I must really be ready to come back to He's There.
I told myself that today I would start Chapter 40, imagining it may end up at most 10pgs, whatever day I even finished it. But instead, I finished it and it was 14 pages. Furthermore, I spent a combined seven hours working on it. Seven fucking hours for 14 pages. That's 2 pages an hour. And if you want to know the truth it's actually a faster pace than usual. I often can take up to an hour to write a page of HT because I get really critical or feel I have to revise while I'm writing it.
Anyhoo, the experience was more than I could have wished for - it blew my attempt at Ch40 when I did NaNoWriMo last year out of the water. It was not something I had to push myself to do - it was pushing me, and I was surprised that I was able to go back in and be so familiar with the characters. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though, because, while a year has passed since I've written anything, they've never left my mind. In fact, I've found that the Phantom seems to be a muse of mine, even stronger than Akira or Cosmo, other characters of mine who I think have really defined personas.
I think there was serious payback in saying "I'm not keeping chapters 40 - 42" and just getting my thoughts together from all that stuff to come up with a new continuation. The chapter is hella strong, and, as I said earlier, what's good; what needs to be kept from these now cut chapters, WILL be kept and incorporated where they fit.
Also, another thing that was kind of amazing was that it seems like my writing for HT from now on is going to be even more matured than it already was. Stylistically, and the first part of this chapter is a bit on the PG-13 side, if you know what I mean. :) I don't write physical relations that well, but it still satiated some of my thirst for chikachikabangbang between those two.
No, but really -- all the development I had for this couple, and for Erik, which came to me throughout the past year... it's in here. They are fleshed even further - they're exploring the themes and philosophies I wanted the story to get at. And it was a very natural thing for me, somehow, to do the dialogue and to think for Erik, as well as Lily, but she has less to really say. He truly shines. He's truly mad. And he's truly "in love."
Well, I'm excited, so this is full of unchecked typoes, probably. Deal! This is not going on FF.net until I've got a few chapters to post per week. You are seeing a preview as a VIP!
HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 40 - Eclipsed
The kiss poisoned me and set my blood afire. I always knew he was venomous, and every approach to me from behind was a warning of that, but I had made well known that warnings were just invitations. Tonight, especially, all I wanted to do was explore what it seemed I shouldn’t; do everything one would find too bold, just for the thrill.
Though I kept my hands low, the back of his coat folded within my fingers. My whole body was warming from the contact, my senses heightened, and the arm around my back was tightening. Inside, I felt I was falling head first... and so at peace with that. I knew the landing would be soft. Just as I had many times imagined a spider's legs carefully turning its prey, he spun me so well.
I wanted to be devoured. There was no winding down on the way back. The both of us were so quiet returning, but my heart continued to race, and I knew we weren't done with each other. He was so unreadable, I couldn't tell if he was taking me straight home; if he had come to fight off this yearning easily and it was only me, feeling the tensest I had in my life. I let my own desperation make me vulnerable when I said I wasn't ready to go home yet, and he acted upon it like he was just waiting for the words. The car took a turn behind the theater again, and my heart raced more. If we had ever once been magnets of the same polarity, it was true no longer. Tonight, we were just an inch apart from snapping together.
That was a snap inevitable.
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What happened that night, I would remember later when things were not so sound between us, and it would hurt to remember, but when I returned to my room, I was restless in afterglow. I was in a constant state of being struck by lightning – the lightning, how intense my feelings must’ve been all this time. The lightning, having such contact with another person…
I hadn’t seen him so human before and, come to think of it, I hadn’t seem myself so human either. Driven, driven by such a simple desire that claimed those I could never relate to before, we hurried for that room. He never broke out of himself; his posture remained so straight, and he held my hand politely, if only a little tighter than usual. However, the door closed behind me very quickly. Light disappeared, I had no vision of him, but I could hear him, waiting for me, and I delivered.
For a few minutes, he was very quiet and passive as I kissed him, but I felt for the bed behind me, lowered, and when I wrapped my arm around his shoulders, he crawled over me. The first thing he really did himself was cradle me with one hand and bury his face into my neck. It was a simple but powerful statement. The heat beneath his lips traveled, and I felt their course with my arms raised, surrendering my entire body. I wondered how it would be to behave so honestly with him, this way… with all the opposition towards us – when, really, we’d only stopped arguing a short time ago – but those things really couldn’t penetrate me, I found. His touch was so overwhelming, my brain hadn’t the room for anything else. I’d forgotten where we were and how late it was. The world became completely tactile, and he seemed to get a thrill from making me shiver. I turned him over and his fingers began to trail under my shirt, all the way down my back, then to my leg, bent at our side. As for me, I turned into something different in the dark. I caressed him and kissed him everywhere I could, maybe not the technique of someone experienced, but he sighed in satisfaction and the thought that he felt it alone fueled me to continue.
Though we’d finally snapped, neither of us really undressed. In retrospect, I could have, but I was more focused on the fact that every time I tried to reach for his collar, he took my hands away and distracted me. He sensed me reaching for it again and was about to gather me up, but I weighed him down and spread both hands over his chest so nothing more could keep me from doing what I wanted. He stopped reacting at all. It seemed to me a game that he had ever distracted me from this.
Finding my breath again, I placed my hand flat below his neck, and it was moved up and down as he found his. I still remember I undid five buttons before I thought to open his shirt, all agonizingly slow as I listened to him breathe. My hand stopped on the sixth button and finally ventured to what would soon make it retract, if only for a second. He continued to do nothing but bear witness, but I wasn’t deterred. I was strangely unsurprised when I realized scars invaded him all the way down. It was a whole surface of tender ridges. To my knowledge, none were painful to touch, but I knew they had to have been once. For a moment, I was distracted with a slight feeling of discomfort – I sat up and I thought about how shamelessly he talked of hurting himself – but I caught his heart beating and… I found something much more important.
Pretending this was my only discovery, I asked “you know your heart's beating a thousand times a minute?”
His answer, after a deep inhale, was “what of it?”
For a split second, I thought to myself “I know you so well, it’s ridiculous. You can’t hide from me anymore.” And I answered, “you’re quite good at pretending to be calm,” and my fingers rose along his chest to just below his chin. “Unfortunately, for you, I know exactly how to tell otherwise.”
Under my other hand, his chest flattened as he flushed out breath in amusement. I could sense the smile in the dark.
“And fortunately, for me, your method is…”
I don’t remember him finishing the sentence, but caught its meaning, and if it had continued much longer, I would’ve interrupted him anyway. I was still eclipsed by my hormones. I lowered to kiss above my fingertips, pressing my lips over a scar and steadying my chin long enough to feel the heartbeat again.
The moment still makes me shiver out of nowhere, wondering if I really meant what I thought I did by that action. It felt like an act of worship: my body lowered, my face down, my heart so in awe. The night was beautiful all the way through, but I felt unsure who that particular kiss was for.
I’m stating the obvious, but I was having a rough night. A rough week, a rough everything. He was the only thing I was happy about, and adamant about, and I suppose… when I had that revelation that “Erik” was not roleplaying… my mind didn’t go the direction it normally would have. It celebrated, for some reason. A person as alive as me, not within the pages of a book, was influenced, in everything he did, by the first person I ever fell in love with. I started to believe, more than I had before, that he channeled something I didn’t think could be channeled, and he should be admired for taking a journey so far down a path not many would take. The both of us had, and I thought at the time that it was worth it – absolutely amazing, even, that we had the capacity to do this, even while it had been a little scary.
We didn’t go much further than that. I got afraid, and it was so late. I lay next to him and, for a time, he still nuzzled me and combed my hair with his fingers, and pretended it continued all the way down to my waist. He had no idea what I was thinking about at the time. We had a relationship tainted by expectations, of ideas about the other that were more than just a bit on the fantastic side. I was going to have to be okay with the fact that to stay around “Erik”, to touch him as I had and still wanted to, was my need to feel closer to something he wasn’t entirely, even if I cared about him too…a lot. He had to know it was that way. And I surely had to know it was that way for me. He worshipped Christine, but he wanted me. I had somehow turned out to be her.
His situation, however, was not a “somehow”. He willed it. And I wondered… what does a person have to go through – why those scars? What leads someone, especially someone gifted by intelligence, and understanding, and talent, to saying “I want to leave who I am behind”? What happens to someone that they feel they must take on a fictional entity? And especially one known for their misery?
Was he miserable?
I had never really been able to pinpoint how Erik felt besides that he claimed to love me. He was always dodging questions, answering ambiguously, or acting like it didn’t even matter. On the other hand, he described an unfavorable situation with his comments about compassion and ruining his whole life. If he’d done that, like he said he did, I doubted it was all for me, or to capture my interest. I don’t think I would have kissed those scars if this had just been a roleplay. We’d only come this far because I knew he was seriously troubled, and rather than do anything about it, I just wanted to be with him.
* * *
I wasn’t running on a lot of rest. When the sun finally rose, I poured myself a large, uncharacteristic cup of coffee, but only the shell of me went to school. Inside, I was still on the roof. The air hitting my arms in the hallway was the breeze, the windows were the horizon, and the feeling that I was never alone these days was his presence right over my shoulder, about to clasp me around the waist and tell me how wonderful these weird stares were; how they made me somebody. How I was his Christine, and he was my Erik. It was like I was living in a fantasy world suddenly, but I let myself indulge because there was nothing else to enjoy.
