Work Text:
October 2013
“Could you do something for me, Lizzie?”
They were talking on Skype one Sunday afternoon, Lydia from her bedroom and Lizzie from her apartment. Something about Lydia’s voice made Lizzie put aside her laundry and maximize the chat window. “Sure, what’s up?”
“You don’t have to do it right away. It’s kind of a big thing.”
“Okay.”
“I made a video. Well, tried to. About everything.” Lydia pushed on, like she was afraid of losing her nerve. “I was tired, and I might have had too much to drink, and it just...” She waved her hand around. “It’s a mess. I can’t even watch it. But I thought, you’re the media expert and maybe you could fix it or tell me to junk it or whatever. If you wanted.”
Lizzie thought back to the rest of her sister’s videos and chose her next words carefully. “I’d love to help, if I can. Are you sure this is the right time?”
“I dunno. I think so. There are these girls on the Internet who follow me – like, thirteen-year-old girls, you know? And some of the stuff I said when.... Maybe I need to do something.”
There were at least five objections Lizzie could blurt out, just off the top of her head. Twelve months ago, she would have. “Of course I’ll look at it, Lydia. But you don’t have to post anything if you’re not ready. You can always change your mind.”
Lydia offered a crooked smile. “We’ll see.”
Lydia sent a thumb drive through the mail; she was too impatient to deal with their parents’ spotty Internet connection. The drive contained random self portraits and MP3s, and a three gigabyte video file from the camera Lizzie had left with Lydia when she moved away.
Lizzie set aside a Tuesday evening at Darcy’s place. She traded her work clothes for sweatpants, made tea and shut herself into the spare room she had unofficially claimed as her office. (He had offered, of course, to move in all her books and equipment. She was resisting the temptation for the time being.)
The video was just over 15 minutes of raw footage. She decided to watch it twice straight through before she did anything else. When that was done, she walked out of the room, left her untouched mug in the kitchen and buried her face in Darcy’s shoulder.
“I’m fine,” she said after a while.
“Shh,” he said.
Editing gave Lizzie the illusion of distance even as it pulled her deeper in. She broke sentences into phrases and played them in a loop with her eyes closed, then muted the headphones and watched her sister’s face.
It had been a while – this feeling of intense, bleary-eyed reflection. She wondered how she had managed to do it every week.
Fresh tea appeared on the desk sometime after midnight. It was half past three by the time she finished.
She wrote text messages as she got ready for work the next morning. “Did you ever lose this much sleep over me?”
“All the damn time,” Charlotte replied.
Hi. Um...
I know you must be sick of the drama by now, but this is going to be kind of heavy. And you totally don’t have to watch this, I don’t want to upset anybody, so just ... yeah.
I haven’t posted anything for a while, for a freaking obvious reason. And I can barely look at all my old videos because I keep getting so mad at myself, and my very forgiving therapist tells me that’s not healthy.
You have no idea how many times I’ve almost taken them down.
It’s just...
I’m still getting comments. A lot of them. And some of them are dickish and stupid but others are really personal. Like maybe you feel like you don’t have anybody else to talk to.
I don’t know why. Sometimes I read these things and it’s like, god, Lydia, get some real problems, right?
But other times it’s like, I’ve been there. I get it. And I’m not glad it happened to anyone, I swear, but ... I’m glad it’s not just me.
Does that make any sense at all?
I mean, fuck it, I may as well put the sex tape on the Internet and get it over with. It couldn’t be any more humiliating than what you’ve seen already.
He must have thought I was such an idiot. He told me I couldn’t love anyone else if I really loved him, and I believed it. It was so clearly bullshit.
But sometimes I think about what he said and how I felt and it still makes so much sense.
You want to hear the really stupid thing? I think I knew he was hurting me. I knew it wasn’t fair. But I didn’t feel like a victim, I felt ... like I was being strong. For him. I thought I could show him I loved him no matter what he did and then everything would be okay.
I can’t. I’m sorry....
I’m not really any good at this stuff, but ... here’s the only thing I know right now, okay?
When everything fell apart, I needed to hear that it wasn’t my fault. That was important. Even though I couldn’t believe it. It helped.
So I’m telling you. It’s not your fault. This isn’t something that only happens to dumb girls, or ... or sluts, whatever the hell that even means.
You don’t deserve it. Nobody ever deserves it.
I’ll try to be here. I can’t promise anything, and maybe this is all a terrible idea. But I’m still here. I’m listening.
Anyway. See you later, I guess.