Siobhan's Sporking: Billy and Me, Chapter 22

I’ve been quiet on the lives of Sophie May and Billy Buskin for a while, haven’t I? Look, I’ve read Chapter Twenty-Two, and I’ve been debating how to approach this one best.

In some ways, Chapter Twenty-Two shouldn’t exist in this fic. In some ways, it’s the culmination of some elements that I think Giovanna intended to have as beta-storylines and actually, because of its positioning, its length, its subject matter ... somehow, Giovanna has made this the climax of her story.

There’s a couple of issues within this chapter, and I feel I should split the chapter and talk about each issue in each posting, maybe. These issues are fairly serious, so I’m sorry if I’m not my usual self talking about them. Because somehow? The climax of Giovanna’s first romance novel is a dialogue on social anxiety and the effects of depression, as well as being about the devastating effect of cancer.

The chapter starts with Sophie going up to her childhood room, where she acknowledges that it looks the same as when her father helped her decorate. But the recent events have given a new edge to the familiarity, and there’s not the same comfort that there was. There’s some really deep stuff here, and I can understand and relate to it:

After finally allowing myself to leave Rosefont Hill behind to experience what else life had to offer, my room feels tiny and dingy. I feel as though I’ve worked my way backwards – it’s humiliating.
But I’m safe here, I remind myself.

Sophie then draws the curtains, and hides under her covers, clutching her childhood toy.

Look ... I’ve had to work to not judge this moment. I’m not saying anything bad about depression, and I’ve certainly been there, but before I got ill. And one of the most frustrating things for me after the TTP was that I had to get better, there was no other choice, I wasn’t allowed to wallow in self-pity. And yet my brother, who I don’t have a fantastic relationship with, claimed that my illness made him depressed and he couldn’t function.

I can understand the whim to do this, the craving for denial and the chance to just float. I get it, I do. We’ve all wanted that, right? Some days, on my bad days, that feels like a reward for opening my eyes, like ‘hey, you did the hard work today and woke up, have the rest of the day off’. But I also know how unhealthy this is. Sophie, you’re just perpetuating a dangerous cycle. Get the fuck out of bed and pick up a book. Jilly Cooper, you’d like her. Bake a cake, you used to love that!

Sophie spends an awful long time in her bed. She expounds on things I’ve been saying all along. She says she feels inadequate to Billy, and although she knows that he never meant to make her feel like that and that those feelings are coming from another source, she’s more inclined to blame the other people in his life. She names Paul and Heidi.

She spends a long time – and I mean, a LOT of pages – expounding on all the events that have been chronicled in this story, all Sophie’s moments with Billy, and analysing why she felt so out of place. It feels like even more déjà vu for me, because it’s pretty much what I’ve been saying all along, but it’s taken until this moment for hindsight to set it. Still, she doesn’t accept her role fully in those situations, talking about how no one really wanted to talk to her when Billy was there and they got lumbered with her.

You know what, time out. I’ve just started a new job, one that is actually pretty different from my old one, although there’s enough similar that I can get on with it. But one of the biggest changes is that I’m going from a huge community of people I’ve worked with for years, to a small one where I only know the manager. And the fun bit about being the new girl is that you kinda get lumped on people while you’re learning the job. Now, you can be the silent newbie who never interacts then whinges when no one’s friends with them, or you can damn well make the effort. At least that way, if no one wants to spend time with you, then you know it’s you.

Sophie makes one attempt at self-realisation, and even then, it sounds like another editor’s note written in:

You could say I’d made myself ‘not enough’ from the start. It was always in my thoughts, eating away at me.

I could, and I do. I know how scary it is to push yourself to go for what you want, even if it seems small. I’m still the girl who hasn’t cut her fucking hair in months (I’m really pissing myself off with that one) so I know exactly what Sophie must have been feeling. But here’s the thing: she got dressed up, she did her makeup, she got to those places in the first place. Even as overwhelming as awards ceremonies etc are, she’s made such a push to even get there that I don’t understand why she would give up at the last minute. Surely the adrenaline would be pumping and she would try to use that to speak to people? People don’t speak to people who don’t respond.

Sophie then laments pushing aside her own dreams and ambitions. I don’t remember Sophie having any. She enjoyed baking, and working for Molly, but that was pretty much it. If she had any dreams, she’s been ignoring them a lot longer than she’s known Billy, and she’s being unfair to attribute that to him. She still manages to whine for well over a page about how Billy’s career came before her own, but never once says what she wanted to do. It wasn’t her saying to have her own cake business, that was Carter and myself.