In my seat, I wasn’t there anymore. I sat close to the door and far from the front and just… thought about total black, and his hands, and the way he tipped me back. I sometimes had to stop myself or I’d find my eyes glazed over and my heart racing all over again. Mr. Darelle knew I’d never feel that way about numbers. Really, all my teachers knew I wasn’t paying attention.
From here, I find it useless to describe school at all. I sat by myself at lunch the rest of the week. I suppose if anything was looked forward to, it was Humanities, but I couldn’t seem to have as much as fun as everyone else. I was so aware at school that I basically didn’t have friends. Sure, I’d see Giry in the hallway and we’d have short conversations, but she seemed to have gotten very busy and stopped getting on AIM or texting me. It made me lonely, but in a way I was grateful, considering the last conversation we had. I didn’t know if she was going to appreciate what I did with Erik for much longer, once she realized we were standing at the border, contentedly, like there was nothing more natural. I couldn’t casually tell her he couldn’t distinguish himself from his own character, and more, that I was just fine with that.
What I decided to do in replacement of friendship was text Erik, because he’d give me attention whenever I wanted it. Like every kid I had scorned in the past, I had my cellphone on silent somewhere easy to reach in my bag, just waiting for any small text message. He’d respond within the hour – if not, the minute – and he’d have conversations with me as I held the phone under my desk. He’d email me, too. He’d make me laugh. He’d make my face turn red. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could feel so passionately about me, but I was addicted to hearing about it. He knew exactly when I was off work and would send a message just to say I’d made it another day, then ask if I wasn’t too tired to see him again.
The truth is… I was too tired. I was exhausted. I didn’t want to do anything anymore because it kept me from having the energy to see him, or be creative in any way before him. I’d start falling asleep if I read in the bath tub. Tea made me rest my head on my textbook. The weather was depressing. I really did want to see him, but when I fell asleep out of nowhere, it was hard to get back up, wrap myself in sweaters, and head out that late at night. I was sick and tired of it being complicated, so I started having ideas for how to make him happy. Ones that involved quitting my job and telling Mr. Darelle I didn't need tutoring anymore even though I still had a D.
* * *
Lily,
Before I can go on another day I need to say this to you, because it's been driving me mad, and now that you're already angry with me, things can't get worse. I avoided being completely honest in the past because I respected your feelings and wasn't sure if what I thought was right, but now things are getting ridiculous and I'm probably the only one who will say something rational.
I knew he was up to something. Since day one. In fact it was you who said how strange it was that a stranger wanted to meet you at the theater building out of nowhere, and me who thought you were being too suspicious. Well.. I regret that now. And no, before you get any ideas, it was hardly because he wouldn't tell you who he was. I was teasing you. It was when he started telling you what to do and making you mad that I thought he had some nerve when he had met you like a month ago, or less than a month ago. You claim that that is part of the roleplay but he's just kept barging in to our personal lives and following even me and Paulina around. Who knows if you've even heard the full story, but it hasn't been that nice. It's only been “nice” for you. I got that. I believe you, I think he probably does a lot of nice things for you, but it's in a certain context which I do not know if you see. Which is that he is clearly obsessed with you. That's not good nor is it the same as having a crush. He is OBSESSED, and (I can't believe I'm about to compliment him) has done something really smart thinking if he talks to you as a phantom that you will listen to him. But you listen too much and that's why I get freaked out. That stuff about you being a weirdo --- it's crap. He's alienating you from us. All he ever does is pull you away, make you devote all your energy to him, believe God knows what. I only hear snipits from Paulina that don't make any sense. And yeah, Paulina's gotten on my nerves too, something just doesn't set right with me with how she worked her way around the both of us. I heard about how she has talked to him and tried to find things out about him but shit, I don't know her that well and sometimes I wonder if she's on his side or something, because she always encourages you to work things out with him.
If it were ever just a “roleplay” you would not be acting so serious about it. I don't want to be going around having fights with you but you seem like you're losing it. I'm not the bad guy. Okay fine, for argument's sake I won't call 'the phantom' the bad guy either, but you don't seem to have your guard up with him. You have your guard up with me but not at all with him, it makes no sense. It's frustrating because the more you just trust him and not tell the whole story to me, the more he'll take advantage of it. He's probably loving this, just reeling you in one day at a time, nobody to stop him... of course, you don't believe me at all. You've even ignored that he's scared me more than once. I don't know what else to fucking say because it's so obvious except I'm NOT trying to be the bad guy, but if you're just going to ignore me, I guess you have to figure it out on your own. Or maybe, since you listen to Paulina more than me, she will finally say something that takes into account reality and you will listen to her.
Well, those are my thoughts. Sorry that they actually come between us.
* * *
It was Friday, and I didn’t have work or tutoring. Everything was covered in frost, and slippery, but I walked down the hill hurriedly and relieved. He had invited me to see him. He asked, in a text quite out of the blue, what I wanted to do once I got there. He tempted me with physical touch quite a lot that week, if I were to visit, so much that I didn’t know what to do with my own desires. I told myself that wasn’t why I wanted a relationship, but if he took me in his arms as soon as he saw me, I couldn’t see myself putting up a fight. I prepared for it, even. I’d spread on scented lotion and was busy shaving my legs in the sink when, to my dismay, I received a message from him that he could not see me right away and he asked if I could wait a couple hours.
With a deep sigh, I obliged. I checked my email instead. When I received the above, I mostly skimmed it because I didn’t want to make myself pissed off, and I knew she would piss me off. But he kept pushing our meeting further and further, and I went back to the message and read it anyway.
It was hard to decide the best way to react. My instinct was to rip her a new one. She was wrong, wrong, wrong, about almost everything. The only thing she wasn’t wrong about was that Erik and I had no roleplay anymore, but that was not something I could admit and expect her to find my less crazy by doing so. It was a complete dead-end with her because our ideas were so different, and I spent the rest of my time waiting for him, pacing with my headphones; feeling trapped, like a dog waiting for a walk and pent up with energy, especially now that frustration was in the mix.
All I could think was “please take me out of this. Please make me feel loved, like I’m Christine, and not Lily.”
* * *
At the side of my house, I waited for him to appear. My shadow was just to my side, sharply cutting into the wall and moving just to its edge as I peered through a half-dead tree. I didn't know which direction he was coming so I kept glancing down each side of the street and my eyes ritually squinted to the darkened sidewalk at the other end. Headlights appeared from down the street and were approaching steadily. I stepped behind the tree to hide, but the light never passed, and an engine hummed softly at the curb. My cautious glance found the gold car and I escaped the cold quickly. When I opened the passenger door, he was a dark shape inside. The only thing much visible was a white hand over the arm rest.
I was shivering and my partially exposed legs had goose bumps, but he did not speak before stepping on it. Just as I was eager to sit and close my door, he was eager to abandon the main road and the streetlights. I rested my head against the window and eyed the digital numbers of the clock. Two in the morning. I'd plead for an earlier time but no dice. Last minute he delayed our visit another hour for an unknown reason, and his texts had steadily lost their punctuation. I was pretty frustrated with him, truthfully, but I was hoping for a second wind.
"I need some air, if that's alright with you. I promise we can come back if you get cold," he said eventually, eying the skirt below my coat. I quietly acknowledged and watched us head down the forest road, but my focus wandered to his hand, sort of hovering over the gear stick, wanting to close, then stretching its fingers, then completely still. The otherwise stiffness of him and the hard focus on the road made it look as though he was still alone in the car, or unaware of me.
The familiar path along the river passed us by and our car was traveling a narrow, rather claustrophobic street, where trees gradually dominated and all the lights from up above fought through the leaves to reach us. The road spilled into a small lot, and I could see the water just nearby as a strip of black. He parked the car in the furthest end, completely shaded, and before I had even unbuckled my seatbelt, he stepped out and walked away. He wasn't terribly far, but his back was turned and his arms were crossed. At first I didn't know what to do. Clearly something was wrong.
I stepped out of the car with some difficulty, as he had parked very close to a hedge. I was forced to sort of waddle sideways. Once I was out, I stood with my arms dangling a moment before deciding I wouldn’t approach him, so instead I stepped near the ramp and watched the river. It was deep below the cities on both sides, and the wind didn’t much reach it. It gave me a very solitary feeling until I checked behind me. Erik had come nearer and I looked to him for any word, but he just passed me and the ramp clanked by his steps. I followed without invading his space. He never stopped until he had ventured clear across. There, his eyes settled somewhere below him before they caught me standing there, and he needed only to show a simple reaction -- a hand turned and slightly raised -- for me to come forward. The hand reached past my flower clip and fixed some stray hairs, but that was as much as he did.
Though I tried very hard and kept my scarf tightly under my chin, the air was finding its way up my sleeves. If he would say nothing, I thought I could still enjoy his company by closing my hands around his arm. He let me, but it was with no reaction. I had showered, I had picked out a reasonable dress to be or not be in (not that I was ready for what you’re thinking), and this is what happened instead?
