The Day We Fell Apart 1/1
My muse was being good and working on overdrive, I finally had some new ideas together for a fic when the EVIL writers’ block came along and settled into my head.
This piece is me attempting to break through it and hopefully find my muse again :(
The Day We Fell Apart
Callie twisted the key in the lock, turning the handle when the door clicked open and stepped inside her dark apartment. She stumbled through the sheet of blackness, cursing out loud when her toe caught an unknown, offending item on the floor. The dark-haired woman reached out blindly, slapping her hand over the cool, hard wall as she desperately searched for the light switch.
Her brown eyes squinted when the room illuminated in bright light and she instantly lowered her weary gaze down to see what had caused her toe so much pain. She growled in irritation at the sight of the blue covered, medical book and bent down to retrieve it; damn her unorganised, messy, emotionally detached roommate for leaving her stuff all over the apartment they shared.
Without warning Callie suddenly felt hot tears form behind her eyes and spill like floods onto her heated cheeks. She forcefully threw her bag down onto the ground and dropped onto the couch, dropping her head into her hands and rubbing at her eyes. After the horrific day she’d had it seemed unbelievably stupid that her body had decided to let her cry now. Not earlier when her heart had ached so much that she thought it would burst from inside her chest, not earlier when all the words she willed herself to speak had miserably failed her, and not earlier when Erica had angrily walked away from her in the parking lot.
She dragged her fingers through her hair and muttered angrily at herself for the painful mess she’d allowed herself to fall into. She’d been given a second chance after her terrible attempt at love and marriage with George, and although it had surprised her deeply, when her heart started to flutter for another woman, she’d found herself looking forward to whatever this new turn in her life might bring.
And then she fucked it up.
Not even just a little.
Majorly.
She’d fucked up in that downwards spiral of disastrous choices kind of way; one domino in the line knocked down, easily bringing them all to the ground. What was worse was that she couldn’t remember why that first flash of panic had led her to cause such colossal destruction. If she’d just taken a minute, just stepped back and took a breath she could have calmed herself. Her head would have been clearer and her actions wouldn’t have been a wild rush.
Callie pinched the bridge of her nose and gritted her teeth at the sharp pain it caused. Where the hell had her mind been back then? Where the hell had her mind been tonight? Why was it that logic thought had vanished from her ability and was instead replaced by this careless recklessness that let everything fall apart.
Her whole life had been one mess from another, starting from her childhood. She’d been an awkward child, handicapped by her differences to the other children and held back from social activity. It hadn’t lessened when she’d reached medical school; she was still the shy, clumsy girl who sat at the back of class and stumbled over her words.
The only thing she’d ever done right in her life was science, medicine. It was a world where she could throw away all that she was and all that she knew and start over. The rules of the human body and what it could and couldn’t handle had been a puzzle that she’d had to put together on her own, and when she had, she’d found herself emerged from her cocoon as a strong, independent butterfly.
Her career had given her a fresh start, and she was able to be the woman she’d always wanted to be. Dr Callie Torres didn’t worry about what people said about her, Dr Callie Torres didn’t give a crap if she wasn’t widely liked because she was good at this, her job, and she didn’t need nor crave anyone’s approval.
Until Erica came waltzing into her life unexpectedly.
With George, she’d wanted his friends to accept her because she thought it would make him love her more; but they didn’t try because they knew that really she didn’t belong to them, and deep down Callie had known it to.
But with Erica everything was different. She hadn’t needed to try to become part of a group with her, they’d simply just fell into place and the older woman understood and accepted her without wanting Callie to be anything other than herself. It had felt great, to finally be open and free with someone and not have to worry that you might disappoint them by showing your real self.
But tonight Callie didn’t need Erica to be disappointed in her, because she was already so disappointed with herself and seeing it reflected in Erica’s beautiful blue eyes tonight had stunned her into a deathly numbness.
Callie squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to fall back in time. Back to the day when she’d kissed Erica outside of the hospital. She’d give anything to start over from that very point and make their relationship everything she knew it could be.
Callie jumped at the sound of the door flying open and opened her eyes to see the blonde she’d just been thinking about storm into her apartment like a force of nature. Erica’s angry gaze burned into her eyes and a moment of silence passed between them; Callie became acutely aware that in life there was no magic dial to turn back time, life only moved forward, and this right now, was her life moving forward again.
