A/N: Just for clarification, the italics are passages that Andy is writing in her journal.
Unexpected Grace - Chapter Four
This is really starting to piss me off…..
Andy shifted in the corner of the window seat, drawing the duvet a little closer around her. She bent one leg up and leaned her journal against her thigh before continuing to write. She loved the free flow of journaling with no worries about complete sentences or paragraph structure or any of that stuff. She just needed to get it all out. No one would ever read it anyway.
This damn dream is messing with my life and my head…and my heart. Why does it cut so deeply? I can't keep waking up crying every day. It's a dream, not a memory. Why does it feel so real? How can I stop it? I have to make it stop.
I'm a journalist, a reporter….so report, investigate. Get logical, think it through, find the threads and start pulling to unravel the knot. Why does it keep coming back? Usually things come back when we aren't finished with them, when something is just not complete. What's not finished?
Andy stood and moved to sit before her computer. She googled "dreams" and started taking notes in her journal, trying to decipher the images in her dream.
Water: feelings of the subconscious surfacing.
Waves: emotions rising to the surface.
Stormy, windy weather: conflict or being conflicted.
A woman: feminine power, sexuality, love.
Gold: determination and an unyielding nature.
Moon: hidden aspect of the self, new beginnings.
Rowboat: hard work and perseverance.
No oars: missing a partner in life.
Cliffs: reaching a critical point, losing control.
Moving back to the window seat, she continued to write.
There's a party high up in this beautiful temple on a cliff. I've been cast out and can't get back. But this makes no sense. I was the one that walked away from all the glitz and glamour of Runway. No one threw me out the door and cast me adrift. I decided. No one made me do anything. I walked away!
But what if the dream is not about me, what if it's about Miranda?
The pen stopped moving and was slowly lifted to tap her lips as she looked out the window, holding the vision of that proud woman in her mind's eye. Andy said her name aloud quietly: "Miranda". The pen returned to paper as she looked down and began to write again.
Miranda…..beautiful, so beautiful, so untouchable, standing in that moonlight until her face changes and there she is, a woman in pain, raw and hurting. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold her and rock her and tell her how much I care and that it will all be ok…..and I can't. I can't reach her from where I am. Goddess! I've seen this for real that night her twins told me to bring The Book upstairs that first time I was trusted to make that delivery so long ago. Miranda and her ex were arguing. Oh gods, she was so angry with me for seeing that exposed hurt. I know she saw my sympathy. She almost got me with those Harry Potter hoops she made me jump through as payback.
But I survived and, I think, surprised her. I wanted to make her proud. I wanted to make her see me. I think she did. Hell, I know she did. I know her tells and she had a whole set just for me. I felt her look me over each day, for months, looking at more than the clothes. It was like having warm honey pour over me as those eyes scanned up and down, made my legs go weak. Her eyes would narrow, and she'd lick her lips in this hungry kinda way. Her fingers would shift the tiniest bit like she was just about to reach out and touch. Then she'd catch herself and sigh, looking quickly away, her jaw getting tense, hand clenching to her side, her eyes getting all flinty and looking for someone to pick on.
Hell, Andy, get real here. I was looking at her as much as she was looking at me all those months. She's so elegant, so beautiful, so brilliant, so strong …..so complex…and sooooo damn hot. And so impossible…an impossible dream. And my boss. My fucking boss!
Tried to shut that down with the old denial trick. How'd that work for you, Andy girl? Not very well, did it? Untouchable? You wanted to touch, and lick and nuzzle and …oh fuck! I wanted her. Talk about unfinished business.
And Paris….it happened again with that complete jerk of a husband, about to become ex. I saw her at her most vulnerable with no makeup, swollen eyes from crying, without the armor of the power suits and fashion to hide behind. She talked to me like she trusted me. All I wanted to do was pull her close, let her head fall to my shoulder and hold her while she let go. And she saw it, saw the caring, the concern, and the love and pulled up the force field.
Do your job? Yeah, Miranda. I did my job and more. Made a fool of myself with Christian, didn't I. Tried to save your gorgeous ass later with what I learned. Should have known you had it all figured out, Miranda.
So I walked away. You said that everyone wants to be like us? I was never part of that privileged elite. I wasn't born to it, don't want it. I never wanted to be you. I wanted you….. not that life. I learned to appreciate the fashion industry from you but not its heartlessness. That's not who I am and never will be. I got lost for a while, sucked down the rabbit hole, an Alice searching for the Red Queen. And that would be White Queen in this case.
Yes, you saw so much of yourself in me but I did not want to become you. I could never do what you did to Nigel, even knowing you would pay him back some day…..probably.
I've needed this time to find myself again. To bring the strength and skills I learned with you and apply them to my own dreams of having an impact in the world. I've needed to reattach to my sense of what is important in the world for me, for Andy. And to relearn how I want to live in this world. And how and who I want to love. ...I know now.
But why is Miranda so furious in that dream? She's lost so many and trusts almost no one. I saw beyond the mask and didn't betray her trust. And me? I don't have a mask. Here I am with my big brown eyes wearing my heart on my sleeve. Well, maybe not so innocent anymore….and…
"Wait a minute….." Andy sucked in a huge breath, "Fuck me!"
Should have known you had it all figured out? You did have it all figured out. Ah, Miranda, you manipulated me, engineered this whole thing so I would walk away. I did not leave Runway, I left you, Miranda, exactly as you intended. I didn't walk away. You pushed me, forced me out of that car and out of your life.
Furious, Andy stood, throwing the journal and pen on the floor and started pacing, talking to herself.
"What the fuck! How dare you, Miranda. And I've been feeling guilty for months for leaving that way. I left you high and dry. I should march right in there and give you a piece of my mind and…" she stopped suddenly in her tracks "and …I've missed you like I've missed no one else in my life."
She began to pace again, a little slower, thinking back. What would make Miranda do something like this? She froze as all the images ran through her mind in quick flashes coupled to the dream meanings she had found; feelings and emotions surfacing, hidden aspects of the self, missing a partner, doing hard things, fear of losing control, reaching a critical point, and love. Love….
The last time someone talked to her about love, it was Lily. Lily's words came flooding back," … that's what love is; wanting the best for those we care about."
Her voice caught as she murmured, "Oh Miranda, what did you do?"
"And now, what do I do?"
She needed to get out of the apartment, walk, get rid of this energy. She turned and moved to the bedroom, throwing on jeans and a black turtleneck, tying her hair back into a long pony tail. Moving toward the front door, she grabbed her bag, her battered leather jacket and her cell phone, and stepped into dusty low ankle boots that had already survived miles of city streets.
As the door closed, she was already dialing as she headed down the stairs and out the door. The call went to voice mail and she spoke urgently into the phone.
"Hey Nige. I know we're meeting tonight for a drink but could you come a little bit early? I need to talk. Just pick me up at rehearsal tonight like we planned and we'll head over to the bar. See you at 7:30."