Emily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2019-12-22 03:37 pm
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2019-12-22 03:37 pm
Entry tags:
tumblr prompts { 2020 } prompt-a-palooza
Basically, I've been saving a bunch of writing prompts and when I went to clean out my likes and I've decided to write something for each of them at some point in 2020. Probably after I do the next draft of Paladin? Don't know yet!
Anyway, prompts will be linked with the fics, feel free to track if you're interested, IDK who is even following my journal anymore but enjoy.
#021 ~ life, take 2 ~ original ~ 1,201
Twenty years.
Twenty fucking years.
It’s the phrase that keeps repeating through Maisie’s head as she stands in the rain, stranded alongside Route 287, watching the cars roll past, one after the other. Moving towards shelter has become complicated, with the increasing pitfalls and divots in the land beneath her feet. She’s inching closer and closer to the shoulder of the road, trying to find her way to the steadier ground, but she also doesn’t want to get too close, where there’s a chance a car that can’t see her might hit her. Not that she particularly cares.
In reality, she had done this to herself, though she doubts anyone would blame her. When your spouse of twenty years comes clean about how he’s leaving you for a long term affair he’s been having with your best friend, it’s hard to focus on anything else or have an urge to move forward. Twenty years of her life wasted, down the drain. Two relationships, gone. She feels the ground crumbling under her, and she doesn’t know how to move forward.
So she forced herself out of the car and started walking. She was bound to found somewhere to stop eventually.
Maisie can’t help but focus on all the things she had to give up to keep this relationship with the man she thought she loved. No kids. No career. No … nothing. Her life amounts to nothing now.
What a fucking waste.
She’s finally found her way to the shoulder, and as she does, her heel catches on a crack in the pavement, snapping under the force. She tumbles forward, pitching to the pavement and landing hard. While she does manage to get her hands under herself to protect her face, she can feel the pain radiating through her. Part of her wishes that she had stayed on the grass. While she’d be muddy, she’d at least have had a soft landing.
As she struggles to her feet, a pair of headlights pass her, pulling over on the shoulder. The driver’s side door opens, and a woman approaches, pulling her hood up over her head to protect her hair.
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
The woman seems about her age, maybe a little younger. She has a kind face and holds out a hand to Maisie to help her to her feet. Maisie takes it, nodding as the other woman lifts her.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. My heel broke.”
“What are you even doing out here?”
“That is a very long story. But thank you for stopping. You didn’t have to.”
“Nonsense.” The woman waves with one hand as she steadies Maisie with the other. “My name’s Lucy. Do you need a ride somewhere?”
“Oh, you don’t have to.”
“No, I insist.” Lucy squeezes her hand before leading Maisie back towards her car. “I didn’t have anything better to do tonight. Why don’t we get you in the car, get you a glass of wine, and you can tell me all about it.”
Maisie doesn’t know what it is about this woman, but honestly, the offer to talk is a nice one. She nods in agreement, following her to the car and letting out a sigh of relief when she sinks into the warm, dry car.
“I’m Maisie, by the way. Sorry for getting water everywhere.”
“Oh, don’t you even worry about it. Now, I think there’s a bar up here somewhere that we could pull into …”
Maisie starts to nod in agreement before she has a brilliant, fantastic idea for a much better option. “Actually, how do you feel about milkshakes?”
There’s a groan, an actual groan that Maisie would deny if anyone ever asked her as she bit down into the soft roll, and her mouth fills with the savory flavors of the hot dog with the works. Two milkshakes were resting in the cupholders as they sat in the drive-in at Sonic. Lucy laughs as she prepares to dive into her hot dog, and Maisie shakes her head as she swallows.
“You don’t understand. I haven’t had a hot dog in twenty-five years.”
Lucy raises an eyebrow. “You’re kidding?”
She shakes her head. “My husband was against fast food of any kind. Thought it was disgusting. He insisted I home cook every night.”
“Did he ever volunteer to cook?” Maisie raises an eyebrow at Lucy in return, and she throws her head back and laughs. “Right, of course. Who am I kidding?”
“You’re a housewife, Maze,” Maisie replies, mimicking her husband’s gruff voice. “What the hell else do you have to do all day?”
Lucy shakes her head. “Ungrateful.”
“Indeed,” Maisie says, before taking another bite of her hot dog. “But he’s gone now. So I can eat whatever the fuck I want.”
Lucy’s face softens as she reaches forward to place a hand on Maisie’s shoulder gently. “I’m so sorry, hun. You are having a hell of a night.”
Maisie grabs her milkshake and shakes her head. “I just … I know everyone I know is going to tell me to forget him. But forgetting him isn’t going to be the problem. Tom is forgettable enough as it is.”
“He certainly sounds like it.”
“But … all the things I gave up because I thought I loved him. I had a career when we met. I wanted kids! And now … now the best years of my life are gone, and I have to start over while he loses nothing.”
“So, what do you want?”
The question shouldn’t seem as ominous as it does, but there’s something about it that rubs Maisie the wrong way. She takes a long drag on her milkshake, trying to think about what it is she did want. It’s easy to condemn what he did to her. That is indefensible. But thinking about her next steps are more laborious.
“I don’t know.”
“No, you do know.” Lucy shifts in the driver’s seat as she turns to face Maisie more. “Don’t think logically about this. It’s not going to do you any good right now. But if you could ask for anything, no matter how realistic, what would it be?”
Maybe it’s the milkshake going to her head. Perhaps it’s the needing to vent of it all. But when the wheels in her head start spinning, and she thinks about what she wants, only one thing comes to mind.
“I want my choices back. I want the last quarter of a century back.”
Lucy's mouth curls at the corner, and there’s still something about it that rubs Maisie wrong, but she shakes it off when Lucy reaches into her purse and pulls out a business card.
“I think I know just the thing. When you wake up tomorrow, call me. Then we’ll start getting the best years of your life back.”
Maisie raises an eyebrow curiously because she’s not entirely sure what this means in the grand scheme of things. But she takes the card, tucking it into her purse with a nod.
“Okay.”
Lucy smiles before putting the car in reverse and starting to pull out of the parking lot. “Okay. Let’s get you home.”