"You could’ve canceled, you know..." I tried to say, with some hint of humor.
"No, I'm actually very grateful you're standing next to me right now..." His voice reached my ear." It reminds me of my priorities; it keeps me from doing something... that I shouldn't do..." I waited for something more, in vein.
“Well then… I’m glad to be here for you,” I tried.
Nothing.
High above us the solid black shapes of trees, stripped of their leaves, stretched over the dark steel blue sky. The moon was lost behind clouds, and only a sliver, but I rested my eyes on it for a while, secretly monitoring Erik: listening to his breath and feeling for any movement. He very suddenly laid his gaze on me, paused, and he pulled his coat off, which shook my grip off his arm. "You're shivering. Take it." The offer startled me, but I brought it tentatively to my chest. The moment the coat was no longer in his possession, he lowered to the cement and crossed his legs. I bit my lip and lowered as well, absolutely certain he was going to find himself twice as cold as me at this rate, but he took no notice of my hesitance to do more than hold that coat awkwardly. I hadn't the faintest idea what use I could be at this point, even though he'd said he wanted me there. It was nothing like last we had seen each other. He’d made me feel so wanted all week, and yet it was so easy for him to look like he’d revoked all that. I knew it couldn’t be true, though.
"...Are you okay?" He made only a small sound to confirm, and the both of us knew it wasn't convincing. I put the coat on my lap. I wanted to rest my hand on him somewhere, so I raised it to his shoulder and rested my cheek on the other, hoping my warmth might thaw his heart, even just a little. "You don't seem it," I said, and I watched him for his answer.
"When I seem angry, it’s not always that I'm bothered – it’s a defense mechanism, to keep people away when I don't want to deal with them," he more mused than replied, quickly and under his breath. I didn't like the sound of it at all.
"Did I do something wrong?"
“No,” he snapped. My posture stiffened. "I'm sorry. It's not related to you at all." Before I could do anything else, he stood straight up again. "When I'm no longer frustrated, I'll treat you like you deserve."
"Then I should go home-"
-“No.” The only thing I thought to do was sit there, unprepared and a mite uncomfortable.
"I'm not sure how to comfort you," I told him honestly.
"You don't know your own effect."
I wanted to smile but here he was with his back turned to me, and the hands I wanted protectively around him were dropped to my lap and useless. After some time, he faced me and almost looked to be fidgeting, but it didn't last more than a few seconds.
“I’m very sorry that I had you dangling by a thread all day. I know you wanted me to accommodate your schedule. I was going to, but not everyone wants me to act in your best interests. Some are very intent on making a situation as unpleasant as possible, almost to deter me from doing anything-…” He began to spit the words somewhat aggressively under his breath, but paused, giving me a labored smile instead of finishing his sentence. “I won’t waste your time with that. You know already how much I need you to defy for the sake of your happiness, even when it seems very difficult.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I wish I could ask you, and be certain, that you won’t let anyone make you feel it’s not worth it to be who you really are.”
I fumbled with my words, and ended up with “I won’t,” though my eyes were wide and I didn’t see where this was coming from.
"Unfortunately, neither of us can trust your word yet because you haven't truly been tested. But you will soon, and... you'll hate it." The statement was matter-of-fact, almost cold. "You'll find yourself wondering if it's not easier to be beaten to shape.” I lowered my gaze to my hands over his coat, spread to warm my legs, but it wasn’t helping much. “You deserve a warning, that's all. But you're starting somewhere much closer to happiness than I was; a place where you're not wandering through darkness with nothing but hope that you're going in the right direction. I feel it's my duty to lead you through the safest path to what you want. You should know that you have me."
"You know we've been through this. I'm not letting anyone stop me from seeing you.”
"People are stopped most without their consent, Christine. And no offense to you at all, but… you’re very stoppable at this point. You don’t have a lot of power to do what you want without me." He seemed stern as his fingers curled, but he reached into his pocket and watched just behind me as another thought came. "Even my escape was almost impossible, and I still see it behind me, all the time.”
"Why do you look back, then?" He seemed surprised I asked.
"Why do you look back?" He put me on the spot, even though there were many reasons. I didn't think "Mariam" or "my parents" or "school" was what he was looking for. I watched him pull from his pocket a switchblade and it straightened my posture.
"You didn't answer me," I told him, watching the knife with uncertainty. He lowered in front of me and began to sharpen the knife. Nothing about this night seemed to be normal, so I just went with it.
He explained, calmly as he swiped the blade, "I am stuck here until you're ready.”
I knew this was an allusion to his attempt to make me leave my home and my comfort, and again all my heart could do was recoil. I watched him do as he did for a moment, noting a light from far off, reflecting in the blade onto the buttons of his vest. I tried to find the boldness I had earlier that week and summoned my most honest thought. "You're the only one desperate to escape, and I don't know why.”
“Because I saw what it was I needed to do. And whether it makes sense to anyone else, I could care.” He gave the blade a harsh strike. “To me, I found out how to become perfection, by the standards that matter. Those standards don’t happen to involve anything I used to do before this.”
It seemed more that he was talking to himself than to me, because he must have known I wouldn’t make the most sense of it. “And what are your standards for living?”
He smiled. “Well, I guess the staple is finding your purpose, but it otherwise deviates from person to person. I find myself preoccupied with control. Of my body, of my mind, and… most important, my actions.” He checked the sharpness of the blade with his finger and continued without looking at me. “I think the best way to get me to do something is to strongly oppose it, only because of a ridiculous prejudice… Provided you haven’t the place to tell me what to do…” He lowered his tools and looked me in the eye. “You know I would listen to you.” His focus lowered to his coat in my lap, and he smiled again. “You have no greater or more respectful friend in the world than I.”
I watched as a bit of him retreated, and smiled to nothing, but inside I wondered…
“Are you trying to say people ought to just rebel all the time, as if no one has anything good to say about what they should do?”
“No, I’m saying when people get together and define normalcy, it can be very oppressive to those with… I’m not quite sure how to say it.”
“…Weirdos?” I smiled, but he didn’t.
“I guess those with dysphoria of a sort. They’ve ended up in the wrong place and need to find the right place, and the right people. And… lucky for your friends, they have… no searching to do. It’s okay, though… I’m really-… See, you’ve made me feel better just by listening to me, even though I haven’t said anything useful.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ve done the same thing, many times, with you.”
“Are you cold?”
“Just a little,” I said. He seemed preoccupied in his head and didn’t catch that I was lying. He made his way back to the edge; to the fluctuating reflection of the sky just by our feet. I was behind him, and when I touched his shoulders, they felt so stiff. I rubbed his back very tentatively and watched the sky, pretending nothing was on my mind. After no discernible reaction, I peeked over his shoulder and his eyes opened quickly when he realized I had stopped. "You like that." I knew my voice captured my satisfaction. He gave me a weak smile. The pleasure of having seen him comforted led my arms around him and I laid my cheek to his back. I didn't let go for a long time. I liked to imagine he returned to resting his eyes. Eventually, I clutched his shoulders and leaned forward. "Am I making you tired?"
"I won't be tired for a while." My hold weakened. "But thank you." For a split second I entertained myself with the thought of reminding him of the rules about "thank you"'s, but a "you're welcome" was so strong in my head, I couldn't turn it into something like that.
After considerable silence, he whispered in that gentle, low voice that never came out of him during the day "tell me this won't be so rare in the future."
"Erik... for the thousandth time, I intend to spend much of my future with you." I smiled, although he couldn't see. "I love to be around you. I like what you're doing, and I think it's brave, even if I don't understand all of it. But so far I'm with you."
“Heh… If you keep that up, I'm afraid I'll never be able to let you go. I already need you more than I imagined I would."
"I could say the same."
"You didn't think you needed me before you knew me." I lost my interest in the view down the dock and took my head from his back… Slowly, I inched around him, enough to look him in the eye.
"I think I did, and that's what scares me."
"It doesn't need to scare you," he replied, softly, his eyes settling on me, seemingly admiring my features. Naturally, I had to look away from this attention so I could continue to string sentences.
"But I didn’t anticipate I’d ever know a person I wanted before I’d ever met them. I thought they’d stay in my head. It’s overwhelming. It’s like winning the lottery because you bought a ticket every once in a while, and -… I’m sorry, this is stupid.” He seemed to be waiting for me to finish my sentence, regardless. “Well, I don’t know what to do with the money.” My pause was his as well. “I’m totally done with this. This metaphor. It’s…” I sighed desperately, but he chuckled.
“I know exactly what to do with the money,” he asserted. I lowered my head and smiled, and before I knew it, he’d leaned forward to kiss me on the forehead. “I’m more afraid I’m going to have it revoked, and…” he paused, and I could no longer feel the words hitting my temple. “You know, it is kind of an awkward metaphor.”
“I told you!”
“Awkwardness is one of the reasons you’re endearing. Are you cold yet?” He asked into my ear.
“Yes, but… I’m afraid if I stop being cold, I’m going to realize how tired I am.” He situated himself for stance and reached for my hand. When we rose together, he assured me,
“We’ll go back and you can rest… downstairs. Perhaps you can stay again. I’d like that.”
