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?

26. Chapter 26: I Want To Hold Your Hand

NOTE:

Be forewarned, I got super wordy in this chapter. Not particularly sure why, but I don't have the time to revise… so it goes.

There's not going to be any stressful or depressing Ben-and-Holly drama in this chapter, I swear, we all need a second's rest from that, though this chapter obviously can't be totally exempt from at least a LITTLE of it… I mean, come on, we all love that angst even though we also somehow hate it?! We've mainly got some well-deserved (just a tiny bit bittersweet) fluff and *of course* a couple of nsfw moments. Enjoy!

(Referenced relatively early on this chapter is the director Terrence Malick, known for his pensive and quiet filmmaking style, and his specific movie The New World, which is, most basically, a grittier take on the true story of Pocahontas.)

P.S. I absolutely love you all.

---

Chapter 26: I Want To Hold Your Hand

HOLLY

Sure enough, the photographs taken at Paddington Station on my return become the first photographs of us in public, since our rushed exit from the hospital after the persistent "Tragedy of 2017" (which, categorically, I say to Ben, letting myself make light of it for both our sakes, must continue to pervade our online identity until at least the end of the year). As usual, I let myself study the pictures thoroughly one time before putting them out of my mind. There are three that recur across the internet: (1) Benedict standing alone waiting for me, (2) me, standing an (already-outstretched) arm's length from him, (3) the two of us walking in step with joined hands.

It's easy to see how something extraordinarily terrible might be made of our appearance at the station. Neither of us is looking by any means well, both of us thin, haggard and drained (a look exaggerated rather than protected by our dark sunglasses). I, myself, am obviously not dressed for traveling and am blatantly without luggage, and the connection of our hands in exhibit three may be interpreted as either tenuous or overly firm. In fact, the look of us is so strikingly unwell that I feel a sharp sinking in my chest looking over the photos. I've had no means of seeing myself or Ben from a distant third-person perspective in this way for quite a while, and heaven knows we look worse than we've ever looked before. I almost mind it in a personal way.

However, as the twitter threads and blog posts gradually stream in, we find with partly relief and partly familiar aggravation that nothing is made of the photos beyond the fact that they are the first to be captured of us in three weeks' time, which is clearly exciting to the fans. Our vampiric appearances don't even seem to disappoint. As usual, people don't look too hard into our faces, as written there is evidence that can be easily manipulated to fit the stories they've already solidified in their heads. All they have to see (a useful but painful shield for us, in private) is the perfect aftermath of the perfect tragedy: Benedict, the unfailingly supportive partner, just as devastated as his thinner-than-ever, dazed-looking girlfriend.

Once I've taken an hour or so to process it all, I can find no real issue with this wave of press. But the media generated by the photographs proves more disturbing and distressing to Ben than is usual for him. For fear of prodding at his sensitivity, I hold off for a day before attempting to break up his stupor by reminding him, as he has had to remind me in the past, that we are still the only two people in the world who actually know what is going on behinds the scenes of the photographs. The moment they've captured is one that neither of us is particularly proud of, but we can at least be grateful that nobody's tried to read into our shared pallor. After listening to me he hugs me tightly, and seems less bothered, just within the next few minutes; and I'm sure, in his usual tremendous empathy, he'd been more worried about my possible reaction to the coverage than by anything going on inside his own head.

In truth, my own worries are far more occupied by something else that had taken place earlier on the day so tenderly commemorated by the photographs and resulting stories. Too much so, in fact, to care in any legitimate, long-term capacity for the latter. It is my luckily undocumented conversation on the park bench with Tom that keeps my anxiety busy. My heart tells me to reach out to him again, over text at the very least; to try to provide closure for everything that was said, mostly by him. I still feel terrible about my utter inability to hold up my end of the conversation, and can't help but worry that he left feeling worse than he had when he'd been waiting alone for me to arrive, not knowing whether or not I would… But I can't make myself do it. Imagining myself in his position, I eventually decide that the best I can do to respect him is to wait until he is ready to take the first step.

Ben is yet to ask me about what it is we'd spoken about for all of ten minutes, seeming to have allowed my running away to overshadow that morning meeting rather than suspecting it as a cause of my sudden impulsivity to get away, to be alone, to escape, in the first place. Inside my head I make a tension point of his obliviousness, but that concern dissipates like clouds when he tells me in advance about a day when he'll be mostly gone to spend some overdue time with his best friend. For this assurance of the fact that I haven't somehow come irreversibly between them, I am grateful to the aching point.

The end of the summer is coming into sight like the edge of a woods. Only instead of a bright meadow beyond the final, thinning trunks, there's something I can't make out; something vaguely nightmarish. We have always spent my school year mostly apart, often quite far apart, myself in New York and Ben in London or various filming locations, seeing each other only on vacations and intermittently when we can manage it. But that world seems so different from the one we live in now. My body and heart are so much more deeply tied to Ben than they were just a few months ago, and his, likewise, to me. We've suffered together, and now I don't know what I would do if I had to cope with the ebbing grief without him. Just imagining it makes me desperate to occupy myself with something, and I wish more than anything that I could somehow go back to work, letting guilt overcome me for the fact that I'd had to cut off my usual summer internship about halfway through the summer and hasn't been able to return to it. In fact, I still haven't followed up with my boss or with any of my coworkers there, with whom I am mostly loosely acquainted. After thinking about it and talking it through with Ben in order to convince myself, I force myself to make the call to my boss. I don't know what I had been so worried about, for of course she is just as forgiving, open and lenient as always, going so far as to suggest that I would be accepted there the following summer, or at any time the need struck me, "in the case that better offers don't start pouring in at record speed! There's no replacing Holly Whitaker."

Needless to say, I barely hold it together until after the phone call has ended, at which point I can't help but start sobbing uncontrollably from the wave of hormonal relief and gratitude that tumbles and crashes over my still overly-sensitive self. When Ben, having heard my boss's compliments through the speaker, first takes me into his arms and reaffirms what she'd said, it only becomes more difficult to breathe. But gradually, feeling myself held tightly and firmly in his perfect arms, the world, both outside and inside of myself, slows down to a normal speed again. And even while relying so shamelessly upon his support, something in the comfort I feel, swaddled in the center of it, helps me to rekindle faith in myself; to believe that I will be able to manage myself without Ben's comfort, and without the incredibly deep and warming purpose of being able to comfort him, too.

With all of the overwhelming emotion constantly channeling between us, especially as the clock has started ticking down the days we have left together before Ben will have to leave for filming and I will have to return to New York for school (the final year of my Bachelor's, which I find no less than dumbfounding), we find solace in what we come to call "Hush Days," which we sometimes suggest in the early morning with the simple symbol of a single finger pressed to the lips.

Our first, before they'd become a habit of mutual self-care, had been on the morning after Ben's return from Australia, when we'd silently washed each other in the shower and then laid down in clean, warm clothes on the couch with the window open to the breeze and the sounds of London. Something had been so wonderful and special about being simple and silent together.

The process is the easiest under the sun. A hush day is a day to be completely quiet, at least until the clock strikes noon; to still be together but simply not to speak. Through this practice we are reminded of the strength of our nonverbal connection, and in the hours in which we take advantage of it, our mutual appreciation for one another and for the small, quiet moments that pass throughout the day, is increased to more than tenfold the usual, stretched out into long, tantric reflections which we share together. I can spend entire minutes simply looking at his beautiful hands from across the room, or pay close attention to the sound of his heartbeat with my head on his chest, or open myself up to similar observations and quiet appreciations that he makes of me, in return.

It is not that we don't usually spend a lot of time being quiet on normal days. Neither of us are the most talkative people when in comfortable privacy, and we have always been able to understand the other person in the day-to-day without having to fill our time with floundering discussion. But our newfound practice makes our quietness more mutual, makes it shared, special and intimate in a way that it sometimes isn't on normal days. The day will be exposed to have much more time in it than it often seems in the normal rush of things. Hush days keep us from taking the quiet parts of life for granted.

On one particular hush day, Ben rests on the cool leather couch and I lay half draped over him, both of us enveloped in the cool smell of soap from our shared bath. Then after a quiet lunch, we sit in separate chairs for an hour of reading. I take to peeking at him once in a while over the top of my book, until I begin finding myself thinking more of how breathtaking he is than the actual content of the story. I can sense that Ben, too, frequently sneaks glances at me when I'm not looking, and I have to lift my book up to conceal the unbridled blush surely rising on my cheekbones. Once, we both look up at the same time by accident, and there's no chance to conceal the color on my face, or the sudden glimmer in my eyes. Quietly (oh, how Ben's already-graceful movements become so much more refined when part of his energy is put towards maintaining a comfortable silence) Ben sets down his book and comes to me, picking both me and my quite bulky book with his great, quiet strength, and then sitting down in my chair, letting his lap serve as my new one as he kisses my temples and strokes my hair, watching me with the most beautifully smiling eyes in the world.

Waking up after what we've decided should be our last hush day, at the beginning of our final week together, we linger in the aftermath of our quietness until Benedict takes the fall and breaks it. "Jesus Holly, that was like a bloody Terrence Malick movie," he says with fake sarcasm and a fake scowl, his deep voice grazing my ear.

I take it upon myself to lightly pummel his chest with a pillow and deny him my forehead when he tries to kiss it, earning a deep, handsome furrowing of his eyebrows. "You realize I can't let you off the hook for that comment? Do you really dislike his style?"

"I… can tolerate it," he says, not bothering to conceal a slight wince. This is one of the endless things I love about being with Ben. No matter how much I'm sure I know about the normal parts of him, new things have a way of unearthing themselves naturally in my presence, like small shining objects.

"Have you seen The New World?"

"No?"

"Oh, Ben. Then you can't talk."

We set aside our morning to sit and watch it, and after doing so his mind is thoroughly changed. We're both in an emotional mood after subconsciously leaning forward from the edge of the couch for the last five minutes of the movie, and the feelings causing a ruckus in my heart, beneath my throat, quite quickly transition themselves from being caused by the movie to being caused by my generalized sensitivity to the shortness of our time together.

"I'm going to miss you," I tell him. And then, still so easily set reeling at the very thought of it, of how long it will be at the very least before Ben's filming will end and we might have a chance of seeing each other, if only for a few days in New York… "Two months."

"Two months," he echoes, that unnameable color of his eyes becoming especially indecisive as he takes my hand in his.

"We can do it."

"We've done it before."

I sigh, nodding to him and to myself at the same time. "It's okay for it to be different, though," I hear myself say, feeling my eyes growing wet at the corners, space swelling between my words until they become, in the natural course of things, part of the air; part of the short-term but somehow lasting memory of my body.

"Dearest Holly," Ben hums, seeing my state of being in barely-connected shards and apparently recognizing his own heart reflected somewhere inside of it. He holds my head in one of his hands. "I'm going to miss you. Very much."

And again we've formed one of our short, cyclical, honest conversations that make it okay to feel things completely, bittersweetly, without resolution.

---

If I'd thought my faith in my writing had been low a couple of weeks ago, it's plummeted even further since the increase in my nervousness over our imminent parting. And as usual, as a feeling of disappointment and struggle pervades the creative outlet I've relied upon from a young age, it also pervades my already wavering self-confidence. The most I can manage to eke out that actually proves to be of substance is poetry, just as had been the case during Ben's absence, but prose of any length is an impossibility. I try to be grateful for my ability to write at least in this medium, letting my subconscious flow out onto the page without thinking about the message of the poem at all. But I resent my gift the moment I return to read the product later, only then realizing the inherent darkness in the themes and symbols. Benedict finds me, time and time again, struggling at the typewriter or laying in a classic state of writer's block, computerless and notepadless, on the floor. He respects my privacy completely, understanding the privacy I keep around all of my work until it's satisfactorily 'finished' and not even trying to touch my notebook of poetry, sensing my sensitivity about it. But his empathy doesn't stop him from giving me his usual encouragement, which makes me blush and cringe on the outside yet makes something still and small inside of me feel slightly more confident than before.

"Holly," he'll say, grabbing my hands with a compelling force and looking into my eyes. "You are truly amazing. Look- you've invented entire worlds, entire people, entire minds. I just… I imitate, I interpret, but I could never do what you do."

"How can you say that, Ben? You don't 'just' anything! You're a master at what you do-there's a reason you're famous. I'm held in absolute awe when I watch you… You're so meticulous, and talented… and, well, masterful! And I'm not quite there yet."

"My darling, you know you can't compare our work. It's not the same at all. You're doing something… universal. Something totally original that I could never, ever do. Whenever you let me read anything you've written, it's… truly astonishing. I love everything you make, everything you write. You're taking the time you need to make it what it's already becoming. Please, be patient with that brilliant mind of yours…"

There's something incredibly intimate about looking into one another's welling eyes, finding patience in our separate creative souls through the confidence of the other in our abilities. We look at one another and then hold each other until it wears off, until there's only our minds and bodies, the air around us, and the sounds from the street below-the reminder of other lives.

Of course, it's not all suppressed tears and inward bleeding. There are times when we're as shallow, playful and happy as we'd been at the very beginning. When we're reading on opposite ends of the couch, I'll reach a quiet leg across to poke at Ben's knee, and he'll catch my ankle before I can escape; or when we go out on walks together, an activity we both enjoy and which doesn't seem out of reach now that we've taken the first leap of appearing in public at the train station, a more conspicuous environment than the park; or when we get into simple, bantering arguments about a line of Shakespeare, which we'll sometimes spend minutes upon minutes settling, flipping through our giant Collected Works. Historically speaking, we each have a fifty-percent chance of being correct.

---

For the first time, we speak of how we envision our future together, as a pair. We've always been open about our individual aspirations, but never have we had a set, verbally outlined vision of what 'we' might look like, years from now. Of course it's always seemed, naturally, that we would be together for a long time. But in the quickness and passion of it all, we never really thought to think about how our goals might NOT line up. That ignorance had only been possible when we'd still been safe, kept unchecked by something like the disaster we've now experienced, which has finally slowed us down.

We talk ourselves in circles, spacing our dialogue out over the course of hours to allow ourselves to breathe through the difficulty of the topic. We talk until we've both found the strength, along the way, to admit that we don't have a set vision of ourselves, and that that's okay; even good. Neither of us has ever liked the idea of having concrete plans, even in the short-term, as it can make us feel boxed in. And of course the future of our relationship is the same way. All that really matters is that we know we want to stay together.

At the root of the issue, though, is the newly uncovered possibility that there might be a reason for us not to: children.

Benedict has always wanted to be a father. He tells me that it had just seemed like something natural, that must follow just from the fact of his being alive; of his being who he is. And though he doesn't say this part out loud I can tell from the way his eyes shimmer when he talks, that fatherhood has been the most anticipated role of his lifetime since he was very young. He admits to me that, in trying to recalibrate his vision of himself in the future to suddenly exclude fatherhood, he does feel a little odd. But he promises me that my not desiring children does not change the way he feels about me, or change the fact that he wants to stay with me. And he says this with such fullness that I become ashamed of ever thinking that he might suddenly feel different about me because of that all-important, very overdue conversation in which I'd admitted my aversion to motherhood.

