Wow. Here we are. For a while there, I never thought this chapter would come, especially last year when Far From Perfection became roughly my 694th priority and I couldn't see life passed what seemed like never finishing high school!
Anyway, exciting times as I conclude this story and even more exciting times as you all get to wait for what else is coming up!
Also, if you have a Tumblr account, I created a Far From Perfection blog to post additional pictures related to this story (there'll be more posts in the lead up to and for the sequel), sneak peeks, excerpts and visual aids of my own characters, etc! The site is: ffpstory . tumblr . com (just remove the spaces!).
I would love for the trivia chapter (there's more info in the final AN) to be up this week, but I'm living in crazy busy wedding world so who knows. Honestly, I am having to re-shuffle ENTIRE days at the moment to prioritize bridesmaids duties and wedding stresses!
Enjoy and savour the final FFP xx
Chapter 39 – Endings and Beginnings: Part 2
-Still one Month after Chapter 37-
Bella's POV
I look down to the screen of my phone while juggling between drinking my hot Dulce De Leche and bouncing my daughter on my lap, occupying her restlessness since she had been unhappy in her pram. Checking the time on my phone, I realize that Will, for possibly one of the first times I could recall, is running late.
If either of us has the excuse to be late, it's me, after only having shifted into a new and significantly smaller apartment nearby in Mermaid Bay just days ago.
The small detail and Will's lateness simply acted as a reminder that times really have changed... It's a bit scary to think that even the old habits that previously altered and dictated the course of our day-to-day lives are being modified.
Really, when I sat back to think about it, even my life had gone through drastic changes of its own in the last few months. Just months ago, Daniel's abuse had gone from being in its earliest and mildest stages not long before I bumped into Will again for the first real time since our break up. Then increasingly recently, Daniel's attacks had intensified to the point that I fled him to stay with Rikki and the boys while he'd gone further north. Those events began the domino-effect of the other's discovering my secretive abusive relationship that I'd been trying to shelter, along with the daughter I had hidden from Will. While I didn't think it at the time, those events had all helped and played crucial roles in the lead up to me being able to finally flee from Daniel and our short engagement before he turned the tables again after he took Allie the day that we found him ready to end his life.
Being shaken from my thoughts, I notice the blonde I had been waiting for walking off Cavill Avenue and into the circular-like courtyard of Circle on Cavill, his head darting around uncertainly before seeing the sign and approaching San Churro. He obviously hasn't been to what I would now call one of my favourite cafes before.
I wave to Will and I can see the confidence in his sense of direction increasing with every step as he trails over to us. In the time it takes Will to reach our table, I am able to view the seating arrangement and the chair opposite to me, shuffling on my seat just a little to get a better position to be able to see and talk to my company.
"Hey... Sorry I'm running a bit late" Will greets, as he nears us and sits down in the seat I had expected him to sitting directly across from Allie and I.
As I shrug his lateness off, not even considering to tel him about the fact that I'd thought about it further than the fact of just wondering where he was, I look down to Allie out of habit when I had nowhere else to look to avoid blurting out my consideration of how his lateness is just another example of how greatly things have changed.
Looking at my tot sitting on my lap, I notice something. A combination of what and who. I could tell she was looking at something with a recognition that was only on her face with very familiar places and people compared to her usual starry-eyed innocence in Allie's little world of oblivion... However, at this present moment she is looking across the table at her father who had only recently become a part of her life.
"She recognizes you, Will."
Will's smile increased from his usual pleasant demeanor during greeting me, evolving into a more genuine beam of surprise.
"You think so?"
I nod, while he silently enjoys Allie's recognition, directing a small wave at our daughter sitting on my lap as her face burst into an amused grin too. The part that I didn't tell Will was that entertaining her is an easy achievement for everyone as he looked even more thrilled that he'd made her smile.
"So, what important reason do you have for being late to see us?!" I joke with a stern tone, as though the penalty of such an action would be execution.
"I saw Daniel, actually."
Of all of the potential answers that I had been expecting, 'I dropped into China', 'I got caught up with looking into and researching Retirement Villages' and 'I developed a new skill and began training with the Women's Olympic Gymnastics team' all ranked higher in likelihood than what 'I saw Daniel' did.
