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Post by Morgan Tyler on Oct 26, 2015 3:55:02 GMT
The recent few months had been somehow both exceptionally busy and extremely quiet. In preparing for her trip, taking the SATs, and applying to her colleges, Morgan felt like everything had been happening so quickly. At the same time, given her already limited social circle, she found that not talking to Brody Finn or Jamie Benson had dissolved her social interactions to Ellie and Einstein - not that they weren't great company though.
With her trip rapidly approaching, her bags were already packed and her mother's extensive checklist almost completely handled, she was almost ready to go. Except the most important thing on her own list - the thing she'd been mentally trying to prepare for since getting her parents to agree to her trip - saying goodbye to Brody Finn. She would be lying if she tried to say that watching him leave the Christmas fundraiser the other night hadn't hurt her a bit, but it had solidified her readiness to go away.
So, with Ellie's help for her hair and makeup, she'd gotten ready to go to the Penthouse, where many afternoons had been spent her entire life, playing games and then on their study dates. She remembered that, the last time she'd been there, the two of them had been something of an item - or so she'd thought. And on her ride up the elevator, she found herself taking a few deep breaths trying to run through her pre-prepared speech (because of course she had one of those).
Her Christmas gift had been something she'd seen in a store in August and purchased for him. Now wrapped neatly in bright red paper with a silver bow, she clutched it in one arm, lifting the other to knock on the door. She forced a smile onto her face when Amber Finn pulled the door open.
"Morgan! I wasn't expecting you," the blonde greeted her happily. "It's so good to see you, excited for your trip?"
"Hi, Mrs. F," she greeted with a polite nod. "Yes, I'm all packed and already got your email about that store in Milan, I'll make sure to stop by."
"We'll set you up in Paris and London too, just call my assistant - or Cassidy, she's great at that," the older woman nodded before turning over her shoulder. "Brody!" she called out. "Morgan's here!" She turned back to Morgan, "You know, we're going to miss you around here," she said gently. "We miss you around here as it is."
Morgan's face flushed and she dipped her chin. "Thanks, Mrs. F, I...I do too," she muttered.
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Post by Brody Finn on Oct 26, 2015 19:12:25 GMT
If he was being honest with himself, Brody knew that his behavior recently had been inexcusable. A large part of his behavior he blamed on Melanie, from the isolation of his family to his ever rising temper. He knew that he had probably made the wrong decision at the Christmas party when he had chosen to leave with Melanie, but the more he thought about Morgan leaving the more he felt like he just wanted to avoid the thought. Melanie proved to be a good distraction, and one that also proved to be a bit more permanent over the next few months. Doubting that it was fair, he began to realize that he was truly angry with Morgan for leaving when they hadn't gotten around to actually repairing what was left of their friendship.
He wasn't sure what he had been thinking of Halloween. Actually, no, that was a lie. He knew exactly what he was thinking. At eighteen, a lot of his friends, a lot of the impulses that he had, told him that he didn't have to find himself in a serious relationship. And with college right around the corner, there was nothing that could say that his relationship with Morgan wasn't going to end badly anyway. But maybe an even larger part of it all was that he didn't want his relationship with her to end poorly. A fact that in retrospect he realized he should have thought through before sleeping with Melanie. Morgan had been his best friend for as long as he could remember. She was the girl that followed him around on the playground and he was the one that tugged on her pigtails in return. Later they had found that their own academic weaknesses, as minor as hers seemed, were contrasted by the other's strengths, and so they began their routine of studying together. It was that study date that had led him to join her on protests to save the frogs from the biology lab, it led him to solve an argument over whether or not she was pretty by kissing her, and it had led her to seduce him in his bedroom. All of it seemed so long ago now.
Brody sighed at his laptop, not even sure what he was looking at anymore. His attention perked up when he heard his mother calling his name, and he could actually feel his heartbeat quicken at the announcement that followed. He knew that Morgan had wanted to talk before she left, and part of him had been dreading it, afraid that the last conversation they would have before everything changed would be an argument. But still, he closed the computer with a firm snap and made his way out of his bedroom to greet her.
