Vulnerable [Frollie]

Chapter 11

They were getting back to normal, making up for lost time. Frankie apologised almost every day for what she did and Mollie had to find new ways to show her that it was okay. She also attended Frankie’s weekly meetings with Dr White, where she encouraged them to talk about their time spent apart. Frankie expressed to her how guilty she felt, and Mollie told her how difficult it was for her to deal with Frankie’s guilt. She gave them tactics and strategies to try, even talked to Mollie alone after a few of their sessions, giving her advice on how to piece Frankie back together again, and warned her that there was still something Frankie had been hiding from her, though she didn’t know what it was. Mollie mulled over this information for a few days, trying to decipher if Dr White’s warning had been a subtle push to find out what it was Frankie was hiding or not. When she called one night a few days later to check in, she asked her what she should do. Dr White was unwilling to direct her to do anything, but advised her not to push and said it would come in time.

Mollie pushed that to the back of her mind, instead concentrating solely on putting that time behind them and rebuilding what they’d lost. It turned out that the separation had taken much more of a toll on Frankie than she had let on, and on more than one occasion Mollie had come home to find her distraught with guilt, sitting in Mollie’s studio with a tear stained face. At first, Frankie wouldn’t go anywhere without Mollie, unwilling to be apart for even a small period of time. Mollie had eventually convinced her that they had plenty of time to make up for what they lost, and that when Mollie had to run out to the supermarket or wherever, she was going to come back.

Frankie’s dreams had changed a bit; Peter’s appearances were less frequent, with the majority of her nightmares instead being the reoccurring vision that Mollie had become tired of her and left, leaving Frankie lost and helpless. Some mornings Mollie woke up to Frankie’s fingers wrapped so tight around her t-shirt she was afraid they would break. Frankie’s rational mind knew that Mollie would never leave her, but the small irrational part kept replaying the dream, making Frankie increasingly agitated.

Frankie said it was infuriating because she knew the dream wasn’t reality and never would be, but her sleeping mind refused to agree with her woken mind, torturing her with words Mollie would never say and things Mollie would never do. Mollie expressed her concern to Dr White, who suggested that each night just as Frankie was falling asleep, Mollie tell her something that she loved about her. Mollie tried this, going overboard with praise, desperately hoping that the idea would work. When Frankie woke up the first morning, grinning stupidly and showering Mollie with kisses, Mollie was thrilled but prayed it wasn’t a fluke.

It proved not to be, however, as night after night Frankie was quiet, snuggled up to Mollie for no reason at all other than for comfort and love. Frankie began to relax, opening up more and talking when things got tough. She started to shed some of her guilt, talking with Mollie about why she did what she did and how it made sense at the time. Mollie helped her to understand the push behind it, told her about how it was a defensive mechanism to protect her, but most importantly expressed her happiness that she was back and her lack of resentment about her brief absence.

They both slept easily for a while, Frankie’s dreams unperturbed, nothing but nonsensical things and happy thoughts, they drifted by without a trace of angry Mollie or Peter. They were both ecstatic, finally beginning to blindly believe that things were on an upward slope, that there were to be no setbacks and only progress. They rode this high for weeks, giggling to each other and smiling like idiots. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other, stayed holed up in their flat most nights, Frankie telling Mollie all the things she missed and Mollie doing them all.