Hi there. I know that I should be working on my Abi Branning story as well as my other stories but I couldn't resist writing another story and I have got some amazing ideas which I want to share with the rest of you. I honestly hope that you enjoy this story! It is based on Whitney and how she has struggled with love in the past- Billie, Tony and Johnny. Whitney is my favorite character on Eastenders but recently she has been quite miserable with dealing with Lee's depression and drinking problem. I remember doing a story about Whitney before but I didn't complete it but I will try to update often. So here is the first chapter of The Search Of Paradise!
Whitney's POV
For as long as I could remember, I have put up walls between men and me petrified of being abandoned, used for sex or falling in love with them. Love is dangerous. My mother and father were the perfect example of a wrecked marriage and how much misery, depression and pain that love can bring to people. Love always causes people to downfall. Love was the reason that I had to support my father through his alcoholic problem. The reason that my mother abandoned me when I was younger. According to my dad, Mum was always the black sheep of the family often abandoning children and running off with men half her age for a chance at showbiz, fame and fortune but it always ended badly for her.
Growing up without a mother was tough. It caused me to be more vulnerable, gullible and easily mislead than other people because I never had a role model to show me the way and I always had to face problems on my own. Ever since my mother's departure when I was four, my father never dealt with it the right way and instead of confiding in someone, he punished himself for the fact that I was motherless and blamed himself for my bad start in life. Being drunk on alcohol was Dad's coping mechanism. He was an alcoholic. Years of alcohol abuse had left his cheeks rosy and his mind dull-witted. He knew drying out would be a painful process and he had no intention of ever going through it. He was determined to stay drunk until he died.
He never had a sober day if he could help it. He did everything drunk. He drove, shopped and went to work drunk. He never had less than four full bottles of Gin and a case of beer in the house. That was his emergency rations and he immediately went shopping if he reached that level. Yet he would never describe himself as an alcoholic. Mum got him into it. Years of returning home on a long, tiring day at work and watching her drink the beer bottle empty inspired him.
He wanted to know what was so great about the little bottle that everyone seemed to consume. But he never did it until after Mum left. One day, he got his hands on one and twisted it open and took a small sip leaving a burning sensation in his body. A sensation for more. After that, he was hooked. He knew that it was wrong for him to try but the sweet taste of the lethal drink lured him for more. Little did he know that was the beginning of his journey as an alcoholic. It changed everything especially his appearance- he was older than his true age mainly because years of drinking had robbed him of his youth. I watched it happen to my dad and now I am watching it happen to my boyfriend, Lee.
I hate this. I hate watching him wake up with a splitting headache, intoxicating smell of alcohol and a very bad temper. What was even worse was watching his depression envelope inside his mind causing him to shut me out and cry nerve-wracking tears. When he cried, there was a rawness to it like the pain was an open wound, it was never a trickle and never started in his eyes. It always begins as a feeling in his chest and depression in his mind, the only release being leaking water. The only way that his body chose to cope with his depression. All I ever wanted was for him to be able to communicate openly with me. To tell me how he is feeling. To tell me that he was scared. That he needed me not only just to put him to bed when he was to drunk to walk up the stairs and often stumbled.
It got so far that I couldn't take another night keeping myself awake wondering if he was lying in some gutter drunk or about to collapse into the room. Before, I thought that boys will be boys and he was entitled to being young but as it became a daily habit, the more trouble I had dealing with it. It was like history was repeating itself. I didn't want to have the kind of relationship that my mother and father had. That is the last thing that I want for myself. Watching Linda marry Mick was like swallowing knifes because it was that painful. I wanted the kind of love that Lee's parents have but I am probably never going to have that with Lee. It got so bad that yesterday, I got so frustrated that I packed up all of my belongings and told Lee that I needed to spend some time with Bianca because I am missing her.