...don't ask. You REALLY dont want to know.

[tempered-rose.livejournal.com]

Title: Like A Knife
Pairing: Ryan Giggs/OFC
Rating: PG-13
Words: 937
A/N: Don’t ask, you really don’t want to know. Fic based on this song by Secondhand Serenade.



Goodbyes are meant for lonely people standing in the rain
And no matter where I go it's always pouring all the same.
These streets are filled with memories
Both perfect and in pain
And all I wanna do is love you
But I'm the only one to blame.

Cause today, you walked out of my life
Cause today, your words felt like a knife
I'm not living this life.

There were many things in his lifetime that he wished he could change. Most of them were those pesky little details about things that happened on the pitch—little details that might have swung the match in a different light than what the result had actually been. Away from Old Trafford, he wished he had been braver when he was a boy—perhaps he would not be so withdrawn and quiet as he was now if he had just stood up and defended himself properly to his father.

Perhaps it was because of his quiet demeanor that he found her so tempting, at least that’s what he had thought for so long. She was lively and vibrant, the colored rainbow to his gray dreary morning. She was temperamental and kept him on his toes; she was also a Liverpool fan. Essentially, she was his almost exact opposite.

It would take both hands, but he could count the number of times he had almost lost her. Three of those times had been over a result in football, their first fight for example. Twice had been due to an argument over something—she had a fiery temper underneath her sweetness. Once was because he had slipped in his guardianship of her that she was tempted by another. And the last time, the last time he had been a complete fool and could not resist the temptation of another woman.

He had been able to keep that indiscretion to himself for three days before the guilt effaced his conscious and he had to confess everything. He had told her everything while he stood in the kitchen—he had tried to formulate a speech but in the end it just spilled out and he couldn’t take it back. Her face had gone from the usual morning ‘I’m happy to see you’ to horrified to pissed off to crushed as his story continued. When he had finished and stood numbly and horribly exposed in his own house, she had swallowed thickly and left him without a single word.

At the foot of the stairs he begged for her to say something, for her to raise hell or throw something at him, anything. All he received in return was a heart-wrenching look and three words that made his heart feel as if it had been ripped from his chest. Three simple words, the complete opposite of what a man expects to hear from the woman he loves. Her eyes conveyed the sadness and the betrayal and hatred that she had just confessed to him.

Ryan watched her pack some things of hers in silence, his eternal silence, and did not speak again till she was on her way down the stairs and out the front door. He begged forgiveness and offered her anything in the world if she could just forgive what he had done and stay with him. The scathing look of hatred returned and that had been enough to silence his pleas.

She had walked out that day; walked out of his home, his life but never his mind nor his heart. He stopped breathing properly that night; there was too great of a whole in his chest for his lungs to produce the necessary amount of air for normal breathing. He now could understand why in the movies and the stories about the sentiment of having one’s heart ripped from their chest.

It was as if he walked around in a dazed fog, such as one from a nightmare where the density never ended and the end of the road could never be found. He realized what the devastating consequences could be of a futile mistake. He could blame no one but himself for his actions, they were no one’s but his alone. No matter how much he tried, he could not push her memory from his mind. She tormented him and left him in the deepest depths of misery.

The next time he saw her, two terribly unforgiving weeks had passed and he had about cried in relief for actually being able to see her in person and not just in his memories. She greeted him stiffly and informed him that she had returned for the rest of her things. His jubilance turned to horror as she moved past him and in quest for some of her possessions that he had not moved.

Once more, he watched in his damning silence as she collected her things. However, to stop the process of déjà vu from returning, she finally yelled at him. She demanded to know why he stood in silence and just let her be, she wanted to know why he had done it, and she informed him that she hated that she still loved him as much as she did. He had stopped her there and put his arms about her and held on tightly. He swore aloud and silently that he would never let her go and he would never betray her confidence and loyalty like that ever again.

Ryan confessed all the thoughts in his heart and from his head that he had put under review since her hurried and unpleasant departure. He admitted that she was the most important thing in his world and that he could not imagine himself without her, every time he had, the gaping wound in his body opened once more. She held tightly to him while he continued to repeat that he would never do such an awful thing again.


Thirty years and four children later, he never had given her reason to regret her decision to stay with him.