“I can’t believe you,” Callie felt her stomach not as Erica’s harsh voice reached her ears; “I seriously can’t believe you did that to me.”
She watched the blonde woman look away from her briefly as her jaw tightened and willed herself to speak, “Erica...I...”
“Shut up Torres,” her blue eyes flickered with irritation, “You really are un-fucking-believable and I’m not letting you get away with it anymore,” Callie watched a heated flush cover Erica’s cheeks and felt her mouth grow increasingly dry with every angry word that left the older woman’s mouth, “Why didn’t you call after me tonight? Why didn’t you try to stop me from walking away?”
Callie swallowed the lump in her throat and blinked away from Erica’s intense stare, “You said you didn’t know me,” she mumbled the words into the thick air between them and risked lifting her eyes back to the blonde’s.
Erica scoffed, “I think we both know that’s a load of crap. I only said it to get under your skin, to try and at least get some kind of reaction out of you,” she swiped her tongue across her bottom lip and sucked in a deep breath before continuing, “I was trying to figure out if your heart was in this... but it’s obviously not because you were so willing to lay down your weapon and give up the fight for us.”
“That’s not true-”
Blue eyes sought out brown and held them intensely, “No it is Callie,” she ran a hand through her hair and shook her head, “Look, I get that our relationship, or whatever the hell we are is a complete and utter shamble,” she held her hand up when the younger woman opened her mouth to protest, “But why didn’t you care enough to fight for our friendship?”
Callie felt the twinge in her heart suddenly turn into a striking ache that burned with every breath she fought to take as she drank in the defeat in Erica’s incredibly blue eyes; the full weight of all the hurt Callie had caused her hanging heavily over her shoulders and crushing her strong stance down to the ground.
Callie opened her mouth to respond and faltered when she caught sight of a few escaped tears sliding down the blonde’s cheek. She pushed herself from the couch and reached out to touch her, wanting nothing more than to ease the pain of what she alone had caused, “Erica...”
The older woman shook her head and wiped irately at her tears, “My best friend would have come after me no matter what was going on between us because that’s the kind of person she is, but tonight you didn’t even move an inch. Maybe I was right; maybe I don’t really know you-”
“You do know me Erica,” Callie found her voice as the blonde turned her back to her.
“Well do you,” she turned back towards the younger woman, “Care? About our friendship?”
Callie couldn’t believe the older woman had asked her that. Had all the time they’d spent together, getting to know each other in the months building up to their relationship really been so easily knocked down by her actions that Erica felt the need to ask if that connection even still existed between them. Had she really hurt her best friend this much by her self-centred actions?
Erica let out an amused breath and shook her head to herself; muttering, “Unbelievable,” as she made a move towards the door.
It was the blonde’s voice that drew Callie from her thoughts in time to realise that she hadn’t replied to Erica’s question. And now her best friend, her something more, was heading right back out the door and ending every tie between them for good.
Callie’s feet moved at a speed of their own and before she knew it her fingers were curled around Erica’s wrist and she’d tugged the blonde back round to face her, “Of course I care about our fucking friendship Erica,” Callie felt anger rise in her own chest, “How can you even ask me that?” Callie watched Erica turn her face away from her, and quickly cupped her face with hand hands and drew their eyes back together, “Our friendship is the most important thing in my life. You are the most important person in my life,” she let her brown eyes drink in the blonde’s face and at the flash of uncertainty on her features, repeated, “I care.”
“Finally, some emotion out of you,” Erica covered Callie’s hands on her face and pulled them away, “Does it really take me yelling at you like this to get some passion out of you? You’re Callie Torres; you wear your heart on your sleeve, your feelings are on show one hundred percent of the time... except when you’re with me.”
“I am emotional when I’m with you, I have passion; it’s all there...” Callie shifted uncomfortably as she trailed off.
Erica studied Callie face, lingering over her eyes and urgently tried to read the expression in them. She let out a sigh of irritation, “Where the hell are you Callie? I mean you’re right here but you’re so far away that I feel like I can’t touch you,” Callie reached for Erica’s hand again and pursed her lips together in sadness when the older woman dodged her attempt, “I feel like this whole time I’ve been out here waiting for you to show up so that we can be sacred together like we promised but you never turned up,” the harsh tone in her voice fell away as she looked around the room, “And I’m left out there in the darkness alone and scared,” she felt Callie’s eyes on her face and searched her eyes, “Where the hell are you?”
