Author's Note: A super short chapter bc this is the episode that focuses on Washington and Hewlett. Also, I wrote this chapter after bingeing both seasons of "the End of the F***ing World", and it shows.
Some days were bad for Molly. She would begin pondering all that had happened in the last three years, and an overwhelming feeling of anxiety would wash over her. It was during those moments when Molly knew she was in a bad place. She had been in a bad place the last two months years, but she hadn't truly realized it until recently.
The more she thought about it, the more depressed she became. She had had so many plans before the war. She was going to get married to a good man. They were going to move to the city.
She could still remember how excited she had been. All her life, she'd lived in Setauket; in the same small village with the same dozen neighbors or so. She had only visited cities a handful of times. She used to go with her father when he had business to attend to. In her mind, their plans were flawless. They were going to buy a house. They were going to start a family. And she had wanted all those things. She really had. But now she wasn't so sure.
She never thought another war would break out. She was a teenager when the French and Indian War ended. Her father had fought in that war. Most of her neighbors' fathers had. For a time, she remembered when they thought Selah might have to fight in it too. That war was fought over land and territory. It was nothing like this war.
This war was fought over ideas and money and government. "Are they daft?" she remembered her neighbors saying. Loyalists were loyal because they simply didn't want war. Molly didn't blame them. But, at the same time, what was it that made them so special? No one wants war. Ben and Caleb and Washington and King George and General Lee and General Arnold; Molly could guarantee that none of those people wanted war anymore that she did, or like the loyalists did.
But that didn't matter. It didn't change the fact that they were at war.
Molly knew that she might be considered selfish, but, some days, she wanted out. Some days, she was sick of appeasing everyone. She was sick of hiding her true opinions. She was sick of being belittled by men like Simcoe and Judge Woodhull. She was sick of being belittled by people she was supposed to trust, like her own sister-in-law.
But what could she do about it? She was trapped. It wasn't like she could just pack up and leave everything. That would only endanger everyone she knew and everyone she still cared about. But she wanted change. She was going to go crazy working in that tavern. She had tried to ignore the notion. But she also couldn't ignore that that thought had been gnawing at her for weeks months years.