Lizzy is cleaning the tables in the diner. It is completely empty with the exception of her, Andy, and the girl Andy had been chatting up all night. He runs up to her quickly while the pretty blonde runs to the “powder room”.
“Liz! Are you going to be home tonight?”
“Err, yeah I am. I hadn’t any plans to go out anyway. Joey’s sister’s run off so she’s out looking for her and …” Seeing the impatient expression on his face she gives him a knowing smile. “Fine Andy. I’ll stay out until one, but you’re not getting any later than that. And I don’t feel like waking up to a half naked stranger in my kitchen again, have her out before the morning, or at least tell her to put some bloody pants on.”
She sighs and sits at the table, worry for Jonnie creasing her forehead. She didn’t particularly like or dislike Jonnie, but Joey and Tyler loved her, and that made her important enough to worry about. She hears the door tinkle and doesn’t bother looking up, thinking it’s her late night relief, and that when she gets off shift she’ll run out and get something to eat, and maybe catch a midnight showing of a film. That should give Andy the time to work his magic. What she had been thinking sharing a flat with him she had no idea, but he was a good enough flatmate. With the exception of the stream of women traipsing in and out of the place at all hours that is. She feels him walk up to the table and knows who it is before he says a word.
“Any word?”
“No.” Tyler looks devastated. Defeated. “She hates me now. I was so mad, I said horrible things and she just left.” He looks at Lizzy with bloodshot eyes. “What have I done? God I just wish she would call or something.”
She stands, putting on her professional face as she had for years when Tyler came in lamenting his lost love. This time it hurt so much more, since Jonnie had been there, and then left again. “What can I get you, you look like you could use some coffee.” She says with just the right amount of caring in her voice, to show that she’s his friend, but not to betray any deeper feelings.
“I could, but not here. You’re off any minute right? You think Andy would mind covering until Mary and Steve get in? It’s not like there’s anyone here.”
“Sure.” Her tone is cautious. “Why? Do you need a ride home?” She did that sometimes, on the nights that were too hard on him. When he couldn’t drive home because he’d been drinking, and couldn’t do that thing that Joey showed her where they just disappear and reappear somewhere else. The thought of that ability frightened her. Jonnie could be anywhere in the world by now, with no trace. No paperwork or airplane tickets or credit card receipts. If a witch doesn’t want to be found, it must be pretty easy to just disappear and not reappear again.
“No. I wanted to take you out. Maybe have that cup of coffee somewhere where you can join me and not have to serve it up? I’ll even spring for cheesecake. Come on, you know you want to.” He gave her a look that she desperately tried to tell herself wasn’t a hopeful one. His girlfriend had just left, less than three days prior. He was hurting. She wanted so much with him, but she never wanted to be a rebound girl. Her mind spun and finally landed on one thing. He needed a friend, and that’s what she was supposed to be. So she nodded silently and went to the back to talk to Andy. Then she runs into the bathroom feeling as much of a fool as she knows that the girl Andy is inevitably bringing back to the flat is. She brushes her hair and puts on a bit of lip gloss, pinching her cheeks to bring some color to their porcelain whiteness. She returns to the table and touches his shoulder.
Tyler looks up at her as though he’s never seen her before. He gives her a weak smile and stands, taking her hand as they walk out of the door. “You know Lizzy, you really are beautiful. You deserve so much.” He squeezes her hand as they walk down the nearly deserted street and she follows along, looking at the moon high in the sky more confused than she’s felt in months. “I’m serious.” He finally says, taking her silence as a denial of his words. “You deserve not to have to haul plates around to people who are terrible to you for weak pay. You deserve to not have to share a flat with a womanizer because it makes paying the rent easier. You deserve a good man who can look at you like you’re the only woman in the world, and he’s just fine with that.”
“I don’t?” He looks around the restaurant and then back at her, touching her cheek softly. “I think I do. You look fine. More than fine you look like a lovely fairy brought to reality. You look like someone I shouldn’t have ignored for so long. Trust me, Elizabeth, when I say I do want to bring you here.”
She flushes scarlet and stares at him. She had never heard him say these kinds of things. Words and actions she had hoped for years to experience. But it all seemed wrong, and somewhat absurd. She felt a strong and insane desire to laugh at his earnest face. The part of her that had loved him for years, however, roared to life at his soft touch, the way her name rolled off his tongue like a song. “Tyler. You’re upset. You don’t mean that.” She finds herself shaking her head even as they’re lead to a table. The hostess, being “helpful” places them in a quiet corner of the room, lit with candles. Finally, sitting across from him she looks him in the eye. “Tyler Ferris, what has gotten into you? You’ve never so much as looked at me twice. So what is this all about?”