"What? Daniel as in my Daniel? Where did you see him? Is he out of the ward already?! Don't tell me the Police let him go..."
Will shakes his head across the table from me and I reach the conclusion just before he utters the words. "No. I went to see him."
"Is he okay? How is he doing?"
"He's getting better... You can tell. He'll get there" Will says before a pause, as though considering whether he should or should not do or say something. "He asked me to pass a message onto you... He said he would never be able to forgive himself for what he did to you or the way he hurt you. He wanted me to tell you that because he knows that an apology isn't enough, that he promises that he will leave you alone and let you move on with your life."
Without noticing the sensation, I realize that my eyes were on the verge of overflowing in their tear-filled canyons. It's completely stupid. I thought that I had managed to at least get to a point of partial desensitization, where I could hear Daniel's name and remember the night that his breakdown really peaked, without bursting into tears like an emotional wreck.
"Sorry" Will seems to cringe as he looks up from Allie. I can see his uncertainty as the result from telling me the message he had been urged to pass onto me, which was the first communication I had had with Daniel since the night I had persuaded him not to commit suicide.
"I didn't know if I should have said anything to you or not..."
While I didn't quite know what to say, what to think and what to do from there, I decide to try and move on with my thoughts in that present moment – not allowing Daniel to unknowingly capture anymore of my thoughts or heart, hence moving the subject along at the same time, giving it a different spin.
"I'm great with this whole guy thing, hey?!" I can't help but laugh. If I didn't laugh, I wouldn't be surprised if I cried.
Will laughs at my comment with a nod. "You're too hard on yourself! But I like to think that you didn't choose too badly with me.."
It's the truth. I didn't choose too badly with Will... So much for hindsight, improved decision-making or anything like that as you get older; I had a better judgement when I was younger than I had far more recently!
"You're right, I didn't. You were always a good guy... My only regret with us is how bitterly and stubbornly we ended."
"I know, but we were both at fault. If you hadn't of been so bitter and if I hadn't of been so stubborn, it could have changed a lot of things..."
With Will's reply, I cannot mistake his fixed gaze on our daughter alluding to some of his last words, before he continues to speak after I unknowingly gave him the cue in the form of a nod to continue doing so.
"At the end of the day, though, I think we both paid the price for our own mistakes. The way we broke up meant that you had it harder with Allie and you had all that difficulty of having to raise her on your own, while I've missed a lot of things that can't be replaced -her birth and the magical moments of meeting her as a newborn, her first tooth, first time she crawled, first words, first steps..."
I nod at the truth of Will's summary. Yes. A lot of damage had been done during our breakup and although I called quits first, we both knew it had been coming from the lead up of events around that time. It was my bitterness over those events that led to me breaking up with him, but he had just furthered the damage by cutting all contact with me, especially to the extent that I couldn't pass on the news he'd desperately needed to know in the first place – not until almost two years later.
"But we're all good now, right? We're friends, aren't we?" I ask to confirm where we each stand with each other, and in one another's lives now.
He gives me a nod with a warm smile that acts as more reassurance than any words could equate to.
"Of course we're friends. I propose that we just forget about everything that happened with us in the last twenty months or so and just start with a clean slate. That way you and I can focus on the future and work on the two of us working together for one little person as friends. How does that sound?"
I nod enthusiastically at the proposition put forward to me as he holds his larger hand out to me to shake from across the table – the universal gesture of sealing the deal.
"I do have one more question for you, though" Will states and the wording worries me, sounding as though he is bracing me for a harder answer to face, while I try to hide my nervousness over the impending question with a nod for him to continue.
"Adelaide Benjamin... Where the heck did that come from?! I always just assumed her name was Allie Hartley!"
I laugh at the manner of which Will poses the query to me, but shrug off the question itself to show that it is no big deal, just like it isn't.
"I don't know... But I guess both our names are shortened and I like nicknames so that just become something I'd look for when looking for baby names and I just stumbled across her name and liked 'Adelaide'. Then with the 'Benjamin', there was never any secret or question of who her father was between the people that did know about Allie, so the big deal was just the fact that you didn't know about her. Besides, it sounds stupid, but I didn't want one of those situations like on TV where when's she's older and starts asking the harder questions about you it hurts my relationship with her because she'd never known or had any way to find you if she wanted, so I just figured she could take Benjamin to save dramas. Besides, with having your last name and if you hadn't found out about her, at least she'd always have one big part of you and know that you weren't a nameless monster or the sort of person I'd want to completely shun from her life."
