Returning - Benedict Cumberbatch

by une-papillon-de-nuit

When Holly Whitaker wakes up in Benedict Cumberbatch's London apartment, she believes she has been kidnapped. But she soon realizes that she is, in fact, married to the actor, and has lost five years of her memory. Will they be able to overcome this terrible challenge?

17. 17: Ring out the False, Ring in the True

Chapter 17: Ring out the False, Ring in the True | Spring 2017

Benedict

It's New Year's Eve and Tom, though he hasn't said so explicitly, has been planning to get completely drunk since shortly after he woke up this morning. Now, as evening is starting to turn to early night, I can sense his eagerness to pop open the fancy bottle of wine growing by the moment. While part of me thinks it would probably be best to go home with Holly, another part of me wants to make sure that he's safe. Besides, she seems comfortable enough in his apartment, and a small part of me would like to have a drink, too... though, of course, I know not to go all-out.

"Oh, get a whiff of that," Tom groans to himself when he finally pops the cork out of the wine bottle once we've all returned from dinner and a crisp walk beneath the lit-up, snowy streets of Hyde Park.

"Smells delicious," Holly says to him, still unwinding her scarf from around her neck. I take it for her and hang it on the peg by the door, shouldering off my own coat. I put an arm around her and plant a kiss on her head before leading her further into the sitting room, where Tom has now settled in with his bottle of wine.

"Oh-" he says after a moment, "I completely forgot glasses. Who else wants some? Holly?"

"None for me, thanks," she says to him, retaining her composure admirably, given how uncomfortable I know she can be around alcohol after her experiences with her father and then her aunt. She's confessed to me that not only does she hate it when others get drunk, but that she also has an underlying fear that if she tries even a drop, she'll be at risk of addiction.

"Ben?" Tom asks me, holding up two wine glasses in the kitchen.

I really do want a drink, but I know Holly would be unhappy with it. I look down to her, ready to assure her that I won't accept, but she beats me to speaking. "I would never ask that of you," she says under her breath, reading my mind. "Do what you want to do. It's New Year's Eve."

"Are you sure?" I whisper back.

"Totally sure," she responds, and smiles a little, planting a small kiss on my shoulder. I can tell from her eyes that she feels secure in Tom's apartment, and a part of me is relieved that she is okay with a drink or two.

"Yes, please, Tom," I call towards the kitchen, and Tom comes back to the sitting room with two glasses, into which he pours the delicious-smelling wine. He offers me a glass, which I take, and out of habit, we toast.

Tom grins between Holly and I, and says, "Let's go wild," before touching the glass to his lips and taking the first sip of the night.

I end up drinking a bit more than intended. Alright... much more than intended. It starts with a second glass of wine, and then a third. And then a beer. And then a whiskey... and possibly something else...

Regardless, the night quickly dissolves into a blur, and I can cognitively comprehend two or three instances where Holly or Tom says or does something before everything tips off completely into the realm of the bizarre. I think I see Santa Claus evaporating out of the radiator across the room, a bizarre neon-colored seventies space show on the television, all of the books falling down in a cascade from Tom's bookshelves in slow motion...

---

It's not until I wake up that I realize I'd blacked out at some point—which is the way it always goes, yet it still seems profoundly strange after so much time has passed since university days.

When I do come around, I'm laying down on Tom's couch with my shirt somewhere across the room and my head buzzing like a beehive from the alcohol. From my vantage point, my face crushed against the couch, I can survey the rest of the room in a sort of blur—it's well-lit without any lights on, so it must be well into the day, outdoors. Tom is passed out, fully clothed and on his side, on the floor in front of a meandering fire in the fireplace, which I don't remember being lit. Empty bottles sit like a miniature forest on the coffee table and on the muted television is playing a black-and-white recording of some obscure stage production which makes my head spin to look at.

It's not until a few moments later that I realize Holly has been laying beside me on the couch, and not until even more moments later that I realize she's completely naked, when she stands up, pulling a blanket around her body and hurrying across the room to retrieve her ringing phone from the pocket of her pants. It's then that I realize I must have been woken up by the sound, though it hadn't manifested itself in my ears until she'd woken and responded to it.

For a few long seconds I watch her motionlessly from the couch as though she is my only tether to reality, to real-time, but then a few moments later I slip back into a grey static coma.

I'm roused again a few minutes later, when Holly comes back into the room and sits down on the floor next to the couch, still gloriously naked beneath her blanket, and kisses my cheek carefully. Tom is still snoring by the fireplace, completely passed out and dead to the world. Suddenly, looking at her face, and registering the implications of her nakedness, a wave of worry rolls through me.

"Did we..." I manage, trying to sit up, but then quickly realizing that this would be a very bad idea under the circumstances.

"Shh..." Holly says, turning halfway towards Tom and then nodding her head 'yes' to answer my question. Something about the strangeness of the night before makes me concerned that perhaps, under the influence, I had been insistent or pushy, that she may have felt forced. I must wear my runaway thoughts on my face for she quickly shakes her head, as though I had spoken aloud to her. "It was okay, Ben, really. You were... quite slow. Really cute and goofy, actually." She leans forward and rests her chin on the edge of the sofa, and I can't help but smile, even if I can't actually remember anything that happened between us just hours ago.

"We used protection?" I ask groggily after a minute.

She nods her head and giggles a little, turning around to look at Tom before whispering, "I had to steal a condom from the bedside table."

We both chuckle a bit at this, but promptly my head starts to burn, and I press my palm to my forehead instinctively. "Christ," I hear myself say, as though from long down an echoey tunnel. "I'm hungover as hell."

Holly goes into the bathroom and runs a bath in Tom's large luxurious tub for the both of us to share, coming back out a minute later and helping me into the bathroom. Once in the bath, though, all the tension from the night before seems to release, and after just a few minutes of relaxing in the warm water I feel significantly better, though nowhere near completely recovered.

Holly looks at me fondly from the other side of the tub, her knees curled up against her chest, her eyes shining happily.

"What?" I say with a smile in my voice.

"I love you so much," she says.

---

Holly

Since Tom is still completely passed out and snoring at dinner time, I, being the most awake, least famous, and least hungover in a competition between Benedict and myself, take initiative and go down to the small shop on the corner of Tom's street to gather a few stray ingredients for a modest meal.

I'm in a relatively good mood as I walk down the sidewalk, the dark latticework of the tree branches overhead lined with white glistening ice from the recent snows. Earlier, I'd gotten a phone call from Alex, who'd reported that she hadn't gotten into any trouble the night before, staying at home safe with her boyfriend. I'd checked on my aunt too, and had ensured—to my great relief—that she hadn't touched the bottle all night, staying tied into the support group she'd found before the holidays to fend off temptation, on one of the most difficult nights of the year to do so.

Soon, though—as it always finds means to do—my mind errs from the path of thanksgivings and falls upon other, less pleasant things. My body feels somehow weird this morning—perhaps (no, definitely) something to do with what had taken place with Ben last night, when he'd been more than halfway drunk. The sex itself had been fine—sweet, even, if not necessarily good—but it had been awkward, in the moments afterward and now, to know that he hadn't been quite himself.

As I continue to walk, coming back to myself just in time to look both ways and safely cross the street, I let myself come to terms with the other feelings that last night had stirred up in the hidden part of my heart. A part of me—irrational, in this situation, I know, but powerful nonetheless—had been scared stiff when both Ben and Tom (two grown men much more powerful, large and strong than me) had decided to get drunk. I know that, when Ben had looked to me for permission, I'd managed to hide my fear well enough to give him the freedom to do what he wanted. After all, it was New Year's Eve. A full-grown person should be allowed to get drunk if they wanted to, and I didn't want to take that liberty from him. But I'd known that to show my trepidation would mean to confiscate that liberty as effectively as if I'd said "no" outright—Ben would never have even touched a drop if he knew of my discomfort. And I couldn't have lived with that.

This, I tell myself, I can live with. My own issues and anxieties have no right to take priority over Ben's choices. A damning spiral of questions, all circling around and pointing accusatory fingers towards me like townspeople preparing to stone a sinner, strut through my head as I walk through the door of the grocery store, quickly hiding myself in the least-occupied aisle—the refrigerated aisle.

(Why is all of this so problematic to you anyway, Holly? Why are you so oversensitive Holly? I would have thought you had more self-control, Holly—why are you letting yourself be so ridiculous?)

I scowl at myself, glaring at my convex reflection in the glass door of the nearest refrigerator, and then swallow down the questions as though they're bile. I put my head down and try not to let myself be recognized by the other customers in the store, quietly going about my business. But then I realize that they're all too hungover to notice me, anyway. Nobody would have cause to notice me out and about unless I was with Benedict, anyway.

(Why are you so paranoid, Holly? Grow the fuck up.)

Luckily, by the time I get back to Tom's apartment, the two of them are feeling well enough to settle down and watch the newest episode of Sherlock, the premier of the fourth season, "The Six Thatchers." I can sit on the couch next to Ben, his arm comforting and warm—but somehow off—around my shoulders, he and Tom sufficiently distracted, so that I don't have to worry about keeping the ongoing storm of my emotions off my face.

Over the next week—the last week of my winter break from school—time passes in a way it never has for me, before. One second, time trudges; and the very next it races past so fast that I feel dizzy, even while sleeping (on the couch, where Ben and I have established a small home, in the way little kids might make a fort, not wanting to bother going back to Ben's place, letting ourselves into the relief of a new apartment and a new experience, whilst giving Tom the company he so desperately needs). Over the few days, we come to feel like a small family unit, and there's a certain element of security in the presence of Tom. As much as I adore Ben, there are times when I feel like I'm incapable of being enough for him, when we're on our own. Tom brings a level of light and friendship into the picture that sets me at ease and helps me relax—as much as is possible under my current mental state.

For some reason, though I feel safe and warm in Tom's apartment, with Ben happy at my side, I find myself plagued by a sudden and seemingly out-of-the-blue relapse into the traumatic feelings I've worked so hard to get past for so long. Though there's no rational reason to be frightened of anything, I feel myself on edge and ready to jump at the slightest noise or touch, most of the time.

