Becoming Lovely, Chapter Twelve
Title: Becoming Lovely, Chapter Twelve
Form: Novella
Written: November, 2010
Rating: M (just to be safe)
Word Count: 1,300 (this chapter), 16,000 (total)
Summary: Mia's best friend died five minutes after confessing to cheating with her boyfriend. Now Mia wants to change herself, and becoming someone different.
Authors Notes: This was written for the Somerset Novella Competition 2011. It's been a long time coming onto the web because of this. Suffice to say I didn't win anything. However, enjoy.
Dad’s roasting a chicken on the barbeque outside. It looks like it’s going to rain, and after all the sun this week, I’m not surprised the weather has decided to turn. I’ll be sad to see the giddy feeling go, though. Or could it be some placebo thing? Could the giddiness be all in my head? Self manufactured?
Christmas seems to be drenching the house in summertime pleasantness, and in the twenty-four hours since Tom unexpectedly came, there is a bonsai sized Christmas tree next to the TV in the living room and the annual red and green candles on the kitchen bench are in the place where Leslie and I normally eat our breakfast.
Unfortunately, my solitaire addiction is still present. Something that Leslie, in the space of one day, has latched onto for a new thing to laugh at me about. It connects us, and I find myself latching onto this connection with her and holding tight to it.
Somehow, my night of crying has become unnoticed. It sits within me like a secret that has changed me, but is thought of with little importance - as if from a long time ago. Mum has thankfully said nothing and Dad is probably in the know, but has never really been into the heart to heart discussions that my crying would permit.
I’m grateful for my family.
I’m grateful that there’s been nothing that they’ve wanted to discuss with me.
I feel as if I’ve come to the precipice of a mountain and am now looking over the edge and getting the chance to say, “Hey, the way down is better. Easier.” I feel as if the past five weeks have been some struggle and I’m now free. Tessa’s text has sunken in and I’m free from all that.
Part of me is stupid enough to even contemplate getting Facebook again, but that would be time wasting, and unnecessary seeing as I would have only two people to be friends with: Leslie and Tom.
Tom runs around my head, restless. His surprise visit has shaken me, and excited me, and I now am feeling as if there’s happiness to come. I don’t know anything of the future, but his friendship and the possibility of more, is indescribably exciting. I have no idea why the unknown is so pleasant a concept, but it’s brilliant. Thrilling, even.
Why is that?
I like this post-destroy life, but I can’t help but contemplate the possibility that it wasn’t thorough enough, that cutting Tessa and Facebook wasn’t enough. I can’t help but worry that I’m being naive and ignorant when celebrating my new, lonely existence. And I can feel that loneliness. It’s kind of nice, in a way.
I hope that things with Tom don’t turn terrible. I hope that my latching onto the connection that has formed between us doesn’t change the chance for us to have a relationship that we’ve always sort have wanted. I hope that Tom having the same name as my ex-boyfriend doesn’t make things complicated. Doesn’t destroy things.
I’m finding now, with myself, that in this post-destroy state - this post-cry state - I don’t want these budding new things that are happening to get destroyed. It’s like I’ve achieved something and for the first time, I don’t want it gone. I don’t want it gone, and I’d do a lot for it to stay.
It’s the first time ever that I’ve been afraid of something like this, because I’ve always strived to crush anything good. But now that I know that I can, I guess I’m scared that I’ll accidentally do something to take away something good that is so dear and precious to me that I don’t wish for any of it to be gone. Like my family. Like Tom. Like my new found connection with Leslie.
I don’t want any of that gone and now I finally feel like I have the power to do that.
To make it all go away at the flick of a switch.
I feel a bit like a cat at the moment, the drapes open wide, sitting in front of the computer, trying to soak up as much sun before it disappears for the day. Every now and again, I check my email to find it empty, but I refuse to be disheartened when there could be so much to be disheartened about.
I still have that little sinking feeling of missing Alicia. But I’ve come to accept it somehow, as much as you can accept something like missing someone.
My bed is covered in scraps of Christmas wrapping. My desk is piled with junk, my bookcase overflowing with books. My toy owl still perches on the back of my door, the Winnie the Pooh poster nearby, wisdom radiating from his plush form. My room feels like a sanctuary, everything in a disorganised mess and only I know where things are.
Only I know which clothes on the floor are clean and which are dirty.
I play ten seconds of Minesweeper and give up, laughing.
