You Were Mine (AU TEEN POV fic) 1/1 [09-06-05]
Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 2:32 am
You Were Mine
first banner is by the wonderful Jo! second is my sad attempt lol.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Song and Lyrics used in the story belong to the Dixie Chicks, who just LOVE making me cry.
Rating: Teen
Summary: Tess’s POV. Based on the song “You Were Mine” (lyrics at the end of the story), read it to find out, because it’s only one part so I can’t say much without basically telling you the whole thing.
Author’s Note: I REALLY wanted to write a story to this, because I just love this song, depressing as it is. Any of you that haven’t heard it and need a good cry, check it out. And it just really reminded me of Tess, so I thought I’d try writing it from her POV..., just because not many of us, dreamers especially, think about how it might feel on the other side of the situation...so, I hope you enjoy it. FB would be greatly appreciated on this! (I'm nervous)
Also, keep a look out for a fic by Ellie, who is also using this song to describe Tess!
Enjoy!
<center>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You Were Mine</center>
“Max!”
Her cry tears through the quiet of the night, voice shaking and desperate, but no one answers. No one is there to answer.
She clutches to her sheets, tangled in the mass of comforters and throw pillows that he had always complained were too much, before knocking them all to the floor. Maybe if they’re gone, maybe if she gets rid of them, changes...maybe then he’ll come back.
But the eerie silence of the night continues, and she remains alone.
“Max...” she whispers, no longer calling for him, because as the sleepy haze around her clears, she knows that he isn’t there and she knows he’s not coming back.
She says it to break through the quiet, needing it to disappear so that the haunting face of his desertion can no longer mock her. Night taunts her with its stillness, no longer filled with the sounds of his gentle breathing as he lays beside her.
It’s reminding her with every second, that he is gone.
And try as she might to stop them, her tears come. Eyes filling rapidly even as she tries to swallow them away. The reality that he has left becoming more and more visible, even as she wishes for dreams to take her again, because it is now the only place where he is still there...where he still loves her.
She still loves him, would welcome him back with open arms if he would only ask her, forgiving everything that happened with a single kiss. And some might call her weak, some might say what has happened could never be forgiven, but the truth of the matter was:
Without him, life isn’t worth living alone.
The reality of life without him is too much to bear. She has spent so much of her life loving him, being with him, being his wife, and now she doesn’t know how to do anything but that. Tess Harding...she doesn’t even know who that is anymore. The shadow of a girl that she used to be before he loved her, and she doesn’t want to go back. She doesn’t want to be Tess Harding again, because the only way she knows herself, the only way she wants to know herself, is as Tess Evans. She is the love of Max Evans’ life; it was a promise made with a vow and ring, and she doesn’t want it to end.
How is she supposed to go on, and pretend it never happened? Is she supposed to wake up every morning, breathe...live...knowing how good she had it once, and knowing that she would never have it that way again?
Sleepless in Seattle...a movie that would bring any woman to tears. She used to watch it and wonder how a person could go on after they lost the people they loved. She used to wonder how they found the strength to wake up, to get out of bed when life would never be the same. And though Max was very much alive, he was gone just the same.
And she had never felt more lost in her entire life.
She didn’t want to spend another night waking with tears down her cheeks, didn’t want to wake up screaming for someone who wasn’t there. She needed him to be there; to soothe her fears with a kiss before curling her towards him and never letting her go.
She needed him to love her...because she didn’t know how to go on if he didn’t.
A tear slid down her cheek, landing on her trembling hands, and she stared at it. Cold hands reached up to touch her face as she brushed them away, marveling at it all.
She was lying in bed, tears on her shaking hands, alone...because despite what she needed, no matter how badly she wanted it...
He didn’t love her anymore.
It was why he was gone, the reason she was alone. Because he had found a new love, found someone who made his dreams come true in ways she now felt she had never been able to, but ways she still longed to.
A sob tore through her throat, and before she could even recognize what was happening, all the feelings of inadequacy and desertion forced themselves from her lips, tore from her quaking body as she buried her face in her hands waiting, hoping, that one day the pain of it all would fade.
Fade, just like the memories she had once treasured.
She reached under the pillow behind her, one of the few she hadn’t knocked to the ground only because it had been his, and her fingers felt around before they found what she was looking for. She pulled the pillow with it, setting it on her lap before her fingers traced the edges of the picture she had hidden beneath it.
Two faces smiled up at her, on the happiest day of her life, and she let her hands trail over their smiles, her eyes now lingering on the joy that had once been in her own, joy that was now gone, joy she didn’t know she would ever find again.
