I need to look at myself in the mirror and say “I am kenough” but I will cry

Okay, let me - let me just reiterate this here, just to get these thoughts out of my head -

(Mentions of alcohol abuse, other substance abuse + physical/psychological abuse, and death mention under the Read More. Read at your own discretion.)

I seem to have a problem with drunk people in general, and sometimes - but very rarely - in fiction. And that’s okay, because confronting them in fiction might actually be able to help me confront them again in real life.

See, I’ve talked about this numerous times on here, but I’m not sure if I ever outright said it, and if you’re new here, you might not know this, but - my father died in 2008. Drank himself to his grave.

Addictive tendencies run in our family. My father’s sister also has a history with alcohol addiction and abuse, but unlike him, she was able to recognise her problem, and get help. After a very long time in therapy and still frequent visits to a therapist, she’s now over 70 and hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol since she was 57.

With her son, it was drug addiction and abuse. He went to therapy too. With me, it’s...similar. I had a stretch during my teens where I was so close to becoming addicted to a certain kind of pills - my girlfriend actually noticed and helped me. Never touched them again, but it was a hard way to get there.

My father, according to his two siblings, exhibited a penchant to drinking far too much already in his teenage years. He also exhibited severe anger management issues back then - he wrecked a door once because he was angry at his mother, and these European wooden doors we have are pretty sturdy.

He seemed to have behaved himself while he and my mother were dating - even my grandmother affirmed that he was exemplary. My mother wanted to get married, and to have a ton of kids, and my grandmother was delighted by the idea of her youngest son becoming a husband and father.

My father never wanted to marry or to have kids...but he desperately wanted to please his mother. And because he was old-fashioned, the idea of divorcing my mother after a certain time was absolutely out of the question; her divorcing him even more so. Turns out it would have been the best thing for everyone involved.

He nearly died from health complications shortly after they got married and was physically unable to look after me for a number of years. My mother was working full-time up to 1994, I believe, when she got her MS diagnosis. I spent most of my days at my grandmother’s; those were some of my happiest moments during childhood. My grandmother was more of a mother to me than my mum herself, who always tried her best and is still trying, but is hindered by illness and her own less-than-stellar experience with her own mother.

So my father began drinking again when I entered high school at age 12. At first it was a glass of red wine over lunch, so nothing special. It increased more and more; shortly before he died, alcoholic beverages were the only thing he consumed. If we refused to buy him some, we would face beatings, being choked, being threatened with knives, and verbal threats and abuse.

Fear makes you do the weirdest things, things you wouldn’t possibly do as a rationally thinking person.

I was used to the abuse. He told my mother he never wanted kids when I turned fourteen (he had a talent for hiding things very well), but he never hid it from me. I always knew that I was unwanted by him, and worthless and useless to him. He reminded me of it every day, 

My mother...she tried, but stress made her illness flare up, and there’s only so much you can do when parts of your body stop functioning and your mental health plummets. My father, besides being very talented at hiding things, also had a way of presenting himself in the best way possible to the outside world, so whenever we tried to speak up, no one would believe us.

(My high school headmistress and the deputy headmistress knew, and they believed me. However I never went to them to seek out help - I was too afraid - so there wasn’t much they could do.)

So when he died - and he died very suddenly - it was very weird. To my mother and me, it was instant relief. We would have never wished death upon him - I prayed thousands and thousands of times that he would - you know, just pack his things and leave, but die? That was something different entirely. Still, we had to tell his mother that her youngest son had passed. Had to endure shame and criticism when neither of us two was able to cry at his funeral. Had to hide that we were actually feeling better in the months after his passing.

My mother doesn’t talk about it - I know that she is bitter. She has lost her belief in love; every healthy and happy relationship is doomed to fail in her eyes, because her own was so miserable. It’s really sad.

For me it is - I used to flinch and get scared when someone in my vicinity raised their voice in anger. I sometimes still do when I’m feeling unwell and/or if I’m sleep-deprived. When I’m with people and two of them start fighting? Literal hell. I speak to someone and they don’t instantly reply? My brain goes into the “Oh no I’ve annoyed them look at you you made them angry now they hate you and never wanna talk to you again”-mode (I’ve gotten better at that one over the years, but sometimes it’s still hard). I slide into showing off the things I can do, not because I want people to acknowledge how great my talents are, but because my brain is begging “Please say you like it, that I didn’t do this in vain, please say it means something, that it isn’t worthless, that I am not worthless” - I am still struggling with that one.

Now drunk people - not too long ago I witnessed two friends getting drunk for fun here on tumblr and blogging while doing so, and my brain instantly was torn between yelling at them to “please stop, you’re going to get addicted and then you can’t stop anymore and then you are going to die, and I don’t want you to die because I love you”, and “Oh God, just don’t say anything because if they notice you they will come for you and yell at you and hit you and punish you-” . yeah, it was unpleasant. I had no idea it would trigger me so much until it did.

Usually when I encounter drunk characters in a movie/on TV, or while reading, it’s fine because I can put some emotional distance between me and them. Today I read a piece of fanfic featuring a drunk character for only a few paragraphs, but the way they behaved and spoke and carried themselves was so reminiscent of my father that I could smell the beer and wine off them while reading. It was intense.

I love this fic, and I know this character won’t be drunk for the entire thing. And it made me realise that I won’t be able to avoid drunk people for my whole life. I’ve encountered a few of them in the years after my father’s passing, especially when I was out and about later in the evening or at night; most of them minded their own business, were occupied with trying to stand straight, or even singing loudly. Absolutely no threat to me, and yet I was so afraid to just walk past them.

People are allowed to get drunk. Not every drunk person is addicted to alcohol. Not every drunk person constitutes a threat to me. Hell, not every person addicted to alcohol constitutes a threat to me. I might stay cautious for the rest of my life and consume not more than a glass of alcohol per year, but I have to learn that yes, drunk people exist. Yes, people I love might get drunk sometimes. No, they probably won’t automatically punch the living daylights out of me just because they’re drunk.

I’ve reread that piece of fanfic again, and - it’s still vivid and hits home, but it’s...not as bad anymore.

What I might be trying to say is: trigger warnings are important. Use them if you need them. In my particular case, this is something a trigger warning cannot shield me from in real life. This is a fear that I’ll have to face one day or another, and while I won’t be seeking out media depicting (severe) alcohol abuse, I do think that confronting my fears through fic, within that safe environment, might actually be helpful to me personally. I can always stay away from it if I recognise that it does more harm than good.

That took a detour, wow.

Et in omnibus quæ fecit nos Chapter One

Read on AO3 here | Next Chapter

Characters: Natsuo Todoroki, Fuyumi Todoroki, Touya Todoroki, Shouto Todoroki, Enji Todoroki

Summary: After losing his big brother Touya when he was 13 years old Todoroki Natsuo Decides that he's going to do whatever it takes to fulfil his brother's dream of being a hero, even though he's quirkless. It will be a long and hard road but Natsuo intends to use the advantages granted to him through his father's work so that one day he can take the old bastard down himself.

A/N: Woooooo hey guys I'm doing NaNoWriMo for the first time!!

It's late here and I'm tired so I'm probably gonna keep this short. I'm a slow writer so I highly doubt I'm gonna be able to make the 50,000 words considering I only just hit 5,000 and I'm still on chapter two

this chap is just an opening so it's a bit short and a more introspective than anything but don't worry things will only escalate from here. I'll try not to take too long to update but if you'd like to motivate me to do this I have a Kofi here

“THERE IS NO WAY I’M GOING TO HELP A FAILURE LIKE YOU GO TO UA SO YOU CAN SULLY MY NAME AT MY ALMA MATER,” a voice booms through the house.

“FINE! I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP ANYWAY! I’LL GET IN ON MY OWN!” The other voice is less booming but still manages to hold just as much anger.

Natsuo Todoroki is 11 years old and his big bro Touya (who is 14) is yelling with their father again. When the shouting started Touya’s twin Fuyumi had simply sighed and moved to a different part of the house to be further away from them. This is starting to happen more and more often. But Natsuo thinks this time is different, they’re not just yelling at each other just to try and hurt the other, like they usually do, they’re actually yelling about something important. Which is why Natsuo did not follow his sister in her attempt at escape but instead moved closer to try and see what.

Touya had told Natsuo earlier that his class at school had started discussing where they want to go for high school and what they want to do in the future, Touya’s set on the idea that he wants to go to UA, where dad went, so he can prove to the old man that he’s not a failure. He also said that if he can become a really good hero, he might be able to get Natsuo and the others away from dad. It sounds a little unbelievable if he’s being honest, dad just seems too strong to ever really get away from but Natsuo wants to believe that if anyone can do it, Touya can. However, it sounds like negotiations with dad haven’t gone as well as Touya was hoping (although maybe he wasn’t hoping they’d go well at all, he has been picking more fights lately).

“ HA! AS IF A GOOD FOR NOTHING SUCH AS YOURSELF COULD ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING ON YOUR OWN!” Natsuo can’t help but cringe at that remark. He never really understands why they have to go out of their way to hurt each other so much.

“I’M GONNA MAKE YOU EAT THOSE WORDS OLD MAN, JUST YOU WAIT!” the sound of a door slamming, Touya must’ve stormed out.

Natsuo is eavesdropping from a storage cupboard that happens to be a little down the hall from his father’s office since it’s used for old paperwork and other useless items. He didn’t close the door but Touya seems to be so focused on his anger as he storms past that he doesn’t even notice Natsuo.

“Stupid old man, I can do it. I’m gonna take him down someday, one way or another.” Touya’s muttering to himself as goes by and Natsuo can’t help but be a little scared of the dark look on his face.

He waits until Touya’s gone- not wanting to bother him when he’s in such a foul mood- and he’s sure his father’s not leaving his office any time soon, before creeping out of the cupboard and closing the door behind him. Without the yelling, the house feels almost too quiet. It gives Natsuo the feeling that something bad could happen at any second but, on the other hand, it almost always feels that way these days. He’s not really sure how to describe it but since mum has left things have changed so much and so little. They’re forced to live their lives like normal since dad won’t acknowledge what happened but there’s this underlying tension that just won’t seem to go away no matter how normal they pretend to be.

He decides to make his way back to his room so he can think about what he overheard. On his way, he barely manages to keep from walking straight into a blast of rich blue flames that come roaring out of the training room. Touya must be letting out some heat- literally and figuratively- as his quirk gets harder to manage the angrier he is. He and the others aren’t allowed to train in the main dojo since that’s where dad and Shouto train but the other dojo is smaller so it’s harder for Touya to keep his flames contained in the room. Natsuo wants to check on his brother but he knows Touya would prefer being left alone to deal with his rage.

Checking that it’s safe to pass this time, Natsuo continues on the journey to his bedroom. Dad likes to keep him and his siblings, except for Shouto, separated from his hero business so their rooms are on the opposite side of the house from his office. It can be a pretty peaceful walk though so Natsuo allows his mind to wander. He can’t help but think about how scary his dad sounds when he’s angry. Would everyone still think he’s a great hero if they heard him like that? Probably, he thinks. Touya told him that dad can get away with almost anything as long as he has the title ‘hero’.

He’s nearly at his room when he decides to poke his head into Fuyumi and Touya’s shared room, “Fuyu, dad and Touya are done fighting.”

Fuyumi puts down the book she was reading and pulls out her headphones, “Where’s Touya now, Natsu?”

“He’s in the training room but I wouldn’t go see him right now, he’s pretty pissed off.”

“Angry. He’s pretty angry, Natsuo please,” Fuyumi sighs and shakes her head. “Alright, I’ll keep my distance. You’d best do the same and stay in your room for now.”

Natsuo nods in reply and leaves the room, closing the door behind him. It’s not fair that Touya’s allowed to say bad words but he always gets scolded by Fuyumi.

He finishes the journey to his room and promptly flops on his bed. Not much has happened- to him, at least- but he still feels completely drained of energy, like he’s walked across all of Japan instead of just crossing his house. Being at home seems to have that effect on him a lot these days. Between Touya and dad’s fighting, Fuyumi’s constant fussing and worrying, and Shouto’s entire demeanour since mum left, it’s all just so tiring. He’s glad he’s allowed to do sports and stuff away from home, unlike Shouto, he’s starting to think he’d suffocate if he had to stay here for too long.

Tucked away in the relative safety of his own room, Natsuo allows himself to properly reflect on Touya’s argument with their dad. Fuyumi doesn’t like it when they argue and has shown worry over Touya going to UA but Nasuo thinks Touya is already a hero. At least in Natsuo’s eyes, he is. The fact that Touya is brave enough to stand up to their dad- something that a lot of villains can’t do-  at all. The fact that even though he’s been tossed aside like trash and called a failure so often it might as well be his name, he still has the drive to try and become a hero. These are the things that define Touya’s true potential and Natsuo’s sure they’ll be the stories Touya tells when he’s a pro hero for real.

____________

Natsuo Todoroki is 13 years old and his older brother Touya (who would be 16) is gone. When they got the news Touya’s twin Fuyumi had gone to their shared room and has been crying in there ever since. Natsuo, on the other hand, moves towards their father’s office, nothing about this feels right and he hopes his father will slip up and say something to give him a clue.

Touya did manage to get into UA without Endeavor’s help, just like he said he would, however, not wanting his reputation to be tied to Touya, Endeavor would only let him enrol under their mother’s maiden name. This obviously didn’t bother Touya at all and things were actually calm for a short time, while Touya was distracted with all the extra school work.

Of course, things didn’t stay that way for long. UA’s hero course is notorious for being incredibly difficult (it would have to be to get the results it does) and Touya’s classes were no different. He kept up with the work just fine and didn’t cause any trouble but the physical toll it was taking on him because of the issues with his quirk were mounting. Touya’s temper got worse over time and as it did the number of fights he would pick with dad grew. Despite everything Touya had accomplished getting into UA there father still refused to acknowledge him and refused to ease up on Shouto’s training.

Shouto’s ten now and Natsuo hasn’t seen him smile in years. It makes him feel sick to admit it but he finds Shouto’s blank, dead-eyed expression a bit disturbing… but he knows it’s not his little brother’s fault. He doesn’t hear him crying or screaming from the training room as much anymore but he’s not sure if that’s a good thing either.

Natsuo knows the way Shouto’s growing up was one of the things making Touya so angry all the time. His big brother hates to feel helpless. The situation just seemed to keep on escalating they all knew it had to come to a head at some point but this…

They never even considered this.

Natsuo had been at soccer training and Fuyumi had accompanied him on the trip so neither of them had been at the house at the time. Shouto would’ve been there but neither of them has had a chance to talk to him yet and they know from experience with mum that Shouto sometimes shut out memories he didn’t like. This means the only word they have to go off is their father.

According to Endeavor, Touya had come home from school in a huff and when the man had questioned his son about it Touya escalated the conversation to a fight. After a few minutes of this Touya had simply stomped away and left the house. Touya gave no indication that he wouldn’t be coming back. This is the story the police received the morning after he disappeared, it is also the same story Touya’s siblings received. While the police might not have thought anything to be unusual (they were talking to the number two hero after all), Natsuo saw the story for what it was. Well practised. Suspicious.

There’s no way Touya would just up and leave like that. Not without giving at least giving some indication to him and Fuyumi. He didn’t leave any notes or take any of his things. Fuyumi may be the one with common sense but even Touya wouldn’t just run away completely unprepared. None of Endeavor’s story made any sense to someone who actually knew Touya.

Natsuo sits in the same cupboard he used when he eavesdropped on Touya and his father’s arguing two years ago. He doesn’t hear anything useful from his father that could clue him in on what really happened to Touya. Although Endeavor did spend some time discussing details on the phone with the police about Touya’s disappearance, he quickly moved on and went back to focusing his attention on his work, even though he’d officially taken the day off for Touya’s sake.

As the facts all start to settle in Natsuo’s mind as reality, a feeling that had started as nothing more than a smouldering ember began to burn hotter inside him. He tallies up all the horrible things his father has done over the years and each one feeds the slowly growing inferno in his chest. Stoking the flames until he starts to understand how Touya must have always felt.

He has the sudden but childish thought that it’s just not fair! It’s not fair that mum’s locked away in hospital, It’s not fair that Touya spent most of his life wrapped in bandages trying to please father only to be tossed aside like garbage! It’s not fair that Fuyumi has been forced to grow up far too quickly and can’t even feel safe in her own home, it’s not fair that Shouto was taken away from them so young to be beaten and brutalised in the name of ‘heroism’!

Natsuo doesn’t know when it started but he suddenly realises that his face is wet with tears. It’s not fair that Touya’s just gone now…

Natsuo sniffs and wipes the tears from his face. No, he will not let Touya’s story end here. If a strong hero was what Endeavor wanted for a child then a hero was what he was going to get. If Touya can’t go to UA anymore then it’s up to Natsuo to carry on his dream. To prove to their father that it’s not the quirk that makes the man.

Natsuo looks ahead, face set in a determined stare. No matter what… he would become a hero.

Hiding. Part 68b (NSFW)

“It doesn’t mean she hates you.”

Louis sighed.

“Duffy doesn’t hate you.” Charlie repeated.

"She likes her own kids better though."

“No she doesn’t.”

"Mum always said you preferred your other kids." Louis whispered.

“And your mum was wrong.”

"So why did you let her take me to Canada? I told you I didn't want to go!"

“Because.... I couldn’t take another thing away from your mum.”

"I'm just a thing?"

“No you’re not just a thing.” Charlie replied. “I’d destroyed everything in your mum’s life. I couldn’t destroy her further by taking her only son.”

"Why did you destroy everything in her life?"

“I ruined our marriage. Made her get rid of a baby she wanted. I could hardly take you too could I?”

"All coz you loved someone else?"

Charlie nodded.

"I want to be on my own now."

Charlie kissed Louis' head. “You need to come to me every time you want to hurt something or someone ok?"

"OK." Louis mumbled.

Reluctantly Charlie left Louis in the garden and returned to the kitchen, rubbing his neck and exhaling.

Duffy turned as she heard the back door open. Her hands went to her hips and she scowled as she saw that Charlie was alone. "So what's he got to say for himself?!"

“He’s... not himself today which is understandable.”

"So that excuses him from inflicting a head injury on Tilly, narrowing missing doing the same to me and breaking a window does it?"

“No of course not. It’s no excuse but I don’t think he can deal with the intensity of his emotions.”

"He's lucky that no-one needs stitches as a result of his issues."

“I know.” Charlie sighed sadly. “I’m sorry.”

"You're not the one who should be apologising. How are we supposed to afford to replace that window? We already need to pay for Peter's prom tickets, a new blazer for Jake and new school shoes for all three girls!"

“We will find a way, please don’t worry.” He stepped towards her.

"We shouldn't have to though." She folded her arms. "This isn't the first time he's caused damage or injury either."

“I know we shouldn’t have to.” He touched her cheek, “Is Tilly ok? Are you okay?”

"Bit of a bump but otherwise she seems fine. We should keep an eye on her for the next few hours though. Me? Oh I'm just fantastic, I love my stepson throwing rocks at my head!"

“Good idea. I’m glad she’s ok.” He ran his thumb over her cheek, “I don’t think he meant to throw that in your direction.”

"I don't share your certainty." She replied as she pulled back from his touch. "Lottie told me that it was Louis that pinched Oli yesterday." She added.

“What?” He frowned.

"She wouldn't lie."

“I’m not suggesting she was!”

"But you are suggesting that Louis wouldn't do something like that to a defenceless baby?"

“No I wasn’t.”

"I don't believe you! You always take his side. Making excuses for his behaviour. I don't hear you doing that when any of the other kids misbehave!"

“Of course I’m going to make an excuse for his behaviour! He is my son who is grieving for his mum! Have you forgotten that?!”

"I'm not totally heartless but I can't have him behaving like this - it's bad for the other kids."

“I know it is. But what do you want me to do? I’m trying to stop him!”

"Try harder! Do you not care that he's hurt two of his siblings? I know he only shares one parent in common with them but it's still unacceptable!"

“I’m trying!!” He replied, “And I know it’s not acceptable but he’s probably jealous and confused!”

"Confused about what? It's all pretty straightforward."

“Is it straightforward for him though?”

"Look, it's terrible what happened but he can't keep acting out."

“Cut him a bit of slack Duffy!”

"I've cut him plenty of slack. All that's got me is a broken window and a daughter that almost ended up in A+E!"

“He’s struggling! Now really isn’t the time to make things harder for him or more difficult!”

"But it's OK for him to make things more difficult for the rest of us?"

Charlie sighed, “I’m not saying that.” He exhaled sadly and was quite for a minute, “Maybe I should take the diaries away? I don’t think they’re helping matters.”

"Even from the beyond the grave she's got you both dancing to her tune." Duffy muttered.

“No she hasn’t!!”

"Oh really?! We'll never be free of her will we? I'm sick and tired of being forced to remain in her shadow!"

“Now you’re just being silly!” He remarked, “It’s her anniversary! What do you want me and Louis to do, forget she existed?”

"Oh that's right, I'll always be a silly little kid in your eyes won't I? Mustn't speak out of turn or contradict the master of the house!"

“I’m not even saying that!! Oh for goodness sake Duffy, I’m trying here alright? Do you think Louis wants to behave like this?”

"I don't blame Louis, I blame her! She made him the way he is. I have bent over backwards to make things easier for him. Hell, I even let you go to Canada to be with him when I was so ill and our baby was due at any time!"

“I blame her too but he doesn’t know how to feel or what he’s supposed to do with these emotions! Of course I don’t condone his behaviour! But I understand his frustrations!”

"I'm sick of me and my children baring the brunt of his mood swings."

“And you think I’m thrilled to be on the receiving end of his mood swings?”

"Hearing him yell at me that his dad loved his mum more than he loves me was a particular high point of the last few days. I wonder where he got that idea from?"

“I don’t know where he got that idea from!”

"So it's not true then? You didn't tell him that you loved his mum so much and still do?"

“Yes I told him that.”

"Good to know where I fall in your affections..!" She replied sarcastically as she turned to walk away from him.

“You’re so bloody infuriating!” He muttered.

"Its a wonder you bother to keep me around then isn't it?"

“So bloody infuriating!” He repeated though his eyes twinkled when he said it.

"And you're an asshole!" She fired back.

“You love that I’m an arsehole though.” He replied somewhat cockily.

"You are so completely full of shit!"

“That makes two of us then, doesn’t it?”

"I beg your pardon?" She asked, her eyebrow raised, her hands on her hips.

He stepped closer to her, “I may have told Louis I love his mum but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you!”

"I refuse to play second best to a dead woman."

“And you’re not.” He backed her into the wall. “You’re not second best.”

"Well that's how I feel sometimes."

He ran his fingertips against her collarbone, “I’m sorry you feel like that.”

"Charlie..!" She warned, trying to remain cross at him but struggling more with every passing second.

“I don’t like it when we argue.” He sighed, “I hate it.”

"Well, you'd best apologise and start buttering me up. Then I might consider forgiving you..." She grinned mischievously.

“I’m really, really sorry.” He whispered in her ear as he ran his tongue over her earlobe. “I love you. Always have.”

"You're disgusting. I hate you both!" Louis yelled from the back door before running past them and upstairs to his bedroom.

