Chapter 16: The Park

4 November 2025

Bishop’s Park was far enough from home to give a girl a sense of separation, but close enough for her to feel safe, even though she didn’t really want to be found. Olivia walked until the sounds across Putney Bridge slowed to a distant hum, her boots treading softly over the damp ground of the Thames Path. Here, amidst the towering oaks and the occasional geese, she didn't have to be anyone in particular. She could just be.

She found a bench tucked away near a cluster of cedars and pulled her phone from the pouch of her hoodie. The screen felt glaring and invasive in the presence of all this nature. She ignored a missed call from her mother – likely about something horribly important such as a misplaced yoga mat or how she forgot to properly make her bed – and opened her messages.

She tapped on the name Talia.

Talia was the only person in Olivia’s life who didn't make her feel like she was failing a social exam. Olivia and Talia were friends through secondary school, and they had stayed in close contact when Olivia went to UCL and Talia went to City. But the Reading Week break was her first chance to really reconnect for more than just a text or a two-minute FaceTime while darting from one lecture to the next. The Saturday night reunion over chai lattes at Drips & Dregs had been such a relief.

While the other girls in Olivia’s halls seemed to be constantly competing for attention and space, Talia was a vacuum of ego. She was devastatingly beautiful — the kind of girl people stopped to stare at in the quad — yet she moved through the world as if she were apologising for taking up air.

Olivia: Home is... a lot today. My mum is in 'project manager' mode. I feel like I'm a task she can't finish.

Talia: I’m so sorry, Livy. You aren't a task. You’re wonderful. I wish I had half your brains, maybe then I wouldn't feel so lost in these lectures.

Olivia: You aren't lost, Talia. You’re the smartest person I know. And everyone loves you.

Talia: They’re just being nice because I’m quiet. I looked in the mirror today and just felt... wrong. Like I’m a mess that needs fixing. I just want to find a way to be better. To be useful. Does that make sense?

Olivia stared at the message. Talia’s selflessness was like a lighthouse — always guiding others to safety, yet standing alone in the storm, battered by doubts she never let anyone see. Beneath that steady beam of kindness was a deep, unspoken insecurity, as if Talia believed she was a shipwreck waiting to happen

It wasn’t just humility though. Olivia knew that Talia was quietly convinced that she was fundamentally unfinished, a puzzle missing its most important piece. She couldn’t understand how someone as amazing as Talia could feel so inadequate. What hope is there for me then?

Olivia shared the ache in Talia’s words, the way they whispered, I’m not enough, even as the world marvelled at her grace.

Olivia: It makes sense. Sometimes I just want someone else to tell me what’s what, you know? To tell me exactly what to do so I stop worrying if I'm doing it right.

Talia: Exactly. I just want to be... right. For someone… Okay, enuff of that for now. I'm going to head to that new study group I was telling you about. I'll tell you how it goes?

Olivia: Be careful. Love you.

Talia: Love you more. Try to breathe, Livy. You're perfect exactly as you are (even if I’m definitely not!) x

Olivia locked her phone and let out a long, shaky breath. Talia was the kindest person she knew, yet she was haunted by the same doubt that plagued everyone else — the feeling that her "Self" was a project that was never quite finished.

As Olivia looked up from her phone, her gaze drifted toward an auburn-haired woman seated on a nearby bench. The woman wasn’t absorbed in a book, nor was she scrolling through her phone like everyone else seemed to be. Instead, she sat perfectly still, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her eyes fixed on the horizon with a clarity that felt almost otherworldly. There was something about her — something Olivia couldn’t quite name — that held her attention, like a magnet tugging at her subconscious.

Olivia found herself staring, not rudely, but with a curiosity she couldn’t suppress. The woman’s stillness was unsettling, yet impossibly alluring. She didn’t fidget, didn’t adjust her hair, didn’t glance around nervously as though waiting for something to happen. She was just there, perfectly at ease, as if she had found the very sense of peace Olivia and Talia were so desperately searching for.

For a moment, Olivia envied her. She didn’t know why, exactly. Maybe it was the way the woman seemed untethered from the anxieties that plagued Olivia’s own thoughts — the lingering doubts, the constant need to fix herself, to be better. Or maybe it was the way the woman’s presence radiated a quiet confidence, a stillness that felt almost inhuman in its perfection.

For a moment, Olivia felt a strange urge to walk over and ask her how she did it. How she managed to stay so perfectly still in a world that never stopped screaming. But the woman turned her head slightly, and for a fleeting second, Olivia thought she saw a flash of something in her eyes — not a colour, but a depth that felt like looking into a well.

Olivia looked away, a sudden chill running down her spine. She stood up, pulling her hoodie tighter, and began the long walk back to the house. Back to where her mother was likely still chopping her perfect salad for another of her perfect meetings, and her father would probably be studying one of his dossiers about the value of some acquisition, and the noise would be waiting to swallow her whole.