Callie forced herself into Erica’s personal space and cupped her face again, “I’m right here.”
The older woman willed herself not to allow more tears to escape her eyes, “No you’re not Cal. You’re anywhere but here with me. You don’t talk to me like you used to anymore, you don’t talk to me about anything anymore but you’re more than happy to sleep with me,” she eased away from the younger woman again and looked down at the floor, “I feel like I’ve been replaced, whenever you need to tell someone about how you’re feeling you go and talk to Sloan, and then once he’s helped you figure out, but not really figure out whatever is going on in your head, you go and sleep with him,” she saw a glimmer of pain dance across dark eyes as she lifted her head, “ So explain to me how you’re here Cal, because it damn well doesn’t seem like you are.”
“You think I like feeling like I can’t talk to you?” Callie brushed a stray curl behind her ear and breathed out in annoyance, “I hate that since this started all I’ve done is panic, but you know what? When I promised you we could be scared together I meant it with everything that I am. I fully intended for us to continue on like normal, like Callie and Erica, best friends who can talk about anything that’s on their minds, but it’s not that simple.”
“Why isn’t it simple Callie?” Erica asked gently, feeling a flash of hope enter her body at the younger woman’s sudden desire to spill her feelings.
“It got complicated, things between us got complicated fast,” she moved towards the couch and dropped down onto it, running her hands over her face, “I thought it would be easy because we could talk about everything, but when your person becomes the thing you want to talk about all of the time it gets kind of difficult,” she watched Erica shrug off her coat and move to sit down on the coffee table opposite her, listening closely, “I wanted to talk to you about how I was feeling, but you seemed so far ahead, so confident in what we had, and I felt like I was still learning to swim. I felt like I couldn’t tell you I needed arm-bands to help me stay afloat because you’d be disappointed in me for not picking it up as quickly as you,” she reached out and placed her hand on Erica’s knee, “I never wanted to hurt you and I’ve never felt so ashamed with myself as I do right now. If I could go back and do it over, I’d never shut up about how I was feeling about you.”
Erica sucked in a deep breath and allowed a small smile to tug at the corner of her lips, “Try again now.”
Callie looked up at her in shock, “What?”
“Consider this another chance, pretend things are right back at the beginning for us and try again,” Callie’s eyebrow rose in question and Erica nodded her head, “I’m willing to sit here, on your coffee table for as long as it takes, if you’re willing to tell me every little thing, all of the good things you thought and felt, and all of the bad, since this thing between me and you started.”
Tears spilled out from the younger woman’s dark eyes and her voice came out in a cracked whisper, “You said ‘okay,’ after I told you about sleeping with Mark, but I knew it wasn’t, but I went along with it anyway and let you hurt. So what makes you think that if I tell you everything now it will really be okay? You already can’t forgive me for what I did; I see it in your eyes every time you look at me.”
Erica covered the hand Callie had resting on her knee and offered a small smile to the dark-haired woman, “I do forgive you for sleeping with Mark Callie,” the younger woman looked up at her in surprise, “I even forgive you for all of the panic and freak-outs you had, because you’re human, and you made a mistake, it happens to us all. But what I don’t forgive you for is shutting me out Cal,” she watched Callie squeeze her eyes shut as more tears rolled down her cheeks and instantly reached out to brush them away; making brown eyes flutter back open and find her own, “We used to be able to sit in silence for hours and I’d be able to hear everything that wasn’t spoken between us. I used to take one glance in your beautiful brown eyes and know exactly what you were feeling. I used to be able to tell from the tone of your voice what you really thought, even if the words you spoke didn’t match up,” a smile passed between them at that moment, both knowing Callie’s true feelings were always held in her voice, “I used to know just from studying your body language just what you needed Cal,” Erica’s gaze saddened, “But now when I look into your eyes all I see is this closed off, defensive look that tells me you’re guarding everything that you feel and I can’t help but feel that you don’t want me to see how you really feel anymore.”
