Chapter 1: A Different Life | Year: 2020
I wake up without an alarm, in one of those miasmic, half-sleep stupors that usually start off a bad day. I mutter to myself a little bit, noticing the clock on the wall just beyond the expanse of the bed—7 in the morning, half an hour shy of when my alarm is set to go off. So, I roll over a little, determined to get back to sleep and hopefully get a better start to the day ahead. I have an important test to take in Professor Hauer's Chemistry class, which will be brutal, and will no doubt require the best attitude I can muster. But just as my eyelids grow heavy again and the pillow seems to sink beneath my head, my mind registers something... off. And with a sudden start that clears away the sleep from my eyes in a snap, and sets my heart racing inside my chest, I sit up on the bed.
I am not in my dorm room. My friend Alex is nowhere in sight, and the clock I'd noted the time on is analog, one I've never seen before in my life. I'm sitting on a giant king-sized bed, tangled up in white sheets, in a completely unrecognizable room. But the strangest thing about my sudden predicament is... the scent. I know I recognize it from somewhere... as though from a dream... but I can't name it. It's partly like a very good cologne, coffee and paper, and an array of other nameless good-smelling things that might make me smile if I wasn't so terrified. It is, I am almost positive, the scent of a man.
My body spurred into action by my totally unfamiliar surroundings, I get up from the bed, stumbling and almost slamming into the hardwood floor with my leg in a twist of blankets. Hurried, I try to think, whirling around. This is absolutely not right, that much I know, and there's something terribly hazy in my head that makes me wonder whether I'd allowed my best friend Alex to get me into trouble last night. Maybe I'd been drugged... maybe I was in some house with some crazy man who was going to appear at any second from around a corner with a chainsaw...
I try to think of what the girl in the kidnapping movie with the feel-good ending would do, but all my brain can muster are images of a blood-splattered Patrick Bateman. I have to practice breathing exercises in order to keep from fainting, which, I'm sure, would be the worst possible action on my part at the moment if I'm planning on figuring out where I am and escaping in one piece.
As soon as my mind clears I see that most of the wall opposite the bed is covered by curtains (my favorite shade of blue, but that's not important right now), and I hurry over to them, pulling them open. It's a surprise at first that they come open at all, since I was expecting for them to be a trick, or nailed to the wall by my captor. But that initial surprise of their freeness is quickly overtaken and bested (in a terrible way) by what I actually see outside the window itself...
My throat constricts and I swear I feel my heart stop beating for a solid five seconds as I look out over the north bank of the river Thames, the Palace of Westminster, Big Ben clocktower and London Eye all visible to me in an early morning fog. I stare with bulging eyes, hammering my fist against my chest to get myself to breathe again—in gasps, albeit—and now, as I look around the apartment again, I realize that, somehow, I have become trapped inside what is shaping up to be a luxury apartment, in London, England no less, and I have no idea how I got there.
To keep myself from fainting yet again, I have to turn away from the startling view and steady myself against the wall. On one of the bedside tables—for there is one on each side of the bed—I notice, for the first time, what looks like a script marked up with pencil, and on the bedside table on the other side, closest to me, a phone charging.
The first thing I notice when I hurry over to it is that it looks much more advanced than any phone I've ever owned, and wonder for just a second just how wealthy my kidnapper is, but I don't have the time to stand around being impressed. I turn it on and try—because, really, what else am I supposed to do—to unlock it using my password. Of course it doesn't work. I want to chuck it against a nearby wall, but there's always a chance that someone will happen to call it and I could plea for help... The first thing to keep me from unleashing my anger upon it, though, is the sight of the time and date on the lock screen.
17 July, 2020, it reads. I blink for a moment, but then come to the conclusion that this must just be another twisted trick done by my captor to confuse and discourage me. But I'm not about to give up that quickly. On one wall in this huge luxury bedroom there are two doors: one that leads into a bathroom that looks giant and expensive, and another one that I am sure will lead out into the rest of the apartment. But before I go through the second one, I'm going to have to get myself in order, keep my mind alert, and not allow myself to sink into hopelessness.
