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you've already won me over

Summary:

Abby doesn’t meant to, but she holds onto each one, slides it into a previously undiscovered part of her brain that also keeps track of things like Riley’s voice makes Abby’s stomach flutter and Abby can’t think about the soft weight of Riley’s hair for more than three seconds or she’ll start thinking about Riley’s lips and that’s NOT something we can deal with right now.

OR

Abby Holland falls in love with Riley Johnson in the summer.

Notes:

hi hi hi!!!! I know it is SIMPLY late february and this IS a christmas movie fic but here we are!!!!! having an aubrey plaza MOMENT!

Chapter 1: winter

Chapter Text

Abby Holland falls in love with Riley Johnson in the summer. It’s a hot one, the kind that causes power outages and too many hurricanes, the kind that makes John twist his face up at the weather reports, well climate change has us all fucked doesn’t it. It’s sweaty and sticky, Abby worries about her grandparents and Riley sees people come into the ER for heat exhaustion almost daily. Fans are on full blast, beaches are flooded with people and kids squeal from sprinklers until 10pm. As it turns out, this is the perfect weather for getting over a broken heart. (Which isn’t a term that Abby likes, it’s too “and they lived happily ever after” for her. It’s just a breakup. A breakup with her almost fiancée, but still. Just a breakup. And yes, she does feel a little broken, thank you for asking.)

The breaking happens in winter, a holiday trip gone so so wrong, a horrific fight involving a family Abby isn’t even part of. She runs out, her best friend follows, and she cries while he drives them both home. Harper comes back to their apartment a few days later, "I told my family you couldn’t handle any more Christmas", doesn’t mention the living room showdown, doesn’t mention lying again and again and again. Abby gets it, she really does. She knows Harper well, knows enough to see how scared she is. She’s not going to be the one to traumatize Harper, not like Harper hurt Riley, none of them are in high school anymore. But she can’t stay. Their apartment is Harper’s apartment before the day ends and as Abby steps out into the last week of Pittsburgh December the freezing air crawls into her lungs and chills the tears dripping off her cheeks. Abby can’t imagine being warm again.

It’s a long winter, December is really only the start, but it’s too cold for Abby to eagerly apartment hunt. Instead she curls up on John’s couch, piles blankets around her, and tries to focus on her dissertation between planning what her life even looks like now. Luckily John is an expert of pulling her out from any particularly nasty ohmygodohmygodwhatamIevendoing rabbit holes and forces her to read manuscripts with him when things go too far. She gets through a lot of books like that, snarks at a few of them with John but mostly enjoys seeing all the things people have come up with. Turns out, there are a lot of different ways to imagine the world.

On New Year’s Eve (just a few short and excruciating days after the breakup) she can’t stop crying but John still takes her out, then takes her home early. They watch some movie with Julia Roberts, clink glasses at midnight, and when she wakes up the next morning with only a mild headache and John still snoring next to her the first piece of her old self clicks back into place. She doesn’t check her phone until noon the next day, between getting her decidedly more hungover best friend into his bed and making an actual breakfast, but when she does there’s a text from a name that she associates with drag bars, rich white people gossip, and eye contact across a crowded room. Happy single girl NYE! and then just a few seconds later oh fuck wait, too soon?

Abby grins, she can picture the faint blush spreading across Riley’s normally self-assured face. Worth it to hear from you. At least I’m in good company. She thinks there won’t be a reply for a while, but her phone buzzes just a few seconds later. Did I not mention my husband and 2.5 kids? Oops.

And Abby bursts out laughing in the silent apartment, which might be a sign that she’s a mess, but Riley’s humor feels like a balm after the nonstop emotional turmoil she’s been living with. Well in that case this single girl appreciates your marital bliss sympathy. There’s a pause again, and Abby doesn’t even really know Riley, certainly doesn’t know her well enough to predict her laugh.

And yet, she can almost imagine a low chuckle rolling through the air, Riley’s lips curved in a gentle smile. Morning, cowgirl.

Cowgirl??

