. gun street girl .

[Deleted]

Even now, the gentle touch of her hand on his knee is enough to start bringing him around. He had seen her transform Forrest from a demon child to an absolute cherub with much the same subtlety, a few quiet words and a soft touch. It must have been something she picked up working in foreign aid. Pushing the onion rings away, he almost goes to take her hand but it's gone before he can, and he's sure he wouldn't actually have anyway. Still sulking but more aware of his man-baby status, Tristan leaned back in his chair, even deigning to turn slightly towards her as she turned towards him. He hates how much the grazing of her thumb has made him crave her touch. He'd missed her as a partner, a head of the household, his son's mom. But he hadn't allowed himself to miss her as his wife, and this slight touch made him all too aware of how much he had. He laughs shortly, shaking his head. "Fat chance of that," he said, holding up his hand to flaunt the fact he was still wearing his wedding band. He took this opportunity to glance at her bare hands, though he had clocked straight away that she wasn't wearing hers. It still felt like a sucker punch. "It's easy to be a great dad to a great kid."

[Deleted]

She feels sick when Tristan raises his hand to flash his wedding band. She looks down at her hands as he does and feels guilty over how bare her finger is. “I wouldn't blame you,” her brow crinkles and her hair falls in front of her face as she bows her head. “I took it off ages ago, but I haven't done anything. You know, I took it off for a week and you didn't notice.” She takes another sip as she remembers how sad she'd been that he didn't care enough to pay attention. Now it just felt like she'd been testing him, which she obviously had. She laughs at his next comment, fingers pushing her hair behind her ear. “Oh come on. Give a little, he's hard work. One moment he's going on about how much he loves chocolate cake and the next chocolate cake is disgusting. He's lovable but he's not easy.”

[Deleted]

"Did it feel so freeing you decided to go full time?" he asked, bitter and unable to hide it. He felt guilty at the idea of his not noticing, but consoled himself that most husbands wouldn't... did that make it okay? Her claim not to have done anything is oddly soothing, finally he puts to rest the idea that she'd been seduced by some dashing peace corps twenty-something. Now that that's established he wants to know more about where she's been, but he's too petty to ask. "Nothing wrong with knowing your own mind," he says defensively, though he remembers who he's talking to and finally cracks a smile. "... Yeah, he's not easy. If it wasn't for Rebecca's crash course in parenting I'd have dropped him off at the nearest orphanage."

[Deleted]

“Oh come on,” her accent makes a strong appearance as she turns to her beer to take a sip. Beer always reminded her of Australian home. Of her older brothers and bush parties, thinking she was a total bad ass for drinking it. “I still have it. I never sold it.. I even wore it as a necklace most of the time.” She rolls her eyes at his comment on Forrest. She loved her kid but his tantrums could make the most passive person have a meltdown. “That's what I thought.”

[Deleted]

"Free free to sell it," he said, before placing the beer down. "In fact, sell both of them. Divorce lawyers are expensive," he said, pulling his ring off with some difficulty and placing it down in front of her. He took a long swig of beer, feeling the combination of this and the whiskey, plus the beer he'd had a lunch. Thankfully eh was a placid drunk, and if anything the beer made him feel less aggressively towards her. "So, what have you been doing without us?" he asked finally, his tone barbed though he was genuinely curious.

[Deleted]

Tessa can't hide the hurt she feels when he wiggles the ring off his finger. It stings and she wonders if he's being serious or playing a game with her and hoping it hurts. Her slim fingers pick it up and she squeezes the ring in her hand. It's still warm from sitting on his finger. She holds it while she considers what to tell him of her eight months. While he'd be  consoling a screeching toddler she'd been rediscover what it felt like to laugh and feel herself. “I was mostly in Columbia... working on a farm. Then I started a job here but I started it in Sierra Leone before I came back. Now I'm here,” she simplifies it and sticks the ring into her front pocket. “It sounds insane and I know you hate me for it, I hate me for it. But if I was the me that you married or the me that I am now, I wouldn't have left. But I wasn't me, I wasn't really anyone. If I'd stayed it would have been worse.” She pauses to pull the ring out and fidget with it again, “do you want me to clarify that?”

[Deleted]

His hand feels bare without his ring and he regrets taking it off. Everything finally feels real, really real, like it had actually happened and wasn't just a fever dream. Listening to her list off where she'd been makes him feel worse, he feels like he represents a mundane life to her, he understands why she'd rather be there than with them. He shakes his head when she asks if he wants clarification. His hurt feels raw and he doesn't trust himself to hold it together if she keeps talking about it. "I'm sorry I couldn't make you happy."

[Deleted]

“Oh Tristan,” she says gently, looking at him not with pity but with heartbreak. Tessa puts the ring back on the counter and reaches to hold his hand. “I'd hate for you to think that,” his hand is warm in hurts and she afraid to let go, so she doubles up and puts her other hand on top. She's been thinking of how he's made he feel for months and now that she's with him she's forgetting how to put her feelings into words. “You could, you just didn't try to. You just expected me to be Forrest's mom and that was it. You'd go to the office and come home when it was dark. You'd come home smelling like a barrel of whiskey. I loved you and you made me so happy until other things became more important,” she squeezes his hand with both of hers and then let's go. “I don't think you loved me either, how could you when I was like that? I think you forgot to, maybe you loved me just for being your son's mother. But there hasn't been anything romantic about us for a couple of years. We've just been pathetic.”

