NOTE:
Finally a somewhat shorter chapter. I think we all needed a bit of a breather after these last few 30,000 word behemoths! Still plenty of drama packed in, though…
Enter, Holly's mother.
Chapter 27: What Kind of Mother
HOLLY
'Safely landed. No alien interceptions.'
'We got the wrong plane.'
New York is awash in grey under a freak August thunderstorm. I watch the rain and the buildings through the taxi window, muggy and warm in my clothes, my breath against the glass. This is New York. I know my way around, but I don't think I'll be terribly sad to leave.
The last thing I did before leaving, when getting my suitcase from the closet, was to sneak a note into the inner pocket of Ben's, for him to find later when he unpacks either in Glasgow or in France. 'My most dear Benedict, / I love you forever, I miss you to the moon and back. / Your Holly.'
It's those words that give me strength under the downpour as I get out of the cab and stand in the middle of the sidewalk on the busy street below my aunt's apartment building. The city feels foreign, down to the very air and rain, after being away for the whole summer; a summer which has changed me more than any other summer of my life. I feel like an alien standing here, and as I look up at the many windows in the face of the dark brick building I feel almost how I felt when I was seventeen, just off the train from New Jersey, desperate and without any clue whether my estranged aunt would offer me a place to sleep, at least for a few nights…
Though it feels like I stand there procrastinating forever, my clothes are only slightly damp and speckled from the rain once I get in the door. I carry my empty suitcase up the many flights of stairs, slowly remembering the dinginess, the mustiness of this place. And on the fourth floor I stand on the creaky landing before the door of the tiny apartment where I have lived with my aunt since running away, excepting the time I spent in the dorm at Columbia. Ben has been maintaining the rent while my aunt is in rehab (which… of course… he's also paying for). Just because we never talk about it doesn't mean I don't silently thank him for it every day, as I thank him for so many things. The money doesn't even amount to a drop in the well for him, and it's not like he's throwing the money away at all. I remember how hard I'd had to work, how stressed and ill I'd been, waitressing under nightmarish managers for a year and a half before obtaining the money to take the academic tests I needed in order to get into Columbia. But what would have made me feel bad about Ben's money before, what could have had the power to provoke an argument (the only thing we ever really argued about at all) seems trivial now.
A muffled burst of laughter from a television show in a nearby apartment brings me back to my senses. I shiver from the dampness of my clothes, steel myself and step forward to unlock the door.
I go through the kitchen, dusty but not messy, and stand for a moment in the little doorway to the dark, cramped sitting room. In that darkness is the slightly lustrous dome of the old television by way of which Ben had once surprised me with his performance of Richard the Third on The Hollow Crown. I peer into the bathroom and into my aunt's abandoned bedroom, and then put my suitcase down in the little bedroom where I once slept (or tried to sleep, at least) each night. These walls, like New York, are familiar but no longer comforting to me. This is the wallpaper which has borne witness to the terrible traumatic breakdowns I'd suffered in silence in my first months here. This is the bed in which I so often tossed and turned, or else cowered and held my breath, always expecting my father to have tracked me down, for him to burst through the door with a gun.
I shove open the stubborn window to give the memories a chance to ventilate themselves, along with an at least partly imagined odor in the stagnant air… and sit down on the squeaky bed, looking around and trying to focus on what I traveled here to do. There's just the dresser with its six drawers, and a cardboard box with cut off flaps holding some folded sweaters, each of them showing, like the spines of books. I realize just how few things I actually own, and that I'll probably only have to check this single suitcase again on my flight back to London… and for a moment, in the darkness of the room, not even a hint of light from the rain-darkened window, a tide of depression trickles up to meet the boundaries of my body, and I wonder whether this trip was pointless, whether I've thrown away the opportunity to remain with Ben for two precious more days…
The more I let my thoughts go, the more I know that I'm surely just feeling trapped in this particular space. I need to give myself a moment to breathe, to truly stretch my legs after seven sleepless, lonely hours in the air.
Just as I'm wondering where I would go were I to leave the apartment, Alex texts me.
'Hey, have you landed yet?'
'Yup, just got to the apt.'
'Want help with anything? I'd love to see you. But maybe tomorrow, if you're tired?'
'I can manage today! But my room is giving me the creeps. Want to meet at the park?'
'Probably not in the rain, how about my apt? Roommates are out so you won't get bombarded.'
'That sounds good.'
And it really, really does. Alex tells me to come over whenever I want and I agree to get there within the quarter hour, relieved to have an excuse to get up from the bed and get out of the apartment, even though I'm not necessarily feeling better yet. I think, before I leave, that I should give the apartment a full cleaning before going back to London. It would set my heart at ease.
Alex's apartment building is impressive. I know she has multiple roommates, but can tell just from the elevator that the space they share is likely ample and nice. I feel happy for my friend, excited to see her, and more like myself even after the short walk, after letting myself see something cleansing and fresh in the rain despite its sourness, and something human and peaceful in the people, despite their general frowning coldness.
After the short elevator ride I step out, walk (slightly dizzy) down the roomy hall, and knock on the white door.
Alex opens it as though she'd been waiting right there behind it… which she may, indeed, have been. I only get a flash of her face (her jaw dropped open) before she hugs me tightly, and then pulls back, shocked in her speech. "Holly! Holly, you're really thin, have you been okay!"
I can tell from the shifting look in her eyes as she tightly holds my shoulders that she knows it was a sudden remark, a stupid question… but what else was she supposed to say?
I smile at her and don't even have to 'manage' it, simply glad to see her, appreciating her specific brand of happy human awkwardness which I didn't even realize I was missing over these past two months. "I'm getting better."
Alex ushers me into the apartment. It's not gigantic but, as I guessed, has ample space for five roommates to live comfortably; or at least without constantly stepping on one another's toes. The kitchen is more than five steps from the door, which I count as evidence of this, and we are taking them in the very next moment. "I'm making you eat. I know you didn't eat or sleep on the plane."
Of course she's right. I realize I haven't said anything at all since arriving at the door. "You're right," I say.
I sit down at a little wooden table in the least creaky of the three chairs, while Alex, comfortably talkative as usual, whips up a whole meal in a frying pan, chicken and rice and bell peppers and red onions… it tastes delicious and I instantly feel better having something in my stomach.
"You've picked up a knack for cooking," I compliment. Alex had always been the take-out and snacking type before moving into an apartment off-campus, and I can tell that she's proud of her new skill.
