I'm not convinced I did anywhere near a perfect job with this, but at least it's finished, and at least it's ready to be seen! I have to keep telling myself that no matter how long I've been working on HT, it's still a first draft. I hope while posting this that I'm not all by myself here. I put this on ff.net yesterday afternoon, got one review, and then lost a favorite. It made me kind of sad, because I didn't know if all my same readers cared anymore.
Also: is it just me, or his Erik's manipulation and word games just so obvious? I revised chapter 42 and made it more overt that Lily was trying to get across how he acts like this and how hard it is to deal with. Paulina even says she knows what she's talking about.
HE’S (@) THERE
Chapter 43 – Sleep
I wrote down what Giry said and then went straight to call him. I locked my bedroom door and curled up in bed, waiting, wondering why there had been six, seven, eight rings. An automated message prompted me to leave him voicemail, but I hanged up.
After ten minutes or so, I decided to take the bath I very much needed, and I sunk down into the heat with a great inner sigh. There was enough to worry about – work Thursday through Saturday, two chapters I should have read tonight for the Great Gatsby, a practice sheet from Mr. Darelle before I retook the last quiz that I would have to do during lunch… As usual, Erik was the strange priority.
I was mulling it over as the water ran, hugging myself a little and covered in goose bumps. Should I have taken more kindly to him? Should I not have entered the house at all and went straight to the theater? I had fallen into guilt, even, of the illogical kind.
But then he called back. My cellphone sitting on my towel began to ring just before I was going to submerge my head and lie beneath the water as long as I could. I dried my hands and answered both in a very short moment.
“Hi,” I said and followed with a heavy exhale.
“You called me.”
“Yes? I told you I would. I was sorry that you caught me at a bad time.”
“And you’re home now.”
“Yes. Where are you?”
“Still within possibility…”
“Giry told me you were at the theater. How did she know?” I knew he could contact her, but I wanted him to admit it himself.
“I told her.”
“You can message her, then.”
“I can message anyone.”
I knew the short answers. He spoke little when he was bothered. “Is she a friend of yours now?”
“No.”
“Then… You were messaging us both. Is there something important?”
“ Is it important to want to see you?” I fumbled for an answer. “…I hope so,” he added, softly.
“Yes, it…” My voice’s volume began to drop as I answered, “it’s always important, and you know that.” I was looking to where he was once standing. I could practically see us having the conversation there, with my head against his back. “I just need to get through this week in one piece. I have things I need to catch up on before I go to bed.”
“Then I would hate to impose on you. It was my mistake.” I lowered my head into my freehand.
“ It’s fine… I-I can see you tomorrow or something. It's my only day off. In the meantime, stay off rooftops. And don’t walk down any dark alleys…” Finally, he showed some hint of enjoyment for the conversation, and the desperation began to endear me, almost. “And don’t freeze to death... Oh, and find some way to sleep.” For a split-second, I was about to say “I love you,” but I was caught up in a moment where one desired to say something affectionate and the three words came first even though there was no way to mean it.
I took a deep breath. The bathtub was a really bad place to decide you didn’t want to hang up. “Well, goodnight.”
“...Goodnight.”
Click.
* * *
“People don't give a damn, where I come from. They don’t care about your future, or their own. They don’t have any sympathy; they just want to take from you. Anyone could be lying to you, stealing from you, or waiting for the ideal time to step on you to be a little higher. I’m always tense and my insides burn. Apparently, I’m sensitive. In my world, you never let on that you're tense, or that you burn, unless you aim to intimidate someone. They don’t like girls, where I’m from. Girls are sex. You don’t have real conversations with them, and no one would believe that they cared as much as they said.
I hope that can be some context for my amusement when you tell me you're worried about me. I know everyone besides you is full of shit. They’re scared of girls, and they’re scared of themselves. They’re scared of feeling and scared of hurting. Girls make them feel and hurt, and they cannot find the beauty in that. It's too bad fear is contagious, and I had to have these fears at one time.
I played many games during that time, but it was an especially fun one to pretend I didn’t know why you didn’t bother me. I got to be great at it: feeling like a fool, following you, wondering if I could get close enough for you to interact with me in some small way, or just touch me by accident casually as ever, without knowing it.If that's a strange thought, rest assured: it never happened. Only much later would you touch me, when I slammed the door and you took my arms for guidance, and I had to tell you as authoritatively as possible that you hadn’t followed my rules. It was hard to keep a straight face. You touched me and I sensed the wonder I had all that time wanted to give to you. I knew I hadn’t made a mistake yet.
We have something in common here; we’re distracted by tangents. Point: I wasn’t always this way, Christine. I was afraid of all things I now find most comforting, just as you know scary things protect you and are misunderstood. Beauty, and admiring it, following it, wanting to be it, were misunderstood by me, until finally, I dared to look beauty in the face. Of course, I still burn, but it’s a much better view. I’m laughing. I don’t know if we have the same sense of humor, but that’s fine.
There isn’t anything special about triumph unless, until the very moment it was achieved, you were terrified. You know all about that, Christine, because you’re an actress, so I’m not explaining it further, but here is the bottom line: I know you’re with me so far, but you’re wincing all the way. Tell me it’s because you expect greatness, and that I'm scaring you because triumph can be a scary thing, as is love, as is all coming to one who dreamed but never expected. Please tell me you will grow to enjoy expecting your dreams.”
* * *
I’d really put it all on pause since Saturday night, refused to contemplate it too much, but that night I had a suffocating feeling come over me that didn't allow me to sleep once I'd finished my reading and tucked myself in. I saw the numbers on my clock climb from one, to two, to three, and all the while the silhouette of the monkey music box faced my bed and stared.
