Maybe I love you

16. Perfect for me

"How many times have I asked you to put the damn bottle caps back on properly?" She began, waving the cork at him. "So? How many times? It's not that hard to understand!"

She got up to fetch an old towel to clean the table and Hopper noticed that she had also spilled milk all over her shirt.

"Hey, uh... sorry... give me that, I can at least clean it up."

"No, you're going to be late if you don't leave now", she said, turning her back.

"Okay I see, you're mad at me... Come on, Joyce, it's not that bad..."

She turned towards him with a sudden gesture and pinched the bridge of her nose in an attempt to lower the irritation she felt all over her body.

"No, it's not that bad, it's true. But I've asked you at least fifteen times. It proves that you don't listen to me. And I think that yo-"

"Of course I listen to you Joyce. I told you I'm sorry. I'll be careful next time."

"I feel like I'm taking care of three kids, Jim. You're distracted currently."

"Yeah, that's because you're in my head all the time!" He said as he tried to get closer to her.

"Oh no! Don't play that game."

"But I-"

Joyce glanced at her watch after wiping a drop of milk from the dial.

"You have to go to work, see ya tonight."

Then she left the room to put on a new shirt which, unlike her T-shirt, had not suffered the fate of a bottle that had been badly closed. 

"Tonight but... wait Joyce!"

Hopper stopped her by standing in front of her, blocking the door.

"What?" She sighed with her arms folded.

"Well... it's Wednesday. I'm supposed to buy us lunch today and we'll meet for lunch together." 

"I'm not hungry."

Joyce walked around to her room.

—♡—♡—♡—♡—♡—

Hopper had been thinking all day long about what he might say to Joyce when he got home that evening, and it was time. He stopped walking once in front of the front door and rubbed his eyes. It was just a simple fight, but he hated that Joyce was mad at him. He just wanted to make her as happy as he was thanks to her. 

So he walked through the door and took off his hat.

"Hi Dad!" His daughter said as he put his hat on the table next to her open notebooks. Will helped her every evening with her homework as she was falling behind, but she was starting to catch up little by little.

"Hi, did you have a good day?" He asked, taking a button off his shirt.

"We had a test and I think I passed with Will's help. We had been studying all week."

"We'll see about that then", Hopper answered with a smile.

Then he turned his head to the couch, thinking he’d see Joyce there.

"She's in her room", Will said.

"Wh-what?"

"Mom, she's in her room. You were looking for her, right?"

"Oh I... yes, thank you."

Hopper knocked on the door twice before opening it.

He went in and saw Joyce kneeling at the end of the bed folding her clothes.

"Hey..." He said in a small voice.

Joyce raised her head towards him before turning her attention back to her T-shirts.

Hopper stood in front of her before continuing :
"Um... Look Joyce... Well, I'm sorry about this morning, you still seem upset about what happened."

Joyce looked up at him with her little brown eyes, opened her mouth and then closed it again. She moved her stack of folded T-shirts in front of her to put them a little further away and looked up at Hopper again.

"Are you apologizing because I'm angry or because you've finally realized you're distracted?"

"Uh I... a little bit of both, I guess."

"You guess? Then I hope you don't just make assumptions like that at work, because otherwise the problems of this city are far from being solved."

"Touché..." He said laughing.

Joyce lowered her head so that he couldn't see a smile forming in the corner of her mouth.

"Seriously," he said, "I'm sorry because I'm not perfect, unlike you", Joyce looked up in exasperation, "I mean you don't do anything that bothers me or makes me angry, and I just tell myself that I'm so lucky to have you and I don't want to ruin everything for such stupid things. I'm sorry."

Hopper rubbed the back of his head with one hand and when Joyce looked into his eyes, she saw that he was sincere and she felt her chest get light.

She then stood up on her bed which allowed her to be several inches taller than Hopper. She placed her hands on his shoulders and he placed his hands on her back.

"No Jim Hopper, you're not perfect, that's true. But you're perfect for me so stop worrying that you're not being good enough... But think of the damned bottle caps for God's sake, and for my clothes", she said smiling before kissing him for the second time of the day. 

Then Hopper gave her one of his hugs that she loved. Joyce closed her eyes, resting her chin on his collarbone, and thinking she had rarely been happier in her life. 

We all have moments of pure happiness and moments that are so horrible that we wish we had never experienced them. But when everything goes well in your life, when only wonderful moments have been happening for some time, you start to be suspicious because there is always, always this backlash. The moment of the punch in the face when you least expect it. The moment of the big stone landing on the other side of the scales to balance things out. And that's exactly how Joyce was feeling in her belly when she ended their embrace. 

She realized that she was only thinking about all this because of what she and her family had been through recently. Especially Will. She was constantly worried about him, even though she was trying not to be overprotective, she couldn't help it. But things were getting better, her nightmares had stopped, now that he was always by her side.