Here comes a fascinating update, and I will explain why. Here in this chapter is a second draft of a scene that I wrote just a month shy of six years ago, which fantasized about this story at its climax, before any of it had been written and I was discovering, by doing the exercise, that I was indeed passionate about turning it into a novel. If you don't believe me, read the chapter, and then read this: http://ladybows-fs.livejournal.com/18720.html
Anyway, on top of that, it's just... Lily's come a long way, and so has Erik, and both are standing by their own principles, and neither of them can take it anymore that the other won't give in. A look into Erik's nature, and to Lily's, when put in desperate situations. I'm just really excited about this. The end is coming nearer and nearer.
In case you didn't know, I've told my FF.net readers that after chapter 47, all postings will be for my inner circle to read and criticize. This is to protect total theft and to encourage people to join the circle and give feedback (as a precondition of reading is that you must give feedback.) Of course, if you're just a really good friend who's always been reading this journal (Saraaaa) you aren't required to do anything -- I simply hope and pray that you write to me about it. ESPECIALLY about this one! So pumped to know what you think, ugh.
So without further adieu, here it is.
HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 48 – A Butterfly's Wings
I refrain still from mentioning in detail the relentless questioning and tense intermissions between my parents and I once we were all at home. What was painfully clear the whole time they were happening was that I was breaking their hearts by my avoidance of opening up to them. Somehow, I had turned into something like Erik, with an ability to use many words that ultimately said little and in fact confused them or made them guilty for putting such pressure on me. Eventually, I'd gotten Dad to start questioning if Mariam was mistaken somehow, but Mom was too keen on the fact that I was secretive for a reason. She took my phone away and I was banned from the computer. After such consequences were dealt out, she'd still come knocking at my door later wanting to talk about some experience she'd had with a guy when she was a little older than me, obviously concerned that the sex talk we'd skipped up until then might still be necessary. Her excuse was “I just wasn't sure when to talk to you about dating. I didn't think you were dating. I didn't think you'd keep it a secret.”
I really don't want to think about it. It was like two shattered universes at home where a name like “Erik” was coming from my mother's lips, and time never made a memory of that less off-putting. He was more than a person; he was darkness in my heart. He was a symbol of rebellion and lies to them, and of indulgence of indecent proportions. It was hard enough having to explain that the “cut on my arm” was an accident. He was a gash on my very identity, equally self-inflicted.
* * *
The slightly more honest discussion began without much privacy, when Giry, Mariam and I couldn't talk online and were forced to meet during lunch period. The more I talked to anyone, the more helpless and hateful of my position I became. For one thing, it was extremely difficult for Mariam and I to even speak to each other. She seemed terrified under the surface, with sleepless eyes that were always averted. It was Giry who was trying to piece together a clear story of what had happened using all three of our experiences, but it was really hard for me to share, even though I knew she cared, even though I knew she had figured out there was a serious problem. My first instinct was to guard Erik and I at every turn; to contribute in the most general sense I could manage about why he had taken a turn for the worst. I never told them I saw him put someone in a choke hold, or that he was avoiding staying in one place, leaving the theater, or self-mutilating. That only came months later.
One of the worst things I felt during the discussion was that I couldn't offer true condolence to either of them for what they'd been through. I was the girl who was in the relationship with him, and the ultimate person who should have had an understanding and some kind of control over the situation, but there I was, still stunned and few of words.
My deepest desperation was being answered, but to some degree I was mad at everyone, too. Mad at Giry for talking about what to do behind my back with Mariam, mad at Mariam for turning my home-life into lockdown. I knew she was scared, I was sorry the way that he'd treated her, but I still couldn't manage to be anything but lukewarm towards her. My parents' knowledge of the situation didn't lend protection like she thought it would; it kept me from communicating with them and from solving anything.
They didn't believe that was so, however. Mariam, who had been very quiet, spoke up in agreement when Giry told me, once gain, that for everyone's well-being I had to break up with him.
And it was possible that I did have to.
I'd told him I wouldn't let anyone else think I was giving him up because of their pressure and misunderstanding of us, but they didn't have to pressure me. I knew the more I heard it that every cell in my body was screaming for me to call it off as long as things stayed as torturously confusing as they were. I knew it was what would have to be done because now when I even thought of him touching me I wanted to vanish.
What I kept to myself, however, was that I still believed at the time that a condition could be met that would allow me to take him back... eventually. If I could just figure out what was going on in his life, and what he had done, exactly. And not just figure it out, but have it told to me honestly and directly, with a practical intention to turn himself around.
Even so, breaking up with him, plain and simple, didn't satisfy them.
They wanted to find out who he was.
Now, I was mad at him more than I was mad at anyone else. I made it known that I didn't sympathize with anything he was doing away from me, but it was more than that. He'd completely hurt me. Going off on a spiel several days ago about how I was spoiling what otherwise should be an “authentic” relationship and how much he felt unloved because of it? I wondered how he could possibly dare to hold me to such a double standard. I felt entirely disrespected and manipulated.
Yet, even so, there was no such option as “finding out who he was” to me. Unexplainably, it terrified and promised to undo me all the way if I had to be introduced to some second form of whom I had known to be a certain way for months. I pressed on them hard that it would be too much of a shock for me to handle, but Giry gave me a truth that was still difficult to swallow: I was not going to be able to end my own relationship; Erik would not be able to handle that I was breaking it off with him. “What are you getting at?” I asked.
“I'm getting at the fact that you will probably find out who he is if we have to get the police involved, and we might.”
We ran out of time, but I begged that they didn't. It seemed, unfortunately, that they didn't think I was all in my right mind. They didn't have sympathy for the situation the way that I did; they separated my heart from the worst darkness that we were battling, unaware it was tangled in it.
* * *
No, there was no way the police needed to be involved.
He could be as scary as he wanted, but he loved me enough to listen.
If I finally broke down. He'd listen... right?
* * *
Everything continued to be at a standstill. Erik was still missing. My parents weren't making progress with me, nor I with them. Giry and Mariam and I would speak when possible, but even if we hoped for a sense of oneness in a time like this, we were unable to agree on what should happen from thereon, and who should do what. On top of it, I wasn't getting news about casting until Friday afternoon, and I was sure I'd bombed it all with my faltering voice and high nerves, and this was before the real catastrophe had even happened. And I kept waiting for that text, or call, or email from him to arrive, which I would have to consider was my prompt to end it with him somehow.
If there was anything that was supposed to happen, it was going to spring on me; I just knew.
* * *
The universe decided not to have a faulty connection that Friday. A concrete thing happened: casting was posted and available in the choir room, and during Acting I learned that, while I hadn't made the role of Meredith Parker (the mother), I was in consideration for Shelley, her daughter, if I was interested. I was a little disappointed, but I said yes. We were supposed to have our first meeting, at the theater, on Monday afternoon to discuss the schedule of practice and rehearsals.
* * *
The standstill continued through the weekend. We all knew he was missing, and even though I agreed to find the courage to message him, I was unsuccessful.
My parents had adopted an expectant silence. I was in trouble now largely because of my level of disobedience. Until I tired of avoiding the topic at hand, I wasn't allowed to go anywhere, or see anyone, and the only reason I'd managed to message Erik was because I borrowed Giry's phone overnight. They took my phone away as soon as they were home, and I wouldn't risk them dialing back the number in my call list. I told him in a text not to contact my own number and that if he wanted to get ahold of me he would have to do it through Giry.
And so he would, finally, just a few hours after something very suspicious came to light.
* * *
On Monday, Mrs. Vardega concluded class by telling the cast of Bat Boy to meet there in the choir room after school instead of the theater, so we did so once 3:30 rolled around. Almost everyone had been cast and I was introduced to the senior who would be playing Mrs. Parker – her name, Leslie. I already knew her without knowing her. I'd had no classes with her, she wasn't in Fool's Dance, but in Fall of my Sophomore year she was Mina Harker in Dracula. It all came together why she had been chosen instead. Aside to having the charisma I lacked, her legs were a mile long and her eyes were the color of chocolate syrup.