"Hi," he said softly to her.
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Post by Morgan Tyler on Oct 26, 2015 20:07:01 GMT
Morgan bit her lip when Brody stepped out of his room and greeted her and nodded, lifting her free hand. “Hi,” she replied back gently, cursing the girly and somewhat superficial seventeen year old girl that she still was deep inside for taking in the sight of him as her stomach fluttered. She’d missed him – it was undeniable. She’d missed him so much and she wondered if he had missed her too. Shaking that train of thought away and reminding herself that he clearly didn’t feel the same way, she forced herself to smile.
“I’m going to run out for a bit, I have a few errands to run,” Amber interjected, deciding to give her son and Morgan a bit of privacy. Despite the fact that things hadn’t been going well with her and Brody, their typically strong line of communication breaking down, she thought maybe some time with the redhead would do him some good. “You’ll be home for dinner with your father and I,” she said as she reached for the door, turning her head over her shoulder and nodding. “That wasn’t a request, either,” she added before smiling at Morgan. “Call to remind me about Paris and London,” she added. “Can’t have you spending your entire time in museums and libraries,” she warned with a laugh. “Safe trip, Morgan.”
“Thanks, Mrs. F,” Morgan muttered as the blonde let herself out of the apartment. Turning back to Brody she offered him a smile. “Hi,” she said again before wincing. “I said that part already, sorry.” Chewing on her lip she looked down for a moment before offering out the brightly wrapped box. “This is for you. For Christmas,” she explained. Her eyes flicked up to him before she glanced away. “I actually saw it back in August, and so your birthday had already passed – but it reminded me of when we were kids, and I thought that maybe…you’d like it so I bought it and…I wanted to make sure you got it,” she nodded, dipping her head slightly and trying to shake away the hair that fell into her face when she did so.
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Post by Brody Finn on Oct 31, 2015 3:30:26 GMT
He wasn't sure why his mother had felt the needed to give them space or time, but he was glad that she had. Brody wondered if she thought that this was going to be an opportunity for him to finally fix things with Morgan before she left, but he wasn't sure. Things had gotten so strange, not only with their relationship or with his relationships with Melanie or his mother, but in all of the circumstances around them. A year ago he would have been thrilled to think that Morgan would be graduating with him and they could potentially be going to the same school in the calm, but now he wasn't so sure how he felt about it.
Truthfully he wasn't sure how he felt about any of it.
He looked down at the gift that he had accepted from her and sighed sadly. "I'm sorry," there was an odd note of finality in his tone and he tried to brush it off as just a side effect of knowing that she was leaving. "For everything," he added. "And for not having anything for you. I thought about it a thousand times but nothing seemed right considering... Well, considering everything."
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Post by Morgan Tyler on Oct 31, 2015 3:49:44 GMT
Morgan chewed on lip for a moment. For a while after Halloween, Morgan had convinced herself that if only Brody had apologized everything would be okay. But he hadn't that night and then she hadn't given him much of a chance to afterwards, and the second part was on her. Still, standing there now in the Penthouse where she'd spent so many afternoons growing up, with him apologizing to her - it didn't cause the monumental shift she thought that it might. An apology didn't change what had happened or mend what had been broken. It was just words, and even though she knew that he meant them, she felt silly for once thinking two words strung together in a specific order could fix anything, and suddenly the speech she'd been preparing in her head seemed silly, too.
"Brody," she said gently, tilting her head at him and offering him a weak smile. "It's okay. Really, it is." And maybe it really wasn't but that didn't seem as important. "I've had a lot of time to think about everything and I get it. And I'm not upset with you. I didn't want to leave without you knowing that." And in a way, Morgan felt like she did understand. She felt as though it was only natural Brody to want to explore his options while he was still eighteen and to be with the sort of girl that he was genuinely interested in. If Melanie Benson, her complete opposite, happened to be his type - then so be it. She'd spent two months trying to come to terms with that.
