm finds salvation when she touches exposed skin, silk to the touch — it doesn’t feel quite as sinful as she’s been told.

She should hate you, right?

You hurt her, didn’t look back twice, and you’ve never been the same.

All of this is just a facade. The life you have, the future you always dreamed of building is thousands of miles from here and she just doesn’t fit within it anymore, everyone tells her she never did. A missing puzzle piece with a jagged edge, the more Abby tries to fit with your world, the further she pushes away.

But she held onto the hope that your world no longer fit you and maybe — like a fool who believes in their first dream — she could be your world again.

Sparkling, honey-blues dazzle their way into your heart once again, reminding you of everything you love, striking a reminder through your soul of just what you had hurt. The life you stole, the one you wanted to so desperately have but fear still swarms you. The memory doesn’t feel so distant, the past isn’t the past but lies as a reminder of the blood still staining your hands.

With hesitance, you hold her full-freckled cheeks in your palms with a delicate hand, fearful any touch from you would burn her in the process.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” You bite into the isolating air, threatening to swarm your soul but she finds you first. Abby’s warm breath feeds into the need blossoming like a seed rooted in soil, solidifying the growth of budding salvation.

“I don’t know. Do you?”

She’s so sweet on you, even as the trickle of poison burns her, Abby would gladly let it absorb every inch of her skin if it meant this. The wondrous arrival of a love once lost, her heart torn right down the middle. Unsure if giving into reason or a festered dream.

It all grabs a hold of her the same, unwillingly to release her from the pure agony she feels when you’re not around. More dramatic than she intended it to be, the dagger once pushed through her heart, exerting every drop of blood until she felt unsatisfied iron saturating her tongue.

She would even show gratitude if you let her.

“Everything I think I know changes when you’re involved, so no, I don’t.”

Leaning into your touch, Abby swears into the palm of your hand, her hands smooth over the fabric of your pants and your entire skin leaves a trail of fire anywhere her large, calloused hand scorns you. The weight of her love feels heavy, as it always has, but the temptation to carry every ounce of it is heavier than it’s been in years.

With a terror in your chest, you blurt out the first thought entering you mind. “You’ve aged really well, can barely tell you’re hitting thirty.”

“Oh yeah? I can think of a few ways to show you.”

Shit.

A rapid heartbeat ready to burst, you’re not sure if it’s you or her. She’s inching closer, lips ghosting yours, her minty-ice breath makes home over yours. With a slight graze, you inhale a sharp breath, read for her to lean into you.

Slam!

“Am I interrupting something?” Immediately, you push Abby off of you, a judging pair of eyes scanning the two of you.

The woman from the party looked like she could actually kill you with her bare hands. Then there’s Ellie sitting there grinning like the joker, one giggle away from sounding like the maniac himself. As if she was fully aware this would happen. The two of you are running off of pure animal instinct, unable to keep your hands off one another.

“Abby? What’s going on?” The snip in the woman’s voice is evident, so is the possession she so clearly feels over your ex-girlfriend. The jealousy you feel over the thought sends an unwanted shiver up your spine.

Then she’s looking at you, expecting you to disintegrate into nothing right in front of her. Like you had done something terribly wrong.

Didn’t Abby say she’s single?

“Chill out, Hazel.” Ellie rolls her eyes, smirking at the steam practically boiling out of Hazel’s ears. “Ready for that drink? Dina and Jesse are already waiting.”

“Uh—” She looks back at you, avoiding eye contact with everyone. “Yeah, can you just give me a sec?”

“But I really think we should—”

“Down Hazel, god, you’re worse than a dog. They clearly were about to suck each other’s faces off. Move it.”

Hazel clearly looks offended as she desperately looks at Abby, hoping for her to save a little bit of dignity but Abby just punches the bridge of her nose as Ellie escorts out an extremely frigid Hazel.

Abby doesn’t miss the way the woman who has far too big of a crush on her tries to shoot daggers into you but you’re too busy focused on plucking your overgrown cuticles.

As soon as the door shuts you bend over the counter, forehead pressed into the white marble of the island, settling for a frustrated groan even when you want to scream.

“That bad, huh?” Abby stands behind you, watching as you lose it in front of her.

“Your friends already hate me, was that really fucking needed?”

There’s an itching, envious need to ask why Hazel seems to be protective over Abby, borderlining on obsession, but you keep your mouth tight lipped. Even if it’s the first thing ready to roll off your tongue.

“They’re fine, Hazel is just—”

“Protective.” You avoid her as she smirks, clearly enjoying the clear look of jealousy in your beautifully bright eyes.

“Oh?” Abby is grinning, pearly whites shining as majestic as the moon. “I didn’t think you’d even feel like that about me.”

As if it's instinct, she can’t stop how much she’s loving this. One moment of her lips on your skin and suddenly you want her all to yourself. Your head is spinning and her stupid, blue eyes won’t stop looking at you like a divine treasure.

“I-I don’t know what to say.”

You never did well with things out of your control, never really could. It’s why all of it ended the way it did. If you couldn’t somehow manipulate into what you wanted, it faded until you couldn’t hear it any longer. Abby faded into the noise, into your past, but maybe she is the noise and for the first time in ten years you can finally hear.

“You don’t have to say anything but you can come with me.”

“With your friends?” Abby nods.

“All of your friends hate me and one looks like she might actually kill me. Why on earth would you think that’s a good idea?”