Bat Boy himself was a senior named Westin, who had a typical, clean, and confident look about him, but he wasn't sure who to stand by, and I didn't even recognize him. He must have been talented because Mrs. Vardega was glowing when she introduced him as a new student as of that year who had succeeded in demanding productions at his old school in, of all places, Iowa. Apparently, he'd missed Fools Dance and I overlooked him in Shorts VII somehow, but MacBeth was among the stones in his crown. I'm more teasing Mrs. Vardega than him, though. He was polite but hardly seemed comfortable being given an introduction like that. And, well, I knew my character had to kiss him and wasn't dreading it, I guess you could say.
The issue of the day, among other things, was to complete casting, however. Nicole Castrati, a member of my class who Erik had once criticized, was there too, also for the role of Shelley. The role and that of her boyfriend Rick were still being decided, so there were pairs of us. I was supposed to audition some of Shelley's parts and confirm that I wanted to do it, but because we hadn't met at the theater, there was nowhere for the rest of the cast to hang out while I (and the two possible Ricks) performed for Mrs. Vardega and the choir teacher. Everyone had to watch us, and since I might be booted, it was particularly stressful having that many eyes on me, especially since I had to sing the solo part of Shelley's “Inside Your Heart”...
But, you know, I'll never forget how I knew that day that some aspect of my life would be positive for a while. At the end of the part of the song where Edgar (the bat boy) cuts in, Westin shouted his line “YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING” from the sidelines and I was able to leave the “front of stage” (a.k.a. a piece of tape on the floor) laughing.
Then, after some exercises to “bond us”, the meeting wrapped up with some determination to break me out of that insulated joy when Mrs. Vardega took to the front of the classroom again.
“If you've got your schedule print-outs, then you know our next meeting will be on Friday from 4-7 when we'll continue with scene readings, or in this case 'singings'. Everyone in Acting, you know that to some extent we'll be working on these during class. For the rest of the week, the aim is to get all scenes involving your characters memorized. Not all of the music, just all of the words and interactions, though I recommend that you be listening to the soundtrack practically on repeat. Next week we're going to work on blocking and set design. Those of you in Stage Crew,” and she glanced at me and a couple others, “will be contributing to that this week in class. Now, we're having a little issue with the theater at the moment which is why we didn't meet there today. My fingers are crossed that it'll be resolved before Monday, but there's a possibility that we'll be meeting here again and trying to make our best progress.”
She threw up her arms and said the usual “have a beautiful evening” before everyone began to shuffle their things and file out the door, but I didn't budge. Aside to knowing Mrs. Vardega was great at making problems seem like nothing in particular, I knew any piece of information regarding that building was a responsibility of mine.
I went up to her.
She noticed me and was all ears, but we weren't alone. I asked if I could wait. “Walk with me to my office, then. I'm dying of thirst and forgot my water!” So there, we went, just down the hall. It was going to seem unexplainably nosy, but I asked:
“Why aren't we able to go to the theater?” I could immediately tell she was thinking about something that irritated her before she answered.
“Well, I'm not really supposed to be sharing the information and the last thing I want to do is get everyone gossiping, but I guess I can tell you. If you keep it to yourself.”
“Of course I will,” I said, stepping closer.
“Apparently there was some kind of police warrant, for a search or something, I don't really know. I was only emailed about it this morning and told not to bring my class down there. Or, you know... the- the Bat Ensemble.” I watched her irritation vanish and smiled. This obviously meant nothing to her, and everything to me. “Listen, just don't worry about it for now.”
“Okay,” I managed to say in a short, weightless manner.
Inside? My heart was going into hyperdrive, again. She wanted to talk about how nice it was that I was trying for more ambitious roles, and that she believed in me, and that a lot of seniors had gotten parts (or two parts) so it would be a whole new experience to work closely with those I don't interact with all the time. They were all wonderful things to hear and I could sense she was inviting me to wait until she had her stuff ready so I could walk out with her, but... I had to say thank you three or four times in between and say I'd look forward to seeing her tomorrow.
So I could run.
Really, the only practical place I could run was to Mariam's. The sky was now burnt orange and I knew they were probably having dinner soon, a rare time when Mariam's dad didn't like visitors of any kind, but I miraculously caught them beforehand, and he told me I could go downstairs. When I reached her, Jeffrey was there, too. They straightened up, and I knew just by the way he didn't know how to look at me, and instead stared at the floor, that he was up to date. Mariam came and stood in front of me, but she had nothing to say.
I made it as simple as possible: Did you call the police?”
“No,” she answered, straight in my eyes.
“Then did Paulina?”
“No, I don't think so. Why?”
“No one called the police.”
“No, unless she did it without saying. Why?! What happened?” Jeffrey stood up but wouldn't dare move from the desk.
“There was a search warrant at the theater and we couldn't meet there for Bat Boy. We need to call Paulina.” She didn't waste time dialing her up, but no one answered right away, which freaked me out. My parents by now had a pretty good idea how long these types of meetings lasted, so I knew I was stretching my time, but I remained, perched stiffly at the end of the couch. All three of us were equally confused and paranoid. What made it worse was the way Jeffrey touched her hand; I was still in disbelief that Erik could cause that much fear. I wondered if the way he had nothing to say to me meant I was outside his sphere of sympathy. If he knew that I'd defended Erik multiple times, if that knowledge made him angry with me or painted me as a really stupid girl who was ruining Mariam's life.
Giry called back in five minutes, so that Mariam could arrange that she visit the house to bring me her phone. She hadn't called the police, but Erik had texted her, for me.
I was hardly prepared for it because I would sure Giry would show up at any moment out front, with the phone, so I could rush off home and call the play meeting a success, but Mariam came and set next to me. She lowered her voice to keep it from traveling up the stairs but still expected Jeffrey to hear. “I could call the cops, Lily.” I had nothing to say, or perhaps my unwillingness to look at anything but my lap gave it away. “I bet there is something you've seen that wasn't right, or something done to you. I know it now. We can't get in a fight about it – I know it and so do you.”
Still, I kept his secrets.
“The way that he used to scare me is not what happened this time.”
* * *
I went home with Giry's phone and some details that sent me into shock. He'd confronted her in her own garage, and it would have been a very easy place to avoid the interaction by calling for help if he hadn't threatened to set the place on fire.
H-How.
It didn't even sound like him. Maybe it sounded like him to everyone else, but not to me. He stirred sugar in my tea and kissed me when I was half asleep, dethorned a hundred roses and never told me to let go when I folded my arms around him, no matter how long. Surely, there had to be two people, or some imposter. My skin crawled and I had to get in the shower.
“Please ask Christine to call me as soon as she can,” was in Giry's inbox from a foreign number. He still had the nerve to call me that name?
I wouldn't call, but I texted. This wasn't good enough. He didn't trust that it was me. I called and he answered after the first ring.
“Erik,” I spat, to which he had no response. “Where have you been?”
“I'm out of town. Out of state, actually.”
“Why?”
“I had to extricate myself from a very ugly situation, let's just put it that way.”
“Is there a possibility, Erik? Any at all, that you would be straight with me?” He didn't answer. “And why didn't you stay in touch with me, even still?”
“I couldn't.”
“You couldn't. Well, in that case, this was the wrong time to be out of state. You've left me to fend for myself.”
“And I'm sure that you've fended for yourself just perfectly. You're not a weakling, Christine. And any time this past week, if you'd asked to come with me, I would have come back and obliged.”
“This is not going to be an ultimatum,” I told him, with a sternness I had never taken with him before.
“Yes, it is. It is,” he answered. “I feel like I'm losing you because you do not understand how necessary it is to do what I ask. I'm not coming back unless for you. And if you don't want me to, then everything has been a waste. Don't do this to me.”
“It's not something I'm doing to you; I'm doing it for me.”
“Doing what for you?” He asked, voice falling in strength, but with more curiosity than I could bare. I choked on all the words. “What are you doing for you?” If I told him what I knew, we'd argue and I wouldn't even be able to form a coherent sentence during any of it. If I said we were breaking up, somehow my heart would break. Not because I wanted him, or that I didn't hate everything about him right then... but because what was once beautiful was now rotten.
Through the lump in my throat I said “listen. Be gone if you have to. I need a break,” and hung up right away.
He'd call several other times that night, but I'd never answer.
* * *
Who do you save when your house is on fire?
Don't bring the guy who lit the match.
