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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 22, 2016 1:27:42 GMT
Melanie's foot tapped anxiously as she waited for what seemed like an eternity for her plane to taxi at JFK International. She'd already arranged for a town car to come pick her up and take her home after making an impromptu early exit from her weekend in Austin. The entire ordeal had been less than twenty-four full hours but had been the worst experience she'd had yet in visiting her mother's family in Texas.
Grateful that she didn't have any checked luggage, she made her way immediately to her waiting driver and thanked him softly when he opened the door for her to climb into the backseat. "Short trip, Miss. Benson?" her driver asked and she only hummed softly. As they battled their way through airport traffic to get back to Manhattan, she leaned forward. "Instead of taking me to the hotel, could you take me somewhere else and drop off my luggage for me?" she asked.
Less than thirty minutes later, she found herself at Tripp's door. She hadn't told him she was returning home early, having left so quickly from Austin that calling anyone hadn't even occurred to her. Still, upon returning to New York, he was the only person that she wanted to see. She knocked and then waited patiently for him to open the door.
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 22, 2016 1:48:45 GMT
All things considered, Tripp hadn't been expecting to hear much from Melanie over the weekend. After their fighting, particularly where it concerned her mother's side of the family, he was sure that this was something that he had no business being involved in at the moment. He had tried, momentarily, to keep his opinions of that side of her family to himself, opting to stay silent about people he barely knew anything about. Besides, what he did know about them came mostly from Melanie in the heat of the moment amongst their fight, so he wasn't sure how fair it would have been for him to already make snap decisions about them. And because of that small ray of optimism, he had anticipated that she was going to spend the entire weekend in Austin, they could choose to ignore it, and everything would continue on as it had been.
Seeing her at his door changed all of that, however. While surprised, and admittedly happy to see her, he frowned at the sudden appearance of her at his door. "Is everything okay? Why are you back so early?" He stepped aside to let her in, suddenly feeling concerned that her mother's family was as bad, or if not worse, than Melanie had painted them as.
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 22, 2016 2:02:55 GMT
Melanie stepped inside quietly and waited for Tripp to close the door behind her before wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face against his shoulder. She sighed for a moment, she rarely let anyone see her in such a state - but Tripp had always been different. "It was horrible," she told him softly. Pulling back, she shook her head and looked away. "I just couldn't stay there, I left and I would have called first but I took the first flight and had to keep my phone off while we were in the air and then I just was exhausted and wanted to be here," she explained.
She licked her lips and looked up at him again, frowning. "I just...you didn't have plans, did you? If you're in the middle of something - I just didn't want to go back to the hotel," she told him. Taking a careful, slow breath and pressed herself close to him again, just wanting to feel him nearby. She was acutely aware that she was close to losing control of her emotions all together, which rarely happened in front of anyone else - and so she tried to calm herself down and compartmentalize.
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 22, 2016 2:34:20 GMT
"Melanie," he started softly. He wasn't sure what the proper protocol was for something like this, and he wasn't sure what she was hoping that he would do either. He simply felt the compulsion to be there for her, to provide her with whatever sense of comfort she had been hoping to find by coming to his apartment. His relationship with Melanie hadn't been the most traditional so far, and in this situation, he wasn't sure what she needed him to do. He wanted to get her a drink, to just wrap his arms around her to comfort her, and to distract her in the best way they knew how. "What exactly happened?"
He tightened his hold on her and shook his head. "No, I didn't have any plans. Just tell me what happened."
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 22, 2016 2:51:11 GMT
She closed her eyes for a moment when his hold on her tightened and she wasn't really sure where to begin. She wasn't even sure she wanted to delve into it but after their most recent argument, she also didn't want to keep things from him. She pulled away from him, shrugging her shoulders up and looking away. "They're all just so patronizing. I went most of dinner without even being acknowledged and then they asked me if I was seeing anyone and I told them about you. And Chelsea and Libby asked to see a picture and for one split second I thought that maybe they were actually interested because we've never gotten along. But then it was just all jokes about why you would want to be with someone like me. And my step-father made some sort of comment about not knowing that I was interest in older men that made my skin crawl and upset my mother - but not with him, with me. Because - sure why not blame me? She does with everything else."
"And then, it was so stupid...Libby is dating someone that I used to know," she winced, realizing that she was suddenly worried Tripp would have the wrong idea too. "I didn't remember him at first, I couldn't have picked him out of a line up - but one of the summers that I went down there ten years ago I guess we made out in his father's Lincoln and he remembered it. So after dinner, I went to go use the rest room and he followed me and made a pass at me and I bent his fingers back and threatened to break them off if he tried to touch me again, but he told them that I was the one that made a pass at him and that I got upset when he turned me down. And they believed him and they said horrible things and I left."
She sniffled and looked down, crossing her arms in front of her. "All I ever do with them is try - you know? They're awful. I didn't do anything, Tripp."
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 22, 2016 3:03:49 GMT
Tripp stepped toward her and wrapped his arms around her again. He couldn't understand what it was like to be in her shoes. Having never gotten along with his own step-sister very well, he had thought that their blatant ignorance of each other and unwillingness to communicate had been how most step-siblings, or half-siblings in Melanie's case, disagreed. He couldn't imagine what it would have been like to have been in her shoes and been in a situation where his entire extended family turned against him and his own personal decisions. Even more, he couldn't imagine what it would have been like to have shown up to find that his half-sibling was dating someone that he had once had a sort of relationship with. He felt sorry for the way that everything had happened for her in just the one short day that she had been there, but he felt oddly proud of how she had tried to stand up for herself.