But that doesn't mean that my concerns cease. For I realize soon that it's not about me at all, but about Ben, who I love beyond anyone or anything in the world. The thought of Ben being inhibited in anything at all (and especially in something so close to his heart, and so perfectly fitting for his personality and his dreams as fatherhood) because of his being with me seems less like a manageable sacrifice in the name of our relationship, than a denial of his right to be the person he wants to be at my own hand. Taking his hope of a family away from him would feel sinful no matter how gracefully he handled the change. My greatest fear soon becomes that, maybe, Ben's love for me is distracting him from this important life goal that will matter a great deal to him, and could leave a hole if it isn't accomplished…

Yet all the while, I struggle to voice to him my own moral struggles with the matter of children, as it pertains to me independently of him. Not only because of what Benedict has revealed to me about his desire to be a father, but also because of some change that has taken place, biologically, in myself, I find myself strongly wishing that I had the capacity to truly, deeply desire to have children. In my eyes, this selflessness, this bravery in the face of that level of vulnerability, in love for a child of my own, in opening myself to the prospect of being a mother, would be the ultimate show of inner strength.

But I still don't truly want children. Not in my heart.

At least, this is what I have to tell myself, the habit-formed truth that I use to ground myself when I feel seconds from tumbling off the hormonal roller coaster upon which I still find myself trapped in the wake of the miscarriage. I know what causes my ceaseless oscillation between aversion to the prospect of children (the familiar feeling which makes me feel sane, but sad) and an utterly unfamiliar desire to hold Ben's child in my arms (which comes, surely, from my body's instinctive confusion and yearning). The latter desire springs up quite often, and is difficult to cope with. I can walk around normally and almost happily all day, and then suddenly, feeling phantom movements inside of me, almost burst into tears when I look down in foolish hope (?) followed swiftly and painfully by shock, at my flat middle.

Benedict always sees these moments. He notices and feels everything I feel, just as I notice and feel everything that is going on, ever so silently, in his heart. My momentarily frightened gaze will find his and his face will fall for an instant, something draining in his eyes, before he flickers to life again and manages a supportive smile. A smile that says 'it's alright' and tells me that I am forgiven. But there's still something inside of him that is grieving, too, in a way not dissimilar, but also somehow close in emotion, to the way that I am.

But through all of this chaos of feelings, I can see the singularity that glows at the center of it all. And it is not the problem of children. It is my simple, visceral desire to see Benedict happy. I just want to see him smile again; to hear his laughter, as it was before he'd arrived in my hospital room after getting off the plane from New York, and that usual ring had been tarnished, seemingly beyond complete repair.

---

Our relationship was serious before, but not in the way it is, now. Now, we are responsible for each other in a way we weren't when nothing truly terrible had happened, mutually, to both of us. Yes, we had been painfully connected to the death of Tim, the precious little boy from the subway on that fateful October day in New York. But the loss of what could have become our own child is much different. Pressing on the deepest parts of my body, I can feel the responsibility for having changed Ben's life. No matter how much time passes, he will never be exactly the same as he was before. This will always be something that has happened to him, and I am inextricably connected to it.

On some days, this strengthening of our connection makes me more confident in my ability to keep on going. On others, it only makes the guilt more overwhelming.

What eventually brings my quiet inner sadness to a peak is a new thread of press abuse that quickly spreads online. It's the new usual: people I know nothing of thinking they must know everything about me because of a few photographs and the public identity of the man I'm in love with. The online talk since the miscarraige has been hard to handle, even when the people doing it have been sympathetic. But in this new vein, the haters are more difficult to bear than ever. The catalyst of their criticism is the new set of photographs taken of Ben and me at Paddington station. It had taken them a couple of days, but as always, they crawl out of the woodwork. The general consensus among them (though, as always, they still manage to argue uglily among themselves, which is almost more painful to me than what they have to say in the first place) is that I am draining Benedict, and that I must be, fundamentally, at fault for the miscarriage. Some go so far as to suggest that I had known about the pregnancy beforehand and had been hiding it from Ben; that I had induced the bloody 'disaster' myself to make a scene and gain sympathy; that all of this is just further proof that I'm immature and our age difference is too large; and so on, and so on. I tell myself I absolutely must stop reading this, but I can't make myself turn off my phone; and before I have the chance, my eyes are blurred with tears and I can't see the hateful words anymore, anyway.

My crying must be louder than I initially thought, because a moment later Ben appears in the doorway from the other room, his body strong and clean and gentle, and for a moment almost hateful in its perfection. I look up at him and cover my mouth, shaking my head. My body is dissolving into movements over which I have precious little control. The movements of the room, of my own body and of Benedict's as he approaches my chair, are happening too slowly for the quick, erratic beating of my heart.

Having identified the phone as the cause of my tears, Ben kneels down before me and takes it, meanwhile wrapping his other hand around my wrist and gently stroking it with his thumb. I feel terrible, after talking about not looking at the press for the sake of our shared sanity, for having fallen prey to scrolling through it again; and in shame I hang my head, not wanting to see his reaction as he reads it, too.

"Why?" I whisper. "Just, why?"

I hear Benedict putting the phone down on the desk and almost flinch at the slight sound.

"People are fucking pricks," he says. "My love. Listen to me."

I feel him take my hands in his, and am prompted to look up as he kisses both of my hands on the knuckles with his soft lips. The selflessness of the gesture forces me to cough through another sob… but it is this sob that seems to help me control myself, at least briefly. I wipe away my tears with a turn of my head either way and a shrug of each shoulder. Once I can see clearly again I manage to look into Ben's imploring eyes, though my face still trembles and I wish to be hidden away somewhere.

"They have no idea what they're talking about," he says, with a barely contained contempt which is still overpowered by his gentleness towards me. "They don't know a fraction of what you've gone through. It was not your fault, and you are not-" (his voice nearly shatters over this word) "-you are not. Draining me."

"I'm not," I hear myself echo.

But the pressure of Ben's hands on mine brings me back to life.

"Never," he declares.

I feel my face again falling to trembling pitifully, but there's no possibility of getting it together. Part of being strong is letting myself be weak in front of the person I love most.

In this ironic strength, I'm able to admit something I rarely do, when it comes to the press, barely breathing the words through my tears. "This sucks."

Out of courtesy and empathy, I'm forced to look into his stricken face. He looks at me silently for a long time, with great emotion welling in his eyes, until he finally says, like a gasp, "I'm so sorry." And he truly is apologizing. In the beginnings of our relationship, mainly after confessing our love for each other when staying with Ben's parents for Christmas, we'd discussed the risks of being together, particularly in what I would have to cope with from the media. But then, it was impossible for either of us to imagine something as horrible as this. We both know that there's nothing, really, for me to forgive Benedict for. But I still can't tell him that there's no reason to be sorry. We're both sorry.

We don't say anything else about the press for the rest of the day. But later, at night, Ben can't get to sleep because of the thought of it.

"I overreacted," I whisper to him across the pillows, gently touching his bare shoulder, wanting nothing more in this moment than to give him the peace to rest.

"That's not true," he responds, just as quietly, after a moment and a slow wince. I watch the profile of his troubled, beautiful face. He's right, of course. I had reacted appropriately, and we both know it.

Forgiving me for my white lie, he turns over to face me, laying on his side with one arm tucked under his head and the other seeking out my hand under the covers. I can feel his anxiety through his touch, can see it in his eyes.

"Oh, Ben," I breathe. "What are you thinking?"

His hand presses down on mine, and I can tell he doesn't want to tell me. But he adheres to our code of honesty. "I'm wondering whether it's too late to postpone filming for another week."

A second later his eyebrows furrow, and it takes me a few moments to realize that it's because my own had done the same, first, and my small hand has tightened around his larger, still graceful, still anxious one. "Don't do that," I say with quiet force. "I will be fine. And you need to go… to do what you're made to do."

Benedict hasn't had the opportunity to really, really get into the grittiness of his craft in a while. In Australia he'd been half distracted by the miscarriage, and I know it will be healthy and relieving for him to be on two comparably smaller sets after the overwhelming project of a big franchise movie. I know he will feel so much better after getting these last, difficult weeks out of his system in the best way he knows how, and I know just as well that I will feel better once I have my schoolwork to put my efforts towards.

I tell him as much, "and I would feel so much better if I knew you were doing what fulfills you."

He has listened closely to my reassurances, but there's still some lingering doubt in the planes of his face. I shuffle closer to him, letting my knee tuck over his leg under the covers, my hand abandoning his to press into his shoulder. "I know I'm unsteady, right now," I admit. "But I will be okay."

This is what finally manages to help him close his eyes for the night, and after a few minutes, his breathing becomes even enough to confirm that he's fallen asleep. But I soon find that I'm the one kept awake by worries. Though I'd reassured myself through the process of consoling Ben, I still feel nervous about what our relationship is going to look like now that my heart is striving to stay with him, or at least to be nearer to him than in a usual school year. Still, there's nothing to do to escape the fact that I have just under a week left before I will have to go all the way across the Atlantic alone… Not to mention the anxieties brought to life by the prospect of what actually going back to school might be like in the midst of this media tempest…

---

As though the universe had been listening to our conversation and my thoughts, the very next morning, I wake up to an email in my inbox. It's from a counselor at Columbia; the one who had helped me to get more comfortable with reflection, depression and self-blame management after my father had attacked me in Central Park. She was also the one to suggest that I try masturbating to build confidence in my sexuality. We had only met with one another in a therapeutic capacity during that difficult first semester of my freshman year; and though we've been on friendly terms and have sometimes seen each other in more candid situations throughout the school years hence, I haven't had any legitimate counseling from her since then. Despite that, through everything that's happened since I met Benedict, she's treated me the most normally out of anyone else at Columbia, both students and professors, with the exception of Alex.

It's a surprise and a relief to see that she's reached out to me, and becomes even more of a relief once I've gathered her purpose for writing: to see if I am going to need any support from her when I return to school, and to tell me she would welcome communication before then, if there's anything I would like to tell her or ask her about my transition back.

In accordance with my usual first instinct, I immediately start to type out a response saying that I'm feeling totally fine, confident, and excited about returning to New York in a week's time. But after writing a full draft of said bullshit, I backspace all of it and stare for some time at the blinking cursor on the screen. Something feels wrong about lying this way; the universe has extended a hand to me, and I would be foolish-not to mention selfish and childish-not to take it. So I draw in a deep breath, and then write honestly about how I've actually been feeling, managing to keep my emotions on a leash as I express my dread of leaving London, and my insecurities about being back on campus after "the events of this summer" (which I'm more than certain she's aware of; otherwise, she wouldn't have reached out to me in the first place). I reread the email obsessively before finally forcing myself to click send and leave the computer on the desk, going to distract myself by joining Ben for breakfast.

Just under an hour later, my correspondent gets back to me with an unexpected but legitimate proposition: that I become an exchange student in London, at least for the fall semester. Feasibly, given my "excellent" grades, I could be set to attend UCL within a week if she and a few professors manage to pull a few strings, seeing as it's far too late to apply for the exchange program in the traditional way. With the right people, she notes, it's unlikely I would have to do so much as write a statement.

Just before I'd checked my inbox, Ben and I had been preparing to go on a walk to drink in the crisp, nearly autumnal air. I have to press pause on that plan to let him know about the information I've received. At first I hear my voice almost monotonously explaining the matter and paraphrasing the email. But before long, I start to realize the actual implications of the possibility of studying in London, and can't help the excitement (trembling hands, warm eyes and all) that grips my body.

Ben, too, brightens to a point I haven't seen him reach in quite some time, as he registers the news. "Holly," he says after a moment of making sure he's heard correctly, his eyes so bright that they seem wet with tears though it is just their extraordinary brightness that achieves this illusion, "Holly, that sounds… miraculous."

"I really want to do it," I tell him, almost covering my face for joy and hand-wringing emotion. I can't even believe that this possibility has suddenly made itself available to me; to us. "Are you sure it's okay with you?"

"Are you bloody kidding me?" he says, and for the first time I see that joy-that smile, that shine in his eyes-peeking through. "Yes! Yes, please do it!"

I feel myself beaming and inwardly screaming for joy. The idea of a new school, a fresh start, despite the slight complications of it being my final year, are thrilling to me, and make the world seem full of new possibilities. Of course this is the perfect option, right now; I could stay in the apartment and then when Ben returns, we would be together again, at once-and not just for a two-day visit. He grabs me in a tight hug, actually picking me up to kiss me. I kiss him back with full, thrillingly bruising force, feeling the smiling set of his lips as he moans in happiness and relief behind them, until my mind is again overtaken by the reason for our excitement and the work I have to do to ensure that it will follow through. I press on his shoulders and shift my breathless mouth from his, having no need of air when I speak, "Okay, I have to respond, it's not official yet-" and he lets me down, and I can feel the happiness of his eyes following me as I rush back into the room where my laptop is waiting.

I tap my foot, still smiling broadly as I type out a response right away, telling her that YES this is the perfect idea, thanking her for proposing it and asking what I need to do next.

Studying in London! This is the perfect solution to everything we've both been anxious about. I've grown to feel at home in London, and would surely be closer to Ben if I stayed here, even though he would still be quite far away for those first two months of filming… but after that time, we would be together again. And our time difference would be, at most, an hour, during the period of his filming for which he will be in the south of France, rather than the usual, grueling five hour difference between London and New York. This is exactly what we need, and I can't believe my tremendous luck. I try not to push it, forcing myself to be humble; after all, I can't yet be one-hundred-percent certain that this plan will pull through all the way. I bite down on my lip, staring in wait at the computer screen. Ben, who soon follows me into the sitting room, is in a state of total relief, practically high on it, seemingly unable to say much at all, just looking at me with relieved and gratefully shining eyes.

I get a response in less than a minute of waiting, with a short email to match my latest; and it's quickly determined that we'll have to save our walk for later. To accomplish this suddenly-risen goal, I'm going to have to get down to business today. My sudden guardian angel tells me she's happy to help; that she's just discussed the matter with a passing colleague who knows of me, and suspects it's doable. She writes that she will reach out to some of my professors and see what they can do to help with the process. She also gives me some numbers to call at various administrative offices at both schools to make sure it's possible, and to start getting things moving. I send her a quick follow-up with another thank-you and a promise to keep her posted with any information throughout the day.

I have not a single doubt about the pure rightness of all this; but there is the smallest of blips that greets me through my mounting excitement. Alex.

I slow myself down at the thought of my friend. Before I permanently go through with any of this, I need to call Alex and get her opinion, at least to show her the respect she deserves despite the long gap between now and our last legitimate communications. Ben has noticed the slight reigning-in that's taken place in my spirit, and I look to him with an expression that begs just one moment longer before we get to work. "I need to call Alex, really quick," I say, and he nods his understanding before I head into the bedroom so that I might have some privacy in which to prepare what I'm going to say.