I play an hour of spider solitaire and become slightly worried. I catch up on some blog posts that I’ve been ignoring, traipsing myself across the internet. I watch a video of an echidna falling on its back repeatedly on YouTube.
I feel as if I’m waiting for something, anticipating something.
I check my inbox. Nothing.
I check again, stupidly. I wonder, is this my life now? Did I make the right choice? Is this what grieving is? And then I decide that no, this is not grieving. And no, this is not my life. And yes, yes, this was the right choice for me.
Because even if I’m now unsure if killing my friendship with Tessa was good, I’m glad. I’m glad that it’s gone. I’m glad I’ve no connections. That now I am completely unattached.
Can you miss an accessory to your life? I think now that I miss Alicia, I finally miss her, that maybe she was more, so much more than that. I think that maybe Ex-Boyfriend Tom was an accessory, because I sure as hell don’t miss him. I’m glad he’s gone.
Do I forgive Alicia? No. Will I?
I can still feel the anger I felt towards her, deep inside me. I feel as if my feelings towards her have been switched by Tom’s appearance, and my need to talk to someone about him, to reason all this out with someone. With her.
Alicia died five minutes after telling me that Tom, Ex-Boyfriend Tom, had cheated on me with her. She told me that they’d gotten together and made out and Tom had screwed her. And then the car came rocketing down the road and turned violently in the dark street, and smashed into the driver’s side of our car. Alicia was driving that night. Alicia died.
At the time I was pissed. I was angry for weeks. I refused to cry at her funeral, and I regret that. I regret it so much.
I miss her now. I miss her like you miss primary school six months after leaving it. I want her back, just for one more moment. Just one more.
Just one more, so I can ask her about Tom.
There’s a stack of possibilities lining up before me, open wide, suffocating me with all this freedom. I can feel it. I play solitaire around it. Watch music videos around it. I am changed, this freedom and this ability to destroy something. This ability to become lovely. I can feel lovely, the hint, anyway. All this freedom, this freedom that Alicia will never feel.
Is this grieving? My life, is it grieving?
How can you tell?
If I had one more moment with Alicia, maybe I should ask her that instead.
Authors Note II: So that's the end. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'd be ever so grateful if you could leave a comment. :) Thanks.
Form: Novella
Written: November, 2010
Rating: M (just to be safe)
Word Count: 1,300 (this chapter), 16,000 (total)
Summary: Mia's best friend died five minutes after confessing to cheating with her boyfriend. Now Mia wants to change herself, and becoming someone different.
Authors Notes: This was written for the Somerset Novella Competition 2011. It's been a long time coming onto the web because of this. Suffice to say I didn't win anything. However, enjoy.
Dad’s roasting a chicken on the barbeque outside. It looks like it’s going to rain, and after all the sun this week, I’m not surprised the weather has decided to turn. I’ll be sad to see the giddy feeling go, though. Or could it be some placebo thing? Could the giddiness be all in my head? Self manufactured?
Christmas seems to be drenching the house in summertime pleasantness, and in the twenty-four hours since Tom unexpectedly came, there is a bonsai sized Christmas tree next to the TV in the living room and the annual red and green candles on the kitchen bench are in the place where Leslie and I normally eat our breakfast.
Unfortunately, my solitaire addiction is still present. Something that Leslie, in the space of one day, has latched onto for a new thing to laugh at me about. It connects us, and I find myself latching onto this connection with her and holding tight to it.
Somehow, my night of crying has become unnoticed. It sits within me like a secret that has changed me, but is thought of with little importance - as if from a long time ago. Mum has thankfully said nothing and Dad is probably in the know, but has never really been into the heart to heart discussions that my crying would permit.
I’m grateful for my family.
I’m grateful that there’s been nothing that they’ve wanted to discuss with me.
I feel as if I’ve come to the precipice of a mountain and am now looking over the edge and getting the chance to say, “Hey, the way down is better. Easier.” I feel as if the past five weeks have been some struggle and I’m now free. Tessa’s text has sunken in and I’m free from all that.
Part of me is stupid enough to even contemplate getting Facebook again, but that would be time wasting, and unnecessary seeing as I would have only two people to be friends with: Leslie and Tom.
Tom runs around my head, restless. His surprise visit has shaken me, and excited me, and I now am feeling as if there’s happiness to come. I don’t know anything of the future, but his friendship and the possibility of more, is indescribably exciting. I have no idea why the unknown is so pleasant a concept, but it’s brilliant. Thrilling, even.
