When We're Together (Damon Albarn)

Chapter Forty-Two

A/N
So I feel like this chapter just came out of nowhere, I wasn't expecting to update this soon, but here we are!

It's a bit of a different vibe from previous chapters, but I hope you still enjoy it regardless!

Also, at the end of this chapter Damon sings a song to Eliza that he's written for her, I want you to guess now what song you think that is (no cheating!) because I think it's so so fitting.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Saturday 25th July 2009

It was amazing really how one man's words could send your entire mind spiralling. A question so simple, so innocent yet a question which had left me in a state I was almost certain I'd never been in.

I'd laughed at the time, laughed at his question and mumbled a dumbfounded "My parents are dead" before Damon's grip on my shoulders tightened as he pulled me away. In fact, I could still laugh about it now, laugh about how all the press we did after Glastonbury revolved around my parents being dead. Laugh about how it had even made headline news, desperate journalists trying to piece together my parents death, but the reality was far worse than just a bit of laughter. Damon and I had rowed some of the worst we'd ever, he was desperate for me to go and see a therapist but I just couldn't bring myself to it, no matter how right I knew he was. But the fact I had turned into a inconsolable mess at the mere mention of my parents told me that I had buried it for too long. I never dealt with their death in the right way, relied on any substance I could get my hands on instead which had lead to an awful breakdown when Missy was born.

Grief and hormones were a deadly mix.

I remembered how I would spend half the night practically screaming at Damon, sobbing until I was sick, begging for him to tell me how I was meant to be a mother when I didn't have a mother myself.

Yet, these past few weeks had felt far worse than that. Grief is a weird thing, you think you're okay and then you're suddenly back when it happened, confused and lost and lonely. It didn't matter that they had died fourteen years ago.

We had done the classic Albarn move of going to Devon when things got too much. I kept my head down for our last few shows, enjoying them as much as I possibly could with the gut-wrenching feeling inside of me. But as soon as that last show was done Damon and I were in a cab and on our way to Devon. I didn't want to go without the kids but Damon didn't give us a choice, he knew what I needed more than I did.

He let me slip into the pit for a few days, didn't put any pressure on me and just let me stay in bed. The only thing we clashed on was eating, when I was like this we could never see eye to eye on how much food was enough. Though as Monday rolled around he forced me out of bed and onto the beach, he kept me busy all day and told me, in no uncertain terms, that I had to fight against it.

Tuesday came around and Jamie showed up with his kids and ours. It was a relief to see them and it didn't take me long to start crying again. Jamie hugged me and he held me so close that it made me cry more. It was a nice day so we spent it on the beach, swimming, playing and just relaxing. I was certain that the sea air really did do something for the soul. If you could bottle it up and sell it you'd make millions.

The rest of the week has gone quickly, we would spend our days on the beach and I would feel better, far better but once all the kids were asleep it was a different story. But the evenings always had been the worst, that's why I grew so dependent on anything that could distract my mind from what was going on.

Though, when you're 38 and a mother, you couldn't rely on the same things you used to, instead the drugs turned into a hot bath, every single evening. The first few nights Damon sat on the floor of the bathroom, reading me pages from a book, playing his guitar, playing the radio or just sitting in silence as he wrote away in his notebook. Once Jamie got here, he would run the bath for me and then check on me every ten minutes, though after the past few days he was now leaving me for the majority of the duration of my bath. I wasn't entirely sure as to why he felt he couldn't leave me, but I also didn't want to ask him. The thought of how worried I knew he was about me made me feel ill.