Edit: Chapter 41 was ever so slightly altered. If you've read it, you may want to go in and see if there's something new. ;)
Chapter 40, it turns out, was the longest chapter of HT I've ever written. It was 8,000 words. I posted it last night and now, for the month of October, the story has almost a thousand hits and it's only the 8th. In past updating periods, I'd be impressed to see a thousand hits at the end of a month, so it's making me wonder just how much feedback I might be able to get if I start updating weekly and the story stays at the top of the lists.
Well, anyway, I'm happy to present to you the next chapter of HT early, which will be shown to the rest of the world next Friday. It's only eight pages, but I found a cliff-hanger that I rather liked. I named the chapter after an ALW lyric, which has been my first nod to the musical in the story in a while. It was the musical that inspired me this time, or (I think, actually) some combination of the book and the musical. My passion was just ignited after I saw the 25th Anniversary performance. I had never, ever, in my life, seen it so clearly or been so close, and I couldn't have been if I'd seen it live anyway. They were as close to the camera as movie actors - I saw everything in their faces, every small reaction - it was beautiful.
I never did like Ramin Karimloo very much. In fact, there's a video on youtube of him singing Music of the Night that I find abrasive and not at all charming, and I think I once wrote that he was a phantom that inspired pepper spray, and I hate how hunky he sometimes looks. But... I admire those who aren't so stubborn that they can change their minds, and I want to be one of those people. So... well, I take back my dislike of Ramin. He's still not at the top of my list, but he did a phenomenal job. Maybe that MOTN video I watched was old and he's learned since now. I know he's been playing the Phantom for at least three years. But yes, I take it back, I take it back! I have to give him some respect because he knows who Erik is. No one gives a performance like what I saw and doesn't know.
That said, the performance also solidified that Sierra Boggess is my #1 ALW Christine. She has a beautiful voice, a beautiful face, and she clearly loves the role. She makes the character very real and likable when it's easy for Christine to look like a vapid bimbo. But even though Christine can be overlooked or seem like a sue, or what have you, I actually give props to anyone who plays her. Everyone's always giving the Phantom the most attention, he's the last at curtain call and gets the loudest cheer, and he's the one showered in roses when its his last performance, but... the truth of the matter may be that the Christines of this show work their asses off the hardest. It's their story. Erik is on stage for about 40 minutes in this two and a half hour production. Christine is there in most every scene. I read that, while Phantoms actors perform 8 times a week, Christine actresses aren't allowed to do more than six because of the high toll the show takes on their voices. It seems to me that being Christine on Broadway is like the theatrical Olympics, every night. I suppose that's why I got a little choked up watching Sierra take her bows.
Anyway, I've been watching this clip over and over again and marveling at how interesting it is. The clip's going to be poor quality after being turned into an wmv and clipped up and...ugh. But here we go:
My favorite part is when he says "this loathsome gargoyle... who burns in Hell, but secret yearns for Heaven! Secretly, secretly..." and he pauses... Is it just me, or does he say "but Christine," just like Robert Englund Phantom does? To me, he was suddenly Robert - it was weird, but I loved it. The next sentence "fear can turn to love" seemed to come off the top of his head.
And then Sierra, the way she looks on and the music clearly shows he's suggesting an odd thing. Right before the shot ends, she's raising her eyebrow.
Ramin's quiet little "no!" after he let his hand fall a little and she was grossed out, that was so perfect, too...
It's hard to say what exactly I put into Chapter 41 that came from this performance, but... it's something. So, finally:
HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 41 – From His Solitude
The parents had been gone for two hours when I heard the doorbell. The first message Erik sent me on that day was that we should meet again, so he could deliver the black book. He must have been worried he'd forget to tell me, because the message was sent very early in the morning. I didn't receive it until noon, when I'd finally rolled out of a deep sleep.
Although I'd told him he could visit the house, I hadn't expected it quite then and stumbled into the bathroom to fix myself very frantically. He seemed to hate waiting these days, and I was so caught up in him that, no matter how necessary it was, I felt guilty for all that time between the ring and when I opened the door.
He was staring down, into space, but my image and the light seemed to flush life into him. Suddenly he looked like he wanted to rush inside, but he stopped himself, returned his eyes to that same space, and raised the black book in front of me. I took it from him, and he said, to the wall beside the door frame, "How are you?"
"I'm alright-"
"Are you busy?" This time, he directed the question at me and I was suddenly very aware that only a few inches were between us. I pressed the book against me, both arms crossed, and stepped back, holding a gaze that invited him in. He stepped forward, closing the door behind him without really noticing it at all, and I set the book on the top of the couch. When I raised my hands to take his shoulders, he came towards me and like some kind of movie I leaned back over the couch's edge as our lips met. He rather fell into me, so much that I couldn't support him, and I started tipping back, but he caught me very smoothly and pressed me tightly against him. His body and clothes were so chilled and stiff, I felt goose bumps spreading over my arms, but I kept still, and he went quiet with his chin over my shoulder. I looked out the front windows behind him out of habit.
