musesandlyrics | 2.4. Matthew Perry quote
2.4. "Oh, this is a dear diary moment..."
Matthew Perry
Co-written with agentsullivan
[Follows THIS]
Life had to start returning to normal.
It was a fact easier said than done, but one that could be dangerous if it got swept under the carpet of denial. After going underground and spending a good three days in bed together, just sleeping and trying to heal together after the ordeal, Ali and Andrew had resurfaced to face the weekend. To face their family and friends, thank everyone who had helped them. Both knew it wasn't going to be a smooth process by any means, and they were fragile after the pain they had gone through. But small steps were needed to start seeking out a normalcy for them now. Things probably wouldn't ever be the same. How could they be now they had lost something so precious to them? They just needed to blindly feel their way through to get back on their feet, because they were more aware than anyone that there was no 'proper' way to deal with this. There was no instruction manual.
Strangely enough, though, when Ali found herself alone in the apartment, she realised it was the first time in a long time, and it just felt so empty. Despite being one of the worst committment-phobes to walk the earth in the past, here she was standing in the middle of her living room in her Little Miss Bitchy pyjamas and cow slippers at a total and utter loss of what she was supposed to do without her fiance and her baby daughter to occupy her. They had come to be part of her, and she existed to be part of them. It kind of really sucked without them. Alicia Sullivan, when she had stepped out of her single gal fashionable shoes just briefly, had become a mummy and a wife-to-be... and loved it.
She went over to the phone, snapping it up and had half of James' number punched in before she caught herself and halted the dialling. "Get a grip, Sullivan," she murmured. Andrew and Jamie weren't her security blanket. She needed to find a way to do this with them, but also be able to do it without them. Losing the baby had cut her so deeply, but she had a flicker of a yearning to get back on the horse and ride into this head-on with the determination she always harboured before she lost James and her world fell apart. She put the phone back down and went over to the state of the art stereo that had come to her in James' will along with the apartment. Her CDs lined the shelf behind it and she ran her fingers along them, and then gave a nod as she plucked one out with a small smirk. "No one puts Baby in a corner," she said with a small snort. She had grown up on that movie, wanted Patrick Swayze to be her first fuck. The bastard never came to the party. Like he could keep up with her anyway.
Nursing the CD to her chest, she remembered back to Andrew's birthday party, the night she miscarried, but before she started to realise something was wrong. Fuck Patrick Swayze. Her Andrew could dance with style, and she realised that just as she had given up her hunt for her ultimate guy, he had fallen right into her lap and swept her off her feet, complete with hip action that drove her wild. Not that she wanted a fucking nose like the chick Dirty Dancing, but cheesy love stories... maybe they could become a reality. Andrew had her wanting to fall to her knees for him and worship every last inch of him, just like the chick on the movie. Okay, she was going nuts comparing her love life to a twee Eighties movie. She scrubbed a hand over her face and sighed, looking at the cover of the CD. The thing was, she had always been so fucking jealous of Baby getting her guy in the movie. It had been like the fairy tale for every single twenty and thirty something women to haughtily scoff over and snort that shit like that never happened. Ali was right up there on the list, though her scoffing usually took more the form of rough expletives and flipping the bird at the TV screen. It wasn't her fault she should have been born with balls.
She tucked the notion to the back of her mind for the moment and placed the CD on the mantel. Instead, she took out a copy of the First Wives Club soundtrack and slotted it into the player. She cranked the volume up. If she had the apartment to herself, she had to learn to get in touch with her inner solitude again. It had become her friend over the years of her bachelorette life, so it had to still be in there somewhere. A trip to the kitchen proferred a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and a spoon. She took a large scoop and put it into her mouth, licking every last drop off the spoon and her thumb before she smirked again to herself and selected a track. A few moments later, she was using the spoon as a microphone and belting out a song that got her through her split with Mark, on repeat, over and and over again until she started coming out of her funk - You Don't Own Me, courtesy of Bette, Goldie and Diane.