It feels weird to call her. I can't just go to my recent calls as I used to be able to with Alex. We haven't spoken once since the days immediately following the miscarriage, and have really drifted over the summer with me being in no state to respond to anybody but Benedict-and sometimes not even to him. I feel ashamed of myself, standing and pacing at the foot of the bed; ashamed for ceasing to text or call with no legitimate follow-up or explanation, and no apology, however brief or half-assed. But I have to do it now, out of sheer human decency. Better late than ever later.

She's near the top of my alphabetical contact list, so I have no reason to delay any further. I make the call, putting one hand on my hip to strengthen my posture, and force my feet to be still while I listen to the ringing. I realize, after the fourth or fifth ring, that I've totally (ironically) forgotten about the time difference. It's nearly ten o'clock here, so my counselor must be at work early at five a.m. and Alex is likely asleep.

Yet, just as the thought finishes itself, the ringing stops and she picks up.

I can immediately tell that she hasn't been asleep. From the sound of it, she could literally be in a club…

That's right. I missed Alex's twenty-first birthday. She will have been partying like nobody's business through the whole latter half of the summer.

A loud crackling sound keeps me from slipping further into guilt, and it takes a moment for me to realize that it's the sound of Alex shouting into her phone over the noise of the crowd and the music-still going strong for five in the morning, I assume. "Holly!" I make out. "Wait a second!"

There's the sound of a blurring chaos, apparently as she makes her way through the still-busy club to a place where we can hear each other better. At the sound of her voice as she again tells me to wait, even obscured by other voices, my heart starts beating fast. What am I going to say? What is SHE going to say? Will she confess to having hated me over the past month? Does she feel that way, still?

After another few moments of anxiety, hanging onto every shift in sound on the other end of the line, I hear the sound of a heavy door being opened and closed, and then finally everything is quieter, only a distant, static throbbing in the background of the audio from the phone.

"Holly," Alex says at once, her voice clearer, now. I can tell that she's been drinking, but not very much. "I am so glad you called! I really wanted to reach out after that shitty press the other day, but…" She doesn't have to elaborate for me to know just what she means. She didn't have the strength. That's just how I had felt for weeks after our initial silence had begun, knowing I should take initiative and just make the call, but with each passing day it became more impossible. "Seriously, Holly," Alex says; and it's the old Alex I remember, with no spite even vaguely lacing her tone. "'Trolls' doesn't even cut it." A wave of relief and further guilt rushes over me, and I almost start crying as I listen to her momentarily silence. I should speak, I want to speak, but my throat is frozen. "Holly? Are you doing okay?"

"I'm okay," I force out. And, before I can delay long enough to permanently freeze up, "Alex, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for not calling. I… I totally ghosted you, and that was despicable."

"Oh, my God, Holly, don't even go there, girl!" Even though a tear has trickled down my cheeks, I find myself subconsciously smiling at that same old carefree sound of my friend's voice. "I absolutely forgive you. It wasn't your fault alone, you know. I totally shied away from… what happened. I was… selfish, and I didn't want to feel… I could have been a lot more supportive than I was."

"Alex," I manage, my voice sounding less low and constricted now, though I'm wiping away tears. The absolute ease of her forgiveness overwhelms me with gratitude. "You know I wasn't about to accept your support. You did everything you could have done, and I was the stubborn one."

"Really, girl, it's okay. I'm sure I would have done the same thing, if I…" (we both know that's probably not true: whereas I've always been inclined to cave in on myself in negative times, Alex has been compelled by her very different nature to seek out support and heightened socialization; but I appreciate her intention nevertheless). She sighs a natural sigh. "Honestly, I think we both needed a break this summer. But we're still okay, right?"

I nod my head to myself, clenching my eyes shut and then opening them again, just now realizing that at some point I've sat down at the foot of the bed. "We're great, Alex. I… don't know how to thank you."

"Oh, please, girl, there's nothing you've got to thank me for," she says, right on the beat, deftly bringing to a stop, as she had always done before, one of our usual mutual thanking/pity talks. Now she gets down to brass tacks. "But you didn't just call to reach out again. What's the news?"

After taking a moment to compose myself, I tell her about the just-arisen possibility of my being an exchange student in London, and of my needing to be close to Benedict this year, and of how I wanted to call to let her know, and to ask her how she felt about it. Her following moment of thoughtful silence injects a bolt of nervousness into my heart, and without really thinking or being sincere I find myself suggesting that if she's really averse to it, "then maybe I don't have to-"

But she cuts me off before the ridiculous thought can complete itself aloud. I care for and feel beholden to Alex, but I could never choose her over Benedict. "Holly Whitaker!" she says, reading my mind. "Don't you even dare let me get in the way of you and-" (she cuts herself off just in time and I consider, for the first time, that she might still not be totally alone wherever she is. I imagine a few people smoking in a back alleyway, and have to trust that nobody there will randomly recognize my own first name, only glad that she'd managed to stop herself before mentioning Benedict's). "You know!" she whispers after a frightened second, a bit of that old excitement coming back into her voice, the excitement I'd heard constantly when Ben and I were in the beginnings of our relationship. "Holly, you have absolutely GOT to stay in London. For the semester or for the whole year, whatever you need to do. Studying over there would be the coolest thing! And I know it would be hard for you, back here, after everything that happened."

"Are you sure?" unable to believe my ears, when my mind had been so set on inventing scenarios of rejection and anger. "You're not upset?"

"Well, of course I'm gonna miss you, you're my best 'deep' friend, over here. But I want the best for you, and you know I've got a lot of good people, a lot of other friends to keep me company. I'll be absolutely grand, even though I'll sure miss seeing you around."

And for the first time I think maybe she's right; maybe we would have wound up drifting a little this year, regardless of whether this London question had been raised or not. Alex seems to be deep into the party scene (heck, she had been before she'd even been able to do it legally) and meanwhile I'm in the process of trying to eliminate my urges of falling into that trap again. Our majors are as different as they can get, and truly I don't think I am very nearly the same person I was, just at the end of last spring semester, after everything that has happened.

"Alex," I say, after a minute, accepting her blessing wholeheartedly. "You are an angel." I could never have expected such kindness. I'd been so terrible to not speak to her for so long, but now I've been forgiven, and in such a complete, unquestioning, supportive manner. Listening to Alex's easygoing, encouraging voice (still excited and energetic despite the clear growth in her maturity that must have taken place while I was silent this summer), it's almost as though not a day has passed since we last spoke.

"Look," I continue, wanting her to know that I'm not about to totally abandon her without trying to see her again. "If this works out, I'll probably have to come to New York for a couple of days to pick up some stuff from my Aunt's apartment. We should see each other, then, and catch up."

"Oh, my God, yes! Girl, I really hope this works out-"

A muted sound of the door opening, and a slightly raised voice comes from the background (probably one of her clubbing group) and Alex seems to turn away from the phone for a moment before coming back.

"Hey, I really should get back into the action, it's on the cusp of going dead, the sunrise is half an hour away… but look, you've got this! I'm so excited for you! Go get 'em, and I'll call you again soon, okay?"

I let myself chuckle aloud-the first time that's happened with anyone but Ben for what seems like an age. "Deal," I say, and after another muffled, high-pitched farewell, Alex hangs up.

I bend over in relief, letting my head sink low between my knees until my back and neck are stretched pleasantly. Gladness so completely floods my system that I only register that my phone has buzzed with an incoming text a matter of moments after the fact. I expect it to be a follow-up text from Alex, and not moving out of the satisfying position, I stretch my arms down to look at my phone between my diminishing calves.

Contrary to my expectations, it's a message from Harry; yes, the gym-class singer, which makes me feel weird for a second, as I'm sure it always will, on some level, before I'm reminded that I know him, and that he's… well… sort of normal. It seems that today is the day for reconnecting with lately-neglected connections.

The message is simple and stringless: 'Hi Holly! I know it's been a second, but are you interested in partying this week?'

What a coincidence, that I'd just a moment before reminded myself of my need to make sure not to fall to the temptation of going to another party. But as I think about it, almost hearing the jolliness of Harry's voice in his words on the screen, I figure that going to a party wouldn't be bad at all as long as I didn't do any more drugs or alcohol. I'd been upset at myself when I'd done it soon after the miscarriage, both for giving into what I'd always sworn I'd abstain from, and for being cruel to Tom while hungover the following morning. Though I definitely don't want to do that again, I know that going to another party or two, just for the social aspect, would do me good.

So I respond: 'Hey, Harry! I would love to, but I can't join you this time. Ben is here for just this week. / But I might be in London for school this fall, and if that's the case then I'd like to come sometime.' (I hesitate a moment, but then go through with letting him in on my recent train of thought, knowing it would be valuable to have someone who knows about it and might be kind enough to keep me in line if I do find myself at another party and find myself on the verge of trouble.) 'Just to let you know, though, I think I might not get high or drink anything again. It was fun once but I don't want to go in for that, long-term.'

His three 'typing' dots show up quickly. And, soon: 'I completely understand! I'd just love to have your company again, and so would everyone else' (Saorise and Florence, mainly, I imagine… I've been silent towards them, too, though this makes me much less guilty than my silence towards Alex, I'm sure they've had a lot to keep them busy, and have probably barely noticed) 'and you're more than welcome any time! / Cool that you'll be in London, btw!'

I wait a second or two, deeming the conversation adequately completed, thank Harry with an emoji and then stand up, bringing the manageable portion of my strong emotions of happiness and gratitude with me.

I come back out into the sitting room with a smile plastered on my face, feeling totally at one with everything that is happening, and feeling even more energized and confident and… NORMAL (finally! Oh, God, finally!), after receiving Alex's blessing.

I kiss my waiting Benedict once more, stepping up onto the couch in my joy to kiss him from slightly above his height. He brings me against him again after a minute, slowly spinning me around once before setting me down. The sight of him looking down at me is more thrilling than I've allowed it to be in some time. I've been so worried about having hurt him, about hurting him in the future, and about being so far away from him in these next months, that I haven't been able to slow down and be thankful that I am with him NOW; to admire him and let myself be swept away by my love for this gorgeous, charismatic, thoughtful human being-who loves me overwhelmingly, in return.

"Let's get this done," I say to him, my smile filling my eyes. "Let's make it one-hundred-percent certain."

The prospect of a worthy task brings Ben to life like nothing else. "What can I do to help?"

I can't in my right mind put him on the phone on my behalf, so I ask him to type a few emails, which he reads aloud to me for approval before sending them, in the short periods between my phone calls. I feel better than I have in weeks, having this general purpose set forth, and I can feel the same gratitude, the same ability to finally feel like a person with a goal, emanating from Ben with each click of each key on the keyboard. We're on the phone and computer, respectfully, almost all day long, and I speak both with people in NYC and with people in the admissions offices at UCL here in London, who promptly help me to figure out where to start.

Around six o'clock in the evening, after many more phone calls and Ben helping me to trudge through complicated websites on the computer, my permission to study here is officially approved.

It's stunning how everything has been expedited for me, and when I express my amazement and gratitude to my counselor in a long email at the end of the struggle, she tells me she's sure I deserve it. Within two weeks, I should be able to finish the matriculation process and enrol in classes for the semester.

It's nothing short of a miracle. It happened so fast, just in the course of the day, but nothing seems rushed about it. It's just exactly what Ben and I had both needed so badly, and we are both more set at ease, more generally thankful, more close and happy with each other, than we've been since… before.

I am invigorated. I am hopeful.

---

One morning later, I'm laying in a terrible state of idleness on the sofa, my legs slung over the arm, when Ben comes out of the bedroom dressed for his brunch with Tom. The new circumstances of the coming school year have made me happy, but very antsy, I very, very badly need something with which to occupy myself.

"Feeling alright?" Ben says, noticing the quiet kicking of my heel against the side of the couch.

I arch my back to look at him upside-down and smirk, indulging in an imitation of his classic Sherlock Holmes "Bored!" and crossing my arms with admirable comedic timing as I collapse again with an overstated eye-roll. Ben laughs aloud, one of his true, richly chiming laughs, and his eyes squint painlessly: we both slept well last night.

I grin at him for a subconscious moment before hiding the smile against my shoulder (I'm supposed to be BORED, not stupidly happy, damn it!) and it's this angle of my line of sight that leads me to notice the very-long-neglected violin case sitting on the bookshelf.

I turn over onto my stomach. "Would you mind if I fooled around with your violin while you're gone?"

Ben presses his (bewitching) hand to his chest and adopts an injured expression. "Holly, I take great offense to the fact that you suddenly prefer a negligibly-sized wooden instrument to yours truly."

I frown at him, though, of course, I'd intentionally included a dash of coy innuendo in my request. "You know what I meant, Sir Incorrigibly Posh-y Vocabulary."

"Of course I don't mind. Do you want me to show you the basics?"

"Don't be late for Tom."

"Tom can sweat for a minute or two."

He smirks and my stomach flips. I watch him as he crosses the room, takes down the case from the bookshelf, brings out the violin and starts to tune it. Shifting by body again, I hug my knees while he plays a few expert scales before launching into some extremely impressive cadenza that leaves me barely succeeding to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor.

"A bit rusty," he says after he's finished with a flourish, blowing some dust off the fretboard with put-on arrogance.

"Showoff," I retaliate, but I can't keep the loving smile from my face.

Ben's own eyes turn tender when he looks at me, as he switches the bow into the same hand as the violin and offers me a hand up, which I take out of courtesy (and because, come on, I'm not about to decline an opportunity to share even the most simple of touches with him). He seems to feel the same about the simple but comforting connection of our hands because he squeezes mine with his before withdrawing it very gently.

When he offers it I take the violin in my left hand, and bite down on my cheeks to contain a grin when Ben brandishes the bow for a moment before placing it in my other hand. After a second of figuring I manage to hold the instrument the way he'd held it, in the crook between my left shoulder and my neck. But it feels very strange to hold it in my left, non-dominant hand, and I find myself clumsily wrapping my hand around the narrow end of the neck and holding the bow awkwardly in midair. I smile sheepishly up at Benedict.

"Perfect!" he says sarcastically, moving his hands in a reversed clap.

I indulge in making a face at him. "Take it easy, I've never even held one before."

I expect him to fire back with a droning 'obviously' but instead he cocks an eyebrow, grabbing onto the unintentional innuendo in my words. I pretend to slap his arm with the bow, but stop just short of it, to savor the look on his face. It's the same look that I would make if he made a move as if to throw a precious book. I smirk and his face darkens, though he smiles. "Naughty, naughty."

To help me correct my posture he steps behind me and uses his hands to slowly guide my arms. It's just like one of those way-overdone seduction cliches they always use in cheap romance movies… but it's not cheap when it's actually happening to me; when I feel Ben's shirt whispering just millimeters from my shoulders, when he lowers his temple to mine and guides my right wrist with his beautiful fingers, directing me in low whispers as to how to hold the bow at the correct angle without straining my neck.

Once I get over the initial shivers of this delicate intimacy, the actual feeling of holding the violin registers in my body and brain. It's… weird. I hadn't been exaggerating when I'd said I'd never held a violin before-I haven't held any instrument before, at least not with the intention of handling it correctly-and my arms feel unsteady. At first, the bow stutters across the string and I grit my teeth against the awkward sound of my first few strokes (Ben is gracious enough not to make any outward reaction). But after a few focused tries, my arm becomes steadier and I manage to produce a full, rather pleasant-sounding note.