I swipe away some tears which have fallen without my noticing, and then brace myself against the wall again, telling myself over and over the things that I know are fact. My name is Holly Whitaker. I am eighteen years old. I am a student at Columbia University in New York City, U.S.A. The date is October 9, 2015. My name is Holly Whitaker. I am eighteen—
But before I can continue and work myself into the true state of mental stability I'd been hoping to achieve, I hear a sound from somewhere else in the apartment: the distinctive sound of a door being opened and closed. I'm sure it's the front door my captor's just come in, because right after it shuts, I hear the sound of keys being set down somewhere, probably on a countertop, and the sound of other things being set down, what sounds like groceries in paper bags.
Quickly I understand that right now, at this instant while my kidnapper is distracted, I have to make my move, and get out of here as quickly as I possibly can. The fact that I haven't the slightest idea of the apartment's layout, and the fact that I might walk out the door and come face to face with the person I'm trying to escape, is not lost on me. But I also know if I act now, I'll have a better chance than I would if I waited for him to come back into the room... and I don't even want to think about what might happen to me if I wait that long.
So, more silent than I've ever been before in my entire life, I tiptoe to the door leading into the rest of the apartment, and turn the handle, peering out with relief into a hallway separated from the kitchen—where my captor is still making noise with the bags and groceries—and slip out into it, keeping my tiny body flush to the wall as I creep forward, not daring to breathe.
Before the door into the kitchen, there's another room, a sitting room with a whole bunch of bookshelves holding what looks like a very expensive collection of books, many of them significantly old. There's also a giant television and a huge collection of DVDs, a record player and a loveseat surrounded by a number of pretty lamps. It's empty of people and so I stick my head in, hoping to see a way out of the apartment, but the room is a dead end. Along the hallway there are a number of other rooms, some of which I peek into, but I know that the only other person in the apartment—unless there are other young women and girls stuck in the locked rooms along the opposite side of the hall, which is a thought so terrible I have to turn it away lest I pass out—is in the kitchen, and thus deduce (with a wave of pale dread) that the best way out will be through a door accessed by the kitchen.
I mouth curses to myself as I continued to go quietly along the hallway, whose hardwood, thank the gods, doesn't give up a single creak beneath my light weight. And soon enough I come to the open passage that connects the hall to the kitchen, and peek with great caution around the corner, to look in.
My captor is wearing a mask over the bottom half of his face, so I can't see much of him, but that he is much taller than my own five foot two form, at least six feet in height, and would be able to overtake me very easily in a fight, given his lean but muscular build. He's wearing what look like very nice and expensive clothes, dapper dark grey pants and a dark blue shirt that showcases the muscles of his forearms. Seeing his clothes makes me look down at my own clothes, which are different than the ones I usually wear, a pair of cotton shorts and a loose-fitting tank top. I shudder a little at the image of my captor changing my clothes... but then I get back to the business of escaping.
He's focused on spraying off his groceries with a disinfectant bottle, and I notice with dismay that the only way to the front door will be across the kitchen—right past him—and down a short turn, past a coat closet. I am confident that, if he doesn't change his position or angle at all for at least thirty seconds, I will be able to get around the kitchen island and into the little hall to the door without being detected. And even if that is successful by some miracle, there's still a high likelihood that there will be some complication added to getting out of the door itself...
But I can't focus on that now. I have to believe that, if I can just get to that damned door, I will be able to access a hallway, from where I'll catch an elevator or locate some stairs. If I don't believe that in this pivotal moment, then I'll certainly be lost, and he could kill me... or do other terrible things to me...
Motivated by what I'm determined not to let myself fall victim to for the second time in my life, I make a snap decision which I hope will save me, and I stoop down and venture into the kitchen, moving slowly across the wall and then separating myself from the masked man using the kitchen island. My slapdash plan seems to be going well until I turn the corner of the island and press myself against the opposite wall, peeking out to ensure that I still have a safe angle to dash for the door without being seen by him. That blessed door—which I can now see, like a beacon of hope, and without any visible extra locks or systems attached to it, at the end of the hall.
