Broken Promises / / A Falice Story

Chapter 9

They ended up at an Italian restaurant, but they only ordered pizza and nothing else. They chose the furthest away table from everyone and sat there. Alice barely ate a couple of slices while FP finished his. "You can take some of mine if you want."

"You have to eat Alice." FP was so caring, despite how much she hurt him with Charles, he was worried about her and for some reason Alice's eyes filled with tears and she looked away. "What happened?"

"Nothing, nothing." Alice slightly shook her head. She wiped away her tears, looked at FP and forced a smile.

"Is there anything else you're hiding from me? Because if not just tell me what's wrong. I think we're past the hiding phase, aren't we?" FP slightly smiled and Alice sighed.

"I, I'd hate me if I were you. I mean look at me! Look at what I've done! And despite everything you welcomed me in your home, you're buying me food, you're being nice and I don't know. No one, ever since high school, no one had done anything like this. And you still left me. To keep me safe? How? How can that be when apart from you I've felt lost, scared, broken?" She knew she'd end up telling FP all that one day and she figured she might as well just do it right there and then.

"My jobs were putting you in danger. I couldn't have you get hurt again or even killed. A couple years later I got out but we were both doing our thing with different people. You seemed happy, I didn't want to ruin that." It was so easy to talk to her, the heartbreak from that morning hadn't gone away, but it was ameliorated by their now conversation. They were heading somewhere with it, both of them knew that.

"And now? Maybe it's pathetic, but I, I still love you. All these years, I hated that you left me, but I couldn't stop loving you. I used to, uhm, when Hal would get violent." Alice made a short pause. FP was going to listen until she was finished and then put his thoughts into words. "I used to hide everything and to just lay down until it stopped hurting so I'd lock myself in the bathroom and picture you, what you'd say. It's crazy, but I did it."

"I never stopped thinking of you Alice. I love you too, extremely. I just didn't think you wanted me back, you seemed happy with Hal, but now I know you weren't." FP sighed. He reached for her hand and Alice gave it to him. He gently squeezed it.

"It's too late now, we lost Charles and it's all my fault. God, how am I supposed to tell the girls?" Alice asked as she ran her fingers through her hair, letting go of FP's hand. "So fricking late."

"It's never too late." FP said taking both Alice's hands into his when she started pulling her hair. "What you did about Charles, I hate it. But I don't hate you, it would be too easy to just say that and give up on you. But I don't have you, you were scared, young, naïve, you made a mistake-"

"A mistake that killed-"

"You didn't know." FP cut her off. At first he would've yelled at her and told her it was her fault, but she couldn't have known the outcome, if she could've, she would've never donw that, he knew it. "It'll take some time, but you'll forgive yourself."

"What about you? Can you forgive me?" Alice asked in the voice of a child caught doing something wrong.

"There's nothing to forgive." FP brought her hands to his lips and kissed them. "Are we giving us a try?" He smiled and Alice slightly nodded.

"Completely honest this time, ok?" Alice asked and FP agreed with her, unfortunately, there was a lie behind his words.

It had been two weeks since they had gotten back together. The kids were fine with it, Alice's divorce was finalised. FP was spending a lot of time at the new house and so was Jughead so Alice ended up asking them to move in right a week after the big announcement of their relationship and everyone was extremely excited.

FP would come home late at night, a lot of the times he would have visible bruises on his face, other times he would complain his stomach or back hurt. During those two weeks Alice was beyond scared to ask what he was doing. She wanted to follow him again, but it didn't go extremely well the last time.

So one night, he came home a bit after midnight, he had sent Alice a text to make sure she knew he was late. When he arrived he had a bloody lip and his fist looked much more terrible than before. Alice was awake when he entered the bedroom and he smiled at her. He walked to the bed and sat down on its edge close to Alice. He leaned in and kissed her, Alice could taste the blood on his lip. "You had to break out a fight at the Wyrm or at Pop's again?" Alice asked him, it was the excuse he had always given her.

"I-"

"I know you're lying."