Holding Hands Won't Be Enough

The three of them settled on the sofa, Ville and Matilda’s legs placed infront of them on the ottoman and Oscar’s stretched out infront of him, not even reaching the edge of the sofa. He stared up at his mum and reached his little hand to touch her nose, “Ah-ah! It’s just sore baby, I’m fine.”

“Okay.” He sighed, settled back down with his hands mindlessly fiddling with the draw string on his pyjama pants as his eyes were fixated on the screen. Ville turned his attention away from his new child friend to his old childhood friend.

“I’m terribly sorry I conked you in the face with my big stupid head.” He winced, “Are you sure you’re okay?” she nodded, gingerly running her fingers along the bridge.

“Honestly, I think it was the shock more than anything. It’s numb now.” She locked her eyes onto the screen, obviously starting to sober and feeling uneasy. Ville followed suit, not wanting to exacerbate the situation by saying anything else – he knew when she felt embarrassed. Oscar laughed at the cartoons; she giggled and admired her son, stroking his long hair. Ville couldn’t help but feel jealousy whenever he looked at this person, whom for all her love was unconditional.

“I’m sorry I insulted your facial hair.” She said, her eyes still lingering on the leather-clad mice a further second before turning and locking eyes with him.

“Yes.” He hummed, “El diablo facial hair, wasn’t it?” she laughed expletively. “Definitely not had that one before, sweetheart.” He smirked.

“Yes, well… It’s certainly, very age appropriate.”

“Milly, there’s only four years separating us.” He mused, “And it’s hardly devilish…” he pondered, stroking it with his fingers.

“Oh, please…” she chuffed, “Ville Valo, lord of darkness – I’ve read the magazines.” He cocked a brow.

“You have?” she looked down to her fidgeting hands in her lap, just like her son.

“You know I have.”

“If you missed me, you could have called?”

“Ville Valo hates cell phones.”

“Emailed?”

“You don’t know how to use the internet.”

“Written? Visited?”

“I did visit, once.” His face fell, devastatingly.

“What? When?”

“Whilst I was pregnant. I visited my parents for their anniversary. I was driving past your building and couldn’t help myself, I only got as far as the steps and sat there for hours, arguing with myself as to whether I should go up. I was hoping you’d walk past, but you didn’t.”

“Milly…”

“It doesn’t matter, we obviously weren’t meant to see each other – it was too soon. I still did hate you, I still do now, but it was still painful then – if we had seen each other, we would have tried to fix things, it wouldn’t have worked. But now, we’re older, we’ve experienced so much, and I’m not trying to severe your testicles right now, so this is better, I think.”

“In a way, I think you are right. But don’t you ever think-“

“I always think.” She said seriously, cutting him off, “Just enjoy the fact that this has been easier than we both anticipated from the start - largely due to tequila, but we know we're both sincere and that it's wasn't the drink talking, it was dutch courage. We're scared, sad little people, who's relationship fucked up. But you know, dwelling on it isn’t healthy. We're here now, we can rebuild a friendship. Yeah?” He nodded, she certainly had become more sensible and head strong in having Oscar, it only made him hate himself more thinking on the fact that it could have been his baby she had had, their house she owned, their life they lived.

“I want Blinky.” Oscar croaked, his eyes not darting once from his cartoon.

“Blinky?” Ville asked.

“His elephant.” She smiled, “I’ll go grab him.”

“No, no.” he insisted, “Where is this ‘Blinky’?”

“In his bed. You don't have to, really.” she smiled kindly.

"It's fine. A leg stretch will do my 'age appropriate' bones some good."

Ville climbed the stairs damning himself for drinking alcohol – but he knew within himself that it was a one off; his life was more important to him now. The only time he thought about having a tipple would be on his wedding or the birth of his first child; Milly, she was a whole different ball game. Pulling the blankets back, his heart clenched in his chest; he picked up the slightly aged lilac elephant in a waistcoat and pressed it to his lips.



