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CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: 25/??
WHICH TOM/CHARACTER: Actor Tom
OTHER CHARACTERS: Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott
PAIRING: Tom Hiddleston/OFC
GENRE: Hurt/Comfort, Drama, Romance, Teen Angst, Coming of age
FIC SUMMARY: Norah is a troubled teenager who is secretly and obsessively in love with her sister Sarah’s boyfriend, Tom. Sarah constantly worries about her younger sister, who is struggling with depression and anxiety, and one night, after a long evening at a charity event, Tom decides that he has had quite enough of Norah’s at times reckless and what could be considered rather selfish behaviour. He reveals a new side of himself as he desperately tries to help Norah break her vicious circle of self-destruction and open her eyes to the beautiful things in life. Could he be Norah’s knight in shining armor? Or will his efforts prove to be all in vain? Is his mere presence actually doing more harm than good? Could he ever love her the way she loves him?
WARNINGS: This story contains potentially triggering subjects such as Depression, Anxiety, Self-Harm, Self-Destruction, Eating Disorders, Talk About Suicide and Suicidal Ideation. It also deals with the subject of Grief and contains Previous Character Deaths. Other potentially upsetting subjects this story contains are Spanking Fantasies, Sexual Fantasies, Masturbation, Dirty Talk, Age Difference and Age Play.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
No Feeling is Final
Tom looked concernedly at Sarah as he entered the private hospital room and noticed that she had, yet again, fallen asleep with a textbook in her hands. Tom carefully took the book out of his sleeping girlfriend’s hands and sighed heavily as he read the title. It was yet another book on how to help teenagers and young adults who struggled with mental health problems. While it was kind of sweet, Tom found himself getting a bit frustrated with Sarah. After all, she was supposed to be resting, not problem-solving around her little sister’s mental health issues. At least, or hopefully, she seemed to have put her studies on hold for now.
It had all happened so quickly, and unexpectedly. Sarah had seemed to have a stubborn cold with a cough that just never seemed to stop for some time now. When she eventually agreed on seeking medical attention for it, it turned out that she had developed pneumonia. But that wasn’t the only problem. Her gradually increased hoarseness, stubborn cough and growing pain in the throat were not only the results of a common cold, but it was a whole lot worse than that. Sarah was very ill, but still in complete denial of it. It was as if she thought that if she only acted like it wasn’t real, that she didn’t have laryngeal cancer, just like her uncle had once had years earlier, then it would somehow magically just go away. She had refused to give Tom her blessing of telling Norah anything at all about it. Not even the pneumonia.
Tom took a seat in an armchair inside the room and proceeded to skim through the book before moving on to read the printed reports he had received from Willow’s Creek on Norah’s stay there this far. Maybe some kind of distraction from all those difficult medical oncology related linguistics would be good for him. After all, he did want to help Norah too. There wasn’t much he personally could do for Sarah at this point other than just being there for her and making sure she didn’t overstrain herself by doing too much or worrying too much about her little sister.
Tom felt horrible for not being able to just tell Norah the whole truth about Sarah’s current health condition, but the doctors in the hospital had convinced him that putting Sarah under as little pressure as possible at the moment was for the best. Also, Sarah had gotten him to swear not to, under any circumstances, tell Norah about the cancer in her throat until they knew more about her prognosis. If her uncle had been able to pull through it all at an older age than she was now, surely Sarah would be able to survive something like this too. At least that’s what Sarah kept telling herself and Tom.
Before leaving Willow’s Creek earlier that evening, Tom had spoken with Doctor Sharpe as Norah was fast asleep in her room, seemingly almost as exhausted as her older sister. Tom had been transparent with the psychiatrist in charge of Norah’s care about Sarah’s medical condition, that it appeared to be quite serious, and Doctor Sharpe had seemed very keen that the news should be delivered to Norah in a pain free way as possible, and not prematurely. It was imperative that she should be in a stable enough mindset to be able to process the news when she received them. Like so many others, Doctor Sharpe had been very determined that Norah wasn’t ready to receive such news yet, at least not until they knew more about the cancer, and the pneumonia. Right now, getting the pneumonia in check was a priority. They had decided that Tom should return during the weekend to visit Norah at Willow’s Creek. Depending on Sarah’s health status and other factors, Tom might take Norah on a leave some time soon to ensure her that she was still very much loved and prioritised by him and Sarah. That they truly hadn’t abandoned her, even if it understandably felt like it to her. While Norah had been sleeping, Tom had written her a letter by hand and left it on her desk before leaving the treatment facility to go back to Sarah.
Being exhausted, Norah slept soundly all through the night and groaned when she was woken up by the staff in the morning.
“Come, you’re going to see Doctor Sharpe now,” Max informed her and she frowned at him.
“What? Now?” Norah questioned and he nodded at her. “But I’m not dressed yet.”
“You don’t have to be. You’re having a medical checkup this morning and can get dressed and ready for the day afterwards,” Max told her.
“I really don’t want to,” Norah mumbled, but put her morning gown on over her pyjamas and slipped her feet into a pair of slippers.
“I know, but I’m glad you’re being compliant anyway,” Max commended her with a bright smile. “I’m proud of you, Norah. We all are. We can see that you’re trying really hard.”
Norah held back the strong urge to roll her eyes at Max’s words. She knew he wasn’t being sarcastic, but his enthusiasm was sometimes difficult to stand. Especially in the mornings. He was so annoying with his weird positivity at the same time as he was a bit of a… she wasn’t quite sure how to describe him actually. He was strange, and not entirely benevolent. He could be very strict in ways that didn’t really match with his otherwise rather upbeat and positive attitude.
After Norah had at least gotten to use the toilet, they went downstairs into the physical examination room where Doctor Sharpe was waiting for her. Norah felt uneasy and flinched when Max shut the door behind her from the outside to give them some privacy.
“Please, undress down to your underwear and let me check your weight,” Doctor Sharpe instructed her in a neutral voice. Tears instantly filled Norah’s eyes at his words and her hands were shivering as she reluctantly did as instructed. She knew from earlier experiences, she had tried so hard to forget about, that when it came to the treatment of eating disorders, asking a patient to undress for a weigh-in was not an uncommon request from health staff since they wanted to get an as accurate reading of the patient’s weight as possible.
Norah stepped up on the scale and frowned. Those numbers couldn’t possibly be right. She had been eating a lot and she had had quiet time after nearly every meal just like she had been instructed, but still, according to the numbers on the scale, she had lost a significant amount of weight in quite a short time span. Sure, she had thrown away some food, but not to the extent that it should make her lose this much weight in this little time.
“I haven’t had anything to drink since yesterday afternoon. I’m probably a bit dehydrated,” Norah said as she stepped back down from the scale, still covering her chest with her arms and trying not to shudder too much from the cold which the absence of clothes made her feel.
Doctor Sharpe poured her a glass of water and handed her her morning medications. Norah compliantly swallowed the pills and thirstily drank the water.
“You may put your pajamas back on and sit down in the test-taking chair over there,” Doctor Sharpe instructed her. He was very straight to the point and didn’t bother exchanging any pleasantries with her the way people usually would with phrases such as ‘good morning’ or ‘how are you doing?’ At least he should be asking her that question, right? Being her psychiatrist and all. He should be interested in how she was feeling. Shouldn’t he?
Norah sat down in the test-taking chair and allowed him to take blood samples from her while she was spacing out a bit. She still felt impossibly tired. It was as though she was just crashing, energywise. Having this many people around her on a daily basis was a great change from mostly being alone with Sarah and Tom. Of course it was taking a toll on her to have to socially interact to this extent all of a sudden and never know for sure for how long she would be left alone, even when spending time in her room.
“Have some juice and wait a moment before you stand up,” Doctor Sharpe instructed her, handing her a juice box with a straw in it. Norah reluctantly drank some of the juice.
“When is Tom coming back to see me?” Norah wondered.
“Tomorrow,” Doctor Sharpe replied.
“Will Sarah be coming too?” Norah asked him hopefully.
“I don’t think so,” Doctor Sharpe said.
“Why not?” Norah questioned with a frown. She had anticipated his answer, but didn’t understand why they had to be so damn secretive about it all. Surely she must have a right to know what was going on with her own sister.
“Your sister very much wants to see you, Norah, but right now, she’s not able to. She needs to get some proper rest and part of that entails not having to worry about you all of the time,” Doctor Sharpe told her. Norah tried not to feel hurt but his frankness. He certainly wasn’t treating her with great care, still he seemed to regard her as fragile. Was his intention to break her after all? Or was it to make her more resilient with some ridiculous tough love kind of concept? It sounded very unscientific in her ears. But still, she had asked him to treat her like a grown up rather than a child. Maybe this was just the way it was like to be grown up? Not being treated with uttermost care as if you couldn’t take hearing some uncomfortable truths.
“How ill is she? Is it something very serious?” Norah asked him. If she convinced him she could handle the truth, or hurtful words directed at her, maybe then she would also convince him to tell her the truth about what was going on with Sarah.
“Your sister’s condition doesn’t necessarily have to be very serious, Miss Collins. But right now, your sister needs a lot of rest and the last thing she needs is worrying about you,” Doctor Sharpe told her seriously.
Norah’s heart sank and she remembered that there had been an eerily similar way of reasoning behind the decision when her uncle finally agreed to let Sarah take over the custody of her some time after their parents had died. Their uncle had been quite ill by then and the last thing he needed then was a troublesome orphaned niece to worry about.
“Is it my fault she’s ill? Is it something related to all the stress I’ve caused her over the years?” Norah wondered, her voice serious as she looked into the doctor’s eyes.
“No, you have nothing to do with it,” Doctor Sharpe told her honestly. She felt a bit relieved, because she actually believed him. “Trust me on this, Miss Collins, you are in no way to blame for your sister’s current health condition. All I’m trying to say is that right now, she needs space to focus on her own treatment and the best way to ensure that she does that is to convince her that you are doing okay. I don’t mean that you should mask your feelings altogether, and you don’t have to pretend that you’re happy about being here. I just think it’s in your own and your sister’s best interests that you keep up a little bit of a façade for her for the time being. Do you understand my reasoning?”
Tom rang the number a secretary at Willow’s Creek had provided him with after he had voiced his concerns to her about Norah and how her new doctor was treating her. To his surprise, the secretary had provided him with a reference to one of Doctor Sharpe’s former patients who had volunteered to answer questions about her own treatment at Willow’s Creek under Doctor Sharpe’s care. The woman’s name was Josephine and she told Tom with a surprising openness about her time at Willow’s Creek. She said that she had loathed Doctor Sharpe in the beginning, but that she now was grateful for his strong headedness since that had been one of the things that had motivated her to keep herself in check after being discharged. According to Josephine, Doctor Sharpe was very dedicated to his cause and would sometimes check in on former attendants, herself included. She said that she in a sense regarded him as a father figure of sorts and that it had instilled a sense of safety in her otherwise chaotic life to know that at least he was a stable person for her to turn to when things got difficult and life felt overwhelming. She told Tom about how there was a booster programme available for former attendants of Willow’s Creek to partake in if they felt like they needed the extra help to get their lives back on track again. Josephine had attended it once and she recalled how relief had just washed over her the moment she had been greeted by Doctor Sharpe, because she knew from previous experiences that he would be honest and clear with her about what he expected of her, and most importantly, he wouldn’t give up on her, like so many other people had done over the years. He had a way of bringing out a sense of determination in Josephine to become an active agent in her own life, rather than just passively letting life pass her by and being overtaken by a sense of hopelessness and apathy.
Tom thanked Josephine for taking her time to speak with him and he actually felt a bit lighter at heart when he hung up the phone. Judging by her testimony, Doctor Sharpe may not have been the easiest person to like or get along with at all times, but he appeared to be trustworthy and dedicated to his cause in ways most people weren’t. It seemed to be more than just a job to him, but rather a mission to truly help people in the long run from not getting stuck in a view of themselves as useless or completely powerless in their own lives. If this was all true, it surely sounded like Norah was in good hands, even if it was difficult for her to be at Willow’s Creek and for Tom and Sarah to let go for a bit and allow them to help Norah in ways they simply weren’t qualified or had the resources to do.
Tom went back inside the hospital and took an elevator up to Sarah’s room there. She was reading through the reports on Norah’s progress at Willow’s Creek and had tears in her eyes.
“Are you okay?” Tom wondered with a slight frown. Sarah nodded at him and smiled as he sat down in a chair next to her bed. She pointed at the riding teacher’s words on how well Norah had been doing in the few lessons she’d had with him. Tom smiled. “You’re proud of her,” he said and Sarah nodded agreeingly.
Tom felt a little bit guilty about having agreed with Doctor Sharpe to only let Sarah take part of the more positive notes on how Norah was really doing at Willow’s Creek. That the printed copy of the records Sarah received would one-sidedly focus on the good things and Norah’s progress, completely excluding her misdemeanours and setbacks. It was for the best, at least for now, Tom reminded himself, that Sarah didn’t know about all the difficulties Norah was experiencing in adapting to her new environment. How she had apparently failed to eat properly when given the chance to step up and prove to everyone that she was ready to independently manage her food intake, and as a consequence of her failure to do so, she had exhausted herself and lost more weight than was deemed acceptable for a patient with a history of eating disorders in such a short time span. There really was no wonder why Norah had been so tired and emotionally unstable after the riding lesson that Tom had picked her up from when he had been there to visit her. And there really was no wonder that she had been exhausted enough to fall asleep at dinner with him and Doctor Sharpe.
Norah spent most of her Friday in her room, in her bed with a staff member keeping watch on her. She had been ordered bed rest and the only thing she was allowed to do at this point was school work, read a book or rest. She was bored and couldn’t really focus on doing any of the things she was allowed to do, so she settled for sleeping most of the day in between meals.
In the evening, after she had finished her dinner, there was a knock on her bedroom door. The staff member in the room with her opened the door and Norah tried not to smile surprisedly when she saw who it was. It was Doctor Darius Fereshteh, the only one at her last meeting with her opencare psychiatrist who had spoken up for her and insisted that it was important that she shouldn’t be forced to go to Willow’s Creek, but was old enough to make her own decisions in regards to that. At the same time, he had admitted to advocating for her going to the treatment facility in the first place, only that he wanted it to be of her own accord and not a forced admission as it unfortunately had more or less become, even if the paperwork categorised it as voluntary since Sarah, as her legal guardian, had agreed to the admission.
“Good evening, Norah. May I come inside for a moment?” Darius asked her.
“Okay,” Norah replied. Darius stepped inside, showed the staff member a piece of paper along with his ID before the staff member left the room. “What was that?” Norah asked Darius amusedly.
“Doctor Sharpe had to write a note to verify that I’m allowed to visit you without any staff members present. It’s because I’m not family and you apparently currently have some restrictions on you,” Darius explained.
“A note?” Norah asked him with raised eyebrows and he smiled as he handed over the paper to her to let her see it. The paper was of good quality and even had a letterhead to it with the logo for Willow’s Creek. “So they even have their own letterhead and Doctor Sharpe writes neat notes in calligraphy. This feels so bizarre,” she commented amusedly.
“Well, he is one of the original founders of this place and has put his heart and soul into making it successful,” Darius told her. “He was the one who pushed for it to be made available to not only rich people, but to those who fulfilled the criterions and was deemed good candidates to actually benefit from their treatment here and turn their lives around.”
“How did you even find out about this place?” Norah asked him curiously. “I’ve never heard of it before, and I don’t think Sarah had either.”
“My wife is one of Willow’s Creek’s former attendees and she really did turn her life around with the help she received here. Even after she was discharged, Doctor Sharpe helped her and followed up on how she was doing and put in a good word for her to help her get into the education at university she wanted to pursue,” Darius explained to her. “That’s why I thought it might be a good idea for you to give this place a chance as well. The people financing and being in charge of this place are very well respected and have quite some influence in the academic world.”
“Oh,” Norah uttered and looked pensive for a moment. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons Sarah agreed on making me come here even if I didn’t want to. She really wants me to get a proper education and have a good life,” she speculated and sighed heavily.
“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing,” Darius said and sat down in the seat next to her bed. “Why is that?” he wondered.
“I don’t even want to be alive, so why would my educational level even matter?” Norah questioned and dejectedly laid back down in her bed.
“Is that how you feel all the time or only sometimes?” Darius wondered.
“Not all of the time,” Norah replied. “Not when I’m with James or when I’m on a horseback or when I see Sarah happy or when I see Tom happy.”
“I see,” Darius said and looked thoughtfully at her. “I’m really sorry you didn’t get to come here on your own terms. I didn’t mean for anyone to make you come here before you felt ready to do so yourself.”
“I know. It wasn’t your fault,” Norah assured him. “Thank you for caring enough to come visit me. Are you here with your wife? Or on other business?”
“No, I actually came here to see you,” Darius said. “I am, as you already know, very interested in this place, but right now, I’m more interested in how you’re doing here. You can be completely honest with me, Norah. I want an honest answer, okay? How are you doing?”
“Today has been very difficult for me, but other than that, I think I’m doing pretty okay,” Norah replied, then her eyes filled with tears. “I just really worry about Sarah. I miss her so much and I would die if something happened to her. They won’t tell me what’s going on with Sarah, but I know that she’s not well and needs to rest. That’s why she can’t come and see me or even speak with me on the phone.”
“It’s very understandable that you feel that way,” Darius said and gave her a sympathetic look. “I did actually meet with Sarah earlier today, Norah. A very short visit. She’s okay, but she is very tired. She wanted me to check in on you and tell you that she’s really proud of you. She’s especially happy about the fact that you seem to enjoy horseback riding too. Apparently she loved doing that many years ago.”
“Yeah, she did,” Norah realised. “She was really good at it too, but after she got injured at a competition once, our mother forbade her from riding anymore because it was too dangerous. Sarah got a concussion and Mom made a huge deal out of it, because her talented daughter couldn’t possibly risk compromising her excellent cognitive abilities by getting head injuries from riding horses.” Norah sighed heavily. “Our mother never really cared about me the way she cared about Sarah. When I got a concussion from falling off a roof, Mom said I was an idiot for getting up on the roof in the first place. She never called Sarah an idiot for getting up on a horse. Instead, Mom got all melodramatic and said that it was her fault Sarah got injured, because she hadn’t realised just how dangerous horseback riding could be. When I got hurt, Mom never blamed herself for not paying enough attention to me and what I was doing, she just said that it was typical of me to complicate things by being so careless and irresponsible all the time. I always felt like an inconvenience when I wanted my mother’s attention, or when something happened. I sometimes wonder if she secretly wished I was never born.”
“I’m sorry to hear that your mother treated you differently from how she treated Sarah. It sounds like she assigned you a role as a troubled child, rather than actually acting emotionally responsibly enough herself to treat you with the respect you deserved,” Darius reflected and gave Norah a compassionate look. “That wasn’t fair of her, and it’s okay for you to be upset about that. You have every right to be.”
“But maybe I didn’t deserve her respect or attention,” Norah replied. “Maybe she didn’t want me because there was something fundamentally wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with you, Norah,” Darius assured her with a gentle smile. “Sometimes parents treat their children differently. My mother, for an instance, is a whole lot harder on me than she is on my older sister. My mother was furious when she found out I decided to specialise in psychiatry instead of picking some more prestigious medical field. She said it was a complete waste of all my years of education.”
“That must have been hurtful. Why did you decide to specialise in psychiatry of all medical fields?” Norah wondered.
“Because I believe I can do a good job at it,” Darius told her. “I really want to help people who are struggling with their mental health, because they’re just as important and valuable as any other patient groups. I hate the stigma surrounding some patient groups and I want to fight it. I want to stand up for something I believe in and I insist on being proud of myself for doing it, no matter what my mother says. I might never get her approval or validation, but I won’t let that hold me back. I won’t let that get in the way of me doing something I find to be truly meaningful. Things need to feel meaningful to me, and I can’t think of doing anything more meaningful than helping others find meaning in their own lives.”
“You’re pretty cool,” Norah uttered and they both laughed at her comment. “I mean it. I’m really glad that you found something meaningful and the strength to pursue a career in it, in spite of your choices being challenged by someone who’s important to you. And when it comes to the way you look at people with mental health problems, I’m truly glad that at least you can see it that way. Most of the time I just feel like a burden that’s unworthy of help from the health care system,” Norah replied and looked thoughtfully at Darius for a moment. There was something about him that made her feel like she could trust him. “I really don’t like Doctor Sharpe, you know. Can’t you work here instead of him? You look relatively young, but yet, you seem a whole lot wiser than he does.”
“I haven’t finished my specialisation training yet, Norah. And I couldn’t possibly take his spot unless it was offered to me,” Darius told her with a gentle smile. “But if I ever get the opportunity to work here, I will gladly do so.”
“If Doctor Sharpe was to be mysteriously assassinated or just disappear or something along those lines, could you take over for him then?” Norah asked him with a smile.
“Probably not,” Darius said, returning the smile.
“How unfortunate,” Norah told him and sighed heavily.
“Is Doctor Sharpe really that bad?” Darius wondered.
“I think so,” Norah replied and shrugged at him. “I don’t know. I don’t really like how he treats people and how entitled he is.”
“Could you give me an example of how he treats people?” Darius wondered.
Norah shook her head in response as her eyes filled with tears. “Please, don’t tell him I said anything bad about him. I don’t want him to be angry with me.”
“I won’t,” Darius assured her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s understandable that you feel sad and confused right now, Norah. But it won’t always feel like this. Okay?”
“Okay,” Norah mumbled in response, leaning her head against his hand, finding some comfort in his presence.
Before leaving, Darius handed Norah a piece of paper with his number on it and told her she could contact him if anything happened or if she just needed someone to talk to about things.
“Can you please just tell me about what’s going on with Sarah?” Norah asked Tom straightforwardly the moment they had seated themselves in Doctor Sharpe’s office.
“Okay,” Tom said and took Norah’s hand in his. “Sarah has pneumonia, but she’s getting care for it in the hospital right now.” At least he had received Sarah’s permission of telling Norah that much, which was at least a small progress from keeping Norah completely in the dark.
“And is she responding well to the treatment?” Norah wondered.
“Her pneumonia is quite severe, Norah. But she is responding to treatment,” Tom replied.
“So she’s not responding as well to the treatment as she should be doing. Have I interpreted your evasive response correctly?” Norah asked him brittly, pulling her hand out of his grip.
“Umm, Norah, I…” Tom said but trailed off as Doctor Sharpe raised his hand to silence him.
“Miss Collins. Do you think it’s in your own best interest to know exactly what your sister is currently struggling with?” Doctor Sharpe asked her and she frowned at him.
“Of course I want to know what’s going on with my sister!” Norah told him frustratedly.
“And do you want your sister to know about everything going on with you right now? Like when you pulled the steering wheel?” Doctor Sharpe wondered.
“No! Of course not! That would only freak her out,” Norah replied. “But that’s not the same thing as her being ill! Because she can’t help it, whereas I can control my actions.”
“Even if you know it would freak her out, why do you think it’s such a bad thing if she found out about it?” Doctor Sharpe asked her. He completely ignored the point she was trying to make. Maybe it wasn’t as obvious as it had seemed in her own mind. Maybe the differences between hers and Sarath’s situations weren’t as great as she told herself they were.
“Because I don’t want her to worry about me. Obviously,” Norah said dejectedly. “I want her to focus on getting well and have all the energy she can get to do whatever it is she and her body need to do to get her well again.”
“And don’t you think your sister wants the exact same thing for you?” Doctor Sharpe questioned. “Why should she be kept in the dark in order to be protected, whereas you shouldn’t? Isn’t it only fair that the weights are placed equally on the scale?”
“Not if she’s dying,” Norah replied and frowned at him. “Not if it’s a life or death situation.”
“You and Tom both could have died when you pulled the steering wheel the other day,” Doctor Sharpe remarked. “You do realise that, don’t you? It was a life or death situation that you caused, because you’re obviously not as mentally stable as you seem to think you are.”
“I know it was dangerous, but can you please stop bringing it up?” Norah requested irritably.
“Can you please respect the boundaries Tom and your sister are trying to set for you right now by limiting your insight into her illness? You do realise that they’re doing it in order for you to better focus on your own recovery, right?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“This isn’t fair!” Norah said angrily as her eyes filled up with tears. She stood up from her seat and ran out from the office, slamming the door shut behind her. She ran out through the main entrance of the building and towards the woods.
Norah ran as fast as she could muster, but eventually fell over a tree-root and that was all it took for Tom to catch up on the head start she’d had on him. She cried hard as Tom knelt down on the frozen ground next to her to check on her injuries. Her jogging pants had a hole around her right knee and she was bleeding from the scrape wound her fall had caused. Tom pulled out a paper tissue from his pocket and pressed it against the wound. Norah gasped in surprise at the sharp pain in her knee.
“I’m sorry,” Tom told her and gave her an anxious look as he carefully decreased the amount of pressure he placed on the wound.
“Let me do it myself,” Norah muttered and took over holding the paper tissue against her knee. Tom looked into her eyes, his own blue eyes becoming a bit glazy. He took out another tissue and carefully wiped the tears from her flustered cheeks. Norah instinctively moved into his gentle touch and he cupped her cheek with his hand. “You know I really love you, don’t you?” she asked him. She wasn’t sure why she brought it up right there and then, but she could tell by the serious look in Tom’s eyes that he knew what kind of love she meant.
“I really love you too, Norah,” Tom said earnestly and then quickly pulled his hand away from her as though he had burnt himself. He seemed startled, possibly by his own words and just how easily they had slipped out of his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled and lowered his gaze to the ground. “I’m so sorry, Norah. This is so inappropriate of me. I shouldn’t…”
“You shouldn’t what?” Norah wondered.
“Norah, you’re only seventeen,” Tom told her and looked regretfully at her. “It would be horribly wrong of me to encourage… this,” he said and motioned between them. “To encourage us, because I’m twice your age, and I really love Sarah. I really do, but I love you too. But you’re too young, Norah. Much too young. I didn’t know it was possible to love two people at the same time like this, and maybe it’s more of a matter of the taboo of it all that makes it all the more exciting and the attraction I feel towards you so unfairly and unreasonably strong.”
Norah stared at him in shock for a moment. He had actual feelings for her? Romantic feelings? A physical attraction? A strong one at that, according to his own words. She felt an intense lust she knew was completely inappropriate as she looked at him wantingly.
“Can I kiss you? Just this once?” Norah asked him and looked pleadingly at him.
“Just this once and then you’ll move on, right?” Tom wondered and she nodded eagerly in response. She couldn’t believe this. They stood up from the ground, Tom helping her get up.
Norah let go of the paper tissue and placed her hands on each side of Tom’s face, pulling him closer towards her. He looked expectantly at her for a moment before she gave into the urge to finally kiss him. Their lips collided and to her surprise their tongues, seemingly by a force of their own, met. It wasn’t just a chaste, innocent kiss like she had originally intended, but they actually proceeded to make out with such passion that she felt overcome with sexual arousal. Curruptuous lust. Her heart was racing and she couldn’t resist the urge to impulsively touch Tom over his jeans, cupping his hardened penis and gasping slightly as she felt a firm slap land across her buttocks.
“No,” Tom told her firmly and gave her a warning look. The assertiveness in his voice and the stern look on his face turned her on even more.
“I want you,” Norah panted, but reluctantly moved her hand away from Tom’s private area.
“I can’t have sex with you, Norah,” Tom said seriously, but his eyes were darkened by sexual arousal. “I really want to, but I can’t. You understand that, right?”
“I understand. But… Can you at least touch me?” Norah wondered and guided his hand towards her own private area between her legs. “Just this once? Please?”
“Only on top of your clothes,” Tom negotiated and touched her between her legs with two layers of clothes in between his hand and her vagina. Norah moaned and moved into his touch, encouraging it. Tom had a sinister smile on his face that she associated with his characterisation of Loki, turning her on even more. He rubbed her clit with his thumb and pushed the fabric of her panties and sweatpants a fair bit inside of her, feeling her warm, welcoming wetness soak through them.
“Fuck,” Norah uttered. “Please, don’t stop. Give me an orgasm. Please.”
“One orgasm and then you’ll move on, right?” Tom asked her, his own voice a bit darkened with arousal.
“Absolutely,” Norah replied and began to kiss him again. Tom continued to rub her clit with his thumb more intensely and pushed three fingers further into her, still with the warm, wet fabric in between. Tom used his other hand to roughly massage and firmly slap her buttocks, alternating between them.
“You’re a very naughty girl, do you realise that, Norah? Just how naughty you are?” Tom asked her after breaking their kiss, his voice slightly darker than usual and again, he had that sinister smirk on his face. “You’re an incredibly audacious, naughty little minx, seducing men twice your age,” he whispered huskily into her ear, his breath hot against it as he intensified his rubbing of her clit and massaged and slapped her ass even harder than before. Norah gasped at his words and his touch and moaned as she was brought over the edge, into an intense orgasm. Tom looked attentively at Norah as he continued to touch her, reading her facial expression and her body language, making sure to let her ride out her orgasm before he moved his hands away from her, where they should be. Not touching her. She was absolutely beautiful and there was something very intimately vulnerable about the expression she made during her orgasm; there was a mixture of ecstacy and what seemed like a kind of sadness. Her mouth was slightly open as she panted heavily and her eyes filled with tears.
“Fuck,” Norah uttered and her legs felt a bit weak as her intense orgasm finally came to an end. Shame overtook her and she abashedly turned away from Tom, wiping the tears from her eyes and adjusting her sweatpants and panties. She felt the wet fabric growing cold and instead of increasing her arousal, that wetness now felt like a shameful proof of just how selfish she was. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled to Tom. Maybe to herself as well, because she had let herself down by giving into those stupid urges she had desperately wanted to just go away. She could tell right away that this hadn’t cured her of her painful attraction towards Tom. This wasn’t something that would magically enable her to just let go of her yearning for him and move on, like he had requested her to.
“I’m sorry too, Norah. I-” Tom began to say.
“This never happened,” Norah quickly interrupted him and turned around to give him a serious look. “This never happened. We have to agree on that. Just like the incident with the steering wheel, this never happened, Tom. Okay? And no one will ever have to find out about this. Most certainly not Doctor Sharpe. Can we agree on that?”
“Okay,” Tom replied and handed her a new paper tissue. “For your knee,” he said. Norah nodded appreciatively at him and pressed the clean paper against her bleeding knee as she began to walk back towards the houses at Willow’s Creek with Tom behind her.
“Are you still upset?” Doctor Sharpe asked Norah as he met them by the entrance to the woods. Norah sighed heavily and lowered her gaze to the ground in shame as his words reminded her about how Sarah was struggling, possibly for her life, while Norah was trying to steal her boyfriend. While Norah actually managed to get her ill sister’s boyfriend to pleasure her.
The wetness in her panties clinging to her skin made her hate herself. She thought she could even smell the scent of her sinful actions as she stood there in front of the psychiatrist. Maybe he could feel it too? Norah clutched her stomach and stepped aside to lean over a fence and vomit on the other side of it. The overwhelming guilt of what she had just done, what she so deviously had convinced Tom to do for her, made her nauseous.
“You need to make sure to keep your meals down, Miss Collins,” Doctor Sharpe reminded her and handed her a napkin to wipe her mouth with. He noticed the crumbled red and white tissue in her other hand and looked down at her knee. “So hurt yourself after all,” he stated with a heavy sigh and placed a hand on Norah’s shoulder. She flinched away from him. Had he felt the scent of her arousal? Did he know what had just happened? How unclean she was?
“I wish I would have fallen and broken my neck to the extent that I died immediately,” Norah muttered and rested her forehead against the cold metal fence.
“Let’s get you inside so you don’t get yourself ill. It’s cold and your immune system is probably not as good as we would like it to be,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “We need to clean that wound properly so you don’t get an infection.”
“I don’t care if I get ill or if my wound gets infected,” Norah said in a distant voice. “In fact, I wish I got ill enough to die from it.” Doctor Sharpe frowned slightly at her words and glanced over at Tom, who was lighting up a cigarette at the edge of the woods. Tom didn’t look particularly cheerful either.
“Have I missed something?” Doctor Sharpe asked Norah and she looked flustered.
“No, not really,” she replied brittly and hastily headed back to the house.
“Wait for us inside,” Doctor Sharpe called after her. Norah turned around towards him, grimaced slightly and made a rude gesture at him by extending her middle finger. The doctor raised an eyebrow at her blatantly rude defiant behaviour, but decided to have a chat with Tom instead of giving her a piece of his mind about her problematic attitude.
“I hope you don’t mind that I smoke here,” Tom said as Doctor Sharpe walked up to him.
“It’s fine, for as long as you don’t leave your cigarette butt on the ground,” Doctor Sharpe assured him and motioned to the cigarette trash can placed only a few metres from where they were standing. He gave Tom a pensive look. “Did you and Norah talk some more just now in the woods?”
“A bit, but not about Sarah,” Tom said. “But I do think Norah understands why Sarah doesn’t want her to know everything about her current health status. I think you might have gotten through to her with your way of explaining it to her.”
“I should hope so. It’s really important that she understands the reasons, even if she’s unwilling to accept them,” Doctor Sharpe replied. “She’s quite a troubled young woman, and at times a bit misguided, but I very much believe that she has a lot of potential and that this is the perfect place for her right now to discover and begin to fulfill that potential. She’s really bright and appears to be thriving with her school work in certain subjects. Hopefully that will give her more confidence and help her realise that she does have a lot to offer this world.”
“I would be very happy if she realised that. As far as I know, Norah has always felt inferior to Sarah in pretty much every aspect of life,” Tom told him and sighed sadly.
“Could you elaborate on that? Inferior in what ways and why?” Doctor Sharpe wondered.
