I wasn't sharing his enthusiasm for starting over at all until we entered Kenwood House property. I don't know what this has to do with starting over, but I didn't care when I first laid eyes on paintings by Turner. I've studied them all from Modigliani to Rembrandt to Da Vinci to Michael Angelo, but something in Turner's work speaks to me.
When I first laid eyes on The Fighting Temeraire on a field trip to the National Gallery in London a few years ago nothing else existed. It made me cry. It spoke to me at the time, and I knew despite my love for English Literature that I was in my field studying art. It's fascinating. Art is a concrete proof of our evolution in history as a society, as civilisations, as artists. I've loved every minute studying it.
Despite my brain working overtime, having fun analysing every piece of hard work in front of me, my mouth keeps silent. I'm happy Marcel doesn't force conversation, because we don't need to talk. All this art and history is speaking for us. It's beautiful. I wonder why I've never heard of this place before. If I could, I'd love to work here. I'd love to take care of these magnificent works of art.
My hands on a Rembrandt!? Could you imagine? Or better yet, a Turner!
I haven't really paid attention to the amount of time I have been standing, staring, admiring this painting. It takes Marcel's steps on the old creaking wooden floor to distract me, and drag my attention away from the subject of my attention.
I don't know why, but my heart at this instant feels full. It feels heavy, pounding in my chest, as my body feels lighter than feathers. My eyes crossing Marcel's makes me smile instantly. I'm happy right now. I realise how well he knows me, and how he's undeniably changed. I'm not emotionally ready to give him another chance, because I wouldn't survive being played again by him. But I won't lie, my heart is so happy right now, I'm being poisoned by memories of our best time together.
In my mind, we're back in my old flat in Manchester the first time our lips touched. The first time I've felt this infatuated by the touch of someone. We're back at the dungeon when I danced for him. We're back in Edinburgh in my hotel room, in the conference hall, stealing every moment we could together.
I turn my head away from him. I can't let these emotions get back to me. I'm not ready with the downs that come with the highs of what was our relationship. I walk to another old-smelling beautifully historic room to escape this moment of reverie.
The sound of my feet fade to be muffled by the carpet I step on before I lay my eyes on a self portrait. I could recognise this man and his techniques anywhere. I'm standing a couple of feet away from a Rembrandt. I feel overwhelmed by the history I have in front of me. This painting is maybe 350 years old.
Yet again, I feel a weight to my heart. I feel overwhelmed to be in the presence of works by the greatest painters of history. I feel home here. I haven't felt this happy in I don't know how long. This reminds me everything I've studied, and my six-step plan, and my goal to work at the Manchester Museum. How my life has changed since this time of my life...
"How I wish I knew everything that goes through your head." I hear from close behind me.
I don't have to look at him to know how close he is standing behind me. My body shivers, I can almost feel his heat radiating from his body to mine. Parts of me just want to lean back and have him embrace me, but I don't succumb.
I've always thought of my love for him as a strength. I never thought it could turn out to be my greatest weakness.
My eyes leave the Rembrandt to look at the man staring at me. I smile softly. His eyes run from my eye to the other, looking for a hint or an answer to his question. He is hopeful, and I am secretly too. He has been so respectful to me and my boundaries once I've set them. I don't know if we could ever get back to what we were, but right now, I'm hopeful.
With a contempt smile, and a full heart, I turn around to walk to yet another room, always feeling Marcel close behind.
It's when the tour is over, and I find myself in the gift shop, looking at Marcel buying little souvenirs that I realise what is happening. He has laid it all out there. He wants me. He loves me. Despite how many times I reject him, I yell at him, or even ignore him, he stays loyal to me. I've never had that in my life. I've always felt unworthy, unlovable. I've never had a man know me like Marcel does and make me this happy without never asking for anything in return.
Suddenly, I feel very dirty. I leave the room and Kenwood House entirely to walk in the immense and green park behind the house. I walk on the path of rocks leading to one of the multiple wooden benches looking over the green garden. I take a place and my sight gets lost on the view, my head revisiting old memories. Memories I had for the most part forgotten about, voluntarily shut out of my mind. I feel ashamed.
I know Marcel's hard past, I know about his father's death, Kate's manipulations and games with him, I know he was bullied young, I know he developed an anger problem growing older, I know his problems at work,... And yet, he doesn't know about my troublesome past. He doesn't know why I'm so reserved to trust him again, why it got so intense so fast between us. He wasn't the only one projecting his issues on the other in our relationship. If he loves me like he pretends he still does, he needs to know about what makes me so ugly...
I try my best to gather myself, my thoughts and my emotions, when he walks out of the mansion. I don't know why all these dark and disgusting memories come back to my head, maybe it's a way to self-sabotage and make him distance himself from me on his own will.
We've genuinely had a beautiful day. I haven't felt this happy in a long time, I don't know why I want to ruin it all right now.
I gather my knees to my chest in a fœtal position, cornered against the armrest. My heart is pounding in my chest. My nerves take over my body and a few tears leave my eyes. I can't believe how disturbed or manipulated I was to let Steeve do these things to me. I don't know why I didn't have such a problem with it when I was in a relationship with Marcel. Why hasn't this bothered me this much before?!
Marcel sees me after a moment and I quickly dry my tears. Instead of sitting on the other end of the bench, he sits right by me, keeping distance between us to a minimum. He senses the tension in the air immediately.