Charlie kissed Duffy’s cheek, “I’ll be back in a minute.” He went after Louis, “Louis! Wait!"

Louis slammed the bedroom door in his father's face.

Charlie sighed, and opened the door. “Louis!”

"I thought you were too busy having fun with my wicked stepmother?"

“I thought you said you didn’t hate Duffy?”

"Changed my mind." Louis shrugged.

“Duffy hasn’t done anything wrong.”

"She's the reason mum's dead."

“No she isn’t.”

"She's the reason we went to Canada. And why you didn't come too."

“I’m the reason you moved to Canada.”

"Coz you wanted her and her stupid kids!"

“Your mum didn’t have to go to Canada.”

"I wanted to stay with her but you made me come back here."

“You were happy with your mum. Why do you think I never fought for you to come back here? Because you were happy. And then your mum died...”

"You let her die so you could come back here."

“I didn’t want your mum to die.”

"You let the doctors turn off the machines. You didn't give her a chance!" Louis sobbed.

“She was brain dead, Louis. She wasn’t alive...”

"You let them keep the machines on when Duffy was sick."

“Because Duffy wasn’t brain dead.”

"Mum could have been ok, you didn't even try!"

“The doctors showed me the scans Louis. Your mum was never going to wake up.”

"Liar!"

“I’m not lying!”

"You let her die coz Oli was more important to you."

“Your mum was just as important to me!”

"And Emily was more important than mum's baby." Louis added.

“That’s not true.”

"You made mum kill two babies. Did you try and make her kill me too?"

“No Louis! Of course not. Why would I do that?”

"Coz I'm just like them!"

“It was the happiest day of my life when I found out your mum was pregnant with you.”

"Thought you didn't want to make Duffy upset again?" Louis asked, a maniacal grin on his face.

“I don’t. But I’m not going to lie to you either!” Charlie paused, “I loved your mum and I love Duffy! I fell in love twice. I made mistakes with your mum. I made mistakes with Duffy.”

"You're good at making mistakes. I wonder how many more it'll take before she leaves you..?"

“You really want that, don’t you?”

"Why should you get to be happy when I'm not?" Louis asked, a dark look crossing his eyes.

“Then what can I do to make you happy?” Charlie asked. “Tell me!”

"I want mum back."

“I can’t bring your mum back Louis. No matter how much I’d love too.”

Yo kids don’t send nudes if y’all are under 18 because it’ll fuck your life up. Trust me and I’ll tell you a story.

I’m 14 and I have a girlfriend the same age. We are in year 9 in Australia, going to a regular shit public high school. We’ve been together for a few months and we get frisky one night on Facebook. We share nudes and some videos, typical couple shit. No big deal, so we thought. 15th birthday a month later, parents made me go to school. At school in math class and office runner knocks on the door and says my name. I’m asked to go see the principal. I think to myself it’s probably because I’ve been skipping so many days because I hated school.

I get down to the principal and the cop that’s been doing talks all week is there as well. I’m nervous but still think it’s no big deal. Then my girlfriend walks in and I think ‘hold up, why is she here she doesn’t skip school’ when she sits down they get straight to the point and ask us about our nudes. We both freak out and tell them we won’t do it again bla bla bla. They make us delete our facebooks because the cop said even if you delete it someone could get it back If they hacked us.

The principal found out because my girlfriend used her school email for Facebook. Big dummy. We got suspended for a month as well so that was fun. My parents weren’t happy but they weren’t angry. Her parents weren’t happy with me because their darling daughter could do no wrong. We were the big scandal of the school for 2 days before 7th grader had sex for a cheese burger. Lol should’ve gone for a dinner box

2 months later I get a knock on the door from the cops. I’m being arrested and I get charged with possession of mine and her nudes. Distribution of my nudes. Using a carriage service (Facebook) and others. The legal term is child abuse material. That covers everything from what we did all the way to actual child abuse.

They let me out on bail that day and I have to go to court. Parents are not happy about me going to court at all. So they take away all electronics. Except an old shit Nokia phone. I’m living with dad and my younger, severely autistic brother. Because of mum being an addict when I was younger but now mum is clean. Yayyyy. From the age of 15 till the day I turn 18 I go to court to await my actual punishment. Every 2 weeks on a tuesday I go to children’s court. Since I live in a shit area I expect to see people I know from school at court but surprisingly none. Every court date I am riddled with anxiety even when I know it’ll just get adjourned for a later date. I drop out of school in year 11 because of the stress of court mixed with senior year assignments and projects, not a good mix. I break up with my girlfriend because depression and the fact that I blamed her and she blamed me and a huge fight ensured and her dad got a new job on the other side of the country so they packed up and moved.

My brother starts to get violent as well for some reason. Leaving scars in both mine and dads arms from when he scratched us. We get him on medication which helps at least.

Final day of court. I’m 18, it’s my birthday today, the judge is the same one I’ve had the entire time. She’s sick of the prosecution ajourning it and told them if they did it one more time she would throw the case out. Some Legal talk, I’m found guilty. My punishment, I’m put on the child protection register, basically making me a sex offender, I’ve gotta go to counselling and see juvenile justice. Turns out they’ll see me till I’m 21. They’re cool. I only have to see them for a year. Easy enough. Counselling, year and a half, easy. The register, 7 years. Difficult but I can manage. Gotta report all social media, trips out of state, devices that can have social media, shit like that to cops within 2 weeks. Whatever.

It’s all going great. Until I’m 20. I have to report once a year. In June. In September when I’m still 18 dad gets diagnosed with dementia. He’s 61. Mum moves back in to help when it gets too rough and he gets moved into a nursing home 6 months later because we can’t continue this. Fast forward to 20 years old in June. Dads health is on a rollacoaster. One day he’s okay the next he’s on deaths door. This goes on for months. This stressed mum out big time and made her upset. In turn making me upset. And making me forget about reporting.

July 4th a Thursday. I get a call at 8:30 am asking me to come in to the cop shop because I’ve breached my condition of not reporting. Well shit. I get there 9 am with mum and lawyer. We talk for half an hour and I tell them why I didn’t contact them. They arrest me. And I’m kept in the holding cells till the next day for court. I am scared shitless. No sleep. Friday rolls around. My court time is 11 am. God damnit. Judge seems nice. Bail refused and I am sent to jail until the 23rd of July. Which is on a Monday. Holy shit I’m going to jail what the fuck. I finally had a job. I was doing an animal studies class. Life was okay. Sent to jail. Didn’t get there till 6pm. Didn’t get processed and into a cell till midnight. Day 2 of no sleep.

First day. I had a cell mate. He decided to slash his wrists because he owed someone nicotine lozenges. Which is what replaced ciggerates. Was starving but now I’m not. I’m currently in processing and won’t be in the main wings till I see welfare Monday. After the guards take him away I cry for god knows how long.

I’m In protection because I’m classed as a sex offender. That Saturday night no sleep again because next door decided to do a Jeffery Epstein. Except this was an actual suicide. Nurse came around for pills and guards were doing head checks. Guard yells out shit he’s hung himself. They try cpr for god knows how long. Sunday. I get a new cell mate. He’s cool. Monday I see welfare then get transferred to a new wing. my new cell mate is okay I’m with him for week. Until he fights someone then when they want to move him to another wing he decides to destroy the cell and flood it. I then get moved to a four out. Four people to a cell. It ain’t bad if you’re with the right people but unfortunately I’m with the wrong people.

I’m with fat fuck and 2 others but those 2 guys get moved a couple days later so it’s me and fat fuck until a week before my court date. He’s fine at first. Quiet then he starts asking questions about why I’m here. I’ve come up with selling weed. Up until then no one questions my story. Asks how much I sold, made, where I sell. But him he asks everything. I mustve fucked up because he picked it apart and caught my lie. He threatens me to tell the truth and so I tell him. Proceeds to make my life hell. Nickname is cradle snatcher. Proceeds to beat me, not severly but enough that it hurts. Then the night before we get new cell mates is the second worst thing to happen. He rapes me. Anally and orally. Threatened me immensely. Didn’t tell anyone. Then the other guys move in. They proceed to torture me, beat me. At least the rape was a one time thing. Now you may ask how is being raped number 2 shouldn’t it be 1. Oh it was. Till I went to have a shower and fat fuck decide to boil water. On activity lists you can get a jug. Dunno why because it’s dangerous. Anyway he boiled water then opened the curtain and threw it at me. Hitting my inner thigh and cock. My thigh got burned and skin peeled. It’s fine now. My cock though. Skin peeled and burned. There’s forever a splotch on my cock. You’d think I would tell the guards. Haha nope. Threatened again. I believed he would find a way no matter what. Didn’t tell the guards. They didn’t notice or care when I was stripped search after visits. That happened on the 23rd. Court was ajourned till September. Lucky for me I got moved to a new cell because while I was gone for court they kicked me out to get some junkie in with them. Couple extra nice people later I get moved in august to a new wing. This one I’m out of my cell from 8 till 3. Before I was loved in for 22 hours a day. Everyone knew what happened to me because of fat fuck running his mouth because he got moved with me. They asked for my side and could see I was truthful so no problems there. They actually were genuinely nice and understanding. Fat fuck got stabbed a week before my next court because he tried being shifty on a drug deal. I laughed hard. Court gets adjourned till November.

I’m moved to a different jail. Smaller and better. At the big jail I stayed in my cell all the time because I was terrified. New jail I was always out and it was good. I was as happy as you can be in jail. Here no one asked why I was in. They just did their time and I did mine. Court gets ajourned again. Till January. Dad passes away a week after my November court and they don’t even let me go to the funeral the cunts. Fast forward to February this year because guess who’s date go pushed back. 2 push backs till the 28th. And I get out. Fucking finally. Now I have to deal with an open criminal record because before jail. There was no conviction recorded. But now there is. I’m also on the register for life now so fucking fantastic news. But the good thing is I can try to appeal. So I’ll be a good boy for a couple years and then appeal.

Sorry this went on so long. Felt like sharing this. Just remember kids. Please don’t share nudes. It ain’t worth the risk. Wait till your 18. And even then I wouldn’t do it.

Just a little|| taeyong - l.ty - nct | M

Type: step brother/sister au! Smut

Paring: taeyong x female reader

Summary: you worked at a sex shop. Your father , new found step mother and step brother all believed you worked at a cafe and oh god did you intend to keep it that way.

(I apologise for any spelling or grammatical errors as I cannot be bothered editing 🤪)

“Taeyong stop!” You yelled as he held your phone above you , way too high for your short self to reach. “Give it back , we need to go to school jackass,” you spat as you jumped up and down repeatedly for your phone. “Calm down , you might cause an earthquake,” he snickered “ are you calling me fat!?” You screamed , you punched into his chest with your tiny fists multiple times , all that came out of him was little grunts and lots of laughter. “Taeyong stop being mean just give me my phone,” you whined. You had just left the house to walk to school with your step brother and unfortunately you were dumb enough to let your guard down and he snatched your phone out of your grasp.

He just moved into your home with his mother. You knew taeyong before your parents got together , he’s one of the ‘popular’ guys at school. He acts like such an angel when I front of the adults but he’s such an asshole!

“If you want it you gotta catch it,” he smirked and held it even higher. “Stop being a jerk and give me my phone before I cause a scene at school about how you tried to cop a feel from a poor , innocent school girl! You wouldn’t want any rumours spreading around would you , how the popular guy tried to take advangtage of me because I was alone walking the streets? Everyone would hate you, it would ruin your reputation,” you glared. “You wouldn’t,” he said with wide eyes “ oh I very much would.” You smirked. He lowered his hand and passed your phone before you snickered and skipped off. And no , taeyong did not try to feel you up. You just needed something to make him hand it back.

✿ ✿ ✿

It was after school , yerin and sohee has left to the bus to go home. You were now walking back home by yourself , taeyong had said he was staying out in town with his friends for a bit before dinner so you had the afternoon to yourself...kind of. As you entered your house you saw your step mother baking in the kitchen , “afternoon , y/n” she smiled “what are you baking?” You asked happily “just some muffins for you kids,” she giggled. Tastings mother was beyond nice , she reminded you a lot of your own mother before she passed. She was so understanding when it came to you and it felt good because going through the teenage phase you didn’t have your mother to help you so finally having her in your life was a big help.

“Ah , taeyong said he was coming home late. He wanted to hang out with friends he said,” you informed her. “Okay , as long as he’s home before dinner, that’s okay”. You nodded and heaved a relieved sigh “well I’m going to get ready for work , I can’t miss this shift , the cafes doing double pay today!” You say excitedly. “That’s good , more money to spend on clothes,” she laughed “you read my mind,” you joked along. “You go get ready , I’ll have some warm muffins for you when you finish work,” “thank you,” you smiled.

Making your way to your room you open the big door and close it. You go into your closet and bring out your uniform. You put on the grey hoodie and black leggings with some plain black vans. You sit at your vanity and brush your hair as you hum to a tune in your head. You apply lip balm and do your lashes before standing up and grabbing your phone that was on charge. “Time to go~” you sing as you walk down the stairs and pass the kitchen “goodbye!” You say lively “have a nice day!” Taeyongs mother yells back from the kitchen.

You walk to the bus station and wait silently for you to arrive into town. After making your way out , you walk down the busy street and into the store you work at , which is not a cafe. “Y/n , just in time. I’ve just finished putting the new stock on show for customers, I’m gonna clock off now. Have a good shift darling,” your coworker naeun said as she made her way to the back. “I’ll try,” you chuckle as you make your way behind the counter and grab your ID card. You put it around your neck and take a seat on the stool. “When’s your next shift?” Naeun asks as she makes her way out from the back “I have Wednesday night , Friday afternoon and Sunday morning,” “hey , we’ll be working with each other Sunday morning. Anyway I’m getting the hell out of here. Have fun babe,” she waves as she leaves the store and you sit in silence.

You grab the blue tooth speaker from the back room and connect your phone , finally replacing the silence with music. You walk around the store and well...it’s just full of sex toys. Dildos , anal beads , chokers , whips , lube , gags you name it it’ll be here. You chill at the counter and serve the customers that come in. After a while it got quiet , you look out the window and see a huge group of guys , you look more carefully and gasp. “Taeyong cannot know I work here,” you put your head down as the loud group passes the store. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were keeping in as they go past.

Two hours go by and it’s already 6. “I have 4 hours left , why did I have to close tonight?” You whine. You hear the door bell jingle and you look up. The person didn’t seem to pay attention to you as they walked around the store in bordem. You took a second look and it’s the exact person you didn’t want here. “Fuck you taeyong,” you whisper. You panic on the inside as he goes through the aisles. Just as you stare at him he looks back at you. “Y/n? I thought you worked at a cafe,” he asked as he walked closer , “I-I do?” You stuttered “is that so? It doesn’t really look the case right now,” he raised a brow. You didn’t know what to say, you regretted working here already. What was wrong with working anywhere else y/n? Out of all places why did you pick a sex shop? “You’re so dead when our parents find out,” he smirked at you , your eyes go wide , you were ready to slap yourself “you can’t,” you nervously panic “of course I can , don’t forget about what you did this morning,” he smirked at you. You but your lip , you were sure you wanted to die at this moment. Your life would be ruined. “This is a sex shop y/n , what would your father think if he knew you worked here?” Taeyong teased “please don’t tell them,” you begged “I’ll do anything for you , whatever you want. anything!” You desperately shout.

He looks you up and down , smiling to himself he laughs. “Anything?” “Anything. Just don’t tell our parents , please. My father would never get over this,” You were in the heat of the moment and you didn’t know how much this would effect you afterwards.

“Alright. Do whatever I say for as long as I want and I won’t tell them. If you refuse by any chance , guess what doll face , Mum and dad are going to put you in the ground” he evily smirked. “Fine!” You give in.

“Alright, follow me,” he said as he walked away from the counter into the lingerie part of the shop. Your eyes widened again and you could not believe him. “You’re going to model one of these for me,” he snickered. You bit your lip to keep your complaints quiet. He picked out a black lace piece. He chucked it at you and winked. “To the dressing rooms,” he followed after you and you sadly closed the door. You stripped out of your clothes and put the piece on. It barley covered anything at all , there were too many strings and the breast areas had strings around them with a thin piece of lace covering the nipples. It had two ribbons around your abdomen and lace underwear. You liked in the mirror and tilted your head. You looked nice , your boobs were large so they filled it out nicely.

“Ready yet?” You could hear taeyong from the other side of the door and you sighed. “I’m coming out now okay?,” you said in a small voice. You flipped your long black hair on your side as you opened the door. Taeyong was leaning against the door as he watched you walk out. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you , you looked stunning to him. Your skin matched perfectly with the dark colour. “Spin for me,” he said with a deep voice. You slowly spun around , you were getting cold due to the lack of clothing. You took another step inside the change room that had your clothes on the sofa inside it. “It’s freezing,” you said as you folded your arms. Taeyong stood behind you and shook his head “it’s not cold,” he laughed. You turn to face him and you glare , “I’m so cold,”.

Taeyong didnt reply , instead he stared at you intently. You watched as he walked closer to you. You were cornered and he had locked the dresser room door. You had no where to go. “What are you doing?” You ask as he gets close to you. “I’m just enjoying what’s mine,” he said in a whisper as he came face to face with you. You looked up at him , lips centimetres apart , so close they could graze if you moved a slight inch. Taeyong put his arms around your back and pulled you closer. He connected your lips in an instance and that’s where it began. A simple kiss turned into a heated make out as you too pulled each other so close there was no more room. His hands felt everywhere , your back , your arms , your tummy and your face. You both pulled apart to catch your breath. He pinned you to the wall and grinder up against you , you could feel his hard member on you. “All for you y/n , this is what you did to me,” he whispered in your ear. You swore you couldn’t get any more wet then you already wore but oh god were you wrong.

Taeyong felt you up , your breasts , your arse. His touch was hot , it lingered on your skin like a spell. Eventually his lips made their way to your neck and they pulled moans from yours. You were sure that you’d have purple bruises all over your neck and colour bone after tonight. “Taeyong...more,” you moaned. He was touching all the right places ,sucking all the right spots. It felt like magic.

He stepped back to take his shirt off and you stripped out of the lingerie. Your breasts fully on display , his eyes on you and his hands roaming your body. It was all in rhythm , Like the perfect melody. You tilted your head giving him more room to explore on your neck , your hands made their way from his back to his chest. moans and ragged breaths left from your mouth.

“Why do you look so good y/n?” Taeyong whined as he came closer to your face. “Me? I’m decent I guess,” you lock eyes with him “I’m decent I guess,” he mimicked. You rubbed your legs together as you stayed silent , you could feel your wet core , it felt like a slip and slide just by doing that. Taeyong got rid of his jeans and all that was left was his raging boner through his boxer briefs. Your eyes didn’t move , he brought his lips closer and gave you a long kiss. He grabbed onto your hips and pushed himself on you , you gave a throaty moan before pushing yourself even harder onto him.

Taeyong licked his lips , he pulled your leg up and kept it around his waist. His other hand went south to your burning core. Your breath hitched as his finger slid up and down your slit. Whimpers and begs came out as he teased your hole , he watched your expression as he filled you with his fingers. You looked a mess , your hair everywhere , your face scrunched up in pleasure and your skin hot. “Moan for me baby,” he ordered in a low voice as he plunged his fingers into you. The squelches of your own wetness turned you even more on.

As your orgasm built up your walls became even tighter and taeyongs last remaining piece of clothing was off. His tip was an angry red as it stood tall , your eyes widened at his size. “What if you’re too big?” You asked a little nervously “don’t worry y/n , you’ll be fine,” he said in your ear as he lined the two of you up.

“Are you ready?” He looked you in the eyes and you nodded , “Yes”. Taeyong dipped the head into you and you whined “I’m not hurting you am I?” He asked , you could sense the worry in his voice and you smiled to yourself , “you’re not,” you said. And with that he slowly pushed the rest of himself into you. You never felt so full before , it was like heaven to have taeyong inside you. He was just perfect. “Please move,” you begged with closed eyes.

Slowly , taeyong started to thrust into you , “please....go faster,” you moaned. He picked up the pace and soon moans were the only things leaving your lips , he continued to suck on your neck only to find your good spot which unlocked a cry from you. His thrusts turned deeper , harder. You loved the way he felt when he plunged into you only to have that strong suction as he pulled out again. You wrapped your arms around his neck as his busy hips worked wonders to make you feel amazing , you could feel yourself getting closer and closer to your high.

“God taeyong , don’t stop,” you breathily moaned as you leaned your head against the wall of the dressing room , “I wouldn’t dare to stop those lovely sounds dripping from your lips,” he smirked as he continued in his fast pace and all you could do was grip onto him like your life depended on it as your body felt like it turned to flames due to the immense amount of pleasure that the boy was giving you.

He hit your sweet spot in a deep thrust and you came. Taeyong moaned out as your walls became tighter around his length . your legs spasmed around his waist and you worked on catching your breath. Taeyong rode out your orgasm as he built up his own. You could feel him twitching inside you and little by little you started to become overstimulated, and just as it started to hurt he came within you. The hot spill of his seeds , his deep breaths in your ear , the sound of his moans , it was amazing.

As he pulled out you set your feet on the ground again. You immediately got dressed and with a red face you stayed silent , you couldn’t believe that just happened. You picked up his clothes and shoved them into his arms , “put them on,” you hurried him as you turned around to face a corner. You heard him laugh and you looked down at the floor “no need to look away y/n , you’ve now seen my naked body,” he teased. “Shut up,” you hushed him.

✿ ✿ ✿

That night you didn’t talk to him at all , you avoided him at all costs and in the morning you did the same. “I’m leaving early today,” you said as you rushed through the kitchen grabbing a piece of toast. “Somewhere to be? Or rather someone to get to?” Your father teased , you shook your head “I’m just meeting up with yerin is all,” you said as you made your way to the door. You looked back at the table and taeyong was staring at you , you felt a shiver up your spine and quickly made your way out.

✿ ✿ ✿

As it hit 8.20 more and more students filled the school and you weren’t as lonely as you were half an hour ago. Yerin and sohee has just walked to the canteen to grab hot chocolates for the three of you , you however , decided to stay at the table in front of the school gates. After a few minutes you listened to the school as all the girls started to squeal to what it sounded like their vocal chords breaking. You got out of your seat to see what the big riot was about and you’d never had a more disappointing sigh leave your mouth as you watched taeyong walk through the school gates like a king. In this moment all you could think was ‘ thank god no one knows he’s my step brother ‘ you rolled your eyes and walked away from the crowd. But to your dismay taeyong walked right up to you , you eyed him down and irritatedly asked “what do you want?” . With folded arms you looked up at taeyong as you waited for an answer “I want you to kiss me , in front of everyone. Show everyone that I managed to get with the schools ace student,” he said emotionlessly. You scoffed “and why would I do that?” “Don’t forget that you have a dirty secret I can spill at any moment,” taeyong pulled you closer from your back and you yelped at the sudden proximity “,I basically own you babe.” He smirked. “I-“ cut off by taeyongs lips on yours , you couldn’t do anything but kiss him back. As much as you didn’t want to admit it...you liked him quite a lot. “Taeyong...you can have me as your slave to deliver you food and give you money as long as you have my secret , but instead , you want the school to think we’re together....why’s that?” You ask as you look up at him “I know I suck at these or whatever so I’m going to embrace it. But I’m just gonna say I want to protect you so much that it might kill me,” you raised a brow at taeyongs sudden randomness , “what are you trying to say?” You asked , amused. Of course , you didn’t need to ask but hearing him say it might make you scream internally. “I think you already know, from the day I saw you ,even now , you still interest me strangely. You’re not my type but I linger for your touch, you’re a strange girl y/n but all I know is that I want you,” he whispered seductively. You inched your face closer to his as youplaced your hands on his chest “ you’re one confusing guy , Lee Taeyong,”

“Ho...ly....shit,” yerin gasped , “gee all I wanted was a hot chocolate not some cliche romantic couple,” sohee rolled her eyes jokingly. You turned your head as taeyong held you in his arms , “I swear this wasn’t planned,” both you and taeyong said in unison.