"We might want to go upstairs," I said. He didn't seem to hear me until I was repeating myself, suddenly anxious that he wasn't letting go and we were right in the living room, but when his arms withdrew from my waist, they dangled, and he dropped to his knees in front of me, and looked down, and under his breath was a moan, very sudden and certainly unintended. He didn't look at me afterward, or wonder if I was confused, he only saw that the book had fallen to the floor by his feet, and picked it up, and began reading it. He was muttering to himself, even, and I was lost. I watched him and lowered to the seat, and lent him my touch on his forearm, but he wouldn't respond when I said his name. "Did you hear me?"
"Do you want to read this now? It has quite a lot to say."
"I… I'll save it for later. It holds me over—"
"You shouldn't have to be held over."
I sighed and looked off. "…I don't think we should be out here," I said. After a pause, he knew what I meant, but he seemed to rise with a sense of agitation, and he placed the book back in his coat. I set the example and tried to hurry for the stairs, but his pace was unworried. He reached me when he wanted to reach me. When I watched him come closer, there was something odd about his gate. I waited with my arm extended, hoping for his hand. He reached for me and had a newfound focus which I could feel on my back, but halfway up the stairs, I felt a tug. I wondered if he would pull me into a spontaneous kiss or the like, but the action wasn't playful. It hit me he was in pain again. I knew his tack of pretending there was no such thing. "Erik?" I turned around and stopped. "What's wrong?"
He was quick to think it funny, but the kitchen light to our side revealed a shimmer to his skin.
"I'm serious."
"I know," he answered, his eyes widening.
"Then why are you laughing?" He hadn't an answer. "You think it's funny when I'm worried about you."
As I wasn't going up as soon as he wanted to, he let go of my hand and journeyed the rest of the way, and I noticed a rip down the shin of his pants. He gripped the railing and leaned toward me. "I do find it funny, but in no condescending way. It's different. I think it's fascinating."
He made very clear eye contact and then disappeared to down the right side of the hall, which immediately perked me up. He would come face to face with my parents' bedroom. I ran up the rest of the steps and threw my arms out at his shape, though I could hardly see it now that the light from downstairs had gotten lost around the corner of the hall. "Don't go in there!"
"Something I shouldn't know?"
"No, something they shouldn't know."
"They're not going to know I was here."
"They could come home any minute, actually."
"Well isn't that exciting?"
"You're good enough at being exciting outside. I'm not in the mood to hide you in my closet overnight."
He stopped with the banter all together and turned for the other side of the hall. He flipped on the light in the bathroom, then off, then on in the next room, and it all happened so fast, I couldn't stop him when he entered my room and slid open the closet. I froze right behind him. I knew the roses were there, but I also knew the whole room was behind him. Nothing of him moved but his eyes as they noted the objects inside: surely my book shelf, my little desk in front of it, my chair and blanket… the roses – he never mentioned them, though a smile was beginning to curl up his face impishly. He looked as if he'd conquered. Even hunched over, his presence, black and tall, cut into my simple room with unsettling contrast.
I eyed his torn shin again and fidgeted.
"What's wrong with your leg?" He took a deep, tired breath, and ignored me.
"It looks like you already have it set up for me."
"Erik?"
"Christine?" He withdrew from the closet opening and I met his smile with a glower. He saw my restless hands and took his time coming up with something to say, laying gaze upon all my things in the meantime. For a brief moment, I met eyes with Charles the Owl, sitting over a unique landscape of sheets I hadn't bothered to smooth. At the desk, there was an open book for Humanities sat next to a half-drunk cup of green tea, and my sweater had nearly fallen off the chair. I went to adjust it, and I slapped the book closed with enough force to make Erik sure I was waiting. "I was a bit reckless tonight. I took a bad route, a quick one, to reach you. I came across someone governed by impulses,"
He may as well have said "I'm bleeding profusely." I whipped around and grimaced.
"Someone tried to hurt you?" He eyed my music box instead of answering. He didn't seem sure, himself, what experience to claim. "Y-you were mugged?"
"No. Although, I have been once. I had nothing valuable so they knocked me straight in the back of the head," he finished with light laughter. "But that was years ago. They would never get away with that now."
He was distracting me. I knew it. If he wasn't mugged, it was a fight. I was summoning the courage to call his attempts, from the very beginning, unconvincing at best, but he asked, simply and sincerely, "…Can you help me?"
My vitriol flatlined. I held on to the top of my chair. "What do you want me to do?" I asked. It felt surprisingly right to agree right away, even with a secret so clearly between us, and even though it still bothered me.
"I lost the tape I usually use to cover these types of things. If you have anything similar… If you don't, I can leave like this. I've bled but it's dried over-"
"No, I'll find something." I went looking immediately. He followed, looking like he was in a daydream, standing in the door frame, just breathing in and out, chest rising. I was imagining the ridges of glassy flesh under my fingers again while they rummaged through my drawer. These types of things, I thought. "I don't have any tape like that. I have to check downstairs. You can clean it up with whatever," I went on, sort of swishing my hand at the Kleenex on the counter. I'd not seen the cut, and I almost didn't want to, but I knew it was weird not to want to see it. He was supposed to be someone I loved. No, not loved. He was supposed to be someone I cared about and wanted to take care of, or why else would I be searching the house, when my parents could be back any minute, with Erik at the door frame of my bathroom, smiling at me…
I gave him his privacy (or, I guess, implied privacy), when I rushed past him. I passed the living room and my candle on the coffee table had burned out, smoke was rising, and I knew by it that my parents had been gone a while. I looked out the front windows and then came to the kitchen. It seemed so likely that my mom and dad would burst through the garage door, but the house remained silent, save for me digging through bandage bags, trying to find our biggest.