* * *
The next night, I would be slipping outside, finally getting a fresh breath and watching a starless purple sky as I took a bag full of delicate, dried roses to the forest.
I didn't know how nightmares could keep happening.
I was almost sobbing on the way there. I could barely see because of the globs of tears in my eyes. Even so, I knew well enough that I had to enter through the brush to the side of the road and not pass that building where you could never quite tell who would be there, or whether you'd come out alive, for that matter...
The police were making rounds in our neighborhood. They were looking for a man who was six feet more or less, with dark brown hair just past his ears, dark eyes, and... a very uneven, grooved, complexion. I made the mistake of showing through my body language that this was Erik, somehow, even though the description of his hair didn't match. I just knew it.
The charge? Attempted arson.
I couldn't fucking do it anymore, I just couldn't.
Mom saw I was every flavor of disturbed that night and would not stop hounding me for the truth. Before we were exhausted, I'd convinced them both that this man was not the same man, not my “Erik”, but it'd cost us so many tears, I-I don't know if it was worth it anymore. I was ready to snap. I was really so close to telling myself that tomorrow I would confess about what I was doing because of the way it felt inevitable that this distrust and pain would continue on forever if I didn't.
But I'd be damned -- I'd be damned if anyone ever really knew what had happened between us during all the nights that lead me to fall in love with... with whoever it was. Even then, a part of me was under his spell and would keep his secrets, would let him down softly, if I could.
I felt like I was following a little voice into the woods. Get rid of them.
I could have left them somewhere, anywhere, but my searching lead me to a path that would go down to the river, so I took the path. With a brisk and focused gait, I went all the way through, never letting the sound of the wind sweeping through or the occasional rustles disturb me.
At the railing, I set down the bag and took a handful of stems. I looked around to make sure the streets were empty. Then I held one at a time over the water, dropping them when I was ready. Doing it was sort of cathartic. I didn't cry anymore. I was ready to let them go, and sick of the way they were crumbling in my closet. This had to be the best way to get rid of them, anyhow. I always made wishes this way. The way the roses so easily crumbled, I may as well have been spreading ashes. Because it had died for good, that wonder. This all wouldn't happen twice to me.
* * *
It happened so fast I couldn't think. I returned to familiar ground and Erik was standing in the center of the path. When my flashlight first caught him, he was the same upright shadow in the distance that I saw from my bedroom window and I nearly started bolting back the way I came. “Christine!” He called to me in a stunningly authoritative tone. “What are you doing?”
What was I doing? “What are you doing?”
“Tying up loose ends.” He rose is hand to me, but I didn't move, and he downcast his face. “That light's a little painful.” Tentatively, I took the spotlight off him and came forward, but I was already thinking about how I could make this meeting short. How far away were we from the road? How could I be in a place of freedom rather than coercion?
I simply passed him and speed-walked, but he kept at my side without having to do the same. “I don't like what you said to me, Christine,” he said.
I didn't answer; I was waiting for the clearing; to be out of the maze.
“What did you mean by that?”
After a deliberately long pause, I answered. “It means what you think it means. I can't be in this position right now.”
“There's no other time that I can put this on you.”
The edge of the forest was almost right before us.
“Summer. If we could just put this on hold until summer--,” I started, but he tore across the dirt and stopped me from taking another step.
Abruptly and forcefully his voice grated: “I don't have until summer!” It was almost as if a demon had just possessed him, spoken and moved for him. That was it, really. He'd lost the rest of my trust, but I knew he couldn't know that yet. I reached for his arm very gently.
“Alright, Erik... I understand...”
And we reached that opening, finally. I turned off my flashlight, and I tried to steer us toward the front of the building, but he silently redirected me with a strong grip.
“Christine, I want you to give me your key.” Before my startled mind could think of a reason why I should be on my way, he came closer. “Your key to the theater. Give it to me.” He reached right form my pockets and pulled out my key ring and I made the mistake of following him up the side ramp.
“Erik, what are you doing?” Without asking, he yanked away my flashlight so he could see what he was doing, and as soon as he'd opened the door, he grabbed my wrist. “Erik, I don't want to come in.” He didn't care. He let go of me so he could lock the door behind us and leave me helpless in the dark as he found a light switch. “We're not supposed to be here!” I shouted to nothing while a dull pain pressed behind my eyes. The lamps above the isle in which I was standing all came to light, and I fell against the wall.
“I can keep this up any more," my trembling voice managed. “I really mean it,” I told him, wherever he was. “I-I have to stop playing tug-of-war with my life.”
He came from the blackness of the rest of the auditorium and tried to hold my hands, but I turned away my face, trying to breath, trying to keep a clear mind about what needed to be done, now that the time had been thrown upon me. I knew it was the time. “You don't have to play tug-of-war. I can help you leave right now.” I faced him and the tears dropped.
"I don't want to leave!” I shouted, feeling the anger burst so suddenly. “I felt connected to you..." My eyes blurred over as I said it. He took my arms as I tried to wipe my face, moved them out of his way, and kissed me, but I broke off and shriveled out of his grasp. "I can't be with you anymore. I just can't..." My stuttering quieted him considerably. Even his heavy, desperate breath lost its sound. "I can't sleep at night. Absolutely everything is a mess. My parents are furious with me." When I could no longer stand his watching me, I covered my face with my hands, and I started to think about how this gentle approach didn't make sense.
Through my fingers I could see his hands lower to his sides.
Then eventually...
"...That is exactly why you must be going now."
It struck fear in me that he persisted with this. I felt the heat of new tears before turning my back on him. "I'm not going anywhere. Stop trying to make me go," I tried to demand, but it sounded so much more like a plea.
"I don't think you understand-"
"It's you who doesn't understand that you've acted COMPLETELY CRAZY, AND THE POLICE WERE AT MY HOUSE!" I screamed, facing him with wide eyes. His lips slowly closed. "There is nothing I need to know that would change my opinion, because I know it all! And YOU DID THIS. You ruined it! It didn't have to be ruined! We had something I will never experience again in my entire life and you turned it upside down!” I had already hurt my throat screaming at him, but had to ask just to thing to keep it going. “What is wrong with you?...”
I turned from him and slid across the wall a ways before dropping to the floor. His reaction was next to nothing, and even that angered me. It angered me because he made me feel like I was overreacting. I knew I wasn't.
After some thought, he answered. "...Everything. I never kept that a secret from you."
"You never told me, either."
"I thought you were a storm-catcher."
"Stop it."
"I thought you loved me."
"I obviously care if this hurts-"
"-That's why I gave everything up. So I could love you."
I didn't want to hear about love.
"...I warned you," he trailed.
"Enough!" I screeched over him. "You warned me, o-o-of course you did. Well, it happened! You ruined everything. I need to pick up the damn pieces of my life now!" He tried to touch me again, but I stood up right away and guarded myself. "Please don't touch me. I need to feel sure this is right and I can't if you're near me anymore."
"That doesn't sound like certainty to me.”
"It wouldn't to you, would it? You never think I'm sure unless I agree with you!"
"I sincerely hope that isn't the impression I've given you."
"...I have to say goodbye to you and you're not helping."
"You're not saying goodbye to me,” he said, and he reached for my arm again before I threw them both behind me.
"Don't tell me what I'm doing.”
"It's not so much an order as an interpretation.”
"Don't patronize me. If I tell you I can't do this anymore, that's exactly what it means."
"I believe you. But that doesn't mark the end of us. You know it doesn't. You know it's much bigger than that."
"You're missing the point! Goddamnit! Right now you need to leave... me... ALONE!"
"You know, Christine, if I have to stay here, waiting for you, that puts me in danger now."
"Why do I have to make decisions about your mistakes?! What you did-- everything you did, I never asked for any of it. So why are you making me feel like we both have to pay for it?! I don't! And if you cared about me at all, you wouldn't try taking me down with you like this. I need. A break. It doesn't matter what you say! You've decided on lots of things that you thought you needed without ever discussing it with me, and I at least show you enough respect to tell you to your face that you're scaring the shit out of me, and this... this thing needs to stop! So it WILL!"
I looked all around, but my keys were missing. He watched me struggle with the door, and once I stopped my muscles were twitching and my tears were swelling. "What should I do for you to stop being so angry?" He wondered.