Fright Night - 1985 - 3.5/5

Highly oversimplified fun ‘modern’ teen adventure book-style take on Dracula - i think?

i am having a fuckking awful night please let this be half okay at least funny like please. right we have some poor audio. tom holland is here? some chick is going on about how much she likes the dark - she’s mina? pale, red lips peeps are making out - it’s just someone squeaking their lips together and then letting go lmao wtf - it’s a tv show about vampires lol this acting is amazing i think its supposed to be he literally just went after her with the blunt end of the stake damn. some more squeaking kisses gross. kids making out, peter vincent is on TV or some shit. boyfriend has wandering hands and she’s told him twice to stop and now he’s bitching at her for not letting him feel her up and then she apologises? excuse me? and now he’s guilted her into doing it? oh damn that’s a nice chocolate coffin where’d he get those binoculars ahaha oh yikes that girl is not ready and now he’s ignoring her oh what is happening. mum’s getting involved. he wanted to fuck she didn’t then she wanted to fuck and he was distracted by some guys carrying a coffin into the basement of the house next door. he’s so distracted he’s completely ignoring his girlfriend.oh damn he pissed off his friend too this guy seems like a dumbass. ew gross oh my god she’s dressed like a prostitute what is that blue thing and the opaque beige hosiery is horrific. it’s funny at this point lots of these clothes are coming back into fashion. then there are those of course that must die and stay dead. damn a big ol scream from the house next door and a light went out. fuckin hell he wait she’s apologising for his  dumbass and said it’s her fault and he’s like yeah i suppose it was like what. i know this is supposed to be like this like he’s clearly supposed to be a terrible boyfriend but fuck he is barely pretending to care about her - he said ‘i love you’ and she’s gooing all over him. now he’s ignoring her again and here’s his weird looking friend who thinks its hilarious oh my god she slapped a hamburger cheese onion and tomato hamburger patty on his face disgusting but damn he deserves it. whoop a guy in the basement just saw this kid snooping - is he seriously just gonna open this guy’s basement doors unsurprisingly dude came and snapped at him like wtf you think you’re doing. he’s obsessed with this house all of the sudden? eating chips at his window with his binoculars. now asleep in that chair and hot damn there’s a couple about to fuck  and tittiiiiiieesssssss. oh damn mate is a vampire looking straight at the kid through the window. just staring. then closes the window with long ass fingers with long yellow nails. just woke his mum up like ma new guys a vampire and she’s like fuck off and he’s sneaking about outside what the hell is this kid on. oh they’re carrying out bodies in garbage bags and what i think they’re trying to show they’ve got sick powers or something there’s this synth beat in the background those are the largest collar flap things i’ve ever seen and that red scarf is sick a lot is happening bro red scarf dude just caught annoying kid charlie spying at them from the hedges. oh shit he’s screaming at his mother and his girlfriend what an ass - Amy is obsessed with their relationship, Mum thinks he’s having a nightmare. he’s the dumbass in the horror movie - running around screaming, telling everyone the guys a vampire killing people getting the police involved like dumbass what teh fuck this is gonna be embarrassing you think if they really are vampires they’re gonna be dumb enough to let themselves get caught. oh what he’s yelling again and interesting there’s a painting of a blonde version of Amy. is this dracula 1980s version. the house is all cobwebs and old timey shit. dumbass getting screamed at by the cop for screaming about his neighbour being a vampire he’s got no evidence but just keeps screaming. you deserve to die like 0% self-preservation skills m8. is he racing home no to his friend’s house his weird friend who’s somewhat more mental than this dumbass - give him eight bucks to tell him how to protect himself from a vampire attack he’s listing off stereotypical shit but i doubt any of this will be legit they all like dangling those and scoffing at them. he’s nailing his window shut but hey guess who mum’s invited innnnnnnnnn ahahahahahahah lol oh damn who sits in a chair like that well hello bruce banner hot edition. hm his fingers look normal now. aahahhaha oh fuck he out here telling charlie he wouldnt have come to visit unless he had been invited and now that he had been he would be over whenever he liked. charlie the dumbass is not trying to hide how terrified he is out here backing away, eyes wide, shaking, Jerry the vampire just staring at him. 'see ya! soon.’ scrambling up the stairs - like just mayyyyybe you shouldn’t have immediately done all you can to piss off the guy you think is a vampire. cause now he’s on your roof. i can’t believe his name is Jerry. this is so 80s. this music man. who chills in a button up shirt all tucked in . is that a mouse? or the trees scratching oh shit jerry’s after the mum. or not. oh fuck there’s no reflection in the mirror and he just broke her door? oooop he’s in dumbass’ roommmm or is he - yep he was hiding in the closet???? is this a metaphor??? howdily hoodily. oh damn yeeted him into his closet. they’re not giving bruce banner very good camera angles. we’re only 30 minutes in and he and the vampire are chilling out, being held up by his throat - ohh broody vampire time. bruce no don’t throw him out the window that’s so obviousoh but damn there’s he’s gonna stake him with a pencil ahaha what oh fuck nosferatu time damn all because of a pencil fuck that is not sexy. he looks like a lord of the rings troll. they both look hella nervous that mum’s knocking on the door. he threatened to kill him, offered him a choice for them to forget each other, he said nah, he tried to kill him, he stabbed him with a pencil, then he roared all scary and buggered off. odd. now he’s just sat down and watched some–dracula ahaha he’s watching dracula? now he’s calling him up ahaha staring at him through the window calling him up on the phone. 'you started this - im gonna finish it!’ like calm down vampire man the boy is a dumbass. this is cheesy but like okay. he legit seems like a proper dumbass teenager kid all overexcited and dramatic and learning all he knows from TV oh damn he’s like a school shooter, wife beater kinda kid though. ahah shitting on friday the 13th calm down that’s a good movie. does this peter vincent actually believe in vampires cause this kid is hoping he does - he’s got those brown elbowed jacket how old is this high school aged kid. ejesus what the fuck is that moped holy shit. white sneakers that blue knitwear holy shit what the fuck what the fuck charlie dead eyes, monotone sitting in his bedroom he’s filled with religious paraphernalia, dozens of candles and stacks of wood he’s carving into stakes - his GF and friend come in like yo wtf m8 what is all this - he just shrugs and tells em he’s gonna go next door and stab the neighbour. um what the fuck jesus hes crazy he’s weird friend who can’t act thinks so too and eyy the peter vincent late night show is called 'Fright Night’ and the weird kid just said their situation is just like 'Fright Night’ and guess what this movie is called – this is pretty intense like how am I supposed to be taking this is it funny, is it dramatic? this kid looks like he’s gonna pass out he’s having some sort of episode. 'hey amy, you don’t believe me do you.’ 'i love you charlie.’ hm vincent knows whats up amy and weird kid go to see him to help their crazy friend and he’s like oh yeah that insane kid he needs a psychiatrist yo ahaha gets fired gets an eviction notice refuses to help the kids cause he’s very busy about to get rich she’s like i’ll pay you - how much he asks immediately - she tells him—i’ll take it, no hesitation ahaha we’re not even half in? oh damn vincent is in love with his acting i think his shows used to be a lot more popular and now he’s sad and fading and ey its bruce banner all bedraggled they literally called him up to ask if they could go over with dumbass and prove to him brucey boy is not a vampire he thinks its hilarious like damn just calling up vampires and shit i love it so casual like he’s just a neighbour not all heavy handed but needs a little less cheese but eh who can find a golden middle did he just eat a banana. holy hot damn her outfit - he’s outfit, holy shit vincent is here all in his role dressed as the vampire killer, performing for dumbass - damn the house does look appropriately spooky tho god this kid doesn’t shut up they all just wandering into the vampire’s house - Charlie gets a special greeting and here is ol mate all dramatic in a fucking turtleneck please kill me. he’s eating food again? whoop amy and bruce banner just had a moment she’s so pretty but her hair is so fukn eighties and now he’s kissing her hand and she’s giggling and biting her lip 'oh god, he’s neat!’ he didn’t drink that he totally used a tricky magic trick dunno how but he didn’t drink that. Charlie isn’t wrong - pulled out a cross and Bruce Banner jumped back and his jim carrey lackey stepped forward and Banner is threatening his friends like fuck off - 'so you’re finally convinced im not a vampire?’ *completely insincerely, through his teeth* 'yes.’ oh damn all was well then vincent saw he had no reflection - let’s call the police! broody vampire time oh damn found some glass from the mirror. lol that’s the creepiest alley 'pencil dick’ 'chicken shit’ nice. ahaha weird kid giving him shit 'fruitcake’ i hope he leaves him alone like surely its in his best interest to leave the guys who are convinced he’s not a vampire to live? the way he’s dragging amy around is pretty messed. it doesn’t make sense for the weird kid to die. like he doesn’t believe mate is a vampire. but now he will so? that trenchcoat is horrific the shoulders are like double his width he’s just slow walking toward him while weird kid is scrambling about tripping over rubbish but now he’s trappeeddddd #leaveweirdkidalone  oh damn nvm he’s bruce banner’s redfield and he’s going under the trenchcoat, pressed to banner’s chest. we’re only halfway through where is this all going. oh ahaha they’re doing the lets run as fast as we can and ol mate keeps strolling out in front of us and now they’re in a bar oh god now he’s calling the police. whoop oh damn weird kid’s a vampire ahahahahahahaha oh shit leather jacket fucked up hair jerky movements - oh damn just took a cross to the face - can still cry human tears sweating like crazy, yellow eyes, crosses fuck em up and out the window he go ahaha lol he’s calling the cops a fucking gain god he’s so rough with her now bruce banner s in the club god he’s really not that attractive like at all - he’s got a good brow and hair but that’s it. he’s not intimidating, he doesn’t stand out holy fuck that lady in red - the platinum blonde. just strolling closer and closer, left to right right to left and dumbass is just on the phone and Amy is like hell yeah licking her lips his lower jaw is like broken the way it moves. He didn’t have to touch her for her to stop she’s in a daze under his spell and he knows she can’t escape it, rubbing her hand on his ass lol what the fuck putting his on her’s oh he pulled back her collar and went to bite and she jerked back but not in a scared more like a fuck off now what you thinkin boii challenge eyes uh oh both of their collarbones are exposed and my god she’s tiny and making out with his chest and what the fuck oh just on her knees thought she was going down on him in the middle of the club dumbass is all upset that the girl he’s been dragging around and leading on and treating badly is chilling in the arms of a vampire who, if nothing else, is indeed more handsome than dumbass but at the same time he’s a vampire and I think Amy is in highschool so that makes her what?? oh fuck bruce banner killed the two black bouncers in front of the whole club now there’s chaooooos people screaming  amy and charlie separated in the crowd, bruce banner scoops her up 'AAAAMYYYY’ stretches a hand out dramatically toward her damn weird kid got weirder ahaha what is happening this is actually really great. god he’s whiny. it’s so good. people are fucking calling the police left right and now dumbass has finally figured they won’t believe him or help him. oh lil mate peter vincent is like a proper good actor where did they get him amongst these screaming children. 'amy is gonna die, me too probably’ lol this writing oh damn she wakes on a fur blanket in front of a fire in a white dress that permed hair is so fucked there’s paintings of pretty ladies all around and one of them is blonde amy and there he is with his shirt unbuttoned pants buckled up to the navel like damn, dark hair all ruffled - hs head is too big for his shoulders ew what is this kiss she’s shaking with fear, he is like almost crying for some reason and now she’s okay and taking her titties out and coming after him  and here’s some weird slow kissing and damn he bit her damn wouldn’t you fuck first? fkn charlie in his professor jacket snooping about in the shadows with a big ugly gold cross on that house is perfectly spooky holy shit peter scared the fuck outta me damn he got a box of 'props’ which will actually work, got a gun to take care of billy or whatever, his human buddy they wanna sneak in but the front door opened for them oh damn don’t let anything happen to peter he’s precious. it’s like reading a teen adventure story - good simple but memorable characters, good story with lots going on, not deep or thought-inducing just a fun time  now here’s bruce 'welcome to Fright Night’ all chill just standing there in like a priest’s shirt? no bruce leave vincent alone. oh what the fuck making a weird moaning noise as he backs away from the cross - #leavevincentalone oh fuck weird kid is terrifying  wtf now he’s a wolf demon wolf ruff ruff puppyy oh shit he stabbed the puppy and it yeeted over the banister hit the chandelier and holy fuck that is the worst puppeteering attempt or whatever the fuck they’re going for ever - its a plush toy twitching out and now ewwwww what the fuck is that i thought vampires were vampires not like weird wolf gremlin things - its slowly dying with this stake in it, all thin fingers, whines, and cries holy shit this is taking a while. vincent is crying and holy shit its just weird kid crying with a big table leg in him and now he’s dead holy shit and the cross mark healed and he’s naked. bruce is oh fuck Amy is a vampire —“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ the drama. can you imagine walking into someone’s house and there’s a naked dead kid with a table-leg through his chest on the foyer floor. the house is pouring out dry ice and green lazer lights and vincent is back my brave boy, with a table-leg and a box all ready to fight. dumbass is struggling to cry over his girl. AMy is turning, I think bruce is making her a coffin. what here we go - everything is as it was in the movies like all the stereotypical shit so now they’re gotta kill Bruce before sunrise so she doesn’t fully turn. monotone - 'stop or i’ll shoot. don’t force me to shoot’ *shoots billy boy in the fkn head* orange eyes man whats with the weird groans and noises when flinching back from the crosses looks like billy boy aint dead after all holy shit blood everywhere yeah just keep shooting im sure that will help oh damn he the terminator - nope he a zombie fuck run don’t ust holy shit he staked him i thought vincent was gonna die he’s dripping green slime he’s got the ebola what the fuck ohmygod ohmygodholyfuckjesus christchrist fuck my god. well that was terrifying. move aside indiana jones . peter ahahah 'eeehhh’ of bruce chillin outside the window. he uses like fifty different voices and accents 'show me how much you love me amy, kill them both. rraaaargghhhh! *elbows a fkn wall* oh damn at least her gross perm is gone. rarrrrgh! *nervous cross and slow back out of the door* jesus what the fuck his bottom jaw is even worse now he just fkn crashed through the pretty round window.  that jacket damn i hate it so much. oh damn is that the sun? looks like the night is done dumbass and he believes he believes and damn that’s a lot of clocks chiming 6am i think it’s 6am. im sorry what the fuck was that did he just get sniped wat the fuck its a gremlin bat oh my god with fangs and shit its scratching him up oh no it bit dumbass what a shame and ohh he burning in green flame in the light of the sun but he fucked off to the basement where he gone vincent’s cut is gone and dumbass doesn’t seem too worried about his bitten arm. whoop it’s amy all wild hair and long white dress orange eyes, smoky lids, big ass fangs and red lips oh damn what the fucking shit 'it’s not my fault you promised you wouldnt let him get me you promised’ she cries then spins around and its actual fear in his eyes as he screams at the sight of her heavily fanged mouth that reaches from one side of her face to the other jesus cchrist that mouth is terrifying i really am not a fan damn yikes man run ew oh no everyone is in trouble, he is hammering that shit fuck everyone is all kinds of messed up these vampires would have them killed in a second this whole sunlight thing is bull - just cause his face is in the light doesn’t mean you can’t get their legs lol come on the disco-balls are shining and ol mate finally decides to try use his outfit - peter closed his coffin and now he’s trapped i kinda want one of them to die oh damn nvm green flame he went shooting and flying back with the force of that sunlight i think he’s dead 'reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’ damn what the hell is that skeleton 'AAAAAAMYYYYY’ he cried as he died like what some stories need more depth beyond hey i got a picture of someone who looks exactly like you, imma bite you cause now we’re in love, hey kill your ex to prove you love me, i love you and now im dead . oh god worst part is amy’s hair is back in that perm how the fuck. 'we’ve been going in a circle! we’re right back where we started from’ is the opening to the next scene which is dumbass and amy making out in his room - that’s fkn sick, again 'Fright Night’ is back on with ol mate peter vincent. oh no peter vincent on about aliens wait what was that red eyes in the window is ol mate still alive perhaps ew amy deserves better  but hey what the fuck weird kid survived?? oh he removed the stake damn ahaha. what a movie that was a pretty fun time = 3.5/5

So, talking about early life and some of the things that im pretty sure fucked me up for adult life. under a cut cos boy will it be long and poorly written *finger guns*

i was gonna do this as like a timeline of things that happened, with explanations and shit, but instead im just gonna do a highlight reel, cos why not

My brother and i used to share a room for years, including when my younger brother and sister were born, grew up, and then got their own rooms while luke and i had to share a room into our teens. we fought, a lot, because we were kids and also stupid

when we were sharing a room it would become a huge mess, mostly because we were preteens and why would we put away the toys we were always playing with? anyways, our stepdad would often give us an hour to clean our rooms, which would have been plenty of time if we didnt get distracted by out toys, as kids do. if we didnt get it cleaned in time (which we pretty much never did) we would get flogged. not like a gentle smack to enforce we’d done something wrong (like how you might smack a friends arm when they say something wrong or offensive) but full on belting, often with some kind of tool. he broke a couple duster over our backsides. we would sob for ages afterwards, and often rush around or hide when we heard him coming because we were afraid

i was afraid of him physically hurting me even after i was an adult. i think i was 20 before i had had enough and decided if he ever touched me again i’d fight back. when i was 16 i wanted my eyebrow pierced. he told me if i ever did he would tear it from my face. i got it done when i moved out at 19, and had a panic attack the first time i had to go home because i was 100% convinced he would. my mum had to pull me aside after dinner to tell me he wouldn’t, but to be honest i didnt really believe her

i have two younger step siblings, who were treated as angels, while my brother and i were treated like shit constantly. When my step-brother threw a tantrum and threatened my brother and me with a knife, he got a ‘talking to’, but not before my brother and me were screamed at for being shitty brothers (his temper tantrum was because we kept telling him he had to clean his room before our parents got him. he never did clean it)

once, my step brother was given 3 days to clean his room. days after the deadline, my mum told put her foot down. My girlfirend and i (i had moved out at this point) were visiting and helping get the place ready for xmas. My step brother refused to clean, screamed at me when i reminded him he only had today to do it, literally went crying to mum when she got home from work. I got yelled at,, by both mum and my step dad, until my grilfriend stepped in to defend me. apparently my step brother had told them i hit him, yelled at him and locked him in his room. at this point in my life, i literally couldnt give a shit whether he cleaned his room or not as i didnt live there, so all i did was remind him and let it go

for a few months when i was 18 i worked with my stepdad at a steel mill (the pay was almost worth deal with his bullshit). i had made plans a week in advance to go out with friends, and asked my stepdad multiple times to warn me in advance if i had to work the next day. the day of going out came, i told him that if i had to work to let me know by 10pm, because i would have enough time to come home and be functional for work. He never got in contact, so i stayed out all night and crashed at a friends place. 5am comes around and i get an angry phone call from my mum. my stepdad was pissed that i was out and wasnt ready for work. She knew that i had asked to be told by 10pm, but they both had ‘forgot’, and it was my fault, because i should have come home anyway. this was not the last time they would forget to tell me my shifts (my stepdad literally gave everyone their shifts, he had no excuse). i ended up getting picked up and dragged to work (i was too afraid of him to say no at this point) and went to work very hungover, which was very dangerous at a steel mill, but i was so afraid of him beating me that i put up with it

During my preteens i was part of an athletics club. i liked it, and enjoyed the field events far more then the track events. i hated running, because i would get really bad shin splints. no one believed me, and mum thought i was just lazy. i got into the regional championships for discus and high jump, and state for javelin. everyone was excited for me to go, but when i didnt place no one talked about it again. i felt so guilty over failing i stopped trying as hard. i did well at the weekly events, but never well enough to compete again.

i played soccer for years until mum got a weekend job and couldnt take us. my teammates thought i was useless and would never let me have the ball. one day, when we were short people, i got placed as a forward. i kept up with the others, and even scored a few goals. i got cheered for that game, and finally thought i would be accepted and make friends, but then the next week was back on the bench

similar happened when is started playing basketball instead of soccer (it ran on weeknights instead of weekends). i almost gave up until one of my teammates pulled me aside and actually tested me. when he found i could play, he started including me in games, passing to me and teaching me better techniques. i crushed on him so hard before i even knew what that meant. i never saw him again after that season, so when the next season came with an almost all new team, mixed with the emotional strain of school, i gave up on sports

school was very hard for me growing up. i got bullied alot through both primary and high school (even university, but by that point it didnt bother me as much)

i was a very sensitive child. i would cry whenever i felt too much of any emotion, including happiness. People told me for years to ‘suck it up’, to stop crying, or better, that they’d ‘give me something to cry about’. this lead to me bottling my emotions and literally beating myself whenever i would cry that i physically couldnt shed a tear for over a decade.

i felt so disconnected from everyone in my life that when i was around 12 i decided to try to kill myself. being a stupid kid i thought i could hold my breath until i died. i tried 3 times over about 6 months. it never clicked that it wouldnt work, i just became more scared of death then i did of my bullies.

i ran away from school twice in the same year. the first time one of my bullies set off a cap gun next to me, then started yelling about how i did it. i was so afraid of getting in trouble, not just by my teacher, but by my parents that i just ran. i ended up coming back to the school 30 mins later, after both my parents and the police had been called. no one wanted to hear why i had done it, they just wanted to be angry that i left school grounds.

i dont remember why i did it the second time, but i was gone maybe 5 mins before i came back, fearing not only my parents but the police this time. i knew i would be in worse trouble, but i just couldnt be in the school anymore.

one time, when we had a sex education class, i explained to a ‘friend’ that i didnt like talking about this stuff, cos it made me feel weird (not in a sexual way, but like, grossed out weird) he told everyone i got an erection in class, and people called me boner boy for months. that was actually not long before i tried to commit suicide for the first time

i thought things would be better in high school because i went to a different school then everyone i knew (i missed my friends, but i figured id get a new start). instead i got bullied from day one. the jockish kids in my class saw i was an easy target because at this point i still cried at the drop of a hat. some of those bullies from day one bullied me all the way through to senior year.

as i hit puberty i stopped being so emotional (well, i bottle it up more) and instead became angry at everything. i would lash out at everyone, and when i couldnt lash out at people i hit things. i split my knuckles on walls and doors many times

once, in the library, one of my bullies stole my wallet. he took all the money out, then threw the empty wallet at me and laughed. i snapped and threw the chair i was sitting on at him. i missed, but he dropped the money. i got sent to the vice principals office, where i explained what happened. he called in the other boy, who denied it all. no one else had seen, so i got in trouble and he got off

it was in highschool that i learnt that pain could help clear the bad feelings from my head, and started to self harm. i hated the feeling of cutting, so i burned myself, or scratched mosquito bites and small cuts until that got so bad they would scar

i used to try really hard in to be a good student in high school. i was in the ‘gifted and talented’ classes in primary school, so whenever i didnt do well (i never failed, just was never top of my class) i got told i had ‘so much potential’. no one ever saw the effort i did put in. When the school sent a letter home one time to congratulate me on getting the second top score in a test, i heard nothing of it. i found the letter a few weeks after it had been sent, opened. neither my mum nor stepdad had said anything about it. soon after i decided there was no point in trying if people only ever cared when i failed

i got into a fist fight one day at school. they didnt call my folks, so my mum found out when i got home with a black eye. we got into a fight about it, because i didnt want to talk to her about what happened. when confronted i broke down, and told her that i wanted to die. she yelled at me about being selfish while smacking me across the face multiple times. i decided not to talk to her about how i felt anymore, because i couldnt understand how you could beat someone who just said they wanted to die. to this day everytime i try to talk to her about any serious emotional stuff i start to break down and just cant do it

i to bullied about being gay for so many years that when i started to have feelings for other men i buried them and tried not to think about it. i spent years being scared that i might be gay, worried about what would happen to me if i was. When i started to think about my gender ( i didnt understand gender at the time) and how i wished i had been born a woman, i buried that and just assumed it was puberty hormones fucking with me. i still cant think about it without almost having an anxiety attack. i have so many years of self hatred, of poor body images and of people telling me i was ugly/fat/gross that i cant see myself as anything but

i finally calmed down emotionally around 17/18. senior year. at this point i tried my best to ignore my bullies and the voices in my head. i just wanted school to end so i could run away somewhere. i wanted to go to university to study forensic science. i had two different teachers tell me i wasnt smart enough, and that i would never get into uni. i ended up failing my HSC and having to do a bridging course to get into uni. the course was so good, in both how they taught in the environment (it was held at the univeristy) that i more then doubled my ATAR and got accepted into the two top forensic science courses (in hindsight i chose the worse of the two, but i didnt know at the time)

university was mixed years. i made some amazing friends and learnt some great stuff, but also had to deal with some absolute dickheads. It was a small country town where the only things to do outside study was to drink and play football. id given up on playing sports years before hand, and 9 out of 10 of the football players were super racist and homophobic. One of them raped a friend of mine and the university defended him. thats when my friends and i decided we had to leave campus. add to that that i found out at the end of my third year i had been doing the wrong course for the job i wanted, i quit uni and left

TL:DR - theres a lot of shit that fucked me up, but typing it all out i cant tell if it actually fucked me up or if im just whining about normal shit. ahh well. better to get it out then keep it in

Tune in next time folks! Same Bat-time! same Bat-channel!