"I'm sorry too," she added softly, taking a step closer and reaching for his hand. "And I'll miss you. I have missed you," she admitted.
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Post by Brody Finn on Nov 2, 2015 16:21:23 GMT
Everything seemed to be much easier now than he had expected. Not just being here with her and finally talking to each other, but it suddenly didn't seem so difficult to fix everything that had gone wrong. He had wanted to correct the problems in their friendship from the moment that she had walked up to Melanie's bedroom door at the party, but he didn't know how. Telling her the truth didn't seem to make any sense - especially when he wasn't sure how much he would have believed himself in the first place. But he kept coming back to it regardless. Morgan was always the quintessential girl-next-door, and for as long as he could remember, she had been there for so many milestones that he truly wasn't sure that he could pinpoint the moment that they became close. Maybe it happened before she was even born, some scheming on their parents to someday get their children together in some way. But the fact remained that he honestly couldn't remember what his life was like without her. And that scared him.
He had never truly existed without Morgan and with the realities of college quickly approaching, he had been faced with the very real possibility that she might not have been around anymore. Even if she had finished high school in the way that she was supposed to, even if he had stayed in the city, things weren't going to be the same as they had always been. And while that alone was frightening enough, he had realized over the last couple of years that he had stopped thinking about her as just his best friend. He blamed her being around during his formative years, but really he knew that the second that he had kissed her to stifle the protests that she wasn't pretty enough or wasn't kissable enough, he just wanted to keep kissing her. And eventually he had gotten to the point where he could. And then she had shown up in his bedroom in way that made him forget how to speak, and soon they were involved in a way that changed his opinion of elevators.
While it was all fantastic, it started feeling much too real. Nobody really knew that they wanted to keep kissing the same person, having sex in elevators with the same person, let alone be with the same person for the rest of their lives at eighteen. Did they? His parents aside he couldn't think of anyone who had. And in the case of his parents, it still took them more than a decade afterward to get married and commit to each other. So he had done the only thing that made sense at the time - he had forced distance between them. Truthfully, he wasn't sure that he would have been strong enough to tell her that he thought that they should take a step back. He wasn't even sure that he really wanted to until Melanie seemed to present an opportunity to do so. From there everything seemed to go downhill, though, and he wouldn't have blamed Morgan for being angry with him about it. But she said that she wasn't, and that confused him.
Squeezing his fingers around her hand, he wondered what she would have done had he taken another half a step toward her and kissed her. He actually kept thinking about it as he kept finding his attention drawn to her lips. "I've missed you too," he told her softly, deciding that it was better to just take action now than spend the next few months regretting that it hadn't happened. Moving closer to her, he hesitated for a second before leaning down and kissing her softly. "I'm sorry," he said softly as he pulled away slightly. It wasn't clear whether or not he was repeating his apology from before or if he was apologizing for kissing her, but he still didn't make any moves to pull away from her more. "I am going to really miss you when you're gone. But I'm happy for you, and I hope that you have a lot of fun."
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Post by Morgan Tyler on Nov 2, 2015 16:47:18 GMT
Morgan was surprised when Brody leaned down to kiss her and for the briefest of moments, she allowed herself to get swept up in it. And as he told her that he missed her and was sorry, she wanted to believe it so badly. She chewed on her lip and looked away from him. “I’m sorry, too,” she muttered sadly.
Taking a deep breath, she looked back up at him and found herself fighting off the urge to kiss him again – slightly surprised by just how much she’d missed that despite how brief their time together in that way had been. “You know,” she started slowly. “my mom used to tease me all the time because she said the first day I met you I came home and I sat down for dinner and I told my family ‘I made a friend named Brody Finn today, and I love him,’” she nodded with a wry chuckle. “I don’t think I ever really stopped,” she admitted. “And at first I was angry at you, because I don’t know who I am without you and it just was so easy for you…” She sniffled and shook her head, looking down at the floor. “But I can’t be angry at you anymore just for figuring out what you really wanted.”
Fidgeting a bit, Morgan shook her head. “I think that’s probably why it’s important I go away. Figure out what I want now.”