All those memories were slowly disappearing, the happiness and love she had once felt being replaced with something so painful she feared it would crush her. She was trapped under the weight of it all as it pressed against her heart, breaking it as she remembered she would never feel that way again.
Her face crumpled, and fresh tears came again. Had it all been a lie? They had built a life together, they had a home, they were a family. How was she supposed just act like it had been nothing? How could he act that way?
She didn’t understand, couldn’t, refused to believe that it had meant nothing, but wasn’t the proof staring her in the face. She was alone, and he was happy with someone else. Every thought now tormented her as she pictured them together...laughing, smiling, in love. She pictured them the way they had once been, tried to force the image from her mind as the small picture in front of her changed to show his new love in his arms instead.
“No!” she sobbed brokenly, flinging the picture across the room and watching as it fluttered along the tile floor, sliding in front of their dresser. A dresser that held only her clothes now, because his own were sharing someone else’s.
She remember the harsh reality of what it had been like to watch him leave. He stood there, articles of clothes strewn across the room waiting to be packed in a bag, so he could take them away. So he could go away...
She hadn’t even known what to do in that moment. It was as if the truth of what was happening had refused to really hit her until he was walking out of the door. She didn’t believe it was real, couldn’t until she saw it with her own two eyes.
It was completely surreal, sitting on their bed and watching him. Before she could even stop herself she was asking about this “other woman”, the girl who had taken her place in Max’s heart. She couldn’t stop herself from asking how they met, if he loved her...and he didn’t even know what to say. His silence hung in the air as he had stared at her, wondering why she wanted to know. There had been tears in his eyes, mirroring the drops falling down her own cold cheeks, and it had given her only a slight consolation. But whether he felt guilty, felt horrible for what he was doing, it didn’t change what was happening. And though at first she couldn’t understand why she was asking him, she knew the truth. It was a torture she needed to endure, because until she knew everything, knew it was real, she wouldn’t be able to believe this was really happening.
And even as he said it. Even as he gave her the answers she had sought out, her heart refused to accept it. Simply couldn’t, because she didn’t understand how it was possible...
This couldn’t be real. She was happy. She was in love, and she was happy with the man she had married. They were a family, they had a home, a life together. This couldn’t be real.
Please, tell me she’s not real...
But she was, and as much as she wanted to hear that it was all a bad dream, as desperately as she wanted to wake up, this was the truth, this was her life now. And he wasn’t coming home, he was never coming back.
She got up from their bed, and padded softly through the house. The quiet continued to mock her, continued to remind her of things she hopelessly wanted to forget.
She was alone...
But as she tiptoed into the room next to hers, she realized sadly that she wasn’t. He had left, walked out of her life, but as she stared at the sleeping form of her baby girl, she knew he had left behind more than just herself.
Blonde curls stood up at odd angles, and her fist pressed tightly against her mouth as she sucked diligently on her tiny thumb, completely peaceful in her sleep and unaware of the pain and heartache around her.
She could imagine her precious little face, smiling up at her with those eyes...those dark eyes she had gotten from her father. Eyes that would remind her of this pain every day for the rest of her life. And across the room, the dark patch of hair on her baby boy’s face that would do the same.
Her babies...
Their babies. Their son was only two, their daughter four...too young to understand what was happening. How could she tell them this? How could she possibly explain that their daddy didn’t live with them anymore, that for whatever reason...
He had changed his mind.
She fell to her knees beside her sons crib, threading her fingers through the wooden bars and touching the soft skin of his little arm. And a tear streaked down her cheek as he turned towards her, still sleeping quietly.
And It was just too much. It just hurt too much.
She pictured them as they had been that day, hugging their father, not understanding what was going on around them. His tears had fallen then, and she had watched him shut his eyes as he hugged them tightly to him, holding them even as he promised he would see them soon.
She hated him in that moment, and she wished the emotion had lasted. Watching him with them, knowing he was going to continue walking out the door, knowing he would build a new family and leave them here behind him, a part of that “other life” that he had once lived. She didn’t know how he could do this to them, how he could just walk away...
But he had, and here she stood, staring at her son and crying.
She loved them so much, and couldn’t think about what this would do to them. Would they spend their lives wondering why their father hadn’t loved them enough to stay with them? Would they live in fear of abandonment, in a way that she knew she would now live herself. She didn’t want that for them, she didn’t want that for herself, but it was all she had.
They were what she lived for now, the reason she got out of bed in the morning, even though all she wanted to do was live in the dreams that had become the only comfort she would ever know.