Rating: NC17 (or FRAO) Pairings: Ed Sheeran/Original female character Disclaimer: This story was inspired by Ed Sheeran, but it is fiction. I am not claiming that any of the following is true. Distribution: Please do not archive or repost this story anywhere. Warnings: Explicit depictions of heterosexual sex, some possibly triggery descriptions of developing a serious physical illness, also an entire conversation about fisting. Word Count: 15,439 in this part.

Summary: There’s probably a world out there where Ed has nipple piercings, designs custom bullriding chaps in his spare time, and makes his living by playing a giant black keytar. In that world, his girlfriend isn’t sick.

He’s never really wanted nipple piercings or a keytar, but, all things considered, he’d trade this world for that one in a heartbeat.

–>Stargazer, Part 1

Stargazer, Part 2:

*

Ironically, the night she decides that she is no longer interested in fighting, Hannah has a huge fight with her mother. Your house is not small, but there is nowhere in it that you can go and not hear them yelling at each other. Hannah may be tiny and ill, but she is fierce, and she refuses to back down. You go outside for a while and sit in the back garden, smoking. Iris comes outside as well, eventually, and sits beside you. She takes one disgusted look at your cigarette and says, “Really?”

You look down at it. “This is my first one since... it's been almost a year.”

“Well. Don't let my mom see you.”

“Your mum can piss off.”

“Yeah,” says Iris. Then she starts to cry.

Wordlessly, you scoot toward her and put an arm around her. She leans against you and cries as you smoke. When the cigarette is finished, you drop it to the ground and cover it with your foot, thinking about getting another. But you don't. After a while, Iris stops crying. You think about taking your arm back. But you don't.

She says, “Lily was three when I was born. She's always been there. My whole life.”

You're not sure what you're supposed to say, so you say nothing. You're looking up at the black sky, stars so tiny and faint, so far away. You've seen them much brighter than this, much closer, more brilliant. In Iceland, there's a place...

“I'm only 24,” says Iris. “If I live a regular life, there will be more time without her than with her. A lot more time. I can't... I can't imagine that. I can't imagine life without my sister.” She starts to cry again. “It's not fair. It's not fair, it's not.”

Inside the house, Hannah and her mother are still arguing. You can hear them, but not what they're saying. What you picture Hannah saying is that she doesn't want to die shitting herself while screaming out that it's okay.

“I can't imagine life without your sister either,” you say quietly, and push your glasses up so you can rub your free hand over your eyes.

“You're a good guy, Ed,” says Iris quietly.

“Thank you.” Not that it makes a bloody bit of difference.

“Lily loves you.”

“Yeah. But she's smart in other ways.”

You'd wanted to marry her. It crossed your mind a lot, actually, how you would propose, where you would take her, how you would make it special. The two of you never really talked about it, not seriously, not yet, but it had been in your head for so long. Since you met her, maybe. Maybe before that. You wanted to be with her forever, raise a family, get old and fat together. How could that be too much to ask?

Right now, sitting in the garden with your arm around Iris, this is the moment it occurs to you that loving someone – really loving them – is the same thing as agreeing to watch them die. Not just when you're old and fat, but whenever it happens, in whatever way. You knew this already in a sort of far off place in your head, but now you know it closely, all over your body, in your skin. The love is a contract. It means we will be here together until the moment when one of us is no longer anywhere, and whichever one of us is left over, that one will bear the weight of an incredible sadness in their bones, forever. What you want to say is that you never signed up for that. Not on purpose. You want to say to Hannah, 'No, sorry, you are not allowed to leave me yet. I am not ready for you to go. I am not ready to be sad for the rest of my life. I am too young.' You want to curl up in her lap like a child and let her protect you from what is happening. She would, you know. If it were possible. She would run her fingers softly through your hair and with her perfectly calm, steady voice, she would tell you that everything was fine, and you would try so hard to believe her.

But no one can protect you from slowly losing the thing you love most in the world, and the fact is you did sign up for this. From the moment you tumbled into a hammock laughing with a girl at a party, this has always been what would happen.

It's just happening very, very fast.

“You said surgery would be the hardest part.”

Iris lifts her head from your shoulder, but she doesn't pull away from you. “I didn't mean the surgery,” she says. “I meant seeing her in pain. Watching someone you love, just hurting. That's what's hard.”

The two of you sit there in silence. Inside the house, the yelling continues.

“It's going to get harder,” says Iris. “I can't, I can't think about it right now. I just can't think about it.”

*

Hannah's mother wants her to come back to America. She seems fixated on this idea, like if Hannah just leaves England – leaves you – then somehow that means she will leave her illness behind as well. Hannah, of course, refuses.

“You understand, don't you?” she asks you softly one night, curled up in your arms in bed, her head lying on your chest. She says, “You know why I'm not doing this anymore.”

“I know,” you tell her, and run your hand down her back. The doctors said a few months. Continuing treatments may prolong Hannah's life as long as six additional months, but the way her sickness is spreading so fast, resisting everything that gets thrown at it, those six months would not be a good six months. At least without the treatments, she won't have to suffer quite as much.

“Do you hate me?” she asks. Then she chuckles, pokes you in the side, and says, “Jesus, Ed, you don't have to wait so long before you say no.”

“You don't know I was going to say no. Maybe I do hate you. Maybe our whole relationship has been a lie.”

She gives a resigned sigh. “I always suspected. I hate you too, you know.” Her hand slips under your t-shirt to rest fondly on your stomach.

“Suppose that means we're breaking up? Bit of a relief, to be honest. I can't be arsed to fetch you any more soup.”

“Owen and I moved out two weeks ago,” she says. “Just been waiting for a good time to tell you.”

“It's all right. I only asked you out on a dare anyway.” You tilt your head up from the pillow to kiss her bald head before leaning back again.

“I only said yes because I've always felt sorry for short guys.”

“Ouch,” you say, but with a laugh. “Little too close to home maybe?”

She snickers softly, and her hand on your belly slides up and down again, like she's petting you. Then she says, “You're still the cutest guy I ever dated. Have I told you that?”

“What, seriously?” You're surprised, but you find yourself grinning smugly anyway.

“Of course, now that we've broken up, I'm joining Tinder.”

“So is there anything that you...” Your voice stops in mid-question. It had seemed like a good time to ask, when the conversation was lighthearted, but now it occurs to you that there's no way to ask this in a lighthearted manner. “Do you want to do anything?” you finally finish. “I mean. Is there anywhere you want to go? Or someone you want to meet?” You could make it happen, probably. You've got connections. You've got money.

“On Tinder?” she jokes.

You pass your hand down her back slowly, not saying anything. One day, not long from now, she won't be there under your hand. Her cheek won't be on your chest, her palm lying on your stomach under your shirt. Every time you have thoughts like this, they hit you so suddenly, so hard. Everything seems normal, and then: boom, an image of you lying here by yourself after she's gone.

“Hey.” She sits up and looks down at you, concerned. It's embarrassing that your eyes are wet, your throat so tight out of nowhere. You turn your head but she touches your face, cups your cheek, her thumb going across your beard. “Babe? You okay?”

You nod, not looking at her. God, I'm going to be so lonely, is what you don't say. How can you do this to me? How can you leave, knowing I won't recover? “Fine,” you murmur. “It was just a question.”

Then she leans down again, re-situates herself so that her face is pressed into the side of your neck as you lie there together. “I love you so much, Teddy,” she whispers to you. “Don't let me go a day without saying so, all right?”

“I'll set a daily reminder on your phone,” you say quietly, wrapping your arms around her. Her small body, lying mostly on top of you, starts to shake, and for a second you think maybe she's crying, or trying not to. Then you realize she's just giggling silently. That makes you smile, but then suddenly you're sad again, and you squeeze her tight to your chest, swallowing against the lump in your throat.

Softly, she says, “If I think of something I want to do, I'll let you know.”

“Anything. It could be anything.”

She presses a kiss into your neck. “I'll let you know.”

*

Before you, she had never been to a music festival. Not a proper one, not in the wide open countryside or a muddy forest with stages in all different directions and camping and everyone smelling like spilled beer and piss. You always think of the two of you as having similar backgrounds, but some things are just cultural, you suppose. Hannah never went to music festivals as a teenager and you never snuck into a rival high school to steal their team mascot's costume and ride around shirtless in the back of a pickup truck burning it.

Americans.

You love being the reason she gets to experience something new, though. Back before she moved in with you, you took her to her first festival with a group of friends, and the whole time you all wore costumes so that no one would recognize you and ask for selfies or autographs. You could just enjoy the music and hang out with your mates like anyone else.

Hannah loved it. She didn't stick with you the entire time, which was fine of course. She wanted to see some of the bigger acts you weren't interested in while you went to the smaller stages and saw some of your friends performing, remembering what it was like playing these same stages yourself a few years ago. Your group often split off into pairs or threes during the day and met back up at night, usually drunk or high or both, to dance stupidly under some random tent or make out with each other or have Very Important Conversations™ sitting on folding chairs or blankets under the stars.

On the first full day of her first festival, Hannah disappeared for a few hours with a couple of your other friends, and when they showed back up that evening, they weren't wearing their masks but had their faces painted in bright colors. Hannah wore a soft baby blue onesie with polka dots and a hood shaped like a unicorn head, with a little plush horn and everything. The hood wasn't up when she found you in the crowd, though. Her light brown hair was in two French braids, and fully half of her face was obscured with a delicate painting of a white and dark pink stargazer lily.

“There you are,” she sing-songed happily, walking slowly toward you with her arms outstretched for a hug. She was grinning that instantly recognizable grin of a Hannah who is very high. It made you laugh as you took her in your arms. You were pleasantly drunk yourself but hadn't been smoking anything yet. The big petals of the painted flower spread themselves across her forehead, down over one eye, and completely over her cheek, the bottom of the lowest petal running exactly along the edge of her jaw. A narrow green stem slipped down the side of her neck. You pulled her close and planted a big kiss on the cheek that had been left bare. She smelled warm and sweet and smoky. “I just met the nicest people,” she told you. “From Spain.” Then she said, “I'm going to teach you Spanish. Do you want me to teach you Spanish?”

“I already know enough Spanish,” you said.

She said, “You don't know any Spanish!” and laughed.

“Sure I do.” You searched your memory for anything vaguely Spanish. “I know that taco cat backwards is taco cat.”

She tilted her head thoughtfully and then nodded. “You're right! Taco cat. I'll add that to my syllabus.”

“Gracias. La vida loca. Amigo.” You leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Sombrero.”

The two of you giggled and swayed and danced until late in the night, Hannah with her braids and face paint and unicorn onesie and you wearing a blue snapback to cover your ginger hair and a black and white panda bear onesie with a little tail and ears. She laughed as you spun her around one-handed, your other hand clutching a red solo cup of vodka and peach Robinsons.

When you eventually made it back to your own tent, your other friends were there already. You and Hannah stayed up with them talking, sitting on a blanket with her leaning back against you and your arms wrapped around her from behind. You kissed her neck in the silences, and when everyone else had fallen asleep, you slowly unzipped her onesie and slipped your hand inside the warmth under the soft fabric. She was wearing a tank top and panties under it, so your hand went under the bottom edge of her tank top and slid up her smooth skin to cover one boob. She sighed in your arms and squirmed just a little to give you more room.

“Do you think,” she said softly as you kissed her neck and fondled her breast, “there's life on other planets?” She was looking up at the sky.

“Mmm,” you said, paying attention to the way it felt when she breathed, the softness of her skin to your lips. It was not really an answer.

“Do you think they can see us from wherever they are?” she went on anyway, voice quiet. “Do you think they're like us or do they have like tentacles for fingers? Do you think they breathe air?”

“They're like us,” you murmured into her neck. But as soon as you said it, it sounded wrong. If they were exactly the same, then what would be the point of them? “But with one difference,” you added, and that sounded better.

“What is the difference?” she asked, sliding her hand over your other hand, which had abandoned your drink and was also going into her onesie to rest on her tummy. She traced her fingertips softly over the back of your hand. It tickled. “Tell me,” she said.

“I dunno,” you answered, kissing her. “But it's something really important.”

“It would have to be,” she agreed with a sigh. “If there's only one difference, it would have to be really, very important. It would be the most important thing about them.”

“Mmm,” you said. Your hand was slipping down her body, fingers edging underneath the little strip of lace at the top of her panties. Her skin was so warm.

“Maybe there are other us-es,” she said. “Other Hannahs and Eds on other earths. Do you think, maybe? And there's one difference every time. Like, on one earth, Ed is American.”

You snorted a laugh against her neck. “Never happen.”

“He's from Southern California and became a surfer and talks like... you know how they talk on Clueless? Like that. And we met in college.”

“American surfer Ed went to uni?” It doesn't sound very believable.

“On one earth, Ed has black hair. Everything is just the same except that. His hair is jet black. And on one earth, he's gay.”

“Hmm.” Your hand slid down further, inside her panties, over the little fluff of her pubes. Her hand rode along on top of yours, pressing your fingers gently to curve them between her legs.

“On one earth we didn't meet at all. You came here without me tonight and you weren't a panda. You were a monkey with a long tail.” Hannah was the one who picked out your panda bear onesie.

“I don't like that earth,” you said softly.

“And there's an earth somewhere,” she said, “where I never got sick. I didn't have to miss a year of college. And my dad didn't die. Because no one ever gets sick there.”

“Is that Ed ginger?” you asked. “The one where no one gets sick?”

“Yes, but he shaves his beard. He keeps the mustache but shaves the beard and it is awful. This fluffy orange mustache and no beard.” You could hear the grin in her voice. “His Hannah is always trying to get him to shave it or grow the beard out too. But he's so stubborn.”

“He's a lad. Let him be proud of his mustache.”

Hannah giggled softly. Then she turned her head more toward you and said, “I wish I'd met you on that world, though. My dad would have liked you.”

You kissed her cheek, the bare side, and murmured to her, “Guess we'll just have to make do with this one.”

“Mmm,” she said, letting her thumb pass back and forth over your knuckles. “It's better than the one where we didn't meet.”

“Little bit,” you agreed.

“Just barely,” she said, and shifted her legs wider apart for your fingers.

*

The weird thing is that without the treatments, she seems to get better. You know she's not really getting better, not on the inside, but she's no longer nauseated all the time and it only takes a couple of weeks for her hair to start growing. At first, just this baby-soft fuzz appears, which you find yourself touching a lot (for good luck, you tell her), but within a month it turns into real hair, and by Christmas she's got that short hairstyle again, a lot like the one she first got before the treatments started. It's still pretty extreme by most standards, but it also looks youthful and edgy – and intentional. She no longer has to wear the wig to go out. Her eyebrows still haven't fully returned, but she fills them in with makeup, and if it weren't for the weight she's lost and the port still embedded in her chest, you'd almost believe nothing more than a drastic haircut had ever happened.

She's less active now, though. She naps a lot, doesn't go to the gym anymore. Sometimes she has to put down her wooden quilting hoop and just sit still and breathe for a moment. Then she smiles so you'll know she's okay, makes some sarcastic comment, and starts sewing again. Her mother and Iris are still here. Your parents visit a lot, too, and Stuart and Lib. You all go to church together a few times, and it's nice having your family around so much, people who just act normal and don't spend the whole time looking at Hannah like she's some kind of time bomb about to go off.

And as much as you've disagreed with each other in the past, it is impossible for you to deny that Hannah's mother is a great cook. Like really, really great. She even made a chicken and broccoli casserole (one of Hannah's favorite foods) with an additional separate casserole just for you without any broccoli in it, because she knows you don't like broccoli. And it was amazing. You put your personal casserole leftovers in the fridge with a note that said ED'S – KEEP OUT and refused to share it with anyone else, but you still only managed to make it last a couple of days.

Hannah's mother is also the only person besides yourself that you've ever seen beat your dad at Monopoly. This would have been funny if she hadn't beaten you as well.

But even though it's nice having everyone around, and you can tell Hannah is grateful that they're all there, the best times are at night, just the two of you cuddling in bed and talking and making each other laugh until you fall asleep. It's during this time that Hannah finally tells you what she wants.

So you take her to France. On Christmas Eve, the two of you arrive in a small field and climb into the basket of a hot air balloon with a smiling old man named Michel and one of his sons. Michel's other three sons help to untie the balloon from its tethers but stay on the ground and wave merrily to Hannah as you begin to float up rapidly into the air. She's got a huge smile, recording video on her phone to show Iris later.

“Oh my God, this is incredible,” she says, turning the phone toward you. “Ed, isn't it incredible?”

It's fucking cold, so you're wearing a beanie and coat, and the fur trim around your hood ruffles violently with the wind. “I'm freezing my balls off,” you say to the camera, but half of the sentence is drowned out by the loud hiss of fire shooting up into the balloon. You're trying not to look at the ground rushing away. Shite. Maybe this was a bad idea.

Hannah laughs and points the phone at Michel and his son. “Hello!” Michel says with a heavy French accent, and his son echoes “Hello!” in the same way, waving. This is the extent of Michel's English, though his son can hold a conversation with you. He tells you they will keep the balloon at about three thousand feet above the ground. “Very high,” he says, smiling. “So do not jump out. Okay?”

Not bloody likely. You're holding onto the thickly padded pole extending up from your corner of the basket, gripping it for dear life. Hannah puts her arm around you, leans her head against your shoulder, and takes a selfie. Then she puts the phone away. “Thanks for being such a good sport about this,” she says with a grin, giving you a little squeeze.

“We could have gone to Fiji,” you say. “It's warm in Fiji.”

“It's Christmas, babe. It's supposed to be cold. Isn't it beautiful? Look down there.”

The small field that the balloon launched from is far below by now, and it is surrounded by other small fields, squares of green and brown bordered by trees, with scattered dustings of snow. The sun is sitting quite low in the sky, and the way the shadows stretch across the ground, it makes the snow lavender in some places. Outside of the shadows, the late sunlight reflecting off the snow makes it pink and orange, like piles of flower petals. From up here, the different shapes and colors of the ground turn the whole earth into a lumpy patchwork quilt.

You pry one arm away from the pole and put it around Hannah, pull her close. She fits perfectly to your body, like a set of matching salt and pepper shakers, and rests her head against you. She is wearing white earmuffs. In this way, standing together in a basket three thousand feet above France, the two of you watch the sun sink below the horizon in the most gorgeous display of reds and oranges and pinks and purples, a colorful fading light that illuminates the whole world for such a short time before abruptly going out.

“A sunset from high in the air,” says Michel's son when the sky is fully dark. “It is very lovely, yes?”

“Yes,” says Hannah, turning to smile at him. “Beautiful.”

“There is more beauty in a few moments. Would you like to sit?”

“Yes, thank you.”

There isn't much room to move around, but Michel's son slides a plastic storage bin over to your side of the basket, and Hannah sits down on the lid. Then she scoots to one side and pats the other side, so you carefully lower yourself onto the lid beside her, not letting go of the pole until you're fully seated. The bin isn't big enough for both of you, really, but that's okay. Hannah leans forward and rests her crossed arms on the edge of the basket, looking out at the dim world. Behind you, every so often, there's a loud hissing sound as Michel sends a flame up into the balloon, lighting it up in the night like a lantern. He and his son speak quietly to each other in French.

Floating this high above the ground is a little less scary while you're seated. Because the balloon has no wings, there isn't any wobbling like there can be in airplanes. And it moves a lot slower than a helicopter, without the nauseating feeling that comes from turning too quickly. It's actually, once you get used to it, really sort of peaceful and nice. Still fucking cold, though. You put your hand on Hannah's back, gently run your fingers up and down the softness of her coat.

Her short hair waves a little in the cold breeze. “Oh,” she says after a while. “There it is.”

The city doesn't come up all at once, but gradually, little flecks of yellow light illuminating buildings on the ground, pinpoints in the night like stars. As you drift closer, the flecks of light start drawing together, condensing into streams and finally rivers of orange and yellow light slicing through the darkness of the earth, glowing hot. “Oh, wow,” you find yourself saying. “Look at that. It looks like lava.”  

“It looks like the inside of a burning log,” says Hannah. “You know, the embers?”

“Paris is called City of Light,” Michel's son says pleasantly. “It can be seen from many miles away, even from space. The city, it is spiral, like a snail's shell. From the lights going in a spiral like this, you can see that it is Paris. You can see from the space station.” Smiling, he gestures upward, to the ISS many miles away.

