#responding to almost zero text messages and providing no explanation

[mossbabie]

🤸🏻

[floralguccistyles]

six: imperial death march

I had always found the bright yellow walls of Doctor Thorne’s office comforting.

My first appointment with Doctor Thorne, the walls had been the first thing I noticed. I had never been to a therapist before, although I probably should have when I was younger. Doctor Thorne wasn’t an intimidating woman by any means, but I think the idea of having to see a therapist was daunting enough for me to be terrified walking into her office on that first day. I had been expecting clinical and sleek. Instead, the walls were yellow, she had colorful art littered around the room, and the chair I sat in was velvet and blue. 

I was sitting in that chair now, ankles crossed and body sat up straight to assure her I was listening.

“Has he tried to contact you since?”

Right. The topic of conversation had, inevitably, strayed to Harry. Just as I had gotten over talking about the trauma he caused me in secondary school, he had appeared back into my life, seemingly intent on proving that he had changed. Doctor Thorne didn’t mind. But I did. I felt like I was allowing him to invade into my thoughts. Last session, we had talked about my small bout of insecurity when I had run into Jeff and Glenne, and now we were discussing how I felt when Harry contacted me about the Lord of the Rings books, which had been about two weeks ago. 

“No.”

“Do you think you’ll respond if he does?”

I didn’t know the answer to that. Honestly, I think it would depend on my mood. If I was having a good day, I might have replied. It would have been short and not very communicative, but I had told him on his birthday that I hated holding onto this anger and hurt and I had meant it. But I also hadn’t forgotten the many nights I had spent crying over him and his friends. I told Doctor Thorne as much. “I don’t know, honestly. I want to get over this, but...it’s difficult.”

“I’m not expecting you to find it easy. Ultimately, the choice is up to you, Petra. If you decide it’s best for your mental health that you want Harry out of your life, you get to make that choice. If he’s changed, like he said he has, he’ll understand.”

Doctor Thorne was right, as always. Lately, we had been working hard on putting myself first without feeling like it was selfish for me to do so. It was taking some work, but I think with Melody and Doctor Thorne, I was getting better at it.

I left Doctor Thorne’s office with the promise of seeing her two weeks from today. Her office was fifteen minutes from the yoga place Melody and I usually attended, so I usually took the tube there. I would be going to yoga alone today. Melody usually joined me, since she had the time slot right before me at Doctor Thorne’s office, but she had to rush out and get back to work because Trennan had, like usual, messed something up and needed her help. That meant it was me, the tube, and the small cereal bar I had in my purse in for the long haul.

When I walked into 360 Yoga Fitness Center and Spa about twenty minutes later, the woman behind the front desk smiled at me. She was used to me coming every time I had a therapy appointment. She signed me in easily and I made my way into the usual yoga room, setting my mat down on the floor and taking the time before class started to stretch. Melody had texted her apologies for not being able to make it earlier, but I honestly didn’t mind doing yoga alone. I would have preferred having her here with me, but there was something relaxing about it just being me alone with my thoughts.

My phone buzzed quietly from my bag. As there were only a couple people in the room and the instructor wasn’t in yet, I figured it was okay to check it really quickly. Pulling it out of my bag (and remembering to silence the alert vibration while I was at it), I spotted the message from Harry easily enough.

harrystyles: What are you doing today?

He must have had burning ears. I stared at the message for a second, crinkling my nose in distaste. I hadn’t been lying to Doctor Thorne when I had mentioned Harry hadn’t tried to get in contact with me since those messages about Lord of the Rings, but to be completely honest, I didn't expect him to try it again. I had hoped my running into Harry and his new friends might have been a part of my life that was slowly coming to a close, but alas, I guessed wrong.

Not bothering to respond, I tossed my phone back into my bag as the instructor walked in. Hopefully Harry would get the hint that I didn’t exactly want to talk to him. 

“Good morning everyone!” My instructor said, much too peppy for my taste but that was because Melody usually made everything a little more palatable. “We’re going to start nice and easy today. Let’s go ahead and do some basic stretches first.”

I was happy that none of the poses during the hour long class were too difficult, like some of them had been in the past. Once the session was over, I packed up my stuff, sweating from every pore I could ever imagine on my body, and pulled out my phone to text Melody that I was on my way to my flat in case she wanted to come over after fixing whatever Trennan had managed to muck up. 

harrystyles: It’s important, promise.

I rolled my eyes. Nothing could be more important than the hour-long shower I was going to take when I returned to my flat. The passengers on the tube looked at me with wrinkled noses because I was sure I smelled less than pleasant, but I didn’t care. Once the twenty-three minute ride was done, I hopped out and immediately beelined for my shower, waving quickly to Ms. Wilcox as I passed. 

Shedding my clothes almost immediately, I hopped into my shower and started scrubbing my skin vigorously. Melody had a key to the flat, so I wasn’t worried about her not being able to get in if she came around, so I decided to take my time and maybe shave my legs. It had, admittedly, been a while since the task had been done. I had long since been out of actual shaving cream, so I just lathered my generic body wash onto my leg, the smell of vanilla overpowering my senses. My razor was in my hand, dragging up my leg when I heard the knock on the door.

It made me jump, and consequently, cut my leg. It started bleeding almost immediately, and I threw the razor onto my soap dish and started cursing at it. The water cascaded over the cut, providing a little stinging sensation but not nearly enough for it to be super painful.

“Coming!” I shouted, turning off the shower. I wrapped my hair in a towel and threw on my bathrobe. My plasters were in my kitchen cabinet, so my leg would bleed until I could get the door and hobble to the cabinet. “Shit,” I groaned when I stepped out of the shower, nearly slipping on the water that had sloshed onto my floor in my haste to get out.

I made it to my front door with minimal injuries, despite the fact that blood was now dripping down my leg at an alarming rate. When I pulled the door open, I can honestly say that seeing Harry Styles with two iced coffees in his hand was the last thing I expected to see.

“Hi, sorry, I know you probably don’t want to see me, but—” he cut himself off, eyes actually zeroing in on what I was wearing. “What are you doing?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What the bloody hell does it look like I’m doing? I was mid-shower, you asshole.”

“You’re bleeding,” he announced stupidly, his eyes locked on the blood on my leg. It was really unfair how much blood came out of a razor cut. I didn’t even feel the sting of it anymore, but the amount of blood it was producing was as if someone had taken a hammer to it. “What happened?”

“Christ, just come in.” I grabbed his wrist, the one holding the iced coffee with the least amount of liquid in it, and pulled him roughly inside my flat, closing the door behind him. While he stood dumbfounded in my foyer, I made my way to the kitchen and grabbed a plaster. “Why are you here, Harry? And how did you even get my address?” Lifting my leg onto the counter, I wiped the blood away with a wet paper towel.

“You weren’t answering my messages. I asked Bailey for your address.” He appeared in my kitchen suddenly, setting the coffees on the counter. “Is your leg okay?” 

And then, with a delicateness I wasn’t aware he would even possess, he gently put his hand on the back of my knee, inspecting the cut. It was starting to turn red with blood again, so he reached out his hand to grab the plaster between my fingers. “Stay still,” he ordered, tongue poking out a little in concentration. He folded back the plastic on the plaster and methodically stuck it to the cut on my shin, patting it with his finger once he was done. “There.”

I didn’t bother saying thanks, due to the fact that I still didn’t know why he was here and I briefly had lost my breath. 

“I’m sorry for interrupting your shower, but you weren’t responding and I knew you’d hate me forever if I didn’t tell you. John Williams is at the studio I normally record at, and he wants to meet me.”

It took me a few seconds to process what Harry had said. My thoughts were still on the gentleness in which he had applied the plaster to my cut. When his words did catch up to my brain, my eyes widened. “John Williams is in your studio?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Jeff’s with him now. But he’s only going to be there for another thirty minutes, so we’ve got to go.”

“John Williams,” I repeated, just to confirm, “as in the guy who did the musical scores for Jaws, Indiana Jones, and the entire Star Wars series?”

“Yes, Petra. So get clothes on and let’s go!”

Normally, I would never voluntarily put myself in a car with Harry Styles. It was setting myself up for nothing but negative emotions and feeling bad about myself. But this was John Williams he was talking about. The guy who single-handedly made some of my favorite movies awesome because of his incredible music scores. 

Which is the only reasonable explanation that I shouted “OH MY GOD!” in Harry’s face before making a beeline towards my room.

My hair still had conditioner in it, my legs were only half shaved, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t rinsed all the soap off my arms, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

I threw the towel on my head somewhere on the floor of my room and slammed the door shut so I could strip off my bathrobe. I figured with my hair still wet and me generally looking like a wet rat, there would be no problem with wearing casual clothes. Plus, Harry had been in jeans, a graphic shirt, and Vans. Hurriedly drying my legs off so they wouldn’t stick when I tried to slip into jeans, I slid them up and over my thighs with only minimal stomping around. I briefly debated on wearing a Star Wars shirt, but figured that was maybe a little too “crazy fangirl” so I settled on a striped shirt with a bralette under it. 

“Petra, we’ve go to go!”

“I haven’t brushed my teeth! I can’t meet John Williams without having brushed my teeth!”

“I have Listerine strips in my car!”

Figuring that was the best I was going to get, I slipped my feet into Vans without even bothering to put socks on (which I would scold myself for later, but John Williams was waiting) and ran into the living room, where Harry was staring at the picture on my little shelf.

It was when my grandmother had come to visit. She had her arms wrapped around me so tightly that I thought I was going to pass out, but I hadn’t ever wanted her to let go. She was a beautiful woman, with dark hair and eyes so brown they almost looked black. “Is that your grandmother?” he asked, touching the corner of the frame reverently, like it was a piece of artwork he needed to preserve. 

“Yeah.” I swallowed roughly. I never really looked closely at the picture because it always made my eyes fill with tears. It reminded me that I’d probably never see her again, or see Cuba in my lifetime. “Her name’s Yelina.”

“You look like her.”

I wasn’t emotionally ready to unpack that statement, especially with Harry. “Let’s go.”

Harry drove an ostentatious and expensive looking Mercedes Benz. I couldn’t decide if the color was a very light gray or light blue, but I didn’t pause to debate over it too much before I was yanking the door open and plopping myself down into his passenger seat. He made his way to the driver’s side way too slowly for my taste, but he eventually wiggled into the driver’s seat and handed me the iced coffee he had gotten for me. “I didn’t know what you usually drink, so I just got you the same thing I get.”