I climbed the stairs with everything, even disinfectant, and headed towards that rim of light. I didn't knock before entering, and I caught him bent over my jewelry box, gingerly prodding my necklaces. He saw me in the mirror and straightened himself.
"It's cute how attached you are to flowers. Perhaps that's..."
I smiled nervously, assuming his sudden stop was to put me on edge. "What?"
His other hand reached my view. It was twirling one of my hair accessories, a pink double-layered bow, as he found his sentence caught. "...Perhaps that's why you always wear them... in your hair... "
Seeing him touch my things seemed to bring my feelings back to an intense state. I don't know if it was because I was a girl or if it was just me and Mariam, but our hair things were personal; kind of a part of us, and so was my jewelry. His exploration of even those small things, at the time, solidified in my entirely charmed head that he was troubled but everything someone could ever dream to have in a partner.
I set down the stuff and shrugged off the thought. "That's funny. Most people say my name...destined me for-" I too suddenly struggled with the topic. It came together why he had paused. "Thinking of wearing your own?" He dropped the bow to the counter and smiled to himself.
"That would be a waste of them, wouldn't it?"
"Not exactly…" I took a deep breath. "So are you okay?"
"You know, it's beautiful the way you mean that question. I've heard it twice, lately, haven't I?" He proceeded to ask himself. I decided to be bold once more and back him in to a seat, and he welcomed it, still without focus, raising his arms gently beneath mine as they rested on his shoulders.
"Are you worried it hurts?" His smile grew larger for a moment; then it vanished.
"I'm worried you're hiding things from me, but sure, that too. Did you clean it?"
"Not yet. Too many distractions."
"Should I go?"
"Going won't make you less of a distraction," he said, eyes wandering back to me, but he rose again. "Ladies should sit."
I didn't try to watch when he lowered and pulled up the torn fabric. My eyes mostly wandered to meaningless objects, like the rubber duck clan sitting at the edge of my bathtub, and to the box of razorblades still sitting nearby from my desperate cleaning session. He didn't say anything, and he was fast. Perhaps it was a talent of his to clean up wounds. …I would hear his breath again, gaining volume, and I felt sometimes that he had paused just to catch me eying the ceiling fixture. I wanted to seem like I didn't know or didn't mind, so I ignored those pauses, but after a particularly long one, he said "thank you" in a very stern tone, and I looked down, and he had that sharpness coming back. It made me feel like a gun was pointed at me; expecting something immediate, or… Or…
"Of course."
He put the bandage bag, closed, and the disinfectant neatly at the edge of the counter without rising and leaned forward, arms extending. He looked ready to crawl to me, if he weren't already so close.
"Are you happy this way?" He would never give up, would he?
"…I think so."
"I don't like to see you stay up so late. It's not good for you…" he muttered.
He watched his hands and decided to stand up. I did as well. I wanted out of the conversation before it started. I looked for a distraction, an easy one, and saw my comb just in front of him.
"We're not going to have much more time," I told him. I started fixing his hair and, in the mirror, his eyes flickered tiredly. I added in my lightest tone: "We have to bring you back to a state of perfection."
It was the wrong thing to say. I meant to comment on his beauty, but the then-closed eyes opened with two-hold alertness. I'd given him the power to push through my touch, but I kept trying; brushing his hair with my fingers and lifting it over his ear so I could trace the hard edge of his mask. He was my doll. He thought to himself a while and I laid my cheek to his back.
"What would be a worthwhile trade for all of this?" He asked. My face turned in and I hid there, where he blocked all of me from the mirror.
"…What?"
"I'm just curious. I don't understand people who are attached to places. When you're constantly uprooted, you have to look for alternatives to that feeling one gets that everything's fine…"
I didn't say anything.
"Christine…"
Still, I was silent.
"I'm unhappy without you."
"I've been waiting to tell you. I don't want to have to leave anymore. Don't you wish I didn't have to leave?"
"You ask if I'm okay… Between you closing your door last night and opening it today, no, I wasn't okay. I don't have a home besides you. I don't feel I can really sleep unless you're next to me."
"I've felt that way a while but I knew if I admitted it too early, you wouldn't understand, or you'd think I didn't mean it." His hand covered mine on his shoulder and slowly took it away. He was turning to me and exposing me to that mirror, holding my fingers and raising my arm.
"We need to make a compromise." My wrist was met with warm air and he held it under his eyes with extreme focus.
"I'm trying to make this work," I reasoned, and I took my hands away quickly. I tried to straighten his collar, though it needed no straightening – it could end this conversation somehow. I was readying him to go and he would go soon. He wouldn't be as upset as he claimed.