It's relievingly easy to slip into the old comforts and habits of talking with Alex. Before I know it, we're catching up in more depth than we had a chance to over the phone a few days ago. She tells me about her latest boyfriend and the classes she's taking for her Psychology course this year. I tell her, in turn, about the classes I've been looking into at UCL, and how excited I am to be able to go to school in London, not only because I'll be near Ben, but because I'll be able to experience the city on a level I haven't been able to when only staying during the summers (the latest of which doesn't seem to count for how averse I became to leaving the apartment).
Alex's face grows gentle and sincere when I mention this… and then, with slightly less ease but with just as much honesty and care, we talk about the miscarriage and how I've been coping with the press; difficult subjects which Alex leads me through like the best therapist in the world (that is, without giving me cause to notice that this is the case until I've already let everything out of my system, and making herself emotionally responsive enough that this realization comes with no guilt or embarrassment).
"You're a proper therapist," I say to her with a smile, having finished all the food in my bowl and feeling surprisingly warm despite the difficulty of our talk.
She rolls her eyes playfully and smiles back, leaning forward instead of backward, switching out of the 'receptive position' that I remember her talking about in our first year. "Have you noticed you're picking up a bit of an accent?"
"What?"
"You are. It's subtle, just in the vowels, and just sometimes. But it's there and it's kind of cool."
"I guess I probably have, being around Ben twenty-four-seven…"
At the very mention of his name I feel a sinking, and my eyes have no resistance to even the slightest twist of tears after staying awake for so long. They fill with itching tears which instantly blur my vision and start to pour over my cheeks. I make myself keep breathing to keep from sobbing, but I can't stop myself from covering my face with my hands.
Alex sighs, "Aw…" and stands up, coming back a second later with tissues, one of which I take with gratitude. Pressing my face into it gives me something to focus on, even if it doesn't stop the flood.
I miss him so much already.
Alex is patient, waiting without crowding me with more words until my tears have mostly subsided. I blow my nose with an unexpected honking sound and she smirks. "Wow, he's that bad, huh?"
I laugh with a congested sound through my tears, her humor warming me even as my body aches from the distance between me and my other half. "No, it's just that… everything feels too real, and now I'm not with him. You know? I mean… we're happy, but we've also suffered… and I guess that's what makes it hard to be… so far away."
Admitting the fact of that distance makes my eyes twitch again. But the tears decide of their own will not to come. Alex can see that I don't really want to linger on it. I will feel this way for as long as is natural, and then slowly over the course of the next two months, though the pain of our separation won't dull, the urge to cry likely will.
"So," Alex says, bringing me back from that rabbit hole of the future. Her eyes have brightened and her voice is peppy and playful, and I already know what's coming. "Do you have any Infinity War spoilers for me?"
I grin, finally ditching the tissue. "Can't tell you."
"Pleeeeeease?"
"Sorry, my lips are sealed."
Really, I don't have anything to seal behind them. I've never once asked Ben for spoilers, and I'm not much of a Marvel fan, so haven't exactly been in earnest to know what happens next in the saga. In fact, this is the first time I've considered how eager Alex (and millions of other people) must be to find out the next development.
A soft smile dawns on Alex's pouting face. "Holly, I can say in all certainty that you are the best girlfriend in the world."
I chuckle with her, but then find myself thinking deeply on the term… It feels like a weird way to say it. If she had referred to Ben as my 'boyfriend,' it would have felt the same way. I know she didn't do it on purpose and there's no offense to be taken, but the word just doesn't seem to do our relationship justice. In fact, as I think of it, there's no word I know that can describe what Ben is to me.
I'm sure I'll start to cry again at the thought, but instead a warmth beams in the center of my chest, and I smile with my heart.
We spend the next hour talking more, and when Alex warns me that two of her roommates will probably be returning soon we leave the table and go to the door, where we stand and talk for a few minutes more. We know we want to keep in touch more than we have been in these past couple of months, since our line of communication went completely dead after the miscarraige. But we also promise not to hold each other to this. Even just in the past few weeks, we've both changed and grown in new directions. And though we of course will stay friends, we say and agree aloud that it will not be the end of the world if we don't remain as close as we were while living in the same room.
In the hallway, as she had on first opening the door, Alex hugs me tightly. I haven't been hugged by anyone other than Tom and Benedict since the miscarriage… but though I'm usually not the type to appreciate an embrace, this one makes me feel really good.
I say goodbye three times before finally getting into the elevator. And there, too, I wave, looking at my friend until the moment the doors come to a close.
Outside it's brighter than it was an hour ago, and not just because the rain has cleared. Talking to Alex, who I'd felt so guilty about not speaking to during my time of darkness this summer, has made me feel like a full person again. I've felt like a person with Benedict, of course… but re-establishing other relationships in the wider world has helped me to feel better, to feel more grounded in reality. This reflection is subtle, though, and I let myself walk around with a light and… normal sort of feeling; a feeling that would have been heaven to the 'me' of three weeks ago.
From Alex's street I set off for Columbia, to personally thank the counselor who helped me through the transfer process, and who clearly had to pull a few strings in order to do so.
I'm walking past central park when I spot someone with their phone camera pointed at me. For a moment the person's entire identity is contained within that small blinking lens… My heart jumps to racing at the suddenness of it, at the bizarreness of it. But then its pace calms down. I notice a worn-looking pair of combat boots, an artsy eggplant purple scarf, a cool hat… And instead of cowering and hurrying away on instinct, I look right at the camera and even flash a peace sign, straight-faced as I turn the corner.
In the shade of the next street I shake my head to myself as an only-slightly-bitter smirk pricks my lips. I fear being photographed with a passion, and as The Bard said, in time we hate that which we often fear… But, come to think of it, the least I can do is give the press a little variety; and for the sake of my own sanity, too. At least I can show them a little bit of who I am, underneath the terrors they've exploited of late. Besides, the woman behind the phone camera had probably been taking my photo for innocent reasons. Maybe she'll just keep it to herself, or show it to her friends, and it will never appear on the internet. Even if it does, though, I don't think I would be as upset as I have been, before. This time, I refuse to let myself feel victimized by the media. Of course it's ridiculous that I should be practically stalked by random people because of the overblown public "identity" of the man I'm in love with… But it has become a part of reality that I can't fight. I figure I might as well play along.
I spend an hour in an office in the Low Library and then step out just after four o'clock, for what I can just sense is the last time. Leaving Columbia takes a weight off my shoulders that I didn't even know I was carrying, before. And I can tell, as I walk back through the park, that it's because I've really left behind a part of myself that I clung to to keep myself boxed in, for so long. First, working to be a doctor, though I hated the idea of such a career beyond the idealized version of it, just for the sake of being financially stable… And then using education as an excuse to stay put and remain the person I was comfortable being, rather than as a stepping stool to becoming the person I knew I was supposed to be; the person I wanted to be. Now, I've outgrown both those notions and the physical place that had allowed me to keep myself trapped under them. I am ready to embrace something new.