"Give me my keys."
"Then you no longer wish to know me."
"Right now I can't. And you know why... so just stop."
“I can't stop,” he answered, and his hands darted for my wrists. This was not my life.
I was forced to run with him down the isle and across the stage, or risk landing face-first. His strength was so overbearing that there was no chance of slowing him down or throwing my weight behind me so I could at least dig my heels into the floor. I simply ran like his shadow, screaming at him the entire time, terrified, and so tired of it all. I officially hated him.
At the stairs, his pace slowed to descend them, and I gripped the railing, stalling him for just a moment, but it was all futile. Completely futile.
No, into that room I went, with no control over it. He flicked the light on and it was a white box, nearly gutted of all it used to contain. He threw me on the floor, my Erik... and stood against the door with his breath heavy. And I told him right away that he'd lost his mind.
He didn't have anything to say at first. We both caught our breath and I saw that he looked like a mess. He was wearing a different coat, no tie or gloves, and darkness I usually found inside the eyes of his mask was a blotchy red. With a calm, clear voice, he asked “so is this what you think of being with me? Punishment? You think I want to make you suffer because I can't do anything right?”
I was not going to engage him.
“If you had said that much earlier in our relationship, that would've really hurt me, Christine, but I know better now. I've been perfection to you. At such a cost. How dare you try to hurt me? I deal my own pain for you, so much of it, and this is how you repay me? So I was wrong to think that you'd suffer the way that I did for you... You don't really want anything, do you?”
I was not going to engage him. I was not going to engage him.
“Girls. What do they want?” He looked up and around the room with heavy breath, as if he was searching for an answer in the walls, in something besides me, but his eyes shot me that gaze again so abruptly he may as well have slashed me in two. “No one seems to want anything. I'm the only one who wants. Who wants better.”
He sunk into the door like a burning had spread across his body, and he was close to letting go of the door. “Why do you do this to me? Make me think I can have you, all this time? What did you think I wanted, if not you, completely?”
“I told you I care about you! Stop saying--”
“Words are nothing.”
My responses ceased all over again. I couldn't believe he'd even said it, as if I had never done anything to prove what I said. I thought I'd loved him. Did he know it at all?
“You fickle girls... Can you just imagine, for a second, what I've been through? Trying... to finally have someone, the one I chose, the only one... Always wondering if, tomorrow, someone might adjust what's important to you. Knowing you can be swayed, made to think things are so easy, so why isn't it so easy with Erik?” He saw his necklace dangling from my neck and seemed to want to reach out to it, but knew better than to try. “I guess it would be silly to expect a butterfly to stay in one place, wouldn't it? No, it has to be fickle even when it's trained against its own nature. When something is that fickle, Christine... when something so fickle dances at the mouth of my trap, I have to reach for it. Before it's gone. And pay the price later for breaking its wing.” I brought my arms close to my chest and backed into the wall. “But I don't want to do that. I wish you would make things easy instead of wait for that something you will have to forgive, and if you think this is it, well, you have no imagination. I don't want to beg your forgiveness... I want to do right by you, but you have to do right by me as well."
He looked like he was going to keel over, and I was desperate. Every nerve was twitching, and I was at my weakest from pure shock, but I threw both my hands at the doorknob. His reflexes were stunning; the door didn't budge. He had stiffened his entire body in front of my only escape, and looked down on me from the edge of his mask's eyes with no love at all. His whole body was sharpened for its purposes; he hardly seemed human. I gave him back a gaze that spoke that I would not stand for this. Frail, and human, and dominated as I was, he had to know it was not his right to dominate. He had to know, whether I liked what happened next or not, that I did not want to be there with him. He did not deserve me then.
I gripped and yanked at the knob, then at his arms, but he flexed them solid – it was like trying to turn metal bars. I threw all of my weight on them, then leaned back as far as possible, but he shifted his legs in between us and using their leverage to push himself further against the door. It was an awful mess that I hated – he only maintained and never overpowered me, and I almost wished someone would win, even him, so that we wouldn't be having this silent, humiliating struggle. Then I kneed him squarely in the stomach and he lost his breath, but even that didn't loosen his grip.
He wouldn't look at me anymore, but he was visibly shaking.
I stepped back and screamed. “LET ME OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!” I'd be sick, I knew it. The cramps in my stomach were already returning, and the heat was sabotaging my balance, and the very coherency of my own thoughts. “Let me out...”
“You're not leaving me.”
“For now, I am! Yes, I fucking a-am...” I started, thinking there would be more, but I had to lower to the floor with my knees to my chest and my head in my hands. Sticky sweat was soon between my fingers and I could even feel it on my back.
“We're going to make a compromise, no matter how long it takes. If you want to leave, then start compromising. For your Erik... your Erik.”
For a while, we didn't speak. I tried to say I'd already compromised, but that wasn't good enough. I told him he kept asking for more and more and I could no longer give more, but that wasn't good enough. I wanted to finish this play, I begged, but that wasn't good enough.
I made the mistake of asking “what if you're wrong?” “What if it's wrong to be this way?” But he told me I'd been contaminated -- that it was only wrong to everyone else. He went on and on about how the rest of the world's meanings don't have to touch anything that we do as long as we have each other.
By then, he was sending me into a near delirium, but at the same time I realized there was a tactic available that might free me. I was already lying on the floor, and he was watching for every subtlety. I realized I could pretend to be sick. Slowly, as if I was nervous to move, I rolled onto my back and lifted up my shirt. I ran my palm against my tummy and tried to seem as uncomfortable as possible, looking for some way to turn, then finally I came back to my side.
“I never wanted to be like this to you,” he said, but I never answered. My eyes stayed closed. I let my mouth hang open. I was the perfect picture of nausea, and by some miracle, he asked what I needed him to: “are you alright?”
I lagged my answer and only spoke “no” in the weakest way, nearly whispering. “I feel sick,” I told him. After a certain amount more of observation, he believed me. He stepped forward and I rolled back again. A warm tear escaped the corner of my eye as I braved his touch, and he placed the fallen metal butterfly back over my chest. It wasn't working, initially. All he did was watch me, so I asked for some water. I said I was getting dizzy.
He obliged, but I could hear the lock click. I was at a loss. There was no way to get out of the room if he was there with me.
But then I saw the desk and chair, stripped of all his books and papers. I must have been superwoman. I dragged the desk across the room, below the windows. I climbed up with the chair and removed the tacks holding the cardboard over the windows. I didn't even know if I'd fit all the way before I sent myself through and clawed, and gripped, and ground into the grass until I could pass through my hips. I could hear the door opening and the sound of glass shattering while the rest of me was slipping out. I'd have to gun it, so I did.
In my head, this was as hopeless as escaping a maximum security prison. I couldn't run for very long and that he could cover a huge distance in seconds. No time seemed to pass at all between the shattering of that glass and the slamming open of the front doors. It had never seemed like the road between the theater and the main street was so long until I was trying to cross it in a dash. I lost my stamina, especially after moving that desk. I couldn't do it. I thought he would catch me.
Even then, I continued to walk, and I looked behind me, and there he was, slowing, too, but getting closer. If he wouldn't catch me right way and take me back, I didn't know what he thought he was doing besides putting himself in danger of being seen. He was such a fool.
And he didn't deserve me in this state.
I could feel his eyes on me, so relentless, so strong, as if he wished to change my actions only with his thoughts. I turned around and screamed "STOP FOLLOWING ME", even hoping that someone would be passing by on the main street and hear me. They’d make him obey and sift back into the dark. Our privacy that I had always before found comforting now seemed to be his ally.
He wasn't listening.
"You know you mean everything to me."
Once I was on the main road, I started passing under streetlights, hoping it would deter him, but even though his steps quieted, I still heard them.
"This has never been a game. I've loved you since before you met me, and I won't stop.”
I covered my ears. Looking back on it, it made me vulnerable - I would never be able to react if he ran up behind me, but at the time I had to cut off the words from reaching me. As the house was growing closer, I glanced back at him before a final sprint.
At the driveway, I watched him stop farther up the street, posture straight, imitating power, but he had never looked more powerless. It was hard to look away from him. I would be losing track of him. He'd taken my keys, but there was a spare under one of our plants by the door. I shoved into the lock right away and was ready to save myself, finally, but I had to look one more time around the edge of the house.