But I've picked the wrong moment to peek at him, and for a split second, his face's profile—obstructed in part by the mask—is turned toward me, and I see his eyes dart out to the corners, noticing me in his peripheral vision. In that split second, though, his head doesn't turn to look at me directly, and I pull my own face back behind the island, just sitting there in a ball, my knees curled up to my chest, frozen, praying that he didn't see me though I know it's foolish to do such things, not knowing what to do, being totally inactive and not at all like the heroic kidnapped girl who saves herself in the thriller movie and hating myself for it.
Silent tears actually roll down my cheeks as I sit there, feeling the hope drain from my body as though some invisible vein that holds it has been sliced open. My captor does some more rustling with the bags and I wonder if he actually didn't notice me... or if he's only so aware of my helplessness that he's choosing not even to acknowledge me. The thought only makes me more depressed and the tears flow so quickly and with such heat and urgency now, that they literally pop out of my eyes. I keep wondering about how he probably knows I'm here, and how he probably knows that if he just keeps on his business long enough, I'll become a coward and slink back to the room where I'd woken up. Maybe he'd left that door unlocked in the first place just to demonstrate his power, to let me know he knew how weak I was—
"Got you!"
Like a jack in the box, I spring up from the ground and scamper back from him, who had just jumped around the corner to surprise me in my pitiful hiding place. I scamper backward until my back presses right against a cabinet and I have absolutely nowhere to go, literally cornered in his kitchen. I try not to look horrified, and to appear at least a little bit brave instead, though I'm terribly intimidated by his size and height (don't think of your father. Don't think of that bastard—he's the last thing you need right now).
I shudder and close my eyes a little, expecting for him to seize me and beat me or suffocate me, but he does nothing of the sort. Instead, his eyes—vibrantly blue over the black mask he wears—crinkle, as though in playfulness, and he sighs, chuckling lightly. "Oh, sorry," he says, his voice deep and almost warm despite the terror that he inflicts upon me without even laying a finger on me. "Were you trying to surprise me?"
And then... he takes his mask off, and sets it on the island countertop. I almost don't notice his next words as I'm caged by his face... the recognition of it, which comes after a minute of delay. He seems to notice my tears, and he half-frowns in a gentle way, chuckling a bit, rubbing his upper lip as he says, "Did I scare you?" with a reluctant smile that, in any other situation, would suggest that he was a man of severe kindness.
But all of that runs through my mind in the background; in the foreground, I'm just trying to wrap my head around why it's him who's standing in this luxury kitchen, why it's a bedroom in this apartment... with him in it... that I've just woken up in, having no idea how I got here. I know his face from my best friend and Columbia roommate Alex's computer and phone screen; know him from movie posters and big screen productions that Alex has dragged me along to see, know him from the fronts of gossip and fashion magazines... Sherlock Holmes on Sherlock. Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Alan Turing in The Imitation Game...
And I feel the blood train from my face as the name finally comes to me through the fog of my absolute shock: Benedict Cumberbatch.
The cray, adrenaline-pumped part of me wants to laugh out loud at the whole irony of this. That I, roommate to the one and only Alexandra Bailey, who I think could probably place in a contest of the most hard-core Cumberbitches alive, would somehow find myself in his London apartment with no clear purpose or reason, is the most ironic scenario I could ever think up. There's no excitement in it for me whatsoever—in fact, the fact that I recognize his face as being that of a well-known actor is no consolation at all. I've never been insane about him, and the only reason I really know him is through Alex in the first place. Besides, his fame and money give him what I'm sure is a great opportunity to do with me as he pleases and then make me... subtly... disappear.
So, my terror isn't diluted at all when he removes his mask, and I shrink further against the corner, waiting for the inevitable end to come.
I'm much smaller than he is, only five feet and two inches, while he towers over me at six feed and whatever measurement of height his shoes add. I come up to just below his shoulder in my bare feet, and despite the friendly curiosity in his gaze that is entirely unbefitting to this situation, I'm absolutely terrified by his body. He seems not to completely notice this, though, and rather smiles at me and raises his eyebrows, as though we're playing some sort of a game together—a game I'm not at all privy to.