“Norah loves Sarah with all of her heart, but I believe their sibling rivalry makes things a bit more complicated than they have to be. It’s very difficult for Norah to handle feeling conflicted about things, and she often feels conflicted about Sarah. She loves her, but at the same time, I think she envies her,” Tom said. “My understanding, which has at least partly been acknowledged by Sarah too, is that their mother seemed to favour Sarah in relation to Norah. Their mother would commend Sarah’s achievements, but show little interest in Norah’s achievements and interests. It’s a difficult subject for both of them to talk about. Sarah has confirmed that Norah’s feeling of never being good enough for their mother was called for, because they were in fact treated differently and Norah was unfairly compared to her eight years older sister by their mother. Sarah seemed to feel very guilty about that, even though their mother’s actions weren’t really her fault.”
“What’s your impression of what their father was like with them?” Doctor Sharpe wondered.
“Their father never treated Norah badly or unfairly the way their mother did,” Tom replied. “In fact, according to Sarah, their father absolutely adored Norah. But he had his problems and would not always be around during their childhood. He could be away for long periods of time, putting all the responsibility on the mother to keep their family together and keep up appearances to the rest of the world, since that was apparently important to her. The mother was a high-achieving woman and much too proud to ask anyone for help. Sarah believes that since Norah reminds her a lot about their father, that might be a reason why their mother took out her frustration on Norah when she was in fact disappointed in their father.”
“I can see why that would make her feel confused and conflicted about things,” Doctor Sharpe replied and looked pensive for a moment. “She lacks self-confidence, but I can tell that at times she is vastly aware of her own intelligence and the capacity she holds. I’m trying to help her fully realise and embrace that about herself, instead of her being so ambivalent about how she feels about herself, and everyone else too for that matter. In her case, it appears that the ambivalence is much too strong to be functional. Instead, it makes her life a whole lot more difficult than it has to be.”
“I agree with you on that,” Tom said and put out his cigarette against the ground before demonstratively placing the cigarette butt in the outdoor cigarette trash can. “Like you said yourself, sometimes I’m pretty certain that Norah is quite aware that she’s not unintelligent at all, but she would of course never admit to it. It’s like having self-confidence frightens her for some reason. She’s very ambiguous.”
“Precisely,” Doctor Sharpe agreed as they walked back towards the house together. “She is very ambiguous,” he smiled slightly to himself as he paused outside the door. “Sometimes I do catch a glimpse of that youthful overconfidence in her, when she thinks she’s got it all figured out. It may be overconfidence, but it’s perfectly normal and dare I say healthy, in moderate amounts of course, for a young person who reflects a lot about their own impressions of the world they live in and the people in it. She does not know what she wants yet. She has to find the courage within herself to try and fail at things, not hold herself back from even trying because she’s too afraid of failure.”
Doctor Sharpe opened the door and they went inside the house together, heading to his office when they couldn’t find Norah anywhere.
“I’m aware that my methods may be regarded as rather unorthodox at times, but I have nothing but good intentions for the attendants,” Doctor Sharpe told Tom. “I want to lure out some of that healthy overconfidence in Norah, because sometimes that’s exactly what it takes in order for a person to truly discover themself, the world, and their place in it.”
“I see,” Tom said with a knowing smile, thinking back at his own youth and that precise overconfidence in himself that Doctor Sharpe was now describing to him. At some point, he had almost thought he knew quite a lot about the world and life and love, but time and experience had very much humbled him. The more he learned, the less he knew. The more information he had, the more aware he became of just how little knowledge he truly possessed in relation to how much knowledge there really was out there. He had this great appetite for knowledge and strived to know everything, which of course was an impossible and unobtainable ambition.
Over the last couple of months, Tom had truly come to realise that he didn’t know what true love was as well as he had once thought he did. He had been so naive when he met Sarah, thinking she was the one, that everything would go more smoothly than it had. That they were the perfect match. But Norah’s existence complicated things. Tom found himself captivated by her, especially by the way he never quite knew what she was thinking about. She was unpredictable and inconsistent in a way that kept him on his toes and occupied his mind more than he wanted to admit, even to himself. He struggled to understand her, yet she seemed to think herself so simple-minded. That was far from the truth. She puzzled him and mesmerised him and charmed him. She lured him in and then pushed him away, playing with him. With his emotions. With his heart. She was ambiguous, yet easy to love, but also easy to get frustrated with, because what did she truly want from him? Frankly, he was probably little more to her than just a teenage fantasy. An unobtainable subject of her affection that was never supposed to actually grant her what she thought was her innermost desire. His responsibility in this entire situation had been to keep himself in check, set boundaries for her as well as for himself and not give in to his own lustful impulses. Surely, he must have ruined that precious fantasy for her now with his idiotic actions. He had ruined a fantasy that was never supposed to come true and had thereby broken her trust and wrecked the house of cards she had built as a representation of what the world and life in it was truly like.
“I’ve really messed things up,” Tom mumbled to himself.
“In what sense?” Doctor Sharpe wondered and motioned for Tom to sit down. They both resumed their earlier seats in the psychiatrist’s office.
“I believe my existence in Norah’s life confuses her and complicates things,” Tom told him cryptically and rubbed his tired eyes, giving an exasperated expression.
“I suspect her presence in your life does the very same thing to you,” Doctor Sharpe said insightfully. Tom frowned slightly at his words. Had he seen them in the woods? Did he know what he had just done with Norah, or rather, what he had done to Norah. How he had ruined her trust and view of the world in just a few minutes. She didn’t truly want what she thought she wanted from him. He was sure of it. And now that he had given her a taste of it, she must hate him for it. For ruining the fantasy. For ruining her trust.
“I just want her to be alright,” Tom told Doctor Sharpe dejectedly. “Will you make sure she will be alright, Doctor Sharpe?”
“I will do everything in my power to make sure she’s alright,” Doctor Sharpe assured him. He studied Tom for a moment before speaking again. “Maybe you should leave now. For some reason, Norah has decided not to join us even though I specifically instructed her to wait for us inside. I think it might be wise to respect the boundary she’s trying to set by doing this.”
“But what if she wants me to check in on her? Or what if she’s ambiguous about it all? Shouldn’t I at least go find her to let her know that I’m leaving?” Tom questioned.
“I would advise against it, but it’s your choice,” Doctor Sharpe said.
“Why would you advise against it?” Tom wondered.
“Because if she wants people to speak with her, she should say so instead of running off and hoping they will follow her. And if she’s ambiguous, well, then she should simply make up her mind. If even she herself doesn’t know what she wants, then how could possibly anyone else know that?” Doctor Sharpe reasoned. “She needs to learn to communicate her needs better if she wants people to meet her needs and respect them. She can’t keep people guessing. She needs to make decisions and become more assertive. She needs to try and have things go wrong every now and then to experience life and grow from these experiences.”
“But-” Tom began to object, but was interrupted by the doctor.
“I’m saying this with her best interests at heart,” Doctor Sharpe said. “You can’t keep protecting her from experiencing life, to keep her in this counterproductive injurious protective bubble, because if you do, how would she possibly be able to learn to survive the hardships of real life? It’s in her best interests that you leave now without telling her goodbye as a consequence of her running away from you. If she acted more maturely about all this, she would be here right now, like I asked her to. She decided not to and that’s on her. I will tell her that I sent you off, so don’t worry about how she perceives you. I don’t mind playing the villain for as long as it’s for a good cause.”
“Are you sure?” Tom wondered, still hesitant about it all. “I really want to make sure that she’s okay.”
“Then you’re doing her a disfavour,” Doctor Sharpe told him. “Trust me, Tom. She needs some of those experiences, especially in regards to you. You can’t keep being her saviour if you want her to grow independent. This is an opportunity for you to try to change the dynamics between yourself and Norah. Your present dynamics are holding her back. By being her constant overprotective saviour you’re doing her a great disfavour. This is an opportunity for you to treat her as a grownup rather than a child. To make her your equal and not someone you take care of. Your presently harmful dynamics turns her into a spoiled child and keeps her that way when she instead should be busy growing up and finding herself. You need to let go of her in order for her to even be able to grow up, Tom. I assure you that this is for her own good. This is in her best interest. Do you truly have her best interests at heart?”
“Of course I do,” Tom replied without hesitation.
“Then leave, now, without saying goodbye to her,” Doctor Sharpe told him.
Norah didn’t bother to look up from her book as there was a knock on the door to her room briefly before it opened.
“I told you to wait for us inside, not run and hide in your room,” Doctor Sharpe told her. She stubbornly ignored him. “Tom has left, just so you know.”
Norah rolled her eyes to herself. She already knew that Tom had left without even bothering to tell her goodbye. She had watched him from an upstairs window as he had gone to the parking lot and hesitated by his car. She had observed him as he lit up a cigarette for a quick smoke by the car, before he threw the glowing cigarette butt on the ground without even bothering to put it out before he finally got into the car and drove off. Just like that. After what had happened between the two of them, he had chosen to drive off and leave her behind. Norah didn’t really know how to feel about that. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe it wasn’t. It was probably a bit of both. Tom had asked her to promise him that she would move on. Perhaps he had been truly earnest in that request. Therefore, she should try to move on, even if it felt as though her world was crumbling around her. Moving on. That’s what she was trying to do by reading the book she now held in her hands. A book that happened to be a gift from Tom, Norah realised and frowned slightly to herself. He was truly everywhere. She threw the book across the room and into the wall, momentarily forgetting about Doctor Sharpe’s presence in her room.
“Interesting,” Doctor Sharpe noted as he went to pick the book up from the floor. “Is that an expression of anger towards Tom, me, yourself, Sarah or any combination of those options?” he mused and opened the book. He raised an eyebrow at the words on the first page inside the book, scribbled down with a lead pencil so they could easily be removed without leaving too many traces. ‘Happy birthday Norah. Love, Tom.’ It was a copy of Hamlet and further down on the page there was a quote from the play scribbled down in the same handwriting: ‘But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.’
Norah stood up from the bed and tried to take the book back from the annoying psychiatrist. She regretted throwing it so carelessly like that, because she did love it. She loved opening up a random page in it and just read it. Doctor Sharpe held the book out of her reach.
“Since you decided to throw it like that, rather than being mature about the situation and actually speak with me, I’m going to confiscate this book for now,” Doctor Sharpe informed her. Norah stared at him in disbelief and he just responded by looking back at her impassively. He was cold-hearted, Norah thought to herself as a sudden wave of intense fury took over. She slapped him across the face. Hard. Harder than intended, she realised when she felt the burning sensation in the palm of her hand and heard the resounding slap breaking the tense silence in the room for a brief moment. Then it fell silent again. An uneasy silence as the doctor studied her, seemingly very surprisingly unfazed by what she had just done.
“You’re not mute, Miss Collins. I strongly suggest you try communicating with me right now by using your words, not your hands,” Doctor Sharpe eventually told her calmly, with a look as cold as ice in his dark eyes.
Norah felt an unpleasurable shiver run down her spine as she forced herself to not divert her gaze from the doctor. She didn’t want to submit to him, but at the same time, she didn’t want to act childish about the whole thing.
“I hate you, but I still shouldn’t have hit you,” Norah eventually said, her voice and gaze surprisingly steady. There was a ghost of a smile at Doctor Sharpe’s lips upon hearing her words. She was still defiant, but that wasn’t all bad since she now spoke to him with an assertiveness he hadn’t witnessed in her before. He regarded it as a sign of her growing more resilient and determined about what she wanted and how she wanted to present herself. A sign of her becoming an individual, testing boundaries and making herself accessible to experience failure and disappointment.
“No, you really shouldn’t have hit me, Miss Collins,” Doctor Sharpe agreed. “Is there anything else you would like to tell me before I leave?”
“I’m not really sorry about it, but I still shouldn’t have done it,” Norah told him. It was difficult for Doctor Sharpe not to smile at her honest words, but he managed to keep his face neutral as he looked thoughtfully at her.
“Grab whatever you need for your schoolwork, head downstairs and join the others who have gotten detention this weekend in the small classroom,” Doctor Sharpe instructed her.
Norah frowned, but did as told. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do at the moment anyway. Besides, she knew James would be there. And Will, the overqualified, slightly bored teacher. No, professor, actually. He was a professor with connections to some universities across Great Britain. She liked him, and she liked the fact that he had seemed earnest when telling her that she had potential to do well academically.
…
That night between Saturday and Sunday, there was a full moon. Therefore James and Norah snuck out in the middle of that night to partake in James’s tradition, or ritual, of moonbathing. Norah wasn’t sure if he actually had a tradition like that before they met, or if he just made it up as some kind of joke. It would be just like him. It didn’t really matter whether or not it was originally a joke, though. Because they did it and it felt meaningful in its simplicity.
But of course, they should have picked their location more carefully. The swamp had been okay to swim in, its icy cold water very invigorating. After the initial shock of how cold the water was, Norah experienced something she would describe as a natural high. Her heart was beating fast and she smiled at James in the moonlight before splashing some water at him. Swimming in the water was fine, but getting out of the body of water in the middle of the woods proved to be more problematic than anticipated. In spite of it being cold outside, the swamp was still unreliable and its bottom muddy, causing their feet to sink down into it as they tried to climb out of the water.
“Fuck! I’m stuck! I’m stuck!” Norah uttered with a hint of panic, causing James to turn around and walk back towards her in order to help her. He tried to dig into the mud with his hands, but ended up having his own feeting sink deeper into the mud as a result of his movements. He ended up being stuck too.
“Well, I suppose this wasn’t the best of locations for moonbathing,” James concluded after establishing that he was indeed stuck to the point that it was better to stand still than continuing struggling to get loose.
“Agreed. I suppose this is how we die,” Norah said and couldn’t fail to see the irony of the situation. They had both seriously considered suicide more than once in their lives and now, they found themselves at risk dying from a most ridiculous accident when acting like reckless teenagers who wanted to get the most out of their lives.
“It isn’t until when we finally start living that we become fully aware of our mortality,” James replied and they both burst into laughter.
“We still have our watches on,” Norah realised. “Which do you prefer, dying from freezing to death or from embarrassment?”
“I suppose the latter, but it’s only by a hair,” James told her. “Should we push the buttons at the same time?”
“Sure. On the count of three,” Norah smiled. “One, two, three.”
They simultaneously pushed the emergency buttons on their surveillance watches and saw how the watches began to blink red and heard a regular, slightly unsynced beeping noise come from them with a few seconds in between.
James and Norah were both shuddering as the greatly annoyed night staff members from theirs as well as a few of the neighbouring houses at Willow’s Creek finally managed to get them out of the swamp.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Clay asked them for what must have been the fifth time, since they had failed to produce any comprehensible responses up until then. They had just begun laughing and produced a few words each that were difficult to discern due to the fact that they were both shuddering so violently from the cold. But now the two teenagers were indoors, safe and sound. They had showered, gotten into warm, dry clothes and had been served a cup of tea each in the downstairs dining room, so as to not disturb the other attendees in the middle of the night.
“We just didn’t reconnoiter the location properly beforehand. It was an honest mistake and could honestly happen to anyone,” James replied coyly.
“This is not a laughing matter, James. Surely, you must understand that,” Clay told him and sighed frustratedly when the teenage boy just smiled cheekily in response.
Norah was being examined by the relatively young night nurse who tried, but didn’t quite succeed with hiding her amusement at their antics.
“It appears that you’re okay, at least from what I can tell,” the night nurse concluded and went on to examine James.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself, Norah?” Clay asked, turning to the teenage girl he had only just begun to get to know a little better. He had not really expected this from her, but then again, he didn’t really know her all that much since she had only quite recently arrived at the treatment facility. It was not exactly an uncommon occurrence for attendees to test the boundaries at the beginning of their stay at the facility, but this kind of riskful testing was a bit more than he was used to seeing.
“Judgement, I have none,” Norah told him humorously.
“Obviously not,” Clay muttered and gave yet another frustrated sigh.
Following morning, Norah was genuinely surprised to be roughly woken up by having someone pour a bucket of ice cold water over her. She crawled out of bed, from underneath the soaked blankets and proceeded to glare at the person responsible for this rather unmild treatment of her. She saw Doctor Sharpe hand over an empty bucket to Max who looked surprisedly at the psychiatrist. This appeared not to be a common occurrence to judge by Max’s reaction to it.
“Good morning,” Max told Norah and forced a stiff smile before urgently leaving the room with a rather puzzled expression.
“I’m pretty sure this is not by any means an okay way to treat your patients, or attendees, or whatever the hell you prefer to call it,” Norah told Doctor Sharpe irritably.
“Fair enough. I’m not sorry I did it, but I still shouldn’t have done it,” Doctor Sharpe said with the ghost of a smile. “How do you suggest I should go about this particular situation then?” he proceeded to ask and observed her carefully as she walked towards him, rounding the foot of the bed.
“Make love, not war?” Norah suggested irritably and tightly wrapped her arms around him to make sure he got as much cold water on his clothes as possible before she let him go and took a step back to inspect her handiwork. To some satisfaction the psychiatrist’s white dress shirt became quite sufficiently wet, making its fabric a bit sheer, thus showing off a surprisingly lean and well trained torso that reminded her of Tom’s. Damn it. He truly was everywhere.
“You love rather aggressively,” Doctor Sharpe commented, yet again looking annoyingly unfazed by her provocative action.
“You poured fucking ice water over me when I was asleep! How bloody unprofessional can a person be? And not to mention reckless! Can’t things like that actually be dangerous? Can’t you die from shock? Or rather from a cardiac arrest brought on by a state of shock?” Norah questioned, trying to not let her voice be affected by her body shivering from the cold.
“Well, the risk I took just now was about as calculated as the risk you and your friend decided to take in the middle of the night,” Doctor Sharpe retorted. “In fact, dare I say, my risk-taking just now with you was considerably more calculated than yours, seeing as there is in fact a heart starter in the other room in case you would suffer cardiac arrest.”
“I’m really cold right now and want to take a warm shower,” Norah informed him and proceeded to gather clean clothes and a towel from her closet. “This is not really a state I want to be in if you actually want to have a serious discussion with me.”
“Very well, I’ll see you later then,” Doctor Sharpe said and they exited her room together.
“Do you work all the time or something? It’s Sunday, right? Don’t you ever have time off?” Norah questioned with a frown.
“I live nearby and was informed about your little stunt so I decided to come in and get some work done,” Doctor Sharpe replied.
“This could have waited until tomorrow. You don’t really have much of a meaningful life outside of work, do you?” Norah asked him.
“You didn’t quite hit the nail on the head there if your intention was to hurt my feelings,” Doctor Sharpe told her before leaving her side by the row of small rooms with showers, a sink and just about enough space to be able to get dressed inside of them.
Just as Norah was about to enter one of the shower rooms, James came out from another. He looked her up and down and then smiled smugly at her.
“So you too, huh?” James commented and they shared amused looks before he walked off towards his room.
Norah sighed heavily when Max led her to Doctor Sharpe’s office later that day. His strategy appeared to be to question her and James separately about the incident seeing as she hadn’t seen James since breakfast and it was now after lunch.
“Where is James? Have you perchance slain him?” Norah asked Doctor Sharpe irritably, causing Max to look surprisedly at her.
“It would be quite illegal and unethical to slay anyone, much less one of the attendees under my care, so the answer to your rather childish question is obviously no, I have not slain him,” Doctor Sharpe replied and motioned for Norah to have a seat.
“I want to see your books,” Norah said nonchalantly and sauntered over to the ladder, climbing up to the library loft. Her eyes widened slightly as she saw the remarkable and rather impressive collection of books he had there. Sure, many of them were quite old, as if they had been inherited, bought at a flea market or from an antiquarian bookshop, but the shelves were full of classics as well as writers she had never heard of before and whose names she couldn’t even pronounce. “Why aren’t those books made available to everyone? It’s not really fair of you to keep a collection such as this all to yourself while we only have access to very few books to borrow, most of which being nothing but mediocre whodunits.”
“Do you find anything interesting up there?” Doctor Sharpe asked her, still surprisingly unfazed by her insubordination, considering how he had been treating her prior to this. It threw her a bit off guard, but she decided to just go with it, and enjoy his passivity while it lasted. She truly hated his strictness and his confusing, rather unorthodox methods that made her feel like a lab rat.
Doctor Sharpe was unpredictable in a way that made her feel uneasy. But he had apparently been doing this for many years and had, according to Stephen’s research, actually helped quite a few people get their lives on track. That information, if anything, had weirded her out when she and James had used one of the school computers to communicate with Stephen. James had been quite surprised by it as well and questioned if those people were even real. But some of them had however claimed that Doctor Sharpe’s approach had become easier for them to understand with time, or in some cases in retrospect, after they had left Willow’s Creek. Now that Norah came to think of it, perhaps Doctor Sharpe had gradually become more sufferable with time as you got to know him better. She was uncertain about that. Most of the time, she loathed him, but sometimes he was bearable to be around and could even have a sense of humour that she could appreciate.
“Yeah,” Norah replied as she studied the titles, letting her gaze sweep over the many books. She grabbed a copy of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, remembering that Tom had mentioned it to her once. And there he was again, Tom. Everywhere she looked she would see something that she could somehow relate to him. But he wasn’t the writer of that particular play. He didn’t own it. He had merely mentioned it, saying he believed she would like it. That was all there was to it. And he was usually right when it came to those things; figuring out what she would like when it came to most things. Sarah had agreed that Norah would probably like that particular play. Yes. Sarah might even have been the one to bring it up. That was it. This was Sarah’s recommendation to her, not Tom’s. She missed Sarah. Sarah would always be the most important person in Norah’s life, not Tom. He was just Sarah’s boyfriend. Her sister’s ridiculously wonderful, amiable and dorky boyfriend. Beautiful, intelligent and attractive.
Norah sat down on the floor in the loft space and pressed the book against her chest as tears ran down her face. She felt like a truly dreadful person. Surely, she must have been the worst sister to ever walk the Earth. She had kissed Tom while Sarah was very ill. She had even made out with him and touched him inappropriately and convinced him to touch her in a most shameful way. Norah had initiated something with Tom that should never ever take place between an ill woman’s boyfriend and the woman in question’s little sister.
Norah flinched as she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up at Doctor Sharpe. She hadn’t heard him climb the ladder and walk up to her.
“You’ll survive this,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “It might feel like what you’re experiencing right now will never pass, but I assure you, it will. Just give it some time. Setbacks are necessary in order to grow more resilient for future challenges in life. You will feel like this again, and that too will pass. It’s just the way it is. You know that, but you’re still trying to avoid it at all cost rather than just accepting the fact that it is what it is. This is absolutely necessary for you to go through. It’s life, Norah. It’s a necessary part of living and actually feeling alive and not all numb inside.”
“But it’s not fair!” Norah shouted at him and sobbed. “It’s not fucking fair! I hate it so much! I don’t want to feel and I don’t want to experience setbacks, so you should either lobotomise me or just kill me! I don’t care how you do it, just put me out of my misery once and for all!”
“No,” Doctor Sharpe said calmly, observing her carefully. “I won’t put you out of your misery. You need to experience the bad times too, Norah. You know that as well as I do. It’s all part of the human experience, of truly being alive.”
“Well, then I suppose I don’t want to be alive. It’s just not for me,” Norah replied.
“‘Let everything happen to you; beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.’ Those are words I tell myself whenever I feel the way you do now. We need both beauty and terror in our lives,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “You are going to be okay, Norah.”
“Because no feeling is final,” Norah mumbled and frowned at him. “Whose words are that?”
“It’s from a poem called Go to the Limits of your Longing by Rainer Maria Rilke,” Doctor Sharpe told her.
“I’ve never heard of him or the poem before,” Norah said quietly.
“I can write it down for you, if you like,” Doctor Sharpe offered.
“Okay,” Norah agreed.
“Would you like to borrow that book to read or were you planning on keeping it hostage until I returned your book to you?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“They’re not necessarily mutually exclusive, are they?” Norah asked him, the hint of a smile playing at her lips.
It was all so strange; that place and that psychiatrist, but Norah realised that for the moment being she didn’t actually mind it as much as she thought she would.
CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: 24/??
WHICH TOM/CHARACTER: Actor Tom
OTHER CHARACTERS: Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott
PAIRING: Tom Hiddleston/OFC
GENRE: Hurt/Comfort, Drama, Romance, Teen Angst, Coming of age
FIC SUMMARY: Norah is a troubled teenager who is secretly and obsessively in love with her sister Sarah’s boyfriend, Tom. Sarah constantly worries about her younger sister, who is struggling with depression and anxiety, and one night, after a long evening at a charity event, Tom decides that he has had quite enough of Norah’s at times reckless and what could be considered rather selfish behaviour. He reveals a new side of himself as he desperately tries to help Norah break her vicious circle of self-destruction and open her eyes to the beautiful things in life. Could he be Norah’s knight in shining armor? Or will his efforts prove to be all in vain? Is his mere presence actually doing more harm than good? Could he ever love her the way she loves him?
WARNINGS: This story contains potentially triggering subjects such as Depression, Anxiety, Self-Harm, Self-Destruction, Eating Disorders, Talk About Suicide and Suicidal Ideation. It also deals with the subject of Grief and contains Previous Character Deaths. Other potentially upsetting subjects this story contains are Spanking Fantasies, Sexual Fantasies, Masturbation, Dirty Talk, Age Difference and Age Play.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
"She seems to regress a little around you"
The next day at breakfast, James tried his best to make Norah feel better about what had happened the previous night. Lexi was no longer seated next to her, but had changed seats with another patient, clearly wanting to avoid Norah after what happened. The girl who now sat next to her was called Jasmine, and she was one of the girls who had gone horseback riding with them earlier that week.
“I was such an idiot, James,” Norah told him dejectedly. “I was so naive to think that Sarah would actually help me, but I didn’t even manage to get a hold of her. According to Tom, at first she was in the shower, and then she was suddenly sleeping. I think he was lying and he was very bad at it. It was so strange to me that he made it so painfully clear that whatever I had to say, it simply wasn’t worthy of Sarah’s attention,” she explained with a puzzled look on her face. “Something’s really off here and at home it seems, and I’ve just made everything so much worse for myself. Lexi is also not even talking to me anymore. I think she might have gotten into trouble for letting me borrow her phone to make that call. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“That does sound really off,” James agreed and frowned slightly. “Your sister seemed so invested in your well-being when I met her, and that was only a few days ago. Something must have happened or maybe she’s just ill in some way, like the flu and Tom only wants to protect her from getting stressed out.”
“Maybe it’s something more serious than the flu,” Norah realised and suddenly stood up from her seat, leaving her half-finished breakfast behind.
“Where are you going?” James asked her and stood up too, considering whether or not he should go with her.
“I just need to do something. Stay here,” Norah told him and walked towards the staircase leading to the ground floor.
“Norah, what are you doing here?” Samantha, one of her contact persons asked her with a slight frown. “You don’t have any meetings scheduled right now, have you?”
“I need to talk to the psychiatrist. I can’t remember her name, but it’s the woman who’s in charge of the Wooden Anemone,” Norah told her. “How do I get in touch with her?”
“Doctor Wright is no longer in charge of the Wooden Anemone. She’s now in charge of a different section here at Willow’s Creek,” Samantha explained.
“And who’s the new sheriff in town?” Norah asked with a sigh, although she was pretty certain that she already knew the answer.
“He’s standing right behind you,” Samantha told her with a gentle smile.
Norah slowly turned around to look at the very psychiatrist she had grown to hate so much in less than twenty four hours.
“Did you want to speak to me about something, Miss Collins?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“So you didn’t just make up that part about taking over this section,” Norah established.
“Of course not, why would I lie about something like that?” Doctor Sharpe questioned. “Come,” he then added and placed a hand on her shoulder, steering her towards an office down the hall. The doctors, nurses, psychologists and other professions working at Willow’s Creek had their offices in another building that was within walking distance from the houses the patients were staying in.
“Whose office is this?” Norah questioned, noting that the nameplate outside the door was blank.
“I’m intending to use it as my office while I’m in charge of this section. I thought it might give me more insight into what my troubled little patients really are up to,” Doctor Sharpe told her and shut the door behind them as Norah curiously looked around the high ceilinged room she had never been to before. It was very big for just one doctor’s office and it even had a library loft. She walked up to the ladder leading up to the loft and paused right next to it, staring up at all the books that had been neatly placed in their shelves up there.
“This must be the extension part of the building,” Norah concluded as she thought about the layout of the building.
“Indeed it is,” Doctor Sharpe confirmed.
“For how long have you been planning on taking over this section?” Norah wondered.
“A while,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “Not that it’s any of your business, young lady.”
“Okay,” Norah said and walked up towards one of the windows, looking out through it. She frowned and turned around the room, realising that he had windows on three sides facing the immediate surroundings of the building. Which meant that when Doctor Sharpe was in his office, he would be able to more or less spy on his patients and the staff. “It appears that you have built yourself a surveillance room of sorts, rather than an ordinary office. Are you a control freak?”
“What did you want to talk to me about, Miss Collins?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“I want you to tell me the truth about what’s going on with my sister,” Norah told him. “I have every right to know if she’s ill or if there’s something else going on with her.”
“It’s not really my place to tell you about such things unless I’m asked to do so by the person it concerns. Tom will be here tomorrow night to see you. He will tell you everything he thinks you need to know right now,” Doctor Sharpe informed her. “It’s important that you don’t lose focus on fulfilling your treatment goals during your stay here, Miss Collins.”
“If my sister is in fact seriously ill, to hell with my treatment here! I want to be with her and support her if that’s what’s going on!” Norah told him angrily.
“In your current mental state, you would probably do more harm than good by insisting on being in her presence,” Doctor Sharpe told her firmly. “I’m not saying that your sister is ill, so don’t jump to any conclusions. I’m simply presenting you with a different perspective. If your sister were to be seriously ill and hasn’t asked you to come there to see her, do you really think she would want you to be there to see it? Don’t you think that she would want to protect you from that? Just like she has spent the last five or six years of her life protecting you from all kinds of things? Don’t you think it’s about time to finally relieve her of that burden and let us care for and protect you, until you’ve matured enough to look after yourself?” he asked her. Norah felt overwhelmed by the guilt his words awoke within her and sank down on the floor, covering her face with her hands to hide the tears. “If your sister is going through a hard time right now, the best thing you can do right now is to let her know that you will be okay and that she doesn’t have to worry about you. That would be the right thing to do, rather than burdening her with problems that she’s not currently in a position to solve anyway. Do you understand what I’m saying, Miss Collins?”
“You’re really heartless to take advantage of such a sensitive situation as a means to fulfil your own goals,” Norah told him angrily.
“And what exactly are my goals, Miss Collins?” Doctor Sharpe questioned.
“To get the results you want, no matter what. You want me to keep up appearances in a way that will have people convinced that this place actually helps people,” Norah told him.
“This place does actually help people, Miss Collins. That’s the goal,” Doctor Sharpe informed her. “I want you to be successful for your own sake, because I want to help you. Me and my colleagues didn’t come up with this concept for profit, but to help people like yourself get their lives back on track. We don’t specifically target wealthy people, but people of all socioeconomic classes come here for help and we don’t make them pay any fees they can’t possibly afford,” he said. “I’m not the villain you try so hard to make me out to be.”
“Every villain is a hero in their own mind,” Norah told him and her words nearly elicited a smile from the man. “Of course you don’t think you’re a bad person, but you’ve shown me your true colours. I know who you really are and it’s certainly not some charitable samaritan.”
“You can think whatever you want about me, Miss Collins, but don’t let that get in the way of your own success,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “I suggest you take my advice and act more civilised from now on, because keeping up this kind of behaviour is really not working in your favour.”
“I’m not acting that uncivilised,” Norah argued and stood up from the floor. “I’m understandably upset about not being told whether my sister is seriously ill or not.”
“You speak more confidently now than you did yesterday,” Doctor Sharpe remarked. “But we still have a lot more work ahead of us. Tell me something, Miss Collins. Do you prefer the carrot or the stick?”
“Would anyone not pick the carrot?” Norah questioned, frowning at his words.
“If you really prefer rewards to punishments, I suggest you step up and start behaving properly,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “I don’t care about what methods I need to use in order to get you where I want you. If punishment proves to be a more efficient method for you than rewards, then that’s what I’m going to use.”
“You haven’t really given me a chance to prove that rewards are more efficient on me than punishments,” Norah told him.
“How about I offer you a carrot then, and we’ll see how that works out?” Doctor Sharpe suggested.
“What do you want me to do and what would I get in return?” Norah asked him.
“If you behave perfectly for the rest of today and tomorrow, I will allow you and your friend James to go horseback riding tomorrow afternoon,” Doctor Sharpe told her. Norah looked at him with genuine surprise.
“Are you serious?” she asked him confusedly to which he nodded. “And what exactly does behaving perfectly entail in this case?”
“That you follow your treatment plan, adhere to the rules, do your chores and whatever else is expected of you. I also expect you not to be rude or talk back to others, not the staff or your peers. Just be well-behaved and you’ll get what you want,” Doctor Sharpe informed her.
“Okay,” Norah agreed, trying to hold back a smile to hide her eagerness. “I suppose I should get going then. Thank you, Doctor Sharpe,” she said and left his office, running back upstairs to the second floor.
“What’s going on?” James asked her with a puzzled expression as she hugged him.
“We might be able to go horseback riding tomorrow afternoon after all,” Norah told him excitedly. “I made a deal with Doctor Sharpe.”
“You made a deal with Doctor Sharpe?” James asked confusedly once they broke the hug. “What was the deal?”
“Compliance,” Norah said with a shrug. “If I do everything they want me to do here without talking back or questioning it today and tomorrow, we will be able to spend more time with the horses together.”
“Did he really say that I could go as well?” James asked her confusedly. “But I took for granted that he will remove that privilege during my disciplinary meeting with him today.”
“He said you could come. So if I were you, I would probably just answer his questions and do whatever he asks of you during the meeting. So, no more sassiness for now, James,” Norah told him mirthfully.
“You’re the sassy one!” James laughed and glanced down at his digital watch. “I need to get going so I don’t get late for the meeting.”
“Just go already then,” Norah told him smilingly as she pushed him playfully towards the stairs. James flashed her a smile over his shoulder before descending the stairs.
