Month: May 2018

Darling Daughters

Posted on by arappleby

Chapter Thirty

 

Summer had quickly become a workaholic. It didn’t help that Elizabeth was still acting a bit strange since finding out that she had inherited the bakery. It was made worse by Cassandra and Jamie liked to over indulge in their steamy relationship.

Summer hadn’t slipped under the radar though; she was the Darling at Darling College. When she wasn’t hiding in her dorm with loud music in her ears and assignments all around her trying to shut out the noise from the next room she was in the library with her assignments.

Summer was constantly concerned for Elizabeth who still blamed herself for her ex returning. He still hadn’t been caught. It had been over a month. Kingston had helped Summer out by installing a security system, which was little used thanks to Elizabeth’s visitors. The only time it was used was the time when Elizabeth got infuriated and asked them all to leave, only to bury herself into Archie’s files.

Reluctantly Summer agreed to go to a “social” with Cassandra and Jamie just to shut them up. She went with them but got bored of their affectionate public displays. Summer had had a drink or two and sat at the table twiddling her thumbs. Cassandra told Jamie to keep an eye on Summer who wasn’t in the spirit of it before she had to leave for an emergency with her lab partner.

Summer was a little tipsy, and being the Darling had attracted a little too much attention leaving Jamie to act as a buffer to the boys trying to “bag the Darling”. With a few more drinks in her system Summer was sort of floating to her dorm. Or perhaps it was just the sensation of Jamie trying to make her walk.

Jamie shouted for Cassandra but she wasn’t there. He tried to steer a very drunk Summer into her dorm who was now obsessed with surfing on the sofa. Summer stumbled as she tried to drag her weight towards the sofa. Jamie caught her and held her up a little. She looked at him smiling before confusion contorted her features as he kissed her. She pulled away coming to her senses she told him to leave using the arm of the sofa to keep her standing more upright. She heard him slam the door before she fell on the sofa.

***

Summer woke to the sobbing noise coming from Cassandra’s room. Her head was throbbing, her throat was sandpaper and the noise was awful. She peeled herself from the sofa and stumbled towards Cassandra’s room she propped herself against the wall as she asked what was wrong.

“Why doesn’t he love me?” Summer’s brain felt foggy as she swayed towards Cassandra. Eventually Cassandra managed to explain that Jamie had broken up with her. Summer asked “why?”

“He decided it wasn’t working, apparently he likes someone else. How could he do this?” Summer held Cassandra as she cried trying to ignore the bother of all hang overs.

The Diary of Elliot Parker

Posted on by arappleby

.: Entry One-Hundred and Four :.

My name is Elliot Parker. If I am a deliberate creator, why do I feel so out of control right now?

Two weeks ago I decided to surprise my mother. I decided to just stop by her house, yup I said her house. She kicked me out two years ago and put block after block on me visiting her. But I was in the area and I decided to take a little control and stop by and have a chat. That is how the truth came out. She wasn’t home, but the man she had kicked me out for was. The one I didn’t approve of, never had never will. She kicked me out because he was out of prison and she wanted him back in the house.

She had spent months saying they broke up and he was moving out but dragging his heels taking his stuff slowly. So confronted by the site of him opening the door and telling me she wasn’t in I decided now was the best chance I had of knowing the truth.

I asked him if he lived there, he said yes. I asked him if they were still together, he said yes. I asked him how together was together, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and showed me his wedding ring. I asked how long, three years- when he was still in prison. She had lied. Repeatedly. All those times I had asked her about the ring and all she said was it made him feel better about being inside, she denied being married to him, time and again. She had lied again. I didn’t even feel surprised. I don’t think she has ever told me the damn truth. Like an idiot I stood there. Like an idiot I said “so you’re not moving out?”, no was his response. That’s when he invited me in, then I remembered one of what I was about to find out one of her many lies. So I asked him if he was trying to do some kind of harm to me because I didn’t help with his court case he said no, he had no use of me. Another one of her looming dangerous threats and lies disappeared. So I stepped through the door of my old home.

I asked if my dog was about, I couldn’t hear him behind the living room door. He said no. He said my mother had rehomed him months ago. Without my consent. That was it, my baby was gone, the only thing that she could have manipulated and forced me to get back into that house was gone. And it broke my heart, not that she no longer had something to hold over me. But like yet another lie that she had been forcing down my throat telling me, my baby wasn’t really there. My baby was gone, there was no way I could find him or bring him back. There is no way I could bring my JJ home. There was no way I could hug him again, there was no way I could have had the chance to say good bye. He was gone. I was told that Madam as I call my mother, had rehomed him months ago to a farm. I’m not a five-year-old anymore, when people say they rehomed a dog or a pet to a farm it normally translates to the pet was put down. That is when the first seeds of hatred really sprouted up and started to really grow.