Of course, bad pyjamas solitary singing could never come without bad solitary dancing, and she jumped up on the sofa, throwing her other arm out and dancing along with the song. Cathartiscism. You gotta love it. Some of the tension and pain she had been harbouring for the past two weeks starting to melt away as she jumped back off the sofa and danced over to get the tub of ice crea, hugging it under her arm like a dancing partner before making her way back up onto the sofa. She was never going to be the bitter single New York chick who took her frustrations out in Manolo Blahnik and Gucci again, she knew that. She was maybe never going to even be able to wear Prada jeans without having baby sick or kid drool on it again. She was maybe never going to curse men for not being able to find one. Because she had one, one who loved her for being a huge dork and a huge bitch simultaneously. "I'M YOUNG, AND I LOVE TO YOUNG! I'M FREE, AND I LOVE TO BE FREE! TO LIVE MY LIFE THE WAY THAT I WANT! TO SAY AND DO WHATEVER I PLEASE!" she sung loudly. One who understood that she had to have moments that were uniquely Ali Sullivan moments for her to survive the scary world out beyond the walls of her apartment, even if it meant pretending to be a hard bitch when really she was terrified on the inside. One that she knew, at that moment, was going to be the one to help her find herself again.
The music suddenly abruply cut off. "Ali?"
Ali nearly pissed herself in fright. She froze, microphone spoon held up to her lips as she had been mid-verse of the song. "Andy!" she squeaked, looking down at her fiance with wide, stunned eyes.
Andrew was smiling up at her in amusement from where he was standing by the stereo. "Hello, my darling," he greeted her with a laugh. Probably the first time he had laughed since his birthday party. She was a sight, to say the least. Pyjama pants, cow slippers, a t-shirt that declared 'Yes, they're tits, genius, and they feel awesome', hair sticking up every which way, and her beloved Ben & Jerry's hugged protectively under her arm. Fuck, he loved her. He held his hand out to her. "That should be your anthem, you know."
There was a few moments where Ali didn't know whether she should be embarrassed or guilty for enjoying herself so soon after the miscarriage, and biting on her lip before she took his hand was a telltale sign that she couldn't stop. "My 'Fuck the world to dogs balls, I'm awesome' song?" she asked and offered him the spoon. "Duet?"
Andrew smiled softly at her. He had spotted the other soundtrack by the CD player, and a stab of bittersweet sadness had tugged inside him too when he thought about his birthday party. He knew now Ali was a fan of the film, and it fueled some sort of nostalgia inside her. It was strange where comfort could be found when everything felt like it was falling apart. He ejected the CD she had in and slotted the other soundtrack in it's place, flicking through a couple of tracks to get to the famous duet from the movie. He took the spoon and ice cream off her to wrap his arms around her. He held her in a secure embrace and started to dance with her, singing softly against her ear. He knew things had sucked lately, and he had been the cause of a lot of them. He had terrified her right when she needed his help. Truth was, he had terrified himself, too. Still was terrified in the wake of his near miss with the wine this morning. Maybe he needed some cheesy romantic moments to heal, too. At the end of the day, anything close to Ali and he wanted to indulge as much as he possibly could.
Ali smiled and let out a rush of breath, a fondness of his willingness to just fall into her stupid moments with her and embrace them to make them special. He had been so shy and bashful when she first met him, but he was like a diamond in the rough. Gradually as they got closer and closer, he let the shy mask slip a little more and a little more with her, and she could see now that they weren't as different as she first thought they were. He might have been shy, but he had always been proud of what he wanted and proud to be looking to find it. Ali, on the other hand, had always been so self-assured, arrogant and in your face, but she never quite knew what she wanted and needed until she had it. He just had to help her understand how to reach out and take it.
The song got about half way through, and she reached over to turn the volume down. It could still be heard, but just in the background. She looked at him, brushing her thumb across his cheek. "I was thinking about some things," she admitted quietly, holding his gaze.
"Me too," Andrew revealed, still moving slightly with the music. "You go first."
"I think I want to go back to work, part time. Just a couple of days a week initially," Ali told him and wetting her lips. "I don't know if it's the right thing, but it feels like something I need to do. I need to try and get a little piece of the old me back, and my job was about eighty percent of the old me."
