#there have been times of reconciliation where ive been able to at least talk to him but then he always fucking ruins them

[9w1ft]

This might be too conspiracy-theoryish, but we’re amongst friends… do u think it’s possible that Taylor and Karlie want ppl to think they’ve been apart. So that if things do play out where Taylor formally comes out (let’s be real, she has come out many times lol) we can see they were together and then found their way back to one another? Maroon, for example.

oh yeah for sure i think this is plenty possible, if not more probable than many other scenarios. i think sometimes you might see me or others use the phrasing “public reconciliation” and that, to me, refers to the idea of working towards publicly making amends, finding their way publicly back to one another, and this being something separate from the truth of how they might actually be privately

i think it’s possible because personally, i don’t think taylor would go back and correct the record and be like oh the feuding i made that all up! —at least not anytime soon— because i think that these gaps in their story, a haze, if you will, would be kind of necessary to protect certain parts of their truth. so while i don’t really agree with the idea that they broke up but got back together, i’m not out there actively picking that line of thinking apart as an argument because i think this way of thinking about it is important to have exist given the circumstances of what i think the truth could be.

i’m not saying taylor would make up songs entirely. like, i think taylor can sing about one thing but present it as another. i mean hey, that’s something she’s always done, in a way. that is, she can tick both boxes: songs as a form of personal truth expression and also packaging it as a means to an end.

there is a nice collection of songs that a lot of people have come to consider kaylor breakup songs that i’ve curated other interpretations to, that strongly fit the major beats of what would have had to have transpired over the last several years. since you brought it up as an example, i have an idea that maroon might be about losing the 2016 election, and losing a public reconciliation narrative, as opposed to breaking up, for example. hoax, as a lot of us talked about at the time, can be about actual hurt in a long term relationship without having it be a breakup song. etcetera etcetera. honestly, slowly uncovering these things little by little has been so enthralling and has made albums like folklore and even moreso with evermore and midnights in particular so incredibly fascinating and mind blowing to me in terms of what she might have been able to get away with singing about.

i think that if you spend time with it and think hard enough on it and consider a lot of things, it’s possible to grasp that full picture. but i think that there is also an intentionality to how one can also just accept that they once had a moment and that the feuding narrative pushed by gossip magazines was real and that they (pending it happening of course) found their way back to one another. and in terms of probably never seeing eye to eye with all gaylors on it, well, ive made peace with that 😆

#sorry this was written in a very roundabout way 🥴 #this is me nightblogging

[cadaverousdecay]

my dad just asked if i wanted to go out to eat anywhere cause its just me and him at home right now and im hiding in my room, and even though food does sound good i said no because i can not handle being alone with him in any context ever

#i do not like him #and he keeps ignoring all the bad stuff he says to me and pretending that nothings wrong #there have been times of reconciliation where ive been able to at least talk to him but then he always fucking ruins them #ive told him before i dont believe people can have a relationship if their core beliefs and ideals are too different #he thinks the lgbtq community is wrong and he thinks most of my interests are evil and he hates my political beliefs #if i just talk about things like how disney sucks or how columbus was a bad person or anything like that he gets pissed #and hes aggressively mormon aka the religion that fucked me up and the root of most of my issues #he tries to bond with me over guitar and music but the reasons i like them and the reasons he likes them are so fucking different #i just dont wish to have any relationship with him at all i dont think it would be beneficial to anyone involved #but his religious beliefs say that family is important so he thinks we have to love each other cause were family #i just #i dont know #its hard #i dont care if he actually does change his views im not gonna try to force him to see my way #i just want him to leave me alone #he always tries to force me into situations with him but whenever i think about being alone with him it always brings up a really bad fuckin #g memory of when he trapped me with him at a restaurant to berate me for not doing anything and being lazy and using depression as an excuse #and other shit happened that night but that was a really dark time in my life and i dont want to think about it right now

[enchantzz]

ART & VAMPIRES - IV- Berlin/Amsterdam/Dublin/New Orleans

Amy and Mitchell are far away from New Orleans, where a vampire gang has threatened them. While Rick and co are taking care of the vampire issue, Amy and Mitchell are taking care of business overseas, while hiding from the vampire gang.

1 - Berlin - Reconciliation 2 - Amsterdam - A sense of normality 3 - Dublin - A Storm is coming 4 - New Orleans - Home

Art & Vampires Series - Master list and notes here

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3 - Dublin - A Storm is coming

The flight from Amsterdam to Dublin had been short. Mitchell and Amy hadn’t talked much. They had left Amsterdam in a hurry, trying to lose the vampires that were watching the townhouse.

‘It won’t be long now, before we are home,’ Mitchell said. He looked at Amy. She looked a little tired. No wonder. There was a lot going on and even though he was used to turmoil at times during his long life, this was all new to Amy.

'Are we staying in a VAMPs residence?’ Amy asked, curiously.

‘No, this apartment is mine,’ Mitchell said. I didn’t return to Ireland for the longest time, having lost all my direct family after I was turned by Rick, but when I started visiting again, I realized that I had missed the place. Recently, I got myself an apartment in the city center, so that I can come home instead of staying in hotels when I want to visit from time to time.’

He was looking out of the window, that stubborn curl resting on his forehead. The light from outside hit his eyes. He was so beautiful, Amy thought. He was nothing like the scary vampires in books and movies. He was just a fluffy, lovely guy. Most of the time, at least.

She hadn’t forgotten his face when they had encountered Barry, nor his outburst at her in New Orleans, when he had ordered her to stay in the house and she had disobeyed him. She was sure that he could be vicious, but right now, all she wanted to do was cuddle him, which she didn’t. And she resisted the urge to put that curl back in place. It was a good thing that they were landing, because a little bit longer and she would definitely have grabbed it.

The apartment was in a high quality service building. It was stunning. The apartment was close to the city center of Dublin. It looked out over the water. It had two beautifully decorated bedrooms and there was a roof terrace with a green patch. The living, kitchen and dining area were in one space.

After they had settled in their rooms, Amy crashed on the couch. Mitchell joined her.

'So now what? ' Amy said, looking at him.

'Now, we stay here. We are safe here, I hope.' He rubbed his face. 'I hope that Barry doesn't suspect that we came here. I think he will be looking for us in London. We will stay here for a while and figure things out.'

The next morning, Mitchell and Amy sat at the dining table, facing each other. Mitchell had his cereal as usual and Amy had her Brinta, from the one box, which she had been able to bring with her from Amsterdam.

'Did you go grocery shopping this morning?' Amy asked, wondering where the food and coffee had come from.

'Yeah, I was up early. It's not much, but at least we can have breakfast. We'll get some more supplies later. The supermarket is just next door,' he said. 'So I take it you slept well?’ He smiled at her.

'Yes, I did. I didn't hear you leave or come back for that matter. Granted, I was tired, but the bed is heavenly too,' she smiled.

‘Well, let’s not forget, we vampires are sneaky bastards,’ Mitchell grinned. ‘We can be very quiet.’

He looked at her. He was happy to see a smile appear on her face. The situation was so tense. He wished it was over already and that they could go back home. Back to normality. Back to just the two of them, taking care of business, visiting houses and mansions and doing art inventories. That is what he wanted.

'You know what?' he sighed, leaning back in the chair, crossing his hands behind his head. 'Let's get out of here for a bit. I know a great place to clear our heads and to get away from it all.'

They finished their breakfast and coffee and they were off. Mitchell had a car in the underground parking of the apartment building. For once, Amy did not ask if she could drive. She didn't like driving in cars where the wheel was on the wrong side, as she had once told Mitchell, who had burst out in laughter. As was their usual routine, Amy picked the music and it felt like everything was right in the world again.

After a thirty minute drive, they arrived at Portrane beach. When Amy got out of the car she got nearly blown over.

'Are you OK?' Mitchell said amused. 'Come here, let me hold you.' He walked over and put his arm around her.

The weather was stormy, as if it felt the unrest that was happening around Mitchell and Amy. But the place was beautiful. The rugged landscape and the stormy sea reflected perfectly how they both felt inside. Restless, nervous, conflicted.

They walked on the sandy beach in silence for a good while. Just enjoying each other's company and the beautiful scenery. Mitchell had let go of Amy, who had trailed off towards the water.

He was quiet, lost in thoughts. A storm was coming, literally and figuratively. From what Rick had told him, a clash with the vampire gang was about to happen soon. He wished that he could split himself in two. He wanted to be there, be in the action, help eradicate that vermin. But he knew he had to stay with Amy, keep her safe.

He had joined Amy at the waterfront. He looked at her. She looked beautiful. The wind was messing with her hair, letting it perform some sort of wild dance across her face. She tucked it behind her ear. She looked lost in thoughts, staring at the sea.

The golden light of the sun, appearing on and off through the clouds, hit her eyes. They were gorgeous. He stood there looking at her, the world around him and the troubles momentarily forgotten. He could stay here with her for eternity.

'It's beautiful here, ' Amy said, pulling Mitchell out of his thoughts.

'Yeah, it is. It's a good place to clear your head. Especially on a day like this. There is hardly anyone here,' Mitchell said.

Amy looked at him. He looked rugged. The wind was playing with his dark curls. She would have loved to memorize it with a photo or a video, but she knew that capturing him in pictures or videos could be dangerous. He needed to stay off any media as much as possible to prevent him from being discovered. He needed to keep his anonymity.

She took a deep breath of fresh sea air and grabbed his arm again. They walked a while longer, arm in arm, then circled back to the car and went back to the city.

'Let's eat out,' Mitchell said. 'Now that you are here with me, I'd like to take you to my favorite pub.'

'Which is?, ' Amy asked.

'Well, it was The Griffin Tavern when I went there in the early eighteen hundreds. It has had a couple of names since and it was changed completely at the end of the 18th century. It’s called The Stag’s Head now, he said.

To anyone else, this would be an absurd statement, Amy thought. It was strange how normal these things sounded to her now.

They decided to walk. Even though they had walked quite a bit on the beach already, Amy didn't mind another stroll. As long as she could be with Mitchell.

It was already quite busy when they arrived at the pub, but they managed to get a table. They ordered their food and while they waited, Mitchell had beer and Amy had cider.

'So do you come often?' Amy said.

Mitchell laughed. 'That is the worst pickup line ever, Ames!'

Amy laughed too. 'You know what I mean, you idiot.'

'Yeah, I came here quite a bit in the old days, and still, when I'm in Dublin.' Mitchell said, playing with a coaster. 'Maybe it's nostalgia or maybe I just like the place, I'm not quite sure,' he said. 'Even though it looks completely different than a couple hundred years ago,' he added.

'Can I ask you? How old are you exactly? In human years, I mean? I realize, I've never asked. If you are OK with telling me?'

'Of course. I was 34 when I became a vampire.’

'No offence, but isn't that quite an old age for that period of time not to be married?' Amy asked.

‘Are you fishing for information on my exes?’ Mitchell joked.

‘No, no, I’m sorry,’ Amy said and took a sip of her cider.

‘I’m just toying with you,’ MItchell said and winked at her. ‘And you are right. I had been staying at home, looking after my mom after my dad had died. And you know, I had girls, but somehow, I didn't see myself settling down here. And then, when my mom died, I was free to go where I wanted. I wanted to see the world and I thought that London would be a good place to start. It was hard to make a living for a while, but I made due. Then I saw an opportunity to go to the New World, America by joining the army and Rick told you the rest of the story.’

'So you never committed yourself then,' Amy said, half in thought.

'No, I didn't. Belle was my first big love,' Mitchell said.

Amy thought back of the painting they had seen in the mansion in New Orleans when they were on a case together. She always felt a hint of jealousy when Mitchell talked about her. Maybe it was because she wished that she was the love of his life.

Their food arrived and they dug in. They talked a bit more about Mitchell’s early life as a vampire, had some more drinks and enjoyed each other’s company, like there wasn’t a care in the world. It was a nice distraction for the both of them

In the following days, Mitchell grew more restless. He was on the phone with Rick a lot. He wanted to know everything they were planning.

He tried Lena for solutions to come home. Was there anything that she could do to protect Amy, so that they could come home and Mitchell could join the fight without Amy being in danger? But Lena had been warned by Rick that Mitchell would do anything to try and come home and she was ordered not to give in. They were to stay overseas.

There was nothing for Mitchell to do, but to watch from the sidelines. Not that he didn’t enjoy his time with Amy. He felt like things were as they had been before. They had a good time in Dublin and the banter and friendship was back to normal. They had a good amount of spare time as well, only occasionally needing to sort out business matters. In any other situation, he could have imagined a life for him and Amy in his hometown, but he longed to go back to his current home, New Orleans and he knew that Amy was keen on returning home as well.

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Yeah, I would want to grab that too *grabby hands*

Also, this seemed fitting A Storm is Comin (feat. Liv Ash) - Tommee Profitt

@laurfilijames @the-poldarkian @linasofia

#art and vampires #aidan turner #john mitchell #fanfiction #fanfic #richard armitage #mila kunis #ben barnes #jaime murray #bianca lawson #vampires #witches #the supernatural #ghosts #new orleans #amsterdam #berlin #dublin #historical facts #history

[aperrywilliams]

I don’t know you anymore/Part V (Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader)

(Not my gif!)