* * *
Shorts 7 was announced officially this week, and premiering on Valentine's Day. After sitting through Science like a zombie, I found the list of the skits and characters available on the choir room doors, and Mrs. Vardega began class by addressing the “double-dippers”: those who were also permitted in stage crew that semester and who would need to run it past her if they were performing as well. I was taking notes for that – after all, it was my instinct to sign up for anything.
“Of course you can sign up, Lily,” Mrs. Vardega said, “and I think you'll like the line-up this time. One of the skits has a vampire in it – hmm?” Then I gave her a really awkward smile. “What, it was you who liked vampires, right?” Another classmate of mine was waiting around to talk to her while everyone else filed out after class, but I said “sure.” Who doesn't?
And then she asked me: could I bring back my dress in a week? For a moment, I had no idea what she was talking about until the only dress I could imagine giving to her came to mind, and before any personal reaction could kick in, I acted like nothing was more right than returning it. I'd had it since Halloween, after all, and there'd been no use for it since then, after all. I'd just forgotten...
We were all smiles, but I cut the acting job as soon as I had closed the choir room door behind me. The day was only going to continue getting more complicated from here.
I didn't know how to deal with the grief of losing a dress I had known from the beginning wasn't mine besides alerting the person who had appreciated it most, as soon as I could, and he didn't miss a beat texting me first, as he usually did around this time. I was snailing along down the hall trying to type him a message, but I knew I'd suddenly heard Mariam shout “come with me!”and I just froze, trying to find her, assuming I had something to do with it. She was passing with Jeffrey on her tail. He got so close behind her, he was at risk of being smacked by her ponytail. But she saw me, just staring like a goddamn idiot, and the smile on her face came right off. She grabbed his hand, and did what I did just a few minutes ago: acted like no pang of awareness had come over her, no problem was apparent... She had places to go and a boy who hadn't noticed me at all because she had bewitched him.
I suppose a friend should be happy about something like that, but Irrational Lily, who already wanted to cry and was running on four hours of sleep, felt she wasn’t welcome to be happy about it, being that this person had decided they were better off split. Because she skipped over being happy for her, she suddenly felt a rock fall into her stomach. Her brain seemed to be registering it as if neither of she nor her had ever had someone before – like there was no Erik – and that Mariam had gone and done the impossible, officially. Legitimately. No one was obsessed with her; she snagged 'em.
I looked down to my phone, but then back down the hall. They were gone, and surely Mariam would not be heading back this way now.
Whatever. Nevermind it.
I sent him the news and walked into Mr. Darelle's room. There's no telling if my redo of the quiz was any improvement.
* * *
I was hurrying on the way out of Humanities. Once Erik knew about the dress, it occurred to him that I'd told him I'd visit today; he told me he could “rectify the situation”, and there was no way out of it no matter how much I wanted to go home and nurse the headache I had acquired after a long day. It was either after school when I could give a decent excuse, or never.
In the process of getting to him right away, I blew off Dana, or it felt like it. I could tell she wanted to talk after class and maybe hang around out front while her bus was coming, but I was a poor conversationalist, even though I liked her a great deal.
The sun was finally out after what seemed like a month of hibernation, and though the trees along the path to the theater were so dense that the entire road was in shadows, the light cut into the attic, which I entered grumpy and exhausted, complaining about the spiral stairs and dropping my bag right on the spot. Erik was leaning against the wardrobe for some reason, with a full standing mirror on its other side, and the first thing he said was an apology. I gathered my eye-sockets in my hands and said:
“Eghhgh'it's not a huge deal... It's not like they need your mask back.”
“No, but that dress was very flattering on you. It seemed to be yours.” I removed my hand.
“No – tell me I looked horrible in it so I can give it back without feeling bad—”
“—It was a disaster.”
I smiled and closed the door, but when I saw him smiling back, I couldn't help but sigh. “We lie to each other far too often for me to take that as a proper insult.”
“You look horrible in everything, to be honest.”
“Stop that! You know I don't like it when you're too nice to me.”
“Well, lucky for you, I'm about to become a real asshole. Come over here.” I scrunched up my shoulders, and as I came forward he opened the wardrobe. The first thing that came to my attention was a wooden box sitting on a shelf inside.
“Is that yours?”
“ It was until just now.”
“How thoughtful of you! I've always wanted a wooden box,” I said. Erik tightened his lips.
“Open it,” he corrected, faking agitation. I made sure to draw it out as long as I could, taking a great sigh and then curling my fingers around the knob of the lid. Inside were all sorts of hair pieces, and they looked ancient. There were bows, flowers, and pearls. Everything once white was ivory, and all ribbon was soft and silky. I picked up a flower clip with a diamond center and just played with the fabric, sure already that I had to keep it. “You know how many are in there?” He asked. I gave myself a free hand and reached in to the depth of the box. “52.”
“Where did you get these?”
“I couldn't really tell you that. It's a collection I started quite a while ago. I hadn't even planned to give them to you today, but on the occasion of losing that dress, I wanted you to have something you'd never have to give back.”
I bit my lip and finally leaned forward to kiss him, still with the ivory flower in my hand between us. He knew exactly what I had in mind and reached for the clip already in my hear before our lips had even parted. He drew it out carefully and gestured towards the mirror, where I tried on the flower. I'd never take the thing off again, I swore. Somehow, the lighting also made me look like I hadn't been sleep-deprived. “Do you think... perhaps... these can compete with the ones I saw the other day? Your own? Could you trade them for these?”