Callie blew out a breath and laughed a little, “You’re one of the smartest people I know Erica. The way you know me never fails to blow me away, and you’re right about me being guarded with you lately but it’s not because I don’t want you to see the real me anymore, it’s because I got scared,” she reached out to take both of Erica’s hands in her own and held her eyes intensely, “I love you Erica,” she watched a look of astonishment cover the blonde’s face and tightened her grasp on the older woman’s hands, “With George, I was the idiot who blurted it out first, and it freaked him out so much that he ended up avoiding me for days. Looking back at our relationship after our divorce I realised that he’d never said it back to me, not once and it broke my heart. He was my first love,” she shrugged her shoulders and felt Erica link their fingers together, “I was guarded with you because I knew I’d fallen to soon again, and I wanted to tell you so badly, but I knew if you didn’t say it back it would kill me, my heart would physically stop beating,” she watched as tears fell from Erica’s blue eyes and leaned in closer to her, “That’s why I pushed you away Erica, not because I’m afraid to hold onto you, but because I’m terrified that you’ll let me go.”
Erica let out a little laugh and smiled happily as she pulled her hands from Callie’s and cupped the younger woman’s face in her hands, “Then you’re more of an idiot than I thought Torres, because there’s no way I’d ever let you go,” Callie smiled beautifully back at her, “You need to trust that I’m not George. I know he was your first love and he hurt you, but you’re my first love Callie, so I need you to believe in me, and give me the chance to love you back, because I do Cal, I love you too.”
Callie smiled through the happy tears that were freely escaping her eyes and leaned in towards the blonde, letting their lips come together in a gentle first kiss; their tongues dancing tentatively together like it was the first exploration either of them had ever experienced of kissing another person.
“I’m so sorry Eri-” Callie felt Erica’s lips pressed back against her own and smiled when the older woman pulled away again, “I really love you.”
“I love you to Cal,” Erica rose from her position on the coffee table, dragging Callie up with her, “No more apologies okay? We start fresh, from now. No more secrets, no more holding back, just me and you scared together.”
Callie nodded her head, “Just me and you together I promise,” she placed a kiss on Erica’s lips.
Erica tugged Callie towards the younger woman’s bedroom, “We need sleep, and tomorrow we can put this new promise to the test, deal?”
“Deal,” Callie beamed her megawatt smile at her.
They changed for bed in comfortable silence and settled under the covers; each instantly searching for the other until their bodies were pressed closely together and their limbs were entwining them in a blanket of safety while their breaths merged into one.
Sometimes you have to fall apart in order to rebuild yourself into something new, something stronger than before, and as the women woke peacefully the next morning in each other’s arms, they knew that this time, together, they’d be indestructible.
This piece is me attempting to break through it and hopefully find my muse again :(
The Day We Fell Apart
Callie twisted the key in the lock, turning the handle when the door clicked open and stepped inside her dark apartment. She stumbled through the sheet of blackness, cursing out loud when her toe caught an unknown, offending item on the floor. The dark-haired woman reached out blindly, slapping her hand over the cool, hard wall as she desperately searched for the light switch.
Her brown eyes squinted when the room illuminated in bright light and she instantly lowered her weary gaze down to see what had caused her toe so much pain. She growled in irritation at the sight of the blue covered, medical book and bent down to retrieve it; damn her unorganised, messy, emotionally detached roommate for leaving her stuff all over the apartment they shared.
Without warning Callie suddenly felt hot tears form behind her eyes and spill like floods onto her heated cheeks. She forcefully threw her bag down onto the ground and dropped onto the couch, dropping her head into her hands and rubbing at her eyes. After the horrific day she’d had it seemed unbelievably stupid that her body had decided to let her cry now. Not earlier when her heart had ached so much that she thought it would burst from inside her chest, not earlier when all the words she willed herself to speak had miserably failed her, and not earlier when Erica had angrily walked away from her in the parking lot.
She dragged her fingers through her hair and muttered angrily at herself for the painful mess she’d allowed herself to fall into. She’d been given a second chance after her terrible attempt at love and marriage with George, and although it had surprised her deeply, when her heart started to flutter for another woman, she’d found herself looking forward to whatever this new turn in her life might bring.
And then she fucked it up.
Not even just a little.
Majorly.
She’d fucked up in that downwards spiral of disastrous choices kind of way; one domino in the line knocked down, easily bringing them all to the ground. What was worse was that she couldn’t remember why that first flash of panic had led her to cause such colossal destruction. If she’d just taken a minute, just stepped back and took a breath she could have calmed herself. Her head would have been clearer and her actions wouldn’t have been a wild rush.
Callie pinched the bridge of her nose and gritted her teeth at the sharp pain it caused. Where the hell had her mind been back then? Where the hell had her mind been tonight? Why was it that logic thought had vanished from her ability and was instead replaced by this careless recklessness that let everything fall apart.