“It's incredible,” you say.

“The Christmas Illuminations make this time of year more special from above,” he adds. “We will see shortly.”

The city is huge, even from this height, and within minutes the ground below the balloon is lit up in every direction, so far you can't tell where the edges are. It's a glittery lake of fire with burning currents running through; it seems weird that you can't feel heat rising off it.

Michel's son points out landmarks as you drift by them, some far away and some so close you float directly overhead. The Eiffel Tower juts up from the city like a solar flare, dazzling with its twenty thousand sparkling lights. More than thirty illuminated bridges criss-cross the city in glowing lines. And the Champs-Élysées (“The most famous avenue in all the world,” Michel's son informs you proudly) is a mile and a half stretch of white lightening, blazing with hundreds of trees draped in vibrant garlands of Christmas lights.

Hannah is entranced. She's still got her arms crossed on the padded lip of the basket in front of her, leaning forward to rest her chin on top, but as the balloon sails over the brilliantly glowing city, she slips one arm down and reaches for your hand. With your fingers intertwined, she gives you a happy smile and then looks out across the ocean of lights again. You settle Hannah's hand clasped with yours against your thigh, your other arm resting on the edge of the basket like hers. But you're looking at her face more than you're looking down at the city. It's hard to tell which is glowing more, which beautiful thing is more bright.

In just over an hour, the balloon finally reaches the opposite edge of Paris, and Michel uses a small radio to contact his sons on the ground and tell them exactly where to meet the four of you. Because this type of travel depends on which way the wind blows rather than any type of conventional steering, several different sites are potential landing options, but Michel aims quite expertly for one of them as his son explains to you what is happening. This is the part you were worried about. For someone who doesn't like heights, it's not the actual height that is as bothersome as the idea of coming down in an uncomfortable way.

You and Hannah stand for the landing, each holding onto one of the basket's corner poles. She's got the biggest smile. The balloon's descent isn't nearly as rapid as the ascent was, so you're coming into the field at a very shallow angle, but it's still a bit terrifying to see the ground coming at you because even though it's not a straight drop down, the balloon is still moving fast. “Oh shit. Oh shit!” you squeak as the basket skims across tall grass and bumps itself up and down against the earth. The leading edge scrapes the ground, tilting the basket so that the whole thing starts to tip over as it drags a stripe across the field. Hannah is laughing. Michel and his son don't seem bothered. His other sons are there waiting, and they run forward to grab the sides of the basket to slow it down. One of them hops onto the back, his weight pulling the whole thing upright again. All of this only lasts a few seconds, and then the balloon jerks to a stop. Hannah reaches for your hand once more as the two of you wait until Michel's sons are sure the balloon won't float away again if you get out. She's looking very pleased with herself, and now that you haven't died horribly, you're feeling pretty pleased as well.

“Did you enjoy?” Michel's son asks.

“Yeah, that was really cool. Really cool,” you say. “Cheers, man.”

“It was wonderful!” Hannah tells him. “Thank you so much for this.” But she has a hard time climbing out over the lip of the basket. One of Michel's other sons easily picks her up and lifts her over it, setting her down gently on the outside. She falters as he lets her go, and reaches back to steady herself on the pole, but her hand finds your shoulder instead.

“All right?” you ask.

“Yeah.” She nods, giving you a reassuring smile, but two steps away from the balloon her knees buckle and she takes a hard seat in the grass with a surprised, “Oof!”

“Hannah?” If it were anyone else, the sight would have been funny, but you can't hide the worried note in your voice as you help her up.

“Sorry, I'm just...” She swallows and closes her eyes, then takes a deep breath and opens them again. “I guess I'm more tired than I thought.” She chuckles a little self-deprecatingly.

“Here, let's do this,” you say, and turn around, crouching in front of her. She gratefully leans forward against you and puts her arms around your neck, and you grab the backs of her thighs and stand. You carry Hannah across the field and all the way to the waiting car on your back like this. Usually on Christmas Eve you or your brother find yourselves piggy-backing the other one home drunk from the pub, so it almost feels like your normal tradition. She's a lot lighter than Matt is, though.

Back at the hotel, you order up from the restaurant downstairs. A fancy Christmas dinner of oysters and roast pheasant and chestnut dressing, with Bûche de Noël for dessert. Hannah is so tired, though. “I think I'll just,” she breathes slowly, “take a little nap first. Okay? You can start without me.” So you eat your pheasant alone in front of the TV, watching the first Inbetweeners movie overdubbed in French while Hannah sleeps. It's getting late when she wakes up, but she's feeling a bit better and the two of you share the oysters from their slowly melting bed of ice, smiling at each other across the little table and nudging each other's feet with your feet. The curtains over the balcony's glass doors are open wide and the lights from the Champs-Elysées twinkle down below. When she's finished eating, Hannah takes her drink over and stands there looking down the avenue toward the Arc de Triomphe, holding the cold champagne flute so it rests against her cheek, not drinking from it.

You come up behind her and wrap your arms around her body, and she leans back against you. There are still some people out walking despite the late hour, couples holding hands as they take in the beauty of the illuminated street. “Do you want to go for a walk?” you ask her quietly.

“No,” she says. “I don't need to walk down it. I just wanted to see it. With you.”

“Let's go somewhere else,” you suggest. “We don't have to go back home right away. We can go... haven't you always wanted to see the pyramids?”

She laughs softly and turns around in your arms, putting her slender arms up to circle around your neck. You can feel the bottom of her champagne glass graze your skin just above the collar of your shirt. “I have never,” she says, going up on tiptoes to kiss your lips, “wanted to see the pyramids.”

“I haven't taken you to Vegas yet,” you say. It seems suddenly like a huge oversight. How could you have never taken Hannah to Las Vegas?

“I've never wanted to go to Vegas either,” she says, smiling.

“Rio,” you say.

“We've been to Rio.”

“Have we? Together?”

“Yeah, remember? It was just for one night. You kept asking me what everyone was saying but I didn't know most of it because it was Portuguese.”

“Oh. Fair play. I just thought you were really off your game.”

“I'm never off my game,” she says, and kisses your lips again. She tastes of champagne, a little, though she hasn't had much. Her lips are so soft. There's no longer any trace of the medicine-smell that coated the inside of her mouth for so long.

As you kiss, your hands slide down her hips and circle around to her bottom. Then you pull back just a bit, your lips still close to hers, and murmur, “What do you want to do?”

She gives you a little grin. “I want you to take your clothes off,” she murmurs back, letting her fingertips trace softly down the side of your neck. “After that, we can improvise.”

Immediately, you take a step back from her and reach up to grab the neck of your shirt. “Improvise?” you repeat as you start to pull it off over your head, knocking your glasses crooked. “Does that mean sex? Because if it doesn't–” You get the shirt off and let it drop down to the floor, then adjust your glasses. “--I think I'd rather just have sex.”

She's laughing at you as you quickly unbuckle your jeans and shove them down. “Charming, Ed. Really charming.”

“Course I'm charming. I'm English. It's our thing.” You go to pull your foot out of your jeans and end up hopping a couple of steps on your other foot. She's not getting undressed. When you've got one leg free, you pause and say, “Are we... I'm not doing this alone, am I? Why are you still dressed?”

“Maybe I like watching you,” she says smugly, and takes a sip from her glass.

Kicking your jeans away, you come forward in just your boxers and socks and take the drink from her. She watches you set it down. “Let me help you,” you say, reaching for her shirt to take it off.

She stills your hands with hers, chuckling softly. “Wait a second.”

“Something wrong?”

“No. I...” She bites her lip, still grinning. “Just wait here,” she tells you, and then she walks over to her suitcase and stoops to get something out of it that you can't see. “I'll be right back,” she calls over her shoulder before taking whatever she picked up into the toilet and shutting the door behind her. The door swiftly cracks back open and you hear her say, “This time, don't start without me,” before it closes again.

She's only gone a couple of minutes. You wait sitting on the edge of the bed in your boxers, absentmindedly rubbing the bottoms of your feet across the floor, letting the carpet scrunch your socks down so only your toes are covered, the rest of the sock bunched up around the middle of your foot. When she comes back in, you look up pleasantly and proceed to choke on your own saliva.

Hannah has never really been a lingerie girl. Sure, there have been some pretty bra-and-panty sets that you've liked in the past – there's a black satin thing in particular that comes to mind – but that's kind of it, always very simple and functional, the sort of thing she can wear under her regular clothes. Often her underwear doesn't match at all, a peach bra and blue panties for instance, but it's not like you've ever cared. She always looks sexy to you regardless of what she's wearing over her bits, whether it's satin and lace or just plain cotton or has Wonder Woman printed on it. And usually if she only has on underwear and you happen to be nearby, she doesn't end up keeping it on for long anyway.

So this is new.

Everything is white. The top is strapless so her shoulders are totally bare, the contrast of the white against her body making her ivory skin look darker than it normally does, more tan. Her small breasts are being pushed up a bit by round, solid white cups underscored by a satin ribbon that encircles her body and ties in a loose bow in the front. This is something she couldn't wear under her normal clothes because of the sheer material flowing loosely down from there to her hips, where the hem is also edged in white satin. It's like some kind of too-short nightgown. Her tiny panties are solid white like the bra cups but with a band of lace around the top, and you can see a strip of enticing bare tummy skin between her top's flowy satin hem and the lace of the panties. As she walks toward you, the silky material swishes sexily around her hips. You can see her body through it, see her slender waist and her belly button and her scar all showing through.

She's also got on sheer white thigh-high stockings, the kind that stay up on their own, with lace around the tops. And – for some reason – gloves. Long white gloves of opaque raw silk, smoothed all the way up to her elbows. She looks... she looks like a cross between an innocent angel and some kind of high-end escort getting ready for the opera.

Which is to say, she looks gorgeous.

“Oh,” you hear yourself manage when you've finished coughing. “Wow.”

“Do you like this?” she asks playfully, giving you a little twirl. The wispy fabric fans out to the sides as she does so, briefly revealing more of her stomach and her back. The panties are tiny in the back too, not quite a thong but cut so that the bottom portions of her cheeks are visible. It's fucking hot. She's smiling as she turns to face you again, running her silk-covered hands down her sides and clearly enjoying the way the gauzy material feels against her skin.

You're about to blurt out the thing about opera-going prostitutes but manage to stop yourself in time. You really don't want to fuck this up by saying the wrong thing, so what you end up telling her is just, “You look amazing.”

“The saleslady called it a baby doll set,” she says, coming forward and casually putting one knee up on the bed beside your thigh, “but can you imagine having a baby doll dressed like this?” She runs her white hands down her sides again thoughtfully, and you're wondering if she's noticed that you tented your boxers the moment she stepped into the room.

“That would be a bit... inappropriate,” you agree, looking down at her knee beside you on the bed, the way she's standing with her other leg between your legs. Your fingers trail up her stocking as if they're moving without your permission, over the lace at the top and then the bare skin of her upper thigh. She's so... soft...

Hannah's hand comes up to cup your cheek, her palm surprisingly warm. For some reason you'd thought the gloves would be cool to the touch, but the silk has absorbed her body heat so it's like being held by incredibly smooth, warm skin, so soft it's almost liquid. Your beard catches in a thousand tiny places against the material as you look up, making your face tingle. She's smiling as she leans forward for a kiss.

You gather Hannah into your arms and she straddles your lap, sitting down on top of you as you kiss her. It's like holding a gossamer cloud which is floating thinly around a solid girl. She feels so delicate under your hands. You want to touch her all over, just rub yourself against her body and feel the smoothness against your skin and hair. As you trail gentle kisses down the side of her neck, your hands slip under the feather-light material so you can grasp her back, and the way the fabric drapes softly across your wrists tickles in this new way. This is sexier than you would have thought it could be, and your cock feels tight and hard inside your boxers, pressing against the side of her thigh as she sits on you.

The gloves are the best part. Hannah runs her hands softly down your neck and across your shoulders, and the caress is what you imagine a warm breeze would feel like if it were a solid, loving thing, if it wanted to tease your skin into loving it back. Then her hands slip lower, over your sproingy chest hair, silk-covered fingertips tickling through the orange fluff until they find your nipples hidden among the tattoos and graze gently over the tiny pink nubs, making you shiver. Your face buried in her neck, you can feel her smiling at your reaction, and her fingers linger at your nipples, rubbing light circles around them until they poke out firmly from your chest, swollen and sensitive. Every touch there sends a tingle zipping straight down to your erection.

“That tickles,” you murmur against her skin, half giggling. She smells so good.

Hannah just grins and moves to kiss your lips again, her mouth warm and sweet. Those gloves, the smoothness of them, the silk glide of her fingers alongside your nipples, the softness of her lips, the way her nightie brushes your arm hair so gently and the heat of her body through her panties against your lap... You can feel her breathing under your hands, the way she moves so easily when you squeeze her to you, and it's all so sexy and perfect, so soft, so–

“What is this made of?” you pull back to ask, taking the delicate baby doll fabric between your fingers and rubbing it against itself. “Is it just – is it silk or...?”

She huffs a small chuckle, looking down to where you're examining her lingerie. “Yeah, it's mostly silk. Not this part.” She briefly touches the satin ribbon with her white fingers. “It's nice, right?”

“It's great.” You lean in for another kiss but have to pull back once more to add, “Worms made it, then? Like, actual worms.” Half as a joke and half because you just want to, you gather the loose folds of sheer material in your hands and lift it up to rub your face in it, baring Hannah's flat stomach.

She's laughing at you. “You know, I think they had another set like this in your size, if you want to get one for yourself when we go home.”

You glance up, still holding the fabric to your cheeks. “Yeah? Think I could pull it off? With the stockings and everything?”

“You would be so pretty.” She drops a hand down to your thigh to pinch up a few ginger leg hairs and tug on them. “We'd have to shave you first, obviously. I'd get you the blue set. Bring out your eyes.”

It's a joke of course, but for some reason in the moment the thought of shaving your body completely smooth and slipping into something skimpy and silky makes your cock twitch. “I'd just be your house boy then. Never wear anything else.”

“I'm sure my mom would appreciate that.”

Her soft fingers are sliding up, edging into the leg holes of your boxers, and as soon as her fingertips touch your balls, you're kissing her again, your hands sliding down her back, dipping under the lace of her silk panties to give her bottom an appreciative squeeze. The silk stretches softly around your knuckles. She's pushing the other leg of your boxers up your thigh until your hard cock peeks out, just the head poking from under the black cotton hem, plump and ready. Her fingers go to it immediately, and the feel of warm silk sliding around it makes you shudder as you kiss her. She pushes your foreskin down and back up over the pink tip with her soft fingers and the ticklish feeling spreads like a skipping stone up your stomach and down through your thighs.

“Mmm,” you hum against her lips, sinking your fingers into the fleshy cheeks of her bottom and pulling her forward in your lap. As she rubs gently at your cockhead, a tiny drop of fluid starts to form in the puffy pink slit. There's something about those gloves, the texture of them rubbing around your most sensitive places. It's so arousing you know it could easily drive you mad.

And then, God, when she tugs the waistband of your boxers away from your body, and she reaches inside to get your cock out with her ridiculously soft and warm hand... the feeling of her fingers circling around your stiff flesh and squeezing, her silky thumb passing over that spot underneath the head, nearly makes you jump out of your skin. As she kisses your lips, she starts rubbing it up and down in her smooth fist, this even pumping motion, over and over. Fingers bumping over the ridge of the head as she moves your skin up and down. Her other hand going up to caress your neck, your tongue in her hot little mouth. Jesus Christ, it's like being in some sort of trance, the same shivery sweet moment playing out again and again with every silky stroke of her hand. That slick bit of fluid gathering at the tip of your cock eventually rolls down, chased out by another one, and the clear drips get smoothed along your shaft. You finally have to pause the kissing just to breathe in a ragged breath.

“That,” you whisper with a self-deprecating chuckle, “can't go on much longer.”

“What can't?” she asks innocently. Her hand doesn't stop, warm silk sliding up and down, damp now. Her thumb goes over the tip on the upstroke and a tickle flares through your belly each time. You haven't had many chances to be intimate with Hannah in the past few weeks, with everyone around so often. It feels like such a long time since she's made you come.

“That. Bloody hell.” Slide of wet silk across your cockhead, and your belly clenches. You press your cheek against hers to steady yourself, eyes falling closed.

“This?”

“Jesus Christ.” You squeeze her bottom again, glad to have something to hold onto.

“Do you want to come?” she murmurs near your ear, that slick warm glove still rubbing. The other one grazes your neck softly, like a kiss. “Would you, if I kept going?”

“Yeah. It's the, it's those gloves, it's like... um...”

“Should I stop?” She isn't stopping. It's not even fast, just steady. Those intense little flares, over and over.

“No. I mean. Yeah. Soon.”  

“Tell me when.”

Your hand is sliding down further under her silk panties, palm full of warm round flesh, the side of your finger slipping across the little crinkle of her asshole. You nuzzle against her cheek, inhaling the scent of her skin as she goes on stroking your cock with slick silk. When your fingertips finally reach the damp slit of her sex, you leave them there, just touching the hot skin. It makes her squirm in your lap and grind down against your hands, sighing softly. You missed this when she was still on the treatments, the way she gets so wet so easily, how her body craves your touch.

“I want you,” she breathes, and then you're sucking her bottom lip into your mouth and finally pressing your fingers upward.

That night your lips touch every bit of Hannah's body, everywhere, from her mouth and neck down to her small round breasts and flat stomach, over her scars, and from her sheer stocking-covered toes up to the soft exposed skin of her thighs and the damp scrap of white silk between her legs which you have to pull to the side with your fingers. Your mouth lingers there until neither of you can stand it any longer, and you finally take her just the way you used to, not too gently, one sock still hanging off your foot.

You're both on the edge already, so it doesn't last very long. When she comes, she gasps out your name, and you can feel her clenching around you, so hot and slick, even softer than the silk gloves she's digging into your back. Just knowing you've fucked an orgasm out of her after so long not being able to, that's what pushes you over the edge, how hot she is when you make her come, how desperate and vulnerable and sexy. You're pulsing inside her, again and again, sweating and breathing hard, face pressed to the side of her neck. Her silk fingers sliding down your back. She's trembling under you.

“Ohhhhh God,” you groan quietly when you've finished. You're lightheaded, pleased with yourself and with Hannah and with expensive French hotels that have really nice bedsheets. Sometimes she makes fun of you because of the grin you can't help grinning when you come, so you're hiding it against her neck, prickly orange beard to her smooth skin. “I love you. So much.”

“Teddy,” she says, still gasping. She sounds scared. “Teddy, I can't breathe. I can't breathe.”

“W-what?” You quickly push yourself up off of her. “Hannah? Jesus. Are you—?” She's lying there panting, her eyes panicked. Your afterglow vanishes immediately. “Fuck, are you all right? What can I do? Tell me what to do.”

She's squeezing your shoulder hard, and you can't tell if she's pushing you away or trying to keep you from moving, so you stay where you are, hovering frozen above her. Her mouth is open, her chest rising and falling fast as she tries to catch her breath. She's not choking, just breathless and scared, her small fingers digging sharply into your flesh. It scares you that she looks so scared. She shakes her head at you as if to say there's nothing you can do, so you just wait like that watching her struggle to breathe. Helplessness bubbles up from somewhere inside you like trapped air under oil. You reach forward and gently cup her face with your hand while she gasps.

“Hannah, look at me,” you say. It's your best impression of her own calm-when-something's-wrong voice. “You're okay. You're gonna be fine, all right?” You have to talk over the sound of her harsh panting. “Just try to... try to slow down, okay? You're fine. You're fine.”

She doesn't seem to understand what you're saying at first. But she looks at you, her light brown eyes finding your eyes, and after a moment she nods and you can feel her grip on your shoulder relax fractionally. Then she tilts her head back on the pillow and breathes more deeply, forcing herself to slow down. Those shuddery gasps start to come fewer and farther between, like the end of a heavy crying session. She's still trembling though.

You're stroking her hair, watching, throat tight. She's all right. She's fine. She's going to be... but fucking hell, that was scary. For a moment you thought... but she's fine. She's fine. Without meaning to, you're syncing your breathing with hers. In, out. In, out. She's fine. Everything's fine. The sweat at your temples is drying cold. The air between your naked body and Hannah's feels cold. The only warm spots are where her gloved hand is on your shoulder and where your fingers are carding into the soft strands of her short honey-brown hair. The only sound in the room is Hannah trying to get her breath back under control. It feels louder than it probably is.

Finally, she's breathing normally again – at least, the kind of breathing that has become normal for her, shallow with a pause in between. Her hand comes up to cover yours and she moves your palm over her mouth to press a soft kiss into it. “Sorry,” she whispers.

“No, don't be sorry. Are you all right?”

She gives you a little nod but says, “I didn't mean to scare you.” She's cupping your palm against her face, your hand sandwiched between her soft cheek and a silky glove. Her chest is rising and falling  with a kind of steadiness that looks intentional, like she's still consciously regulating her breaths.

“It's okay. You didn't scare me.”

Her smile is tired but wry. “You looked scared. Come here.” She gives your arm a gentle tug, and you lean down close, drop a kiss on her forehead before lying down on the bed beside her, head on the same pillow as she turns toward you, her stockinged leg slipping alongside your leg and resting warmly against your skin. You want to wrap her up and pull her safely to your chest, but you just lie close like this instead, facing each other, giving her room to breathe. “I love you, too,” she says quietly, and closes her eyes. Usually she gets up to go to the toilet after sex, but right now she looks too worn out to move. After a moment, she adds in that same quiet voice, eyes still closed, “And I would still love you. Even if you fucked me to death.”

“That's not funny,” you protest immediately, but she's obviously biting back a smile, and somehow that makes it okay. You can feel yourself starting to relax.

She opens her eyes to give you a sly look. “Wouldn't be the worst way to go.”

“It would be for me!”

Her warm silk-covered hand slides down the front of your body and wraps loosely around your softened penis, which is still tacky with sex. She doesn't do anything, her arm just resting between you as she holds it, but her touch reminds your body of the fantastic orgasm you've just had, and a hint of your afterglow creeps back in. “I should probably,” she says, “get one of those breathing machines. The one with the tube, not the mask.” Her doctors have been recommending for a while that Hannah start oxygen, just to make it easier on herself.

“All right,” you tell her softly.

“I wouldn't have to wear it all the time. Maybe just in bed.” Her voice is quiet, trailing off the way it does when she's tired or sleepy.

“You could wear it all the time if you want. You might like it.”

“I might like to breathe,” she agrees.

“You'd look hot with a tube wrapped round your face.”

“Think so?”

“I've always thought so. Soon as I saw that face, I thought, d'you know what? There ought to be a tube wrapped round it.”

“Breathing tubes and wearing women's lingerie. Why am I just finding out all your fetishes tonight?”

“That's not all of them. Don't even get me started on...” You pause briefly to think. “Fisting?”  

“Oh good, I thought I was the only one into that.” She yawns, and as she yawns, her hand tightens fractionally around your cock, then loosens again. “I can fist you in the morning if you want. A good old fashioned fisting before we leave Paris.”

“The traditional Christmas fisting,” you say with a little grin.