Soon, it becomes too much to handle, and so during one of our brief trips back to Ben's apartment to pick up clothes and other necessities for our ongoing "camping trip" at Tom's apartment, I pick up my typewriter and lug it back over to Tom's, channeling my anxiety into a consistent stream of work on my novel that keeps me busy over the next few days, giving Tom and Ben the space that they need to reconnect after a long time being separated by work and life. Though surrounded by a festive feeling that lingers in our warm little world after the holidays, and propelled forward by the imminence of school starting up again, I find myself feeling very alone. It's not an entirely unpleasant feeling, either. It allows me to channel all my focus into words—for the first time in a while. And before I know it, it's the morning of January 5th and the nearly-finished draft I'd been so uncertain about for so long becomes a fully completed and partially polished manuscript, as thick as my fist.

I have sensed over the past couple of days that my focused energy has been slightly off-putting to Ben. There have been times when he's come into the room I shut myself inside while writing to kiss the top of my head, and I've only been able to respond to him briefly, barely capable of stringing full sentences together, my mind shutting itself off into an imaginary place where nothing can hurt me. But now, as I walk out of the room carrying the full manuscript in both hands, clutched to my chest, Ben turns to me and beams, and I know that I've been forgiven. I can see in his eyes that he knows I'd been doing what was necessary for myself, and as I look at his face, I know that I've already taken a large step forward from the strange lapse of anxiety I'd suffered recently. My mind floods with endorphins as I step forward into the room and present the novel to Benedict, who takes it almost reverently, leafing through it with wide eyes.

I feel, all at once, as though I've exorcized something terrible from within myself with the completion of the book. I am lighthearted and almost giddy—a feeling that I know, on a deep level, won't last… but for the moment, it feels powerful enough to keep me in a state of ignorant happiness for a long time to come. I let the warmth of apathy swaddle me tightly, planning to hold fast to it for as long as I can.

As promised, I let Ben read the book, casting it off into his hands and separating myself from the room before I have a chance to take it back. He starts immediately, forgetting to eat or even stand up from the couch as he reads, a certain energy possessing the fluttering of his wrists every time he turns a page.

He spends the rest of the day utterly absorbed in it—as I've seen him absorbed in compelling and promising screenplays in the past—until just past six in the evening, after his eyes have tirelessly graced over every single letter, when he stands up, stretches, and finds me in the kitchen with Tom, where we'd been quietly battling over the music playing over the Bluetooth speaker while preparing a casual dinner.

"Holly," Ben says from the doorway, clutching the manuscript to his chest, his eyes wide and damp. "This is very… very powerful." For the first time in a long time, I see him struggling to find the correct words, and a little shiver goes through my body as he steps forward, close to tears. "I loved it. As I love you."

"Ben—" I manage, promptly becoming choked up, trying to pin down my emotions and coming up with nothing. "Thank you."

"Come here," he mutters, more tearful than ever and choking through a smile. Tom momentarily disappears from my reality, and I let Ben tug me closer and uplift my face as he kisses me very softly, very gently. This is the first real contact we've had in four day's time, and it feels a bit strange, but I try and gradually manage to melt into the kiss. For Ben, I can feel that he's already been here, in this embrace, all day long—the book serving as a kind of bridge between our hearts—and a much-needed one, at that, though I don't think either of us realized how much we needed it until this very moment.

After dinner, I surprise myself by letting Tom read it, too. He's been looking at the manuscript in its pile of papers consistently throughout the meal, and a little voice tugging at my subconscious tells me to invite him to read it, too, if he wants. Something about me is anxious once the words of invitation are out of my mouth—I've never really let people read my writing before, and this is a huge leap. But Tom's eyes brighten with thanks—and, most importantly, respect and understanding of my tentativeness—when he says he would love to. And when we all retire for the evening, he picks it up carefully from the table, and carries it into his room like a holy relic.

And read it, he does—he takes the entire night doing absolutely nothing else, staying up in his bedroom, his light streaming through the crack underneath the door. The knowledge that a mind is awake and taking in my own innermost thoughts keeps me from possibly falling asleep, and I feel full to bursting with uneasiness and excitement, watching the light under Tom's door. Something makes me worry that the nearly-buzzing quality of the energy in my mind will disturb the depth of Ben's sleep, and so I untangle myself carefully from his arms and ease myself off the couch, sitting instead on the armchair by the dormant fireplace and the television, letting myself stare into space and doze off a time or two over the course of the next few hours.

It's almost four in the morning when Tom creeps out of his bedroom and, seeing that I'm awake, returns the manuscript directly to my waiting hands. "That was brilliant, Holly," he whispers to me, his face bright and bending towards mine in the darkness as I look up in appreciation at him, sensing his excitement and admiration, letting just a little bit of well-deserved pride seep into my bloodstream. "I really think you've got to send it to somebody."

I smile at him, but inside me, at the meaning of his words, something shrinks up in fear. "It's just the first draft," I respond, hardly breathing, wondering why I'm suddenly so possessive of the stack of papers in my arms. This is what I've been wanting… isn't it? "I don't know," I whisper, both to Tom and in answer to my silent, internalized question. "I just don't think I'm brave enough to send it out to be read by… anyone else… seriously. At least not yet, you know?"

Tom nods his head up and down, his eyebrows furrowing as they so often do when he's listening carefully to something. "I understand completely," he says with a soft smile. "But I will say, I'll bet you anything that someday there'll be a special section on my bookshelf devoted to the works of Holly Whitaker." He grins mischievously and then stands up, saying "goodnight," quietly, and leaving me to think about his words as he returns to his room. I watch the crack under his door as the light turns off, and I'm left in the dimness of the very early morning.

I look down at the stack of papers in my hands for a long time. The story is something I've nurtured inside of myself—as a mother nurtures her child—for so long… and now, something in me is both elated and off-kilter, seeing it there: a physical representation of so much work, so much emotion, in just a simple pile of papers. And suddenly a great and terrible instinct to protect comes over me, and I tell myself that, soon, I'll have to type it all up into a file on the computer so that I'll have a backup in case something terrible happens to the paper version.

But, for the time being, I force myself to go to sleep, fading out into unconsciousness on the carpet instead of trying to sneak back into Ben's embrace and possibly wake him on the way.

---

Benedict

On the morning of January 6th, just two days before Holly will have to leave again for New York, Tom gets a phone call from an old friend, and grins as he answers it.

"Paul! Hello!" he says, then pointing at the phone in a specific way that is recognizable, and excusing himself from the room, his voice still audible through the wall.

"Sorry, who?" Holly says, turning to me and tentatively touching my arm, looking after Tom, who can be seen just around the corner, pacing easily in the kitchen entrance.

"You know of Jennifer Connelly?"

She nods her head yes.

"Paul Bettany—her husband," I say, knowing that she knows next to nothing about the major (Marvel) films he's been in—with the possible exception of The Da Vinci Code. "He's an old friend of Tom's."

Just then, Tom pops his head out from behind the door and mouths, his eyebrows high above his eyes, gesturing between himself and the phone, mouthing: TEA. I nod at him and gesture a thumb's-up to indicate my approval—lord knows Tom needs to get out of the apartment.

"Oh," Holly says, furrowing her eyebrows slightly before standing up and going into the bathroom.

But my mind is barely present on the topic of Tom's conversation. I'm not even thinking about Holly's questioning face. I'm thinking about being really truly alone with her for the first time in a matter of days. Something in me is cartwheeling excitedly, but also full of nerves and painfully stiff.

Tom leaves less than an hour later.

There's some terrible but wondrous feeling in my heart, looking at Holly, standing there in the doorway: the feeling of going at a high speed down the highway, the feeling of expansive electronic music, the feeling of an almost-heart-attack… and then the pacifying sensation of being underwater. And I know instantly from the look in her eyes—slightly dark in the shadows, hidden from the windows—that she is ready for it to be over with to; ready to banish that strange entity that has been wedged between us in these past few days.

She moves forward without speaking a word, and then suddenly her mouth is on mine, grasping it, feeding upon it. Her jaw seems both limp and strong—more so in both contradictory directions than it ever has been before. And at the feeling—my hands quickly going to her neck, to the sides of her head—a wave of relief ripples through me. I've been longing (intensely in the past couple days) to be physical with her again, since that last time a week or so ago, and my body and mind are both quickly excited and reeling at the closeness and insistence of her warm flesh. I think for just a moment that it's slightly odd to be doing this in Tom's apartment—

But then we're both on the floor, and she's practically ripping off her pants, and my own hands are fumbling just to keep up with her.

When she lowers herself over me, I am the one to groan (the sound fading into the vague hubbub of cars and pedestrians on the street below) and she remains silent, her mouth slightly open, her face dormant, only her eyes showing any kind of energy—clenched tightly shut.

It's very quick, and there's no real resistance and there's none of the deep intimacy we're used to. Something in it is freeing and wonderful—the curve of her hollow hip and the slender shape of her collar bone hovering just above the neckline of her shirt is more than enough to send me over the edge. But quickly, something reveals itself as very wrong; something is rotten underneath the fairytale ease of these few desperate, grasping moments.

As she comes—suddenly and violently—her silence erupts into a low and guttural moan that's almost painful as she rocks back and forth once more above me and then bends over, collapsing heavily against my chest, an emotional despair adding what seems like two stone to her precious weight. And then, all at once, she's crying—the tears hot and wet against my shirt, her weight quickly being jostled off of me, her pants being hiked up and her footsteps receding at a half-run towards the room where she'd been writing for the past week.

Startled, I stand up and follow her.

The writing room is equipped with a desk and chair, and a futon beside a large window, white and cold with the snowy winter sky. Holly paces in front of the slightly reflective glass, holding her breath and wringing her hands, her face drained of blood. I step forward, closer to her, and reach out, trying to catch her hands, but she cringes away from me, her whole body careening and shivering at the prospect of my touch. She whimpers, and almost whines—a high and animal-like sound that frightens me to my very core.