Tyler gives her that weak smile again. “I’ve been stupid Lizzy. I had a great girl right in front of me for years. One who would have been good to me. One I could have loved. And I ignored her and cried on her shoulder about one who sent me away. And then she came back. And she betrayed me. Maybe I’m just thinking that I should give it a go with the girl who’s always been there for me.”
Sitting back and looking at him, and hating herself a little bit for the traitorous thoughts running through her mind. She never wanted to be anyone’s second choice, that was certain, but to be mad at him for finally trying to see her? Well that was just ridiculous. “Maybe you should have given her a go before all of your other options were used up?” Her voice shakes a bit knowing the truth to her words but trying to keep the bite out of them.
He feels a soft hand on his and looks up at Lizzy again. “I’m sorry. I really am. I don’t know what I was thinking for so long. But if I’m done with Jonnie, and I think I must be, then don’t you and I deserve at least a chance? Can you forgive years of blindness and idiocy and give me an evening to see … I don’t know what, just to see? Even if I don’t deserve that chance, and I know I don’t, doesn’t that sweet girl who’s waited so patiently for so long deserve it?”
She smiles at him, and her entire face lights up with it. Tyler knows he’s gotten his chance and lifts her hand to his lips, kissing it gently and then winking at the inside joke. He couldn’t count the number of times they’d seen Andy do that to particularly pretty customers, and they nearly all fell over themselves at the gesture. He chuckles, remembering Joey’s reaction. Smart girl that.
“Okay. One cup of coffee. One piece of cheesecake. No more cheesy Andy gestures. We’ll see.” The words come out confidently, until her final two. Those were at a near whisper. Tyler is heartsick to realize how long he’d been toying with her emotions, however unintentionally. Lizzy sees the look on his face and makes one more stipulation. “And no more apologies Ty. Seriously, I accept your apologies, and know that they’re coming from a sincere place. And I forgive what there is to be forgiven. But there isn’t much for me to forgive. You haven’t done anything wrong. You were always clear about what you wanted, and you were always a friend to me. A girl can’t really ask for more.”
“But.”
“I swear to God Tyler, if you apologize one more time, I’m leaving.”
He laughs, the first laugh he’s felt since little Ty shared the secret that shattered his life. “Fine then, no more apologies.” He says in a voice that finally sounds more like his, and just like that the tension is broken. The waitress joins them a few moments later and they both order coffees, and a raspberry and dark chocolate cheesecake slice to share between them. When she walks away again he looks at Lizzy, a little lost. “You know I wasn’t sure you’d say yes. I wasn’t even sure I’d come and ask. I don’t want to make things weird with us. You really are my best friend, and I don’t want to do anything to fuck that up.”
“I know, it’s alright. I swear, no matter what, this won’t muck anything up. I’m still Lizzy, the same girl you’ve known since I started working there at nearly 16. And unless magic is stranger that even I could imagine, I suppose at the end of the night you’ll still be Tyler, the cool and fun guy who’s been coming to see me at least twice a week since then.” They talk for a bit, gossiping about the regulars at the coffee shop, her family, life lived sharing a flat with Andy, the classes she’s taking when the semester starts, and how much fun she’s having with Joey. However speaking about Joey brings her mind back around to the reason the eyes looking at her, though smiling now, are still red and streaked. She pauses, wondering if she should broach the subject that was on his mind as surely as it was on hers. “How’s Ty?”
“He’s upset. He’s been with Alec and Joey while Lucas and I were out looking today.” He stops, wonderingly. “Should I be talking to you about this? Or isn’t it like bad manners?”
“Since when have you worried about that?” She gives him a supportive smile and pats his hand. “This is what’s happening in your life right now, and no matter that we’re out on a date, it’s on your mind and you need someone to talk to. I’ve always been that person and I don’t see why I should stop now. So tell me. Are you okay?”
