a little recap | the last two years 🥀
Lennon's life in Barton Point had been full of secrecy from the moment she stepped off the plane. A runaway bride, hiding from reality in a small town in Maine, thousands of miles away from the place she once called home. Finding refuge in her aunt's house, Lennon tried to rebuild her life, but found herself stumbling every so often, held back by the past she was trying her hardest to escape.
A little over a year after she moved to Barton Point (April 2023), Lennon received news that Archie, her ex-fiancé, was in a relationship. The news came in the form of a phone call from her parents telling her "not to worry" and that they'd "fixed the mess she made." After a lengthy and difficult phone call with her siblings, they explained that their parents had been telling people in their circle that Lennon and Archie had had a beautiful relationship, but realized they weren't well-suited for each other, so they got a divorce. Archie was away on business trips too much, and Lennon felt lonely. Archie wanted children, and Lennon did not. Any other question that came up was swiftly avoided or glossed over with another lie. "Where have Lennon and Archie been living this past year?" "Oh, all over the world. Canape?" "Didn't they talk about children during their 5-year relationship?" "I'm sure they did, but things change! They were children themselves when they got together. More wine?" Archie's dad had done his part as well, sending him on month-long business trips to sell the lie, to avoid the painful reality of having their son nearly left at the altar on his wedding day.
Up until that point, she hadn't allowed herself to fully process the heartbreak of leaving Archie behind, of her broken engagement, the wedding that could've been, because it came with a feeling she wasn't equipped to deal with: regret. She knew that marrying Archie would mean feeling suppressed and trapped for the rest of her life – not by him, never by him! – but by the world they lived in. Lennon didn't regret leaving, but she regretted leaving the way she did and breaking a very good man's heart in the process.
Then Archie came to visit around the time they would be celebrating their second wedding anniversary (February 2024). He begged her to come back to London with him; they could get married, or screw getting married, "let's just live together, Lemon." But Lennon had a life here now. She'd grown a garden at her aunt's place, built a greenhouse for her flowers, had a job she liked, and she was finding herself. Finally. She had friends and family– found family, but more than she'd ever had before. She begged him to stay, but he couldn't. So she gave him back her engagement ring - the one he'd insisted she keep - and this time, he took it back.
Lennon retreated deeper into herself when he left, into the shell of a girl she was back in London. She had no one to talk to about this, and there was only so much Laurie could do. She lived her life almost on autopilot for a couple of months, trapped by the lie she told to survive in Barton Point. Then one day, not more than 6 months later, she received a phone call that felt like a stab in the heart. Archie was engaged. She was gorgeous, and he looked happy, and Lennon didn't know what to do with herself.
Her garden died. She quit her job. She stopped leaving the house. Laurie was gone on a book tour, so the one person she could talk to wasn't there. He r siblings were busy with school– they couldn't just go to Maine. After avoiding phone calls and texts for a couple of weeks, her friends started to worry that something was wrong. But she felt a kindred spirit in Sean, so when he showed up at her door to ask if she was okay, she let him in. She told him everything; her real name, her story, about Archie... it was hard, but a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Sean's kindness and understanding allowed her to open up to more people. Not everyone took it well, but she was grateful they listened at all.
Lennon started going to therapy again. She went back to London for the first time this year to attend her sister's graduation. She mended relationships she'd broken when she disappeared, and she's doing a little better now. Even though people know she's Lennon Hawthorne and not Brooks, she's deciding to keep Brooks. It feels more true to who she really is than Hawthorne ever did.
annaxmalina
dededos
stormborns