“You know I can’t. My parents will have no idea what happened to me.”
“Well then I’ll make sure you stay up a while longer.”
He offered his arm and we returned to the lot, where he realized, now with a clear mind, that my side of the car was rather close to the bushes. "Don't," he started as I began to step forward. "Let me pull out." I watched this with quite a grin and opened the door after the car rolled in front of me. Inside, he pulled out a small book and was holding it in his hand while his other searched within his coat. It seemed to find what he wanted, but it paused when he saw me staring.
“Just a moment." The hand finally revealed a pen but hovered over the book in his lap.
"Uhm... alright." I nodded but had no idea what he was talking about. He just started scrolling, then paused, and shot me his sharp eyes. I may have flinched when he did.
"What are you writing?" I asked, but he never answered. He never again looked me face to face either, but between his bouts of scribbling I caught his focus on the hand to my side, or my knees closed together. When he closed the book, he only watched the steering wheel in front of him a moment before finding the keys between us and jabbing them into the ignition. The car rumbled as I looked him straight on. "Aren't you going to tell me?"
"I don't want to sound poetic."
He pulled out with a tiny smile and I shook my head a little. I resorted to looking out the window, watching my eyes in the reflection. I wanted to know. The car journeyed through the forest again and I caught sight of the glowing numbers on the dashboard. 2:47. It started raining as soon as we left.
He parked the car behind the theater again and looked at me after he turned off the engine. A black abyss seemed beyond the windows, but I was ready to open my door when the pattering on the roof grew twice as hard. He returned my apprehensive grin with an offer.
“It hasn’t been wet enough that I should have to carry you, but for whatever reason, or none at all, I’d be happy to.” He seemed utterly impish when he said it.
“I-I’m alright.”
“Okay.” He reached in the back and pulled out his umbrella, then disappeared for a second in that dark shadow of the theater where he had always chosen to hide the car. My door opened and what appeared to me first were his black eyes, wide with enthusiasm, and he leaned forward with the umbrella and offered his hand. …He was so angry just an hour ago. It was a weird thing, taking a tall step at the platform and watching him attempt to hold the umbrella upright while bowing underneath the railing, coat-tails dropping sideways.
Inside, lights started appearing little by little, but he stopped speaking to me. His playfulness was temporarily lost as he scanned the place, and hurried, seemingly skeptical that we were the only ones there. Perhaps those other insomniac friends made their rounds at 3:00, but I doubted it. He unlocked the back door before I’d even caught up to him, and once that room was lit, he reached into his pocket and the rest of the theater went black again. I noted a spiral staircase to our right as he closed the door quietly. He gestured for me to go first, so I climbed. At the second floor, I knew there that he had once invited me into the mirror. “Keep going,” he said, so I did. At the third floor, I asked where we were going.
"The observatory.”
"I'm serious."
The pushed the door in front of us in and I could only make out a number of shapes by the dim moonlight. I followed its source to a circular window at our end and my lips parted just a little. "It's only an attic," he said, as the light illuminated the shapes. "I only like to call it that... It makes it seem a little more important. Or maybe pretentious."
“It sounds a little pretentious to me, but that’s what makes you endearing. You’re very ambitious.”
“Is that so?”
He crossed his arms and let me explore. Across the floorboards, at the far end, was a perfectly centered wardrobe that almost had a presence of its own. I approached it just a little. Behind it were a number of unmarked boxes, empty picture frames, and stage equipment. Several chairs lined the sides of the room, some facing out windows along the angle of the roof. My hand landed on the top of a chair to peer into a box sitting on a table, filled with books, but before I could make out a title I had a fit of sneezes. I sniffled to myself with my back turned and caught him smiling at me, just as he always did.
“See that’s the difference between an ‘~observatory~’ and an attic. Observatories are dusted,” I said.
“Oh, well excuse me.”
“So this is your grand plan to keep me awake?”
He walked towards me very calmly. I noticed something graceful about it, like he was ready to drop all defenses and become as vulnerable as when he laid beneath me. I could picture my hand there on his chest. Everything was so immaculate about his clothes; it was weird to know what he was covering. And not to know how much he was covering, still.
"You didn’t want to fall asleep downstairs. I just thought I'd... bring you somewhere I go sometimes-..." he paused, "sometimes to hide. Or to feel sure no one will disturb me." His approach cut short. He stood idly in front of me. "I lock it. You should feel safe here."
"Heh... I'm not fleeing from anything."
"In case you ever find yourself to be," he tried. "I trust you.”
I smiled. My exploration of the room continued but he followed me slowly each way I turned. I kept my hands to my sides and focused on my peripheral. I couldn't make out what he was doing, but I knew he was paying close attention. His footsteps started up again when I returned to the front of the room and pressed my fingers against the circular window. "Do you stare out this a lot?"
"Not so much, no... It's too noticeable. The ones on the sides give you much more privacy. And I never turn on the light."
I was sure now this was the room I saw illuminated when looking to the theater from the top of the park structure. I had seen it several times since, always pretending it was proof he was near... just a few minutes away. Now I just didn't know.
I turned behind me and he had picked up a chair. He brought it just to my side and set it down.
"I wish I could take better care of you here..."
"It's fine-"
"-I don't have any tea." He smirked, but I caught a glimpse of regret, still.
“I don’t want tea at three in the morning, anyway.”
“Well if you ever come to depend on me, at any time, I will have it for you.” He seemed so serious when he said it. I had his hand in my lap. I held it more tightly and took a deep breath, not knowing if I should ask why he talked like this.
“You’re beauty incarnate,” I found his voice to say quite unexpectedly. I looked up and, out of nowhere, he was trance-like. “I resist saying such things, as I know they’re disagreeable to you, but I will fight you for that…”
It shouldn’t have, but it made me shrivel in disbelief. If I hadn’t been so tired, I’d be ready to turn out the lights again and resume a few nights ago. I seemed already to be better at that than confronting his intense conversation starters.
“I know we were laughing earlier and I can be very vague, but… If there could only be one thing I was sure about, it… Nevermind.”
“What?”
“You already know how I feel about you. Whether you reciprocate it is another matter, but…”
“I do.”
He lowered his face and sighed, and where I needed to read him best, the mask encased him. The meaning of my utterance didn’t come until my walk home, after he told me, with a twinge of dissatisfaction, “you never seem to agree with yourself.”
I don’t know how I could tell him I didn’t love him and, with implication, that I did, all in the same week, but I knew that even seeming to do the latter had summoned his blood all over again, even if he caught immediately that it was a mistake. He must have known I only pretended to register the gravity he was trying to apply. Deep down, I kept on assuming, and more understanding, the idea that we exhilarated the other, and they were all words to excite. That it was intense lust, for body, mind, and interaction, but not something so concrete; so honest; respectable; applicable outside this crazy inner universe that we now lived in when the night took over.
The moment where he and I seemed to be the only thing present faded and I could hear the rain again, but, by his gaze of my reflection in the window, I imagined he hadn’t come back to that same reality yet.
I didn’t know what to say to him. I had already reassured him tonight, and it wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t confront what he was trying to say was unrequited.
“You probably want to be leaving now,” he said to my lap. “I’m going to run out of ways to keep you awake because I would much rather go downstairs with you.”
“Alright.”
I stood and pulled my coat together, but I received no eye contact from then on. He looked down the other end of the attic with his hand searching his pockets hurriedly. I never wandered too far ahead as he locked each door, but it made no difference. He had nothing to say to me, and I had nothing to say to him.
I was followed and shielded from the rain the whole way back, and he was so certain no one would see him, he didn’t stop until the edge of the front porch. I was about to get my keys.
“Christine,”
“Yes?”
“These are to the stairwell and the side door. If you don't want to go home, or you need to wait for me…” He held the key ring just in front of him, so as I retrieved it, he took my hand and kept me close. “Don’t try to enter through the front. Always use those stairs. Don’t go anywhere but the attic. Don’t come before nine in the morning. Don’t come at all on weekends unless I ask you to or give you permission at a specific time.” I tried to nod, but I knew, even in my rested state, that I may need to write this down. He seemed to read my mind, though. “Of course, I’ll remind you later.”
Favor after favor… I kissed him and unlocked the door as silently as possible, but it was truly a remarkable thing I last saw before I closed it.
Favorite Quotes
(This was my first time incorporating a book quote,
with that last line. It seemed to just work out,
even though I wasn't going "oh, there should
totally be a book quote.")
Because he's such a horny young man. :P
I told myself that today I would start Chapter 40, imagining it may end up at most 10pgs, whatever day I even finished it. But instead, I finished it and it was 14 pages. Furthermore, I spent a combined seven hours working on it. Seven fucking hours for 14 pages. That's 2 pages an hour. And if you want to know the truth it's actually a faster pace than usual. I often can take up to an hour to write a page of HT because I get really critical or feel I have to revise while I'm writing it.