"Don't touch me," she whispers through her tears, barely breathing the words, continuing to pace up and down the room—a bit closer to the wall, now, avoiding the threat of my body.

I say her name, intending to ask what's wrong… and my tone must make my intentions obvious, because her name is all that's required to bring forth an avalanche of emotion-charged words, coated in and inhibited by heavy, uncontrollable sobs. An avalanche whose catalyst could have been the physical hiccup in the main room moments ago, or could have been any other occurrence at any other time. The best I can do for now, I know, is to avoid expending energy on finding the source of the problem, and instead to listen and try to remain calm.

But, already, that task is proving nearly impossible—Holly's words are hard to follow and my own heart is beating out of time, now, as my feelings attune themselves to her state of unharnessed panic.

"I've been— feeling— really bad," she gasps, each syllable a difficult confession, on her part. "Yesterday was— great— but now—something's— I've just— plummeted…"

Here, she stops pacing and steadies herself against the wall, her faintness rippling out through the room and consuming my own body, so that my chest feels half its usual size, and it's all I can do not to lunge at her and take her in my arms in a violently protective embrace.

"I—I—" she says, not stuttering but gasping so frequently that barely a word can pass her lips. She leans against the windowsill and finally seems to gain control of herself, at least long enough to tell me what she's been trying to: "I—had—a night—the most terrible, terrible dream, Ben… My—my—father… I don't know—where we were he—held—he was holding my head underwater—and he wouldn't stop and then I—I—died—"

Now, I can't resist it, and I feel sense—and, even consideration—fleeing him in a way they don't normally do. I have not the power to overcome my instinct to protect her; to give her what I think she needs (a misstep all-too-easy to make, and one it's a miracle I don't make more often). "Holly—" I plead, trying to catch her hands as I step forward, not quite knowing myself, not quite inside myself, as her breathlessness continues to render me helpless.

My hands close around her wrists, and when she twists away, I can hold her back for only a moment before I force myself to allow her to go, wringing her hands again and crying quietly as she moves past me and out of the room, her body seeming so little in the face of her sudden shock, her voice small and whispering "no… no…" over and over, gasping between each syllable.

Once she's left the room, I stand there in front of the white snowy window for a few long moments, raking my fingers through my hair and bracing myself in the face of the chaotic twists and turns of the past few minutes, and the further difficulties that will inevitably follow in the minutes that lay ahead. Then, having gathered myself as much as possible, and feeling the pressing urgency of getting to Holly, I follow her out of the room and stand outside the closed bathroom door, listening quietly as she continues to cry under the sound of the running tap, apparently splashing her face with the water until her gasps subside to heavy, hissing breath and then she becomes deathly quiet and the tap turns off again.

Intuitively knowing that she hadn't thought to lock the door, I turn the knob and gently push it open, peering in cautiously, not wanting to crowd her. She looks up at me, her face a raw and aggressed red, her eyes watery and swollen and blank, her knuckles bloodless as she tightly grips the countertop.

Something in the look of her face as she stares at me is so cold, such a harsh shift from the warmth—however rushed, however false—that I'd felt from her in the sitting room just a minute before, that I feel like crying, and perhaps my eyes do well up with tears of something between confusion and guilt. I'm about to speak when she does, first, barely inhaling before saying "Sorry," and barely expelling any breath as she does speak, so that it seems she's a stone statue who has been enchanted to speak. She tries to get past me, but something in the mournful sound of the single word brings me great pain, and I know it is I who must apologize. The words are slow in coming, though, and for a moment, I find myself doing nothing more than blocking her way—in other words, doing nothing more than being a complete prick.

Holly, too, understands this, and she looks up at me, her eyes burning with something between fear and true, terrible anger, and says "Are you seriously blocking my way, right now?" her throat clenching tightly around the words, her shoulders eerily still after the fit of trembling in the other room. I can see with painful clarity that, at this moment, she is actually upset with me, and that she doesn't trust me—and though I know that she is right in both of these feelings, a part of myself, exhausted by my own emotions and by my inability to completely understand hers, also becomes angry.

Afraid of how I might react to her if I allow myself to speak, I choose quickly to step away from the doorway, and to turn and leave her alone. My feet carry me down the hallway (I hear her stepping out miserably from the bathroom and looking after me, but can't bear to turn around) and into the little entryway, and I watch my hand as it takes my coat from its peg. "I'm going out!" I call, not angrily, but not kindly, either, loudly enough for her to hear. And then I do just that, tugging on my coat and hat and boots, and closing the door a bit too loudly on my way out.

---

When I return an hour or so later, after a head-clearing walk in the quietest part of the park and a period of time sitting on a park bench, grabbing a newspaper to perpetuate my anonymity, Tom is already back from tea with Paul, but Holly isn't anywhere in the apartment.

"Sorry," Tom says from his reading chair (Holly's presence has encouraged him to start reading Tolstoy again, and he's been using the past couple days to return to War and Peace, one of his all-time favorites), glancing up at me and yet to recognize the panic slowly rising in my chest. "I assumed you went out together."

It's another ten minutes of watching Tom's analog clock ticking on the wall, actively quelling panic, and finally pacing and deliberating loudly over whether to call the authorities, before the sound of a key turning arrives at the door and Holly comes in, so small she seems to be undergoing a disappearing act inside her giant coat, her white earbuds still blocking out the world, a darkly pensive look on her face.

"Holly!" I hear myself say, my voice somewhere behind my body as my legs charge forward and I find myself almost pressed against her in the small entryway as she shuts the door.

Her movements, too, are caught somewhere in the past as my panicked mind rushes forward, and in the same moment she is turning and taking out one earbud, having heard my voice, saying "What?" and also cringing away from the suddenness of my presence. I find myself staring angrily at the removed earbud she pinches in one hand, and then suddenly yanking the other out of her other ear, causing her out shrink against the wall—but my body is moving too fast and my mind is too clouded with stress to process the twinge of remorse that rattles through my subconscious.

"Where the bloody hell were you?"

"Out. At the park." She takes off her hat and starts to unbutton her coat.

I have noticed the great gap in volume between my nearly-yelling voice and her very quiet one, and something about it heightens the wave of anger threatening to crash down over me, droplets of freezing salt from its massive, monolithic face, already stinging my eyes as it curls inevitably over me in slow-motion.

I feel my chest expanding and contracting and choose to focus on this motion, trying to keep the overwhelming waters away. "Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?" I say, lowering my voice slightly, inclining it to the level and tone of hers.

"You left first," she whispers, not looking me in the eye which, for some reason, infuriates me greatly. "I left a note." She seems to sense my suspicions, for she immediately points towards the kitchen counter on which, sure enough, a slip of paper sits, folded once, messily. My brain can identify it as a note—at least, this one signpost of sanity amid this rushing highway of thoughts and emotions—but it seems like a prop to me, a meaningless slip of white paper, almost ghostly, expected to flutter away at any moment.

"Right, well, neither of us saw it. You should have sent me a message."

I know from the narrowing of her eyes—an action so uncharacteristic of her that I am almost knocked flat by it, and my heart palpitates momentarily at the terrible look that traps her face—that she has snapped, at this. Her expression contorts from one of mild toleration into one of disgust, and sarcasm drips noxiously from her voice: "So, so sorry that I didn't notify you in the specific way you wanted me to." She ducks around me, hangs her coat and hat, and steps out of her boots, ignoring me entirely.

I grasp her arm—harder than I mean to—and again find myself saying her name, more roughly this time, as I pull her towards me, no longer sure what I'm seeking, no longer sure that I knew what I was seeking in the first place. I should be glad enough to have her safe in the apartment again; I shouldn't be scaring her in such a way that I run the risk of her running right back out again; but all of these logical thoughts are chained below the surface, incapable of fighting up through the ice and having any sort of impact on my actions and words. I feel like a ten-year-old again.

"Don't touch me," she says through clenched teeth, twisting her arm away, and a rush of guilt sends a rush of hot air across the ice, but doesn't manage to produce a crack in it. Meanwhile, my logical mind is slowly running out of air underwater.

"—Benedict—" Tom calls from the other room, my one possible anchor; but even his voice seems far away: all of my focus is trained upon the place where my hand meets Holly's arm, all of my effort channeled into the attempt to loosen my hand.

"Let me go, Ben," Holly is saying to me, looking at my shoulder, not my eyes. "I'll talk about it later, but not right now. Please."

"No," I'm saying, even though I want to agree. "No, we are talking about this right now."

Silence. She only shakes her head, making clear her position.

I try to manipulate some part of my eyes to send a message, to urge her to go, but I can't be sure of my success. Half of me feels as though all of my interactions with her are only a part of some twisted dream.

Again, through the dense haze, Tom's voice arrives from the place where he still sits, tensely, prepared to stand if he must. "Benedict, let go of her."

My attention, drawn to his words and their rightness, lapses for just long enough for Holly to wrench her arm out of my grip, which miraculously loosens for a moment, at last, leaving her a window in which to escape. I let her go, as though finally freed from the spell of my own paranoia, and watch her hurry through the room and disappear around the corner. Shortly, I hear the sound of the guest room door shutting quietly, the gentle thud of the wood a sound even more hurtful than the slam I had been expecting.

Once she's left, Tom lets out a loud exhale—but I'm not ready to let go yet. Clenching my hands into fists and then letting them go again, I go over to the note she'd pointed out on the counter, and open it, to read: Ben. I'm sorry about what I did. I'm feeling confused and I need to clear my head. I love you and none of it is your fault. H.

With this, my inner consciousness, my rightness, the person I choose to call my self, finally succeeds in breaking through the ice, and climbing up out of the freezing water below, gasping as I start to inhale more deeply, taking in all the particles of sense that I can hold at once, and holding them in until I feel dizzy.

"Fuck."

Folding the note again and holding it in my hand, I go into the sitting room and sit, my head in my hands, by Tom, who has been trying to look intently at War and Peace, but clearly isn't reading it, and puts it down after only a second of tense quiet from my end.