I stay outside for some time longer, having no desire to return to my aunt's apartment. I get takeout to eat and pick at it in the park, on the exact bench where Ben and I had sat after meeting in the hospital waiting room that October morning. I'd been there to entertain Tim while his father was busy with the doctors, and was present when the news of a donation by an "anonymous benefactor" had put surgery, and life, in the cards. And lo and behold, there Ben had been at the end of an elevator ride. I asked if he wanted coffee, or maybe tea given his nationality. He said coffee would be fine…
And sitting in this spot watching the ducks through the cool fog, I'd thought I saw my father in his red jacket. And it really had been him, watching me, waiting for me, though I'd convinced myself I was hallucinating at the time. I think of it and remember it, now, but this time I don't fear it. That part of my life is over now. I have new worries as well as new joys. I never have to see that demon (outside of nightmares) again.
I manage to eat enough and then go back to the apartment building, no longer even entertaining the prospect of staying awake until dark. There's no need to adjust to the time zone, after all. After climbing the stairs (without so much pessimism and painful memory dragging down my heart as before) I'm tired enough to collapse on the springy bed without the slightest old anxiety wafting up to me from the sheets. This exhaustion is convenient, actually, for staying up in sadness and loneliness would not do me any good. In the phone screen lit blackness of the room I yawningly text Ben that I love him and wish I was there to rub his headache away… and proceed to pass out before he has a chance to answer.
I sit, gentle with myself, quietly half-smiling in the cold autumn light coming through the train window. The sound and feeling of the train's movement, and the brisk passing of the dark, wet red trees has easily shortened the past hour, the first of three on my way up to Albany to see my Aunt. Only in the past few minutes have I started to feel chilly enough to put on my hat and gather my coat more closely around my shoulders… but not nearly as cold as I felt on the transatlantic flight.
Regardless, I warm up instantly, from the heart out, when my pocket buzzes with the first text of the day from Ben. I woke up this morning to see that he responded to the text I sent before collapsing, but an hour afterward, and texted him back even though I knew he would be in the middle of filming with his phone turned off. Now, it's eight o'clock (which means one o'clock in London… it's such a relief to know that this time difference is just for the next few days, rather than the next few months…) he must be using his lunch break to text me.
'Nice one,' he's sent, and attached a link to photographs from yesterday, of me showing a peace sign to the woman behind the camera. The fact that 'nice one' is his response to any piece of publicity that involves me is a brand-new concept, and it makes me blush.
Sure enough, the photographs are of a different breed than any of the others that have been tossed around and corrupted on the internet over the past two years. And so is the commentary promptly made upon them. Looking through the photos, I realize how much I appreciate this silly side of myself, a side I've never shown deliberately to the media, and one whose strength I sometimes question in my moments of self-doubt. But here is evidence of it.
It's always been the press catching me out, not me interacting with the press. But now the press is interacting back, responding to my energy in a new way. Instead of grinding out more hate about the miscarriage or our 'medieval' age difference, they're just talking about how I look like I'm doing better, how I look like a fun, normal person.
The dramatic change of pace makes my heartbeat gallop with gratitude. I feel not a shred of resentment for the woman who was behind the camera. In fact, I feel, in a way, connected to her. I wonder who she is and what she's doing this morning. Ironically, seeing these photographs of myself online, these photographs of me when I was feeling free and in a good mood… seeing these actually makes me feel… normal.
I'm at a loss for words. A smiling emoji more than suffices.
'Are you on the train yet?'
'Yup, two hours to go. I'm in the right mood for the scenery, thankfully…' (and then, after a pause for courtesy) '...you're totally gorging yourself on a sandwich right now, right?'
I know he nearly always forgets to eat during filming until he gets home in the evening, one contributor to his headaches, and I see it as my duty to remind him.
Sure enough, he says 'You caught me,' and I take a photo of myself giving the camera "the look." A couple minutes later, he sends me a picture of a sub. This time I give him a grin and a thumbs-up.
We continue texting casually until his break is nearly over. After putting my phone down I gently foster the lingering warmth of our digital farewell, listening to my music and watching the passing scenery… And smiling to myself, as I imagine him doing what he loves most. Imagining him that way makes us seem less far apart.
The reunion with my aunt goes even better than expected. She's still not allowed out into the city, but we'd been able to walk through a cool, pleasant inner courtyard and then retire to a private, windowed room, where we did a puzzle while catching up, and simply appreciating each other's presence. Despite the difficulties inherent in staying in this place, my aunt is actually doing very well, practicing wellbeing through painting; something I never knew until today that she once loved and dreamed of doing professionally as a young woman. With every passing minute I find my appreciation for her deepening, and I realize that she is the person I am going to miss most, not being in New York. She smiles when I confess this, but emplores me not to feel pinned down in any respect by what I clearly need to leave behind. She encourages me to go, to be with the person I love, and to keep growing into a person that I love being. It takes a long time for me to separate myself from our hug, one of only a handful my aunt and I have ever shared… but when I step out of the rehab center, I feel rehabilitated, myself.
The day is a beautiful one, right on the border between late summer and autumn. Rather than get a train directly back to NYC I walk to the edge of the little city, cross over a bridge and then I'm walking down a wide path through woods by a river. Here, my spirit has the space to work through and appreciate everything it's felt in the past few days. I don't have to think about anything, I don't have to carry on an internal dialogue with myself. With my skin graced by the chill breeze, I just feel settled and naturally emotional, like there's no place I need to rush to or from. The light and the forest smells and the fresh air and even the soft sound of my own unhurried footsteps are all blessings… The temperature is that particular brand of chilly-warm that can only be felt just before autumn, after a cool, lingering rain, when summer is eking out its last efforts but autumn has its foot firmly in the door.
I'm sitting on a boulder near a waterfall when my coat pocket buzzes with a text. I consider ignoring it. I need to take this time to be still, and a text can wait until later. But a second one comes in rapid succession, and I know I'll regret not checking it if it turns out to be Ben. Anyway, no text, from Benedict or not, could destroy the contented feeling that's stretched its roots so firmly into my heart.
I unlock my phone…
And am proven very, very wrong.
