fabiennelewis-blog

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She managed a nod and looked around shortly. “Yeah, okay,” she replied, giving over to just doing what Rémy said, doing what Rémy thought she should do. Maybe she should cut herself some slack.

It all went in phases though. Some weeks she would feel so terrible she would look for distraction in everything and other weeks she was just working so hard that those other weeks were bound to follow sooner or later. She didn’t know how to balance it. “Shall we go back to yours?” She was starving now she’d stopped thinking about all the things she should be doing or had to be doing. “Do you have food in? I kind of fancy a Chinese take-away.”

She didn’t know why they always ended up eating take-aways whenever they hung out, but she sort of liked how that always kept happening. Maybe that could be their thing.

Help me

Rémy understood where she was coming from and so he nodded. It wasn’t like Jaidon had asked for it to be like this, but neither had Fabienne. They were both doing what they thought they needed to do, one for themselves, the other for someone else. Nothing about that was fair, but he had a feeling that Fabienne knew this. He knew that she didn’t think that Jaidon wanted it to be this way. 

“Yeah, I can help you with that.” He said, leaving the discussion for what it was. “And ask him either way, okay? Maybe they need to see it, maybe they don’t, but it’s always good to have it in case it comes up. We’ll figure it out, even though it’s just the first step… And then you can look at the second step, and then the third.”

He smiled at her in a reassuring way, almost as if to say that it was going to be fine even if it wouldn’t be. The apartment would work out, and perhaps the rest would follow. “Give yourself some rest, though, okay? Just tonight.”

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She didn’t really want to end up having an argument, but she didn’t know what else to do than shout at him. She was on the verge of losing it and she had no idea how to deal with that.

“No, but it’s not like we’re going to get around the corner and oh how handy, a fucking telephone box and a taxi to take us home-- or even better, a little five star fucking holiday resort ready to make us feel great and take us home after!” Fabienne swallowed hard and crossed her arms. “If that was there, we would have been spotted, wouldn’t we.” But then she did start walking in the direction Rémy had motioned towards.

The Two of Us

Rémy shook his head because he had no idea about anything. He didn’t think a walk would make them remember anything, but perhaps they would be able to find a way out of there somehow. Perhaps there was a pier somewhere, and perhaps there’d be a boat sometime to take them back home. He could hardly believe anything about this.

He looked over the water, nothing but an infinitive horizon to be seen. Where the hell were they, and how the fuck would they return? “We need to get out, so we need to walk somewhere. We can’t just sit here either, can we?” He said, and he sounded like he was close to breaking out in panic. He had no fucking clue how to deal with this.

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She hadn’t lit the cigarette yet and she didn’t know whether she was going to now. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She nodded a little, looking around, before looking at Rémy. “I guess it’s hard being the sane one trying to help someone out. At least if you’re the one with all the problems-- I mean, that’s going to be shit, but you don’t actually need to take the responsibility over yourself. Someone else will just have to do that for you. Must be amazing to live like that, really. Irresponsible for yourself.”

She knew that it wasn’t entirely right, but sometimes she had to tell herself she had the harder job, because Jaidon didn’t even feel guilty towards Fabienne. She didn’t feel anything. She needed to do that so she could get by. She put the cigarette back in the holder and squeezed Rémy’s hands, before crossing her arms. “Maybe you could help me look around for a place? I have the money to pay for the first few months, but I don’t know whether they need to see a contract or anything, because then I’ve got a problem... But I’m sure I can get a contract from Ben-- the guy who runs the bar. He tends to do things like that for us.”

Help me

Rémy listened and he felt bad for not having the solution, even though that was impossible. There simply weren’t any solutions for certain situations and all you could do was hope you were going to find something that would work. “I think it’s important to take it one step at a time. The first step is the new place so that the both of you don’t have to deal with your father anymore.” He said, smiling weakly towards Fabienne. He wasn’t trying to make it sound easy or even doable in the first place, but Rémy thought it was important that she got out of there before it was too late. “You’re going to have to wait for that, because you have no idea how she’s going to respond to it. It won’t be better instantly, but I think it’s a big step that might help a lot if you make her realise who you’re doing it for… I think everyone needs to feel important sometimes.”

He sighed, reaching out to grab Fabienne’s hand again. “But it’s difficult, and you have to wait until you can really say what things are going to be like.”

