Holding Hands Won't Be Enough

Bam offered to look after Oscar whilst Milly held her various meetings, not before helping her tidy her office. He was so taken with her portfolios and samples she had lying about, that he booked his own consultation with her – she contested, of course, stating that a friend didn’t need a consultation, but he wanted one anyway. After her meetings, she headed to the studio Seth was working at, only to find he wasn’t there either and hadn’t been there all day. He wasn’t answering his cell and he hadn’t even contacted his own brother, whom he was very close with. It was strange behavior for him to just go missing; sure they went a couple of days without seeing each other before, but contact was always kept. Defeated and tired from a difficult day of working with minimal sleep and maximum stress, she headed home.

She opened her door to be met with the smell of cooking, though what it was, she couldn’t put her finger on. “Hello!” she chimed, her boots clacking on the tiles as she walked through her home. “What the..?”

“Älä ole vihainen!” Linde winced, holding a ganky spatula in the air as she entered the kitchen. Burton did the same, only he held a roll of cellophane in the air.
(Don’t be mad!)

“Why would I be mad?” she asked, her eyebrow rose in speculation. Nothing looked broken, nothing was burnt or currently on fire. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything…” he said boldly, emphasising the ‘I’, “Mige did it.” She turned to Mige who also put his hands up defensively.

“I didn’t do shit!” he protested.

“Exactly!” Burton scorned. “Oscar is the one you should be speaking to.”

“He’s three years old; his conversational range extends as far as name calling, Wii games and dinosaurs.” Linde said with a smirk.

“Where is he?”

“Bath.” They replied in unison. She pointed her finger at three of them menacingly. They had known her long enough to know that it meant trouble for all of them if anything was wrong, in their youth they had fondly dubbed it, ‘The Finger of Wrath’. She dropped her belongings down on the table and hurried toward the bathroom upstairs. She quietly walked toward the closed door and listened for a second, only to hear Ville’s voice cursing heavily in Finnish.

“No more Finland shit, Valo. This shit isn’t fucking coming off.” Bam panicked, she could hear water splashing and Oscar making plane noises. She wanted to laugh, but she wasn’t entirely without worry over what they had done to him.

“Stop swearing in front of Oscar, Bammy. Kids pick up on shi- stuff, like that.”

“God. Hell. Dammit!” Bam yelped, splashing the water. “I’m.. I just.. maybe we should cut it out?” she took that as her cue to open the door. They were both knelt next to the bath, Ville’s sleeves were rolled, Bam holding a sponge and Oscar, happily playing away in the tub with his toys, covered in brown sticky gloop.

“What the hell is going on? Why are you contemplating cutting my child?!” she asked, somewhat amused at the hapless sight of them trying to tend to a toddler.

“Blame Mige!” they both snapped with exhaustion. She marched over and knelt with them, moving her son so she could see the damage properly. His hair was matted with almost solid gunge; it was in his eyebrows, his ears, even his nose.

“What the fuck is this shit?”

“See, she swears in front of him.” Bam smirked, directing his comment at a conservative Ville. She smacked him upside his head, much to the amusement of Oscar.

“I’m allowed to when I come home to find my child covered in gunk, being attended to by two hopeless ‘famous dudes’. What is this?!” she asked, tacking at it with her fingers. “What happened?”

“We went out for a ciggie…” Ville started, she rolled her eyes, “Linde, Burton and I were making dinner, Bammy and I stepped outside and left Oscar with Mige. Mige didn’t watch Oscar, Oscar pulled open the fridge and the toffee Burton put in there fell on him.” She looked from one of them, to the other and burst out laughing. “Why are you laughing?” Ville asked, perplexed.

“Oh my god.. I thought it was glue or something, I don’t know what. But toffee!”

“The bowl conked him on the head too, he’s got a bit of a bump.” Bam pointed out. She pushed his hair around and felt the bump.

“Sweetie, you okay?” she asked. He grinned absently and nodded.

“Uhuh. But it bumped my head and hurt a bit but I didn’t cry because I’m going to be like batman.” She giggled. Ville’s heart fluttered at the sound of her sincere laughter.

"Batman, hey?" she kissed the bump on his head before blowing a raspberry into his neck. Bam noticed the adoration in Ville’s face, he cleared his throat and stood to leave.

“I’m going to go see how they’re getting along. Ville..?” he suggested with underlying tones of urge.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be down in a sec, Bammio.”



“So,” she started as she squelched shampoo into Oscar’s hair, minding his eyes with careful precision, “when were you thinking of telling me about Jonna?” his eyes dropped, momentarily shamed. He honestly hadn’t thought about her more than once since he had been here – hell, he hadn’t even been in contact.

“I.. uh..” he stammered, “I…”

“It’s fine. It’s not my business. I get it though.” She shrugged.

“Sweetheart, it’s not like that.” He sighed, running his hand through his hair, “It wasn’t a planned.. I.. I didn’t even necessarily want.. I hate.. She’s not..”

“Ville!” she smiled honestly, “Shut up.”

“I would have told you, but truth be told, I haven’t thought of her once since I’ve been here. I haven’t even called her.”