"I know you are. I'm flattered that you do that..." A thought reached him just as his sentence trailed. "...But I give you infinite time," rose from under his breath. "You take advantage of very little of it. And I don't believe you're satisfied." My hands dropped down the front of him.
"You're being a little impractical… don't you think? There's only so much I can do."
"I told you I'd help you."
I didn't feel like asking how. I didn't want to know the plans, if there were any. I preferred trying to stay in that carefree fantasy world; hide there, really, from him. I wondered why we couldn't keep at our original pace… why we couldn't have a conversation anymore that didn't become about him needing more time from me.
"You make me feel I'm in too deep when you shy away from me like that." I felt the pressure in that statement as his face tilted and the sharp front of his mask reached my temple. I laughed nervously and looked up. "You're in too deep? Then what am I?"
"...Not deep enough."
Just as he said it, there was a rumble downstairs. I tensed up with instant familiarity to that sound and pulled back, but Erik didn't look the least on edge. "You're fast. You can head out the door before they see you."
He wasn't as frantic as me, so though I used most of my strength to yank at his arm, I bounced back like a rubber band. But he didn't smile; he didn't seem to focus on anything. He strode down the stairs and across the entryway seeming a little blank, disappointed maybe, but, in his last few seconds, his hand touched my cheek like it was made of glass, and he kissed my forehead as if there was nothing to be afraid of. I locked the door and ran away from it as soon as it was between us, then hurried for the garage to greet, or rather distract, my parents. He probably didn't need the help, but I had my own nerves to settle.
* * *
Erik
Think of a day when I don't hurry anywhere. Not away from you, not towards you. I'm always with you.
Jan 13, 8:44pm
* * *
Ten minutes after the house was no longer mine, I read his text, I imagined the air stiffening his clothes once again, and I came upstairs. I stood where he was standing, and I looked at myself in the mirror. I repeated, under my breath, "I'm unhappy without you," several times. Then, "I don't have a home besides you." I said it into my eyes, and I imagined loving the eyes. I wondered where he was going. I wondered if he was waiting for me to answer the text as he returned somewhere he didn't want to be.
He made me guilty.
I shouldn't have been surprised – he was overpowering my senses with the soul of that character and I reacted accordingly, because I had loved the real Erik. I'd read him struggle the same sad reality that she wouldn't be coming back right away when he let her go, or maybe not at all. I knew she was the only thing he could think about, especially there, deep in that world where the silence seems loud in your ears because you hear nothing else to compare it to…
He was so wrong if he thought he should worry I didn't adore him just because I had to send him away. If there were no parents, he would have stayed and I would've done anything for him. And he would have slept in my bed, he would have felt my arms, he would have been worshipped again.
I covered my face and turned away. The bathroom – my very own – and its colors, it's peach and purple towels, the jewelry box, the flower pins – all mine – didn't seem like what he dreamed for me. I almost felt… he didn't want me to have anything, so that I wouldn't be distracted, so that my roots came up so easily for him and his desires. He wanted us both to be lost and gripping to each other. Instead, he gripped to me as I orbited a bigger thing and… he couldn't quite say directly yet that I should do him a great favor: plunge into nothingness. Orbit him, and him alone. Breathe him, as he breathed me.
He didn't notice anything in my house besides me; I was the only thing that mattered and he couldn't have me. I mean, not at that moment.
But why did I feel guilty about something that wasn't my fault? He sounded disconnected from reality itself, but I wanted to please him still. Maybe I felt bad it couldn't be my fault, so that it was within my control. Maybe there was a way to quit. I mean, my job. Maybe I would explain I didn't like it there anymore. Maybe I'd pretend to stay after, maybe I'd go straight to the theater every day.
I needed to stop having these thoughts. I had to reason a little for the both of us.
* * *
Did I want to read the black book? I had to stop having these thoughts. I had to stop having these thoughts. I had to stop having these thoughts, but that book was staring me in the face, at the edge of my bed. A flower clip sat atop the cover, and a pen, which I didn't recognize, with a clear holder and purple ink. The flower wasn't mine, either.
I raised the gifts and held them softly to my chest, but I knew after that book opened, there would be no winding down. I had to make contact with the darkness, and there would be no break from darkness until dawn. Accepting the inevitability of feeling twice as worse, I crawled into bed. I put the pin and the flower on my bed stand, just above the drawer where his note from Christmas morning was still hidden.
He'd said there was a lot to read. I went looking for those new pages and found them quite easily behind everything we had written so far, but more importantly, they were with a scrawl that seemed so hurried. I hadn't yet tried to focus, but I saw the last word of the first sentence, "miserable," and it made me lay my head down on my pillow and savor one last moment free of confronting that word that had followed us since our grand collision. I curled up, took my eyes off the wall in front of me, and read.
Favorite Quotes
Chapter 40, it turns out, was the longest chapter of HT I've ever written. It was 8,000 words. I posted it last night and now, for the month of October, the story has almost a thousand hits and it's only the 8th. In past updating periods, I'd be impressed to see a thousand hits at the end of a month, so it's making me wonder just how much feedback I might be able to get if I start updating weekly and the story stays at the top of the lists.
