Benedict Cumberbatch: Life With Ben

Chapter Thirty: Review

Two months had passed. I was packing my bags to go back to university as it was the start of the new semester. The funeral for everyone had passed. Ashes had been scattered. Tears had been cried. But also Ben had started his Hamlet shows. They were fantastic. Blinking fantastic to be honest with you, and I was never a really big fan of William Shakespeare. You see, I knew very little of Shakespeare, (I still don't to be honest with you) you could tell this as my favourite play was Romeo and Juliet, the Leonardo DiCaprio version, because it is more modern and less complicated. Ben taught me a fair amount about Shakespearean plays, and so did Leigh, but it would go in one ear and out of the other.

I had another meeting with Moffat but this time I didn't go alone. Ben came with me to make sure I knew what I was signing up for. Yet when he heard the nicknames, he was a tad freaked out. Contracts had been signed. Acting to start in the Easter half term, screenwriting to start on the first day of October. I was now officially working for the BBC. My first proper job. Normally 18 year olds are working in shops or still going to college. Not me, I was going to university of Oxford and working for one of the biggest TV studios known to man- the BBC.

September was now here. I had to go back to university to start my course. I had to go back and face Adelaide. I hadn't seen her since the end of July. I hadn't spoke to her since the end of July either. In fact I hadn't spoken to anyone since July. Not even Leigh. Ben was supportive of my social choices. But he wasn't supportive of the fact I wasn't eating. "You need to eat something" he would say to me most days as all I would eat was a banana and on a push a packet of kiwi slices suitable for children's lunch boxes. "I'm not hungry.." I would reply. We would go out for dinner some nights and I would have a salad, pasta and a small slice of cake and that would be it. Because of this going on for 2 months I had lost weight. I went from a size 12 to a size 6. This wasn't normal. I knew I was ill but I didn't do anything about it.

The only time I would leave the house was to go to Ben's shows or to go to his parents house on Sundays for a roast dinner. Sundays was the only day I would eat normally because I didn't want Wanda to worry because she would worry. She would worry a lot because she saw me as part of the family. She was like a mother figure to me. I wouldn't want my mum to worry so why would I put my Cumber-mum through this.

Ben would pretend he wasn't worried about my health but I could tell he was scared. But at least I hadn't cut since the hospital incident. That made things a lot easier. I wasn't going to be stupid and carry on doing that.

I would lay in bed at night with Ben, whilst he was a mist of dreams, I would just look at the ceiling for hours, thinking. I would only get on average 3 hours sleep a night but if I was lucky I would get 4 hours sleep. This didn't help my health, but I was grieving so that was my excuse. I didnt tell Benedict about my lack of sleep because I knew it would kill him to know he was laying asleep whilst I laid adjacent struggling to sleep as every time I shut my eyes, all I could see was Sam's helpless body attached to all of the machines. It wasn't healthy. The fact that I couldn't sleep properly for 2 months.

Now to grieve at university..