“Ville, you’re being a prick. Just stop it.” She growled as they stood side by side, watching Mige and Vedrana shoot moving duck targets. She had always hated the circus.

“You stop it, just move in with me.”

“No. We’ve had this discussion a thousand times; your apartment is too small, I work from home! You want me to do my work, build model plans, have boxes of fabrics and fucking fixtures everywhere- ON-TOP of your nine million sheets of lyrics? Well I’m sorry but no, it’s not an option.”

“But it’s going to cost you so much money when you could just live with me, Milly, I don’t get it.”

“I want to pay my own way. Have my own space. Jesus Ville, I spend every second with you, don’t you want some space from my fucking woman issues?”

“Trust me Valo, if you’re planning on keeping her, let her do this, five years down the track it’ll be ‘I’ve told you so many times to not leave your underpants in the bathroom’, ‘put the bloody toilet seat down’, ‘turn it up’, ‘turn it down’, ‘this house stinks’, mneh, mneh, mnehh.” Mige chortled, receiving a loving but embarrassed glare from his partner.

“Look, Milly, you don’t have to do this whole bra burning independent woman thing with me. I get it, you’re head strong”.

“Why are you so adamant on this?!” she asked suspiciously. She had an inkling why.

“Nothing.” He protested, “I just like having you around all the time.”

“And…?”

“I don’t like the building.”

“I fucking knew it.” She shook her head and turned away, he grabbed her by the waist and gently pulled her back. “It’s because Paavi Taano lives down the hall isn’t it? You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t trust him.”

“That’s been the elephant in the room all day hasn’t it?! Paavi-bloody-Taano.”

“No, Milly..”

“Leave me alone, Ville.” She walked away angrily, disappearing into the fluorescent lit crowd of drunken teenagers, rowdy children and tiring parents.

“Let her go cool down dude, you’re being a bit of a tosser. She loves you to death. She’s not Sanna-June, have some faith.”

“I’m a fucking idiot.” He cringed.

“Oh, we know.”

She’d busied herself wandering around, huddled in her coat, casually smoking and looking at things as if she wasn’t angry at all and merely on a nice outing to the circus… that she hated. She couldn’t believe he didn’t trust her, she didn’t know how to deal with this. They had grown up together, they knew everything about one another, she was there for him when shit hit the fan with Susanna and helped him come out the other side a stronger person. She always adored him, and he her. But it took them a long time to admit it to not only each other, but themselves and since then she thought that everything had been fine. Why now, when she finally had things working out in her life did he have to choose to become ‘that boyfriend’? It upset her more than it angered her.

Her phone bleeped in her deep pocket, she fished it out and reading the text from Mige, she sighed. ‘You have to come to the dunk box, right now. Or I’ll cut you. I mean it. Please. Ville’s not here watching.’ Not being one to ever be able to say no to Mige, she turned around and trundled back the way she came.

The crowd was denser than it was walking through it the first time, people were more stationary now. She could hear a man speaking over the PA system, talking about the dunk box and that only one special person would be picked to attempt to ‘dunk-the-punter’. She scouted the area she was standing in for Mige or Vedrana, she saw none, but felt a cold hand slither around her wrist. “Milly, I was beginning to think we wouldn’t see you until we met for dinner later. Where the heck have you guys been all day?”.

“Mige fell in love with the gnarly bratwurst ten and Ville fell in love with the beer at the gnarly bratwurst tent. I tried calling you Linde, but you never answer your phone. It's 2004, come on.” She laughed, hitting his arm. “How have you guys been doing anyway?” Manna nodded.

“Knackered, I’m a bit worried about Livvy too. But she can’t walk so how much trouble can she get in with my parents looking after her really?” she giggled.

“Guys!” Mige called, emerging from the crowd with a massive grin and Vedrana in tow looking equally as amused. He motioned for them all to follow him through the crowd to the front, where he stopped and grabbed Milly aside and pointed at the guy with the microphone.

“What is he doing?” she gasped.