I know I have to speak. In a rare moment of forced spontaneity, I do so without thinking, beforehand. "Look, I—"

"It's alright."

I look up at Tom, not attempting to restrain my disdainfully sarcastic expression. His eyes drill their message across the room, and I have to look away. "No. I shouldn't— I am so sorry for… polluting your home with this… my mess. We should probably go back to my place and leave you in your own space, finally."

I am compelled to stand up, but again Tom stops me.

"Benedict. You are more than welcome to stay. And, to be frank, I think that returning to your apartment, the two of you, alone, may not be the best course of action, at the moment."

I look over at him, mildly offended, but secure in the knowledge of how right he is. And rather than argue with him, I find myself sighing deeply, consumed by disappointment in myself, the bitter emotion burning behind my eyes.

I'm trying to put words to what I'm feeling, assembling them meticulously in my head, when my phone buzzes with a message from my agent. I want to set the phone down, but when I see that a photograph has been attached, captioned "urgent," I know I have to attend to it, now, and I unlock my phone, feeling Tom's disapproval radiating from his overly considerate eyes, but choosing to cut it off for the moment.

When my gaze lands on the message, I can't help the curses that spill from my mouth. The anger that consumes my body is such that I can't help leaning back on the couch, looking over at the kitchen island behind me, my vision upside-down, and letting loose a growl of deep-running annoyance. With everything already creating a maze-like struggle in private, the additional stress of press involvement and speculation—Christ, the endless torment!—is absolutely unbearable.

"What is it?" Tom asks, though I know from his tone that he's already guessed correctly—he's no stranger to this brand of humiliation.

Incapable of talking to him measuredly, I instead hold out my phone, which he takes. I can feel the sympathy rolling off of him in waves as he scrolls through the photographs that were taken of Holly and myself, in our separate hideaways in different parts of the city at the same time—a perfect storm that couldn't have possibly been organized by even the most meticulous fans—and accompanying screenshots sent by my agent, of various articles speculating on our restless, stressed facial expressions (me, hiding unsuccessfully behind that bloody newspaper, and Holly practically in tears, without such a shielding prop, her earbuds in her ears). Immediately, Tom sees what I'd seen: Holly crying, and myself looking rough and remorseless. I'm sure a number of writers are having a field day at this very moment; the worst is yet to come.

Though it hurts to see how it looks in the photographs, the more painful part of it is the fact that the way it really is, is exactly how they'd made it out to look. I had been in the wrong. And even as Tom hands my phone back and I make the necessary Google search myself, scrolling through the branching articles, all I can think about is how I was at fault, and eventually I recognize the fruitlessness of scrolling, and turn off my phone, tossing it onto the chair across the room.

"Tom," I manage at last, having left the issue with the press behind and moved on to reality, "I don't' know what to do about all of this."

"What's all of this?" He's now placed a bookmark in War and Peace and set it aside precariously on the arm of the sofa, giving me his full attention.

"I don't know. Just…"

He smiles a bit at my helplessness and offers up some Shakespeare with a sympathetic smile, as is his habit: "Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms? Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health…?"

"Alright, fine," I say after a moment, allowing myself to be amused, but only slight. "But you're not wrong." And he isn't. I truly am in love with Holly—as I have never been in love before, either in reality or in character. And therein lies the blessing and the curse, in one painful dose.

Tom looks more seriously at me, his face mellow but his eyes deep with disapproval and the pain he senses in my soul. "You should talk to her."

I shake my head. "She doesn't want to talk."

"Nobody wants to talk with someone who talks to them the way you were just talking to her. No matter how much they love them. Go apologize. It doesn't matter if she doesn't answer at first, but just get the first part out, at least. Take that step now, and worry about the rest later. Do what you're supposed to do."

I nod my head, the slight sternness in his wisdom echoed back by the innermost part of me, which knows his every word is right. "You're right," I say, standing after another moment. "Thank you, Tom."

"Of course," he says, his mouth in a cautious line, and I feel his correct judgment follow me out of the room and down the hall.

I stop in front of the guest room, and venture a tap on the door.

I can sense a shift of feeling in the room on the other side, and decide to wait for her to respond before making any further movements.

"I don't have anything to say," I hear her murmur, her voice low and muffled by the door.

"I saw your note. May I step in?"

Another long silence, but I'm well equipped, in my self-awareness, to wait it out. Then, at last, an answer comes: "Okay. But I don't really want to talk."

"I'm not here to argue any more—" I say, suddenly feeling awkward to still be talking through the door.

Holly seems to have sensed this before I felt it, myself, and says, "You can open the door, Ben."

I do so, and step forward into the room—leaving the door closed so as not to trap us—before continuing. "I'm here to make an apology."

She's been laying down on the bed, supposedly doing nothing but staring at the ceiling in the dim light of her nightlight, for I don't see the signs of a book or her computer, anywhere nearby. She looks up at me clearly, but with a lens of worry still over her eyes, and clouding her demeanor towards me. Guilt stuffs itself into my throat like gauze, and I breathe through it deeply, assembling my thoughts but not too meticulously, before speaking my mind.

"I should have allowed you, from the beginning of today—and from the beginning of quite a few days before—to work through what you need to work through, in the way you prefer to work through it. Often, you know, I feel angry about it all, myself. About your father and—sorry—" she halfway shakes her head, absolving me, and I continue on light feet. "I'm finding that sometimes, like just now, I don't gain control of that anger in time. And it comes out as possessiveness. Which I don't want to burden you with, and which I know is wrong. And I regret that, and I am going to work on it."

I stand there for a moment longer, knowing that to say anything more would only obscure the truth of what I've already said, and as I wait, I listen to her silence, gauging at last that I shouldn't expect her to speak.

"I don't need you to answer," I say. "I just wanted to do the right thing, and—tell you how I feel." Another pause, a slightly warmer one, which I take advantage of in order to excuse myself, knowing that it might be the selfish side of myself behind the wheel, but choosing to allow it under the circumstances. "Sleep well," I say.

The door is almost totally shut, only a sliver of bedding and warm light from the nightlight still visible between door and jamb, when she calls out my name—"Ben"—softly. I push the door open, that slit of bedding and light widening, until I'm standing in the doorway again, watching her laying there, watching her push herself up to a sitting position against the headboard. I grip the door handle for support as she gathers her thoughts, my heart already warm and fragile just from the meaning inherent in her eyes.

"Come in," she says. I close the door and step closer to the bed, stopping a few paces short of it, my hands loose and ineffective at my sides—put in their place. "Ben—" a downward, honest glance of her eyes "—I forgive you. I forgave you even when we were in the doorway, a minute ago. You shouldn't have hurt me, but I think I knew what you were feeling, and so I wasn't angry. I just didn't know how else to react to you, and with Tom…" She shakes her head to clear it, her hands tightening around each other in her lap. "Look. I shouldn't' have been so aloof, earlier today. I shouldn't have… taken advantage of you… in the way I did. That wasn't right, and it was confusing to both of us. To be honest, I don't know where my head went."

I feel a buzzing in the bones of my face, and know that its expression reflects exactly the conflicting emotions tearing at my heartstrings. "Oh, Holly," I sigh—I can do nothing else. "I am so, so sorry for my—very sizable—part in this. I shouldn't have reacted as I did, this morning—" I can refrain from going to her no longer, and am grateful that she doesn't seem unnerved when I sit down next to her. "And I certainly had no right to take my panic out on you just now. It was cruel, and I'm sure it frightened us both."

She half-shakes her head, but her eyes don't deny my rightness. Carefully, she reaches out one of her conflicted hands, and slips it into mine, squeezing it to let me know that this will be all, for tonight. Yet, miraculously, it is more than enough. For a minute, we look at each other, allowing what is unsaid to be relayed through eyesight only. And then, it strikes us both that we shouldn't take such a risk.

"Let's finish tomorrow," she says, voicing both of our concerns. "I'm exhausted."

I smile at her, and squeeze her hand back, before letting it go. "It's a deal." I know I will have to tell her about the new photographs, but decide to delay that to tomorrow, as well. I want to reach out and touch her hair, but refrain from doing so, only standing up from the bed and walking over to the door. I pull it around slightly, but leave it open for a moment longer.

"I have to ask—what were you listening to, when you were out?"

A bashful smile sets up camp upon her face, and she raises one hand to pinch the bridge of her nose as she breathes out. "Nirvana," she confesses with a sideways grin, not able to bear looking at me for fear of my reaction to her ever-evolving music taste. "I listen to them a lot, actually, when I'm in a bad mood. I had this worryingly obsessive phase when I was sixteen, when I learned every word to almost every song, and I've kept a bit of that ever since."

She smirks at me, and I allow myself to laugh aloud, making her smile wider. "I didn't know you were grungy," I say, allowing a sly expression to play across my face, feeling the sparkle in my eyes. "You know, I was already toeing the line by dating an American, but this might be too far."

"Hey!" she protests, one hand reaching for and clutching a pillow, prepping it for a throw in jest, before pointing a testy finger at me and setting it down again tiredly, the moment's amusement leaving a weary pinkness upon her face. "Good night," she says.

"Good night."

And then I shut the door quietly, pressing my forehead to the wood in a mellow sort of relief.

"I know you're still out there," her voice says, and I turn and walk down the hall, smiling widely to myself as I make an exaggerated amount of noise with each footstep to make known my departure.

---

Our conversation the following day goes smoothly and ends in an outpouring of relief and tremendous gratitude for the rare honest that flourishes between us as it does between so few couples. To my utmost happiness, it seems as though the argument—and more importantly, my irrational response—was a one-time storm that needed to be gotten over. And in the following days, with the both of us making a combined effort to improve—and deliberately steering clear to the internet's reaction to the part of our argument that they observed, though Holly does know about it—the state of affairs between us returns to normal.

We are more settled and mellow than we had been before, but content: like cats sleeping in a patch of sunlight. And a part of our healing, we agree, is to refrain from lovemaking for a little while, even though we have returned to sleeping in the same bed. Sure enough, appreciating the smaller moments without thinking about sex removes a weight from my shoulders that I hadn't even known to exist. Holly seems happier, and for a few days, we float around in a semi-spiritual sort of daze, separate from each other, but more firmly together than we have felt in months.