It was coffee, but I could taste lots of caramel and vanilla in it as well. It was a little too sweet for my taste, but it would do. Also, the more I drank it, the less I had to talk to Harry. That was a win-win for me.

Harry looked over at me and grinned. “Your hair is still dripping.”

“I look terrible and I’m about to meet John Williams,” I commented, letting out a nervous laugh and taking another long sip of the coffee.

“You look beautiful, Petra.”

I looked over to him and snorted. His mouth turned down at the corners when he heard the sound. “Harry Styles calling me beautiful? Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Yeah, well I was an asshole when I was younger. You’ve always been beautiful.”

The lump in my throat made it hard to talk. So I didn’t try. I simply leaned back in my seat and stared out the window, avoiding Harry’s gaze and the tension that sat between us. His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white, and I wondered if he was thinking about all the shit he had said to me when we were younger.

Harry’s studio was about ten minutes away driving, which left us about twenty minutes to meet John. When Harry pulled into the parking lot, I had to restrain myself from throwing the door open before he’d come to a full and complete stop. He handed me a Listerine package and I took two, barely even noticing the stinging taste of the alcohol as I ran my tongue back and forth over them to get them to dissolve faster. Then we were out of the car and walking towards the building, Harry slipping shades on over his face despite the fact that it wasn’t sunny out. I wondered if he knew that putting sunglasses on did nothing to hide his identity. 

Jeff was standing in the lobby of the recording studio, standing next to an older gentleman with white hair, a matching white beard, and glasses perched on the tip of his nose. I felt myself stop breathing (and stop walking) and only remembered to inhale when Harry put his hand on my back and pushed me forward slightly. “Jeff,” Harry said, and the two men turned to look at him, “sorry I’m late. You must be John.”

“The man of the hour,” John replied, giving Harry a twinkling smile. I wanted to cry, but figured that would be a bit unprofessional. “I just listened to your solo album. It’s incredible, son. My great-granddaughter is obsessed.”

“It’s an honor to hear you say that, sir,” Harry said, shaking John’s hand. I saw the moment John’s eyes flitted over in my direction and think my soul might have ascended. “This is my friend, Petra. She’s a fan of your work and I knew she’d want to meet you.”

John smiled at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Pleasure to meet you, Petra. Are you in the music industry too?”

“I...I run a podcast, actually,” I managed to stutter out.

“How interesting. What about?”

“Various things. Mostly I have guests that worked on big franchise movies or books.”

I didn’t realize Harry hadn’t taken his hand off my back until I felt him squeeze my shoulder reassuringly. I wondered if he could feel me shaking. “Petra’s writing a book herself. Her podcast is absolutely incredible to listen to.”

“I’ll have to listen sometime. You ever talk about Star Wars?”

“We’ve discussed Star Wars a lot. We actually had one of the costume designers on once. It was incredible.”

“Next time I’m here in London I’ll have to drop by. My grandkids listen to podcasts and they’re always trying to get me into new ones.”

“We’d love to have you,” I assured. Inside, I was trying to keep myself from doing something embarrassing.

John and Harry chatted for a little while longer, but it came time for John to leave for the airport to catch his flight back home to America. He shook Harry and Jeff’s hand and even gave me a hug. Harry rolled his eyes behind John’s back when he saw the tears gathering in my eyes, but gave me a smile to assure me that he was just joking about it. Then, John left and the three of us stood in the lobby of Harry’s recording studio in silence for approximately five seconds.

And then I burst into tears.

Jeff looked horrified. If he had grown up with me, he might have known how incredible that moment was for me. As he hadn’t grown up with me, he probably was wondering what the hell was wrong. Harry didn’t hesitate for a single second to grab tissues and press them into my hand so I could wipe away my tears.

“I’m sorry,” I said, directed more towards Jeff since he probably thought I was absolutely crazy.

“You don’t have to be sorry, Petra. It’s overwhelming, I know,” Harry said, rubbing my arm comfortingly.

I hated crying in front of Harry. There was a prickling to my skin, like I was hyper aware he was watching me geek out and be an emotional nerd. He had seen me cry over things when we were younger, and back then he had given me shit about it. Now, he just stared at me and gave me soft smiles. I didn’t know which one was worse. Because at least I expected his taunts. The smiles I didn’t really know what to do with.

“Sorry,” I said again to Jeff after I finished crying. I was sure I looked a sight, with my wet hair and tear-streaked cheeks, but Jeff just smiled.

“S’alright, Petra. You okay?”

I nodded, unable to speak.

“Thanks for inviting us, man. I’m gonna take her home.”

Jeff waved us goodbye and Harry and I left, walking to his car in silence. My coffee was still in there, though it was so cold that none of the ice had melted. I buckled my seatbelt in silence, still feeling like an idiot for crying in front of him but also feeling elated because I had just met John Williams. Harry handed me another tissue that he kept in his middle console and I took it without speaking.

The drive back to my flat was incredibly awkward.

He pulled up to my flat parking structure in record time, but he didn’t make a move to get out of his car. He simply turned off the engine and sat for a little while, giving me time to gather my thoughts. “You okay?” he whispered.

I nodded. “It was...really nice of you to think of me. I appreciate it.”

“Then why do you look like I just told you I was gonna kill your dog?”

I snorted. “I don’t have a dog.”

“You know what I mean, Petra.”

I was embarrassed to tell him, but I knew that after the massive favor he had done for me today, he deserved the truth. “I was embarrassed to cry in front of you, especially about something like that. It just reminded me…”

“Of when you cried reading the last Harry Potter book and I made fun of you,” he answered when I trailed off. “Shit,” he mumbled out, his body slumping into his seat. He threw his hand over the bridge of his nose, pinching it with his index finger and thumb. We sat in silence for a little while longer. “I...I feel so fucking ashamed. How is it that I’ve managed to fuck over someone so completely that they’re afraid to show any emotion?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, unable to refute his words. 

“I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t even know why you came with me today. If I were you I would have given up on me a long time ago.”

I wanted to. I wanted to be angry with him, to stomp out of his car and slam his door shut and never speak to him again. I wanted to talk to Melody and call him a raging twat and curse the ground he walked on. But I thought of today, of how he had gone out of his way to introduce me to John Williams. I thought of him sitting alone in his house, watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy and I thought of him sending me those flowers after my disastrous date with Peter.

“I want to,” I decided to tell him. He deserved honesty. “But...I think deep down, I do know you’ve changed. It’s just going to take a long time to get over the past. I’ve been talking about it with my therapist.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’ve been discussing ways to help with my self-esteem and confidence. We're trying to work on forgiveness too. She says that I should only let you back into my life if I’m sure that it’s a good idea.”

“She sounds like a smart lady.”

“She’s the best.” I looked over to him, finding his eyes already on me. “It’s taking me time, Harry. It’s as much me as it is you. I’ve got to feel confident enough to let go of the past. But...I really appreciate today. And I appreciate you trying.”

He nodded. “I’m proud of you, going to therapy and all that.”

“Thanks. I just need to work on being proud of myself.”

I unlocked the door and opened it up, grabbing my iced coffee cup so I wouldn’t leave the trash in his car. “Thanks for thinking of me today. I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“See you soon, Petra.”

Once I shut the door, he started the car back up and backed out of my flat complex. I stupidly watched his car drive away before I walked away.

~

When Melody had first told me about Cassandra and Vera, I had thought she was exaggerating. I figured no roommate could really be as awful as Melody was making them out to be. The first time I had met them, I was optimistic that they would prove Melody was just being picky about friends.

She hadn’t been.

I had only been to Melody’s flat a handful of times, due to the fact that mostly, we spent our time at my place. Her flat was more grandiose than mine, with three big rooms and two bathrooms, but it was cramped with Cassandra and Vera’s things. I couldn’t even see a touch of Melody in the foyer of the flat, which was where I was standing because when Vera had lazily answered the door, she had given me the barest of greetings before gesturing me inside and retreating back to her room. I could hear Cassandra prattling around in the kitchen, but couldn’t see her because I hadn’t actually been invited inside and unlike Melody being comfortable at my place, I wasn’t comfortable at hers.

“Melody’s coming,” Vera said, appearing almost out of thin air. In the two minutes she’d been done, she’d changed into leggings and a workout tank, but her eyes still looked sleepy, like she’d much rather go back to bed. “Cassandra’s making smoothies if you want some.” Before I could express my gratitude and politely decline, Vera whispered, “They’re shit. She puts kale in them.”

“Oh.”

Melody came out of her room and I don’t think I’d ever been so grateful to see someone in my life. I hated talking to Vera and Cassandra. At least Derek, Vera’s creepy boyfriend, wasn’t here to stare at my boobs. “We’re headed out. Please don’t set the flat on fire.”

Vera sneered, an ugly expression on a rather pretty girl. She had pretty auburn hair that verged more on brown than red until she was in the sun (which was rare in London). She had moved from Canada to go to school in London because her boyfriend had already completed his first year of uni. She was taller than me but shorter than Cassandra and had hazel eyes. “I’m not a child, Melody,” Vera snapped.

“Who’s there?” I heard Cassandra ask from the kitchen. She trailed into view, clad in nothing but tiny pajama shorts and a tank top that had a strap falling off her shoulder. Cassandra could have been a supermodel if she’d wanted to be. She was toned from playing volleyball since she could walk and had long blonde hair. The second her eyes landed on me, her mouth dropped open. “Oh my God, Petra! Is it true?”

“What?” I asked dumbly.

Cassandra rushed over to me with the speed only she and Usain Bolt could possess. “Is it true you’re dating Harry Styles?” she screeched. I think I may have lost hearing in my ear. “You’re everywhere! People got pictures of you in his car yesterday. Everyone’s trying to find out who Harry’s new mystery girl is, but the second I saw the photo, I knew it was you.”

“You were with the raging twat yesterday?” Melody asked, raising an eyebrow.

Cassandra tried to say “he’s not a raging twat!” at the same time Vera snorted out a laugh. Meanwhile, I was processing what Cassandra was saying.

There were pictures of me with Harry. I knew logically there were probably paparazzi that followed him around everywhere because of his career, but I hadn’t even thought of the possibility that we had been photographed. “Can you show me the pictures?” I asked Cassandra, who eagerly nodded and pulled out her phone, scrolling through twitter. #HarryStylesMysteryGirl was trending. 