I don’t think Giovanna ever re-read her work and adapted it, not properly:

Occasionally, I think certain thoughts and I wonder if they’re real, or if my brain finds it easier to look back and see all the faults in a bid to get over the heartache I feel. After all, I didn’t always feel bad, I wasn’t always made to feel like nothing; that occurred in only a handful of tiny moments; however, the feeling they cased lingered, because I always saw the truth in them. They helped to feed my own insecurities.

I actually do not know what she’s saying there. Can anyone else work it out? Because this paragraph seems to contradict absolutely every other word in this damn story, without being any real self-actualisation.

Sophie carries on whining, and the next paragraph truly makes me feel ill.

If Billy was plucked out of his life and able to exist as the man I first met and fell in love with, I know we’d be happy together, if the relationship was more balanced. However, I know that equality could never be struck with him staying in his profession. Quite frankly, he has too many people blowing hot air up his arse, telling him how wonderful he is and what he should be doing with his life. He’s never able to live just for himself.

Guys, I can’t even. First of all, I loathe the message that you should only fall for the first guy you fall in love with. We’re going to break down a really successful book for a second, which is aimed at 8 years old and above, and see how relationships were handled in this book. I’ve mentioned this on Jenny Trout’s blog, because the above notion makes me sick. Harry Potter got healthy relationships down pat, better than this kind of drivel. Observe:

Lily Potter: Did not actually fancy James Potter until he grew up. Had a best friend – Serverus – who could have been a potential love interest if he hadn’t listened to his other friends and their fascination with the dark arts so much. She made her relationship choices not based on how twoo her wuv was, but the ideals that her partner had in relation to the situation they were in. Yes, James could be a dick, but he was never dangerous. He even saved Severus’ life when Sirius endangered it. This is one of the major reasons as well, as to why Harry’s eyes get referenced as being like his mothers. He has her outlook on life.

Harry Potter: Was a little freaked out by a younger Ginny Weasley’s attentions. Didn’t pay much attention to girls until third year, when he became aware of Cho Chang. Cue typical teen-boy-with-no-clue behaviour. His first date was with Parvati Patil, and only under duress. I got the feeling throughout the books that he was pretty amiable with Parvati most of the time, despite a difference in opinions a lot, but still, there was no feelings. He finally got with Cho in fifth year, and realised that maybe idolising a person wasn’t the same as being their partner, when sad-about-Cedric Cho was all he got. He couldn’t handle her grief because he felt responsible for it, and because it confused him. Eventually, he realised that Ginny was his type of girl, since she wasn’t overtly feminine, she understood his situation, and she’d calmed down and grown up. Personally, I totally shipped Harry/Luna and thought Harry on-screen had more emotional connection with a snitch than on-screen Ginny, but I was okay with books six and seven and Harry’s relationship.

Ginny Weasley: Girl was walking hormones at one point, wasn’t she? She was besotted with younger Harry, partially because of his reputation and partially because Ron made friends with him easily. After a conversation – or perhaps several – with Hermoine Granger, Ginny decides that as much as it hurt, she should accept Harry wasn’t a possibility. I don’t think she ever stopped caring, but she gave other boys a try. Michael Corner, Dean Thomas, even Neville Longbottom are on Ginny’s list of conquests. And while she was dating these boys, she actually got to be friends with Harry, and eventually they got to the point where they could have the best kind of relationship; they were essentially dating their best friend.

Hermoine Granger: Fell in love pretty much at first sight with Ron Weasley. I don’t think she realised, I know he didn’t. Her first words to him were antagonistic, and oh my Hermoine, I’ve been there sweetie-pie. You like him, you can’t channel it properly, so absolute butt comes out of your mouth. He didn’t like it (they never do) and Hermoine had to re-evaluate. She settled for being his friend. She accepted dates from other guys who didn’t confuse her so much when she was with them, like Krum, and eventually Ron woke up and realised that Hermoine was the girl for him. I think Hermoine was aware when his feelings towards her changed, but he’d made life so hard for her until that point that she wasn’t going to make it easy for him, even if it prolonged their time apart. In a way, Ron never stood a chance.

