Chapter Text
it's weird, she thinks, because being abandoned doesn’t always mean suffering and moping as a child as most people would think, sometimes it is just growing up thinking you're okay with the absence and that it doesn't matter even if it hurts a little bit, you believe you can get through it with little to no consequences.
you convince yourself you're fine for years, until one day, everything implodes and every single need that wasn't met, every day you couldn't count on them, every important event they missed, comes back flooding your mind. you just cannot stop it. now, everything you see reminds you of them, of every single way they failed you, the people they chose over you, the ones they loved instead of loving you. it's like an avalanche and there's no going back. your life changes and all you can think about is that it wasn't always like this, the constant reminders of failure and pain weren't always there, it was all just deep down inside your mind. and maybe, that wasn't healthy either, but now you know that being aware someone has made the conscious decision not to love you, even when you did nothing wrong, is the hardest thing to confront. however, it is impossible to avoid anymore and you just wish you hadn't opened up that box.
for helen, the moment everything changed had happened about eighteen years prior, when she still was in university. those days seem so far away, but this, this particular memory she’ll never forget.
it was early august, just a few days before her twentieth birthday and she was walking across campus even though it was summer, the one lecture she was taking to get ahead during the break had ran late, which was not unusual given professor moore loved talking like there was no tomorrow, but helen liked her, she was awfully perky most of the time but nothing that helen couldn't ignore when the older woman started sharing her vast knowledge.
anyway, it wasn't a particularly bad day, it had been decent even, until she heard the storm that was brewing right outside the lecture hall about half an hour ago. she hated storms, they gave her a horrendous feeling she couldn't shake off no matter how hard she tried, she didn't know why, but it had always been like that, the chills going through her spine the second she heard a thunder, saw light a lightning, or even felt the that characteristic wind brushing her black curls off her face.
now, she was trapped, there was no way nature was going on her favor any time soon and she was no longer living in the flat close to cambridge she rented for the past year, so she needed to get on that train home as soon as possible if she was gonna make it to london at a decent time. she was tired but she needed to go to work at the little cancer clinic she loved the next morning so staying at her friend charlotte's for the night wasn't an option. she quickly got her old purple brolly out of her purse and started walking through the rain that was pouring over her. her mind was blank, just full of the disturbing noises that surrounded her.
she was in an absolute fog, feeling as if her head was going to implode any given second. people were anxiously rushing to get home to their families on time and the muffled voices of everyone talking —and yelling— were making her nauseous even though she didn't really know why. it wasn't until she was already getting close to the train station that some passerby pushed her in a hurry and made her look up that she saw a woman with some sort of beaded necklace in her hands and suddenly, her brain started spiraling, flashes going through her mind unimaginably fast, making her remember things she had no idea had happened until that split second.
the cries of her mother were an infinite heartbreaking melody replaying in her brain, the way her father was yelling, how she had pleaded him to stay and he had pushed her away breaking the string of colorful beads she had gotten as a birthday present. the tears that had stained her face all those years ago as she watched one of the most important people in her life — her confidant, the one man who wasn't supposed to betray her, the one who had once treated her as the most special little girl in the whole world — simply turn on his heels and walk out of the door with no apparent regrets, were back in full force as she stood frozen in the middle of the sidewalk.
she couldn't remember clearly anything that came after in that particular summer afternoon of 2003, but the things she became aware of in that few moments were something so irrefutable that she would definitely say that was the strongest memory she had ever had in her whole life.