Why is that?
I like this post-destroy life, but I can’t help but contemplate the possibility that it wasn’t thorough enough, that cutting Tessa and Facebook wasn’t enough. I can’t help but worry that I’m being naive and ignorant when celebrating my new, lonely existence. And I can feel that loneliness. It’s kind of nice, in a way.
I hope that things with Tom don’t turn terrible. I hope that my latching onto the connection that has formed between us doesn’t change the chance for us to have a relationship that we’ve always sort have wanted. I hope that Tom having the same name as my ex-boyfriend doesn’t make things complicated. Doesn’t destroy things.
I’m finding now, with myself, that in this post-destroy state - this post-cry state - I don’t want these budding new things that are happening to get destroyed. It’s like I’ve achieved something and for the first time, I don’t want it gone. I don’t want it gone, and I’d do a lot for it to stay.
It’s the first time ever that I’ve been afraid of something like this, because I’ve always strived to crush anything good. But now that I know that I can, I guess I’m scared that I’ll accidentally do something to take away something good that is so dear and precious to me that I don’t wish for any of it to be gone. Like my family. Like Tom. Like my new found connection with Leslie.
I don’t want any of that gone and now I finally feel like I have the power to do that.
To make it all go away at the flick of a switch.
I feel a bit like a cat at the moment, the drapes open wide, sitting in front of the computer, trying to soak up as much sun before it disappears for the day. Every now and again, I check my email to find it empty, but I refuse to be disheartened when there could be so much to be disheartened about.
I still have that little sinking feeling of missing Alicia. But I’ve come to accept it somehow, as much as you can accept something like missing someone.
My bed is covered in scraps of Christmas wrapping. My desk is piled with junk, my bookcase overflowing with books. My toy owl still perches on the back of my door, the Winnie the Pooh poster nearby, wisdom radiating from his plush form. My room feels like a sanctuary, everything in a disorganised mess and only I know where things are.
Only I know which clothes on the floor are clean and which are dirty.
I play ten seconds of Minesweeper and give up, laughing.
I play an hour of spider solitaire and become slightly worried. I catch up on some blog posts that I’ve been ignoring, traipsing myself across the internet. I watch a video of an echidna falling on its back repeatedly on YouTube.
I feel as if I’m waiting for something, anticipating something.
I check my inbox. Nothing.
I check again, stupidly. I wonder, is this my life now? Did I make the right choice? Is this what grieving is? And then I decide that no, this is not grieving. And no, this is not my life. And yes, yes, this was the right choice for me.
Because even if I’m now unsure if killing my friendship with Tessa was good, I’m glad. I’m glad that it’s gone. I’m glad I’ve no connections. That now I am completely unattached.
Can you miss an accessory to your life? I think now that I miss Alicia, I finally miss her, that maybe she was more, so much more than that. I think that maybe Ex-Boyfriend Tom was an accessory, because I sure as hell don’t miss him. I’m glad he’s gone.
Do I forgive Alicia? No. Will I?
I can still feel the anger I felt towards her, deep inside me. I feel as if my feelings towards her have been switched by Tom’s appearance, and my need to talk to someone about him, to reason all this out with someone. With her.
Alicia died five minutes after telling me that Tom, Ex-Boyfriend Tom, had cheated on me with her. She told me that they’d gotten together and made out and Tom had screwed her. And then the car came rocketing down the road and turned violently in the dark street, and smashed into the driver’s side of our car. Alicia was driving that night. Alicia died.
At the time I was pissed. I was angry for weeks. I refused to cry at her funeral, and I regret that. I regret it so much.
I miss her now. I miss her like you miss primary school six months after leaving it. I want her back, just for one more moment. Just one more.
Just one more, so I can ask her about Tom.
There’s a stack of possibilities lining up before me, open wide, suffocating me with all this freedom. I can feel it. I play solitaire around it. Watch music videos around it. I am changed, this freedom and this ability to destroy something. This ability to become lovely. I can feel lovely, the hint, anyway. All this freedom, this freedom that Alicia will never feel.
Is this grieving? My life, is it grieving?
How can you tell?
If I had one more moment with Alicia, maybe I should ask her that instead.
Authors Note II: So that's the end. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'd be ever so grateful if you could leave a comment. :) Thanks.