"You slept in later than usual," he says to me with the same considerate look on his face, as he had when he first noticed the tears on my cheeks. This, I understand immediately, is a very strange statement for two reasons. Firstly, I never wake as early as seven in the morning, as all my classes are scheduled later in the day. Secondly, how would he know how late I usually sleep in? I can only look at him with my own eyebrows furrowed, and shake my head a little from side to side. This makes him chuckle and smile again for whatever strange reason. I'm so shocked and high on adrenaline that though he's smiling and seems like a genuinely friendly person, I know that there is something very wrong with me being here, or otherwise something very wrong with me, period.
"I'm so sorry I made you cry," he says, stepping forward a little, closing in around me cautiously. His hand reaches out and I can't even flinch away from surprise, a deer caught in the headlights as his thumb—broad and large against my cheekbone—brushes away one of my tears and his body closes more of the distance between his and mine. "Look, I'm serious, I didn't think you'd get so surprised," he laughs, with a kind smile stretching his lips—which, I must admit, are attractive, though this fact doesn't dampen my terror even a little bit.
He appeals to me with such a casual nature that one would think we had known each other for years, and as he continues to wipe away my tears, looking right into my eyes with his blue ones with some strange emotion that's almost like endearment, I start to believe more and more that I must be the one in the wrong here... something must be wrong with me. This whole experience just feels like a giant head wound.
After working away my tears he steps forward again and leans into me a little, putting his arms around my shoulders and starting to pull my small body against his chest... And then the fight in me comes out, just a little bit, as I say very quietly, but loud enough to be heard, "Don't touch me."
Very quickly he steps back from me, putting his hands out, what looks a little bit like surprise and a little bit like understanding in his eyes. "You're right," he says, only making me stiffer as I push myself back into the cabinet as though I might be able to disappear into it if I try hard enough. "I should shower and put these clothes through the laundry. Never too careful, right? You know, this whole thing would be much less complicated if you would consent to having someone deliver everything to the door."
What I'd thought was terror before is nothing in the face of the absolute mortification that washes over my mind, now. I've always been a good judge of character and I can be absolutely sure at this moment that this man is not trying to lie to me or trick me in any way. This is someone who knows me, I am absolutely sure of it, and the fact that my mind perceives what he's saying as absolute nonsense only proves to me that it's me who is in the wrong... that something very, very bad has happened to me... and he understands what it is just as little as I do.
Something changes in his eyes as I realize this fact, and my face loosens, giving way to hopelessness, dropping the act of slight bravery which I'd managed to scavenge up and throw between myself and him a moment ago. "Are you alright, Holly?" he says to me, noticing the change in me. "Did you have a nightmare?"
I shake my head subconsciously and say with a break in my voice, which has been reduced to a hoarse whisper that I can barely hear, myself: "How do you know my name?"
He chuckles again, as though I'm making a joke. it's a chuckle I've heard before, a chuckle I, myself have uttered on some occasions. The chuckle you give to a friend or loved one when they've just made a joke they think is really funny but you know is absolutely lame. The pity chuckle. That's the chuckle he gives to me now. "Should I call somebody?" he says in a playful tone, stepping closer again and placing an arm against the cabinet, leaning in towards me (and it takes all my energy not to recoil just from his proximity). "Have you finally gone stir-crazy after all these months?"
"All... these... months?" I echo, my head whirling completely now. I haven't the slightest idea what he's on about, and I can feel down in my core that some center part of my reasoning, some center part of my mind or memory has been severely damaged, and I don't know how... I can't trust myself... My logic tells me I can't trust him, either... I have no idea what to do. Tears start to push forward into my eyes again and some fall before I can stop them. I look up at his face, blurred by the tears, and see a look of half-amusement and suppressed worry come into his blue eyes.
"Are you playing a game with me?" he says, lowering his voice and bringing his face closer to mine. I can feel his breath (fresh and comfortable in a strange way that my skin seems to remember) against my cheek as he speaks, lower and softer, almost in a seductive tone, bringing his mouth closer to my ear until he's whispering into it, wrapping his other arm around my waist and bringing me closer to his body in a gesture of comfort and familiarly that is totally lost on me and sends me reeling into a black hole of confusion and dread.
"I can play games, Holly," he says. "Tell me... what was my honeymoon gift to you?"
Out of the dregs of my reeling mind I manage to piece the word together again, echoing him in my smaller voice, feeling completely squeezed against the counter and his body, trying to think of anything at all but my father... the way he used to...