“All of them are adults. They’ll handle just fine besides, I want you there.” As soon as Abby says those words, your harsh seamer softens, rejection melts and dissipates from your vocabulary. She’s always been a difficult person to say no to. “You could use some social interaction, you don’t even leave this guest house.”

“How did you know that?”

“I have eyes?” Abby states it as more of a question, a giggle threatening to bubble out.

“Oh god.” Abby laughs as she takes off her tool belt before finding her jacket and slipping it on her body. Grabbing her keys on the counter, looping the carabiner on the loop of her weathered denim.

“Ready?”

There’s a look of uncertainty in your eyes, nearly bleeding into an unwillingness to bend, but her words reassure you before you even get a chance to explain. As if she settled in your heart ten years ago and never left.

“Don’t worry, okay? If anyone’s mean to you, I’ll set them straight, Cherry.”

The nickname falls off her tongue, the sentiment hits you like a tsunami of emotion, bringing you back to every loving emotion she exposed to you for the first time.

It shouldn’t cut you this deep but it will — she always will.

❝ ⋮ ⌗ ┆𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞: 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐞 ❞

March 26th, 2013

“C’mon dance with me!” Abby screams over the loud music of the party. Fluorescent lights, a disco ball and tequila raged through her body, the alcohol pumping through her veins as she finally mustered the liquid courage to talk with the girl she’s been crushing on all sophomore year.

Her friends had been teasing her all night about it, but when the girl looked at her in disgust, shoulder checking her into oblivion, she couldn't help but take it to heart. Her blue eyes swell with tears, a waterfall raging within her as she makes her way to the bathroom, puking out her dinner at her father’s house.

So much for prom night, right?

Making a beeline for the bathroom, with yet another rejection to check off the list, stupid fucking after party she lied to her dad about going to. It’s all so stupid, of course Lacey wouldn’t be into someone like her. No one likes her, no one ever will, she’s just the lame screw up in this town who can’t like boys, not when the rest of the girls in the wretched town do.

Even if her dad tells her, it’s what makes her special — it’s a bunch of horse shit.

So, in the home of the girl she confessed her undying love for, she pukes her guts out in the bathroom until there’s a knock at the door and a soft yet concerned shout that follows. “Hey, are you okay? Sounds a little rough in there!”

“Shit, yeah, just one second…” Abby collects herself taking off her jacket as she rolls up the sleeves, residue of what she chucked up on the cuff of her shirt. Quickly, she rinses off and roles the sleeves up.

Well, it didn’t get any more embarrassing than this.

“Are you sure you’re alright? I can get someone it’s really not a pro—”

Without a further beat, the door is swung open. Abby suspects to see someone she knows, but she doesn’t. It’s a fresh face and she’s never been more grateful. The eyeliner she thought Lacey would like was probably smudged all over her face, Abby had no doubt she probably resembled someone operating an oil rig of some kind.

Just as Abby tries to talk, she feels another round come up and she runs to the toilet, sinking to her knees as more bile comes out. Way to go Anderson, you’ve managed to utterly humiliate yourself in front of two beautiful women tonight. Truly, there should be some type of an award for being the dumbest idiot on the planet.

Somehow, she knows all of this will come back to bite her in the ass. There’s no way that she isn't the complete laughing stock of the high school until she walks across the stage in two years with a diploma on hand. Whoever you are, you’re sure you’ll tell the entire town.

A stupid pathetic lesbian who can’t have one good night to save her life.

One of the most important nights of her life.

But she doesn’t hear a mockery laugh, a snide comment…she isn't even met with pure disgust. The third and fatal option. There’s a comforting hand on her back, reassuring her everything will be just fine, the other holding her hair into a makeshift ponytail, ensuring there isn't a single strand getting tied into the mess of her sickness.

By the time Abby’s done, she feels even more humiliated, her body running hot, cheeks aflame but you’re already running warm water underneath the towel folded on the shelf above the toilet. Kneeling down again, you angle her by the jaw, wiping the residue off her lips and you carefully wash away the black eyeliner smeared all over her freckled-cheeks.

For a second, Abby notices you staring at her pouty lips but she doesn’t say a word about it.

Turned out so wonderful the first time…

“Here!” You pull from your pocket, a pack of red labeled gun, cherry flavored, and pull out one piece wrapped in paper-tin foil. “For your, you know, breath.”

“Is this your nice way of telling me I have bad breath?” Abby teases, one moment with a pretty stranger, and she already felt more like herself. Abby takes a piece of gum, unraveling the piece before shoving the strip into her mouth.

“Well, you did puke.”

Regretfully she chews as the taste turns sweet instead of mint, her face contorts in rejection but still she chews. It’s not exactly what she had in mind.

“You don’t like Cherry flavored? That’s just bad taste!” You grab a piece of gum for yourself, throwing the piece of paper in the trash, consuming it wholeheartedly, almost moaning as you put on a show.

“Whatever you say, Cherry.” The sun might as well be shining on you from just how warm you feel. Heat rising in your heart, blossoming through your chest, thriving from the attention of the sun,

“Hey! That’s not fair. I don’t know your name.”

“Well, I don’t know yours either…” Abby hints, tilting her head to the side with a smirk the size of Texas. For once, she finds this easy, talking to a pretty girl, flirting with a pretty girl — proving it didn’t always have to be so hard to have something this good.

“Call me Cherry, it’s better than my real one, trust me.” You smile sweetly, fully willing to rot each tooth if it means you could feel like this. “What’s yours?”