“You were right,” James whispered to Norah as he took the seat next to hers in one of the rooms on the ground floor in which they usually occupied themselves with schoolwork. Those rooms were mostly used during weekdays, but would be opened at weekends for those who needed to catch up on their studies. Each patient had their personal study plan that they were expected to follow closely.
“What did he tell you?” Norah whispered back as she kept looking down at the schoolwork she was doing. Mathematics had never been her strongest subject, so she was stuck.
“We can talk about it later,” James told her and quickly opened his own schoolbook once he noticed that the teacher, who was actually a professor and highly overqualified for his job of teaching pupils their age at Willow’s Creek, approached them.
“How’s it going, Norah?” the teacher asked her and looked down on her calculations.
“I’m too dumb, Will. I can’t do this,” Norah told him dejectedly. She was glad that he was a relaxed enough teacher, well, professor even, to not insist on using any titles but instead asked his students to address him with his first name.
“You’re most certainly not dumb, Norah. So don’t even try using that as an excuse not to put in an effort, because I’m simply not buying that,” Will told her and sat down next to her. “You’re doing extraordinarily well in the other subjects we have been working with this far, so it’s not your intelligence that’s the problem here.”
“What about dyscalculia then?” Norah suggested almost hopefully, eliciting a smile from the tall lanky man in his mid thirties.
“That won’t work either,” Will replied. “Because you’re not struggling that much with arithmetics. You’re not even bad at mathematics, Norah. From what I’ve seen, you’re just having a really hard time staying focused when it comes to subjects and tasks that you find less interesting and more difficult.”
“Can’t we just skip the boring stuff and focus on the fun then?” Norah suggested.
“Nope,” Will told her with a gentle smile and glanced over at James who seemed to solve his own maths problems with ease. “James, could you try to help Norah with her problem? Explain to her how you would go about solving it. I would like to hear how you think when you solve a problem, because you seem to do a lot of the calculations in your head instead of writing them down as you’re supposed to be doing.”
James looked down in Norah’s calculus book and smiled at the angry marks she had made with her pen to cross over her mistakes as she had gotten frustrated with herself and her own inability to solve the task.
“It’s not funny, James,” Norah told him.
“I never said it was,” James told her. “I can see where you went wrong,” he said and pointed with his own pen at the different numbers on the page. He explained to her what she had been doing wrong and then explained how she was supposed to have done it to solve the problem. He then made up a similar problem for her to solve to see if she understood the mechanics behind the calculation at hand.
“Like this?” Norah asked him as she tried to solve his made up task.
“Yeah, just like that,” James confirmed with a smile and went back to resume his own tasks.
“Well done Norah and you too James,” Will told them encouragingly and walked up to look over James’s shoulder. “But you still need to write out your calculations, James,” he reminded the student, who groaned in response.
Norah had moved on to the next task and seemed to have finally understood the principles of how to solve it, so Will moved on to check on the other students’ progress with their studies.
The day went by faster than usual now that Norah found herself to be in a relatively good mood. Inspired by James’s ability to put on a mask and act mirthful even when his heart was breaking had inspired her to try to do the same, because there really was no point in being miserable about something she had no power to change anyway.
When it was time for James and Norah to cook together, they asked the chef, who was supervising them and preparing the non-vegetarian option and sides that day, if they could listen to music as they cooked. The chef was a bald, muscular man with a lot of tattoos who didn’t seem to take himself too seriously. He rode his motorbike to work everyday and had a pretty relaxed approach to teaching the youngsters about how to properly prepare nutritious meals.
“Sure,” he granted with a charitable smile and allowed them to use a music streaming service on his phone and queue up some songs they wanted to hear.
Norah smiled amusedly as she hurried over to aid James by the stove after he had clearly put on too much heat and risked ruining the bechamel sauce for the lasagna.
“You can’t use that much heat, you’ll ruin the sauce,” Norah nagged him as she quickly pulled away the saucepan from the stove and poured some more milk into the angrily bubbling mixture to cool it down. “Hopefully you didn’t burn too much of it. If we don’t stir it in the bottom, we might be able to use it without getting burnt parts in it. Don’t touch the sauce anymore, James.”
“It was taking ages to warm up and absolutely nothing happened until I turned up the heat,” James defended himself.
“You need to be more patient when it comes to some things, James,” the chef told him amusedly. “Norah seems to know what she’s doing. You should follow her lead.”
“Maybe I should just stay out of the way? I’m a bit of a kitchen disaster,” James said.
“Which is why you need to practise,” the chef told him. “Come, help me cut the vegetables for the salad. And don’t even think about stabbing the vegetables,” he warned him.
“Why would anyone stab vegetables?” Norah questioned amusedly as she proceeded to apply the different layers on the vegetarian lasagna.
“The first time I handed James a knife, he proceeded to stab the perfectly good Christmas ham we were preparing. It wasn’t pretty and it was much harder to make sure the meat didn’t go dry because of all the holes it had in it,” the chef explained, shaking his head disapprovingly at James at the memory of his misendeavor.
“Did you wrap aluminium foil around it to preserve some of the liquid?” Norah asked the chef who smiled warmly at her.
“Of course I did,” he told her. “How come you knew that? I thought you were a vegetarian.”
“I’m a pescetarian, so I eat fish whenever my sister forces me to do it,” Norah told him. “My sister’s boyfriend Tom is pretty keen when it comes to cooking and he insists on teaching me new things in the kitchen. About how to cook meat as well. I guess he wants to prepare me for the future, but he also likes talking a lot about things he knows a lot about or is interested in. He could easily have been a teacher if he wasn’t an actor.”
“It’s always nice with people who know their way around the kitchen,” the chef told her with a smile and then grinned teasingly at James. “People tend to find that attractive in a partner,” he told James and smiled cheekily at him.
“I’m good at other things,” James defended himself as the chef adjusted his grip on the knife handle and instructed him on how to cut a bell pepper. Norah watched the technique and gasped.
“That’s the coolest life hack I’ve ever seen!” Norah exclaimed and then covered her mouth with her hand, feeling embarrassed about her spontaneous outburst.
“You see?” the chef asked James and laughed heartily.
They continued with preparing the food and once the lasagnas were in the oven, the chef frowned at the song that came on.
“Who picked this song?” he asked them amusedly.
“I’ve never heard it before,” James replied and looked intriguingly at Norah.
“Well, it’s a song my dad used to put on whenever we had someone from the upper class over for dinner,” Norah explained. “It makes me smile, even though it’s a bit silly. I think it’s kind of clever once you really listen to the lyrics. They’re making fun of rich people by very deliberately being cheeky and provocative.”
“True,” the chef agreed. “So your dad put this on for his fancy guests, huh?”
“Yeah, mom absolutely hated it, but he was very insistent,” Norah said with a smile.
“That’s ballsy,” James commented with a mischievous grin and laughed as he listened to the lyrics.
‘Some balls are held for charity
And some for fancy dress
But when they’re held for pleasure
They’re the balls that I like best
My balls are always bouncing
To the left and to the right
It’s my belief that my big balls
Should be held every night’
“Wow, I really didn’t know you were so dirty minded, Norah,” James teased her amusedly. “You seemed so prude until you called that girl a cocksucking slut the other day, and now this.”
“She called another girl what?!” the chef asked surprisedly.
“It’s not really my proudest moment and I apologised for it,” Norah said sheepishly.
“And the girl punched her in the face for it,” James added amusedly and inspected Norah’s left cheek bone. “Where’s the bruise? Did you cover it up with makeup?”
“Of course I did. I don’t want to go around looking like a fighter when I’m about as far from it as you can get,” Norah replied as she watched James finish up making the salad.
The day ended on a positive note after Norah, James, Mandy, Jasmine and another patient called Paul had played a board game together in the big common room.
“You seem a lot calmer today, Norah,” Clay commented and walked up to her as she stayed behind to make sure everything belonging to the board game got back into its box. Norah flinched and instinctively backed away from him as she recalled how he had wrestled her down on the floor the night before. “You don’t need to be scared of me, Norah. I’m sorry I startled you and I’m sorry about what happened last night. I didn’t enjoy doing it.”
“You didn’t have to hold me down like that,” Norah told him as tears filled her eyes. She had felt so utterly powerless and humiliated as she had been forced to lay face down on the floor like that. “I hated it so much.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Clay told her. “It wasn’t personal, Norah. I was just trying to do my job. Let’s try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“How, though?” Norah asked him. “I wasn’t even violent or anything. I just didn’t want to let go of the phone and then you grabbed me and didn’t let me go.”
“I would have let you go if you had just calmed down and not tried to hurt me,” Clay told her.
“But it took too long,” Norah argued. “If you had let me go right away, I wouldn’t have panicked and tried to break loose.”
“I needed time to assess the situation, Norah. How would I know whether or not you were going to go after my colleague after you just fought with her for the phone?” Clay asked her. “I don’t think you realise just how violent and out of control you appeared to be at that moment, because if you did, I think you would understand why I decided to hold onto you for a bit longer.”
Norah frowned. “I wouldn’t have gone after her.”
“What would you have done then?” Clay asked her.
“Probably run off to my room,” Norah told him with a shrug. “I’m not sure. But that’s what I usually do in confrontational situations or when I get overwhelmed. I withdraw and avoid people as much as possible.”
“Okay, that’s very good for us to know,” Clay told her. “If something similar happens again, would you prefer being taken to your room to talk, if that’s deemed appropriate?”
“Yeah, I suppose that would be preferable to what happened last night,” Norah replied. “I really think what happened was completely uncalled for.”
“I understand that and I appreciate you telling me that, Norah,” Clay told her. “If you want to avoid having that happen again in the future, you will need to calm yourself down and communicate with us. Do you understand? If you get upset and someone holds you to prevent you from being violent and you don’t like it, try to calm yourself down and ask them if you can go to your room or somewhere else where you can calm down. Let them know that you need space and assure them that you won’t become more violent if they let you go. It’s really important that you communicate about what you need, Norah. Even if it’s difficult.”
“Would you have listened to me if I had done that?” Norah questioned.
“I’m pretty sure I would,” Clay told her. “That’s why having conversations like this after something like that happens is so important. We get to know each other a little bit better and what you’re saying right now helps me and the other staff members get a better idea on how to better approach you in the future when you get upset. Different people react differently.”
“I doubt that anyone would appreciate being held down and being drugged like I was,” Norah told him with a frown.
“Some people actually don’t find it as bad as you did,” Clay told her. “And there’s really no right and wrong when it comes to feelings.”
“I don’t understand why anyone would be okay with that,” Norah said with a frown.
“Some people feel safe when they’re being held and feel like they’ve lost control over themselves. Some people who can get really violent and have a history of physically hurting others when they’ve lost control, feel safe when they know that we will stop them from doing that again and that we won’t let go of them until they’ve calmed down,” Clay explained.
“Oh. I guess that makes sense,” Norah replied. “If I thought I would actually hurt someone, I suppose that would be better than actually hurting someone,” she reasoned. “Unless they deserve it, of course,” she mumbled.
“What was that?” Clay asked her with a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Unless they deserve it? Is that what you said? Are you a vengeful person, Norah?”
“I don’t know,” Norah replied. “I think I have more self-control now than I did when I was younger. Because when a girl here punched me the other day, I didn’t punch her back. I definitely thought about doing it, but I didn’t do it. I held back long enough for someone to intervene and help me sort out the situation in a more peaceful way. So I don’t think I’m that vengeful.”
“That’s good to hear,” Clay told her with a smile. “I read about that incident in your records. Apparently, you handled the situation in a very mature way. You showed great compassion for the person who hit you and even requested that the staff should be more lenient with her. That’s really commendable, Norah. I hope you realise that. It shows character and gives a better idea of who you really are as a person,” he praised her, causing her to smile and blush as she avoided his gaze. Then her smile faded a bit as she thought about how she had taken advantage of Lexi by talking with her just to get her hands on her phone to make a call to Sarah. That had been manipulative of her, and that wasn’t really the kind of person she wanted to be.
“I should really apologise to Lexi for convincing her to give me her phone,” Norah said.
“I believe that’s an excellent idea, Norah. I’m very glad to hear that,” Clay told her with a smile. “I think you will get to learn a lot more about yourself and get a better idea about who you really want to be during your stay here. I realise it must be really difficult for you to be here, but try to see things from the bright side. This is an opportunity for you to grow more independent by facing challenges and eventually make mistakes in a safe environment and learn from them. Some attendants here make really strong friendships, because this situation is in itself very unique and sometimes that brings people closer together. You might make friends for life here, or just for the time you’re here. It doesn’t matter which, because no matter how long the friendships last, they will still be important. Just feeling a connection with other people can in itself be a very healing experience.”
“I suppose you have a point,” Norah told him and put the board game back into its spot on the shelf. “I will try to approach this in a way that takes me forward in life. I’ve been stuck in the same spot for a really long time now and I think it’s time to move forward, so that’s what I’m going to do. Thanks for bringing things into perspective, Clay,” she said and smiled at him before leaving the big common room. Maybe she was overplaying her politeness, because it didn’t feel completely natural, or even that genuine to her. It felt exaggerated, perhaps even sarcastic, but she truly wanted to be able to go horseback riding with James the next day.
The next day, Norah and James sat next to each other in one of the classrooms as usual. Will looked pensively at them from across the room for a long moment before approaching them.
“How’s it going over here?” Will asked them and sat down on the opposite side of the table.
“Fine,” Norah told him with a smile. “We’re planning our research projects. Could we make a bigger project together or does it have to be two separate ones?” she wondered.
“You can make a bigger project together, but you will still have to write your own, individual reports on it. Maybe you could approach the project from different angles. That way it will be like two projects but with more data,” Will suggested.
“That’s a good idea,” James told him. “Because then we can both focus on the aspects we find the most interesting.”
“Which aspects do you find the most interesting?” Will asked James.
“The statistical analysis of the data,” James replied, causing Norah to frown at him.
“Nerd alert,” she teased him.
“That’s how serious research is done, Norah!” James told her.
“Not all research. There are different methods. I want to focus on what people actually say, not only numbers on a screen,” Norah said. “People shouldn’t be reduced to numbers.”
“Then James should have a quantitative approach and you Norah, you should have a qualitative approach,” Will concluded. “When it comes to your strengths and difficulties in different subjects, you really do seem to complement each other,” he reflected and smiled vaguely at the two students as he stood back up. “Good luck on your research project and just let me know if you need any help.”
“Sure, thanks, Will,” James told him with a smile.
Will left the room and was on his way to one of the other rooms used for school work when he saw Doctor Sharpe in the hallway.
“How are they doing education wise?” Doctor Sharpe asked him and nodded towards James and Norah who were visible through the open door from where they were standing.
“Extraordinarily well,” Will told him. “This week, they’ve been like two completely different people compared to last week.”
“In what way?” Doctor Sharpe queried.
“Last week was disastrous. They both kept causing distractions or just stubbornly refusing to do their work, even when I separated them. I even had to give them written warnings, and I usually never do that, because I really don’t like it. I understand that punishment is sometimes necessary, but there’s been so much of it here. Especially for James,” Will said.
“So they were causing disturbances last week?” Doctor Sharpe asked Will, steering the conversation back to what he really wanted to know about.
“Yeah. That’s why I eventually put them in that room, separating them from the others. To stop them from disturbing the other students who actually tried to focus on their own studies. I don’t think it’s right that one or two students should ruin it for those who do behave, so I thought that would be for the best,” Will explained.
“What happened when you put them together, separated from the other students?” Doctor Sharpe asked him.
“I did that on Monday morning and they actually stopped goofing around and started talking to each other,” Will said. “When I checked on them, I started talking to them too and they actually listened. They gradually started doing their school work after I told them I wouldn’t let them leave the room until they had made some progress,” he continued. “Yesterday, they both did great. I asked James to explain something he was really good at to Norah, and it really helped. She finally got it and was able to work a lot faster after that.”
“So there haven’t been any misendeavours in the classroom this week with those two?” Doctor Sharpe wondered.
“No, none at all,” Will replied. “I get the impression that they keep each other in check. No one wants the other one to get into trouble, so they remind each other to stay focused, or keep their eyes on the price, as they tell each other.”
“Good,” Doctor Sharpe told Will. “It appears that positive reinforcement is more efficient on those two than I anticipated,” he mused. “Can you tell them to come see me in my office when it’s time for their lunch break?”
“Sure,” Will replied before they went separate ways.
Doctor Sharpe agreed to let Norah and James go horseback riding that afternoon, but was very insistent on Norah wearing the same kind of watch that James always had on. Apparently it had a GPS tracker in it and would set off an alarm and send a location signal to the staff if she took it off without having a staff member authorising it on an app first. Reluctantly and feeling a bit uneasy by the degree of surveillance, Norah eventually agreed to wear it. When she questioned whether or not the staff was using the watch to spy on them and eavesdrop on their conversations, Doctor Sharpe had gotten rather impatient with her.
“That kind of surveillance would be highly unethical and not to mention illegal, so no. We don’t listen in on your private conversations, Miss Collins,” Doctor Sharpe had told her. “We’re not refusing you the right to privacy and integrity for as long as we can avoid it. If we deem that an infraction of those rights is in your own best interests, we might limit them to a higher degree, but in that case, you will be informed about it and it won’t be a matter of any covert surveillance of you. The watch is meant to keep you safe, that’s all there is to it. There’s even a button you can press for five seconds that will send a distress signal along with your location to the staff if you end up in a situation where you need some help.”
Norah was sitting next to James in the minivan and fumbled with her watch. She wasn’t used to wearing it, so it felt uncomfortable.
“Whatever you do, don’t take it off,” James advised her. “The alarm signal is really loud and everyone will get pissed off at you.”
Norah sighed and stopped fumbling with the watch around her left wrist. “Have you taken it off a lot of times and set off the alarm?” she asked James.
“More times than I’d like to admit,” James said sheepishly. “Mostly when I’ve been about to take a shower or go to bed. I’ve woken everyone up in the middle of the night several times since I started wearing it. They got so angry with me and must have thought I did it on purpose out of defiance or something, but I truly didn’t. I just forgot about it.”
“Did you never do it on purpose?” Norah asked him with a smile.
“Okay, once. When I was pissed off about something and Doctor Wright wouldn’t stop nagging me about it, I took it off in her office, jumped out the window and ran off into the woods,” James told her. “The look on her face was priceless. It almost made it worth it.”
“I can imagine. What was she nagging you about?” Norah wondered.
“Umm, I ran away and got pretty far before I got pulled over by the police,” James said with an embarrassed smile.
“Pulled over?” Norah questioned with a frown.
“Yeah, the little shit drove off with the van,” Dmitri said from the driver’s seat.
“How did he get the keys?” Norah wondered.
“I pickpocketed them from Dmitri,” James said, causing Norah to laugh.
“You have to teach me how to do that,” Norah told him.
“No, he’s not,” Dmitri told her firmly.
“I meant how to drive, not pickpocket,” Norah clarified.
“He’s not allowed to teach you how to drive a minivan either,” Dmitri informed her. “Legally, he’s not even allowed to drive a minivan himself yet. He should be happy we didn’t file a report for motor vehicle theft against him and managed to convince the officers to let him off with a verbal warning so it wouldn’t end up in their system.”
“I am grateful for that, Dmitri,” James assured the man in the driver’s seat. “I really appreciate what you did for me that day. You know that.”
“It wouldn’t look good for Willow’s Creek if one of their patients got reported for criminal offences when under their care,” Norah pointed out.
“That’s not why I did it, Norah,” Dmitri told her. “I didn’t want James to get his future opportunities ruined. I personally don’t care that much about the facility’s reputation, but I do care about the attendants and their futures.”
“Okay,” Norah replied. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Dmitri. I’m sorry if it sounded like it.”
Norah really enjoyed the time with the horses and experienced something she would describe as a natural high. It was like she could forget all about her troubles for a moment.
When they were heading towards the parking lot by the stables Norah frowned at the sight of Tom standing there talking to Dmitri. She glanced down at her watch confusedly and noted that it was only six PM. He hadn’t been expected to arrive until after seven.
“Hi Norah,” Tom said and walked up to her, taking her in his warm embrace. It was like the wall she had worked so hard to build up for the last couple of days just came crumbling down into pieces the moment she was in his arms. She was safe. “It’s okay, darling,” he hushed her and began walking with her towards his car. “It’s going to be alright, Norah. I’m here.”
Norah sat down in the passenger seat and Tom put the seatbelt on for her when she was just staring blankly out the window through her tearfilled eyes.
“I’m sorry, Tom,” Norah told him after a few minutes of silence between them. “I didn’t mean to cry like that. I know I should be more stoic and not burden the people around me with how I feel.”
“What makes you think I want you to do that? Why would I not want you to let me know how you feel?” Tom questioned confusedly. “I don’t think you’re a burden for showing your emotions, Norah. It’s okay not to be okay. You don’t have to put on a mask for me, darling. Please, don’t do that. I want to know how you truly feel, okay? Just be honest with me about your feelings.”
“Are you going to tell me about what’s going on with Sarah?” Norah asked him.
“We’ll talk about that with Doctor Sharpe when we get back,” Tom told her.
“Has he demanded to be a part of the conversation?” Norah questioned.
“No, I asked him if he could be present when we had that conversation,” Tom replied.
“Why? What’s going on? Is Sarah dead?” Norah asked him anxiously. “Is she dead?!” she shouted at him and pulled the steering wheel, almost causing them to collide with an oncoming car before Tom managed to regain control of the car at the last moment. He pulled over to the side of the road and stared at her in shock.
“What the hell are you doing?!” he yelled at her. “You could have had us both killed! Do you even realise how close that was?! How do you think Sarah would react if we both died?!”
“I didn’t mean to,” Norah told him as tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” she said and opened the car door to get out. She went to the side of the road, got down on her knees and threw up. She cried and shivered from the cold. She felt Tom’s arms wrap around her and she leaned into his warm embrace. “I’m so sorry, Tom.”
“Never do that again, okay?” Tom requested, his voice breaking a little. “Don’t do anything dangerous ever again, Norah. We can’t lose you.”
“Okay,” Norah told him.
“Let’s get you settled in the backseat, just in case,” Tom decided as they went back to the car. “I understand that you’re under a lot of pressure, Norah. But what you did just now was really dangerous and completely unacceptable. Do you understand that? Do you understand that the people in the other car could have gotten hurt too?”
“I understand,” Norah told him quietly as she sat down in the backseat. “I don’t know why I did it. I got upset and lost control over myself. I didn’t mean to, Tom. I swear, I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry.”
“I know you’re sorry, Norah,” Tom told her and sighed as he leaned over her to put her seatbelt on. “Let’s not tell Sarah about this.”
“So she’s alive then?” Norah asked him with tears in her eyes.
“Yes, she’s alive, Norah,” Tom assured her. He looked sad for some reason as he looked into Norah’s eyes.
“Then why didn’t you just tell me so?” Norah questioned irritably and looked down at her hands in her lap.
“Because I didn’t really get the time to, Norah,” Tom told her. “It all happened so fast. I didn’t have time to answer your question before you suddenly pulled the steering wheel.”
“I’m sorry, Tom,” Norah said again. “I won’t do it again. I didn’t mean to.”
“I believe you when you say you didn’t mean to do it, Norah. But I’m really concerned about the fact that you did do it,” Tom told her seriously. “I never thought you would do something like that. I really don’t understand it.”
“Me neither,” Norah told him sadly. “I really don’t know what happened. I have no idea why I did it. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, at least not consciously.”
“Let’s get back to Willow’s Creek and we’ll talk more there, okay?” Tom suggested and she nodded wordlessly in response.
Once they got back to Willow’s Creek and had parked the car, Norah frowned upon noticing that she couldn’t open the car door from the inside. Tom opened it for her from the outside and she stepped out of the car while staring at him like he had lost his mind.
“Did you activate the fucking child lock on me?!” Norah demanded angrily.
“I was worried that you might do something dangerous again,” Tom explained to her.
“I can’t take this anymore!” Norah shouted at him and angrily pulled off the watch and threw it on the ground before running off into the woods to the loud noise from the alarm sounding behind her.
Norah didn’t get far before Tom caught up with her and held her tight in his arms.
“You’re not running off again, Norah,” Tom told her in a collected voice. “I understand this is difficult for you, but you really need to stop running and hiding whenever you’ve done something wrong. If I let you go, will you walk back with me of your own accord?”
“I’ll go with you,” Norah replied and he let her go.
“Where were you headed?” Tom asked as they started walking back towards the building.
“I don’t know,” Norah replied. “Just away, I guess. From everything. But I can’t seem to run away from myself no matter how hard I try. Like everyone else does. Run away from me.”
“People are not running away from you, Norah,” Tom told her. “You are pushing them away or locking them out. We’re not running away from you by taking you here. We’re trying to help you and we’re trying to keep you safe.”
“Safe from what exactly?” Norah questioned as Tom opened the door to the house and stepped inside. He turned around to look at her with concern in his eyes.
“From yourself, Norah,” he said solemnly. “We’re trying to keep you safe from your own self-destructiveness.”
“I’m not that self-destructive, Tom,” Norah told him anxiously. “Please, just take me away from here. I’ll do anything you ask. Please!”
“Come,” Tom told her and she reluctantly walked inside, closing the front door behind her. He gently placed an arm around her shoulders and led her up the stairs. “Are you okay to take a quick shower and change into new clothes?” he asked her once they had reached her bedroom.
“Okay,” Norah told him and mechanically took out a towel, her vanity bag and a change of clean clothes.
“I’ll be downstairs waiting for you,” Tom informed her as she went inside one of the small shower rooms. She didn’t reply, just shut and locked the door.
Norah showered until the water gradually started getting colder and sighed heavily as she turned the water off. It was something that always happened whenever she showered for more than about seven minutes. According to James, it was some kind of setting to prevent them from showering for too long and using up all the hot water. He had also told her that he would sometimes move between the different shower rooms if he wanted a long shower.
Norah sighed heavily as she dried herself on the towel and got dressed. She went back into her room where she hung up her towel on the room divider to dry and dumped her riding clothes into the already full laundry basket.
There was a knock on the door, but Norah didn’t bother to answer it. She just stared at the laundry basket with her back towards the door. She could hear someone open the door and walk inside the room.
“Norah.” It was Dmirtri. He gently grabbed her left hand and put the watch back around her left wrist. “You seem to have dropped this,” he told her with a gentle smile.
“Yeah,” Norah replied with a sad smile as she looked at him. “I didn’t even notice that I dropped it,” she said, eliciting a laugh from Dmitri.
“Everyone else did, though,” Dmitri pointed out with a smile. “Come,” he told her and took her by the hand, leading her through the dining area and to the stairs leading to the ground floor. “You’ll be eating your dinner with Tom and Doctor Sharpe tonight,” he said and brought her to one of the rooms downstairs she hadn’t been in before.
Tom stood up from his seat when she arrived and pulled out the chair next to his for her.
“Come,” Tom told her. Norah reluctantly walked up to him and sat down in the seat.
“What’s going on with Sarah?” Norah asked him, completely ignoring Doctor Sharpe who was sitting across from her.
“Sarah is going to be okay,” Tom told her.
“So she’s not okay right now then,” Norah concluded. “What’s wrong? Is she ill? Is it anything serious? It is, isn’t it? It’s something serious.”
“We’ll get to that,” Tom told her. “But first we really need to talk about what happened earlier. Do you want to tell Doctor Sharpe about it yourself, or should I do it for you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Norah told him dismissively. She felt really frustrated about the situation, about not just being informed about how Sarah was doing.
“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Norah,” Tom told her with a frown.
“Does he really have to know? He will only use it against me, Tom,” Norah tried to explain. “That’s what he does. He’s manipulative. He finds ways to use whatever information he has on someone as a weapon against them to get them exactly where he wants them.”
“Norah,” Tom told her seriously and made her look at him. “You’re safe here. Doctor Sharpe is not trying to hurt you or brainwash you in any way, he’s just trying to help you, and in order for him to be able to help you, he needs to know about what happened earlier. It’s better if you tell him about it yourself, Norah.”
“He’s the one who told me to stop being a burden to Sarah by not showing how I truly feel,” Norah said to Tom, causing him to frown slightly and look at the doctor questioningly. Doctor Sharpe didn’t look bothered at all.
“Is this a tactic she often uses? Changing the subject and directing attention at others, away from herself?” Doctor Sharpe asked Tom. “It’s a common tactic called deflection.”
“You’re using deflection yourself right now!” Norah told the doctor angrily.
“I’m not falling for your tricks. I understand that this is all very upsetting to you, but try to calm yourself down, please,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “We can talk about what I said to you later, but first we’re going to finish talking about what Tom just brought up.”
“I’m not falling for your tricks either,” Norah told him irritably. “You’re going to distract us in some way and make us forget all about it.”
“If you don’t trust me, we can write it down,” Doctor Sharpe decided and wrote something down on a paper which he handed over to Tom.
Norah looked at the paper and sighed at his wording. ‘Sort out misunderstanding about being a burden and masking emotions.’
“It’s not a misunderstanding! He’s just trying to smooth things over now that I called him out on what he actually said! He’s a coward and a hypocrite!” Norah said angrily. “Why should I take responsibility for everything I do, when he doesn’t? Isn’t he supposed to be a good role model and teach what he preaches?”
“Aren’t all priests sinners?” Doctor Sharpe asked Norah in return. “We are all flawed and I’ve never claimed to be perfect. We will talk about what I said later. Now, do you want to take this opportunity to tell me yourself about what happened earlier, or do you want Tom to do it for you?”
“I don’t remember what happened,” Norah sighed wearily, pushed her plate of food aside and dejectedly buried her head in her arms resting against the table surface.
“Norah, sit up properly,” Tom told her and pulled her up by the shoulder. “Norah, please,” he said and pulled her closer towards him in a hug. “I love you and I care for you so much. You know that, right?”
“I love you too,” Norah mumbled and hugged him back. “I’m so sorry, Tom. I didn’t mean to do it.”
“I know, darling,” Tom assured her. “I know. It was a mistake and we all make mistakes sometimes. That’s okay. Can you tell him about what happened so he can help us both understand it better?”
“I thought that Sarah might be dead. When I asked Tom about it and he didn’t answer me right away, I pulled the steering wheel,” Norah said and couldn’t bring herself to look at the doctor. “I don’t know why I did it. I know it was dangerous and I wish I hadn’t done it. I can’t really remember why I did it. It felt like it just happened. I got upset, but I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear.”
“How is your memory from that moment?” Doctor Sharpe asked her. “Do you remember pulling the steering wheel, how it felt in your hands?”
“No, I don’t remember that. I just know that I did it, but I don’t really have any sensory memories of it,” Norah told him.
“Was it like a blackout? Do you experience memory loss?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“Yeah,” Norah confirmed. “I don’t know what happened. But it’s like I disconnected and I can’t remember it.”
“Okay,” Doctor Sharpe said and wrote something in his notepad. “Thank you for telling me about it. It’s really important that I know things like this so I can help and understand you better. How are you feeling right now? You look sad.”
“What if I would have killed someone?” Norah asked him.
“You didn’t. You need to focus on that and we need to find a way to avoid that anything like that happens again,” Doctor Sharpe told her. Norah had not expected him to be so understanding about it. “Do you want anxiety medication?” he asked her and she nodded in response. Doctor Sharpe reached into his pocket and pulled out two different packages of anxiolytics she was familiar with. “Which one?”
Norah pointed at the one she experienced the most effect from and the doctor took out a pill from the blister pack for her. She immediately took the pill and swallowed it with the cold water from her glass.
“When you pulled off your watch and ran into the woods, was that because you were upset about what happened?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“I felt guilty, and angry because Tom activated the child lock on the car door,” Norah explained. “He made me sit in the backseat after the incident and it made me feel diminished. When I noticed the child lock being activated, I lost it.”
“It’s very good that you’re communicating about your feelings right now,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “Can you understand the reasoning behind Tom’s decisions in the situation?”
“I can, but I still don’t like that he did that,” Norah replied.
“Is it because you don’t want to be treated like a child?” Doctor Sharpe asked her and she nodded. “Then what do you need to do to change the dynamics?”
“Act differently. Act more responsibly,” Norah told him despondently. “I’m trying to.”
“Then you need to keep trying. It’s okay to have setbacks. Now it’s time to move forward from that,” Doctor Sharpe told her.
“Okay,” Norah said and was starting to feel really tired. “Can we talk about Sarah now?” she asked urgently. “Please?”
“Are you okay, Norah?” Tom asked her concernedly. “You look exhausted.”
“She really needs to rest,” Doctor Sharpe said as he looked at Norah who was barely able to keep her eyes open.
“Should I come back some other day?” Tom wondered. Norah wanted to protest, but felt so overwhelmingly exhausted that she couldn’t even think straight. “Is this from the meds?” she heard Tom ask the doctor.
“No, they shouldn’t have an effect this quickly. I think she’s exhausted physically and mentally. It’s been a very long day for her,” Doctor Sharpe said and watched as Tom pulled Norah into his arms. “Her being so upset must have taken a lot of energy as well.”
“Is she eating properly?” Tom wondered and frowned slightly as he felt her bones through her clothes. “She appears to have lost weight.”
“I’m not sure. It’s quite possible that she hasn’t eaten enough in relation to how much energy she has been burning. She hasn’t refused or skipped any meals altogether as far as I know,” Doctor Sharpe replied. “I’ll check her physical health status tomorrow when she has rested properly. If it turns out that she hasn’t been able to take enough responsibility regarding her food intake, she will be provided with the extra support she might need for some time before we let her try to do it more independently again,” he explained. “It’s important that she starts taking responsibility and is given the opportunity to show us that she can do that, but the main principle here is freedom under responsibility. So she will be given more restrictions if she can’t act responsibly. It’s for her own good.”
“When it comes to other things than eating, how has she been doing in the last couple of days?” Tom asked Doctor Sharpe.