Anyhoo, the experience was more than I could have wished for - it blew my attempt at Ch40 when I did NaNoWriMo last year out of the water. It was not something I had to push myself to do - it was pushing me, and I was surprised that I was able to go back in and be so familiar with the characters. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though, because, while a year has passed since I've written anything, they've never left my mind. In fact, I've found that the Phantom seems to be a muse of mine, even stronger than Akira or Cosmo, other characters of mine who I think have really defined personas.
I think there was serious payback in saying "I'm not keeping chapters 40 - 42" and just getting my thoughts together from all that stuff to come up with a new continuation. The chapter is hella strong, and, as I said earlier, what's good; what needs to be kept from these now cut chapters, WILL be kept and incorporated where they fit.
Also, another thing that was kind of amazing was that it seems like my writing for HT from now on is going to be even more matured than it already was. Stylistically, and the first part of this chapter is a bit on the PG-13 side, if you know what I mean. :) I don't write physical relations that well, but it still satiated some of my thirst for chikachikabangbang between those two.
No, but really -- all the development I had for this couple, and for Erik, which came to me throughout the past year... it's in here. They are fleshed even further - they're exploring the themes and philosophies I wanted the story to get at. And it was a very natural thing for me, somehow, to do the dialogue and to think for Erik, as well as Lily, but she has less to really say. He truly shines. He's truly mad. And he's truly "in love."
Well, I'm excited, so this is full of unchecked typoes, probably. Deal! This is not going on FF.net until I've got a few chapters to post per week. You are seeing a preview as a VIP!
HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 40 - Eclipsed
The kiss poisoned me and set my blood afire. I always knew he was venomous, and every approach to me from behind was a warning of that, but I had made well known that warnings were just invitations. Tonight, especially, all I wanted to do was explore what it seemed I shouldn’t; do everything one would find too bold, just for the thrill.
Though I kept my hands low, the back of his coat folded within my fingers. My whole body was warming from the contact, my senses heightened, and the arm around my back was tightening. Inside, I felt I was falling head first... and so at peace with that. I knew the landing would be soft. Just as I had many times imagined a spider's legs carefully turning its prey, he spun me so well.
I wanted to be devoured. There was no winding down on the way back. The both of us were so quiet returning, but my heart continued to race, and I knew we weren't done with each other. He was so unreadable, I couldn't tell if he was taking me straight home; if he had come to fight off this yearning easily and it was only me, feeling the tensest I had in my life. I let my own desperation make me vulnerable when I said I wasn't ready to go home yet, and he acted upon it like he was just waiting for the words. The car took a turn behind the theater again, and my heart raced more. If we had ever once been magnets of the same polarity, it was true no longer. Tonight, we were just an inch apart from snapping together.
That was a snap inevitable.
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What happened that night, I would remember later when things were not so sound between us, and it would hurt to remember, but when I returned to my room, I was restless in afterglow. I was in a constant state of being struck by lightning – the lightning, how intense my feelings must’ve been all this time. The lightning, having such contact with another person…
I hadn’t seen him so human before and, come to think of it, I hadn’t seem myself so human either. Driven, driven by such a simple desire that claimed those I could never relate to before, we hurried for that room. He never broke out of himself; his posture remained so straight, and he held my hand politely, if only a little tighter than usual. However, the door closed behind me very quickly. Light disappeared, I had no vision of him, but I could hear him, waiting for me, and I delivered.
For a few minutes, he was very quiet and passive as I kissed him, but I felt for the bed behind me, lowered, and when I wrapped my arm around his shoulders, he crawled over me. The first thing he really did himself was cradle me with one hand and bury his face into my neck. It was a simple but powerful statement. The heat beneath his lips traveled, and I felt their course with my arms raised, surrendering my entire body. I wondered how it would be to behave so honestly with him, this way… with all the opposition towards us – when, really, we’d only stopped arguing a short time ago – but those things really couldn’t penetrate me, I found. His touch was so overwhelming, my brain hadn’t the room for anything else. I’d forgotten where we were and how late it was. The world became completely tactile, and he seemed to get a thrill from making me shiver. I turned him over and his fingers began to trail under my shirt, all the way down my back, then to my leg, bent at our side. As for me, I turned into something different in the dark. I caressed him and kissed him everywhere I could, maybe not the technique of someone experienced, but he sighed in satisfaction and the thought that he felt it alone fueled me to continue.
Though we’d finally snapped, neither of us really undressed. In retrospect, I could have, but I was more focused on the fact that every time I tried to reach for his collar, he took my hands away and distracted me. He sensed me reaching for it again and was about to gather me up, but I weighed him down and spread both hands over his chest so nothing more could keep me from doing what I wanted. He stopped reacting at all. It seemed to me a game that he had ever distracted me from this.
Finding my breath again, I placed my hand flat below his neck, and it was moved up and down as he found his. I still remember I undid five buttons before I thought to open his shirt, all agonizingly slow as I listened to him breathe. My hand stopped on the sixth button and finally ventured to what would soon make it retract, if only for a second. He continued to do nothing but bear witness, but I wasn’t deterred. I was strangely unsurprised when I realized scars invaded him all the way down. It was a whole surface of tender ridges. To my knowledge, none were painful to touch, but I knew they had to have been once. For a moment, I was distracted with a slight feeling of discomfort – I sat up and I thought about how shamelessly he talked of hurting himself – but I caught his heart beating and… I found something much more important.
Pretending this was my only discovery, I asked “you know your heart's beating a thousand times a minute?”
His answer, after a deep inhale, was “what of it?”
For a split second, I thought to myself “I know you so well, it’s ridiculous. You can’t hide from me anymore.” And I answered, “you’re quite good at pretending to be calm,” and my fingers rose along his chest to just below his chin. “Unfortunately, for you, I know exactly how to tell otherwise.”
Under my other hand, his chest flattened as he flushed out breath in amusement. I could sense the smile in the dark.
“And fortunately, for me, your method is…”
I don’t remember him finishing the sentence, but caught its meaning, and if it had continued much longer, I would’ve interrupted him anyway. I was still eclipsed by my hormones. I lowered to kiss above my fingertips, pressing my lips over a scar and steadying my chin long enough to feel the heartbeat again.
The moment still makes me shiver out of nowhere, wondering if I really meant what I thought I did by that action. It felt like an act of worship: my body lowered, my face down, my heart so in awe. The night was beautiful all the way through, but I felt unsure who that particular kiss was for.
I’m stating the obvious, but I was having a rough night. A rough week, a rough everything. He was the only thing I was happy about, and adamant about, and I suppose… when I had that revelation that “Erik” was not roleplaying… my mind didn’t go the direction it normally would have. It celebrated, for some reason. A person as alive as me, not within the pages of a book, was influenced, in everything he did, by the first person I ever fell in love with. I started to believe, more than I had before, that he channeled something I didn’t think could be channeled, and he should be admired for taking a journey so far down a path not many would take. The both of us had, and I thought at the time that it was worth it – absolutely amazing, even, that we had the capacity to do this, even while it had been a little scary.
We didn’t go much further than that. I got afraid, and it was so late. I lay next to him and, for a time, he still nuzzled me and combed my hair with his fingers, and pretended it continued all the way down to my waist. He had no idea what I was thinking about at the time. We had a relationship tainted by expectations, of ideas about the other that were more than just a bit on the fantastic side. I was going to have to be okay with the fact that to stay around “Erik”, to touch him as I had and still wanted to, was my need to feel closer to something he wasn’t entirely, even if I cared about him too…a lot. He had to know it was that way. And I surely had to know it was that way for me. He worshipped Christine, but he wanted me. I had somehow turned out to be her.
His situation, however, was not a “somehow”. He willed it. And I wondered… what does a person have to go through – why those scars? What leads someone, especially someone gifted by intelligence, and understanding, and talent, to saying “I want to leave who I am behind”? What happens to someone that they feel they must take on a fictional entity? And especially one known for their misery?
Was he miserable?
I had never really been able to pinpoint how Erik felt besides that he claimed to love me. He was always dodging questions, answering ambiguously, or acting like it didn’t even matter. On the other hand, he described an unfavorable situation with his comments about compassion and ruining his whole life. If he’d done that, like he said he did, I doubted it was all for me, or to capture my interest. I don’t think I would have kissed those scars if this had just been a roleplay. We’d only come this far because I knew he was seriously troubled, and rather than do anything about it, I just wanted to be with him.
* * *
I wasn’t running on a lot of rest. When the sun finally rose, I poured myself a large, uncharacteristic cup of coffee, but only the shell of me went to school. Inside, I was still on the roof. The air hitting my arms in the hallway was the breeze, the windows were the horizon, and the feeling that I was never alone these days was his presence right over my shoulder, about to clasp me around the waist and tell me how wonderful these weird stares were; how they made me somebody. How I was his Christine, and he was my Erik. It was like I was living in a fantasy world suddenly, but I let myself indulge because there was nothing else to enjoy.
In my seat, I wasn’t there anymore. I sat close to the door and far from the front and just… thought about total black, and his hands, and the way he tipped me back. I sometimes had to stop myself or I’d find my eyes glazed over and my heart racing all over again. Mr. Darelle knew I’d never feel that way about numbers. Really, all my teachers knew I wasn’t paying attention.