"Honeymoon?" I hear myself echo down a long tunnel, bewildered.
And it's then that he pulls back from me in stages, first taking his lips away from my ear to consider my face, then stepping away entirely, seeming to realize for the first time the true weight of the situation. And as I register the shock and confusion on his face, I, too, resurface to myself, coming back into my mind and body, the tears running even more now. In a helpless sort of way, my hands come up to my face of their own volition, and I start to sob into my palms, not wanting to look at him, knowing he's watching me, knowing for sure now that something is deadly wrong with me, with my behavior and my mind.
"Holly," he starts again, sending my mind whirling once more with his knowledge of my name. "Everything is okay. Just tell me what—"
And it's that which suddenly breaks me open again, breaks me open from the shell of terror and silence I've been stuck inside since I first woke up in that unfamiliar bedroom and realizes that something was very off about where I was, realized that it was London, not New York City, outside the giant bedroom window. And, now, suddenly, I find myself back in full force, back and terrified, and raising my voice as I shrivel into the corner of the kitchen, crying, out of control.
"No, everything is not okay. I'm sure I recognize you, and you seem like a very, very nice man, but... honeymoon?! I just... I just woke up on the bed in there, and I have no idea where I am, and how you know me, and how I know you... And I just need, I just need you to help me, okay? Please? Because I don't understand why I'm here, and why I'm in these clothes and in this apartment, which, I swear to God I've never seen before... and why the fucking London Eye is outside the window!"
The line of internal panic finally let out in words leaves me gasping for breath, and I feel like I might just tip over at any second from how overwhelming all of this is. He—Mr. Cumberbatch—seems extremely worried at my dizziness, and with a serious look of dire urgency and confusion on his face, he takes me by the elbow, very gently, and leads me with his powerful but gentle hands out of the kitchen and down the hall into the little sitting room I'd looked into earlier, where he sits me down on the loveseat and looks with a deep sincerity and concern into my bewildered eyes.
"Wait here," he tells me with a gentle sincerity, pressing me gently into the couch with one hand to make his point clear. "I'll be right back." And then with a last look of deep upsetness, as though he really wishes I would drop the act and become whatever the new normal me has become to him—but I remain the same, confused, reeling, angry at myself and at him, too, for not just telling me what's wrong with me. He turns to go after a beat, and I hear his footsteps receding down the hall a little ways, and turning into another room, perhaps back into the kitchen. After a moment, I hear his voice coming from down the hall, hushed, and I can tell he's calling someone on the phone.
Of course I'm not just going to sit here dumbly on the love seat, so I stand up and creep to the door, listening in to what I can make out of his conversation. His voice trembles as he speaks, and I hear only snippets, but revealing ones. "Memory loss? ...Are you sure? ...No idea... No, I think she recognizes me, but not from any in-person interactions... How am I supposed to know that... Confused about being in London, I think... Not five years... Oh, God..."
Choosing, for now, to ignore the thousand new tangents and rabbit holes of fear and bewilderment that his jumbled words send my brain racing down, I instead look out into the hall to make sure he isn't keeping watch, and then, finding it clear, head back into the bedroom where I'd woken up. From there, I go into the bathroom, feeling like I am probably about to be sick, and not wanting to do it all over the floor.
But I don't make it to the toilet. Because, before I can even fully enter the bathroom, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Or, at least, of what I know is supposed to be myself. I stumble further into the bathroom, catching my weight upon the edge of the counter and leaning in further to the mirror, as though I might fall right through it. I put my fingertips to my face, examining it, incapable of believing it all... Because, in a few minor ways that don't change me drastically, but are noticeable enough to me, I do not look like myself, like how I should. I still look quite young, and like I have for my life as a late teen and young adult, but it is clear that time has passed since I last went to sleep in my dorm back in New York.
Suddenly I recall the date and time I'd read on the phone lock screen upon waking up, in my initial panic. 17 July, 2020. Could it be true? Could five years really have passed, have just disappeared like that? This is absolutely insane, beyond insane, beyond belief. Oh, my God, what is wrong with me?