“I’ll send you a copy of the reports so you can read for yourself, but she has made progress,” Doctor Sharpe informed him. “She’s actually thriving with her school work, which you can read about in Will’s report. Socially, she’s been showing that she can take responsibility and show compassion for someone who has done her wrong, which you can read about in Max’s report. She’s also learning very fast how to take care of and ride horses, which you can read about in Peo’s and Dmitri’s reports.”
“That sounds great,” Tom said and looked down at Norah who appeared to have fallen asleep in his arms. “How does she seem to be doing emotionally?”
“It’s difficult to tell. I just took over this section and I really don’t know her all that well yet,” Doctor Sharpe explained as he noted how small Norah looked in Tom’s embrace. “She appears to feel safe around you, like she can let her guard down when she’s with you,” he commented. “But she also seems to regress a little around you. She’s acting younger and making herself small both physically and mentally. There’s a change in her body language and mannerism from how I’m used to seeing her. Maybe she sees you as some sort of father figure. Would you say that you tend to be a bit paternal with her?”
“I’m trying not to be,” Tom replied, seemingly a bit self-conscious about it. “But I suppose that I am sometimes. Especially when she acts out and does dangerous things.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s quite a natural response. Some people, like Norah in your case, have a tendency to bring out that side in others. Some people subconsciously give other people, in this case you, the role of being a caregiver. Just like she’s given me the role of being a villain,” Doctor Sharpe told him. “It’s just that it would probably be better for her independence if you both tried to change your dynamics. It’s easy to become a caregiver with someone who is ill in some way, and sometimes you need to do that. But maybe while she’s here, you let us be her caregivers and you try to focus on being her friend and brother in law.”
“That’s what I want to be for her,” Tom said. “I want to be more like a friend and a peer, rather than like a parent to her. I don’t want to feel the need to put my foot down and correct her when she’s acting out, and I don’t want to make her feel small. I want her to feel more confident and independent. I want her to take responsibility so I can feel that I can trust her.”
“That’s good,” Doctor Sharpe replied and looked at the sleeping figure in Tom’s arms. She truly looked child-like at this point. “Let us work on that then.”
CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: 23/??
WHICH TOM/CHARACTER: Actor Tom
OTHER CHARACTERS: Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott
PAIRING: Tom Hiddleston/OFC
GENRE: Hurt/Comfort, Drama, Romance, Teen Angst, Coming of age
FIC SUMMARY: Norah is a troubled teenager who is secretly and obsessively in love with her sister Sarah’s boyfriend, Tom. Sarah constantly worries about her younger sister, who is struggling with depression and anxiety, and one night, after a long evening at a charity event, Tom decides that he has had quite enough of Norah’s at times reckless and what could be considered rather selfish behaviour. He reveals a new side of himself as he desperately tries to help Norah break her vicious circle of self-destruction and open her eyes to the beautiful things in life. Could he be Norah’s knight in shining armor? Or will his efforts prove to be all in vain? Is his mere presence actually doing more harm than good? Could he ever love her the way she loves him?
WARNINGS: This story contains potentially triggering subjects such as Depression, Anxiety, Self-Harm, Self-Destruction, Eating Disorders, Talk About Suicide and Suicidal Ideation. It also deals with the subject of Grief and contains Previous Character Deaths. Other potentially upsetting subjects this story contains are Spanking Fantasies, Sexual Fantasies, Masturbation, Dirty Talk, Age Difference and Age Play.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
From Good to Really Bad
Norah really enjoyed spending a couple of hours with James and the horses. The horseback riding went surprisingly smooth for a ‘city girl’ as both James and the man in charge of the horses kept calling her. She just made sure to remain calm up there on the horse’s back and found herself more focused than she had in a long time at learning something new. She tried to do everything right in accordance with the instructions, but it became quite obvious pretty early on that the horse called Skye very much had a will of her own, so Norah wasn’t as assertive as she maybe should have been. She didn’t mind letting Skye make her own decisions and just come along for the ride, as long as she didn’t go too far away from the others on the wonderful open field they were riding on. Apparently, the style of riding was called western riding and they had slightly different equipment and a more relaxed approach to horseback riding than traditional English horseback riding. Norah had never reflected over the fact that there were numerous different ways in which to ride a horse. The man in charge of the horses was called Peo and he was amused by Norah’s relaxed approach to letting Skye lead the way and even encouraged it at times. Peo and James taught her about the basics of western riding and safety precautions regarding the horse and herself in relation to the horse.
Norah’s favourite part of the whole experience was galloping in the open field. She felt the cold wind hit her face, held the saddle horn with one hand for some extra stability to keep herself mounted on the horse and rested her other hand on Skye’s back with the reins loosely in her hand. It felt like freedom in some way. She imagined being alone with James and one horse each just riding away together to an unknown destination. When they were about to head back to the stables, Norah and James laughed as they went ahead of the others in the company and had some sort of galloping race on the way back. According to James, who knew a thing or two about horses, their horses seemed happy as they got more free reign than the other horses to playfully run over the large open field together.
James and Norah got back several minutes before the others, so James took the opportunity to try to teach Norah how to better guide Skye’s movements with the help of her hands and feet. When the others got back, Norah was practising guiding Skye to move in an eight symbol.
“I’ll be damned. Is this really your first time riding a horse, Norah?” Peo asked her, seemingly impressed by how quickly she had learned that afternoon.
“It is, but I have the best teachers and I’m pretty sure that Skye is being lenient on me,” Norah told him with a smile.
“You’re a natural, Norah,” Peo told her with a smile. “Skye can be pretty stubborn at times, so I was a bit hesitant to put her with a first timer from London. But you seem so relaxed and calm in a way that I believe makes her like you better and feel more at ease herself. Horses are very intelligent and she can sense that you’re fond of her. I think you and Skye might be the perfect match.”
Norah was beaming and daydreaming the entire ride in the minivan back to Willow’s Creek, thinking about her time with the horses.
“You look like a fool in love,” James teased her playfully as they got out of the minivan.
“I suppose I’m in love with western riding then,” Norah told him with a smile. “I wonder what it would be like to live like that. To get to do that every single day.”
“It’s great,” James told her with a smile. “It’s a lot of hard work of course, but it’s also really great. We had as many as ten horses at one point,” he said and then his smile faded a little. “Then, when mom got ill, we had to sell some of them and when dad died, my uncle only let me keep two, because it would be too much work otherwise, with all those other projects he had going on at the farm.”
“Are you okay, James?” Norah asked him concernedly as he seemed to be on the verge of tears.
“It’s just painful, that’s all. To think of them and remember them,” he told her and they began walking towards the wooden area for some privacy instead of following the others inside.
“Where are you going?” the staff member who had picked them up with the minivan called after them. James held up his cigarette package as an explanation to their sudden departure. “Do you have a lighter?” the man asked and James shook his head.
“I’ll use flint stones,” James told him humorously.
“Here,” the staff member said and threw a lighter to James. “Make sure to give it back when you’re done with it. Be back within ten minutes, alright?”
“Sure thing,” James replied with a breezy smile. As soon as he had turned away from the man, James’s smile immediately faded again.
“How can you be so good at keeping up appearances like that?” Norah asked him.
“Because I’ve had no other choice than to do that. I had to adapt to the circumstances and learn to pretend that everything was alright when I was completely falling apart inside,” James told her. “It would have broken my mother’s heart if I couldn’t pretend to be happy when I visited her in the hospital as she was dying.”
“I’ve never been good at that,” Norah told him. “I’m so sorry you had to go through all that, James. No one should have to go through that.”
“I’m sorry about your losses too, Norah,” James told her and lit up a cigarette. “Do you want one?” he offered and she shook her head at him. “I’ve heard it’s good for the lungs,” he told her humorously as he put the cigarette package and lighter into his pocket.
“I really wish you wouldn’t smoke. But it’s your body,” Norah told him with a sad smile. “My father used to smoke cigarillos and cigars,” she recalled spontaneously. “He really enjoyed the finer things in life when it came to tobacco, alcohol and art, at the same time as he was always ridiculing rich people. It’s a bit contradictious and bizarre now that I think about it. He was really proud of being from a working class family, but was at the same time involved with the culture elite.”
“Well, we’re all a bit contradictious at times, I suppose,” James told her.
“I suppose we are,” Norah agreed. “You were going to tell me something this morning about what was keeping you up at night. Do you want to talk about it now?”
“Right,” James said and took a long drag off his cigarette as he thought for a moment. “My uncle gave me a Christmas gift. It was a photo album. Actually, it was several photo albums. I never realised how present he really had been during my childhood. He was often the one taking the pictures of me and my parents doing things together, but there were quite a lot of pictures of me and him too. Most of them were from before my mother got terminally ill. It made me remember how much I used to look up to him as a small child.”
“What was it like seeing those pictures?” Norah asked him.
“It was everything at once, I suppose,” James told her sadly. “It was hard and frightening and heartbreaking, but also wonderful and it felt sacred in a way. That he had kept all those photos for all those years and arranged them into photo albums. We used to do it together when I was a child. Michael and I would put the pictures into the photo albums and talk about what we were doing in the pictures.”
“I’m glad you have good memories of your uncle as well,” Norah said. “I imagine it must have been hard for you to see him last night.”
“It was,” James told her. “I was so angry with him. Then when I looked at the pictures I started questioning if I had been too hard on him. I don’t know if he’s capable of change, Norah. He was a completely different man when I was younger than he had become when I got older. If he was able to change that much in a few years, do you think it’s possible that he will be able to change for the better? To become more like his old self?”
“I think it might be possible, but also a lot of hard work for him to change. He would really have to commit to it and I suppose he needs to find a way to stay motivated to do all the work,” Norah reasoned. “The fact that he gave you those photo albums might be a sign that he’s become more sentimental than he’s been for the last few years. Maybe he really wants to become more like the person he once used to be.”
“Yeah, maybe,” James told her and put out his cigarette against a big stone before putting it in a ziplock bag. Norah smiled at the sight of the bag of cigarette butts. “What? I don’t want to leave cigarettes in nature. What if the birds and the squirrels would pick up smoking?”
“Would they be lighting the cigarettes with flint stones?” Norah asked with a smile.
“Of course, they’re not amateurs like us humans. They work hard to light up their smokes,” James replied and they started walking back towards the building they were staying in. “He gave me his old camera too,” James mentioned as they neared the building.
“He did?” Norah asked him. “How did that make you feel?”
“I don’t know,” James told her with a shrug as he paused outside the door. “He was always really careful with that camera, so I guess, it’s a nice gesture. I don’t know whether I should give it back to him or use it.”
“You should use it,” Norah told him. “If you want to, of course. But I think the whole point of him giving it to you was so that you could use it.”
“I suppose so,” James replied with a thoughtful look on his face. “I might,” he decided and opened the door.
“James, the lighter,” the staff member from earlier reminded James as they walked past the ground floor staff room.
“Right,” James said and pulled out the lighter from his pocket and handed it back. “Thanks, Dmitri,” he told the man appreciatively.
“Are you okay, James?” Dmitri asked him and looked thoughtfully at the young man. “Come on. Let’s talk,” he said after a moment and nodded towards one of the visiting rooms.
“Okay,” James agreed and Norah smiled encouragingly at him as their eyes met. She was relieved to learn that there seemed to be at least someone in the staff that was able to see through James’s mask. Around others, he wasn’t at all vulnerable the way he could be when there were only the two of them.
While the first day of Norah’s second week at Willow’s Creek had been an unexpectedly good day, her second day of the second week turned out to be the exact opposite.
Dave smiled gently at Norah as she turned up a couple of minutes early for her disciplinary meeting.
“Can I give you some advice before the meeting with Doctor Sharpe?” Dave asked her and she nodded at him. “He’s a lot more old-fashioned in his practice than the other psychiatrists here. He expects you to mostly listen and not speak unless he expressly tells you to speak. It can be confusing for attendants and staff, because he sometimes asks rhetorical questions. The best thing you can do is to just keep as low a profile as possible, not talk back or argue with him and just keep calm, even if anything he says upsets you.”
“He sounds rather unpleasant,” Norah told Dave with a frown. “Why is he even working here or as a psychiatrist if he’s not willing to listen to what his patients have to say?” she questioned.
“I don’t know, but whatever you do, don’t ask him that during the meeting,” Dave advised her and glanced down at his watch. “He appreciates punctuality. You’re expected to knock on the door at the exact time your appointment is set out to be. Not one minute early or one minute late,” he explained and looked at his watch.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Norah asked him amusedly. “Surely this must be a joke. I can buy that he doesn’t appreciate tardiness, but that you can’t be one minute early is just plain out ridiculous. Does he set people up to do wrong?”
“It’s time,” Dave informed her, ignoring her questions. He knocked on the door and they waited a few seconds for it to be opened by the medical secretary Norah recognised from earlier disciplinary meetings.
“Welcome, Norah and Dave,” the secretary greeted them as she let them inside. Dave and Norah walked in and sat down in the same armchairs as the last time they had been there together. Dave had been to two disciplinary meetings with her preceding week, whereas Samantha and Max had attended one each with her.
Norah frowned a bit as she looked at the psychiatrist Dave had just been telling her about. He was considerably younger than she had expected him to be. He was possibly in his fifties and he was rather good looking too, not at all like the disgusting old man she had expected to see.
“Is this Doctor Sharpe?” she asked Dave who nodded at her. “And here I was expecting to see a dinosaur in a doctor’s coat. He doesn’t look that ancient,” she mused humorously. “Is he a vampire?”
Dave stared at her with eyes slightly widened with shock at her rudeness towards the doctor he had just warned her to be careful with what she’s saying in front of.
“I take it that you’re the rather infamous Norah Collins,” Doctor Sharpe established calmly.
“Am I supposed to be impressed by your powers of deduction? It really shouldn’t be that difficult for you to figure out since this meeting has been scheduled and my name was even mentioned earlier,” Norah told him humorously.
“Are you aware that this is a disciplinary meeting, Miss Collins?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“I am,” Norah confirmed.
“You’re not intellectually challenged, so why are you walking in here with an attitude?” Doctor Sharpe questioned, his face barely showing any emotion at all. His dark eyes were cold and Norah felt uneasy as she avoided his gaze. Maybe his handsome looks had deceived her into thinking that he might not have been nearly as bad as she had been told. She now regretted her decision not to hold her tongue. “Are you going to behave from now on?”
Norah shifted uncomfortably in her seat and sighed dejectedly when Dave nudged her on the arm, causing her to look at him questioningly.
“Answer him,” Dave instructed her quietly and she frowned confusedly.
“Wasn’t that a rhetorical question meant to emphasise his expectations of me during the meeting?” Norah wondered.
“Miss Collins, it’s common courtesy to look at the person you’re having a conversation with,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “I asked you if you’re going to behave for the duration of this disciplinary meeting. I expect you to give a verbal answer to my question.”
“Umm, I was under the impression that this might be more of a monologue than an actual conversation,” Norah replied.
“Norah, behave,” Dave reminded her.
“I’m trying to, but he’s making it really difficult,” Norah argued.
“I expect you to pay attention and take this seriously, Miss Collins, but you appear to do none of that,” Doctor Sharpe informed her and wrote something down in his notepad. “Instead of taking responsibility for your actions, you blame them on others. Is that something you often do, Miss Collins?”
“What’s even the point of this meeting?” Norah questioned irritably.
“That’s deflection,” Doctor Sharpe remarked. “Do you often change the subject or cause distractions in other ways when you want to avoid talking about something that makes you uncomfortable?”
“What is this? A therapy session or an interrogation?” Norah asked him confusedly. “I thought this would be a meeting.”
“Disciplinary meetings here at Willow’s Creek are meant to function as therapeutic interventions. You’re supposed to think about your faulty actions, try to understand and reflect over the dysfunctional behavioural patterns behind them, and ultimately learn from your mistakes and change your behaviour,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “You’re here because you need to change and you won’t be leaving this place until you’ve convinced us that you actually have.”
“That’s not really true though, is it?” Norah questioned with a frown. “You can’t keep me here against my will once I’ve turned eighteen, now can you?”
“If deemed necessary, we can do so without breaking any laws,” Doctor Sharpe informed her. “This is only one out of six sections here at Willow’s Creek. You really haven’t done your homework and read up on anything about this place, now have you?”
“That’s a statement, not an actual question, right?” Norah asked Dave who looked visibly uncomfortable.
“I suggest you leave the room, Dave,” Doctor Sharpe said calmly. It wasn’t really a suggestion, more like an order, Norah thought to herself. Her heart dropped as Dave without as much as a second’s hesitation stood up and left the room without questioning the doctor’s decision.
“Isn’t he supposed to be here to support me and help me remember what’s being said during the meeting?” Norah questioned and felt annoyed.
“His presence clearly distracted you from focusing your attention on me and what I have to say, so I deemed it would be better if he left,” Doctor Sharpe explained and Norah looked helplessly in the secretary’s direction. She had her back turned towards them and was taking notes on a computer. “Hopefully Norma’s presence won’t distract you as much. To judge by your reactions and body language, I suspect that the mere thought of being alone with me makes you highly uncomfortable.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Norah muttered.
“Could you stop giving me an attitude, Miss Collins? It will not be in your favour to keep this up. What do you think I’m trying to do here?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“Establish your male dominance to hide your fragile ego?” Norah suggested defiantly, her words eliciting an audible gasp from the secretary.
“Norma, get out,” Doctor Sharpe told the woman and she immediately began walking towards the door, leaving the audio recorder on the desk. “Before you leave, I want to ask you to do four things for me,” he added calmly just as she had reached the door and was about to open it. Norma paused with her hand mid-air and looked attentively at the doctor. “One, reschedule my meetings up until two this afternoon. Two, arrange so that Miss Collins’s and my lunch will be served in this room. Three, inform the staff that Miss Collins will not be attending her planned activities until after two this afternoon. Four, reflect over that gasp you let out and think of all the reasons you can come up with as to why that was inappropriate of you. Will you be able to remember those things or do you want me to repeat myself?”
“I’ll remember, Doctor Sharpe,” Norma replied, looking highly uncomfortable and somewhat flustered as she stood there by the door.
“That’s what I thought, you do have a good memory after all. You may leave,” Doctor Sharpe granted and the woman quickly opened the door, clearly eager to get out of there.
“That was fucking awful of you!” Norah told him angrily. “How can you treat a colleague like that? In front of a patient nonetheless! You degraded her! You chauvinistic pig!”
“I was merely acting the part you just gave me,” Doctor Sharpe informed her coldly. “Right now, I’m demonstrating to you how out of line it would be for grownups to act the way you do. Me blaming you for my own actions that quite understandably upsets you.”
“Are you going to apologise to Norma for this? Or does accountability only apply to your patients?” Norah questioned irritably.
“I have no obligation to answer those questions, Miss Collins,” Doctor Sharpe informed her. “This is a disciplinary meeting regarding your behaviour, not mine. Try to remember that.”
“Why did you cancel all my activities until two this afternoon?” Norah asked him.
“Because that’s how much time I estimate this disciplinary meeting to take,” Doctor Sharpe replied, causing Norah to stare at him dismayfully. She looked around the room until she saw the clock above the door opening and frowned. It was only twenty past nine.
“You must be kidding me,” Norah stated after making sure that she really got the time right by double checking it on her phone.
“I’m perfectly serious. You may as well hand over your phone right away, Miss Collins,” Doctor Sharpe told her when she was about to put it back into her pocket. “Because you won’t be having your phone privileges for the next couple of days, possibly longer depending on your behaviour.”
Norah glared angrily at him but eventually turned her phone off and placed it on the table between them. She was pretty certain that there really was no point in arguing with him about this, or anything else for that matter.
“So, Miss Collins. From now on, I expect you to answer my questions thoroughly and truthfully. Do you think you can do that for me?” Doctor Sharpe requested.
“I will try,” Norah told him.
“An honest answer, well done,” Doctor Sharpe commended her in a way that Norah interpreted as condescending. “Go ahead and tell me about what you’re thinking right now?”
“I’m confused,” Norah replied. “Dave usually gives good advice, but the advice he gave me before this meeting doesn’t appear to be working.”
“What advice did he give you?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“He said that I should try to keep a low profile and listen more than I speak,” Norah told him. “But you insist on eliciting answers out of me even when I quite obviously don’t want to speak.”
“I can understand your confusion,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “Dave appears to be very good at silently observing and reflecting over what he sees and hears. He knows when to stay silent and he’s rather intelligent which makes me presume that he generally gives good advice,” he reflected. “But he’s also relatively new here and hasn’t attended many meetings at all with me present. So he’s not all that familiar with my methods yet. This would be his first time being present during my first encounter with a patient, so while his advice might work for the patients I’ve already met in his presence, the strategy he suggested is not going to work for you right now.”
“Okay,” Norah said and felt on the verge of tears as she realised that she would probably have to spend the next couple of hours alone in the company of the seemingly relentless man in front of her.
“Why are you sad?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“Because I don’t want to be here alone with you,” Norah told him truthfully. “Can’t Dave come back? Please? I promise I will pay attention and take this seriously.”
“No, you’ll be on your own right now,” Doctor Sharpe decided. “You’re old enough to do things like this alone, Miss Collins. You’re also old enough to face the consequences of your own actions. If it helps, you can always regard this as a part of becoming more independent, because that’s what we really want to achieve here. Don’t you want me to treat you more like an adult than a helpless child?”
“I don’t know,” Norah replied, not really understanding what he meant. “What’s the difference?”
“If I were to treat you like a helpless child, you would get considerably less freedom and have less influence over what you get to do during your stay here than you would if I were to treat you like an adult patient,” Doctor Sharpe explained. “While you as an adult patient have more freedom and influence, you’re also expected to take more responsibility than a child would. So which one do you prefer?”
“An adult,” Norah answered.
“What’s your reasoning behind your answer?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“I’m assuming that a condition for me to get discharged from here is that I prove to you that I can act responsibly and handle taking responsibility for my actions when I don’t,” Norah told him.
“Very well,” Doctor Sharpe told her and looked through his notes, taking his sweet time. “During your first week here, you received as much as fifteen written warnings. That’s a lot, especially for a female patient. On a group level, the female patients I’ve encountered here usually adapt faster to the environment and conditions of this facility than the male patients,” he informed her. “Even if you were to remove the gender differences, fifteen written warnings are still a lot to receive in as little as seven days. You don’t strike me as particularly dense, so my assumption is that you’re either very stubborn, defiant, stuck in maladaptive behavioural patterns, have strong self-destructive tendencies, lack of impulse control, lack of emotional regulation skills, or a combination of two or more of those things,” he speculated and looked searchingly at her. “What do you think the reasons for the behaviours behind all of those warnings are?”
Norah thought about his words and sighed dejectedly.
“I think it’s probably a combination of all the things you mentioned, and the fact that I’m dense,” Norah told him honestly. “I repeat the same mistakes over and over again, expecting a different result, so I must be pretty dense, don’t you think? Or insane. I can’t remember which one it was. I’m probably both.”
“You don’t strike me as particularly dense or insane. I don’t think it’s functional for you to diminish yourself like that, Miss Collins. It sounds to me like an excuse to avoid taking responsibility to claim that you’re too dense or insane to change when you’re in fact none of those things,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “So I strongly suggest you stop doing that.”
“When you suggest something, it’s not really a suggestion, though, is it?” Norah asked him.
“No, but I’ve been told that it sounds nicer when I put it like that,” Doctor Sharpe replied.
“It sounds a bit passive aggressive the way you say it. Like there’s a hidden threat,” Norah reflected. “Which I didn’t mean any offence by saying. Am I allowed to spontaneously reflect on things or not? Or do you just want me to answer your questions?”
“You’re allowed to spontaneously reflect over your own behaviour, not mine,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “You might find it unfair, but focusing on me only diverts attention from you and you’re the patient in this scenario. We need to focus on you.”
“Okay,” Norah said.
“Now I want to go through the reasons behind each of the fifteen written warnings you have received so far during your stay here,” Doctor Sharpe decided.
“But I’ve already gone through twelve of them already, or thirteen, actually,” Norah objected with a frown. “I’ve had four of those meetings last week and we spoke about it at the evaluation meeting I had on Sunday.”
“To judge from the notes, my colleagues don’t appear to have been nearly as thorough as they should have been during those meetings to assess the reasons behind your behaviours,” Doctor Sharpe informed her. “That’s the main reason I’ll be taking over the main responsibility for this section. I need to make sure that the job is done correctly and thoroughly. Patients as young as yourself are important to treat properly and efficiently to avoid further problems in the future. It’s a bit like pulling the emergency brakes at the first sign of something being out of order to ensure that you’ll get the train to stop on time.”
“I’m already a trainwreck, though,” Norah spontaneously commented, earning a disapproving look from the doctor. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
“Why do you think I don’t want you to talk about yourself like that?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“Because you regard it as a way of avoiding responsibility,” Norah replied.
“And why do I regard it as that?” Doctor Sharpe asked insistently.
“Referring to myself as a trainwreck, or someone who has completely and miserably failed at something, is a way of diminishing myself and my own abilities to change. If I speak of myself as a chronic failure, I become more passive and just let things happen, rather than trying to change them. Possibly. I don’t know,” Norah reasoned but felt insecure whether or not she made sense or really said what she thought he wanted to hear.
“You shouldn’t doubt yourself so much, Miss Collins,” Doctor Sharpe told her. “Your reasoning was just fine until you started to doubt yourself and dismiss what you had just said. You need to stop doing that. It’s not a functional behaviour to sound insecure and constantly doubt yourself. If you’re wrong about something, then it’s not the end of the world. And if you feel insecure about something, try to phrase it as a question, such as ending your statement with something along the lines of ‘what are your thoughts on this?’ It would make people take you more seriously than they would if you were to continuously and completely diminish yourself like you did right now,” he explained. “I want you to answer my question again and not repeat the same mistake as you just did,” he instructed her and looked at her expectantly.
Norah sighed heavily as she suddenly understood why he had calculated their conversation to take several hours. He would simply not settle for her answers to any of his questions until she got it right or he found her answers to be satisfactory.
Around two in the afternoon, Norah finally got back up on the second floor with a blank look on her face. She was exhausted from spending so much time alone in the company of the doctor who tirelessly kept correcting her and eliciting answers out of her until she gave him satisfactory answers.
“Is this brainwashing?” Norah asked James who walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her in a comforting manner. She cried heedlessly into the crook of his neck as he gently rubbed her on the back.
“Did you speak to Doctor Sharpe all this time?” James asked her once she had calmed down enough for him to get eye contact with her. She nodded at him and he led her towards what they now jokingly referred to as the ‘lawful star room’. They also had an ‘illicit star room’, which was the room on the third floor from which they had climbed onto the roof to stargaze.
Norah sat down on the sofa and pulled a blanket over herself as James pulled the black curtains in place to block out the daylight. He plugged in the star projector and placed it on the table before switching it on for them.
“Do you want to talk about it?” James asked as he sat down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Norah wearily rested her head against his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” Norah told him sadly. “I feel so confused right now.”
“It’s perfectly understandable that you feel that way,” James assured her. “I’ve gone through his process too and quite frankly, I think it’s insane that they let him do this. For how long were you there?”
“Nearly five hours,” Norah told him. “Were you left completely alone with him too?” she wondered.
“Yeah, the first time I met him,” James confirmed. “He argued that the other people in the room caused a distraction or something. Even the secretary. It was bizarre.”
“Are you kidding me?” Norah questioned. “That’s exactly what happened during my meeting with him. It sounds like he might be doing this as some sort of routine,” she suggested. “Does he do this to everyone?”
“No, he doesn’t,” James told her. “He’s done it to Mandy, and I think he did it to some of the patients who have been discharged by now. I remember a guy called Trevor, he mentioned something about having a really long meeting with Doctor Sharpe when I first got here.”
“Do you think he targets particularly troublesome patients?” Norah wondered. She felt a lot more at ease now that she was talking to James about her experience.
“It seems like he does,” James told her. “He’s not here every week and it’s been a little while since I last saw him. Maybe they call him in when they want to set someone straight or something like that,” he suggested.
“I think they might,” Norah agreed. “He told me that he was going to take over this section of the facility to make sure that the job is done correctly. That patients our age need to be treated correctly from the start in order to avoid further problems in the future.”
“I sure as hell hope that’s not true!” James replied and sounded horrified by the mere thought of regularly having to see Doctor Sharpe and having him decide over his treatment and discharge date.
“Maybe it’s just a scare tactic,” Norah suggested. “I really hope it is.”
“So do I,” James replied anxiously.
“If it is, it seems to be working, because I’m really scared right now,” Norah confessed and snuggled closer to James for comfort.
“So am I,” James admitted and hugged her hard in response.
It didn’t take long for Norah to fall asleep in James’s arms. When she was woken up by a staff member moving the curtains aside and turning on the lights in the ceiling, Norah instinctively covered her head with the blanket to block out the sharp light.
“Norah, it’s time for your snack,” Dave informed her in a gentle tone of voice, causing her to burst into tears underneath the blanket. “James, can you give us a moment, please?” Dave requested and Norah heard how James left the room, shutting the door behind him.
“Were you in on it all along?” Norah questioned when Dave asked her about what was wrong.
“In on what, Norah?” Dave asked her confusedly.
“Doctor Sharpe’s routine. Were you in on it?” Norah clarified and peeked at him from underneath the blanket, searching his face for clues. Dave looked completely clueless as to what she meant.
“I’m sorry, Norah, but I don’t follow. What are you talking about?” Dave asked her confusedly and sat down next to her on the sofa. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there with you during the meeting. I really didn’t mean to distract you in any way. I never thought Doctor Sharpe would react like that and maybe I should have questioned it. I’m not sure how it all works. I’ve just been told that if I want to keep my employment here, I should make sure to be on Doctor Sharpe’s good side, because he’s one of the doctors here who has the most influence over the facility. He’s one of the founders for this whole project.”
“For how long have you been working here?” Norah asked Dave curiously and moved the blanket from her head letting it cover her shoulders.
“Nearly four weeks,” Dave replied. “I’m sorry if my advice wasn’t helpful. I didn’t know he would be acting so differently to those other times I’ve met him.”
“It’s not your fault, Dave,” Norah assured him. “But there’s something really off about what he’s doing here,” she said and then placed a hand over her mouth as she realised her mistake. “I meant that… I… I didn’t like being left alone,” she tried to smooth it over. “It made me feel abandoned in a way. I didn’t like that.”
“Did he say or do something to you that made you feel uncomfortable?” Dave asked her with a concerned look on his face.
“No,” Norah lied, fearing that Dave might not be as trustworthy as she had thought he was. “I think I’m just tired, that’s all. I get overly emotional sometimes when I’m tired. I didn’t mean to freak out like this. Please, don’t tell anyone about it. I just had a really bad dream and I must have confused it with reality when I woke up.”
“Okay, Norah,” Dave replied. “Don’t hesitate to talk to me if there’s anything that doesn’t feel right. It can be hard being in a place like this and I understand you might feel abandoned in some sense. But your family really cares for you. They’ve not abandoned you. They will be right there whenever you go home on leaves and get discharged from here.”
“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,” Norah told him and left the room to eat her snack. She realised that she would have to be a lot more careful from now on in order to avoid Doctor Sharpe as much as possible.
Hours passed by and evening came. Norah still couldn’t shake the intense feeling of discomfort she had experienced after her encounter with Doctor Sharpe and eventually asked someone from the staff if she could call her sister.
“You have lost your phone privileges, Norah,” the woman explained. “And since you’ve been acting so distressed today, it has been deemed that if you are to make a phone call right now, it will have to be a supervised call that will also be recorded. Do you understand?”
“I understand, but I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m not hysterical or anything,” Norah argued and frowned.
“It’s what the doctors have decided,” the woman told her.
“Which doctors?” Norah questioned.
“Does it matter to you which doctor it was who made the decision, Norah?” the woman asked and looked thoughtfully at her.
“I suppose not,” Norah lied. “I assume the decision remains regardless of which doctor it was who made it.”
“That’s right,” the woman confirmed. “Do you still want to make a call?”
“No, I’m good,” Norah replied and walked off into the big common room.
Norah scanned the room for someone who could help and noticed that Lexi was sitting with her phone. She walked up to where Lexi sat on the sofa and struck up a conversation with her. After several minutes of talking with Lexi about various things and making sure to ask a lot of questions to make sure that Lexi felt seen and validated, Norah mentioned that she had lost her phone and really needed to talk to her sister about funeral arrangements for their uncle. She felt horrible for lying about her uncle being dead, when he was in fact still alive, although struggling with various health issues. But she justified her lie by how important it really was for her to get a hold of her sister at that moment. As soon as she heard someone pick up at the other end, Norah walked to an empty corner of the large room to avoid being overheard.
“This is Sarah’s phone, Tom speaking,” she heard Tom’s voice at the other end of the line and was a bit taken by surprise.
“Hi, Tom. It’s me. Norah, if you still remember me,” Norah told him humorously.
“Norah… Nah, doesn’t really ring a bell,” Tom replied, causing her to smile. “How are you doing, Norah? Whose number is this?”
“I’m calling from a friend’s phone. I lost my phone,” Norah told him.
“You lost your phone privileges, Norah. That’s something completely different,” Tom remarked. “Are you really allowed to make calls from other attendant’s phones when you’ve lost your phone privileges?” he questioned, causing her to feel nervous.
“Yes, I’m still allowed to make phone calls. I’m just not allowed to text or use social media and things like that,” Norah told him, trying to sound convincing. It was only half a lie, because normally when she lost her phone privileges, she still was allowed to make phone calls from the facility’s phones. Unsupervised ones, unlike now when she had been given a new restriction she hadn’t even heard of before. “Is Sarah really busy right now?”
“She just got into the shower after a long day,” Tom replied. “Is this something you can talk to me about?”