It didn't feel as though I was doing any kind of work while walking here. But now it seems that every step had taken effort, had taken a deliberate self-liberation that I am normally hard pressed to bring forward into reality for myself. Now, I see that work had indeed gone into that feeling of peace, even if on a subconscious level… and I see and appreciate the strength this proves only as it's undone. Undone, just as easily as a strand of yarn being pulled from a carefully crocheted, nearly finished scarf, unwinding it all the way to the first row, to the first stitch… to nothing but a long, bumpy strand of yarn.
'Hi, Holly,' reads the first text.
Damn you, mother.
'I see you're back in NY. I feel like this is telling me to say… the connection between us, however limited, is still open as far as I am concerned. If you have any interest at all in meeting, I could come down from Utica, or meet you halfway. I hope you don't take offense to this, and know that it is within your rights not to respond. I hope you're feeling well.'
I really, really should have blocked her the moment she contacted me earlier this summer. Tom had suggested it and he was more than right to do so. I should have listened to him… because now, it's too late. In my mother's words, I can't help but perceive a challenge. It's a challenge I need, primally, to accept.
And I do.
'I'm in Albany. Where do you want to meet.'
It's another two hours there on the train, and adds another two to my return trip to NYC this evening. I must be insane to even consider it. But I need to do it. It's too late to take back the text and the determination it's set off like a grim firework in my chest.
A few seconds later a link comes through, the location of a small, private-looking diner in one of so many similar little towns in upstate New York, called Fort Plain. Plenty of anonymity there, and it's exactly halfway between Albany and Utica.
I don't bother responding to confirm that I'm on my way. I know she'll be there. And the thought of her (a thinner, older version of the woman whose smiling gaze I was tortured by for so many years, staring out incessantly from that disgusting picture frame), the thought of her waiting anxiously in a diner booth brings me more satisfaction than is safe to admit.
I walk back the way I came, no longer appreciating the day but slowly seething; now feeling terrified, now feeling angry enough to punch myself, now feeling a stupid excitement at what I am about to do. I am about to meet my mother for the first time.
I get on a bus to Fort Plain, sit down and try to forget why I'm here, just where these turning, spraying wheels are delivering me. But, like rotten meat, it can't be kept down. The image of my mother, probably in a car on her way to the diner, just keeps coming back, under harsher light each time. This is such a bad idea. I should urgently text Alex and pray that she responds in time to convince me to turn around. I should imagine how Ben would react and use that as fuel to make myself get off at the next stop. But I know I'm not about to do either of those things. And with every passing minute, the distance between myself and the person I was sitting on that boulder, admiring the colors of the trees and the sound of the waterfall, in the moments before the text came… that distance just keeps swelling wider. It's too late to go back now.
Slowly but surely, like freezing, resentment overtakes me. From my fingertips, to the innermost cell of my brain. I realize that I'm sitting on a bus to face my past, while my mother once sat on a bus to escape her past, abandoning her child… abandoning ME, in the process. For a dangerous moment I envision my mother sitting on this same exact seat on this same exact bus… even though I know this is impossible.
I think: My mother. My mother. My mother.
Me.
Me, at the end, in parentheses.
Fort Plain is a tiny town with nobody out in it. There's just one main street and then a few more streets packed with damaged, faded old houses. I get a dingy feeling walking through it from the bus stop; under the grey sky, no breeze… but it feels colder than Albany, and it's starting to drizzle again, the rainwater collecting with grime and oil in the ubiquitous potholes. But there is a special irony to these towns at this rainy time of year. The lawns are always bright green.
I find the restaurant easily. On the corner, rain-stained windows, chipped red door. And I go inside before I allow myself the chance to listen to reason and turn around.
The santa-hat doorbell jingles. There are maybe just over six people in the diner, split between the bar and three booths. There's a depressed trickle of people eating and drinking, and the three men at the bar talking, under the sound of Patsy Cline's perhaps-fitting recording of "Walking After Midnight."
A healthy looking woman with red hair, the sensibly casual clothing of a professor, and no makeup, stands up from the booth in the furthest corner by the wall of windows, and then sits back down again, her eyes remaining affixed on mine. I stand in her headlights. My mother is, simply put, a beautiful woman. She hasn't changed much from the time when that singular photograph was taken, other than the fact that she's dyed her hair. But, then again, maybe it had just looked honey-brown under the light in which it was taken…
I realize that I may be in danger of fainting.
But beneath this notion, I don't feel much of anything. At least… there's no definable feeling, or thought, in that void of not-quite-numbness that's expanding below me. I let that become my armor, at least for the time it takes for me to talk across the floor to the booth. I feel lightheaded, as though I'm sucking all the air in the diner into my lungs, and out again, with each breath.
I go over to the table and sit down on the red vinyl booth. Next to me there's a tear, revealing the yellow foam padding underneath. In my moment of looking down, I decide I'm going to be civil. I'm going to be myself, which means angry and confused and hurt and even a little hateful… but civil.
I look up from that rip in the vinyl. She clearly can't speak, so I take the fall.
"Hi."
I can see the breath catch in her throat. There's nothing exceptional in the way I said 'Hi,' but to look at her you'd think I just delivered an expertly devastating monosyllabic performance.
I watch her throat as she swallows. "Hi."
"Let's order something."
I put my hand up for the waiter. I order coffee, and my mother takes the same. After the waiter has left, she looks at me with more purpose. I can tell she's making an effort. Whatever that's supposed to stand for, after fifteen years.
"Jetlag?" she says.
I was in control, to some extent, before. But this makes something in me bend. I want to know just what it is I came all the way here for, and this casual game of play-pretend isn't cutting it.
"Okay," I say, ignoring her question. "I'm here. Why now."
The dramatics are gone now. I think I might be able to see who this woman is, in the way her shoulders settle and her face organizes itself… but it's just for an instant, and then I'm back to guessing. She has a well-cared-for, almost pleasant voice. A good teaching voice. She might have smoked in her twenties but doesn't anymore.
"I first knew you were in New York, at Columbia, when the subway attack was in the news. Congratulations, by the way."
I realize she's talking about the school. I don't respond.
"After that I would hear about what you were doing, through… the press. And I always wanted to reach out, but I never could. Until… I just couldn't stand the thought of you going through that alone."
"You mean without you. I wasn't alone."
"Right." She shakes her head at herself. I don't know how to classify her. She doesn't seem like a forty-year-old woman. She seems like something of an alien, if only for the fact that I don't know what to make of her. I can't define my relationship to her; can't define her mannerisms or her appearance, or any part of her, underneath a single label… and it's making me want to tear my hair out.
I refocus, remembering what she said last.
"It might not seem like it to someone who only knows about me through media gossip, but my whole life isn't just about Ben. I have other people and other things, too." I let my words bite a little bit. I don't particularly want to escalate things, but neither am I averse to watching this woman feel the sting… just a fraction of the pain she inflicted on me.