From here, I find it useless to describe school at all. I sat by myself at lunch the rest of the week. I suppose if anything was looked forward to, it was Humanities, but I couldn’t seem to have as much as fun as everyone else. I was so aware at school that I basically didn’t have friends. Sure, I’d see Giry in the hallway and we’d have short conversations, but she seemed to have gotten very busy and stopped getting on AIM or texting me. It made me lonely, but in a way I was grateful, considering the last conversation we had. I didn’t know if she was going to appreciate what I did with Erik for much longer, once she realized we were standing at the border, contentedly, like there was nothing more natural. I couldn’t casually tell her he couldn’t distinguish himself from his own character, and more, that I was just fine with that.
What I decided to do in replacement of friendship was text Erik, because he’d give me attention whenever I wanted it. Like every kid I had scorned in the past, I had my cellphone on silent somewhere easy to reach in my bag, just waiting for any small text message. He’d respond within the hour – if not, the minute – and he’d have conversations with me as I held the phone under my desk. He’d email me, too. He’d make me laugh. He’d make my face turn red. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could feel so passionately about me, but I was addicted to hearing about it. He knew exactly when I was off work and would send a message just to say I’d made it another day, then ask if I wasn’t too tired to see him again.
The truth is… I was too tired. I was exhausted. I didn’t want to do anything anymore because it kept me from having the energy to see him, or be creative in any way before him. I’d start falling asleep if I read in the bath tub. Tea made me rest my head on my textbook. The weather was depressing. I really did want to see him, but when I fell asleep out of nowhere, it was hard to get back up, wrap myself in sweaters, and head out that late at night. I was sick and tired of it being complicated, so I started having ideas for how to make him happy. Ones that involved quitting my job and telling Mr. Darelle I didn't need tutoring anymore even though I still had a D.
* * *
Lily,
Before I can go on another day I need to say this to you, because it's been driving me mad, and now that you're already angry with me, things can't get worse. I avoided being completely honest in the past because I respected your feelings and wasn't sure if what I thought was right, but now things are getting ridiculous and I'm probably the only one who will say something rational.
I knew he was up to something. Since day one. In fact it was you who said how strange it was that a stranger wanted to meet you at the theater building out of nowhere, and me who thought you were being too suspicious. Well.. I regret that now. And no, before you get any ideas, it was hardly because he wouldn't tell you who he was. I was teasing you. It was when he started telling you what to do and making you mad that I thought he had some nerve when he had met you like a month ago, or less than a month ago. You claim that that is part of the roleplay but he's just kept barging in to our personal lives and following even me and Paulina around. Who knows if you've even heard the full story, but it hasn't been that nice. It's only been “nice” for you. I got that. I believe you, I think he probably does a lot of nice things for you, but it's in a certain context which I do not know if you see. Which is that he is clearly obsessed with you. That's not good nor is it the same as having a crush. He is OBSESSED, and (I can't believe I'm about to compliment him) has done something really smart thinking if he talks to you as a phantom that you will listen to him. But you listen too much and that's why I get freaked out. That stuff about you being a weirdo --- it's crap. He's alienating you from us. All he ever does is pull you away, make you devote all your energy to him, believe God knows what. I only hear snipits from Paulina that don't make any sense. And yeah, Paulina's gotten on my nerves too, something just doesn't set right with me with how she worked her way around the both of us. I heard about how she has talked to him and tried to find things out about him but shit, I don't know her that well and sometimes I wonder if she's on his side or something, because she always encourages you to work things out with him.
If it were ever just a “roleplay” you would not be acting so serious about it. I don't want to be going around having fights with you but you seem like you're losing it. I'm not the bad guy. Okay fine, for argument's sake I won't call 'the phantom' the bad guy either, but you don't seem to have your guard up with him. You have your guard up with me but not at all with him, it makes no sense. It's frustrating because the more you just trust him and not tell the whole story to me, the more he'll take advantage of it. He's probably loving this, just reeling you in one day at a time, nobody to stop him... of course, you don't believe me at all. You've even ignored that he's scared me more than once. I don't know what else to fucking say because it's so obvious except I'm NOT trying to be the bad guy, but if you're just going to ignore me, I guess you have to figure it out on your own. Or maybe, since you listen to Paulina more than me, she will finally say something that takes into account reality and you will listen to her.
Well, those are my thoughts. Sorry that they actually come between us.
* * *
It was Friday, and I didn’t have work or tutoring. Everything was covered in frost, and slippery, but I walked down the hill hurriedly and relieved. He had invited me to see him. He asked, in a text quite out of the blue, what I wanted to do once I got there. He tempted me with physical touch quite a lot that week, if I were to visit, so much that I didn’t know what to do with my own desires. I told myself that wasn’t why I wanted a relationship, but if he took me in his arms as soon as he saw me, I couldn’t see myself putting up a fight. I prepared for it, even. I’d spread on scented lotion and was busy shaving my legs in the sink when, to my dismay, I received a message from him that he could not see me right away and he asked if I could wait a couple hours.
With a deep sigh, I obliged. I checked my email instead. When I received the above, I mostly skimmed it because I didn’t want to make myself pissed off, and I knew she would piss me off. But he kept pushing our meeting further and further, and I went back to the message and read it anyway.
It was hard to decide the best way to react. My instinct was to rip her a new one. She was wrong, wrong, wrong, about almost everything. The only thing she wasn’t wrong about was that Erik and I had no roleplay anymore, but that was not something I could admit and expect her to find my less crazy by doing so. It was a complete dead-end with her because our ideas were so different, and I spent the rest of my time waiting for him, pacing with my headphones; feeling trapped, like a dog waiting for a walk and pent up with energy, especially now that frustration was in the mix.
All I could think was “please take me out of this. Please make me feel loved, like I’m Christine, and not Lily.”
* * *
At the side of my house, I waited for him to appear. My shadow was just to my side, sharply cutting into the wall and moving just to its edge as I peered through a half-dead tree. I didn't know which direction he was coming so I kept glancing down each side of the street and my eyes ritually squinted to the darkened sidewalk at the other end. Headlights appeared from down the street and were approaching steadily. I stepped behind the tree to hide, but the light never passed, and an engine hummed softly at the curb. My cautious glance found the gold car and I escaped the cold quickly. When I opened the passenger door, he was a dark shape inside. The only thing much visible was a white hand over the arm rest.
I was shivering and my partially exposed legs had goose bumps, but he did not speak before stepping on it. Just as I was eager to sit and close my door, he was eager to abandon the main road and the streetlights. I rested my head against the window and eyed the digital numbers of the clock. Two in the morning. I'd plead for an earlier time but no dice. Last minute he delayed our visit another hour for an unknown reason, and his texts had steadily lost their punctuation. I was pretty frustrated with him, truthfully, but I was hoping for a second wind.
"I need some air, if that's alright with you. I promise we can come back if you get cold," he said eventually, eying the skirt below my coat. I quietly acknowledged and watched us head down the forest road, but my focus wandered to his hand, sort of hovering over the gear stick, wanting to close, then stretching its fingers, then completely still. The otherwise stiffness of him and the hard focus on the road made it look as though he was still alone in the car, or unaware of me.
The familiar path along the river passed us by and our car was traveling a narrow, rather claustrophobic street, where trees gradually dominated and all the lights from up above fought through the leaves to reach us. The road spilled into a small lot, and I could see the water just nearby as a strip of black. He parked the car in the furthest end, completely shaded, and before I had even unbuckled my seatbelt, he stepped out and walked away. He wasn't terribly far, but his back was turned and his arms were crossed. At first I didn't know what to do. Clearly something was wrong.
I stepped out of the car with some difficulty, as he had parked very close to a hedge. I was forced to sort of waddle sideways. Once I was out, I stood with my arms dangling a moment before deciding I wouldn’t approach him, so instead I stepped near the ramp and watched the river. It was deep below the cities on both sides, and the wind didn’t much reach it. It gave me a very solitary feeling until I checked behind me. Erik had come nearer and I looked to him for any word, but he just passed me and the ramp clanked by his steps. I followed without invading his space. He never stopped until he had ventured clear across. There, his eyes settled somewhere below him before they caught me standing there, and he needed only to show a simple reaction -- a hand turned and slightly raised -- for me to come forward. The hand reached past my flower clip and fixed some stray hairs, but that was as much as he did.
Though I tried very hard and kept my scarf tightly under my chin, the air was finding its way up my sleeves. If he would say nothing, I thought I could still enjoy his company by closing my hands around his arm. He let me, but it was with no reaction. I had showered, I had picked out a reasonable dress to be or not be in (not that I was ready for what you’re thinking), and this is what happened instead?
"You could’ve canceled, you know..." I tried to say, with some hint of humor.
"No, I'm actually very grateful you're standing next to me right now..." His voice reached my ear." It reminds me of my priorities; it keeps me from doing something... that I shouldn't do..." I waited for something more, in vein.
“Well then… I’m glad to be here for you,” I tried.
Nothing.