Andrew nodded, rubbing her back encouragingly. "I think that's a good idea, beautiful. You know I'll be here for you, however it goes. And it's funny you should say that, because I was thinking of maybe cutting my hours a little. A couple of shifts less a week, just for a few months so I can, um... go back to AA. I know you must think I'm crazy after how sick I made myself with the drinking the other day, but I'm finding it extremely difficult to fight at the moment. There was leftover wine in the fridge from when Mum was over for dinner the other week. I drank some, straight from the bottle before something kicked in and I poured it down the sink. I need help, Ali. I really need it."
Ali squeezed him softly and then rubbed her hands up and down his sides. "I'm so proud of you," she told him, trying not to get teary, but it was hard after living through the ordeal of him writing himself off like he did that night. She pulled him into a kiss and then cupped his face with her hands. "I'm going to be right by your side through it all, okay? Whatever you need me to do, I'm here," she promised.
"I want you to come to the first meeting with me," Andrew admitted in a hushed voice, which had been big decision for him to come to. He hated the inner feeling that he was losing control again, and he needed to fight that as soon as possible so it didn't drown him again. He had too much to be well for this time. Too much he didn't want to miss out on in a drunken or hungover haze. "I never took anyone to the meetings with me before, but I... I need you there."
"You just say the day, baby," Ali murmured, closing her eyes for a few moments and resting her forehead against his. "We'll get through it. I promise you that." She opened her eyes and looked at him intently, touching his lip with her thumb. "Marry me, Andrew Connor. I don't want to wait until New Year's. Let's do it sooner. I want to marry you. I want you to adopt Jamie. I want us to seal the deal, with the white dress and the wedding cake and the guests. I want to marry you in front of everyone I love, and I don't want to wait."
Andrew broke into a grin, despite the difficulty of the previous subject. He pulled her into a warm embrace and kissed her hair. "You just say the day, baby..."
All muses referenced with permission and are from the princeton2nyc universe
Word Count | 2,329
Matthew Perry
Co-written with agentsullivan
[Follows THIS]
Life had to start returning to normal.
It was a fact easier said than done, but one that could be dangerous if it got swept under the carpet of denial. After going underground and spending a good three days in bed together, just sleeping and trying to heal together after the ordeal, Ali and Andrew had resurfaced to face the weekend. To face their family and friends, thank everyone who had helped them. Both knew it wasn't going to be a smooth process by any means, and they were fragile after the pain they had gone through. But small steps were needed to start seeking out a normalcy for them now. Things probably wouldn't ever be the same. How could they be now they had lost something so precious to them? They just needed to blindly feel their way through to get back on their feet, because they were more aware than anyone that there was no 'proper' way to deal with this. There was no instruction manual.
Strangely enough, though, when Ali found herself alone in the apartment, she realised it was the first time in a long time, and it just felt so empty. Despite being one of the worst committment-phobes to walk the earth in the past, here she was standing in the middle of her living room in her Little Miss Bitchy pyjamas and cow slippers at a total and utter loss of what she was supposed to do without her fiance and her baby daughter to occupy her. They had come to be part of her, and she existed to be part of them. It kind of really sucked without them. Alicia Sullivan, when she had stepped out of her single gal fashionable shoes just briefly, had become a mummy and a wife-to-be... and loved it.
She went over to the phone, snapping it up and had half of James' number punched in before she caught herself and halted the dialling. "Get a grip, Sullivan," she murmured. Andrew and Jamie weren't her security blanket. She needed to find a way to do this with them, but also be able to do it without them. Losing the baby had cut her so deeply, but she had a flicker of a yearning to get back on the horse and ride into this head-on with the determination she always harboured before she lost James and her world fell apart. She put the phone back down and went over to the state of the art stereo that had come to her in James' will along with the apartment. Her CDs lined the shelf behind it and she ran her fingers along them, and then gave a nod as she plucked one out with a small smirk. "No one puts Baby in a corner," she said with a small snort. She had grown up on that movie, wanted Patrick Swayze to be her first fuck. The bastard never came to the party. Like he could keep up with her anyway.