“I don't know. I'd rather not choose.” He gave me a sharp stare until I reached for my forehead while thanking him modestly. He asked what was wrong. I told him my head was throbbing. The chair I'd had last time was sitting nearby, facing the circular window, so he pulled it out of the direct sunlight so I could take a seat.
“I'll be right back,” he said, and once he left the room, I closed my eyes and lowered my head forward, lamenting that the chair didn't go up far enough for me to rest it on. For several minutes, it was silent besides the sound of my breathing, and I'd look in front of me, seeing the dust float in the sunlight, admiring the way the wood floor seemed to glow. And I felt guilty that before I had come here I was not looking forward to it. When I was less exhausted, I said to myself, I was going to pour those clips onto the floor like trick-or-treating candy, scour through, and admire every single one of them.
When someone was clearly coming back up the stairs, I closed my eyes again, hoping if I made it clear how tired I was he wouldn't have any serious conversations for me today: not about the book, nor about Mariam... He came in, paused, set something down, and a blanket fell onto my lap. I opened my eyes and he was leaning forward, admiring me, and the sunlight flooded over mask, enough to show brilliant brown rings in his eyes.
He stepped back, and when I turned to my side I saw he'd put a tray on the rug with two empty cups and a steaming metal pot. I looked him in the eye and shook my head. “This is not happening,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” he corrected. “You can come to terms with it while it steeps. It's darjeeling, by the way. Do you like that?”
“You planned this.”
“ Well I had to plan something... while you were away...” He turned towards the window with his hands behind his back, but I knew the sentiment of that comment too well.
“I've had a lot of homework. Actually, I should warn you – if I drink any of that tea, I'm bound to conk out right in front of you.”
He turned around and suddenly looked quite pleased. “Is that a warning or a promise?”
I didn't know what to say, so I smiled to my lap. “Sleep is one of the best things anyone could ever do... If you want to do that in front of me, I have no objections.”
“Well...” I was going to have to come up with something witty or I'd turn beet red. “Don't like it too much or you won't want me to wake up.”
“I'm trying,” he said before kneeling down and opening the lid of the pot. The water was dark brown, so he poured me a cup and shook his head after obliging to put in as much sugar as I wanted. The room wasn't cold, but it was crisp and dry, so when the cup warmed my hands, I savored the sensation and let the steam reach my chin.
“This isn't drugged, is it?”
“Like I would tell you.” I smiled and sipped.
I was not expecting anything like this. He took his cup and sipped it by the window, just “keeping watch”, and had no questions for me; only spoke in response, kept it uncomplicated, and could bear to listen to me murmur about Humanities and other such subjects of the day, not always in complete sentences once the tea's effect began to kick in. In every silence, I thought of the black book, but what was there to say about it? And why ruin a good thing? It was good enough that I lowered to the rug, kicked off my shoes, and pulled the blanket over me.
And suddenly it was much later.
My eyes were flickering open, and the sky had gone deep blue. I saw long black legs beside mine and found Erik next to me, his body stiff and straight and his eyes closed. The tea and his coat were pushed aside and my phone was under his hand. Soundlessly, I rose and scanned the room for a clock, but couldn't find one.
I didn't want to wake him; I knew how special it must have been to fall asleep there, and perhaps if I disrupted him he would never be able to get back, but there was no choice in the matter. “Erik!” I whispered harshly, clutching his arm. His eyes shot open. “I told you to wake me up at 5:00,” I said, and I whipped the phone out from under his hand. It was on vibrate and read 6:32.
He didn't say anything, so I stood up and flung on my shoes. “Oh, God... I never stay after this late. I'm surprised they haven't called me. I have to go,” I told him, and I was through the door within the second.
“Wait a minute!” I had to catch myself from tripping, and turned around to find him staring at me at close range. “You don't have to go.”
“I do.”
“Your mother thinks you're at Meg's.”
“Why would she think that?”
“I told her so.” I lifted up my phone and searched my sent box, finding a brief conversation from two hours ago in which I had no part. While I gaped and scanned the words, Erik's hand reached my arm. “Don't leave.” As the phone closed in my hands, my eyes wandered to the place we laid on the floor, and I answered, calmly and sternly:
“You don't have the place to do that for me.”
“I was afraid if you left, I wouldn't be able to sleep,” he explained. The pressure came off my arm. “You said you had four hours last night. Well, I had none. I was hoping for some peace of mind. This was it.”
“...I'm sorry.”
“Don't be sorry; I got what I needed.”
“No, no, you had no right to text my mother like you were me and make me stay here, but I'm sorry that you can't sleep. I-I-I... I don't know what to tell you; I don't know what you could do to stop being this way.” He just stared at me. We didn't touch anymore, I could barely look him in the eye, and all I could think was it did not seem like I loved him, and I hated that. That he could be desperate for me just to sleep and all I'd wanted to do before I came was sleep alone; almost every instinct was telling me to hurry home now and here I was in the doorway instead, in such a fickle position, throwing out apologies for his serious depression on matters he'd never bothered to tell me. I could give him no advice, no console, just this ridiculous, empty apology.
“You won’t like to hear this,” he warned me, “but there are no choices I can make that will let me sleep as you do. There’s only a choice you can make.”
A long moment passed where I could do nothing but stand there, ready to hide again, or run somewhere where this assertion couldn't find me, but you know... it just would've been irresponsible not to tell him how I honestly felt about all of this, so I marched to the chair and dropped down so I could rub my temples a little and grope my hair in my fist. The headache was mostly gone, but not entirely, and I was sure a vein was now pulsing above my eye.