"Holly?" I hear the actor, Benedict, call from down the hall. A few moments later he enters the bathroom and I look at his reflection in the mirror, standing behind me, in absolute shock. My hands still clutch at the sink, and I can't stop looking at myself, analyzing ever minute change, unable to blink. He watches me, too, and I wonder distantly who he was on the phone with just now, whether he's called the police on me, whether I will be able to call Alex at some point, to get her to try and help me explain this whole ridiculous predicament.
But the first and most important thing on my mind is something I can't help asking him, despite how confused he, himself looks. I know that if my slow-forming theory of having somehow lost five years of my life is true, then he will at least be able to answer me this. So, swallowing my confusion and allowing my voice to work again, I turn around, facing him fully, and manage weakly: "How old am I?"
At the question, he stands stock still and stunned for a moment, and then, after shaking his head and scoffing in disbelief, but with a look in his eyes that tells me he knows I'm not lying about this whole thing, he pinches the bridge of his nose, I can tell, truly overwhelmed and suffering from a painful confusion of his own.
"I really don't know how to explain everything to you..." he says to both himself and to me. "How about this..."
He leads me again into the room full of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and sits down on the loveseat next to me, taking a laptop computer from a coffee table nearby. The computer is more slim than the computers I remember, and I have to remind myself that the big companies would have made many adaptations to thier products over five whole years, if it truly has been that long. He unlocks it—his fingers, tapered and smooth-looking but strong, which I can't help noticing, as though a love of his hands is a fragment I've lost over that half-decade of blankness—and then hands the laptop to me, gesturing to the search bar.
"Search yourself," he suggests, leaning back on the couch as though letting go of the situation, though he is still very much invested and involved, as he stares very darkly and intensely at my face as I type in my own name, Holly Whitaker, and press enter on the keyboard.
Instantly an entire flood of articles and links appear on the screen, but I am first drawn to my Google profile on the right side of the screen, which contains a number of quick-view images of me: both alone, and—stunningly—next to Benedict himself, in a fancy dress at some red carpet event or another, smiling for the camera in wickedly good makeup. All while feeling the real Benedict's eyes boring into me, analyzing my every reaction, I scroll down to read the information in the little profile box. An excerpt from a Wikipedia article informs me that I am a partner at a famous literary magazine and that I've won the Pulitzer prize. I scroll down further, to where other information on me is listed. My birth date and age, my place of birth, my height, my education (Columbia University), and my spouse, Benedict Cumberbatch.
Unable to do anything but stare blankly at the screen, I scroll up again, to where a row of recent articles involving me, with pictures showing myself and Benedict out walking down the streets, both wearing those strange masks he was wearing when he was first in the kitchen. The article titles include the word Coronavirus, which makes no sense to me and rather frightens me, but the one that catches my eye the most is the third in the row. That one makes me catch my breath.
I stare at it longer than I've ever stared at a single article title in my life. The arrow of the mouse hovers over it on the screen. And then, after a few moments of absolute shock, I look away from the screen, and down toward my still-flat belly, pressing a hand to my shirt. I manage to look to the side at Benedict, who looks at me with such sadness in his eyes that I know for sure this new development isn't only a rumor to attract readers...
And then, blue stars infringing upon my vision, and without any further warning, I pass out of consciousness.
"Okay. Let me get this straight," I say.
I came around about five minutes after passing out of shock, and now Benedict—who has insisted that I call him Ben—has brought me a cup of Chai, which he already knew was my favorite tea, and we are sitting beside each other on the love seat, trying to puzzle this entire mess out. Besides having lost five years of my life, as we're pretty sure that's what's happened, I feel better than I did a bit ago, and my mind is at least functioning enough for me to be receptive to what he has to say, and form words in return.
He nods in encouragement for me to continue. "So..." I venture, "I'm twenty-three years old. And we're a married couple."
"Yes," he says, in a measured, low tone, which I can't help but admire him for in this insane situation. My ears seem to remember his voice the more he speaks, and I have to admit it provides me with a little bit of comfort, even if I can't remember the reason why. "We've been married for two years. I know most of what there is to know about you, as you do me."
The part of me that's still in disbelief wants to test him, so, with the guise of being playful, I ask him a question, still trying to break out of this insane situation for all I'm worth, though I still know how stuck in it I really am, permanently. "Really?" I say, to his last statement. "What's my favorite book?"