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Post by Brody Finn on Nov 4, 2015 1:13:00 GMT
Brody wasn't sure what was weighing on him more, the fact that he thought she just said that she loved him, or the fact that she thought that it was easy for him to be without her. It wasn't as though either statement really came as much of a surprise, but all the same it was something else to hear it out loud. "Morgan..." He wasn't even sure what to address first. There was so much that he wanted to say to her.
"It's not easy for me. You've been part of my life for as long as I can remember. And honestly, I think I am still angry with you for leaving. Not because I think that it's selfish or because it's necessarily the wrong thing to do - I just selfishly wanted you to stay." He chose to leave out the part where he knew that he needed to grow up without her too. "But you're right. You need to do this for you."
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Post by Morgan Tyler on Nov 4, 2015 1:30:41 GMT
Morgan knew what he meant about it not being easy for him either, and she thought that she meant it in a slightly different way than he did. But she nodded, looking away when he mentioned that part of him wanted her to stay. She realized that if he'd asked, she might have agreed - but it wouldn't have solved anything.
She had told herself over and over again that she wouldn't get upset when she said goodbye to him. It had practically been her mantra on the trip over. She was finding that very hard to abide by, though. He was right - they'd been a part of each other's lives for so long. But then again, what had they been doing in the recent months? She steeled herself into resolve when she remembered that he had, in fact, been occupying himself with Melanie Benson.
Taking a deep breath, she looked back up at him, offering him a weak smile. "No forgetting me completely when I'm gone, it's not allowed," she tried to joke. "And I'll be back in May. Maybe you can save me a dance at prom," she quipped even as she realized that everything she thought she could expect of her last bit of time in high school was so far from the reality.
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Post by Brody Finn on Nov 4, 2015 18:02:51 GMT
Brody nodded, offering her a small smile. He didn't want their conversation to be over because he felt like they still had a lot to say to each other, but it didn't seem like she wanted to continue down that path. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he knew that if he were to continue this conversation with her there was a chance that she wouldn't end up leaving after all. And as much as he wanted that, it wasn't fair to her. So instead he opted to follow her lead and change the subject.
"I'll even save you two dances," he promised, still smiling at her. "Five months is a long time, one might not cut it."
Truth be told, he wasn't sure what the next five months were even going to look like for either of them. He couldn't begin to imagine what she was going to be doing, and he didn't know what his time was going to entail either. All he knew was that it was going to feel lonely, as that was what he had come to feel over the last few months of their friendship. Melanie was sure to be around to provide a distraction, but it wasn't quite the same thing. As much as he knew that both of the young women in his life brought out different sides of his personality, he was coming to find that he much preferred who he was with Morgan.
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Post by Morgan Tyler on Nov 4, 2015 19:28:44 GMT
Morgan smiled back at him, taking a moment to take in the sight of him. The past few months had been strained between them and it had felt like almost an eternity. Five months could feel endless, and she couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Two whole dances,” she uttered. “Careful, you’ll make a girl feel special if you keep talking like that,” she mused.
It was strange to be standing in the penthouse like this, and not in his room – tucked away with textbooks, goofing off when they would take a break from studying. Realizing how much had changed in such a short period of time suddenly made her incredibly sad. Taking a breath she gestured to his gift. “Are you going to open it? You have to pretend to like it so you don’t hurt my feelings,” she joked, chewing on her lip and fidgeting a bit.
“It’s silly,” she explained. And it was. Despite the fact that she’d seen the model car in the store one day in passing and it reminded her of him didn’t change the fact that Brody hadn’t played with a single model car since they were children. But she still remembered being a little girl – over for a play date, ecstatic when he offered her one of the toys to play with him, determined to sculpt him a new one out of clay when his dog chewed his favorite one up. So she’d seen it and thought of him immediately and purchased it over the summer. But it all seemed silly and strange now.