Masterlist

Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV / Part V

———————

Summary: Reader and Spencer have a lot to talk about (maybe not just talk...)

Word Count: 4282.

Rating: Mature. Angst. Smut. (Hope in the end?)

Warnings: Penetrative sex, cursing.

A/N: This is Part V (and final) of “I don’t know you anymore”. Thanks to everyone who took time to read it. You mean a lot for me!

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We can go sit on your back porch Relax Talk about anything It don't matter I'll be courageous if you can pretend That you've forgiven me

The shock of recent events kept me awake. It was almost impossible not close my eyes and see me in the interrogation room. To see how Gabriel pointed his gun at me. To listen the body of Hunter dropping to the floor. To see Gabriel killed by a bullet fired by Spencer. To see Spencer after more than a year. Much to process. My life had taken a dramatic turn in hours. And there I was, lying on a hotel bed, with my back to the ceiling. What should I do?, was worth staying in Philadelphia?, had I the energy to start again elsewhere? .Whatever I must to decide, there was something kept bothering me: why did Spencer has to be here? By now he should have realized I didn’t "move" much this year. He did it? The things Spencer told me hours before made me speculate some things about 'us' still live in him. Or at least it was my wish. I felt bad. Hunter didn’t deserve my love for him like something functional to try to forget Reid. It was unfair. And now he was dead. My life was turning into a terrible gore movie. I hated that feeling.

My eyes were heavy, but it was impossible to fall asleep. I was tossing and turning. Would it be better to leave Philadelphia? Maybe what I said to Spencer about trying luck in Chicago might be a good idea. Start over. Again. Although something told me I had never started again. I felt still trapped in the feelings that made me flee DC more than one year ago.

In the talk of a few hours before I felt again how there was some habitual between us. As if there were things we never forgot about each other. It felt strangely good. And although neither knew exactly what had happened in the other's life - or at least I didn't - my heart was telling me the essence I loved most about Spencer was there. But it was not an option. I had already made that decision over a year ago. I couldn't back down. There were reasons to end our relationship and it wasn't a whim. I think he also finally understood.

It had to be strong. As much as I wanted to feel his comforting hug again, it wasn't right. I didn't want him to misinterpret my gratitude. Now, was it gratitude I felt at the time? The heat running through my body told me a different story. I miss him. Not a day went by I didn't miss him and want him with me. When I thought I had stopped loving Spencer Reid it was obvious I don't.

We had already tried and it didn’t work. Why should it be different this time?. Maybe it's necessary to give a final closure to this. It's a torture to think of all the "what ifs" possible. I had to let him go. I have to close every window could give us any hope. This had to be done once and for all.

I got out of bed, put on a jacket, and went downstairs to Spencer's room. What was I going to say to him at this hour of night I couldn't do in the morning? I didn’t know. I just knew I need to free that feeling stuck in my chest. I knocked gently on the door twice. Hoped he was awake. If he didn't open the door then I would go back to my room. I wasn’t going to insist. It didn't take more than a couple of minutes when I felt the door open and see Spencer looking at me with concern. He asked me if I was okay or if something was wrong. I wasn’t able to say a word. I just let my body speak for me. I got close enough to rise on my feet and catch his lips. What was I thinking? Probably in a farewell.

Would he be thinking the same thing? It was likely, since while we were kissing he took me by the waist and pulled me into the room, closing the door. How I missed those lips. I felt in a dream, guilty, but in a dream after all. My hands couldn't stay still, my fingers were lost in his soft hair, at the base of his neck, on his shoulders, on his face. I held on as much as I could to him so he wouldn't let me go. Feeling his breath so close to my face again brought me back to the best memories of our life together. Why is so difficult to let this man go?

When Spencer pulled back to look at me, his hands were still on my waist, a sign he didn't want to let me go either.

"(Y/N)..." he tried to speak but I cut him off immediately.

"Shhhh... don’t. You don't have to say anything. I just came to say goodbye…”. I said trying to find his lips again.

"No, I... I need to tell you..." without wanting to stop kissing me, he struggled to get words out of his mouth.

"I don’t want to know. Please don't say anything… just… let me have you one more time, ok?”. I just needed to be with him. I didn’t want to argue. I didn't want to question anything. I just needed him. Tomorrow I would see what to do. I just wanted to feel him one more time. My hands began to search for his skin under the shirt he wore, pulling to remove it from his body. He just released my waist to raise his arms and take the garment out. I dropped my jacket to the floor. Taking my waist again, he pushed me back until my back collided with one of the walls of the room. His mouth began to search my neck while with his fingers he unbuttoned the top of my pajamas and dropped it to the floor. Moans came from both of us. As my nails ripped at the skin on his arms, Spencer was anxious about leaving marks on my skin with his mouth and teeth, drowning out his moans and dropping loose phrases along with my name. I also couldn't help but empty part of my head into words.

"(Y/N)... I missed you so much..."

"Please Spencer... take me... I need you..."

"All these months... I’ve never... left..."

"Neither do I…"

"I’ll never let you go again... I promise..." I don't know if my head was playing tricks on me, but hearing his words gave me a false sense of 'reconciliation'. I knew it wasn’t possible. I pushed those thoughts away from my head and concentrated on his caresses. It's as it should be. Looking for his lips again, I began to push him gently towards the bed, where he dropped down leaning on his forearms, watching as I  removed my pants and straddle him, but not before taking out his own pants, letting them fall to the floor.

There were things I hadn't forgotten about our intimacy, and one of them was what parts of Spencer’s body did I need to stroke and kiss to turn him on. I could see this had not changed in these months. His needy moans were the signal I needed to go along.

Being with his hands free while I straddling him, Spencer started squeezing my breasts. If I had to say what kind of man Spencer Reid was in terms of taste, clearly he is a man of breasts instead bottom. His eyes delighted at the sight, as my hands traced lines across his chest. He took my wrists and pulled me to him to catch me in a deep kiss. As if he wanted to suppress his words in those actions. In whispers some phrases escaped from his mouth.

"Do you want this?... do you want to ride me?... if that's you want, take it. Take everything you want from me. Tonight I want to please you for all the nights we haven't been together…” . I didn't need more. I adjusted my knees between his waist and aligned my entrance with his cock. Without warning I began to sink into him, letting out moans of pleasure as I felt him more and more.

"Fuck Spencer..." was all I could say before completely sinking. He let out a gasp as he felt inside me.

"(Y/N) you take it so good... I missed this so much... you do it so good...". That said, he started moving up his hips to feel more intensely how our bodies were rubbing together. If I had not forgotten how I should to touch him to turned on, he hadn’t forgotten what to do to make me feel this good. My moans were mixed with gasps that didn’t stop our movements. His hands on my hips helped me keep my pace and stability as I arched my back and dropped my head back. The movement became more frantic each time, I could see how Spencer tried to keep his eyes open and fixed on me. I also tried to keep my eyes on him even though was more difficult as I getting closer to my orgasm.

“(Y/N), baby… you feel so good. You make me feel so good. Yes, do it like this, take it, come on... take it all... I love you baby, I love you so much... I’ll never let you go again...". I connected those words to the excitement of the moment, but I couldn't help but remember the first time we had sex after Spencer was released from prison. It was very much like this moment. Both needy, both in love, both missing the other, both making promises about the future. But I didn't want to think about it. Not now. That little distraction was enough to keep me from realizing when I was now flat on my back on the mattress and Spencer began to thrusting me strongly, taking my hands over my head. The feeling was so pleasant I couldn't keep my eyes open. He kept talking to me between moans and gasps.

“(Y/N)… look at me, let me see your eyes. Please…". With effort I opened my eyes and looked directly at him. I could see my own lust reflected in him.

"Fuck Spencer... harder... I'm close...". I was struggling to prolong the sensation as much as possible before my orgasm, but I needed rudeness, I needed to lose control.

"(Y/N) say my name, say it ... tell me how I make you feel..."

"Spence... you make me feel so good... Spencer, you fuck me so good, baby... I love you... I love you so much... always love you...". At the crest of my orgasm those words came out of my mouth. And they were true. I don't know if he really noticed it, but at least they served to encourage him and make him lose control. His frantic movements combined with his fingers over my clit. A couple more thrusts were enough and I had lost myself in the heights.

"Fuck (Y/N)... I'm going to..."

Another couple of thrusts and I could feel how he cum inside me. A deep, hoarse moan came from his throat. Without much trouble, he fell on top of me, sinking his head into my shoulder. Only the sound of our labored breaths could be heard. A few seconds later he leaned on his hands to look at me. His glossy eyes, his lips and cheeks glowing along with that messy hair and beads of sweat running down his forehead were a panorama that only awakened more love in me. Without saying anything he began to kiss me. I just wrapped my arms around his neck and responded with a fervent and deep kiss. When we pulled away I could see a smile on his face. He got out of bed on the way to the bathroom. Returning from my ecstasy my neurons began to work again. It wasn't I regretted what I had done, it was just now I really didn't know what I was going to do. Was this the farewell I expected? No. I didn't expect him to rekindle those feelings in me. So was it true that neither of us managed to beat the other this year?

When he came back from the bathroom he brought a damp cloth and began to gently move it over my thighs and crotch to remove any residue of himself from me. He put it on the nightstand and leaned his back against the back of the bed, looking at me. The time to talk had come.

***

I didn’t expect that. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Seeing her in front of my door in the night ready to 'say goodbye' to me was a lot to process. I let myself go. Of course I wanted to be with her, not for that precise reason, but something inside me told me I could awaken some hope with this action.

I sat down on the backside of the bed and looked at her. It wasn’t the best place or time to discuss this, probably not, but time was running out. I wasn't going to let my silence make her run away from me again. (Y/N) hurried to speak first.

"I think I'd better get back to my room..." (Y/N) said as she sat down on the edge of the bed, her back to me.

"No. We cannot let this go and not talk about it ”

"I already told you Spencer, I just came to say goodbye..." she said avoiding my gaze and getting out of bed. This was going to be more difficult than I thought.

"(Y/N), I need half an hour of your time. Could you do that for me? If after that you think it is best to you leave, that's fine. I will understand...”. Would it be enough time to tell her everything? I hoped so.

"Do you think there are things to talk about?" she said with a bitter smile.

"Of course I do! If I remember correctly the last time we spoke, I didn't say much... and ok, it's my fault. I just want you to hear my part of the story. I propose this: let's get dressed and we can drink a coffee. After this, no one will be able to sleep anyway”. She thought a few seconds, then nodded.

"Ok. A coffee I think would be good idea”

We dressed quietly and I started making coffee from the machine in the room. It wouldn't be the best coffee in the world, but at least it would help. I placed two mugs on the small table settled in the corner of the room and gestured for her to sit down. After taking a sip and taking a deep breath, I started to speak.

"Do you remember how we got our first date?" I asked her.

"Are we going to review our entire history in half an hour?" she said crossing her arms over her chest. She was in defensive attitude. I tried not to let that stop me.

"You remember it?". I insisted.

"Yes. We had seen each other in Dr. Stevens' office a couple of times. When he wasn't there we talked for a while if you were willing to wait for him. Until one day I dared and invited you to a coffee. I think it was the first time I invited someone to come out first…”. (Y/N) said with a warm smile.

"That’s right. And I was so glad you did. It would have taken me more months do it myself, you know? Well, and I also suppose you have realized all those times I was going to visit Dr. Stevens, I really knew he was not there and I only came to see you…”. (Y/N) shook her head and bit her lower lip trying not to laugh.

"I wasn't sure, but I had no doubts about that either..." she said taking a sip of coffee. "It's a nice memory Spencer, but I don't know where you want to go with all this..."

"Do you remember our first kiss?" I said without wanting to answer her last question.

"Are you saying the time I kissed you on the threshold of my apartment door when we went out to dinner?". (Y/N) said describing the moment.

"Yep. Precisely. When my hands were shaking and I was dying to kiss you but I didn't dare. Until you did it and also, inside I thanked the gods I would not have had to wait months until I dared to do it. Well, I could also list several things I didn't dare to do for fear of rushing things or fear of ruining what was happening between us…”

"Yes, you were quite shy... I had forgotten that part..." (Y/N) said.

“But I learned a lot of things with you. I started to feel more confident in myself, especially in a relationship. I don't want to be a thorough on this, but I don't think I've ever told you how much I learned from you. And I regret not tell you about it before… just as I regret not having been more explicit about how important you were in my life the whole time we were together…”

“At that point I think the fault fall on both of us. We just took it for granted…” (Y/N) said with a sigh.

“The last time we spoke… over a year ago, you said things to me I didn't expect to hear, even though I was very aware our relationship was in bad shape. You said it was impossible to repair something that was already broken... and told me you felt you were not what I needed...". I could see how (Y/N) avoided my gaze and concentrated on her coffee mug. I dared to take her hand to make her look at me. "Hey!... I need you to know a few things about that so you understand why as far as I'm concerned, you shouldn't think that."

"Do you really think you can repair something that is broken...?" she said with a bitter smile.

"Not repair, rebuild. But for that we have to go back to our initial pact, remember?” I said, stroking his hand with my thumb.

“To tell everything we feel. No hide anything”. I nodded.

