bookworm

So it’s Jess back again, this time with a bundle of optimism called Molly.

Honest with herself. Noah generally felt that she was just that, but perhaps that was just because she’d gotten so good at lying to herself that she couldn’t tell the difference anymore. She’d spent so long telling herself that her habits were normal, that they were just a product of her environment and not any really issue, that she fully believed that to be the case. “Well, I think I’m pretty honest with myself, Mol,” she signed back quickly, shoulders lifting in a shrug. Noah didn’t know what she needed or how to get past anything that was dragging her down, but if she kept telling herself that it would all be fine when she got back to surfing, that was what kept her positive and motivated. “Believe that I deserve to be happy? Of course I do. And I think that generally I am pretty happy. I love what I do, what else could I ask for?”

Molly wasn’t sure if Noah was lying or if she genuinely believed that she was honest with herself and that she was happy. The Noah sat next to her was not the same Noah that she’d known a few years ago, sure her sister had always been reckless and unpredictable but there was an edge to it now that worried Molly. “I know, having a job you love is the best feeling in the world,” she agreed, “never work a day in your life and all that.” She paused, “but maybe you need to find happiness outside of it too, and think about what landed you here in the first place.”

Green eyes focused on the other brunette when she showed Liesl the sign, copying it as best she could, trying to commit it to memory. “Both.” She echoed, practicing it a few more times. She was slowly picking them up, though Liesl-Anne knew she’d never be able to properly sign a full conversation, but hopefully she’d be able to learn enough so that Molly didn’t have to lip read quite so intently. Bouncing on the balls of her feet when Molly began dishing up the heaping bowls for them, she tapped her fingers on the countertop almost impatiently. “Oh, it looks so good—” She grinned eagerly. “But—- I almost might not be able to move from your couch after all this.” 

Molly knew that Liesl-Anne found it hard to retain all the signs but she was pretty good at getting them accurate. Sure she wasn’t fluent but the signs that she used helped Molly to follow the conversation without having to rely so much on lip reading. She grinned as Liesl-Anne looked excited for the snack that Molly was preparing. “You are welcome to stay on my couch as long as you need, as long as you share with the pups,” she joked. She passed Lisel-Anne her bowl and her drink before picking her own up to head into the living room. 

starter: @mollyfielding​ location: holy spirits around 9:30 pm

One drink. It was supposed to be one drink but there was so much in her mind that Maya didn’t want to care enough. Driving or walking all the way home wasn’t an option anymore and she would gladly crash at her sister’s place if no questions were asked. Ignoring the people surrounding her only became easier and despite knowing she could be regretting this the next morning, her fingers tapped at the glass in front of her. One more couldn’t hurt anyone, right? Letting out a soft ‘fuck it’ under her breath, Maya reached for the drink, downing it all at once. If this helped her forget about Oliver, it might as well be worth it.  

Molly wasn’t much of a drinker, she also wasn’t one for blind dates but someone she’d ended up at Holy Spirits sat next to a stranger who ended up being the dictionary definition of boring. Luckily they’d decided to call it a night and headed off, but Molly decided she should at least attempt to turn the night around. She was heading to get another drink when she spotted a familiar face, Maya, however the girl was in a state that Molly hadn’t seen her in before. They’d started their bond over animals, how most of Molly’s connections began, but Molly had quickly found that she enjoyed Maya’s company, however drinking wasn’t usually a past-time that they did together. Molly beelined towards her, watching as she threw back the drink, that definitely didn’t look like a shot. She placed herself next to Maya, turning her body as much as possible so she could see Maya’s lips, “big night?” she questioned, some concern in her tone. 

Dana stood there, she was never a shopper, she didn’t enjoy it and it was just easier to just do it online most of the times. As she stood there she looked over at the girl and smiled for a moment and she started to feel bad for the girl because she realised she couldn’t hear but she wasn’t going to bring attention to it because she knew most people would rather not. She nodded, “Oh right well that makes a lot more sense then, you weren’t loud don’t worry, I wouldn’t have heard if I wasn’t near you.” She smiled looking over at her to reassure the girl. She nodded, “Well okay no worries but I can help it doesn’t bother me at all.” 

Molly watched the woman’s reaction and was rather relieved when it didn’t turn into pity or a desperate bid to help. Molly got on perfectly fine in the hearing world, sure it would be much easier if everything was more accessible, but that change didn’t start with people pitying her. “That’s good to hear,” she smiled, “in school once I tried to whisper the answers to a friend but I didn’t have my implant on and it was not quiet,” she laughed. Molly had cleared up the mess relatively quickly, helped by the fact it wasn’t actually the first time this had happened. “I’m Molly by the way, and I would like to say that this isn’t normal for me, but it is.”