He eventually closed to the stairwell door and returned to the window. I think he thought that I'd succumbed, finally, to that idea, but little did he know, his comment had submerged me in a guilt which I refused to accept just yet. I sat up and asserted to his back, “that isn’t so.” He faced me but with only weak interest, as if I’d simply asked him to turn around and he didn’t yet know why. “There are so many things you can do for yourself, Erik, that I would never be able to do for you. You have to love yourself. You have to at least love more than me.”
“I don't,” he answered matter-of-factly, then focused on the window again. Then I stood up, came right to his side, drew in both his hands, and forced out:
“You know I think you're amazing, right? You don't even have to do a goddamn thing and somehow it's different from everyone else, but I know how to let you go sometimes. For your own sake. You can't give me happiness from the very bottom up. It’s an impossible thing to gain from others, Erik.” I was about to fancy the floor opening up and swallowing me for even beginning this conversation in such a useless position, but he just looked me calmly in the eye and extracted his hand.
“How much experience do you honestly have of happiness without anyone? I want to know, because it seems to me that you always have company – more than even necessary – and that collective, positive, company is why you don't go crazy.”
“Necessary? What does that even mean?”
“Answer my question first,” he ordered, and the both of us sensed the hostility that would destroy a rational conversation if unrestrained. He dropped his tense shoulders. “…I’m curious.”
“I can tell,” I said. He wasn’t going to react in any other way until I said what he wished to hear, so I found my confidence again. “Of course I need people. I’m human, just as you are, and I understand that you need them too. But it's a lot of pressure being the only one. I... I don't understand why you don't have anyone else, and i-it breaks my heart, frankly. What about your–” ...Parents. I averted my eyes to the window like I'd noticed something. I could see a car passing on the road up the hill. From where we were, the path between the thick forest seemed to sprout straight from the space between us, and became so black until that road. I looked away and touched his hand again. “Imagine if I never left you alone because I depended on you to breathe, and I couldn’t take no for an answer if you couldn’t talk to me at any time,” I started.
“I imagine that every day, and it remains in my imagination.”
“…Why would you want that? I don't even think I could get ahold of you if I tried to do that.”
“Sometimes you call me when I've collapsed somewhere. Because I couldn't sleep.”
“Y-You need to see a doctor,” I sputtered, but he had to keep away a quiet laugh.
“You just have no idea.”
“At least I'm trying.” Whatever smile he had disappeared.
“Your patience is saintly, and it's one of the reasons I need you, and you don't notice it. I don't know what you expect to accomplish by challenging me.” I stiffened.
“What can I accomplish?! It’s confusing. I feel like I already depend on you, but you somehow make me feel like I’m aloof. Hardly. I do depend on you for support and for attention, and it does make me happier to see you... You have no idea. But dependence to the extent you take it scares me.”
“What hasn’t, so far?” He wondered.
“Fear doesn't always mean something exhilarating and fantastic is going to happen, Erik. I would know it, and you know I know it: I’ve experienced all kinds of fear, being around you. I know when fear is just fear. Or when I'm about to see something awful, like a person with a wonderful imagination... who hates themselves...”
“Then you do not think,” he began, mechanically, “that it’s beautiful to be dependent on each other.”
“That question is too vague,” I told him, watching his fingers weave in and out of each other now, never quite in a satisfactory place. “It’s beautiful until people are damaged by it because they needed something too much. Dependency can blind people, and in the worst cases, make them settle, make them think they deserve to be mistreated.” He put away his hands very suddenly and straightened himself. I saw his eyes and closed our distance with haste. “You’re not mistreating me. That’s made this situation even harder to figure out.”
“Are you mistreating me? You make us sound so dysfunctional.”
I said “no, I'm not mistreating you,” half-heartedly, “but, it feels like it when I have to say no to you all the time. And I thought we were dysfunctional. I thought you made it clear you knew how much this could disrupt everything, and that we had to be careful about it.
“I thought it was life that disrupted you from me, and you didn't want that anymore. That's what I started to feel; that's why I was so honest with you. I thought I'd figured out what you wanted.”
This time I laughed, albeit as humorlessly was possible. “What I want doesn't always make any sense! I mean, I have to be able to admit that.”
“Then are you settling right now?” My eyes were as far removed from his as I could maintain, but he took my hands and tried to see them anyway.
“We have to know what we can give each other and what we can't,” I said to the floor.
“You said dependency blinds people, makes them complacent, make them settle. Maybe a fool would go to such lengths as I have to settle, to be damaged by someone who cannot be what I need them to be, but that's not you, and I'm not a fool.”
“But you're unhappy without me, and you shouldn't be.”
“Do you think I'm a fool, or do you think I'm in love with you? Would it be okay to be dependent on you if I were in love with you? Maybe that's what you're afraid of.”
If I could think clearly enough, I would've been able to find the words to tell him I was afraid because I didn’t settle – because we were intoxicated with the fumes of attraction, bound to come down hard and fast, and the return from weightlessness would make me sick, and I was already getting there. But we were too close.
“Are you settling for me?” He asked again, restraining his voice, taking a moment, even, to glance down to the darkness beyond the glass.
“No,” I answered, and I wrapped my arms around him, so much guilt breaking me down, making it impossible to break free from the kisses reaching my neck.
Another grand collision shook me down before I could find a place to see the truth. I’d reached a record tonight in finding my voice, and grappling for control, and then fucking toppled.
If you were thinking that that didn't make any sense: congratulations – you were paying attention. Welcome to my relationship.
