Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 109783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
I’d never seen my dad so happy and relieved to see me as when he picked me up at the airport. The showrunner had given me permission to take a long weekend off filming. To be in my brother’s wedding.
The drive from Inverness Airport was the first time Dad and I had been alone since my wee breakdown a few months ago.
“How’s my Eilidh-Bug doing?” he asked as we hit the A9 toward home.
At the endearment, one he hadn’t used since I was a young teen, a swell of emotion filled me. It took me a minute to speak before I reached out and squeezed his arm. “I’m better, Dad. So much better. I have to keep my socials for another eight months to help with the promo of the show’s final season because they buried that in the contract, but once it’s done, I’ll delete my social media and I’m going to try to be just Eilidh again.”
“And it’s definitely what you want?”
“It is.”
“How’s … how’s the therapy going?” he asked tentatively.
“You know I didn’t want to go.” I offered him a dry smile because I’d gone for his and my family’s sake. “But Diana, my therapist, is making me see that I’ve allowed all the shitty things that have been said about me online, in the media, to fester more than I consciously knew.”
His fists tightened around the steering wheel, but Dad didn’t respond. I knew that one of the reasons he hadn’t wanted me to go into acting was because of the fame aspect and the deadly court of public opinion.
“We’ve been talking about how those things have given me a warped sense of self and how I conflated the opinions of strangers with the reality of who I was because I was secretly unhappy with my career choice. I’d turned that unhappiness into failure and catastrophized how big that failure is. She’s making me see that most young people end up not enjoying what they choose as their first career. The difference is the one I chose involved fame, which is a strange beast for anyone to deal with. She’s making me see that it doesn’t mean I’m a failure if I’m not built to handle the scrutiny. It’s so much worse for celebrities now because of social media. Someone will always find a reason to hate you or be outraged, and when it’s on the level I had to deal with, it’s basically mass harassment and bullying masquerading as opinions, and no one can admit that because they genuinely think they’re entitled to say whatever the fuck they want about you. So, long story short, I can’t do fame and social media, and that’s okay.”
Dad’s expression was tender. “She sounds like a very wise woman.”
I nodded, tears burning my eyes. I’d also been extremely emotional since I’d started therapy. It was great for my work on the show but frustrating in real life. Diana told me it was normal. I’d been suppressing my feelings for so long, they were just spilling out of me. “I’m sorry for what I said to you that day. About Francine.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Eilidh-Bug.”
“I do, Dad. I blew that up into something it wasn’t. I know if I’d come to you as Lewis did that you would have told me the truth.”
“I would have.” He cleared his throat. “Eilidh, Francine made a mistake. A big mistake. But she was going through something. Looking back, now that we know more, I often wonder if she had postpartum depression. Her moods, the affair, it was out of character.”
This new information stunned me. “Do you really think so?”
“I don’t know for sure. I do know that your birth mother was a good woman who made a bad decision. I wouldn’t have given our marriage another chance if I hadn’t truly believed that. And you were right, I look at you and I see Francine. Not for negative reasons. I see Francine because you have her coloring. You have her fire. But I also see your uncle Brodan and your uncle Arran when I look at you.” He flashed me a grin. “And I see your mum, Regan, because she brought you up and she instilled you with her kindness. I know you are struggling to see what we see, Eilidh, but you are good and kind. As a little girl, you were the first to stand up to bullies, to make the quiet kids in your class your friend. You spot someone who needs a light shone on them, and you give that to them. You make people feel special. And maybe that’s the reason you can’t handle the negative scrutiny of social media. Because you’re kind to everyone and the injustice of cruel behavior hurts you too much.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks as Dad continued.