Well, anyway, I'm happy to present to you the next chapter of HT early, which will be shown to the rest of the world next Friday. It's only eight pages, but I found a cliff-hanger that I rather liked. I named the chapter after an ALW lyric, which has been my first nod to the musical in the story in a while. It was the musical that inspired me this time, or (I think, actually) some combination of the book and the musical. My passion was just ignited after I saw the 25th Anniversary performance. I had never, ever, in my life, seen it so clearly or been so close, and I couldn't have been if I'd seen it live anyway. They were as close to the camera as movie actors - I saw everything in their faces, every small reaction - it was beautiful.
I never did like Ramin Karimloo very much. In fact, there's a video on youtube of him singing Music of the Night that I find abrasive and not at all charming, and I think I once wrote that he was a phantom that inspired pepper spray, and I hate how hunky he sometimes looks. But... I admire those who aren't so stubborn that they can change their minds, and I want to be one of those people. So... well, I take back my dislike of Ramin. He's still not at the top of my list, but he did a phenomenal job. Maybe that MOTN video I watched was old and he's learned since now. I know he's been playing the Phantom for at least three years. But yes, I take it back, I take it back! I have to give him some respect because he knows who Erik is. No one gives a performance like what I saw and doesn't know.
That said, the performance also solidified that Sierra Boggess is my #1 ALW Christine. She has a beautiful voice, a beautiful face, and she clearly loves the role. She makes the character very real and likable when it's easy for Christine to look like a vapid bimbo. But even though Christine can be overlooked or seem like a sue, or what have you, I actually give props to anyone who plays her. Everyone's always giving the Phantom the most attention, he's the last at curtain call and gets the loudest cheer, and he's the one showered in roses when its his last performance, but... the truth of the matter may be that the Christines of this show work their asses off the hardest. It's their story. Erik is on stage for about 40 minutes in this two and a half hour production. Christine is there in most every scene. I read that, while Phantoms actors perform 8 times a week, Christine actresses aren't allowed to do more than six because of the high toll the show takes on their voices. It seems to me that being Christine on Broadway is like the theatrical Olympics, every night. I suppose that's why I got a little choked up watching Sierra take her bows.
Anyway, I've been watching this clip over and over again and marveling at how interesting it is. The clip's going to be poor quality after being turned into an wmv and clipped up and...ugh. But here we go:
My favorite part is when he says "this loathsome gargoyle... who burns in Hell, but secret yearns for Heaven! Secretly, secretly..." and he pauses... Is it just me, or does he say "but Christine," just like Robert Englund Phantom does? To me, he was suddenly Robert - it was weird, but I loved it. The next sentence "fear can turn to love" seemed to come off the top of his head.
And then Sierra, the way she looks on and the music clearly shows he's suggesting an odd thing. Right before the shot ends, she's raising her eyebrow.
Ramin's quiet little "no!" after he let his hand fall a little and she was grossed out, that was so perfect, too...
It's hard to say what exactly I put into Chapter 41 that came from this performance, but... it's something. So, finally:
HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 41 – From His Solitude
The parents had been gone for two hours when I heard the doorbell. The first message Erik sent me on that day was that we should meet again, so he could deliver the black book. He must have been worried he'd forget to tell me, because the message was sent very early in the morning. I didn't receive it until noon, when I'd finally rolled out of a deep sleep.
Although I'd told him he could visit the house, I hadn't expected it quite then and stumbled into the bathroom to fix myself very frantically. He seemed to hate waiting these days, and I was so caught up in him that, no matter how necessary it was, I felt guilty for all that time between the ring and when I opened the door.
He was staring down, into space, but my image and the light seemed to flush life into him. Suddenly he looked like he wanted to rush inside, but he stopped himself, returned his eyes to that same space, and raised the black book in front of me. I took it from him, and he said, to the wall beside the door frame, "How are you?"
"I'm alright-"
"Are you busy?" This time, he directed the question at me and I was suddenly very aware that only a few inches were between us. I pressed the book against me, both arms crossed, and stepped back, holding a gaze that invited him in. He stepped forward, closing the door behind him without really noticing it at all, and I set the book on the top of the couch. When I raised my hands to take his shoulders, he came towards me and like some kind of movie I leaned back over the couch's edge as our lips met. He rather fell into me, so much that I couldn't support him, and I started tipping back, but he caught me very smoothly and pressed me tightly against him. His body and clothes were so chilled and stiff, I felt goose bumps spreading over my arms, but I kept still, and he went quiet with his chin over my shoulder. I looked out the front windows behind him out of habit.
"We might want to go upstairs," I said. He didn't seem to hear me until I was repeating myself, suddenly anxious that he wasn't letting go and we were right in the living room, but when his arms withdrew from my waist, they dangled, and he dropped to his knees in front of me, and looked down, and under his breath was a moan, very sudden and certainly unintended. He didn't look at me afterward, or wonder if I was confused, he only saw that the book had fallen to the floor by his feet, and picked it up, and began reading it. He was muttering to himself, even, and I was lost. I watched him and lowered to the seat, and lent him my touch on his forearm, but he wouldn't respond when I said his name. "Did you hear me?"
