A/N: sorry about the hiatus. I know I said things would get crazy leading up to Christmas, but even I didn't think life would be this crazy. When you're a grief & trauma counsellor and your hometown is rocked by a mass murder of children, a fatal shark attack plus you field interstate calls regarding the Sydney siege all in the week before Christmas, the workload's kinda high. I've been dreading writing this angsty bit to tell the truth. Enough heartache at work! Still, gonna chip away at it slowly. Just be gentle if it's not as smooth or plausible as earlier chapters. This old mind is a garbled mess right now!
Will spent the first day of the New Year at the beach, watching the waves roll in. It had always soothed him, being at the beach, right from when he holidayed in the Hamptons as a kid. There was something about waves swelling and curling into the sand, sliding smoothly towards him, before being silently pulled back into the churning frothy mass of water that reminded him of life. His problems would build, reach a climax, and then life would smooth out for a while before forming a new wave of drama. Will lived for those calm moments, but as he sat on the hot January sand, he felt as if he was watching an enormous wave roll towards him.
As much as he loved the lifestyle in Australia, and admired the landscape, Will couldn't say that he was happy with his current life. He was making do with the choice he'd made to come here, but it had been tougher than he'd imagined being without Ellie, and it was getting tougher. As the days rolled together into weeks without seeing her, her image started to blur in his mind. When he pictured her, he was picturing her from photographs and videos. He could still dream about her clearly, but she slipped away the moment he woke up and it punched him hard in the gut. He would drag himself out of bed, to face another day with little more than a message or a phone call from her if he was lucky. He thought back to their Christmas Day phone call. It had been a balm to his soul, like an oasis in a desert of loneliness. And yet, as he'd hung up the phone, Will was struck with a feeling of emptiness once more. Phone calls just weren't enough. He needed more.
The basketball team were struggling, which added to Will's woes. They had a good team, but the fit was all wrong. The coach emphasised defence as the main objective to winning games, yet he had stacked his team with scorers. Will was lucky that he was an excellent defensive player, but he shook his head in exasperation as the coach again yelled at his team for giving up points. What did he expect? He hadn't hired defenders, he'd hired scorers! He was trying to make them into something they were not, and the players soon began to resent it. The mood at the basketball club became dark and gloomy as the team strung together loss after a loss. It was no surprise to Will when the coach was fired just prior to Christmas, but it hadn't improved the atmosphere at the club.
So Will dug his toes into the sand, and watched the waves roll in and out, contemplating his life. He'd only been sitting on the beach for merely fifteen minutes, but already Will felt himself getting itchily hot. He was literally hot and bothered, sweat trickling down his brow as he considered where life had taken him. A beautiful but lonely furnace of a place with a rocky-at-best basketball team, and a fragment of a romantic relationship. Will's thoughts went round and round til he could take it no more. Removing his shirt and sunglasses, he practically ran to the water's edge, wading briskly out to get to the deeper water. Diving into the cool water gave Will some relief from his spinning thoughts, and in the tranquil, soothing ocean his troubling thoughts dissolved away.
It had been summer when he'd left the US, hazily remembering Ellie in a singlet top and short shorts. He closed his eyes and pictured her here in that same outfit. It was almost believable. He sighed. Anything would be bearable if she was beside him. But she wasn't here. Where was she right now? He wondered. What was she doing right now? It would still be New Years Eve for her. She was still staying with her parents, so she was probably spending New Years Eve with her friends. Will felt a pang at not being with her as the clock struck midnight. She'd be driving back to school the day after tomorrow, after New Years Day. If only she could be here. If only Will wasn't so far away. If only, if only, if only. All he had were fragments of conversations, pictures and videos, fading memories and one soul drenching Christmas conversation that he clung to like a lifevest. Without that, Will knew he'd seriously be adrift.
Water splashed in his face, and Will realised with a start that he's been daydreaming again.
"The brooding look suits you, you know." A mischievous grin crept across the girl's face.
Will felt his insides clench. "Hey Kelly. Are Cam and Lisa here too?" Will looked around hopefully for his teammate and his girlfriend. Lisa's friend was a hard shadow to shake.
"They're around here somewhere." Kelly waved her long, manicured fingers vaguely further along the beach. "We recognised your car as we pulled in. Figures the American would want to spend New Years Day at the beach! Next you'll be wanting to learn how to play beach cricket!"
Will just laughed half-heartedly. He'd been playing cricket with his father since he could walk, but didn't want to invite further conversation by informing her he was half-English. He didn't really want her to know anything about him. And he hated how she always referred to him as "the American."
"So what were you thinking about?" Kelly looked coyly at Will, swimming a little closer. "Judging by the look, I'd say you're thinking of that girlfriend of yours!"
