Adelaide: A Novel

“It had become a pattern. […] It had little to do with low self-esteem and everything to do with control. There were few things more intoxicating to Adelaide than locking eyes with a stranger, running her tongue along his bottom lip, and abruptly leaving the bar, or his flat, or wherever when she decided she was ready to go. Adelaide had found agency in her twenties that she’d lacked in her teens (that had been stolen in her teens, really), and she enjoyed using it.”

Adelaide’s dating patterns provide insight into her character. This passage of expositional flashback offers background information about how she perceives romance and her romantic self. She derives a sense of empowerment from the passing sexual encounters depicted in this passage. In turn, the passage creates a contrast between Adelaide’s romantic past and her romantic future with Rory.

“Rory made cups of peppermint tea, which they drank sitting cross-legged on his bed, whispering and giggling like children. They kissed and cuddled and talked as their noses touched. It was innocent, special—so unlike the interactions Adelaide was used to having with men.”

Rory’s self-presentation blinds Adelaide to his true character. He knows how to make a woman like Adelaide like him; he is charming and stands out to her. However, the innocent nature of their early interactions does not accurately convey Rory’s interest in a relationship. The passage thus foreshadows Adelaide’s disappointed fantasies.

“Memories would bubble to the surface and seep into Adelaide’s psyche, impossible to process and even more impossible to ignore. She would try to sift through them and pinpoint when it changed. To figure out when, exactly, their relationship went from sweet, tender first love to pulled hair and pressure. Immense pressure. Every kind of pressure. She never really made sense of it.”

Adelaide’s sexual and emotional trauma complicate her capacity for intimacy. Even when she likes the person she is seeing, Adelaide is reminded of her abusive ex-boyfriend, Emory Evans. Emory not only hurt Adelaide when they were together but also confused her understanding of love and sex.

“Sitting on the Northern line, Adelaide felt herself sink into the space between relief and disappointment. Her anxiety had ebbed, but not fully—there was no peace or warmth in this. She tried to collapse that space and push herself toward relief, toward excitement. Toward thoughts of what she should wear […] She told herself she was happy, that things were good.”

Adelaide repeatedly tries to convince herself that her relationship with Rory is good because she’s afraid of losing him and her romantic dreams. When Rory resurfaces after bouts of silence, Adelaide takes him back. Instead of validating her hurt and confusion, she dismisses them for the sake of the relationship.

“Still, she’d expected Death; prepared for it, even. But she had not expected this. Adelaide could barely wrap her mind around how neatly the pieces of her life had begun to fit together: The job; the love interest; the perfect, rain-soaked city. How lucky she was to exist in this reality. How terrified she was of this luck running out.”

Adelaide’s relationship with Rory grants her the illusions of accomplishment, contentment, and success. The start of the relationship coincides with other positive changes in Adelaide’s life, and she mistakenly regards Rory as a positive change, too. She doesn’t want to interrogate him or their relationship because she doesn’t want to dismantle what she thinks is a fulfilling and worthy dynamic. Her fear of loss and her desperation for happiness complicate her Journey Toward Self-Acceptance and reveal the Complexities of Unrequited Love.

“Adelaide had not fallen in love slowly, or carefully, or with intention. She had fallen in love the same way one slips at the grocery store, despite the CAUTION: WET signs lining any given aisle—quickly, accidentally, and fully aware of the mess into which she was getting herself. But it didn’t matter. She’d loved Rory Hughes instantly and with a fervor that was all-encompassing, reality-altering, seemingly nonsensical. There was something so ineffably special about him. She never wanted anything, or anyone, to hurt him again. Ever.”

Adelaide’s intense feelings for Rory keep her from caring for herself. She is so consumed by her love for Rory that she prioritizes his needs and comfort over her own. She doesn’t care that the relationship is imperfect because she’s learned to put her partner’s needs over her own. The relationship distracts Adelaide from Confronting Mental Health Conditions and her Journey Toward Self-Acceptance.

“The only element that was clear and distinguishable was Rory Hughes. He was guarded and noncommittal, sure, but something inside of Adelaide knew this was it. He was it. The beginning and the end; the alpha and the omega and her soul mate—she was all but sure. This was the person with whom she was meant to live her life, no matter how short that life, or her hair, might turn out to be.”

Adelaide’s involvement with Rory distracts her from her personal dreams, goals, and desires. When her friends start talking about their future plans, Adelaide realizes that she doesn’t know where she’ll be in the next five years. Suddenly, in the context of Rory, her degree, city, and job feel inconsequential. She adopts Rory as the sum of her life because her cultural expectations and experiences have taught her that this is what it means to be in love.