He no longer stood there.
No favorite quote section. Be surprised.
Anyway, on top of that, it's just... Lily's come a long way, and so has Erik, and both are standing by their own principles, and neither of them can take it anymore that the other won't give in. A look into Erik's nature, and to Lily's, when put in desperate situations. I'm just really excited about this. The end is coming nearer and nearer.
In case you didn't know, I've told my FF.net readers that after chapter 47, all postings will be for my inner circle to read and criticize. This is to protect total theft and to encourage people to join the circle and give feedback (as a precondition of reading is that you must give feedback.) Of course, if you're just a really good friend who's always been reading this journal (Saraaaa) you aren't required to do anything -- I simply hope and pray that you write to me about it. ESPECIALLY about this one! So pumped to know what you think, ugh.
So without further adieu, here it is.
HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 48 – A Butterfly's Wings
I refrain still from mentioning in detail the relentless questioning and tense intermissions between my parents and I once we were all at home. What was painfully clear the whole time they were happening was that I was breaking their hearts by my avoidance of opening up to them. Somehow, I had turned into something like Erik, with an ability to use many words that ultimately said little and in fact confused them or made them guilty for putting such pressure on me. Eventually, I'd gotten Dad to start questioning if Mariam was mistaken somehow, but Mom was too keen on the fact that I was secretive for a reason. She took my phone away and I was banned from the computer. After such consequences were dealt out, she'd still come knocking at my door later wanting to talk about some experience she'd had with a guy when she was a little older than me, obviously concerned that the sex talk we'd skipped up until then might still be necessary. Her excuse was “I just wasn't sure when to talk to you about dating. I didn't think you were dating. I didn't think you'd keep it a secret.”
I really don't want to think about it. It was like two shattered universes at home where a name like “Erik” was coming from my mother's lips, and time never made a memory of that less off-putting. He was more than a person; he was darkness in my heart. He was a symbol of rebellion and lies to them, and of indulgence of indecent proportions. It was hard enough having to explain that the “cut on my arm” was an accident. He was a gash on my very identity, equally self-inflicted.
* * *
The slightly more honest discussion began without much privacy, when Giry, Mariam and I couldn't talk online and were forced to meet during lunch period. The more I talked to anyone, the more helpless and hateful of my position I became. For one thing, it was extremely difficult for Mariam and I to even speak to each other. She seemed terrified under the surface, with sleepless eyes that were always averted. It was Giry who was trying to piece together a clear story of what had happened using all three of our experiences, but it was really hard for me to share, even though I knew she cared, even though I knew she had figured out there was a serious problem. My first instinct was to guard Erik and I at every turn; to contribute in the most general sense I could manage about why he had taken a turn for the worst. I never told them I saw him put someone in a choke hold, or that he was avoiding staying in one place, leaving the theater, or self-mutilating. That only came months later.
One of the worst things I felt during the discussion was that I couldn't offer true condolence to either of them for what they'd been through. I was the girl who was in the relationship with him, and the ultimate person who should have had an understanding and some kind of control over the situation, but there I was, still stunned and few of words.
My deepest desperation was being answered, but to some degree I was mad at everyone, too. Mad at Giry for talking about what to do behind my back with Mariam, mad at Mariam for turning my home-life into lockdown. I knew she was scared, I was sorry the way that he'd treated her, but I still couldn't manage to be anything but lukewarm towards her. My parents' knowledge of the situation didn't lend protection like she thought it would; it kept me from communicating with them and from solving anything.
They didn't believe that was so, however. Mariam, who had been very quiet, spoke up in agreement when Giry told me, once gain, that for everyone's well-being I had to break up with him.
And it was possible that I did have to.
I'd told him I wouldn't let anyone else think I was giving him up because of their pressure and misunderstanding of us, but they didn't have to pressure me. I knew the more I heard it that every cell in my body was screaming for me to call it off as long as things stayed as torturously confusing as they were. I knew it was what would have to be done because now when I even thought of him touching me I wanted to vanish.
What I kept to myself, however, was that I still believed at the time that a condition could be met that would allow me to take him back... eventually. If I could just figure out what was going on in his life, and what he had done, exactly. And not just figure it out, but have it told to me honestly and directly, with a practical intention to turn himself around.
Even so, breaking up with him, plain and simple, didn't satisfy them.
They wanted to find out who he was.
Now, I was mad at him more than I was mad at anyone else. I made it known that I didn't sympathize with anything he was doing away from me, but it was more than that. He'd completely hurt me. Going off on a spiel several days ago about how I was spoiling what otherwise should be an “authentic” relationship and how much he felt unloved because of it? I wondered how he could possibly dare to hold me to such a double standard. I felt entirely disrespected and manipulated.
Yet, even so, there was no such option as “finding out who he was” to me. Unexplainably, it terrified and promised to undo me all the way if I had to be introduced to some second form of whom I had known to be a certain way for months. I pressed on them hard that it would be too much of a shock for me to handle, but Giry gave me a truth that was still difficult to swallow: I was not going to be able to end my own relationship; Erik would not be able to handle that I was breaking it off with him. “What are you getting at?” I asked.
“I'm getting at the fact that you will probably find out who he is if we have to get the police involved, and we might.”
We ran out of time, but I begged that they didn't. It seemed, unfortunately, that they didn't think I was all in my right mind. They didn't have sympathy for the situation the way that I did; they separated my heart from the worst darkness that we were battling, unaware it was tangled in it.
* * *
No, there was no way the police needed to be involved.
He could be as scary as he wanted, but he loved me enough to listen.
If I finally broke down. He'd listen... right?
* * *
Everything continued to be at a standstill. Erik was still missing. My parents weren't making progress with me, nor I with them. Giry and Mariam and I would speak when possible, but even if we hoped for a sense of oneness in a time like this, we were unable to agree on what should happen from thereon, and who should do what. On top of it, I wasn't getting news about casting until Friday afternoon, and I was sure I'd bombed it all with my faltering voice and high nerves, and this was before the real catastrophe had even happened. And I kept waiting for that text, or call, or email from him to arrive, which I would have to consider was my prompt to end it with him somehow.
If there was anything that was supposed to happen, it was going to spring on me; I just knew.
* * *
The universe decided not to have a faulty connection that Friday. A concrete thing happened: casting was posted and available in the choir room, and during Acting I learned that, while I hadn't made the role of Meredith Parker (the mother), I was in consideration for Shelley, her daughter, if I was interested. I was a little disappointed, but I said yes. We were supposed to have our first meeting, at the theater, on Monday afternoon to discuss the schedule of practice and rehearsals.
* * *
The standstill continued through the weekend. We all knew he was missing, and even though I agreed to find the courage to message him, I was unsuccessful.
My parents had adopted an expectant silence. I was in trouble now largely because of my level of disobedience. Until I tired of avoiding the topic at hand, I wasn't allowed to go anywhere, or see anyone, and the only reason I'd managed to message Erik was because I borrowed Giry's phone overnight. They took my phone away as soon as they were home, and I wouldn't risk them dialing back the number in my call list. I told him in a text not to contact my own number and that if he wanted to get ahold of me he would have to do it through Giry.
And so he would, finally, just a few hours after something very suspicious came to light.
* * *
On Monday, Mrs. Vardega concluded class by telling the cast of Bat Boy to meet there in the choir room after school instead of the theater, so we did so once 3:30 rolled around. Almost everyone had been cast and I was introduced to the senior who would be playing Mrs. Parker – her name, Leslie. I already knew her without knowing her. I'd had no classes with her, she wasn't in Fool's Dance, but in Fall of my Sophomore year she was Mina Harker in Dracula. It all came together why she had been chosen instead. Aside to having the charisma I lacked, her legs were a mile long and her eyes were the color of chocolate syrup.
Bat Boy himself was a senior named Westin, who had a typical, clean, and confident look about him, but he wasn't sure who to stand by, and I didn't even recognize him. He must have been talented because Mrs. Vardega was glowing when she introduced him as a new student as of that year who had succeeded in demanding productions at his old school in, of all places, Iowa. Apparently, he'd missed Fools Dance and I overlooked him in Shorts VII somehow, but MacBeth was among the stones in his crown. I'm more teasing Mrs. Vardega than him, though. He was polite but hardly seemed comfortable being given an introduction like that. And, well, I knew my character had to kiss him and wasn't dreading it, I guess you could say.