“Okay,” Norah said and tried to keep herself calm. “I met a doctor today and there was something really off about him, Tom. Please, don’t write this off as crazy talk. I really need you to hear me out,” she began to explain and heard Tom hum at the other end to indicate that he was listening. “The doctor sent out the other staff, even the medical secretary during the meeting, and he made me sit with him for five hours straight and talk to him. Five hours is not a normal amount of time to sit with a doctor, Tom. He refused to let me leave the room.”
“What kind of meeting was it?” Tom asked her.
“Just a meeting,” Norah mumbled self-consciously.
“Were you in trouble?” Tom asked her straightforwardly.
“Yes, but even for a meeting like that five hours straight is a really long time,” Norah insisted. “Maybe it’s better if I speak to Sarah about this.”
“Sarah’s asleep, Norah,” Tom informed her. “She’s exhausted. I don’t want to wake her up unless it’s absolutely necessary. She needs to get up really early tomorrow as well and has a long day ahead of her.”
“Okay,” Norah said dejectedly, feeling on the verge of tears as she felt so rejected. “Can you just note down some information for her and show it to her whenever you think it’s a good time?” she requested and Tom agreed to do that. “The doctor’s last name is Sharpe with an e at the end. He made me sit with him all alone in a room for five hours without any breaks. He kept correcting my way of expressing myself and insisted on asking me the same questions over and over again until he thought that I gave a good enough answer before he moved on to the next question.”
“That sounds a bit odd, Norah. Are you sure this really happened or if that’s how you experienced it? Do you see the difference?” Tom asked her and her heart sank in her chest. “Sometimes you avoid answering questions unless someone keeps repeating the same question until you actually answer it. Could it be something like that?”
“No, it wasn’t at all like that, Tom,” Norah told him and felt tears roll down her face. “And even if it was, it’s not normal to interrogate a patient like that for five hours straight without any breaks.”
“Didn’t you get to eat or drink or use the toilet?” Tom asked her.
“I got to use the toilet once,” Norah realised. “But it was only like for two minutes. It wasn’t a proper break, and he made me eat with him so that he could continue questioning me during lunch,” she clarified. “He was using brainwashing techniques on me, Tom. I’m sure of it. He had me repeat my answers over and over again until he was satisfied with my answer before moving on to the next question. He kept this going for five hours, Tom. It’s not normal and it’s not right.”
“Was this some kind of assessment?” Tom asked her, obviously doubting the truth value of her story and trying to make sense of it. “Those can take a few hours, right?”
“It wasn’t,” Norah told him. “It was a disciplinary meeting, but they’re not supposed to go on for that long. If it had been an assessment, I’m pretty sure the patient would be allowed to have more than one two minute break. I begged him to let me leave several times, but he just wouldn’t listen. It was like he was trying to break me down, Tom. You have to get me out of this place! Please!” she pleaded with him, getting increasingly desperate once she realised that she was being watched by the female staff member she had asked to use a phone earlier.
“Norah, give me the phone,” the woman told her firmly. “You’re not allowed to do this.”
Norah tried to avoid having Lexi’s phone taken away from her by the woman as she desperately pleaded for Tom to come and get her away from there. After a moment’s struggle for the phone, a male staff member grabbed Norah so the woman could twist the phone out of her grip.
“No!” Norah shouted desperately as the woman promptly left the room with the phone against her ear, seemingly talking to Tom. “No! Let me go!” Norah cried and desperately tried to break free from the man’s firm grip, only to discover that her resistance only made him harden his grip. She desperately tried to headbutt him and kick him, but soon found herself face down on the floor with her arms locked behind her back in a firm grip.
“Norah, you need to calm yourself down right now,” the man told her firmly. “It’s Clay. We met the other night. Do you remember me?”
“I remember,” Norah replied as she continued to try to get out of his grip. “Can you let me go now? It feels like I can’t breathe. Please, Clay. Let me go,” she pleaded desperately.
“I can let you go if you stay down and remain still. Don’t move your arms or anything. Just lay down. Can you do that?” Clay requested.
“Yes, but why?” Norah questioned. “I’m not going to hurt anyone. I promise.”
“You just tried to hurt me, Norah,” Clay reminded her.
“It wasn’t on purpose, Clay. I was panicking. Please, let go of me,” Norah pleaded.
“Are you going to remain completely still if I do?” Clay asked her.
“Yes, but I don’t understand why I have to,” Norah replied.
“Because a doctor is coming over to see you and see if you need anything to help you calm down,” Clay explained calmly. “Will you remain still in that exact position until the doctor arrives if I let you go?”
“Yes,” Norah told him, feeling very uneasy.
“And will you remain in that position until the doctor says you can move?” Clay asked her.
“Yes,” Norah reluctantly agreed. Relief washed over her once he let go of her and she really had to fight the urge to move into a more comfortable position. Clay sat down on the floor beside her and gently rested a hand on her back, as if to remind her to remain still.
Panic immediately arose within her as she saw Doctor Sharpe appear in the door opening followed by some staff members she didn’t recognise. She tried to move, but was immediately pinned down to the floor again and frantically scanned to room to find that she was the only patient in there. The doors to the room were promptly shut and she yelled in panic as she saw Doctor Sharpe approach her with a syringe in his hand. His face barely conveyed any emotion at all and his eyes were cold.
“He’s killing me and you’re helping him!” Norah shouted as she struggled harder to break free from Clay’s grip on her arms. “Clay! Let me go! Don’t let him kill me! It’s poison!” she pleaded desperately as the doctor calmly sat down on the floor next to her.
“Miss Collins, can you please look at me?” Doctor Sharpe calmly requested and gently brushed the hair away from her face. Norah glared darkly at him and noticed that one of the staff members behind him appeared to be filming the whole thing. Her heart sank as realisation dawned upon her. The footage would only make people think that she really was crazy.
“Please, don’t touch me. I haven’t hurt anyone and I’m not going to hurt anyone. Please, just let me go. I promise I won’t do anything,” Norah pleaded as tears rolled down her face.
“No one’s going to hurt you,” Doctor Sharpe assured her calmly. “I’m going to give you something to help you calm down.”
“But I am calm,” Norah whimpered piteously. “Please. I am calm.”
“It’s okay. We’re not doing this to hurt you. We’re trying to help you,” Doctor Sharpe told her calmly as he pulled her pants down slightly and sterilised a spot on her left buttock. “You’ve not quite been yourself today,” he continued as he smoothly administered the injection before carefully pulling her pants back up. “We’re going to help you. You’re safe here,” he hushed her as she cried. “You can let her go now,” he told Clay who immediately released his grip on Norah. She moved her aching arms instinctively, placing her hands on the floor and made an effort to get up, but felt too weak. “Help her up,” Doctor Sharpe instructed Clay, who was quick to comply. The two men stood her up and walked over to the sofa with her and sat her down.
“Doctor Sharpe. Did you want to speak to the person she called?” the woman from before asked him as she sat down next to Norah.
“Yes. What’s their name and relation to Miss Collins?” Doctor Sharpe asked the woman.
“His name is Tom and he’s her sister’s boyfriend. It appears that she was trying to call her sister, but he answered the phone. So I took his number and said we would contact him about what was going on since he seemed quite concerned about Norah,” the woman explained.
“Alright then. Send me his number and I will call him in a moment,” Doctor Sharpe instructed. “I would like a moment alone with little miss trouble here,” he added, dismissing the other staff from the room. Norah felt really tired as she tried but failed to move away from him because her body wouldn’t quite listen to her. “How are you feeling, Miss Collins?” he asked her.
“What did you give me?” Norah mumbled.
“It was just some anxiety medication. According to your medical records, you’ve had stronger ones before. This one is called Diazepam and since it was administered intramuscularly, you probably feel a considerably stronger effect than you’re used to. But I can assure you that it’s nothing dangerous or something you’re allergic to in any way,” he explained to her calmly. “Do you have any more questions?”
“Why me?” Norah asked sadly.
“What do you mean?” Doctor Sharpe wondered.
“Why are you targeting me?” Norah questioned.
“Now you have to explain. In what way exactly am I targeting you?” Doctor Sharpe asked her.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You know exactly, you fucking asshole,” Norah said as tears continued to roll down her cheeks.
“Do you want to talk to Tom? Would that make you feel better? I don’t want you to feel unsafe here, Norah. I’ll call Tom and we’ll talk to him together, okay?” Doctor Sharpe said and pulled out his phone. That’s when Norah noticed that he had placed an audio recorder on the table near the sofa. He was probably recording her. She was convinced that he was documenting her to use her own words against her to prove her insanity and his professionalism. She was certain that he would manipulate those sound recordings to work in his favour, so that absolutely no one would believe her.
“Hello. This is Doctor Sharpe calling from Willow’s Creek. Are you Tom? Norah’s brother in law?” Doctor Sharpe spoke into the receiver. “Ah, I see. So it’s serious but not quite there yet… Yeah. I take it that you’re close to Norah then. I was told that she called you earlier and that you got worried and wanted us to call you back. It really gladdens me as a doctor to know that she has people who care for her the way you seem to do. She hasn’t really been acting like herself today. So we asked her not to make any phone calls without a staff member present since that might cause misunderstandings when things are taken out of context and sometimes even risk worsening the fragile condition. She appears to be experiencing some kind of paranoid episode. It can be quite difficult for us to understand her reasoning, when in her own mind it all makes perfect sense,” he explained. “I’m sitting next to her right now. We had to give her an anxiolytic called Diazepam to calm her down. It’s a medication she has taken before and it’s perfectly safe. She might sound a bit more affected by the medicine than she normally would, since we had to administer it intramuscularly due to her agitated state and earlier attempts to harm a staff member who was trying to calm her down… I’ll put you on speaker phone then so that you can talk to her.”
Doctor Sharpe put the phone on speaker and placed it on the table in front of them, right next to the audio recorder.
“Norah, can you hear me?” Tom’s voice came from the phone.
“Yes,” Norah told him. “Can you please get me out of here?” she pleaded.
“Why do you want to get out of there, Norah?” Tom asked her.
“Because I want to get home,” Norah told him. “I promise, I will do whatever it takes. Just don’t make me stay here.”
“Norah, I can’t just come there and get you. After what happened on New Year’s eve, Sarah had to make a deal with the social services. If we just take you away from there without a doctor’s approval, Sarah will lose custody of you and have no influence on what happens next,” Tom explained to her. “It’s much better this way. A voluntary placement gives Sarah the right to have more insight in your care.”
“But she doesn’t really have insight. She doesn’t know about everything that’s going on here,” Norah argued.
“Norah, I think it’s better we meet in person to discuss this,” Tom told her. “Doctor Sharpe?”
“Yes,” the doctor said.
“Is it possible for me to come visit Norah on Thursday night? Her sister will not be able to visit her right now, but is it okay if I come instead? Even though we’re not related by blood?” Tom wondered.
“Of course, Tom,” Doctor Sharpe answered. “You’re part of Norah’s family and Sarah has even signed all the necessary paperwork to have you stand in for her whenever she can’t attend meetings regarding Norah and her treatment here,” he said. “Which time do you think you’ll be coming on Thursday?”
“Around seven or eight PM, if that’s alright,” Tom replied.
“That will be great,” Doctor Sharpe told him and turned towards Norah. “Norah, you need to say goodbye to Tom for now.”
“But is Sarah alright? Why can’t she come?” Norah asked anxiously.
“Sarah’s okay, Norah,” Tom assured her. “I’ll explain it all when we meet on Thursday. Until then, I really want you to take care of yourself. Just focus on getting better and don’t worry too much about how everyone else is doing. Just focus on your own well being. Okay?”
“Okay,” Norah replied dejectedly. She was too tired to try to get through to him. “Bye, Tom.”
“Bye, Norah.”
Doctor Sharpe turned off the speaker function and exchanged another couple of sentences with Tom as Norah sadly curled up into a ball on the couch. She felt so empty at that moment, but was too indifferent to even bother trying to escape the feeling. She drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: 22/??
WHICH TOM/CHARACTER: Actor Tom
OTHER CHARACTERS: Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott
PAIRING: Tom Hiddleston/OFC
GENRE: Hurt/Comfort, Drama, Romance, Teen Angst, Coming of age
FIC SUMMARY: Norah is a troubled teenager who is secretly and obsessively in love with her sister Sarah’s boyfriend, Tom. Sarah constantly worries about her younger sister, who is struggling with depression and anxiety, and one night, after a long evening at a charity event, Tom decides that he has had quite enough of Norah’s at times reckless and what could be considered rather selfish behaviour. He reveals a new side of himself as he desperately tries to help Norah break her vicious circle of self-destruction and open her eyes to the beautiful things in life. Could he be Norah’s knight in shining armor? Or will his efforts prove to be all in vain? Is his mere presence actually doing more harm than good? Could he ever love her the way she loves him?
WARNINGS: This story contains potentially triggering subjects such as Depression, Anxiety, Self-Harm, Self-Destruction, Eating Disorders, Talk About Suicide and Suicidal Ideation. It also deals with the subject of Grief and contains Previous Character Deaths. Other potentially upsetting subjects this story contains are Spanking Fantasies, Sexual Fantasies, Masturbation, Dirty Talk, Age Difference and Age Play.
WRITER'S NOTE: Hi! I've been writing quite a lot in the last couple of days and edited some drafts I wrote some time ago for this story. That's why I'm able to update so soon after my last update. Tom is only mentioned in this chapter. I'll try to post the next chapter as soon as I feel ready for it. Tom is still in this story, it's just that those last couple of chapters are quite focused on Norah, but we'll get some more insight into Tom's way of thinking too in a few chapters. Thank you so much for reading and take care! Love, F.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Resistance is futile
Norah was surprised to have been able to negotiate back her phone privileges and hesitated for a long moment before she finally pressed the send button to text Andrew who had so generously given her his phone number at the new year’s eve party. She had carefully worded the text message for him, afraid to come off as too pushy.
‘Hi, Andrew. This is Norah from the New Year’s eve party. I was just wondering if you have time, energy and want to talk. It’s okay if you don’t. No pressure or need for explanations. Take care.’
Norah felt regret the moment she had sent the text message and fumbled with her phone as she tried to figure out if it was possible to unsend the message. When the phone started ringing and she saw that it was Andrew she nervously picked up.
“Umm, hello?” Norah answered her phone awkwardly.
“Hi, Norah. It’s Andrew. I got your message,” she heard Andrew say casually at the other end of the line.
“Yeah, hi. I’m so sorry to bother you. I shouldn’t have texted you. It was impulsive and…” Norah nervously apologised.
“You have nothing to apologise for, Norah,” Andrew interjected. “I rang you up because I wanted to talk to you. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t have time or wanted to talk, now would I?”
“I suppose not,” Norah agreed. “How are you doing?”
“Good, actually. It’s pretty good, thanks for asking,” Andrew replied cheerfully. “How are you doing?”
“I’m glad to hear you’re good,” Norah told him. “I’m okay, it’s all just a bit strange and frustrating. I’m in this treatment facility in the middle of nowhere in the countryside. I wanted to ask your opinion on a situation that occurred earlier. If you have time, that is.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Was it because of what happened on New Year’s eve?” Andrew asked and Norah answered yes. “I see. I understand that must be hard for you. I hope they’re treating you well there.”
“They’re actually a bit of a pain in the arse here, but I’ll get through this somehow,” Norah assured him. “It’s slightly better than a psych ward. I get to go outside for walks everyday and might even get to go horseback riding soon if I don’t do too much stupid shit.”
Andrew laughed at the other end of the line. “Well, don’t do stupid shit then. What have you done to keep them on their toes?”
“It’s mostly minor transgressions to their rules, actually. The thing they made a big deal out of was that I was stargazing with another patient on the roof a few nights ago,” Norah explained casually.
“Norah, that stuff can be dangerous. I don’t know how high the building you were on the roof of is, but you could have gotten seriously hurt. It’s really no wonder they reacted the way they did,” Andrew told her.
“It’s only three floors, Andrew,” Norah told him nonchalantly and she heard him gasp at the other end.
“That’s high, Norah! Please, promise me not to do it again,” Andrew requested earnestly.
“But it was fun,” Norah tried to object.
“You clearly lack self preservation,” Andrew told her with a sigh. “At least, try to resist the urge to do it again. Can you at least promise me that? Imagine that people who care about you are standing on the ground watching you, worrying about you.”
“Fine, I’ll try,” Norah reluctantly agreed, not really having expected Andrew to convince her to be more careful.
“Now tell me about the situation you wanted to talk about,” he encouraged her kindly and she smiled.
“We had an evaluation meeting of my first week here today and Tom insisted that I was disrespectful to the psychiatrist when I just didn’t blindly agree with her way of reasoning,” Norah explained.
“Intriguing. Go on, tell me about what happened,” Andrew encouraged her.
“Okay, just interrupt me if it gets too boring,” Norah said and proceeded to sum up the situation for him. “The psychiatrist here is convinced that in order for me to become more independent, I have to become more compliant first. I think it’s contradictious.”
“I can see why you think that. It sounds a bit contradictious,” Andrew agreed. “Is it alright if I put you on speaker so Stephen can hear this too?”
“Sure,” Norah replied and smiled as Stephen greeted her on the other end. “Hi, Stephen.”
“Tell us about what happened,” Andrew said. “You said that the psychiatrist thinks that you need to become more compliant in order to become more independent, and you thought that was contradictory, right?”
“Yeah,” Norah confirmed.
“How did you tell the psychiatrist that?” Andrew wondered. “I find it hard to believe that Tom would think it offensive if you simply said that it sounds contradictious.”
“And Tom was…?” Stephen asked his partner, causing Norah to smile to herself. She was not used to people not knowing exactly who Tom was. She thought there was something amusing and really refreshing about how completely unfaced Stephen appeared to be around celebrities. He seemed to be immune to being star struck and able to rise above the celebrities’ star statuses and just see them for what they actually were, human beings, not demigods.
“Norah’s sister’s boyfriend. You met him at the party,” Andrew clarified. “You’ve seen him in movies too, Stephen.”
“There are a lot of actors called Tom,” Stephen argued and Norah laughed.
“Well, this particular Tom is Tom Hiddleston. He played Adam in Only Lovers Left Alive. The vampire movie with Tilda Swinton. You said you enjoyed it,” Andrew explained patiently to his partner.
“Right. Tilda Swinton is marvellous. So Tom was that miserable fellow in the movie?” Stephen asked to which Andrew answered yes. “Interesting. He seemed very different from that character.”
“Of course, he’s an actor!” Andrew laughed.
“Well, obviously. I just think I prefer Adam to Tom,” Stephen said, causing Andrew to gasp.
“Rude! Don’t tell him that if you ever meet him again,” Andrew said and Norah felt greatly amused by their bickering. She had a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that not all people might see Tom the same way she did. “Oh, sorry, Norah. Please, tell us what happened during the meeting. What exactly did you tell the psychiatrist?”
“Well, the psychiatrist argued that compliance to treatment and adherence to rules are ways of acting responsibly. She claimed that in order to become truly independent, you have to take responsibility,” Norah summed it up.
“It doesn’t sound completely unreasonable,” Stephen reflected. “It’s difficult to maintain independence if you don’t act responsibly with let’s say money. If you don’t pay rent or your bills, you will eventually have to rely on others for help unless you take responsibility to sort out the situation yourself.”
“Well, she might have a point,” Norah agreed reluctantly. “But what she said annoyed me, so I pointed out that it wouldn’t be responsible of an individual to blindly comply with a faulty treatment and adhere to senseless rules.”
“I can see why Tom would react to that statement and interpret it as potentially offensive to the psychiatrist,” Andrew told her amusedly.
“Yeah, I suppose. But I thought it was pretty obvious that I was speaking hypothetically, since I brought up how irresponsible and unwise it would be of an individual to just dance after the piper’s tune only to end up drowned or forever missing,” Norah clarified and heard the two men laugh at the other end.
“That probably made it even more offensive,” Andrew laughed.
“Maybe it did,” Norah realised and sighed. “What I really meant was that if I’m not allowed to think independently, how the hell am I supposed to become more independent? In order to become independent, you have to be able to think independently.”
“You make a fair point, Norah,” Stephen validated her. “But you can still think independently while you comply with the treatment and adhere to their rules. It doesn’t have to be either or.”
“Doesn’t it?” Norah asked with a frown. “But they keep saying that I’m either noncompliant or defiant whenever I point out contradictions and flaws in the treatment plan and their reasoning about rules.”
“I would find that greatly annoying too,” Stephen told her. “But this won’t last forever. You can always just try to keep your thoughts to yourself in some situations where speaking your mind might make it worse. If they’re not willing to listen to you, there’s really no point in arguing with them.”
“Resistance is futile,” Norah said humorously.
“Assimilation,” Stephen replied spontaneously.
“Exactly!” Norah exclaimed excitedly. “They’re just like the Borg!”
“Stephen, don’t encourage this,” Andrew chided his partner and seemed to grab the phone and turn the speaker function off to speak to her privately. “They’re not like the Borg, Norah,” he told her. “Don’t regard them as your enemies. Just try to understand their good intentions and play along. I think that might be the most efficient way for you to approach this situation right now.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Norah said with a sigh. “But it’s hard to keep quiet when I don’t agree with their methods.”
“I understand that. I would probably find it hard too,” Andrew told her. “It makes me think of something Hamlet says in the play.”
“But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue?” Norah guessed with a smile.
“That’s precisely the line I was thinking of!” Andrew told her excitedly. “I didn’t know you liked Hamlet. That really gladdens me.”
“I wrote an essay about Hamlet for Tom as a Christmas gift,” Norah explained. “I was experimenting with the thought of diagnosing Hamlet by today’s criterions for mental disorders.”
“That is so cool! What did you diagnose him with?” Andrew asked curiously.
“Borderline Personality Disorder,” Norah told him. “It might upset people, since it’s apparently a very stigmatised disorder.”
“I don’t know much about that disorder,” Andrew admitted. “Would you mind if I read it sometime?”
“You want to read it?” Norah asked surprisedly.
“Of course I want to read it,” Andrew replied.
“Hmm, I certainly didn’t expect that,” Norah said with a smile. “You can read it if you like, but I have to warn you, it’s not very well written or anything. I haven’t even finished my GCSE yet. So you would have to lower your expectations. I’m not particularly intelligent or articulate like Sarah is.”
“I really want to read it, Norah. I think you’re being too hard on yourself and underestimating yourself a whole lot,” Andrew told her. “Your sister’s intelligence has nothing to do with yours. It’s not like you can’t be intelligent too, you know. You have different areas of expertise and I’m sure you know a whole lot of things that she doesn’t. So I don’t see what the point is in comparing your intelligence. Does it really matter? It’s what you do with what you’ve got that people remember, not what you’ve got if you don’t do anything with it. You’ve written an essay about an interesting subject, Norah. That’s what I care about, not whatever your sister is doing. I’m interested in your thoughts, not hers,” he reasoned.
“Thank you, Andrew,” Norah said and felt moved by his encouraging words. There was a knock on the door that distracted her and she went to open it. She smiled as she saw James standing there and motioned for him to wait for a bit. “It was really nice talking to you. Thank you for taking your time.”
“It was really nice talking to you too, Norah,” Andrew replied. “Take care, and whenever you feel like saying something that might get you into trouble, think about holding your tongue.”
“Even though it breaks my heart,” Norah said with a smile.
“Exactly,” Andrew replied. “Bye, Norah.”
“Bye, Andrew,” Norah said and hung up the phone.
Norah smiled at James as she stepped out into the hallway.
“What’s going on?” Norah asked him as she caught onto the mischievous look on his face.
“I spoke to your sister today,” James told her and looked amused as they started walking towards one of the common areas together.
“How did it go? What did she say?” Norah asked curiously.
“It was alright,” James said with a cryptical smile.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Norah questioned. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on, Norah. I’m just happy,” James replied.
“Why are you happy?” Norah wondered.
“I don’t know,” James said with a shrug. “It just felt nice, I suppose. To have someone not get upset with me for once. Your sister was surprisingly nice to me, despite the fact that I’m probably not the kind of person she would prefer you to hang out with when you’re here.”
“I’m relieved she was nice to you. What did she tell you?” Norah asked.
“A lot of stuff,” James replied and shrugged nonchalantly. “I can’t tell you all of it. But she didn’t seem to hate me and that felt good. She actually listened to me and didn’t blame me for getting you into trouble, like everyone else here seems to do. Except for you, of course. You never blame me for when things go wrong, even when it’s called for.”
“I hate that people treat you badly, judge you and always blame you for everything. I’m really glad to hear that my sister didn’t,” Norah told him. “You really deserve to be treated with respect, James.”
“So do you,” James replied with a smile and paused by the touch screen in the hallway where patients could sign up for different things. “Do you want to cook dinner together some day? We’re expected to help cook at least once a week. This was your first week here, so you didn’t have to follow all the routines yet. But from tomorrow on, you’re expected to do all kinds of things. This week was just warm up.”
“But this week sucked,” Norah told him. “Are you telling me it’s going to get even worse?”
“Yeah,” James told her frankly and grinned at her. “A whole lot worse.”
“Let’s do some cooking together then,” Norah said and smiled as she looked at the screen to see which meals were still available to sign up for preparing. “What would you prefer to cook?”
“Umm, well, I suppose we could cook one of the vegetarian options, because you eat vegetarian food,” James said thoughtfully. “How about vegetarian lasagna?”
“It’s going to take ages,” Norah pointed out.
“True,” James agreed. “But, if we make it together, it might not feel like ages.”
“Okay then, let’s go with the lasagna then,” Norah told him with a smile and signed them both up for making the vegetarian lasagna. “Are there other things we need to sign up for?”
“Yeah. If you don’t sign up for things, you will be assigned things to do. So if you sign up before midnight on Sundays, you will have more influence over which chores you do,” James explained. “We have to do the washing up in the kitchen at least once a week as well,” he added and touched the screen to pull up the available spots for that particular chore.
“Okay,” Norah said and touched the screen. “How about we do that together as well?” she suggested. “There are two spots available on Wednesday afternoon.”
“Sure,” James agreed and watched Norah sign them both up.
“How am I supposed to be able to keep track of everything?” Norah asked him.
“Tomorrow morning at seven thirty there will be a morning gathering where we all get our individual schedules for the week,” James explained. “It’s available on the app too, if you have your phone privilege and you can find the information right here on this screen as well.”
“How very modern of them,” Norah said and shook her head to herself.
“Yeah, they’re modern sadists,” James told her and grabbed her by the hand, walking up to one of the windows. “Next week there will be a full moon.”
“Okay,” Norah said and looked a bit puzzled as they looked out at the starlit sky together through the window.
“Do you have any full moon traditions?” James asked her and she shook her head at him amusedly.
“No, do you?” she asked curiously.
“I like to take moon baths,” James told her. “You’re more than welcome to join me next week if you feel up to it.”
“What exactly does a moon bath entail for you?” Norah asked him. “I need to know in order to make an informed decision, don’t I?” she added when he grinned mischievously at her.
“Well, sometimes I go for a swim in a lake or something in the moonlight. Other times, when it’s really cold outside, I usually settle for a quick dip in the water,” James explained. “Unfortunately I haven’t found a proper lake nearby, but I found a pond in a woods clearing that I think will do just fine for a quick dip.”
“That sounds like fun,” Norah replied with a smile. “I’ll try to come with you and hope we don’t get caught.”
“Great,” James said gleefully and opened up the second floor window to let in some fresh air. Norah watched as he shut his eyes and just inhaled the cold night air. “It’s really revigorating,” he told her. “Try it.”
Norah stepped closer towards him and shut her eyes too as she breathed in the cold air. She smiled to herself and leaned a bit further outside the window to get more out of the experience.
“Easy there,” James said and pulled her backwards when she nearly stumbled from leaning out a bit further than intended. “You’re not supposed to dive out the window, silly,” he laughed.
“I guess I got a bit carried away,” Norah laughed and stepped away from the open window. James shut it and turned back towards her. His smile faded slightly as he looked at something behind her. Norah turned around to see a man standing behind her, looking intently at James. “James, are you alright?” Norah asked confusedly.
James didn’t answer, just stood frozen in his spot, looking apprehensively at the man.
“You’re not in trouble, James,” the serious looking man assured her friend. “I just wanted to talk to you about something and give you a belated Christmas gift.”
“A Christmas gift?” James questioned and frowned. “But you don’t do Christmas gifts.”
“Maybe it’s about time that changes,” the man replied. “It’s on the desk in your room. You can look at it later when I’ve left. I need to make a big decision regarding your parents’ farm and I want to know your opinion, since it will affect you as well.”
“You’re actually asking for my opinion?” James asked sceptically and crossed his arms. “Would my opinion even make any difference? You’ve never even bothered to listen for the last five years of my life, just taken decisions over my head regarding my fucking life. What makes you come here now and pretend to care about what I think? It’s all for appearances, isn’t it?”
Norah felt uncomfortable listening to their conversation and tried to leave when James grabbed her by the wrist and looked at her pleadingly.
“Please stay,” he begged her and she silently nodded as she remained by his side.
“James, are you scared of me?” the man asked and James shook his head ‘no’. “It’s okay if you are. It’s understandable considering the way I’ve been treating you. I’ve been too hard on you and you’re right. I haven’t listened to you at all and I have been making decisions over your head. I want to change that now, which is why I came here to talk to you.”
“You just dumped me here in the beginning of December and haven’t come here once to visit me until now. Do you really expect me to want to listen to what you have to say?” James questioned brittly. The man sighed.
“James, please. Can’t we just sit down somewhere and talk? Your friend can come with us if that makes you feel more comfortable,” the man suggested. “I won’t hurt you again. I promise you that. I will never lay a hand on you again. I know now how wrong that was.”
“I’ve been telling you it’s wrong for years. It’s illegal to discipline an underage person with corporal punishment. Social services has been telling you that too on several occasions. How come you haven’t understood that until just now?” James questioned. “You’re not an idiot, Michael. Surely you must have known it was wrong all along, but you chose to do it anyway. And worst of all, you would straight out deny it whenever confronted about it, making everyone think I was the liar. They even called me vengeful and paranoid when I tried to tell them and ask for help. What has changed all of a sudden? What has made you finally man up and stand for what you’ve done? What has finally made you realise just how badly you’ve been treating me?”
“You’re right, James. I’ve been horrible to you and you have every right to be angry with me and hate me for it,” Michael told him. “You’re wondering what has changed. I’m hoping it’s me that has changed. I’ve gone to therapy for a while now and it has helped me see things in a different light. I’ve normalised so many things from my own upbringing, assuming that it wasn’t as harmful as it really is to do what I did to you. You were only a child and it wasn’t right. You had no way of defending yourself against me and like you said, I lied when confronted about it. I didn’t act like a real man, I acted like a true coward. When I kept telling you to man up and stand for your mistakes, I acted like the worst kind of sanctimonious hypocrite. I became just like my own father towards you, even though I promised myself never to become like him.”
“What do you want from me?” James asked him. “I don’t buy that bullshit about you truly having changed because of some therapy sessions. There must be some ulterior motive to whatever makes you come here now.”
“Can we sit down somewhere, James?” Michael said again. “I really want to tell you all about what’s going on.”
Norah grabbed James by the hand and squeezed it reassuringly to remind him of her presence. He looked at her and his gaze softened.
“We could sit in the room over there, if you want me to come with you,” Norah suggested to James. It had more or less become their room to hang out in. It was a rather small room with transparent doors but also curtains you could use to make the room completely dark even during the day. The room was furnished with two reading lamps, a sofa, a table and two armchairs. The lights in the ceiling had a dimmer and there was also a projector in the room with different settings that made a starlit sky appear in the room. They liked to sit there in the dark, surrounded by the stars and just talk for hours.
“I don’t want him to ruin that for me too,” James replied and walked up to the table where the staff usually sat during meals. “We can sit here,” he informed Michael and sat down in one of the chairs. Norah sat down next to him as Michael sat down on the opposite side of the table, facing James.
“Are you Norah?” Michael asked and looked ponderously at Norah. She nodded quietly. “I’m glad to hear that James has found a friend in you. I’m Michael and I’m James’s uncle.”
“Okay,” Norah mumbled, not wanting to exchange pleasantries with him after learning about the fact that he had been abusive towards James.
“I can tell that you think I’m a monster. I’ve seen that look before,” Michael told her, but didn’t seem offended by it. “You’re not wrong, but I’m trying to change.”
“Leave her alone,” James told his uncle irritably. “Don’t try to manipulate her too.”
“I didn’t mean to manipulate her, but fine, I’ll leave her alone,” Michael replied. “What do you want to do with your life, James? What are your dreams and hopes for the future? Do you want to run your parents’ farm, or do you want to do something else? Are you still interested in engineering?”
“Are you thinking of selling the farm?” James asked him, ignoring his questions. “Is that why you’re here?”
“I’m thinking of buying it from you, actually,” Michael replied. “That way, it would still stay in the family and you would be welcome to come back anytime you like, but still have no obligation to if you were to choose another path.”
“You want to buy it?” James questioned incredulously. “Let me guess, you want to buy it cheap from me just so you can sell it later and make a profit. Is that it?”
“No, I want to keep it within the family,” Michael insisted. “This is not a decision you have to make right now. You can think it through properly before you decide anything. You need to be eighteen before we would be able to sign any contracts anyway,” he explained. “I’m not trying to rip you off, James. I’ve actually grown rather fond of living and working at the farm. If you don’t believe me, we can put a clause in the contract that ensures that if I want to sell it within ten years of buying it, you would have precedence to buy it back for the same price you sold it for.”
James frowned at his uncle. “What’s the real reason behind this?” he questioned.
“There are many reasons behind this, James,” Michael told him. “I want you to feel free to do what you want with your life. I want you to have more opportunities than your father had when he was more or less forced to take over the farm from your grandfather. He might have wanted something different out of life, but was never given the opportunity to choose for himself. I know he envied me for being able to study whatever I wanted to. I also know that he would have wanted you to be able to choose for yourself what to do.”
