"Because I don't have words that are worth what happened, and what it meant to me. I don't know the words, and if I did, I couldn't spell half of them. Jeff spent five years, five fucking beautiful years in New Orleans with me. We got married. And I don't know how to write something that'd be good enough for that."
And he is frustrated by all of that.
"I dropped out of school at fifteen, I'm not smart at all."
And this...this is a lie, but not for the obvious reason. Bash doesn't talk about what happened before he dropped out. It's easiest just to repeat the line, and not let anyone think too hard about it.
"...I don't believe that at all." Quiet, not stern, but heartfelt. "I believe you are an intelligent man, and I would put money that I don't have on the fact that Jeff believes so as well."
Picking up her coffee to sip, if she could be looking at him thoughtfully, she would have.
"You say you don't know the words. If I might, I know quite a few words. But that doesn't guarantee I know what to say, or how to describe something. There's so much in my head, but trying to express it in a way that will give someone else a chance to feel what I felt when I wrote them...that's an eternal struggle. All the academic learning in the world can't replace life for knowing things."
Setting it back down, she hopes he's still listening.
"Your words are worth something, Mr. Bash. They're yours."
"Even if no one's able to read them because I don't spell good?" His voice is quiet and a little thick, the sound of someone speaking around a lump in their throat.
"Even then. Your words are for you, first and foremost - how you spell them doesn't matter, what matters is that you write them, despite your doubts that they're worth anything."
Distantly, she'll think about this later, and feel a knot in her chest. Tight, bitter, like someone's nails in her shoulder.
"And if it means anything, I want to know your words. I want to congratulate you and Jeff now, and to congratulate you again when you tell me the story of what happened."
"Someone will have to, um, do the dotty letter thing for me, I can't spell in that, either." A soft scratchy sound, fingernail against beard. "But. I'll try to write it. So you can read it. It's a good story. I opened a cafe."
"Didn't worry about what my parents wanted me to be." Which is important, too. He needed that freedom. His mother had fucked him up, just as much as his father had.
"That can be counted among your successes, not the things you missed out on."
He's happier to be able to say that, she can tell, and now she'll have to tell Jeff she's excited for him as well. Are you still husbands if you got married in another world? Questions to ponder.
“I…did have to deal with Jeff dying. We had five years together, and that meant everything. But I had to mourn him, still. And that’s…I mean, I’ve got him here, now. That’s what matters. Right?”
That smile dims, pulls back, gains a sorrowful edge.
"...That's true, but...I'm sorry you had to lose him at all. Such grief...It must have felt like the truest form of a miracle, when you saw him again."
It's not something someone's keen on repeating, even if there's the proof that they come back. Even if Jeff was here, and Bash was here - she forces herself to sip, to not state anything stupid about coming back the next day and how that numbs you to death until that certainty isn't there anymore. That is nothing compared to what he must have felt, the entire world falling in.
Perhaps it's selfish to think she understands, even a little, so she keeps that in. This is about Bash, and his story.
"I want your story, the one for the both of you, to have a happy future, wherever it may lead."
He takes a deep breath. “The future isn’t a promise. We get the present, and we’ve had two different pasts now. And those being happy, that’s a lot. I hope there is a future, but shit. So much feels wobbly sometimes.”
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And he is frustrated by all of that.
"I dropped out of school at fifteen, I'm not smart at all."
And this...this is a lie, but not for the obvious reason. Bash doesn't talk about what happened before he dropped out. It's easiest just to repeat the line, and not let anyone think too hard about it.
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Picking up her coffee to sip, if she could be looking at him thoughtfully, she would have.
"You say you don't know the words. If I might, I know quite a few words. But that doesn't guarantee I know what to say, or how to describe something. There's so much in my head, but trying to express it in a way that will give someone else a chance to feel what I felt when I wrote them...that's an eternal struggle. All the academic learning in the world can't replace life for knowing things."
Setting it back down, she hopes he's still listening.
"Your words are worth something, Mr. Bash. They're yours."
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Distantly, she'll think about this later, and feel a knot in her chest. Tight, bitter, like someone's nails in her shoulder.
"And if it means anything, I want to know your words. I want to congratulate you and Jeff now, and to congratulate you again when you tell me the story of what happened."
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But she's smiling, soft and fond to hear it.
"Opened a cafe, got a husband...is there anything you didn't do in those five years?"
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He's happier to be able to say that, she can tell, and now she'll have to tell Jeff she's excited for him as well. Are you still husbands if you got married in another world? Questions to ponder.
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Only if you remember it."Well, yeah, but that wasn't the question you asked, cher." He laughs brightly, delighted to have gotten that past her.
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But he still gets the point for that in the conversation.
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"...That's true, but...I'm sorry you had to lose him at all. Such grief...It must have felt like the truest form of a miracle, when you saw him again."
It's not something someone's keen on repeating, even if there's the proof that they come back. Even if Jeff was here, and Bash was here - she forces herself to sip, to not state anything stupid about coming back the next day and how that numbs you to death until that certainty isn't there anymore. That is nothing compared to what he must have felt, the entire world falling in.
Perhaps it's selfish to think she understands, even a little, so she keeps that in. This is about Bash, and his story.
"I want your story, the one for the both of you, to have a happy future, wherever it may lead."
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No matter how beat up and beaten down they got. No matter the levels of indignity they suffered. You kept going, kept fighting. You kept hoping.
"The other me, the one whose life I remembered recently...she'd say the same thing."