"Yes. And in that, I failed. I know. I broke that promise and left you enough away for you thought you were no longer important in my life. Do you remember what I told you the day I was released from prison?”

"I do. That we were going to make up for lost time. That we were never going to part. That no one could ever intervene in our relationship again…”

"That’s right. What I didn't count on was my obsession wanting to remove the things had happened in prison. As if not saying them was enough to make them not exist. But they did exist. Some you saw, some you felt... but I didn't want to tell you anything. I kept it for myself”

"Why did you do the opposite of what we had agreed? Did you really think you could protect me that way? Protect me from what?..."

"From me. It’s true I was no longer the same person, (Y/N). When you told me you felt you didn't know me anymore, it was confirmation of that. But what I never wanted to reveal was I was afraid of the person I had become… and I was afraid of hurting you by showing you this part of me. I was afraid to show it and give you a reason to stop loving me, for not being the same person you felt in love in first place. For some strange reason I thought keeping the routine between us was going to block the growing anger, the little patience, the lack of control I came to feel many times. Which, clearly, was not successful: our constant discussions proved it, do you remember?". I could see how tears rolled down (Y/N)'s cheeks. I also felt my eyes fill with tears, but I needed to stay calm to continue talking.

"I just wanted to know, want to help... but you didn't want to speak to me...". (Y/N) said between sobs.

"I see that. I left you apart. It's my fault. Believe me, I never wanted to go that far. But you should know it has always been you. You were the only person who could have understood and I left you out… you are the one who knows me better than anyone and although blindly, you knew exactly things were not right”. I said taking her other hand with mine.

"And what has changed in these months? What could be different now?..."

“I just want to say one more thing before I answer that question. The thing is… it’s completely false you are not the woman I deserve. It’s completely untrue you are not enough for me. And please forgive me for whatever I did to make you think that. I don't need a woman with an IQ equal to mine, I don't need a woman who with my same job, I don't need a woman who thinks like me, who has my same schedule, I don't need a woman with a stunning external beauty. I need you. You. You are the only woman to me. Even if I'm the one who doesn't deserve you. You’re intelligent, you have made your own way in life, you’re understanding, loving, so brave, you have overcome all the troubles you have faced, you are able to share your love with others, you are able to understand me ... and what a challenge! You have been my rock for three years and I had to lose you to be able to realize it…”. I released her hands, got up from the chair and walked over to where she was sitting. I knelt down in front of her and took her hands again. Tears still ran down her cheeks.

"Please Spencer, stop... don't keep talking..."

"I have not finished. I have 5 minutes to talk…”. That made her smile a little. “About your last question… what has changed? My love for you has not changed one bit, but my desire to compensate for having broken my promise and wanting to be with you beyond anything else is a realization more present in me today than before. What could be different? Whatever we'll want to be. I’m willing to do everything in my power to make you love me again, to you trust me again, to win back you as my friend and lover. Do you want to stay in Philadelphia? Okay. I’ll stay with you. Do you want to go to Chicago ? I’ll go with you…”

"I love you Spencer ... but I could never make you quit your job for me..." she said getting up from the chair and taking my hands so I could get up too.

"Not just for you, my love. For us. If it’s necessary, I’m ready to do it”. She was shaking her head.

"No, doing that would destroy you...". (Y/N) said hugging me and resting her head on my chest.

"I already feel like I'm completely destroyed without you ...". I said as I pressed her against my body. "Please give me a chance to show you how important you’re in my life...". I said without being able to hold back my tears. We were silent holding each other and sobbing.

"Maybe there is something else we can do...". (Y/N) said in a soft voice, barely perceptible. I pulled away to look her in the eye.

"I'll try anything you want...". I said.

"Let's to know each other again...". I looked at her a little oddly. I didn't know if I was comprehending what she meant. She smiled. For the first time an openly smile and I could see a different sparkle in her eyes. She took a pencil and paper from the table and wrote a number. "This is my number. I don't know how many more days I'll be here in Philly. I have to put things in order before going anywhere else. A few days ago I received an email from Dr. Stevens of Georgetown, asking me what I was currently working on. I think he has an open spot on his team. I'll think about it…". My smile could not have been bigger, which (Y/N) noticed and hurried to keep talking. “If I return to DC, I’ll stay with my sister a while. Time will tell Dr. Reid. Sounds good to you?". I happily nodded. She approached to me again, she tip toe rose and gave me a long, deep kiss. When we pulled away she gave me a smile, grabbed her jacket and left the room. Before closing the door she said "I love you Spencer. I mean it. Call me".

That’s what they call hope, a feeling that makes things almost impossible feel achievable. I clung to that hope. I trust in this woman with all my being. And if this is my last chance, I'm not going to waste it. I dialed the number on my phone and save it. This time, I won't let anything unsaid between us.

——————–

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x fem!reader #criminal minds #dr. spencer reid #spencer reid angst #spencer reid smut

[edelblau]

id make a read more but idk if thats possible anymore at least on mobile? anyways i need to put my feelings down somewhere snd i feel like i might as well do it here

(thank you to the two anons from a few xays back btw im not publishing them bc i wanna be able to like, look back on them easier when im s*icidal)

i keep doing this thing where i isolate myself when things get bad and refuse to talk to my friends and it almost certainly has its roots in my dad verbally abusing me for crying too much and being bullied for being a crybaby and. all that and it kinda feeds into my abandoment issues because i feel like,

aam i talking too much about how i feel? is it unfair to burden others? am i being manipulative? am i an okay person? am i even right for venting or am i just making it all up for attention?

and my abandoment issues have only gotten worse recently and part of that is finally blocking my dads number at the suggestion of a psychologist because every time he messaged me i felt miserable and part of that is some of the shit that happened like last year for me ended in a lot of new friendships being lost

aand idk if i should talk about this really but im going to anyways

i hadd a friend i was especially close with and he kinda fucked up and hurt some people and someone decided to call hi. on that but the person who called him on it was kind of just genuinely an awful person who was being generally unfair and not allowing for reconciliation

and i knew bad things had been done so i stayed quiet, but parts of what they said were just so horrifically unfair and i should have said something

but i didnt want to excuse the actual wrongdoing either, so i stayed silent and let them sort of lay into him

he cut off all of us after that and i was so hurt bc you know. abandonment issues. i didnt even think of reaching out and instead focused on how i felt but

how awful would it have been to be sort of. hit by all that and then none of your friends even reach out?

but the worst part is that the person who acted in bad faith to begin with started manipulating everyone into this false anger and we all 'got angry' at what he did and i think it was just as empty for everyone else as it was for me but anywsyd he ended up blcoking us all and

i still cant forgive myself for what happened and how i acted and i know its not like hes ever going to be moved to reach out to me and #pathetic moment but

part of me still wants validation that its okay to be alive bc he was kinda a huge support system for me but i cant have it because of that whole situation and i honestly dont deserve it

and i guess i should just let it go and accept that theres nothing i can do anymore and move on but its like

im so afraid of hurting other people and i have this huge sterling example of me doing Exactly that now and of course im a better person than i was before and ive grown but

it certainly doesnt help with the whole 'feeling like i deserve to die because im a terrible person' thing

[aviationfiction]

XXXIV

Dante St. James

“Holy shit. It looks amazing in here.”

Stacey’s eyes widened in awe as she slowly walked through the foyer from the door and eventually stopped at the living room. Though the smirk on Mike’s face was one of teasing and slight sarcasm, even he looked on in amazement at the holiday spectacular that my fiancée has morphed my apartment into. She began the process the day after Thanksgiving and spent countless hours between then and the first of December putting every single aspect of it together with whatever minimal help that she needed from me. My only purpose as her handyman was to use my height to her advantage when she didn’t feel like climbing the ladder to reach something. The Balsam Hill website transformed her into a kid in a candy store and she clicked away at whatever was needed to make her fantasy of turning this place into her own version of the perfect holiday imagery and despite my protests, it was all done out of her pocket. The beginning of her efforts started with a fifteen foot pre-lit Aspen Fir tree that perfectly mirrors a living tree without the nature like whiff. I hadn’t noticed how high my ceilings were until that colossal tree was carried in here by eight different delivery men. They’d even given her a free ladder for what would be an exhausting experience in my opinion. Her adrenaline pumper to get it done? Anything Motown Christmas. Rather than the traditional red and green, her vision was silver and gold as Burl Ives sings it. Everything from the ornaments, tree picks, ribbon, and garlands followed that color palette and gave the tree some much needed life. Underneath the tree, she opted for a crimson velvet tree skirt. Over on the entertainment center was illuminated garland and a family of six polar bears. Hanging from their feet were six crimson velvet Christmas stockings with Autumn, Dante, Michael, Fredrick, Stacey, and Kaylee written on their upper flap. I think I fell even more in love with her after seeing that. On the apartment door is a wreath similar to the garland. My place hasn’t experienced the holiday season to this capacity…ever and despite my playful resistance early on, it’s nice to see.

“Yo, you really are married now. I bitched about your house looking worse than the Grinch’s crib for years and yet you still put that bitch ass Charlie Brown Christmas tree on the table. You get a girl, put a ring on her finger, and now it’s looking like Santa’s Workshop threw up in here. What the fuck?” Of course he would start with his complaints about my decorating. I’ve never felt compelled to decorate because I live alone. What is the point of throwing up decorations all over the place for only myself to glance at? Christmas is a family holiday. The mild depression that I’ve always experienced around this time of year would have worsened and I would have likely been finding toxic ways to numb the emotions. So that little tree, that Autumn amusingly threw away, was my acknowledgement of the holiday without going overboard.

“Well, you know what the power of the P will do.” Stacey’s vulgar statement earned a quick side eye from me as Mike erupted into more chuckling than necessary.

“Anyway, what’s bring y'all by?”

“Where’s the wife to be?” She hadn’t even given me the proper greeting and here she is already asking for Autumn.

“She’s not here. Why?”

“I’ve come with venue options for the engagement party.” Engagement party? Neither Autumn or myself have discussed anything wedding related with anyone in particular and after the speculative bullshit that Richard has fed to the media, and I’m not quite sure we will be. We’re caught in this weird space of her wanting me to make amends with my relatives so that they’ll be able to be apart of all of the wedding festivities and anything else we intend to do with our lives after it and yet, the behavior of my paternal parent has irritated her and left her conflicted on whether any of that is a good idea or not. Then there’s me, who couldn’t care less about their presence. So, an engagement party? I can already foreshadow the disagreements that will happen when mapping out a guest list. The thought of it sounds nice, but executing it? Even God will have a migraine.

“That’s really why you’re here?”

“That’s not the only reason why. We were out holiday shopping. Mike’s my designated driver since the husband has my car and I refuse to drive that monstrosity that he calls an SUV. We decided to drop by after lunch. I bought you pasta from the Cheesecake Factory.” She held up the bag in the midst of her stride to my kitchen and I glanced over at Mike, who playfully rolled his eyes.

“I’ve been her designated driver since eight this morning. I’m tried as hell.”

“Oh shut up. It’s only noon. You’re getting practice for whenever your too cool for school ass finally settles down with one of those young short skirt wearing legal secretaries around your office.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I dealt with a paralegal or two and y’all are turning it into me being a serial dater of people who work around me. I would never give myself that type of headache. You’re giving me flack and Dante’s literally marrying his corporate flight attendant. He mixed the shit out of business and pleasure.” Though I didn’t want to laugh to give him the satisfaction of getting that joke off, I couldn’t help it. While there is no comparison because he’s falsifying that one or two estimation, the mixing business with pleasure part is funny. I suppose I did, but it’s a regret that I don’t have.

“So how is everything after that bullshit that Richard pulled last week? I know we spoke briefly about it but you didn’t give me enough detail.”

“I don’t know, honestly. I know that I’m pissed off but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of retaliation. As far as Autumn, she’s indifferent about it. She’s been extremely busy with that holiday party, so she’s been in Jersey a lot since then. She dropped by here yesterday evening because she was already in Manhattan and she made dinner. We talked about it some more and she seemed to be alright. Per usual, she was far more concerned with what I’m feeling rather than her own emotions. She went to bed around nine. She’s been tired all this week.”

“Pregnant?” My hands halted from the task of untying the bag and both of my eyebrows instantly raised at such a random question. Mike’s curious posture worsened the odd tension that suddenly arose in the room as he idly leaned against the counter and mischievously smirked while awaiting an answer.

“I just told you that she’s working crazy hours on a Christmas party and pregnancy is what you make of that? It doesn’t make sense Stace.”

“But lets just say that she is pregnant. What would you do?” Yet again, Mike and I made eye contact and he was seemingly far more curious about whatever my answer may be more so than Stacey and I’d be a fool if I stood here pretending to be clueless as to why. Though it is her who brought it up this time, he’s tossed it at me as a hypothetical more than once in the midst of a number of our conversations and though I wouldn’t say that he did it to inflict fear within me, it happened either way. I don’t fear starting a family with Autumn. I fear not being capable of protecting her through nine months of a vulnerable state and then the life we created together after the fact.

“I would do what I’m supposed to do; take care of her and prepare to be a father. Did you assume that I would do something else?”