Her whole life had been one mess from another, starting from her childhood. She’d been an awkward child, handicapped by her differences to the other children and held back from social activity. It hadn’t lessened when she’d reached medical school; she was still the shy, clumsy girl who sat at the back of class and stumbled over her words.
The only thing she’d ever done right in her life was science, medicine. It was a world where she could throw away all that she was and all that she knew and start over. The rules of the human body and what it could and couldn’t handle had been a puzzle that she’d had to put together on her own, and when she had, she’d found herself emerged from her cocoon as a strong, independent butterfly.
Her career had given her a fresh start, and she was able to be the woman she’d always wanted to be. Dr Callie Torres didn’t worry about what people said about her, Dr Callie Torres didn’t give a crap if she wasn’t widely liked because she was good at this, her job, and she didn’t need nor crave anyone’s approval.
Until Erica came waltzing into her life unexpectedly.
With George, she’d wanted his friends to accept her because she thought it would make him love her more; but they didn’t try because they knew that really she didn’t belong to them, and deep down Callie had known it to.
But with Erica everything was different. She hadn’t needed to try to become part of a group with her, they’d simply just fell into place and the older woman understood and accepted her without wanting Callie to be anything other than herself. It had felt great, to finally be open and free with someone and not have to worry that you might disappoint them by showing your real self.
But tonight Callie didn’t need Erica to be disappointed in her, because she was already so disappointed with herself and seeing it reflected in Erica’s beautiful blue eyes tonight had stunned her into a deathly numbness.
Callie squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to fall back in time. Back to the day when she’d kissed Erica outside of the hospital. She’d give anything to start over from that very point and make their relationship everything she knew it could be.
Callie jumped at the sound of the door flying open and opened her eyes to see the blonde she’d just been thinking about storm into her apartment like a force of nature. Erica’s angry gaze burned into her eyes and a moment of silence passed between them; Callie became acutely aware that in life there was no magic dial to turn back time, life only moved forward, and this right now, was her life moving forward again.
“I can’t believe you,” Callie felt her stomach not as Erica’s harsh voice reached her ears; “I seriously can’t believe you did that to me.”
She watched the blonde woman look away from her briefly as her jaw tightened and willed herself to speak, “Erica...I...”
“Shut up Torres,” her blue eyes flickered with irritation, “You really are un-fucking-believable and I’m not letting you get away with it anymore,” Callie watched a heated flush cover Erica’s cheeks and felt her mouth grow increasingly dry with every angry word that left the older woman’s mouth, “Why didn’t you call after me tonight? Why didn’t you try to stop me from walking away?”
Callie swallowed the lump in her throat and blinked away from Erica’s intense stare, “You said you didn’t know me,” she mumbled the words into the thick air between them and risked lifting her eyes back to the blonde’s.
Erica scoffed, “I think we both know that’s a load of crap. I only said it to get under your skin, to try and at least get some kind of reaction out of you,” she swiped her tongue across her bottom lip and sucked in a deep breath before continuing, “I was trying to figure out if your heart was in this... but it’s obviously not because you were so willing to lay down your weapon and give up the fight for us.”
“That’s not true-”
Blue eyes sought out brown and held them intensely, “No it is Callie,” she ran a hand through her hair and shook her head, “Look, I get that our relationship, or whatever the hell we are is a complete and utter shamble,” she held her hand up when the younger woman opened her mouth to protest, “But why didn’t you care enough to fight for our friendship?”
Callie felt the twinge in her heart suddenly turn into a striking ache that burned with every breath she fought to take as she drank in the defeat in Erica’s incredibly blue eyes; the full weight of all the hurt Callie had caused her hanging heavily over her shoulders and crushing her strong stance down to the ground.
Callie opened her mouth to respond and faltered when she caught sight of a few escaped tears sliding down the blonde’s cheek. She pushed herself from the couch and reached out to touch her, wanting nothing more than to ease the pain of what she alone had caused, “Erica...”
The older woman shook her head and wiped irately at her tears, “My best friend would have come after me no matter what was going on between us because that’s the kind of person she is, but tonight you didn’t even move an inch. Maybe I was right; maybe I don’t really know you-”
“You do know me Erica,” Callie found her voice as the blonde turned her back to her.
“Well do you,” she turned back towards the younger woman, “Care? About our friendship?”