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She had no idea why this was happening to them and it made her feel unsafe, it made her feel watched even though this island seemed so deserted it made the world seem unreal. Was this hell? Had they died and ended up in the next level of fuck knows what? Then why did she feel so... alive?

“Why would a walk make us remember what happened?” she asked, looking out over the sea, before stepping away from the water. “We need to know how to get back home.”

The Two of Us

Rémy kept looking at her, almost as though he was hoping that her face would be familiar enough to hold on to, to forget the rest of the island. It wasn’t, though. Even his heart was beating at an unfamiliar pace, one that he had only felt once or twice before. “I don’t want it to be real.” was all he managed to say, and then he just continued to stare at her, hopelessly so. 

He carefully grabbed a hold of her arm, and he squeezed it softly. He needed to be sure that she wasn’t going to slip through his fingers, like she was sand, or his imagination. “We…” He shook his head. “I don’t know, but maybe we should go for a walk… And try to remember what happened.”

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She sighed softly. “I fucking hope that’ll help or I’ll end up having worked my arse off to get her safe without it actually changing anything.” She looked at Rémy shortly, before looking out before her. “I don’t even want to look after her anymore, but I don’t want her to get hurt. I don’t want to have to do this. I want her to get taken to a place where they make her better, but that’s never going to work if she thinks she’ll get out to the same shit.”

She took out another cigarette. “Her mum killed herself and Jaidon’s never going to get her back. She’s never going to see her again, so how can she think anything will ever get better? She has no goals, she has nothing she wants. Why would she work towards getting better at all?”

Help me

Nobody could ever really change much, Rémy realised. He knew there were families who cared enough to intervene, to force someone else to become a better person, to live a better life. Fabienne’s wasn’t like that, and his hadn’t been like that either. “Nobody can change much when they’re on their own. It always takes someone else or more people, unfortunately.” He said, looking around. “So when you don’t get the support that you need to be able to change something, you need to find people who will support you, or remove yourself from the people who make a point out of not supporting you.”

He sighed as he thought, looking back at her. “The people you live with, and around, they’re not her family. And they’ll never be, because they don’t want to be. I don’t think they’re your family either. Not anymore, because you know that you deserve better, and that she deserves better too.” He frowned, finding a spot he could rest his eyes on. “But I know you want to take her in, and take care of her the best you can. You already do, but maybe she doesn’t realise it because maybe nothing has obviously changed for her. Maybe when it does, she’ll realise that you care as much as you do, at some point… I don’t think that’ll end her addiction at all, though… But it might be a start…”

[fabiennelewis-blog]

Nothing about this made any sense, and he instantly started to breathe more heavily. He was on the verge of panicking, but he had to keep quiet. “I fucking hate not remembering anything.” He spoke his thoughts, because he really fucking did. Not with alcohol, not when he woke up in someone else’s bed without remembering anything, and especially not like this, when he didn’t even recognise any of his surroundings. “I don’t know how this happened. I don’t remember a thing.”

She felt incredibly strange, her lungs feeling heavy and dry, like her eyelids. She felt like she’d been lying in the sun for hours. She probably had.

She pushed herself up more, joining Rémy, despite feeling incredibly dizzy. “It doesn’t make sense,” she spoke. “We were... just... I don’t know what we were doing. I can’t remember what we were doing last.” That was even more to make the panic rise up in her, but there was hardly time for that, or maybe they had all the time in the world here?

She looked around. “This is real, isn’t it? It feel real. I just don’t know... I don’t know how the hell this is happening.” She crossed her arms over her chest, not daring to even start making a plan of what to do next, as if that was accepting that this was happening to them, while in actual fact, they had no choice.

The Two of Us

Rémy was relieved when she opened her eyes. He didn’t want to see her lifeless, so tragically. Next to that, he had no idea how he could ever handle this on his own. He needed her, like he always did. “I don’t know.” He said honestly, “I really don’t have a clue.” He stood up straight again, looking around the parts of the island he could see. He had no idea what would lie behind the trees, the bushes. “But we need to get back.”

[fabiennelewis-blog]

The way she woke up, was as if she’d woken up from a nightmare, wet from sweat and completely panicked and deluded. She saw Rémy first, which confused her. And then she realised he was the one waking her up. Her feet were wet, her legs were wet.