“Where I'm from, we just call it Fistmas.” She really sounds like she's about to drift off now. Her eyes are closed, face relaxed. But her mouth is open slightly to help her breathe. It's after midnight. If you didn't know, you'd guess she was already asleep.

“Merry Fistmas, then,” you murmur, shifting just a little bit closer to her warmth.

She makes a soft sound of acknowledgment and squeezes you again.

About two hours later, Hannah wakes up to go to the toilet. Her silk glove has dried to your cock in a couple of places with traces of semen and she moves without realizing this, accidentally ripping the thin material away from your skin fast like an Elastoplast. The sensation jerks you awake with a confused and pained, “What the fuck?!” that comes out more like, “Whuhzuck?” and she laughs so hard she has to lie back down to catch her breath.

After you and Hannah arrive back in England on Christmas Day, she doesn't leave again.

*

At first she only wears the breathing apparatus at night, this thin clear tube that nestles underneath her nose and goes up over her ears, tucking behind them like a pair of glasses and then meeting together again beneath her chin before connecting to the machine which rests on the floor by the bed. It's not really oxygen, not like one of those canisters of oxygen they use in space, which is what you'd sort of been picturing. It's more like a filter. It scrubs the air in the room and delivers a higher concentration of oxygen through the tube so Hannah can get the amount she needs without her body having to work hard to breathe as much as everyone else. You've seen these things before but never really knew how they worked.

She wears it the next time you fuck her. You had thought... well, you know that at some point you're no longer going to be able to have sex with Hannah due to the progression of her illness, and using the breathing tube makes her seem sicker than before, so you had thought maybe... maybe she wouldn't be interested in sex anymore. But she's the one who started it, late one night, turning to you in the dark and whispering, “Teddy? You awake?” her hand sliding gently across your chest in that familiar way she has always touched you, her lips pressing to your shoulder.

“Mmm?” you murmured back, covering her hand with yours. “What's up? You need something?”

She snuggled closer and began to kiss your neck, her hand sliding down. “Yeah,” she said softly. “I need something.”

You took it slower that time, watching her face between kisses, listening to her breathing and the tiny intermittent hissing sounds the machine made. Aside from the tube on her face, she still looked just the same as always, and even though she wasn't quite as energetic as she used to be, she was still loving and warm and soft and sexy. It wasn't like fucking a sick person. It was like fucking a tired but still turned on version of Hannah. And she did breathe hard after, but it wasn't scary, and she grinned and kissed you and fell asleep smiling.

It was only later that you realized she probably wanted to have sex wearing the breathing tube to prove to you that she was still the same girl, not just some dying body lying next to you in bed.

She does decide she likes it, the machine. She doesn't like the way it leaves marks on her face when she sleeps with her head turned to the side, but she likes not struggling to breathe, just the way you thought she might. So eventually she starts wearing it during the day as well. She doesn't tell anyone her plan to do this – in fact, you think it was probably a spontaneous decision – but the base of the machine has wheels and it's got an extendable handle like a small suitcase, so it's not hard for her to take it wherever she wants to go.

One morning you're sitting at the table having breakfast with Hannah's mother and sister when suddenly there's a thud sound from another room. All three of you look up at each other sharply, but before anyone can comment, there's another loud thud and another, then several in a row, thud thud thud thudthudthudthudthud. You and Hannah's mother both stand up quickly to go investigate while Iris just sits there looking baffled, but before either of you make it away from the table, Hannah comes trudging into the kitchen pulling the small breathing machine behind her. It's the first time she's taken it out of the bedroom. “We need a little,” she says tiredly, and makes a vague gesture with her hand, “ramp or something. Don't wanna break this on the stairs.” She jiggles the handle of the breathing machine.

After an awkward pause, Iris says, “You could start keeping it downstairs.”

“Our bedroom is upstairs,” says Hannah.

“I know. But you could sleep downstairs if you wanted.”

“You could sleep anywhere,” you add. “We could sleep anywhere. I can literally put a bed in any room in the house.”

Hannah gives you a fond look. “Could you literally put a ramp on the stairs?”

You smile and point finger guns at her. “That can happen.”

The ramp on the stairs does happen, but she only uses it for a few days. Going down seems easy enough, but you hate to see her struggling to drag the machine back up the ramp in the evenings – she has to stop halfway up the stairs to rest – and so one day you make an executive decision, and within a couple of hours there is a brand new bed in one of the small downstairs rooms, which was originally supposed to be an office but no one ever used it for anything but storing random stuff. (Drums, mostly. You're honestly not sure why you have so many drums. They must have all come from somewhere.) You move Hannah's green velvet chair into that room, too, and some framed photos of the two of you together. One of the teddy bears from your bedroom. And Owen, of course. When you show her what you've done, she stands in the doorway looking at the room silently for a long moment, then just nods.

That night, the two of you sleep there together for the first time. It's not a good sleep. The hissing of her machine keeps waking you up. When you look over at her in the dark, she's breathing so shallowly that at first you can't see her chest rising and falling at all. You watch her until she rolls onto her side before you close your eyes again.

*

Hannah doesn't want to argue with her mother anymore. And her mother doesn't want to argue either, you can tell – obviously, no one wants to fight with a dying girl – but the woman just can't help herself sometimes, making these little comments every now and then that aren't necessarily antagonistic but still make it obvious that she's unhappy with Hannah's choice. Like when Hannah mentioned how grateful she was that her mother had decided to stay in England and spend so much time with her, and her mother gave her a pointed look and said, “I would never abandon my family.” As though that's what Hannah was doing, as though she were doing it on purpose.

But now whenever her mother says these things, instead of taking the bait like she might've before, Hannah just gives her a hug and says, “Love you, Mom.” And her mother sighs, wraps her arms around Hannah, and usually asks if there's anything she can do for her or if she wants something specific for dinner. Hannah's mother still has some trouble with British traffic laws, but nothing will keep her from the Co-Op if her daughter decides she wants lamb chops or pasta.

This is the most time you've ever spent with Hannah's mother. She's not fat but has the kind of softness that develops when your solution to most problems is a good meal, and lately you've had more problems than usual. It's like she's gained the weight that her daughter has lost. Your own mother has practically adopted the woman.

“Be nice, Edward,” your mum tells you one day after you've muttered a sarcastic comment to her about Hannah's mother's guilt trips. “Everyone expresses grief in different ways. Just think of how difficult her life has been. First losing her husband... and now...” Her voice trails off as she looks at you, and you immediately put an arm around her shoulders and squeeze so you don't have to watch your mum's face while she thinks about what it's like to lose a child. She sags against you for a moment. “This has all been so hard. Please don't take it out on Rose.”

Rose, Iris, Lily. Your house full of flowers, like a hospital. Or a cemetery.

“Sorry,” you say. “I'll try not to.”

It's Hannah's decrease in appetite that worries her mother so much. At least once every meal, she asks, “Lily, how's the food?” because it prompts Hannah to take another small bite and give her a smile or thumbs up. “There's still plenty left. Here, have some more sweet potatoes.” She heaps food onto her daughter's plate like she's got every expectation of feeding eight people from it, even though she must know most of it will remain untouched.

Hannah protested at first – “It's great, Mom. I'm just not very hungry right now, you know?” – but lately she's been allowing the extra helpings of fried chicken and macaroni and potato salad to pile up on her plate without a word. “She just wants to take care of me as much as she can,” Hannah tells you one afternoon, sitting with you on the sofa during a rare moment alone together while watching a Buffy rerun. (It's the one where Buffy's mum asks if she's tried not being a vampire slayer, and even though you don't mention it, you know the scene reminds you both of Rose.) Hannah's curling into your side like a cat, her little breathing tube pressed to your shoulder under her cheek, and you can smell her apple shampoo. She's the one who brought up the food thing. “I'm not going to take that away from her,” she says. “It makes her happy to feel like she's helping.” Hannah's body is so thin that her jaw and collarbones and the bones of her wrists and ankles look like they're trying to push through to the outside of her skin. In a weird way, she seems not quite fully developed anymore, like a baby bird in the nest who hasn't got feathers yet, just this pink skin stretched over a tiny bird-shaped frame, like if you picked it up it would weigh nothing.

“It would make her happier if you actually ate the stuff she cooks.”

“Ugh, don't you start guilt-tripping me, too. I already told you, I don't need to eat as much as I used to because I'm not as active anymore. I mean, it barely takes any energy to do this.” She puts one hand in the air in front of you, fingers together, and makes a slight up and down motion with it. You assume this means working on her quilt, which is still piled unfinished in her green velvet chair.

“It's not a guilt trip. I just don't want to be the only one getting fat.”

That makes her smile. Her slender hand drops down to pet your slightly-more-pudgy-than-usual stomach through your t-shirt. “Mmm, I like you when you're fat.”

“It's a good look, isn't it? Fat and ginger. With specs. They'll be beating down the door to offer me modeling contracts.”

“Well it's never too late to make something of yourself. You could be the next Gerber baby.”

“Isn't that, like, the one thing it's definitely too late for?”

“Nah.” She trails her hand up your body and runs her fingertips through the longish stubble of your beard. “All you need to do is shave.”

Your fingers follow hers thoughtfully through the little orange hairs. “I could be the first Gerber man.”

Cuddled together like this, you can feel Hannah's startled jump as the phone lying on the sofa near her hip suddenly blares out the first few notes of Toxic by Britney Spears. You have to move your arm for her to reach for the phone, but after she looks at the display, she silences it, gives you an eyeroll, and snuggles back up to you, leaving the phone where she dropped it on the sofa.

“Well?” you prompt after a moment, settling your arm back around her.

“You're ridiculous,” she says, but she's smiling. You can hear it.

You give her a nudge. “Annnnnnnnd...?”

“And I love you, but you really can stop setting random alarms to remind me to tell you. I would tell you anyway.”

“You forgot on Tuesday.”

“I didn't forget. It was internal. I said it in my heart. Also you're a freak for keeping track.”

“A freak that you love, oooohhhh, oooooohhhhh.” If her head weren't resting on your shoulder, she would be able to see one of your smugger expressions right now. You've been setting a new reminder on her phone at a different time every day, with a different song as the alarm. But for some reason Toxic has been stuck in your head lately.

“Dork,” she says, and pokes your belly.

In your best Britney voice, you sing, “Baby, can't you see? I'm calling. A guy like you should wear a warning. It's dangerous... I'm falling.”

“I thought it was my sister,” Hannah mutters.

That stops your singing. “You... what now?”

“Iris. I just thought she was calling me. That song is her ringtone.” Hannah turns her face to look at you, and you can feel her breathing tube slip across your shoulder. You're not wearing your smug look anymore. “What?” she asks.

“What? Nothing.”

She narrows her eyes at you.

“What?” you say again.

Hannah sighs and turns her face back toward the TV. “You know, if you're not going to say it back, you could at least try to grope me or something. Where's the affection?” She reaches for your hand and gives it a tug, pulling your arm tighter around herself.

You give her an obliging squeeze and kiss the top of her head. “I love you, too,” you murmur into her hair, nuzzling against the short, sweet-smelling strands. “Every day.”  

“That's more like it,” she says, and giggles softly when your hand also moves in for a cheeky grope.

*

She says the pain is a burning sensation. You imagine something like acid reflux, but she describes it more like a sunburn on the inside. “It's not really that bad,” she reassures you. “I almost never feel it anyway.” She gently shakes one of her prescription pain killers in your direction. The pills make a rattling sound inside the bottle. You remember taking some of the same thing at a party once, a long time ago.

You're watching her sit on the bed and meticulously count out her medication, dropping each dose into one of those pill organizer things on the nightstand. On a whim, when she's not looking, you put some chocolate in one of the compartments. She turns back to the organizer with another bottle of vitamins and pauses at the sight of bright blue amongst all the white. “Oh, good,” she says. “Can't forget my Wednesday M&M.”

“It's more important than all the rest of that combined.”

She leans toward you and gives your cheek a quick kiss. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

You're not sure which one of the medicines in her pill organizer keeps her from attending your gig. It's a charity show, your first public performance since Hannah got sick, and she tells you she'll be there, that she wouldn't miss it for anything. You have to get to the venue early for promo photos, but she and Iris plan to come along later with Rose and your parents. None of them have shown up by stage time, not where you can see them anyway, but that sort of thing happens sometimes and you're not worried, at least not about your family coming to the show. Of course they're coming. But you do have some nervous energy to work off on stage since you haven't performed in a while, and it feels good – it feels like a relief – to hear the crowd screaming as soon as you walk out, to listen to them sing along to every word of your songs, to feel that rush again. You can't stop smiling.

But when you begin to sing Hannah's song, that's when you realize something's wrong. It's the one that's not about her, the one she loves so much that it's hers now even though it wasn't when you wrote it. Always during this song, you glance over to the side of the stage and smile at her, watch her mouthing the words along with you. This time when you look over into the darkness at the side of the stage, Hannah's lips aren't moving in time with yours. Her eyes are sad, distant. Her hair is... oh, bloody hell, it's Iris.

You try the other side of the stage, then down in the front of the crowd, squinting at all the faces which blur together without your specs. Hannah's not there. When you look over at Iris again, she's biting her bottom lip, there in the shadows looking for all the world like a younger version of her sister, like you've somehow traveled backward a few years and you're seeing the woman you love for the first time, and this song isn't her favorite anymore. You have to take a moment, step back from the mic and nod to the audience, let them fill in the gaps for you. You're smiling at their cameras, sweat rolling down from your temples, but everything feels so wrong so suddenly. It's as if someone is pulling the stage floor out from under your feet, daring you to keep strumming your guitar while you fall.

When the song ends, Trevor meets you onstage with another pre-tuned guitar, and you lean toward him as the two of you switch instruments, ask him if Hannah ever arrived. He tells you no, but her sister's here, and your parents. He says Iris had tried to catch you before your set started, but by the time she got here, you were already walking out onto the stage. You immediately turn toward the mic – and roughly 5,000 people – and say, “Uh, will you guys excuse me one second? I'll be right back. Just, very quickly–” You start to put your guitar on the stage, then change your mind and start to hand it back to Trevor, who is still holding the other one, and the two of you do an awkward little shuffle around each other while the crowd titters before you manage to escape into the wings. Trevor stands confused on the stage for a brief moment with both guitars before swiftly walking off after you.

“Where's Hannah? Is she all right?” you're asking Iris before you even reach her, and she's already nodding back at you, though her expression seems alarmed. Probably because she's never seen you leave the stage in the middle of a show. Or maybe because you didn't stop until you were so close she had to take a small step backward.

“Yeah, she's—she's fine,” Iris reassures you right away. “It's just, she took a little too much medicine before we—”

“What do you mean too much? How much did she, is she—?”

She's shaking her head. “No, it's not like—she didn't overdose or anything like that! It's just, um, she was starting to feel it, you know, and—” She makes a vague sweeping gesture toward her own body, indicating the source of Hannah's pain. Just as she does this, someone in your waiting audience screams out for you to come back, and a peal of more screams mixed with laughter rolls through the venue. Iris seems flustered by this and tries to explain more quickly, slightly raising her voice. The words come out in a rush. “She wanted to make sure she'd be able to last through the whole show, so she took an extra pill but you know how they make her sleepy if she hasn't eaten anything? And she only had like three bites of a sandwich all day and we were getting ready to come but she was so tired she kept dropping her machine and finally Mom just made her go to bed. I was going to stay with her but she wanted me to come and—I called but you didn't answer your phone so I—”

“But she's okay though?” you interrupt. “She's just sleeping?”

“Yeah, she's fine and our mom's with her, so— and she told me to tell you she's really sorry and don't worry and she'll see you at home.”

Don't worry. Sure. As if it's a switch you can just flip. But you find yourself nodding and turning toward the stage, already walking swiftly back out before Mark can reach you to ask what's wrong. And now the audience is cheering for you again, so loud that the sound almost drowns out whatever it is that you're feeling, and you take your guitar from Trevor and fasten the strap, put on a big smile for everyone and say, “Right! Where were we?” And the screams are even louder when you begin the first few notes of the next song.

Most of the rest of the gig is a blur. You reach the end of each song not really remembering how you got there, but your hands and your voice and your feet know all the moves by heart, and you feel yourself pushing – even not paying attention with your head, your body still pushes – and you break some strings and sweat through your shirt, and the energy in the room keeps you moving like a hamster in its wheel, stubborn and determined to go until you get somefuckingwhere. A girl in the front row passes out, and you intentionally don't look at her while security pulls her over the barrier and carries her limp form away.

When you step offstage before the encore, Iris asks if you're okay. She's looking at you with this expression you can't read, so you make the same expression back to her and wonder if she can read yours. “Why, don't I seem okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, watching you reach for a towel to wipe your face. “Yeah, you're... I mean, you're doing a great job out there. The loop stuff. It's cool to see it up close.”  

“Thanks.” You bury your face in the towel. The crowd is still screaming for you. It's funny to hear that sound after so long, how you can always tell the difference when it's for you instead of someone else. When you look back up, she's got her eyes on the floor, arms wrapped around herself, looking a little bit lost back here among the ropes and equipment boxes and crew. “Hey,” you say, and reach out to give her a friendly bump on the arm with your fist, but for some reason instead you end up pulling her in for a hug. “Thank you for coming.”

“Yeah,” she says, returning the hug. As she pats your sweaty back, you notice the difference in the way Iris hugs from the way Hannah does. Hannah always turns her face toward your neck, but Iris does that thing where she turns her face away, cheek to your shoulder. You let your hand fall down her arm as you pull away to head back onto the stage.

During the last song of your encore, when you take out your phone to snap a photo of the screaming crowd, you can see the three missed calls from Iris.

Back in your dressing room after the show, before you even let anyone else in, you call Hannah.

“I'm so sorry, Teddy,” she says softly. “You know I wanted to be there.”

Your ears are still ringing so it's hard to hear her. “No, it's all right. As long as you're okay,” you say a bit too loudly. There's some kind of stain on the floor, and you kick at it idly with your shoe. “You've seen me play a million times.”

“Oh, I wasn't going for you. I heard Ginger Spice was going to be there.” Geri Halliwell is the only former Spice Girl that Hannah hasn't met yet, so it's been a running joke between the two of you that she shows up at any event Hannah misses. But it's been months since either of you brought it up, and the unexpectedness makes you snort.

“Thought I was your ginger spice,” you say.

“How many times do I have to tell you it doesn't count unless you wear the Union Jack dress?” You can hear her yawning almost before she finishes the sentence.  

“I'm leaving here in... maybe, an hour? I'll wear it for you when I get home if you want.”

“Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want,” she replies sleepily. “Don't... don't come home yet.”

Someone is knocking on the door to your dressing room. “Eh? Don't come home?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Go out.”

“Out? Where?”

“Anywhere. Go out. Have fun. Get drunk. It's just, you haven't really let loose in so long, and since I'm not there to slow you down...”

Knocking again. “You want me to get drunk?”

“I want you sloppy and incoherent.”

“You don't slow me down.”

“Of course I do.” Hannah isn't supposed to drink because of her meds, so you haven't let yourself have more than a glass or two of wine for a long while.

“You really want me sloppy? Like, more sloppy than usual.”

“I mean it. Don't come home unless you're being carried.”

“Ed!” someone calls from outside the door. It sounds like Mark, but you know there are probably several people out there waiting for you.

“Sloppy and carried,” you repeat into the phone. “Got it. See you in the morning?”

“In the morning,” she says. “Love you.”

“Love you.” You slip the phone into your pocket and go throw open the door, startling everyone standing in the hallway. Mark is there, and Stu, and Iris, your parents, three friends, the organizers of the charity concert, and – randomly – Geri Halliwell. She's holding a bottle of wine. “You've got to be shitting me,” you blurt out.

Stuart frowns at you. “Haven't you showered yet? You look like a drowned ginger rat.”

“Sorry.” Your hand reaches reflexively up to your sweaty hair. “Haven't had time. Hello.” The hello is for Geri Halliwell. Geri fucking Halliwell! The one time Hannah hasn't come!

“Hi,” she says. “Don't worry. Drowned ginger is the new platinum blonde.”

*

After a very quick shower, your mission to get absolutely fucking spangled begins with the wine Geri brought but quickly progresses to three rounds of shots in your dressing room at the venue, then pints at the pub down the street, interspersed with more shots of something that is a different shade of purple every time someone hands you one. You and Geri belt out 2 Become 1 through the pub's poorly set up karaoke system, but she leaves before you and your friends and two random footballers start on the Jäger bombs, of which you drink six even though the second one makes you throw up in your mouth a little bit. A woman who was on Big Brother three seasons ago keeps filming you for her snapchat and trying to drag you away from your friends to dance, so you throw some pretty fucking epic shapes in the crowd, and everyone seems to be having a great time for a few hours. More and more people show up and join in the dance party. It's fun, and it makes you realize how long it's actually been since you did something like this.

But eventually, as you're looking around to see where the next drink is coming from, you start to notice that all the people you actually know seem to have gone home. At this point, rather than really dancing, you're just barely shuffling your feet in the middle of a group of complete strangers who are laughing and pointing their phones at you, and somehow you've managed to spill something cold and sticky down the front of your shirt. It's a very odd, familiar-yet-unfamiliar feeling to realize you've managed to get yourself abandoned drunk at a bar in the wee hours of the morning with a D-list celebrity and her friends who are all using any excuse to touch you. This hasn't happened in... it feels like years. It's been years. “I have to go,” you mutter in no specific direction, pushing someone's hands off your shoulders. It's very loud in here. “I need to go... home.”

The Big Brother woman links her arm through yours and is tagging along as you stumble dizzily away from the crowd. She's saying something but you're not listening, and you almost trip and fall, catching yourself hard on the edge of a wooden booth. What time is it even? “I have to go home,” you say again, and push ineffectually at her hand, which has a tight grip on your arm. Her fingernails are long and sharp. “I need to go. My... my girlfriend's sick.” You reach for your phone, but it's not in your pocket anymore. There's a tight knot in your stomach, something you haven't felt in a very long time. It's panic. Jesus Christ, where's the fucking door? You need to get outside.

Then, like a lifeline, you spot her. A sense of relief washes through you, and you find yourself snatching your arm from the woman you don't know and barreling toward the one you recognize, literally running from one end of the bar to the other, pushing by some dude and knocking over a wooden stool along the way. Iris spots you just before you throw your arms around her, and you can feel her sudden intake of breath as you bury your face in her neck, hugging her fiercely. She gives you a comforting stroke down your back, and your eyes squeeze closed. You sway in the hug, making her sway too. “Thank you for coming back,” you mumble against her sweet-smelling skin. For some reason you feel like you're going to cry, but no tears actually come, and you think you probably sound normal. Well, normal for being fucking smashed.

“I never left,” she says. “I was waiting for you. I have your phone.” You don't reply to this, just pull her closer, nuzzling your face against her neck. It seems like such a safe place to be right now, the only familiar place you've been all night. She smells like Hannah. They use the same shampoo. Your lips are against her skin, her hands on your back. “Come on,” she says softly, giving you a gentle, guiding push toward the door. “Let's get you home.”