Ron Weasley: Oh, Ronald! Ron was pretty oblivious to girls until Fred and George teased him mercilessly, wasn’t he? And then the pressure he felt from his older brothers made him terribly misogynistic (“even Eloise Migeon is starting to look good”) so that girls were ranked and he had to be seen with someone cool (that’ll show Fred and George!) and he refused to settle, lest he be teased even more. He accepted the double date with Padma Patil out of duty to Harry, and because the Patils were at least semi-cool. But by then, he was already into Hermoine, even if he wasn’t aware (but you can bet she was) so he treated Padma abysmally. Eventually, he got to date Lavender Brown, mainly to make Hermoine jealous, and realised that snogging did not make a decent relationship, you needed to be able to communicate. But realising that he was already sort-of in a perfect relationship with his perfect girl, and being able to communicate that? Not a Ron Weasley forte. He had to dick around until he realised just how badass Hermoine was, and she stabbed the Hufflepuff cup with a basilisk fang. But he got there eventually.

 

So okay, I picked five characters. Even if I mentioned someone like Cho or Michael Corner, you get more than one relationship. Rowling said that Draco never bangs Pansy Parkinson, who spent her time in Hogwarts wanting him. My point is, the jealousy and hormones and not knowing how to conduct yourself, the self-realisation of what you need from a relationship and your best potential suitor? That’s more what’s needed in fiction. The differing relationships are needed too, Mr and Mrs Weasley are so far removed from Tonks and Lupin, or Bill and Fleur, and that’s because they’re different people.

Maybe it’s just the story I’ve decided to write, about a girl who was used and a guy who’s about to be a major whore, and how they go through life (oh yeah, Carter’s a playa) ... eventually they’ll get to a point where they want to settle down, and that will be the real beauty of the storyline. Maybe it’s just too terrifying a story for most authors to approach (but now we’ve seen them being a slut, how do we realistically get them to settle down?) or else they think because it’s not idyllic and fairy-tale like, people won’t want to know. But it HAS to be better than this ‘one true love’ bullshit, right?

Wow, that rant was a page and a half in word, and I’ve only addressed the first sentence. Totally my soapbox thing. We’ll go back to the quote.

However, I know the equality could never be struck with him staying in his profession. Quite frankly, he has too many people blowing hot air up his arse, telling him how wonderful he is and what he should be doing with his life. He’s never able to live just for himself.

“Equality could never be struck with him staying in his profession” well, frankly Sophie, if you put your foot down and looked for a role where you could work when he does, or a work-from-home situ, you’d be set. You caved to his notion of staying at his place and spending his money and living your life for him because you couldn’t handle fast-food. And trust me, I know just how shitty that work can be, and how degrading it can feel, but walking out to do nothing is not the answer (and I feel like I cheated my way out because of the awesomeness that is Lydia).

As for the last bit, the blowing hot air comment? The weirdness of Sophie saying ‘arse’ in an otherwise PG adult romance novel? The living life garbage? I’m going to quote from the rest of the book.

Billy, on the other hand, is a dream. He’s more than welcoming to the school rabble as he signs their school books, has photos taken with them, and speaks to one of their absent friends on the phone. He even laughs politely at their jokes and answers all their intrusive and personal questions. Chapter Three, when Billy meets the fans and Sophie realises who the fuck Billy is.

“Well, I don’t think she’ll be doing that again – not now that she knows she’s in the presence of greatness. In fact, I bet she’s been on the phone all night to everyone she knows gushing about you. She’ll have been telling anyone who’ll listen that she knew there was something ‘special’ about you from the start.” Chapter Four, Sophie to Billy as she opens the teashop and he lurks to read his lines.

“Oh, shush you. It’s good to know you’re not good at everything, Mr Big Shot!”
“Believe me – there are many things that I’m utterly crap at!” Chapter Five, Sophie and Billy’s first date.

I was wrong when I thought Jude Law would make the perfect Mr Darcy: Billy is breathtakingly handsome in this get-up and I am momentarily transported into a different time and place – one where I’m Elizabeth Bennet, perhaps? Chapter Six, Billy’s appearance in costume after their first tabloid story is leaked.

“In a few weeks, filming is going to be over and you’ll be gone. Who knows where you’ll be working next. You won’t want me in your life then. You’ll go back to your models. On to the next girl. You won’t need me.” Chapter Eight, Sophie’s reaction to the fans reaction.

“Your boyfriend is God, though, so why are you here?” Chapter Nine, Sophie’s boss asking after Billy.

Billy is every inch the wonderful actor I thought he would be – I’m amazed at his believable transformation into this moody and stern character. Honestly, I’m not just saying this because I’m his girlfriend, but I completely forget that it’s him up there. Chapter Ten, Sophie as she watches Billy’s stage play.