"Do you want to read this now? It has quite a lot to say."
"I… I'll save it for later. It holds me over—"
"You shouldn't have to be held over."
I sighed and looked off. "…I don't think we should be out here," I said. After a pause, he knew what I meant, but he seemed to rise with a sense of agitation, and he placed the book back in his coat. I set the example and tried to hurry for the stairs, but his pace was unworried. He reached me when he wanted to reach me. When I watched him come closer, there was something odd about his gate. I waited with my arm extended, hoping for his hand. He reached for me and had a newfound focus which I could feel on my back, but halfway up the stairs, I felt a tug. I wondered if he would pull me into a spontaneous kiss or the like, but the action wasn't playful. It hit me he was in pain again. I knew his tack of pretending there was no such thing. "Erik?" I turned around and stopped. "What's wrong?"
He was quick to think it funny, but the kitchen light to our side revealed a shimmer to his skin.
"I'm serious."
"I know," he answered, his eyes widening.
"Then why are you laughing?" He hadn't an answer. "You think it's funny when I'm worried about you."
As I wasn't going up as soon as he wanted to, he let go of my hand and journeyed the rest of the way, and I noticed a rip down the shin of his pants. He gripped the railing and leaned toward me. "I do find it funny, but in no condescending way. It's different. I think it's fascinating."
He made very clear eye contact and then disappeared to down the right side of the hall, which immediately perked me up. He would come face to face with my parents' bedroom. I ran up the rest of the steps and threw my arms out at his shape, though I could hardly see it now that the light from downstairs had gotten lost around the corner of the hall. "Don't go in there!"
"Something I shouldn't know?"
"No, something they shouldn't know."
"They're not going to know I was here."
"They could come home any minute, actually."
"Well isn't that exciting?"
"You're good enough at being exciting outside. I'm not in the mood to hide you in my closet overnight."
He stopped with the banter all together and turned for the other side of the hall. He flipped on the light in the bathroom, then off, then on in the next room, and it all happened so fast, I couldn't stop him when he entered my room and slid open the closet. I froze right behind him. I knew the roses were there, but I also knew the whole room was behind him. Nothing of him moved but his eyes as they noted the objects inside: surely my book shelf, my little desk in front of it, my chair and blanket… the roses – he never mentioned them, though a smile was beginning to curl up his face impishly. He looked as if he'd conquered. Even hunched over, his presence, black and tall, cut into my simple room with unsettling contrast.
I eyed his torn shin again and fidgeted.
"What's wrong with your leg?" He took a deep, tired breath, and ignored me.
"It looks like you already have it set up for me."
"Erik?"
"Christine?" He withdrew from the closet opening and I met his smile with a glower. He saw my restless hands and took his time coming up with something to say, laying gaze upon all my things in the meantime. For a brief moment, I met eyes with Charles the Owl, sitting over a unique landscape of sheets I hadn't bothered to smooth. At the desk, there was an open book for Humanities sat next to a half-drunk cup of green tea, and my sweater had nearly fallen off the chair. I went to adjust it, and I slapped the book closed with enough force to make Erik sure I was waiting. "I was a bit reckless tonight. I took a bad route, a quick one, to reach you. I came across someone governed by impulses,"
He may as well have said "I'm bleeding profusely." I whipped around and grimaced.
"Someone tried to hurt you?" He eyed my music box instead of answering. He didn't seem sure, himself, what experience to claim. "Y-you were mugged?"
"No. Although, I have been once. I had nothing valuable so they knocked me straight in the back of the head," he finished with light laughter. "But that was years ago. They would never get away with that now."
He was distracting me. I knew it. If he wasn't mugged, it was a fight. I was summoning the courage to call his attempts, from the very beginning, unconvincing at best, but he asked, simply and sincerely, "…Can you help me?"
My vitriol flatlined. I held on to the top of my chair. "What do you want me to do?" I asked. It felt surprisingly right to agree right away, even with a secret so clearly between us, and even though it still bothered me.
"I lost the tape I usually use to cover these types of things. If you have anything similar… If you don't, I can leave like this. I've bled but it's dried over-"
"No, I'll find something." I went looking immediately. He followed, looking like he was in a daydream, standing in the door frame, just breathing in and out, chest rising. I was imagining the ridges of glassy flesh under my fingers again while they rummaged through my drawer. These types of things, I thought. "I don't have any tape like that. I have to check downstairs. You can clean it up with whatever," I went on, sort of swishing my hand at the Kleenex on the counter. I'd not seen the cut, and I almost didn't want to, but I knew it was weird not to want to see it. He was supposed to be someone I loved. No, not loved. He was supposed to be someone I cared about and wanted to take care of, or why else would I be searching the house, when my parents could be back any minute, with Erik at the door frame of my bathroom, smiling at me…
I gave him his privacy (or, I guess, implied privacy), when I rushed past him. I passed the living room and my candle on the coffee table had burned out, smoke was rising, and I knew by it that my parents had been gone a while. I looked out the front windows and then came to the kitchen. It seemed so likely that my mom and dad would burst through the garage door, but the house remained silent, save for me digging through bandage bags, trying to find our biggest.