“Well, that’s just not cricket is it.”

“Why are you being okay with this?” he asked, concerned.

“Why are you not okay with me being okay with this?”

“Milly.” He said sternly, putting his hand on her arm, stopping her from reaching for the shower head. She turned and looked dead into his eyes.

“Ville.”

“Can you be angry with me, please? This placid, happy, forgiving woman isn’t the Milly I know. The Milly I know would hate me, she’d be bubbling over with hurt and I hate myself for that.” He pleaded. She felt her protective wall falter, she knew she wouldn’t be able to fool him for long, but this quickly astounded even her. She relaxed back to kneeling and in doing so, Ville released her wrist. They sat with only the noise of Oscar playing to accompany them.

“I do hate you Ville; I hate you so, so much for what you did to me – to us. Even hearing Bam say her name earlier made my stomach hurt so much I could have doubled over and cried. I hate that every time I recall a moment in our relationship, I then think of the moment I found you both. The look on your faces before you knew I was there, the way our room smelled of her perfume, the way you smelt of her, all of it, every time I think about the biggest part of my life. I know our relationship was shitty, we were a mess. We drank too much and subsequently argued too much, but I still fucking loved you and I assumed you me. If you were that unhappy that you had to fuck someone else, you should have ended it before it got to that point of escape.”

“Milly, I am so sorry.” He placed his hand gently on her thigh. She looked down at it for a second, before gingerly placing hers on top.

“Just tell me there was nothing going on between you before that night?” she asked, her eyes begging his for the answer to be there wasn’t.

“I swear on my mother and father, there wasn’t.”

“I don’t care how drunk you were when it happened, to do it there must have been something there in your mind helping you rationalise that decision.”

“Darling, I was a colossal idiot. I remember feeling like I was a burden on you, you weren’t talking to me and hadn’t for days. You were so cranky and upset about something and you just wouldn’t let me in. I honestly thought you were going to leave me, I remember downing glass after glass willing myself to come and confront you about it at work, you know, make you tell me that you loved me and weren’t planning on pissing off, that kind of thing. Then she came over to go over some of the tour shit and I kept drinking and kept drinking and kept drinking until I was angry.” She took a deep breath, this felt like the biggest weight off of her shoulders.

“I thought..” she shook her head, “I’ve thought for this whole time it was because you didn’t love me.” She was holding in the tears well, averting eye contact and chewing on his lips.

“No..” Ville whispered, taking her hand in both of his. “Never, no.. not at all.”

“But you’ve stayed with her..” she blurted in a gasp.

“In the absence and crushing reality of not having you.” He lifted her face to look at him, “Why make the effort to find new love when you don’t want one? Someone is there and willing to love you for nothing in return... It’s someone to hold at night, someone to feign emotion to in order to feel okay again.. Anyone when your someone has gone.” He smiled weakly, “Not because I didn’t love you. Not possible.”

“I hate you…” she whispered, lowering her head so as he couldn’t see her face. He lowered his too, placing his forehead on hers.

“I know.” He whispered back. She knew this was the moment she had to tell him, all of her courage mustered up in that one moment, she didn’t care about anything other than letting him know. He had to know, she couldn’t keep it from him any longer, it wasn’t fair.

“Ville.. I need to tell you-“

“Can I get out the bath, it’s cold!” Oscar asked loudly, flopping himself onto the edge of the tub, splashing water on the two of them. The intensity of the moment broke instantly; she hopped up and grabbed a large fluffy towel, wrapping it around his body before rubbing his hair with a free corner. “I want to wear my Max costume!”

“Darling, it’s a bit late for costumes. Maybe tomorrow?” she bartered. Ville rose to his feet and handed Milly Oscar’s toffee covered clothes. “We’ll find some nice jim-jams you can tear about in.”

“Pleeeeease.” He begged, grabbing her chin and pulling a silly face, only to receive an equally as silly face back from her. “Then, after dinner, I will put on my pyjamas and go to bed.” He said excitedly.

“Oh, I don’t know little man, depends if you’re going to eat all you dinner. I won’t be giving you any snacks later on if you wear your Max costume and don’t eat you dinner.” She swatted his hand from her chin and sprayed detangling spray on his messy locks. He nodded ferociously.

“I will! I ate all my lunch. Ville saw!” he said pointing at Ville. She grabbed his finger and tapped his nose.

“It’s rude to point.” She said quietly to him, Ville laughed and scratched his head. Definitely his mother’s son, he thought to himself as he recalled ‘The Finger of Wrath’. She turned and looked at Ville, he smiled and shrugged. “Well I guess you can wear the Max costume. But only until after dinner, come on.” She held him, bundled in his towel and headed for the door, just as she reached it, Ville called her name.

“Yes?”

“Tell me whatever it was another time?” she nodded. Of course she would, at some point. But when and how, she had no idea.

“Yes.” She went to walk away when he called her name a second time, “Yeah?”

“You’re an excellent mother. It’s a really beautiful thing to see.” No one had ever told her that before. She could feel herself blushing and became flustered. She knew that things were slowly going to become harder and harder having him here, but she didn’t plan on blushing from him. And this scared her.