Four Thousand To Go!

Writing today was amazing. Heather came over, we shared some wine, had a few choice snackskies, and powered through. I can't believe how close I am to being done. It's really exciting to resolve everything, and honestly, I can't wait for Olivia and Darcy to get together. And to have some spare time-- for the 22 days I have before grad school starts.



Even though she hated to admit it to herself, Ellie had been dreaming of the moment where Bigsley would return to her and beg for her to take her back since the night that he left. The dreams were always different; the place that he appeared, what he said to explain why he left, what they did once she took him back. Sometimes she was at the park, and he would take her in his arms and they would dance to the music that suddenly swelled around them. After one of the many times that her and Ellie had watched 'Bridget Jones’s Diary,' Bigsley had come to her in her dreams and proposed. Dream Ellie had told him that she would “rather have a job washing Saddam Hussein’s grass”—they had watched the censored version that had happened to be on television—but then he kissed he. When she pointed out that “nice boys don’t kiss like that,” he had countered, “Oh yes they freakin’ do!” Olivia and Ellie had watched the uncensored 'Bridget Jones’s Diary' the next day; if she had to dream about him, she at least wanted it to contain expletives.

She hated those dreams. They had happened less frequently as time went on, but no matter how much she had felt (or optimistically hoped) that she had moved on, she would wake up feeling emptier than ever. The constant vigilance that she practiced over her conscious mind was wiped away as she slept; it made her angry that she couldn’t control that part of her life that was causing her so much pain. Olivia’s advice had been to “cut your nails and quit having those dreams!” It was almost as unhelpful as her decision to wear a green and red striped sweater and a fedora while scratching her arm with forks while she slept. She claimed that she was just trying to give her nightmares instead, but all she had succeeded in doing was inadvertently inserting Freddy Krueger into Ellie’s Bigsley dreams. Needless to say, those were the most disturbing of all; particularly that dream when the three of them had decided to enter into a polygamous marriage in Utah, and Freddy had changed into a modest red and green striped floor-length dress. Olivia had stopped after that.

But tonight, when Bigsley phoned, she was sure that she was just dreaming. She desperately tried to wake herself up, hoping to spare herself the heartache she knew she would feel when she woke up and realized that none of this was real. But she couldn’t wake up; the phone kept ringing, she could feel the pain from when she pinched herself, and a mormon underwear-clad Freddy Krueger was nowhere in sight. She almost forgot to answer the phone out of shock.

“Hello?” she asked uncertainly.

“Hi,” his voice responded, exactly how she had remembered it. “It’s Ted Bigsley. From work.”

“Hi Ted,” she said awkwardly. But not as awkwardly as he was being. “I remember you. But more from the relationship that we had.”

“Oh yeah,” he chuckled uncomfortably. “Yes, there was that also.”

“So… How are you?”

“I’m good, very good!” he assured her, stumbling over his words. He sounded as if he was going to have a panic attack. “And yourself?”

“I’m great,” Ellie said, then accidentally let a yawn escape from her lips. She hadn’t even realized that she had been sleeping when he called; she had never felt more awake.

“I woke you, didn’t I?” he sounded as if nothing had ever made him more upset. “I knew that it would be too late to call you. My deepest apologies.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” Ellie lied. “I was catching up on some work.”

“How rude of me to intrude!” he cried. “I had better leave you to it. Goodnight!”

“Ted,” she interrupted him as he tried to exit the conversation prematurely. “What is it?”

He sighed, collecting all of the courage that he had, and then a little more. He had never been particularly courageous.

“Could you please meet me outside at your earliest convenience? I happened to be in the neighbourhood, and I thought that it might be nice to… take a walk?” He was so unsure of himself that he was unable to end any sentence with any certainty.

“That would be nice,” Ellie responded, finding his nervousness disarming.

After a final scan around the room that confirmed that Freddy Krueger was in fact not waiting to kill her, she went to meet him. She saw him before he could see her; he looked nervous and terrified, pacing the front walk of Longbourne. It made her heart smile; any fear that she may have had that he had come with bad news was immediately dispelled. He hadn’t come to tell her that he was marrying someone else, or that she should get checked for venereal disease. He had come to tell her that he loved her.

The look on her face must have reassured him, as when he noticed her, his nervous fidgeting stopped. It didn’t necessarily feel like they had never been apart; pain like that doesn’t just disappear. Rather, it felt like nothing had changed between them. It was apparent that the ocean that separates New York and England was no match for Ellie Bennet and Ted Bigsley.