“Abigail.”

The two of you just stare at each other like idiots, two losers, two outcasts and all of it started to make sense. Every heartache dealt out by careless handlers of the heart, each person who made you feel small, unworthy, who knew all of it could be healed by looking into the brightest pair of blue eyes, the warmest, full of honey and marvelous wonder.

It feels wonderful, being this close to a feeling, a lover's dream in the sunshine of spring, kissing shoulders never exposed to the brightful joy, freckles sprouting like bees flees to honey. One more kiss of sunshine until the sweetness falls on your tongue, guiding you to the spirit of love and everything you ever lost.

One person, one perfect person who makes your youth scream of joy again. Jumping off a cliff, plummeting into the cool ocean without second thought, hoping they’ll be there to jump off it with you. Even if it takes a lifetime of waiting — you’d wait your entire life for her.

As long as she’s in the sun, freckles being painted by pure light, you’d soak in the sun right along with her.

“Thank you.” She squeaks out the words so small, you nearly miss it.

“There’s no need for thanking. Just doing the right thing s’all.” Your smile is so sweet, Abby nearly feels every part of her body rotting with sugar. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“There was just this girl and I really thought she liked me but she really didn’t and I have this thing where I get a lot of anxiety or nervous I kind of just puke. It’s totally lame, god, I can’t wait to get out of this place.”

“Me too. High school sucks.” You agree with her, offering a small smile as you finish cleaning her up. “But she’s totally lame for not seeing how great you are.”

Abby tries not to blush, but she can’t hit the crimson swell painting the apples of her cheeks and the tips of her ears. “Did you try to kiss her or something?”

“I didn’t really get that far, she wouldn’t even dance with me. Not here, not prom, guess I’m not cool enough for her.” Pushing the metal frame of her glasses up her nose, trying to stop herself from biting into her blunt nails, nearly drawing blood. Now that she’s come down from her puking fest, she sees how beautiful you are. The kind of beauty that would bring her to her knees if Abby wasn’t already there.

“Cool is overrated. Who cares about being cool? We’re all losers trying to figure it out.” You say it as if it’s the most obvious statement in the world, as if you’re confident in exactly who you want to be. Abby is envious of it. She wonders what it’s like to be so free — to not wonder what everyone is constantly thinking about you — if you’re good enough.

You don’t seem to care.

“If you still wanna dance, I’d dance with you. We can be losers together.” You offer up to her as you stand to your feet, offering a hand up to her and she takes it willingly. You grab the jacket to her suit, helping her slip into it and she smoothes the jacket over her frame.

“You really don’t have to—” But you look at her with the most absurd gaze of refusal, eyebrows furrowed as it makes this cute little line between them. Abby can’t help but admire it.

“Oh, we’re going to fucking dance and show whoever this bitch is just what she’s missing.”

Present day.

There’s a lot to be said for how you let yourself succumb to her again, it didn’t take much, just a batting of blonde eyelashes and irresistible pouty lips and you’d fallen victim to Abigail Anderson. The hardest thing you’ve ever done was leave her. All these years later, you’re right back to where you were before all of this had started.

It seems to shock all of her friends when the two of you walk on together and even more shocking when Abby throws her arm behind you, engaging in conversation here and there. Mostly, you tune out the conversation and mindlessly sip on the beer in front of you.

Hazel isn’t happy about the predicament, cold brown eyes sport a simmering guidance of rage as she watches Abby’s fingers on your shoulder tracing random patterns into your skin. The arrival of your presence in turn makes her take jabs at you all night. Even with your silence, it doesn’t stop her, and when you have no visceral reaction she finally goes for something that brings silence around the entire table.

“Why are you even here? Breaking Abby’s heart wasn’t enough the first time? Why don’t you run back to your sick mother and stop playing with people just because it’s fun for you.” Hazel bites and you feel the swarm of your tears begin to build and she keeps going, “Isn’t that why you came back? Not because you actually care but because your mom is going to die.”

“Sorry, excuse me—” Hazel scoffs as you slither away and head towards the bathroom. As if she’s accomplished, she sips on her margarita, like what she just did was a service to everyone here.

Ellie and Dina sit there in shock, trying to process what the fuck had just happened. Jesse sits there silently, discomfort written all over his face. But Abby? She’s filled with a soaring hot rage, face flushed violet as her knuckles turn white. Hazel immediately shrinks into the booth, unprepared for what’s about to happen.

She thought Abby would be happy, kicking someone who so wrongly hurt her to the curb. You didn’t deserve her. You never would. Hazel deserves you. She’s been here, waiting for Abby to see her and love her, not you.

“What the fuck is your problem? Cherry wasn’t even doing a goddamn thing and you’ve been attacking them all damn night.” Abby’s rage is palpable, steaming to the touch, and nothing like any of them have ever seen.

“I did this for you! She treated you horribly! She broke your heart! She deserves it.”

Abby pinches the bridge of her nose, tossing her head against the wall, “This has got to fucking stop. Cherry broke up with me goddamn ten years ago and it’s none of your business.” Hazel could practically see the steam rolling off her before Abby raised her voice even more, “You didn’t have a right to bring up her mom regardless of whatever happened. Jesus, if I want to be around her or want Cherry around, everyone here is just going to have to fucking deal.”

“Abby, we’re just trying to look out for you. Cherry only ever thinks about herself.”