On the morning of the ninth, a week from Holly's last day in London before her return to New York in time for the first day of her second semester on the twentieth, we wake unusually early, and I tell her that today is Tom's birthday. He is still asleep in his room, and so we conspired to fix him something special before he can wake up, sneaking quietly into the kitchen and working together to bake pancakes for him, just in time for him to be roused by the pleasant scent of the first finished back. He makes his appearance, still in his pajamas, just one second after Holly locates a birthday candle to stick through his stack, and we high-five to celebrate our accomplishment, before singing Tom the happy-birthday song in deliberately clashing keys.

We all eat together, and then Tom insists upon diverting some of the attention from himself by playing the new episode of Sherlock, "The Lying Detective," which he'd recorded in secret when it aired yesterday. Then, only ten minutes into the episode, he becomes restless, and decides to go out on a run, getting his clothes on and then leaving. Holly and I look at each other knowingly, admitting quietly that we never should have deigned to throw off Tom's schedule, but still secretly glad that we'd dismantled normalcy in this slight, meaningful way, on a day he surely would have done his best to ignore the importance of, otherwise.

Once Tom is gone, the world slows down a bit. I pay more attention to Holly's slight weight against my side, her breath on my upper arm, her legs tucked up behind her. And I pay attention to my own body, hollow and full of breath; pleasant, like old bellows.

As I often do, I find myself reconciling the person I see onscreen, walking around so strangely in my skin, with the person I really am, inside myself. I feel the two of them blending and then separating again, and have to catch my breath, and then reduce it, looking away from the screen and towards Holly to center myself. It's something I will never get used to.

"You okay?" she says, feeling the intensity with which I'd been staring at the part in her hair.

I nod my head yes as she turns her face away from the television screen and looks at me—the real me. She smiles truly and with great love and a blessed realness, before she leans her head on my shoulder again, looking down at the skin of my hand and slowly moving her own hand over to grasp it.

A beat passes before she speaks, her words an echo of my thoughts. "Did we set an expiration date for that no-sex agreement?" she says. I can feel her smile against my shoulder and I smile, too, my abdomen fluttering fast and filling with slow, deeply pleasing honey at the same time.

"Thank God," I say, and she instantly turns the television off, encircling me with her arms and bringing her legs up, to lock me into her as she leans back onto the couch. I press myself against her, already warm and hard, my whole body tingling in want of her. In turn, she raises her hips to rub herself against me, and I have to calm myself quickly, reading the slowness in her eyes.

"Wait," she murmurs, just in time, stopping my lips before they can reach hers.

We untangle ourselves and walk slowly down the hall to the bathroom, testing our patience, locking the door and undressing each other slowly while the water heats up and the room fills with steam.

It starts out gentle, once we're under the achingly warm stream of the water. I stroke her breasts the way she loves, and kiss the top of her head with an open, wanting mouth. My hands searching her body, I see the scar just above her hipbone, the permanent mark of our first meeting, and trace it with my fingertips, eliciting a deep groan from her—the sort of sound a man could only dream of drawing from his lover, and one I quickly take in my mouth.

She recovers from an extended shiver, then looks at me levelly and says, "Fuck me."

I smile, my teeth grinding with desire, humming as I touch her scar again, bringing her closer to me. She gasps, the shower filling with high-pitched exhalations, and grinds against my body, her fingertips pressing at my back as my own fingers find her center, rubbing meticulous, pressured circles into her sensitive flesh, watching her face and luxuriating in her subtle reactions, the effort in her face as she fights to keep her eyes open, locked painfully on mine.

I hold her strong gaze as I gently kiss and touch her, stroking the invisible magic line in the center of her back, prompting her to bring her leg up, hitching her knee towards my hip, her back arching more gracefully than a dancer's, exposing her beautiful ribs and breasts to me, her hips flush to my own. In turn, I nudge my growing hardness against her swelling desire, allowing my own body to curve down to oblige her, the water making it hard to breathe, but the chill of the droplets thrilling.

"I love you," I say to her with an unbearable moan, pressing my open mouth hard to her neck and resisting the powerful urge to make a vacuum of my mouth.

But she presses her finger to my lips and looks at me sincerely, with a newfound fire—a certain seductive darkness in her light eyes that, in an instant, pulls me to the brink of self-control. "I'm not going to make love with you," she says, her voice a darkly impassioned whisper. "I want you to fuck me. Really, fuck me. This once, and then everything bad will be cleared out again, and we can be gentle. But there's something there, right now…"

As she speaks, her hand traces a shivering line down my abdomen, and lower; and I reel at the power she holds over me, a power and strength she has never shown so explicitly before. It's a power and poise that blurs my mind…

"…and I want you to be rough with me," she's saying, her gaze level and honest, and irresistible. "I want you to flush it out. So open me up and fuck me, Benedict. As hard as you can."

Needless to say, I oblige her. We pack the dense air between us with all the profanity we desire. I spread her wide, grinding and thrusting and biting until the entirety of her memory—down to her own name—fades into a blissful blankness; understanding, for the first time, that curious way in which 'dirty' can mean 'powerful.'

---

Tom

There are five days remaining before her departure when I realize I am infatuated with my best friend's romantic companion.

After returning from my run on the morning of my birthday, I'd washed off, the bathroom walls still slightly damp from a recent shower. I'd inferred, from the gentle redness in Holly's cheeks when I'd gone down the hallway to get clean, and from the faint scent of sexual exertion, that they'd been together where I stood, just minutes before. Rather than feel disgusted, or perceive this realization as a violation of my personal space, I found myself smiling, content and glad for Ben's happiness. But then my mind had wandered, and I found myself masturbating, a greater sense of satisfaction coming from the act because of my recent exercise. It was innocent, really—right at the end, just before the fall, I found myself imagining Holly's individual scent, still discernible beneath Benedicts dominant one. In the moments afterward, I don't think anything of it, having experienced such slightly embarrassing moments before, in which a female colleague or stranger had accidentally slipped into my mind moments before orgasm. I got out of the shower, dried off, dressed, and resumed my interactions with my friends, normally.

But as the days move on, I find that the momentary accident in the shower begins to build into a more long-lasting—and less accidental—one.

I imagine that I've always been impressed, on some level, with the young woman Benedict brought so spontaneously to London when he was still in rehearsals for Hamlet. But after being honored with the opportunity to read her writing—to be let into the innermost caverns of her soul—I find myself suffering from an affliction aside from simple admiration. Not only am I made warm and gentle by her appearance, her gently strong voice, her hard-earned poise and her love of literature, but by her own words and creativity, as well. We seem to understand so many of the same things: my heart swells one afternoon when I walk into the sitting room to find her listening to Loreena McKennitt on my stereo, swaying and puckering her lips towards my little dog Bobby, who lays content and quiet in her arms. I'd watched her quietly from the corner for a moment, and then stepped forward, causing her to take notice of me. Instantly, she'd contained herself, setting the dog down on the floor and smiling with a strange mixture of confidence and embarrassment. Not to mention our shared adoration and understanding of classic literature, a trait which I share with so few. Not to mention that she can sing the entirety of The Commendatore Scene from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (two octaves above the bass voices, that is).

Never has my discipline been so tested. I have to constantly remind myself that Benedict is my best friend, and of the horrors that might befall us if Holly and he were torn apart by something so trivial, so sordid. Besides, I know that Holly's feelings lie in Benedict's arms alone—as they should—and more often than not, in private, I find myself detesting the emotions I feel for her. Indeed, "in time we hate that which we often fear," and through my misunderstanding of myself and of Holly's world, I feel as though I would be taking advantage of her by merely thinking about her in a non-chaste way, because of her past experiences with assault—at which Ben has merely hinted without detail, but which still make me feel damnably sorry, and infinitely more impressed by her.

I suffer in silence, though, and try to restrict my irrational reactions to contact with her, as much as possible. Whenever they extend an offer to me, to accompany them on a walk or something of that sort, I decline respectfully, afraid to place myself in any position to make a Very Serious Mistake.

---

Ben is planning to work on a television series based on the Patrick Melrose books by Edward St. Aubyn, and has started reading the books to prepare for the role, annotating them meticulously—a habit we had both formed before ever meeting each other, but one which, viewed in the lens of my growing envy, seems stolen, somehow, from me.

On the morning he starts reading, Holly comes out into the main room late, having stayed up past midnight, kept up by her writing. I bury my attention in the book I've been absentmindedly holding to keep from watching her intensely, but even Gabriel Garcia Marquez's lush prose cannot weave a snare tight enough to keep my conscious mind from continuously straying to focus on the sound of her voice.

"What are you reading?" she asks Benedict. In my peripheral vision, I watch her wrap her arms around him from behind, nestling her chin into the back of the chair to look down at the book.

Ben shifts in his chair, and a moment later, he sets the book down, saying in answer, "I'm reading your face. What's wrong?"

I feel my eyebrows furrow slightly, and my chests restricts at the fear that they've seen, and somehow inferred. But I know nothing of the sort has taken place.

"I just got a call from Alex, and my aunt… fell off the wagon."

I can read the pain in Holly's voice, and at this, I allow myself to look up.

"She's in Rehab again, so… Alex helped get her there, but…"

She shakes her head to herself, no sign of coming tears upon her face, but a deep disappointment and suffering in her eyes. Clearly, the trouble with her aunt has unearthed many other pains. I allow myself to live vicariously through Benedict as he reaches up to take her hand.

"I'm sorry," he says. "Is there anything I can do?"

"It's alright," she says, shaking her head and for the first time finding occasion to glance over at me, casting me a small, weary smile, which I return carefully, blinking. She steps back from Ben's chair and heads into the kitchen, raising her voice slightly to accommodate the distance: "I think I'll go somewhere to distract myself, today."