Nursing the CD to her chest, she remembered back to Andrew's birthday party, the night she miscarried, but before she started to realise something was wrong. Fuck Patrick Swayze. Her Andrew could dance with style, and she realised that just as she had given up her hunt for her ultimate guy, he had fallen right into her lap and swept her off her feet, complete with hip action that drove her wild. Not that she wanted a fucking nose like the chick Dirty Dancing, but cheesy love stories... maybe they could become a reality. Andrew had her wanting to fall to her knees for him and worship every last inch of him, just like the chick on the movie. Okay, she was going nuts comparing her love life to a twee Eighties movie. She scrubbed a hand over her face and sighed, looking at the cover of the CD. The thing was, she had always been so fucking jealous of Baby getting her guy in the movie. It had been like the fairy tale for every single twenty and thirty something women to haughtily scoff over and snort that shit like that never happened. Ali was right up there on the list, though her scoffing usually took more the form of rough expletives and flipping the bird at the TV screen. It wasn't her fault she should have been born with balls.
She tucked the notion to the back of her mind for the moment and placed the CD on the mantel. Instead, she took out a copy of the First Wives Club soundtrack and slotted it into the player. She cranked the volume up. If she had the apartment to herself, she had to learn to get in touch with her inner solitude again. It had become her friend over the years of her bachelorette life, so it had to still be in there somewhere. A trip to the kitchen proferred a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and a spoon. She took a large scoop and put it into her mouth, licking every last drop off the spoon and her thumb before she smirked again to herself and selected a track. A few moments later, she was using the spoon as a microphone and belting out a song that got her through her split with Mark, on repeat, over and and over again until she started coming out of her funk - You Don't Own Me, courtesy of Bette, Goldie and Diane.
Of course, bad pyjamas solitary singing could never come without bad solitary dancing, and she jumped up on the sofa, throwing her other arm out and dancing along with the song. Cathartiscism. You gotta love it. Some of the tension and pain she had been harbouring for the past two weeks starting to melt away as she jumped back off the sofa and danced over to get the tub of ice crea, hugging it under her arm like a dancing partner before making her way back up onto the sofa. She was never going to be the bitter single New York chick who took her frustrations out in Manolo Blahnik and Gucci again, she knew that. She was maybe never going to even be able to wear Prada jeans without having baby sick or kid drool on it again. She was maybe never going to curse men for not being able to find one. Because she had one, one who loved her for being a huge dork and a huge bitch simultaneously. "I'M YOUNG, AND I LOVE TO YOUNG! I'M FREE, AND I LOVE TO BE FREE! TO LIVE MY LIFE THE WAY THAT I WANT! TO SAY AND DO WHATEVER I PLEASE!" she sung loudly. One who understood that she had to have moments that were uniquely Ali Sullivan moments for her to survive the scary world out beyond the walls of her apartment, even if it meant pretending to be a hard bitch when really she was terrified on the inside. One that she knew, at that moment, was going to be the one to help her find herself again.
The music suddenly abruply cut off. "Ali?"
Ali nearly pissed herself in fright. She froze, microphone spoon held up to her lips as she had been mid-verse of the song. "Andy!" she squeaked, looking down at her fiance with wide, stunned eyes.
Andrew was smiling up at her in amusement from where he was standing by the stereo. "Hello, my darling," he greeted her with a laugh. Probably the first time he had laughed since his birthday party. She was a sight, to say the least. Pyjama pants, cow slippers, a t-shirt that declared 'Yes, they're tits, genius, and they feel awesome', hair sticking up every which way, and her beloved Ben & Jerry's hugged protectively under her arm. Fuck, he loved her. He held his hand out to her. "That should be your anthem, you know."
There was a few moments where Ali didn't know whether she should be embarrassed or guilty for enjoying herself so soon after the miscarriage, and biting on her lip before she took his hand was a telltale sign that she couldn't stop. "My 'Fuck the world to dogs balls, I'm awesome' song?" she asked and offered him the spoon. "Duet?"