“Well fucking don’t. I can handle myself despite whatever you think I can deal with. Stay the fuck away from her or you’ll live to regret it.”

Throwing a twenty on the table to cover her tab, she finds you washing your face, trying to get rid of the puffiness in your eyes. When you see her, you turn her away, a lame attempt to stop her from seeing you like this.

Weak. Overbearing. A winded rush pressing on your lungs, struggling to breathe — you didn’t need any of this. Not to be back right where it all destroyed you. Then here she is, the living reminder of your transgressions, your failure, the one thing you couldn’t fix.

All roads lead to her. All of it is sick and twisted. The look of love pierces through your soul, scouring through the place you keep hidden under lock and key; the part that still loves her.

It demands attention. To be heard. To be seen. To violate you and your dreams, to place her before everything else. A violent reminder of how all of this started. Before you could catch up with the tide, everything flips, your entire life becomes a reflection of what you feared.

Abby has her life together and yours is coming apart.

Everyone hates you for what you become. For how little you cared about leaving the first twenty years of your life behind, a chapter closed and discarded as if it never existed to you in the first place.

“Let me take you home, alright? I’m sorry for Hazel she’s—”

“It’s fine.” You cut her off, drying your eyes, or trying to but you can’t stop crying in the first place. “It was stupid of me to agree to this.”

“You aren’t stupid, sorry, she was being a cunt. It won’t happen again. I won’t let it happen.”

Abby carefully wipes your tears away, “Hey, let’s get out of here. Yeah? My place is just up the street. Just the two of us.”

You nod as Abby leads you out, her palm feels welcoming in your grip, a homecoming you have been dying to feel. Her touch feels warm, perfect as her fingers interlock with your own. Like no time has passed, it’s easy for you to slip back into her grasp.

Everything about her feels right. When she helps you get in her truck, the old one her father always wanted to renovate and it seems she did just that. The ride is only a couple minutes before she’s parking in the garage of her home. She opens the door for you, a hand on your back as she leads you towards the door leading into her house.

What you expect to be a farmhouse, a hint of southern barn meets boho chic, but you’re met with something else entirely.

It’s exactly what she talked about building growing up. Everything else feels modern except the cherry red kitchen with white accents and marble countertops. There’s cherries everywhere, but it’s subtle enough to the naked eye, you wouldn’t blink twice.

The memory comes back to you in a hot flash, one you weren’t fond of.

“We can have it all. I’ll buy you a damn house, I’ll give you whatever you want, whatever you need, I want this, Cherry. More than I’ve ever wanted anything. I love you, please, can’t you see a future with both of us?”

“But I don’t want to be here. You know that! My dad can hardly look at me because I’m with a woman, my mom tries but she doesn’t understand. Is this the kind of life you want? They remind me that I’m not good enough. Who I love isn’t good enough, not if I’m not with a man. Can you understand I’m dying to get out of this nothin’ town?”

Abby gnaws at her bottom lip, teeth drawing blood as she sees you drawing within yourself. Pulling back at the first sign of hardship. Even Abby wonders if she’s worth fighting for.

“You mean dying to get away from me? I’m in this nothin’ town you despise so much.”

“Abigail, you’re taking words out of my mouth, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“You just want to leave and I don’t.” You look at her, her adorable pout in a frown, arms she’s been bulking for the past couple years begin to show definition. The freckles she hates grew more prominent on her skin as she spent the summer working for father’s construction company.

Her life is here, her future is here, but for once since the two of you met, your own two different paths and no matter how much you love her — it just won’t work.

“We’re eighteen! Our entire lives are in front of us. I can’t stay here, Abigail. I just can’t. I dream of a big city, somewhere my stories will take me places, a life that I can’t find here.”

“You got the scholarship, didn’t you?” Abby barks, her chest puffing out, jaw clenching as she pleads for you to tell her the truth. “Tell me the truth. You’ve been lying to me, hoping I’d change my mind?”

“I wasn’t lying. I just—”

“What? You were just going to leave one morning and never come back? Like I mean nothing to you?” Abby removes her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Like the past two years have just been what? A way for you to pass time until your real life comes along. Fucking great.”

“I told you from the start, I want more. I need to do more! No one gets into NYU around here and certainly not on a scholarship. I have a chance for a real future, a way out from my parents, a new life, I’ve always wanted this. You know I have.”

“And I’ve always wanted you.”

Silence engulfs the room, a pindrop could be heard, the tension could be cut with a knife but Abby sees the wall closing around you. Covering her from the heart you slowly opened up to her, what she fought tooth and nail for. She always fought for you but it’s hard to do anything when you don’t believe this is worth saving.

“You don’t even have the decency to ask me.”

“What?”

“You just want to write me off. You lump me with everyone else because you don’t even give me the chance.”

“What are you saying?”

Abby’s blue eyes turn into ice, all the warmth void as the chill sends a shiver down your spine. Her throat feels tight, like even if she swallows her own spit she’ll choke.

“Do you love me enough to make this work?” Abby flinches when you don’t immediately answer, because she knows where she stands, she would follow you across the world if it meant that’s what you wanted. To make you happy. But she can’t help but feel like she’s splitting herself apart for someone who doesn’t care in the way she does.

With tears in your eyes, they cascade down your cheek before whispering to her, “I don’t.”

“Get. Out.” She murmurs through clenched teeth, using the sleeve of her t-shirt, one you gifted her, to wipe away the tears that wouldn’t stop coming. The overflow of the heartache racked through her body like she’s never felt before.

