mel's note: if you can listen to this chapter with the song above, it's meant to be that way. good reads!
VICTORIA'S POV
I faced those first 3 months of pregnancy very seriously. I did everything right, wrote down everything and every hour I ate. I felt the difference between this pregnancy and my first. I had nothing to hide from almost anyone, and all my friends and family already knew the news. And I tried to do my part in not drinking anymore. Tried. Living with an alcoholic is far from an easy thing, and so is being one. The therapist's lines "Think of your family, your friends, your daughter" crossed my mind at the same time as the moments when I was in those ethanol daydreams. I knew the risks. All of them. I could even make a list of those long, unfamiliar names that lived in my head every day. Ever since we went on tour, Damiano had been after me like he never had. He controlled me in everything I ate, drank and took. When I ran away from that, he could be calm or extremely aggressive. So sometimes I wouldn't drink not for me and the baby, but so I wouldn't hear him talk anymore. Going through withdrawal in a clinic is very different than going through one almost alone, without medication, without sedatives, when the only sedative is alcohol and a controlling partner. I was twelve weeks, with the forgettable conception that I was forming another person. The new house project was on the road, we had the license to start building and hired constructors and architects, which led me to have full days in an office, filling up forms, choosing wall colours, pavement, kitchen and bathroom design, regarding the main bedrooms. In one of those classic travels back home, I was expecting the warm hug of Dam from the top of the kitchen counter. Instead, there were booze bottles, pulled in a bag, that used to be hidden in a part of the house that anyone ever goes. That day, I met another side of love, the bad one.
It was spring. It was the middle of April in the United States. Coachella was starting in a few days, and we were planning a huge performance. In the studio, me, Damiano, and 3 other producers were listening to Aidan and Nadia's EP in the non-existent silence of the state of Arizona. They wondered how such a melancholy song could have such a beautiful sound. In my head, this sounded like the perfect world of the band's success a while back as I cut myself on the bathroom floor of a radio station. The trauma was still there, there was no point in getting months and months sober because every time I came across a blade, it all came to mind. The meds just made me not try to do it again.
"What do you think, Victoria?" asked Ally.
"It's fine, but can we put the guitar a little louder?"
"Sure, whatever you guys want."
We left the studio at 8pm, I was starving. My back was aching, my eyes were extremely tired. I was in the hotel bed, full of heat. I was wearing a light blue linen set that I had been given while in hospital, watching my little belly. Dam had gone out with Thomas, and had left me alone, with the exit door locked. He said Ethan would be here any minute but it had been an hour, and I was still the same. Water was the only thing I could tolerate these past few weeks, I often hydrated myself with powdered saline to keep me well.
Ethan comes into my room with a box of chocolates. He was wearing a black turtleneck with jeans in the same colour. We hadn't seen each other for two days, after Dam had caught me staring at a beer. I knew he loved me, but sometimes he seemed so controlling, so upset. And that really hurt me. I no longer knew the one who was the gentle, caring, patient Dam, my husband. He was so different from the man I had fallen in love with again a few years ago. Maybe I had spoiled him with my problems. Maybe I wasn't listening to his problems. Maybe I was to blame for all that. Tears flowed from my eyes like a waterfall. I couldn't take it anymore, this suffering, this excessive control. Not even a baby could put a smile on my face. I felt Ethan drop the bags he was holding and lift me up, with the help of his hands. I felt his hands on my waist, hugging me from behind as he moved from side to side. This is one of the positions that help in a birth, Slow Dancing. While Dam went to sleep a few nights at the hotel in Paris to compensate for sleep deprivation, he did this to me at night for as many hours as necessary, while I stayed in that hospital gown, where that piece of fabric had more bulk than my body. I could feel my tears wetting my pajamas as Ethan wiped them away. More than Damiano, he could read my mind like no one else can."
"Vic," he said, in the middle of a sigh, "I know everything."
"From what?"
"From Dam. Leo told me."
"Don't mind that, you know how he is."
"I know very well what I saw the other day. No one should hit anyone, especially a pregnant woman."
"Ethan, please. He didnt-"
"It was in the neck, wasn't it? I can see it."
"You don't want to get into this, believe me."
"I want Victoria. If you want to, you can..."
"What? Run away?"
"It's not that hard. We can go to the police, get a restraining order."
"It's not that simple. He hasn't done anything wrong."
"Yes, he did, and he's still doing it. You can't live like this anymore, it's destroying you. I know you don't drink anymore so you don't argue with him. I know he can't handle it alone. You both need help."
"I'm pregnant with..."
"His baby. So what? That doesn't give you the right to rag on it."
"I can't run away."
"Yes, you can. I know you've been drinking again. Do you want to go back to the clinic?"
"No, no, for God's sake."
"Okay," I hear his sweet sigh, "What do you think Damon would say to that? Honestly."
Good question. What Damon would say about this.
"He'd... he'd tell me to get away from things that hurt me. He would tell me to move to Manchester, and that he would help raise the baby if I needed help, use me as a trial to new photographic techniques. He'd...he'd probably have a talk with Damiano, in that soothing voice he has," I think. Suddenly, all I can hear is his British accent, feel how straigh-forward he was, "But he's not here anymore. I don't see the point in sobriety without him. Since he's gone, I want to go with him, Ethan."
"Vic...he may not be here, but he would want to see you happy. Regardless of the person or the place or what makes you happy, he would go out of his way to support you. He gave up, he thought he couldn't take it anymore. But that's a lie. Remember all those times we used to light a candle on the day you completed months of sobriety? And when you were pregnant with Angel? He left hoping you'd stay and do what he didn't."
"Are you saying that..."
"I can talk to Leo, and you no longer do concerts from Coachella. I... I talked to Nica. She got a job in Copenhagen as you may already know, she bought the house she wanted. Denmark is your home, come home."
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hi people! it's being rough in here, indeed. the inspiration to this came from the song my tears ricochet by taylor swift, which is one of my all-time favourite songs. I hope you appreciated this the same way I did.
love y'all,
mel.