Nickname. I’m workshopping.

Aren’t doctors supposed to be quick on their feet?

With defibrillators? Yes. But nicknames are an art form.

Doesn’t that make it more of my thing then?

Good point Sasquatch.

Sasquatch???

In a cute way. I promise.

And now Abby is smiling for real, in a way she hasn’t since arriving to the Caldwell’s two weeks ago. Stick with cowgirl.

Rodger that. Happy New Year cowgirl.

 

They don’t text much at first, Abby’s mood on January 1st proves to be a little too good to be true and she doesn’t smile much in the following weeks. But she makes lesson plans, teaches her 101 students and writes up reports to the dean on Saturdays. She reads with John, makes dinner for herself on Valentine’s Day, and slowly, achingly, begins to put herself back together.

(And Riley still does text, even calls Abby on February 15th to describe her horrible date. It’s not anything, but it’s not nothing either. Riley sends pictures of dogs on the train, and a few cats with brave owners. Abby sends back obscure art that she’s researching and amateur reviews of John’s manuscripts. Their correspondence is a bright spot in an otherwise gross couple of months and Abby is more grateful than she knows how to express. She can’t just come out and say, hey thanks for the cat in that person’s backpack, it’s funny but actually so much better coming from you. And actually everything is better coming from you, and you might really matter a lot to me. But like. In a totally cool way. So she doesn’t say anything, just sends back pictures of tree outside John’s apartment that is starting to bloom just a little early. But everything is ok, she has the sneaking suspicion Riley just gets it.)

 

The winter wears on. Riley worries about people slipping on icy sidewalks and carbon monoxide poisoning, Abby researches and reassures no less than five crying students about their grades. And slowly, without any direct eye contact or announcement, spring arrives. The days get a little longer (My shift is over and THERE’S STILL LIGHT!!! Riley’s message arrives with an uncharacteristic amount of exclamation points and Abby smiles embarrassingly wide at her phone screen) the trees start to cover themselves in a new blanket of green, and everything smells a little happier than before.

Like clean laundry? Or the idea of flowers? A combination of cold and sweet? More possibility or something? Abby can’t find a way to describe exactly what she means on their almost daily morning-commute phone call but the way Riley laughs (husky and warm) makes her chest feel so light she can’t exactly remember what she was talking about in the first place anyway. Spring is mellow, softer than the dreary storm of winter, and Abby finds herself relaxing into it.

She opens a window for the first time and even though John shuts it the second he gets home (it’s not that warm yet) she still thinks this might be progress. Weekends of grieving and sitting on the couch turn into walks in the park and seeing old friends, exploring new restaurants, getting home late because work was exciting enough to want to stay, and of course, Riley. They text constantly now, seemingly random updates traded back and forth that build Riley into this whole real person that Abby finds herself more and more enthralled by. Some days they talk late into the night about high school and dead parents, other times they argue about a new TV show, and even when Riley calls her with audible exhaustion pulsing through her voice, "tonight’s shift was long, is it silly that I wanted to hear your voice before falling asleep?"

She never says anything like that during the day, not when she’s collected and fully conscious (Riley is ridiculously on top of her shit, in a way Abby didn’t think real people could be and it’s weirdly attractive?? But like. That’s not a thing she notices all that much. Obviously.) but sometimes she slips when it gets really late or when the past sixteen hours have been particularly draining. Abby doesn’t meant to, but she holds onto each one, slides it into a previously undiscovered part of her brain that also keeps track of things like Riley’s voice makes Abby’s stomach flutter and Abby can’t think about the soft weight of Riley’s hair for more than three seconds or she’ll start thinking about Riley’s lips and that’s NOT something we can deal with right now.

And even when Riley doesn’t slip, when she’s totally on top of her game, Abby weirdly still feels loved. Riley’s laugh is full throated and genuine and for someone who processes to “never waste time” she spends an awful lot of time talking to Abby. Abby asks about it once, and Riley’s response arrives in record time, nothing about you is a waste. I like talking to you cowgirl. A lot.