You don’t love her. You don’t love her. You never loved her.

“Abs, please, don’t make me leave like this. Can we talk about this?”

“What’s there to fucking talk about? We don’t love me, Cherry. What else is there to fucking say?”

You nearly scream, not sure why anything you’re saying isn’t coming out the way you intended it to. “You’re not listening to me I—”

“Right. You just need to find a man, right? God, you’re just like Lacey.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” You bite, and if looks could kill, Abby would be dead right now. She’s struck a nerve, the memory of sophomore year comes flooding back to her, back when all of this started. “God, fuck you. How could you possible compare me to the straight girl that pulled you along because what she really wanted was Daniel Collins to fuck her so stupid she ended up pregnant junior year.”

“You’re leaving, when your back is pressed up against a wall, you’ll always leave, Cherry.”

“But I—” You stop yourself before you could speak the forbidden words, the ones you’ve said to her a million times, the one you just refuted that you did even if she can usually call you right on your bullshit. But you’ve diluted her sense of reasoning and all she hears is her girlfriend of two years just told her she doesn't love her.

“You what? What other lies are you going to tell me?”

“Fine.” Your expression turns stone cold, “Let’s both be done with it then. There’s nothing left to fight for.”

Prideful ego gets in the way of what Abby wants and she finally lets her head speak for her, “Sounds good to me.”

“Are you alright?” Abby asks but then she notices you’re just staring at her kitchen and she’s never been so self-conscious in her life. She didn’t even think about it, she’s so used to others seeing it but it’s different when your muse is taking in the craft you created with them in mind.

“Oh, right, the cherries.” She stutters out, scratching the back of her neck as she turns the lights on. It smells of vanilla and something oak, just like she smelled in high school. To others it may seem boring but it’s refreshing to know she’s still the same as she was.

“You still did it?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda lame honestly, maybe I should have done something else but nothing ever fit right with the rest of the house so.” Abby pops open a beer, somehow needing to have some type of liquor while you gawk at the work she created with you in mind. “If I’m being honest, I think it was just a way for me to hold onto you. I sure didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

“Me neither.” You answered truthfully, the loss of Abby rattled you, even though you were better at hiding it. Losing her is still the most painful loss you had to endure, which she considers fortunate, but not fortunate enough. “I always thought about what would have happened if I hadn’t been so headstrong. I think I had to convince myself in order to leave, I would have stayed here for you if not.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Even if she pretends not to be, Abby’s still bitter.

“Why?”

“You always knew what you wanted out of life and that wasn’t me.” Abby chews on her bottom lip again, picking the label of the beer before taking another swig. “Hell, you left before I even got a chance to say goodbye.”

“What?” Eyebrows scrunched in confusion as you take a step forward, “Did you come to the house?”

“Of course I did. I wasn’t going to leave things like that. Did you not—”

“No, I didn’t know, I thought that was it. I didn’t expect there to be more for my sake.”

The way she looks at you feels like she’s peering into her soul, the way she sees you so clearly, better than anyone ever has, chilling you to your core. Bits and pieces of your love located in eyes that glimmer only for her, light electrified the moment your sights are set on her.

It feels like falling in love with a broken melody.

You admire the imperfections instead of leaving at the bridge.

“I waited on your porch for hours but then your parents came home, saying they just had gotten back from dropping you off.”

In a matter of moments, your entire world feels flipped, like everything you had known for the last ten years, a terrible lie you wished to never know. A nightmare you would hope to wake up from. That’s all this was, you would wake up in her father’s home as you fought in the kitchen, you convince yourself not to let go of the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

“You came back for me?”

Closing the space between the two of you, grabbing her beer and placing it on the countertop. Abby takes an intake of breath as you invade every part of her personal space. As corny as it sounds, you do smell of cherries. So sweet, her bones feel weak with need, as if she doesn’t inhale the sugar she’ll just crumble at your feet, begging for just one drop.

“Yeah, I cried in front of your dad who hated me at the time, might I add. After that, he was kind, I think because he saw how much I…you know…”

You remember how much he changed when you came home for the holidays three years later. Naturally, you always accepted he had just come around over time, but it wasn’t that at all — the weeps of your high school girlfriend convinced him.

“Guess he saw how much I loved you or something…I don’t know…” She shrugs like it’s nothing.

Like she's nothing; the careless lie you let her believe.

Even with her dominating physical presence, she’s always been shy about this sort of thing. Expressing her feelings never really came easy, even if she wore them with her heart on her sleeve, admitting them was different than feeling them.

“You changed his mind.”

“He would have gotten there eventually. I’m sure he liked whoever you dated after me.”

“Hm.” You grimly laugh, “He didn’t. Not the two I brought home but he always spoke fondly of you, he definitely likes you better then he enjoys his own kid.”

Patient she is watching you process the information, it’s almost too much for her to swallow. What if you had been home when she was going to say goodbye? Would this be your home with her? The dreams of kissing her in the kitchen, cherry inspired, the family home she always wanted to build for the two of you. Now she’s here with no one but herself. Withering away the soul of a woman who only wanted love.

“He loves you and if he doesn’t, that’s his loss. Trust me, I know it too well.”

The confession hangs on the walls like a memorial, taking a trip down memory lane, or more like the hell of your own making. Demons you conjured cast over your past as if they only exist in hollow halls. The deeper you go, the more your heart slivers in the cracks of her delicate grip. For the first time, you don’t mind when she presses on your heartbeat — demanding more with just looking at you the way she does.