"Anna Karenina," he says, at which I raise my eyebrows slightly. "Oh—wait," he says, then, "Wait..." And, with a snap of his fingers, "It was Great Expectations, wasn't it?"
And then my eyebrows fall again in defeat, because, number one, he's right, and number two, he just said was, which reminds me that we're actually five years into what my mind and memory consider the future, in the year 2020, where the Coronavirus is keeping us cooped up inside, and has done so since April. "This is going too fast," I admit to him, burying my face between my knees. And it's the absolute truth. Everything is insane, not to mention the fact that I'm... I'm... With his...
"Look," says Ben, taking the mug of tea from my hands, setting it on the coffee table, and taking both my small hands in his much larger, strong, gentle ones, looking into my eyes. "Let me prove myself to you. So, right now, you're still eighteen, in your head?"
"Yes."
"And you're attending Columbia."
"Yes."
"And your roommate is Alex Bailey?"
My eyes widen a little bit at the proof of his knowledge of me, but I don't express my shock verbally, only nodding my head to the affirmative, instead.
"And you're still going to be a doctor?"
"Yes. Wait... Still?!"
He flinches a little, catching his slip-up, but waves a hand slightly, squeezing mine with his remaining one. "We'll worry about that later. Look..." And his eyes intensify even more than before. "I know that you ran away from your father's house in New Jersey when you were still seventeen. I know that you went to New York and spent a year working to survive, living with your alcoholic aunt until your application to Columbia was accepted."
I nod my head as he truly reveals that he really does know most of what there is to know about me, facts that he could never pull out of the clouds, that I must have revealed to him at some point during those lost five years. And I can't help the tear that comes to my eye and spills over the rim onto my cheek at the memory of those hard times after I'd finally escaped my father's abuse only to encounter more trouble and difficulty... before that acceptance letter had come along and changed my life.
"But you still haven't met me, yet? Where your mind is?" says Ben, and with such great tenderness that I would like to embrace him—though this, I feel, somehow, is completely inappropriate, despite the fact that my body is pregnant with his child and has definitely (I blush at the thought) been in his bed—he brushes the tear away from my face with his thumb, as he had done in the kitchen.
I shake my head no in answer to his question, regretfully, as I truly feel that, who I have forgotten all of a sudden, had a great relationship with him, and an intimate and loving one, at that. it causes me pain, especially because of the sadness that comes into his eyes when I have to say, in honesty, "I've never seen you in my life. Well... in person."
He musters a little bit of a smile at that last part, and says, as though to prove himself beyond a doubt, "And your roommate, Alex, she's a little bit obsessed with my work?"
"More than obsessed," I scoff, brushing away another tear, "Yes." And I look over at him, into his honest eyes, wondering why this has happened to me... who I was before I forgot everything, and who he was to me, who I was to him... "So..." I say at length, "You really are telling the truth. This is all real."
He takes a moment, and then leans into me slowly, almost romantically, placing an arm all the way around my waist, startling me once again with his size when placed beside my small form, bringing my face close to his, as though he might kiss me at any moment. "Yes," he says with a profound gentleness that reminds me of the waves on sand. "This is real." And again, I really think he might close the distance between his lips and mine... and I'm scared that he might. Not only because he's Benedict Cumberbatch, not only because I've forgotten everything about him and us, not because I'm pregnant with his child. But simply because, all of a sudden, I am reminded of my sick father, the way he would, too, wrap his hand around me, the way he would corner me and devour me with his mouth. And suddenly, despite Ben's great care and tenderness, I feel a bit trapped with him so near, so strong and tall compared with me, and I squirm a tiny bit, stiffening.
It seems that he knows this sign, and he quickly pulls away from me, sensing my intimidation, and only putting his hand on mine, erasing all evidence of what might have become a very strange embrace. "I'm sorry. I know I intimidate you sometimes... my body. Is it about your father?" He looks at me imploringly, in equal parts trying to prove himself, trying to bring me back to life and genuinely wondering why I've so quickly become upset, as though he dreads it will actually be his fault, and not the fault of the evil man who raised me. But I quickly nod my head in the affirmative to his question and he squeezes my hand gently, imploring me to look at him with his powerful eyes. "Holly," he tells me, "I am nothing like that man."
