Until My Heartbeat Stops

Scalpel Scar

"Kiss Kiss.." Dixie's mom yelled holding a camera in front of Dixie and Giffin it was Dixie's 7th birthday and Griffin went as her date: per usual. "I don't want to mom," Dixie explained feeling quite uncomfortable. Dixie's mom always did this she put it as her way of "showing she cared." But Dixie knew better than that. "KISS HIM DIXIE." Her mom said sternly pulling the camera back to get a better angle. Dixie pecked his lips softly and then removed her lips from his wiping her mouth.

Griffin did the same.

His mom and Dixie's mom did this all the time, he felt bad for Dixie because he knew she didn't like to be told let alone forced to do something she didn't want to do, he also knew she liked someone that wasn't him.

Nick.

She talked about him a lot, her mom had told her that when you feel a sort of affection towards someone it means you like them as more than a "friend" and that you want them to be your boyfriend. Apparently, Griffin is Dixie's boyfriend. He doesn't want to be her boyfriend though, he never feels those feelings his mom and Dixie's mom always seem to force on their friendship. He knows Dixie feels the same way.

About a year ago Dixie and Griffin decided to play into their parent's game as a way to get away with things they wanted to do. This worked for them over the years as they grew up and wanted to do other things. For example, Dixie wanted to go to a medical school program one year she had told griffin about it and he seemed interested so they signed up together. They both ended up getting in and used their tactic by telling their parents they wanted to take a trip together, using the "my future fiancé should know where we're going to live one day." And the "My soon-to-be husband and I are going to find a beautiful place." Of course, They bought it.

They always did.

So they went, both graduated at the top of their class and decided to become surgeons. Life was going great for them until their parents sent Griffin a package. It contained a small velvet box something Griffin recognized in a heartbeat as it was the box he'd been shown since he was a kid:

"You have to give this ring to Dixie one day so that you can spend your lives together as you've always wanted."

He showed it to Dixie and she dolorously agreed to marry him for the mere intention of meeting her career goals. He proposed on a beach just to send pictures to their parents to shut up about them being engaged.

Their parents planned the entire wedding which was filled with thousands of people neither Griffin nor Dixie knew. They both so badly wanted to invite some of the acquaintances they had come across in school but knew that would only complicate things and decided against it.

The wedding surprise their parents gave them was a huge house in San Francisco. They moved in but for both, the place never really felt like home. Of course, they spent most of their days studying. Marriage was never a priority for either of them not because they didn't love each other but because being married was a full-time commitment something neither of them could have enjoyed even if they wanted to.

When they got divorced for both it was a weight lifted off their shoulders. A burden set in place by their mothers to possibly create a stigma around their love life. As they grew up they both realize that their parents only did this because they wish they had it themselves.
They wouldn't have called it a waste of time but rather a waste of love that could have gone to someone they truly cared for in that way.