The way she always has.

“Do you still love me?”

“Are you going to run away if I tell you?”

Lips ghost over you, her breath hits your face, making it flush with heat. She leans against the counter, wrapping your back with one of her arms, tugging you close to her.

“Abby, I’m a mess.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what my family is going to look like or my future.”

“I know.”

“Abigail, would you stop saying that?”

“I’ve only ever cared about you, I don’t care if your life is together. I’m here and I—” She dips her head to kiss down your neck, decorating your collarbones with her lips as she creates a map back to where she wants to the most, “will take care of you.”

Abby kisses you like the air in her lungs is expendable, as she has endless amounts to give. That’s all she is love, pouring into every ounce of you that she can find. With desperate abandon, she wants to wipe your memory of every wrong she ever did you — she only wants to remind you of the reason why she loves you. Maybe it’ll be enough for you to wake up in her arms again.

For once, she might be enough.

“We don’t have to do this, I don’t know what it all means and—”

“Right now? I don’t fucking care.” Abby leeches off your neck, kissing and delicately sucking, grazing her sharp teeth against sensitive skin. “I just want you.”

Thoughtless abandon goes out the window as she guides you back into her apartment, off the spacious balcony and corners you into her room. Letting you fall on her bed as she stands above you, as she strips in front of you. Making a show of it, torturing you for sport, before she goes in for the kill.

The alcohol still alive in your mind as she pulls off, a freckled maze maps its way all over her body. The subtle blonde happy trails travels underneath her navel and disappears beneath the fabric of her denim jeans. Your own self-control begins to slip, but Abby is too concerned with evening out the playing field. Even if this is a long-lasting goodbye, she’s going to make it last.

Slipping your trousers down your legs, she’s met with cotton boxers — soaked all the way through.

“Is that all for me?” Abby snaps the waistband against your skin as you squirm underneath your touch, bucking your hips into the air. Impossibly desperate for her touch.

“Y-Yes, It’s for—” Irrevocably your eyes roll back into your skull, “Abigail, oh shit, shit, shitttt.”

Sneaking a hand in your boxers, she opens up your inviting folds, slippery and as Abby glides along, collecting your slick with the calloused fingers. You squirm and shift, bucking into her hand, waiting for more to be given to you.

“Just say my name like that pretty girl, so good for me, aren’t you?” Abby removes her hand as she pulls your boxers off your legs and without being asked she slides them down your legs as she pushes your shirt up to your tits, exposing the swell of your breasts to her possessive eyes, waiting to lay claim onto what she’s missed for the past ten years.

“I wonder if you’re just as…” Abby takes a beat before rubbing over your hard nipple along her tongue, her denim-glad thigh grinding against your thigh as she suckles at your breasts. “Sensitive.”

She moans into your skin, using her free hand to play with your pussy, soft strokes to your clit as she elicits more moans from you. The force of her strength and weight keeps you down, the stutter of your hips chasing her fingers.

“My pretty baby, not so mean and bossy anymore, huh?” She bites your nipple gently before whispering in your ear, “Did you miss me that much?”

“I just want more, please.”

In any other circumstance, she happily would make you pay for it. Wait even, but if she doesn’t have you in her mouth for another second, she won’t survive. You’re so beautiful, you’re perfect in every conceivable way. The years had in fact been kind to you, different from what she knew when the two of you had sex but god, she thinks you’re even more exquisite now.

“More?” Abby removes what remains of her clothing, leaving you to gawk at her muscled frame, small tits frame her chest perfectly. “How about you sit on my face, angel? How does that sound?”

She’s already made you come twice, just on her tongue alone, pushing for a third as she holds you by the waist, waiting for your overstimulated body to give into her once more.

Abby makes everyone look inadequate when it comes to her, no one could touch you like this, fuck you like this, slither their talent tongue inside your waiting hold as you take her out for a ride. Muffled moans against your dripping cunt sends shivers throughout your spine, body twitching as you feel yourself hurling closer to the edge.

You can’t help but ride her face as your head lies on the bundle of curves covering her mound and you’ve been too fucked out the entire time to do anything but you can’t help but notice the way her patient cunt is shining with her slick. Curiosity blooms within you as you notice the slight thrust of her hips, chasing a part of you that isn’t there.

With no sudden warning, you vigorously rub on her wet folds, applying pressure on her bundle of nerves as you spread her sweet juices along her puffed lips.

“Baby, nghhh, oh my god.” Abby slurps as she sucks your clit into her mouth before you fall right over the edge again. Her eager tongue fucks your through it with her tongue, letting your ride the high as your nails scratch her stomach, marking her as yours once again.

Abby helps your weak body slide down her legs, flipping you over as your pussy falls against her, her legs spread open as your head rests against her sternum, feeling the increased rate of her heart beat thump against her chest.

She smooths her hand over your hair, gorgeous hypnotic eyes pull at Abby’s heart. “We should get some sleep.”

“We can…unless you want to entertain a thought I’m having.” Abby raises her eyebrow as rotate your hips, clit bumping against hers as she throws her head back, a string of curses fall from her lips as she grips onto your hips. Happily, she lets you take control, pushing her strong leg over your shoulder as you glide against her soaked pussy.