“Of course not. That’s not who you are. That question is more so for how things are right now. I know you’d rather not have a baby here, right?”

“In New York? Location has nothing to do with anything.”

“Word. People make places ugly. It never has anything to do with location.” I nodded in agreement with Mike’s follow up and pulled the plastic container out of the bag.

“I would love to be settled in California when we conceive a child. That’s the goal. If life throws some sort of a curve ball and it happens before then, then we’ll be fine. More than anything for me, I’d prefer we be settled and not have to worried about getting there in the midst of preparing to have a baby and Autumn’s in a place of wanting to make sure she has certain things together on her end before she can focus on motherhood.”

“That’s understandable. Is a wedding going to happen before the move and everything that Autumn wants to do?”

“If I could, I’d marry her tomorrow. We have a date for next year that we discussed, but the problem is the outside factors. For as long as you two and Fredrick are at the wedding and maybe Camille, I couldn’t give two shits about anyone else who attends for the sake of me. She can invite her entire family, all of her friends, and anyone else she feels compelled to have there. All I need is the four of you and I’m straight. She’s not okay with that. She’s pushing for me to at least make some kind of a reconciliation with my mother and I can’t force that no matter how hard I try. I’d love to do that for her, but that’s the thing. She doesn’t want me to do it for her because it wouldn’t be genuine. She’s insists that I need to do it for myself.”

“Because despite what you all are going through, you only get one set of parents. Don’t get me wrong, your parents are fucked up. I’ll never deny that because it would be a slap in your face. Richard is who he is and that who he’s going to be until his body is lifeless and cold. As for your mother, I think there’s potential there. She loves you. She’s had a screwed up way of showing it in the midst of dealing with the whirlwind of bullshit that she caused within her own life, but the love is there. I think she’s witnessed that and believes bridging that gap may be good for you. I don’t think it’ll hurt.” Of course he’d agree with her. They’re all extremely family driven and despite all of the good they’ve done while being apart of my life, none of them will ever be able to fill certain voids. It’s unrealistic to put that kind of pressure on any of them, including Autumn. I may not say it or show it, but I love my mother. I’m not sure if it’s because I feel obligated to out of honor for her birthing me or if it’s naturally emotionally driven, but the love is there. More than any apology, I at least deserve some acknowledgement of the manner in which I was dismissed. It’s the only sensible method to move forward because I can’t play catch up with a woman who deliberately missed out on so much of my life when she didn’t have to. I wasn’t shipped off to the next of kin because we were financially struggling. She wasn’t some drug addict or alcoholic mother who was so caught up in her addictions that they overshadowed my presence. I wasn’t a misfit kid who would rather be running the streets and looking for every possible troublesome outcome to avoid living a structured life at home. Selfishness was the driving force behind every decision that she made and she doesn’t deserve to breeze on by without admitting to it all because she suddenly sees me.

“Maybe some day it’ll happen. I don’t….”

I paused mid sentence at the sound of the door opening and though it wasn’t the typical sound of heels, I could hear Autumn’s feet dragging against the flooring.

“Yo.”

“Yo.” As she called back out to me, she inched closer to the kitchen and finally appeared in the doorway for all to see. The usual glamour that she exudes was scaled down to a grey Ralph Lauren sweatsuit, a Moncler coat, hat, and scarf, and surprisingly a pair of blue Ugg boots that left me beyond amused. I never thought I’d see her in a pair of those clunky boots in my lifetime and yet here she is proudly in a pair and bundled up against the thirty degree weather outside. Even in the comfort wear, she looked stunning and yet adorable in the midst of it. The only make up on her face was lip gloss and that took about ten years off of her actual age.

“Esmeralda. What’s up?”

“Hey Mike. What’s up Stacey?”

“Hey gorgeous. How are you?”

“Tired.” She made her way to them one by one for the hugs that they were awaiting and I was left with her pressing her lips into my own for a longing kiss. After that, I was fine with her lack of a verbal greeting for me.

“I’m starving.”

“You want this pasta? I can just eat the leftovers from what you made last night. That’s what I was planning to do anyway.” As she opened the fridge, her eyes panned in the direction of the plastic container I was pointing at.

“Are you sure? I can just eat one of these greek yogurts and call it a day honestly.” I quickly nodded my head to her question. “Besides, I have to grab my shoes and head back to Jersey. I left my pumps over here last week and I need them for tonight.”

“Yeah. Come and eat this. What time do you need to be back at the venue tonight?” Rather than giving her the plastic fork that was already in the bag, I grabbed a silver one out of the drawer.

“Well, cocktail hour starts at seven, so I figure that I’ll be back by six. I made sure I crossed every T and dotted every I before I walked out of there this morning. I refuse to have to return this afternoon and be scrambling. I don’t even have the energy for that. I already have a headache from this morning.”

“I have some wings in here. I only ate like two of them. You can have those too.” Her eyes immediately lit up at Mike’s offering.

“It’s only noon. So, why don’t you eat the food and take a nap? You can sleep until like three. You have the car, so you can drive into Jersey as soon as you wake up and get ready from there. I think you can make it back in time by six.”

“No, it’s alright. I’ll just eat the pasta and I’ll head back in a few.”

“You need some sleep. Take the nap. I’ll be up, so I will make sure you’re up in time to make it back to Jersey. Why don’t you go to the room, take your stuff off, and lay down now. I’ll warm this up and bring it to you. What do you want to drink?”

“Water is fine.” As she turned to walk away, a part of me was surprised that she didn’t put up one of her stubborn protests. Maybe she’s just that damn tired. She claims that after this party, she has nothing else that is physically or mentally draining to do and I’m holding her to that. She’s been starting her mornings early and ending her nights later than normal because of it.

“You’re such a good husband.” Mike’s tease came with my middle finger instantly being pointed up, while Stacey snickered at yet another moment that they were able to goad me about. It’s never going to end. They’ve been anticipating the day when I’d fall in love because it seemed like hell freezing over was more of a sure thing for a long time. Despite the jokes, I know it all comes from them being proud.

“Since we’re on the husband topic, back to the engagement party. Seriously, I’m thinking it should be at The Rainbow Room or in Brooklyn at The William Vale. Maybe Gotham Hall?” I’ve been to different events at all of those venues she mentioned and the only thing that came to mind was the magnitude in size. Those are venues you book when you’re planning to have five hundred or more guests showing up to whatever you’re celebrating.

“It’s an engagement party. How many people do you think we’re inviting?” As I placed the container into the microwave and put the timer on two minutes, she loudly huffed with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Maybe two to two hundred and fifty.”

“Hell no.” Both Mike and I responded in unison. He knew that I wouldn’t get on board with that no matter how many times she batted her eyes and lightened her tone. That would be a social nightmare.

“Come on. You can’t just leave out everyone at the company. There are so many people there who love and admire you Dante. Be fair.”

“And they’d be there to fill seats and for the free food and drinks. They admire the work I do, not the man that I am. They don’t know me and I’d prefer to keep it that way. There are a few that I wouldn’t mind being there, but two hundred and fifty people? That’s going too far for an engagement party. If anything, it should be a nice dinner somewhere with no more than twenty or thirty people.”

“Twenty or thirty? Are you kidding me?”

“You think he’s kidding?”

“Dante, seriously?”

“Seriously. Find a dinner party venue and then run those options by me.”

“If that’s the case, we can just do it at Baraya. You all have one of the most beautiful restaurants in the city.”

“Sounds like a plan to me. We can get a decorator to do a couple of floral arrangements for some tables. Everything else we can do on our own. Cheap and yet effective.” Mike’s frugal idea instantly made me laugh. He can be somewhat of a Bargain Betty when he wants to be. The man makes over six figures a year and yet for the most part, he does his best to live a simple life. I always joke with Fredrick that Mike may be the wealthiest one out of all of us because he’s not really the splurging type unless the moment calls for it or for his mother. Fredrick’s flashy. Me? I’d like to think I’m moderate but for my baby? I’d break the bank on whatever.

“Nah, we’d have to turn Bayara into some sort of a vision. We’re going to need way more than just a couple of floral arrangements. I like the idea though. We’ll see what happens.”

“We’ll see what happens? We need to lock down these details soon.”

“We have time.” As soon as the microwave stopped, I removed the container and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. My short jog to the bedroom was met with Autumn carefully placing her coat down on the ottoman in the closet.

“You want the TV on?”

“No.” As I placed everything on the nightstand, she walked out of the closet and plopped down on the bed. My next move was to remove her Ugg boots and place them at the foot of the bed.

“Did you find your shoes?”

“Yeah, I put them in my bag. Thank you.” It didn’t long for her to dig into the pasta. I doubt she’ll finish all of it but more than half should be doable. It’ll probably be all that she has on her stomach for the rest of the night since she decided to work at the party rather than simply attending it.

“Am I going to see you tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“Am I going to see you or am I going to only catch glimpses of you from around the room out of the corners of my eyes? I was thinking maybe we can have a drink together or something. Maybe have a dance or two? I know you’re going to be working and it’ll be a lot, but squeeze me in if you can. I’m not asking you to make any promises. It’s just awkward for us to be in the same room with one another with little to no interaction despite it being a work night for you.” There’s a part of me that believes she’s going to keep her distance because of the New York Post article and the extended coverage on the internet which has put us in an awkward space publicly. We’ve gone from living in this world where it’s just she and I with a chosen few who are aware of what we share to millions of people speculating and making the most absurd assumptions. There’s this weird presumption that she and I are some sort of fling. In the pictures, her hands are resting in her lap and in the one shot when we’re standing, her arm was extended behind my back so there were no glimpses of the ring. Despite that, why would I take a fling to an event of that magnitude? I know that’s the narrative Richard is trying to convince himself of so that I’ll remain under his wing and the driving force behind the company. Now he’s pushing it beyond that narrow-minded mind of his. Tonight, I’m pushing back.

“We’ll have a drink tonight. I’m sure at some point, I’ll take a break.”

“Alright.”

“Thank you for the pasta.”

“It’s no problem. Enjoy it.”

I left her to the privacy she needed and closed the door behind myself so that whatever noise coming from the kitchen didn’t disturb the nap that I’m not even sure she’s going to take. Often time, her stubborn nature holds strong, even in opposition against what she needs. More than anything, I’d rather she be well rested for the task that’s head of her tonight. Though I don’t know what the holiday party will consist of aside from the basics, I trust that her family has a lot more class than my own. I don’t expect any ridiculous speeches from neither Isaac or Silas about the family and if they do give a word or two, at least whatever statements are said will have mindfulness and a genuine tone behind them. I doubt Lillian will hound either one of us about wedding plans that are yet to be because she has absolutely nothing else to speak about. Most of all, I’ll be able to let my guard down. I don’t have to worry about being on alert to verbally or physically rip someone apart for even the slightest bit of disrespect towards me and most of all, towards her.

“Yo, you got some cuff links that I can borrow? Let me get the ones with the blue gems in them. I don’t know where I put my favorite pair and the next favorite pair that I have belong to you.”

But I will have to deal with Mike’s antics. I suppose that should be the easy part.

"So word has been traveling around about my potential move to L.A. and I’ve gotten a couple of phone calls. Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips called, I have a couple of e-mails from Greenberg Traurig, and Ziffern Brittenham reached out too.

“These are all tier one firms?” Once I was finally able to switch lanes, I turned off my blinker and slightly turned down Outkast’s Aquemini album. The traffic on I-95 S in Jersey had finally picked up in pace. While Autumn was asleep, I’d already called Marv to come and drive her home so that she wouldn’t have to drive while sleepy. I wish I hadn’t of woken her up from that nap because she couldn’t mask her grumpiness no matter how hard she tried to. Even the kiss she gave me as she walked out of the door was half assed and I could do nothing other than chuckle.

“Yeah. I believe so. I just don’t think I’m interesting in partnering with another firm whether they’re giving me name partner upon hiring or not. It’s a lot of politics that goes into that shit, especially when you’re walking in the door with perks that internal lawyers are busting their ass for. They immediately walk around with this chip on their shoulders while looking at you like you’re this designer suit wearing fuck boy who stepped on all of their toes to get a position that they deserve. I don’t care what anyone has to say but at the same time, I’m in a place where I feel like I don’t need to pet people in order to cease tension within a firm and I’m not playing a game of who can bust one another’s balls the best when it comes to power and rank amongst partners. I’m not even being cocky when I say that I’ve had far too much success to concern myself with that.”

“That’s why it’s time to branch out on your own and start your own firm. You’ve outgrown what’s being offered to you. You have enough clout and pull to snatch up a couple of hot shots from well known firms around this country, but I also know that we’re alike when it comes to giving people to chance to grow, show, and prove themselves to be the greatness that the future needs so I know your interns and first year selections will be good and just as great.”

“That's probably the most important part to me brother.”

“That’s how it should be.”

Autumn chose The Palace at Somerset Park as the venue for tonight’s festivies. Initially, she had ten different places in mind and I remember the headache she’d given herself over the course of a couple of days to narrow it down to the best three. After a numbers game, she eventually settled on the forty thousand dollar price tag simply to book The Palace. All of the extra perks that she added in there continued to raise the price by the thousands and I’m not even sure what was spent on the decorating team she hired to execute her Winter Wonderland theme. Despite her nonchalance about it, between everything she did for Heather’s wedding and now this party, I was exposed to yet another talent of hers that she doesn’t even recognize. I don’t believe I’ve come across another woman who can successfully dip her hands into many jars like Autumn can. I’m always in awe of her.