“Christ, Petra,” Melody mumbled under her breath as we scrolled through the Twitter tag. “Do you know how many people have to be tweeting about that to get it trending?”

I didn’t want to know.

Melody seemed to sense I was either going to pass out or throw Cassandra’s phone across the room, so she gently pried it out of my fingers and handed it back to her roommate. “Right, well, we’ve got to head out. See you later,” Melody told her two roommates, grabbing me by the elbow and tugging me towards the door.

“Say hi to Harry for me, will you? And if you could get his autograph, that would be ace!” Cassandra called before the door to Melody’s flat shut behind her.

“You see what I have to deal with?” Melody asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. We stood there in silence for a couple of seconds before she eventually let out a deep breath. “Okay. Want to start at the beginning?”

That’s what I loved about Melody. She let me explain things at my own pace. I told her about the events leading up to the pictures that had apparently been taken of us, on our way to meet John Williams. I told her about the weird moment Harry had bandaged my cut and how he knew my grandmother’s name was Yelina. I also told her about our (technically second) hesitant truce with one another before he had driven off. 

She listened quietly. And then, she sighed. “I know it seems like he’s trying, Petra. And maybe he really is. But you’ve got to be careful, okay? The things he and his friends said about you...those aren’t things someone easily comes back from. If his fans knew about some of the stuff he’d allowed that dick Nathan to say, they’d burn him alive. And now there’s pictures of you out there and fans are nasty.”

“I promise I’m being careful.”

“That’s all I can ask for. Also, don’t go on Twitter for a while. At least until the hashtag dies down. I don’t want you to see anything negative.”

Another thing I hadn’t thought about. If fans saw the picture of me with Harry, I knew most of them would be supportive even if there was absolutely nothing going on and there would never be anything going on. But some fans would be nasty and make fun of me simply because they were jealous. This was a promise I could easily make to Melody. “I won’t.”

“Good. Now can we go get food? I’m starving.”

We stared at each other for a moment before we started laughing. It was always nice to know Melody and I were usually on the same wavelength. 

~

My phone beeping woke me up.

I had been folding laundry on my couch while the old Wonder Woman show played on the telly. I guess mid-fold I had fallen asleep on my couch, which would explain why the piles of clothes I had worked so hard on now looked like clumpy messes. The telly was still on, but it was some other show now and my phone was lit up on the table in front of me. I blearily glanced at the time, cursing when I realized I had fallen asleep around seven and therefore probably wouldn’t be going back to sleep anytime soon, since it was already one in the morning.

harrystyles: I’m so sorry Petra.

Blinking, I tried to go over in my head what he had to be sorry for (besides the obvious). Why? I typed back, still feeling a little sleepy and more than a little confused.

harrystyles: They got pictures of us and found out your name. You’re all over Twitter.

I had known they had pictures of me, but last I checked I was still the “mystery girl.” Despite the promise to Melody, I opened up Twitter and saw my name was trending. I didn’t dare click on it for fear that I would find nasty tweets that I didn’t need to see. 

harrystyles: I totally understand if you’re upset.

Not your fault, I typed back. I figured if he was feeling bad enough to message me about it at one in the morning, I should at least cut him a little slack. Plus, my message was true. It wasn’t his fault. He had been in such a rush to get me to John that he had forgotten, for a moment, who he was and what the consequences of that were.

harrystyles: Still. You okay?

I’m fine, I replied. Don’t worry about it.

harrystyles: I just don’t want this to ruin our chances of ever being friends.

For Christ’s sake, Styles, stop blaming yourself. Don’t you have better things to do at one in the morning?

He never responded, but I assumed he had fallen asleep. As for me, I decided to finish up the laundry, fixing up my piles that had been crushed underneath my back. It was a rare night when Melody wasn’t staying at my place, so the flat felt quiet without her there. Once I finished up with my piles, I walked them down to my room, glancing down at my phone when it beeped again.

harrystyles: I’m outside.

Outside where?

harrystyles: Your place, obviously.

Sure enough, I heard a knock on my door fifteen seconds later. When I looked out my window, there was a different car in the lot than the Mercedes. I guess it made sense that he would have more than one, but seeing another expensive car made me wonder just how much money Harry made doing his music. I padded my way over to my front door, opening it up. I was sure I looked a mess, with my glasses askew on my nose and my hair in a terrible messy bun that resembled a rat’s nest more than hair, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. It wasn’t like I was bombarding someone at one in the morning.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

“I wanted to make sure you really weren’t mad at me.” He had one hand slung in the pocket of his joggers and was wearing a black sweatshirt that actually looked really comfortable. His other hand was behind his back.

“You couldn’t have done that at a normal time of day?”

“I figured we were both up. I brought you something.”

Raising a brow, I waited until he pulled his hand out from behind his back. Once he did, my tired eyes widened. In his hands was a tiny little potted succulent, a pretty green flower that also looked like a cactus. He shoved it into my hands like he was a nervous teenage boy, the hand that was holding it immediately retreating back into his pocket.

“I know you liked the other flowers and this one is harder to kill,” he explained.

“I didn’t kill the other one!” I was slightly offended. Did he think I just went around killing plants? “I’m a great plant mum.”

His small dimple appeared when he lifted the corner of his mouth in a grin. “Well I didn’t know that and I didn’t want it dying on you.” I moved to put the little succulent on the table near my front door. “You’re really okay with the Twitter thing?”

“It’s not ideal,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, “but there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“I know your own Instagram’s on private, but try not to post anything too personal to the Alien Crossing account. Don’t look on Twitter. I don’t know if you already have or not, but sometimes people say nasty things.”

“Harry, believe it or not, I’ve got practice with people saying shitty things about me in regards to you.”

I said the sentence without really thinking about it. I think I had meant it offhandedly, like a kind of last minute joke or something, but I knew the second it left my mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. His shoulders slumped, like he was a helium balloon that someone was slowly draining, and the grin dropped from his face almost immediately. “Right,” he said in a cold voice. “I’d better go. Just wanted to check in.”

Even with our small truce, we still found a way to fuck things up. His reaction made me annoyed. What right did he have to that kind of reaction? He was the one who had said the shitty things about me. He didn’t deserve to feel chagrined when I tried to make a joke out of it. “Probably,” I said stiffly, my voice a couple of degrees colder.

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but thought better of it. Without so much as another blink in my direction, he turned on his heel and walked back to his car.

I had to remind myself to unclench my jaw as I closed my front door. I don’t know why his reaction had made me so angry, but it was just a reminder that Harry Styles, at his core, was selfish. He only cared about himself and how my actions made him feel. How I made him uncomfortable when I brought up how awful he had been. My steps were heavy with anger when I marched back to my room, opening up my laptop with a little more force than necessary. 

Here’s something one should know about me. When I felt like I was being attacked or I had made someone upset, instead of trying to cheer myself up, I wanted to know all the nasty things people were thinking about me. Doctor Thorne called this “bad validation.” Like if Harry thought I was being mean for making that joke, suddenly I had to see someone else saying my voice sounded annoying on AC. It was like this terrible reassurance that I so badly didn’t want to seek out, but I couldn’t help it.

Which was why I opened Twitter.

My name was the first trending hashtag.

I had never once Googled myself. Googling myself felt weird. Also, I had never really had a reason to. While AC was popular, it wasn’t so popular that I could walk in the street and be recognized. Mostly, it was my voice that people recognized. This meant that I had never really seen people commenting on my appearance, which was why most of my self-confidence issues were about my actions and personality.

Until now.

She looks way too plain to be seen with him. Please tell me they aren’t dating.

Gross. She looks like a drowned dog.

Who the fuck is this bitch? And why does she go out in public looking like that?

I slammed my computer shut.

My room was silent, save for my angry breathing and the beating of my heart. Standing stiffly from my desk chair, I walked back out into my living room and to my couch, where I still had some piles of clothes that needed to be put away.

The echeveria plant stared back at me when I looked up at it.

I didn’t like the fact that my heart stuttered a little when I looked at it. It just reminded me that he had come, at one in the morning, to make sure I was okay. And then everything had gone wrong, like everything in my life inevitably did. Forcing myself to walk over to it, I picked up the tiny white pot it was in and set it next to my shelf, where I had the picture of my grandmother.

And then I sat on my couch and tried not to cry as I folded the rest of my laundry.

[paramedicsuicide]

First responder suicide -- PTSD, or something else?