“Oh fuck, fuck, holy fucking shit—”

Perfect tits bouncing as you rock your hips against her movement, the more you look in her eyes, you feel yourself yearning for another release. It’s never been this good, never with anyone. The moans she whispers, kept in the secret coven of your love, the spells she casts to keep you near — it trumps anything you’ve ever felt.

“Keep looking at me, Abigail.” The whine of her full name, only ever falling from your lips, the most wonderful symphony. It’s intoxicating how much she loves it. How much she loves you. Deep in her bones, even if she tries her best to pull away, she knows not a damn thing will ever compare to this. For this life and the next, she’ll be searching for you in everyone she meets.

She can’t live another moment with you. Not after ten years of agony, fuck no, she needs you like she needs oxygen to breathe. You’re not sure how long it takes, but you don’t forget how Abby looks at you with a tender heart that basically pours out of her.

“Baby, please. N-N-gh, I need you.” You push her forward, hitting a deeper angle than you were before until you hear just how wet she is with your forehead pressed against hers, “Show me how my pretty girl comes, yeah? Need a reminder, princess.”

Abby moans out your name, her body fucking up into you, slithering her convulsing cunt against your clit as her defined abdomen twitches and only relaxes when you follow her lead, you body collapsing on her. Two hearts beats become one as the two of you fall asleep, a quiet whisper of I love you, but you’re not sure if it falls from your lips or hers.

The morning air breathes lilies and fresh espresso, her sweet cinnamon cologne lingers in her sheets, where she held you all night with her heavenly embrace. Reality sinks in and then you’re afraid once again. You slip one of her button up shirts on, pulling on a pair of her sweats before your feet are met with the cool wooden floors.

She’s sitting there, those stupid glasses she apparently didn’t get rid of. Making her look stupid cute as she read the velvet-green covered book in her large palms.

It’s easy for her to tell how you feel, Abby knows you too well as she watches you with cautious eyes. You’re so afraid of it all. Always, you’ve been afraid of what she makes you feel, how close she pushes you to the edge of no return. A love you feel helpless to, especially when it eats you from the inside out.

“Do you wanna leave? I can take you home.” Abby doesn’t even look up from her book, she sounds annoyed, completely different than her vulnerable demeanor last night. It puzzles you when she closes herself off.

“Am I missing something? Did I do something wrong?”

Abby folds her book, marking the page on the sharp corner before she takes off her glasses. “You don’t owe me anything if that’s what you’re worried about. You felt like you didn’t before. You in all your city glory.”

Something happened.

“Abby, what’s going on?”

“You tell me.” She places your phone on the table and it’s the email detailing of your new book tour in Europe. One that lasts the better part of the year.

“You snooped through my phone?”

“I didn’t mean to, I thought it was mine, okay? I would never do that.” Abby sighs, “I really didn’t mean to fucking look. I just, it’s happening all over again, I’m losing you over something. I’m never what you pick and I can’t ever be enough for you. Even Hazel was right! All you do is hurt me and it’s my fault because I let you. I can’t keep chasing you. It’s a stupid dream I’m too dumb enough to let go of.”

“So, that’s it? Last night was just what? A mistake?”

“I didn’t say that—”

“But you did! Fuck, I should have known things wouldn’t change.”

“You should have known? This is the same reason why you left me. I’ll lose you, again, to something I can’t compete with. The both of us know it to be true. At least have the decency to admit it.”

“Do you want me to apologize? I did what I wanted! I have everything I wanted. This is everything I’ve worked towards for the best ten years—”

“But you don’t—” Abby puffs out her chest, standing taller than she has since you’ve been back. The words spill just like you did the night before, “You didn’t get everything, you made sure of it the moment you left me behind.”

Abby has backed you into a corner, stalking you like you’re her prey but this isn’t how she wants everything to be. Looking into your dreary eyes, she’s transported back to when you shattered her heart, splitting into pieces that no longer fit. The harder she tries to piece them back, the more jagged she becomes.

“I don’t want this. I’ve let go of it.”

I let go of you, sounds entirely too painful to say.

“That’s your plan? To pretend none of this has happened?” Abby’s tongue prods the inside of her cheek, a cocky smirk flashes your way. “Look at how well it turned out the first time.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Your arms cross over your chest, attempting to create some distance between the two of you, but Abby only closes you in.

“Why do you still wear it?”

“What are you talking about?”

Abby reaches for your hand, you untangle your limbs, the pad of her thumb loving running over the silky skin. Her calloused hand feels rough, just as it always has, but it also feels right.

The silver ring on your pinky, the one you lost and the one your father had conveniently found. But it was never him who located your perfect gem, nope. Not at all. Just Abby’s biggest fan, besides Hazel.

The reminder of her leaves a sour taste saturating your tongue, but you have no right. It's her friend, and just because you’re not fond of her, doesn’t mean a thing. You’re just a ghost still lingering in her life. Even if she answers there’s nothing, Hazel looks at her like you used to. When the same protectiveness switched into high gear last night, she only thought of how much you would do the exact same thing Hazel did if the roles were reversed.

Just maybe, not as cruel.

Abby takes the ring off your thumb, it shines in the dim lighting in the room.

“The day I fell in love with you, three months into our relationship, I gave it to you. Do you remember what I said?”

Simply, you nod.

“Wear this for as long as you love me and when you’ve taken it off, I’ll know we’re truly done.” Abby hums, your eyes shut as her thigh wedges between your legs but it only rests there. “But I hope you wear it forever.”