"You're right." I can see she's understood the undertone of my words, but she recovers from it quickly, glomming onto the chance to change the subject. "Is he… nice to you?"
Damn it. I shouldn't have mentioned him. But her question is sufficiently light, and somewhat amusing, so I allow it. "Yeah. Yeah, he's nice to me."
"And your other boyfriends… they've been nice, too?"
I feel my eyebrows furrow. This woman really knows nothing about me. Of course, she didn't keep tabs on what was going on with her husband and daughter after ditching them fifteen years ago. She moved on, like any sensible, healthy person. She started a new family and forgot about her old one. Honestly, good for her. Right? That's the right thing to be thinking, now, right? What more can I do, as I am, stuck so far behind, perfunctorily smirking at the prospect of 'other boyfriends'? I'm tempted to indulge in a little white lie; to say that, yes, they were all nice. But I choose instead not to say anything at all, a decision made easier by the prompt arrival of the waiter with two barely sufficient coffees, two paper napkins, two plastic cups of cream and two paper packets of sugar.
"Thank you," I say, and then busy my hands with pouring the cream and the sugar into the coffee.
The waiter gone, and the cream and sugar poured, there's nothing to do but take the obligatory (wincing) sip and start talking again.
"So, how's yours? Your husband? And your sons, and your job?"
Mother opens her mouth… and I realize she's not going to answer. She really is going to play that game where she interrogates me but doesn't tell me about her own problems, or at least suffer through telling me she's 'doing great' to my face. She's seriously going to play the 'mom' game. Not that I'm familiar with it outside of the world of television shows, and Alex's anecdotes.
I smirk ruefully at the thought. It's the only face I can possibly make at this moment, and I feel it sticking there even as my mother starts to speak again. Sure enough, there's something 'motherly' in her tone. I want to spit; instead I force down a mouthful of the shitty coffee.
"Holly, I have… I've worried for you."
(Oh, yeah? Why so, mom?)
I raise my eyebrows at her, prompting her to continue.
"He's…" (oh, no) "He's twice your age, after all. I think I can understand… what with your father. You know, having a single father, that can be… I didn't have one, but…" She stutters and stops while she's not too far behind. Which is a good decision because my engine is already rumbling threateningly beneath the surface.
I realize my jaw has slackened. I am nothing short of dumbfounded. Now, my apathy and general ability to distance myself; even my ability to find a scrap of cynical humor in this situation… all of that is gone the moment anyone comes after Benedict. I can't BELIEVE that I've just heard our relationship belittled in this way; heard my own ability to judge for myself belittled; heard my heart's deepest, most private feelings belittled. It's not like I haven't read similar criticism online before. I'm nearly desensitized to that by now. But to hear it spoken aloud, in person, to my face… by this woman, of all people… is fucking intolerable.
I put on a smile, letting my suddenly-boiling anger express itself through sarcasm, to keep from burning her face with the coffee.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying I have daddy issues?"
She's speechless. One point to me.
"Because if so…"
But I have to stop this. I realize that some other, unsavory version of myself, a version I don't like all that much but has sometimes made itself seemingly necessary, is starting to float to the surface. It's the same person I became that morning when I came home from Harry's party and insulted and laughed at Tom to avoid my own discomfort. I remember how terrible I felt afterward, not because I had offended Tom so much as because I was ashamed at the fact that I let such an attitude come over me in the first place. Identifying it now, I force it down, and take a deep breath. I can stay Holly and still be firm, without being mocking. I assemble my face, and apparently the effect is chilling; my mother's face goes frigid and blank.
I speak patiently. "If so, I'd encourage you to take a look in the mirror and see who might be responsible for that. Ben and I have a loving, equal relationship. He may make me feel protected, and I may appreciate that, but that doesn't make me weak. Don't. You. Dare. Try to reduce me, or him, to that kind of person."
Her face trembles. "Holly, I never meant-"
"You know," I can't help but scoff, "I've always wondered how hard it would actually have been for you to take a five year old kid on a train with you."
"That wasn't-"
I scramble to remind myself of the control I had just a few seconds ago… but the line between my calm, sensible, maybe-even-slightly-empathetic self, and my present one, is dead.
"Oh, yeah, that wasn't part of the plan, was it? Having a kid, having some part of the man who you decided to have a kid with just wasn't going to work with the new life you had planned out for yourself. You couldn't handle being reminded of him by having that little piece of him around you every day. Well, guess what. I didn't have to deal with his ghost. I didn't have to deal with some vague, haunting memory of him. I had to deal with the real him. Every. Single. Day. So don't you dare presume to have the right to tell me what to do with my life, to pass judgment on my decisions, on the people I care about. Because you weren't and will never fucking be as strong as I was."
I try to swallow and can't; and that's what makes me realize that I've started to cry.
Mother's face is frozen, slightly flickering, in an expression of confusion.
"Don't play dumb with me, please," I manage, my voice low and hoarse in my throat. "At least do me that minor courtesy."
But that look only deepens. She just slightly shakes her head from side to side.
"You must have known. You must have."
"Holly, what are you trying to tell me?"
Her voice is a genuine plea. But softening the blow wouldn't do either of us good.
"You married an abusive alcoholic."
Her jaw drops open, her eyes shine, and she stammers. "I… I married a sweet aspiring animation artist."
I actually laugh out loud. Laugh until it turns into a cough. In clutching desperately at my middle, I'm forced to look down at the table. At some point, I have ripped my paper napkin to shreds.
"Holly-"
She tries to catch my hand but I snap it away, my coughing stuttering and finally silencing, giving way to a feverish trembling. I try to calm down, but I have no control over my body. Everything is flooding back and I have nothing to hold onto. The looming face of my mother is only sucking me further into the void; this woman whose photographed face I saw for years… a photograph that my father masturbated to while forcing me to watch, and looked at while he raped my mouth.
Her voice rises in pitch. I think I see a tear race down her cheek but it could be an illusion formed by my own. "I didn't know."
"Like Hell you didn't. People like that have fucking tendencies."
The problem is that I actually believe her. I can't let on, aloud, or I'll drop dead right here. But I know what fake shock looks like, and hers isn't it.
"I swear to God, I did not know."
"You're lying. Maybe you've been lying to yourself for too long to notice it, now, but you're lying."
A figure looms up beside me and I think for a moment that I might be hallucinating before realizing that it's the waiter.
"Miss, I'm afraid we've received complaints."
I don't look at him. I can't cope with another face right now. I just stare hard at my mother, feeling overwhelming pity and hatred and longing for her.