Ben lets go of me at this. I savor the rustle of his smile near the arc of my ear.

"You're a natural," he says. "You'll be playing Beethoven by the time I'm home."

He kisses the top of my head and his fingertips grace my shoulder-but just as quickly these small sources of warmth are whisked away again, and he goes to the door, leaving me with "Paramount rule: if distressed, take a break," and then winking at me, going out with a swiftness that makes me smile a happily lost smile for a few seconds at the closed door before I regain my focus.

Being alone in the apartment reminds me of part of what had caused my initial antsiness while I'd been waiting for Ben to get dressed in the other room: I still haven't heard a single word from Tom. I'm sure he has no intention of telling Ben what had happened between us (let alone about his innermost emotions, which had forced him to practically flee my presence on the park bench a few days ago-not that I didn't flee, also). After all, we'd both promised that the kiss and the complications surrounding it should remain between the two of us. But I don't know whether Tom would be able to hide from Ben that something had happened, if Ben began to suspect that something had changed in his best friend. Tom has been understandably distant from both of us since Ben returned almost two weeks ago. Though that's unusual, I feel that Ben has just supposed Tom was trying to be respectful of our mutual suffering, to give us the space we needed as a couple after what had happened. But maybe, after a lengthy period of not sitting down with Tom, Ben might sense that something has changed in him. Tom and I are known to react quite similarly in such situations, and I know that his quality of already being a relatively open book, combined with even a small dose of guilt, might put him at risk of having to break our mutual promise of silence if Ben even so much as hinted at being overly worried, or suspicious… And I don't even want to think about what would happen if he found out-not so much about the fact that Tom had kissed me, but that I hadn't been able to protest, and most importantly, that I had kept it a secret from him…

I force myself to focus, tightening my posture and again concentrating on setting the bow against the strings, remembering how Ben had guided the angle of my elbow. It's out of my control, now, and I have to trust Tom, even from a distance, even when my friendship with him seems more tenuous and out of reach than ever.

At first, I stick to practicing producing full-toned notes, carefully but with that important relaxation of the wrist that Ben had noted, dragging the bow across the string until I can reliably get an even tone almost entirely throughout the contact of the hairs and strings, each time I try it. Next I practice different notes besides the basic open strings. Soon I find that I actually have a decent ear for it: I can tell when the interval between two notes I'd imagined is off, and soon figure out how to correct my mistakes with relative ease. My third step is to think of a simple song to try to pick out… but each one I think of is a childrens' tune, and I don't want those… neither for me, nor for Ben.

After a minute my mind lands on something simple enough, but not tied in any way to the nursery, the first few measures of Vivaldi's spring Allegro. My version is nowhere near to tempo, and I merely pick it out by ear (I'm nowhere ready to even think about tackling the actual reading of music, yet), not to mention it's a very simplified version without any of the flourishes, focusing only on the main notes and rhythm, not going beyond the main theme that introduces the piece before the violin duet. Yet, given all of this, it's recognizable, and I actually find myself getting quite good at it after a lengthy period of repetition.

I heed Benedict's wise advice and stop when I start to grit my teeth at the aching of my knuckles and the aching of my right arm from maintaining the brutal angle of my elbow and shoulder. From the kitchen I get some water and press the hot, red, string-dented fingertips of my left hand against the cooly perspiring side of the glass.

No longer swaddled inside the thoughtlessness of the strenuous practice, I find myself (or rather, not myself, but that strict inner voice which had so ceaselessly tormented me in the weeks of Ben's absence) thinking that, surely, I'm not doing anywhere near as well as Benedict had done when he'd first started. I can easily imagine him picking up the instrument as though it were something so common and comfortable as a telephone, and immediately being brilliant at it from the first try. Though the thought of Ben's first sessions of fiddling around on the instrument bring a smile to my face, I soon furrow my eyebrows as I recall the other thought that had led me to that one.

I bite my tongue, for the first time able to face the lingering strength of that small, self-deprecating voice, and not liking it at all. That isn't me. Or, perhaps, it is like me, but only in the sense that I have been allowing that voice to continue to talk for too long. Self-deprecation is what I've been practicing, and the effect has been just as lasting regardless of the fact that it's been mostly inadvertent. I know, as I have known on many occasions before, that I must shut up that little voice; and for the first time, a legitimate, tangible solution presents itself to me, making it a genuine possibility, not just a brief moment of positive self-talk. I must stop practicing self-deprecation, and of course channeling my attention into learning something new will be the perfect way to accomplish this necessity. Finishing my glass of water, I feel glad that I had asked Ben to help me start to learn a new skill. Now is the perfect time to put my mind to becoming good at something I've never tried before, and as I return to the violin-though my fingers sting and ache and my neck grows stiff-I realize that it's something I actually want to sustain.

---

Ben returns just after noon, having stopped off for a few groceries before returning home (how glorious it is to be able to use that word without a single qualm or wince of guardedness). He looks totally normal (of course, as 'normal' as he is capable of looking) and not at all bothered by a possible reveal of previously-unknown circumstances by Tom. Once we've put the groceries away together and I've made myself something to eat, I casually ask how Tom is doing, not so much because I want to see whether Ben could be hiding such a reveal-I'm positive at this point that Tom hadn't said anything-but because I genuinely would like to know, and feel slightly awkward at the fact that I haven't had the bravery to reach out and ask him myself.

"He's well," Ben responds simply, luckily not seeming to pick up on the depth behind my simply-presented inquiry. "He's very deep into Hamlet which is, well, both good and bad."

As I well know. I recall marvelling over how deep into the complicated, emotionally-taxing role Benedict, himself, was, when he'd been doing it at the National Theatre in the first summer I'd stayed with him here, before our relationship had even begun. I imagine Tom going through a similar situation, but alone, and in the midst of everything else going on, and swallow a bit harder than necessary, looking down at my plate.

"I'm sure," I say.

Ben visibly picks up on my tone and suddenly I tense up, wondering why on earth I'd posed the question about Tom in the first place, sure now that he'll somehow catch me out. For the first time I get a deep-seated feeling that I've done something fundamentally wrong by exempting him from the knowledge of what had passed between Tom and myself on the day before he'd come back from filming in Australia…

"Holly, have you and Tom been in contact at all since I got back?"

There's not a trace of suspicion in his face or tone, only interest and a slight concern.

"Not really," I say, not having the luxury of distance from my own words and their formation in my mind and mouth. "During those few weeks, after… When he was staying in the apartment, it was really hard. We didn't get along very well, especially not after I… you know." Ben nods, and I can tell he's understood easily that I'm referring to the night I'd gone out partying with Harry Styles and who knows who else. "Honestly, I was kind of an asshole. And Tom wanted… Well, you know. He wanted everything to be fine. And I think he probably blamed himself for a lot of it."

Guilt floods me even further for the fact that I've now solidified my lie to him. Of course he interprets the look that comes over my face in a different way, taking my words as the unabridged truth… trusting me.

I can't take it so I quickly recompose my face, letting it twitch into a smile. "We never really talked about any of it, though," I continue, without wanting to, but feeling a compulsive need to, as though some part of me has convinced itself to believe that adding more truth to this mess will keep me from having to think of the untruths-which are only packed into a tighter area, made more dense, with every addition of truth. "We never really talked about it. So it's been… quiet. On both ends."

After half-nodding in supposed approval of this explanation of affairs between myself and Tom, I busy my mouth with drinking water, my head stuffed full of iteration after iteration of: SHUT THE FUCK UP. RIGHT NOW.

Ben's face softens, and he places a hand on the table, partly extended towards me in support, but without any expectation attached for me to take it in my own. "I assure you," Ben says, "that he's doing okay. You know, Tom has a way of retreating sometimes, but he always comes around. It's just in his nature. He may take his sweet time reflecting on something in solitude, but he will come back once he's finished. Always does." Ben smiles.

Wonderful. I'm relieved to hear it.

I nod my head and it's seemingly clear to Ben that I don't really want to talk about this further.

Time for a change of subject… but to what?

Ben beats me to it, reclining relaxedly in his chair and adopting a half-smug expression. "So, tell me, my dear, did you make any progress on the violin? Or did you give up after the first five minutes?"

For a second, I'm thoroughly distracted from the previous conversation by a genuine bolt of defensiveness. "Of course I didn't give up," I say, nearly spitting the last two words, the offensive phrase. Ben smirks and I give him a hard look with a twinkle behind the eyes as I stand up, promising him an imminent return to prove him wrong with a momentarily held out finger before I turn to get the violin from the other room.

In the far corner of the sitting room, hidden from Ben's sight by the wall, my shoulders cave in and I suddenly have to cup a hand over my mouth. In the next second I force my body to rid itself of these physical yieldings to my inner turmoil… that will keep it at bay, at least a little longer. I tell myself silently that it's going to be okay… it's going to be fine… it's already fine… I've done nothing wrong… nothing's changed since this morning. Yet it somehow feels that something has fundamentally changed. I think, somewhere deep down, I was really expecting-and even hoping-for Tom to expose us both. Now that he hasn't, I just feel stuck, and especially so without any sort of open communication with him. Though I know this isn't the case, my heart constricts as though I've deliberately committed a crime against Ben and have hidden it from him with cruel intent.

But I force all of this down, again forcing on the spunky, defiant expression I'd worn for a briefly genuine moment in the wake of Ben's challenge, as I grab the violin and bow and go back into the kitchen to show him what I've accomplished.

"How's this for giving up?" I say with a smirk, standing over him.

For the umpteenth time in the last hours, I play the segment of the spring Allegro I'd taught myself. After so much nearly-ceaseless practice, it's a bit choppier than it had been at its best, earlier, and my fingers ache and slip once or twice. Still, there's no outstanding cause for cringing, and when I've finished, Benedict tells me genuinely that he couldn't have played so well until the end of the first week. He gives me a dramatically scandalized look and then smiles wondrously at me, with his pure eyes, as I reconcile myself to a messy curtsy.

---

BENEDICT

For the first time since my return, we are both sleeping very well. There are no nights when we both stay up long past midnight in a state of fitful half-rest, no nights when I am up alone in the quiet, cool darkness of the sheets, and no nights when my dear Holly suffers the same, which I know from the fullness of her spirit in her face in the mornings. In preparing for going back to University, she's started waking up a bit earlier than me, and I'll usually pad out into the kitchen around eight to find her starting coffee, in time to help her with breakfast.

Wednesday morning I come to the end of the short corridor to see her standing at the counter, waiting for the coffee to brew. We've gotten into a routine over the past few days, but I'm still unused to it, still feel a low sweep of happiness when I see her there, seemingly lost in thought, and then easing out of it slowly, stretching with her arms twisted behind her back, arching her spine and rolling her neck… The sight of her hair shifting over her shoulder makes me smile, and a wave of warmth rolls through my body. I have to take a moment, so I lean in the doorway, watching her with incomprehensible gratitude for the fact that I will be able to imagine her here, safe and warm, when I am away; that I won't have to be so unsure and separate from her, as I would have felt were she back in New York. My heart is filled with humanness, honored that whatever forces the universe is composed of have done this for both of us…

"Morning, love," I say, not wanting to frighten her by approaching before making my presence known. My voice is still deep from the depth and warmth of the bed, and it pleasantly fills the room as I go up to her to give her my usual kiss atop her head. Drawn in by her loveliness, by the nearness of her beautiful, calm body, as I always am, but often find myself especially so in the mornings, I kiss the warm tip of her ear, too.

She stops what she's doing and cranes her neck around and upward to look at me, finding my hand with hers and bringing it to her lips to kiss my knuckles, one by one. Looking up again, she smiles a soft smile, and half-drowsily murmurs, "Hi, honey."

A smile rises up in my soul. I simply must kiss her, but probe her eyes for permission. It's already shining quietly in her entire self, and she tips her head back, her torso still twisted about, her side pressed gently against my chest. Watching her eyes and her smile until the last moment, I bend to kiss her, a slow kiss that moves in stages into depth, into soft familiarity. I hold her hips from behind and she breathes a honey-like sound into my mouth. This is the definition of comfort; the feeling of being wrapped in a blanket on a fine, cool day. And I realize with a subtlety of thought that we haven't made love since almost a week ago, before I'd had my nightmare and became wary of being in bed with her that way, again.

Reading my mind, she draws her face back and looks at me openly. "I've wanted you since I woke up," she whispers; and it's true: her cheeks are blooming with arousal.

Now I feel no wariness; that nightmare and the distrust of myself that had come with it are both far away. I want her badly, too, and there is no shame in this wanting. It only takes her words and a subtle, considerate touch of her gentle hand for me to become completely hard. But this arousal of mine has little to do with lust and much more to do with an impenetrable, strong love of her heart, a love that I want to show to her with my body.

Sensing my agreement, her eyelashes flutter and she lifts herself gracefully to offer up her mouth again. Fully warm, I stroke her body, my hands whispering under her shirt to firmly hold her breasts. She groans and her head rolls back against my chest, her hips moving gently against my erection, making my next exhale thick and hot. Turning her head away to press her back flush to my chest, her hands stroke over her own body to meet my own, her fingers sliding between mine, over her lovely, hardening breasts.

"Right here?" I ask her, wanting to be sure, sensing the restlessness of her body.

A heavenly groan resonates in her throat as she rubs the side of her face against my arm. "Yeah…"

Reigning in my mounting desperation, I push her hair back from her clean, warm neck and lean down to kiss it while, with purpose, not slowly but not too quickly, she pulls down her shorts, stepping one foot out of them in her own restrained haste. I'm partly outside of myself as I look at her hands, where they press against the countertop in anticipation. I free myself from my pajamas and return my touch to her heavenly, now-shivering shoulders.

Holly has to push herself up on tip-toe for me to even begin to enter her. Once we've started, the pressure of my tongue against her neck easing the process (though she had clearly been honest about her desire having lasted since much earlier this morning) I drive further, and she tips forward with a yelp.

"I've got you-" I promise, one of my hands splayed across her taut abdomen, keeping the arch of her back from collapsing.

Yet, after I've pushed all the way into her, my back bent over hers and my mouth wide open at the always-new sensation, the counter starts to grind against her fragile hip bones, and she gasps at the pinching pain. "Ouch! Fuck, Ben…" she manages, still almost sighing though one of her hands has curled into a fist.

A wince lodging in my chest, I pull out and help her turn around. But once she's sitting on the counter and facing me, I can see I've already been forgiven. "I'm not tall enough," she bemoans with a short-of-breath laugh.

I bend my face to hers and tap my nose once with mine, looking at her glittering eyes and feeling the fullness of my own. "Shortcake."