Favorite Dialogue
Also: is it just me, or his Erik's manipulation and word games just so obvious? I revised chapter 42 and made it more overt that Lily was trying to get across how he acts like this and how hard it is to deal with. Paulina even says she knows what she's talking about.
HE’S (@) THERE
Chapter 43 – Sleep
I wrote down what Giry said and then went straight to call him. I locked my bedroom door and curled up in bed, waiting, wondering why there had been six, seven, eight rings. An automated message prompted me to leave him voicemail, but I hanged up.
After ten minutes or so, I decided to take the bath I very much needed, and I sunk down into the heat with a great inner sigh. There was enough to worry about – work Thursday through Saturday, two chapters I should have read tonight for the Great Gatsby, a practice sheet from Mr. Darelle before I retook the last quiz that I would have to do during lunch… As usual, Erik was the strange priority.
I was mulling it over as the water ran, hugging myself a little and covered in goose bumps. Should I have taken more kindly to him? Should I not have entered the house at all and went straight to the theater? I had fallen into guilt, even, of the illogical kind.
But then he called back. My cellphone sitting on my towel began to ring just before I was going to submerge my head and lie beneath the water as long as I could. I dried my hands and answered both in a very short moment.
“Hi,” I said and followed with a heavy exhale.
“You called me.”
“Yes? I told you I would. I was sorry that you caught me at a bad time.”
“And you’re home now.”
“Yes. Where are you?”
“Still within possibility…”
“Giry told me you were at the theater. How did she know?” I knew he could contact her, but I wanted him to admit it himself.
“I told her.”
“You can message her, then.”
“I can message anyone.”
I knew the short answers. He spoke little when he was bothered. “Is she a friend of yours now?”
“No.”
“Then… You were messaging us both. Is there something important?”
“ Is it important to want to see you?” I fumbled for an answer. “…I hope so,” he added, softly.
“Yes, it…” My voice’s volume began to drop as I answered, “it’s always important, and you know that.” I was looking to where he was once standing. I could practically see us having the conversation there, with my head against his back. “I just need to get through this week in one piece. I have things I need to catch up on before I go to bed.”
“Then I would hate to impose on you. It was my mistake.” I lowered my head into my freehand.
“ It’s fine… I-I can see you tomorrow or something. It's my only day off. In the meantime, stay off rooftops. And don’t walk down any dark alleys…” Finally, he showed some hint of enjoyment for the conversation, and the desperation began to endear me, almost. “And don’t freeze to death... Oh, and find some way to sleep.” For a split-second, I was about to say “I love you,” but I was caught up in a moment where one desired to say something affectionate and the three words came first even though there was no way to mean it.
I took a deep breath. The bathtub was a really bad place to decide you didn’t want to hang up. “Well, goodnight.”
“...Goodnight.”
Click.
* * *
“People don't give a damn, where I come from. They don’t care about your future, or their own. They don’t have any sympathy; they just want to take from you. Anyone could be lying to you, stealing from you, or waiting for the ideal time to step on you to be a little higher. I’m always tense and my insides burn. Apparently, I’m sensitive. In my world, you never let on that you're tense, or that you burn, unless you aim to intimidate someone. They don’t like girls, where I’m from. Girls are sex. You don’t have real conversations with them, and no one would believe that they cared as much as they said.
I hope that can be some context for my amusement when you tell me you're worried about me. I know everyone besides you is full of shit. They’re scared of girls, and they’re scared of themselves. They’re scared of feeling and scared of hurting. Girls make them feel and hurt, and they cannot find the beauty in that. It's too bad fear is contagious, and I had to have these fears at one time.
I played many games during that time, but it was an especially fun one to pretend I didn’t know why you didn’t bother me. I got to be great at it: feeling like a fool, following you, wondering if I could get close enough for you to interact with me in some small way, or just touch me by accident casually as ever, without knowing it.If that's a strange thought, rest assured: it never happened. Only much later would you touch me, when I slammed the door and you took my arms for guidance, and I had to tell you as authoritatively as possible that you hadn’t followed my rules. It was hard to keep a straight face. You touched me and I sensed the wonder I had all that time wanted to give to you. I knew I hadn’t made a mistake yet.
We have something in common here; we’re distracted by tangents. Point: I wasn’t always this way, Christine. I was afraid of all things I now find most comforting, just as you know scary things protect you and are misunderstood. Beauty, and admiring it, following it, wanting to be it, were misunderstood by me, until finally, I dared to look beauty in the face. Of course, I still burn, but it’s a much better view. I’m laughing. I don’t know if we have the same sense of humor, but that’s fine.
There isn’t anything special about triumph unless, until the very moment it was achieved, you were terrified. You know all about that, Christine, because you’re an actress, so I’m not explaining it further, but here is the bottom line: I know you’re with me so far, but you’re wincing all the way. Tell me it’s because you expect greatness, and that I'm scaring you because triumph can be a scary thing, as is love, as is all coming to one who dreamed but never expected. Please tell me you will grow to enjoy expecting your dreams.”
* * *
I’d really put it all on pause since Saturday night, refused to contemplate it too much, but that night I had a suffocating feeling come over me that didn't allow me to sleep once I'd finished my reading and tucked myself in. I saw the numbers on my clock climb from one, to two, to three, and all the while the silhouette of the monkey music box faced my bed and stared.
* * *
Shorts 7 was announced officially this week, and premiering on Valentine's Day. After sitting through Science like a zombie, I found the list of the skits and characters available on the choir room doors, and Mrs. Vardega began class by addressing the “double-dippers”: those who were also permitted in stage crew that semester and who would need to run it past her if they were performing as well. I was taking notes for that – after all, it was my instinct to sign up for anything.
