and from the inside in

I flop down onto the bed and cover my head with a pillow. I’d convinced myself this was the world I wanted to live in.
A place so remote and removed from my old life that my past would never catch up with me. But, I know I’m living a
fantasy.
The past knows not of country borders or of years gone by. It doesn’t recognise life changes or other people. I was living
the romanticised version of my life. Everything was a pretty shade of rose; I’d found my Mr. Darcy and I was his Elizabeth
Bennet. This tale was supposed to be my happily-ever-after. But unlike me, my past was no fool. It saw straight through
my false-truths and remained unconvinced with the life I was trying to lead. It pushed past my tense smiles and staged
embraces, my dinner parties and posh dresses. It carried my mother’s words high up into the sky and rained them
down on me like angry thunderbolts. My mother would follow me everywhere and there was nothing I could do
to change it.
Would I ever be free of her? Was I lying to myself, and to Ali? He was the future I ran to with open arms, but my past
pulled me back. It held onto my ankles and dragged me back kicking and screaming to the small village in North
East England. I’d see myself in a white cotton dress, lined up for Bible recitation with my two younger sisters. How could
I ever be free of that?
I throw the pillow onto the floor and stare out to Ali on the balcony. I don’t know what’s worse; being trapped with the
woman who’d broken my soul, or trapping someone else and breaking his?
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