“So, that gentlemen in a blonde wig on BET ran with an escort story today. You want me to send out a statement or two? Maybe a couple of threats of legal action for defamation of character?”

“If you do that, it would just be me feeding into his bullshit and showing him that I’m uncomfortable.”

“But aren’t you? How is Autumn reacting to all of this?”

“We had a back and forth about it when we woke up to it initially and that was it. As I said earlier today, she’s been consumed with this party so I haven’t been able to observe her reactions or to pick her brain about most of it. I’m fucking frustrated because this route he’s resorting to is low as fuck. It’s a divide and conquer through she and I. He’s going to keep applying pressure for her to crack more so than myself. He’s well aware that I’m not going to abandon my relationship and the future I want on the behalf of anyone, let alone a family that I already struggle with claiming as my own, so he’s targeting her. He’s assuming it’s but so many attacks that she and her family will be able to take. It’ll feel just as repetitive as the media nightmare that was her relationship with that coach.” A hint of chills trickled up my arms at the reality of the comparison. The last thing I need is her folks viewing me as a toxic presence in her life. They may not have been able to access Andreas enough to get him out of the picture before everything went to shit, but they’ll never allow something like that to happen again. Hell, just Lillian’s protective nature alone lets me know that she’ll take me down in any way possible whether it’s my fault or not.

“Look, you know better than I do, that there’s a lot of underhanded shit going on, so you need to get the hell out of there. At this point, you’ve involved someone else in this. With marriage comes a vow of protection. No matter what you have me doing, you better be able to hold up your end of that.”

“I’m handling it.”

“The more I dig and ask questions, the more I’m realizing that eventually, I’m going to run into something that’s going to be explosive. I feel you’re trying to figure out which wire to clip to prevent a ticking time bomb from detonating and I’m trying to do everything that I can to influence you to say fuck it, get away from it, and let it explode however it does. You’ve saved them from far more than they’ve ever deserved. You’ve put that company on your back and have catapulted them to new heights year after year. What do you get in return aside from revenue and acclaim from Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, or some other business insider platform? If you’re finally putting your mental health first, then walk away immediately man. I’m telling your this as your brother and as someone who has looked into more enough for you to know that this shit isn’t going to end well.”

"It’s on my mind every time I walk into that building. There are a couple of situations that I need to handle before I can began to withdraw from everything. There are trusted clients, open contracts, and a large number of relationships that I’ve built over the years that I have to accommodate and still do want to maintain even with a departure. It’s about respect more than anything else.”

“I know.”

“So that information that I sent you about the Malibu house. What is that looking like?” We glanced at one another and he took a minute to gather his thoughts about yet another request I’d given him.

“Let me keep working on that.”

I left it at that. I know him well enough to understand that if he’s still working on something, it’s going to happen whether it’s soon or with some time. If it were impossible, he would have told me already. Time isn’t something that is to be wasted, especially right now.

It seems to be of the essence more than ever.

Upon entry to the venue, it immediately felt like we stepped into a party straight out of the North Pole or somewhere deep within the arctic circle. We were surrounded by a sea of white draping from the high ceilings down to the high gloss marble flooring. Christmas trees layered every space that made sense while flocking and sparking white lights breathed an enticing life into the place. The snow machines and the LED lighting were the enhancements that took the ambiance from fun to extravagant.

“If Autumn did all of this, I can only pity your pockets when it comes time to plan the wedding. Look at that.” My eyes panned in the direction of his finger and landed on a towering LED wall with rotating images of snow in the forest, moonlight, and laser designs. It damn near made you feel like you were outdoors. An ensemble of twelve women danced us through the doors while about a twenty to twenty-five piece band played the most famous holiday tunes that we all know and sing along to for our pleasures. The line up of microphones on the stage are a sign that there’s a performance coming. Mike's right about the money that was poured into this. She definitely went into this without a care or concern about a budget but it looks damn good and with the way the champagne, wine, and spiked egg nog are floating around, this is sure to be a night to remember or…drunkenly forget. Either way, she worked damn hard to make it a fun night for all and one that will leave Isaac with acclaim and praise.

“She did an excellent job.”

As I pulled out the ghost chair to take my seat, my eyes met those of Lillian and she immediately smiled and raised her hand up to wave at me. As I responded with a wave of my own, I noticed she was making her way over and pushed the chair back in to remain standing out of respect for her presence.

“Dante. How are you? Give me a hug.” The hug was as endearing as it is when she wraps her arms around her own children and she planted a soft kiss on my forehead. She then reached for Mike.

“Why are you two sitting over here? You have a placement card at the family table.” I didn’t even think about seating arrangements when I approached this empty table. This isn’t what you would call a corporate gala or a dinner party so, a seating arrangement isn’t really key to making or breaking this evening.

“I didn’t know.”

“Well yes, come over. We’re sitting right up there.”

With all of the baseless nonsense circulating about the two of us in the rumor mill, I was sure that there would at least be one or two awkward moments between her loved ones and I, but my thoughts jumped the gun quite a bit. Instead, I was welcomed with open arms as they showered me with physical and verbal affection and carried on dialogue as if I’d been a member of the family my entire life. It seemed like the more sips of red wine Silas took, the more he elaborated on holiday memories they’ve shared over the years. Despite the bittersweet emotions swirling within everyone with every word that he spoke, we shared laughter over stories like Shane and Autumn’s failed attempts at making a snowman, Isaac needing stitches after a failed sledding prank between the siblings led to him falling off and hurting himself, and Autumn bailing on a Christmas recital in the middle of the show.

As for my lady? She never joined the table, not that I expected her to. Instead, I was left with glimpses of her beauty out of the corners of my eyes as she zipped around the room to greet and properly accommodate just about everyone who walked through those double doors. Whether it was the way her long midnight black tresses swayed with the subtle and yet natural switch in her stride or the way the lightning around the room illuminated her alluring green eyes, she captivated just about every being filled with testosterone and they lustfully ogled over her like wolves hunting prey no matter where she moved. A black pencil dress is hugging every curve her body has to offer and its length stopped mid-thigh to display her impeccable legs, which were further accentuated by her Louboutin covered feet. Instinctively, while my ears tuned in and out of the conversation happening around me, my eyes followed her as much as they were able to as she maneuvered around with a graceful smile on her face and a clipboard that I assume is filled with names and the itinerary for the evening. There seemed to be this transition from a glare of lust to one of pride as I constantly caught glimpses of her engagement ring glimmering on her left hand ring finger.

“Why don’t you just go over here instead of sitting here and torturing yourself by staring at her so hard.” I looked on as she showered Heather with a more than normal amount of love. There was a mutual excitement between the two of them that I couldn’t quite pinpoint, but the repeated motion of Autumn brushing her hand against her best friend’s stomach gave me somewhat of a hint. A glow illuminated from the both of them as they giggling all throughout whatever small conversation they were having and both walked towards the bar hand in hand to continue their banter.

“I’m about to head over there. You want a drink from the bar?”

“You know my preference. Appreciate it brother.”

By the time I stood and began to make my way through a crowd of people heading towards the dance floor, I’d lost track of Autumn once again. I’ve yet to witness a moment when she’s sat down and yet she’s continuing to trek around this place in those extremely high heels like a butterfly waltzing in the air.

“What can I get for you handsome?” My back straightened as the young bartender trailed her eyes over my chest and eventually stopped at my lips, which then evoked her to run her tongue over her own set. The tips of her fingers grazed the skin of the top of my hand and the smirk that slowly grew on her face easily matched the intense glare radiating from her eyes. Within seconds, my hands found their way into my pockets.

“Remy Martin XO if you have it.”

“Remy? That’s an interesting choice. Rich, velvety, and lingering. It goes down smooth and tends to creep up on you sometime throughout the night and next thing you know, you’re doing the unexpected. I’ve seen it happen to many people over the years.” The unexpected? My snicker was low but she didn’t miss it. She refused to miss anything, including every breath that I’m taking. She’d yet to take a step in the direction of the alcohol to seek what I requested.

“Really? Well, thankfully, it’s not for me.”

“It’s not?” Her weirdly drawn on brows went up in wonder while she pondered on where to go next with this one sided conversation.

“No.”

“Well, what can I get for you?”

“Remy Martin XO.” An additional glance toward her face allowed me to recognize her from Meridian. She’s the receptionist who always makes it her business to thoroughly explain the same exact details about servicing to me in a snail paced manner while leaning over the desk to be as close to my face as possible. If I counted out the number of women from both companies who have attempted their hand at getting to know me beyond seeing me walk in and out of the doors, I’d sound pompous and be labeled an asshole. Despite my lack of interest, I know they’ve been a playground for Matthew and the thought of dipping into anything or anyone behind him agitates me. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve had a taste of his father too.

“I’ll get that for you.” Rather than fixing the potent beverage at the back counter, she grabbed the bottle of it along with a glass, and she returned to the exact position she’d been in; on the opposite side of me with the bar’s counter serving as a barrier between our bodies.

“You enjoying yourself tonight?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. I am enjoying myself. It’s a great party. Based upon what Isaac mentioned, Boyz II Men are going to walk out on that stage within a couple of minutes and give us a full performance of Christmas hits to make it even better. Based upon the way they were ogling over Autumn in Vegas, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the performance for free.

“I’ve always noticed you at the holiday parties but you always tend to tuck yourself into a corner somewhere and that’s where you stay. You never hit the dance floor. I see you’re at the Dupont table tonight, but you’ve still yet to hit the dance floor. You can’t be enjoying it that much.” She poured enough of the cognac in the glass to make it a double and slid it in my direction. Intentionally, her knuckles lightly grazed my own.

“Interesting observation. Maybe I’ll hit the dance floor at the next one.”

“You could always save a dance for me tonight.”

“Or me. How about you save a dance for me? I am like your sister after all.” Both our heads snapped in the direction of Heather’s tense voice. If looks could kill, the bartender would have been dead in an instant. Heather’s smirk was sinister. The more she leaned towards the bar, the further the woman on the opposite side of it leaned away from it.

“Of course I can save a dance for you. What’s up Heather?” I immediately threw am arm over her shoulder and drew her in so that we could share a hug and most of all, so she’d stop looking like she was a second away from lunging over the bar and attacking a woman who couldn’t keep my attention even while speaking to me.

“Nothing much. How are you?”

“All is well over here. How are you?”

“I’m alright. Happy to be back home. Miami is nice and I enjoy it, but I can’t front like I don’t love when I get time to come up here to the good ol’ cold and enjoy time with my families.” Most people tend to want to run away and stay away from the cold. She’s one of the first people I’ve heard who craves to feel it after having moved to a warmer climate.

“You’re spending the holiday up here?”

“Yes we lucked out. They’re playing the Knicks the day before Christmas Eve and they have no Christmas Day game. So, once he flies up here for the game, we get to stick around. Thank God. Despite my mental battle with having my folks fly down to me, I wanted to come up here because my Dupont family is here. I love them just as much as my own.”

“That’s what’s up. I’m sure Autumn is thrilled. She misses having you up here.”

“I know. I miss her just as much. That’s my right hand and sometimes I need a bit more than phone calls or FaceTime sessions sometimes. We were once inseparable but you know, the whole marriage to that piece of shit stopped that, and now I feel like we’re really working towards being like that again but with moderation of course. Back when we were in college, she transferred to UCLA to be with me. Mind you, this was after I considered transferring into NYU to be with her. I couldn’t take much more of those valley white girls. When she got married, we did hang out in Miami a lot. I’d fly down there to be with her often. I know she’d do the same for me now, but she has her own life and I’m thrilled for her. She has you. You stole my girl, but I’m okay with that.” With a nudge to my arm, she looked up at me with a smile as we stood along side one another observing the atmosphere. For the third time tonight, there was Mark Patelli standing directly in Autumn’s pathway while obnoxiously leering at her and finding unnecessary commentary to speak with her about. Every few seconds, his tongue would graze his barely there bottom lip while his eyes trailed over her entire frame. I get it. Autumn is the embodiment of everything that sex appeal is and is supposed to exude. She’s a prowess at entering a room and stealing the show without ever trying to do so. Heads turn with every move that she makes. Her smirk makes your heart jump and then the small smile that follows eventually causes it to melt. Her eyes. Shit. They’re enhancing and yet there’s this mysteriousness within them that immediately draws you into whatever part of her world she’s going to allow you into. She’s an enigma and yet like a Rubik’s cube, you cannot stop working to win her over in some kind of a way. In his case, it’s simply to be in her presence. As far the other hundred or more men in the room, it’s to get her to approach their table or maybe for a dance. Despite my understanding this, it doesn’t cease my thoughts to beat the shit out of every single one of them for staring at what’s mine in the same manner that I do. Mark is at the top of the list.

“Easy Tiger. She wants no one other than you. Mark never had a chance before you and he never will.” As if I were a once tamed animal now ready to pounce, Heather patted my back to soothe my thoughts.