Will smiles as he looks over to Allie once again, watching her occupy herself with my car keys. "Well thank you, Bella. That's really nice of you to have done that."
"It was no problem" I smile and a silence ensues until one of us comes up with the next topic as quickly as we can to avoid any prolonged or awkward silences.
"So, something I've been meaning to ask you about. Have you won that bet yet?! I couldn't remember whether it was you or Tam that said it would take them over a month and which one of you said it would take them under a month..."
He shakes his head with a smile of amusement flitting across his face. "No. No one's won... Yet. I thought it would take them less than a month to get their act together and finally hook up, but she thought it would take them over a month."
"Wow. I would have bet on what you did though, so I'm a bit surprised it's taken them so long. Then again, for two such stubborn and strong-willed and fierce people, they can both be totally pathetic wimps..."
Zane's POV
It has been a month.
The ball has been in Rikki's court for an entire, freaking month!
When I shared my well-suppressed feelings for Rikki with her, I had not been anticipating a 30 day waiting period!
Sure, I'd played the waiting game before, but I have never been in this situation before... in the past it has always been me playing the games. I was always the one playing hard to get, as the other party waited on a response from me with a sweating brow. Even despite my past experience when the ball would be in my courst, I still felt completely unfamiliar with all forms of responding-to-feelings etiquette.
The most puzzling part of the whole dynamic is that Rikki has carried on with her life as usual, even more casually than she ever had, after I revealed my feelings in a move that I am coming to seriously regret doing.
I thought it had been strange that at the time when I told her all she did was shrug it off and walk out, but now it's getting to the point that she is just doing my head in. However, since that day when she walked out, wordlessly, she has failed to do or say one single thing that even remotely acknowledges what I said to her.
In fact, it is becoming such a mind-boggling mind-game to the extent that I'm beginning to second guess myself about whether or not I did even tell her, or whether I have just been stupidly expecting fruition after having a vivid dream.
Now, once again in my life, I have reached another major crossroads as to what I am to do next. Part of me wanted to just let any memory of what I said to Rikki (that's if it isn't all just a dream!) dwindle away to non-existence, until all is forgotten about by both of us.
But, who am I kidding? That option is for wusses. Forgetting all about it is for those people pathetic enough to be mushy enough to reveal feelings, but then become a nervous wreck for doing so, outing any trace of it as soon as they possibly could. It is like making the choice to run a red light and then stopping in the middle of the crossroads or intersection because you regret it... And, strangely enough, that option can be more dangerous than the alternate of no-looking-back.
What I needed to do was pull the ball back into my court and hope that she will finally address it this time!
I set my thoughts into action, getting up to search the house for my ignorant housemate.
Doing so, I considered how I'd gotten to this point... Just months ago, after she first moved in I had wondered whether Rikki and I would ever really be on speaking terms again, despite the fact that we lived in the same house and shared a roof. I can't even remember a particular point in time when that changed and when she started to acknowledge me, or when the dimensions shifted. I couldn't remember when the state of our share house really began to change and I have even less understanding of when I had began to feel those old feelings crawl out from the shells that they had been doing well at hiding under and resurface within me, demanding attention all of a sudden.
Of course, they weren't the only events of the last few months and since then there'd also been the redevelopment of our new-and-improved friendship as our household trio dealt with whatever hit us, which had mostly been impacting my housemates while I had managed to escape the blows that Rikki and Will had copped with illegitimate sister's or daughter's. Instead, I'd had the role of helping out whoever needed me more with each and every grenade that was being dropped on us for several months in a row, along with all the other chaos caused directly and indirectly by my housemate's relation to the two separate girls.
However, now it's my turn. It's my turn to deal with me and my feelings, rather than alternating between being Will's wing-man or acting as a bouncer to separate Rikki and Tam when the girl's arguments grew heated, which has the tendency to occur more often than not.
"Rikki" I call as I enter the kitchen, speaking to the blonde who appeared to be mid-pantry raid. "You got a minute?"