Will swam closer to shore. He did not want to talk about Ellie with this girl.
"Oh, cmon, Will! I'm just teasing! Lighten up a bit!" She flicked water at him. He ducked, causing her to splash harder. She dove forward, practically pushing her body against his as she gave another small splash in his direction. It was not the first time she'd flirted with him, but each time he'd dodged her so they never touched. But today she'd grabbed his neck and slid her body alongside his. He sucked in his breath, every fibre of his being was uncomfortable with this.
"I know you must be lonely, Will." She purred into his ear, trailing a hand down his chest. "Let me keep you company sometime."
Will unhooked her hands and swam in long, purposeful strides back to shore. He needed every second of that swim to collect his frazzled senses, and lay facedown on his towel without even glancing backwards. To his dismay, Kelly was right behind him. "Will, I'm sorry. You just look so miserable, and I wanted to cheer you up. I know you have a girlfriend, but she's not here, and every guy needs some attention from time to time."
Will looked up in disbelief at what Kelly was offering. She was standing over him clad in a tiny bikini, her hands on her hips. He had to admit, she was the stereotypical Australian: tall, tanned, wavy blonde hair, killer body. She was the kind of girl guys did a double take over. Ellie wasn't as striking, he conceded. But Ellie's personality makes her beautiful, he quickly countered to himself. I'd much rather have Ellie.
"Just leave me alone, Kelly." He said, far gruffer than he meant to.
"If you insist," Kelly replied sensing defeat. "Can you just help me put on some sun cream? Just on my back where I can't reach then I'll leave you alone."
Will sighed as she handed him the bottle and lay down beside him. Will reluctantly massaged the oily lotion into her bronze skin, from the smooth planes of her shoulder blades to the small of her back.
'Just think of Ellie' he told himself over and over as he felt his hands slide up and down Kelly's back and heard her contented sigh. 'Just think of Ellie.'
*o*o*o
Lydia gratefully accepted the herbal tea Elizabeth offered the next morning. Kitty provided plain toast. Unable to get anything cohesive from the girl the night before, other than the fact that she wasn't in danger or needing medical attention, the girls decided to let Lydia sleep. Kitty looked exhausted, and Elizabeth knew she'd probably been up every half hour checking that Lydia was still breathing.
After a few sips of tea, Lydia's shoulders relaxed and the girls took that as a sign that Lydia was ready to start talking. Charlotte had fortunately stayed at Patrick's, and Jane was esconced in her room talking with Charlie.
"What happened, Lydds?" Asked Kitty gently.
Lydia's eyes welled up. "He was right!" she wailed.
Elizabeth and Kitty looked puzzled at each other. "Jeremy?" Elizabeth pondered out loud.
"No!" Lydia's eyes glittered with anger. "Will! Will was right. I should have listened to you, back when you warned me. Will knew he wasn't a good guy, but I didn't want to hear it. God I've been stupid!" Lydia began weeping again.
"It can't be that bad, surely?" Said Kitty hopefully. "You're safe, at least."
"I'm ruined!" Lydia wailed.
"Isn't that a bit melodramatic?" Asked Kitty.
"Ruined how?" Elizabeth asked slowly.
"I can't go back to LA and find good work there." Lydia said sadly. "Not with what people are saying about me."
"What are they saying, Lydds?"
"That I'm a whore" Lydia cried. Kitty and Elizabeth flinched at the dramatic outburst, but said nothing.
"You've been called much worse over the years, Lydia!" Exclaimed Kitty eventually, trying to cheer her up.
"But it's different when its true..." She whispered. "Only I did it for auditions, not money."
There was a deafening silence as her words sunk in.
Elizabeth reached out and touched the girls hand. "Jeremy put you up to this?"
