Under Control.

chapter forty five.

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Stillness was a distant memory.

They could steal moments of it, Nora and Julian, together. But for the most part predictability was a thing unbeknownst to them anymore, and the idea that any day — let alone any given week — would look the same as the last, was a reality that just wasn't theirs for the taking, anymore.

Julian's fortnight at home thus far had been mostly taken up with moving him and Albert into their new apartment across the street from their old one, but with the two of them ducking off at all hours in-between to take meetings about the recording of the new album. And so, Cat and Nora had found themselves left in their wake to deal with what remained.

Albert and Cat were solid, and very, very on. They seemed to have figured out how to live with one of the two of them almost always being gone, or having one foot out the door at all times, and they did it in a way that Nora still hadn't quite managed to resolve herself to, yet. But still, it made her as hopeful as it did envious.

If they could do it, surely Nora and Julian could, too?

'How do you deal with him being gone so often?' Nora was a contented mess, covered in soap and dust and wearing one of Julian's old shirts with a tattered pair of jeans which she was accessorising with the longest pair of rubber gloves known to man. She and Cat were in the old apartment, surrounded by the debris of a life that had mostly been moved across the street. The two of them had not exactly been left to deal with the cleaning alone, but rather it was a task that they were determined to be done with it all by the time their other halves returned from their latest uptown meeting, just so they might end their very long day laying on a cleaner floor elsewhere, and with hopefully nothing left to do by then but to scoff pizza and share a six-pack between them.

Cat and Nora were friends. They'd been friendly since before she and Albert had gotten back together, and had become even more so after the fact. It was a strange life, having a boyfriend who belonged to other people just as much as he did to you. And so having to navigate it all and share and be sure at the same time? Well, it helped to have a sounding board to make certain that you weren't just panicking about the normal abnormalities amongst the rest.

'Oh, um,' Cat was checking the cupboards for stuff left behind, doing their last run-through before they could finally make their escape back to the new place. 'I'm not sure. But, I suppose, there's nothing you can do about it, you know? And that's the one thing I knew, going in. So the touring I can deal with. It's the rest of it that's...you know, harder.'

Nora did know. And it was the rest of it that she was still trying to reckon with, herself. And when it came to her and Julian, the rest was more the wondering if having him to herself only when he was home with her, was enough.

It's not like they had an open relationship. But Nora understood better now how things stood and what Julian's world was like — and especially so when she wasn't around to be in it. She still had no idea how he dealt with it all any of the time, let alone when he was miles from home and surrounded by people who only cared about who he could be on a stage, and the various ways that it might benefit them. So, Nora had surprised them both by being as fine as she had been with the flirting and the groupies and the throwaway kisses that happened in the stupor of booze, plus other assorted ways of dealing and coping and being.

She and Julian had laid ground rules. And when she'd decided to try being with him (again), Nora had accepted the fact that the parameters of their relationship would probably almost certainly be less than conventional. And, most of the time, she was fine with it. Sometimes even when Julian wasn't. But the hardest thing amongst it all was being left to feel like she was living a half-life. Because when Julian was home, Nora was happy. Her life felt real, and she felt whole in it. But when he was gone it was like everything was on hold, and she still had yet to figure out how to deal with that part.