"Cute," she condones with a smirk…

When she feels me prodding against her entrance, her face tightens, flushing brighter, and she sighs against my lips, nodding to me. The glory of being like this, face to face with her, is unmatched. I surround myself with her once more and she hooks her legs around my waist, her hands covering my shoulder blades. We both shudder, sharing a sweet moan that sings in two registers at once. I make love to her mouth with mine, savoring her innermost walls. She contracts around me like a hand and I'm already ready to come, but my priority, as always, is her pleasure…

Just a breath-lightened minute later, she spasms once, right on the edge, and slowly tensing, but not ready to jump yet. But I'm dangerously close, and I force myself to hold on until, after another second, she first clenches around me, her center trembling, the heightened pitch of her urgent sounds tightening, silencing and just on the cusp of dropping into her lower register of relief… But I have to deprive her of myself at the last instant, pulling out just in time to come, with a grimace, over her straining thigh.

A high, yearning sound stutters from her lips and I quickly attend to her with my fingers, helping her through to the finish line and sighing, full of relief, against her mouth when she moans deeply in belated satisfaction, one of her hands tightening around me to lengthen my own release.

We sit and stand there, respectively, kissing each other for a few long, breathless moments before managing to look each other in the eye again.

"Benedict…" she whispers, her voice quavering, the sound of my name on her tongue making my body warmer, yet. "Thank you."

"Sorry about that," I say, both for her shorts, which are dark with my release, and for my last-second abandonment of her body.

"That was great," she says, reassuring me with a relaxed smile.

"And your shorts…"

She looks down and smiles. "I can fix it," she says cheekily, "But I'm leaving the counter to you."

Her expression tugs a chuckle against the front of my throat. "Only fair," I say, and wrap my hands around her hips to help her down from the counter, gently guiding her to the dry part of the floor.

She kisses me right in the center of my chest, right where all of my love for her, for this gentle moment, is concentrated. Then her slight body slides past mine as she leaves to start a shower, looking over her shoulder with a flickering in her eyes to say, "Join me when you're done," before going down the narrow corridor.

I clean up the spot, still sensitive and reeling with gratitude from such extreme release after a few days of complete abstinence, and smile to myself when I hear the water start with a rush in the other room.

---

HOLLY

After a shower and breakfast (obviously no longer in need of a pick-me-up, I pour the long-finished coffee into a tall bottle and put it in the fridge for a treat tomorrow) we set out on a walk through London. But first, we indulge in a lately-abandoned habit of ours: disguises.

One of the great blessings of my relationship with Ben is that I can be both serious and terribly goofy with him.

Now is one of the latter times.

Over my head I pull a floppy pink hat that we find buried deep in the back of his closet, whose origins he can't remember for anything. Ben dons a pair of oversized, buggish, very seventies sunglasses (which he somehow rocks despite the egregious yellow tint). Standing in front of the mirror before stepping out the door, we have to admit that these will decidedly ATTRACT attention, rather than discourage it. But I honestly don't care. "Let's just be stupid for a day."

"Okay," Ben says, and I revel in the sound of his voice as he tucks his chin and places a gentle forefinger on my nose. "But I dearly hope nobody sees that hat and makes a trend of it. I don't think I could stand to see it on anyone's head but yours."

---

Through the park wends a breeze that hints at autumn in its smell and crispness. My body fills with cool relaxation as I imagine the coming falling of the leaves, and that special experience of autumn in a new place. After all, I've never been in London at any time outside of summer or the Christmas holidays.

I'm in a state of renewal after having sex again, thoroughly content with my body (something that's hard to come by in a different way than it had been before the miscarraige, for other reasons). None of the badness I've suffered has any bearing on my present world, though. I am full of the beauty of the trees and the air in the park, the people, and my wonderful Benedict, whose hand encompasses mine in a way that makes my soul cry, but my face smile. I don't even feel a trace of negativity as to what had seized me with such anxiety in regards to Tom, the other day. My friendship with Tom will eventually iron itself out again, and there's really no need to tell Ben about the kiss. It had been a mistake, and not mine, for that matter. Our just shared-intimacy has confirmed that in the deepest part of my soul.

We're talking about the course prospectus I've been looking at for the coming year (I'm currently working on narrowing down the impossible number of courses my heart longs to take and Ben is helping me debate a class on the evolution of fairy tales against one on death and dying in postmodern literature) when we see two young men approaching, one of them wearing a Marvel t-shirt. Given the relatively uncrowded state of the pathway, recognition is practically guaranteed.

Ben's hand tightens around mine. "Here we go."

The sound of his voice is only slightly mournful; truly, meeting with fans, even in unplanned settings such as this one, has always been one of the joys of his work. But recently his fame has been difficult for him to reckon with, and I know that out on this walk (which I've sensed making him more calm, more his true, unencumbered (ha-ha), footloose self with each stride) he'd really been wanting, just like me, to be quirky and happy and unbothered for a day.

I squeeze his hand back to tell him it's alright. I know it will be easy for him to slip into his usual ease, and to actually appreciate and enjoy the task at hand, even if it takes a moment longer than usual. But I have to wince a little bit, as the definite fans grow nearer, probably just seconds from noticing Benedict. I don't want to give him any reason to feel upset, but I also really don't want to be seen, or to get in the way (which I would, no matter how he would object to that wording). Within the boundaries imposed by my ridiculous (but, in this case, handy for hiding) hat, I press my cheek to his arm and murmur into the sleeve of his shirt. "Would you hate me if I escaped?"

His free hand reaches over to squeeze my furthest shoulder. "Not at all," he says, almost relievedly, and I can understand how he might also be feeling wary about having me with him. With all the press that's been going around, who knows how tense the interaction might be made by my involvement. There's a little guilt in his eyes, but I relieve him of it with a shake of my head. It's the way things are, and I'm not hurt by it.

All of this shared awareness we read in each other's eyes, and when I mouth a quick, warm 'thank you,' Ben cocks an eyebrow behind those ridiculous, awesome glasses, and kisses my forehead to see me off, just in time for me to disentangle my identity from his. I keep walking down the path, hiding myself just behind a trio of elderly joggers, and sure enough, just a few seconds later I hear the classic "Oh, my gosh!" of recognition and Ben, polite and charismatic as ever, saying hello.

I walk until I find myself stopped at the side of the pathway a ways ahead, beside a pleasantly crowded playground. Distantly, I suppose that I shouldn't stop here of all places, yet I can't find a reason to keep moving. I'm not brought down from my previous state of floating happiness, either by my brief separation from Ben or from the sight of the children surging on and around the structures of the playground. In fact, seeing them isn't bad at all. It's not sadness, or even numbness, that comes over me, but a sense of steady contentment. I watch them playing and shouting with one another, and watch the parents sitting and conversing on benches, or (in the case of those with younger children) pushing their children on the swings and following on foot just behind them under the monkey bars, hands extended in case of the slip of a sweaty little hand. The scene has nothing to do with me; I can watch it from a certain distance and not have to feel anything too sharply.

But that changes when one of the swirling, colorful mass of young children separates herself from the rest; first in her stillness, straightening up from one end of the 'talk tube' and looking directly at me, and then in her speed, running with gleeful abandon across the grassy space that borders the mulched area towards the path, and suddenly slamming into my leg, affixing herself to me with the firmness belonging solely to children.

"Hello," I say, once I've processed the fact that this small young girl, no more than four years old, has just deserted the playground to wrap her arms (very, very tightly) around my leg, and recovered from my momentary windedness from the force of her impact.

All at once disoriented, I see my hands hovering in midair, avoiding the golden-red curls on the child's head; and then beyond those thin, pale extremities, the blobs of adult bodies sitting on the park benches, watery and distant in my oxygen-deprived vision. The world pulses around me. My voice is hoarse. "Where are your parents?"

The girl, the only thing I can focus clearly on, leans back, holding tightly to my leg as she straightens her arms and swings her tiny body a little bit, looking up at me with an open-mouthed grin, before again clutching herself close to my leg. She giggles as though I've told a joke, and speaks softly against my knee, "Silly mummy!"

Everything… tips… sideways.

I look down at the girl's hair. Golden-red curls… the natural color of Ben's.

Air slides uselessly around my face as I turn, looking for him, needing to know if he can see her too.

I have to be hallucinating… I need to be hallucinating.

I try to call his name, but realize the moment after that I've not even whispered it, only mouthed it with a dull clicking sound… Ben…

"Mummy," the little girl says again, with that same giggle. The sound echoes in my ears.

Her small head pressing gently just above my knee… I'm seconds from yielding to the instinct to touch those curls…

But in an instant it's all brought to a snapping close by the sharp, nervous sound of a stranger's voice coming from the playground, calling a name. "Lucy!" I look up at a man who has just stood from where he'd been squatting at the other end of the 'talk tube' at the playground, and now jogs over the grass. It's a man of average height, probably just off work, at an office job from the looks of his clothes and the deep stress lines around his eyes. He has the same pale red hair as the girl.

I put it together with a bewildering stab of pain. I state the facts to myself. This isn't a hallucination. This isn't my daughter, but his.

"I am so, so sorry," he says, in a half-stern, half-shaking voice, telling "Lucy" to come with him even as he dislodges her from my leg with a necessary forcefulness which he tries to make gentle, then picking her up in his arms.

Lucy, her chin resting over his shoulder, continues to watch me even as her father carries her away (I'm sure, now, that I'd said something to excuse him, though I can't remember what it was, and can't feel the lingering effects of speaking in my throat). "Bye-bye, mummy," she says again, not distressed, but slightly confused.

The man seems to second guess himself. I'm paralyzed as he turns around and takes the two steps back to me, lifting his gaze directly to mine for the first time in the entirety of this strange interaction.

"Sorry," he says again, in a confidential tone this time. "My… her mother passed away recently, and she's been getting confused. I think it's because of… sorry… She had a pink hat."

Lucy seems not to have noticed what her father has said, now looking off into the distance with an expression much like the one I must have worn a minute ago, in the midst of my disorientation. I look at her, and then back at her father, who seems too haggard to be as deeply embarrassed as he might otherwise have been by his state of tearfulness before a complete stranger. The stress lines I'd noticed upon his first approach acquire a new meaning.

"I'm very sorry for your loss," I say, feeling a genuine quality in the words which I've always found suppressed and awkward, before. "And it's okay, I… didn't mind."

This seems like a good, gentle man, a good father. And where I once would have been jealous and even hateful towards the little girl for having a good father, would have felt terrible about myself and as though I could never understand this girl or any other girl like her, I feel only gratitude that this father exists, that he tenderly picks up his daughter in his grief, instead of snarling and twisting her arm.

In a moment, a wave of simple understanding and oneness fills me. I am not the only one suffering. I lost a child I will never know, and this girl has lost a mother she will not remember in a few years. I certainly know how the second loss feels, too. It is still necessary for me to grieve in my own way, but it is no longer possible, in the light of this understanding, for me to wallow in it. There is no goodness, no strength to be found in wallowing. But in recognizing and feeling for the parallel sufferings of others, of little girls and fathers and mothers, there is great goodness and strength to be found.

The father has started to turn again, but I can't let him go, yet; can't let Lucy go without giving her something, anything that might remind her… might give her hope, when she's older.

"Wait," I start, my hands without a trace of hesitation as they lift the pink hat from my head and offer it at arm's length to them. "Please. Please, take it."

The father looks at me like I'm crazy, or maybe just with an expression of disbelief. After a moment, though, he nods his head once. I step forward in the grass to put the pink hat on Lucy's little curly-haired head. It's overly floppy and big on her, and she lifts her own little hand to slightly pick up the brim so she can look at me. But she'll grow into it.

"Thank you," the man says.

I nod my head, giving him permission to walk away, and when he turns around, Lucy turns her head again so that she can continue to watch me, still holding up the hat with one hand and, with the other, waving goodbye all the way back to the playground. There, her father sets her down and she runs across the mulch to the swings, seeming to have already forgotten the entire interaction.

Benedict catches up to me what seems a mere moment later, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and asking quite quietly if I'm alright. I open my mouth with a quiet croak before recognizing from his tone that he surely hadn't seen any part of what had just taken place. "Fine," I say, quickly turning away from the playground. I know what this must look like to him; me, standing in a daze by a playground; but the emotion, now, is very different than the emotion I'd had watching the children across from that park bench I'd sat on with Tom days ago. I take Ben's hand in mine, and then place my second one on top of his, enveloping it as we start to walk onward.

"What happened to the hat?" he says, when we've long passed the playground and made it into an especially green part of the park.

He sounds unconcerned now, but I sense the tone is manufactured specially for me and our present circumstances. I suddenly remember how easily I'd forgotten that the hat was not mine to give away. "I gave it to a little girl on the playground," I admit, embarrassed about how random it sounds, when it had seemed so important to me in the moment… but I couldn't possibly explain to him how I'd thought she was my child… our child… how my whole soul had been poured back into my body when I'd given that pink hat away. Maybe I'll tell Ben about it someday, but I can't manage it yet. "It wasn't important, was it?"

He waits a moment before speaking, his silence full of thoughtfulness; surely, he's thinking about what I'd said about the little girl… but he's gracious enough not to press that point. I squeeze his hand, and keep breathing in confidence that he's received my message. I will tell him when I am ready. "I'm sure it wasn't," he consoles. "I would have remembered where it came from if it was."

I nod my head. "How were the fans?"

But he's unwilling to take this change of subject. "Darling," he says, stopping short and laying his hand against the side of my face; it completely holds my cheek, my skin, my bones. "Darling, you look very dazed, are you sure you're alright?" But he's already hugging me against him, crading my head against his chest.

I imagine how we must look: a man in antique, yellow-tinted glasses hugging a small, messy-haired young woman in the middle of the pathway, in the middle of the green, late-summer park. The thought makes me smile. "I'm okay," I murmur into his shirt.

And really, unexpectedly, I am better than I have been in a while. Even better than I had been after getting the approval to study in London. That had been a relieved, fluttering excitement. This is still a midair feeling, but this time it is steady… thankfulness. Through the giving away of a hat I had never even seen before this morning, I've been given back myself.

---

We stay out walking until evening begins to fall, enjoying the breeze and the spaces of the city. On our way back to the apartment, swinging our hands between us, Ben stops at a little grocery store on the corner, saying he needs to pick something up. I offer to go in for him, especially since those glasses of his make him even more conspicuous than he would have been without them, but he assures me that it's alright, and gives me a yellow-tinted wink. "It's for something secret."

"Oh-kay…" I allow, raising an eyebrow.

"Anything you want?"

"Hmm… a little carton of chocolate ice cream."

He gives me a knowing smirk and I let a feisty squint replace the pinch I so desire to deliver, but shouldn't in public.

"Fine, a big one."

"Will you be finishing it before you leave?"

"Who do you think you're talking to?"

I can't help but grin. I go up on my tiptoes, tugging him down a little by his shirt to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. He gives me the same and then smiles at me, pressing my hand. "I'll be out in a minute."

Indeed, just a minute later he comes back out through the door with three bags in hand, which he won't let me help to carry. I assume he's planning to make dinner alone, tonight, and hold his arm a bit tighter until we get back to the apartment, touched by his sweetness and this sudden game of playful secrecy.

At home (the bloom of gratitude that comes with the use of that word, even confined to my thoughts, will never lose its miraculousness), I'm directed to confine myself to our bedroom, and do so without a (genuine) fight. There, I lay on the bed looking through the online course prospectus and taking note of classes I'm interested in on a little notepad. Meanwhile, I listen with a small smile on my face to the muffled, carefully controlled sounds of Ben's preparations beyond the door. I have no idea what he's doing, but I am filled with joy at the thought of him doing something, anything, nonetheless.