"Uh, sure Zane... If you want to interrupt a girl while she's feeding her face, go right ahead, but don't go grumbling to me when you have to deal with the consequences."
I shrug and settle on one of the bar-stools adjoined to the bench. At least if Rikki got violent, there's still a whole, thick marble bench between us. "I'll risk it. I need to talk to you."
She turned away from the cupboard, giving me a look of seriousness before her focus reverted back to the sources of food.
"I know I've sort of left it be and not pushed the matter at all or anything like that, but it's not fair for you to just string me along, without an answer and continue as if I didn't tell you that I still like you. That would be all well and good, ideal even, if you'd told me straight out to just get over it and that you don't feel the same way."
I pause and look up from the bench that I had been looking down at as I focused on trying to find the best words to say to express myself. As I look up, two things catch my attention.
Firstly, I notice that at some point I have caught Rikki's attention again as she looked at me, waiting for what follows the pause. Secondly, out of the corner of my eye, I see a tea towel... 'the' tea towel, hanging off of the oven door with its distinguishable RSPCA logo and animal-friendly image which Will had received quire recently for donating a certain amount of money to the animal organization.
Between the two symbolic cues, I am spurred to continue on and conclude my explanation, which I plan to tie in with a neat little ultimatum.
"So, you need to give me an answer. I need you to give me an answer so I can do something about it. Do you like me too, or do I need to start coming up with an excuse to make things less awkward? Something like telling you I was drunk and had no what I was saying, let alone thinking, or something like that? I need to know whether I should just move on or not."
Rikki's POV
The question I have been working my hardest to avoid and dodge for the last month had been brought up.
The question that even I don't know the answer to...
Well I do know the answer, but I don't want to know it. I mean really don't want to.
Some people battle with reading and comprehending their feelings or emotions, but that is one skill that I have never had any trouble with. I have always been very in tune with my feelings.
If I don't like someone, I tell them. If I don't like something, I change it. If I want something, I'll do something to get it. If I don't want something, I won't take it.
It is as simple and straight forward as that. There is no need to write a guidebook about it or second guess the feeling by trying to talk yourself out of it. I have always been puzzled over why those lines of feelings and emotions can be so blurred for some people, why there are so many grey areas and wishy-washy blurred lines..
That is why I am finding it so hard to just swallow my pride, the past and all common sense that I have developed over the few years to accept my feelings for my ex-boyfriend that had either never really gone away but stayed undetected or just decided to make a reappearance more recently.
Even after five years, since Zane and I had first gotten together much to my excitement and bitterness I've realized that even after of this time, either after all this time or for the second time, I am unable to push away and minimize my feelings that I so desperately wish to.
"I hate myself for this. I really, really do, because I know how bad we are for each other and how we end up bringing the worst out in each other, but I think it's taken me so long to acknowledge what you said because I feel the same or a similar way too. I swear that I don't want to!"
A moment of looking startled fleeted across Zane's face as though he had never expected that me still liking him is even a vague, remote a possibility. He quickly bounces back, with a smirk to match the mockery of his following comment.
"Ever the romantic... 'I'll take a month to tell you that I still like you, even though I wish I didn't'. You really know how to flatter someone, don't you?"
I roll my eyes. "Can we just get this over with already?! I like you, you like me, let's get together and be hap-py... Do I really need to sing and make up my own lyrics to anymore of that 'Barney' song?! Just shut up and kiss me already before I can convince myself of what an idiot I am or let me go and die in a hole of my own embarrassment."
"'Shut up and kiss me'... what's your name? Reece Mastin? Interesting combination – Barney and Reece Mastin... I can see this working out!" Zane teases as he gets up and moves closer towards me, further within the kitchen. By now he is already annoying me as my head begins to take reign of my heart that had already trumpeted ahead to Zane.
It's a bit late.
I'm caught unaware and snapped out of my thoughts by my lip's unexpected, yet familiar union with a pair of thin, supple lips.
Just like riding a bike.
Just as you catch a rhythm, you remember and sense the repetitious actions of moving pedals and controlling a bike, just as a smooth and fluid pace instinctively begins to be followed.
As with the force of crashing lips, a very different flood of memories is ignited by the kiss and for a brief moment of toe-tingling, heart-fluttering happiness there is an awesome bridge of connecting the old with the new... Before the very new and very uninvited interrupts with a squeal that ended our moment for the time being.
