Brian Quinn One Shots

What if I Never get Over you

Inspired by the song -What if I never get over you by Lady Antebellum

"Come on, man. You've been hiding out for a month!" Sal knocks on my house door, yelling at me to open up.

I shuffle my slippered feet to the door "I'm not hiding. I've been coming to work." I grumble when I open it for him to come in.

He takes a look around and sighs heavily "dude, this isn't healthy." Pizza boxes, subway wrappers and cans of soda and beer are thrown all about my place.

"What do you want me to say? I'm hurting man." I spit back, so tired of explaining why I'm depressed to my friends and family.

Sal clarifies for me "well yea, it's suppose to hurt. You have a broken heart. But the more you wallow in misery and self-pity the longer it'll take to move on." He's not the first to try and get me to come out with them, but he's the first one to acknowledging my pain and my right to have it.

"I mean, I want to. There are times I think I'm ready to get dressed and head out but it's hard" I explain "and the moment I get to the door it's just a wave of sadness all over again."

"Well, yea. I get that. But you know it'll get better with time. The memories always fade." He tries to make me feel better.

I admit "I think that's what I'm afraid of."

Sal pats me on the back and caves "fine, you don't have to come out tonight. But I'm staying in and we're having a guys night." I go to protest but he firmly says "don't fight me on this dude, I got the new copy of Madden in my car."

Sal stays for a few hours and even helps me clean up my place a bit. When he leaves I head into the shower to clean up. He has a point, everyone does. It's time I truly start trying to move on from Y/N. I turn the shower on warm and let it wash over me. The longer I stay in the shower the better I feel. I do one more lather to make sure all the soaps out of my hair before moving to turn the shower off. My eyes close and I'm instantly back to a month ago, standing outside my front door with Y/N, doing everything I can to hold it together as she tells me she's moving away and breaking up with me. "It's this amazing opportunity to study in Prague and I have to take it."

"Yea, you do! That's incredible." I smile, hugging her and squeezing her.

"Brian, I love you. You know how much I love you." She begins the words forever engraved in my head, my heart beat slowing as she pauses for me to regain myself. "But I need to be able to focus on my career while I'm there and I can't do that if we're dating."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

She explains "you know how much I worry about you, about us when you're gone. I know I don't have to be but I do and it consumes me. My anxiety takes over and I can't focus on anything else. If I'm living in a different country for a year in a different time zone, I know I'll flunk out."

My mouth hangs partially open, unable to form words. I want to reassure her about how much I love her, but we've been through it all before. I try "so, there's nothing I can say right now to make you realize we could make it work? I'll do whatever I have to. I'll visit all the time." I try and promise.

She grabs my hand "you know you can't do that with your work and touring schedule. Trust me, this is so hard for me." She has a tear rolling down her cheek "but I have to start focusing on me now and I won't be able to do that while we're dating in different countries. I'm sorry Bri."

My hand let's go of hers and I rub the back of my neck "uhm, alright. Yeah. I mean, I want you to be happy and I know how important this studying program is. I wish it worked out differently for us though."

"Me too" she smiles and leans in for one final hug and one final kiss goodbye. As she walks away, tears still rolling down her face she whispers to me "take care of yourself."

It's been 7 months since we broke up and I'm finally going out with someone new. She's a New Yorker like myself and we have a lot in common with liking nerdy things like pinball and wrestling. It's our fifth date and things are going well. We sit across from one another on one of my long lunch breaks from filming and she's telling me some story that happened at the beach. As she tells it, the way she moves a strand of her hair brings me to a flashback of Y/N and I. We're kayaking in a tandem boat that I tip on purpose, pissing Y/N off like never before. As we dredge the kayak to a shallow part of the lake, she curses me out and I just smile and laugh, looking over her soaking wet body and head "oh, come on! It's funny! You have some leaf in your hair, come here."

"It's not!" She snarls, trying to get the leaf out of her but unable to find it.

"Come here" I turn her around and get it out from her hair "here, keep it as a momento of how pissed off you are at me right now." I chuckle, then moving to turn the kayak back to the water so we can get back in.

"Bite me!" She quips back, pushing me over the kayak and back into the shallow water "how's that for momento?" She asks me, smiling wickedly.

I laugh from my stomach and growl back "big mistake" and move to quickly try and tackle her downs. She squeals and laughs like I've never heard before and I fall even deeper for her.

"Brian, you okay?" Gloria pulls my attention back to reality.

"Oh, sorry. Just thinking of something." I lie quickly.

"Your ex?" She questions.

"What- no, not at all." I try and cover up "just something for work."

"It's okay, I've had a broken heart before, too." She encourages me, telling me it's okay to feel what I'm feeling. I push the memory from my mind and refocus back on our date.

That night when I get home, I scroll through my photos and slowly start to delete photos of her and I together. As I look back at the memories, I question each one "what if I never get over you?" I sigh, forever deleting the photo of us in Paris together. I delete a few more and come across one at a family BBQ, and I ask myself "what if I never get closure?" I go through every photo I have of her and wonder if I'll forever be in pain over losing what we had, never being able to get over her. I just wonder what if time doesn't do what it's suppose to, what if I never love anyone like her again.

Every photo of us is gone, except for the first one I took of her. Her head is turned and she's laughing at something I said. She didn't know I was taking a photo and was so angry when she heard the phone click "hey! Delete that! I look like shit!" She pouts. It was the first night we slept together after three months of dating and she stayed the night after. Her makeup was washed off and her hair a bit knotted in a bun on her head. She's wearing my favorite fireman shirt as we have breakfast together at a diner.

I promise her "no, this will be my favorite photo of you ever! It's purely you."

She rolls her eyes "I hope it won't be your favorite forever."

"I already know it, babe. Look" I turn my phone to show her "already my background."

"I hate you" She jokes and laughs "but I love you too." She sits up straighter, realizing what she just said "shit, uhh"

"Hey, I love you to." I smile and take her hand from across the table, so happy we exchanged those three special words.

As if he knows I'm wallowing in my own misery at this exact moment, I get a text from Joe "hey, just wanted to remind you today that you'll find love again. I promise Y/N wasn't the one and only one for you."

Although I won't admit it to him, his words help me. But I respond to him with "you're such a hopeless romantic Joe. I'm fine. See ya tomorrow, buddy."

I close my phone, turn over in my bed and try to go to sleep, replacing memories of Y/N with ones Gloria and I have been making.