[FIC] Reminiscing

Title: Reminiscing
Characters: Undefined
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1.139
Summary: Sometimes in life you know fighting is useless.
A/N: This is a very rare original fiction of mine that talks about one of the more common things in life these days; love gone wrong, marriage turned divorce, children with two homes. It's a piece that I enjoyed writing because it brought a little bit of peace to my mind while I was at it. I'd like to thank the person who read this while I wrote it and kept my fickle writer mind focused. ^.^

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I’m not sure how these things start? They grow like weed in your garden. One day you’re innocently trying to find the butter your mother wants you to buy, the next day you’re baking cookies with a stranger. Or an almost stranger.

We met in a bar when I was out with my friends. She had a little too much to drink so I offered her a ride home, but she didn’t even remember her own address anymore so I took her to my place. I figured we still had a spare bed anyway and she wouldn’t mind if she still had her clothes on in the morning. She didn’t mind indeed. But since there was no breakfast, she offered to make cookies.

They were nice. With chocolate chips in them. The first cookies I made that were edible even. It wasn’t too hard to get along with her. In fact, it was really easy. And my mother never asked me about her staying over - as if it was a normal thing for a girl to do.

She was fifteen when we met. I was nineteen. People found that too much of a difference. It also wasn’t legal. We didn’t exactly care. It’s not like I talked her into bed the first night anyway. You know that feeling when you buy something or do something and you just know it’s exactly the thing you need? She was exactly the thing I needed.

Maybe we were young and foolish, I don’t know. She told me her name was Lilly and I wanted immediately to smell her fragrance. But she was a flower that still had to bloom. She didn’t see me like I saw her I guess. Or maybe she did but she never told me. In any way; we never really did much more than baking cookies back in the day. It was all I could do to keep in contact with her.

It was like that moment when the sun goes down and you can see the little shimmers of orange. It was wonderful. And she was there to see it with me. She was sixteen by then, I was nineteen for another month. We kissed, I guess? We made it to the part where you just don’t care about the outside world anymore. It was nice to hide in the things we both loved; music, dancing, baking chocolate chip cookies.

Maybe it was the way she smiled at me, or the way she messed up the chocolate every time we made cookies. I don’t know, but I fell. Her mother told me once that if I was going to take her, I’d better also care for her. So I did. I loved Lilly like a man loves the only woman in his life. From back then all the way up till we moved in together and even when we fought, got engaged, separated and married.

We understood each other, the two of us. She needed time to do her thing, I needed time to do my thing, so we did those things when the other had no time either, that way we could spend the time we did have together. It worked, we worked, she was awesome.

You can’t learn about love from the movies and books, you know, you can only feel it. The things they tell you … it goes way deeper than that and you often realise still even long after it’s gone. Even years later you’ll think back and say to yourself: ‘Dang, I loved that person.’ Because you did. And you do. The human mind works like that.


There was silence then, the man staring down at the floor tiles, lost in thoughts, the interviewer stopping his scribbling to look up and ask another question.

“So you don’t love her anymore now?”

The look he got for that was fierce, not exactly angry but more disappointed. As if the man was trying to tell him ‘isn’t it obvious?’ with just his eyes. And he got the message, looking down at his notes again to scribble something more.

“Then what happened?”


We grew up, we grew old, we got kids, they grew up. You know how life generally goes. We had a general life, with the general house, pet, garden, tree, kid kind of scenario. It worked for us. If you add in the chocolate chip cookies, of course.

But life is life and soon something felt off. When our son was about eight, our daughter eleven, she came to me saying it had become boring, normal. I didn’t know what to do or say to that, because in some way it was true. We didn’t really talk it out, I guess that’s what the problem was.

We fought more often from then on, over the smallest of things. Everything that had been solved with a smile and a shrug before now became something to fight over - whenever the kids weren’t listening in. It soon became obvious that we couldn’t live like that so we told the kids and I moved away not too long after.

The kids visit me once every week now, sometimes during the week days, sometimes during the weekend. Sometimes randomly. We’re not too far apart, just far enough to not get into arguments every minute anymore. I guess we managed to work it out nicely if you hear some of the stories that go around about divorces.

I still love her, I think that’s what matters most. Lilly will always be the fragrance of my life. I didn’t manage to live with her anymore, but we never really managed to live without each other either. Every time I pass by her house to pick up or drop off the kids, I still see the bits and pieces of me that linger there and I’m sure there’s bits and pieces of her in my house as well. A CD here, a little note there.

It’s not because we separated that we have to hate each other. It’s not because you’re over that the love is gone. I often think back to those early days and then I go ‘Dang I loved that woman.’ But even though I still do, I know it’s better this way. Fairytales don’t work in the real world, you know?


The man smiles a sad smile and the interviewer slowly covers his notes. There’s nothing more to say now. It’s not the end of the story, but what else is there to write about? They shake hands, the man gets up from his chair and walks over to the mirror to check his outfit, the interviewer leaves the dressing room.

Back to life. Back to work. Feelings tucked away in a corner to never be felt again, until the next time of reminiscing.