Its 1:30am. I sit on my computer in complete darkness, having just slept for the past 10 hours. As a Paramedic in a suburb of a relatively small US city, I work 12 hours shifts for 4 straight days. I get 4 days off to recuperate after that, and at this point in my career those days are essential for my survival. Many of my co-workers are not lucky enough to be able to stop at just 4 days, and must work additional overtime shifts in order to make ends meet. The private EMS industry has relatively low wages nationwide. We are the "red headed step child" of emergency services, often hiding in the shadows of police officers, firefighters, and nurses. There is no such thing as a "typical" shift when working in EMS. There are the occasional shifts where I will sit in the parking lot of the local convenience store chain for 12 straight hours without picking up a single patient. The glow of my cell phone screen illuminating my face for each passing person to see the life draining out of my body. The boredom sets in after hour 2.  My legs and butt hurt. I am hungry, but I can't tell if its true hunger or just my body telling me to get up and move. I decide to walk inside to browse the aisles of colorful treats, getting nauseous at the thought of eating "lunch" out of a gas station at midnight for the 3rd day in a row. Despite my disgust, I walk outside with 2,000 or more calories of junk food at a time in an attempt to eat myself to death. "Ill be diabetic by the end of the week" I say to my partner as I open my fudge dipped granola bar. As the career of a first responder goes on, most quickly start to pack on the pounds like a bear preparing for winter. Company policy prevents you from sleeping during your shift, so your food (if you can call it that) is washed down with 16oz of your favorite energy drink to keep you awake and ready to pick grandma up off the floor when she attempts her 2am bathroom run. I have palpitations from all the caffeine. Hopefully one day those PVC's turn into an arrhythmia and the lord takes me. "Anything to get out of this job" I say, as I polish off my second monster of the night.  Morning rolls around. 50mg of benadryl will help me fall asleep after drinking energy drinks all night long. I have severe shift sleep disorder. I am depressed. I just want to sleep. I wake up ready to go after just 4 hours of sleep. Great. Another night of pounding monsters. I punch in 15 minutes early for my next shift and am assigned a call before I am even scheduled to start. I am the only ambulance available in the surrounding 15 square miles of suburbia, and that trend will continue for the next 12 hours. Call after call, I don't have time to finish my paperwork before being sent on the next run. Its 11pm and dispatch calls my unit number for the 5th time today-- "With the fire department for a 1 year old post choking". I have taken 50 calls of the same nature before and say out loud-- "Great, another bullshit call". Every day, nervous parents call 911 over the slightest cough or sniffle which eventually numbs you to the potential of a true pediatric emergency. Its never a real emergency. Until it is. Rolling up on scene after the fire department, I grab my house bag and begin to waddle towards the low income apartment building for the third time this week. I think -- "I should have brought the tablet for a signature so I don't have to walk back outside". Suddenly, a firefighter rounds the corner carrying a limp child like he is holding an offering platter. "That's not good" I blurt out , going from zero to 100 in the snap of a finger. The firefighter tells me the child was eating chicken and rice when he began to choke.  As my partner digs out the pediatric bag valve mask that has been sitting unused in the house bag for an unknown number of years, I set up the suction, only to find an unresponsive, apneic child with a clenched jaw. "That doesn't make sense" I think to myself as I try to peel apart his tiny jaw without any luck. Thank god-- he has a gap in his front tooth that fits a small, 12fr suction catheter. I start to go through the motions. Is he seizing? Nope. Any trauma visible or reported? No. Mom was asked again-- and again says the child was sitting up, eating, and suddenly started choking. What is going on here? With little to be done on scene, I rush to the small local hospital, nervous that the next squeeze of the bag could lodge a piece of food in this kids airway. I am getting good air exchange but his spo2 isn’t amazing. He must have aspirated. Great news. He is now moving his arms, and his eyes just opened. Wait, why is his jaw still clenched? That's not great news. This kid hasn't made a noise. What the fuck is going on. As I roll the stretcher into the small emergency room closest to the scene, I am greeted with that dreaded sentence from the ER Physician-- "why did you bring him here and not children's hospital".  I bite my tongue-- its not the time to have that fight. The kid is now posturing. A few minutes go by and the doctor asks me to get my laryngoscope because the emergency room is not currently stocked with the proper pediatric equipment. Maybe he was right. The thoughts start rushing through my head-- "they are going to kill this kid. I should have just risked it and bypassed. It was only an extra 7 minutes or so further". As I sit there and wait for the next order, new thoughts take over. "Someone shook this kid. There is no other explanation".  Hypertensive, bradycardic, posturing. But mom said he was choking on rice? Where would she get that from? Hmm. She doesn't seem as concerned as a mother should be. She answers a text message while being questioned by the police.  She has yet to ask anyone how her son is doing. The texts start to come in to my phone. "Are you ok?". "I hear you had a bad call. You guys ok?" "WTF was that all about?". I am fine. Any provider who plans to have a lengthy career has to distance themselves from their patients. I can think back to every "bad" call I've taken, and never once have I been able to recall processing a patients face. Its not important. What they look like is irrelevant to my job. Its the circle of life. Some people live, some people die. Its my job to try and make that circle a little bit bigger if I can. Sometimes you are successful, sometimes you aren't. You have to come to terms with that early on. Minutes after calling in service from restocking, the radio chimes my unit number again. "Cold response to the fitness center for a hand laceration". I arrive on scene to find a psych standing out front in his blue paper clothes, clearly having been to an emergency room at least once today. “Hop on in buddy-- take a seat” I say as I shake my head. We drive him 3 blocks down the street to the same emergency room we left just a couple hours prior. I am not greeted like one would expect. Not with "Hello", not with "whats the chief complaint". I am greeted with a sentence that is never good news. "Did you hear?". Our child from earlier had been emergently transferred 6 miles away to the childrens hospital by a specialty transport team. The news from them was not good. "That kid -- he has a brain bleed". My suspicions were confirmed. He was never choking. Someone hurt this kid and tried to cover it up. I know how to handle this, because its not even the first time this situation has happened to me. People hurt kids often enough that I am not even shocked. Stories like this don't make the news *for a reason*. People cant handle stuff like this. No one needs to know that savages live in apartment 3. Some people have to know though. WE have to know. Its not OK. I talk about suicide often. My previous partner was a veteran and has PTSD from being deployed overseas. He has had many friends commit suicide after returning from war, and was concerned about my mental health. That should concern me. He would ask me once a week-- "Are you sure you are ok?".  My little comments here and there come off as jokes to most people. "Id rather die than come into work tonight". "Pull out in front of this semi truck-- we wont feel a thing I promise". "Stage for police? Fuck that. I hope I get shot". In reality, its not a joke. I am not suicidal at this point in my life-- I am apathetic about living. I'm not going to take my own life, but I am definitely not excited when I wake up each morning. This feeling has slowly crept up on me over my almost 10 year career as a paramedic. I tell myself daily that I need to get out before its too late. What will be the breaking point where I become truly suicidal?  I have to answer one question before I leave. "Where will I go?"   I am burnt out. Everyone says "go to nursing school", but the passion-- the fire inside that makes you want to help people has been extinguished for years. Where can you go at 30+ years old with a paramedic certification and no useful degree. I have made financial commitments at my age that makes starting from scratch somewhere at entry level wages an impossibility. What can I do? Where can I go? I am stuck. This job is like quick sand, and I'm up to my shoulders. If I struggle much more it will be above my head. We get to see what goes on behind the curtains of society. How much would you enjoy a magic show if you knew how the magic was performed? That is what life is like for many first responders. Members of the general public get to wear blinders during their day to day lives. There are people who post rants to facebook if the garbage man didn't put their garbage can back in the correct spot. A terrible day for a typical person is a flat tire on the way home from work. They have no idea what happens in their town or city on a day to day basis. They have NO IDEA that 3 doors down, a husband beat the shit out of his wife for the 4rd time this year and she wont tell the police what happened. They have NO IDEA that people call an ambulance from the parking lot of an emergency room because they don't want to wait in the waiting room.  They have NO IDEA that someone in apartment 3 just hurt their baby and tried to cover it up. But we know. We see it all. I have talked with a lot of people who have similar feelings. Its due to me being so open about my apathy towards life. People who I see every day, smiling at their coworkers and telling war stories and laughing. You would never guess these people were at the end of their ropes-- fighting off their own demons. "Make sure they have bagpipes at my funeral". I don't try and talk these people down because they don't want help. How could I help anyways? You cant just "un-know" the things we know. These people just feel comfort in the fact that they aren't alone. I have been lucky that none of these people have taken their lives yet. I know the day is coming. Its been a long time since a co-worker has committed suicide, and the statistics say we are over-due. How will I handle it?

[justanotherbuckydevotee]

All I Could Do Was Cry - Part 2

Word Count: 2,526 words. Prompt: “I’ve loved you my whole life and you’re about to marry somebody that’s not me. I can’t watch you do that” Warning(s): ANGSSTT. Cursing. So much sadness (I’m sorry) A/N: Final part! This had been frustrating but fun to write. It took me a while to get back, and I’m happy with this. I hope you’ll like the ending. Written for @theassetseyeliner ‘s writing challenge.

English is not my main language so sorry in advance. Happy reading!

masterlist 

part 1 || part 2 || Epilogue

** Gif is not mine. I found it on Google** 

To say you were exhausted was an understatement of the year.

Lying on your bed, you heaved a sigh. Your eyes felt swollen, and you don’t want to check the mirror to see the puffiness rimmed with red, not wanting to see yourself in that state yet. There’s a dull ache in your chest, and you feel like you could sink right into your mattress at the heavy weight of your sorrow.

You’ve lost count how many days you’ve disappeared, fallen into the hole of despair as you ignored the outside world. You didn’t have the energy to do much but lay there, looking up at the white blank ceiling, as the world outside continues to move forward. Thankfully, the office approved your last minute leave as you threw excuses about not feeling well. You hadn’t even bothered looking at the date, overwhelmed by grief of your mistakes.

Should you have told him about your feelings before? Would it have made any difference? These were the thoughts you mostly concerned yourself with, letting your mind roam to new unchartered territory of your feelings about your best friend.

All of which had the same answer: you’d have lost him either way. Because that’s the thing with falling for your best friend, you’ll lose them for having more feelings than the stereotypical framework of two friends who’ve known each other for so long. You’re waging a war with yourself, knowing the outcome wouldn’t be pretty but still battling with your senses and emotions. It’s like playing Russian roulette, with the difference being the chamber is full, but you still can’t stay away. Too captivated by his beauty and kindness.

So you continuously love him, shooting your heart every time you witness him kiss the lips of a girl who isn’t you, firing a round of bullets to your chest each time he tells you how much he loves her.

It’s suicide masked beneath a series of believable encouragements and convincing merriments for them both.

Your phone rings, again, and you let it, not even sparing a glance as it sat on top of your bedside table.

You’ve also been ignoring your friends, not wanting them to see you in this state. Natasha comes by the first night with Bucky when she heard you’d call in sick, bringing an obscene amount of junk food and alcohol that you barely touch. You know they’re just worried, but by the third night (or was it fourth?) you’d ignored their knocking, not wanting company. You texted them a simple reply when neither wouldn’t stop bombarding your phone with calls and messages, telling them that you just wanted to rest, that they shouldn’t worry. That you’d be okay.

But will you ever be okay?

Another call hits your phone, but again you disregard it. You see the bright light of the sun slowly change into a luminescent orange spilling into your bedroom from your high-ceilinged windows, indicating that yet another day had passed by.

Steve smiles at the guests passing by him, trying to put his anxiousness at bay. He’s got his phone next to his ear, another attempt at reaching you. He’s certain you haven’t forgotten about tonight’s rehearsal dinner, raising an eyebrow at Bucky when you didn’t show up at the wedding rehearsals that morning. The simple explanation Natasha gives seems defective to his ears, but Steve couldn’t get more out of her during the whole day, the havoc wreaked from the wedding planner and their wedding crew providing him absolutely zero chance to find answers, to find you.

Soon after, he’s being directed to shower and change for tonight’s event. He should be enjoying himself, a hand wrapped around his beautiful fiancée as they enjoy what is about to happen. He should be out there talking with his guests, thanking them for coming to witness this chapter of his life. He shouldn’t be in the corner, ears glued to his phone as he tries again and again to contact you, worried to his stomach at your missing presence when again his attempts turn unfruitful.