I climbed the stairs with everything, even disinfectant, and headed towards that rim of light. I didn't knock before entering, and I caught him bent over my jewelry box, gingerly prodding my necklaces. He saw me in the mirror and straightened himself.
"It's cute how attached you are to flowers. Perhaps that's..."
I smiled nervously, assuming his sudden stop was to put me on edge. "What?"
His other hand reached my view. It was twirling one of my hair accessories, a pink double-layered bow, as he found his sentence caught. "...Perhaps that's why you always wear them... in your hair... "
Seeing him touch my things seemed to bring my feelings back to an intense state. I don't know if it was because I was a girl or if it was just me and Mariam, but our hair things were personal; kind of a part of us, and so was my jewelry. His exploration of even those small things, at the time, solidified in my entirely charmed head that he was troubled but everything someone could ever dream to have in a partner.
I set down the stuff and shrugged off the thought. "That's funny. Most people say my name...destined me for-" I too suddenly struggled with the topic. It came together why he had paused. "Thinking of wearing your own?" He dropped the bow to the counter and smiled to himself.
"That would be a waste of them, wouldn't it?"
"Not exactly…" I took a deep breath. "So are you okay?"
"You know, it's beautiful the way you mean that question. I've heard it twice, lately, haven't I?" He proceeded to ask himself. I decided to be bold once more and back him in to a seat, and he welcomed it, still without focus, raising his arms gently beneath mine as they rested on his shoulders.
"Are you worried it hurts?" His smile grew larger for a moment; then it vanished.
"I'm worried you're hiding things from me, but sure, that too. Did you clean it?"
"Not yet. Too many distractions."
"Should I go?"
"Going won't make you less of a distraction," he said, eyes wandering back to me, but he rose again. "Ladies should sit."
I didn't try to watch when he lowered and pulled up the torn fabric. My eyes mostly wandered to meaningless objects, like the rubber duck clan sitting at the edge of my bathtub, and to the box of razorblades still sitting nearby from my desperate cleaning session. He didn't say anything, and he was fast. Perhaps it was a talent of his to clean up wounds. …I would hear his breath again, gaining volume, and I felt sometimes that he had paused just to catch me eying the ceiling fixture. I wanted to seem like I didn't know or didn't mind, so I ignored those pauses, but after a particularly long one, he said "thank you" in a very stern tone, and I looked down, and he had that sharpness coming back. It made me feel like a gun was pointed at me; expecting something immediate, or… Or…
"Of course."
He put the bandage bag, closed, and the disinfectant neatly at the edge of the counter without rising and leaned forward, arms extending. He looked ready to crawl to me, if he weren't already so close.
"Are you happy this way?" He would never give up, would he?
"…I think so."
"I don't like to see you stay up so late. It's not good for you…" he muttered.
He watched his hands and decided to stand up. I did as well. I wanted out of the conversation before it started. I looked for a distraction, an easy one, and saw my comb just in front of him.
"We're not going to have much more time," I told him. I started fixing his hair and, in the mirror, his eyes flickered tiredly. I added in my lightest tone: "We have to bring you back to a state of perfection."
It was the wrong thing to say. I meant to comment on his beauty, but the then-closed eyes opened with two-hold alertness. I'd given him the power to push through my touch, but I kept trying; brushing his hair with my fingers and lifting it over his ear so I could trace the hard edge of his mask. He was my doll. He thought to himself a while and I laid my cheek to his back.
"What would be a worthwhile trade for all of this?" He asked. My face turned in and I hid there, where he blocked all of me from the mirror.
"…What?"
"I'm just curious. I don't understand people who are attached to places. When you're constantly uprooted, you have to look for alternatives to that feeling one gets that everything's fine…"
I didn't say anything.
"Christine…"
Still, I was silent.
"I'm unhappy without you."
"I've been waiting to tell you. I don't want to have to leave anymore. Don't you wish I didn't have to leave?"
"You ask if I'm okay… Between you closing your door last night and opening it today, no, I wasn't okay. I don't have a home besides you. I don't feel I can really sleep unless you're next to me."
"I've felt that way a while but I knew if I admitted it too early, you wouldn't understand, or you'd think I didn't mean it." His hand covered mine on his shoulder and slowly took it away. He was turning to me and exposing me to that mirror, holding my fingers and raising my arm.
"We need to make a compromise." My wrist was met with warm air and he held it under his eyes with extreme focus.
"I'm trying to make this work," I reasoned, and I took my hands away quickly. I tried to straighten his collar, though it needed no straightening – it could end this conversation somehow. I was readying him to go and he would go soon. He wouldn't be as upset as he claimed.
"I know you are. I'm flattered that you do that..." A thought reached him just as his sentence trailed. "...But I give you infinite time," rose from under his breath. "You take advantage of very little of it. And I don't believe you're satisfied." My hands dropped down the front of him.