"The bookstore?" Ben suggests, looking at me and winking. "Tom has been wanting to go for a while; perhaps you could go together." I smile back at him as he returns his attention to his book, but something constricts around my throat as my heart swells with horror, a spike of anxiety tearing through my abdomen at his words.

"That sounds like a great idea," Holly answers from the kitchen, turning her head around a second later to say to me, "As long as I'm not infringing on other plans. I would be perfectly content to go alone."

"Not at all," I say, my throat magically clearing before the words. "You weren't hoping for solitude?"

"I would be happy to have you with me."

"Well, then," Ben says with a smile. "Sounds like a date."

---

"No!" she objects with a laugh, once we're out on the street, setting out on our walk to the bookstore through the crisp snow and wind. We'd worked for a brief time inside to help each other on with our chosen disguises—a big fluffy hat, coat and ski glasses for her, and a baseball cap and scarf for me—and now she's pushing her glasses back onto her forehead and standing on her tip-toes to correct my use of the latter, grinning as she tugs it gently up around my chin. "You have to hide your jawline," she continues, once she's flat on her feet again, smiling and not bothering to conceal a sudden spurt of laughter at the face I make, back to her. I notice the sparkling in her eyes before the glasses slip down again, and my heart is stunned into a momentary frightful spasm of aching.

The walk there is gloriously uneventful—though I've grown accustomed to random photographers and passersby holding up their phones in spots of shade across the street, thinking I don't notice them in my peripheral vision, there's something about the idea of such photographs being taken of myself when I'm with Holly that makes my throat constrict—as though my true feelings would be dragged out into the light by the lens of a camera. We pass by various green spaces, blanketed in snow, and host to children and families building structures from the snow and playing with their dogs; a pleasantly chilly winter day, with a rare streak of sun cutting through the heavy grey clouds without melting the snow.

"Oh, my goodness!" she says when she sees the bookstore from across the street, a little historical building with a mullioned window, paint fresh and white, and a bright yellow door. She turns to me with a gleeful smile on her face, and then looks back at the ground as the traffic stops and we cross the road. "You probably think I'm silly," she says, in the midst of the sidewalk, "but I'm still not used to it. It's like a fairytale—the architecture."

I can't restrain a chuckle. "Oh, you ought to see Germany. The castles there…"

She wheels around as we keep walking, shooting me an incredulous look, her eyebrows, rising up from behind the ski glasses, enough to convey her envy. "You've been to Germany?!" She huffs. "Of course, you have." I want to ask her what she means by that, but then the moment is gone and we've stepped up onto the sidewalk, making headway for the beacon of the bookstore. She sighs. "Only in my dreams."

I feel my eyebrows furrow, and allow myself to observe her for a moment; she looks distracted, still, and seems apart from herself, louder and more energetic than she usually is. I'm sure that it's only because she's still stressed and shocked form the news about her aunt, but a part of me can't help but worry—with a pang of pain—that her actions might result from some sort of discomfort she feels being alone with me. Surely, she is nothing like this when she and Ben are in solitude, together.

Yet, the moment she hears the tinkling of the bell on the bookstore door—which I hold open for her—and once it has swished closed behind us, sealing us into the warmth of the indoors and the heavenly scent of glue and paper and ink, she relaxes. A physical tension is released from every part of her body at once, yielding to the powerful glittering in her eyes as she surveys the quaint shelves stocked with books of all colors and kinds.

And I, too, feel the anxieties of the moment before dissipate, and though the outlines of my worries remain, it seems as though we've been ushered by some invisible force into a realm all our own.

Echoing my own thoughts, she sighs aloud, the sound enough to convey her feelings more than adequately.

I find myself staring at the pom-pom on her hat and smiling bizarrely to myself, but then the moment is shattered when she notices that the young female employee sitting behind the cashier desk is looking up at us from the book in her lap. Holly is the one to call her attention, waving at her in greeting before she can squint at me too hard and pin down my identity. I smile more widely at Holly's consideration, tucking my chin towards my chest to hide the expression. The young woman nods her head back at Holly in recognition, and then looks down at her book again. Then, smoothly, Holly and I move forward into the shelter of a row of books.

Once safely concealed, she pushes up her ski glasses again and, grinning, sways dangerously close to my chest as she breathes, "I swear to God, I feel like a secret agent, sneaking around like this."

I smile back at her, not knowing what to say, but, luckily, she doesn't take my silence as anything more than a pause, and says, "Did you have something particular in mind?"

She's looking directly into my eyes and the time it takes me to comprehend her question, though normal, seems more stretched out than it really is, and I feel almost nervous when I say, "Just looking," hoping that she can't detect the raging emotions in my notoriously open-book eyes.

"Well, okay," she says, turning around and leaving in her wake the feeling that a fresh spring wind leaves in its. "Me, too."

Once our meanderings around the warm little shop have come to their conclusion, we've each settled on four books—Hers: Room, Cloud Atlas, Good Omens, and Someone Knows my Name; and mine: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Waiting for Godot, The Handmaid's Tale, and White Teeth. We'd both taken great pains in making our selections, Holly especially, as she'd had to factor in how many books she would be able to take back to New York with her on the plane. I'd promised, in jest, to limit my own selections to four, so as not to make her jealous, and when in doubt over a choice between two potential purchases, the deciding factor had been whether the other person would be interested in borrowing it at some point in the future. "I trust your taste," I'd said. And she'd smiled, answering, "And I yours."

At the front desk, I don't dare ask to pay for her books, only discreetly allowing her to go first before carefully setting my stack of chosen reads on the desk, thanking the young woman as directly as I can without risking being recognized. And though I'd refrained from flaunting my pocketbook on purpose, knowing how distressed Holly often gets about money through multiple anecdotes delivered by Benedict, I hadn't expected what comes once we've left the shop, and stroll back down the sidewalk towards the crosswalk:

"Thanks for not trying to pay for my stuff," she says, a little quietly, and I have to lean over slightly to hear her better. "It's a relief to pay for my own things for once. It's… sort of… freeing… with Ben always— Well, you know."

I can't hold back the chuckle that rises in my throat. "Yes, I do indeed," I say, allowing that to suffice. "And you're welcome."

We embark on further discussion about our selections as we continue along a larger street, strolling on the wide sidewalk bordering the white, tree-dotted park. We're discussing the prospective similarities between The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Cloud Atlas, whilst diligently skirting around those between The Handmaid's Tale and Room, when she stills, all at once, at my side, her entire body immediately freezing, her eyes gazing far away across the park as though the world has suddenly zoomed out around her. I step back from her and can feel, in my ever fiber, the sharp gasp she takes in, when I say her name. I try to follow her gaze across the park, and my vision lands upon someone wearing a red hoodie.

"Holly?" I ask again, out of my depth.

As though loosened from her own body, she turns halfway into me for a second, only to recoil from the accidental brushing of her shoulder against my chest. I'm beginning to wonder whether she's suffering a traumatic episode when she asks quietly, her voice hoarse and just barely above a whisper: "Can we please cross the street?"

The pitiful tone of voice, as though she expects me to say no, yanks hard on my heartstrings, and I have to be strict with myself to keep from wrapping a protective arm around her and ushering her immediately across the road.

But it's no matter because, a millisecond later, so soon after I'd thought about touching her that it seems almost as though it is actually before, her cold hands reach out—both of them—and grip my wrist and forearm, respectively. Her body crushes itself against my side as she turns her face into my shoulder, breathing so hard it concerns me.

My own head filling with air from the stress of the unexpected ordeal, I manage to usher her to the next crosswalk, and the timing of the traffic lights works out in our favor, for we can cross immediately once we arrive upon the corner. Once on the other side of the street, which is darker and shaded by snow-burdened, skeletal trees, she continues to cringe into me, shaking violently and alternating between gasping and holding her breath, her feet stumbling dangerously every other step. I do my best to guide her, incapable of finding something to say, my own breathing erratic as I feel her narrow fingers clenching hard around my arm and hand, her pain seeping through them into my own bloodstream.

Curse empathy, in situations when one needs their strength to help the very person they empathize with.

Holly continues to watch the person in the red sweater across the street, their form blurred by cars and buses and other bodies that pass by between us. But her focus never wavers until, at last, the wearer of the blame-worthy sweater turns around, and both Holly and myself see the distinct profile of a woman, smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone and walking her dog.

At the sight, my walking companion lets loose an audible shudder, the sort that one is incapable of restraining in moments when they feel they're about to be sick. The thought sends a sudden jolt through my chest, but Holly seems to know how to get her breath back, and I stay silent, continuing to offer my arm until the moment comes that she takes her hands from it and thrusts them into her pockets.

Only then does she notice, her drained face appearing relieved but slightly guilty and still thoroughly shaken, that I had taken her bag of books from her, the better to guide her along the sidewalk and keep her from stumbling into the street.

"I'm so sorry," is the first thing she says, her voice gentle but hoarse. "I must have—I don't know. Thank you." Then, she takes back her bag of books, and it is silently decided between us that we will not speak a word of what has just passed.

The silence is awkward for a short while, but is soon interrupted by a buzzing in her pocket. She retrieves her phone and answers the call with a very New York "Yes?" just as we turn off of the larger road and into the quiet seclusion of my street. The breezes sweep flurries of leftover snow from the roofs and chimneys.

I detect the sound of a high-pitched, businesslike voice coming from the other end of the line, and can tell that the speaker is a receptionist of some sort. Holly listens, and then scoffs aloud, surprisingly, her eyes wide, and then narrow. "Did they leave a name?" she says, glancing at me almost conspiratorially from the corner of her eye. "No? I see. I understand. Thank you."

Then she hangs up with a deliberate, perturbed tap, shaking her head to herself.

"Something awry?" I say as we walk up the front steps of my apartment building and unlock the door.

"Remember what we were talking about, about money, earlier?" she asks, and my eyebrows instantly raise. "I think we jinxed it."

Benedict has put on Elton John, who is singing "Candle in the Wind" over the stereo speakers as we step through the apartment door. Holly walks ahead of me into the room, to find Ben in hyper-focus mode, still bent over his book from that morning, and I stay behind to lock the door, taking longer than usual, sensing the possibility of a coming storm.

