Hello Again [Peter & Audrey]

She looked up briefly and blinked, then looked away and started playing with her hands, lacing fingers together and wringing them.

"I--"Her voice faltered and she cleared her throat. "I...came here because there are some things I just need to say to get off my chest--not to mention you deserve it...very much."

A nervous hand brushed the stray golden hairs and tucked them behind her ear. "So...as much as you may want me to leave and get out of your life--which I deserve--just let me say these things as quickly as possible, then you can get back to your life."

She paused to take a breath, "I'm stupid. You're an amazing person and have made me so unbelievably happy, but I was stupid. I am stupid. I pushed you away when I could have used you the most." Her voice thickened as tears lined her eyes. She blinked and swallowed harder to curb those emotions, "I'm a mess and I can't really blame anyone else other than myself, so you did nothing wrong. Okay? Just know that. Know nothing was your fault, know that you're possibly the best thing that has happened to me since I was eighteen, and that..."

Her voice cracked, causing her to pause. She closed her tear-flooded eyes and scrunched her reddening face. She inhaled sharply through her nose and exhaled a gasping breath. She opened her eyes, now merely moist and looked into Peter's eyes.

"Know that I love you Peter."

Feeling ridiculous, she shook her head at herself and put her hand back to her mentally cluttered forehead. "I'm sorry for taking your time. I'll just...go now." She started off back to the stairwell at a brisk pace. She didn't know what to make of what just had happened.

Weeping as she ran down the stairs, Audrey didn't hear the first time he called for her, but she certainly did the second. That was enough to break her out of her runaway reverie. She stopped in the middle of her current stait flight and leaned tiredly against the railing. All that running, stress, and current situation took quite a bit out of her. She just wanted to go into her dark apartment and curl up in bed, breathing stale air.

...but the fact the he was running and calling after her...that HAD to be a good sign.

...right?

Audrey watched him as he bounded for her and caught his breath. She avoided looking at anything above his chest--she couldn't bring herself to look in his eyes again after opening herself to such a vulnerable degree. Months ago, she thought she was incapable of love or being loved. Then Peter came along, threatening the safety of her certain lonliness, invariably terrifying her. Now with her mother dead and her own life in the balance, action needed to be taken.

Audrey didn't know how to feel about his worry. Ashamed? Honored? Loved? Embarrassed? She was too busy wondering such to notice how much she'd like feeling how he touched her again.

"I was at home--well, my parents'--in Connecticut." Audrey paused, shifting her legs nervously and licking her dried lips as she leaned towards the wall for support. "My Mom, uh...she...died a couple of weeks ago."

And Audrey just wanted to be held herself. In the meantime, she wiped her moist eye with the side of her wrist, "It was quick and unexpected. A heart attack. It was my day off and I got a call from my Dad in the middle of the night to tell me she died that afternoon."

Audrey scoffed bitterly, "Needless to say, staying in the same house with him for two weeks was quite fun for the both of us."

Audrey clung to him, his shirt bunching up in her closed fists, as she deepened the embrace.

"I wasn't that great either. I shouldn't have pushed you away. I couldn't help it though. It's a...terrible habit, really. If I can picture spending my life with you, then I have to do my part. I failed. I failed you, Peter. I'm so sorry."

"I missed you too." She curled herself closer into his arms. "I really could have used you these past two weeks."

Audrey swallowed hard and calmed her breathing, trying to slow her pounding heart to a steadier pace.

This...was going to be quite difficult. She feared it might potentially scare him away.

"If I'm to be with you, there are some things you need to...know..."

Audrey drew in a deep, shaky breath. Even though she had told her former therapist about this, he was the only one who really knew. Equal parts of her wanted to tell Peter and others thought that it would be a bad idea, that it'd potentially scare him away because her wounds are so painful and so deep. However, she also thought that this could test just how much he does love her, like he said he did.

"When I was eighteen..." Audrey started slowly, "...I was an undergrad at Berkeley. I made friends right away and we liked to go off and have a good time." Audrey scoffed dryly, "Yeah--I wasn't always like this. Once upon a time, I was actually nice to be around."

Her index finger began subconsciously drawing imaginary circles around her kneecap as she studied it. "Well, it was Valentine's weekend, so there were parties everywhere, so we all went out, dressed in all reds, pinks, and whites. I borrowed my best friend at the time's red halter dress that came up to here on me." She placed her straightened hand in the middle of her thigh.

Another breath, "We drank, we danced, we had a good time." She paused, "But I don't remember anything else." Her lips automatically pursed together so hard, the color was pushed out of them. She nearly choked on the lump in her throat as it blocked a good portion of her airway. She wheezed a breath in, a stray sob escaping. Tears matted her eyelashes and ruddy cheeks.

"I woke up the next morning," She sniffed, "In a part of town I had never been in before in the bed of a man I had never met. My clothes were across the room on some chair."

She burst into tears and stuffed her face into Peter's warm chest, muffling her pained cries.