Noah wanted to believe that just going back to work would solve all of her problems and a large part of her was naïve enough to think that maybe that would be the case. Surfing was her happy place, like Molly said, and now that she’d been away from it for so long it felt like she would do anything to have it back and keep it. “I…okay. Okay. It’s…what would a bigger plan look like?” Noah asked, raising a brow as she signed the question to her sister. Noah didn’t know what she needed or really if she even did need help, but she was desperate to get her life back on track. If Molly had ideas, she was at least willing to listen. She wasn’t keen to listen to her PR team or her manager, but Molly she would try. “But, good. Good. You being happy is all I can ask for. You deserve it, you know. More than anyone.”

Molly knew that for Noah it was easier to believe that everything was hard because she wasn’t working, but she also knew that it was important to open Noah’s eyes to the fact that it may be bigger than that. Molly wasn’t that great at telling it how it was, she liked to keep people happy, but when it came to Noah she wanted to help her, and that meant being brutally honest. “I don’t know,” she admitted, “but I think maybe you need to be honest with yourself first.” Molly didn’t know the whole story, Noah had never told her, so it was hard to really know the best course of action. She smiled softly, Noah had always wanted the best for Molly, she just wished that Noah wanted the same for herself. “You deserve it too, I think you need to believe that.”

Kiara watched carefully at her friends hands as they conversed. Molly and Kiara have been friends for some time now, but learning to sign has been something that has been slightly difficult her Kiara despite how much attention she pays to it. Thankfully, she’s been able to pick up quite a bit- with plenty of room for improvement. She laughed lightly at the story her friend told her and shook her head. “That doesn’t sound easy at all? What happened to the lizard?” She asked, carefully signing back to the woman across from her. “Lizard-Is this right?” She did the motion again, unsure of herself. 

Molly knew that learning sign wasn’t easy, she’d learnt it alongside English which had been a big advantage, but she’d had to start all over again when she moved to the US and it was really really hard, not only was it a whole different vocabulary, sign language also had its own grammar which was really hard to pick up on. When she was teaching her friends though Molly tended to use SEE or SSE depending on whether it was ASL or BSL, that meant that she signed her words in the same order that she spoke, making it easier for the person she was talking to. “He fell down a step,” she explained, “but he was okay.” She watched the motion for lizard, nodding, “it’s the letter ‘l’ crawling up your arm, like a lizard climbing a tree,” she explained, when she was learning it was always better to have a rationale for each of the signs. “Though if I’m honest I prefer the BSL sign, it’s like a lizard sticking out it’s tongue,” she said as she did it.

Molly enjoyed Kiara’s company, and it was made even better by the fact that Kiara was going out of her way to learn sign language. Molly was able to communicate with hearing people, but lip reading was exhausting and Molly didn’t particularly enjoy wearing her implants, so when people could sign it made everything much easier for her. Today they were having sandwiches in one of Molly’s favourite places in town. She smiled over to Kiara, “so, today I had a lizard come in with a broken leg, splinting a lizard leg is no easy task I’ll tell you,” she laughed. She signed as she spoke, notably slower than if you saw her sign with her family. Sometimes she taught signs explicitly but sometimes it was easier to just practice using conversation and maybe Kiara would pick up a few new ones. 

“Ask them? No no… no thank you.” Harper replied, head shaking quickly, dismissing that idea entirely. Because the redhead had no intention of asking anyone whether or not they found her attractive — god she could barely think of anything worse. How embarrassing. A hum, brow furrowing when Molly mentioned that it was so hard to know if you were compatible with someone from such a short bio. “Yeah, that’s a good point… I guess that’s why you have to go on dates.” She mused. But that in itself was surely tiring, meeting person after person. Especially if you weren’t compatible, and things didn’t go great. “You’re braver than I am for doing that.” Meeting up with practical strangers, hoping there’d be a spark. Sure, Harper missed having a significant other, but dating was a tricky world. “Yeah, I think most of mine have started the same way.” A nod, thinking back on past relationships. 

“Well, then you’ll have to take my word for it,” she declared with a soft but rather smug smile. She nodded, dates were important but at the same time she hated them, “but first dates are so so awkward,” she said, visibly cringing at just the idea of it, “and having to lip read is exhausting,” she declared. Molly knew that she couldn’t be in a proper relationship with someone who didn’t sign, but she’d learnt with Ari that some of the good people were willing to put in the work. “Braver or just more desperate?” she posed with a laugh.