“You were brilliant,” I admit, because, bottom and oral sex aside, he really was.
“Better than Jude?” he asks with a cheeky grin. Will he ever let me live that down?
“Much better. Honestly, you were superb!” Chapter Ten, Billy wants Sophie’s feedback.

*in reference to Billy saying that the other actors don’t read the reviews, so he isn’t going to.*
“That sounds like a good idea,” I say, glad that he has decided to take this approach after seeing him so nervous about tonight and what people might think. This definitely seems a more refreshing attitude to take towards something which is, arguably, just one person’s opinion.
“But it’s all about the reviews for you, Bill. That’s why you’re here, remember, to prove your worth as an actor!” Paul says with gusto. Chapter Ten, should we read the reviews?

“But this isn’t your thing to tell, Billy. It’s personal to me. I really don’t want Paul knowing that sort of thing about me.” Chapter Fourteen, Sophie starts trying to separate Billy and Paul.

 ... admiring his smart black tux and the way his hair is slicked up in the quiff style he had when we first met. He looks simply divine and every inch the Hollywood movie star ... I can’t help but beam at him as I take in his gorgeousness. Chapter Fifteen, pre-BAFTA fapping.

I’m going to stop there, or else I’ll be here all night. Yeah, I know it was six more chapters, but I was losing faith in humanity. I was trying to look for all quotes about how amazing Billy was, and how Billy should live to someone else’s standards ... and did you notice what’s up there? They’re all things Sophie has thought or said. The one quote that got included, the Chapter Ten discussion quote, has his manager trying to reason with him to think of the goals he set himself, and not be swept along.

Talking of arses and blowing hot air ... Sophie is definitely blowing it out of her own arse.

So, anyway, back in chapter 22, Sophie’s whining about Billy not coming to her mothers, and how he’s been respectful of her request but he does keep calling and texting. Oh, and Molly’s been harassing her phone endlessly too. There’s a really shitty thought of Sophie’s now. I want you to remember these words, because they’re sarcastic and bitchy and about to smack her around her self-absorbed face:

I’m surprised [Molly]’s not turned up at the door, bringing cake to mend my broken heart.

Pictured: Sophie and her role in the universe.

She stares at the photos she hung up the second she got back of her parents (she’s so emotionally damaged, but not enough to deter her from renovation?) and then we get a scene break.

Sophie says she moped for five days in bed. Wow. You know, I’ve had devastating news, and taken to my bed when I was younger. I managed maybe four hours, then it got hot under the duvet and my hair decided to make a dreadlock at the nape of my neck (get your fucking haircut, Siobhan!) and I needed a wee and some air and ... Sophie is committed to the histrionics, isn’t she?

Sophie says for the last two of those five days, her mother has come into the room, stood by the bed, then walked out again. Intriguing paragraph.

 

Eventually, Sophie’s mum grows the balls to speak. How do these women function in life? For real? Anyway, she’s brought Sophie a cup of tea, which is somewhat of a sign to me that she needs to get the fuck up (my daddy wakes me up with a cup of tea. My daddy is a national hero for this) and then we get a lifetime movie. Sophie’s mum blames herself for a bunch of crap. Sophie blames herself for the same crap. Stuff about Sophie’s dad, and how they handled their grief, and Sophie’s hopes and dreams being dashed.

 

Gimme.

I’m glossing over so many pages here, by the way, because the emo is at terrifying levels. There’s a section break when her mum finally leaves the room, and with it is the change from social anxiety to cancer.

So, the new break starts with it being a few days later, and Sophie has finally left the room. She’s heading to the kitchen, finally sick of tea and toast, and overhears her mother and Colin – the new beau – talking. Oh, what larks, she thinks they’re talking about her:

“I can’t believe it,” she says. “They said she’s quickly getting worse.”
“You have to tell her now.”
“But she’s still so fragile herself, Colin. I don’t know how she’d cope.”
“Jane, she has a broken heart. That’s all.”
I want to shout in protest, tell Colin I think he’s an idiot for being so flippant about what I’m going through, but I don’t, because I need to know what they’re keeping from me.

See, her mother and Colin are talking about ‘her’ and ‘she’ but lolz, they mean two women! Sophie eventually interrupts, and her mother confesses that Molly has cancer. She gives an infodump about how long she’s known she had it, that it’s breast cancer and malignant, that it spread. No sudden knowledge of terminology, which normally happens when someone close to you gets ill (for instance, my family can school you on the Von WillebrandFactor any time you want) but that might be me picking holes. Not everyone has seen Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s amazing performance in 50/50 after all.