You don't want to let go of her. There's this feeling you have, which feels so real right now, that if you let go, even just long enough to walk out through the bar door, she will disappear again. This is how it is, you think drunkenly. People leave you. The ones who feel like family. They leave you all alone and you have to start over from the very beginning with someone you don't know, and you don't want that, not ever again. You don't want all your history to be forgotten, to have to build something from the bottom up with someone you haven't even met yet. It's not fair. It's too much work. There may be new people in the world that you could eventually love, but there are a few that you already have love for, and those are the ones you can't let yourself let go of, the ones that it makes sense to build something with. Those are the people you can't lose, not if there's any way you can help it. They are the ones you need to keep close. As close as you can. But how? How can you get closer than this?

That is the thought running through your drunk and scared and lonely mind when you lift your face from her neck and kiss your girlfriend's little sister on the mouth.

You don't know what Iris is thinking about when she kisses you back.

What you want to believe is that all your problems, or at least some of them, at least one, will be solved with this kiss. It is good for a drunk kiss, long and passionate and both new and familiar at once. Her lips are soft and warm and her breath smells sweet like cider. Her body fits so perfectly within the circle of your arms, just exactly the way Hannah used to, her long hair tickling against your skin. It feels like this kiss has been coming for a long time, so long that for a moment you can't remember if it has ever happened before or not. It feels like you have kissed Iris many times already, but then you remember you have only thought about it, and dreamed about it once or twice.

What you want to believe is that somehow this will help.

But when it is over, nothing about your life has changed. You are still drunk and scared and lonely at a pub, and there is still a knot in your stomach, and the woman you love is still dying at home and you have no idea what the fuck you're doing right now except making it all worse.

“Sorry,” you mumble to Iris without opening your eyes. “Sorry, sorry.” Your lips aren't touching her anymore but you can still feel her there, the memory of the kiss lingering on your mouth. You don't know what else to say. You're still holding her.

Then she pushes you away, very gently, steadying you as you take a stumbling step backward. She says in a perfectly calm, rational voice, “We need to go, Ed.” 

Fuck. Your head falls forward in a nod.

As soon as you turn away from her, the tight knot in your stomach unfurls itself, and you vomit a giant purple puddle onto the floor of the pub.

*

Concluded soon.

That Woman Over There - Chapter 7

A You Me and Him Fix-it Fic

Rating: teen, for some strong language

Word count: 5830

Warnings: none

Summary: ~ Set after the birth of Monty, Olivia’s baby ~ A dear friend of Olivia comes to visit for a week, and she disturbs the fragile peace between her, Alex, and John.

Note: due to the length of this chapter, I won’t be posting the next one until next Wednesday. Enjoy!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Chapter 7

He came back with drinks and sat hard beside her.

“Ow!” she yelled. “Your skinny ass is gonna leave a bruise!”

“Nonsense. I heard from very good sources that it’s quite nice,” he said. He drank deep from a longneck.

“What happened to those ladies you were working on? They looked pretty into it.”

“I gave them my business card,” he said dismissively.

“How analog of you,” she said. “Seriously, though. You just blew them off?”

He shrugged. “Yes and no. There will always be bored, horny women. Any night of the week, at any pub. That shit never changes.” There was something in his tone that stopped her from becoming offended for all womankind.

“What happened?” she said.

“What? With the women?”

“With your wife,” she said.

Again, he lay back and looked at the stars peeking through the clouds.

“You can’t see the stars in the heart of the city,” he said. “It’s not something you think about when you move. It’s usually whether to buy a car or not, or whether there’s a nice supermarket nearby, but never whether you’ll see the stars at night,” he said. “It’s so weird how easily priorities get … skewed.”

She sighed.

“She wasn’t happy. She dieted and exercised and experimented with different looks, but she wasn’t getting signed. And as time passed, it got worse and worse. Anxiety ate her alive. She began to get surgeries. And I, the ever obliging husband, paid for them. But nothing worked. Nothing was good enough. Not the flat, the city, and most glaringly … me.”

Her stomach bubbled.

“She had a thing she did,” he continued. “A rare talent, if you want to call it that. I’m a grown man. No glasses. No brace. But she had a way, ever so subtly, to make me feel like that bent boy again. And as time passed and things didn’t go like she wanted, it happened more and more. Until I was the boy - just a weak, whinging thing at her feet, begging for the least scrap of affection or sympathy.”

It’s like he took a slice of life from her childhood. How many times had she peeked around corners as her mom berated her father for no other reason than ennui? He would withstand her onslaught, softly clucking out an occasional “perdoname, mi amor”. 

She spit poison, but he knelt, brown eyes liquid with adoration, and apologized to her. Every time. Every day. For years. He wore his misery and shame so openly that she found herself averting her eyes. And although he was a good man - loyal and kind - she began to resent him.

“To add insult to injury, I suggested that we start a family. I figured that maybe if she had a wee baby to watch over, she wouldn’t be so worried about other things. I really fucked up then,” he said, eyes wide. “I was sexist. A selfish misogynist asshole, and I wanted her barefoot and bloated in the kitchen. That was a laugh. She didn’t cook.”

“Then how did you eat?” she said.

“I did the cooking. And most of the cleaning. She preferred to have a lie in and then go out for late lunches with friends.”

It wasn’t an odd confession. Her own mother never lifted a finger - they had a cleaning service come in every day to keep things tidy. Because her mother was so contrary, she was never able to form any connection to the staff, since they never lasted long.

“Why didn’t you get someone to come in to do the cleaning?”

His brow wrinkled with indignation. “I come from honest Scottish stock. It’s a shame not to be able to clean up your own muck. It was just us two, hardly an excuse to have some poor woman scrubbing and dusting after us.”

“They get paid to do it,” she said. She played with the buckle on her boot.

“You have a cleaner?” he said, giving her a disapproving look.

“No. My apartment’s small, and dust never really bothered me,” she winked at him. “It add character.”

“It gives me asthma,” he said.

“Then I guess you can’t come over,” she said.

“Am I invited? I could use a cheeky NYC holiday,” he said. “I’m curious about seeing American women in their natural habitat.”

“All animals, are we?”

He shook his head briskly. “Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that-”

“I get it. I was joking,” she said. “It’s a pity she didn’t want children.”

He stretched his legs out in front of him. “Last I heard, she’s a new mum to a healthy baby girl,” he said morosely. “She didn’t want to have my children.” He kicked at the firepit.

“Did she actually say that, though?” she said.

“Not quite. For the first half of the marriage, she insisted she couldn’t have children because it would ruin her figure. That made some sense to me, so I waited. We were young. But as things began to fall apart and it was obvious that there would be no modeling career, the truth finally came to light.”

“And what truth was that?”

He couldn’t look at her. No one knew the truth. Not Alex and Olivia. Not even his own mother. And he didn’t know why he was going to tell her. She noticed his hesitation, and squeezed his hand. Old pain began to rise from where he had subsumed it under a mountain of self-loathing and anger. He was suddenly dizzy with it.

“She didn’t want to procreate with me. She would be horrified if she had a ‘gimp kid.’” His voice was hoarse with pain. He put his head in his hands, and his body trembled as he tried to fight the urge to sob. Hearing it out loud, it took him back to the moment his life fell apart. Mara’s face had been so lax, so cold. She didn’t understand why he crumpled in his chair, and went pale as a sheet - to her, it made perfect sense.

“And when we lost Josie, I started to wonder…” he said, his face twisted with horror, “I started to wonder whether…” he took a whooping breath, “ whether it was my fault.” He finally broke down.

She wrapped her arms around him and let his choked sobs shake her. His pain humbled her - there was no anger whatsoever left in her. He tried to wave her away, but she insisted on holding him.  She shushed into his neck and held him tight, taking in the scent of leather and salt. His body curled into her, and he finally hugged her back so hard it made her ribs ache.

He disentangled himself and started to yank at the jewelry on his wrist. “Look-” He lost patience and bit off the fashionable thin leather thong bracelet. He held his right wrist up for her to see.

She rubbed her thumb along the cursive letters.

“Josie,” she read out loud. Without another thought, she kissed his wrist. A tear dripped on his palm. They sat there, just breathing. She pulled up the hem of her shorts. He squinted, then dared to brush the skin of her hip.

“It’s a poppy,” he said, mystified. “Quite nice.” Although tears still dried in his beard, he wasn’t just talking about the tattoo. She linked her fingers through his long ones. He warmed at her easy, mindless gesture. It felt so very nice. Almost better than sex.

“That was her name. Poppy,” she said, smiling at him. “She wasn’t mine through blood or marriage, but I love her with all my heart.”

Was it another girlfriend? His heart dropped. “Wait - who are you talking about?” he said softly. He didn’t remember Olivia mentioning a Poppy.

“She was Ella’s little girl,” she said.

He couldn’t hide his relief. “Her daughter. I see. What happened with Ella?”

She squeezed his hand. “The most common but painful of conjugal sins - infidelity. Our relationship no longer held any adventure or excitement for her. This is a quote.”

“How many years were you together?” he said, rubbing her back.

“Four years, 7 months, and 20 days,” she said. “Nothing like you and Mara.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“At least Mara married you. Ella didn’t believe in the institute of matrimony. She said it was heteronormative garbage and she refused to tow the line for the sake of a false sense of propriety.”

He sucked his teeth. “She sounds a delight,” he said. “So you wanted to do the whole white frock and flowers thing, eh?”

“I love weddings, straight and gay. I’m an unapologetic weeper,” she said. “I guess I wanted that for me. To share our love with people - make a public and binding commitment in front of God and man.”

“Ooh,” he said. “Binding. That just gave me chills.”

“You were married,” she said.

“If it isn’t already apparent, it was harrowing.”

“You loved her, though,” she said. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “At best, she loved the idea of me. The stability and ease of a life with me. But she never loved me. And it happens far too often.”

“You know, not all women see their partners as walking ATM machines,” she said petulantly. She was the main breadwinner as well. But up until the end, she chose to believe it was love, and not being a stable dupe to raise her kid, that kept Ella around.

“I could tell you some stories,” he said, his eyebrows high. “Sad, sad stories.”

“Like what?”

“The divorce process isn’t kind to many men - even those who did things very right. It’s the woman’s word above all, even when there is proof of infidelity.” He cleared his throat.

“Imagine how awkward it is when it’s two women,” she said. He looked confused. “I’ll give you a clue: complete and utter shitstorm.”

“Did Ella take you for all you had, then?” he said, too jovially.

“Thing is, she didn’t have to. Even after the breakup,  I wanted to help her find a proper place for Poppy to grow up, and give her money for her schooling. But she didn’t care. She never really worried about … prosaic things like that, and that’s what worries me. She was the stereotypical  hipster artist, and because I loved her, for four years, I paid for the lifestyle. It didn’t bother me, John. It made me happy to see them thrive, to do and give beautiful things. I never kept a running tally, to my lawyer’s chagrin,” she said, giving him a half smile. “I understand how women can be. We’re not perfect. But as a bi woman, I’m a bit closer.” She winked.

“How so?” he said. She still held his hand loosely on her lap. Her thighs were like velvet.

“I was just joking. What I mean is, I’m straddling a fence and able to look at both sides, both physically and emotionally. Men complain that women are too emotional. Women complain that men don’t listen. And both are right, to a degree. But even if the complaints from both sides are similar, it’s still an individual problem.”

“Life with Mara was constantly walking on eggshells,” he said. “Anything I said, no matter how well-meaning, could end up upsetting her in some way. Still happens, honestly,” he said, giving her a sidelong glance.

She chose to ignore it. “I acknowledge what you said, but what if I told you that it was Mara’s insecurity, and not you, that caused all that misery? It wasn’t your fault.”

“How could such a beautiful woman be insecure? Either way, I tried to make it better the best way I could. With compliments, and kindness, and attention, and trips - I took her to bloody Bali. Paradise. And all she did was sulk in bikini for a week. She looked fucking beautiful, though.” He shook his head.

Connie smiled and bit her lip. She knew the feeling. Her and Ella’s last trip to Thailand had been much of the same - her trying to stay positive and pretend things weren’t falling apart, and Ella finding any excuse to go off by herself.

“Hey …” he squeezed her hand. “You’re gonna chew your lip off,” he said, and pressed his finger on her chin, dislodging it from her teeth. It was bruised and red.

“Did I say something stupid?” he said.

“No. Of course not,” she said. She sucked on her lip pensively. “Sometimes, that kindness and attention is what makes it worse.”

It was getting colder, and the fire was getting lower. He leaned into her and put his arm around her shoulder.

“Wait-” she said, stiffening.

“I’m sorry- it’s just, you’re shivering,” he said, but let her go. He took off his jacket and held it up. “Here. Put it on. Still warm.”

She opened her mouth to protest - something about preferring to freeze than wear his obnoxiously hip leather jacket - but instead, she accepted his gesture gracefully. She slid into it and sat down with a sigh. His scent surrounded her and made her smile. He smelled of … herbaceous green and the ghost of fresh cut wood. Despite the warmth, she got goosebumps.

“Thanks,” she said. His nipples poked through his thin cotton henley shirt. “Now you’re cold, though.”

He smiled and rubbed his chest. Pink rose to his cheeks above the beard. “It’s the price I pay for being a gentleman.”

“You did it on purpose,” she said, nudging him. “You wanted to show the world your goods.”

“The world’s not here,” he said. “Just you.”

His intense gaze made her heart race, but she laughed it off. Oh no. He’s not gonna do some MRA mind tricks on her.

“Okay, what is this? A three-step system to get any woman to bed?” she said. “Because it’s not gonna work on me, slick.”

His eyes narrowed. “What are you going on about?” He sounded genuinely puzzled.

“You know - number one: engage her, and make her feel in control. Number 2: be vulnerable, and allow her to be vulnerable. Number three …” she stood up and started to walk around the patio, searching for the words,”...give her your jacket and make her feel safe. Yeah. Safe. I see you,” she said, nodding and smirking. “You’re not clever, hipster boy.”

He looked down at his hands and shook his head. “I’m very clever, but this is no ruse. I’m genuinely freezing my lads off right now.”

She took off the jacket. “Then here.” She held it up impatiently.

“I clearly said I would buy you a drink and leave you alone. You are the one who asked me to stay.”

“No I didn’t,” she said. Her arm was starting to burn. The jacket was heavy, but he didn’t take it back. She threw it on the bench and crossed her arms.

“Yes, you did. You asked me what I did for a living. I replied that to answer your question, I would have to remain. You said that this was a public space, and that you couldn’t put me out, implying consent to continuing the conversation.”

She sat down, still pouting. He resisted the urge to smile.

“You think I would say those private things just to get a woman into bed?” he said. “It’s not much of a show of strength, is it?”

She shivered. “Whatever. It’s just not gonna work on me.”

“I wasn’t trying to work you,” he said, and stood up. It stung that she thought the things he told her were just a means to an end. “You women are impossible. If we talk a big game, then we’re egotistical jerks. If we dare to be vulnerable, then we’re weak and revolting. This is why I gave up trying to please you lot. It’s so much easier to please myself - at least I know what I’m about.”

“Shocking revelation,” she said under her breath.

He groaned with frustration. “And things were going so well.”

“See! You were working me!” she said, pointing at him.

He rolled his eyes. “I was trying to get to know you - see what Liv sees. There is a massive fucking difference,” he said.

She faltered, but she refused to give up.  “Why do you care what Liv sees, or feels anyway? You were an utter twat to her. She told me what you did at the park. You … barked a fake orgasm in public to humiliate her even more about what happened between you and Alex.”

“I didn’t really know her then, and I thought the whole thing was a weird lesbian sham. Sandwiches at the park? How civil,” he said. “Bollocks!”

“That’s how she is, though. Civil and kind and lovely,” she said. She didn’t know why her voice was up an octave.

“Well, I didn’t know that then,” he said, matching her volume. “I just thought she was the evil gatekeeper keeping me from who could be the actual love of my life.”

Her jaw dropped. “You loved Alex?” Livvie didn’t tell her that.

He rubbed his face. “I thought I did. I mean, I do, but then, I wanted her as well, for myself. Our drunk thing and what happened afterward felt like it was destined. And that little stunt at the park? I was jealous. Seething.”

“Fuck,” she said softly. “I am so confused.”

“So was I,” he said. “Trust me. Alex and I were drunk that night, but we weren’t …” he tried to find the right words, “... she wasn’t so gone that she didn’t know …” he sighed. She waited for him to finish.

“She was the one who pulled me up the stairs to bed,” he said. “She ripped my clothes-”

She held up her hand. “I don’t need to hear more. Suffice it to say, there was consent.”

“Because I knew that, I thought it meant that maybe there was a chance. That she might choose me. Especially after the baby.”

She sat down hard. Olivia had not told her that, and she knew why. It was weird. And painful. And awkward.

“But you had to know that Alex is a lesbian,” she said finally.

“Should I know? Because she sure didn’t fu-”

She held up her hand for silence again. 

“I’m sorry. It felt weird sometimes, like she wanted me but was too afraid to say so for fear of being judged or something.”

“She did care for you, but more importantly, she needed you. She was pregnant, and frightened, and on the horns of a fearful dilemma - literally.”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“No, you think I’m saying she wanted you … sexually. But she didn’t.”

“But she did.”

“She was drunk, and furious, and scared.”

“And really horny,” he said. She rolled her eyes.

“I’m sorry to break it to you, but friction is friction if you’re drunk enough,” she said. “You were there, and willing. She made do.”

He sat down beside her again. “And it hurt.”

“Slamming your dick up against a brick wall will do that,” she said.

“It made me feel used.”

“Welcome to the fucking club, kid,” she said. “She told you she’s gay. She introduces you to her girlfriend. You never see male overnight guests. Again … Wall. Cock.” She wished she had another drink to warm her. “You still have those feelings for her?”

“No,” he said. “I was so ecstatic about Josie that what was a just a pash blew up to something more. I wanted to love her. I absolutely did. She checked all the boxes - creative, beautiful, passionate - but I realized after losing the baby that we were more meant to be friends.”

“How convenient,” she said.

“Really. We’re very alike, in a lot of ways. Too much, honestly,” he said, chuckling. “That ever happen to you?”

“Yeah,” she said. “With Olivia,” she said.

“Exactly,” he said. “Although the circumstances were weird, I feel so lucky that Olivia, Alex, and I found each other. They changed my life,” he said.

“In myriad ways,” she said, smiling. She couldn’t imagine a life without Olivia.

He laughed softly beside her.

“What?” she said.

“Just thinking. Slamming my cock up against a brick wall. That’s choice.”

“It’s what you did, though. Al’s gay as fuck. Her words, not mine.”

“Are you?” he asked.

“I’m bi, remember?”

“But … you wanted to marry Ella.”

“And?”

“That’s pretty lesbian of you.”

“I loved her,” she said. “Ella could’ve easily been … Elton.”

“Fair warning though - he’s gay as fuck,” he said.

She chuckled. “You know what I mean.”

“Men and women are so different. I don’t understand how you could want both equally.”

“That’s what’s most amazing. The differences. It keeps things interesting.”

“But what if you’re with a woman, and you want to be with a man? What do you do?”

“Is it a committed monogamous relationship?”

"Let’s say yeah.”

“What any good person in a committed relationship does. Practice self-control. Bisexuality is not carte blanche to be a callous, greedy bastard.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “You ever cheated?”

“This conversation is getting deeply personal again,” she said.

“Afraid to answer the question?” he said, raising his eyebrow.

“No! And no.”

“Never?” he said. “Not even a little kiss?”

“No,” she said, irritated. “I think it’s cowardly.”

“How?”

“You ever done it?” she asked, eyeing him.

“I asked the question first. Answer it, then I’ll answer you.”

“It’s cowardly because it’s the easy way out for a person who can’t muster up the bravery to tell their partner the difficult truth that they’re not happy. If they cheat, then it circumvents it completely. It’s like ‘Oops! I went outside the relationship. That’s gross, right? You hate me now, huh? Don’t worry, I’ll let myself out…’”

Her voice trembled.

“Spot on,” he said. “Mara didn’t even give me a chance to get angry, though. She didn’t care enough. It was like ‘I’ve been fucking someone else for a year, he makes me feel like a woman, I’ll send someone for my shit, goodbye’.”

The noise from the pub was quieting down. The fire was down to embers.

“I got the line ‘she makes me feel like my most authentic self’. What does that even mean?”

“It’s hipster speak for ‘makes me feel like a woman’,” he said, then let out a snort. She looked at him, thinking he might start crying again. But his face glowed with a smile.

“We’re quite a pair, you and I,” he said. “What a fucking pity party.”

“And worst of all, my glass is empty,” she said. “What time is it?”

He looked at his cell and laughed. “Fuck, it’s after 1 AM!”

“Really?” she said. “You’re telling me we’ve been here for nearly five hours? Impossible.”

He showed her the phone.

“Damn,” she said. “No wonder it’s so quiet in the pub.” She rubbed her nose pensively, something he noticed she did a lot.

“Has anyone told you how utterly charming you are when you’re angry?” he said. He tucked a tendril of her hair behind her ear, brushing his knuckle gently along her cheek bone.

“No one who doesn’t want a bruise,” she said, but she smiled. She liked his touch. It was gentle and unassuming.

“Then I will say that you are very intimidating. You made me quake in my boots a couple times.”

She lifted her chin high and raised an eyebrow. “Good.”

“You’re so fucking adorable,” he said, shaking his head and smiling.

“Puppies are adorable,” she said. She meant to nudge him, but ended up leaning against him. He felt good.

“You’re right, I suppose,” he said, daring to wrap his arm around her waist. His touch was feather-light, but warm.”You are beautiful.” The way he said it made her look up at him and search his eyes. The swagger she saw earlier was gone. His gaze questioned, and she responded, tilting her head and giving him the slightest smile. He put his hand on her face. Her nipples hardened, although his touch was warm.

He kissed the side of her mouth first. The prickle of his beard made her giggle, but she put her hand on the back of his neck to guide him.

“I didn’t want to offend with the porn beard,” he whispered into her mouth. His lips were so maddeningly soft. The cold flew from her limbs, and it was replaced with desire.

“A little hair doesn’t bother me,” she said, and just as he pressed his lips to hers, someone came out and threw a bucket of dirty dish water on the embers of the fire.

The woman gave them a cursory glance. “We’re closing in 20 minutes,” she said, and left.

He stood up and held out his hand. “I guess that means it’s time to bugger off,” he said. “I’ll walk you home.”

“Didn't you drive here, though?” she said. She licked her bruised lip for a hint of a taste of him. Sadly, there was none.

“Yeah. But I’m just in the mood for a moonlit stroll,” he said. When she stood, he put his jacket over her shoulders again. “I can pick up my car tomorrow.”

He held his arm out gallantly, and she linked hers through it. It was a small town, so just beyond the high street, there was only silence and the yellow glow of the street lamps. When was the last time she had ever done this, with anyone?

Too long. And she forgot how good it was.

He bounced beside her, slowing his long-gaited walk to accommodate her.

“What are you so excited about?” she asked.

“I can’t wait for the party tomorrow! I hope Olivia likes her gift. It’s a trifle late, but then again, it took a while longer than I imagined to make.”

“Ooh, sounds interesting. Is it in your magic shop?” she said. They turned the corner, and his house was visible not too far off.

He walked in front of her and took her hands. “Would you like to see?” he said. His boyish energy was infectious. Although at first she thought it irritating, it was growing on her. It was nice being around someone like that, after years of Ella’s borderline soporific coolness.

