Chapter 25
I sit in my hotel room feeling sorry for myself, a sad lukewarm glass of wine on the side, with a random reality show blaring on the TV. Scarlett has flooded my phone with messages, and a couple from Nora. Clearly she found out I saw her. I just can’t get over how different the girl was to me. She was blonde, short and dressed so glamorously, and then there’s me. I want Coco. She’d know what to do. She’d know how to comfort me.
*3 years ago*
I cry in my bed, tissues scattered around me. I can’t believe I’m sitting here crying so much over someone ghosting me. My door pings open and Coco is standing there, chocolates and Mamma Mia in her hand.
“Oh, come here.”
She says, falling into my bed next to me. I cuddle up to her and she holds me to her side, stroking my hair. We rarely hug, or have any physical contact, only when either of us really needs it. Coco just knows when I need it.
“You know your mother-fucking Ophelia Greene, right?”
Coco whispers to me. I look up to her, and her emerald eyes look down at me, the glint in them sparkling.
“Any person would be lucky to have you, Ophelia. You’re gorgeous, hilarious, kind, clever, the list goes on. I don’t pick friends easily, and yet you made the list. The top of the list even. Whoever gets to experience you and
*
the love you give is the luckiest person, right? So fuck this girl for ghosting you. She doesn’t know what she’s lost yet.”
*
I can feel my eyes getting heavy. Clearly the jetlag is catching up to me. I hear a knock at the door and get up swinging the door open. Nora is standing there, breath stinking of vodka, her eyes bloodshot and her hair a mess.
“Ophelia, baby.”
She walks into the room, falling into my arms. This is not the Nora I’m used to.
“You can’t call me baby anymore, Nora.”
I sniff, trying to hold back tears.
She falls to her knees and wraps her arms around my waist.
“I’m sorry.”
She cries into my stomach.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“I think this hurt me a lot more, Nora.”
My words silence her, and she just continues to sob into my stomach. She then stumbles backwards onto the floor and puts her head on her knees. I’ve never seen her so sad.
“I just can’t do the loneliness of it all, Ophelia, all my bandmates’ phone home and I’m stuck there, with no one to phone. My family hates me.”
“You could’ve phoned me.” I say.
“I didn’t want to disappoint you. I am different now. Look at me, I’m a complete mess.”
She’s swaying all over the place and I’m pretty sure she has vomited on her clothes. But she could never disappoint me. I’d never want anyone to go through something alone. I can’t lose another person I love. Lowering myself to her level, I gently lift her face to meet my gaze.
“Nora, I just want you to be okay. You wouldn’t have disappointed me. I love you too much.”
“You still love me?”
She cries harder, her eyes filled with sadness. “Always.”
Then Nora falls into me again, and we stay there on the hotel
room floor for a good ten minutes, Nora letting out every emotion she’s probably held in for the past five months. The stench of vomit and vodka filling my nostrils. I drag her up, flinging her arm over my shoulder. Taking off her clothes and placing them in the basket behind me, I get her in the bath.
BEYOND THE BLUES
Turning on the shower head, making sure it’s warm enough, and I slowly place it over her body and hair. Her crystal like eyes stare up at me through her eyelashes, water droplets clinging onto them.
“You’re so beautiful, Ophelia.”
I smile, but don’t answer. Despite still being hurt, my priority is to make sure Nora is safe. I wrap a towel around her, and she shivers dramatically, her teeth chattering. Rummaging through my suitcase, I find a random over sized t-shirt and shorts and get her dressed. Her legs struggled to find the holes and almost fell over multiple times. I finally get her into bed and help her sip a glass of water. Before I know it, she’s passed out on the bed, mouth peeking open. I open my phone and text Scarlett.
Nora’s with me. She’s okay.
I wake up to an already awake Nora staring at me from the chair opposite the bed.
“What are you doing?”
I sit up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
“I’m so, so sorry, Ophelia.”
I shrug, unsure of what to say.
“Lately, I’ve been finding it really difficult to come to terms with the reality of it all. I feel really lonely being out here, no one to speak to back at home. I’ve tried to rekindle with my family, despite the things they’ve said and done, but they just blocked me. So I get really drunk and sleep around, trying to find any lousy connection I can. ”
“And I wanted to reach out to you more, but I was so scared you’d reject me because of my drinking and my antics. So I found Katie, the blonde girl you saw, but as soon as I heard you were her yesterday, I left her. Got the details of your hotel and paid the receptionist a lot of money to tell me your room number. I want you Ophelia, I need you with me. Please come out here with me,”
Nora begs. I want her too. I want to run over there, jump into her lap and make love to her. But I have my life back home. I can’t just follow her around.
“I have to think about it.” I say.
“But first you need to sort out this drinking before it’s too late.”
Nora nods.
*
“Can I please kiss you?”
Nora asks. I nod. Nora shoots up from the chair and comes over to me, crashing her lips onto me, starved from each other.
“No one is quite like you, Ophelia.”
“I know, a certain someone told me that before.”
We sit in bed discussing our options on how Nora should get help, and we settle on therapy. Even if we leave this situation, not together, I’ll be happy knowing she’s okay.
“How have you been, though?”
Nora asks me.
“My mum hid Coco’s suicide letter from me.”
Nora’s jaw falls open.
“What?!”
Nora says, shocked.
“And I feel so many mixed emotions about it. One part of me is so angry and upset she hid it from me, but the other part gets it. She didn’t want me to be sadder, she was just trying to protect me, I guess.”
“You can’t be angry at her forever. You need your family.”
Nora smiles softly at me. She’s right. She’s shown me the effects of not being able to speak to her family. It hurts her. Although sometimes, it’s for the best that people don’t speak to your family, especially if they serve no goodness, but my family does. This was out of care, not spitefulness or cruelty. My mum cares about me so much. There’s been countless times she’s slept in my bed with me after Coco’s death, just waiting for me to stop crying and fall asleep. My dad as well, although he’s not as open with his emotions, he’s done little things to show me he cares. Like when he funded my many therapy trips, because in his words ‘he couldn’t watch his little girl in this much pain.’