I drag my sleeve across my face and steel my body.
"That's fine. I was just about to leave."
And, shaking, I do just that. I stand up and leave my mother sitting there, walking out the door to the chilly tinkling of the bell. Luckily my eyes are blurred enough that I'm not forced to see the faces of the people staring, or trying not to stare.
Under the cold, darkening rain I hunch my shoulders and hurry down the street, my ankles seeming to twist with every step. I try to be tough about it, slipping back into one of so many coping mechanisms that I've abstained from using for years now, but come back all too easily, more easily than riding a bike. I seal off my heart and tell myself that it was just my natural turn to abandon my mother. That it's an eye for an eye.
Yet, underneath it all, I know that's not how things work. It never has been. Underneath it all, I just feel terrible.
Behind the bus station I clutch the rim of a freezing trash bin, and vomit up my small breakfast and the bitter coffee.
But I can never vomit up my past; never my pain.
I shut the door of my aunt's apartment at six in the evening, without any tears to cry (I drained myself of those in as much privacy as possible, under my coat's hood on the train). I'm not even angry or particularly sad anymore; just rough and numb, empty and lonely.
A shower would be good for me, but there's a spider sitting near the drain and I don't have the heart to disturb it.
I kneel on the floor in my old room and root through the dresser and the cardboard box, deciding what to bring back to London. I really just need a few more clothes, for the winter weather especially, so pack my suitcase with some of the jackets in the box, and some long pants and long-sleeved shirts, leaving the rest behind. Among the things I pack are the precious copy of Great Expectations and the string of pearls that Ben gave to me.
Actually, in the case of the pearls, Tom was the physical gift-giver. My throat constricts as I imagine how horrid it must have been for him, knowing, now, about his feelings, which had begun around that time. But it's no surprise to me, in hindsight, that Ben asked Tom to give them to me, doing anything in his power to remove himself from my sensitivity to our vast financial differences. I was so upset about the pearls, I almost felt offended by them. I can't remember why, now. I can hardly believe that I ever bothered to argue with Ben about money. That's not what matters.
Exhausted, not wanting to eat, inescapably depressed after expelling so much mental energy and sitting still for so long on the train, I give up on whatever it was I was trying to do and lay down in bed.
Something is off. All I know is that the bed, though only a twin, is too big without Ben. The city is too big. I am.
We were very physical in those last few days, and now to no longer be on the same continent, let alone locked together in the same bed, makes my heart feel like a swelling stab wound.
The bed, too, seems to swell around my small, lonesome body. I tug the blankets more tightly around myself, rubbing my feet together. I miss the small hum he makes when he cuddles close to me at the beginning of the night; the sound of his breathing; the feeling of his warmth and his body; and the magic of his thoughts and dreams, playing silently on the pillow next to mine.
I give up on my attempts to glean comforting pressure from the blankets and reach for my phone on the floor. I can't remember putting it there, or plugging it into the charger, but I will myself not to be disturbed by this. Such short-term memory loss is a normal occurrence when I'm tired.
I sit up on my elbows and video call Ben, only realizing within the same moment that he picks up (before the second ring is finished), that I totally blanked about the time difference, and it's nearly midnight where he is. He's in his pajamas but not in bed, and the part of the window that's visible behind him is dark. I rub the heel of my hand into my forehead. "Sorry, I totally forgot about the time."
He smiles his gentle, almost-midnight smile, light from somewhere catching his eyes, and my heart leaps back to life. "Don't be sorry, love. I was just wishing to see your face."
I give it to him, smiling into the camera and then kissing it. He does the same and I indulge in a moment of hiding in my pillow, already feeling so much better just at the sight of him through the phone.
I understand that he's not asleep for the same reason I'm not, so don't mention that he really ought to try to get to bed. But, of course, he reads the slightest changes in my face. "Right, it's definitely time for bed," he says, and so goes into the bedroom, gets under the covers and then props the phone against the pillow. I mimic him, laying down and pulling the covers up to my shoulders, forcing the corner of the blanket into a peninsula and leaning the phone up against it. I tuck my hands under my cheek and let myself gaze at him, vividly remembering what it feels like to be next to him.
"You look beautiful, love," he says.
"And you look handsome."
"Christ, Holly, you know I look knackered."
"As a matter of fact, I don't."
I wish I could just magically fall through the screen and be there to hold him, to be held by him… But I'm still grateful that we can see each other this way. Lovers' separations must have been infinitely worse in the past; this is a massive improvement, even from a voice-only call, not to mention from a letter.
"How did it go, with your aunt?"
I remember her face, calm and genuine, while she focused on placing one of the final pieces of the puzzle we did together. "She was good. She's doing really well."
"And you?"
I silently curse his ability to sense every barely-palpable shift in my thoughts; more often than not, before I do, myself. I've known all afternoon and evening that I would tell him about meeting my mother eventually, but I was under the impression that I might have a bit more time. I haven't even worked through it on my own. It's too fresh to so much as go over chronologically in my head, a mere blur of disbelief and panic. Yet… to omit something of this importance would be wrong, and I know I probably won't be able to make myself at peace with it, no matter how long I try. So I let it out.
"I met my mother today." I watch him realize what I've said. His eyes grow serious, but he is patient, and doesn't interject. His face is more concerned and focused than before as he listens and thinks. "It wasn't planned, and I couldn't… consult you about it, before. I just needed to do it. I wish I hadn't, though. It was nothing. Well, not nothing, but it was… stupid of me."
"What brought this about?"
"She saw the photo from this morning and asked me if I wanted to meet her in Utica. We met halfway. I don't know why I did it, I just… I think… I thought I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't… at least… try. But it obviously didn't go anywhere, we just got into an argument. Not even an argument, exactly. I don't know what it was."
I can feel myself tipping towards the spiraling point, and he steps in to help me. "What did you talk about?"
It's probably better if I skip over the part where my mother insulted our relationship… In fact, I don't actually think I can stomach talking about any of it. "It's not that important."
His face softens. A sudden pang of longing shoots through my belly and I think I might cry. "Holly, forgive me, but I think… it might be."
I know he's right, and I'm already there, already thinking about it, already feeling that same cold disbelief and shame that I felt when "She… She said she didn't have any idea about my father being abusive. I don't know, I just… always assumed that was the reason she left, in the first place…" But my words catch in my throat as all at once the feeling of so many lonely, fearful nights in this room floods into my head and body. I shudder, my stomach turning over, and shake my head to clear it. "I can't talk about this right now."
"It's okay," he says gently, his voice (oh, his voice) reaching out like a hand, to hold my cheek, to bring me close… "We have plenty of time. Or we can never mention it again."