An hour passes, but my patience doesn't wane. I open the window and fold myself into the wide sill to look at the sky between the roofs of our building and the adjacent one. It's a beautiful late-summer sky, strewn with wollen blue clouds, and the air is cool and musical. Before I know it, the sun is setting and Ben is knocking on the door with a rhythm of his own devising, straight from his soul.

I hop up, my chest full of joy, and go to the door on light feet, starting to turn the doorknob. But Ben, from the other side, holds it steady. "Wait-" he says, "Cover your eyes."

I cover my left eye with my left hand, and my right with my right, my fingers free of any sneaky gaps. "Done," I report.

"Promise you're not peeking."

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

He opens the door and takes me gently by the elbow (an unrestrainable grin takes hold of my face at the touch of his fingertips) and I allow myself to be led blindly, a short way down the hall. We stop just inside the doorway of the sitting room (I can tell without looking) and there he leaves me, with a reassuring squeeze, to listen to the gentle padding of his footsteps across the floor. A moment later I hear the quiet, momentary whirring of a CD, and in the same instant that I connect the sound with an anticipation, he audibly presses a button on the stereo and the room fills with soft jazz music. And then his voice (oh, my word, his voice) travels to me from across the room… "You can look."

He doesn't have to tell me twice. My eyelids flutter open and before me is the most emotion-inducing sight I've ever seen. Ben has adorned the coffee table with a meal he's made (something delicious looking, and cooked to perfection as far as I can tell from the heavenly blend of aromas in the air), and set pillows on the floor at either end so that we can eat sitting down, comfortably. None of the lamps are on, and instead on almost every surface in the room sits multiple candles, which waver magically and cast the room in a devastatingly romantic light.

Only when I try to speak, or make some sort of sound to express my absolute awe, do I realize that I've covered my mouth with both hands. I uncover it to speak, instead interlacing my fingers behind my neck. But even then I can only stand here, gaping at his work, and then at the mischief maker himself, who leans with tender eyes (sans seventies glasses) against the bookshelf by the stereo, his hands in his pockets, his reassuring bare feet pressing into the carpet.

"It's not a fancy restaurant," he starts.

But I have to cut him off: "Don't you even dare say another word. It's so, so much better than a fancy restaurant."

And in what feels like a single heartbeat, I'm already across the room, hugging him deeply and tightly, burying my face into his shirt, into his chest, burrowing gently into my place in his heart. "Ben, I fucking love you."

His perfect hands stroke my shoulders and then assume one of their favorite positions, gently holding my head. "I… fucking love you, too."

Ben is adorable when he inadvertently lets show the fact that he's a reluctant swearer, and I can't help smirking against his chest.

"I felt that," he says, with an equally audible smirk, and then draws away, taking both of my hands and kissing them in turn, finally keeping only one in order to gesture to the table. "My Lady…"

We eat the whole (perfectly delectable) meal in meaningful quiet (given extra room to breathe by the soft, fitting, lovely music), which compliments itself even as we complement one another with our not-so-subtle glances of appreciation and adoration across the perfect makeshift table. Once I've finished, I sit with relaxed, poised shoulders, watching Ben's candlelit eyes. There is ironically little to say.

Reading my mind, having already long since put down his own utensils and allowed himself to stare at me, in return, he says, "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."

A smile of recognition crosses my face like a comet. "I adore your ability to quote Austen in casual conversation."

"It's what I'm here for," he says, utilizing one of his damnably-attractive innocent looks. But I can tell, behind it, that he's been waiting a long time to say that line to someone…

Not feeling quite so innocent, myself, I crawl slowly on all fours around the table to kneel next to him, nuzzling my cheek against his neck in the way I know he loves, letting myself run my hands through his soft hair. "Can't do this in a fancy restaurant," I whisper.

"Well," he objects, with endearing impertinence, at full volume, "you can, but people would certainly be inclined to look."

"I wouldn't care," I murmur, against his tempting lips, now. "Thank you for the surprise. It was delicious."

I open my eyes near to his, feeling it when my eyelashes brush close to his own, and literally feeling myself tumble forward into his gaze. It's like being swaddled in the warmest of blankets and falling head first off a mountain at the same time.

"You… are delicious," he murmurs.

A happy hum warms my chest as he closes the distance between our lips and slides his heavenly tongue into my mouth, bringing me into his lap and holding my waist where it narrows. I am utterly overwhelmed with love for Benedict. This feeling I get with him, not only with his body but with his heart, with his creativity, his intellect and his complexities, his own not-always-perfect humanity… that love is something I never imagined I would have… something I never truly believed was 'out there' in the world, in reality, at all. But here it is. Here Ben is. And I am fully, gently, humbly, yet powerfully and beautifully alive.

"Holly…"

He stops for a moment, withdrawing his attention from my already-aching lips. His tone brings me thoroughly out of my thoughts, and my tingling lostness in my body. I wonder at my own ability to deprive him of breath and look into his eyes, watching the slight dilation of his pupils as he catches it. He strokes my face with his fingertips, thinking very deeply, but not hard, about something. His words, likewise, are simple and slow, but full of something bottomless, so nearly incomprehensible.

"You are the love of my life."

It's something we've said to each other before. But this time outweighs the others ten-thousand times over. We stare into each other's eyes with such fullness that I barely have the wits to be aware of any part of my body apart from my eyes. There is a universe behind his gaze, and it echoes all the galaxies of emotion that I also feel… adoration, desire, knowing, peace, a coupling of strength and helplessness.

"You're mine," I answer, my voice quiet yet strong. And I can see in his whole soul, beaming through those singularly precious eyes, that he is.

Soon (this is the only word to describe it, though we are both outside of time, now) we lay kissing on the floor amidst the candles, beside the abandoned table.

Having his body, clean, warm and strong, surrounding mine, is one of the best feelings in the world. The ridiculous goodness of it… is indescribable. In his arms, I am both protected and capable. And there's not an ounce of shame for the slightly naughty gratification I get from the feeling of my smallness in comparison to him, which I know he also likes (which only makes me feel more happy… more sexy). He starts chuckling at one point, and I draw my face back with an inquiring look, glad for our easy silliness just as I had been this morning before setting out on our walk.

"What is it?"

His smirk is so deep and sharp, it pierces right through my belly. "You can't do this in a fancy restaurant, either."

A flush rises to my cheeks, but I still have my wits about to me. "Well, at least in that scenario, they'd be looking at you."

But I've chosen the wrong comeback, if my intention was to win the night… his voice deepens, and I know I'm done for. "Oh, no, my dear… They'd be looking at you."

And he does just that, staring quite intensely into my eyes as though already ravishing me. He places his fingertip on my nose, and I (suddenly on the verge of trembling, and desperately needing another minute of sanity before letting myself crash hard into him, which at this point is inevitable), I catch that slender, bewitching finger in my hand, spreading out all five of them with my own and drinking up the sight of them, turning his perfect hand this way and that, and studying the lovely movement of his wrist, only letting to of it to perform the same ministrations upon the other.

Dizzy from the bewitched-and bewitching-look upon his face, I let my innermost emotions express themselves in the simplest words that can be found with which to express them. "My favorite part of you is your hands," I say. Love is filling his eyes, overfilling them, and I'm feeling playful and confident. I shift my hips underneath him and hook my ankle over his leg, instinctively biting my lip from the intimacy of the question, "What's your favorite part of me?"

"Hmm…" he says, after taking a thrilling look… downward… so that the sound rumbles with a particularly irresistible quality in the innermost caves of my ears. But then, "Your… brain," he finishes smartly, with a challenging look, and a cocked eyebrow.

I can't help but laugh aloud, made euphoric by the cheeky smile that grows on his face at my scandalized expression. "Ben! Shame on you for making me look bad; your hands are OBVIOUSLY second to your brain. Favorite… BODY part." And even as I say it, a slight shiver rolls invisibly through my lower zone, dimming my laughter for the sake of heating up something else.

His own silliness had lasted only so long, too, and now his eyes are warm and dark. He opens his mouth to answer, ever so slowly, and at last says, "I must confess…"

My breathing weakens and heat concentrates in that special place when he again looks down, with real intention this time, taking great and tender care as he starts to unbutton my shirt… I watch, feeling that my face is very warm and bright, gazing at the top of his curly head as he bends down to kiss my sternum, so near his now-evident destination.

I arch my back to shrug off my shirt, and with that same reverence which has slowly cast himself over him, he unclasps my bra. I watch him, enthralled, as he looks at my eyes and then down again, with the most unbearable desire in his gaze, and with his beautiful fingers he slowly lowers the cups to reveal the strong and soft flesh of my breasts. With those lips and those hands I so adore, he holds them tenderly from beneath, and lowers his mouth to each in turn, reverently brushing them ever so tenderly with his breath and his lips, sending a pressing, hot wave of pleasure through my lower back. With his thumb, he strokes the thin scar that cuts diagonally across the skin just above that small right hill of flesh. We don't usually draw attention to my scars in bed. I don't have too many, this one above my breast, two cigarette burns just below my ribs, and…

I find myself trembling, but not from anything that lurks further down that path of unpleasant reminiscence. "Oh, Ben…"

"What is it?" he murmurs warmly, coming up to me to rub the side of my face with his, seeming, for a beat, to think it has to do with the scar, but quickly gathering, through his practically magical attunement to me, that this is the cause, but not the case. Indeed, a thought has just crossed my mind, sparked by his gentle touching… of evidence I wish wasn't there.

"It's selfish," I whisper, my eyes warm but not teary. My small smile doesn't desert me.

His thumbs delicately trace my nipples and my next heartbeat gets caught, for a moment, on the look in his eyes. "Nothing is selfish, here."

I smile, reminded of the simple mantra I'd thought up, with deep happiness and gentleness with myself, when Ben and I had first started having sex: My body is safe; my body is cherished; my body is encouraged to want. I move my hands up to press over his, letting myself be warmed by the pressure of our four hands upon my breasts. I look into his eyes when I admit it, because it would feel wrong to avoid him; to avoid any part of him.

"I wish you were my first."

He looks at me steadily, deep emotion seeping slowly into his eyes… and I can see his age inside of them for the first time in a while. Sweeping his thumbs under my wrists to hold my hands in his, he brushes his lips against one another, and speaks the contents of his own soul, in this moment. "I wish you were mine."

I imagine a young Benedict with an early girlfriend, perhaps a little too reckless, a little too boyish and superficial for his present self's liking. Tears spike in the corners of my eyes; the honor I feel at having been told something like this, overwhelms me. His confession is deeply intimate, and I know that he's just spoken sacred words of trust, directly into my heart; words he has never spoken to any other person.

Never looking away from my eyes, his own seeming golden, now; golden, blue, grey and green at the same time in the candlelight; he pulls me up from the floor and sits back, taking me into his lap as he abandons his endeavor with my breasts, and just holds me tightly, one strong, warm, perfect arm around my naked waist, the other around my naked shoulders. I let myself sink into him, my skin against his softest shirt, my temple against his cheekbone, feeling a bit numbed by my own confession… The more I think about it, though, the closer I get to realizing something I haven't considered before. In a way, Benedict was my first. He was deep inside of me the first time I had an orgasm that wasn't wrought with pain, shame or insecurity. He was the first person I'd ever really been in love with, who understood and respected me, who wanted my pleasure as much as he wanted his own. And in this moment, in his protective arms, that terrible, far too early ripping-away that had come at the hands of my father, doesn't seem to count at all.

I can feel the warmth stirring between our bodies again, but I'm so close to falling down, and the music, which I've only now realized is still playing quietly from the stereo, in my state of being pulled gently out of my memories… though it makes me grin against Ben's shoulder, it's in danger of getting in the way. Acting on the sensation I'd felt just a moment ago, Ben runs a hand through my hair and nearly kisses me again… but I press pause with a finger against his lips. "It could be cute in theory, but are we really going to make love with Benny Goodman playing in the background?"

He smiles, that bright full smile that brings a merry squint to his eyes, and pressing his palm against my forehead, almost as though checking for a fever (which I most certainly have), says "How on EARTH do you recognize this?"

I honestly don't know, but I know for a moment I've beaten him at his own game, so grab onto this kite-tail of playful smugness for all I'm worth. "It's 'If I Had You,' 1941, I think. And you do. Have me. So… may I turn it off? I want to…" I feel my face flush at the very thought of it (surely feverish, now), "I want to be able to… hear your breathing."

He looks at me with ever-deepening love and desire churning like waves in his eyes, but playing like the white foam atop them, keeping those expanding depths from becoming frightening, is an unshakeable amusement. "Don't take offense to this," he smirks, using his devilish good looks and that deep voice to his advantage. "But you should totally take that down and use it in your upcoming best-selling thriller novel."

I let my lips twist into a grimacing smirk, putting my hands on his shoulders. "For the record," I murmur, "I am NEVER writing a horror novel," and then I push myself up from his lap, straightening my legs and lingering over him for a moment, kissing his forehead with a teasing sway of my hips, before I go over to the stereo and turn off the music.

I turn my back to the bookshelf again, looking at him, warmer in the unobstructed quiet, filled only by the two of us. By a slight playing of the air in the room across my chest, I am reminded that I have no shirt. It and my bra are laying on the floor an arm's length from where my gorgeous Benedict kneels, waiting for me. But I feel not a single shadow of an instinct to cover myself before him.

Looking at him and his body, kneeling so comfortably in his clothes on the rug, I'm made and warm and tremulous at the thought of what is to come. Though our encounter in the kitchen this morning had been truly satisfying, I deeply want that unmatchable feeling of him completing his pleasure inside of me. I envision the protection in the drawer of his bedside table, looking at him with a smile that I know tells him just what I'm thinking.

"I'll get it," I say, starting to step past him.

But he stops me with a slow, gentle hand, which wraps around my ankle, and looks up at me with those eyes, shining and full of desire in the light of the many, many candles. His hand strokes up and down my calf, and then leaves it to take my hand, as his face twists slowly into a slightly deviant expression that makes my heart thud. "Holly, my beauty…" he says, that voice swirling around me and turning me to putty already… "Be so good as to put your hand in my pocket. Your left."

Watching his eyes all the while, I lean down and do as he's requested, to find… I can't help but smile and blush when the flesh of my fingertip comes in contact with the edge of a condom wrapper. Appreciation of his foresight and of his sheer sexiness fills up my face to the point at which it's impossible to conceal… not that I want to.

"Thank goodness," he breathes, as I take the condom from his pocket and let my smile widen. "I worried you'd think it too expectant."

I bite down on my lip, all at once very aware of my body, of my breasts, especially, heavy and warm as I lean over him, yet cool and needy for his touch. "No, it's…" I say, with a slight warm shiver, and a deeply contented smirk. "You're… enterprising."

He kisses me, unable to keep the smile off his face even as his lips grace my own, mumbling, "Shut up, you," in that half-lazy tone I can't get enough of.