So Sophie asks where Molly is, and it turns out she’s in a hospice. Sophie shows her glowing intellect:

I don’t know much about hospices, but one thing I do know is that they’re places extremely sick people go to die.

She’s so fucking sensitive. She then whines that Molly’s about to die, and they’re best friends and she loves Molly more than anything. Bitch, please, you mocked her for her advice on your BAFTA hairstyle, you ignored her call when you thought she’d say “I told you so”, you’ve been ignoring all her attempts to reach you for well over a week and you’ve not been unkind in your thoughts towards her in that time. Best friend, my arse. At least she gets some kind of notion that she’s a terrible person.

The person I love but have ignored over the past week or so because I’ve been so self-absorbed, is about to die. She hasn’t been calling to see how I am. She’s been calling to tell me of her own heartache.

Arguably, she’s been calling to hear of your life with Billy so she can spend her last few days living vicariously through your rags-to-riches story.

Colin offers to give Sophie a ride to the hospice, and she wants to go straight away. Sophie’s big on the instant gratification, isn’t she? Colin tells her yes, but there’s a photographer outside. She’s just acknowledged she looks like shit too (priorities, people!) but after a bunch of crap I don’t care about, she says she’ll go out how she is, and he can print it as a break-up photo if he wants to. I struggle to reason why anyone would take a picture of her if they all believe Billy is banging Heidi again. She’d be forgotten about in a hurry.

Anyway, so the photographer starts acting like a journalist, asking questions that Sophie ignores. The photographer sounds like a character in a Jacqueline Wilson book (not to disrespect Jacqueline, since her books are amazing):

“We’ve all felt ever so sorry for you. It must’ve been awful watching him all over Heidi like that. Apparently he is back at work already, acting as though nothing has happened, that must be painful for you to hear – thinking of him back on set, with her. All over her again without a second thought for you. They’ve not been pictured out together any more, you’ll be happy to hear. Doesn’t mean anything, though, they’re probably shacked up in bed together, making up for lost time.”

And then Sophie gets in Colin’s car, and gives the photographer the middle finger.

That’s the end of the social anxiety portion of the chapter. Billy’s only mentioned in passing, for the most part, which is weird. She never told him about Molly either, which I think is harsh, he bonded really well with Molly according to the canon.

The next section starts with Sophie expounding her vitriol over the tabloids and their need to make a story about her break up with Billy. It is now no longer important to consider her relationship in the face of Molly’s illness. I’m too tired to rant about this, because if Molly was really so God damn important to Sophie, there wouldn’t have been a week and more of moping. Sophie stares out the window, people watching and making a really bad comparison to them living their lives while Molly’s is ending. Seriously, do you feel the heartache in this:

I look out of the window and take in the world around me. Watching as people go about their daily business, not aware that one of the kindest people I know is at death’s door.

I am going to pull from Harry Potter again, I think. Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Thirty Six ‘The Only One He Ever Feared.’:

“He hasn’t gone!” Harry yelled.
He did not believe it; he would not believe it; still he fought Lupin with every bit of strength he had. Lupin did not understand; people hid behind that curtain; Harry had heard them whispering the first time he had entered the room. Sirius was hiding, simply lurking out of sight-
“SIRIUS!” he bellowed. “SIRIUS!”
“He can’t come back, Harry,” said Lupin, his voice breaking as he struggled to contain Harry. “He can’t come back, because he’s d-“
“HE-IS-NOT-DEAD!” roared Harry. “SIRIUS!”

Fuck, even that little bit gets me still. Oh, or hey, chapter Thirty-Eight, “The Second War Begins.”

The castle seemed very quiet even for a Sunday. Everyone was clearly out in the sunny grounds, enjoying the end of their exams and the prospect of a last few days of term unhampered by revision or homework. Harry walked slowly along the deserted corridor, peering out of windows as he went; he could see people messing around in the air over the Quidditch pitch and a couple of students swimming in the lake, accompanied by the giant squid.
He was finding it hard to decide whether he wanted to be with people or not; whenever he was in company he wanted to get away and whenever he was alone he wanted company.

I felt Harry’s pain so much in that book. I know people don’t like Capslock!Harry, but I thought it was effective. Sophie’s whinging is not. She even whines about how Molly should have left a voicemail calling her out on being a shitty friend. I wish I was joking.