He leans back in his seat, feeling for all the world like he’s doing everything wrong, but unable to hold it in any longer. “Well you saw how he was when he told me the secret in the first place. He went home that day convinced that I hated him, and nothing I or Jonnie or anyone else told him could convince him otherwise. And he knew that she was coming over that day to talk over the situation. And then she just fucking disappeared. Poor kid, he’s convinced himself it’s his fault. He’s practically inconsolable. He’s only ever really had his mom and Lucas. I mean there was some extended family, an uncle, a grandfather all out there in Cali with them, but really it was Jonnie and Ty versus the world.
“How could she have just walked away from that? I don’t know Lizzy,” he says, and then pauses as the waitress brings their coffee and dessert, taking a long sip and watching as she takes a small bit from the tip of the cake onto her fork and puts it into her mouth. He allows himself to fall into the distraction of the movement. Reeling with the sensual images it evoked in his brain, conflicting with the pain of what he and his son were going through. Finally, realizing he’s staring he continues, although his voice was a bit strained afterward. “I don’t know. I think there must be something wrong. I can’t imagine her just not calling Ty. But when she walked out she said to me to make sure I told him she loved him and that I wouldn’t hear from her again. So maybe it all got to be too much? Who knows? All I know really is that I’ve had two chances with her and failed both times. Love’s not supposed to be that hard is it?”
Watching as Tyler releases all of the anguish he’d had building up, Lizzy sits in silence, taking small bites of the cheesecake and waiting until he’d gotten it all out. “I don’t know. I mean I know they say it’s not supposed to be that hard, but I also know that everything worth having is worth working hard for. I agree though, I only met her the once but she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would walk out on her son without a single phone call. Trust your instincts, they were right all of those years that you loved her and she loved you, across the world from each other. You have to have faith that those years weren’t wasted, and that you wouldn’t be brought back together now, only to fall apart almost immediately.”
“You want me to have faith that it’s going to work out with Jonnie?”
“Yes. Tyler you love her, you always have and you always will. A girl would have to be stupid to think otherwise. Sure, you had a fight. A pretty big one from what I heard. And you felt betrayed and angry. You had every right to. Maybe she realizes that too and she’s just taking a few days to work out her feelings? I really don’t know where she’s gone, but you have to be confident she’ll be back.”
“Why couldn’t I let her go? Why couldn’t it just have been you all along?”
Holding back her feelings and looking at him softly. “I don’t know why Ty, but it wasn’t. It’s time we both accept that isn’t it?” She gestures to the empty coffee cups, the plate with two forks and a few crumbs on it and rubs his arm. “We gave it a go. We had to didn’t we? But in the end, you’re my best friend and I’m yours and I think I finally know that that’s all we’ll ever be. I love you Tyler. I can finally say that because now it doesn’t have that awkward double meaning behind it. I will always be here for you, and for Jonnie and Ty.”
“I love you too Lizzy. I really wish it had been you all along. You’re amazing, and one day there will come along a guy who sees that right away and doesn’t hurt you.” He lays down enough money for the bill and a significant tip to the waitress who was wise enough to leave them well alone for most of the night, and then takes her hand again and walks with her back toward her flat. She looks at her watch and sees with shock that they’d been there for three hours and it was well past the one a.m. she’d told Andy she’d give him. They stop at her door and he pulls her close to him.
“You know, if we’re going to give it a go, there’s one more thing I should try. Just so I really know. Don’t you think?”
She gazes into his eyes, speechless. Years of fantasies tumble through her brain as he runs a hand through her hair and pulls her gently against him. Her heart stops beating as he brings his mouth down to hers, meeting her with a smoldering intensity. She opens herself to the kiss, hoping that everything that she’d spent the night telling him was wrong and that she really was the one for him. She sees them together, raising Ty. She glimpses a wedding, she sees herself round with his child, Ty older and running in hugging them. Flashes of a life that could have been but never would be run through her brain. After a few seconds, hours, years, she pulls back, breathless and looks at him. “I’m sorry Tyler. There’s only so much I can take. Let me know when you find her.” She leans up and kisses his cheek the way she always had and gives him a hug, hoping to convey that she’s not mad at him, before she slips into her flat and closes the door behind her.
She leans against it and slides slowly to the floor, tears already streaming down her face. A bedroom door opens, but she ignores it, assuming it’s Andy’s plaything off to the loo, until she feels him slide down the door onto the floor next to her. Andy wraps his arm around her shoulders, letting her lean into him, and holds her in silence while she cries the last tears she will ever cry over Tyler Ferris and finally lets him go.
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