Callie couldn’t believe the older woman had asked her that. Had all the time they’d spent together, getting to know each other in the months building up to their relationship really been so easily knocked down by her actions that Erica felt the need to ask if that connection even still existed between them. Had she really hurt her best friend this much by her self-centred actions?
Erica let out an amused breath and shook her head to herself; muttering, “Unbelievable,” as she made a move towards the door.
It was the blonde’s voice that drew Callie from her thoughts in time to realise that she hadn’t replied to Erica’s question. And now her best friend, her something more, was heading right back out the door and ending every tie between them for good.
Callie’s feet moved at a speed of their own and before she knew it her fingers were curled around Erica’s wrist and she’d tugged the blonde back round to face her, “Of course I care about our fucking friendship Erica,” Callie felt anger rise in her own chest, “How can you even ask me that?” Callie watched Erica turn her face away from her, and quickly cupped her face with hand hands and drew their eyes back together, “Our friendship is the most important thing in my life. You are the most important person in my life,” she let her brown eyes drink in the blonde’s face and at the flash of uncertainty on her features, repeated, “I care.”
“Finally, some emotion out of you,” Erica covered Callie’s hands on her face and pulled them away, “Does it really take me yelling at you like this to get some passion out of you? You’re Callie Torres; you wear your heart on your sleeve, your feelings are on show one hundred percent of the time... except when you’re with me.”
“I am emotional when I’m with you, I have passion; it’s all there...” Callie shifted uncomfortably as she trailed off.
Erica studied Callie face, lingering over her eyes and urgently tried to read the expression in them. She let out a sigh of irritation, “Where the hell are you Callie? I mean you’re right here but you’re so far away that I feel like I can’t touch you,” Callie reached for Erica’s hand again and pursed her lips together in sadness when the older woman dodged her attempt, “I feel like this whole time I’ve been out here waiting for you to show up so that we can be sacred together like we promised but you never turned up,” the harsh tone in her voice fell away as she looked around the room, “And I’m left out there in the darkness alone and scared,” she felt Callie’s eyes on her face and searched her eyes, “Where the hell are you?”
Callie forced herself into Erica’s personal space and cupped her face again, “I’m right here.”
The older woman willed herself not to allow more tears to escape her eyes, “No you’re not Cal. You’re anywhere but here with me. You don’t talk to me like you used to anymore, you don’t talk to me about anything anymore but you’re more than happy to sleep with me,” she eased away from the younger woman again and looked down at the floor, “I feel like I’ve been replaced, whenever you need to tell someone about how you’re feeling you go and talk to Sloan, and then once he’s helped you figure out, but not really figure out whatever is going on in your head, you go and sleep with him,” she saw a glimmer of pain dance across dark eyes as she lifted her head, “ So explain to me how you’re here Cal, because it damn well doesn’t seem like you are.”
“You think I like feeling like I can’t talk to you?” Callie brushed a stray curl behind her ear and breathed out in annoyance, “I hate that since this started all I’ve done is panic, but you know what? When I promised you we could be scared together I meant it with everything that I am. I fully intended for us to continue on like normal, like Callie and Erica, best friends who can talk about anything that’s on their minds, but it’s not that simple.”
“Why isn’t it simple Callie?” Erica asked gently, feeling a flash of hope enter her body at the younger woman’s sudden desire to spill her feelings.
“It got complicated, things between us got complicated fast,” she moved towards the couch and dropped down onto it, running her hands over her face, “I thought it would be easy because we could talk about everything, but when your person becomes the thing you want to talk about all of the time it gets kind of difficult,” she watched Erica shrug off her coat and move to sit down on the coffee table opposite her, listening closely, “I wanted to talk to you about how I was feeling, but you seemed so far ahead, so confident in what we had, and I felt like I was still learning to swim. I felt like I couldn’t tell you I needed arm-bands to help me stay afloat because you’d be disappointed in me for not picking it up as quickly as you,” she reached out and placed her hand on Erica’s knee, “I never wanted to hurt you and I’ve never felt so ashamed with myself as I do right now. If I could go back and do it over, I’d never shut up about how I was feeling about you.”
Erica sucked in a deep breath and allowed a small smile to tug at the corner of her lips, “Try again now.”
Callie looked up at her in shock, “What?”