There’s a section break because car journeys are hard to write. They’re now at the hospice, and although Sophie’s mum and Colin take their seatbelts off, they don’t move out of the car. Guys, that’s how riveting this story is. Sophie asks to go in alone first, which it sounds like she was going to have to do anyway. So she does, and she asks for Molly at reception, blahblahblah. Molly’s talked about Sophie, so we get some wank about how amazing Sophie must be, gosh Molly just never shuts up about her! There’s a little bit of prep about how Molly might fall asleep as they talk and Giovanna can’t even touch Twist and Shout for bedside illness scenes.

Sophie briefly mentions being choked by emotion, then spends a few paragraphs walking through the ward to Molly’s room. Now, I’ve written a walk through a hospital ward in my story. It did not take Lambrini and Curtis a page to get there.

'Lamb? If you want to meet him, the earrings have to come out. And any pins in your hair. And how long are your nails?'

I held my hands out, and he groaned. I have to rip my nails off?

'Just tuck them into your fists when we go through, okay?' He begged, and I nodded, unclipping my earrings. I dropped them into the glove box and followed him out of the car, up the sidewalk and into the building. A few people waved at him, and two girls so skinny I could see their ribs through their sweaters called him by name, but he didn't stop to talk. I felt like I could barely keep up with him, half-running up the walk behind him. He paused for a moment and took my hand, then carried on walking, slower now. At my pace.

He still hasn't explained Callum properly, but maybe it's because we're now in the hospital, and it might be a little rude to talk about why people are here. He let them know at reception that we were visiting, and we were told Callum was packing. But Curtis whispered as we walked down the corridor that he doubted it. He still hasn't let go of my hand, but I'm very grateful for that right now.

Callum's room feels like it's the other end of the hospital, or else this place is just one huge maze. Outside his room is a clipboard where someone's scribbled his name and in another pen there's the number forty-one. No one else has a number on their board. Curtis knocks, and a second later the door pings open, and the kid there looks a lot like Cody. His hair is a little shorter, but he has freckles and the same strange smile on his face. He focuses on me, but speaks to Curtis.

The second to last paragraph is them entering the hospital. Because this kind of detail? Does not fucking matter. If any of it did, it deserves a mention, but otherwise, the focus should be on why Sophie is there is the first place.

It takes another page for Sophie to open the damn door, and another two paragraphs for her to see and describe Molly, who no longer sounds like the Regina we know her to be.

 

The thing is, even with all the description, I’m just not buying Molly as frail and sickly. Maybe it’s just me, I was little more than a vegetable after my neck vascath got inserted and that was the moment I was like ‘hey, maybe I am sick?’ so maybe my parallels to sickly are different from others. I’ll give her the pass, but only because it took me ten days in hospital to have that epiphany.

Molly wakes up, and she’s enthusiastic but Sophie’s treating her with kid gloves, and simultaneously crying her eyes  out. The whole scene ... sorry, I’m sorry. It’s really hard for me to be subjective here. Everyone in my ward talked to me pretty close to normal. The nurses put up with my dumb questions like it was normal conversation. When I felt okay enough to make dumb jokes, they laughed along or groaned or were like ‘she must be getting better’. My mum cried once, when they refused to give a date for when I could be discharged because they didn’t know at the time if I would survive. That freaked me the fuck out. So well done Sophie, Molly must now think she looks like shit and a Reaper is due to appear. Why was this not part of the nurses debriefing?

And ... I am so fucking disgusted. Sophie is crying and Molly is comforting her. No. Just no. Your job, Sophie May, you fuckface, is to make her last days about her, to maybe joke about the BAFTAs and whatnot, but tell Molly she has more class in her little finger than most of those primadonnas. It is NOT the time for you to whine about how this means you’ll lose your best friend WHO YOU’VE IGNORED FOR DAYS.

Sophie May is such a self-involved bitch.

Eventually, Sophie’s mum comes in and Sophie leaves after a bunch of sentimental crap she should have started with. Sophie collapses in the corridor for extra attention over her ‘pain’ and there’s a section break.

Sophie says she doesn’t sleep that night. She expounds a little on what Molly must be going through, several pages after first learning the diagnosis. Her best friend, people. The phone rings early the next morning, and Sophie’s mum picks up, then relays the message to Sophie. Molly died in her sleep. Sophie wangsts a little about the impact Molly made on her life, and then the chapter ends.

I hate this chapter. I feel like she’s done social anxiety, hospice/hospital stays and cancer all wrong. The things that should be important to the topics aren’t.

Twelve percent more. That’s all that’s left of the book. I am so wrung out by this.