High above us the solid black shapes of trees, stripped of their leaves, stretched over the dark steel blue sky. The moon was lost behind clouds, and only a sliver, but I rested my eyes on it for a while, secretly monitoring Erik: listening to his breath and feeling for any movement. He very suddenly laid his gaze on me, paused, and he pulled his coat off, which shook my grip off his arm. "You're shivering. Take it." The offer startled me, but I brought it tentatively to my chest. The moment the coat was no longer in his possession, he lowered to the cement and crossed his legs. I bit my lip and lowered as well, absolutely certain he was going to find himself twice as cold as me at this rate, but he took no notice of my hesitance to do more than hold that coat awkwardly. I hadn't the faintest idea what use I could be at this point, even though he'd said he wanted me there. It was nothing like last we had seen each other. He’d made me feel so wanted all week, and yet it was so easy for him to look like he’d revoked all that. I knew it couldn’t be true, though.
"...Are you okay?" He made only a small sound to confirm, and the both of us knew it wasn't convincing. I put the coat on my lap. I wanted to rest my hand on him somewhere, so I raised it to his shoulder and rested my cheek on the other, hoping my warmth might thaw his heart, even just a little. "You don't seem it," I said, and I watched him for his answer.
"When I seem angry, it’s not always that I'm bothered – it’s a defense mechanism, to keep people away when I don't want to deal with them," he more mused than replied, quickly and under his breath. I didn't like the sound of it at all.
"Did I do something wrong?"
“No,” he snapped. My posture stiffened. "I'm sorry. It's not related to you at all." Before I could do anything else, he stood straight up again. "When I'm no longer frustrated, I'll treat you like you deserve."
"Then I should go home-"
-“No.” The only thing I thought to do was sit there, unprepared and a mite uncomfortable.
"I'm not sure how to comfort you," I told him honestly.
"You don't know your own effect."
I wanted to smile but here he was with his back turned to me, and the hands I wanted protectively around him were dropped to my lap and useless. After some time, he faced me and almost looked to be fidgeting, but it didn't last more than a few seconds.
“I’m very sorry that I had you dangling by a thread all day. I know you wanted me to accommodate your schedule. I was going to, but not everyone wants me to act in your best interests. Some are very intent on making a situation as unpleasant as possible, almost to deter me from doing anything-…” He began to spit the words somewhat aggressively under his breath, but paused, giving me a labored smile instead of finishing his sentence. “I won’t waste your time with that. You know already how much I need you to defy for the sake of your happiness, even when it seems very difficult.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I wish I could ask you, and be certain, that you won’t let anyone make you feel it’s not worth it to be who you really are.”
I fumbled with my words, and ended up with “I won’t,” though my eyes were wide and I didn’t see where this was coming from.
"Unfortunately, neither of us can trust your word yet because you haven't truly been tested. But you will soon, and... you'll hate it." The statement was matter-of-fact, almost cold. "You'll find yourself wondering if it's not easier to be beaten to shape.” I lowered my gaze to my hands over his coat, spread to warm my legs, but it wasn’t helping much. “You deserve a warning, that's all. But you're starting somewhere much closer to happiness than I was; a place where you're not wandering through darkness with nothing but hope that you're going in the right direction. I feel it's my duty to lead you through the safest path to what you want. You should know that you have me."
"You know we've been through this. I'm not letting anyone stop me from seeing you.”
"People are stopped most without their consent, Christine. And no offense to you at all, but… you’re very stoppable at this point. You don’t have a lot of power to do what you want without me." He seemed stern as his fingers curled, but he reached into his pocket and watched just behind me as another thought came. "Even my escape was almost impossible, and I still see it behind me, all the time.”
"Why do you look back, then?" He seemed surprised I asked.
"Why do you look back?" He put me on the spot, even though there were many reasons. I didn't think "Mariam" or "my parents" or "school" was what he was looking for. I watched him pull from his pocket a switchblade and it straightened my posture.
"You didn't answer me," I told him, watching the knife with uncertainty. He lowered in front of me and began to sharpen the knife. Nothing about this night seemed to be normal, so I just went with it.
He explained, calmly as he swiped the blade, "I am stuck here until you're ready.”
I knew this was an allusion to his attempt to make me leave my home and my comfort, and again all my heart could do was recoil. I watched him do as he did for a moment, noting a light from far off, reflecting in the blade onto the buttons of his vest. I tried to find the boldness I had earlier that week and summoned my most honest thought. "You're the only one desperate to escape, and I don't know why.”
“Because I saw what it was I needed to do. And whether it makes sense to anyone else, I could care.” He gave the blade a harsh strike. “To me, I found out how to become perfection, by the standards that matter. Those standards don’t happen to involve anything I used to do before this.”
It seemed more that he was talking to himself than to me, because he must have known I wouldn’t make the most sense of it. “And what are your standards for living?”
He smiled. “Well, I guess the staple is finding your purpose, but it otherwise deviates from person to person. I find myself preoccupied with control. Of my body, of my mind, and… most important, my actions.” He checked the sharpness of the blade with his finger and continued without looking at me. “I think the best way to get me to do something is to strongly oppose it, only because of a ridiculous prejudice… Provided you haven’t the place to tell me what to do…” He lowered his tools and looked me in the eye. “You know I would listen to you.” His focus lowered to his coat in my lap, and he smiled again. “You have no greater or more respectful friend in the world than I.”
I watched as a bit of him retreated, and smiled to nothing, but inside I wondered…
“Are you trying to say people ought to just rebel all the time, as if no one has anything good to say about what they should do?”
“No, I’m saying when people get together and define normalcy, it can be very oppressive to those with… I’m not quite sure how to say it.”
“…Weirdos?” I smiled, but he didn’t.
“I guess those with dysphoria of a sort. They’ve ended up in the wrong place and need to find the right place, and the right people. And… lucky for your friends, they have… no searching to do. It’s okay, though… I’m really-… See, you’ve made me feel better just by listening to me, even though I haven’t said anything useful.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ve done the same thing, many times, with you.”
“Are you cold?”
“Just a little,” I said. He seemed preoccupied in his head and didn’t catch that I was lying. He made his way back to the edge; to the fluctuating reflection of the sky just by our feet. I was behind him, and when I touched his shoulders, they felt so stiff. I rubbed his back very tentatively and watched the sky, pretending nothing was on my mind. After no discernible reaction, I peeked over his shoulder and his eyes opened quickly when he realized I had stopped. "You like that." I knew my voice captured my satisfaction. He gave me a weak smile. The pleasure of having seen him comforted led my arms around him and I laid my cheek to his back. I didn't let go for a long time. I liked to imagine he returned to resting his eyes. Eventually, I clutched his shoulders and leaned forward. "Am I making you tired?"
"I won't be tired for a while." My hold weakened. "But thank you." For a split second I entertained myself with the thought of reminding him of the rules about "thank you"'s, but a "you're welcome" was so strong in my head, I couldn't turn it into something like that.
After considerable silence, he whispered in that gentle, low voice that never came out of him during the day "tell me this won't be so rare in the future."
"Erik... for the thousandth time, I intend to spend much of my future with you." I smiled, although he couldn't see. "I love to be around you. I like what you're doing, and I think it's brave, even if I don't understand all of it. But so far I'm with you."
“Heh… If you keep that up, I'm afraid I'll never be able to let you go. I already need you more than I imagined I would."
"I could say the same."
"You didn't think you needed me before you knew me." I lost my interest in the view down the dock and took my head from his back… Slowly, I inched around him, enough to look him in the eye.
"I think I did, and that's what scares me."
"It doesn't need to scare you," he replied, softly, his eyes settling on me, seemingly admiring my features. Naturally, I had to look away from this attention so I could continue to string sentences.
"But I didn’t anticipate I’d ever know a person I wanted before I’d ever met them. I thought they’d stay in my head. It’s overwhelming. It’s like winning the lottery because you bought a ticket every once in a while, and -… I’m sorry, this is stupid.” He seemed to be waiting for me to finish my sentence, regardless. “Well, I don’t know what to do with the money.” My pause was his as well. “I’m totally done with this. This metaphor. It’s…” I sighed desperately, but he chuckled.
“I know exactly what to do with the money,” he asserted. I lowered my head and smiled, and before I knew it, he’d leaned forward to kiss me on the forehead. “I’m more afraid I’m going to have it revoked, and…” he paused, and I could no longer feel the words hitting my temple. “You know, it is kind of an awkward metaphor.”
“I told you!”
“Awkwardness is one of the reasons you’re endearing. Are you cold yet?” He asked into my ear.
“Yes, but… I’m afraid if I stop being cold, I’m going to realize how tired I am.” He situated himself for stance and reached for my hand. When we rose together, he assured me,
“We’ll go back and you can rest… downstairs. Perhaps you can stay again. I’d like that.”
“You know I can’t. My parents will have no idea what happened to me.”
“Well then I’ll make sure you stay up a while longer.”
He offered his arm and we returned to the lot, where he realized, now with a clear mind, that my side of the car was rather close to the bushes. "Don't," he started as I began to step forward. "Let me pull out." I watched this with quite a grin and opened the door after the car rolled in front of me. Inside, he pulled out a small book and was holding it in his hand while his other searched within his coat. It seemed to find what he wanted, but it paused when he saw me staring.