Lydia nodded. "But he doesn't like being called Jeremy anymore. He goes by John now. Once we got to LA, we changed our names. It seemed so much fun at first, like an adventure. Until he started drinking more. He'd hit me if I forgot and called him Jeremy by mistake. He never hit my face, but my body was covered in bruises. One time, my arm was broken. Of course, he told the hospital it was an accident. I had a lot of accidents..." Her voice trailed off. She began talking again in a lower voice. "I wanted to leave, especially once he began hitting me for no reason. But I couldn't. I didn't know anyone there, and I had no money. He took my ID and my phone off me as soon as we arrived in LA- for 'safe-keeping' he'd said. I quickly realised it was to keep me from leaving. Since I couldn't leave, I thought I could reason with him. I begged him to stop the beatings, because each new injury meant jeopardising an audition. Not that there were many of those. Jeremy's a lousy agent." Lydia snickered bitterly. "He told me that I wasn't pretty enough to attract auditions, and that I needed to offer more to get roles. At first I thought he meant more surgery, more procedures, but then he invited a casting agent friend around. It became clear what was expected of me." Lydia swallowed audibly. "Jeremy led him down to my room, and locked us in there until the guy had finished with me. My self-respect was traded for $50 to Jeremy and an extras role in a b-grade movie that never even got released." A tear rolled down her cheek. "But it got results. Pretty soon, Jeremy had lined up night after night of casting agents, producers, directors, whatever, to "try before you buy". I got auditions, and tiny movie roles and photo shoots, and Jeremy got a bit of money. He never shared the money with me, he said my payment was getting industry experience, and that I owed him plenty more than I'd ever be able to repay him anyhow. When he was drunk, he used to rant and rave about how useless I was, and how he would have been better off with Georgia, whoever that is. I began drinking and using pretty heavily, just to cope with the nightly work. And then Jeremy started recruiting other girls. When I left, there were four of us, all "working" for Jeremy." Lydia wiped her eyes.
"What finally made you leave, Lydia?" asked Elizabeth quietly. She could hardly believe such a story could be real, yet Lydia's tears suggested otherwise.
"I left after I found the tapes." Lydia whispered. "He'd installed hidden cameras in our rooms. Every man I was forced to sleep with, he'd videoed it. He had copies made, and it looked like he was selling the copies to people. I don't know who he was selling them to, but I just had to go. I felt so dirty, so used. I knew where Jeremy kept our money, so I grabbed a handful of it, and packed my bag and ran to the bus stop. I bused and hitchhiked my way all the way here. I was able to call my mom and let her know I was safe, but was headed back to school. You were the only person I thought would help me." She smiled sadly at Kitty. "I couldn't face mom looking like this, you know? She gave me your new address, and here I am." She looked far off. "I just wish I could have somehow warned the other girls..."
"Oh Lyddie, what you've been through." Kitty's eyes were full of sorrow. "I'm so sorry."
A tear slid down her cheek. "The other three are going to be punished..." She said quietly. "He's not going to get them anywhere in their careers, he's going to ruin them and their reputations too. I already know what Hollywood thinks of me, and it's not good, but he's going to really hurt them unless they escape him too."
"Lydia," Elizabeth chose her words very carefully. "You've disclosed being forced to have sex against your will... That's a serious offence. Is there any chance you'd consider pressing charges?"
Lydia shook her head vehemently. "No. I don't want to go through this all again. It's a nightmare I just want to escape from."
Elizabeth nodded in understanding.
"He's destroyed me." Lydia sobbed. "My whole life I've dreamed of being an actress, and he's taken that from me. I can get past the horrible things I had to do, if I were able to still have my dream, but he's stolen that too. He's ruined me!" She wailed into Kitty's shoulder. "What am I going to do now?!" She sobbed. "Half the studios and agencies have restraining orders out against us. Who'd give me a job now?"
The three sat together in silence, as Lydia clung to Kitty and wept. Neither Kitty nor Elizabeth knew what to say in response to Lydia's story. As Kitty gently patted her friend's back, Elizabeth wondered if they'd like some time just the two of them. Signalling to Kitty that she was going to leave the two girls alone to console one another, and seeing Kitty's grateful face, Elizabeth crept back to her own room, her thoughts in a whirl. It was times like this that she wished she could lean on Will for comfort. Lydia's story was shocking to say the least, and Elizabeth felt sick imagining what Lydia had gone through. Certainly she had changed from the bubbly, outgoing confident girl Elizabeth had first known. Elizabeth wondered if Will had seen something similar in his own sister. Obviously the situation hadn't been as heinous, but still, both girls were victims of Jeremy Wickham.
Glancing at her watch, Elizabeth cursed the time difference. It was 1am in Sydney, already on the fourth of January. Elizabeth hadn't been able to speak to Will since New Year's Day, when she'd called that morning to wish him a Happy New Year. It had been late at night for Will then, still on New Year's Day. He was exhausted, having spent all day at the beach, so their conversation hadn't been long. Elizabeth sighed, and thought on what Lydia had said. How could the other three girls be kept safe, without dragging Lydia's name into it further? How could such a man be stopped in his tracks? How could Lydia come back from such an ordeal?
As much as Elizabeth yearned for answers to these questions, more than anything else she just wanted to hear Will's voice. After an agonising wait, trying to keep busy with school work and reading, Elizabeth picked up the phone as soon as she knew it was morning in Sydney. She knew it wasn't one of their designated phone times, but she reasoned that this was an emergency. She needed her boyfriend.
"Ellie? Hi! This is a surprise!" Will smiled into the phone, but quickly his smile faded as he saw Elizabeth's face. "Is everything alright?"