With one last lingering look, she forced herself back to her room, not wanting to wake them, and felt something under her barefoot. Reaching down, she found the picture she had tossed before, and found herself staring into her own smiling face. Their wedding day...
And that was all it took to know she couldn’t do it.
She couldn’t let go. She couldn’t find a reason to give up on everything they had once had together, not when the proof that their love had been real was lying in the other room, sleeping soundly. She had to hang on, had to believe simply because she had so many reasons to, and absolutely none were telling her that it was over.
What right did this woman have to take him away? How could she come into their lives and do this? How could her husband as well? After everything they had been through together, after all the love they had shared, all the memories they had made together, she couldn’t believe it.
“Why?” she asked aloud, staring into his eyes as he smiled up at her in his tux. “I can’t let go.” she sobbed brokenly, waiting for a response that would never come.
She sunk into her bed, eyes staring up at the ceiling, tears slipping onto the pillow beneath her head. “I can’t forget...” she whispered to the stillness of the room, praying for something she knew would never come. And the reason she couldn’t let go was simple. “because I’ll always remember what it felt like...I remember when,” she held back her sob, as she let the picture fall.
“You were mine.”
<center>The End
***
I Can't Find A Reason To Let Go
Even Though You've Found A New Love
And She's What Your Dreams Are Made Of
I Can Find A Reason To Hang On
What Went Wrong Can Be Forgiven
Without You, It Ain't Worth Livin' Alone
[Chorus #1:]
Sometimes I Wake Up Crying At Night
And Sometimes I Scream Out Your Name
What Right Does She Have To Take You Away
When For So Long, You Were Mine
I Took Out All The Pictures Of Our Wedding Day
It Was A Time Of Love And Laughter
Happy Ever After
But Even Those Old Pictures Have Begun To Fade
Please Tell Me She's Not Real
And That You're Really Coming Home To Stay
[Chorus #2:]
Sometimes I Wake Up Crying At Night
And Sometimes I Scream Out Your Name
What Right Does She Have To Take Your Heart Away
When For So Long, You Were Mine
I Can Give You Two Good Reasons
To Show You Love's Not Blind
He's Two And She's Four, And You Know They Adore You
So How Can I Tell Them You've Changed Your Mind
[Chorus #2]
I Remember When You Were Mine</center>
first banner is by the wonderful Jo! second is my sad attempt lol.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Song and Lyrics used in the story belong to the Dixie Chicks, who just LOVE making me cry.
Rating: Teen
Summary: Tess’s POV. Based on the song “You Were Mine” (lyrics at the end of the story), read it to find out, because it’s only one part so I can’t say much without basically telling you the whole thing.
Author’s Note: I REALLY wanted to write a story to this, because I just love this song, depressing as it is. Any of you that haven’t heard it and need a good cry, check it out. And it just really reminded me of Tess, so I thought I’d try writing it from her POV..., just because not many of us, dreamers especially, think about how it might feel on the other side of the situation...so, I hope you enjoy it. FB would be greatly appreciated on this! (I'm nervous)
Also, keep a look out for a fic by Ellie, who is also using this song to describe Tess!
Enjoy!
<center>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You Were Mine</center>
“Max!”
Her cry tears through the quiet of the night, voice shaking and desperate, but no one answers. No one is there to answer.
She clutches to her sheets, tangled in the mass of comforters and throw pillows that he had always complained were too much, before knocking them all to the floor. Maybe if they’re gone, maybe if she gets rid of them, changes...maybe then he’ll come back.
But the eerie silence of the night continues, and she remains alone.
“Max...” she whispers, no longer calling for him, because as the sleepy haze around her clears, she knows that he isn’t there and she knows he’s not coming back.
She says it to break through the quiet, needing it to disappear so that the haunting face of his desertion can no longer mock her. Night taunts her with its stillness, no longer filled with the sounds of his gentle breathing as he lays beside her.
It’s reminding her with every second, that he is gone.
And try as she might to stop them, her tears come. Eyes filling rapidly even as she tries to swallow them away. The reality that he has left becoming more and more visible, even as she wishes for dreams to take her again, because it is now the only place where he is still there...where he still loves her.
She still loves him, would welcome him back with open arms if he would only ask her, forgiving everything that happened with a single kiss. And some might call her weak, some might say what has happened could never be forgiven, but the truth of the matter was:
Without him, life isn’t worth living alone.