Pocketing his phone with a grunt, he decides to take matters into his own hands. You’re one of his best friends, god damn it, and you should be here.

He looks around and his eyes land on Peggy; she’s caught up with being the hostess as she smiles brightly at people, greeting people with her friendly attitude. If he slips out now, he’ll still make it before everything actually begins. He’ll just say he wasn’t ready in time.

Just as he’s about to step out of the private ball-room, he’s stopped by a firm grasp on his shoulder.

“Where are you going? The party is that way” Bucky says, pointing a finger at the direction behind Steve. There’s a smile on his lips, but it doesn’t really reach his eyes. Steve furrows his eyebrows, looking at his oldest friend with a sceptic look.

“I’m trying to find (y/n). Something’s not right” he responds. Bucky’s grip over him falters as Steve moves, determination now settling deep in his bones to try and settle what was going on. But Bucky stops in front of him again, blocking his path.

“Natasha did say she was tired. Let her get some sleep. I’m sure everything’s fine” he babbled, trying to steer Steve back to the party.

But Steve stood his ground. Something was definitely up.

“Okay. What’s going on?” he asks. It’s rare that he finds Bucky lying or trying to hide something from him, even rare when the subject of concern is you.

Bucky’s about to say something that Steve knows will just waste his time, precious time he could use to find you instead of playing cat and mouse here in this hall. So he cuts him off.

“What’s really going on, Buck?” he asks quietly. “She hasn’t returned any of my calls. Peggy even told me she’s been missing from work for days now. So, please, just tell me what’s going on?”

He’s eyeing Bucky for a few moments, watching the cool exterior of his best friend trying to come up with an excuse plausible enough to get him back inside. But he comes up empty.

Bucky sighed, dropping his head as he ran his fingers in his hair. Natasha was going to have his head.

“Okay” he begins, clearing his throat before looking at Steve again. “Look…” he says, but he can’t find the words to say it. Steve takes in a sharp breath, because nothing good ever follows when the conversation starts off like this. It takes him mere seconds before he’s hailed a cab and telling the driver your address.

His heart is hammering against his chest as he tries to even his breathing, having ran up the stairs to your apartment, the lift taking too damn long for the patience he has right now.

He’s pressed your bell, knocked several times, but there’s just silence from your end. There’s an incomprehensible feeling in his gut, churning his anxiousness into something much more ominous. There’s a sickening sensation bubbling from his stomach when you’ve yet to answer.

“(y/n!)” he yells. He’s thankful that you own the whole floor, leaving him to pounding your door to his heart’s content. He tries repeatedly, screaming your name with each bang. He doesn’t know why he’s riled up all of the sudden.

“I’m not leaving until you open this door” he declares. Again he slams his open palm over your door hard that he swears could’ve made a hole if he’s just balled his fist instead. He’s breaths are labored, not from running up but from this simmering anger inside of him.

He’s supposed to be at a fucking dinner, not bleeding his hands at banging your door. He’s frustrated that Bucky and Natasha doesn’t seem to want to tell him anything. He’s annoyed that you’re doing this to him out of the blue, furious that you won’t open this door and talk to him. You’re on of his best friends for heaven’s sake! You should be able to tell him anything because you trust him.

“Please, (y/n). Talk to me. Help me so I can help you” he tries again, pressing his forehead on your door. He can hear movements from behind the door, the pitter patter of your foot stepping on your floor, pacing back and forth, almost debating with yourself.

The image of you in distress melts his anger, uneasiness creeping its way back to him as he tries to make sense of the whole situation. Did he do something? What happened that made you distance yourself from him? Who hurt you?

He sighs, drained from what the day had entailed. Pulling himself back, he looks at your door for a moment, trying to understand what lay behind them, before slowly backing away. He doesn’t know what else to do but to walk away. every step he took was heavy, demanding him to stop and turn, to try again. That he shouldn’t give up.

His phone rings, a familiar ringtone he’s set up specifically for Peggy, so he answers and tells her he’s on his way.

He’s hours away from being proclaimed as husband and wife, elation coursing through his body as his heart flutters at the image of Peggy walking down the aisle. Steve can’t help but let heat rise from his cheeks because Peggy would be his. He chuckles to himself, realizing that after all this time she still has that kind of control over him.

“You okay?” Clint asks, emerging from behind a partition that gave Steve privacy in his bachelor suite.

“Just excited” he tries to act casual, but he can’t hide his wide smile. Clint pats him with a grin, happy to see Steve in this light because he deserves to have this. “We’ll be outside. Have a drink with us” he proposes, then goes to let Steve be. He’s adjusting his suit, checking his cuffs and fixing his hair. He’s nervous, but the good kind.

“The man of the hour finally graces us with his presence” Tony proclaims, gesturing grandly towards Steve as he steps into the study room where all of his close friends are.

Except you.

A small frown places his smile temporarily when he doesn’t find you where you should be. He asks Sam about your whereabouts.

“Don’t know. Probably helping Peggy” was his answer, handing him a glass before filing it with Brandy. It would make sense since you’re friends with them both, even more sense when he remembers you’re the one who introduced her to everyone.

But there’s a nagging voice in his head, agitation sneaking into him like that night. He’s been restless since leaving your complex, the ride back to the rehearsal dinner filled with him texting and leaving you countless voicemails. Bucky has yet to confide to him what’s happened, leaving a cryptic code of “It’s not my place to say”, a similar response from Natasha when he asks the redhead.

“You’ll just need to hear from her, okay?”

It was wearisome the way you’re silencing yourself. He’s bear witness to your breakdowns before, has experienced this sudden push from you, but never to this extent. You would always tell him beforehand, that you need space to clear your head. But the reasons behind those breakdowns were always told, never was he ever left in the dark like this. It was unlike you and the more he thought about it, the more he wants to go and find you.

“Cheer up, man. You’re getting married” came the voice of Sam, bringing him back to the present. He downs the drink in one go, before placing the glass on top of a mahogany table. Sam’s right, he should be because today was his day.

So he ignores the restlessness that continues to plague him, talking and laughing with his friends before the ceremony begins.

Wanda knocks on their door, her had popping out from the gap when she opens it, announcing that it was near time, throwing Steve’s phone at him.

“You left this downstairs. It’s been beeping nonstop” she tells him, before leaving them. He checks it, and upon seeing only your name on his screen he moves out of the study, needing to hear from you before he completely loses to his nerves.

He clicks the voicemail you left him.

“Hey Steve”. Your voice permeates and he’s glad to hear your voice.

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer you. I just needed to be sure with myself that this is something I wanted to do”

You exhale shakily, and his heart wrenches in his chest, as if telling himself to prepare for the worst.

“I can’t go to your wedding, Steve” you croak, pausing for a moment to regain some control. “I can’t go because it pains me to see you with someone who isn’t me”.

An emotionless expression sweeps his facial expression, realization gradually dawning on him. It can’t be he thinks to himself.

“I’ve loved you my whole life” you whimpered, “and you’re about to marry somebody that’s not me” you manage to continue. Steve is standing rigidly, trying his hardest not collapse at your words in this moment.

“I can’t watch you do that” you sobbed, the emotions unable to be contained anymore, your struggle to remain collected breaking like a dam.

“You deserve this. And I am so happy for you, really I am, but it absolutely breaks my heart every time I see you together. I’ve tried to suppress these feelings since junior high but it keeps coming back stronger than before” you manage to blurt, inhaling a shaky breath before continuing “I knew I fucked up the moment I decided to cower behind my door that night, but what right did I have to destroy your chance at happiness? What right do I have to ruin something so great for you?”

“So be happy, Steve. Be happy with Peggy, and treat her with the kindness and devotion you have, because you both deserve it. I’m praying for the best for you and her, because at the end of the day you’re both my friends. You’re my best friend, Steve”

“But I cannot continue living like this. I’m telling you this because I can’t face you, and I don’t think I will ever face you again” you pause, gasping for air to flow down your throat.

“Live your life, continue on and never look back. I’m sorry Steve”

He still has his phone next to his ear long after the voicemail ends. His throat is dry and he can’t seem to move, stuck in this spot as the shock washes over him.

This is not happening he tells himself. He didn’t just lose his best friend over the phone right before he gets married. No, this was a nightmare, a vivid delusion that stemmed from his fatigue, his restlessness from worrying so much, from the stress of work and the planning.

He doesn’t register the voices of his friends behind him until Bucky grabs his shoulder.

It’s then that Bucky realizes what you’ve done.

tagging: @hellomissmabel @@alphaabucky @captnbarnesrogers @barnes-heaven @heartmade-writingbucky @minervaem @rotisserierogers @buckyywiththegoodhair @barnes-heaven ||  @iamwarrenspeace @memoirsofafangirl @lovely-geek @sarahp879 ||

taglist is open. send an ask if you want to join (: or to scream at me

[buzrushglobalcommunity-blog]

Best Shopify Apps

Best Shopify Apps

10 Best Shopify Apps is just about the prime possible choices available on the market for everyone focused on generating an e-business business the simplest way. With emphasis on “the simple way.”

You may need more features than the default setup provides if you want your shop to succeed. Let’s see 10 of the highest quality Shopify software for a new owner!

You can even be interested in:

oPreferred Free Shopify Themes or templates of 2019

oPerfect Shopify Subjects for 2019

oWix compared to Shopify versus WooCommerce v . BigCommerce vs . Magento against Jimdo

1. Look: Rewards And Fidelity

Once is hard enough - encouraging them to come back time and time again can be even more challenging convincing people to buy. Teeth: Rewards & Loyalty lets you add a loyalty program to your Shopify store, in order to encourage repeat purchases.

Key qualities

oCan help you set up various types of plans in your stash, including faithfulness things, affiliate, and VIP solutions

oChange the way your applications deliver the results, which includes how of course, if consumers are rewarded

oCombine your process with some other outside methods, for example MailChimp, Revitalise, and HubSpot

Prices

The 100 % free system enable you to put in place and operate a basic program, although the quality edition contains extra personalization choices, analytics benefits, and better.

Ideal for

If your store is going to rely on repeat purchases from a loyal customer base, Smile: Rewards And Loyalty is considered the most beneficial Shopify applications it is possible to buy.

2. Plug in Website seo

If you want to attract customers to your Shopify store, you’ll need to ensure they can find it through organic searches. Meaning making time for your store’s Seo Optimization (Seo optimization), that is a specific thing Plug in Seo optimisation can help with.