"Maybe tomorrow."
"Whenever you're ready."
As these things always are, with him. My silence shouts my thanks. I want him so, so terribly… just to touch him and to know that he feels my touch, if only for a moment; or, better, to feel his skin, his warmth… I try to imagine it, but no amount of strain succeeds in making it believable. This physical aloneness will require much deliberate, probably painful (who am I kidding; it's already painful enough) adjustment.
My shivers from before are still waning and I can see in his face that he's worried; can see the same throb of distance that I feel. "I wish I was there to hold you, my darling," he murmurs, his eyes shining in the light of the bedside lamp. Soon, I'll be back in that bed, my head on the pillow, my skin against those sheets… but he won't be there with me.
"Damn it, Benedict," I groan into my elbow, holding back tears for his sake. "I have to stop missing you so much. We're not even into the first week yet."
His face grows closer to the camera, and my ears are graced by the gentle whispering of his skin against the pillowcase. "I won't hold it against you if you replace me with a pillow."
An unexpected, real laugh shimmers up from my chest. "Will you be replacing ME with a pillow?"
"Mm… Quite possibly."
"I won't do it."
"Challenge accepted."
My face falls at the word. It reminds me of my stupidity from earlier, at the waterfall. I should have ignored the text and checked my phone once safely back on the train to NYC. Then I would have been safe from that meeting, and from my current guilt at the role I played in its failure.
"Are you going to be okay tonight?"
Ben's voice drags me up from those waters. I know he means here, in my old room, where I struggled for so long in isolation. Of course I'm nervous to be alone here, but I know that it can only last so long. This is the last night I will spend in New York. Tomorrow, I am leaving. I can get through one rough night.
"I'll be okay," I assure him, and myself. "I'm too tired to be kept up much longer. I would feel better if I knew you were sleeping."
He smiles, his eyes wrinkling and twinkling. I love him so much that it hurts. "I promise, I'll go to sleep as soon as I leave." He presses his fingertips to his lips, and then to his phone. "I love you so much, Holly."
I smile and press my own fingertips to my lips, letting my eyes close while I indulge in imagining that they're his. Then I send my long-distance kiss to him by gently tapping my phone's camera, like casting magic.
"I caught that one," he says.
"And I caught yours." And I smile at him for a few moments longer before saying goodnight. "I love you, Ben. And I'm not replacing you with a pillow."
Yet, in the morning, I wake up with a pillow in my arms, anyway.
"Oops," I whisper to myself, squinting happily against the autumn morning light streaming, as though through water (an illusion achieved by the many, many dust motes in the room), from the window. I let myself hug the pillow tighter for a few seconds, thanking it for its service and finding a gentle amusement in my own mind, in the surprising relaxation of my body. I stand up and stretch, looking out the window and hearing something redeeming in the sounds of the city, hardly muted by the glass. And there it is again… I still have that feeling of strength and peace I had while walking through nature yesterday. Seeing my mother had been a brief interruption, and perhaps a necessary one. But this gentleness, though hard-won day after day, is the truth of my soul; and it will always be there for me to reclaim, as long as I remember that it's waiting.
I have ample time before I have to leave for the airport, and seeing as there's no food in the apartment I force myself to step out and grab an apple and a granola bar from the corner store. After eating, I keep my promise to myself and give the whole apartment a deep clean, turning on a sixties and seventies playlist and spending all of my energy ventilating and sweeping and scrubbing until the place is sufficiently bearable and breathable. When the time comes for my aunt to come home, she'll feel better than she would have if I left it in its previous state.
My last stop is the bathroom. The spider is still sitting there. I set a glass over it and watch it climb around until I'm done cleaning. Then, an old postcard under the opening, I carry the little creature down the stairs and set it free on a leafy green weed at the corner that leads into the alley, making another trip up to put the glass away, turn off all the lights, close all the window and get my suitcase. Leaving the apartment, I thank it for its physical shelter, and for all the lessons it gave me. Though those hard days and nights were painful, I know they've made me more patient, more resilient, more capable of trusting myself than I would be without them.
In the cab, I mentally tally up the things I will have to do once I get back to London, trying in advance to plug some of the holes that Ben's absence has made in the hull of my ship. On my list is officially signing up for classes, applying for a student visa, getting a bank account… it is going to be a lot, but at least it will keep my mind off what's missing in the daytime. There's not much I can do about the night.
I feel tense and watched going through the airport. I've gotten good, by now, at timing my arrival so I don't have to sit around like prey waiting to be photographed, and can basically get right onto the plane after walking from security. I just have to be grateful that nobody saw me at the diner or discovered my aunt's (or Alex's) apartment. Already I have a different feeling about cameras than I had just yesterday morning. I know from experience and forced reflection that my attitude towards the press corresponds directly to my current attitude towards myself. Though I was feeling fine this morning, the possible presence of paparazzi cuts deep through my many layers, making the innermost parts that I like to cover up bleed out and stain the others. After losing control in front of my mother, I've been feeling, deep down, confused and upset about myself. But when I was feeling at peace with myself and my situation I didn't mind, and maybe even appreciated, being photographed. Now, it would be a nightmare to see someone with a camera, and surely I would cringe away or try to hide my face somehow, instead of straightening up and flashing a peace sign…
When I land I open my phone to find that my mother has messaged me again. There's no sinking feeling, no apparent numbness, just a surprising sense of apathy.
'I apologize for my mistakes, and for my ignorance. I long ago lost the right to call you my daughter. But I hope you will allow me to call you my acquaintance. It would be an honor to get to know the woman you have become, on your own.'
For a moment my heart is made heavier by empathy for this woman. But I know I must not make choices like these based on empathy. There is no reason for me to text her back this time. There is no reason for us to be acquaintances. We have nothing in common and to connect our lives any more than we already have would only bring us both pain. And, at the root of it, I simply don't want to hear from this person again. I would honestly prefer to forget about her, the way I almost had over the fifteen years I survived without her. After all, I remind myself, that photograph of her sitting on my father's dresser had become a rather meaningless object after looking at it so many times. 'There's mom,' I would think, numbly to myself, maybe even with amusement once I reached my teens, and then I would forget about it. Those pixels only gained a greater significance in my memory after she reached out to me in July.
Before the plane stops at the boarding bridge, I do what I should have done a month ago and block her.