Already sighing from the feeling of his lips, his breath, his body just here before me, ready to take my own, I stroke my open lips against his ear and whisper. "Make me."

He obliges wondrously, dragging me down onto the floor, down to him, with an impressive strength and grace that makes my eyes widen to the size of the moon. There's not a single desire between us to go slowly. We've been 'going' (with our eyes), throughout the entirety of our quiet dinner. He pulls my pants down to my ankles and I kick them off to the side as I pull off his shirt, passionately covering his chest with my hands and my mouth. He unbuttons his pants, leaving it to me to eagerly but considerately free him. His beautiful fingers unwrap the condom and pull it over himself and, watching him watching me, I indulge in gently, slowly rolling my own nipples between my fingers for his satisfaction, letting my legs fall open as I stroke the outsides of his calves with the arches of my feet. His hands liberated from their primary task, he reaches for my legs and pulls my knees up as he sinks towards me, giving himself over to my hands, my mouth, my…

"Ben!"

I can't help myself, my every action is driven by the amazing feeling of surrounding him. My breath stutters and loses its way for a moment, but then returns to me with a moan that sends chills down my own spine. Ben groans, deep and long, his mouth collapsing upon my own as he rolls his hips, driving his heat into my center with heavenly precision, coupled with a brilliant, devastating, perfect, human messiness. His hands are perfect; his hands are everywhere, and our mouths are open wide.

My desire is so, so much… TOO much… that my tongue starts to pillow in my mouth as I gasp for breath. Ben knows what this means, what I want, before I do. Before I've even registered the hot blush rising onto my cheeks at my own confusion at this new addition to my body's vocabulary. Not stopping or slowing once in his perfect, varied thrusts, his hand strokes my breast, and then rises to my face, where two fingertips brush against my bottom lip, and half-tentatively slide into my mouth.

Ben's gesture had been out of curiosity, but at the first touch of his fingers to my tongue, I know this is precisely what I wanted… what I NEED. I draw those two fingers in, gently sucking their knuckles against the roof of my mouth and rubbing my tongue against the firm but quickly softening pads of their undersides.

Ben gazes down at me with glazed eyes, slowing and momentarily ceasing in his movements, held in rapture by the small focus of my tongue upon his digits. Offering a belated, helpless sigh after he's managed to process what I'm doing, his own mouth falls open in desire. "Jesus, Holly…" I can see the breaking point on the horizon of his eyes and focus on administering the natural, instinctive ministrations of my tongue to his lovely, lovely fingers. The act slows my breathing so that I can bring more slow power to the rotation of my hips…

I feel more in control of my body and its diverse and quickly shifting pleasures than I ever have before, and before long I've turned him over with a prompting nudge, and find myself grinding deep and slow against the base of his deliciously twitching desire, still holding those holy fingers tightly, but not too tightly, in the warm, tight cave of my mouth, to his increasingly-vocal pleasure…

After we've both finished I look down at him, still breathless, and remark, in a shivering whisper, "That didn't stay virginal for very long…" We share a laugh that first shakes, and then resonates when he pulls me down against his warm, surging chest, humming as he chuckles.

I can feel him, still hard in the soft hollow of flesh just to the inner side of my hip bone. And remembering the heavenly, powerful and controlled feeling I'd had with his fingers in my mouth, I easily and fully understand that I want to perform those strange instinctive ministrations… upon another part of him. I've given him oral pleasure before, but I've never felt comfortable with the act, and have persisted only in the name of hope; hope that I might be able to erase that particular part of my trauma from my body's memory, and never succeeding. But this time, my approach is fundamentally different. I truly, almost instinctively, want to give this to him, and I feel that it would be right.

My mouth has fallen slightly open again, and Ben is breathing slowly against my lips, looking at me. I can feel my own eyes fill with meaning, and I sneak one hand down between my legs, still watching his eyes as I touch him and he slowly realizes what I'm proposing.

"Do you want that?" I whisper.

His breath catches and I can see his eyes grow momentarily dark. "Only if you're sure."

"I am." Ben's consideration will never fail to make me happy. He's well aware that giving oral sex often triggers me, and he often resists me when I suggest it. But this time, I know, is different. I have no fear of the trend. In the magical, candle-lit here and now, it is null and void. Furthermore, I can feel from Ben's eyes, and from the singularly rising warmth of his body beneath mine, that he also feels the difference of this time from the rest. I can feel his sense of stability not-so-slowly evolving into desire.

Assuring him with a short press of my fingertips to his gorgeous lips, I kiss my way down his torso and do away with his condom. I kneel between his legs and look up at him, already in that perfect place between relaxation and tension, his eyes swimming with that unmatchable color in the warm, fluttering candlelight. And then I bring myself down to him…

I know how to do it just right from years of my father's abuse. But whereas that oozing shell of a man had been stiff and full with sickness, my perfect Ben is hard and full with love.

I hold both his heavenly hands in mine while I do it. I am so aware of my mouth, as an intimate and precise part of myself… the pleasure he takes in the feeling of it is such as he has not revealed it to be before, for fear of making me feel obligated to do it more often… and this evidence of the freedom that my own freedom has given him brings a warm, pulsing joy to my heart. With this evidence of his body's power bedded deeply in that of mine, I am filled with confidence and happiness. Through this focus, the world has opened up. Though my eyes are closed I can feel the warmth and brightness of the sun upon them. Colors spin inside my head, led by Ben's gentle moans; the gentle tensing of his hands around mine.

Soon he dissolves into them completely, filling the warm bubble of the space enveloping our bodies with the sounds of his soft moans and winces. He's so consumed that he barely manages to murmur in warning when he's about to come. I squeeze his hand tightly to tell him it's alright; that I want to taste him… and with this nonverbel message and a tightening of the tip of my tongue, he's absolutely undone.

When I drink him down, there's nothing unsettling about it. No awkwardness, no bad memories… I just feel glad, as though this has been yet another way of bringing him close, close into my soul.

He comes to me quickly to make sure I'm alright, the pleasure in his eyes threatening to wane at the smallest sign of inner agony. But I can only smile at him, purely and honestly. Proudly. And now the look on his face is full of relief and gladness. This is the first time I have succeeded in this; not for his sake, but to the benefit of us both. Groaning deeply, and slightly trembling, he kisses me, and I give him his own taste. He holds my back, tracing his fingers shiveringly down the very middle, down the long, shallow valley of my arched spine… and then he lowers his lovely head to kiss and trace his tongue along my collarbones… and now he is slowly, slowly pushing me back, bringing a divine anticipation of warmth and relief to my body as he, too, goes down, down, to give back to me what he has just received…

---

Ben has me go into the bedroom and relax while he cleans everything up and snuffs out the candles. I replace my shirt but don't bother with my bra or pants, cleaning myself up, brushing my teeth, closing the left-open window and cracking open a book in bed. Ben ends up snuffing out all the candles but for two, which he brings in their holders into the room a few minutes later, setting them both on the bedside table.

Laying on my front as I am, I have to crane my neck to look upon him, and I to half-twist around when he bends down to kiss me… and with the touch of those lips, immediately, I want him again. Holding his shoulders I turn onto my back, inviting him between my legs with a subtle, blushing, "Again?"

I don't have to ask him twice. He grabs me and turns me over (something inside of me loves this, submitting to his will) and I gasp in happiness as he drags me ever so slowly to the edge of the bed, guiding my ankles, my hips bent over it… The feeling of the covers tracing my naked skin causes tingles of anticipation to dart all over me. I see just what he has in mind and it is deliciously hot… I want it badly, and I can have it without batting an eye.

This, it turns out, I am not too short for. The connection between our bodies is explosive. Ben can use both hands to explore my body, while I am the one to hold us both up, leveraging my forearms against the mattress, my shoulders rolling in ecstasy as his open mouth strokes their skin…

We keep going all night. We just seem to not want to stop, always satisfied but never full. This is a singularly sweet effort and aching. I am so happy with his strong, warm body surrounding me. This is more than just sex. More than making love, even. This is totally knowing someone and their body, and almost becoming them, taking part of them and giving away part of yourself; the most powerful of exchanges. I know, for he has told me before, that Ben is swaddled in the innermost part of me, where his consciousness operates in a slow, thoughtless yet enlightened way that is not achievable anywhere else. I feel the deepest happiness in knowing that he, too, is not only soulfully connected to our act, but is also physically pleased to the point of disbelief and disorientation. His shivering, the sounds he makes, make me blush and speed up with pride.

We don't stop until my walls flutter gently around him without ceasing, and both of us are hot and worn to threads. Hearing my weakening moans, he persists, to help me finish one more time… but I stop him, too exhausted to carry through, and already more than relieved and pleased by the feeling of him, and the softened feeling of my own body. My body, worn and content as Ben spoons me in the heat of our bed. Joining my breathing with his, I share this special, beautiful, language-depriving exhaustion with him until I slip into a warm and tingling sleep.

---

BENEDICT

I wake in the morning to find Holly still completely wiped out from last night. After a few days of joining her late in the kitchen, I have to admit to myself that it's lovely to see her asleep. Her beautiful, capable body resting tenderly alongside mine. My own body is deeply satisfied… I know that the years I have until I may not be as apt to take on a night such as the one we've just passed without getting achy are… Well, let's just say I have less confidence in their number than I did when I was in my twenties. But in this moment, the morning light filtering through the curtains of the window across the room and falling warmly upon my body and enchantingly across Holly's arm, I don't feel poorly about that notion, the notion of time, whatsoever. After being so deeply and considerately physical with the one I love most in the world, it's impossible to find fault with my age when placed next to hers. Over the past week it's often proved a sensitive spot, especially so with the new talk in the press and since Holly had broached the subject after waking from her bad nightmare. But in the clear-headedness of the morning, the knowledge that my body is able to satisfy Holly's erases all of that; brings me back to myself; to the self I am when I am alone, and when I am with her. In fact, I feel quite youthful this morning.

Besides… something important happened last night. The sex had been groundbreaking, yes, but before any of that had started lays the singularity which had fueled it: my confession to Holly Whitaker that she is the love of my life. I had been thinking about it closely for quite a while before last night. The subject of our disagreement over children being at last out in the open between us has been difficult. But despite the quiet inner debates I've entertained with myself, the result has always paled in comparison to the unassailable fact that Holly will always come first. I know myself and that she is a part of my soul, and that I am a part of hers. There is no sense of entrapment, which I know she fears there is, when I think about giving up a family for her. I had known that I needed to make her aware of that… and those special, perfectly true words had been the natural way for my feelings to express themselves. And the feeling in my heart when she had reciprocated the message is unmatchable.

Slowly, I stand up from the bed. Our bodies have shifted slightly away from each other over the course of the night, so I am able to do so without disturbing her sleep. Standing aside the bed, I stretch and look down at my unmatchable beloved. She is very small, had always been of a fragile build and suffered malnourishment through all the years of her childhood, to boot… the greatest joy in my heart comes from giving her a full meal, sharing equal, fulfilling love with her, and then sleeping in a warm bed by her side… doing my small part to vanquish the terrible memories of sleeping in the street, or on the cold floors of homeless shelters throughout the years when her disgusting excuse for a father couldn't manage to keep an apartment for his drinking. When I met her, she was the person to center me in the world and in myself, during a time where I'd become disillusioned with myself and my life choices by the effects of sudden fame. Then, she had just been coming into herself; the self she had known to be existing somewhere quiet and kept safe inside her through those years when it was not yet safe for her to allow it into the world. And seeing her realize slowly that the world she lives in now is safe enough to foster that self, and then seeing her slowly let it out in my presence, has been one of the best experiences in my life. When I look into her face, it is not only its beauty I see and wonder at, but her entire soul, her struggles, her persistence, her joys, her pains and her hard-won love for and faith in herself. And seeing her face and knowing so much of what lays behind it, I am reminded of myself, my own soul, and my own purposes on this earth. One of which is to foster and love her as best as I am capable. Holly: my heart; my wonder; my warrior; my queen.

Tearing myself away from thoughts of her, I get clothes from the closet and then go to the bathroom to quickly wash and dress for the day. It's just after I've slipped my shirt over my head that I hear a soft, moaned hum from the bed, and return to her. I sit down on the edge of the bed beside her, watching as her arm drags itself gracefully across the blanket to cover her forehead, led by that half-asleep consciousness that comes only in the morning, and which can be precious to witness in a loved one. Her beautiful, resilient body is tangled in sheets. I pull up the top hem to cover her chest and then gently mold my palm to her cheek.

"Good morning, my love."

She sighs, and her arm flops to the bed again, the spell of sleep broken, though she still hasn't opened her eyes, pushing her temple into the pillow with a slight furrowing of her eyebrows. I can sense already that she might be slightly overwhelmed sensorially. Last night was heavenly but exhausting, and as it is she can barely open her eyes.

Again she sighs, lifting her arm and putting her hand out, letting it blindly find my knee. "I could sleep for a week," she murmurs.

"Can I do anything for you, darling?"

Her eyes open with an inadvertent flutter. Inside them, I see nothing awry; just tiredness, and happiness… something new. I can tell it's one of the days when she might not be able to get herself out of bed, but there's nothing trauma-related about that condition this time, and I have no reason to feel at fault. I only feel peaceful and quiet with her, and like I would enjoy laying without doing anything with her, though I know I'm in need, in these last couple of days before filming starts for The Child in Time, of getting out into the city and providing myself with a sense of activity.

Holly reads all of this as quickly as I'd read her desire to have a lengthy lie-in. Her arms again shifting gently against the fabric of the sheet, she takes my hand in both of hers and says "Go," in a way that makes me at peace with her feelings. I know at the same moment that I will leave her, probably to go on a walk on my own. I have learned to trust her and to trust myself on these kinds of days.

My right hand joins our other three and I squeeze hers tightly, then kissing her knuckles, which makes her smile, her face gentle and warm with rest. "I'll make you tea. And then I'll go."

She pulls me closer, to plant a row of her sweetest, weary kisses along my neck. "Oh, I adore you," she sighs, as though already falling back into a dream. And then her eyes close again and she smiles, letting her head relax into her pillow, her hands gentle and dry between my own. I squeeze them again, and then press them into a gentle cove in the swirled fabric of the blankets. Only after I've stroked her cheek and her hair, and placed my lips on her forehead, do I stand up and leave for the kitchen to put the kettle on.

Leaning against the counter and watching the steam starting to rise, I'm tempted to crawl back into bed and stay with Holly. Yet I know she was right to encourage me in my first instinct to go out.

I'm just pouring her a cup when my phone buzzes in my pocket.

'Coffee?'

Tom, as usual, has perfect timing.

---

I enter quietly into the secluded coffee shop where Tom has been waiting, and spot him after a brief glance around: sitting at a corner table in a beam of dusty light, massaging his temple with the tips of his tortoiseshell glasses. On the table in front of him, closed, sits the latest translation of War and Peace.

"You need a new favorite book," I say, my voice appropriately low. He glances up, setting down his glasses and giving me a burning glance that compels me to put my hands up as I sit down across from him.