Primary benefits

oScans your save for customers-reducing Website positioning challenges

oDisplays descriptive results, informing you of just what exactly worries are present

oInvestigationstitles and headings, meta explanations, document capabilities, posts building, even more

Cost

The free of cost variant of Connect Search engine optimisation allows you to check out your retail store as often as you’d like. There is yet another premium arrange for $20 each month, which helps you boost your shop’s Search engine optimisation, amongst other advantages.

Best for

Any Shopify store may benefit from cautious awareness of Seo optimization, which iphone app will aid you to location any trouble that need to be answered.

3. Fera Personal Verification

A large a part of running a powerful business is prodding each and every one visitor to your site to create a choose. Fera facilitates you accomplish that by developing feelings of urgency. The most important of our own perfect Shopify apps lets you display real-time take-ups, which permit people understand other customers are nearly.

Major includes

oPresentation notifications for your retail store when clients investment products

oPresent number of individuals who applied goods to cart and right now monitoring

oTalk about good personal resistant give food to for brand’s dependability

Costs

It is a zero cost iphone app.

Most suitable for

And you want to encourage more conversions though urgency and social proof, this app is a simple and handy solution, if you have a modest amount of activity in your store.

4. Facebook Messenger Marketing

Whatever you are providing, superior quality customer care is important. You’ll have the benefit of an effective way to respond to questions by using a more convenient funnel than email. Facebook or twitter Messenger Selling does precisely what its mention implies - it means that you can speak with your Shopify buyers utilizing the Facebook Messenger tool.

Key element elements

oPermits purchasers to commence live life talk with you via a relatively easy widget

oRenders it easy to customize the Facebook or myspace Messenger notices you submit

oLots previous chitchat historical past, enabling you to look at earlier conversion rates with the same prospect

oHelps you put customers bank accounts to the Facebook Messenger client collection

Charges

This can be a totally free app.

Great for

This app is useful to anyone looking to add live chat to their Shopify store - particularly if you also want to conduct some Facebook outreach and/or marketing.

5. Oberlo

To sell other companies’ products - Oberlo is a must-have if you’re looking to start a dropshipping business with Shopify - in other words. This favored system makes it possible to find the correct elements, bring the crooks to your store, and begin merchandising promptly.

Major functionality

oPermits you to look for and import services from Oberlo and AliExpress Sector (then customize them)

oContinues to keep your prices and stock tiers updated

oAutomatically starts the shipping process once you confirm a customer’s order

oHelps you to course your orders

Rates

There is a free program that supports anywhere up to 50 orders placed monthly, as well as 2 superior strategies with additional features and capacity.

Excellent for

Anybody focused on making money with dropshipping on Shopify can usually benefit from Oberlo.

6. Yotpo Review articles, Photographs, and Q&A

These days, most people check out reviews before buying online. Yotpo Testimonials, Graphics, and QAndA means that you can without difficulty create customer reviews to your own Shopify shop. Visitors can feel more confident about making informed purchasing decisions as such.

Major options

oRoutinely accumulate reviews, device photographs, queries, and the answers from the prospects

oDemonstrate reviews and ratings in many places for the duration of your stash

oReasonable product reviews, and reply to them either publicly or secretly

Charges

The basic edition of Yotpo cost nothing, and it is ample for some retail stores. The superior quality programs, commencing at $29 every month, offer you more features similar to report carousels, coupon codes, and upsell options.

Beneficial to

Product reviews are almost an absolute must-have to have an website. This is why, Yotpo is amongst the ideal Shopify software for virtually every person.

7. Printful

A Best Shopify Apps stash generally is a excellent place to trade custom layouts. However, you’ll need a way to have those designs printed once customers place their orders. Printful gives a total-featured creating service, turning it into straightforward to offer you a range of alternate options as part of your store.

Essential benefits

oCollection system alternate options for your stow, keep these things screen printed and filed, then delivered

oPlease let clientele customize your concepts, and in addition have them imprinted on t-embroidery, shirts and posters and much more

oSet up product or service mockups, so users could see what each and every one thing will look like

Costing

The mobile app is free of cost. You’ll need a Printful account, as each order will come with a small fee attached.

Beneficial to

Artwork creative designers in addition to creatives who never want to be concerned about creating and transporting merchandise may find this iphone app priceless.

8. Large Impression Update Graphic Seo optimisation

Photos make up the building block of your beneficial e-commerce shop. Mass Image Edit Impression Search engine optimizing assists you keep your Shopify supplement illustrations are totally enhanced. The application grips numerous key element picture-related functions, and contains some valuable automation remedies.

Primary features

oEnables you to customise persona report names and ‘alt text’, for Search engine optimisation uses

oAssists you resize pics to Shopify guidelines (and also for social networking use)

oSqueezes your artwork, just to save spot whilst your retailer managing swift

Cost

The zero cost method permits you to modify 50 graphics every month, that is to some extent reducing. Most buyers will enjoy the $9.99 per 30 days level rather than, which means that you can form to 1,000 edits.

And don’t have the time to optimize each one individually, Bulk Image Edit can save you a lot of effort, if you display product images in your store.

9. Infinite Possibilities

Infinite Options is well worth a look if you’re looking to let people customize the items they purchase. This application enables you to offer a wide array of options to customers, to enable them to pick specific functionality, add customization, plus more.

Key element functionality

oMake it possible for consumers to individualize goods through easy tumble-down selections, checkboxes, and similar inputs

oAdd in a limitless amount of changes choices to every one item

oInstantly comprise of added costs for unique features and services

Costing

Limitless Alternatives is free to implement and apply.

Suitable for

Despite the fact that Shopify may include some elementary solution personalization possible choices, Limitless Alternatives is just about the top Shopify software for giving personalization (or add-ons) on your stuff.

10. Package

The previous of our own top Shopify software, Pack is a straightforward but likely ultra powerful product. It helps you establish transformation-oriented Facebook and Instagram commercials. This is often a personal and friendly hint that assists spin new potential customers into dependable clients.

Main benefits

oDeliver custom ‘thank you’ messages for preserving new customers

oStart a re-aiming for strategy getting a Facebook or twitter Messenger

oProduce a discount code by giving an Text messaging to Set

oUse swift reporting to follow your advertising and marketing initiatives

Charges

You can utilize Kit with your Shopify stow without charge.

Good for

Kit is usually a useful tool for saying thanks to customers and making sales and profits-amiable internet marketing classified ads. It’s primarily simple should you don’t already have got an e-mail promotional solution put in place (that can get this functionality redundant).

Just go to finest

Conclusion relating to the perfect Shopify programs

You can customize exactly how your store works - by using a suitable combination of extras. That is one of the best things about Shopify. And so this is precisely the place some of the finest Shopify software come into engage in.

Get more info visit BuzRush

Join: - Question & Answer Platform

[homebuyerresources]

How to Shop for a Mortgage in 2019

If you’re like most mortgage borrowers, the interest rate is your hot button. A 2019 survey by Fiserv, Inc. finds that 76% of respondents placed “mortgage rate” at the top of their criteria when choosing a lender. So when most people ask, “How to shop for a mortgage?” what they really want to know is “how to find the best mortgage rates.”

How to shop for a mortgage? Compare mortgage quotes

Researchers from Stanford University, HUD, Fannie Mae, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and others conclude that mortgage rates are very important to consumers. And yet, many borrowers don’t do the single most important thing they to get the best mortgage available to them — shop.

On any given day, mortgage rates typically vary by 0.25 to 0.5 percent between mortgage lenders for the same borrower.

To get the best deal, its important to shop and compare mortgage quotes from several competing mortgage lenders. In fact, Stanford researchers find that it takes at least four quotes to maximize your savings (typically over $2,500 for a $200,000 loan). Still, about half of all borrowers look at only one or possibly two quotes before committing to a lender.

That’s potentially leaving money on the table. Here’s how to avoid doing that.

Get mortgage quotes quickly

Before the mortgage industry became so competitive and automated, lenders could issue rate sheets that were good for days — even a whole week. Today, mortgage rates might change several times a day.

Related: How to Battle Rising Mortgage Rates

This means a quote from Lender A at 9 AM on Monday can’t be reliably compared to one from Lender B at 2 PM on Wednesday. Ideally, you want to obtain several quotes at the same time. It’s possible to do this by getting on the phone and going through your qualifications with several lenders in a short time. But it’s probably easier to do it online.

Advantages of online mortgage quotes

All competing lenders have the same information, so quotes are meaningful

You can do this without furnishing your social security number

You only have to complete the process once

Lenders need the following information

Estimated credit score

Property value (or sales price)

Loan amount

Property use (primary residence, vacation home or rental)

Property type (single family, manufactured, condo, multi-unit, etc.)

If all lenders have the same information, you should be able to accurately compare mortgage quotes.

What is APR, and what does it tell you?

If you just order up a bunch of mortgage quotes without providing any direction to the lender, you might end up with something like this for a 30-year fixed mortgage:

Lender A: 4.85% rate, 3% origination charge, $1,000 fees

Lender B: 5.15% rate, 0% origination charge, $1,500 fees

Lender C: 5.25% rate, 0% origination charge, $0 fees

Which is the better deal? It’s not obvious. However, when mortgage lenders quote you an interest rate, they must by law also disclose the loan’s annual percentage rate, or APR. The APR incorporates both the upfront cost of a loan as well as its interest charges, expressed as an interest rate you can compare across different offers.

For a $200,000 loan, the APRs might be as follows:

Lender A: 5.152%

Lender B: 5.216%

Lender C: 5.250%

Many mortgage advisers and writers recommend that you just choose the offer with the lowest APR. That could be wrong.

Related: What APR Can’t Tell You

What mortgage APR doesn’t tell you

The mortgage APR calculation has a few shortcomings that could be costly if you rely on it exclusively when making a mortgage decision.

The APR in the above example clearly points to Lender A’s offer as the best deal. But consider the first shortcoming of the APR calculation: It assumes that you’re going to have the loan for 30 years. Yet many borrowers don’t keep their loan for ten years, and first-time buyers often sell or refinance even sooner.