"You're being a little impractical… don't you think? There's only so much I can do."
"I told you I'd help you."
I didn't feel like asking how. I didn't want to know the plans, if there were any. I preferred trying to stay in that carefree fantasy world; hide there, really, from him. I wondered why we couldn't keep at our original pace… why we couldn't have a conversation anymore that didn't become about him needing more time from me.
"You make me feel I'm in too deep when you shy away from me like that." I felt the pressure in that statement as his face tilted and the sharp front of his mask reached my temple. I laughed nervously and looked up. "You're in too deep? Then what am I?"
"...Not deep enough."
Just as he said it, there was a rumble downstairs. I tensed up with instant familiarity to that sound and pulled back, but Erik didn't look the least on edge. "You're fast. You can head out the door before they see you."
He wasn't as frantic as me, so though I used most of my strength to yank at his arm, I bounced back like a rubber band. But he didn't smile; he didn't seem to focus on anything. He strode down the stairs and across the entryway seeming a little blank, disappointed maybe, but, in his last few seconds, his hand touched my cheek like it was made of glass, and he kissed my forehead as if there was nothing to be afraid of. I locked the door and ran away from it as soon as it was between us, then hurried for the garage to greet, or rather distract, my parents. He probably didn't need the help, but I had my own nerves to settle.
* * *
Erik
Think of a day when I don't hurry anywhere. Not away from you, not towards you. I'm always with you.
Jan 13, 8:44pm
* * *
Ten minutes after the house was no longer mine, I read his text, I imagined the air stiffening his clothes once again, and I came upstairs. I stood where he was standing, and I looked at myself in the mirror. I repeated, under my breath, "I'm unhappy without you," several times. Then, "I don't have a home besides you." I said it into my eyes, and I imagined loving the eyes. I wondered where he was going. I wondered if he was waiting for me to answer the text as he returned somewhere he didn't want to be.
He made me guilty.
I shouldn't have been surprised – he was overpowering my senses with the soul of that character and I reacted accordingly, because I had loved the real Erik. I'd read him struggle the same sad reality that she wouldn't be coming back right away when he let her go, or maybe not at all. I knew she was the only thing he could think about, especially there, deep in that world where the silence seems loud in your ears because you hear nothing else to compare it to…
He was so wrong if he thought he should worry I didn't adore him just because I had to send him away. If there were no parents, he would have stayed and I would've done anything for him. And he would have slept in my bed, he would have felt my arms, he would have been worshipped again.
I covered my face and turned away. The bathroom – my very own – and its colors, it's peach and purple towels, the jewelry box, the flower pins – all mine – didn't seem like what he dreamed for me. I almost felt… he didn't want me to have anything, so that I wouldn't be distracted, so that my roots came up so easily for him and his desires. He wanted us both to be lost and gripping to each other. Instead, he gripped to me as I orbited a bigger thing and… he couldn't quite say directly yet that I should do him a great favor: plunge into nothingness. Orbit him, and him alone. Breathe him, as he breathed me.
He didn't notice anything in my house besides me; I was the only thing that mattered and he couldn't have me. I mean, not at that moment.
But why did I feel guilty about something that wasn't my fault? He sounded disconnected from reality itself, but I wanted to please him still. Maybe I felt bad it couldn't be my fault, so that it was within my control. Maybe there was a way to quit. I mean, my job. Maybe I would explain I didn't like it there anymore. Maybe I'd pretend to stay after, maybe I'd go straight to the theater every day.
I needed to stop having these thoughts. I had to reason a little for the both of us.
* * *
Did I want to read the black book? I had to stop having these thoughts. I had to stop having these thoughts. I had to stop having these thoughts, but that book was staring me in the face, at the edge of my bed. A flower clip sat atop the cover, and a pen, which I didn't recognize, with a clear holder and purple ink. The flower wasn't mine, either.
I raised the gifts and held them softly to my chest, but I knew after that book opened, there would be no winding down. I had to make contact with the darkness, and there would be no break from darkness until dawn. Accepting the inevitability of feeling twice as worse, I crawled into bed. I put the pin and the flower on my bed stand, just above the drawer where his note from Christmas morning was still hidden.
He'd said there was a lot to read. I went looking for those new pages and found them quite easily behind everything we had written so far, but more importantly, they were with a scrawl that seemed so hurried. I hadn't yet tried to focus, but I saw the last word of the first sentence, "miserable," and it made me lay my head down on my pillow and savor one last moment free of confronting that word that had followed us since our grand collision. I curled up, took my eyes off the wall in front of me, and read.
“You know, it’s beautiful the way you mean that question. I’ve heard it twice, lately, haven’t I?”
“Ladies should sit.”
...I looked down, and he had that sharpness coming back. It made me feel like a gun was pointed at me; expecting something immediate...
"Think of a day when I don't hurry anywhere. Not away from you, not towards you. I'm always with you."
He wanted us both to be lost and gripping to each other. Instead, he gripped to me as I orbited a bigger thing and… he couldn’t quite say directly yet that I should do him a great favor: plunge into nothingness. Orbit him, and him alone. Breathe him, as he breathed me.
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