“I think I’m the same — except for mint. I really don’t think toothpaste should be an ice flavor.” She mused, green eyes glinting playfully. A happy little clap when Molly put a  slice of brownie on a plate for each of them. “Thank you.” Liesl-Anne signed the word as well, hoping it was right. She’d been trying to learn some of the important signs, because she wanted to be able to communicate with Molly to the best of her ability, but brain fog made learning another language quite hard for her. But Liesl was nothing if not dedicated when it came to her friends. “Oh. I think both.” She grinned. “How do you say ‘both’?” 

She made a ‘yuck’ face at the idea, “that sounds unpleasant,” she agreed, luckily mint choc chip didn’t taste like toothpaste. Molly smiled as Liesl-Anne signed, it meant the world to her when people attempted to learn her language, and she knew that it was particularly difficult for Liesl-Anne, so even the simple sign meant a lot. She nodded as the other woman also chose both ands he began serving each bowl, along with getting their drinks, “both,” she said as she showed the number two on her dominant hand, her other hand made a cup shape and she pulled the two fingers down into it, “both,” she repeated the word and the sign. 

Molly’s question brought a stretch of silence from Noah. What did she need? Noah had put a lot of time into thinking about it, dwelling on her situation, but she didn’t know. She didn’t know where the destructive urge came from, the need to go find trouble when things got hard. Even now she was itching to go out, get lost in a club or a drink and forget about any of this. “I - I don’t know. I keep telling myself that it’ll just…sort itself out and that once I get back to work and get on tour everything will be…fine, but what if…what if it isn’t?” Noah signed slowly, biting at her lip, head tilted down slightly. That, more than anything, was her biggest fear. She’d used up a lot of goodwill already with her sponsors and with the organization. It was only a matter of time before her next big mistake became her last big mistake. “Are you…happy here?”

Molly watched Noah’s hands carefully, desperate for an answer, a way to help or at least feel like she was helping. Molly hated feeling helpless and it was even worse when she could see her sister struggling and she had no idea how to make it better. “I don’t think work will fix everything,” she admitted, deciding on brutal honesty, “surfing will help, it’s your happy place, of course it will,” she added, “but I think maybe we need a bigger plan.” Molly liked fixing things, she’d learnt years ago that you couldn’t ‘fix’ people, but she wanted to help, she wanted to be part of the solution not part of the problem. She noticed Noah’s pause in her question and knew that it was more loaded than it seemed, “I am,” she nodded, “it feels like home.”

The blonde’s features lit up at the mention of kittens. “There are new kittens?” Sadle loved all animals, but she had a particular weakness for tiny, soft fuzzy ones. “Why do you do this to me, Molly? You know my landlord doesn’t allow pets.” she joked. If it were her choice, she would probably have as many animals as she could manage in her apartment. “But I do try and spread the word about this shelter on my social media as much as I can.” Her following was slightly larger than average, being a musician, albeit a struggling one. She tried to make sure if she shared something unrelated to music, it was something that stood for a good cause. “Can I see them?” she asked the other with excitement in her words. “Although, that might not be the best idea. I may end up wanting to take every one of them home. Do you think my landlord would notice?” she tapped her chin, as if contemplating it and broke into a light chuckle. “Maybe later I’ll sneak a peak at them. How has work been, otherwise?” she asked.

She grinned as Sadie’s face lit up, Molly felt the same way about kittens, so she completely understood. “To me that just sounds like you need to find somewhere else to live,” she grinned mischievously, “what good is a house without a pet!” Molly had bought her first house rather early on with some help from her parents, and then of course Ari had pitched in with their house and by the time that was sold Molly had paid off a good amount of her mortgage. It was lucky as she wasn’t sure that she could live without dogs. “Thanks, any publicity is great,” she agreed. She nodded, “of course you can, there’s one called Spud who I am completely obsessed with,” she admitted. “Let’s go now, we can chat and cuddle,” she declared, “work has been good, I did have a parrot though that decided to just mock me for the full visit.”