Lender A requires an upfront investment of $7,000. For a $200,000 loan, the payment for Lender A’s loan is $1,055. For Lender C, the payment is $1,104, a difference of $49 per month. It takes almost 143 months to make up that extra $7,000 paid upfront. If you don’t know how long you’ll have your home, and the break-even point is many years away, the loan with the lowest APR isn’t necessarily the best deal. Here’s what the APRs would be if the term of the loan was just ten years:

Lender A: 5.600%

Lender B: 5.313%

Lender C: 5.250%

When the term is shorter, the loan with the lowest upfront costs becomes cheaper.

APR also doesn’t readily compare loans with different terms. For instance, a 15-year fixed loan vs. a 30-year fixed loan, or a 30-year fixed loan vs. a 5/1 ARM. APR also doesn’t reliably tell you what an ARM would cost, because it assumes that financial conditions remain the same as they are the day of the disclosure.

A better way to shop for the best mortgage rates

Instead of simply selecting the mortgage lender with the lowest APR, request quotes based on a specific interest rate — for example, 4.75 percent. Just ask each lender to quote you the costs of a loan with a 4.75% interest rate, and then consider the lender that provides the lowest costs.

Alternatively, you can ask each lender to prepare a quote based on the amount you wish to pay. You might ask them to quote a loan with zero points and fees, or one with one percent in origination charges and no other fees. Then just consider the loan with the lowest interest rate. That’s an easy way to find the best mortgage lender.

Review your mortgage quotes slowly

To find the best mortgage rates, review multiple quotes from competing lenders. Lenders normally provide you with either a Loan Estimate, which is a government-mandated form and obligates them to the charges listed, or some kind of “worksheet” or “scenario.” The worksheet comes with fewer consumer protections and does not obligate the lender to honor the charges listed. That said, most lender quotes are reliable.

Related: In-house Mortgage Financing (Pros and Cons)

How long is a mortgage quote good? Perhaps not long, given that mortgage markets are like stock markets, constantly changing. Your lender is not committed to a quote until you actually lock in the interest rate. Lenders do have to quote real rates offered to borrowers who are ready to lock in — no baiting and switching allowed.

How to find the best mortgage lender

While finding the best mortgage rate is important, the mortgage processing experience is also crucial. An inefficient mortgage lender can cost you money if the loan fails to close on time. You can even lose the property you want. And you should not have to work harder on your loan than the person getting paid to originate it. So get a couple of competitive quotes, and then see which lender is the best fit for you.

Here are four things to assess when evaluating your lender:

1. Responsiveness

Your lender should return your calls or messages promptly — within an hour most of the time. And he or she should communicate in the manner you choose. If you text, your loan professional should text you back. If you call, or send a message asking someone to call you, you should get a call in return. It’s not easy to work with someone who goes dark when you need answers, or a tone-deaf provider who inundates you with unnecessary status updates.

Related: Documents Required for a Mortgage in 2019

2. Communication

A great mortgage lender doesn’t just take your order. He or she should be asking you questions — about your credit rating, about your time-frame, and about your priorities (lower interest rate, lower payment, minimal out-of-pocket costs, faster payoff, etc.) You should feel comfortable asking questions about the program and the process, and discussing potential problems like credit issues or coming up with your down payment.

3. Knowledge

Your lender should be able to make recommendations about products, and be able to tell you why a particular loan is right for you. And your risk tolerance and time frame are important: Yes, you can get a lower interest rate with a 5-year adjustable mortgage. But that’s a poor trade-off if you don’t plan to leave your home for ten years and you are concerned about future interest rate changes.

A good loan officer or mortgage broker should be able to explain the required disclosures in plain English. If he or she doesn’t understand them well enough to avoid jargon, find someone else. And check out the licensing information with the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System & Registry (NMLS). Look for mortgage lenders in your state that are licensed, with no disciplinary actions on file, and possessing at least a few years of experience.

4. Problem-solving

A great lender stays on top of your file and makes sure that everything gets done on time. He or she makes sure that all requirements, including your appraisal, inspections, flood certification, are met. Your lender should stay on top of requests from the underwriter and keep you in the loop about your progress. If something comes up in underwriting, a great lender can assist you — from writing a letter of explanation to switching programs to helping you calculate your self-employment income.

How to shop for a mortgage?

Shopping for a mortgage means first locating the best mortgage rates. Then, narrow down your list of candidates and find the best mortgage lender for your needs. What you want is an effective team working to get your loan processed fast, and at an affordable cost.

Originally Published on HSH.com

[bnymedic]

First responder suicide – PTSD, or something else?

Its 1:30am. I sit on my computer in complete darkness, having just slept for the past 10 hours. As a Paramedic in a suburb of a relatively small US city, I work 12 hours shifts for 4 straight days. I get 4 days off to recuperate after that, and at this point in my career those days are essential for my survival. Many of my co-workers are not lucky enough to be able to stop at just 4 days, and must work additional overtime shifts in order to make ends meet. The private EMS industry has relatively low wages nationwide. We are the “red headed step child” of emergency services, often hiding in the shadows of police officers, firefighters, and nurses. There is no such thing as a “typical” shift when working in EMS. There are the occasional shifts where I will sit in the parking lot of the local convenience store chain for 12 straight hours without picking up a single patient. The glow of my cell phone screen illuminating my face for each passing person to see the life draining out of my body. The boredom sets in after hour 2.  My legs and butt hurt. I am hungry, but I can’t tell if its true hunger or just my body telling me to get up and move. I decide to walk inside to browse the aisles of colorful treats, getting nauseous at the thought of eating “lunch” out of a gas station at midnight for the 3rd day in a row. Despite my disgust, I walk outside with 2,000 or more calories of junk food at a time in an attempt to eat myself to death. “Ill be diabetic by the end of the week” I say to my partner as I open my fudge dipped granola bar. As the career of a first responder goes on, most quickly start to pack on the pounds like a bear preparing for winter. Company policy prevents you from sleeping during your shift, so your food (if you can call it that) is washed down with 16oz of your favorite energy drink to keep you awake and ready to pick grandma up off the floor when she attempts her 2am bathroom run. I have palpitations from all the caffeine. Hopefully one day those PVC’s turn into an arrhythmia and the lord takes me. “Anything to get out of this job” I say, as I polish off my second monster of the night.  Morning rolls around. 50mg of benadryl will help me fall asleep after drinking energy drinks all night long. I have severe shift sleep disorder. I am depressed. I just want to sleep. I wake up ready to go after just 4 hours of sleep. Great. Another night of pounding monsters. I punch in 15 minutes early for my next shift and am assigned a call before I am even scheduled to start. I am the only ambulance available in the surrounding 15 square miles of suburbia, and that trend will continue for the next 12 hours. Call after call, I don’t have time to finish my paperwork before being sent on the next run. Its 11pm and dispatch calls my unit number for the 5th time today– “With the fire department for a 1 year old post choking”. I have taken 50 calls of the same nature before and say out loud– “Great, another bullshit call”. Every day, nervous parents call 911 over the slightest cough or sniffle which eventually numbs you to the potential of a true pediatric emergency. Its never a real emergency. Until it is. Rolling up on scene after the fire department, I grab my house bag and begin to waddle towards the low income apartment building for the third time this week. I think – “I should have brought the tablet for a signature so I don’t have to walk back outside”. Suddenly, a firefighter rounds the corner carrying a limp child like he is holding an offering platter. “That’s not good” I blurt out , going from zero to 100 in the snap of a finger. The firefighter tells me the child was eating chicken and rice when he began to choke.  As my partner digs out the pediatric bag valve mask that has been sitting unused in the house bag for an unknown number of years, I set up the suction, only to find an unresponsive, apneic child with a clenched jaw. “That doesn’t make sense” I think to myself as I try to peel apart his tiny jaw without any luck. Thank god– he has a gap in his front tooth that fits a small, 12fr suction catheter. I start to go through the motions. Is he seizing? Nope. Any trauma visible or reported? No. Mom was asked again– and again says the child was sitting up, eating, and suddenly started choking. What is going on here? With little to be done on scene, I rush to the small local hospital, nervous that the next squeeze of the bag could lodge a piece of food in this kids airway. I am getting good air exchange but his spo2 isn’t amazing. He must have aspirated. Great news. He is now moving his arms, and his eyes just opened. Wait, why is his jaw still clenched? That’s not great news. This kid hasn’t made a noise. What the fuck is going on. As I roll the stretcher into the small emergency room closest to the scene, I am greeted with that dreaded sentence from the ER Physician– “why did you bring him here and not children’s hospital”.  I bite my tongue– its not the time to have that fight. The kid is now posturing. A few minutes go by and the doctor asks me to get my laryngoscope because the emergency room is not currently stocked with the proper pediatric equipment. Maybe he was right. The thoughts start rushing through my head– “they are going to kill this kid. I should have just risked it and bypassed. It was only an extra 7 minutes or so further”. As I sit there and wait for the next order, new thoughts take over. “Someone shook this kid. There is no other explanation”.  Hypertensive, bradycardic, posturing. But mom said he was choking on rice? Where would she get that from? Hmm. She doesn’t seem as concerned as a mother should be. She answers a text message while being questioned by the police.  She has yet to ask anyone how her son is doing. The texts start to come in to my phone. “Are you ok?”. “I hear you had a bad call. You guys ok?” “WTF was that all about?”. I am fine. Any provider who plans to have a lengthy career has to distance themselves from their patients. I can think back to every “bad” call I’ve taken, and never once have I been able to recall processing a patients face. Its not important. What they look like is irrelevant to my job. Its the circle of life. Some people live, some people die. Its my job to try and make that circle a little bit bigger if I can. Sometimes you are successful, sometimes you aren’t. You have to come to terms with that early on. Minutes after calling in service from restocking, the radio chimes my unit number again. “Cold response to the fitness center for a hand laceration”. I arrive on scene to find a psych standing out front in his blue paper clothes, clearly having been to an emergency room at least once today. “Hop on in buddy– take a seat” I say as I shake my head. We drive him 3 blocks down the street to the same emergency room we left just a couple hours prior. I am not greeted like one would expect. Not with “Hello”, not with “whats the chief complaint”. I am greeted with a sentence that is never good news. “Did you hear?”. Our child from earlier had been emergently transferred 6 miles away to the childrens hospital by a specialty transport team. The news from them was not good. “That kid – he has a brain bleed”. My suspicions were confirmed. He was never choking. Someone hurt this kid and tried to cover it up. I know how to handle this, because its not even the first time this situation has happened to me. People hurt kids often enough that I am not even shocked. Stories like this don’t make the news *for a reason*. People cant handle stuff like this. No one needs to know that savages live in apartment 3. Some people have to know though. WE have to know. Its not OK. I talk about suicide often. My previous partner was a veteran and has PTSD from being deployed overseas. He has had many friends commit suicide after returning from war, and was concerned about my mental health. That should concern me. He would ask me once a week– “Are you sure you are ok?”.  My little comments here and there come off as jokes to most people. “Id rather die than come into work tonight”. “Pull out in front of this semi truck– we wont feel a thing I promise”. “Stage for police? Fuck that. I hope I get shot”. In reality, its not a joke. I am not suicidal at this point in my life– I am apathetic about living. I’m not going to take my own life, but I am definitely not excited when I wake up each morning. This feeling has slowly crept up on me over my almost 10 year career as a paramedic. I tell myself daily that I need to get out before its too late. What will be the breaking point where I become truly suicidal?  I have to answer one question before I leave. “Where will I go?”   I am burnt out. Everyone says “go to nursing school”, but the passion– the fire inside that makes you want to help people has been extinguished for years. Where can you go at 30+ years old with a paramedic certification and no useful degree. I have made financial commitments at my age that makes starting from scratch somewhere at entry level wages an impossibility. What can I do? Where can I go? I am stuck. This job is like quick sand, and I’m up to my shoulders. If I struggle much more it will be above my head. We get to see what goes on behind the curtains of society. How much would you enjoy a magic show if you knew how the magic was performed? That is what life is like for many first responders. Members of the general public get to wear blinders during their day to day lives. There are people who post rants to facebook if the garbage man didn’t put their garbage can back in the correct spot. A terrible day for a typical person is a flat tire on the way home from work. They have no idea what happens in their town or city on a day to day basis. They have NO IDEA that 3 doors down, a husband beat the shit out of his wife for the 4rd time this year and she wont tell the police what happened. They have NO IDEA that people call an ambulance from the parking lot of an emergency room because they don’t want to wait in the waiting room.  They have NO IDEA that someone in apartment 3 just hurt their baby and tried to cover it up. But we know. We see it all. I have talked with a lot of people who have similar feelings. Its due to me being so open about my apathy towards life. People who I see every day, smiling at their coworkers and telling war stories and laughing. You would never guess these people were at the end of their ropes– fighting off their own demons. “Make sure they have bagpipes at my funeral”. I don’t try and talk these people down because they don’t want help. How could I help anyways? You cant just “un-know” the things we know. These people just feel comfort in the fact that they aren’t alone. I have been lucky that none of these people have taken their lives yet. I know the day is coming. Its been a long time since a co-worker has committed suicide, and the statistics say we are over-due. How will I handle it?