She grabbed hold of his shoulders and pulled her feet in, looking around. She felt hungover, but it was probably the sun on her skin. How was the sun on her skin, while she’d been sleeping? She breathed in deeply, looking at Rémy for some kind of explanation, but nothing left her mouth. This had to be some kind of dream, something she’d wake up from again and get back to normal, but it didn’t feel like it.

She got a shiver from that idea and she pushed herself up from the sand. “What’s going on?” she then asked, her voice low. “What happened-- what are we doing here?”

1, Fabienne

He’d been fast asleep, having dream after dream, strangely not connected to the cause of his violent waking. It was water he felt, entering his shoes and wetting his toes. At first he thought this might just be the dream, making him feel things that weren’t actually there, but once he opened eyes, he realised that he was awake… And on a beach, the warm sun shining down on him.

He pulled his feet back, sitting up and looking out over a bright blue ocean. He had no idea where he was, but it didn’t scare him as much as it confused him yet. It did feel unpleasant, though, but that was mainly because this scenery didn’t click with him. How the hell had he ended up here? The thought made him breathless, and he immediately got up on his feet to seek for something familiar. He felt dizzy as he looked around, almost as though he had been drunk before, his eyes having difficulty adjusting to the brightness.

As he looked to his side, he saw someone else a little bit further away. He couldn’t immediately see who it was— if he’d even know them— but he did see that they were much farther into the water than he had been. It made him panic, running over to them to pull them out of it. Rémy hoped that they— or she, he saw— wasn’t fucking dead.

"Fabienne!" He shouted when he recognised her, speeding up as he ran into the water to pull her out of it. "Wake up… Now…" The bottom of her dress was wet, and so were her legs and her shoes. What the hell had happened to them?

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She nodded at him, unsure what exactly he meant when he said they weren’t that different, but she thought she might agree. “I guess I’m just scared,” she then said. “Scared that whatever I do, or Jaidon does, I can’t really change much.” She had no idea what was going to end up happening.

She lit another cigarette, now no longer avoiding the eye contact as much. “Jaidon needs help and I don’t know how to get it for her. She’s... insane, basically. She never makes sense and I can’t remember the last decent conversation I’ve had with her. She never spoke, before we got along-- I mean, I don’t even know whether she’s aware of the fact that we’re getting along. She just, steals money, she gets drugs from god knows who, for god knows what, and I’m just trying to look after her, but really, this can’t go on, can it? She’s overdosed once. She’ll do it again and again until she’s dead, or she’ll end up purposefully killing herself and I don’t know how to stop that from happening.”

Help me

Rémy listened to her, nodding. He couldn’t say he fully understood it, because nobody else would ever be able to fully do that. He’d seen it though, he’d been over there, he’d seen Jaidon and he’d met her parents, her mother deciding on the easy way, like his mother had done too. He didn’t know whether that made her worse, but it probably did. “I don’t think we’re that different.” He suddenly said, remembering how Fabienne had helped him back in Paris, just by telling about herself so that he would do the same. He had done it then, because maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t so alone. “But I think you’re doing great, even though it might not really feel like that, and even though you don’t get that kind of recognition at all, from anyone really… I just want you to know that you are doing great, and probably more than anyone else ever would do for somebody else.”

He didn’t mention the details of her story, because it wasn’t about that. They were horrible, completely horrible, but the point had already been clear. “But please just let me help you. I’ll shut up and not say anything to try and make you feel better, or anything else that might be trying to sound to uplifting, or anything. I never liked it much when people did that either, so I understand that you don’t want to hear it.” He sighed, forgetting the point of what he was going to say. “But I moved away when I was twenty, too, and I didn’t know a thing I really wished I had known. I know about houses, rent, financial stuff… All that fucking scary bullshit, you know?” He sighed, not knowing whether or not she was going to take it.

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She smoked her cigarette a little urgently, pre-occupying herself with it. She still wasn’t looking at Rémy while they were walking next to each other and she was trying to ignore how he was trying to make eye-contact. She didn’t want it right now, because she had absolutely no idea what to do with it.