The reality of life without him is too much to bear. She has spent so much of her life loving him, being with him, being his wife, and now she doesn’t know how to do anything but that. Tess Harding...she doesn’t even know who that is anymore. The shadow of a girl that she used to be before he loved her, and she doesn’t want to go back. She doesn’t want to be Tess Harding again, because the only way she knows herself, the only way she wants to know herself, is as Tess Evans. She is the love of Max Evans’ life; it was a promise made with a vow and ring, and she doesn’t want it to end.
How is she supposed to go on, and pretend it never happened? Is she supposed to wake up every morning, breathe...live...knowing how good she had it once, and knowing that she would never have it that way again?
Sleepless in Seattle...a movie that would bring any woman to tears. She used to watch it and wonder how a person could go on after they lost the people they loved. She used to wonder how they found the strength to wake up, to get out of bed when life would never be the same. And though Max was very much alive, he was gone just the same.
And she had never felt more lost in her entire life.
She didn’t want to spend another night waking with tears down her cheeks, didn’t want to wake up screaming for someone who wasn’t there. She needed him to be there; to soothe her fears with a kiss before curling her towards him and never letting her go.
She needed him to love her...because she didn’t know how to go on if he didn’t.
A tear slid down her cheek, landing on her trembling hands, and she stared at it. Cold hands reached up to touch her face as she brushed them away, marveling at it all.
She was lying in bed, tears on her shaking hands, alone...because despite what she needed, no matter how badly she wanted it...
He didn’t love her anymore.
It was why he was gone, the reason she was alone. Because he had found a new love, found someone who made his dreams come true in ways she now felt she had never been able to, but ways she still longed to.
A sob tore through her throat, and before she could even recognize what was happening, all the feelings of inadequacy and desertion forced themselves from her lips, tore from her quaking body as she buried her face in her hands waiting, hoping, that one day the pain of it all would fade.
Fade, just like the memories she had once treasured.
She reached under the pillow behind her, one of the few she hadn’t knocked to the ground only because it had been his, and her fingers felt around before they found what she was looking for. She pulled the pillow with it, setting it on her lap before her fingers traced the edges of the picture she had hidden beneath it.
Two faces smiled up at her, on the happiest day of her life, and she let her hands trail over their smiles, her eyes now lingering on the joy that had once been in her own, joy that was now gone, joy she didn’t know she would ever find again.
All those memories were slowly disappearing, the happiness and love she had once felt being replaced with something so painful she feared it would crush her. She was trapped under the weight of it all as it pressed against her heart, breaking it as she remembered she would never feel that way again.
Her face crumpled, and fresh tears came again. Had it all been a lie? They had built a life together, they had a home, they were a family. How was she supposed just act like it had been nothing? How could he act that way?
She didn’t understand, couldn’t, refused to believe that it had meant nothing, but wasn’t the proof staring her in the face. She was alone, and he was happy with someone else. Every thought now tormented her as she pictured them together...laughing, smiling, in love. She pictured them the way they had once been, tried to force the image from her mind as the small picture in front of her changed to show his new love in his arms instead.
“No!” she sobbed brokenly, flinging the picture across the room and watching as it fluttered along the tile floor, sliding in front of their dresser. A dresser that held only her clothes now, because his own were sharing someone else’s.
She remember the harsh reality of what it had been like to watch him leave. He stood there, articles of clothes strewn across the room waiting to be packed in a bag, so he could take them away. So he could go away...
She hadn’t even known what to do in that moment. It was as if the truth of what was happening had refused to really hit her until he was walking out of the door. She didn’t believe it was real, couldn’t until she saw it with her own two eyes.
It was completely surreal, sitting on their bed and watching him. Before she could even stop herself she was asking about this “other woman”, the girl who had taken her place in Max’s heart. She couldn’t stop herself from asking how they met, if he loved her...and he didn’t even know what to say. His silence hung in the air as he had stared at her, wondering why she wanted to know. There had been tears in his eyes, mirroring the drops falling down her own cold cheeks, and it had given her only a slight consolation. But whether he felt guilty, felt horrible for what he was doing, it didn’t change what was happening. And though at first she couldn’t understand why she was asking him, she knew the truth. It was a torture she needed to endure, because until she knew everything, knew it was real, she wouldn’t be able to believe this was really happening.
And even as he said it. Even as he gave her the answers she had sought out, her heart refused to accept it. Simply couldn’t, because she didn’t understand how it was possible...
This couldn’t be real. She was happy. She was in love, and she was happy with the man she had married. They were a family, they had a home, a life together. This couldn’t be real.
Please, tell me she’s not real...