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Post by Brody Finn on Nov 4, 2015 20:06:09 GMT
He had nearly forgotten about the gift that she had given him, despite the fact that he still held it in his hand. It had seemed like there were so many other things to be said and to reminisce upon that anything that was happening in the moment seemed almost irrelevant. Shaking his head at her to dismiss the idea that he wouldn't like it, he looked up from the brightly wrapped gift and smiled at her again. That was one thing that he noted, she always seemed to make him smile. "I'm sure I'm going to love it, no matter what it is," and as he unwrapped it, he realized how honest he had actually been with her. Brody remembered playing with cars like the one he held in his hands when they were much younger. He would crash his cars into hers and make all of the noises that he felt justified such a large explosion, or they would race them around the track that his parents had gotten him for Christmas.
Now, over a decade had passed and the realization that they were never going to play cars in the living room, or study in his bedroom, or kiss in an elevator was hitting him. He didn't think that he could go on without having Morgan in his life. But after everything that they had been through, he figured that the least he owed her was five months to figure out how she felt about him, and he supposed that he needed that time to figure out how he felt about her too. It was just hard to think that he was angry with her or didn't want her in his life when she was standing there in front of him.
"Thank you," he told her with a nod. Acting on instinct, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek, hesitating near her lips as he tried to pull away. Though it was only a matter of milliseconds, he felt fixated on her lips again and just couldn't help but kiss her. This time he offered no apology for his actions.
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Post by Morgan Tyler on Nov 4, 2015 20:23:42 GMT
Morgan smiled when he seemed to like the gift but froze when he was close to her again. Her eyes fluttered shut when he pressed his mouth to hers and she peered up at him when they pulled apart. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped short. She thought about the last time that she’d been with him in a situation even remotely like this – she hadn’t realized at the time that it would have been the last time they were together. She almost didn’t think it was fair. She would have spent more time committing it to memory if she’d known she wouldn’t ever be with him like that again and she knew that no matter what happened now, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be the same combination of hushed laughter and exploratory touches and thrilling excitement of not being able to keep their hands off of each other. It would be goodbye.
Still, standing there with him, a part of her wanted to have some sort of say in it. Some sort of control over a situation she’d lost control of on Halloween. So she leaned up and pressed her mouth against his again, lingering more than they had just before. She stepped in closer, wrapping her arms around him so that she could press her body close to his – attempting to communicate everything that she wanted to tell him but couldn’t bring herself to say. If she closed her eyes and stopped thinking about it for long enough, it was almost like nothing had changed.
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Post by Brody Finn on Nov 4, 2015 20:35:02 GMT
Brody hadn't been expecting her to really respond, at least not in the way that she was. In the brief moment where he had thought about what the consequences would have been for kissing her, he had been expecting her to pull away, maybe even to leave. He hadn't been expecting her to pull herself closer to him. His body responded to hers almost instinctually, like he subconsciously knew that he wanted to be with her right now, even if she was only doing it because this might be their last chance. Who knew what was going to happen in Europe over the next few months, or what was going to happen when she did come home. He couldn't even remember if she had told him where she was going to go to school in the fall, nor was he sure that it really mattered right now. Right now all he could think about was how familiar and how comfortable it felt to be pressed against her again, and how much he had realized that he missed kissing her.
He pulled away from her hesitantly, placing his hand on the side of her face. "We can go to my room," he suggested softly, not sure how far he should push her. "Or we can stop."
If they stopped, he knew that the next logical step for her was going to be to leave, and he wasn't sure he was quite ready for her to do that. So instead he hoped that she would tell him that they should go to his room, the place that he could barely look at without picturing her on his bed in the lingerie she had surprised him with.
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Post by Morgan Tyler on Nov 4, 2015 21:13:43 GMT
She chewed on her lip. Every part of her knew that they should probably stop, that she should leave. But part of Morgan knew that she would always be the girl in love with Brody Finn – and if being with him meant being with someone that didn’t necessarily feel the same. Taking a deep breath she forced a smile onto her face and nodded slightly. “I don’t want to stop, Brody. Never did,” she nodded.
Leaning up again, she pressed her lips softly against his and sighed softly, reaching down for his hand to tug her in the direction of his room.
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