“That sounds nice and all, but also manipulative. You’re trying to convince me to sell you the farm, but you’re not revealing the main reason behind your decision of wanting to buy it,” James remarked. “I’m not falling for your tricks anymore.”
“Everything I’ve told you is true, James,” Michael told him and sighed heavily. “But you’re right, there is another reason. Caroline is expecting. If everything goes right, you will be getting a cousin this summer. We want to get married and build a home together at the farm, but only if you’re okay with it. You will still always have a room there to stay in if you like, or we could even build a bungalow for you on the property if you would prefer more space for yourself.”
“Caroline is pregnant?” James asked confoundedly. “I thought you never wanted to have children of your own. You would be a really lousy father, you know. I mean, if you treat your own nephew like shit, how are you going to treat your own children?”
“That’s why I want to change, James,” Michael told him seriously. “I don’t want to become a lousy father and I want to stop being a lousy uncle. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I’ve done you wrong in so many ways. I just wish you would give me an opportunity to try to repair some of the damage I’ve caused to our relationship. You’re important to me, James. I care for you and so does Caroline,” he explained. “We love you, James.”
“You love me?” James questioned and laughed joylessly. “That’s really funny. Are you really expecting me to believe that? Are you saying that Caroline has somehow given you a heart all of a sudden? That you’re even capable of love? She should get as far away from you as possible and keep you from ever laying your hands on that child she’s carrying,” James said coldly and got up from his seat with tears in his eyes. He walked towards the stairs to the third floor and Norah frowned as she got up to follow him. She felt bad for the man who was now sitting alone by the table with an immense sadness in his eyes.
“Do you think he’s right?” Michael asked her as she was about to walk past him to follow James upstairs.
“I don’t know you,” Norah replied. “But I believe he’s really upset right now. Sometimes when you’re upset you say things you don’t really mean. I don’t know whether or not you’re capable of change, but it shouldn’t matter what I think about it. In order to truly change, you’re the one who has to believe that it’s possible and also put down all the work to achieve your goals. I don’t believe there are hopeless cases, but change requires a lot of work,” she reasoned. “Don’t give up on yourself and make sure to let James know that you’ve not given up on him. But also give him some space to process all this.”
“You sound surprisingly insightful for someone so young,” Michael reflected as he looked at her thoughtfully. “How come you’re in a place like this, if you’re able to reason the way you do?”
“James is also very insightful,” Norah told him irritably. “You would know that if you ever actually had taken your time to hear him out and get to know him. Sometimes being able to think reasonably about things is not enough, because no one is able to do that at all times. If you add mental illness to the mix, a person can use rationalisation to the point that they find it perfectly reasonable to end their own life. They can convince themselves that it’s the only rational choice, even when it’s not. Especially if the person in question is left all alone with their own thoughts and never has anyone there to question the truth value of those thoughts.”
“What you say makes perfect sense, but how do you get through to a person who keeps pushing you away and never lets you in?” Michael asked her. Norah frowned slightly and gave it some thought. She really didn’t know what to answer, but wanted to give him some kind of advice that would help him understand how to approach James in a better way.
“I don’t really know, but based on my own experiences I suppose I would say that you shouldn’t confront them or pressure them into telling you anything that they’re not ready to tell you,” Norah told him. “You don’t get angry with them and make them feel guilty about something they can’t help. You don’t blame them for being ill and call them lazy or tell them that they’re not trying hard enough, because in reality, you have absolutely no idea about what’s really going on in someone else’s life,” she explained. “You show them compassion and let them know that you’re there for them whenever they’re ready to talk. You make them feel safe by making sure to let them know that they can trust you not to get upset with them if they open up about something that might upset you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Michael told her and she began walking away from him again. “Thank you, Norah. Please, take care of yourself and keep being a good friend to James when you can. You might be just the person he needs right now to feel less lonely. I’m not saying you should stop focusing on getting better yourself. I just hope that you both can focus on getting better together and support each other.”
“James is a really good friend to me and he makes me feel less lonely. I hope I do the same for him. I want the same thing as you do, for him to feel better,” Norah replied and gave him one last look before walking up the stairs to see where James had headed.
She smiled as she noticed that the window they had climbed out from onto the roof a few nights earlier was wide open. She climbed up onto the roof and found James sitting on the roof, but frowned once she noticed that he was sitting very close to the edge. Letting his legs hang over it.
“James,” Norah said quietly, careful not to startle him. He looked up at her and due to the darkness of the night, she wasn’t able to read his facial expression. “Why are you so close to the edge?”
“Because that’s what Michael does to me. He pushes me closer towards the edge,” James told her. “I don’t want to do this anymore, Norah. I don’t want him to bring me false hope that things are actually going to change for the better, because they won’t. They never do. I’m so fed up with it. I want to just shut my eyes and never wake up again, because my life is a fucking nightmare.”
Norah carefully climbed over to where he was sitting and reluctantly sat down next to him, with her legs over the edge to match his. She felt frightened, but couldn’t think of another way to really get through to her friend.
“What are you doing?” James questioned with alarm in his voice. “Don’t be an idiot, Norah. You have everything to live for. Don’t sit so close to the edge.”
“You’re an idiot too, James,” Norah told him and couldn’t help but find it ironic that she was doing the exact same thing as Tom had been doing with her months earlier. “Because you have everything to live for too. Once you’re eighteen, you can tell your uncle to fuck off and never see him again if that’s what you really want. Don’t give him the power to affect your life this much. Cut him out of your life if you want to. It’s completely up to you what you decide to do. I will stand by your side and support your decision whatever it is,” she assured him and grabbed his hand. “I’m your friend, James, and I won’t leave your side.”
“You’re a fool for being my friend, Norah,” James told her sadly. “A true fool.”
“And you’re a fool for being mine,” Norah replied and felt tears fill her eyes. “I have a tendency to disappoint people, but I promise, I will try really hard not to disappoint you.”
“I really can’t imagine that you would disappoint people, Norah,” James told her earnestly. “Nothing about you is disappointing in my eyes.”
“You’re too kind, James,” Norah told him. “And possibly a bit blind,” she added humorously and smiled as she heard him laugh.
“Maybe we’re both blind as bats then,” James suggested.
“Yeah, maybe we are,” Norah told him and glanced down over the edge at the ground beneath them. It was a lot higher than she had anticipated or even noticed the first time they climbed onto the roof together. Their eyes had been so focused on the sky that they didn’t even consider the risk they were taking. “But we’re not as annoyingly reckless as Romeo and Juliet who both die at the end of the play, are we?” she asked him.
“No, I suppose we’re not,” James replied and let go of her hand to climb further up on the roof, away from the edge. “We don’t want our lives to end just yet.”
“Exactly. They can end any other day, but today will not be the day we die,” Norah reasoned and carefully climbed after him back to the window and in through it. Once they were both safely back inside, she quickly shut the window and sat down on the floor with her back against the wall. Her heart was racing, her breathing ragged and her hands were shaking.
“Norah, are you okay?” James asked her concernedly and turned on the lights in the room they often used for various meetings and group exercises to get a better look at her. “I think you’re having a panic attack. Do you want me to stay or get someone to help you?”
“Stay,” Norah uttered in between laboured breaths and grabbed his wrist. James sat down on the floor with her and calmly guided her through the panic attack, just like a professional might have done in that situation. Then he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and comforted her as she cried.
“I’m sorry, Norah,” James told her regretfully. “I really shouldn’t have put you through that. I didn’t expect you to come after me and I certainly didn’t expect you to foolishly sit down beside me like that. You’re very brave, but I really don’t want you to take such risks for my sake again.”
“Then don’t put me in that situation again,” Norah told him. “Don’t put yourself in danger and everything will be fine,” she said and then sighed, shaking her head at her own words. “Or maybe not fine, but you know what I mean. It won’t be as bad,” she corrected herself, causing James to beam at her.
Their peaceful moment in each others’ company was soon interrupted by someone in the night staff coming up the stairs.
“You’re not allowed to be up here at this time of day,” the woman told them sternly and looked suspiciously at the window they had climbed through earlier. “You haven’t been on the roof again, have you?” she questioned irritably.
“We wouldn’t dream of it, Joanne,” James replied languidly.
“Are you a couple?” Joanne asked them forwardly.
“No, just friends,” Norah told her irritably. “I’m not promiscuous if that’s what you’re implying, which by the way would be very unprofessional of you,” she added indignantly and stood up from the floor to glare at the woman.
“I just asked you a question. There’s really no need for you to be rude to me, young lady,” the woman replied with a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“Well, our relationship status would be none of your damn business, old lady,” Norah retorted angrily.
“Congratulations, you just earned yourself a warning, Norah,” Joanne informed her. “You get a warning too, James. You’re very much aware that you shouldn’t be up here at this time of night, especially not after your last escapade on the roof.”
Norah tried hard not to talk back as she quickly began walking down the stairs with James by her side. She met his gaze and smiled amusedly as he mouthed the words ‘what a fucking bitch’ to her.
“It’s nearly eleven,” Joanne informed them. “So evidently I expect you both to be in your rooms and ready for bed within five minutes,” she added before walking off.
“I hate this place so much,” Norah vented to James who wholeheartedly agreed with her.
“How many warnings do you have now?” James asked her and she frowned as she struggled to remember.
“I’m not sure, actually,” Norah replied. “Two or three,” she guessed.
“Well, you will certainly notice tomorrow if it’s three,” James told her, causing her to sigh dejectedly. “If it’s any comfort to you, I have three warnings and will be in for yet another one of their disciplinary meetings.”
“I’m sorry about that. I really hate those meetings,” Norah told him. “It’s like a kangaroo court. They ask you a bunch of questions and make you answer them thoroughly, even though they obviously already have made up their minds about which way to punish you. It’s a complete waste of everyone’s time and seems more like a way for them to demonstrate the power they have over you than to actually assess how to lessen the likelihood that you repeat the same transgressions you’re there to discuss.”
“Exactly! It’s a fucking kangaroo court,” James agreed and smiled at her. “I really wish you would have come here sooner. It’s so nice to finally have someone who sees through all their bullshit and is not too afraid to talk about it. You’re even calling them out on it more often than I do.”
“I’ve been advised to stop calling them out on it,” Norah revealed and sighed. “Maybe it would be wiser of me to keep my mouth shut more often than I do, but it’s really fucking hard when they’re being total dicks.”
“It is really fucking hard,” James agreed. “I’m trying to keep my mouth shut too and adapt to their expectations, but sometimes it’s like they just deliberately provoke me to get a reaction from me.”
“I feel like they do that too,” Norah agreed and looked thoughtful for a moment. “I wonder if that’s a part of their treatment. If they do that on purpose to be able to assess how we handle situations like that. That it’s some sort of test.”
“Maybe you’re right,” James told her and frowned. “If it is, I keep failing the test over and over again. If they really test us like that, by deliberately provoking us just to see how we react, they’re really fucking evil.”
“Hell yeah, they are,” Norah agreed. James grinned at her and glanced down at his watch.
“Fuck! It’s past eleven!” he told her urgently and they both hurriedly ran towards their respective rooms. “Good night,” James called to her as they went separate ways.
“Good night,” Norah called back to him.
“You seem to be in a hurry,” a male staff member she hadn’t met before, amusedly told Norah as she placed her hand on the handle to her room and tried to catch her breath from running so fast.
“Yeah, I lost track of time,” Norah told him embarrassedly as she nervously scratched the back of her neck.
“It’s okay, that happens,” the man assured her with a gentle smile. “I’m Clay. It’s nice to meet you,” he said and read the small sign on her door. “Norah. That’s a nice name.”
“Thank you. It’s nice to meet you too, Clay,” Norah replied politely and even smiled at him.
“I wish you a good night’s sleep. Just let us know if you need anything. In case you don’t already know, we have a night nurse here in case you need anything to help you sleep,” Clay informed her.
“Yeah, that’s good,” Norah replied and opened the door to her room. “Thank you, Clay. Have a good night.”
Norah stepped into her room and shut the door before hurriedly getting started on the normal night time routines. Since she couldn’t lock the door to her room for privacy, she had a room divider set up in the room so she could change clothes behind it without risking that anyone would see her if they opened the door.
“I hate this place so much,” Norah sighed to herself as she quickly changed into her pyjamas. Once she was ready for bed, she made sure to set the alarm on the digital clock on her nightstand to 07.15 in order to not be late for the morning gathering they held on Mondays. She had been devastatingly late to the weekly meeting after her first night there, which had earned her a third warning for the first time, which had been followed by a disciplinary meeting a few hours later.
Norah turned off the lights and laid down in bed to check her phone. She opened the Willow’s Creek app to see how many warnings had been registered in her name and groaned upon noticing that it was back up to three. They would reset to zero after three warnings had been given once their consequences had been decided. She skimmed through her history of warnings and the notes accompanying each of them and felt increasingly upset by how persistent and strict some of the staff members were. Max was the one who had given her the most warnings, closely followed by Samantha. Dave had only given her one warning and had seemed very reluctant as he did it. He had been so kind and patient with her and she had felt so bad when she had kept pushing him to the point that he finally gave her the warning. He had looked so disappointed and apologetic as he registered the warning on his app in front of her eyes so she could see his reasoning behind it.
Norah perfectly understood Dave’s reasoning for that one warning and had been surprised that he hadn’t given it to her sooner than he had. After all, she had been acting like a defiant child and repeated the same offence several times during their walk in the woods. If it had been Max, her actions that day probably would have resulted in at least two or possibly even more warnings.
Norah couldn’t help but smile a little at Dave’s wording. ‘A warning is given after the attendant repeatedly has put herself in potential danger by balancing the railings of bridges over streams and walking unnecessarily close to the edges of escarpments despite repeatedly being asked not to do so.’ He hadn’t even mentioned how the final straw had been when she had actually slipped on a railing and he had instinctively grabbed her to prevent her from falling into the rocky stream underneath the bridge they had been on. He had remained completely calm as he had asked her if she was alright and then reluctantly pulled out his phone to register the warning. Norah felt bad about how incredibly rude and at times outright cruel she had been to him during that walk up until he saved her from falling and possibly injuring herself. She had felt so ashamed and regretful for saying such mean things to him when he hadn’t done anything to deserve it and had apologised to him on the way back. After that, Norah had felt closer to Dave and tried her best to treat him with the same respect he had shown her.
Norah looked through her text messages, catching up on the days she had been deprived of her phone privileges and answered the messages thoroughly before putting the phone away to finally go to sleep. She glanced at the digital clock on her bedside table and sighed heavily as she registered the time. It was nearly two in the morning.
When the alarm went off in the morning, Norah wished she had a hammer within reach so that she could smash the damned thing into pieces. She reluctantly got out of bed and tried to make herself as presentable as possible before she had to leave the room in order to get to the weekly morning meeting on time.
“Right on time, Norah. Well done,” Max told her, glancing at his watch, as she seated herself in a chair next to James in the room they had been sitting in together the preceding night.
“Morning,” James greeted her in a whisper. “Did you have a hard time falling asleep too?”
“Yeah, I was answering messages on my phone until two in the morning and then I couldn’t fall asleep because my mind was racing,” Norah whispered back. “How was your night?”
“The gift my uncle gave me…” James trailed off as Max shot him a stern look and asked everyone to be silent. “Later,” he mumbled and Norah glared irritably at Max as he started the morning meeting.
Norah found herself nearly drifting off to sleep in her seat as the morning meeting went on. She barely even looked at her personalised schedule for the week because she couldn’t focus her tired eyes on the letters on the paper in her hand. Max eventually declared that the meeting was over and reminded everyone that those whose names were written on the whiteboard should stay behind.
“Is my name on the board?” Norah wearily asked James as she rubbed her tired eyes.
“It sure is,” James told her. “So is mine and a few more people’s. Surprisingly many, if you ask me. This can’t only be about us being in trouble,” he concluded, causing Norah to look up at the whiteboard and the people remaining in the room. Those were people who pretty much never got in trouble as far as she knew. Even the annoyingly perfect Lexi was amongst them.
“What’s going on?” she asked James confusedly and looked down at their personal schedules for clues. “What the hell?” she uttered once she noticed that they both had the stables and horseback riding scheduled for that afternoon.
“What?” James asked and she pointed at their schedules. “What?! This must be some sort of mistake, or a cruel joke,” he reasoned and she nodded agreeingly.
“Is everyone whose name is written on the whiteboard here?” Max asked and looked around the room with his observant green eyes. “Good. This afternoon, you will all be going to the stables and do some horseback riding. If anyone hasn’t tried it before, they have nothing to worry about. The man in charge of the horses is a very good teacher. Those of you who haven’t been to the stables before, remember to put on the right sort of clothing and dress warmly, because it’s a bit cold today. Don’t forget to bring your riding cap if you have one, otherwise you will of course be able to borrow one, because safety comes first, as you all know.”
Norah stared at Max in disbelief as he wished the gathering of patients a great day. She and James stayed behind as the others went back downstairs for breakfast. Max was cleaning the white board and smiled as he noticed their presence.
“Can I help you with something?” Max asked them with a smile.
“Has there been some kind of mistake?” Norah asked him and showed him her personalised schedule for the week. Max looked at it for a moment before shaking his head at her.
“No, I don’t think so,” Max replied. “It looks right to me.”
“How about mine?” James asked and showed Max his own personalised schedule.
“I can’t see any mistakes there either,” Max informed him with a friendly smile. “I hope you have a good time today, James. I’ve heard that you have a lot of experience with horses, so maybe you could give Norah some advice and look after her for us,” he suggested. “After all, she’s a Londoner and has as far as I know no earlier experiences with horses.”
“Okay,” James agreed, clearly a bit taken aback. “Thanks.”
“You should both get started on breakfast,” Max advised them. “Your disciplinary meetings have been postponed until tomorrow. The time should be registered on your schedules. Make sure not to be late or miss them, because Doctor Sharpe will be the one in charge of them. You haven’t met him yet, Norah, but make sure to bite your tongue when you do, because he has far less tolerance for back talking than the other doctors here.”
Norah and James both gave him confused looks before walking downstairs to get breakfast.
“They’re probably giving us this, just to take it away at the last moment,” Norah suggested, causing James to laugh.
“That would be so cruel,” James replied. “I really hope they don’t. I would love to see the horses with you.”
“Awwwh, isn’t that sweet,” another patient called Mandy told them teasingly. She was a bit of a troublemaker herself, but didn’t seem to be at all interested in spending time with James and Norah. “James and Norah sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” she said loudly enough for most people in the big dining room to hear her.
“But it’s quite obvious, isn’t it? You’re in love with each other and everyone here seems to have caught up on that except for you,” Mandy told her provokingly.
“Why don’t you piss off, you cocksucking slut?” Norah told her angrily.
“Excuse me?!” Mandy asked her indignantly.
“You heard me,” Norah replied coolly. “Isn’t it obvious, though? That you’re a cocksucking slut? Everyone seems to have caught up on it except for you.”
Mandy angrily clenched her fist and punched Norah on her left cheek bone, the one she had injured a couple of weeks earlier.
“What the hell are you doing, Mandy?!” James shouted angrily at the other patient and grabbed her wrists to prevent her from punching Norah again.
“Are you her knight in shining armour, James?” Mandy asked him scornfully. “I suppose that’s good for her, since she’s clearly not woman enough to defend herself.”
“What’s going on here?!” Max demanded angrily and grabbed Norah firmly around the wrist as she was just about to retaliate on Mandy.
“I can tell you what I saw,” Lexi, who had been right next to them as it all happened, suggested.
“Go ahead,” Max encouraged her.
“Mandy was teasing James and Norah about being a couple. Norah replied by saying something rude to Mandy, and then Mandy punched Norah. James grabbed Mandy by the wrists to prevent Mandy from continuing to hurt Norah,” Lexi summarised.
“Okay. James, let go of Mandy,” Max said. “I want James, Norah, Mandy and Lexi to come with me for a moment. Is that fine by you, Lexi? I think you might be the most reliable witness in this situation since you’re not personally and emotionally involved in it.”
“Sure,” Lexi agreed, eager as ever to suck up to the staff.
Max brought them downstairs to the ground floor and the room in which the disciplinary meetings were usually being held and patiently asked them all for their versions of what happened.
“Alright then, Lexi and James, you are free to leave. I want to talk a bit more to Mandy and Norah,” Max decided after hearing them out. James gave Norah a sympathetic look as he left the room with Lexi.
“Mandy, it’s not okay to physically assault another attendant, no matter how mean they are to you,” Max told Mandy in a serious voice. “From what I understand, you even initiated the verbal argument, but weren’t willing to accept the fact that Norah was talking back to you. I feel like you leave me with no other choice than to give you a warning and suggest to the psychiatrist that you shouldn’t be allowed to practise any more boxing until further notice since you just punched someone,” he informed Mandy who got visibly upset by his words. She started kicking the trash can, actually breaking it as Max tried to calm her down by validating her emotions. Mandy shouted at him as tears of despair ran down her face and he embraced her.
Norah felt uncomfortable watching such a sensitive moment that Mandy was currently having and left the room, waiting outside with tears filling up her own eyes. She felt horrible for unintentionally having caused the situation by being so mean to Mandy.
“Norah, are you okay?” Jane, a staff member she had met on her first day there, asked and looked at her concernedly. “Your face! Are you hurt? What happened?”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Norah said regretfully.
“What happened?” Jane asked as the door to the room opened and Max looked at them.
“You can come back inside now, Norah,” Max told her and smiled at his colleague. “You can come too, if you have time Jane. I could use your advice on how to deal with this situation.”
“Of course,” Jane said and walked into the room with Norah.
“Can I say something?” Norah asked and looked at Max. He nodded at her. “I don’t think it would be fair to take boxing away from Mandy just because of what happened. I said something really mean to her and I think most people would react in the same way she did. She didn’t even punch me all that hard, and she wasn’t aiming for the chin or other more sensitive areas than the cheek bone, which she probably would have if her intention had been to hurt me as much as possible. She obviously held back and showed restraint despite being as provoked as she was in that situation. I think that’s commendable and I really wish you would at least consider letting her off with a warning.”
Max looked a bit taken aback by her words and so did Jane.
“Are you sure that’s what you really want after what she just did to you?” Max questioned and Norah nodded confidently.
“I’m very sure about that,” Norah told him and turned to Mandy who was sitting down on a chair looking confused. “I’m really sorry about what I said to you, Mandy. It was uncalled for and no one here actually thinks that about you. I just said it to be as mean as possible to you and that wasn’t okay. What you said wasn’t nearly as bad, so what I said was very uncalled for, downright cruel and degrading in a way that I think I kind of deserved to be punched in the face for it, if I’m going to be perfectly honest.”
“Thank you, Norah,” Mandy told her appreciatively. “I really shouldn’t have teased you to begin with and I certainly shouldn’t have punched you for coming up with a creative comeback to what I said,” she said and even smiled a little as she stood up and walked up to Norah, holding out her hand. “Can we call a truce?” she suggested and Norah smiled as she nodded and shook the other patient’s hand.
“It’s a truce,” Norah agreed.
“Or you could become friends,” Jane suggested with a warm smile, causing Mandy and Norah to frown at each other.
“I don’t think we’re quite there yet, but maybe later on,” Norah replied honestly.
“Yeah, maybe later on,” Mandy agreed and looked at Norah with a new found interest.
“Jane, what do you think should be done about this situation?” Max asked his colleague with a pensive look on his face.
“I think they’ve both taken responsibility for their parts in the situation and that you should consider Norah’s suggestion of letting Mandy off with a warning,” Jane suggested.
“And what about the consequences for Norah’s actions?” Max wondered.
“That you should let her off with a warning too,” Jane replied. “Or not give her any warning at all. She showed bravery and maturity by the way she handled the situation. She took Mandy’s perspective and showed compassion, which can be very difficult to do so soon after an incident like this. That is something that should be encouraged, if you ask me. But it’s ultimately up to you to decide the consequences,” she reasoned and smiled at the two girls and her colleague before leaving the room.
“Mandy, I’ll let you off with a warning this time. But don’t ever punch someone else here again, okay?” Max said and Mandy nodded eagerly at him. “You’re free to go,” he said and she quickly left the room, as though she was afraid he might change his mind.
Norah felt uncomfortable as she felt Max’s green eyes on her. He asked her to sit down and checked the bruise on her cheek bone. He asked her several questions about symptoms for a possible concussion and decided that he wanted to take her to the nurse just in case to be able to decide whether or not she was okay to go horseback riding later that day.
Norah reluctantly followed Max to the nurse’s office for a checkup.
“Are you going to give me a warning or what?” Norah couldn’t help but ask him during the checkup, causing him to smile.
“You’re always so impatient, Norah,” Max told her amusedly. “I’ve decided not to give you a warning since you stepped up and took responsibility for what you did. It was really nice of you to take Mandy’s perspective on this. I certainly didn’t expect that level of maturity and insightfulness from you in a situation where most people would be too upset to think like that. You’re a compassionate person, Norah. Even though you sometimes are very good at hiding it.”
“Thank you,” Norah mumbled abashedly and felt relieved when the nurse cleared her to go horseback riding later that day.
When Norah got back to the breakfast with Max, the longtable had been cleared except for her place. Someone had prepared her breakfast and wrapped it in plastic so the cheese on the sandwiches wouldn’t go dry and the slices of apple wouldn’t oxidise.
Norah opened her personalised schedule and looked at it before checking the time.
“Umm,” Norah mumbled as Max smiled at her. “I’m supposed to do school work now, so do I just skip breakfast or what?”
“You have to eat your breakfast,” Max informed her.
“Can I combine the two to be more time efficient?” Norah suggested.
“Just sit down and eat, please. I’ll keep you company,” Max said and sat down beside her where James usually sat. Norah despondently sighed and started eating her breakfast. “You look very tired, Norah. What time did you fall asleep?”
“I don’t know,” Norah replied.
“Did you by any chance use your phone after midnight?” Max asked her and she shook her head at him with a frown. “So you didn’t text your sister around half past one in the morning?”
“Umm, maybe the text message was delayed somehow?” Norah suggested awkwardly.
“I don’t appreciate you lying to me, Norah,” Max told her.
“I don’t appreciate my own sister snitching on me, but we can’t all get what we want, now can we?” Norah muttered in response.
“Just don’t do it again, please,” Max told her with a gentle smile. “Don’t use your phone after midnight again, unless you want to have to turn it in every night and get it back in the morning. Freedom under responsibility, remember? It’s important that you sleep properly.”
“Okay,” Norah agreed, relieved that she didn’t have to turn in her phone for the transgression.
I love 'he loves me not' but I'll surely have a mental breakdown if Norah & Tom don't end up together!! I really wanna know more of how the story is going but I'm scared to read it further because 1) I'm afraid you have discontinued the series and 2) i really want Tom to start loving Norah romantically but I've lost the hope of it being true
Would you ease my mind by answering it honestly.... Because I really need to know... I never was so affected by any story like this and i don't think I can handle the pain of them being not together... So I plead for you to tell me so that I quit the series just in time. If you can't publicly make any announcement then just let me know that you acknowledge this and let me know me in my dm, I'll text you... I swear I'll keep it a secret. But for the first time I'm scared that if it goes the way I think it's going i wouldn't be able to overcome it easily.
Hi! I know we've PM:ed already, but I want to publicly thank you for writing to me and asking me about this story. As a result of that, I did go back and read the last few chapters and looked through my old drafts for the continuation of the story and decided that I really want to continue writing it (even after all this time) and hopefully finish it. I really hope to give everyone who has read it an at least decent ending for the story, so I've just posted Chapter Twenty-One for He Loves Me Not and I do plan to post more chapters soon. I have one or two more chapters that are nearly finished, but I have not quite decided the ending for the story yet. I might end up making it about 25 chapters in totall, but I'm not completely sure how long it will end up being just yet.
Thank you so much for taking you time to read my story and for encouraging me in my writing by letting me know that you enjoy it. It truly means the world to me. So, from the bottom of my heart, to you @jinxeee and all you people who have taken your time to read my work, THANK YOU SO VERY, VERY MUCH.
CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: 21/??
WHICH TOM/CHARACTER: Actor Tom
OTHER CHARACTERS: Benedict Cumberbatch
PAIRING: Tom Hiddleston/OFC
GENRE: Hurt/Comfort, Drama, Romance, Teen Angst, Coming of age
FIC SUMMARY: Norah is a troubled teenager who is secretly and obsessively in love with her sister Sarah’s boyfriend, Tom. Sarah constantly worries about her younger sister, who is struggling with depression and anxiety, and one night, after a long evening at a charity event, Tom decides that he has had quite enough of Norah’s at times reckless and what could be considered rather selfish behaviour. He reveals a new side of himself as he desperately tries to help Norah break her vicious circle of self-destruction and open her eyes to the beautiful things in life. Could he be Norah’s knight in shining armor? Or will his efforts prove to be all in vain? Is his mere presence actually doing more harm than good? Could he ever love her the way she loves him?
WARNINGS: This story contains potentially triggering subjects such as Depression, Anxiety, Self-Harm, Self-Destruction, Eating Disorders, Talk About Suicide and Suicidal Ideation. It also deals with the subject of Grief and contains Previous Character Deaths. Other potentially upsetting subjects this story contains are Spanking Fantasies, Sexual Fantasies, Masturbation, Dirty Talk, Age Difference and Age Play.
WRITER'S NOTE:
I realise this might strike you as odd, me updating this story after such a long time. But I rediscovered after getting some very nice positive response on it on one of the platforms I use to post it, and I went through my notes and realised that I did have a few drafts for chapters written on it. I read through them and I decided that I feel okay with posting them now. My intention has always been to finish this story someday and give it a proper ending. Your support for my writing means the world to me. As I write, I constantly learn new things and ways to express myself in a language that is not my native language, and it's quite wonderful, really.
I want to thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for reading my work. Please, take care, and feel free to comment on my writing or just get in touch me if you want to.
Love,
F.
If you are having a hard time and think that stories containing any of those subjects might have a negative effect on your wellbeing, I advise against reading it and wish you the best of luck. Please, take care of yourself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Noncompliance
'Maybe you’ll get a replacement
There’s plenty of me to be found
Mongrels who ain’t got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you
On the ground, ah, ah
So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to my plough'
Norah stared blankly out the car window, not taking notice of the change in scenery outside as she listened to the lyrics of the song. Tom had made her playlists of music that made him think of her in one way or another. She found it sweet that he thought about her enough to produce playlists with hours of music for her. Some of the lyrics and music really spoke to her in a way she had not anticipated. She felt a strong love for music and sometimes looked up more songs by the bands and artists on the playlists because Tom’s song recommendations had awoken an interest in her. Listening to Tom’s playlists made her feel closer to him in a way, but he was still always out of her reach somehow, even when he was sitting right next to her, like now.
Sarah was sitting in the backseat reading through the paperwork related to Norah’s admittance to the treatment facility called Willow’s Creek. Norah had been assigned to stay in a section called ‘The Wood Anemone’. After learning about her doctor’s decision to send her there because of the incident at new year’s eve, Norah had promptly refused to look in the brochure about the place. She had dramatically torn it into pieces and spread them out in her doctor’s office like confetti after having it handed to her. Sarah had made sure to keep the rest of the papers away from Norah, fearing that she otherwise might do the same to them. Norah felt furious by how things had ended up like this, especially after having that nice doctor, Darius Feresteh, who her ordinary doctor was supervising, getting her hopes up about her actually having a choice in all this. It was a small comfort that Darius had actually seemed quite openly displeased with his supervisor when the decision had been made and offered Norah some encouraging words before she left the doctor’s office that afternoon her fate had been sealed and decisions had in their usual fashion been made over her head.
Darius had taken her aside and looked at her with compassion in his warm, kind eyes. ‘I’m really sorry about all this, Norah. I didn’t expect them to disrespect your right to make your own decisions like this. Maybe I’ve been too naive to realise just how great the discrepancy between how I think things should be done and how they are actually done is. But I know you will get through this and I’ve met patients who have been to Willow’s Creek and completely turned their lives around. I’ve visited the place a few times and let me assure you, it really isn’t as bad as you might think it is.’
It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, the tenth of January 2016, to be more precise, and Norah felt like a convict being transported to the penitentiary where she would serve her sentence. At least she got to sit in the front seat with Tom, rather than in the back of a police transport, Norah thought to herself. She had recovered from the incident at new year’s eve, at least physically. The bruise on her cheekbone was barely visible even when she was not wearing any makeup to cover it up. As they approached their destination, Norah checked her makeup in the mirror to make sure that she looked presentable. She didn’t want to make a bad impression on the other teenagers living in the treatment facility by looking unkempt. One of the upsides of having short hair was that it was a lot easier to brush and style than her long hair had been. Norah sighed heavily once she saw the sign that read ‘Willow’s Creek’ and turned to look pleadingly at Sarah in the backseat.
“Please, don’t make me go,” Norah begged. Sarah looked up at her sadly and shook her head in response.
“I’m so sorry, but your doctor has decided that this will be a safer environment for you right now,” Sarah said regretfully. “It’s only for a while. I think you even might enjoy yourself here, there are horses and -”
“I won’t,” Norah interrupted irritably. “I’m going to hate every damn second of it.”
When the car came to a stop in the parking lot Norah looked up to see that there was a woman and a man approaching the car. She crossed her arms to express her dissatisfaction and refused to make eye contact with any of them as they looked at her.
“It’s going to be alright, Norah,” Tom said and undid her seatbelt before gently patting her shoulder. “The grown up thing to do in situations like these is to face reality and try to make the best of it.”
“Clearly I don’t qualify as a grown up yet, since I apparently have no say in this. So you can take your grown up advice and show them up your-” Norah got distracted by the car door suddenly opening next to her and didn’t finish her sentence. She looked up to find Sarah smiling gently at her and sighed heavily in response.
“It’s time,” Sarah informed her as if she didn’t know it already.
“I don’t want to,” Norah mumbled.
“I know. I don’t want this either, but we have no other choice,” Sarah replied.