Andrew smiled softly at her. He had spotted the other soundtrack by the CD player, and a stab of bittersweet sadness had tugged inside him too when he thought about his birthday party. He knew now Ali was a fan of the film, and it fueled some sort of nostalgia inside her. It was strange where comfort could be found when everything felt like it was falling apart. He ejected the CD she had in and slotted the other soundtrack in it's place, flicking through a couple of tracks to get to the famous duet from the movie. He took the spoon and ice cream off her to wrap his arms around her. He held her in a secure embrace and started to dance with her, singing softly against her ear. He knew things had sucked lately, and he had been the cause of a lot of them. He had terrified her right when she needed his help. Truth was, he had terrified himself, too. Still was terrified in the wake of his near miss with the wine this morning. Maybe he needed some cheesy romantic moments to heal, too. At the end of the day, anything close to Ali and he wanted to indulge as much as he possibly could.
Ali smiled and let out a rush of breath, a fondness of his willingness to just fall into her stupid moments with her and embrace them to make them special. He had been so shy and bashful when she first met him, but he was like a diamond in the rough. Gradually as they got closer and closer, he let the shy mask slip a little more and a little more with her, and she could see now that they weren't as different as she first thought they were. He might have been shy, but he had always been proud of what he wanted and proud to be looking to find it. Ali, on the other hand, had always been so self-assured, arrogant and in your face, but she never quite knew what she wanted and needed until she had it. He just had to help her understand how to reach out and take it.
The song got about half way through, and she reached over to turn the volume down. It could still be heard, but just in the background. She looked at him, brushing her thumb across his cheek. "I was thinking about some things," she admitted quietly, holding his gaze.
"Me too," Andrew revealed, still moving slightly with the music. "You go first."
"I think I want to go back to work, part time. Just a couple of days a week initially," Ali told him and wetting her lips. "I don't know if it's the right thing, but it feels like something I need to do. I need to try and get a little piece of the old me back, and my job was about eighty percent of the old me."
Andrew nodded, rubbing her back encouragingly. "I think that's a good idea, beautiful. You know I'll be here for you, however it goes. And it's funny you should say that, because I was thinking of maybe cutting my hours a little. A couple of shifts less a week, just for a few months so I can, um... go back to AA. I know you must think I'm crazy after how sick I made myself with the drinking the other day, but I'm finding it extremely difficult to fight at the moment. There was leftover wine in the fridge from when Mum was over for dinner the other week. I drank some, straight from the bottle before something kicked in and I poured it down the sink. I need help, Ali. I really need it."
Ali squeezed him softly and then rubbed her hands up and down his sides. "I'm so proud of you," she told him, trying not to get teary, but it was hard after living through the ordeal of him writing himself off like he did that night. She pulled him into a kiss and then cupped his face with her hands. "I'm going to be right by your side through it all, okay? Whatever you need me to do, I'm here," she promised.
"I want you to come to the first meeting with me," Andrew admitted in a hushed voice, which had been big decision for him to come to. He hated the inner feeling that he was losing control again, and he needed to fight that as soon as possible so it didn't drown him again. He had too much to be well for this time. Too much he didn't want to miss out on in a drunken or hungover haze. "I never took anyone to the meetings with me before, but I... I need you there."
"You just say the day, baby," Ali murmured, closing her eyes for a few moments and resting her forehead against his. "We'll get through it. I promise you that." She opened her eyes and looked at him intently, touching his lip with her thumb. "Marry me, Andrew Connor. I don't want to wait until New Year's. Let's do it sooner. I want to marry you. I want you to adopt Jamie. I want us to seal the deal, with the white dress and the wedding cake and the guests. I want to marry you in front of everyone I love, and I don't want to wait."
Andrew broke into a grin, despite the difficulty of the previous subject. He pulled her into a warm embrace and kissed her hair. "You just say the day, baby..."
All muses referenced with permission and are from the princeton2nyc universe
Word Count | 2,329