Charlize Remi - Episode 7: Personal Journal Entry [Billie Fisher]

Subject: I just felt like I needed to write.

I have never felt this way before. The sheer magnitude of what I'm feeling is enough to make me want to cry and laugh and sing all at once. I thought I knew what love was but I'm beginning to realise I had no idea.

It's a little like thinking you've heard your phone ding with a notification, right? You think you heart it, so you take a look and realise there is no notification so you must have imagined it. But when you actually get a message, a real one, that notification ding is unmistakeable. You know, it's conclusive. You hear the notification and you're absolutely positive, there is no imagining it.

That's what love feels like...

Hang on a second.

Hang on.

I was so busy typing, it was a stream of consciousness. Love? Did I just say... love? Oh my god.

Oh my GOD!

I am physically trembling all of a sudden. I can't believe I just wrote that without thinking. Love? Oh my god, Journal. I'm in love. I could cry, I am so madly in love. This is love! I'm in love. I love Andrea Williams. I'm in love with her. I am crazy, wildly, ridiculously in love with her.

How has it taken me this long to realise that? I'm in love. With Andrea.

I love her.

I LOVE HER.

And suddenly I'm crying, which would ordinarily be embarrassing, but it's just you and me here right now. I don't know where Dylan is this evening but I'll get to that in a moment. We have more important things to discuss.

Journal. I love Andrea! I didn't realise that until this very moment.

I can't stop thinking about her. I can't get her out of my head! I have so much to share about the weekend but, right now, I want to stay with this for a little longer. I love her. I am IN LOVE with her. This is love, I get it now, I suddenly get it.

The songs, the books, the infinite literature, the art... whenever I would read a love story, I'd enjoy it, sure, but there was always this part of me that remained detached and disbelieving. I'd think, "Must be nice. Too bad it isn't real," or something like that. I always thought the level of undying devotion depicted in stories was little more than fabrication, a pleasantry that the masses (haha, me) could lose themselves in and enjoy.

But now I get it. I understand now.

Because when I'm with Andrea, I feel ALL of those things. I feel like I would cross oceans for her. I'd fight monsters, I'd traverse mountains... I'd give it all for her. And when I'm not with Andrea I feel an ache, this constant, present ache. Like a terrible yearning to be with her or like there is a hole inside my chest that only she can fill. And no matter what I'm doing or who I'm with, I can feel it there.

She smells incredible, by the way, have I ever told you that?

That's probably a weird thing to say. And random. But just between us, if I could bottle up her essence and keep it with me, I would. I'd carry it around everywhere. Haha, I would!

God, listen to me. I love her.

I love her, I love her, I love her.

And do you know what else I would do for Andrea? I would live for her. Truly, for the first time in my life, I would live. I don't mean that in some grand, romantic, literary sort of way. I mean I want to wake up every morning and be excited about the life that I'm living. I want to stop feeling like I'm playing a part, a role, in a life that somebody else decided I should have.

I want to choose things because I want them. And I want Andrea.

But... to live the life I want, I have some big decisions I need to make, I know that. And 'one of those decisions' decided not to come home tonight, which is extremely frustrating, particularly because I spent the entire afternoon and evening preparing myself to speak with him.

Dylan. Oh, Dylan. I have been rehearsing the conversation in my head for days now. I've thought about what I'll say, how I'll say it, what he'll ask me, how I'll answer him. I've even thought about where we should sit. The kitchen table seems too formal but the sofa seems somehow worse. How ridiculous is that? I'm preparing to tell someone that the life we have built together is over and I'm worrying about where we should sit.

Back when he first proposed to me (you'll remember I told you I said no because of my studies), I was able to placate him by explaining that a mortgage was more legally binding than marriage anyway. And suddenly, I'm reminded of those words as I consider how we'll split our assets.

Not a fun discussion but I'd like to enter it with a plan. My plan is that I'll buy him out. Although, now that I think about it, perhaps he should buy me out? He loves this house more than I do. And as for everything else, we can just... he can have it. I'll start fresh.

In fact, I don't want the house. I don't want any of it. Not that there is anything wrong with our home, it's lovely and we have spent years making it ours. But the thought of staying here, surrounded by everything we chose together makes me feel so... something. It makes me feel something that I don't like.

I think I'd like somewhere small, somewhere that's mine and mine alone. Maybe with a little garden. Oh, Andrea would love a garden!

Anyway, back to Dylan. It's really late and he still isn't home yet. Let me check his location (now that I've been reminded we share it).

...

A tavern. He's at a tavern. Well, that's good... I guess. At least I don't have to call emergency services, he's alive. I wonder who he's with. Actually, I don't want to think about that right now.