“There’s always a choice,” Norah muttered.
“Even if I would insist on keeping you home, your doctor would have the law on her side and make you go here either way. The difference would be that I would no longer have a say in how long you would have to stay here. It’s better this way,” Sarah explained. Norah knew this already, but she still felt upset with Sarah for bringing her there voluntarily. “Come on, it’s time to go.”
Norah held back a smile at her sister’s words as they reminded her of a Pink Floyd song that Joe had introduced to her. ‘That will keep you going through the show. Come on, it’s time to go.’ She thought about Joe for a moment and felt a bit more at ease. He had encouraged her to use the place to her advantage, just like he had done when he was in rehab. His stories of success and setbacks made her feel a little bit more at ease.
“Norah, come on,” Sarah said, bringing Norah back to the present.
“Fine,” Norah muttered and reluctantly got out of the car. She grabbed her backpack from the floor in the front seat and put it on. Tom had already grabbed her bag from the car boot and carried it for her. Sarah was carrying a bag of things she had insisted on packing for Norah.
The woman and the man introduced themselves as Jane and Max. As they walked towards one of the buildings, Max spoke with great enthusiasm about the place, making sure to mention all the good things about it. He spoke excitedly about going horseback riding, painting, playing musical instruments, practising yoga and mindfulness, and doing different sports. Jane smiled gently at Norah when they briefly made eye contact, but Norah didn’t return the smile, instead she quickly looked away in an attempt to discourage the woman from speaking directly to her. It seemed to work.
They showed Norah her room and put her things there, before walking to an office. Norah slumped down in an armchair near the door. Sarah and Tom sat down on each side of her, while Max and Jane seated themselves across from her.
“Sarah and Tom, are you in a hurry to get somewhere, or could you stay for about an hour while Norah gets settled?” Jane asked.
“We can stay,” Sarah confirmed.
“That’s nice. Then you can help Norah unpack and add a more personal touch to her room,” Jane said with a gentle smile. She then went on to talk about the rules, or common values, they had at The Wood Anemone.
“You will have your own personalised schedule to live by,” Max proceeded to say once Jane was done talking. He said it as though it was something to be excited about. He felt a bit too positive for Norah’s liking. It was bound to get on her nerves if it would turn out he always was like this. “Do you like horses?” he wondered.
“Umm, sure,” Norah replied.
“Good. Then I’ll put you on the list for our twice weekly visits to the stables. Do you know how to ride a horse?” Max asked her.
“Not really,” Norah replied.
“Then this is a perfect opportunity for you to learn something new,” Max said with a smile.
“She’s great with animals,” Sarah told him. “When we were kids she wanted a pegasus. Norah, do you remember that?”
“No,” Norah replied, even though she vividly remembered how Sarah had made her believe that flying horses really existed. She resisted the urge to smile at the memory, because she didn’t want anyone to get the impression that she was anything but dissatisfied about being there. It had to be made clear to everyone involved that she did not want to be there.
Jane and Max told her about what an ordinary day in the treatment facility could look like, and explained to her that her days would be customised to fit her personal needs and preferences. Norah seriously doubted that she would be able to enjoy her stay there no matter how much they tried to adapt things after her preferences.
“Well, I would prefer not to stay here, because I really don’t need to be here,” Norah told them irritably. “Could you customise my schedule based on that?”
Max smiled at her. “Come on. I promise you, it’s not nearly as bad here as you think it is,” he said encouragingly.
“It’s probably worse,” Norah muttered.
“Give it a week and we’ll evaluate your time here. If you still hate it here by the end of the week, we may need to consider other options,” Max told her.
“What other options are there?” Norah asked.
“You could always be transferred to another treatment facility, perhaps a bit closer to home. But I don’t think that will be necessary,” Max replied confidently as the five of them left the office together. He seemed to have great faith in that place’s ability to help people. “I will be one of your contact persons here at The Wood Anemone. The other two are called David and Samantha. You can of course talk to all the other staff members here when you need help with anything, but the three of us will have the most knowledge about your situation and personal needs. So you should mainly turn to us about things regarding your stay here.”
‘Great,’ Norah thought sarcastically to herself and sighed. Of course she would have to be assigned with a chatty contact person. She was hoping the other two would be less upbeat and energetic than Max. She found his cheerfulness somewhat disturbing, and they had only just met. She quietly wondered how his good mood would affect her if he kept this up. It would probably drive her insane.
“It was really nice to meet you, Norah. I will see you again tomorrow,” Jane said before saying goodbye to Sarah, Tom and her colleague, wishing them a good day.
“Let’s get you settled,” Max said cheerfully. “Did you bring any posters for your walls like we suggested in your admittance letter?”
“No. I never bothered to read the damn letter,” Norah informed him irritably.
“I see. That’s perfectly fine. We have a bunch of posters to choose from if you like. The idea is that by personalising your own room, you might feel more at home here faster,” Max explained. Norah glared darkly at him before turning away from him.
“That’s a nice concept,” Sarah said and smiled as she took a closer look at the room Norah had been assigned. “Look Norah, the walls are bright purple instead of sterile white,” she pointed out.
“Great,” Norah said sarcastically as she went to lay on the bed, kicking her boots off. It was the new ones that she had gotten from Tom.
“Is it comfortable?” Tom asked her and gently pushed her legs aside to sit on the edge of the bed. “It’s bouncy,” he commented and Norah bit her lip to hold back a smile at how dorky she found his comment.
Sarah smiled at the two of them before proceeding to open the bag of things she had packed for Norah. “Do you need to look through her things or anything?” Sarah asked Max.
“It’s standard procedure,” Max explained with a shrug and an apologetic smile.
“I understand,” Sarah replied and unpacked the bag, putting everything out on the desk by the window so Max could look through everything. Norah just remained on the bed while Sarah and Tom, under Max’s supervision, proceeded to unpack her clothes for her, putting them in the closet.
“You don’t need to unpack everything, I’m not planning on staying that long,” Norah muttered irritably as she watched them go through her stuff. She always hated that part when it came to psychiatric wards and treatment facilities. It made her feel like a criminal.
“Norah, could you come over here for a moment, please?” Max requested from where he stood leaning over the desk. Norah was taken aback by the seriousness in his voice and reluctantly got out of the bed to walk up to him. Her heart sank once she saw the small razor that had been hidden beneath the pencils in her Faber-Castell metal pencil case.
“I must have put it there years ago and forgotten about it,” Norah told him awkwardly.
“I understand,” Max replied and gave her a gentle smile. “I just want you to be completely honest with me. Okay? No one’s upset with you, Norah. But it’s important that you tell the truth. Do you have anything else among your things that you’re not supposed to have?”
“Not that I know of,” Norah replied truthfully.
“Norah, do you smoke?” Max wondered as he reached into her backpack and took out a lighter.
“Umm, no, not really,” Norah said.
“Do you burn yourself?” he asked.
“It’s happened,” Norah told him honestly.
“I appreciate your honesty,” Max said and put the lighter in his pocket. “I’ll confiscate this.”
“What if I start smoking? Will I get it back then?” Norah questioned, causing Max to smile.
“If you need to smoke, someone from the staff will lend you a lighter,” he explained.
“You’re not planning on picking up smoking, now are you?” Sarah asked her with a sigh.
“Why not? Tom smokes, even though he says he has quit. You’re addicted to caffeine and sometimes you drink too much wine while studying,” Norah pointed out provocatively. “You call me self-destructive, but you’re just as bad, if not worse. You’re denying yourself rest and time to recover after intense periods of stress. It’s just a matter of time before you crash and burn, you know.”
Sarah looked at her little sister with sadness in her eyes, but she still managed to force a smile. “Don’t worry about me, Norah. I’ll be fine. Just focus on taking care of yourself and doing things that are good for you.”
“Only if you promise to do the same,” Norah demanded. “Take at least one day off from studying every week.”
“I’ll take one night off, every week,” Sarah negotiated. “The course I’m reading right now demands a lot of time and effort.”
“I suppose things will get easier for you now that you’re finally rid of me,” Norah remarked. “Maybe this is exactly what you need; a proper break from my melodramatic self.”
“You know as well as I that I want you to be home with me. Your doctor gave me no other choice,” Sarah defended herself.
“She presented you with a perfect opportunity to not have to be the bad guy and still get rid of me,” Norah said irritably. She felt like she truly no longer cared about what anyone thought about her. She wanted to get under Sarah’s skin and hit her where it would hurt the most. “She presented you with an offer you could simply not resist. But not in the Godfather kind of way,” she added, looking at Max. “I can assure you that there were no horse heads in any beds.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” Max replied humorously.
“Norah, would you please stop this?” Tom requested. “I know it may feel good to hurt somebody else when you yourself are hurting. But it usually doesn’t feel good afterwards.”
“And what do you know about true pain, Tom? You’re like the luckiest and most popular person I know. You’re well-respected, have a girlfriend that would do anything for you and you’re pretty much flawless. I mean, seriously, what the hell do you have to complain about?” Norah questioned.
“I suppose that what hurts me the most right now is loving and caring about someone who clearly doesn’t love herself,” Tom replied. “You’re correct in assuming that I consider myself a lucky person. But that doesn’t mean that there are no downsides to my life and career.”
“Poor little rich man,” Norah muttered sarcastically.
“There are things that are more important than money, Norah,” Tom replied, seemingly genuinely hurt by her words.
“That’s easy to say when you have all the money you need, and even more,” Norah muttered, holding back her bad conscience about what she was saying. She was entitled to feel hurt by the fact that they would be leaving her there all alone with strangers. It felt even worse as she thought about what a relief it would be for them to not have to look after her anymore.
“I know you’re hurting, Norah. And I’m so sorry about that,” Tom said and slowly approached her. “You have every right to be angry with us, because we’ve brought you here against your own will. But hopefully, one day, you’ll understand our decision.”
“I’m not an idiot. Of course I understand,” Norah said with tears in her eyes as Tom embraced her. “But it still fucking hurts,” she cried.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” Max told them quietly before leaving the room with the razorblade and the lighter.
Norah opened her eyes as she kept hugging Tom and looked directly at her sister, whose tears ran down her face.
“I love you,” Sarah said and walked up to take her little sister’s hand in her own. She kissed it. “I love you so much it hurts.”
“I love you too,” Norah replied sadly.
Norah still felt sad and let down as the three of them arranged her unpacked things together.
“What’s this?” Norah asked as she was looking at her desk. There were two pairs of black pants and a pair of shoes she hadn’t seen before.
“It’s riding pants. One pair is for the winter season, and the other pair is for when it gets a little bit warmer outside,” Sarah explained. “And the shoes have steel toe-caps in case a horse steps on your feet.”
“So you’ve taken for granted that I will want to ride the horses?” Norah asked her.
“I know how much you love animals, so I assumed that you would want to spend time with the horses now that you have the opportunity to,” Sarah replied.
“Thank you,” Norah said appreciatively and put the clothes in the closet. She held back a smile at the sight of two jigsaw puzzles with a thousand pieces in each. One of the puzzles had the painting ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch on it and the other one had ‘The Starry Night’ by Vincent van Gogh.
“I bought a game called Pandemic,” Sarah said and moved the various toiletries away from the rectangular cardboard box. “I figured you could play it with the others.”
“You want me to socialise,” Norah concluded with a sigh and walked up to the sink attached to the wall to look at herself in the mirror. Her mascara and eyeliner were slightly smudged from her crying earlier, so she grabbed her makeup bag and proceeded to fix it. She caught Sarah and Tom smiling at each other, as if they were happy about her new found vanity. Months ago, Norah wouldn’t have bothered to put any makeup on to begin with. But she felt differently about that now. She wanted to look good and not make a fool out of herself in front of the other people staying at that place, especially not those her own age.
Right after Sarah and Tom left, Max sat down with Norah so they could fix her week plan together. Norah frowned when she saw the meal times on her week plan. According to the plan she was expected to eat six times a day, just like she had when she had been underweight. In the last few weeks she had skipped having snacks once, twice, sometimes three times a day.
“This must be a mistake,” Norah said. “I don’t need to eat snacks between meals anymore.”
“You’ve stopped having snacks in between meals?” Max asked her with a slight frown and looked through his papers. “According to my papers, your doctor hasn’t authorised that.”
“I’m not underweight, so I don’t need to eat that much,” Norah told him decidedly and crossed her arms.
“According to your doctor, you still need to follow your meal plan,” Max insisted. “Look Norah, you’ve only just reached a weight that’s acceptable. It’s a vulnerable time period for you and you will need extra support to keep up the good and normal eating habits so you don’t start losing weight again.”
“Normal?!” Norah questioned angrily. “My sister doesn’t normally eat six times a day. If it hadn’t been for me, she probably would have skipped most meals to study instead.”
“Your sister strikes me as a very dedicated person. Based on my conversations with her, she cares about you a lot and wants you back home as soon as possible,” Max said. “When it comes to the number of meals you need to eat, I really have no say. It’s up to the doctors.”
“To hell with the doctors then! I won’t do it!” Norah informed him angrily, causing Max to frown slightly at her.
“Noncompliance to your treatment plan won’t get you home any faster, Norah. If you want more freedom, you have to prove that you can handle it by taking responsibility,” Max reasoned. “I know it might sound a bit harsh, but that’s the way it is. It’s for your own good.”
“I thought you said this was a treatment facility, but it sounds more like a correctional facility,” Norah told him bitterly.
“Trust me, this is not a correctional facility by any means. They’re very different to this,” Max assured her.
“In what ways?” Norah questioned.
“A lot of ways,” Max said. “You won’t be under constant surveillance here, you will not be locked into your room at night and you have nowhere near all the restrictions people in correctional facilities have. Trust me. This place is very different and much preferable.”
“To me this feels like a prison,” Norah said with a frustrated sigh.
“You haven’t even been here for two hours yet,” Max pointed out. “So how can you possibly know what it’s like already?”
“I already know that I hate it. It’s really a waste of resources to have me here. Please, give this ‘opportunity’, as you all love to call it, to someone who will actually do something with their life, instead of me,” Norah told him.
“Is that the real problem here?” Max asked her pensively. “Do you feel guilty for taking up a spot and are you afraid of disappointing people?”
“I always disappoint people,” Norah said quietly and laid down on the bed. “That’s the only thing I’m really good at in life. Being a fucking disappointment.”
“That’s not true and you need to stop thinking it is,” Max told her insightfully. “You seem tired, Norah. Do you want to take a break and talk more about your week plan later tonight or tomorrow instead?” he asked her.
“Yeah, I want a break,” Norah told him.
“Okay,” Max agreed and stood up, gathering his papers. “Can you set an alarm for ten to six PM on your phone? You’re expected to be in the dining room ready for dinner at six on the dot. I suggest you use the toilet before that, because you won’t be excused from the table during dinner but will have to finish your food before you can leave and then you will have an hour of quiet time in the big common room after you have finished your meal.”
“That’s not fair! I’m at normal weight so I don’t need quiet time, damn it!” Norah protested and felt like acting out her anger in some way.
“I understand that it makes you upset and that’s perfectly fine,” Max validated her. “But like I said before, this is a vulnerable time for you in your recovery process. You’ll need extra support to get through this. It won’t be as bad as it sounds, Norah. You’ll notice that the routines here are quite different from the routines in locked psychiatric wards. Things are not as strictly regulated here, but a ground stone for the treatment here at Willow’s Creek is mutual trust between attendants and staff members,” he calmly explained to her. Norah absolutely hated the fact that the staff insisted on calling the patients attendants, as if that would really make any difference. In her ears, it was nothing but a silly change in wording to make it sound more convenient for the people working there and reading about the place. It didn’t change the fact that the people treated there were in fact patients with limited power over their own lives. When Norah kept glaring at him he sighed and asked her “Do you have a list of things you can do when you feel upset to regulate your emotions?”
“If I had one, I would probably tear it apart right now,” Norah muttered bitterly.
“I strongly suggest that you don’t destroy information booklets or working material when you get upset, Norah,” Max advised her. “At this stage in the process, compliance is key. You need to show that you can take responsibility before you can move on to the next step.”
“I thought this place was supposed to make people like me more independent, but if you’re requiring blind compliance without questioning, it’s in fact doing the exact opposite,” Norah argued, crossing her arms.
“You need to show that you can act responsibly before gaining more freedom to grow independent, and one way of doing that is to adhere to our regulations,” Max informed her. “Freedom under responsibility. It’s one of our mottos. I strongly suggest that you read through the material we sent you.”
“I don’t have it, after I tore apart the brochure, my sister took it from me,” Norah explained, causing Max to sigh.
“If I give you a new set of material, do you promise you won’t destroy it in any way?” Max asked her.
“Sure,” Norah replied. “Could you give me something I can destroy too then?”
“You don’t need to destroy things, Norah,” Max told her and looked at her sympathetically before leaving the room.
Norah laid back down on the bed and quickly fell asleep. Of course she forgot to set her alarm, resulting in her getting woken up by Max after she had failed to turn up to dinner on time.
“I thought I told you to set an alarm so you wouldn’t be late for dinner,” Max told her.
“I never said I would, though,” Norah replied irritably as she forced herself to get out of bed.
“This is your first warning,” Max informed her brittly as he led her to the dining room.
“Warning?” Norah questioned confusedly.
“You can ask the other attendants to explain it to you,” Max suggested and walked with her all the way to the long table where he pulled out an empty chair for her. “This is your assigned seat. Since you were late for dinner, someone has already put food on your plate for you. When you’re on time, you can do it yourself,” he explained to her in a clear voice. “Do you have any questions?”
“Yeah, why are you such a dick?” Norah asked him irritably and stubbornly refused to sit down by the table.
“Second warning,” Max informed her calmly but with a warning look, causing her to frown.
“But I just answered your question,” she objected.
“You were being deliberately rude,” Max remarked. “If you were wondering why I’m so strict, you should have phrased it differently.”
“Is this some kind of test?” Norah asked him confusedly and he smiled at her.
“No, but you’re clearly testing the limits, which is why I have to put my foot down,” Max explained to her in a way that she couldn’t help but find somewhat condescending.
“Blind compliance is not independence! It’s sheep mentality! Which is the complete opposite of independent thinking! Are you a fucking shepherd?! And we’re nothing but sheep in your eyes?!” Norah questioned angrily, raising her voice a lot more than intended. She could feel the other patients and staff stare at her as Max pulled her aside, a few metres away from the long table for some privacy.
“Either you sit down and eat with the others right now, or you get to sit over there with me and my colleague and eat. Which one do you prefer?” Max asked her. He was firm, but still surprisingly calm.
“I don’t want to sit with you,” Norah muttered.
“Then I expect you to act responsibly and not raise your voice like that again. I really should give you a third warning for this outburst of yours, but I’m going easy on you since this is your first day here. But keep in mind that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable here,” Max told her firmly. “Is that understood?”
“Yes,” Norah said, feeling so small and powerless all of a sudden. She had no idea how this place worked and just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
“Good,” Max replied with a breezy smile and walked off to a smaller table on the other side of the dining room.
Aileen frowned in confusion at his sudden change of demeanour as she sat down at the long table and noted that there didn’t appear to be any staff members sitting with the patients to supervise them during the meal. She counted it to twelve patients around the long table, herself included. The staff members were sitting at a table near the kitchen area and didn’t seem to pay too much attention to the patients at all.
“You must be the new girl, I’m Lexi,” the girl seated to her left greeted her with a polite smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Lexi. I’m Norah,” Norah introduced herself.
“Can I give you a piece of advice?” Lexi asked her.
“Sure,” Norah said.
“Don’t argue with the staff like that. You don’t want to get on their bad side. They’re nice to you if you’re nice to them,” Lexi told her.
“And if I’m not nice to them?” Norah wondered.
“Then your stay here will become more difficult and quite possibly longer,” Lexi replied. “Noncompliance to the rules equals more restrictions. If you want more freedom, you have to dance to their pipe.”
“Like the rats in the story of the pied piper,” Norah reflected. “The rats all drowned, you know. Do you think they see us as vermin?” she asked, nodding at the staff’s table.
“You have interesting thoughts,” Lexi told her with a smile. “They’re not tricking us, though. They’re trying to help us adapt to the expectations the real world is going to have on us once we get out of here.”
“That’s what they’re brainwashing you into believing,” Norah replied.
“That sounds paranoid,” the boy to Norah’s right commented with an amused look on his face. “Don’t let the staff hear you say things like that, because they will use it against you,” he advised her.
“So you’re paranoid too then,” Norah concluded with a smile.
“I prefer the term realistic,” the boy replied humorously. “I’m James, by the way.”
“I’m Norah,” she replied. “What does a warning entail?”
“If you get three warnings, you lose a privilege,” James replied.
“So they’re using punishment?” Norah said incredulously. “Such assholes.”
“I know right,” James agreed with an amused look on his face.
“Don’t listen too much to James. He’s been here for five weeks and is still not allowed to leave the facility at all,” Lexi advised Norah. “I’ve been here for four weeks and can leave the facility alone and with friends.”
“He’s not allowed to leave at all?” Norah questioned confusedly. “Not even with his family?”
“Nope, I’m still in the red group,” James replied.
“Why, though?” Norah questioned.
“Because he insists on being rebellious and irresponsible. He’s run away twice already even though it’s futile,” Lexi said.
“I really don’t get why they’re not just throwing me out,” James said with a sigh. “Any other place I’ve been to would have done that by now.”
“So that strategy doesn’t appear to work then,” Norah reflected. “That’s rather discouraging.”
“Were you planning on trying it?” James asked her amusedly.
“I suppose I considered it,” Norah admitted. “They’re not supervising the meal. Will they notice if I don’t eat it all? Are they surveilling us in other ways? Does everyone mind their own business or are there informants among us?”
“I’m pretty sure they have their ways, because they tend to find things out sooner or later. You should be careful with who you trust,” James told her and shot Lexi a dirty look. “Lexi’s been climbing the ladder suspiciously fast, for example. I wouldn’t trust her if I were you.”
“I’m far more reliable than you are. They trust me because I’m doing what they’re asking me to. Don’t take out your own failures on me,” Lexi told him irritably. “Grow up and start taking responsibility, rather than blaming everyone else for your mistakes and failures. It’s not noble or cool to stand up to authorities just for the sake of it, James. It’s stupid.”
“It might not be functional at all times, but surely there’s something commendable in standing up for what you think is right,” Norah reasoned.
“That’s not what he’s doing, though,” Lexi objected. “I would understand that, but what James is doing is just immature and self-destructive.”
“Can’t it be both?” Norah questioned, causing James to grin at her.
“I like this one,” James established and quickly finished up his food before leaving the table with his plate, glass and cutlery to place in the dishwasher. “Thanks for the dinner, whoever cooked it,” he said with a grin and playfully saluted the other patients around the long table. There was something about James that made Norah feel instantly drawn to him; he had charisma and there was something interestingly mischievous about his demeanour.
“Are you required to say thank you for dinner?” Norah asked Lexi who smiled at her.
“Yes, you’re expected to do that because it’s considered polite,” Lexi confirmed. “They like good manners. You should really read up on the rules and routines around here, Norah. It will make it a lot easier for you to adapt to this place. Have you downloaded the app yet?”
“There’s an app?” Norah questioned with a frown.
“Yes. Your login information should be in the admittance letter you received before you got here,” Lexi explained. “We’re not supposed to take out our phones during meals, unless we have a really good reason to, but I can show you how the app works later, if you like,” she offered.
“Okay, thank you, Lexi,” Norah said appreciatively.
“Don’t forget to eat, Norah. You already have two warnings,” Lexi reminded her.
Norah sighed heavily and reluctantly ate from the vegetarian food option that had been placed on a plate for her. Lexi was soon done with her own meal and left the table, thanking two other patients for the dinner before placing her plate, glass and cutlery into the dishwasher. Norah looked around her immediate surroundings to make a risk calculation. The table was nearly empty of patients by now and no one was really paying attention to her, so she placed some food in a couple of napkins and hid it in her pocket. Her plate was nearly empty, so she followed the other patients’ examples and thanked the patients Lexi had thanked for the dinner earlier, before throwing away the leftovers in the compost bag and placing the plate, glass and cutlery into the dishwasher. She discreetly took the napkins with food from her pocket and pushed them down into the ordinary trash bin, and washed her hands in the kitchen sink afterwards.
Realising that she did not really know what to do next, Norah reluctantly walked up to the table where Max and his colleague Jane were at.
“Umm, what do I do now?” Norah asked them tentatively.
“Did you finish your meal?” Max asked her and she nodded. “All of it?”
“Most of it. I just threw away a little bit of rice in the compost because the ratio was off. There was too much rice in relation to the lentil stew,” Norah explained.
“That’s why you should make sure to be on time, so you can balance the ratio the way you like,” Max told her. “You were supposed to finish all the food on your plate, not throw some of it away in the compost.”
“But I saw plenty of others do it,” Norah argued.
“Not everyone has the same history of illness as you do, Norah. You all have individual rules,” Max explained. “But I appreciate your honesty about throwing away the rice, and it gladdens me that you thanked the chefs for the dinner and cleared your place at the table,” he commended her. Norah felt impatient as she stood there and listened to him. She found him insufferable at the moment. “I’m also pleased that you came here to ask about what to do next. Of course, it would be optimal if you actually had read the information you received from your doctor before you got here, but asking for guidance is the next best thing.”
Norah couldn’t resist sighing audibly and let her impatience show as he never seemed to get to the answer to her question on what to do next.
“Okay, but what am I expected to do now?” Norah asked him impatiently.
“Have one hour of quiet time in the big common room. I told you that earlier,” Max reminded her.
“Okay, so do I time it myself then?” Norah asked him and he nodded. She gave him an odd look and began walking towards the big common room while checking the time on her phone. ‘19.07’ She then sighed and turned back towards Max, realising that she still felt pretty much clueless as to what to do. “What exactly does quiet time here entail?” she asked frustratedly, causing him to smile at her and get up from his seat.
“Why don’t you go sit in the big common room and I’ll be there in a moment with all the information you need,” he suggested and she nodded in agreement.
Norah walked to the big common room that she had been shown during the tour Max had so enthusiastically given her, Sarah and Tom a few hours earlier. Max had been talking so much during the guided tour of the place that she had eventually just decided to block out most of his words by discreetly placing a headphone in one of her ears to listen to music in order to make the whole ordeal less insufferable.
There were surprisingly many of the patients in the big common room, Norah noted. After quickly counting them, she concluded that two thirds of the patients she had seen at dinner were in there. The big common room was a large open area with different sections. There were two different TV sections in opposite corners of the large room, allowing two different groupings to watch different things together without disturbing each other. There were a couple of desks with computers placed against a wall, various reading corners with lamps and tables with chairs that opened up for various activities. There were shelves with books, board games, puzzles and various art supplies.
“Couldn’t you decide where to sit?” Max asked her with a friendly smile as he walked up to her with a file folder and other various supplies in his arms. “Let’s sit over here, then,” he decided and walked up to an empty table.
Norah followed him and watched as he placed the pile of things on the table’s surface. Max smiled as he saw the sceptical look on her face and pulled out a chair for her so they would be seated next to each other.
“Will this be another infodump of yours?” Norah asked sullenly as she reluctantly sat down next to him.
“I’ve noticed that you’re not too keen on me talking too much, so I’ll try to restrain myself and keep it as brief as I can,” Max assured her. “You wanted to know more about quiet time, right?” he asked and turned the pages in the file folder. Norah frowned upon noticing that some of the pages were laminated.
“Yep. Keep it short and simple, please, because I’m dumb as a bag of rocks,” Norah requested.
“Do you really expect me to believe that after your rant about sheep mentality and independent thinking? You made it quite obvious that you’re a thinker, Norah,” Max told her. “You’re not dumb, you’re rather impatient and have a limited attention span. That’s something completely different.”
“Nah, I’m just dumb,” Norah insisted and looked down at the page he had turned to and sighed frustratedly at their circumstantial wording and consistent use of the word attendant instead of patient. She already hated the place and seriously doubted that it would get any better with time.
A week passed by and Norah had been devastated at the fact that in accordance with their routines, patients weren’t allowed to leave the facility at all during their first week at Willow’s Creek. She felt tricked, even though the only reason she hadn’t known about how things really worked at the treatment facility when she had been coaxed into getting into the car that day, was that she had straight out refused to listen to or read any more information about it after the decision about her going there had been made over her head. It had all been made available to her, but she had been in complete denial about the fact that she was going whether she liked it or not until the very end.
Norah had lost both her phone and internet privileges within the first twenty four hours of getting there, so she couldn’t even vent about her misfortune to anyone on the outside. Instead, James had become her primary conversation partner since he appeared to be the one who she could relate to the most of the other patients. Max and her other contact persons in the facility had hinted to her that Lexi or some other of the more treatment compliant patients would make a more appropriate company for her.
Norah found herself sitting in an office for an evaluation meeting of her first week at Willow’s Creek with Sarah, Tom, her contact person Dave, the facility’s psychiatrist, psychologist and a social worker. Norah kept spacing out, not really paying attention to what was being said during the meeting, but stared out the second floor window at the treetops of the woods situated near the building they were currently in. There had been several ‘mindfulness walks’ in those woods during the past week which she had appreciated more than she liked to admit. While being deprived of other privileges, Norah had at least been allowed to participate in some outdoor and group activities despite not adhering to the regulations as much as the people there wanted her to.
“Norah,” Dave said and gently touched her shoulder, attracting her attention. Everything about him was gentle and he was so mild mannered that she couldn’t help but like him.
“What?” Norah asked dazedly and looked at him.
“They were asking you about the roof incident that occurred a couple of nights ago,” Dave informed her. “Could you explain to them what happened?”
“Oh, that was just James and I stargazing,” Norah told the others with a shrug. “The sky is so much clearer here at night than it is in London. We looked for and listed different star signs we were able to identify because we had read about them in a book. It was purely for educational purposes, and not at all unnecessary risk taking behaviour, as you put it,” she added and glared at the psychiatrist. “You can’t really stargaze in daylight, now can you? So it had to be in the middle of the night. You’re making a big deal out of nothing, really.”
“You can stargaze from the ground,” the psychiatrist informed her brittly.
“Well, what’s the fun in that?” Norah questioned irritably. “It wasn’t like we were on top of a high rise or anything. We weren’t really taking that big of a risk climbing out a window and onto the roof on a building that only has three floors. It’s not that high a fall if anyone was to tumble down, and it was grass on the side we were at, so there wouldn’t really be that hard of a surface to land on anyway,” she argued.
“It’s January, Norah. The ground is still pretty hard from the cold, even if it’s covered by grass,” Tom pointed out, supporting the psychiatrist’s view. “It’s also pretty high a fall if you would tumble down from that roof, so you could actually hurt yourself quite severely if you’re unlucky. Possibly even die.”
“But we didn’t fall!” Norah reminded them irritably. “We were actually really careful, believe it or not.”
“Norah, can you please promise me not to do it again?” Sarah requested and gave her a pleading look.
“You don’t trust me anyway, so what difference does it make if I promise you anything or not?” Norah questioned.
“If you really want to regain my trust, you should do it by making promises and keeping them,” Sarah told her.
“But I don’t want to make that promise, because I’m not sure I can keep it. I really enjoyed being on that roof and looking at the stars,” Norah told her honestly. “We used to do that as kids with Dad, remember? Get up on the roof in the middle of the night to look at Orion’s belt and all those other star signs. This experience reminded me of how many good times we had with Dad. Even if a lot of the things he did weren’t conventional, I wouldn’t change any of it for the world. I miss him, you know. I miss him so much and James kind of reminds me of him sometimes. He makes me feel closer to him.”
Sarah’s eyes filled with tears at her little sister’s words as the memories of various night time adventures with their father came rushing back to her. Their childhood had been rather odd in some ways and at the same time so ordinary in others. Their parents had complemented each other in a way that made it all work out somehow, providing them with both stability and excitement.
“Is it possible for me to meet this James?” Sarah asked and looked questioningly at the psychiatrist who seemed a bit taken aback.
“Why do you want to see him?” the psychiatrist wondered.
“I want to talk to him and make sure that he understands how important it is that he doesn’t put Norah at risk again,” Sarah explained. “I don’t want to discourage their friendship altogether if it means so much to her, but I want James to understand that he needs to be more careful for both of their sakes. If Norah cares for him, then so do I. Does he have a lot of people who care for him and let him know about it?” she wondered.
The psychiatrist looked thoughtful for a moment and shared a look with the psychologist.
“Mira, what do you think about Sarah’s suggestion?” the psychiatrist asked the psychologist.
“I think it sounds like a good idea,” Mira said honestly. “Provided that James and his legal guardian agree to the meeting, I think it could be very beneficial for him to hear those things Sarah just mentioned. It might inspire him to take better care of himself.”
“I agree with you,” the psychiatrist said after a moment’s consideration. “Do you think you could try to contact his legal guardian now and see if he agrees to the meeting?”
“Of course,” Mira said with a warm smile and left the office to tend to the task right away.
Norah was a bit taken aback by the sudden turn of events and shift of atmosphere in the room. She felt really grateful towards both Sarah and Mira at that moment, and even towards the psychiatrist, who surprisingly enough had appeared to be reasonable and compassionate for once.
“Did that just really happen?” Norah asked Dave quietly and he smiled amusedly at her as he nodded to confirm that it had.
“Norah, can I have your attention for a moment?” the psychiatrist asked in her usual assertive manner. Norah forced herself to look at the woman who always looked so stern and uptight with her neat clothes and grey hair up in a bun so tight that it was almost painful to look at.
“Doesn’t it hurt keeping your hair in such a tight bun?” Norah asked spontaneously, not intending to be rude, but out of pure curiosity. “Is that why you’re often so bitter? Because you’re in constant pain from head to toe with that bun and those high heels you’re wearing?”
