Darling (a Tom Hiddleston fanfic)

10: childhood, her fault, a voice

It is hard to describe when things started to feel good again.  Most likely because it happens so gradually, but still in a relatively short amount of time.  It is amazing how easy it is to forget your problems, when you are thousands of miles away from them, and ignoring them every time they call or text.

I've immersed myself back into this world.  The world of my childhood.  It wasn't always a great childhood, but it was a strangely safe one, for the most part.  After my parents passed, an event that is more a serious of smudges and blurs than a real memory to me, Rachel and I were moved around for some time, through different foster homes.  None of them were terrible like you hear in the worst horror stories, but it wasn't exactly an Annie and Daddy Warbucks story either.  I was seven, she was thirteen.  We clung desperately together, only needing to be reassured that we would stay together.  Lewes is a small community, so it wasn't too hard.  For the first few years, we were moved quite frequently. 

I suppose it could have been traumatic, maybe it was in ways I haven't quite figured out. It could have been a time full of damaging people and terrible events, but really, it was just a blur.  Nothing terrible happened, but nothing all that good either.  The terrible thing had already happened.  The pain of losing my parents to a senseless act (a drunk driver), and the foggy state of moving from home to home, never finding a real place to settle, was confusing enough.

But once I hit ten, we settled in with a family, the Moore's, where we stayed until I was seventeen, nearly eighteen and left to make music.  The Moore's consisted of John and Julia Moore, and their two daughters, Kendall and Marissa. They were a great family, and though we weren't exactly treated like their daughters, we were treated well.  Rachel and I were always reminded though, that we were the outsiders.  That we didn't quite belong. 

When Rachel moved out at eighteen, started bartending at the touristy bars, and seriously dating Sam, I often begged her to take me with her.  She needed her space though—needed to carve out her own spot in the world, and so I did too. Which is where I turned to music.

Rach and I still keep in touch with the Moore's, though loosely, and even less so since they moved to upstate New York.  We've always been our own family, small as we are.

"Hell, Bee, what the fuck?" Rachel threw a pillow across the room, and it sailed by, dangerously close to my head.

"What?!" I spun around in the kitchen, peering through the large opening where I could see my sister sitting on the couch.

"Have you talked to Shorty?" She asks, getting up off the couch, her phone lighting up in her hand as she thrusts it toward me.  She's too far away for me to read the screen, and I shrug, slowly stirring my coffee.

"Not in two weeks? Two and a half weeks?" I say, scrunching up my face. 

"Well, now he's texting and calling me." She grumbles and pushes her phone into my hands.

Hey Rachel. Can you talk to Baby for me? I'm freaking out over here, because we've got tour details to figure out and about three dozen requests for exclusive interviews.  Oprah. The View. Ellen. Vogue. Elle. People.  They all want her.  I need to talk to her.

I read quickly, and then reread it. 

"Yikes." I whisper and chew nervously on my lip.  It's not fair that I've been ignoring and avoiding Shorty.  It is his job after all—not only to manage my career, but also make sure it doesn't totally go down the toilet.  I'm not sure that I care all that much anymore.

"Who's it going to be? I personally vote for Ellen. But if you're gonna do paper then do Vogue." She blinks rapidly at me, and I shake my head at her.