A face peered around the corner of Will's room. "Yo Will, don't be long. The boat will leave without you man."
"I'm on the phone, Cam." Will muttered.
"Oh hey, Ellie." Ellie waved to Will's teammate impatiently. "Listen, don't keep Will long," he grinned. "We're going fishing in a sec. Catch ya later!" The guy was gone as quickly as he'd appeared.
"Sorry about that." Will looked intently at Elizabeth. "What's going on?" His shoulders were tensed in worry.
"I'm fine, it's nothing wrong with me, but Will- Lydia came to our place last night. She- she had been missing, but I didn't want to tell you and worry you, you have so much going on already."
Will frowned. "Kitty's friend? The one who ran off with Wickham? I'd say it's a good thing that she's come back. Wait- she didn't bring him too, did she?"
"No no, he's still over in California. But Will, some of the things she told us..."
"So Wickham's not anywhere near you then?"
"No Will." His shoulders relaxed. "So what is the problem then, if he's not around and Lydia is back?"
"He did some horrible stuff to her, Will."
"Yeah, I'd believe that. Still, why is that upsetting you so much? I didn't think you liked the girl?"
Elizabeth was caught off guard by Will's flippant remark. "True, Lydia hasn't been my favourite person, but she happens to be very special to Kitty, who has been a wonderful friend to me. I hate seeing Kitty heartbroken over this, and besides, nobody deserves to be treated how Lydia was treated." Elizabeth realised how loudly she was talking, in feeling defensive. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "He's ruined her career, just like he did Georgia's. Only he's done it in a much more despicable way." Elizabeth quickly relayed the entire story to Will. "Lydia's too traumatised to hold him accountable, and he's got three other girls that he's "looking after" as we speak." Anguish filled her eyes. "Yes, I know that I have no personal stake in this, but the poor girl is sitting in my living room as a broken shell, a fraction of her former self. And it's because of that creep Jeremy Wickham, and I just can't stand that he's getting away with it. The man makes me so angry, and I'm so heart broken for Lydia, and Kitty too. She loves her, Will. As much as I do you. I imagine how I'd feel if something like that happened to you, and I can't bear it. I hate thinking of Kitty feeling that way too."
Throughout this entire speech, Will sat silently, the look on his face unreadable.
"I just needed a friendly face, someone to tell all this to." Elizabeth said quietly. "I just need you."
Will nodded. "I'm sorry, Ellie. I'm sorry Wickham's made you feel like this."
"It's not so much about me, it's just that-"
A pretty girl with long blonde hair sauntered into Will's room, calling him that it was time to leave. She was wearing a little bikini underneath a flimsy white shirt. Elizabeth started at the sight as the girl put her hands on Will's shoulders.
"Is this Ellie?!" The girl smiled at the screen.
Will tensed up.
"Yeah... I'm Elizabeth" Elizabeth said warily. She didn't like this girl putting her hands on Will, and addressing her so casually.
"Oh, Will talks about you ALL the time!"
"All the time, hey? You see Will ALL the time?" Elizabeth stared at Will. He'd never mentioned this girl before. "I'm sorry- who are you? It doesn't seem fair that you know me, yet I've not heard of you?"
Will turned to look at the girl, before turning back to Elizabeth.
"I'm Kelly. I hang out with Will quite a bit. My friend Lisa is with Cam, on the team, so the four of us hang out most of the time."
"It's been like, once or twice." Will muttered, his eyes pleading with Elizabeth to understand.
"Oh, well that's great I guess. Lucky for you. I'd love to be doing that." Elizabeth bravely tried to smile.
"Yeah, well, it was nice to finally meet you Ellie, but we really need to run, Will. I'll see you outside in a minute?"
"Yeah yeah," Will waved the girl off, as she skipped out of his room.
"I can't even go there right now." said Elizabeth hollowly, referring to the girl's familiar behaviour with Will. "I'm too consumed by Lydia's story right now. I just wish you were here right now. I just keep thinking about what to do. What can we do about this whole mess? About the three girls still with him? And poor Lydia! She's been left adrift right now- with no hope for her future. It's scary seeing her like this."
Will was silent, looking off to the edge of the screen.
"I'm sorry, Ellie." He whispered. "I have to go"
Elizabeth felt as if she'd been sucker punched. With tears in her eyes, Ellie hung up the phone without even saying goodbye to him. "I needed you!" she sobbed at the picture of him hanging on her wall. "I needed you to listen to me and hear me out, and talk to me about this, and you let me down! You let me down, Will Darcy! That's the last time I rely on you."
Elizabeth's sobs could be heard long after she'd fallen asleep.