“Please, excuse her,” Sarah interjected and smiled apologetically at the psychiatrist. “Norah hasn’t been socially interacting with that many people for the last few years, so she sometimes just speaks her mind and doesn’t really consider how what she says might be perceived. She often doesn’t mean anything by it… Actually, she’s always been like that,” the older sister realised. “There would often be misunderstandings at school when she was younger related to social difficulties, but our mother didn’t want to go through with letting her have a neuropsychological assessment.”
“Is that so?” the psychiatrist asked with interest and scrutinised Norah with her small grey eyes. “Now that you say so, it doesn’t seem all that unlikely that there may be some underlying neuropsychiatric condition that could explain some of her divergent behavioural patterns and unevenness in cognitive and social functioning.”
“And now they’re talking over my head again,” Norah mumbled and walked up to the window, opening it to let in some cold fresh air. “I just needed some fresh oxygen. This is a rather small and not all too well ventilated room for so many people,” she explained when she had turned around to find the others staring at her like she had done something inappropriate.
Dave smiled at her as he walked up to her and waited for a moment to let some more air into the room before shutting the window again.
“You know, people usually forewarn the others in a room before opening up a window in the middle of winter. It gets pretty cold,” Dave informed her amusedly as they both walked back to their seats.
“I suppose that would be the customary thing to do,” Norah agreed and smiled when she noticed that Tom was looking at her with a hint of amusement. She liked it when she managed to awaken positive feelings within him. She really wanted to make him feel happy. “When can I go back home again?” Norah wondered as she laid down in the armchair, swinging her legs over one armrest and resting her head against the other.
“It’s still too early to set a date,” the psychiatrist told her. “The average commitment period for attendants here is somewhere between three and a half to five months. We want to achieve long term results with sustainable changes. We are very keen on seeing our attendants succeed once they’re discharged. The transition period sometimes takes a couple of weeks, which is one of the reasons that the average treatment period here is so long.”
“That’s too long,” Norah said despondently and looked at the psychiatrist. “Do you think my time here might end up being shorter than it is for the average patient? Or attendant, as you like to call it,” she corrected herself.
“No, I don’t think so,” the psychiatrist told her honestly. “I know it’s not the answer you wanted to hear, but I want to be honest with you. You really shouldn’t rush processes such as these if you can avoid it. It’s good that you’re eager to go back home, Norah, but we really shouldn’t rush this. Especially considering your long history of mental illness and everything that has happened in your life. You need time and therapy to process it.”
“I can live at home and do outpatient treatment, like it’s usually done. I really don’t need to be here,” Norah argued. “It’s a nice location and all, but I don’t think this place is right for me. I’m more trouble than it’s worth.”
“You sound an awful lot like a certain young man whose name I won’t mention,” the psychiatrist stated as she looked thoughtfully at Norah. “Like with him, I think this is precisely the right place for you to be right now. I truly believe that we can help you here. You just need to let your guard down and start to accept the help and guidance we have to offer. This can turn out to be a life changing and positive experience for you if you just let it.”
“But why do you think independence starts with blind compliance?” Norah questioned with a frown. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“If you start to act responsibly and make a habit out of it, you will have an easier time adapting to society’s demands rather than getting overwhelmed by them once discharged. In order to become truly independent, you also have to be responsible,” the psychiatrist reasoned. “Complying to treatment and adhering to rules is in itself a responsible behaviour.”
“Not if the treatment is faulty and the rules are senseless,” Norah objected spontaneously.
“Norah! That isn’t a nice thing to say to someone who’s trying to help you,” Tom chided her.
“What?” Norah questioned with a frown as she sat up straight in the armchair. “I just meant that if the treatment were to be faulty and the rules senseless, it wouldn’t really be responsible or wise of an individual to dance after the piper’s tune just to either drown in a river or to never be seen again. Now would it?”
“Norah, why are you likening this situation to an old folklore?” Tom questioned and sighed.
“Am I?” Norah asked confusedly. “I was speaking hypothetically, Tom. I thought that was pretty obvious. It would be ridiculous to take offence by a hypothetical scenario. I’m not saying that the psychiatrist is like the pied piper.”
“Surely you must understand that it can be interpreted that way when you say it like that?” Tom asked insistently.
“Then the person would be reading too much into what I’m saying,” Norah told him. “It’s just a bunch of humbug. Like everything else I have to say, it ultimately doesn’t matter. That would be truly nonsensical; if someone was to listen to me when I speak of the pied piper, but not when I expressly say that I neither want nor need to be here,” she reasoned.
TITLE: It’s Alright
CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: One shot
WHICH TOM CHARACTER: Actor Tom
PAIRING: Tom Hiddleston/Gender Neutral Reader
GENRE: Hurt/Comfort, Platonic
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m so sorry that it’s been so long since I last updated. To be honest, I am struggling right now with... life (mental health, economy, studies). I know that a lot of people struggle, and help and emotional support can be so hard to find. I received a beautiful request from a very brave person some time ago, and it really moved me and inspired me to write ‘It’s Alright’.
REQUEST: The reader has recently started socialising again after a year of struggling with severe depression episodes, and is trying to get back to life. Tom has invited the reader to an event. When they (the reader) arrive, they are overcome by emotions that they have tried to keep to themselves for so long. Tom takes notice of this and comforts the reader.
DEDICATION: I dedicate this to my dear friend who requested this story and to all those who are struggling. In my eyes, you’re true heroes and I’m proud of you. I keep my fingers crossed that it’s going to be alright for all of you. If you’re struggling and don’t feel like you have anyone to turn to for support: please, feel free to write me a PM (or is it called DM?) and I’ll try my hardest to support you to the best of my ability. You are valuable! Your life is valuable! You matter!
A wave of panic washed over you as you found yourself amidst a sea of people. Surrounded by happy faces, all completely clueless to the struggle you were going through. The agony you were suffering. No one seemed to take notice of you. Except for him. Tom. He had watched you from a distance. Excited to greet you, he had made his way through the crowd of people towards you. Just as you were about to break, his strong arms wrapped around you. Shielding you from the overwhelming experience of being surrounded by people.
With an arm protectively wrapped around your shoulders, Tom led you through the crowd and into an unpeopled area past the wardrobe where you had turned in your coat earlier.
“[Your name]. Hi,” Tom greeted you quietly and his blue eyes were so tender as he looked at you. The area you found yourself in was dimly lit and around a corner from the entrance, so you were out of view from the guests arriving at or leaving the event that had gone on for hours. “I’m so glad you came. I know it can’t have been easy for you,” Tom validated.
“Thank you, Tom,” you mumbled. “And thank you for inviting me,” you added appreciatively. “Most of my friends have given up on even asking me to come with them to things like this. I know it’s my own fault, since I’ve declined so many times, but it just felt so nice to be included for once. I really want to start living again, not just staying alive.”
“I’m so glad to hear that, [your name],” Tom replied and smiled warmly at you. “I’m so proud of you for coming here tonight.”
You smiled embarrassedly. He was proud of you.
“It’s a bit ridiculous, isn’t it?” you asked him self-consciously.
“What is?” he wondered.
“The fact that I am getting out and doing things normal people do makes you feel proud of me,” you explained and smiled sadly. “It’s a bit sad, isn’t it? Pathetic, even.”
“There’s nothing pathetic about what you have been through,” Tom objected. “It really isn’t,” he insisted. “Please, look at me.”
You looked up at him and your eyes met. His eyes were deep blue like an ocean, holding the same sense of depth and mysteriousness. You knew from the way he looked at you that he was thinking about something, but as usual you could never quite figure out what was going inside that wonderful mind of his.
“Sometimes in life you get to a point where it’s no longer about living well and making the best of it. Sometimes in life, it’s just about surviving… about staying alive, like you said yourself. It becomes a matter of just getting through another day, even though every cell in your body is fighting you and telling you it’s just not worth it,” Tom said earnestly. “You’ve just fought a war against yourself, getting yourself through each and every day. Just because the war inside of you is invisible to the world, doesn’t make it any less real. I see you, [your name], and I admire you. You’re brave and you’re strong, and all those people here have no idea what a hero you truly are. But I know, and that’s what makes me feel so proud of you.”
“Tom, I…” You had no idea how to respond to his insightful and kind words. “I…” you uttered, but couldn’t bring yourself to say any more. You turned your back to him in order to hide your tears. You had a habit of keeping your tears to yourself, since you didn’t want to be perceived as weak. You were used to forcing a smile and keeping up an act to make it seem as though you were in fact doing better than you really were. But this time, all that sadness that you had been carrying around for so long, finally broke through those restraints you had carefully put in place and secured.
You buried your face in your hands as the tears ran heedlessly down your face. Tom wrapped his arms around you from behind and held you tight.
“It’s alright,” he assured you and you began to sob so much that your chest hurt. You were hurting so bad and had been in pain for so long that you no longer remembered what it was like to feel like you were doing okay.
As you cried your heart out, your legs gave in and Tom sat down on the carpeted floor with you, still embracing you from behind. You relaxed your shoulders and leaned back against his chest. The warmth of his body against your back, his strong arms wrapped over your chest and his fingers gently caressing your upper arms made you feel like you had finally reached your safe haven.
The tears, the crying and the pain all came out in waves. At first fiercely like a storm at sea, but eventually the intensity of it all began to die down. You felt completely drained of energy and let out a deep sigh.
“I’m sorry, I-” you began trying to explain, but Tom just hushed you.
“It’s alright,” he assured you. “Just relax and rest for a bit. I’m right here with you.”
You smiled and sighed with content as you felt more relaxed and at ease than you had in a long time. You shut your tired eyes and peacefully drifted off to sleep in Tom’s arms. For the first time in a long time, you felt like things were actually going to be alright.
Hi i just wanted to ask what characters do you write for sorry if im bothering you
Hi! You're not bothering me at all. Quite the opposite, actually.
On @tomhiddlestonfanfic I mainly write different Tom Hiddleston characters, but sometimes include actors and characters from other fandoms. I have another tumblr (@fictionbyf) where I write about for example Benedict Cumberbatch, Mads Mikkelsen and Norman Reedus.
I'm open to write most Tom characters, but might have to do some more research to write characters I haven't tried yet. I enjoy writing Loki, and don't recall trying many other characters yet, but I'm interested in writing fiction with characters like Magnus Martinsson from Wallander, Adam from Only Lovers Left Alive and several others. Like I said, I'm willing to learn more about different characters and take on new challenges.
Hi! I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but I was wondering if I could request something where the reader is a fan and wins an hour with Tom Hiddleston or something and he sees her self harm scars and maybe he gets her to talk about it or not but they just end up hugging for a while while he whispers things in her ear? Thank you! And I'm sorry if this is the wrong way to send in a request I've never done it before
Hi! Thank you so much for your request on this very important subject! I'm sorry it took me a while to write. I hope you'll like the result. It's called Reaching Out.
TITLE: Reaching Out
CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: One shot
WHICH TOM CHARACTER: Actor Tom
PAIRING: Tom Hiddleston/Gender Neutral Reader
GENRE: Drama
REQUEST: The reader is a fan and wins an hour with Tom Hiddleston or something and he sees her self harm scars and maybe he gets her to talk about it or not but they just end up hugging for a while while he whispers things in her ear.
BANNER CREDIT: Prislaa
Astonishment struck you upon discovering that you were the lucky winner of an hour to spend in the company of your favourite actor, Tom Hiddleston. You couldn’t quite bring yourself to believe it was actually true until you found yourself in a secluded part of a café standing right in front of him. His smile was infectious and you found yourself surprisingly at ease in his company. He seemed genuinely happy to meet you and showed a great interest in getting to know more about you as you both sat down with your coffees.
Tom was really nice and seemed very keen on making it a positive experience for you. You felt more relaxed than you had expected to be around him and at some point you took your jacket off as it was getting uncomfortably warm to keep it on. You didn’t realise that you were exposing your self-inflicted injuries and scars to him until it was too late. You pretty much always wore long sleeved shirts to cover any traces of your struggle with self-harm, so displaying them was very much an unintentional act.
“I’m sorry,” you apologised and made a move to put your jacket back on when Tom gently placed his hand on top of yours to stop you.
“Please, don’t be sorry, [your name]. You haven’t done anything wrong,” he assured you earnestly. “You don’t need to hide them away from me. Unless you really want to, that is. I want you to feel as comfortable as possible with me and it’s really warm, so naturally, you should take your jacket off to not get overheated,” he reasoned.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” you mumbled apologetically and placed the jacket in your lap instead of putting it back on.
“Do I seem uncomfortable?” Tom asked and you smiled as you met his warm gaze.
“No, you don’t,” you replied and felt relief wash over you. Then tears formed in your eyes as you realised how much his non-judgemental and respectful response truly meant to you. For the first time in a long time, you felt truly seen by someone. You had revealed a well guarded secret about yourself to Tom and his response was not to shy away from you or act like he hadn’t seen it. Instead his focus was on making you feel more comfortable. For once, you felt truly accepted for who you were.
“Can I give you a hug?” Tom requested and you nodded through your tears. You both stood up and you continued to cry as he embraced you. You relaxed under his gentle touch and leaned into him, letting him comfort you. “It’s okay, [your name]. It’s going to be alright.”
You cried it out against Tom’s chest and you felt like a weight was lifted off your shoulders. You smiled through your tears as you took a step back from Tom after your hug. He smiled back at you and held a hand on your shoulder as if to assure you that he was still there for you.
“Do you get any help and support for this?” Tom wondered and you shook your head in response. “Would you like me to help you reach out to someone? You shouldn’t have to carry this alone.”
“Thank you, Tom. I really appreciate it, but I don’t want to be of any trouble to you,” you replied and glanced at your phone to check what time it was. “Our time is up and I’m pretty sure you have other, more important matters to attend to.”
Tom glanced down at his own watch and sighed.
“Unfortunately, I do need to leave soon,” he told you regretfully. He frowned and seemed genuinely bothered by the fact that he didn’t have more time on his hands. “Don’t think for a moment that you’re not important to me, because you are. I mean it,” he said and handed his phone to you. “Please, give me your number and email so we can keep in touch. With your permission, I would like to ask my trusted friend Luke to assist me with researching some options on what kind of help there is out there for you. You shouldn’t have to be alone in this.”
You granted Tom permission to share your information with his friend and thanked him as you handed back his phone after writing down your contact information. You received another heartwarming hug before Tom had to leave the café. After he left, you gathered your belongings and headed home, feeling less lonely than you had before your meeting with Tom. Your phone buzzed and you smiled at the sight of a text message from him.
‘Hi [your name]. I just wanted to let you know that I spoke to Luke about what we talked about and he will contact you shortly with some options on different ways you can get help. Please, take care of yourself and let me know how you’re doing. You’re important to me. Love, Tom H.’
The next morning, you woke up to find a rather long and carefully worded email from Tom’s friend Luke in your inbox. You appreciated the help as it made it easier for you to figure out what to do next. Tom’s and Luke’s encouragement motivated you to finally reach out to a mental health professional for support. You felt a sense of relief and pride that you had finally taken that step and made sure to inform Tom and Luke about it.
Later that day, you received a sweet video message from the two friends. They sat in the back of a car and smiled as they told you about how proud they were of you for reaching out. The video ended with Tom telling you that you are loved and important to him. You smiled as you saved the message and for the first time in a long time, you felt carefully optimistic about the future. Later in life, you would look back at this moment as the beginning of a beautiful and lifelong friendship with Tom.
Here’s a list of the requests I currently have in my inbox (last updated July 5th 2022).
Current Requests
- A fic with the prompt “you’re the one who could ever hurt me, because you’re the only one I ever loved.”
- A Sir Thomas Sharpe x shy bookish plus size reader first time. Or Tom researching for Crimson Peak and falling for a shy bookish plus size reader who’s into ghost stories etc.
- The reader had been sexually assaulted a year earlier and now it was time to do the sex scene with Tom Hiddleston for the Night Manager and right before the shooting starts she pulls him aside and says that she was nervous to be topless on camera but says that she trusts him and asks him to try to block as much as he can. And after the scene she idmediatly runs off set to her trailer and eventually he shows up and finds her dealing with flashbacks and he calms her down and finds out what happened
- It’s just platonic cuddling with Tom Hiddleston and the reader? Like where reader is extremely touch starved or something and tom finds out and just all fluffy goodness?
- Tom Hiddleston x reader when she got sick, like covid
Here’s a list of my Finished Requests
In case anyone is wondering, I’m still open for requests, but it might take a while until I’m able to write them. Here’s a link to a post about making requests.
WARNING:This article deals with the disciplinary spanking of Jo and deviates from the original episode of The Essex Serpent. If you find this unacceptable, please do not open it.
WRITING IN THE FRONT:
Hi,everyone,this is Beizhi Ning.This work I translate my work from Chinese into English.lf l have some bad English usage or wrong grammar,please forgive me and let me know,l will learn and correct it.
Still a big thank you and much love to my dear friend@tomhiddlestonfanfic , whose encouragement gives me a lot of confidence again and again and again, and who l think is the best writer in my heart.❤️💕💞🌸
Please let me know if you like mystory, it means a lot to me.Or ifyou have any better criticisms orsuggestions, just send them to me.Thank you and love you.Ning.❤️❤️❤️❤️
The dark swamp was beyond sight, the girls with heavy crosses around their necks, mumbled a sad eulogy, their palms soaked with dried blood belonging to the goats.
The swamp was bubbling under, but the girls, as if possessed by a demon, walking in groups toward the depths of the water, until they disappeared at the end of the darkness.
Will watched all this on the distant plain, and could not stand by.In this terrifying scene instinctively, he runs desperately toward their part. He needs to save these children, these innocent and frightened by supposed myths, supposed nonexistent evil creatures.
He shuttled through one muddy slope after another, and the mysterious swamp and time race, but until he missed the last girl, he can only hear the girl's last sad murmur.
"Dad，Please help me!!!!"
Will then realized that the familiar voice, which he had failed to catch, was his only daughter, Jo.
"Jo!!!!!"
Will woke up from his nightmare. He was sweating and his hands trembled a little without fully awake.He looked around and saw the Stella sitting by the bed and helping him wipe his sweat.This are Gracie's countless nightmares since his accidental death.
"...Stella."Will pinched his clenched forehead, trying to calm his voice." I had a nightmare again. Where has Jo gone?"
Stella handed a cup of hot water and put her hand on her husband's shoulder. "She went to class with John,and they saw you slept not well today,so she didn't wake you up.what's up?"
Will sighed, and tried to say something, the gate was pounding, and Jonah ran in, seemingly frightened,which like the day that Gracie's body was found.
"Father..."His voice had a broken gong in his voice, but Will heard a clear pathos.
"Jonah, what's wrong?"Will straightened his clothes and stood up to help him when Jonah shook his head, with two frightened, muddy tears streaming down his face." Father, Naomi...For Naomi, she...."
"she...."
"Her dead body....On the shore after the low tide....Has been found."
Naomi's timidity came before him a few days ago, and Will was almost there until the sound of broken porcelain at the door awakened him.
By the time he chased out,the indistinct human was disappeared at the end of the wasteland.
Naomi's funeral was held at the church, the girl who was the target of public criticism a few days ago is now lying in the cold coffin, even the once cold and manic Matthew has shed tears in the sad atmosphere.
Henry became unprecedented depressed, he fainted several times in the eulogy and elegy.The loss of his two daughters in half a month shattered the industrious and simple widower. Will held his hand and said "God is with you", but the fact and the scene in the dream overlap everywhere, and Will's heart was already confused.
He could not imagine whether if one day his two children had suffered the same bad luck as Gracie and Naomi, he could stand idly like the empty Henry at this moment.Or, he might just break down, he thought.
Once again the gray atmosphere of sorrow and horror hangs over the gray town and the funeral ended in that atmosphere.
Will was the last one to leave from the church.He walked alone toward his house in the boundless wasteland, passing by the river as the water rose, and stopped, staring silently at the water for a few seconds, with a long sigh against the waters that had taken too many lives.
The sense of powerlessness and the boundless river in front of him, almost can drown the small him.
For the first time in decades, he had strong doubts about his faith.
He has always believed in and respected the gods.Over the past few decades, God and Essex villagers have used him as a bond, and he replaced God and vowed to protect the entire Essex villager , but he failed to protect his villagers, even just two young girls.
He never believed in snakes.But one after another, the accident took away too many innocent young lives, but also completely destroyed the small town crumbling calm.
Only when the wind by the water stung his cheek did he find himself in tears in his meditation, and he breathed a long breath and decided to give himself more time to think.His wife and children were still waiting for him at home, so he thought.
Until the thin figure in the distance appeared in his vision.In such a cold night, such a thin figure is really too striking and out of place.The cold wind reminded Will that the scene was not a dream, so he tried to focus with tears, and finally restore the clear moment, he once again like the same of a net column on the shore.
The figure is so familiar that even the scene has been played in his mind countless times.
Will lost all his thinking ability in an instant, but his muscular instinct was directly awakened, with countless same scenes in the dream.He almost stumbled in the dark wilderness, even if he almost was dizzy in the fast sprint, but he still could not stop chasing the visible death.
The figure was like summoned by the dark water, until she finally got into the cold, dark water.Will's inner panic is like a concrete transformation into a real big snake, and he seems to feel that in a moment, the so-called giant snake is chasing him at his feet.And he can not escape, a dark confrontation, as long as the snake wants, it can swallow him anytime and anywhere.
Yet he could not not run, because before his limited eyes, the snake's next target, was his daughter.
The sun disappeared into the sky in the last cloud, and a second before the darkness obscured his whole sight, Will finally stepped into the water.He swam desperately in the water until he finally hugged the girl with only the eyes, ears and nose on the water.
The snake at the foot suddenly turned into an ash and disappeared.
The girl's consciousness is awake, her body shivering under the cold water, her closed eyes in constant tears, until she was wrapped with a familiar taste of dry warm clothes, she carefully opened her eyes, she opened her mouth, seems to want to say a lot of things, but in the end she can only make simple syllables.
"Dad...."
Will's chest was still up and down, and so much happened that day, especially in the critical moment to stealing his daughter from death, which made him recover for a long time.Until the girl's cowardly whisper mixed with the wind and water sound into his ears, he in this little catalyst, finally can no longer suppress their own emotions.
Anger and fear went to his head. Ignoring his aching limbs and buzzing brain, he picked up the shivering little girl lying on the ground, pulled her into his arms, and smacked her bottom in an almost venting manner.
"Jo Ransome!What are you doing?How dare you?!!!"
Mixed with the river that could not completely evaporate, Will slapped the wind on the girl's poor, almost invisible hip, and the already soaked fabric only doubled the pain.The girl was sore and afraid, and her tears fell on her father. Now, the only thing she could do was to hold her father's equally wet clothes tightly, and find some poor security by holding him.But even so, she could not say a word, even any of her cry and cry.
Until Will's reason finally recovered in a single instant, and the anger was diluted, urging him to recover. He looked at the girl who hugged himself and endured his anger and pain, and finally realized what he had just done.He was in a visible panic, then his hands trembled, and he didn't even know if he should embrace his daughter back.
The wind of the night grew colder with time, and the cold mixed with fear and pain invaded the girl's body. Even before Will was able to apologize, Jo's thin body slipped from him.
The little girl who fainted still developed a high fever when she was carried home.
She lay in bed, her thin body as hot as a piece of charcoal, her closed eyes still with tears unwiped. Will did not change his clothes, just sat in the door of the room, listening to Stella busy in the door, he felt his heart even colic.
Will opens his eyes as the firelight in the room goes out, and Stella comes out of Jo's room, but the worried eyes of her does not disappear when she stare at her husband.
She closed the door, walked up and sat next to Will. " Jo is already asleep."Stella felt the man's shudder as she held Will warmly." What happened, Will?"
Looking at the silent man, Stella didn't compromise as before, and she continued asking, " Will, you need to tell me, this is our daughter.I think I have a right to know."
After another brief silence, Will finally could not help but express his vulnerability to his wife, he painfully buried his cheeks in the palm of his hand, hot tears finally seeping through his fingers, " Stella, we are about to lose Jo...I have lost her many times in my dream, and I can't lose her anymore."
Stella was stunned, got up and held her fragile lover in her arms. " Jo is asleep in the house, she is safe now, Will, calm down."
She has never seen such a heartbreaking moment for her calm lover, and most of the time he was peaceful and rational.In church, he always arranged his emotions and calm his restless villagers.Even if he had looked tired and sad, he could well organize his emotions in front of his wife and children, and calm her uneasiness again and again.
But this time, he collapsed.
His body trembled slightly with the tears, he wanted to suppress but still can not hide the cry, always reminding Stella that her lover is not a god,most of the time, his self-digestion is the protection of his family and villagers.
"Will, don't be afraid, I'm here, and Jo and John."
For a while, only Will's heavy whining and their breathing were left in the room.Will finally arranged his mood in the relative quiet, he breathed a long breath, stopped the hug at a moment, then his eyes that lived in the vast blue ,which is now covered with tired, finally willing to lift, and look at his wife.He seemed to make up a big determination, and his voice was still sad, saying, " I hit Jo,almost out of anger, I knew she would hurt, and I knew I shouldn't, which scared her."
"But I was so afraid, I almost, just in the dream, Stella, I was really afraid."
"I couldn't control my emotions, this was the first time...."
Will seemed to have something more to add, but he could say nothing at this moment.Seeing her lover's unusual depression, Stella sighed gently and threw him into her arms again, " Jo won't blame you, Will.She should be sad too because she worries you."
"If you really struggle, why not wait until she wakes up or gets better and talk to her?"
Will looked up, and in Stella's positive and supportive eyes, his trembling heart, just almost faltering, finally subsided in an instant.
In the evening, about a week after the disturbance, Jo knocked on his study door before Will.
"Come in , Jo."Will did not seem to expect Jo's coming, he quickly stood up from his desk, his little girl is thinner after the ordeal visible.He took her into his arms and suddenly felt a little sour.
The silent tenderness between father and daughter stays for a moment until Jo opens mouth before Will.
"...Sorry, dad, it worried you."
"I...I'm sorry."
The little girl seemed to use a great deal of courage, and her voice trembled, but her eyes fell earnestly and firmly into Will's eyes, and she said, " Father, please punish me."
Will's hand, which was helping her daughter smooth her hair, suddenly stopped. He stepped back and looked Jo up and down before confirming that her daughter was serious.He was almost surprised to speak, " Oh, no, Jo..."
"I haven't apologized to you yet, Jo, by the river that day...."Will didn't say any more things."What you need is rest and cake, not..spanked and punished,my little kid."
"You need not apologize to me for that day."The little girl said seriously," I deserve it."
Will gently frowned,then shook his head, and carefully corrected her. " No, Jo, that's not what you have to accept."
"In fact, you don't have to apologize to anyone.If you just want us to apologize to me, Stella and John, then I want to tell you: you have been forgiven and you should believe me."
Jo's suppressed courage was punctured by Will's word.She nose a sour, once again into Will's arms.
"It's not your fault,Jo."Will carefully hugged the thin little girl in her arms, her daughter's sensible almost broke him heart, she was so thin and seemed could be blown down by the wind, her body was slightly trembling with crying.
Feel Jo shook his head after hearing his words, Will looked down to let go, gentle eyes into the little girl's evasive eyes, he seriously and sincere looked at his daughter is falling into the emotional vortex again, seriously shook his head to correct her, " Jo, looking at me."
"You're a great girl, you're brave and strong, keeping secrets for a long time, something many people can't do, right?"
"I...It was just very sad that I couldn't save them."Jo said softly.
"It's not your fault."Will sighed gently and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes." Their unfortunate departure was unexpected, but it pushed us closer to the truth, Jo, God would take care of them for us before we found it."
Jo finally finds peace in Will's soft comfort.For a while she looked up, bright eyes once again into Will's eyes, which just the same, sincere request in.
Will looked at it, stunned.His little girl has always been as stubborn as him, for the identified thing is always stubborn and persistent.He smiled and sighed, sat back into his chair, and took the man into his arms.
You just hope that way makes you feel better, right?"
Jo's head was buried in Will's wide arms, and she nodded slightly, then held out her arm to embrace him.
"Oh, my dear girl."Will shook his head reluctantly again." Well, if that would help you."
He touched the little girl's hair, the other hand slapping where she wanted .
SMACK!SMACK!SMACK!
Jo shrank into his arms.Will silently looked at the little girl in his arms, the boundless darkness that day left a shadow in his heart, even at this moment is difficult to eliminate.
He sighed and tried to distract himself by thinking about the force and location of his next slap.
"You can cry it out, Jo."Jo suddenly made a sore breath at the fifth time, so Will stopped her action, one hand gently patted her on the back, the other hand smoothed the fold on the skirt," the last five times, ok?We just take this thing as going over."
Jo expressed the affirmation with silencing.
So the next five Will's smacks, though disciplinary, were much more reassuring than the loss of control that day.The girl whined with the last slap. Will kissed her at the top of her hair, and left her to hold herself without doing the next action.
The room was quiet for so long, until Will spoke again to break the silence.
"Anyway, don't do it again, promise me, don't you?"Will tried to make his voice gentle and soft, he raised his hand and stroked Jo's cheek," Find some time to apologize to Stella, don't you?She's actually very worried about you, too, Jo."
Jo's cheeks and nose tips were red, and at what Will said, she even sobbed.
Will felt even more distressed. He suddenly remembered something. He looked earnestly into Jo's eyes and spoke carefully:
"...Speaking of, Jo, I still owe you a very formal apology, sweet.That day, I didn't control my emotions, and I scared you.If you want to forgive my emotions that day....Or it doesn't matter if you don't, I'm sorry, really sorry."
"It must be very painful.I should not do that."
"If you still feel very sad, you can...."
Without saying that, a hug ran into Will's arms again.
"Thank you,dad."
Even though she had recovered from the wind and cold, Jo was still a little weak, and the little girl slept in Will's arms once again.After gently lifting her up to the bed, Will kissed her on the forehead.
"Everything will be over, and we will find the truth."
Thank you so much for your kind words, Ning! They truly mean a lot to me. <3
I love your writing too, dear! It’s really inspiring to read and I think you are so brave for sharing it with the world. I can very much relate to your feelings of being insecure about writing in another language than your native language. I feel the same way about writing in English. Thank you for sharing your work. It’s such a great way to learn a new language; by writing in it, translating your stories into it. I’m so very proud of you, darling. Well done!
Hello ! I see that the request is open , can I request something from u then ? Hmm can you write a male reader x tom where the m.reader has been a huge fan of him for so long and they meet each other for the first time in a fansign even and the m.reader think that this is his chance to confess his love for Tom since he don't know how many more times that he would get a chance like this so it's now or never . I don't know what more to include feel free to add ur own flavours into it ! I love ur writing btw and I hope u're doing okay . 💙 Thanks in advance ! I'm sorry English is not my first language .
Hi! I absolutely love your request! Thanks for sending it in! I'm so glad to hear that you enjoy my writing. Your English is flawless. It's not my first language either, but I can tell that you're good at English from the way you write. <3 I really hope you'll like the result of your request. I just finished it and am excited to share it with you. It's called Now or Never. Love, F.
TITLE: Now or Never
CHAPTER NUMBER/ONE SHOT: One shot
WHICH TOM CHARACTER: Actor Tom
PAIRING: Tom Hiddleston/Male Reader
GENRE: Drama
REQUEST: Can you write a male reader x tom where the m.reader has been a huge fan of him for so long and they meet each other for the first time in a fansign event and the m.reader think that this is his chance to confess his love for Tom since he don’t know how many more times that he would get a chance like this so it’s now or never.
PICTURE CREDIT: @prislaa
Nervously, you stepped forward in the line and held out one of your favourite photographs of Tom Hiddleston for him to sign. You had been waiting for this moment for such a long time, and now that it was finally here, you found yourself at a loss for words. You wanted so badly to tell him how incredibly much he meant to you and how much you loved him and his work.
“Hello there, what’s your name?” Tom asked you and you nervously mumbled your name. “It’s really nice to meet you, [your name],” he said politely and looked at you in a way that made you feel truly seen by him.
“It’s really nice to meet you too, Tom,” you managed to say. “I…” you hesitated for a moment but decided that this would probably be your only chance to tell him how you truly felt. It was now or never. “I love you so much,” you told him and he smiled warmly at you as he stood up from behind the table and walked around it until he stood right in front of you.
“[Your name],” he said and put a hand on each of your shoulders. “Could you look at me, please?” he asked and you looked up at him. His eyes were so captivatingly blue and you swore you could see a mixture of sympathy and genuine care in them. “I love you too,” he told you sincerely. “I truly care about every single one of my fans and I want them to be happy,” he explained and smiled warmly at you. “You have the right to love whoever you want, and as long as it makes you feel happy and good, I think it’s great that you love me. I truly want you to be happy, so please make sure to take good care of yourself. If you ever start to feel unhappy by loving me, I want you to promise me something.”
You looked at him with slightly widened eyes and waited in great anticipation for what he was about to say next.
“I want you to promise me that if you ever start to feel unhappy because you love me, you’ll move on and remind yourself that I’m just an ordinary person with flaws just like everyone else. You may be in love with an idealised version of who you think I am, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I just don’t want to disappoint you. I love and care for you very much. Can you promise me to take good care of yourself?” Tom asked you and you nodded eagerly at him in response.
You were smiling, because the genuine care he had just shown for you was exactly what you loved about him. He cared about people he didn’t even know. Perhaps sometimes he cared too much in a way that made him more vulnerable than other people.
“You’re a beautiful human being, Tom,” you told him sincerely. “Please, take good care of yourself too and remember that you are so loved by so many people. You truly make this world a better place.”
Tom looked at you with tears in his eyes. He seemed truly moved by your words. “Thank you,” he told you appreciatively and brought you into a hug. He held you close and spoke to you so only you could hear it. “Thank you so much, [your name]. I think I needed to hear that. I will forever keep your kind words in my heart. You make this world a better place by being in it. You’re unique and the world needs more people like you. You are valuable and you just made my day a whole lot better. I will hold on to your words. Thank you, [your name]. My dear friend. I love you too.”
