Chapter 8 - Happy F-ing Birthday?
You have me floating like a feather on the sea
While you're as heavy as the world
That you hold your hands beneath
Once I wondered what was holding up the ground
But I can see, love, that it was you all the way down
I, Carrion (Icarian) - Hozier
BPOV
My birthday weekend finds me back in NYC, enjoying a 3 day break, utterly exhausted. While my work in Poland was inspiring, it was also emotionally draining. Combine that with my jumbled feelings about whatever-the-fuck happened in Germany with Edward and I was quickly sinking into a depression - or at least, a greater depression than I normally experienced.
I find it hard to approach the day with any type of excitement. Alice noticed my moods but didn't say much about it, only insinuating I should take the therapist thing more seriously. To get her off my back, I clicked the link she had sent me months ago and signed up to be matched with a therapist that I'll surely scare away with my avoidance issues.
I cleaned my apartment and did the million loads of laundry that had accumulated in all my traveling. I watched my favorite comfort films - Pride & Prejudice, Anna Karenina, and Gone Girl, of course - and ordered food from all the spots I miss when not in NYC.
I walked for an hour around the city and listened to an album of love and heartbreak. I drank so much coffee that I was shaking and tried to balance it out with a bottle of wine.
And that still left me with two days left of my three day break.
And that caused curiosity to get the better of me, and I started to listen to my ex-husband's band's post-divorce discography. Because I'm a masochistic idiot, apparently.
And that's how I found myself sobbing on the floor of my living room on my birthday. Greasy hair, ratty sweater, old sweatpants, and a seemingly moderately emotional wistful love song playing a lovely background track to my weeping.
And, naturally, that's when there's a knock at my door.
Anxiety has me fearing it's Edward again, and I bat down my poofy hair as I head to the door to check through the peephole. Rather than a ridiculously handsome Englishman, however, there are simply three large boxes.
Hauling them into my apartment leaves me sweating and more out of breath than it should have. Now that I had stopped crying, I really wanted to shower off my emotions so that I could pretend the last 24 hours weren't spent wallowing. However, curiosity gets the better of me.
Upon opening the first box, I found a plethora of bubble wrap and cardboard. I started to unwrap whatever all the bubbles were hiding and come across what was clearly a vinyl record in a cardboard record mailer. My heart started pounding, even though I still was unsure about what was happening. I opened the mailer box.
Either I was hallucinating, or I'd just been mailed my 1975 original first pressing of Patti Smith's Horses. I even find the same little tear in the upper left part of the cover. The record itself has been placed in a protective plastic sleeve, and still looks mint.
"What the fuck?" I muttered to myself before digging for a second record. This one is Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees single release. Another from what was once my record collection.
I scream when I find David Bowie's Heroes, and instantly put it on my record player, straight to the title track. When the skip I have been missing for six years occurs, the sobbing begins anew. Because here I was, depressed on my birthday, and Edward, my very estranged, very ex-husband, has just given me one thing I thought I'd never see again.
Gratitude fills me, despite everything. The contents of these boxes represented years of searching, of living, of loving these albums and songs that I thought would never be the same again.
I wanted to thank him. Wanted him to know how much this meant to me. That he kept my records all these years, and kept them properly stored despite everything, despite addiction and divorce and stardom, and had someone properly box and mail them to me. But I needed a better hold on myself before I tried to contact him.
The subsequent shower, of course, becomes an everything shower as my nerves grow. I didn't even have Edward's number anymore - how was I going to get a hold of him? I could ask Black, but that opens me up to too many questions.
Once I had shaved everywhere, and done both a hair and a face mask, I finally decided to DM him to thank him. Upon finding my phone, I found some notifications that had gone largely ignored the last few days, the most recent one being eleven text messages from Alice. Panic hits me, thinking she was trying to call me into work and I hadn't seen it, but her messages start with a birthday message and then descend into chaos.
Alice (Boss): ummmmm Bella
Alice (Boss): I don't want to freak you out
Alice (Boss): but I'm kind of freaking out
Alice (Boss): did something happen
Alice (Boss): ???????
Alice (Boss): actually, you probably haven't seen it
Alice (Boss): okay just call me when you're done freaking out
Alice (Boss): [image]
I waited impatiently as the image loaded, and then nearly dropped my phone as it registered what I was looking at.
It was a picture of me. On Masen's Instagram.
"What the fu…" I trailed off, opening Instagram and going to his profile myself.
There it was. My face was cut off so that only my lips and body were shown. I was sitting poolside, a glass of wine in hand. My hair was shorter than it is now, wavy and swaying in the breeze. I remembered that day - we were at a hotel in Brazil. It was my spring break and the guys were playing Lollapalooza Brasil, so we took whatever time we could to hang out. It had rained a lot of the trip, so we took advantage of the clear day to be by the pool. You couldn't tell by my dress that we were enjoying a pool day - in my typical contrarian way, I was wearing trousers and a silk cami, one of my feet dangling in a pool. My nails were all perfectly manicured and matching in a way I haven't taken the time to accomplish in years. I wore dainty jewelry. My skin was clear. All in all, I looked good - healthy. Chic.
And now I'm on my famous ex-husband's social media.
"What the fuck?!" I exclaimed again.
And that's when I saw the caption.
Even though I don't deserve to, I still miss you.
—--
A/N: A short one. Please forgive me for the long delays in between chapters. I'm terrible. Thank you for showing me love regardless. Hope you all are well! Xoxo orionsnights