"Grace? Talk to me."
As usual, I keep quiet and look thoroughly at the park in front of us, as his eyes are never leaving me.
"You were happy. What has changed?" He states slowly.
I look at the bright now cloudy sky to fight the tears from falling, but despite my efforts, one slides on my cheek. I wipe it quickly.
"Is it something I've done?"
The pain in his voice breaks me inside. He hasn't done anything this time. On the contrary. I feel like since he is working on his issues and freeing himself of his demons, it's now mine that come to haunt me.
I shake my head softly. I feel him relax next to me. We were having such a nice time, why do I have to be like this? Why do I have to be negative when something good is happening?
"Come here." He whistles in a murmur, opening his arm in which I slide so perfectly in. He embraces my shoulders with both arms and rests his chin on the top of my head. "You can talk to me."
The weight of my heart lightens, and I lean more comfortably against him. For a long moment, I don't say a thing. I take in the scent of his perfume, count the beating of his heart, and try to find the strength to start over again like he wanted.
He is being very patient with me, maybe even more so than I was with him when we were together.
"So many memories have come up during our visit..." I finally respond to him, my voice muffled against the collar of his polo.
"What memories?" He asks, but he isn't pressuring me.
"Us, happy memories. My studies, my classes, my favourite artists. My relationship with Steeve..."
He keeps silent, and I decide to distance myself from him. He keeps an arm around me, his thumb caressing me through my shirt. This is all I need. He doesn't tense up next to me, he doesn't let out any sign of judgement, it feels easier to open up to him. He is only listening.
"It's hard to say..." I let out, searching my words and how to verbalise to him that he doesn't know me or what I've gone through. "If we're starting over, there are some things you need to know."
I take in a deep breath and gather my courage.
"When we were together, you had all these issues. I focused so much on opening you up, getting to know you, that I shut down a big part of my life that explains why I'm having so much trouble trusting you again even though you've shown me how much you've worked on yourself and how much you've changed. I'm so thankful for your love, I am, but I feel so unworthy of it when you don't know my issues and my own demons."
"Whatever it is, Grace, I'm here for you. It won't ever change how I feel about you." His first instinct is to reassure me, and it makes me let out a laugh.
I raise my head to look at him, to see the sincerity in his eyes. He is being the pillar I tried to be for him. Our roles are reversed now. How ironic!
"You don't understand..."
"Then, tell me what I don't understand. We've talked about this, today is all about the good, the bad, and the ugly."
"I wasn't planning on telling you this. I don't know why these memories came back to me today. I had forgotten all about them. I had shut them out."
I don't know why this is so hard to tell him. It's not like we were together and I was scared to lose him. I'm stuck with him for two months, it's not like he is here by choice. I shouldn't be scared of the outcome, because I shouldn't care about the way he will react. I don't love him the way I used to... Well...
"I won't make excuses for myself, before I met you, I was a mess that was blindly thinking she was happy in her routine. You know how toxic my relationship with Steeve was, but I was too fucking stupid to realise how wrong everything was between us... I didn't have any friends other than his own. And my brothers's hatred towards him made me alienate myself from my family. I had no notion of what was good or bad, and I had lost all notions of what a relationship between two people should be. I was completely submitted to him. I didn't feel worthy of his love. I mean, look at me, I'm Fat Carrot. Who could love me?! He reminded me everyday, that I should be lucky to have him. And I was. He was my everything. We were adults, we had a future, and I glorified that. So... Whenever he wanted me, he made me feel like the greatest thing in the world, to a point where having his friends's attention glorified me as well."
This far, Marcel had been silent, but he became stiff at my last sentence. He distances himself from me in a rush, making sense of what I'm saying.
"I can't believe this..."
I feel spoiled and completely disgusting having him react that way. It's the feeling I should have felt then, but I feel it exponentiate now.
"Often, he had blindfolded me. I didn't know he had brought his friends to watch us or to join. But I was in it so deep, even though I wasn't comfortable in this situation, I kept my mouth shut. I wasn't allowed to complain, because he would say that he was giving me a gift, that his love and his friends's desire were gift I should be happy about, because nobody else would ever want to fuck Fat Carrot."
I almost don't have the time to finish my sentence that Marcel rushes up and walks away from me. He has both hands on the back of his head when tears blind my sight of him walking away. I explode from inside, loud sobs leaving me. Now is the moment, I would have liked him to embrace me. But instead, he is as disgusted by me as I feel. I haven't even told him the details. The number of times I had been physically hurt, that I had been ripped open because I didn't want to be touched, and my resistance was arousing to Steeve and his friends. And in my head, even though I felt violated, it had brought pleasure and happiness to Steeve. So it was OK. But it wasn't. It really wasn't. And nobody should ever feel like it's OK to do something they don't feel at ease or don't feel OK doing.
I hear people chatting and laughing behind me, coming outside. I get up just as fast as Marcel and follow the dark path of rocks under the mature trees probably leading to the Heath. I don't care about leaving Marcel behind. I'm so fucking scared to love somebody so blindly to lose myself and any notions of what is good or bad. Because that's how it was with Marcel. I was intoxicated by his love. I would have done anything for him, and I did.
So right now, I make the vow to never, under any circumstance, give him another chance and fall back in love with him. In my head, we're over forever.
.