The issue of the day, among other things, was to complete casting, however. Nicole Castrati, a member of my class who Erik had once criticized, was there too, also for the role of Shelley. The role and that of her boyfriend Rick were still being decided, so there were pairs of us. I was supposed to audition some of Shelley's parts and confirm that I wanted to do it, but because we hadn't met at the theater, there was nowhere for the rest of the cast to hang out while I (and the two possible Ricks) performed for Mrs. Vardega and the choir teacher. Everyone had to watch us, and since I might be booted, it was particularly stressful having that many eyes on me, especially since I had to sing the solo part of Shelley's “Inside Your Heart”...
But, you know, I'll never forget how I knew that day that some aspect of my life would be positive for a while. At the end of the part of the song where Edgar (the bat boy) cuts in, Westin shouted his line “YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING” from the sidelines and I was able to leave the “front of stage” (a.k.a. a piece of tape on the floor) laughing.
Then, after some exercises to “bond us”, the meeting wrapped up with some determination to break me out of that insulated joy when Mrs. Vardega took to the front of the classroom again.
“If you've got your schedule print-outs, then you know our next meeting will be on Friday from 4-7 when we'll continue with scene readings, or in this case 'singings'. Everyone in Acting, you know that to some extent we'll be working on these during class. For the rest of the week, the aim is to get all scenes involving your characters memorized. Not all of the music, just all of the words and interactions, though I recommend that you be listening to the soundtrack practically on repeat. Next week we're going to work on blocking and set design. Those of you in Stage Crew,” and she glanced at me and a couple others, “will be contributing to that this week in class. Now, we're having a little issue with the theater at the moment which is why we didn't meet there today. My fingers are crossed that it'll be resolved before Monday, but there's a possibility that we'll be meeting here again and trying to make our best progress.”
She threw up her arms and said the usual “have a beautiful evening” before everyone began to shuffle their things and file out the door, but I didn't budge. Aside to knowing Mrs. Vardega was great at making problems seem like nothing in particular, I knew any piece of information regarding that building was a responsibility of mine.
I went up to her.
She noticed me and was all ears, but we weren't alone. I asked if I could wait. “Walk with me to my office, then. I'm dying of thirst and forgot my water!” So there, we went, just down the hall. It was going to seem unexplainably nosy, but I asked:
“Why aren't we able to go to the theater?” I could immediately tell she was thinking about something that irritated her before she answered.
“Well, I'm not really supposed to be sharing the information and the last thing I want to do is get everyone gossiping, but I guess I can tell you. If you keep it to yourself.”
“Of course I will,” I said, stepping closer.
“Apparently there was some kind of police warrant, for a search or something, I don't really know. I was only emailed about it this morning and told not to bring my class down there. Or, you know... the- the Bat Ensemble.” I watched her irritation vanish and smiled. This obviously meant nothing to her, and everything to me. “Listen, just don't worry about it for now.”
“Okay,” I managed to say in a short, weightless manner.
Inside? My heart was going into hyperdrive, again. She wanted to talk about how nice it was that I was trying for more ambitious roles, and that she believed in me, and that a lot of seniors had gotten parts (or two parts) so it would be a whole new experience to work closely with those I don't interact with all the time. They were all wonderful things to hear and I could sense she was inviting me to wait until she had her stuff ready so I could walk out with her, but... I had to say thank you three or four times in between and say I'd look forward to seeing her tomorrow.
So I could run.
Really, the only practical place I could run was to Mariam's. The sky was now burnt orange and I knew they were probably having dinner soon, a rare time when Mariam's dad didn't like visitors of any kind, but I miraculously caught them beforehand, and he told me I could go downstairs. When I reached her, Jeffrey was there, too. They straightened up, and I knew just by the way he didn't know how to look at me, and instead stared at the floor, that he was up to date. Mariam came and stood in front of me, but she had nothing to say.
I made it as simple as possible: Did you call the police?”
“No,” she answered, straight in my eyes.
“Then did Paulina?”
“No, I don't think so. Why?”
“No one called the police.”
“No, unless she did it without saying. Why?! What happened?” Jeffrey stood up but wouldn't dare move from the desk.
“There was a search warrant at the theater and we couldn't meet there for Bat Boy. We need to call Paulina.” She didn't waste time dialing her up, but no one answered right away, which freaked me out. My parents by now had a pretty good idea how long these types of meetings lasted, so I knew I was stretching my time, but I remained, perched stiffly at the end of the couch. All three of us were equally confused and paranoid. What made it worse was the way Jeffrey touched her hand; I was still in disbelief that Erik could cause that much fear. I wondered if the way he had nothing to say to me meant I was outside his sphere of sympathy. If he knew that I'd defended Erik multiple times, if that knowledge made him angry with me or painted me as a really stupid girl who was ruining Mariam's life.
Giry called back in five minutes, so that Mariam could arrange that she visit the house to bring me her phone. She hadn't called the police, but Erik had texted her, for me.
I was hardly prepared for it because I would sure Giry would show up at any moment out front, with the phone, so I could rush off home and call the play meeting a success, but Mariam came and set next to me. She lowered her voice to keep it from traveling up the stairs but still expected Jeffrey to hear. “I could call the cops, Lily.” I had nothing to say, or perhaps my unwillingness to look at anything but my lap gave it away. “I bet there is something you've seen that wasn't right, or something done to you. I know it now. We can't get in a fight about it – I know it and so do you.”
Still, I kept his secrets.
“The way that he used to scare me is not what happened this time.”
* * *
I went home with Giry's phone and some details that sent me into shock. He'd confronted her in her own garage, and it would have been a very easy place to avoid the interaction by calling for help if he hadn't threatened to set the place on fire.
H-How.
It didn't even sound like him. Maybe it sounded like him to everyone else, but not to me. He stirred sugar in my tea and kissed me when I was half asleep, dethorned a hundred roses and never told me to let go when I folded my arms around him, no matter how long. Surely, there had to be two people, or some imposter. My skin crawled and I had to get in the shower.
“Please ask Christine to call me as soon as she can,” was in Giry's inbox from a foreign number. He still had the nerve to call me that name?
I wouldn't call, but I texted. This wasn't good enough. He didn't trust that it was me. I called and he answered after the first ring.
“Erik,” I spat, to which he had no response. “Where have you been?”
“I'm out of town. Out of state, actually.”
“Why?”
“I had to extricate myself from a very ugly situation, let's just put it that way.”
“Is there a possibility, Erik? Any at all, that you would be straight with me?” He didn't answer. “And why didn't you stay in touch with me, even still?”
“I couldn't.”
“You couldn't. Well, in that case, this was the wrong time to be out of state. You've left me to fend for myself.”
“And I'm sure that you've fended for yourself just perfectly. You're not a weakling, Christine. And any time this past week, if you'd asked to come with me, I would have come back and obliged.”
“This is not going to be an ultimatum,” I told him, with a sternness I had never taken with him before.
“Yes, it is. It is,” he answered. “I feel like I'm losing you because you do not understand how necessary it is to do what I ask. I'm not coming back unless for you. And if you don't want me to, then everything has been a waste. Don't do this to me.”
“It's not something I'm doing to you; I'm doing it for me.”
“Doing what for you?” He asked, voice falling in strength, but with more curiosity than I could bare. I choked on all the words. “What are you doing for you?” If I told him what I knew, we'd argue and I wouldn't even be able to form a coherent sentence during any of it. If I said we were breaking up, somehow my heart would break. Not because I wanted him, or that I didn't hate everything about him right then... but because what was once beautiful was now rotten.
Through the lump in my throat I said “listen. Be gone if you have to. I need a break,” and hung up right away.
He'd call several other times that night, but I'd never answer.
* * *
Who do you save when your house is on fire?
Don't bring the guy who lit the match.
* * *
The next night, I would be slipping outside, finally getting a fresh breath and watching a starless purple sky as I took a bag full of delicate, dried roses to the forest.
