"There's a big difference between falling in love with someone and falling in love with someone and getting married. Usually, after you get married, you fall in love with the person even more." - Dave Grohl

Angela was getting married. Actually getting married. As a precursor to - hopefully, like hell - having a baby. Her mind was all over the place that beautiful early evening in London, and she found herself reminiscing that, not all that long ago, in America, she couldn't have legally gotten married to a woman. The world had come a long way in a short space of time, but there was still so far left to go. Just like my life... she was musing in her head as she looked out the window of the luxury wedding car destined for the London Eye.

Beside her, her baby brother grabbed her hand with an excited grin, and it tugged her out of her reverie. Of course he wasn't really a baby at 16, but he always would be to her. Big sister prerogative. He was giving her away, and she wouldn't have had it any other way. In fact, they Skyped home to their parents in New York, and their dad had happily handed over that baton to Ainsley, making a big deal out of it and making him promise he would get it all right. They had been laughing their asses off by the end of the chat.

( She had to be honest with herself in that she never really believed she would marry Emily... )

angela ashwood
- original character -

"I have learned that there is more power in a good strong hug than in a thousand meaningful words." - Ann Hood

Depression could be blinding. Not physically. It didn't cause blindness, but it could blinker you to what you saw, and how you saw it. It incapacitated your mind in such a way, you only had the ability to see a narrow field, and it felt like being able to see normally again was a long way off through a very dark tunnel. It wasn't that you didn't want to see normally, it was that you couldn't. That was the part many people couldn't understand. It could still be a stigma. If you weren't getting better, then you weren't trying hard enough. You weren't eating the miracle superfoods, you weren't visiting the "correct" websites, you weren't getting enough therapy, you were only looking for answers in the bottom of a pill bottle.

People were always quick to tell you what you weren't doing properly. In their rush to do that, they forgot to try to understand that you were already doing the best you could. It just didn't live up to their of "properly". There was too much of that in this world. Too much of other people trying to dictate others how they should live their life. In that, they also failed to understand that sometimes, for some people, trying to manage to just live life could be the hardest battle of all.

( Liam had a throbbing headache when he stepped out of the cab and slung his backpack over his shoulder... )

Liam Morgan || Original Character