You Must Be the One

Purple- Creativity I

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.

-Tennessee Williams

Okay, she may be just slightly resentful for agreeing to this whole thing. Half of her vitriol was toward Bobby who'd suggested it in the first place and the other half of the blame rested entirely on herself for not arguing against it harder. 

Scowling, Stefani tosses shirts and jeans into her suitcase, a hoodie, pajamas. Maine may have well been fucking Antarctica, as far as she was concerned. Freezing at night and sweltering during the day certainly didn't sound as though it could possibly foster creativity.

"It'll be good for you, Stef," Bobby had said the month before. He'd sent her the screenshots of the place, the link to the website, the email address of the coordinator. "I'll set it all up," he offered excitedly, "you won't have to lift a finger."

"It'll be good for you," she mimics, shutting the suitcase's lid with a resounding slam. "Oh, no, no, don't look at me like that. You would feel the same way. All of you guys would."

Her three French bulldogs eye from their perch on the sofa and she swears they're silently judging her. 

"Okay." She sighs, shoving aside the case to sit. "I know he's coming from a good place. And yeah, I could have sounded a little more...grateful about the whole thing. But I dunno, I just don't see how a creativity retreat is going to fix things."

Asia whines, covering her ears, while Koji and Gustavo shoot her matching quizzical expressions, heads tilted to one side.

"I'll give it a go. That's the only promise I can make you."

Padding down the hallway, she drags herself to the kitchen. The idea of food isn't appealing and she doesn't know if it's because eating alone seems really sad or if it's because of this nuclear funk she's been in for just shy of seven months.

Either way, she knows she has to eat, so she fixes herself a simple bowl of spaghetti (her dad's voice nagging her to make sure she finishes it isn't ringing in her ears at all, nope) and settles down in front of the television.

Avoiding the dining room, hell, even staying clear of the breakfast bar, makes the whole thing decidedly less bone crushingly lonely. Binge watching Schitt's Creek for the 50th time isn't some magical anecdote for sadness, but it makes her smile at the very least and that's better than nothing.

Night time is harder. After her eyelids feel heavy, she drags herself back upstairs, strips off her clothes (admittedly, these days, it's closer to pajamas than not), sprawls out on the bed with the dogs at the foot, absently thumbing through the channels and wondering why when she's so tired that the minute she lies down, she's fully awake. It's a raw deal.

The house seems ten times larger than it actually is. She swears she can hear every creak, every tiny gust of wind. If she listens closely enough, she might just hear the fucking flowers growing in the garden. And then come the barrage of whys: Why did she buy such a big place? Why didn't she just take up her parent's offer of coming to stay with them for awhile? Why can't she admit to Bobby, to Ashley, to anyone, that she's really struggling in the evening hours and ask if someone's willing to sit with her? Why can't she get herself together?

Why isn't she able to write a single note anymore?

The whys make her want to scream at the top of her lungs, just to shut them up and the internal fight is too much. Always too fucking much and exhausted, she finally falls asleep.

The next morning, she's dragging. She always is lately. The alarm on her phone jolts her out of bed and into the shower, though there's nothing she'd rather be doing less than meeting Bobby on the tarmac. Even a root canal sounded better.