I didn't know how nightmares could keep happening.
I was almost sobbing on the way there. I could barely see because of the globs of tears in my eyes. Even so, I knew well enough that I had to enter through the brush to the side of the road and not pass that building where you could never quite tell who would be there, or whether you'd come out alive, for that matter...
The police were making rounds in our neighborhood. They were looking for a man who was six feet more or less, with dark brown hair just past his ears, dark eyes, and... a very uneven, grooved, complexion. I made the mistake of showing through my body language that this was Erik, somehow, even though the description of his hair didn't match. I just knew it.
The charge? Attempted arson.
I couldn't fucking do it anymore, I just couldn't.
Mom saw I was every flavor of disturbed that night and would not stop hounding me for the truth. Before we were exhausted, I'd convinced them both that this man was not the same man, not my “Erik”, but it'd cost us so many tears, I-I don't know if it was worth it anymore. I was ready to snap. I was really so close to telling myself that tomorrow I would confess about what I was doing because of the way it felt inevitable that this distrust and pain would continue on forever if I didn't.
But I'd be damned -- I'd be damned if anyone ever really knew what had happened between us during all the nights that lead me to fall in love with... with whoever it was. Even then, a part of me was under his spell and would keep his secrets, would let him down softly, if I could.
I felt like I was following a little voice into the woods. Get rid of them.
I could have left them somewhere, anywhere, but my searching lead me to a path that would go down to the river, so I took the path. With a brisk and focused gait, I went all the way through, never letting the sound of the wind sweeping through or the occasional rustles disturb me.
At the railing, I set down the bag and took a handful of stems. I looked around to make sure the streets were empty. Then I held one at a time over the water, dropping them when I was ready. Doing it was sort of cathartic. I didn't cry anymore. I was ready to let them go, and sick of the way they were crumbling in my closet. This had to be the best way to get rid of them, anyhow. I always made wishes this way. The way the roses so easily crumbled, I may as well have been spreading ashes. Because it had died for good, that wonder. This all wouldn't happen twice to me.
* * *
It happened so fast I couldn't think. I returned to familiar ground and Erik was standing in the center of the path. When my flashlight first caught him, he was the same upright shadow in the distance that I saw from my bedroom window and I nearly started bolting back the way I came. “Christine!” He called to me in a stunningly authoritative tone. “What are you doing?”
What was I doing? “What are you doing?”
“Tying up loose ends.” He rose is hand to me, but I didn't move, and he downcast his face. “That light's a little painful.” Tentatively, I took the spotlight off him and came forward, but I was already thinking about how I could make this meeting short. How far away were we from the road? How could I be in a place of freedom rather than coercion?
I simply passed him and speed-walked, but he kept at my side without having to do the same. “I don't like what you said to me, Christine,” he said.
I didn't answer; I was waiting for the clearing; to be out of the maze.
“What did you mean by that?”
After a deliberately long pause, I answered. “It means what you think it means. I can't be in this position right now.”
“There's no other time that I can put this on you.”
The edge of the forest was almost right before us.
“Summer. If we could just put this on hold until summer--,” I started, but he tore across the dirt and stopped me from taking another step.
Abruptly and forcefully his voice grated: “I don't have until summer!” It was almost as if a demon had just possessed him, spoken and moved for him. That was it, really. He'd lost the rest of my trust, but I knew he couldn't know that yet. I reached for his arm very gently.
“Alright, Erik... I understand...”
And we reached that opening, finally. I turned off my flashlight, and I tried to steer us toward the front of the building, but he silently redirected me with a strong grip.
“Christine, I want you to give me your key.” Before my startled mind could think of a reason why I should be on my way, he came closer. “Your key to the theater. Give it to me.” He reached right form my pockets and pulled out my key ring and I made the mistake of following him up the side ramp.
“Erik, what are you doing?” Without asking, he yanked away my flashlight so he could see what he was doing, and as soon as he'd opened the door, he grabbed my wrist. “Erik, I don't want to come in.” He didn't care. He let go of me so he could lock the door behind us and leave me helpless in the dark as he found a light switch. “We're not supposed to be here!” I shouted to nothing while a dull pain pressed behind my eyes. The lamps above the isle in which I was standing all came to light, and I fell against the wall.
“I can keep this up any more," my trembling voice managed. “I really mean it,” I told him, wherever he was. “I-I have to stop playing tug-of-war with my life.”
He came from the blackness of the rest of the auditorium and tried to hold my hands, but I turned away my face, trying to breath, trying to keep a clear mind about what needed to be done, now that the time had been thrown upon me. I knew it was the time. “You don't have to play tug-of-war. I can help you leave right now.” I faced him and the tears dropped.
"I don't want to leave!” I shouted, feeling the anger burst so suddenly. “I felt connected to you..." My eyes blurred over as I said it. He took my arms as I tried to wipe my face, moved them out of his way, and kissed me, but I broke off and shriveled out of his grasp. "I can't be with you anymore. I just can't..." My stuttering quieted him considerably. Even his heavy, desperate breath lost its sound. "I can't sleep at night. Absolutely everything is a mess. My parents are furious with me." When I could no longer stand his watching me, I covered my face with my hands, and I started to think about how this gentle approach didn't make sense.
Through my fingers I could see his hands lower to his sides.
Then eventually...
"...That is exactly why you must be going now."
It struck fear in me that he persisted with this. I felt the heat of new tears before turning my back on him. "I'm not going anywhere. Stop trying to make me go," I tried to demand, but it sounded so much more like a plea.
"I don't think you understand-"
"It's you who doesn't understand that you've acted COMPLETELY CRAZY, AND THE POLICE WERE AT MY HOUSE!" I screamed, facing him with wide eyes. His lips slowly closed. "There is nothing I need to know that would change my opinion, because I know it all! And YOU DID THIS. You ruined it! It didn't have to be ruined! We had something I will never experience again in my entire life and you turned it upside down!” I had already hurt my throat screaming at him, but had to ask just to thing to keep it going. “What is wrong with you?...”
I turned from him and slid across the wall a ways before dropping to the floor. His reaction was next to nothing, and even that angered me. It angered me because he made me feel like I was overreacting. I knew I wasn't.
After some thought, he answered. "...Everything. I never kept that a secret from you."
"You never told me, either."
"I thought you were a storm-catcher."
"Stop it."
"I thought you loved me."
"I obviously care if this hurts-"
"-That's why I gave everything up. So I could love you."
I didn't want to hear about love.
"...I warned you," he trailed.
"Enough!" I screeched over him. "You warned me, o-o-of course you did. Well, it happened! You ruined everything. I need to pick up the damn pieces of my life now!" He tried to touch me again, but I stood up right away and guarded myself. "Please don't touch me. I need to feel sure this is right and I can't if you're near me anymore."
"That doesn't sound like certainty to me.”
"It wouldn't to you, would it? You never think I'm sure unless I agree with you!"
"I sincerely hope that isn't the impression I've given you."
"...I have to say goodbye to you and you're not helping."
"You're not saying goodbye to me,” he said, and he reached for my arm again before I threw them both behind me.
"Don't tell me what I'm doing.”
"It's not so much an order as an interpretation.”
"Don't patronize me. If I tell you I can't do this anymore, that's exactly what it means."
"I believe you. But that doesn't mark the end of us. You know it doesn't. You know it's much bigger than that."
"You're missing the point! Goddamnit! Right now you need to leave... me... ALONE!"
"You know, Christine, if I have to stay here, waiting for you, that puts me in danger now."
"Why do I have to make decisions about your mistakes?! What you did-- everything you did, I never asked for any of it. So why are you making me feel like we both have to pay for it?! I don't! And if you cared about me at all, you wouldn't try taking me down with you like this. I need. A break. It doesn't matter what you say! You've decided on lots of things that you thought you needed without ever discussing it with me, and I at least show you enough respect to tell you to your face that you're scaring the shit out of me, and this... this thing needs to stop! So it WILL!"
I looked all around, but my keys were missing. He watched me struggle with the door, and once I stopped my muscles were twitching and my tears were swelling. "What should I do for you to stop being so angry?" He wondered.
"Give me my keys."
"Then you no longer wish to know me."
"Right now I can't. And you know why... so just stop."