"Hi, Ben," she says, decently enough, though there's a note of sarcasm already sharpening her voice. "Would you mind turning that down, please?"

He looks up from his book, quickly forgetting his work for her. His eyes brighten as he scoffs dramatically: "Did you hear that, Tom? Turn down Elton John? Blasphemy. Who are you and what have you done to Holly Whitaker?"

"Ben," she repeats through clenched teeth, making clear her sincerity, which he'd missed, before. "Turn down the music please."

Eyebrows furrowing, his jovial expressing diluting on his face he sets down his book and stands up, saying "Alright" as he crosses the room and pauses the song, turning around and pocketing his hands, clearly playing dumb—which doesn't bode well with Holly.

"I just got a phone call from the rehab center in Syracuse. They said my aunt's treatment and stay has just been paid for in full by an anonymous benefactor. Those words sound pretty familiar, don't they? Would you happen to know anything about that?"

I'm struck by the vast lack of knowledge I have of their history, and decide I should endeavor to stay out of this one.

Ben smirks a little bit before his expression deepens into one of mild remorse, and then just as quickly into one of something like rational defiance. "Yes, I do. It was me. And I would apologize for it if I thought I should, but I happen to think that I shouldn't. It was the right thing to do—"

"But we've—"

But Ben puts up a quieting hand, not too harsh, but strong enough to achieve its purpose. "—and you've got to admit that you—no offense—don't have the money to pay for it. I merely spared you from having to stress out over the bloody stupid American medical system."

At this he throws his hands up slightly, and Holly seems quite taken aback by his firm stance. "Look—" Ben continues, "if you absolutely insist upon it, you can pay me back. That, I could understand—my goal here wasn't to take away your honor. The point is that I don't charge insurance."

Holly's shoulders remain taut for a moment, but then relax with what I imagine is a combination of defeat and apathy, and it's clear that Benedict has put an end to the argument before it had the chance to really become a full-fledged one.

Bobby gives up a disapproving, whimpering groan from where he's been laying, curled up, on the couch, his eyes scanning back and forth between the two contestants.

Holly glares at a remorseless Benedict for a handful of seconds, but only half-heartedly, and shortly she fully forfeits, still reserving the right to cast a private eye-roll towards me—which I can't help but smirk at.

"Whatever," she says at last, too exhausted to say anything else. "Thanks, I suppose. I'm going to take a bath. Alone. With Cloud Atlas."

And, still clad in her coat and hat, carrying her bag of books with her, she goes to do just that.

Once, a minute or so later, we hear the water running in the bathroom, I quietly approach Ben, who has meandered into the kitchen to fill up a glass of purified water from the refrigerator, and lean against the counter, assembling my thoughts carefully.

"Look," I start quietly, once I have his attention. "I think I should tell you—Holly, she… on the street…" I take a breath and another moment to gather my thoughts, still frazzled and unorderly when it comes to the event I'm attempting to explain. "We were passing the park and she saw someone in a red sweater, I think, and freaked out a little. Well, not a little, actually. She seemed—"

"Not in her body," Ben finishes for me, his expression having grown gloomy as I'd spoken.

I nod my head and watch my friend closely, his eyes sad as he runs a hand through his hair. Under his breath, I hear him mutter something: "sick bastard," it sounds like. And then he downs a few hard swigs of the cold water as though it's alcohol.

"It may not be my place," I venture, leaning slightly forward, "But may I ask… what exactly happened?"

Ben has hinted to me a number of times that Holly has survived some sort of sexual trauma, but never have we discussed it in any sort of detail. Which, I suppose—only after I've already asked him, of course—is probably appropriate. Holly should be the one to tell me, after all, if she were to desire to do so.

I'm thinking about withdrawing my request, but Ben is already answering my question, and I figure I ought to let it slide and listen for all I'm worth.

"It was her father," he says bitterly, his mouth twisting as though the water had been a sour tonic. I feel my eyes widen. "Regularly, when she was a kid, and then again in New York just after we first met."

I feel my throat burn and constrict, and for a few moments, my vision blurs. Then I shake my head, my words working faster than my mind: "Is he—"

Ben nods his head, knowing what I mean, even before I do, myself. "Life sentence."

"Thank God," I let out.

I stare at the tile backsplash above the counter for a long, elastic moment, and then Ben downs more of his water, his voice thick and grainy when he says, "I'd better see if she's okay."

"Of course," I hear myself say, but only after he's left.

I pretend to be doing something with myself, but there's nobody around to trick but me, and I'm not buying it. I'm compelled, as I haven't been since my school days, to eavesdrop, and just as the notion strikes me, I find myself already standing quietly at the corner of the hallway, poised to overhear:

"Darling?" (Benedict, accompanied by a tapping on the bathroom door).

Then Holly, her voice muffled, more exhausted than annoyed: "What is it, Ben? I'm half naked."

"Might I step in?"

"Yeah?"

I strain to listen after the door has been closed around, but not shut entirely, still allowing words to be overheard just above the pounding water.

"Did… something happen on the street? Tom told me—"

"It was nothing."

"Was it?"

"It was just some woman in a stupid hoodie, okay? I'm fine."

"You seemed quite the opposite, according to Tom."

A hiss. "Shit, that's burning. Could he tell?"

"…Possibly—"

"It's fine. Just don't tell him about it, okay?"

A brief but significant silence from Ben.

"Benedict," Holly says, already assuming the worst—and the truth. "Did you tell him?"

"I—"

But she interrupts him, more quietly, in a hurt and threadbare—frightened—tone that guilts me beyond explanation: "You can't just tell people about that. I don't even—I mean, I—"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that, I know. But Tom, he was—"

"Whatever, Ben," Holly snaps. But the words that follow each decrease in bitterness until she's sunken down into her out-of-character apathy from the sitting room minutes before. "It's fine. It's probably for the better, anyway."

And then Benedict, after another pause, reluctantly, gently: "You don't have to say anything to him about it."

"That would be childish. I'll speak to him later."

"Alright. I'll leave you to your bath. And your book."

Holly says something briefly back to him but I don't hear it, already tiptoeing away from my guilty eavesdropping perch to busy myself mindlessly and purposelessly in the kitchen.

Probably with some of that good red wine.

---

I almost feel as though I'm about to get it under control (albeit by forcefully numbing myself to the feelings Holly's presence stirs up in me) when Ben decides the time is right to come to me with an absurd and particularly painful request. I stand in my room—into which he's stolen, to keep our meeting shielded from Holly's notice—and listen to him, trying very hard not to let on how ridiculous this is.

He's brought me the pearls which he's wanted to give to her since buying them at the premiere of the Doctor Strange film in Los Angeles, but hadn't given to her because of a financial dispute they'd had the day of.

I look at him, attempting not to look too exasperated. "You realize that you just had another financial dispute the day before last."

"Yes," Ben says, as though I've missed the point, "that's why I'm coming to you. I want her to have them before she returns overseas since I won't be with her on Valentine's Day, and today is the month before Valentine's Day."

My head moves of its own accord, somehow nodding and shaking at the same time. "Sorry, you've come to me, why?"

"I want you to give them to her."

"Excuse me, what?"

"As though they were your gift."

I have to physically keep myself from taking a startled step backward. "You want me to give your girlfriend pearls?"

"Yes."

"Sorry, Ben, but do you realize how mental that sounds?"

In the end, though, as I usually do when it comes to Benedict, I agree to do it. I take over the determinedly proffered pearls and nod my head tolerantly when Benedict asks me to wait until he's out of the apartment on an errand.

He leaves a few minutes later, and as it's still morning, I tarry a while longer in the bathroom, distracting myself by fiddling around with my hair, even though I never do. Then finally, I steel myself against my task, and push myself from my bedroom before I can have second thoughts.

Holly is still in her pajamas, making breakfast in the kitchen, her neck bent gracefully as she pours milk into a bowl of cereal, a few short tendrils of hair curling above her ears. "Happy Valentine's Day," I say, pushing out the words before I can keep myself from doing so.

I can see the corner of her mouth twitch into a short-lived smile, her dry hair shifting over her back. She turns around, her shoulders caving forward just slightly in an attempt to conceal her lack of a brassiere. "Wrong month," she says slyly, then nodding and looking at my side. "What are you hiding behind your back?"

Bobby watches the ordeal play out from his perch in the armchair, and makes various barks and growls as the scene unfolds. Already, he is a judgmental audience of one, who amuses and infuriates me at the same time.

Holly's eyes narrow suspiciously when I hand her the small, flat box, and widen in shock when she opens it and pulls aside the covering of white paper. She redirects her gaze from her gift to my eyes, seeming exceedingly surprised, and more than a little confused at the gift, coming from me.

I feel so awkward about it that I'm sure she's going to take it as a gesture of my deeply-hidden feelings, rather than the friendly gesture I'd pretended to make it out to be, on Ben's behalf. Not only that, but I also feel that she will think me more superficial than I really am—if I were to give her a gift, really, a gift of my own, it would have been a book, not something like this. I am so overcome by embarrassment that I am fully prepared to admit the truth to her in order to preserve my dignity—and my sanity.

I'm just about to say it, when Holly uses her own powers of deduction to come to the right conclusion. She looks up at me with a smirk and a look of mildly amused disbelief in her eyes. "Benedict is behind this," she declares, with no upward lilt that comes with a question.

"Please don't be angry with him," I say, as Bobby continues with his commentary. "I think his intentions were good."

Her mouth twitches again but doesn't fully make it to a smile before she turns around again and returns the milk to the refrigerator. "I think I'm past getting angry. I'll thank him when he comes home. Sorry he put you up to that." She gets a spoon from the utensil drawer and takes a bite of her cereal, glancing at the pearls where she'd placed them on the counter. "They're pretty," she observes, before walking past me and going into the sitting room.

"You want Mozart?" she calls, and I have to hold back a heavy exhale of undiluted relief as I say yes.