“Consider this another chance, pretend things are right back at the beginning for us and try again,” Callie’s eyebrow rose in question and Erica nodded her head, “I’m willing to sit here, on your coffee table for as long as it takes, if you’re willing to tell me every little thing, all of the good things you thought and felt, and all of the bad, since this thing between me and you started.”
Tears spilled out from the younger woman’s dark eyes and her voice came out in a cracked whisper, “You said ‘okay,’ after I told you about sleeping with Mark, but I knew it wasn’t, but I went along with it anyway and let you hurt. So what makes you think that if I tell you everything now it will really be okay? You already can’t forgive me for what I did; I see it in your eyes every time you look at me.”
Erica covered the hand Callie had resting on her knee and offered a small smile to the dark-haired woman, “I do forgive you for sleeping with Mark Callie,” the younger woman looked up at her in surprise, “I even forgive you for all of the panic and freak-outs you had, because you’re human, and you made a mistake, it happens to us all. But what I don’t forgive you for is shutting me out Cal,” she watched Callie squeeze her eyes shut as more tears rolled down her cheeks and instantly reached out to brush them away; making brown eyes flutter back open and find her own, “We used to be able to sit in silence for hours and I’d be able to hear everything that wasn’t spoken between us. I used to take one glance in your beautiful brown eyes and know exactly what you were feeling. I used to be able to tell from the tone of your voice what you really thought, even if the words you spoke didn’t match up,” a smile passed between them at that moment, both knowing Callie’s true feelings were always held in her voice, “I used to know just from studying your body language just what you needed Cal,” Erica’s gaze saddened, “But now when I look into your eyes all I see is this closed off, defensive look that tells me you’re guarding everything that you feel and I can’t help but feel that you don’t want me to see how you really feel anymore.”
Callie blew out a breath and laughed a little, “You’re one of the smartest people I know Erica. The way you know me never fails to blow me away, and you’re right about me being guarded with you lately but it’s not because I don’t want you to see the real me anymore, it’s because I got scared,” she reached out to take both of Erica’s hands in her own and held her eyes intensely, “I love you Erica,” she watched a look of astonishment cover the blonde’s face and tightened her grasp on the older woman’s hands, “With George, I was the idiot who blurted it out first, and it freaked him out so much that he ended up avoiding me for days. Looking back at our relationship after our divorce I realised that he’d never said it back to me, not once and it broke my heart. He was my first love,” she shrugged her shoulders and felt Erica link their fingers together, “I was guarded with you because I knew I’d fallen to soon again, and I wanted to tell you so badly, but I knew if you didn’t say it back it would kill me, my heart would physically stop beating,” she watched as tears fell from Erica’s blue eyes and leaned in closer to her, “That’s why I pushed you away Erica, not because I’m afraid to hold onto you, but because I’m terrified that you’ll let me go.”
Erica let out a little laugh and smiled happily as she pulled her hands from Callie’s and cupped the younger woman’s face in her hands, “Then you’re more of an idiot than I thought Torres, because there’s no way I’d ever let you go,” Callie smiled beautifully back at her, “You need to trust that I’m not George. I know he was your first love and he hurt you, but you’re my first love Callie, so I need you to believe in me, and give me the chance to love you back, because I do Cal, I love you too.”
Callie smiled through the happy tears that were freely escaping her eyes and leaned in towards the blonde, letting their lips come together in a gentle first kiss; their tongues dancing tentatively together like it was the first exploration either of them had ever experienced of kissing another person.
“I’m so sorry Eri-” Callie felt Erica’s lips pressed back against her own and smiled when the older woman pulled away again, “I really love you.”
“I love you to Cal,” Erica rose from her position on the coffee table, dragging Callie up with her, “No more apologies okay? We start fresh, from now. No more secrets, no more holding back, just me and you scared together.”
Callie nodded her head, “Just me and you together I promise,” she placed a kiss on Erica’s lips.
Erica tugged Callie towards the younger woman’s bedroom, “We need sleep, and tomorrow we can put this new promise to the test, deal?”
“Deal,” Callie beamed her megawatt smile at her.
They changed for bed in comfortable silence and settled under the covers; each instantly searching for the other until their bodies were pressed closely together and their limbs were entwining them in a blanket of safety while their breaths merged into one.
Sometimes you have to fall apart in order to rebuild yourself into something new, something stronger than before, and as the women woke peacefully the next morning in each other’s arms, they knew that this time, together, they’d be indestructible.