When we saw each other two days ago, Tom seemed powerful and energetic after a morning rehearsal of Hamlet. But today, after evidently just waking up from insufficient sleep an hour or so ago, he appears diminished. Rather than respond wittily, he moves his hand tiredly, trying to indicate something that is unclear even to me; and I worry for my friend.

"You're looking thin," I say, once settled in the chair in the corner. The shop is small and has few other patrons even at this hour, and I am set at ease enough to give my full attention to Tom's condition. None of what I sense now had come across through our brief texts earlier, but in person his usual bright spirit seems overcast with a weariness entirely foreign to his usual nature. Upon hearing my gentle observation, he looks up, his eyes apologetic; and I have to amend it. "Not that I'm much better, myself."

As startling as it initially is, I realize after a moment that I recognize this look. Tom must be having trouble with Hamlet; and he's completely justified in it if this is, indeed, the case. The role is already a heavy one to carry, and Tom takes on his character's emotional states very deeply, without doing so intentionally.

"So… Is a certain prince dragging you down?"

Tom smiles, appreciating my understanding, either letting it show on his face or incapable of preventing it from doing so (I've always suspected the latter of being the case). "I'll survive," he says, his voice tired. He glances at me, rubbing his chin, a careworn look deeply embedded in his eyes. "But, honestly, I would rather not speak of it right now. Tell me how you're feeling about Patrick Melrose."

I beyond respect Tom's wishes, and have no trouble speaking of my own work rather than forcing Tom into the spotlight, which he certainly deserves to avoid at the moment. Tom and Holly are the two most insightful people I know, and besides wanting him to feel relaxed, right now I know I need help from Tom, from a person who isn't directly in the heat of what Holly and I have been struggling through. Tom's suggestion has made me realize in my heart how deeply that room in which my creativity sometimes seems stuffed in the weeks before filming requires ventilation. I have been preparing… waiting… since Christmas, after all. And Tom is supportive, looking at me with his gentle, open face, and attentive eyes.

"To be honest, I'm quite nervous about it," I admit. "I think I'll be able to do it right, when the moment arrives, but for the moment… I have to confess that I haven't been obsessively looking over the script, as usual. It's hard because Holly is… written all over it. Not to mention…"

By the look Tom gives me, I know he understands that I'm speaking, also, of The Child in Time. And that he understands what I mean by my mention of Holly. The Child in Time is about the loss of a child, and in Patrick Melrose the titular character's main inner conflict springs from childhood sexual trauma. In all honesty I've been feeling more conflicted about taking on both of these roles than I have ever been about any other role… except for, perhaps, Hamlet. For obvious reasons I haven't particularly wanted to talk about it with Holly, and Tom understands, looking at me patiently, listening without interjecting any words of his own yet; and giving me the time to think quietly to myself.

The thought of Holly brings back my anxiety about soon being away from her. Technically, she could come to see me on a weekend, here and there, over the coming two months. But I refuse to make such a request of her. She is going to be just as busy if not more than I am, and there would be so little time that seeing each other only to leave each other again, just as painfully, after a single day, would only perpetuate the difficulty of our separations. Besides, my scheduling is so tight as to prevent even a day-long visit between Sussex and Glasgow, and she would only be stuck in a hotel room waiting for me to return from long days of filming… I don't even want to imagine the guilt that would follow from such a situation.

We've had such periods of apartness before, of course, and have survived them. But our relationship has deepened so much in emotion within the past month, that it makes our first two years look like glorified summer flings with intermittent hookups. And honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do without being around her. Not only being in her presence, but being incapable of providing her with mine, in return, makes me question how my basic emotional functions will change.

"Tom…" I find myself saying, after a moment. He looks more intently at me, making himself receptive to whatever it is I might say. I haven't thought about this before, but now that I find myself thinking about it, it seems perfectly logical. It would at least provide me with a slight bit of comfort, and possibly alleviate part of the helplessness that I imagine myself feeling in the near future, kept far apart from Holly. "Tom, could I ask a favor of you?"

"Anything at all, Ben."

"Would you… would you keep an eye on her while I'm gone? Just with the things I won't be able to tell through the phone. Like, whether she's losing weight, or something."

Tom leans forward. "Ben, of course I will. To the absolute best of my ability."

Of course he agreed. I know that Tom has never once refused to do something for me when I've requested it. And over the years I've become careful of what I ask for. But this time, there's no sense in my heart that I've taken advantage of my friend's readiness to support and please. In fact, Tom seems to be enlivened by the opportunity to focus his empathy on someone whose presence is not physically immediate to him, at the moment. I can see his thoughts already moving forward at a deliberate walk, his eyebrows furrowing as his hand moves to his face and chin again, one of his most familiar signs of deep thought and consideration.

"Has Holly…" he says, after a moment, his eyes again more similar to how they'd looked when I'd first entered the shop, slightly weary and worried. "Has Holly… said anything to you, about me?"

I'm sure he's pondering why he and Holly haven't been communicating recently. "Well… like what?"

His face flushes slightly and he shakes his head at himself. "I'm sorry, I feel terribly immature going through you, but I'm afraid to…"

"I perfectly understand," I say, just now recalling how, "she actually did ask me something similar yesterday…" and remembering one of many passing, then-forgotten thoughts I'd had after picking Holly up from the train station on that one night… "Tom, I was wondering… did the two of you have an argument on the morning she left?"

His face falls and then picks itself up again, though his eyebrows remain furrowed. I wonder if something had, indeed, happened between them. But then I remember it's really none of my business, and I probably shouldn't have asked the question in the first place. I know Tom and Holly are good friends, themselves, and seeing as Tom had such a connection to her during those two weeks when I was gone after the miscarriage, I don't believe I have the right to infringe upon their friendship. But it's too late to take the question back, and I suppose receiving an answer might be useful. After all, not counting our meeting two days ago, Tom and I have been very distant as of late. I focus on his face.

He frowns and shakes his head, using his hands to try to express something to me as his mind struggles to choose one of infinite ways to speak his complex thoughts aloud. "No. Well, not exactly. You see, I was a bit obsessive with keeping her safe while you were gone, especially after… What happened in the bathtub. But I…" (he resitutates his hands, pressing them against the wooden table and looking down at them, his voice growing softer…) "You see, I…"

He stares at the table, stares into space and then looks back at me with a startling, pleading expression in his eyes… as though imploring me to read his mind. The only way I can explain the expression on his face is with the total exhaustion he is surely feeling; emotionally, physically and mentally. I know it's a taboo between us, and between most actors I've met over the years, but seeing as Tom is my best friend I know I have to say it. "Tom, are you sure you don't need to take a break? Take a day off? I'm sure Ken would understand."

Tom smiles bashfully. "Oh, yes Kenneth is very understanding. Always good to have a director who's played the titular character himself…" he trails off, seeming to realize the extent of his own tiredness and admit it to himself for the first time in the course of our conversation. His words, though not his tone, had erred on the side of sarcasm. "But no, I'll be alright."

"Are you sure?" I've honestly never seen him quite like this before. He's become tired out by other intense roles, but never in such a way as he appears to be, now.

Typically, he says, "Of course. Honestly, I'm just poorly rested."

But he's truly a mess, covering his face with his hands, now shaking his head, seeming unable to sit still. As it had when I'd first spotted him at the table, his appearance strikes a quiet chord of worry in my chest. "Tom, did you sleep last night?"

"Very little," he confesses, grimacing more than smiling, in failed humor. "I'm regressing to my University days."

I consider that, given Tom's clearly weighty commitment to Branagh's Hamlet, it might not be considerate of me to leave my request from before unamended. After all, I see now that the last time Tom had put himself in the position of Holly's guardian angel in my absence, things didn't go very well for him, or for Holly. I've been able to gather from his reactions that they likely did have an argument about something or other… I won't pry into it, but I do recognize my opportunity to keep something negative from happening between them a second time, and to help recover and preserve my friend's peace of mind.

"You know, Tom, if you want to go back on your agreement to keep an eye on her, you can. I see now that that might not be the best idea."

He thinks to himself for a moment before responding. "No, Ben, I'll really be alright…" He takes a breath and I can tell he's not just doing it for his honor, or because he's too humble to go back on his agreement. His eyes are honest and clear, though still tired and laced with a bit of something else that I can't quite place… likely a remnant of his Hamlet. "I need to make a proper apology to her. Do you… Do you think she could forgive me?"

He's looking at me insistently, and I realize in the moment after he's spoken that his words had become caught in his throat. For the first time, I am at an utter loss. I can't read him. What exactly went on between them? But it's not my concern; Holly would have told me if something upsetting had happened; and besides, this is my best friend, and the best man I know. Certainly, he would have done the same.

"She has a way of sometimes forgiving too much. But, Tom, I know that whatever it is you think you did… she'll be forgiving you for it within reason."

He looks back at me. His eye flinches and he nods, but doesn't speak, stumped for a response… time to change the subject.

We order coffee, talk about what we've been reading, and allow ourselves to dissolve into our usual mutual understanding of each other, letting go a little bit. I'm reassured by the knowledge that Tom will take the first step in helping himself and Holly back into their former friendship, and more so that he will be here to help her while I'm gone… And soon his anxiety-ridden questioning from earlier fades into the fog of time-grown unimportance.

---

I arrive home at noon to a contentedly quiet apartment. Holly is probably still dozing in bed, and I know she would want me to wake her up. Rather than go into the bedroom and wake her physically, I opt for a method that might prove more gentle. I don't know whether her calmness has shifted over the two hours I've been gone, and she may appreciate a more subtle wake-up call. Rolling my neck, I go in my stocking feet into the main sitting room and select a Beatles CD from the bookshelf, sliding it with a satisfactory hiss into the stereo and skipping to track five.

"I Want To Hold Your Hand" starts playing and I turn it up a bit, just loud enough for my dear to distantly hear it through the delicate shroud of her sleep. I listen for a moment and then stand next to the window, looking down at the street, which is starting to bustle with cars, pedestrians and birds. It's a wonder how all the seemingly worn-out things (the song, the view) don't feel worn-out when you're in love.

A minute later, the subject of that precious word as it pertains to the deepest coves of my heart appears in the doorway, having put on a long t-shirt over her body, still soft and warm and gently smiling from sleep. She comes to me, holds both of my hands and stands on her tiptoes to kiss the side of my neck, and my ear. I wrap my arms around her waist and can't help but sigh when her small hands press warmly into my back as we embrace and sway.

Fittingly, "And I Love Her" comes on next. I sing it a bit to her in a quiet mumble, feeling her smile-firmed cheek pressing warmly, like a drop of heaven, against my chest. I, too, smile, at the raw romance of the moment, naturally stirred up between us, and perfect without effort. I can feel her heartbeat… her stockinged foot strokes mine… our souls are one. We could be in any place, in any time, and we would be just the same as we are, here and now.

We are quiet and lovely together… and remain so even when the stillness of the room is stirred up by the sudden start of "Paperback Writer." Holly stiffens gently with laughter and I look down at her uplifted face. It's her song. And this is the first time in a while that I have seen her actually, fully grin at the mention of writing. And by that smile, I am assured that everything will be alright.

---

The London-based segment of filming for The Child in Time begins four days before Holly is to leave for New York, to visit Alex and her Aunt, and to collect some of her belongings to bring back. I am out of the apartment working for a few hours every day, but it is a rare privilege for me to be able to come home to Holly, especially when I know that I will be able to come home to her even after my filming has finished and I've come back to London, where she, too will be… especially when the filming itself is so emotionally distressing. In the past, I've never worked on such a project while Holly has also been staying with me, but for Hamlet at the National Theatre which was in the very beginning when we had not yet become so desperately in need of each other's company.

Each of our savored evenings together are punctuated by my many quiet moments. My head aches every night from the effort of filming, even though the filming. Though the schedule itself is not so demanding as those of other films I've worked on, the scenes are deeply taxing of my emotions, and are quite personal to me, and to Holly. But she gives me endless patience, taking my hands and my head and sharing my quiet without asking anything of me, giving me her presence in these final days before our separation.

I'm on set, on the day of our penultimate night, when I become anxious that I must still not be doing enough to help Holly after everything that has happened. On arriving home I admit this worry to her, but she only shakes her head, hugging me close. "You're projecting my darling. You have been nothing but wonderful to me. I only hope I've given you enough in return."

After eating a small dinner to comply with our dampened appetites, we sit down to watch a movie, a simple activity that we both enjoy and yet haven't indulged in, in a while. I rub her shoulders and neck where they ache from the violin, which she has, true to her word, persisted in practicing, and then rub her hands, focusing on her wrists and then each knuckle and fingertip, calmed by the weight of her head upon my shoulder as I do so. Then she bids me lay down with my head on a pillow in her lap, so that she might return the favor, attempting to ward off my headache. Ever so gently she rubs my head with her fingertips, and then my ears. Her touch soothes me beyond explanation, and soon I find myself slipping into sleep, without yawn or thought, letting myself fade away, glancing at the sight of her bent knee before my eyelids finally, heavily close.

---

The next night, our last night, we fill by making the gentlest love, one more time before we must leave each other.

In the warm, soft darkness, I touch her through her pants, savoring her slow nods, holding their shadowy image and sensation in my every breath.

A minute later, on top of her, I feel as though I might burst into tears. She holds me warmly and tightly, in her center and in her arms. She is so good… She is so emotional, so warm and slow and tight. And I am nothing but enveloped by her soft panting moans, testament to a throbbing of her own. I can feel it through her, also like breath.

A single tear rolls from the corner of her eye and down, across her temple, to darken the pillowcase. I kiss its softly shining track.

We prolong it as much as possible. And when, at the end, she dissolves into a weakly coughing orgasm, I hold every perfect part of her, keeping her warm, making her a nest in my heart.

---

And then she leaves for New York. I am to stay in London for a further two days of filming before leaving for Surrey. And she will return to the flat on the same day. All told, we will miss each other by just a few hours.

She allows me to carry her mostly empty suitcase down into the little shared mudroom at the bottom of the stairs, and there we stand by the grey frosted windows and the front door, beyond which her cab is waiting to take her alone to the airport.

I breathe against her hair. "Parting is… just sorrow."

"Don't say goodbye."

"I love you so much."

"I'll be here when you get back," she says.

We share a long and silent hug. And once it's done, our bodies not to touch again for the next two months, we hold our silence; our oneness too precious to break with words.

So she takes her suitcase in one hand and with the other presses her two fingertips to her lips.

Watching her, her hair, her eyes, her very soul… I echo the gesture.

And Holly is the one to be powerful enough to smile a crinkling smile at me, turn around, and step out through the grey door.

---

NOTE:

Well… so much for not posting 30,000 word chapters (cough-cough).

I realized too late (as usual) that the Child in Time was released in late September, but it was actually filmed in April of 2017. Thus this time frame for filming is not accurate, but so it goes. If you've seen the movie or read the book, you'll probably pick up on a few parallels between the story and the emotional situation of our characters. In brief, the story is about a children's book writer whose young daughter is kidnapped at the grocery store, and his and his wife's mental and emotional reactions to this tragedy. If you haven't seen or read it, I highly recommend both the film and the book (Ian McEwan is a masterful writer).

Next up: Holly in NYC.

19 September 2021

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