---

When Ben comes home again, his empty-handedness, evidence of the ploy, Holly stands up from her chair and leads him into the guest room, whose door is shut securely behind them.

Ten painful minutes later, they come out again, without any of the usual remnants of an argument clinging to them, Ben only looking a bit bashful and put in his place, Holly collected and poised, having changed out of her nightclothes.

I find my mind traveling down a depraved path, as I imagine that they'd just made love, and feel my heart palpitate and grow heavy, turning to hot lead at the thought.

I can't bear the possibility of these tormented feelings leading to a feeling of contempt towards my best friend, and I force myself to cool down, hiding my face to put in order, before turning to face them—the innocents—again.

---

Later, when Ben leaves the apartment on a legitimate errand to have lunch with his parents, Holly sits with me in the main room, both of us reading (Her, Cloud Atlas, and I, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle), Bobby lounging on the floor in front of the fire we'd made together in the fireplace.

Silence strains the space between us with awkwardness for a little while, and I find myself having to stop and start the same paragraph a ridiculous number of times, the situation made all the more strenuous as I've only just started and am still stuck obnoxiously on the first page.

Then, finally—for better or for worse, I think to myself—Holly sets down her book with a meaningful exhale, and looks at me matter-of-factly. I turn over my own book, setting it on my knee and giving her my full attention. She has her hands clasped, clenching them together rather tightly, I can tell from her knuckles.

"Look," she starts, with an uncomfortable glance up at me, but her voice retaining its hard-earned strength. "Ben let me know that he told you about my father. And I just thought that I should let you know that I know, to clear the air, so you don't have to be—so we don't have to be awkward."

A beat of silence.

She shakes her head, her face flushed nervously. "But I guess that last part isn't going to come easy, is it."

My mind tells me to allow her more space to speak, but my heart dictates otherwise, and quickly takes the wheel before reason can reclaim it. "Holly, I should say—" she looks up at me, seeming to know and to dread what I'm about to say, but even then, I can't bring myself to stop "—that I'm so sorry about what happened to you. I wish—"

"Don't," she says, halfway shaking her head, almost twitching it painfully, and forcing a smile. "It's fine. Well." I visibly watch her catch herself, a throat-catching feeling stirred up in me, as it might be, were I to be watching a tightrope walker. "It's not fine. But—you know."

I nod my head, even though I don't 'know,' whatsoever. I desperately want to, though.

I find myself leaning forward. "We may not be as terribly close as me might be," I say slowly, feeling a great release at allowing parts of the truth to come forth. "But if you ever need to speak to someone—someone who's not Ben, I mean… In that case, I am here."

She looks at me for a few seconds, considering me and smiling softly, sadly—it's increasingly difficult to read her.

"Thank you, Tom," she says, her voice hoarse and quiet. "I really appreciate you, you know."

Then she stands up, saying of her book, in a completely different tone of voice, "This one's not ready to be read yet; I'm gonna get Good Omens."

She smiles at me, and I feel the air move coolly when she walks past me. "Be right back," she says, and then turns down the hall towards the guest room, where she's stowed her printed treasures.

I take in a deep breath, not realizing that I'd been holding it, and look down at my hands to find them trembling. I clasp them together tightly and then pick up my book, clutching it desperately to keep from fidgeting, to keep from thinking—but, of course, even reading cannot help me to succeed at that tremendous feat.

Heaven, help me.

---

Holly

After a much-needed conversation about money, things between Benedict and I seem clearer and gentler than they have in a while. It seems to me, that the unbridgeable gap between our financial lives had been an underlying burden, heightening all of our other disagreements. It's unusual for me to not have to worry about money—in reality, I've still only just gotten out of the bad habit of worrying when I'll be able to feed myself next, which was a constant insecurity up to my seventeenth year of life. And, as a result, grand gestures like paying for my aunt's rehab in full or buying a wildly expensive set of pearls for no apparent reason, strike a chord of panic in my very gut. I've admitted to Ben that it will take some time for me to surpass that part of myself, but for now I make an effort and succeed in forgiving him, accepting his kindness and his doting, even though I know I'll never wear the pearls unless it's with him, at one of his events.

Ben and I return to his apartment in the days before I depart, to reclaim some time alone and to keep from overburdening Tom, who says goodbye with a look of shoddily-hidden release in his eyes.

That night, when Ben and I are reading by lamplight, slowly settling back into his living space after staying for so long in Tom's, his hand touches my thigh, and then slips down lower, and closer to my body. Relief flooding me, I let my legs fall open, my eyes clenching closed as his fingers go to work, pressing sensitively through my clothes, the friction of the fabric only heightening the sudden humming sensation in my lower zone. I find my neck twisting away from him as the feeling is heightened, and his other hand rises to my neck, his fingertips causing chills to radiate out from where he touches me gently. "Let me see you," he says hoarsely, and I look back, maintaining eye contact as best as I can, my mind and body both hovering in a blissful elsewhere. His fingers trace warm, tingling lines across my lower belly, and then slip down under my pants, resuming their ministrations to heightened, nearly unbearable effect. My eyes blur over, only intermittently catching sight of Ben's crystalline eyes. When I come, he opens his mouth wider along with me, his own eyes hazy. Slumping in relaxation against his chest, my own trembling hand ventures to his knee and slides gently up his thigh as I plan to return the favor. But he catches my wrist, saying, "It's alright. That was enough for me," and returning almost slyly to his reading, leaving me reeling yet drowsy against his chest.

And then, in the snap of one's fingers, another day passes and I wake up to the task of packing my bags and preparing to take the cab with Ben to the airport.

We eat breakfast and make love one more time before saying goodbye to Tom around ten o'clock, then returning home to await the cab.

The drive brings an entire load of emotions I hadn't known I'd been suppressing into the open. It seems that many things of great importance have happened here, over such a short period of time, in London: I've finished my manuscript, I've become closer with Tom, I've resolved some of my conflicts with Ben and witnessed the rise of new ones…

And the knowledge that, so imminently, I will have to get on the plane again, will have to leave him all over again, both satisfies and deeply saddens something inside of me. Things seem different—I seem different—after this visit. Finally, it's the thought that I will be returning home to my aunt's empty apartment all by myself that flips the switch and lets loose a few slow-rolling tears. I try to swipe them away before Ben notices—he'd been talking about an upcoming project, one of the conversation topics he's prone to falling back on in an attempt to distract us both before yet another separation—but of course he does, stopping mid-sentence and putting his hand on mine.

"Oh, Holly…" he says, not bothering to ask if I'm alright, already knowing that the answer is somewhere undefinable between yes and no. I consider, for the first time, that he feels the same way, and the thought only perpetuates my sudden confused sadness.

"I don't want to be alone," I moan, hating myself as I think of how I've neglected the reality of Alex's anticipation of my return—but just as soon I sink into devastation again as I realize that she is truly the only trusted friend I have in New York… in the entirety of the United States.

Ben gathers me up in his strong arms and I allow myself to sob against his chest as he buries his hands in my hair, his hands big and warm and too much and not enough at the same time.

And then we're pulling up to the airport and being shaken out of the moment by the shock of a sudden crowd of people that quickly forms outside and around the car as we are recognized. We'd been neglecting the internet, so the first thing I assume is that the photographs of our argument have gained momentum. I don't get a chance to recalibrate my mind so I can think straight before the valet comes around with my bags and opens the car door before Ben and I can say anything else, and we both have to get out of the car, almost pushed out by something invisible, behind us. All the hard work we'd done to get back to a good place is suddenly tangled up and shattered by the people and the seemingly ubiquitous press, strangers crowding around us and talking and calling out nonsensically.

I realize that I will be forced to leave him quickly, too overwhelmed to think to wipe the stains of my previous tears from my face. I grab onto his hand and try to say "I love you," pained at the thought of being robbed of a proper goodbye, but my voice doesn't work, and after a moment he lets me go, and I turn away, hurrying through the crowd and through the airport doors, aided by a the valet who then hands me off to an understanding attendant, who ushers me in a whirlwind through a private customs check and to my gate, by which time the crowd has cleared, and I've regained some level of anonymity, even though my nerves are still on fire, and I feel as though everyone is looking at me when my back is turned.

I check my phone to distract myself, but the waiting text from Benedict, "Sorry that happened. I miss you already. Kisses," only places me two steps back.

I don't have the opportunity to cry until I reach my semi-private first-class chair, and even then, I find some businessman watching me over his phone from across the aisle, and I have to escape into the lavatory in order to finally, silently, break down.

---

Author's note:

Hello, you wonderful people!

So... some new developments through the surprise addition of Tom's POV. To be honest, I didn't even know that I was going to happen until it suddenly did, but I had a feeling as I was writing it that it was right. Please let me know how you feel about the inclusion of his POV, and while I don't plan to expound on Tom's possible interest in Holly TOO fully, that will definitely be a factor in the story as it develops. (Also, the inclusion of Paul Bettany was totally random, and I don't know if he and Tom have any sort of relationship in real life, but I felt like I needed to add another background character, so he might come in more a little later).

Just in case you were interested, the title of the chapter, "Ring out the False, Ring in the True," is a line from the New Years' poem "In Memoriam" by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Also, I completely forgot about the existence of Tom's dog until this chapter was already more than halfway done, so I'm sorry if Bobby's very limited inclusion seems a little awkward. Similarly, the timeline as to when Holly was going to be leaving for New York City got super screwed up over the course of this chapter, since it took me literally two months to actually get through it, and I didn't have a very detailed plan, and it was too confusing to try to correct. Sorry about that! Hope it wasn't too confusing.

I AM SO SORRY that it's been so long, once again! I've been trying to write, but most of the time it just doesn't come to me during these turbulent times—plus I've been absorbed in some original works, too. I highly regret keeping you—and myself—waiting for this chapter to be posted! Regardless, I'm thrilled to be back, and should have the time to update more consistently, soon.

Next chapter will be set in the present again. CUE THE DRAMA! I'M SO EXCITED!

Thanks for not plagiarizing!

;)

21 May, 2021

On_Errand_Bad