“If you’re giving me the choice, I’d prefer it if you’d shut up,” she said. She’d never made a point about being rude. Around here it was a means of getting round. She exhaled the smoke, crossing her arms over her chest. “Anything I want?” she then asked. “I have no idea what I want or what I like doing. I’ve lost track of it, because I’m mostly busy keeping my sister from overdosing or keeping my dad’s hands off her-- while trying to keep my job a secret, so they don’t arrange some intervention to save me from this apparently self-destructive stupidity. They’re the ones that need to get their shit together, but nobody does, so I just have to go around, picking everything up after them and all I get to hear is how pretty I look, from them, or how fucking sexy I am from the assholes at work, which is basically the only attention I get.” She wasn’t talking about the attention she got from Rémy. She was happy with his friendship and there was nothing she’d change about that. She thought he’d know that. “I don’t have time for me. I can’t spend time on me, on something I like. I don’t even know what that is anymore.”

Help me

Rémy sighed, sounding defeated though he wasn’t willing to admit to that. “You’re not even allowing yourself a day off?” He asked, sucking at his cigarette as though it was something he automatically did all day long. “You know, it’s okay to have a crap day. That doesn’t mean you have to torture yourself into feeling less angry, or less sad, or less annoyed.”

He continued to walk, searching for eye contact. “You also don’t have to listen to me if you don’t want to. You can tell me to shut up, and I will.” He said. “Just don’t go to work today, you don’t have to. It’s alright. We can do something else, anything you want.”

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She didn't want to hear that it was hard or that she wasn't alone. What did that even mean? She just didn't want to have these feelings. She maybe didn't. She didn't now. She was fucking fine.

"I guess so," replied, walking outside, before lighting her cigarette. She didn't focus on what she wanted really, or whether she was happy, so why should it be a problem anyway? She just needed to get on with her life. Whether she was happy or not was probably not that important. She cleared her throat.

"Maybe I should just go to work or go home. You said you were tired before."

Help me

He got up in an instant and moved towards the front door to get his jacket. It was still cold outside, he knew, but maybe the breeze would do the both of them some good. Rémy felt physically tired again, but determined. He wasn’t sure what of. “I know it’s hard.” He said, opening the door. “But you don’t have to do it alone, even though I know you probably could do it alone.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, just walking out to leave the building and light a cigarette. He felt his keys inside his pocket. “Life can be really shit, right?”

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She pursed her lips, not looking at anything in particular. "I don't know," she replied. She felt like she shouldn't have come here, because moaning about stuff wouldn't actually change anything, would it? And if she wanted stuff to sort itself out, she should just go to work, get her money and keep doing it. She didn't even realise she had a reason for coming to Rémy in the first place.

She was perfectly capable of taking control of her life, but she didn't realise that maybe for once she shouldn't take control. Maybe she should let go a little and stop trying to have everything sorted and under control, because nobody did. She had to let go of her control every night, if she was with someone, to a certain extent, but that had to be the wrong way to lose control.

"Sure. Let's walk."

Help me

He could feel her tensing up against him, probably with anger. It wasn’t that he had necessarily expected this, but he hadn’t really expected her to do anything with his words either. He never did it himself. so why should she? “And I think that’s a good thing.” He shifted again, giving her the space she needed to grab the cigarette holder. “I think you should get out and take her with you. As soon as possible. I think it’d be the best thing to do it sooner than you feel ready, because it’s time, right? Time can do so many awful things you don’t want happening…” He wasn’t sure what he was saying anymore. “But I don’t want to sound like you feel I sound, because you don’t need that right now. I just want to help you with… Well, just the stuff I know, from when I moved out.”

He nodded, looking at her even though she didn’t want to look back at him now. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She hated how she got angry with Rémy, just because he was trying to help, because she felt he couldn't possibly understand. Why did he think he could help, why did he think he knew what was best for her? She didn't quite understand herself why she was getting so defensive.

She pulled her hair to the side and took a sip of water, simply to ignore what Rémy had just said. "I need to move out, because I can't stand another minute of dad's bullshit. And I need Jaidon to get her arse into rehab so she can get somewhere in her life and maybe even help me pay for the place." She moved her hand inside her jacket, trying not to look at Rémy. He was trying to help her and she should probably be thankful about that, but now she suddenly didn't want it anymore. She didn't know why she got like that.

"I'll probably just be fine," she then concluded, taking a cigarette from the holder. She stood up. "You want me to smoke outside, yes?"