[bountyofbeads]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/for-trump-ukraine-is-a-story-of-personal-resentment-and-political-opportunism/2019/10/04/a256eb70-e6d8-11e9-a6e8-8759c5c7f608_story.html#click=https://t.co/LKYIVt5IyE

What Trump is doing is the literal definition of treason!!!#VoteBlue2020

“The president linked support for an embattled ally to what he called ‘a favor’ that would help him attack political opponents. If this behavior is acceptable, there really are no rules left.” And if it doesn’t lead to impeachment, that power is dead.

For Trump, Ukraine is a story of personal resentment and political opportunism

By David Ignatius | Published October 4 at 6:17 PM | Washington Post | Posted October 5, 2019 9:15 AM ET |

Through all of President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, he has rarely focused on doing the job for which he was elected — steering the foreign policy of the United States. Instead, for Trump, Ukraine has been a continuing story of personal resentment and political opportunism.

A narrative of the Ukraine affair, drawn from conversations with some of the principals, text messages released by the House and other documentation, solidly supports the claim of the still­anonymous whistleblower that “the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”

For pro-Trump Republicans, Ukraine is ground zero for complaints that Trump has been unfairly persecuted. They saw Ukrainian allegations in 2016 about Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as part of a drive to undermine Trump’s bid for the White House and then reverse the election result through what Trump keeps insisting is a “witch hunt” of “endless investigation.”

Ukraine is a chip on Trump’s shoulder. So when he saw an opportunity to turn the tables and use Ukraine against former vice president Joe Biden, his leading potential Democratic rival in 2020, he grabbed it. As the narrative shows, he bent the tools of office to his personal political purpose.

Biden deserves some blame, too. Putting aside the false Trump conspiracy theories about him, Biden used poor judgment in playing a roll on Ukraine policy while his son Hunter was working for Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Either the son should have quit, or the father should have shut up. Denying this obvious fact only weakens the Democrats’ case against Trump.

Trump’s resentment of Ukraine — and his disinterest in the country’s fight for freedom against Russia — appears to begin in 2016, when Ukrainian officials were sharing information about payoffs to Manafort with reporters, Hillary Clinton supporters and FBI officials. (Manafort was eventually convicted of crimes including fraud and money laundering and sentenced to 7½ years in prison.)

The idea that Manafort’s troubles were a Ukrainian-Democratic plot surfaced in a January 2017 piece in Politico, which quoted Andrii Telizhenko, a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, complaining that “the embassy worked very closely” to provide information about Manafort to a Clinton supporter. More than two years later, in May 2019, Telizhenko would meet with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, as he was accelerating his efforts to gather dirt about Biden and other Democrats. “I can’t tell you a thing about the meeting,” a hush-hush Giuliani told The Post in a May 24 article.

Trump cared little about Ukraine’s battle against Russian proxy forces. But he softened when then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroschenko visited the White House on June 20, 2017, and offered to buy what became $80 million in Pennsylvania coal.

The coal purchase rang a political bell for Trump. In July 2017, he announced the appointment of Kurt Volker, an experienced diplomat, as special representative on Ukraine. Volker began meeting quietly with Vladislav Surkov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s emissary, to hammer out a deal to stabilize eastern Ukraine. Backed by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Volker also pressed Trump to sell Javelin antitank missiles and other weapons to Ukraine to gain leverage in the talks.

Volker met with Surkov four times, in Minsk, Belgrade and a final session on Dubai in January 2018. By the last meeting, the two diplomats explored an agreement for deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping mission in eastern Ukraine, local elections, an amnesty plan and a pathway to eventual stability, according to a State Department official. Surkov said he would send a paper outlining Russian views on this formula, but he never did. The back channel proved a dead end.

The Trump administration had  decided in December 2017 to sell 210 Javelin antitank missiles to Ukraine, at Mattis’s urging. For Trump, it was more a matter of marketing U.S. weapons abroad than taking a firm stand against Russia, say several former U.S. officials.

By 2018, the White House had become obsessed with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian election interference. “Trump had a deeply negative image of Ukraine. ‘They’re all corrupt, and they tried to take me down,’ ” recalls the former State Department official.

Sensing the political resentment, Poroschenko apparently decided to remove an irritant. A May 2018 article in the New York Times reported that Ukraine had halted its investigation of Manafort and its cooperation with Mueller.

After the Mueller investigation finally concluded with the released report in April, Trump and Giuliani saw Ukraine as a place to settle political scores — and perhaps damage Biden. The pliant Poroschenko had been replaced by President Volodymyr Zelensky, elected that month. A new influence game began.

Trump’s leverage on the Ukranians was the military package, which had grown to $391 million. As Zelensky struggled to form his government in spring and early summer, he was counting on that aid.

But in July, just as Zelensky was beginning his outreach to Washington, military deliveries were halted. When Volker and others questioned the holdup at an interagency meeting July 18, no explanation was given, but it soon became clear the order came from the White House. Volker protested to his colleagues: “We have to keep this aid moving, This is important for our negotiating position with Russia,” the State Department official recounts. But the stall continued.

Trump wanted something very personal and political before he would offer congratulations to Zelensky and unfreeze the military aid. Hoping to break the logjam, Volker had breakfast on July 19 with Giuliani and later texted him to introduce Andrey Yermak, a close Zelensky adviser, according to records released Thursday by House investigators.

That same day, Volker texted two senior U.S. officials: Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union, and William Taylor, the charge running the U.S. Embassy in Kiev. Based on what he’d heard from Giuliani, Volker explained what the White House wanted in the upcoming telephone call between Trump and Zelensky. “Most impt [important] is for Zelensky to say that he will help investigation.”

Volker warned Giuliani that the allegations about Biden were based on an unreliable informant, according to the State Department official. What’s astonishing is that Giuliani responded, “Yes, I know that,” said this source. But the call — and the plan to impugn the former vice president — went forward anyway.

Volker offered instructions to Yermak, the Ukrainian adviser, on July 25, the day of the call with Trump. Volker texted: “Heard from White House — assuming President Z [Zelensky] convinces trump he will investigate/ ‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.”

The proposed transaction became explicit later that day, when Trump telephoned Zelensky. Despite all Trump’s fluff about how the call was “perfect,” it was a naked power play. According to the rough transcript  released by the White House, Zelensky said, “We are almost ready to buy more Javelins” and Trump responded immediately: “I would like you to do us a favor though.” With that, Trump meandered through conspiratorial talk about Ukraine’s role in the 2016 campaign, and the “incompetent” Mueller, and “they say a lot of it started with Ukraine.”

And finally, the real plum: Would Zelensky talk to Giuliani about “The other thing. There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General [William P. Barr] would be great.”

The Ukrainians thought the call had gone well. But in an Aug. 9 text to Volker, Sondland cautioned: “I think potus really wants the deliverable.”

The Ukrainians didn’t press Volker about the aid suspension until Aug. 28, when Yermak texted Volker a story from Politico about the cutoff. The squeeze tightened when Trump canceled a trip to Warsaw where he would have met Zelensky on Sept. 1. Was there an implied deal here, U.S. diplomats wondered.

Here’s how Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Kiev, put it in a Sept. 1 text to Volker and Sondland: “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” To which Sondland responded obliquely: “Call me.”

Taylor warned Sondland in a Sept. 9 text: “The message to the Ukrainians (and Russians) we send with the decision on security assistance is key. With the hold, we have already shaken their faith in us. Thus my nightmare scenario.” The military aid was finally released in mid-September.

The Ukraine story, like everything about that country, has a gnarled, murky past. But this one isn’t complicated, really. The facts — what people said and did, in confirmed reports — are clear. The president linked support for an embattled ally to what he called “a favor” that would help him attack political opponents. If this behavior is acceptable, there really are no rules left.