“You know, she’s yet to say anything to me tonight.”

“I know. There’s a part of her that’s uncomfortable. I’m married to a NBA guy but Mario isn’t what people would call a hot shot or a star player. He’s not Lebron or Dwayne Wade. He’s no Kobe, Chris Paul, Stephen Curry, or any of those guys. He’s more of a role player and it works for him. TMZ isn’t hunting down information about him or whatever he and I have going on. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a chick or two try to come at me over him on social media but even that wasn’t blown up enough to get any coverage. Autumn on the other hand has gone from being painted as the “wild young girl” at UCLA who was fucking the head coach of the basketball team, to being the college dropout NBA wife “chasing the fast life”, to being the tossed away naive woman who “didn’t know any better and allowed a man to shit on her”, and now she’s the “gold digger rebounding with a hot shot business man”. Put yourself into her shoes and think about how you’d feel about that. She’s voiceless in this situation and she feels like it, because ultimately, what can she say or do? Yeah, people talk and it is what it is, but she doesn’t live her life in a manner for people to speak about her. She’s not clout chasing or seeking fame.” I couldn’t deny her point. I’m just as unnerved as she is about all of it and it’s not because we’re being spoken about because I couldn’t care less. It’s the context. The last thing I want her to feel is attacked and cornered but I know it’s what she’s dealing with mentally, though she won’t express it to me through conversation. I’ve sensed it in her distance from the topic at hand whenever we speak to one another and in her sudden choice to spend more nights in Jersey rather than at my apartment.

“I know. It does fuck with me that she feels that way but more than anything, she shouldn’t bottle it up. Once she’s inside of that head of hers, this happens. There’s she and I, and then this weird ass wall in-between us.”

“Break it down. That’s Autumn. She’s been that way ever since I’ve known her. The wall is her comfort zone. Shane would invade her comfort zones all the time and it’s why she learned so much from him. I do it to her when I have to. More than anything else, show her that it's you and her beyond whatever noise is surrounding you.”

“I hear you.”

“I was just talking about this with Autumn, but I figure I need to let you know this too. Autumn and I talked about our kids growing up together in the same manner that we did, so I’m going to need you to get on it. You need to hurry up and shoot up the club a couple of times, so that we won’t be that far apart.” Laugher instantly spilled out of me in response to the manner she chose to reveal her pregnancy in. Autumn did tell me about those type of conversations that we’ve had but to hear it from Heather is hilarious.

“Congratulations Heather.” Once again, we shared a tight hug and she poked my side as I released her.

“I meant what I said though. Get started on the babies. You two are going to be the coolest aunt and uncle slash godparents ever, but I want to be the thing. I want my chance.”

“I think we may miss this go round and we’ll have to catch up with you when you have your second baby. I can make a deal with you there. I can’t wait to have kids, but we have a lot going on and we still have a wedding to plan. Give us some time to get all of that handled and I have high hopes the babies will come soon after.”

“I’m holding you to that.”

“I got you.”

“And remember what I said. The love between you two is real. Don’t allow anyone or anything to get in-between that, especially some outside noise that doesn’t even matter. If anything, show them differently. Leave them with egg on their faces. You know I have y’all backs. I won’t hesitate to pop off on anyone or slap a bitch, like a bartender who doesn’t know her boundaries.” As she glanced back to seek her new found enemy, I nudged her shoulder.

“I know you do and we have your back just as much. There’s no need to slap anyone. You know who my mind is on and where I want to be no matter what.”

“Thank you for loving my friend.”

“If anything, I should be thankful that your friend loves me.”

As Boyz II Men took the stage, I return to the table and handed Mike his drink and was off to find Autumn. On my hunt, I grabbed two glasses of champagne off of a servers tray as he passed by and panned my eyes over the crowds of people until I spotted her standing near the entrance speaking with someone unfamiliar to me. My feet moved as swiftly as possible without me looking like a mad man so that I could reach her before she trekked to the other side of the room or somewhere within this vicinity and out of my view.

“Hello beautiful.” Maybe I should have waited until their conversation was over or maybe I should have properly interjected whatever they were saying to receive her attention, but I couldn’t help myself and didn’t care.

“Hi.” A gleam filled her eyes as she panned over my attire and I extended my arm to offer her the champagne flute. My attire for the evening had all been her choice. I assume she’s pleased with her work.

“That drink that we spoke about earlier.”

“Thank you.” Once it was in her hand, that allowed me to wrap an arm around her waist. “If you’ll excuse me Dr. Patel.”

Within seconds of us turning to walk away, that very drink I’d handed her went down her throat within one swallow and a flustered expression washed over her face as I looked on awaiting some type of interaction from her. Without knowing it initially, it seems like I stepped in with perfect timing to distract her from whatever was being said and yet I’m beyond curious about all of it because her reaction isn’t what I was expecting.

“My hand has been fucking with me tonight. Maybe it’s because I’m beyond tired.” As she lifted it within eyes view, I could see the tremor that typically makes itself noticeable whenever she’s dealing with stress or exhaustion. Often times, she’ll squeeze a stress ball for strength and training. “Dr. Patel noticed of course and she immediately jumped into that conversation we’ve had over and over again about allowing her surgeon friend to fix this issue with what she says is a simple operation. She’s not even my damn doctor, she’s my mother’s friend. Oh and then there’s that part that maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to return to school to go after my medical school dreams again but she certainly made it clear that I’d only be able to be a psychiatrist, dermatologist, or some kind of a general practitioner because I wouldn’t be able to do anything surgical since I have a fucked up hand.”

“Baby, you can do whatever the hell you want to do. Some stupid ass doctor’s opinion doesn’t change that.” If we weren’t at a party, I’d have no issue with approaching that short and stumpy doctor to repeat that same message to her. Everything that she’s faced hasn’t stopped her greatness from shining through despite her reluctance and insecurities. Despite everything, Autumn continues to prove that she’s destined for a greatness that not even she sees or understands right now. With my love for her aside, I’m in awe of her and I know it’s not without reason.

“One of the most renowned doctors in this fucking state? That opinion doesn’t matter?”

“I wouldn’t give a shit if it were Barack Obama’s opinion.”

“This goes back to our conversation from a few days ago. Everything just rolls off of your shoulders and is no big deal to you. This shrug and whatever mentality works for you and everyone else in this room, but it’s not going to work for someone like myself.”

“And why won’t it? You give too many fucks about what people have to say. How do you feel about yourself? That’s the most important question that you should ask yourself whenever the irrelevant opinions of others gets to you.”

“Right. So while Wendy Williams labeled me as your whore, I should have been staring in the mirror and asking myself that question?”

“Are you my whore?” A tightness eased into my chest as my shoulders tightened. Our brows arose in unison as she glared at me in the same manner I was at her. Though the question had absolutely no intention to insult her behind it, it irked me that I even had to ask it.

“What kind of fucking question is that?”

“Answer it. Are you?”

“I’m not.”

“Then who are you to me?”

“You know exactly what I am to you.” Her arms flared out in an exaggerated manner and loudly slapped into her sides as she huffed in clear irritation with the way this interaction is going. Good. Now she knows how I feel.

“But do you? Who are you to me?”

“Your fiancée.”

“My fiancée. The woman that I got down on one knee and asked to marry me. The woman who I love more than anyone and any got damn thing. Wendy whoever gets to spew bullshit and put a cloud of darkness over that? You’re so caught up in being mad about that instead of being within this room with me. All I’ve been doing is watching you walk around here without ever stepping over in my direction to give me a hello. If anything, you’re feeding into narratives that shouldn’t even exist in our world. You’re treating me like a stranger because people ignorantly accused us of being strangers who fuck one another.  Now we’re standing here bickering back and forth over opinions that have absolutely nothing to do with either one of us when all I wanted to do was to approach you for a few minutes of your time.”

“Autumn!” Rachel exclaimed her name loud enough to turn our heads while catching the attention of a few others. With a clipboard in her hand, she adamantly waved her over for whatever task that needed to be handled.

“I have to go.”

“Sure. It’s not like we’ve had much interaction tonight to begin with. I can make a valid argument for the last week or so as well. You enjoying home?”

“We don’t live together.”

“A choice that you made.”  

“And I’m working.”

“Another choice that you made. Was it so we didn’t have to attend this together?”

“You sound so stupid.”

“Do I?”

My question went unanswered. Instead, my line of vision was met with her back as she jogged in Rachel’s direction to tend to whatever she wanted or needed. Just as she did, I tossed all of the content inside of the champagne glass down my throat and left it on a nearby empty tray.

My final move was to wave Mike over so that we could make our exit.

I’d had enough of the party.

#j. cole fanfic #j cole fanfic #j. cole fanfiction #j cole fanfiction #fanfiction #fan fiction #fanfic #rihanna fanfic #rihanna fanfiction

[amoralto]

so paul always says now that hes grateful he and john reconciled before john's death, but ive always sort of wondered if they really did or if paul was saying that more as a coping mechanism. i mean, obviously we'll never know what happened in private, but based on what they were saying about each other in the press in 1980 they didnt seem so reconciled as paul claims. also, whenever paul refers to they getting along, he always uses the same "making bread phone call" ex.. as if its the only one

There are a variety of things I could bring up in the answering of this, but I think part of your question hinges upon your own definition of reconciliation, specific to John and Paul’s relationship, and how their actions square up within it. If it can only be adjudged reconciliation by an unequivocal reestablishment of their songwriting partnership, then they were never reconciled. If it can only be adjudged reconciliation if there was a singularly defined watershed moment of unadorned emotional clarity from whence they never ever said a remotely negative thing about each other in the press again ever, then they were certainly never reconciled. So how and where does one measure it? The least I can argue is that while John and Paul consciously uncoupled, they were never really emotionally estranged or emotionally uninvolved; they never even managed to go without communicating with each other for a third as long as that other ardently involved partnership, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, did. And it would be inimical to dismiss the depth and involvement of their relationship and the strength of their emotional ties to each other based on whatever ugly sentiments that were communicated and disproportionately amplified in public, especially when said sentiments are actually a glaring demonstration of how much they were not Over Each Other.

… They were never indifferent about each other, is what I’m saying. Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you.

(Well, John probably did perceive Paul’s no-comment-trucking-right-along manner of dealing with things as blissfully unconcerned indifference to and in comparison to his own markedly ostentatious divorce pangs, but that’s another issue for another time.) 

(More under the cut because this response got interminable.) 

Anyway, I think what you’re really getting at is whether Paul himself knows and/or sincerely believes they were on good terms at the point of John’s death, or wanted and willed himself to believe they were, and I would say that it’s a measure of both. John’s death left him grief-stricken and reeling and calling every exchange he’d had with John, spoken and unspoken, into question, and this was after his emotional security (with John and with himself) had already been significantly unseated by the Beatles’ break-up. (I’ve always found it striking that in Many Years From Now he describes much of his life as “filled with guilt and the knowledge that you’re probably not right”; indeed, one could reasonably read some of his more candid interview responses as basically him convincing himself or rationalising to himself out loud.) Even if their exchanges in John’s last years were entirely sunny and tension-free, I don’t think anything short of Unadorned Emotional Clarity (as previously phrased) between them matured over years of concentrated effort and growth and honest communication of each other’s most vulnerable feelings would have prevented Paul from feeling that doubt. Even if the doubt was ultimately unfounded. I think the doubt, tempered over time and reflection, became regret - not a questioning of the bond between them, but how he and John conveyed its importance to each other: If I never did it / I was only waiting / For a better moment / That didn’t come. From Dan Rather’s 48 Hours interview with Paul: 

PAUL: Late at night, or when you’re feeling good, or… I don’t know, you think, oh, it’d be great to – I hope I tell her ‘I love her’ enough, and all that. And then come the morning and you’ve got to get off to the office, and you say [in a hurry], “Goodbye, love you!” And life’s like that. And there’s never enough time – if you like your parents, for instance – to tell them, god, you know, just what you meant to me.

You always think, well, I’m saving it up. I’ll tell them one day. And what happens with a lot of people, with someone like John for instance, getting back to that subject – he died. I was lucky, the last few wee– uh, months that he was alive, we’d manage to get our relationship back on track and we were talking, and we were having real good conversations, really nice and friendly. But George actually… didn’t, I don’t think, got his relationship right. I think they were arguing right until the end, which I’m sure is a source of great sadness to him. And I’m sure, you know, in the feeling of this song, that George was always planning to tell John he loved him. But time ran out. And so that’s what the song is about, you know. There never could be a better moment than this one. Now. Take this moment to say… I love you. [laughs] It isn’t quite the same.

‘This One’ may apply perfectly well to George’s feelings towards John too, I suppose, but. Well. #projecting onto George (Other quotes from Paul about ‘This One’ here and here.)

(Anyway, I think it’s more than fair to say that both John and Paul were spectacularly incapable of talking about their feelings for each other with each other in an explicit and undeniable way. But we could always sing.)

As for the bread-baking story, it is merely one in an arsenal of Paul’s rinse-and-repeat anecdotes for the ages; it is a vetted and unambiguous little yarn which is positive and, perhaps most importantly, prevents further enquiry. It is quick and quaint, and that is very much to Paul’s liking, considering how many interviews he’s scheduled to do on a daily basis and how much of his life he is necessarily comfortable with broaching in public. That this is the anecdote he has decided on to trot out from interview to interview is in no way evidentiary of an absence of any other phone calls, conversations, and/or interactions in general with John up to his death. 