“She was also afraid, secretly and selfishly, that perhaps she would never be loved like that. That no one—not even Rory Hughes—would drop to his knee on the Brooklyn Bridge, or anywhere else, and ask her to spend forever with him. (Why would they? she asked herself.)”

Adelaide’s emotional response to Eloise’s engagement illustrates her pain and loneliness. Adelaide is happy for Eloise because she loves and supports her. At the same time, Eloise’s happiness underscores Adelaide’s discontentment. Adelaide wants the kind of love Eloise has but doesn’t know how to achieve it or why she is still waiting for it. Because she still believes that she’s unlovable, she blames herself for her discontentment and unrequited love.

“She was determined to make him love her. (How could he not love her, after all of this?)”

Adelaide sees love as a goal and achievement. She believes that, as with a degree or job, if she pursues her lover with enough energy, she can win his attention and approval. This passage underscores the Complexities of Unrequited Love and reinforces the imbalanced power dynamic in Adelaide and Rory’s relationship.

“Because if we knew, if we honestly knew the price of love was grief, we’d never do it. We’d never succumb in the first place. And once we do—once we fall in love, against our better judgment, with something or someone—we never want to let go. No matter how many dinners they miss, how many texts they ignore. None of it matters.”

Adelaide puts her emotions aside to comfort Rory after Nathalie dies. She acknowledges the painful nature of the situation but also believes it’s important to sacrifice her comfort for the sake of Rory’s. The syntax, cadence, and tone of the passage suggest Adelaide’s urgency and sincerity. This is how she understands love and is the only way she believes she can relate to Rory.

“It’s all right, Adelaide, Bubs said. I get it. It’s been a really, really shit week. And you’ve got a tough job in all this.”

Bubs is a foil for Rory. Adelaide initially gives him little thought because she doesn’t know him well. Over time, however, he proves to be a good friend to Adelaide. Unlike Rory, he is attentive, perceptive, and empathetic. He validates Adelaide’s emotions where Rory actively undermines them.

“He was still aloof, still unreachable at times. But he was also, suddenly, demanding of Adelaide. It led to a mix of emotions she’d never before experienced—one that was near-impossible to articulate for fear of sounding selfish or bitter or self-aggrandizing. For fear of taking up too much space. Adelaide liked being needed, and she liked taking care of Rory, and she knew how to offer comfort and solace when he was depressed.”

Rory’s selfishness impedes Adelaide’s Journey Toward Self-Acceptance and contributes to her delay in Confronting Mental Health Conditions. Although Adelaide has sacrificed her free time and emotional energy to support Rory through his grief, he criticizes and belittles her. His behaviors reinforce her preexisting negative core beliefs and endanger her psychological stability.

“She was physically incapable of carrying an ounce more of Nathalie Alban inside of her—she already occupied every corner of Adelaide’s heart and mind. Be more like Nathalie, her brain would shout. Why the fuck aren’t you more like Nathalie? Maybe Rory would love you, if only you were more like Nathalie. Another voice, slightly quieter, asked this question: Why should you get to live when Nathalie couldn’t?”

Nathalie’s death causes Adelaide to question her self-worth. She realizes that Rory’s grief exists in direct correlation with his love for Nathalie. As a result, Adelaide feels more insecure. Her internal monologue grows increasingly negative the longer that she comforts Rory through his grief.

“The thing about Adelaide is that she felt everything. Truly, everything—except the things she most needed to feel. In high school, she lost a good friend to suicide. Adelaide cried briefly when she heard the news, and again at the funeral, and at no other point. I just trust he’s in the right place, Adelaide said. That he doesn’t hurt anymore. It wasn’t untrue, but it wasn’t the Full Truth. The Full Truth was that Adelaide buried this kind of hurt so deep in her bones she could barely feel it. She buried this miscarriage, too. Tucked it away.”

Adelaide’s response to her miscarriage suggests reluctance to owning her own pain. Adelaide experiences a distinct loss, but instead of giving herself the space to grieve, she buries the miscarriage the way she has every other pain in her past. Doing so ultimately leaves the pain unattended and allows it to fester in Adelaide’s subconscious. She doesn’t learn to confront this trauma until she begins her Journey Toward Self-Acceptance in a more concerted manner.

“That’s the problem, Rory, she said. I am carrying all of this. Every day. And it’s heavy, and it’s hard, and—rationally or otherwise—it impacts the way I view and perceive your actions.”

In this passage, Rory’s emotional withholding compels Adelaide to express her hurt for the first time. She finally finds her voice in this scene and articulates the ways in which Rory’s distraction and selfishness compromise her mental health and perception of reality.