Bending down to press a kiss to her lips, he squeezed her hand softly before stepping away for a moment into the kitchen. Not sure whether or not it was going to make her feel any better, he filled a small glass with some vodka and brought it back over to her. "Come on, let's sit on the sofa," he told her softly.
Once they had moved their position, he sighed softly and turned to her. "I could kill them for the way they treated you. I have half a mind to get on a plane and head down there right now to explain to them a thousand things that they have done wrong." Pausing for a moment, he briefly worried how she was going to take what he had to say next. "I'm not sure that it's a good idea for you to see them anymore, Melanie."
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 23, 2016 2:51:55 GMT
Allowing Tripp to move them towards the sofa, she immediately curled up against him, taking a sip of the drink he'd given her. Given the brevity of her relationship with Tripp, she briefly contemplated how there had been no where else she wanted to be upon returning to New York than with him. She wasn't sure she'd exactly expected comforting, maybe she was just hoping to find the familiarity of his presence comforting, but the way he held her and seemed to care for her made her realize just how hard she had fallen in love with him.
When he mentioned being angry at her mother's family for the way that they'd treated her, she shook her head slightly, shifting closer to him and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. She didn't want him to be upset too, she thought that perhaps it was best that in instances like this only one of them be upset at a time. But when he suggested that she not see them anymore at all, she stiffened.
Turning away from him slightly, she took another long sip of vodka. "You're probably right," she admitted. "I know that they're horrible. And I know that I probably should have stopped going to see them a long time ago. But I just thought..." she trailed off immediately when she realized that her eyes were welling with tears again and she blinked furiously to try to keep them back to little avail. "It's so stupid. I just thought that maybe if I kept trying she'd change her mind. And decide that I was someone worth keeping and caring about."
She turned away from him and wiped at her eyes in an attempt to be discreet. "She never wanted me - and my father thinks that I'm like her and I know for a fact that he hates her. I thought parents were supposed to love their kids no matter what - mine hate me." She shrugged and took another long gulp from her glass. "God, how shitty of a person must I be?" she asked with a dry chuckle.
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 23, 2016 3:21:00 GMT
He didn't know what to say to her. It seemed out of pace for him to continue expressing to her how he felt about her extended family, particularly her relationship with her mother and stepfather, but he ultimately just wanted to let her know that he was there for her whatever she decided. He just couldn't promise that he would necessarily support a decision to return to her mother's side of the family. "You're not a bad person," he told her softly, wrapping an arm around her to pull her closer to him. If all he could do was provide her with comfort, he figured that was the absolute least that he could do for her.
"You're really kind of wonderful," he informed her calmly, figuring that it was a matter of fact than it was just a compliment. In the short time that they had been dating, and with everything that they had gone through, he was more certain than ever that he truly meant what he had said.
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 23, 2016 3:32:06 GMT
Melanie sighed and allowed him to pull her closer to him, depositing her now empty glass on the table before she curled up against him easily. She sighed, sniffling once more and letting out a soft chuckle when he called her wonderful, not quite sure that was the word anyone else would use to describe her. "Thank you," she said softly, and she didn't mean just for the compliment either. "I just feel stupid for even thinking that it will ever be any different with my mother's family and me," she explained softly.
She tilted her chin up and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. "You were the only person I wanted to see when I got off of that plane," she informed him gently. She leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed gently. "I love you," she told him gently. Since saying it for the first time it wasn't exactly a sentiment that she verbalized often. "Thank you for thinking I'm wonderful."
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 24, 2016 20:50:58 GMT
Tripp bit back what he wanted to say to her about her extended family. From everything that he knew about them, he was absolutely positive that there was no real loss in not having them as part of Melanie's life. He didn't think that she was being stupid in hoping that maybe things could have been different, and as hard as he knew it was for her to feel this way now, he truly believed that she was better off without them. Though he didn't necessarily think that he was ever going to see eye-to-eye with her father, he figured that it was much better for her if she focused on being part of that side of her family instead.
He smiled softly when she told him that she loved him, realizing that despite the fact that they weren't the couple that generally tended to spout it off for any and all reasons, he did enjoy hearing it when it came around. "I love you, too," he said, kissing the top of her head. "So what should we do now that we have a whole weekend together now?"
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Post by Melanie Benson on Jan 24, 2016 21:38:54 GMT
She grinned happily when he said it back and then shrugged. "We could go out to dinner tomorrow?" she suggested. "Were you planning on doing anything while I was gone? Because I could tag along." Moving from her position beside him, she shifted so that she could straddle his lap, leaning in to kiss him.
"Or we could spend our weekend in," she suggested, smirking a bit. As difficult as her past twenty-four hours had been, she was glad to be back in New York with Tripp and, to be honest, the idea of spending a weekend with him was much more preferable than dealing with her mother's family. She was a bit exhausted, spending far too much time on airplanes for such a short time span, but there was still something tempting about staying close to her boyfriend. She scrunched her nose a bit, "I smell like airplane right now, though. Can I use your shower?" she asked him sweetly. "Maybe you'd even like to join me?"
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Post by Tripp VanderMill on Jan 24, 2016 22:28:32 GMT
Tripp smirked at her as she moved on top of him, barely giving him a chance to agree to her suggestion of dinner. Though he had to admit, the idea of spending the weekend in his apartment instead had its own appeal. "I didn't have anything specific planned," he admitted, kissing her quickly. There were a lot of things appealing about the idea of spending time with her that he wasn't expecting on having. Beyond the obvious, he was more than happy to use this opportunity to distract her from the unhappy start to the weekend she had already experienced.
"Sure," he agreed, kissing her again.
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