Help me

"I do care about them, otherwise I wouldn’t want to sleep with them." He shifted to sit more comfortably, his face resting on his hand. "I don’t think it’s as simple as that, that you either do or don’t care about someone. I think that, maybe, it’s like some sort of spectrum that people are on, from someone you don’t care about at all, to the person you care about most." Rémy didn’t know whether or not he was making sense to Fabienne, but it all sounded quite logical to him. "I might care more than they do, but that’s fine to me. Everyone works differently, and they should be respected for it as long as it’s not hurting anybody else."

He spoke calmly, sometimes hesitantly eying Fabienne. He knew that she didn’t agree with him, and that she never would, but that had always been fine with him. Their first conversation ever had been about this, and his feelings towards it hadn’t changed. His feelings towards Fabienne had changed, though. They had grown, become more complete. He knew her better now, and he’d noticed it in everything they did together: from just spending time, to asking for help without actually saying anything. She’d done it for him when they’d been in Paris, and he’d do it for her. Always.

"I don’t like it when people feel like they need to help me either." He simply said, "but maybe we should let them. Sometimes, at least." He wasn’t judging her, because he wasn’t judging himself either.

[fabiennelewis-blog]

She shook her head. "It's fine, I'll probably figure something out at some point." She didn't like people doing things for her, she could do it herself.

The way Rémy talked about his one-night stands might be better than how she had thought he thought about it, but that didn't mean he actually felt that way. Maybe she just couldn't see sex as meaningful, unless there was emotional attachment. She didn't see how it would work otherwise. "I couldn't be close to someone I didn't care about. For me." She had never enjoyed sex, not once. It made no sense to her and she understood why it seemed so appealing, but for some reason it wasn't for her. She'd lost all her curiosity in it, now it actually happened almost every day.

"Especially not if I knew they didn't care about me."

Help me

He shook his head then, “It doesn’t always work like that, I think. That’s too objective, while the thing is more of an opinion, or— well, it’s a feeling. If I think it means something, then it does mean something to me, but it doesn’t have to mean anything to you.” He smiled, the shaking of his head turning into a nod. “It’s fine if people don’t want it to mean anything, I’ve also seen that. I think that the majority of people who sleep with me want it to be meaningless, but it’s still not meaningless to me. They wanted to spend a night with me, see what it’s like, and I wanted to have them close to me, and make them feel as good as I did. I believe that worked, most of the time.” 

He ran his teeth over his bottom lip, thinking. “I think it all means something else, to everyone. And that’s fine. Nobody needs to be the same as somebody else, or feel things the same way.” 

He touched Fabienne’s hair for a moment, but then let go of it again. He didn’t know why he did it, but it felt needed. “I could help you get it, if you wanted that. I could ask around, without sounding like a pimp.” He chuckled softly.

[fabiennelewis-blog]

Ranya Mordanova at Supreme polaroids

[fabiennelewis-blog]

"I haven't ever had anything that did mean something. When does it? When you're in love or desperately attracted mainly, but I think most of sex is based on fantasy-- as far as I notice. Up in their own heads mainly, living their wildest dreams and using you to imagine it." She looked at him. "Isn't that what you do, when you find someone? You don't fall in love with them if it's just a one-night stand and the next day it's over. You might treat them with care-- attraction, also you want them to be happy, so you get from them what you want-- but it's not about that."

She hoped Rémy didn't think she was judging him. She wasn't. It wasn't a bad thing that that would be the way it was for him, it was just honest. Not everything had to be thought-through and meaningful.

"Being an escort sounds like a better job," she said. "I think it would be respected more. Possibly something to work towards, but I have no idea how to get there. I'm not in a company, I don't belong to anyone. I'm just there. The owner has my number for if I need to come in, if there aren't enough of us for how many men there are."

Help me

He nodded, “Before I met you, I didn’t think I had any idea. It just seemed desperate to me, you know?” He didn’t know what exactly he was going to say to her now, but he was just sharing himself, explaining his thoughts. “Not the women, or the men, but the people who paid those visits. Maybe that’s just because I want everything to mean something when it happens, and that sounds— and probably is— meaningless.”

He turned towards her, getting an idea. “What about… being an escort?” He asked her. “I read something about that, and that there are those legal agencies who will just set you up with men to go on dinner-dates, or whatever else, and you get paid ridiculous amounts of money. It’s just acting, I think, but if you could try that, you’d be able to explain your income.”

[fabiennelewis-blog]

ranya mordanova by papo waisman for metal, s/s 2012