Postscript
It's taken half a bottle of Blue Nun, two news bulletins and a Panorama special, but she seals the envelope with the satisfaction of a job well done. Writing farewell letters to imaginary constructs would not have been high on her list of priorities when she first got here, but things have shifted since then. Reality has realigned: whatever this might be, it's what she lives, day to day; she can't pretend any more that it doesn't matter.
Three down, one to go.
Alex pours herself another glass.
Where to begin?
You are my rock.
Not for all the times he's been her white knight, rescuing her from whatever mortal peril her subconscious might have thrown her into. But for all the times she's found herself running decisions by him, reaching out instinctively for the second opinion that's become the one concrete thing in her life. For all the times she's stopped, just for a moment, to gauge his reaction, even when it's unspoken, even when he isn't supposed to be listening. Like her world revolves around him. Like he's her centre of gravity.
You are my centre of gravity. It sounds like an eighties pop hit. To be fair, at this point, and after four glasses of wine, what doesn't? Which proves that she needs to get back, which proves that she needs to get on with this letter because who knows when it will happen? And there's so much to say.
What can I say? Working with you has been –
Enlightening? Insane? Frustrating? Exciting?
A privilege.
He'd see right through that.
A nightmare.
And that.
Like learning to breathe underwater.
Like being submerged and discovering that you can still function: floundering, flailing, fighting for air, and in the midst of it finding you can keep going. She was lost, and now she's – found? Found her feet, maybe. Rhythm, even if rhyme and reason are out of her hands.
OK, scrap that. Why not start with the criticism? He can take it.
You resort too easily to unnecessary violence. There are other ways of commanding respect.
Except, she doesn't give her respect on command. Hers is earned. Won, even.
So many times she's set him up to let her down, and somehow he's gone on surprising her. With some things she can see him coming a mile off, but there are all those other moments when it's not so much that the rug has been pulled from under her feet but that she's found a rug under her feet when she's least expected it.
O-kay. Metaphors are off the menu. So far she's tried earth, air and water and if she gets as far as fire she is definitely on the road to hell.
She glances up as across from her a lion roars, launching this evening's late-night film, an old black-and-white western. It reminds her of something.
About those boots.
Not that.
You want the world to be black and white, want to draw the line between good and bad and divide them like you're parting the Red Sea. Sometimes you make me believe that it's possible. But you know that humanity is more complicated than that. You, of all people, know that.
You boorish, brash, big-headed, big-hearted, brave, brilliant man.
She shakes her head and smiles as she screws it up and lobs it approximately in the direction of the bin, her increasingly wayward aim mapped out in the paper trail leading halfway to the kitchen.
So much to say, and yet.
You lead from the front. The team look up to you and it's not just because your boots are really high. (Seriously. The competition is killing my feet.) But promise me you won't be afraid to listen. Lean on them when you need to. Don't forget, they learnt from the best. You might have taught them a thing or two, too.
There's no glug when she refills her glass, just the trickle of the last drop in the bottle, and her handwriting is getting steadily unsteadier. Why is email so uninvented when you need it?
Although, easier to write drunk, easier to send drunk. Quite probably she's safer doing this the old-fashioned way.
If you're reading this, it's because I've made it back. I have to make it: Molly needs me. Believe me when I say that I'm happy. I hope you're happy too.
That hurts. The old ache, and the still-raw wound of last year, and caught up in them both one memory that ties her to him across whatever boundary it is between her and home. One memory that stood, solid, against the rush of blood and bile that day; that sits, still, amongst the writhing mass of contradictions pulling her every which way she turns.
Alex rests her head against the sofa, closing her eyes for a moment.
When I think about getting back, there's always one person standing in my way.
Me.
Because leaving all this behind is harder than it should be. I'll miss nights at Luigi's and days spent alongside the best team a girl could ask for. You can laugh, but I think you understand.
And you know – I hope you know – that the hardest thing is letting go of you.