Paul actually has, in interviews past, spoken of the contents of other calls he and John had, and been honest about their fickleness and the fact that it was just as likely to end badly as it was to end well. But at not just the end of the day, but in the every day, why waste words when you can concentrate on the memories fond rather than the memories unfavourable? Which, as most people would be able to attest, is not at all unusual for anyone who’s lost a loved one, and which for Paul is certainly not an outlook maintained exclusively for his history with John. He’s always accentuated the positive. 

And for all that he can at times be an inarticulate emotional disaster traipsing the canyons of his mind in Freudian slippers, Paul has by and large been practiced and reticent in public, whether by actively evading discussion of the not necessarily unhappier but certainly heavier times in his life, or by self-consciously blunting any imbued emotional weight with the words he chooses. An obvious example is when he recounts one of the first things Yoko told him after John died. He opted for a benign “fond of” throughout 1982, like in his April/May Music Express interview:

I talked to Yoko the day after John was killed and the first thing she said was, ‘John was really fond of you, you know.’ It was almost as if she sensed that I was wondering whether he had… whether the relationship had snapped. I believe it was always there. I believe he really was fond of me, as she said. We were really the best of mates. It was really ace.

Or his May 3rd Newsweek interview:

I’ve talked to Yoko since then, and she’s said to me, ‘You know, he really was quite fond of you.’ I think we were pretty close. But, sometimes, with brothers, you argue. They can be the most intense arguments, too.

In Paul’s October 19th 1984 CBC interview he’s unwound enough to say “love”, which I suspect is what Yoko really told him:

And I know that when he died that was one of the great things Yoko did for me, was that she took me aside and said, “You know, he did love you.” She was gracious enough to do that for me. So that was great.

But then in Paul and Linda’s December 1984 Playboy interview, there’s actually an indicated hesitant pause before he settles for “really liked”: 

PLAYBOY: Once you began to understand Yoko, Paul, did you two talk about John?PAUL: Yes. We did. In fact, after he died, the thing that helped me the most, really, was talking to Yoko about it. She volunteered the information that he had… really liked me.

And as a further example of what Paul chooses to tell and what he chooses to withhold, in a 1989 BBC radio interview he mentions something else Yoko told him after John died - imbued with emotional weight, no less - which I can’t recall him ever mentioning in any other interview:

And I heard, in fact, little bits from Yoko, who was kind of nice enough after he’d died to sort of clue me in on that. Realising, perhaps, that those w– would be the kind of things that would hang me up, forever. “Did he, or didn’t he… hate what I did?” And she said some very nice things. She told me once that he’d sat her down with one of my albums, and they’d be sat down, and he’d be having a bit of a cry about it, and he’d be saying, “Ah… you know, I – I like him, really.”

In any case, it’s Paul’s prerogative to keep himself to himself. I am very certain there are many things, both good and bad, that he keeps close to his chest and that the general public will not be privy to for a long time, if at all. (He is large, he contains multitudes, etc.) 

As for John’s side of things re: negative comments made about Paul to the press in 1980, I touched upon them briefly in a previous ask. To end off, Dave Sholin’s account of the car ride he shared with John and Yoko after the conclusion of his interview with them, a few hours before John was killed: 

‘So John is saying, “Well, our car isn’t here. You’re going to the airport, would you mind giving us a ride?” I said, “Hop on in.” And on the way, I ask him about his relationship with Paul McCartney. He says, “Well, he’s like a brother. I love him. Families – we certainly have our ups and downs and our quarrels. But at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, I would do anything for him, I think he would do anything for me.” And we said our goodbyes and dropped John and Yoko off at the studio.’ 

And from Dave Sholin’s interview with John: John talking about ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ and meeting Paul for the first time (and in an instance of sweet and charming misremembering, claiming that he asked Paul right there and then to join him). 

#ask #john and paul #context

[topmixtrends]

IN A 1925 diary entry, Virginia Woolf declared: “I have an idea that I will invent a new name for my books to supplant ‘novel.’ A new — by Virginia Woolf. But what? Elegy?” She was thinking of To the Lighthouse, that strange, brilliant, elusive book, so ingeniously structured it invents and dissolves a new genre all at once. What is it about? I’ve read it at least six times, and I still couldn’t tell you. To say that it is a novel about Virginia Woolf’s parents, or the house in Cornwall where her family spent their summers, or time’s passing, or the inescapable finitude of life — all of it seems to miss the mark. Just as the narrative is constantly being poured from one character’s consciousness into another’s, and thereby roaming free of any one physical being, so Woolf manages to evade what she once called “the fabric of things”: the describably concrete, the plainly material. Recall Mrs. Ramsay reading to her son James and thinking of all eight of her children — “Why must they grow up and lose it all?” — and then thinking suddenly of life itself:

There it was before her — life. Life: she thought but she did not finish her thought. She took a look at life, for she had a clear sense of it there, something real, something private, which she shared neither with her children nor with her husband. A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her; and sometimes they parlayed (when she sat alone); there were, she remembered great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a chance.

When the American writer Katharine Smyth, in her literary debut, All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf, says that To the Lighthouse “tells the story of everything,” she is surely thinking of a passage like the one above. No other novel is so explicitly, so insistently about life: its privacies and mysteries, its little commonplaces, its fleeting beauty. Like Mrs. Ramsay and her boeuf en daube, or Lily Briscoe and her painting, it is a novel that wants to summon together and give shape to our formless, fluid existence, to make of the moment something permanent, something “immune from change,” as Mrs. Ramsay has it. “Life stand still here,” she commands, though life never does: time passes, people die, nothing stays. Life will end; death will come.

All the Lives We Ever Lived is both a reflection on To the Lighthouse and a lingeringly beautiful elegy in its own right. Set primarily in Boston and Rhode Island, where Smyth grew up, it recounts the life and death of Smyth’s father, Geoffrey, who died in 2007, at the age of just 59. To navigate her grief, Smyth returns again and again to Woolf’s novel, whose three-part design (what Woolf called “two blocks joined by a corridor”) offers a structure “by which to contain and grapple with our dead.” The novel’s middle section, the corridor, famously describes the effect of time’s passing on the house on St. Ives, sidelining the characters so that the moment of Mrs. Ramsay’s death is but a casual, bracketed aside. Not until the third part, which takes place several years later, are we made to feel the full impact of her death, as her widowed husband and surviving children return to St. Ives for the first time in a decade. As Smyth writes, “the book’s radical form — not just a pioneering literary innovation — is also an endeavor to speak to and rectify grief’s essential formlessness.”

In Smyth’s narrative, her father stands in for Mrs. Ramsay, at once larger-than-life and alluringly mysterious. An Englishman who began his career as an architect in London (he cofounded an architectural magazine called Clip-kit in the 1960s), Geoffrey Smyth later studied at Harvard Business School and eventually settled in Boston with his Australian wife, Minty, and the couple’s only child, Katharine. Funny, charming, affectionate, wise, Geoffrey “was always inviting people over, and he never wanted anyone to leave.” As a young man, he’d been extroverted and handsome, and was even named one of London’s most eligible bachelors by the Evening Standard. He taught his daughter how to sail and fish, how to build fires and tie knots and play tennis. Smyth remembers him always “beavering away” at something: “Sanding the hull of the boat in winter, fine flecks of crimson antifouling carpeting the asphalt, or varnishing the teak of the cockpit.”

But in the early ’90s, when Smyth was still a child, life dealt Geoffrey a series of calamitous blows. First, he was laid off from the real estate company he worked for in Boston, and then, shortly after, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. For the next many years, he remained underemployed and out of luck, sinking deeper and deeper into himself and turning his back on life. “Always a cynic,” Smyth writes, “he soon grew downright nihilistic — his word — and always a heavy drinker, he began to drink steadily from lunchtime on.” Smyth recalls ugly scenes at the dinner table: her father incapacitated with wine, her mother sullen and unhappy, both of them liable at any moment to spark a fight:

While my father, unable to remember his hostile conduct of the previous evening, would wake feeling positive and well-disposed toward my mother, she would wake feeling angry and resentful, and as a result be prickly all morning. My father used her morning behavior as evidence that she was the root of the problem, and she used his evening behavior as evidence his drinking was.

Adding fuel to fire, Smyth often sided with her father. She knew he was to blame, and she loved and pitied her mother, but rather than bring them closer together, Geoffrey’s drinking ironically drove mother and daughter apart. “She bore the brunt of my unhappiness,” Smyth writes. “I wanted beauty, I wanted glamour; I wanted a mother whom I could look to as a paradigm of the feminine as I myself became a woman.” But instead of fulfilling this image, Smyth’s mother reacted to Geoffrey’s drinking and unemployment by gaining weight. To avoid her husband, she disappeared upstairs to play solitaire on the computer or read in bed. Over time, she became resentful of the closeness of Smyth’s relationship to her father, whose many flaws and countless wrongs rarely if ever compromised the godlike reverence he inspired in his daughter.

Among the reasons for this reverence is Geoffrey’s enigmatic nature, the seemingly disparate parts that make him up or, rather, fail to. Why did he struggle to find employment? Why did he continue to abet his own decline? Smyth wonders if, like Mrs. Ramsay, her father felt himself “locked in a battle with life”:

Alongside the image of my father as a gregarious young man who never wanted anyone to leave is that of those countless evenings when he retired to the deck after dinner with nothing but a drink and a cigarette and the reach of his own mind. Was he moved? Was he bitter? Was he addled, sad, or scared? Was he dormant, like a machine that’s set to sleep; was he distilled, like Mrs. Ramsay, to a core of darkness free to roam?

Smyth asks: “How must he see his life?” After such promise, after all that youthful ambition and energy, he had become a middle-aged alcoholic, slowly but surely dying of the cancer that had now spread to his bladder. Eventually, his bladder had to be removed altogether. Smyth, who was studying abroad in Oxford at the time, flew home to be with her parents for the surgery. The doctor assured them there was cause for hope, though he explained that Geoffrey would never be able to drink again. “How marvelous that would be, and yet, how impossible to imagine,” Smyth thinks to herself. After being released from the hospital, Geoffrey was admitted to an inpatient drug and rehabilitation clinic. Within days of leaving rehab, he had a glass of wine. Within six months, he was back to drinking the equivalent of three bottles of wine on a daily basis.

There is an investigative — a reportorial — aspect to Smyth’s portrait of her father. In the course of writing All the Lives We Ever Lived, she reads through letters and diaries and interviews both family and friends. She visits her aging grandmother in the South of England, talks to old friends and colleagues in London, and even uncovers a love affair from Geoffrey’s Harvard days, when he was already involved with his future wife. Smyth wants to explain him — not only to us, the readers who never knew him, but to herself, the daughter who adored him. “On the day he died,” she writes, “I believed I knew my father, believed that I saw clearly to his core; today […] he is more of a stranger to me than he has ever been.” Her desire to see her father through adult eyes eventually gives way to the recognition that he will always remain unknowable to her, that she only ever knew him as her father, not as a husband, brother, son, or friend. Similarly, she accepts that she will never understand her parents’ marriage, or their decision, despite all the arguments and fights and uncertainty, never to get divorced: “A marriage is a secret, an alliance so private that even one’s closest friends are privy only to its contours, to the performance that it becomes in public; no one on the outside could know the precise nature of its dynamics within.”

Smyth’s probing narrative is effortlessly entwined with reflections and digressions on Virginia Woolf and To the Lighthouse. She dances skillfully between the two, often moved by an urge to conflate Mrs. Ramsay and her father, or by the need to shape her grief using her favorite novel as a template. “I […] found myself longing for ritual, for structure, for some organizing principle by which to counter the awful shapelessness of loss,” Smyth writes. Woolf’s novel offers her that organizing principle because it reflects the same longing. “What is the meaning of life?” Lily Briscoe asks toward the end of To the Lighthouse, trying to complete the painting she began a decade earlier. Sitting on the lawn, she thinks repeatedly of Mrs. Ramsay and toys with the idea of saying something to the poet Augustus Carmichael, dozing in a lawn chair beside her — something “about life, about death, about Mrs. Ramsay,” but words repeatedly fail her. “[O]ne could say nothing to nobody,” she thinks. “Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low.”

Like Lily Briscoe, Smyth is always going back and forth between the desire to articulate something deep and revelatory and the fear that her attempts to do so will inevitably come to naught:

My father is dead. I say that not as I did in that first year (trying to make it real, trying to understand what it might signify), but as a fact, and one that sometimes makes me wonder whether all this — this reading, this remembering, this reflecting, this reckoning, this parsing, this clarifying, this hoping, this hypothesizing, this meaning making, this solace seeking, this writing — counts for anything at all. Have I come up with anything, has Woolf come up with anything, that is more than merely circling a brutal truth?

