I’ve gotten very good at shutting things out over the years. Obviously, hard liquor and a pharmacy of substances have helped enormously. But I’ve been so busy looking inward, hating myself, despising my weakness, that I can totally ignore the impact I’m having on those around me.
I’ve been working hard on this, these past few months, in rehab and since getting out. But for all the steps I’ve followed, for all the meditations I’ve done, I’ve never allowed myself to visualise exactly what it must have been like for Elle when I sent that tweet and shut myself off from her.
I told myself a million times it was for the best, that she’d be hurt, confused, but she’d see sense and go about collecting her Academy Awards and choosing from her endless choice of the best projects out there.
And she did. She didFae, and every choice she’s made since then has been on point. But now I have another image. One I can’t get out of my head.
Elle in such emotional turmoil over my baffling silence that the trauma hit her body like a fucking sledgehammer. Elle haemorrhaging. Purging all her fluids. Weight dropping at a terrifying rate. Hospital beds. Transfusions. Drips. Her doctors’ worried faces. Total agony.
It’s too much. I can’t fucking bear it.
I need to bear it.
I need tofeelit.
There’s no way around this. The only way is through it.
Even though, now that I know the truth, I can’t believe she’ll ever be able to trust me. Surely every self-protective instinct she has in her body will tell her to cut me loose, for her own good?
When I get to her hospital room, she’s sitting on the bed in jogging bottoms and a light sweater. I’m beyond relieved to see that the tubes are gone and there’s a little more colour in her cheeks and lips. Thank fuck there are people out there who dedicate themselves to putting their fellow humans back together and act as a counterbalance to those of us who go around breaking them.
I move over to the bed and cup her face in my hands and kiss her on the forehead again. It feels warmer now. More human. I rest my forehead against hers when I’m done. I won’t let her push me away today, because she needs me.
Almost as much as I need her.
Or, at least, as much as I need to help her right now.
To be the slightest bit of use to her.
To do something to claw my way out of the deep pit of shame and horror and remorse I’ve dug for myself.
I pull back to see her, keeping that face in my hands.
‘How are you doing?’
She looks up at me. Shrugs. ‘Okay. Knackered. Feeling pretty shitty. Thanks for coming.’
I shake my head. ‘Oh, no. Don’t thank me. This is all my doing, remember?’
She smiles weakly.
‘Let’s get you home. Is your little dog there?’
‘She’s with a local dog-sitter. They’ll bring her home later, if I’m up to it.’
We get Elle discharged and stocked up with the pain relief, antibiotics and heavy steroids she’ll need to reduce the inflammation. A porter brings a wheelchair, and I get her in it. The porter takes her overnight bag and we get her down to the basement parking lot and bundle her into my car. If there are paps outside her house, I swear I’ll…
There are no paps.
She lives a lot closer to the place I’m renting than I realised—just a couple streets away. She gives me her keys and I run up the steps to her front door, open up, and go back down for her. Help her out of the car.
She bats my hand away. ‘I can walk.’
‘Not a chance, beautiful.’ I pick her up and carry her up the stairs and into her hallway. ‘Couch or bed?’
She sighs. ‘Bed, probably. Next floor up.’
I carry her upstairs, her head resting against my shoulder. Her house is beautiful: elegant and feminine and tasteful. Just like Elle.