“For the first time in months, Adelaide was not thinking of Nathalie Alban or Rory Hughes, of miscarriages or finding a flat or her overflowing email inbox. No, she was thinking of how good the morning breeze felt on the back of her neck and the bliss of drinking cold, crisp water. She was thinking of how much she adored every person in this house, most of all the jet-lagged bride upstairs. […] Her brain was going a million miles an hour, but she was thinking that sometimes, actually, it’s quite nice to be alive.”

Eloise’s wedding grants Adelaide an escape from her troubled relationship. Traveling to Greece and the United States with her friends temporarily reminds Adelaide of who she is. She is able to experience joy and peace for the first time since getting involved with Rory. This passage thus foreshadows Adelaide’s decision to end the relationship and prioritize herself.

“This was the danger of Rory Hughes, she realized. There were moments in which he was absolutely perfect—she couldn’t imagine ever floofing the hair, tracing the chin, running her tongue along the bottom lip of another man. There were parts of them that clicked together like puzzle pieces. (But there were also parts, jagged edges, that didn’t align at all.)”

Rory’s seeming perfection distracts Adelaide from the flaws in their relationship. Adelaide is capable of recognizing Rory’s inconsistencies, but she’s afraid to confront them because she doesn’t want to lose the positive aspects of their relationship. The parenthetical last line of the passage suggests Adelaide’s barely hidden fear of facing her relationship’s unsustainability.

“I’ve been holding my tongue for months now, but Rory? He doesn’t fucking love you, Adelaide. He doesn’t show up for you. […] I know that’s hard to accept, she continued. I know that’s a tough pill to swallow, but you’ve got to stop putting him above everything else in your life, okay? Enough already. It’s enough.”

Madison’s blunt words compel Adelaide to reflect on her relationship with Rory. Madison is the first person to articulate the inequalities and dangers in Adelaide and Rory’s dynamics. Her words are painful to Adelaide, but they ultimately awaken her to Rory’s failures and to her own mistakes.

“It hit her like a punch in the mouth. This was a different kind of envy. One Adelaide couldn’t directly communicate to anyone, really: She was jealous that Nathalie got to die. It was sick, she knew. Warped. Twisted. But it was the truth.”

Adelaide envies Nathalie because she has everything Adelaide believes she wants. When she was alive, Nathalie was beautiful, vibrant, and kind. She was intelligent and accomplished. Adelaide, in her state of depression, thinks that Nathalie has escaped the pain of living. She died with people loving and mourning her. Adelaide is ashamed of envying Nathalie; however, acknowledging these feelings brings Adelaide to an important turning point in her Journey Toward Self-Acceptance and Confronting Mental Health Conditions.

“You are not to contact her, you are not to show up at her door, you are not to download an Instagram account and anonymously like her photos. You are to stay the fuck away from Adelaide Williams. Is that clear?”

Eloise threatens Rory because she is protective of Adelaide. Eloise knows that Adelaide has a hard time standing up for herself and setting boundaries. She understands Adelaide’s tendency toward self-sacrifice and intervenes on Adelaide’s behalf. She recognizes Rory’s negative effects on Adelaide’s mental health and doesn’t want him to hold her back any longer.

“The light had gone out in Adelaide’s life the day she swallowed those pills. But together—with doctors and therapists and friends and family—she was building a staircase, placing proverbial candles at each step. Relighting the way.”

Adelaide’s suicide attempt ultimately brings on her Journey Toward Self-Acceptance. In the wake of her hospitalization, Adelaide tries to re-engage with her life. However, she doesn’t do so on her own. She learns to see asking for help as a sign of strength. With support, she can restabilize her life and rediscover herself.

“Adelaide tried to remind herself of this. Her grief was not as acute as Rory’s, but it was hers. Her experience seeking help was marked by far fewer obstacles than the average person’s, but it still had not been easy. Adelaide—the girl who felt everything—had to remind herself that it was, in fact, okay to feel.”

Adelaide learns how to live with her condition by Confronting Mental Health Conditions and finding support from mental health professionals. Before she found therapy and medication, Adelaide had a habit of discrediting her emotions and disregarding her trauma. When she gets help, however, she learns how to validate and claim her own experience.

“I don’t want you to believe you were a martyr meant to save him from himself, but think about the compassion you demonstrated. […] Think about the sacrifices you made and the kindness you showed him at a fundamentally challenging time in his life. Maybe he wasn’t meant to enter your life, per se, but you were meant to enter his.”

Adelaide’s therapist, Meg, helps Adelaide recontextualize her relationship with Rory. Even months after the breakup, Adelaide wants to understand what happened between them and why. Meg challenges Adelaide to give herself more credit and recognize the good she did for Rory in spite of the harm he caused her. Meg thus compels Adelaide to accept herself and love her empathetic impulses.