“Just a moment." The hand finally revealed a pen but hovered over the book in his lap.
"Uhm... alright." I nodded but had no idea what he was talking about. He just started scrolling, then paused, and shot me his sharp eyes. I may have flinched when he did.
"What are you writing?" I asked, but he never answered. He never again looked me face to face either, but between his bouts of scribbling I caught his focus on the hand to my side, or my knees closed together. When he closed the book, he only watched the steering wheel in front of him a moment before finding the keys between us and jabbing them into the ignition. The car rumbled as I looked him straight on. "Aren't you going to tell me?"
"I don't want to sound poetic."
He pulled out with a tiny smile and I shook my head a little. I resorted to looking out the window, watching my eyes in the reflection. I wanted to know. The car journeyed through the forest again and I caught sight of the glowing numbers on the dashboard. 2:47. It started raining as soon as we left.
He parked the car behind the theater again and looked at me after he turned off the engine. A black abyss seemed beyond the windows, but I was ready to open my door when the pattering on the roof grew twice as hard. He returned my apprehensive grin with an offer.
“It hasn’t been wet enough that I should have to carry you, but for whatever reason, or none at all, I’d be happy to.” He seemed utterly impish when he said it.
“I-I’m alright.”
“Okay.” He reached in the back and pulled out his umbrella, then disappeared for a second in that dark shadow of the theater where he had always chosen to hide the car. My door opened and what appeared to me first were his black eyes, wide with enthusiasm, and he leaned forward with the umbrella and offered his hand. …He was so angry just an hour ago. It was a weird thing, taking a tall step at the platform and watching him attempt to hold the umbrella upright while bowing underneath the railing, coat-tails dropping sideways.
Inside, lights started appearing little by little, but he stopped speaking to me. His playfulness was temporarily lost as he scanned the place, and hurried, seemingly skeptical that we were the only ones there. Perhaps those other insomniac friends made their rounds at 3:00, but I doubted it. He unlocked the back door before I’d even caught up to him, and once that room was lit, he reached into his pocket and the rest of the theater went black again. I noted a spiral staircase to our right as he closed the door quietly. He gestured for me to go first, so I climbed. At the second floor, I knew there that he had once invited me into the mirror. “Keep going,” he said, so I did. At the third floor, I asked where we were going.
"The observatory.”
"I'm serious."
The pushed the door in front of us in and I could only make out a number of shapes by the dim moonlight. I followed its source to a circular window at our end and my lips parted just a little. "It's only an attic," he said, as the light illuminated the shapes. "I only like to call it that... It makes it seem a little more important. Or maybe pretentious."
“It sounds a little pretentious to me, but that’s what makes you endearing. You’re very ambitious.”
“Is that so?”
He crossed his arms and let me explore. Across the floorboards, at the far end, was a perfectly centered wardrobe that almost had a presence of its own. I approached it just a little. Behind it were a number of unmarked boxes, empty picture frames, and stage equipment. Several chairs lined the sides of the room, some facing out windows along the angle of the roof. My hand landed on the top of a chair to peer into a box sitting on a table, filled with books, but before I could make out a title I had a fit of sneezes. I sniffled to myself with my back turned and caught him smiling at me, just as he always did.
“See that’s the difference between an ‘~observatory~’ and an attic. Observatories are dusted,” I said.
“Oh, well excuse me.”
“So this is your grand plan to keep me awake?”
He walked towards me very calmly. I noticed something graceful about it, like he was ready to drop all defenses and become as vulnerable as when he laid beneath me. I could picture my hand there on his chest. Everything was so immaculate about his clothes; it was weird to know what he was covering. And not to know how much he was covering, still.
"You didn’t want to fall asleep downstairs. I just thought I'd... bring you somewhere I go sometimes-..." he paused, "sometimes to hide. Or to feel sure no one will disturb me." His approach cut short. He stood idly in front of me. "I lock it. You should feel safe here."
"Heh... I'm not fleeing from anything."
"In case you ever find yourself to be," he tried. "I trust you.”
I smiled. My exploration of the room continued but he followed me slowly each way I turned. I kept my hands to my sides and focused on my peripheral. I couldn't make out what he was doing, but I knew he was paying close attention. His footsteps started up again when I returned to the front of the room and pressed my fingers against the circular window. "Do you stare out this a lot?"
"Not so much, no... It's too noticeable. The ones on the sides give you much more privacy. And I never turn on the light."
I was sure now this was the room I saw illuminated when looking to the theater from the top of the park structure. I had seen it several times since, always pretending it was proof he was near... just a few minutes away. Now I just didn't know.
I turned behind me and he had picked up a chair. He brought it just to my side and set it down.
"I wish I could take better care of you here..."
"It's fine-"
"-I don't have any tea." He smirked, but I caught a glimpse of regret, still.
“I don’t want tea at three in the morning, anyway.”
“Well if you ever come to depend on me, at any time, I will have it for you.” He seemed so serious when he said it. I had his hand in my lap. I held it more tightly and took a deep breath, not knowing if I should ask why he talked like this.
“You’re beauty incarnate,” I found his voice to say quite unexpectedly. I looked up and, out of nowhere, he was trance-like. “I resist saying such things, as I know they’re disagreeable to you, but I will fight you for that…”
It shouldn’t have, but it made me shrivel in disbelief. If I hadn’t been so tired, I’d be ready to turn out the lights again and resume a few nights ago. I seemed already to be better at that than confronting his intense conversation starters.
“I know we were laughing earlier and I can be very vague, but… If there could only be one thing I was sure about, it… Nevermind.”
“What?”
“You already know how I feel about you. Whether you reciprocate it is another matter, but…”
“I do.”
He lowered his face and sighed, and where I needed to read him best, the mask encased him. The meaning of my utterance didn’t come until my walk home, after he told me, with a twinge of dissatisfaction, “you never seem to agree with yourself.”
I don’t know how I could tell him I didn’t love him and, with implication, that I did, all in the same week, but I knew that even seeming to do the latter had summoned his blood all over again, even if he caught immediately that it was a mistake. He must have known I only pretended to register the gravity he was trying to apply. Deep down, I kept on assuming, and more understanding, the idea that we exhilarated the other, and they were all words to excite. That it was intense lust, for body, mind, and interaction, but not something so concrete; so honest; respectable; applicable outside this crazy inner universe that we now lived in when the night took over.
The moment where he and I seemed to be the only thing present faded and I could hear the rain again, but, by his gaze of my reflection in the window, I imagined he hadn’t come back to that same reality yet.
I didn’t know what to say to him. I had already reassured him tonight, and it wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t confront what he was trying to say was unrequited.
“You probably want to be leaving now,” he said to my lap. “I’m going to run out of ways to keep you awake because I would much rather go downstairs with you.”
“Alright.”
I stood and pulled my coat together, but I received no eye contact from then on. He looked down the other end of the attic with his hand searching his pockets hurriedly. I never wandered too far ahead as he locked each door, but it made no difference. He had nothing to say to me, and I had nothing to say to him.
I was followed and shielded from the rain the whole way back, and he was so certain no one would see him, he didn’t stop until the edge of the front porch. I was about to get my keys.
“Christine,”
“Yes?”
“These are to the stairwell and the side door. If you don't want to go home, or you need to wait for me…” He held the key ring just in front of him, so as I retrieved it, he took my hand and kept me close. “Don’t try to enter through the front. Always use those stairs. Don’t go anywhere but the attic. Don’t come before nine in the morning. Don’t come at all on weekends unless I ask you to or give you permission at a specific time.” I tried to nod, but I knew, even in my rested state, that I may need to write this down. He seemed to read my mind, though. “Of course, I’ll remind you later.”
Favor after favor… I kissed him and unlocked the door as silently as possible, but it was truly a remarkable thing I last saw before I closed it.
I was in a constant state of being struck by lightning...
“Unfortunately, for you, I know exactly how to tell otherwise.”
“And fortunately for me, your method is…”
I sat close to the door and far from the front and just… thought about total black, and his hands, and the way he tipped me back. I sometimes had to stop myself or I’d find my eyes glazed over and my heart racing all over again. Mr. Darelle knew I’d never feel that way about numbers.
“I think the best way to get me to do something is to strongly oppose it, only because of a ridiculous prejudice… Provided you haven’t the place to tell me what to do…” He lowered his tools and looked me in the eye. “You know I would listen to you.” His focus lowered to his coat in my lap, and he smiled again. “You have no greater or more respectful friend in the world than I.”
with that last line. It seemed to just work out,
even though I wasn't going "oh, there should
totally be a book quote.")
“It hasn’t been wet enough that I should have to carry you, but for whatever reason, or none at all, I’d be happy to."
“See that’s the difference between an ‘~observatory~’ and an attic. Observatories are dusted,” I said.
“Oh, well excuse me.”
"-I don't have any tea." He smirked, but I caught a glimpse of regret, still.
“I don’t want tea at three in the morning, anyway.”
“Well if you ever come to depend on me, at any time, I will have it for you.”
“You probably want to be leaving now,” he said, more to my lap than my face. “I’m going to run out of ways to keep you awake because I would much rather go downstairs with you.”
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