Dana was doing her shopping, she was in need of some more  groceries as she was running low and she didn’t really plan on going without food so instead she knew she had to stock up her fridge and cupboards. She was walking down aisles as she went to pick up some food as she heard a girls voice and she looked over, she understood why people used reusable containers, she didn’t because she wasn’t the best person at doing that but she understood why. She ran a hand through her hair for a moment as she looked at the girl for a moment and laughed a little, “You know you don’t have to apologise for swearing, there is nothing wrong with.” She stated as she shrugged for a moment, “Did you need a hand though? Like a little bit of help for a moment.” 

Molly did her best to be eco-friendly, she definitely fell down in quite a few places but when she could she made adjustments. Reuseable containers usually worked out alright for her, today was obviously the exception. Molly spotted someone in her peripheral vision and she turned to see a blonde talking in her direction. She watched the other’s lips carefully, trying to follow the words as best she could. “I was more concerned over the volume,” she admitted with a smile, “I don’t tend to swear, but I also can’t hear myself so I have no idea how loud I am,” she admitted, tapping her ear softly as if to demonstrate that they don’t work. She shook her head as she cleaned up the rice, “I’m fine, I’m clumsy so cleaning up messes is kind of my specialities.”

Harper’s cheeks were very clearly colored pink at Molly’s comments, an assurance that the brunette thought someone on campus thought she was hot. “Um, I don’t think so.” She replied, shaking her head with disbelief. The redhead wasn’t confident in herself that way, wasn’t cocky in her appearance or anything. “You’re too sweet, honestly. Thank you.” The soft smile touched her cheeks. “But you’re pretty great yourself you know. I’m sure you’re thumb must be getting sore from all that swiping.” She teased. Harper wasn’t actually sure which way was which, though – was it swipe right to accept? Or maybe it was left… She’d never actually used a dating app, so Harper had no idea. Was that embarrassing in itself? 

Molly noticed the way that Harper’s cheeks changed colour and she wasn’t sure if she felt bad or slightly proud. It amazed her that Harper wasn’t used to such compliments, to Molly it was so incredibly obvious. “I don’t lie,” she stated plainly, “and honestly you could go ask anyone and I’m sure they’d agree.” She wasn’t lying, she wouldn’t. She smiled, laughing lightly at the compliment followed by the mention of swiping, illustrating Harper’s lack of knowledge about the app. “Honestly I kind of hated it, how are a few pictures and a sentence supposed to tell you if you’d get on with someone,” it all seemed impossible to Molly, “it’s hard to find out if you click with someone when you’re only messaging.” She paused, “most of my best relationships were friends first, feels more organic,” the outlier being her marriage, which certainly did not start as friends, but also wasn’t through an app.

Breathing out deeply, Noah let the question linger in the air. She didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to admit that she was struggling as much as she was. But, if she couldn’t talk about it with her own sister even, how was she supposed to ever figure out how to get her life together. “The rest of the time…is hit or miss,” Noah signed back simply with a sad shrug of her shoulders. Some days were easier than others, days where she was around Molly or some of her other friends, but when she had enough time to let her thoughts take over and the reality of her situation sink it, she struggled. She turned to bad habits, to drinking, smoking, anything to dull the steady pain that she felt. “But, okay, okay. Maybe not time for a vacation yet, but soon. Let the clients trust you a bit more and do something nice for yourself.”

Molly let out a breath when Noah finally admitted how she was feeling. They were close but they’d never been that good about opening up when it came to how they felt. “How can I help?” she asked, signing again, really hoping that Noah gave her a job to do, some way to help lighten the load. Being helpless was a feeling that Molly hated, she needed something to do, a way to contribute. “Promise I will,” she agreed, “but work is my happy place, so time off isn’t something I desperately need right now.”

“You do?” Liesl-Anne lit up at hearing that Molly loved both, glad for her choices. Of course, she knew about the allergy, and was always careful when she grabbed snacks for them, and had checked both tubs before picking them. “Um…it smells pretty expert to me.” She mused, flashing Molly a smile. “I’m all for starting with dessert.” The brunette chuckled, nodding eagerly, offering the ice cream to the other for her to choose whichever took her fancy – though Liesl wouldn’t blame her for adding a bit of both to the mix. “Are the brownies still warm? I love when they make the ice cream melt a little.” She admitted, biting her bottom lip. 

She nodded, “though if I’m honest, there aren’t many ice cream flavours that I don’t like,” she admitted. She shook her head at the mention of expert, “definitely not expert,” she clarified. Molly pulled out two plates once Liesl decided on dessert first and grabbed her ice cream scoop from the drawer. “They are,” she said, slicing into them and placing a piece of warm, gooey brownie on each plate, “I’m going for a scoop of each, what do you fancy?”