“Sure,” she said. They were nearly running now. Just as soon as they turned into his front yard, a car engine roared to a stop nearby. In the street, a taxi unloaded two very familiar, very drunk women.

“Oh shit-” he ran toward the taxi, but he drove off, glad to be rid of them.

“Heya there, playboy,” the red head slurred, tripping over her feet and falling to the grass. As he tried to help her up, the blonde came up behind him and grabbed his crotch, hard. He dropped the redhead and held the blonde’s wrists firmly.

“Careful with the jewels, darling,” he said. He was pale with pain.

The redhead managed to get on her knees. She touched him too, but with gentler hands.

“Whoa!” he said, and pulled the woman to standing. She leered up at him, licking her lips.

“You gonna make good on your promise?” she said. “We’re here and ready to go-” she tried to hump his leg, but he held her at arm’s length. The lights from the neighbors across the street came on. He cursed underneath his breath.

He ran up to his door and opened it. “Just … get inside and keep quiet.”

“Don’t wanna give your fancy detached neighbors a show, eh?” the blonde said as she climbed the steps, lifting her skirt high. Her hot pink thong had little rhinestones on it. Just as soon as they went inside, he went to her. She stood in Olivia’s garden, arms crossed. She didn’t look mad, which made him even more nervous.

“I am so sorry,” he said.

“What are you doing here? It seems they’re primed and ready to have some fun,” she said. His kitchen window opened and the redhead stuck her head out.

“Oi! Get your ass over here, playboy,” she said. “And you can join us too, if you’re not shy,” she said, giving her a lascivious look.

“You got anything to drink in this place?” the blonde yelled from inside the kitchen.

“It really looks like you have your hands full. I’m gonna turn in,” Connie said, walking to the back door.

“Please, don’t leave me alone. I don’t want them in-” something crashed in the kitchen, “-I don’t want them in my house.”

“Then why did you invite them?” she said.

“I didn’t. Not really. We were flirting a bit, then you came into the bar … shit!” he slapped his forehead. “The business cards. They had my address.”

“Why?” she said.

“I work from home, remember?” he said. “I’m such an idiot.” An ominous thud came from the open window. When she looked, the two women were drunkenly making out. It was not a pretty sight. He gave them a despairing look and turned back to her.

“Help me get them out of my house,” he said, his face twisted in embarrassment.

“But it looks like they’ve already started without you,” she said. The redhead had pulled the blonde’s dress down and was licking her breasts. He groaned. “Please. I don’t want to … touch them.”

“You did earlier,” she said. She couldn’t believe she was going to make out with him just 20 minutes before.

“A lot has happened since then,” he said, giving her a meaningful look. “I know it doesn’t look good, but I swear this has never happened before.” The blond sat on the counter, and the redhead disappeared below the sill. “It’s just my luck it would happen tonight, of all the nights in my bloody life.”

“You should post the experience on your little site. The mouthbreathers will be really impressed.”

“I deserved that. You know what? I’ll take that, and more, if you help me this once. Please.” He looked miserable. “Use your angry powers for good.”

She rolled her eyes. He fell to his knees and grabbed her legs.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, and stalked across his yard. The ladies jumped when she yanked the kitchen door open.

She clapped her hands. “Alright, ladies. As they say in America, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”

The redhead came up from between the blonde’s legs and wiped her chin. “What are you like, his mum?” she said. “Where’s playboy?”

“Off somewhere calling you another taxi,” she said, loudly enough for him to hear from the garden. “Playboy. Do you even know his name?”

“Names don’t matter, do they?” the redhead said, but she pulled his business card from between her breasts. She squinted at it. “Fuck. Don’t have my contacts in-”

Connie took the card from her and crumpled it. “It doesn’t matter, right?” She pointed at the blonde. “Get yourself together and fuck off to the living room. You can wait for the taxi there, where I can’t see you,” she said, and walked back outside.

“Someone should be by in less than five minutes,” he said.

She made a face. “A taxi in less than five minutes?” That was a statistical impossibility where she came from.

“I know. But I promised to pay whoever got here first three times the going rate, plus tip,” he said.

That made a lot more sense.

“They’re not destroying things, are they?” he said.

“Oh my-” She ran back into his house. They were stuffing anything small they could get their hands on in their cheap purses - curios, CDs, and a little comic book figurine that looked expensive.

She darted into his foyer, where he had a proper English willow cricket bat and walked into the living room, bat held high.

“Empty your bags right now or I swear I will call the police and report a home invasion,” she said, her voice low with anger. “But that’s after I call an ambulance.” The women sized her up, and decided she wasn’t worth the risk - the crazy bitch might not be bluffing.

The redhead dropped the George Harrison CD in her hand. “Sure. Whatever. This stuff’s shit anyway,” she said, and started taking stuff out of her purse.

“No, boo. Empty your fucking purse on the carpet,” she said, pointing at her with the bat. “Both of you.”

They rolled their eyes and obeyed. The women had even stolen a wooden pepper grinder from the kitchen. Connie rolled her eyes as they put their meager belongings back into their bags and clutched them to their chests.

They looked at her with open resentment. “You ‘is bird er summat? The blonde said, going full Northern.

“I’m none of your goddamned business,” she said. The bat was still gripped tight in her hand. The taxi honked outside.”Alright, time to go,” she said, herding them through his front door. They stumbled to the vehicle, where John spoke with the driver.

He handed the man a couple of large notes. “Take them wherever they want to go,” he said. “There’s a bit extra there for clean up, just in case.” The man nodded.

“This wasn’t the ride you promised,” the redhead said petulantly.

“Sorry, love,” he said and walked to the sidewalk. The blonde opened the window and stuck two fingers out at Connie. The rude sound she made faded as the taxi drove away.

“Wow. It’s been quite an evening,” she said. “A rollercoaster of emotions.”

He kicked at the curb sheepishly. “Thanks for your help. I just didn’t want them to say that I’d touched them funny or yelled at them or something.” He looked at her and chuckled. “The bat looks good on you.”

“Oh,” she said. It was still slung over her shoulder. She handed it back to him. “I should get to sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

He sighed. “Yeah.”

She rooted for the house keys in her pocket. Her heart was heavy. She wanted to be furious at him, but she wasn’t. She was just sad. He ran to the stoop.

“This was not how imagined tonight ending,” he said, hand over his heart. “I apologize if that upset you.”

“Is that what you want? To be a sex object to horny, faceless women? Is that the definition of being an alpha male?”

His genuine panic when the blonde grabbed at him made her curious.

“After years and years of being insulted and rejected, it’s not the worst thing in the world. Granted, that was a bit scary. Sometimes I don’t know my own magnetic charm,” he said, trying to get a laugh out of her. But she just patted his shoulder wearily.

“I need sleep,” she said.

His smile faltered. “I’ll see you tomorrow, er, later today.”

“Uhuh,” she said. He took her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back, and closed the door.

Next Chapter

This is the honest ugly truth of an eating disorder, not the glamorous “I became a vegan” or “I didn’t speak up” or “Everyone was so supportive and encouraging”

My earliest recogation of my weight was very young, about 6 years old. I remeber eating a penguin chocolate biscuit in my living room but then runing upstairs because I was afriad that the bully would see me eat from the window. I know, crazy logic! However, she made me feel so inscure in primary school that at the age where you’re supposed to feel so comfortable and free with yourself I was worried about my weight and eating one fricking biscuit.

Again at 8 years old, we were doing an experiment in class about the scales. And pupils were picked to hop on the scales. And at that exact moment I knew that I was just above 6 stone because I had weighed myself that morning, a daily ritual for my 8 year old kid, again logic! And I was sweating, from fear that I would be chosen and everyone would laugh at my weight. I particularly thougt that I would be chosen because I was the obese one in the class at least that’s what my Wii Fit told me. In fact I was a very very normal weight. But the girl that got chosen was ironically one of my bullies and she was 5stone something which made my heart drop. She was noticeably smaller than me. It made me feel like a failure.

Moving to the last year of my primary school when I didn’t want to finish my pasta and sauce. I remember clearly that I wasn’t full, I just remembered convincing myself that I did not want it. And a boy mentioned “what have you got seomthing wrong with eating or something?”. And from that day onwards, I was 10 I have not been able to think about food the same again.

It’s so sad to think that my only memories of primary school were me sobbing on the way home because they had said something about the way I looked, moving to the back of the gym class because I was embarassed or refusing to wear a summer dress. And I truly don’t remeber anything else, I remeber asking for no butter on my toast because I knew it was less calories. Because at the age of frickin 10 I felt the need, 10 year old girl felt the need to know how much calories was in butter!!

It developed from “You should excersie and diet with me” from my very obsessed auntie to “You don’t need to eat healthy you’re skinny already” to “Fat fuck” to screaming and begging me to eat. “You’re not the small one in the family, you have big bones” to “You’ve gone so little”. My family was by far the worst trigger, could argue that they triggered the whole thing in me from the very day I was born.

I started high school with my two very best friends, that had noticed the strange actions very early fair play. I was free, I could eat whatever I wanted at lunch! And my choice was nothing. And if it was something it resulted into bruised knees and a sore throat. It resulted every lunch time that I bit into something more than an apple, it resulted into me needing satisfaction from blood whoozing out of my veins in the school toilet stalls whilst tears dropped on my wrists. If it didn’t take me exactly 15 mins to eat half of the wrap that I had cut into tiny pieces and then attempted to throw up in the bathroom then I would go home and do a plan. Make a plan that if I didn’t reach my goal weight that I would do it. Do the thing that i’ve been indicating for 6 years now. The thing I’ve indiacted for years but haven’t done. You know what I’m talking about, the plan to end it all. All because I couldn’t be in control of my food. I’m talking about school because when I came home it was a blur, I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t concentrate I was wipped and I honestly can’t remeber what I ate when I came home from school. I know that I would crumble some bread cumbs on the floor and butter some knives up to make it seem I had eaten for dinner.

The final straw finally came, well of the many straws to come. The summer of my second year of high school. My two best friends stuck by me. Stuck by me theough the incredible mood swings. Stuck by me through the flipping out over them taking a picture of me. The silent treatment on the lunch table because they would tell me to eat. The concern on their faces annoyed me when I would purpously tell them that I threw up because I pushed myself too hard when runing. I wasn’t indenail, I knew that I wasn’t supposed to pass out. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to feel weak. I knew that a normal kid would be able to run a lap without feeling like they’re gonna die. I knew that I was slowly killing myself. I knew that I was anorexic and I knew that I showed symptoms of bulimia aswell. I had done my research done what every ana or mia girl had done at the age of 11. They go on the interent and self disgnose themselves. The day finally came where they confronted me. They first asked me if it was about my dad. But the delosional 12/13 year old me had never even thought about speaking about the traumatic event of my dad passing away so I responded with anger. They guessed for days, making it like a game. Which I supposed I liked honestly the atenttion was on me I guess no one ever did that. Until I finally told them, and they weren’t shocked at all, they knew. They just wanted me to tell them. But what do they do with that kind of information? I honestly expected them to live like normal to watch me at the dinner table and not say a thing and just carry on eating their meals. I expected my friends to keep my little secret because I was excited that I could confied in them! But obviously they didn’t.

I remeber walking up the stairs heading up to Religious studies and I had this unseataling feeling throughout the morning. And once they weren’t in the class, I knew. They called me to the office and I had a meltdown. I was crying so hard going down those stairs, I pushed my friend against the wall. I yelled and everyone was staring. Until I faced the ugly truth that from now on- my controlled little life of not eating was going to become a hell of 3 meals a day. Hahaha I thought wrong. It started with my auntie starting to cry, I sobbed in her arms thinking how ironic that I have to confide in you about the many triggers you have set. And she asked me “This isn’t because of all my dieting is it?” I looked her in the eye and said no.

I think what was different with me from many other eating disorderd teenagers is that they’re stubborn. They’re stubborness feeds the eating disorder so they can carry on. The stubborness of saying no. However, something stronger at that time than the eating disorder was fear. I was a scared child. I was scared of my mum, scared of any kind of authority scared of my family. And honestly scared of saying the wrong thing and doing the wrong thing to an unhealthy point. So when they said I needed help, I agreed because I wasn’t dumb I just knew that It was going to be hard to keep my habits. My mum had no clue, absolutely no idea. But my lying was exceptional, so it wasn’t a surprise.

So we got to a therapist and a meal plan. I trully thought my life was over. I had no one in school. I didn’t speak to my mum at all. And the only time I could speak was in therapy, convincing the therapist that I was eating the ful 3 meals and two snacks inbetween. Definitely! I thought that my lack of stubborness would cost me to eat but in fact it lead to worsening. But my crazy ana mind still finds it funny how going to therapy encouraged my anorexia and encourgaed my beahviour. I would sit at the dinner table and have two pieces of toast in the morning, which my mum thought I had eaten everyday! But in reality I stuffed them in my pocket in a tissue, hid them in my drawer upstairs until she left for work and put them in the bin. At school obviously I was being monitored, but no one was monitoring my bag or the floor where i hid the food. And at night my mum never wondered why there was so much tissue in the fire. It came to the point where I was crying on the floor, her having to spoon feed me the yogurt for her to realise that it wasn’t a ‘fad’ or ‘being stupid’. But no one said anything, I literally carried on as normal with my meal plans. I got admitted out of therapy. It’s awful, but I knew what I was doing and wasn’t going to stop because I wasn’t ‘anorexic’ because I wasn’t under the BMI of a healthy girl, and that’s what exactly the therapist told me. Told me that I had ‘symptoms’ but never told me that I had a condition that I knew I had. And just because my organs didn’t fail. Just because I wasn’t admitted to hospital. I was anorexic and I still am. It’s not the weight it’s the illness. And that’s what frustrated me! That I couldn’t get sick enough for people to believe me. And with the combination of binging, purging, starving and restricting my weight could never go down. No matter what I did I would always starve and then binge. Try and purge, sometimes succesfully and restrict. And that had always been the cycle and I feel like it will always be the cycle, because it had been for 6 years. I never almost died in a hospital because I wanted to maintain my weight in year 7,8,9 because I has such a fear of gaining weight I was physically sick of anxiousness. And the following years I wanted to loose wieght.

After loosing my two best friends because of my lack of respect I became depressed. The school became such a toxic environment in my third year. Not only because of the memoreis anyway but because of the people. Everyone was cuting, starving. You name it, someone in my year was claiming they had a disorder . It became a trend and a very very very good trigger for me. I loved being triggerd because it meant it was acceptable for my actions. For me being depressed I had a reason because someone showed me a picture of their cuts I could cut too. Because someone else wasn’t eating I could starve too. Self isolation and mutlation became such a highlight I could say to my life that eating wasn’t the atenttion anymore. I had found another source of control, hurting myself. In any way shape or form. Burning, glass, razors, knives, punching- anything really that would give me a control over the pain. I would say that this was the worst point ever of my self harm and depression. Let’s just say you couldn’t see my wrists or hips.

I went back to the eating disorder specialist, got a group CBT therapy. Got a DBT therapist. Saw the school nurse. Saw the school psychologist. But still I found that confiding in some of the teachers in school was my best option. Nothing changed honestly. I am so thankful for all the work CAHMS did for me. The psychologists, psychiatrists, councellors, therapists. I had gone through the whole team and decided that I couldn’t work with any of them. I couldn’t face them everyday with the pain and them just telling me to do something I enjoy. Because I didn’t enjoy anything. Them telling me to think how I could change my routine.

It’s justs exhausting when all your thoughts have been “I can’t eat that- well I can but I’ll have to burn it offx3- or the easy option just purge it- or just eat half of it” and you end up eating half of it and then you feel guilty so you write “To...” and then debate in your mind who would care enough to even read your suicide letter and then thinking that you can’t die because you would die fat. And everyone would remember you as that fat nobody. “If I died I want to be remembered as the skinny bubbly girl” but then “if I’m her I won’t want to die because I have everything that I’ve wished for”. That battle in my brain for consecutive years drains the fuck at out of you. And hospital admission after admission I just wanted a break. And because there was nothing physically wrong with me I couldn’t stay there. I needed a rest from my life but they made me feel crazy, made me feel worthless because I was ok “it was all in my head”. It took for me to run away from the therapy session and locked myself in a hospital bathroom to try and find a way out for them to believe me. “My story didn’t add up” “I didn’t have a reason to feel that way” that’s what I got. Year after year nothing made sense. And I know why, I wasn’t telling the truth. I was telling everyone that I was sad and I didn’t know why. That I wasn’t eating because I didn’t know why.

Fast forward 10 therapists later, several hospital trips, obvious daddy issues, many inappropriate men, blood being pucked up, thousands of fights, a brakeup, countless self destructing nights, millions of paper crumbled up on the floor later I’m sitting here on the floor crying because I ruined my fasting by eating a bag of crisps.

Because the reality of this is that you’re not going to end up with a perfect life with all the friends you used to have. I pushed everyone away and no one wants to be my friend, and that’s okay because I know and I hope that I will find the right people that will want to be there for me. In reality no one knows any of this and they probably won’t. And it hurts when I see other people opening up and people thinking they understand when in reality they don’t understand the circumstances at all. They don’t understand that when someone is out of character there is more than likely something going on in their life. But until you physically tell them how bad it is no one will ever know, and I’ve just been pushed in the corner by everyone I’ve knows because my mental ilnesses wasn’t “bad enough”.

[HR] TOMMY.

We met on a dreary Sunday morning, the clouds hung low blending in with the heavy fog, the winds howled sending chills through my knitted cap. Our Sunday School teacher Mr Manston let us out of class early, as he often did and while the other children chose not to brave the harsh conditions outside, I foolishly did. I trudged out and down the familiar muddy pathway, past the small graveyard and out to the lifeless playground by the property’s edge. That’s where I saw him, sitting on the rusted swing set letting the wind rock him back and forth, seemingly unfazed by the horrid weather. His eyes met mine and mine his; he was a strange boy, dressed in stained clothing that I had never seen worn by anyone else before or since. He had an otherworldly glow about him, his skin looked as if it were made of porcelain and even in the harsh winds his neatly combed hair refused to move. In truth I was frightened when I first saw him, he’d never attended the church before and I’d never seen him in school but when he spoke I suddenly felt great sympathy for him. There was a sadness, a vulnerability in his voice, it almost trembled as if he were too afraid to speak aloud. “Who are you?” I asked, taking the swing beside his.

“Tommy.” He replied.

“I’m Maddie.” I smiled back.

Conversation was slow, we spent more of our time staring at our feet that day then we did talking but we got on well. We took turns leaping from the swings, trying to jump clear of the barked area around the play equipment. We ran up and down slides and attempted flips and somersaults over the monkey bars. As I saw the congregation filing out of the church I said my goodbyes and asked where he lived, “Maybe our parents can organise a play date?” I suggested.

“I don’t think so.” He said, “I stay over there.” He pointed to the graveyard.

“The graveyard?” I asked, thinking he was pulling a prank on me.

“Yes, the graveyard.” He sighed; he was telling the truth.

I’d never met anyone who lived in a graveyard and the idea filled my young mind with all sorts of excitement. “That’s so cool!” I cried; this bought a smile to his face.

“Most people think it’s weird.” He said.

“It is.” I replied, “But weird things are the most fun.”

In the coming months we became best friends. I’d often met him at the playground after school and we’d run around playing and talking until the streetlights came on. One night, caught up in laughter with Tommy I lost track of the time and arrived home well after dark. My parents alternated between shouting at me and smothering me with hugs and kisses, after that I was forbidden from roaming around after school and made to come directly home. “Your friends came play at our house!” My father would say; but Tommy couldn’t. No one understood him, no one else gave him a chance like I did. Tommy always said that he frightened people, that I was the only one who wasn’t afraid of him.

After my parents enforced the new curfew I didn’t have much time to see Tommy anymore, and when I did we didn’t get to spend long together. Months passed by where we only shared fleeting moments with one another.

Until, one afternoon when we were let out of school early before a long weekend. I conveniently forgot to tell my parents about the early home time and used the extra hour to go see Tommy. We spent the time swinging together, as we did when we first met. We shared jokes and laughed so hard I thought the priest back at the church would hear us and come shoo us away; but something was the matter. Tommy was being quiet, and not like he had been before. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I never see you anymore.” He said.

“You’re seeing me now.”

“I know but… I miss you.” He said, “I wish we could spend every day together.”

“Me too.” I foolishly replied.

“Really?” He asked.

“Of course.” I nodded back.

“There’s a way you know… A way we can be together forever.”

“What is it?” I asked. He reached into his pockets and removed a pocket knife with a chipped wooden handle, “This.” He smiled, “They used it on me and now we just have to use it on you.”

I eased of the swing, “Tommy…” I paused, “What are you doing?”

He flipped out the blade, “Don’t you want to be together forever? This is how we do it. The pain doesn’t last long I promise you!” A wound began to appear around his neck, it stretched from ear to ear. It began dripping crimson down his chest; I screamed as loud as I could and ran out of the playground. I left my helmet and school bag behind on the ground as I leapt onto my bike. “Maddie!” He cried out behind me, “Maddie!”

My tyres hit the mud path already spinning, flying down the narrow track my heart skipped a beat with each stone I passed over. I remember being terrified that my wheels would buckle beneath a misplaced stone or stick and I’d be left injured and unable to run away from the deranged boy chasing me. He seemed to give up as I passed the church, “You don’t know what you’re missing Maddie!” The words he yelled as I escaped replayed in my head all night. When asked where my helmet and bag went to I lied and told my parents I’d forgotten them on the playground. Despite my protests my Dad went out after dinner to retrieve them. He returned home fine with my things and I thought that perhaps the entire incident was behind me. I laid in bed that night reading one of my favourite books, my mind put at ease as I lost myself in a magical fantasy world. I fell asleep with the book still open in my lap.

I awoke in the middle of the night at about four o’clock to see Tommy standing out by my bedroom window staring in at me, watching me sleep. He flipped his pocket knife open then shut, then open and then shut again, “Come outside Maddie.” He said with a sinister grin on his face, “Let’s go home together.”

I screamed and both my parents rushed in to comfort me; he vanished before they got to me. I told them what happened but they said it was only a nightmare and to pay it no mind. For the rest of the week whenever I would lay down for bed he’d be there, I’d scream every time and every time my parents would rush in to settle me down. I eventually told them the story of Tommy over and over but they never believed me. “Just your imagination.” My Mum would say as she wrapped me in her arms and stroked my hair.

Finally, after weeks of tears and screaming they took me to see my first therapist, he didn’t believe me either. He came to all the same conclusions as my parents had, “Just a child’s vivid imagination.” He’d say. Months passed, then years. His visits became less and less frequent until finally he stopped coming all together.

I’m now in my senior year of high school and still tormented by the memory of Tommy, I must be the only teenager who gets a talking to for returning home before curfew. I won’t go out after dark, I won’t go around town alone and I won’t sleep over at a friend’s house or anywhere that I can’t be sure all of the windows and doors are locked. Tommy’s been gone for years now but sometimes when I’m alone in my room at night, I swear I can see him out of the corner of my eye. Against the darkened glass I see his reflection and no matter how fast I turn I can never get a good look at him, but I know. I know he’s still out there watching me, waiting to take me home.

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