"You dirty dogs! I knew it!" Tam squealed in excitement, with a louder-than-intended single clap of her hands together.
"Please tell me that you two have been some big juicy, scandalous secret. Our household is in dire need of some spicing up! It's been going on for months? Hasn't it?! You've been together behind our backs, trying to hide your love for each other!"
Tam's imagination is obviously working in overtime, while that girl is in serious need of a hobby.
"No, Tam. Just no! The scandal has been scandalous for what, about all of two minutes, sorry to say."
"Damn it" Tam replied and I struggled to distinguish whether it is genuine or exaggerated disappointment within the situation that my sister is apparently completely riveted by. "Oh well. Will still owes me 15 bucks so it's all good... Thanks guys!"
I look to Zane to momentarily gauge his thoughts on what sounds like a bet. Over the two of us...
"Were you betting on us Tam?! What was the bet about?"
I didn't know whether to be seriously annoyed by the two's scheming behind our backs, or seriously enthused that they'd been betting on us.
"Will and I were having a shot at who was closest to estimating when you two would finally give it a shot again. We knew that it was a matter of when, not if."
A look of offence fleeted over my face which had my younger sister grovelling before I had the chance to say anything about the bet.
"Sorry if you're not happy that we were betting on you guys, but it was just a bit of fun! I'm so happy for you two... It's good news!"
Tam wraps me in a hug unexpectedly as she seemed to bubble over in a fluster of excitement, quickly losing control of her actions.
"It is good news, isn't it?" I consider with a smile as the younger girl releases me from her arms and the embrace, allowing me the freedom to shoot a glance up to the other, and only male party involved in the excitement.
Looking back, it's incredible to consider my journey over the last few months.
I had gone from a point in my life of extreme uncertainty and turmoil with the death of my father. Initially, I had failed to deal with his death and save myself from the blame that 'I could've done something more' to help him, when really, it could not be further from my fault.
Dad's death in our home meant two things. One, I could no longer live in the residence that I'd spent roughly my last six or so years living when it became a shell of the former home I loved before he had died. Secondly, it also meant that even if I found a roommate, a companion of some sort and recreated the homely state, I would never be able to forget the fact I had seen my father lying on the ground, a long way passed alive when I returned home from defusing after our fight.
The domino-effect of dad's passing and the location of such lead to so much more... I never knew that within a few months of living with Zane and Will I would manage to find some sort of a way to deal with the death, then more than that, be able to help Bella when she was the one at the weakest point, having fled from her boyfriend Daniel's abuse the first time before returning to the scumbag. The Bella scenario had nothing on the bombshell that detonated the minute that Tam arrived on our doorstep, claiming to be a sister I had never known, never heard of and never even considered to possibly exist.
In many ways, I've progressed. I've made my way through pain that I didn't even believe could be bearable. I'd been a support, a friend and a help when I was needing to receive all of that just as much as Bella needed it. I've worked through the hatred and my intense feelings that had boiled over with the arrival of Tam, but extended right back to my unresolved mother-issues and the fact that I had never dealt with failing to receive any closure as she left me and my father selfishly for a life on her own.
However, now as I look up, to the man now wrapped around me and note not only have I progressed, I've also managed to digress... I've moved ahead, yet ended back up at square one with the man that is so perfect for me, yet so mismatched to me, all-in-one.
It's funny how life works out.
Just as with Zane, I had no way of ever picking that my life's journey –the good and the bad- would lead me to where I am, right now. My life is so, so far from perfect, but it's my life, my journey and sometimes being far from perfection can be absolutely perfect.
And that is THE END!
Can I just say the biggest, most grateful thank you to everyone who has supported my work with this. Every reader, every reviewer, thank you. I really, really hope that you all enjoyed this journey in Far From Perfection as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Even though this is the final chapter of the first Far From Perfection, I haven't marked it as complete yet because before I post the sequel, I will post a trivia chapter, with a range of sorts of facts and statistics throughout the writing of Far From Perfection that I hope you will find interesting! Also, it will feature a few teasers for the sequel!
THANK YOU! xoxo
P.S. Don't forget to check out the tumblr page!