“Of course you can sign up, Lily,” Mrs. Vardega said, “and I think you'll like the line-up this time. One of the skits has a vampire in it – hmm?” Then I gave her a really awkward smile. “What, it was you who liked vampires, right?” Another classmate of mine was waiting around to talk to her while everyone else filed out after class, but I said “sure.” Who doesn't?
And then she asked me: could I bring back my dress in a week? For a moment, I had no idea what she was talking about until the only dress I could imagine giving to her came to mind, and before any personal reaction could kick in, I acted like nothing was more right than returning it. I'd had it since Halloween, after all, and there'd been no use for it since then, after all. I'd just forgotten...
We were all smiles, but I cut the acting job as soon as I had closed the choir room door behind me. The day was only going to continue getting more complicated from here.
I didn't know how to deal with the grief of losing a dress I had known from the beginning wasn't mine besides alerting the person who had appreciated it most, as soon as I could, and he didn't miss a beat texting me first, as he usually did around this time. I was snailing along down the hall trying to type him a message, but I knew I'd suddenly heard Mariam shout “come with me!”and I just froze, trying to find her, assuming I had something to do with it. She was passing with Jeffrey on her tail. He got so close behind her, he was at risk of being smacked by her ponytail. But she saw me, just staring like a goddamn idiot, and the smile on her face came right off. She grabbed his hand, and did what I did just a few minutes ago: acted like no pang of awareness had come over her, no problem was apparent... She had places to go and a boy who hadn't noticed me at all because she had bewitched him.
I suppose a friend should be happy about something like that, but Irrational Lily, who already wanted to cry and was running on four hours of sleep, felt she wasn’t welcome to be happy about it, being that this person had decided they were better off split. Because she skipped over being happy for her, she suddenly felt a rock fall into her stomach. Her brain seemed to be registering it as if neither of she nor her had ever had someone before – like there was no Erik – and that Mariam had gone and done the impossible, officially. Legitimately. No one was obsessed with her; she snagged 'em.
I looked down to my phone, but then back down the hall. They were gone, and surely Mariam would not be heading back this way now.
Whatever. Nevermind it.
I sent him the news and walked into Mr. Darelle's room. There's no telling if my redo of the quiz was any improvement.
* * *
I was hurrying on the way out of Humanities. Once Erik knew about the dress, it occurred to him that I'd told him I'd visit today; he told me he could “rectify the situation”, and there was no way out of it no matter how much I wanted to go home and nurse the headache I had acquired after a long day. It was either after school when I could give a decent excuse, or never.
In the process of getting to him right away, I blew off Dana, or it felt like it. I could tell she wanted to talk after class and maybe hang around out front while her bus was coming, but I was a poor conversationalist, even though I liked her a great deal.
The sun was finally out after what seemed like a month of hibernation, and though the trees along the path to the theater were so dense that the entire road was in shadows, the light cut into the attic, which I entered grumpy and exhausted, complaining about the spiral stairs and dropping my bag right on the spot. Erik was leaning against the wardrobe for some reason, with a full standing mirror on its other side, and the first thing he said was an apology. I gathered my eye-sockets in my hands and said:
“Eghhgh'it's not a huge deal... It's not like they need your mask back.”
“No, but that dress was very flattering on you. It seemed to be yours.” I removed my hand.
“No – tell me I looked horrible in it so I can give it back without feeling bad—”
“—It was a disaster.”
I smiled and closed the door, but when I saw him smiling back, I couldn't help but sigh. “We lie to each other far too often for me to take that as a proper insult.”
“You look horrible in everything, to be honest.”
“Stop that! You know I don't like it when you're too nice to me.”
“Well, lucky for you, I'm about to become a real asshole. Come over here.” I scrunched up my shoulders, and as I came forward he opened the wardrobe. The first thing that came to my attention was a wooden box sitting on a shelf inside.
“Is that yours?”
“ It was until just now.”
“How thoughtful of you! I've always wanted a wooden box,” I said. Erik tightened his lips.
“Open it,” he corrected, faking agitation. I made sure to draw it out as long as I could, taking a great sigh and then curling my fingers around the knob of the lid. Inside were all sorts of hair pieces, and they looked ancient. There were bows, flowers, and pearls. Everything once white was ivory, and all ribbon was soft and silky. I picked up a flower clip with a diamond center and just played with the fabric, sure already that I had to keep it. “You know how many are in there?” He asked. I gave myself a free hand and reached in to the depth of the box. “52.”
“Where did you get these?”
“I couldn't really tell you that. It's a collection I started quite a while ago. I hadn't even planned to give them to you today, but on the occasion of losing that dress, I wanted you to have something you'd never have to give back.”
I bit my lip and finally leaned forward to kiss him, still with the ivory flower in my hand between us. He knew exactly what I had in mind and reached for the clip already in my hear before our lips had even parted. He drew it out carefully and gestured towards the mirror, where I tried on the flower. I'd never take the thing off again, I swore. Somehow, the lighting also made me look like I hadn't been sleep-deprived. “Do you think... perhaps... these can compete with the ones I saw the other day? Your own? Could you trade them for these?”
“I don't know. I'd rather not choose.” He gave me a sharp stare until I reached for my forehead while thanking him modestly. He asked what was wrong. I told him my head was throbbing. The chair I'd had last time was sitting nearby, facing the circular window, so he pulled it out of the direct sunlight so I could take a seat.