I went into the living room, the TV was on and working and it wasn’t at all broken. Unlike what madam had been telling, she had said my boy had thrown a tennis ball into the TV screen and broke it. Trying to get a new TV out of it. Well, that didn’t surprise me, I even asked her *Swallows the bile* husband about the TV if it had ever been broken. He said no. By now disbelief and surprise were impossible. That is when he said something, he had been wanting to contact me recently. That had my interest, he wanted to send me a message to say that he realised now that I hadn’t been blackmailing my mother and that he should never harassed and threatened me by text. I said it would have been impossible for him to message me, I refused to give my mother my new number since I changed it after his messages. I wasn’t surprised that she said I was blackmailing her, because of those messages that when I asked her about it she said it was because he was all up in her face and she had to say something, anything for him to back off. What frustrated me was that she was still trying to sell those lies, even now. Those same old falsehoods. And I was always the villain, no matter what, even when it was entirely her behaviour, her choice, her fault it was always still all blamed on me. I must have seemed pathetic, I felt it right then, another one of her lies, all at her own convenience. Always saving her own damn skin. Always so she can be the victim, so she can garner sympathy, be at the centre of attention, so she can’t be blamed, so she isn’t responsible for her actions. It always had to be my fault. The scapegoat.

I suppose I must have been deer in the headlight a little, I suppose he was too. He even offered me a cup of tea. The man she had told me was threatening me, wanted me dead, was holding a civilised conversation with me and even offered me a cup of tea in the house that I grew up in. I refused, too many bad memories and to be honest, I still didn’t feel safe. I suspect I haven’t felt safe in that house, not really, not once. I was always under some kind of fire.

 

Author Update (May 2018)

Posted on by arappleby

Ok… So I have had to fork out and buy some new glasses this month, ouch! I’ve done barely any writing, and over this year all I can see is the lack of words meeting a page. But I am hoping to do more, the writers block has been pretty aggressive, but I think I might slowly be taming the beast bit by bit. Seems that the evil super villain writers block has teamed up with laziness and exhaustion to try to battle me… lets see how my fight fairs over the coming months…

Emotionally I find I am still struggling a bit to connect with what I am doing and have turned to a few meditations in the hope that it will help me find the grounding I have been looking for again. That’s the weird thing, I can be there doing something but not be there really, not mentally. I feel the lack of self in something, that can be ok at times, but when it comes to it I miss being certain of a thought.

This month has been quite a relaxed one to be fair other than being broke as usual, trying to save money and wishing I could win the lottery. I am very much of the thought that adulting is hard and I don’t like it. There I said it.

I can’t say I miss the days of unemployment where I was a different kind of broke. But I am still broke with a job, but I am finding ways to try live a very frugal but fun life. That’s where you have to learn to be creative. However, when I was unemployed after spending a few hours applying for jobs I did do more writing than I currently get to do now. Hence why I think winning the lottery would give me a chance to pursue what I am passionate about and have more time to spend writing something special for here. Which is my current goal. The Big Project has gone to the back burners for the moment. The priority right now is writing some content for this site. I love having this place to write. My safe space for the good the bad and the ugly writing I do.

What am I watching on Netflix? Well, to be honest, I haven’t watched much, I haven’t really had much time to myself to sit down and watch something on Netflix other than keeping up with Shadowhunters, Once Upon a Time and now I have added season two of Poldark to the list.

 

Nothing changes here in terms of throwing plugs in for my amazon books on my author page… I haven’t lost my hope just yet.

May luck and adventure be on your side!

ARA

xxx

Darling Daughters

Posted on by arappleby

Chapter Twenty-Nine

 

The funeral was exactly that, a funeral. Simple, but beautiful. The birds had sung the whole service. Elizabeth had been reluctant to go, later she confessed to Simon why. At night he had been staying at the manner to help out, it was that night that Elizabeth had asked him to stay and talk to her. She told him that it was her fault. No matter how many ways he tried to change her mind, it was unchangeable.

There had been so much distance that Summer didn’t want to leave for college, but it seemed everyone in the town had stepped in her way to make sure she couldn’t find a way to stay behind to be with Elizabeth. There seemed to always be someone coming or going. They kept asking Summer to do the town proud. Simon had been the most helpful, helping her pack now that Cassandra had left. Simon even helped take all her things to the dorm suite.

The whole place felt strange. The dorm room was empty and shew as the first to arrive. The view from the window was pretty even for a ground floor. There seemed to be something faintly magical about the place again with the hustle and bustle. It distracted her for a moment.

With everything inside Simon said his goodbyes and rushed back to the Diner, or to see Elizabeth as Summer suspected, she smiled at the thought. It was time to start unpacking. Hooking up the speakers in her usual playlist she hit the shuffle and let it go.

Summer ignored the sound of the door closing, on a roll with her unpacking for the moment. A face appeared at her bedroom door.

“Cassandra?! What are you doing in here?”

“Isn’t it great? I’m your dorm mate,” she smiled widely, “I made a special request, and well here we are.”

“Oh, wow, yeah that is, sure, that is something. But why is Jamie in the living room?”

“Oh haven’t you heard? We are, well, we are together. I hope it’s not weird, it kind of just happened. But here we are the three musketeers.”