On the cab ride through London I find that in the past twelve hours or so, the hashtag 'WeLoveYouHolly' has started because of the photos of me giving a peace sign to the paparazzi in New York. This makes me feel happy, but only on a surface level, and after looking for a minute I put my phone in my pocket, focusing on the feeling of the cloudy evening light coming through the window and cleansing my mind of both my mother and the press; focusing on coming back to the self I still am underneath everything. I'm not feeling as fresh and hopeful when I did when I woke up in New York. The flight was a difficult one, as always, and I'm more than a bit worn out. But I can still be patient with myself.
I tip the driver, who is very kind in getting my suitcase out of the trunk, and then stand on the sidewalk for as long as is safe, breathing in the day. After making this transatlantic journey as many times as I have, I've realized that the only way to survive the time difference is to find a way to be grounded, without caring about the hour. I focus on the small details, the growing crispness of the air… It's the bright, early part of the evening. The trees are rustling along the street and the street, with its white houses, is empty and calm.
I carry my not-too-heavy suitcase up the front steps, get in the door at the bottom of the stairs to the flat, and shut it. It only closes on the second push, which is weird to me. I blink and realize just how physically exhausted I am, and the moment I admit this to myself, as though that admission and the timing of my blink have woven themselves together into a tripwire, I start crying; an itching, whimpering cry that I hate but can't help.
I'm thoroughly exhausted, relieved, and devastated, and numb, all at the same time. I cry until I get stuffy, submitting to the weakening of my core and leaning over, hugging myself, but not conceding to my desire to sit down. That, I can do once I've gotten myself upstairs.
I let the crying run the bulk of its course, and regain control by accepting my tears as a part of myself, rather than seeing them as a restraint. Still a little weepy, but my body having recovered enough strength to be functional, I force myself up the stairs and through the door of the flat.
Once inside, I look around. The space still feels like home, but it is certainly too wide and quiet without Ben in it.
I put my keys down on the counter, carry my suitcase into the bedroom, and let myself collapse on the bed… whose blankets and sheets Ben, knowingly, didn't put through the wash before he left. Drowning myself in his smell and his warmth, I sob for a minute longer, allowing the tide of my emotions to consume me, and reminding myself that they're not bad, but a necessary part of life. They may be difficult and painful in the moment, but in the long term, they're softening and sweetening my life in ways that nothing else can.
Well, maybe not nothing else. Softening and sweetening… those two words, in their poetry, remind me of Ben. With no effort at all, I envision his eyes, I imagine his touch, I recall his voice and the goodness of the words he brings to life through it. Ben softens my heart and sweetens my thoughts. I think, in its simplest (and, thus, best) form, that's what love is.
The crying doesn't ebb but the pain does. My tears come to feel like water, calmly streaming over my face.
I take my phone from my pocket.
'Back home. I'll try not to burn down the flat while you're away.'
He responds as quickly as though he already had his phone open to our messages. 'I already left that up to how many minutes would separate my departure and your arrival. By the looks of it, you're just in time.'
I furrow my eyebrows, but lo and behold, just a few seconds later the oven beeps from the kitchen. Shaking my head and grinning, I shuffle through the apartment and open the oven, engulfed momentarily in its heat as I take out something he baked for me. Muffins; they look especially mouthwatering after having not eaten for half a day. I realize I didn't smell them before because of my phlegmy crying, but I do now, turning off the oven and leaning over them, my mouth watering more with each deep inhale.
I pluck them out of the tray and place them on the cutting board to cool, being naughty and unwrapping one before its time, taking a full bite though it's piping hot. My bloodstream choruses at the promise of food.
'These are perfection. You're missing out.'
'The only thing I'm missing out on is you. Besides, I had enough of the batter.'
I smile at the thought of him dancing around the kitchen. 'You are the best person in the world.'
'Second to you.'
Then he sends me hearts, which I know to mean that he has to go. I send him the same, releasing him, and put my phone in my pocket again.
The feeling of him is still very present. His hand was in this oven mitt maybe half an hour ago; he's probably just arrived on the filming location a few minutes ago.
I go to the sofa instead of the bed this time, savoring the rest of the muffin and then sinking into the cushions and throw pillows. I have to allow myself some time to decompress and adjust before I have to jump into the semester headfirst. What with the inevitable publicity to come with me being at a new school, and one in London, obviously so that I can be closer to Benedict (and not just Benedict but the famous Benedict Cumberbatch), I know it's not going to be an easy one.
But before I can get too deeply embedded, either in a brown study or in a nap, my phone buzzes again. And this time the message is from someone unexpected. I know at once who it's from by a glance at the form of it.
Holly,
If you still want to be my friend,
Then I am ready to be yours again.
Tom.
I read it twice and then once more, feeling its reluctant rhythm, and quietly smile. Something about these words makes relief pour over me like cool water. For Tom to reach out to me in this way makes me feel forgiven, and released from everything that's been stuck between us. And so much that's been stuck inside of me seems alleviated at the thought of spending time with him again, without the inhibitions that soured our contact before. With a happy, fresh-start feeling in my heart, I make my reply.
Hi, Tom.
You just saved me from a bad day.
Of course I am still your friend.
Never stopped.
Holly.
NOTE:
I am literally crying for Holly right now, she is such a gentle spirit.
A note on the portrayal of the media in this story (I feel like I might have noted something like this before but I can't remember). Honestly, the media sucks. Of course I'm saying this from the perspective of a fan who totally buys into and engages with the media, but still. No person should have to deal with that level of exploitation because they choose a line of work that we idealize and is easy to excuse exploiting. Obviously, that exploitation is taken to an extreme in this story. Please know that I am never, ever trying to 'blame' the press for anything, I understand that at the core of the issue, these people are just trying to make money, and they're doing it in a way that is not as corrupt as ways many other people choose to make money. But I do find it important to express the difficult relationship between the exploiter and the exploited (using these terms loosely), and I think it adds a necessary dimension of reality to this story.
Okay, off the soapbox now.
I'm sorry that I'm just pouring out drama and sadness on you guys, but it's what the story requires right now. I am really looking forward to writing some more sweet, happy scenes just as much as you're looking forward to reading them, but we first have to push through the gritty stuff together. There will be some light coming up, even just in the next chapter with a fresh start. I hope the deep stuff that occupies these latest chapters isn't too repellent to anybody, and that the (somewhat) lighter scenes have been enough to tide you over!
NEXT TIME Holly starts at UCL and Tom allows himself to get close to her again. I swear, this is going to be so dramatic and sweet and heartbreaking and divisive and FUN! Just trust me and hang on to your hats...
As always, pretty-pretty-please let me know your thoughts. It would really help me at this point in the story to know how you're all feeling! Especially with the introduction of Holly's mother (yikes, a lot to think about, there).
26 September 2021
On_Errand_Bad