“I'll be right back,” he said, and once he left the room, I closed my eyes and lowered my head forward, lamenting that the chair didn't go up far enough for me to rest it on. For several minutes, it was silent besides the sound of my breathing, and I'd look in front of me, seeing the dust float in the sunlight, admiring the way the wood floor seemed to glow. And I felt guilty that before I had come here I was not looking forward to it. When I was less exhausted, I said to myself, I was going to pour those clips onto the floor like trick-or-treating candy, scour through, and admire every single one of them.
When someone was clearly coming back up the stairs, I closed my eyes again, hoping if I made it clear how tired I was he wouldn't have any serious conversations for me today: not about the book, nor about Mariam... He came in, paused, set something down, and a blanket fell onto my lap. I opened my eyes and he was leaning forward, admiring me, and the sunlight flooded over mask, enough to show brilliant brown rings in his eyes.
He stepped back, and when I turned to my side I saw he'd put a tray on the rug with two empty cups and a steaming metal pot. I looked him in the eye and shook my head. “This is not happening,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” he corrected. “You can come to terms with it while it steeps. It's darjeeling, by the way. Do you like that?”
“You planned this.”
“ Well I had to plan something... while you were away...” He turned towards the window with his hands behind his back, but I knew the sentiment of that comment too well.
“I've had a lot of homework. Actually, I should warn you – if I drink any of that tea, I'm bound to conk out right in front of you.”
He turned around and suddenly looked quite pleased. “Is that a warning or a promise?”
I didn't know what to say, so I smiled to my lap. “Sleep is one of the best things anyone could ever do... If you want to do that in front of me, I have no objections.”
“Well...” I was going to have to come up with something witty or I'd turn beet red. “Don't like it too much or you won't want me to wake up.”
“I'm trying,” he said before kneeling down and opening the lid of the pot. The water was dark brown, so he poured me a cup and shook his head after obliging to put in as much sugar as I wanted. The room wasn't cold, but it was crisp and dry, so when the cup warmed my hands, I savored the sensation and let the steam reach my chin.
“This isn't drugged, is it?”
“Like I would tell you.” I smiled and sipped.
I was not expecting anything like this. He took his cup and sipped it by the window, just “keeping watch”, and had no questions for me; only spoke in response, kept it uncomplicated, and could bear to listen to me murmur about Humanities and other such subjects of the day, not always in complete sentences once the tea's effect began to kick in. In every silence, I thought of the black book, but what was there to say about it? And why ruin a good thing? It was good enough that I lowered to the rug, kicked off my shoes, and pulled the blanket over me.
And suddenly it was much later.
My eyes were flickering open, and the sky had gone deep blue. I saw long black legs beside mine and found Erik next to me, his body stiff and straight and his eyes closed. The tea and his coat were pushed aside and my phone was under his hand. Soundlessly, I rose and scanned the room for a clock, but couldn't find one.
I didn't want to wake him; I knew how special it must have been to fall asleep there, and perhaps if I disrupted him he would never be able to get back, but there was no choice in the matter. “Erik!” I whispered harshly, clutching his arm. His eyes shot open. “I told you to wake me up at 5:00,” I said, and I whipped the phone out from under his hand. It was on vibrate and read 6:32.
He didn't say anything, so I stood up and flung on my shoes. “Oh, God... I never stay after this late. I'm surprised they haven't called me. I have to go,” I told him, and I was through the door within the second.
“Wait a minute!” I had to catch myself from tripping, and turned around to find him staring at me at close range. “You don't have to go.”
“I do.”
“Your mother thinks you're at Meg's.”
“Why would she think that?”
“I told her so.” I lifted up my phone and searched my sent box, finding a brief conversation from two hours ago in which I had no part. While I gaped and scanned the words, Erik's hand reached my arm. “Don't leave.” As the phone closed in my hands, my eyes wandered to the place we laid on the floor, and I answered, calmly and sternly:
“You don't have the place to do that for me.”
“I was afraid if you left, I wouldn't be able to sleep,” he explained. The pressure came off my arm. “You said you had four hours last night. Well, I had none. I was hoping for some peace of mind. This was it.”
“...I'm sorry.”
“Don't be sorry; I got what I needed.”
“No, no, you had no right to text my mother like you were me and make me stay here, but I'm sorry that you can't sleep. I-I-I... I don't know what to tell you; I don't know what you could do to stop being this way.” He just stared at me. We didn't touch anymore, I could barely look him in the eye, and all I could think was it did not seem like I loved him, and I hated that. That he could be desperate for me just to sleep and all I'd wanted to do before I came was sleep alone; almost every instinct was telling me to hurry home now and here I was in the doorway instead, in such a fickle position, throwing out apologies for his serious depression on matters he'd never bothered to tell me. I could give him no advice, no console, just this ridiculous, empty apology.
“You won’t like to hear this,” he warned me, “but there are no choices I can make that will let me sleep as you do. There’s only a choice you can make.”
A long moment passed where I could do nothing but stand there, ready to hide again, or run somewhere where this assertion couldn't find me, but you know... it just would've been irresponsible not to tell him how I honestly felt about all of this, so I marched to the chair and dropped down so I could rub my temples a little and grope my hair in my fist. The headache was mostly gone, but not entirely, and I was sure a vein was now pulsing above my eye.
He eventually closed to the stairwell door and returned to the window. I think he thought that I'd succumbed, finally, to that idea, but little did he know, his comment had submerged me in a guilt which I refused to accept just yet. I sat up and asserted to his back, “that isn’t so.” He faced me but with only weak interest, as if I’d simply asked him to turn around and he didn’t yet know why. “There are so many things you can do for yourself, Erik, that I would never be able to do for you. You have to love yourself. You have to at least love more than me.”