“Then let go of me, give it back, throw it away, but stop acting like you might still feel the same. I’m tired of being played. You know how much this ring means to me. Don’t leave me, again.”

It’s a cop out for what she really wants to say, the both of you know it is, but you have the decency to let it swarm past without making a single comment.

She’s begging for mercy. She’s tired. The lines on her skin are an indication of the hours she spends in the sun and the time passing by, engaging you in a never-ending tsunami of Abigail Anderson’s love.

“Abigail—” You say her name like it’s a curse, a spell you keep casting to make her fall deeper in your endless abyss. “Just because it seems like a good idea doesn’t mean it’ll work out. What makes this time any different?”

You slid away from her, needing to breathe, you can’t think when she’s too close. Serendipity finds home into honey blues, working its magic until she finds purchase in your heart once again. You’d let her get too close, more than you should let her allow.

Abby, the heart.

You, the head.

The dreamer. The thinker. Forever intertwined by the deadly kiss of fate.

“But if it did? What if we did?”

Abby doesn’t want to beg, but she is. She learned her lesson the first time. She said nothing all those years ago, letting you take the relationship the two of you had by the reigns, your cruelty being the fatal blow to what the two of you had worked so hard to build. Naivety crushed the future right in front of her — the one she regularly dreams of.

Each what if connected like constellations in the sky, each one just as bright as the next, Abby can’t make of which she wants. But Abby has always known it to be true, this has always been it for her but you’re so afraid.

Still petrified to be loved.

“I can’t let myself go through it again, if we didn’t? I can’t just—” You begin pacing, trying to get yourself into a position to clear your mind. The hope she has, it could kill you in your sleep. “I fucked up, okay? Last night shouldn’t have happened. I needed something and I used you. Is that what you want to hear? Will that satisfy you enough?”

“I want the goddamn fucking truth, Cherry. Stop with the lies. Tell me you want this to end because you don’t love me anymore, or that you want to go on this book tour, not because you fucked up. I don’t care if you fucked me because you needed your clit sucked for the night. Tell me the truth, Cherry, please.”

“Stop calling me that.”

Abby chuckles maliciously, “Why? You don’t like to remember when you were in love, the only time you ever were happy, the only time you ever let anyone get close to you?”

She attempts to get closer to you but you dodge her and walk to the other side of the room.

“You’re quite literally running away from me. Anything but facing the truth, right?” Abby sighs into her hands. The muscles in her body are exhausted, her heart is over spent, and her mind is filled with you. Even if she doesn’t want it to be. “Do you think I want this? To feel like this? To put my heart on the line when you clearly show that you’ll discard it every damn time? Do you think this is enjoyable for me?”

“Then stop! I’m not asking you to, just let me leave, let me go.”

“Let the ring go.” Somehow, in your heat of emotion, you grabbed it back from her and didn't realize it had been placed back on your thumb. “You know it was my mom’s, how could you so selfishly keep this?”

“What?”

Fuck. Abby runs her hands through her hair, gripping so tightly her sunkissed knuckles turn white from nearly being pulled from the root.

“But you said this was—”

“I lied! I was eighteen and scared shitless, okay? I didn’t want you to—”

“You didn't want me to….?”

Abby sighs rubbing her hand over her face, a habit she seemed to pick up in your presence. “If I tell you, you’re just going to run.”

You grimace, tearing up as you look at the ring, it means so much to her and all this time she was perfectly fine with thinking you got rid of it. Abby never so much as asked for it back. But everything feels more final with the ring in hand, the shining promise of something more. But the naivety of youth chilled her bones, made her believe that love like this comes and goes. It goes. And goes. And goes.

It never comes.

“Do you want it back?” You dodge whatever omission she was about to let fall. It’s what you do best. Avoiding the future — she’s always been ominous, constantly you’re scared to believe in the faith of her undying love. The forgiveness of her heart pours like an overflowing well. Abby teeters you along the line of grace you don’t quite deserve.

“No.” Abby sighs before she brings herself close to you. “I want you back, Cherry. There’s nothing I’ve ever wanted as much as you. When you left, everyone told me it’s just because you're my first love. Time heals all, right? But it doesn’t. Despite your best efforts, I’ll always love you. You’re—”

You take a step closer to her, “I’m what?”

“You’re the love of my life. If you walk at that door, it’ll take the rest of my life to fill the gap you leave. But if you don’t love me, then please, put me out of my misery and just leave.”

Abby looks down at the wood floors, tears collecting in her eyes as she expects you to walk out the front door, leaving her in the dust. But the slam of her front door never comes, instead you sink down on your knees resting your head on her knee, waiting for her to look down at you.

“What?” Abby grunts.

“There was this cute, really nerdy blonde girl, she puked on prom night, crying over some straight girl and somehow I managed to fall in love with her despite all odds but you know what the real kicker is?” You intertwined her hands with her, your head tilting to the side as your dreamily looked into sunny-blues, sticking to you like honey,

“I never, ever stopped.”

#so…..i heard the abby lovers were starving……i have a little treat #abby anderson #abby anderson x reader #abby anderson x masc!reader #abby anderson x fem!reader #abby anderson x female reader #abby anderson x you #abby anderson smut #abby x reader #abby anderson x y/n #abby anderson tlou2 #abby anderson fanfic #tlou x reader #abby anderson angst #abby anderson fluff #❝ ⋮ ⌗ ┆𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬 ❞

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