Summer nodded and said hello to Jamie before turning back to her own unpacking.

A while later she made her way into the living room where Cassandra had left a few boxes, Jamie had disappeared to sort his own dorm. Moving the sofa with Cassandra was a bit of hassle to get to a point of agreement but it got done.

Eventually Summer had some alone time to call Elizabeth. Elizabeth told her not to worry, Simon was going to keep her company and watch some bad rom-coms with her apparently he was determined to see her smile. Summer was genuinely glad.

After a bit of awkward conversation Elizabeth finally said the thing that had been on her mind. “I miss you, I wish you were here, tomorrow morning I have to go to a meeting, with Caroline’s attorney. Apparently she has left me something in her will.”

Summer offered to come back but Elizabeth insisted she stayed at the dorms tonight. She would be fine, she promised, repeatedly.

The Diary of Elliot Parker

Posted on by arappleby

.: Entry One-Hundred and Three :.

My name is Elliot Parker. Grief is a terrible thing. Right now I feel like I am grieving so much. I haven’t been here for so long. Not physically and definitely not mentally. Coming back here. It is different. It feels harder than it ever has. But then again, how is anything meant to feel the same.

I feel like I am on the verge of a storm of tears all the goddamn time. I feel like I am drowning. I’ve been playing for so long, pretending I had control. Trying to convince myself I could be in control of my life and how I feel and what would happen.

I was wrong.

If I deliberately created this, it seems all I created was freedom and the grief freedom brings.

It is time I told the truth, to myself.

I spent my life being controlled and manipulated. It has taken having a normal, healthy, happy relationship for me to see everything differently. From the reality of life rather than the screwed up tinted frame of what someone else wanted me to see.

I’ve seen the truth for all it is in every instance. I grew up with an emotionally abusive mother.

It has taken years in cognitive behavioural therapy to finally find words and names of it and I finally feel ready to acknowledge it for what it is. Because right now, how I feel is in free fall. I haven’t slept through the night in weeks. I wake up every few hours. Normally I am a full sleeper and I am grumpy as hell if I don’t sleep. Well without real rest for weeks now I feel like an emotional volcano waiting to explode. And I do. Every night when I lay in bed and there is nothing at all to distract myself with. No matter how exhausted I am I can’t fall asleep. All I can do is cry. I spend the days keeping it in. But at night, there is nothing to stop the floods. Every morning I wake up with that horrid hangover you get from crying your soul out.

You see, recently I found out the truth that I had needed to know. I found that the last tethers I had, the last shreds of rope that I had been tied down with were destroyed.

Sounds stupid right? How could I be tied down and not know it? How could I not know all that I do now? I suppose I sort of, subconsciously did, but I got to find out the whole lot, the whole truth, everything I needed to know from someone who didn’t have the agenda to lie to me. What hold she had to manipulate me with, what she was holding over me was gone. I was free. I am free.

The truth hurts, but I feel better for it. I was fed up to death with all the lies. Lies from the moment I was born it felt like.

So what is it like being free from that chaos and manipulation? It feels foreign. It feels weird. Like a new kind of grief. Like so many kinds of grief, I feel like I am grieving over so many things at once it’s a struggle to know where to start. It’s a struggle some times to know why I feel so emotional.

Some nights I just feel the foundations crumbling apart. I feel chunks of who I am falling away now that I am free from the torment I am struggling to find out who the hell I really am. There is only one consistency. One reassurance in the mist of this shitstorm, Dyl. I break down more, and I hate that I can’t help doing it in front of him. I just feel so on edge all the time. I just feel like I am trying to accomplish too much. I am trying to be too strong. I am trying so hard to get my shit together and stop falling apart when that is all I want to do.

Yes, I have suffered with depression before, but this feels different. It feels like that dark cloud is trying to get a grip to take hold and destroy me again but I keep fighting it all the time. I am so tired of fighting but I know I can’t let myself stop. I can’t stop fighting or I will never survive. I want to survive. I can’t let myself be swallowed up in the pain like I was before. I can’t let the unravelling of everything be the thing that kills me. I can’t let finally being free destroy me. I can’t let my liberation be the thing that messes up all the progress I made. I will not go back. I will not let myself fall further down the rabbit hole. I will not stop fighting. Not this time. It was so hard rebuilding the last time it took over. This time I will weather the storm. I will survive this storm and I will thrive. I have to. I have too much to live for.

I just have to find a way to slowly break down how I am feeling. I have to work it all out. But I think to do that, I think I need to explain how the ropes were broken. I need to tell the most unbelievable truth, but it’s the truth, it is my truth. It is my reality. It is what has been pulling me apart from the inside out. It is time I let myself just be free, whatever that is, it is such a heavy feeling. I thought being free was meant to feel lighter, like a weight lifted, instead the weight of the grief that has come with it has been like an elephant sat on my chest. No matter how hard I try to take care of myself, I can’t get that elephant to leave me alone.