“I can't stop,” he answered, and his hands darted for my wrists. This was not my life.
I was forced to run with him down the isle and across the stage, or risk landing face-first. His strength was so overbearing that there was no chance of slowing him down or throwing my weight behind me so I could at least dig my heels into the floor. I simply ran like his shadow, screaming at him the entire time, terrified, and so tired of it all. I officially hated him.
At the stairs, his pace slowed to descend them, and I gripped the railing, stalling him for just a moment, but it was all futile. Completely futile.
No, into that room I went, with no control over it. He flicked the light on and it was a white box, nearly gutted of all it used to contain. He threw me on the floor, my Erik... and stood against the door with his breath heavy. And I told him right away that he'd lost his mind.
He didn't have anything to say at first. We both caught our breath and I saw that he looked like a mess. He was wearing a different coat, no tie or gloves, and darkness I usually found inside the eyes of his mask was a blotchy red. With a calm, clear voice, he asked “so is this what you think of being with me? Punishment? You think I want to make you suffer because I can't do anything right?”
I was not going to engage him.
“If you had said that much earlier in our relationship, that would've really hurt me, Christine, but I know better now. I've been perfection to you. At such a cost. How dare you try to hurt me? I deal my own pain for you, so much of it, and this is how you repay me? So I was wrong to think that you'd suffer the way that I did for you... You don't really want anything, do you?”
I was not going to engage him. I was not going to engage him.
“Girls. What do they want?” He looked up and around the room with heavy breath, as if he was searching for an answer in the walls, in something besides me, but his eyes shot me that gaze again so abruptly he may as well have slashed me in two. “No one seems to want anything. I'm the only one who wants. Who wants better.”
He sunk into the door like a burning had spread across his body, and he was close to letting go of the door. “Why do you do this to me? Make me think I can have you, all this time? What did you think I wanted, if not you, completely?”
“I told you I care about you! Stop saying--”
“Words are nothing.”
My responses ceased all over again. I couldn't believe he'd even said it, as if I had never done anything to prove what I said. I thought I'd loved him. Did he know it at all?
“You fickle girls... Can you just imagine, for a second, what I've been through? Trying... to finally have someone, the one I chose, the only one... Always wondering if, tomorrow, someone might adjust what's important to you. Knowing you can be swayed, made to think things are so easy, so why isn't it so easy with Erik?” He saw his necklace dangling from my neck and seemed to want to reach out to it, but knew better than to try. “I guess it would be silly to expect a butterfly to stay in one place, wouldn't it? No, it has to be fickle even when it's trained against its own nature. When something is that fickle, Christine... when something so fickle dances at the mouth of my trap, I have to reach for it. Before it's gone. And pay the price later for breaking its wing.” I brought my arms close to my chest and backed into the wall. “But I don't want to do that. I wish you would make things easy instead of wait for that something you will have to forgive, and if you think this is it, well, you have no imagination. I don't want to beg your forgiveness... I want to do right by you, but you have to do right by me as well."
He looked like he was going to keel over, and I was desperate. Every nerve was twitching, and I was at my weakest from pure shock, but I threw both my hands at the doorknob. His reflexes were stunning; the door didn't budge. He had stiffened his entire body in front of my only escape, and looked down on me from the edge of his mask's eyes with no love at all. His whole body was sharpened for its purposes; he hardly seemed human. I gave him back a gaze that spoke that I would not stand for this. Frail, and human, and dominated as I was, he had to know it was not his right to dominate. He had to know, whether I liked what happened next or not, that I did not want to be there with him. He did not deserve me then.
I gripped and yanked at the knob, then at his arms, but he flexed them solid – it was like trying to turn metal bars. I threw all of my weight on them, then leaned back as far as possible, but he shifted his legs in between us and using their leverage to push himself further against the door. It was an awful mess that I hated – he only maintained and never overpowered me, and I almost wished someone would win, even him, so that we wouldn't be having this silent, humiliating struggle. Then I kneed him squarely in the stomach and he lost his breath, but even that didn't loosen his grip.
He wouldn't look at me anymore, but he was visibly shaking.
I stepped back and screamed. “LET ME OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!” I'd be sick, I knew it. The cramps in my stomach were already returning, and the heat was sabotaging my balance, and the very coherency of my own thoughts. “Let me out...”
“You're not leaving me.”
“For now, I am! Yes, I fucking a-am...” I started, thinking there would be more, but I had to lower to the floor with my knees to my chest and my head in my hands. Sticky sweat was soon between my fingers and I could even feel it on my back.
“We're going to make a compromise, no matter how long it takes. If you want to leave, then start compromising. For your Erik... your Erik.”
For a while, we didn't speak. I tried to say I'd already compromised, but that wasn't good enough. I told him he kept asking for more and more and I could no longer give more, but that wasn't good enough. I wanted to finish this play, I begged, but that wasn't good enough.
I made the mistake of asking “what if you're wrong?” “What if it's wrong to be this way?” But he told me I'd been contaminated -- that it was only wrong to everyone else. He went on and on about how the rest of the world's meanings don't have to touch anything that we do as long as we have each other.
By then, he was sending me into a near delirium, but at the same time I realized there was a tactic available that might free me. I was already lying on the floor, and he was watching for every subtlety. I realized I could pretend to be sick. Slowly, as if I was nervous to move, I rolled onto my back and lifted up my shirt. I ran my palm against my tummy and tried to seem as uncomfortable as possible, looking for some way to turn, then finally I came back to my side.
“I never wanted to be like this to you,” he said, but I never answered. My eyes stayed closed. I let my mouth hang open. I was the perfect picture of nausea, and by some miracle, he asked what I needed him to: “are you alright?”
I lagged my answer and only spoke “no” in the weakest way, nearly whispering. “I feel sick,” I told him. After a certain amount more of observation, he believed me. He stepped forward and I rolled back again. A warm tear escaped the corner of my eye as I braved his touch, and he placed the fallen metal butterfly back over my chest. It wasn't working, initially. All he did was watch me, so I asked for some water. I said I was getting dizzy.
He obliged, but I could hear the lock click. I was at a loss. There was no way to get out of the room if he was there with me.
But then I saw the desk and chair, stripped of all his books and papers. I must have been superwoman. I dragged the desk across the room, below the windows. I climbed up with the chair and removed the tacks holding the cardboard over the windows. I didn't even know if I'd fit all the way before I sent myself through and clawed, and gripped, and ground into the grass until I could pass through my hips. I could hear the door opening and the sound of glass shattering while the rest of me was slipping out. I'd have to gun it, so I did.
In my head, this was as hopeless as escaping a maximum security prison. I couldn't run for very long and that he could cover a huge distance in seconds. No time seemed to pass at all between the shattering of that glass and the slamming open of the front doors. It had never seemed like the road between the theater and the main street was so long until I was trying to cross it in a dash. I lost my stamina, especially after moving that desk. I couldn't do it. I thought he would catch me.
Even then, I continued to walk, and I looked behind me, and there he was, slowing, too, but getting closer. If he wouldn't catch me right way and take me back, I didn't know what he thought he was doing besides putting himself in danger of being seen. He was such a fool.
And he didn't deserve me in this state.
I could feel his eyes on me, so relentless, so strong, as if he wished to change my actions only with his thoughts. I turned around and screamed "STOP FOLLOWING ME", even hoping that someone would be passing by on the main street and hear me. They’d make him obey and sift back into the dark. Our privacy that I had always before found comforting now seemed to be his ally.
He wasn't listening.
"You know you mean everything to me."
Once I was on the main road, I started passing under streetlights, hoping it would deter him, but even though his steps quieted, I still heard them.
"This has never been a game. I've loved you since before you met me, and I won't stop.”
I covered my ears. Looking back on it, it made me vulnerable - I would never be able to react if he ran up behind me, but at the time I had to cut off the words from reaching me. As the house was growing closer, I glanced back at him before a final sprint.
At the driveway, I watched him stop farther up the street, posture straight, imitating power, but he had never looked more powerless. It was hard to look away from him. I would be losing track of him. He'd taken my keys, but there was a spare under one of our plants by the door. I shoved into the lock right away and was ready to save myself, finally, but I had to look one more time around the edge of the house.
He no longer stood there.
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