And I truly believe him. "I told you about my father?" I ask, worried about just how much I might have told him, just how much he might know, how much anger he might be containing right now as we sit beside each other, five years apart.
"I'm your husband, Holly. You told me because you trust me, and because I love you."
"My husband," I repeat, everything else washing out into the periphery of my senses for a beat as I try to process the reality of our relationship.
He waits for a moment, searching my face. "Does that upset you?"
"Well..." I manage, a terrible awkwardness overtaking me. "I don't... I don't know you." I collapse a little bit at having to say it, barely managing to look at his devastated eyes as I groan and put my head in my hands again. "I'm so sorry, Ben, I'm really, really trying I just... I can't remember. Anything."
And then with the force of the whole situation, the sadness and bizarre nature of it all, the tears start to flood out again, which is miraculous given how drained of them I already feel. I let him pull me into a tentative embrace, and soon I am sobbing quietly against his shoulder, feeling the warm pressure of his powerful arms locked comfortably around me. My body remembers this place, remembers the safety of his heartbeat, his breath, even if my mind doesn't and I calm down a bit, subconsciously.
"Am I going insane?" I almost whisper to him, after some time has passed. "Are you really telling me the truth?"
I feel his rib cage expand and contract, pressed against mine, and I feel his breath in my hair, his arms tightening a little as he speaks. "I couldn't lie to you if I wanted to," the depth of his voice becoming even lower and more dark as he says it, as though he's trying to tap into some line of communication between himself and my subconscious, trying to strain whatever demon is doing this to me out of my mind, trying to bring me back to him, the me of the future, the me that is twenty-three years old and married to him, happily, as far as I can gather.
But after another minute he pulls away from me and considers me, and we both are devastated, because I am still stuck at eighteen years of age, having never met him in person, knowing nothing of him but Alexandra's musings, knowing nothing of my future self, the self he has grown to love, the self who is going to mother his child. A terrible thought strikes me: that I may be stuck five years behind forever, always having to jump over this gap...
But before I can wrap my head around it enough to start crying again, he lets my hands go and looks pointedly at the side of my middle, and then tentatively up at my eyes again. "Would you try something for me?" he says, with the utmost gentleness at which I can do nothing but nod yes. "Lift up your shirt?"
"What?" I hear myself say, suddenly, my whole self becoming incredibly meek again at his random suggestion. On instinct my chest caves in slightly and I draw my body away from him a little, and I can feel my face heat up.
"Just a little," he explains, "to here," and gestures to his own side, just about in line with the place below his rib cage. To clarify, he points to the same spot on my own body, being careful never to touch me. "You'll see," he explains, and there's a trustworthiness in his eyes that I can't deny, so I do as he's suggested, and lift the unfamiliar shirt away from my skin, looking down to examine the place he'd directed me to.
A little ripple of shock goes through me as I see what looks like a very nasty wound of some sort, a scar which seems to be a few years old, with a healthy heal, which I know from my pre-med training—or, at least, the pre-med training my eighteen year old memory has already gone through. I look up at Benedict in search of an explanation, for I cannot remember how I got this, or where.
"It's a gunshot wound," he says to me, recognizing my dumbfoundedness. "Do you know how you got it?"
I cant' do anything but shake my head in the negative.
At this, he looks at me supportively, taking my hand in his again, giving me faith through those blue eyes that he is going to help me recover, to help me return, no matter how long it takes him. And for a moment, now, I can understand why I fell in love with him. Or... will fall in love with him.
"Then," he says to me gently, promising me our story... "I know just where to start."
Woah, you guys. So, I just thought of this earlier today as a funny little mind-trip, and thought I might just write it down for fun, not to post or anything, since it started out so cliché. But then once I got writing it all sorta flooded out and I started getting a whole plot idea in my head, and now I think I just might be actually invested in this story. It's way too early in the morning to know how I'll feel after some sleep, but, we shall see...
Thanks for reading this, and hope you kinda sorta enjoyed it!
:)
Une-papillon-de-nuit
17 July, 2020