“I don't,” he answered matter-of-factly, then focused on the window again. Then I stood up, came right to his side, drew in both his hands, and forced out:
“You know I think you're amazing, right? You don't even have to do a goddamn thing and somehow it's different from everyone else, but I know how to let you go sometimes. For your own sake. You can't give me happiness from the very bottom up. It’s an impossible thing to gain from others, Erik.” I was about to fancy the floor opening up and swallowing me for even beginning this conversation in such a useless position, but he just looked me calmly in the eye and extracted his hand.
“How much experience do you honestly have of happiness without anyone? I want to know, because it seems to me that you always have company – more than even necessary – and that collective, positive, company is why you don't go crazy.”
“Necessary? What does that even mean?”
“Answer my question first,” he ordered, and the both of us sensed the hostility that would destroy a rational conversation if unrestrained. He dropped his tense shoulders. “…I’m curious.”
“I can tell,” I said. He wasn’t going to react in any other way until I said what he wished to hear, so I found my confidence again. “Of course I need people. I’m human, just as you are, and I understand that you need them too. But it's a lot of pressure being the only one. I... I don't understand why you don't have anyone else, and i-it breaks my heart, frankly. What about your–” ...Parents. I averted my eyes to the window like I'd noticed something. I could see a car passing on the road up the hill. From where we were, the path between the thick forest seemed to sprout straight from the space between us, and became so black until that road. I looked away and touched his hand again. “Imagine if I never left you alone because I depended on you to breathe, and I couldn’t take no for an answer if you couldn’t talk to me at any time,” I started.
“I imagine that every day, and it remains in my imagination.”
“…Why would you want that? I don't even think I could get ahold of you if I tried to do that.”
“Sometimes you call me when I've collapsed somewhere. Because I couldn't sleep.”
“Y-You need to see a doctor,” I sputtered, but he had to keep away a quiet laugh.
“You just have no idea.”
“At least I'm trying.” Whatever smile he had disappeared.
“Your patience is saintly, and it's one of the reasons I need you, and you don't notice it. I don't know what you expect to accomplish by challenging me.” I stiffened.
“What can I accomplish?! It’s confusing. I feel like I already depend on you, but you somehow make me feel like I’m aloof. Hardly. I do depend on you for support and for attention, and it does make me happier to see you... You have no idea. But dependence to the extent you take it scares me.”
“What hasn’t, so far?” He wondered.
“Fear doesn't always mean something exhilarating and fantastic is going to happen, Erik. I would know it, and you know I know it: I’ve experienced all kinds of fear, being around you. I know when fear is just fear. Or when I'm about to see something awful, like a person with a wonderful imagination... who hates themselves...”
“Then you do not think,” he began, mechanically, “that it’s beautiful to be dependent on each other.”
“That question is too vague,” I told him, watching his fingers weave in and out of each other now, never quite in a satisfactory place. “It’s beautiful until people are damaged by it because they needed something too much. Dependency can blind people, and in the worst cases, make them settle, make them think they deserve to be mistreated.” He put away his hands very suddenly and straightened himself. I saw his eyes and closed our distance with haste. “You’re not mistreating me. That’s made this situation even harder to figure out.”
“Are you mistreating me? You make us sound so dysfunctional.”
I said “no, I'm not mistreating you,” half-heartedly, “but, it feels like it when I have to say no to you all the time. And I thought we were dysfunctional. I thought you made it clear you knew how much this could disrupt everything, and that we had to be careful about it.
“I thought it was life that disrupted you from me, and you didn't want that anymore. That's what I started to feel; that's why I was so honest with you. I thought I'd figured out what you wanted.”
This time I laughed, albeit as humorlessly was possible. “What I want doesn't always make any sense! I mean, I have to be able to admit that.”
“Then are you settling right now?” My eyes were as far removed from his as I could maintain, but he took my hands and tried to see them anyway.
“We have to know what we can give each other and what we can't,” I said to the floor.
“You said dependency blinds people, makes them complacent, make them settle. Maybe a fool would go to such lengths as I have to settle, to be damaged by someone who cannot be what I need them to be, but that's not you, and I'm not a fool.”
“But you're unhappy without me, and you shouldn't be.”
“Do you think I'm a fool, or do you think I'm in love with you? Would it be okay to be dependent on you if I were in love with you? Maybe that's what you're afraid of.”
If I could think clearly enough, I would've been able to find the words to tell him I was afraid because I didn’t settle – because we were intoxicated with the fumes of attraction, bound to come down hard and fast, and the return from weightlessness would make me sick, and I was already getting there. But we were too close.
“Are you settling for me?” He asked again, restraining his voice, taking a moment, even, to glance down to the darkness beyond the glass.
“No,” I answered, and I wrapped my arms around him, so much guilt breaking me down, making it impossible to break free from the kisses reaching my neck.
Another grand collision shook me down before I could find a place to see the truth. I’d reached a record tonight in finding my voice, and grappling for control, and then fucking toppled.
If you were thinking that that didn't make any sense: congratulations – you were paying attention. Welcome to my relationship.
"That dress was very flattering on you. It seemed to be yours.” I removed my hand.
“No – tell me I looked horrible in it so I can give it back without feeling bad—”
“—It was a disaster.”
I smiled and closed the door, but when I saw him smiling back, I couldn't help but sigh. “We lie to each other far too often for me to take that as a proper insult.”
“You look horrible in everything, to be honest.”
“Stop that! You know I don't like it when you're too nice to me.”
“Well, lucky for you, I'm about to become a real asshole."
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