And my mom, god. She called this afternoon and I had to pretend that I have been extremely busy with study and that's why she hasn't heard from me in a while. She mentioned she's praying for me. And you know what? I have always felt uncomfortable whenever she says that, as though its laced with an underlying accusation. As though she knows something about me that I don't and whatever it is requires divine intervention. But tonight, I felt angry. A small spark that ignited somwhere deep within my chest.

I don't know why it bothered me so much. It's something she's said a million times before and, usually, I just smile, thank her and change the subject. But this time, I wanted to ask her what, exactly, she was praying for. I didn't, of course. I just told her I loved her and that I'd call again soon.

But, anyway, I don't really want to talk about that. Not here, not now. I've closed that chapter and I don't want to revisit it. I want to talk about Andrea.

Even writing her name gives me butterflies. This is it, Journal, this is the real thing. I am so in love with her. And I suspect she might feel the same way I do. Possibly. We haven't actually talked about it. Why haven't we talked about it? We should.

I mean, she did say that we should "do this more often" when I bumped into her at a cafe earlier this morning.

Oh, Journal! I haven't told you about that! I bumped into Andrea at a cafe this morning. How to describe it... I'll start at the beginning.

I slept terribly last night. I had intended on speaking to Dylan yesterday. When I arrived home from work he was in the kitchen cooking a meal for us. As I looked at him I felt the deepest sense of guilt and shame. Do you remember me talking about the noxious sludge oozing its way throughout my veins? It was that same feeling again, except this time it was worse. So much worse.

He was standing at the stove, stirring something in a pan, and when he heard me walk into the kitchen he turned around and smiled. Just... smiled. In that moment, I wanted to throw up. There he was, completely oblivious to that fact that I'd spent the entire drive home rehearsing how I was going to tell him that we should break up. Meanwhile, he'd probably spent the afternoon thinking about what we would watch on television or whether we'd have a glass of wine with dinner. Normal things.

And I'd spent mine thinking about Andrea. And breaking up with him.

I couldn't do it, Journal. I couldn't tell him. I stood there, knowing what I was about to do to him and I just... couldn't. I barely slept. By morning, I'd worked myself into such a state that I decided to go out for a coffee and try to think.

AND THEN THAT'S WHEN I SAW ANDREA. Journal, we kissed. I will never forget the way she looked at me just before she kissed me. There was this moment when everything seemed to stop. She was looking at me and I was looking at her. I knew what was about to happen. I could see it in her eyes, the way they kept dropping to my lips and then finding my eyes again.

I remember thinking, please. Please kiss me.

God, I wanted her to kiss me. And then she did. She leaned towards me, slow enough that I had time to wonder whether I was imagining it and then her lips touched mine. I don't think I have ever wanted time to stop quite as desperately as I did in that moment.

I kissed her back. I felt her smile against my lips. Oh, that smile. I swear I could have lived an entire lifetime in that one, small smile.

When we finally pulled apart, I didn't want to move. I didn't want to say anything. I wanted to stay there, close enough to feel her breath against my skin. I wanted to look at her.

She looked so beautiful. She always looks beautiful, obviously, but there was something different about her in that moment. Something in her eyes that set my heart racing into cardiac arrest territory.

I wonder what she was thinking. I wish I'd asked.

I want her. I need her. I want to know every inch of her, every thought she keeps in that beautiful brain of hers. I want her here next to me right now. I want to breathe her in.

I want to know what her face looks like first thing in the morning, when she's still half asleep and hasn't yet remembered that the world expects so much from her. I wonder what her incredible hair looks like in the morning! Perfect, probably.

I want to know what makes her laugh when no one is around. I want to hear about the things that frighten her, although I can't imagine Andrea Williams being frightened of much.

This has become an essay (sorry) so let me end with one last thing about the cafe, Tony. Or Toni? I'm not sure how she spells it. So, I met this woman at the grocery store yesterday who, would you believe it, invited me out for a drink. I got hit on! Ha! It's been such a long time since that has happened.

Well, would you believe she turned up at the cafe too? She invited herself to sit with me, which was a little strange. But what was even stranger was Andrea's reaction when she saw her. I've been thinking about it all afternoon.

There was something about the way Andrea looked at her, I can't quite put my finger on it, but I got the distinct impression that they knew each other. And not particularly well, if you know what I mean. Maybe one day I'll work up the courage to ask Andrea about it.

Andrea. I wonder what she's doing right now? I wonder if she knows. That I'm in love with her, I mean. Probably not.

I love Andrea Williams. And now that I've written it, I don't think I'll ever be able to pretend otherwise. I don't want to either.

Not anymore.

Billie x