But she was, and as much as she wanted to hear that it was all a bad dream, as desperately as she wanted to wake up, this was the truth, this was her life now. And he wasn’t coming home, he was never coming back.
She got up from their bed, and padded softly through the house. The quiet continued to mock her, continued to remind her of things she hopelessly wanted to forget.
She was alone...
But as she tiptoed into the room next to hers, she realized sadly that she wasn’t. He had left, walked out of her life, but as she stared at the sleeping form of her baby girl, she knew he had left behind more than just herself.
Blonde curls stood up at odd angles, and her fist pressed tightly against her mouth as she sucked diligently on her tiny thumb, completely peaceful in her sleep and unaware of the pain and heartache around her.
She could imagine her precious little face, smiling up at her with those eyes...those dark eyes she had gotten from her father. Eyes that would remind her of this pain every day for the rest of her life. And across the room, the dark patch of hair on her baby boy’s face that would do the same.
Her babies...
Their babies. Their son was only two, their daughter four...too young to understand what was happening. How could she tell them this? How could she possibly explain that their daddy didn’t live with them anymore, that for whatever reason...
He had changed his mind.
She fell to her knees beside her sons crib, threading her fingers through the wooden bars and touching the soft skin of his little arm. And a tear streaked down her cheek as he turned towards her, still sleeping quietly.
And It was just too much. It just hurt too much.
She pictured them as they had been that day, hugging their father, not understanding what was going on around them. His tears had fallen then, and she had watched him shut his eyes as he hugged them tightly to him, holding them even as he promised he would see them soon.
She hated him in that moment, and she wished the emotion had lasted. Watching him with them, knowing he was going to continue walking out the door, knowing he would build a new family and leave them here behind him, a part of that “other life” that he had once lived. She didn’t know how he could do this to them, how he could just walk away...
But he had, and here she stood, staring at her son and crying.
She loved them so much, and couldn’t think about what this would do to them. Would they spend their lives wondering why their father hadn’t loved them enough to stay with them? Would they live in fear of abandonment, in a way that she knew she would now live herself. She didn’t want that for them, she didn’t want that for herself, but it was all she had.
They were what she lived for now, the reason she got out of bed in the morning, even though all she wanted to do was live in the dreams that had become the only comfort she would ever know.
With one last lingering look, she forced herself back to her room, not wanting to wake them, and felt something under her barefoot. Reaching down, she found the picture she had tossed before, and found herself staring into her own smiling face. Their wedding day...
And that was all it took to know she couldn’t do it.
She couldn’t let go. She couldn’t find a reason to give up on everything they had once had together, not when the proof that their love had been real was lying in the other room, sleeping soundly. She had to hang on, had to believe simply because she had so many reasons to, and absolutely none were telling her that it was over.
What right did this woman have to take him away? How could she come into their lives and do this? How could her husband as well? After everything they had been through together, after all the love they had shared, all the memories they had made together, she couldn’t believe it.
“Why?” she asked aloud, staring into his eyes as he smiled up at her in his tux. “I can’t let go.” she sobbed brokenly, waiting for a response that would never come.
She sunk into her bed, eyes staring up at the ceiling, tears slipping onto the pillow beneath her head. “I can’t forget...” she whispered to the stillness of the room, praying for something she knew would never come. And the reason she couldn’t let go was simple. “because I’ll always remember what it felt like...I remember when,” she held back her sob, as she let the picture fall.
“You were mine.”
<center>The End
***
I Can't Find A Reason To Let Go
Even Though You've Found A New Love
And She's What Your Dreams Are Made Of
I Can Find A Reason To Hang On
What Went Wrong Can Be Forgiven
Without You, It Ain't Worth Livin' Alone
[Chorus #1:]
Sometimes I Wake Up Crying At Night
And Sometimes I Scream Out Your Name
What Right Does She Have To Take You Away
When For So Long, You Were Mine
I Took Out All The Pictures Of Our Wedding Day
It Was A Time Of Love And Laughter
Happy Ever After
But Even Those Old Pictures Have Begun To Fade
Please Tell Me She's Not Real
And That You're Really Coming Home To Stay
[Chorus #2:]
Sometimes I Wake Up Crying At Night
And Sometimes I Scream Out Your Name
What Right Does She Have To Take Your Heart Away
When For So Long, You Were Mine
I Can Give You Two Good Reasons
To Show You Love's Not Blind
He's Two And She's Four, And You Know They Adore You
So How Can I Tell Them You've Changed Your Mind
[Chorus #2]
I Remember When You Were Mine</center>