[Deleted]

Tristan can't help squeezing her hand back. Anger and bitterness had kept him going every day since she'd left, he had been so reluctant to let the world see his hurt that he'd taken it on as a battle. But now he had to admit how hard it was, not just because she left but because he was acutely aware of all the things he did to contribute to her leaving. It wasn't as simple as her being a bored housewife, she'd been genuinely depressed and he hadn't even noticed it, his head was so far up his own ass. "Why didn't you give me an ultimatum?" he asks, though he knows the answer. Even if she had it wouldn't have made a difference, she could have threatened to kill herself and he'd probably have said "yeah, ok" without looking up from his phone. He shakes his head to the accusation that they hadn't been romantic but he can't pin any romantic memories to those two years, every one he comes up with seems so long ago. "You know I never cheated, right? I know that's not a lot but Rebecca said she thought I had and I just want you to know I never did, not once."

[Deleted]

She shakes her head at the idea of an ultimatum. She wouldn't have wanted to do that, it wasn't in her to. “I shouldn't have had to,” she'd always promised to ask very little of him from the beginning. She promised to never ask for money or for gifts or for his attention. In the end it felt like she was going against her nature. She coos at his next words, her hands not being able to help themselves as she reaches to catch his chin and run a thumb over his scruff. “That was the last thing on my mind, I never thought that.” She's being honest. As the love she did share with him felt like it couldn't be beat by an affair or random fling. The beer is settling into her system and she feels hot, words feeling a little more loose. “I missed you though. I missed the non-workaholic you. Those first few months of having a baby and we were an actual family, I thought about those a lot. Or when we were both equals, even before we were married. I missed us.”

[Deleted]

He's not prepared to agree with her out loud, though he knows what she's saying is true. After all, if the best thing you can say about yourself as a husband was that you didn't have an affair, you probably were falling considerably short of the mark. Tristan had actually thought a lot about what a saint he was for not sleeping around, so much so that he must have allowed himself to believe he was a good husband purely for that fact alone, ignoring all the times Tess tried to make him see otherwise. As she touches his face he melts, he wants to take her in his arms and kiss her, thinks maybe it'll fix everything. Because she's right, she is much more herself, he's looking at her and seeing her as he saw her on their wedding day. "I was working for us, I wanted to be a solid provider, I didn't want you to have to worry." He wishes they weren't having this conversation in a bar. "I don't know, I guess I thought things would get easier when Forrest was older, I didn't think about the here and now. I know it didn't seem like it but I missed us too, I just didn't know how to get us back on track."

[Deleted]

All the food is going cold and her the rest of her beer is becoming warm. She thinks this is an odd place to be having this conversation, but she can't suggest an appropriate place. She wonders if the bartender is paying attention and if he can feel how heavy her heart is. It's difficult being with Tristan like this. It's such an honest and genuine moment, the last time she'd shared this much reality with his was probably while she was pregnant and they were gushing over the future. “But you know I never wanted to be a housewife,” she catches her lip between her teeth and her hand drops from his face to this thigh, she's unable to break the contact. “That wouldn't have worked.”

[Deleted]

He sighs, holding his face in his hands for a few seconds. He has to get himself together. This had been a rollercoaster of emotions and generally speaking, Tristan was not a particularly emotional guy. Or at least, he liked to try not to be. Whilst he could be open and gushing and had been through much of their relationship, he was less good at the hard stuff, he didn't like to confront negativity head on. Instead he buried it deep and pretended it wasn't happening. "I didn't want to work so much, I get that it probably doesn't seem that bad but honestly, I was about ten seconds away from a stress induced heart attack." It's true. Whilst there was plenty of drinking and traveling with his work, it meant that he could never truly switch off, and by the time he got home he was exhausted. "We could have got a nanny. We could have done something."

[Deleted]

This conversation feels too late and to that Tessa shakes her head. She takes a long sip of beer and sighs. This was the husband and support she'd needed. This is who she wanted when she was struggling to understand her identity. “I didn't see that,” she admits. She figured that obviously his job was stressful, but if he'd wanted to be with his family he would. “We could have. We could have had this conversation sooner.. that's on us both.”

[Deleted]

Tristan feels cheated of a chance to make things right. Everything seems obvious now, they should have made some simple changes-- they could have gotten a nanny, Tess could have gone back to work, he could have cut back on his hours and they could have instated date night. Of course it wasn't this simple. He had only been able to cut back on his hours due to recent events, his work had cut him slack since he was in such a tough position and already they were expecting him to return to normal. That, and it took this whole disaster for him to be able to see clearly the things that were wrong. He finishes his beer, sitting back, defeated. He glances down to her hand on his thigh and he wishes things were more normal, he craves the comfort of having her wrapping her arms around him. "So what now?"