It is a moment of unusual candor and vulnerability. Has Smyth come up with anything? Some reviewers of All the Lives We Ever Lived have suggested that the author’s digressions on Woolf were perhaps not entirely necessary, or even very substantive. Writing in The New York Times, Radhika Jones admits that she “didn’t retain much of Smyth’s commentary on Woolf. It is insightful and reverent, but not revelatory.” Others have similarly hinted that the narrative parts of the book were compelling enough to stand on their own and that Smyth merely got in the way of herself by repeatedly going back to Woolf.

But as I revisited To the Lighthouse this winter, I was struck by how it appeared to have expanded, and how my own impression of the novel had subtly shifted. Things I had not given much thought to before now stood out to me, like the engagement of Paul Bayley and Minta Doyle, and what the novel tells us about marriage, a subject Smyth discusses with insight and experience. This may not be “revelatory,” but then I don’t think Smyth intended it to be. What her book does is add to our perception of To the Lighthouse, not through analysis or commentary, but by writing through the novel, assuming and exploring its worldview, and in the process redescribing it to us with an infectious passion and hard-earned wisdom.

Of course, by writing in the margins of a novel widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest, there is the concomitant risk that one’s own prose will sound pedestrian in comparison. Remarkably, Smyth’s doesn’t. She writes with a measured, lyrical grace all her own. Here are waves “large and swollen […] as if the ocean were a giant eiderdown someone was plumping”; in a fishing village in Mexico, there are “leathery, blinking iguanas [running] across the terra-cotta rooftops”; in the family’s old summerhouse on the water in Rhode Island, books and floors and rugs and linens are bleached until each becomes “a cheerfully bloodless version of itself.”

These examples and the many others like them are what Lily Briscoe calls “little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark” — the small shapes in the midst of chaos. In the end, the most revelatory thing about All the Lives We Ever Lived is its absence of revelation. Nothing stands still, nothing is permanent. There are just the little odds and ends to lay hold of, some sight, some sound. It is enough.

¤

Morten Høi Jensen is a writer and critic from Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the author of A Difficult Death: The Life and Work of Jens Peter Jacobsen.

The post The Awful Shapelessness of Loss: On Katharine Smyth’s “All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books https://ift.tt/2OqrZaS

#Los Angeles Review of Books #topmixtrends

[hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff]

IN A 1925 diary entry, Virginia Woolf declared: “I have an idea that I will invent a new name for my books to supplant ‘novel.’ A new — by Virginia Woolf. But what? Elegy?” She was thinking of To the Lighthouse, that strange, brilliant, elusive book, so ingeniously structured it invents and dissolves a new genre all at once. What is it about? I’ve read it at least six times, and I still couldn’t tell you. To say that it is a novel about Virginia Woolf’s parents, or the house in Cornwall where her family spent their summers, or time’s passing, or the inescapable finitude of life — all of it seems to miss the mark. Just as the narrative is constantly being poured from one character’s consciousness into another’s, and thereby roaming free of any one physical being, so Woolf manages to evade what she once called “the fabric of things”: the describably concrete, the plainly material. Recall Mrs. Ramsay reading to her son James and thinking of all eight of her children — “Why must they grow up and lose it all?” — and then thinking suddenly of life itself:

There it was before her — life. Life: she thought but she did not finish her thought. She took a look at life, for she had a clear sense of it there, something real, something private, which she shared neither with her children nor with her husband. A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her; and sometimes they parlayed (when she sat alone); there were, she remembered great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a chance.

When the American writer Katharine Smyth, in her literary debut, All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf, says that To the Lighthouse “tells the story of everything,” she is surely thinking of a passage like the one above. No other novel is so explicitly, so insistently about life: its privacies and mysteries, its little commonplaces, its fleeting beauty. Like Mrs. Ramsay and her boeuf en daube, or Lily Briscoe and her painting, it is a novel that wants to summon together and give shape to our formless, fluid existence, to make of the moment something permanent, something “immune from change,” as Mrs. Ramsay has it. “Life stand still here,” she commands, though life never does: time passes, people die, nothing stays. Life will end; death will come.

All the Lives We Ever Lived is both a reflection on To the Lighthouse and a lingeringly beautiful elegy in its own right. Set primarily in Boston and Rhode Island, where Smyth grew up, it recounts the life and death of Smyth’s father, Geoffrey, who died in 2007, at the age of just 59. To navigate her grief, Smyth returns again and again to Woolf’s novel, whose three-part design (what Woolf called “two blocks joined by a corridor”) offers a structure “by which to contain and grapple with our dead.” The novel’s middle section, the corridor, famously describes the effect of time’s passing on the house on St. Ives, sidelining the characters so that the moment of Mrs. Ramsay’s death is but a casual, bracketed aside. Not until the third part, which takes place several years later, are we made to feel the full impact of her death, as her widowed husband and surviving children return to St. Ives for the first time in a decade. As Smyth writes, “the book’s radical form — not just a pioneering literary innovation — is also an endeavor to speak to and rectify grief’s essential formlessness.”

In Smyth’s narrative, her father stands in for Mrs. Ramsay, at once larger-than-life and alluringly mysterious. An Englishman who began his career as an architect in London (he cofounded an architectural magazine called Clip-kit in the 1960s), Geoffrey Smyth later studied at Harvard Business School and eventually settled in Boston with his Australian wife, Minty, and the couple’s only child, Katharine. Funny, charming, affectionate, wise, Geoffrey “was always inviting people over, and he never wanted anyone to leave.” As a young man, he’d been extroverted and handsome, and was even named one of London’s most eligible bachelors by the Evening Standard. He taught his daughter how to sail and fish, how to build fires and tie knots and play tennis. Smyth remembers him always “beavering away” at something: “Sanding the hull of the boat in winter, fine flecks of crimson antifouling carpeting the asphalt, or varnishing the teak of the cockpit.”

But in the early ’90s, when Smyth was still a child, life dealt Geoffrey a series of calamitous blows. First, he was laid off from the real estate company he worked for in Boston, and then, shortly after, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. For the next many years, he remained underemployed and out of luck, sinking deeper and deeper into himself and turning his back on life. “Always a cynic,” Smyth writes, “he soon grew downright nihilistic — his word — and always a heavy drinker, he began to drink steadily from lunchtime on.” Smyth recalls ugly scenes at the dinner table: her father incapacitated with wine, her mother sullen and unhappy, both of them liable at any moment to spark a fight:

While my father, unable to remember his hostile conduct of the previous evening, would wake feeling positive and well-disposed toward my mother, she would wake feeling angry and resentful, and as a result be prickly all morning. My father used her morning behavior as evidence that she was the root of the problem, and she used his evening behavior as evidence his drinking was.

Adding fuel to fire, Smyth often sided with her father. She knew he was to blame, and she loved and pitied her mother, but rather than bring them closer together, Geoffrey’s drinking ironically drove mother and daughter apart. “She bore the brunt of my unhappiness,” Smyth writes. “I wanted beauty, I wanted glamour; I wanted a mother whom I could look to as a paradigm of the feminine as I myself became a woman.” But instead of fulfilling this image, Smyth’s mother reacted to Geoffrey’s drinking and unemployment by gaining weight. To avoid her husband, she disappeared upstairs to play solitaire on the computer or read in bed. Over time, she became resentful of the closeness of Smyth’s relationship to her father, whose many flaws and countless wrongs rarely if ever compromised the godlike reverence he inspired in his daughter.

Among the reasons for this reverence is Geoffrey’s enigmatic nature, the seemingly disparate parts that make him up or, rather, fail to. Why did he struggle to find employment? Why did he continue to abet his own decline? Smyth wonders if, like Mrs. Ramsay, her father felt himself “locked in a battle with life”:

Alongside the image of my father as a gregarious young man who never wanted anyone to leave is that of those countless evenings when he retired to the deck after dinner with nothing but a drink and a cigarette and the reach of his own mind. Was he moved? Was he bitter? Was he addled, sad, or scared? Was he dormant, like a machine that’s set to sleep; was he distilled, like Mrs. Ramsay, to a core of darkness free to roam?

Smyth asks: “How must he see his life?” After such promise, after all that youthful ambition and energy, he had become a middle-aged alcoholic, slowly but surely dying of the cancer that had now spread to his bladder. Eventually, his bladder had to be removed altogether. Smyth, who was studying abroad in Oxford at the time, flew home to be with her parents for the surgery. The doctor assured them there was cause for hope, though he explained that Geoffrey would never be able to drink again. “How marvelous that would be, and yet, how impossible to imagine,” Smyth thinks to herself. After being released from the hospital, Geoffrey was admitted to an inpatient drug and rehabilitation clinic. Within days of leaving rehab, he had a glass of wine. Within six months, he was back to drinking the equivalent of three bottles of wine on a daily basis.

There is an investigative — a reportorial — aspect to Smyth’s portrait of her father. In the course of writing All the Lives We Ever Lived, she reads through letters and diaries and interviews both family and friends. She visits her aging grandmother in the South of England, talks to old friends and colleagues in London, and even uncovers a love affair from Geoffrey’s Harvard days, when he was already involved with his future wife. Smyth wants to explain him — not only to us, the readers who never knew him, but to herself, the daughter who adored him. “On the day he died,” she writes, “I believed I knew my father, believed that I saw clearly to his core; today […] he is more of a stranger to me than he has ever been.” Her desire to see her father through adult eyes eventually gives way to the recognition that he will always remain unknowable to her, that she only ever knew him as her father, not as a husband, brother, son, or friend. Similarly, she accepts that she will never understand her parents’ marriage, or their decision, despite all the arguments and fights and uncertainty, never to get divorced: “A marriage is a secret, an alliance so private that even one’s closest friends are privy only to its contours, to the performance that it becomes in public; no one on the outside could know the precise nature of its dynamics within.”

Smyth’s probing narrative is effortlessly entwined with reflections and digressions on Virginia Woolf and To the Lighthouse. She dances skillfully between the two, often moved by an urge to conflate Mrs. Ramsay and her father, or by the need to shape her grief using her favorite novel as a template. “I […] found myself longing for ritual, for structure, for some organizing principle by which to counter the awful shapelessness of loss,” Smyth writes. Woolf’s novel offers her that organizing principle because it reflects the same longing. “What is the meaning of life?” Lily Briscoe asks toward the end of To the Lighthouse, trying to complete the painting she began a decade earlier. Sitting on the lawn, she thinks repeatedly of Mrs. Ramsay and toys with the idea of saying something to the poet Augustus Carmichael, dozing in a lawn chair beside her — something “about life, about death, about Mrs. Ramsay,” but words repeatedly fail her. “[O]ne could say nothing to nobody,” she thinks. “Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low.”

Like Lily Briscoe, Smyth is always going back and forth between the desire to articulate something deep and revelatory and the fear that her attempts to do so will inevitably come to naught:

My father is dead. I say that not as I did in that first year (trying to make it real, trying to understand what it might signify), but as a fact, and one that sometimes makes me wonder whether all this — this reading, this remembering, this reflecting, this reckoning, this parsing, this clarifying, this hoping, this hypothesizing, this meaning making, this solace seeking, this writing — counts for anything at all. Have I come up with anything, has Woolf come up with anything, that is more than merely circling a brutal truth?

It is a moment of unusual candor and vulnerability. Has Smyth come up with anything? Some reviewers of All the Lives We Ever Lived have suggested that the author’s digressions on Woolf were perhaps not entirely necessary, or even very substantive. Writing in The New York Times, Radhika Jones admits that she “didn’t retain much of Smyth’s commentary on Woolf. It is insightful and reverent, but not revelatory.” Others have similarly hinted that the narrative parts of the book were compelling enough to stand on their own and that Smyth merely got in the way of herself by repeatedly going back to Woolf.

But as I revisited To the Lighthouse this winter, I was struck by how it appeared to have expanded, and how my own impression of the novel had subtly shifted. Things I had not given much thought to before now stood out to me, like the engagement of Paul Bayley and Minta Doyle, and what the novel tells us about marriage, a subject Smyth discusses with insight and experience. This may not be “revelatory,” but then I don’t think Smyth intended it to be. What her book does is add to our perception of To the Lighthouse, not through analysis or commentary, but by writing through the novel, assuming and exploring its worldview, and in the process redescribing it to us with an infectious passion and hard-earned wisdom.

Of course, by writing in the margins of a novel widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest, there is the concomitant risk that one’s own prose will sound pedestrian in comparison. Remarkably, Smyth’s doesn’t. She writes with a measured, lyrical grace all her own. Here are waves “large and swollen […] as if the ocean were a giant eiderdown someone was plumping”; in a fishing village in Mexico, there are “leathery, blinking iguanas [running] across the terra-cotta rooftops”; in the family’s old summerhouse on the water in Rhode Island, books and floors and rugs and linens are bleached until each becomes “a cheerfully bloodless version of itself.”

These examples and the many others like them are what Lily Briscoe calls “little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark” — the small shapes in the midst of chaos. In the end, the most revelatory thing about All the Lives We Ever Lived is its absence of revelation. Nothing stands still, nothing is permanent. There are just the little odds and ends to lay hold of, some sight, some sound. It is enough.

¤

Morten Høi Jensen is a writer and critic from Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the author of A Difficult Death: The Life and Work of Jens Peter Jacobsen.

The post The Awful Shapelessness of Loss: On Katharine Smyth’s “All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books https://ift.tt/2OqrZaS

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