Chapter 20, I felt, was poorly connected to the previous chapter, very abrupt (although I suppose the scene would be abrupt no matter what), and I was unhappy with the dialogue for several days before I got it to a place that felt okay. I leave things hanging at the end, which I guess is somewhat good...?

-But enough with that for now.
I'm proud to announce,
HT is my new longest story.

First it was SELS, 120pgs,
Wooden Light is at, technically, 123pgs, although it has been on hiatus a year and I'm just now doing some stuff for it to prepare for winter,
but HT with this last chapter has reached 125pgs, although I use a different font.
In arial, my normal font, it's 133pgs.

Yikes. :D
Only a third done, too.

Well, here is Chapter 20 for easy reading, since I've been too lazy to update the site.


HE'S THERE
Chapter 20 – Insane


Unsuspecting to the nature of my roleplaying partner, I let him clutch me in the corner of a study room at the library, Tuesday night. I felt kind of promiscuous, never seeing or hearing from him in four days, going off to do innocent 17-year-old girl type things, and then just walking into his arms. I told myself we were... well... what you'd call... “together”. We just missed each other... we would have many opportunities once back at the theater to keep up with our talks, which was more often than not all that we did. That night I just really wanted to see him, touch him, realize no matter what life he had, he was mine in some respects...

It was awfully quiet there at 7:30, and closing in an hour. Earlier, I begged him to find a way to see me again through text and this ended up being our idea, last minute, and when I entered the room in the far back, he was staring at his pocket watch and darting his eyes around like he had come here at an inconvenient time. We couldn't seem to brighten the lights, so this meeting place, without windows and storing only a desk and a few chairs, was thick in grey shadow and I again laughed at myself for the kind of places I ventured just to be with him. He seemed faintly amused himself.

“This is what we're reduced to...”
“It's not a stage flushed in candlelight, but I think we will be just fine.”

Those were the single two things we said before anything started. I laid my coat on the table and stood opposite to him as he dropped his watch back into place. He started followed me as I inched around the table, “avoiding” him as “best as I could”, and not really so phased when he caught me and I was right where I began. For a second, I felt like any typical couple, running my fingers over a black coat I had never seen him in before. There was a certain heaviness to his left coat pocket. When I dug my hand in, I felt the spine of a book, but he seemed discomforted and lifted my arm, distracting me from the movement by curling the same hand around my waist. I lifted my face over his shoulder and decided to ignore whatever it was when something warm pattered onto my cheek.

I suspected it was a tear, instinctively; he was right above me, and though there were no indications that he was crying beforehand, it was the only conceivable explanation. But when I turned my face up to question him, he seemed alarmed. By me. And more, there was indeed something dripping out from his mask.

He just... stared at me. He knew exactly what I was wondering, but I wasn't going to say anything– I wanted him to speak first. He steadied his eyes on the area of my face where I could still feel the warmth, drawing his hands back and lifting them without looking to pinch the tip of his right hand. The glove came off as he used his index to slide along my cheek. I studied his eyes as they calmly calculated what to do with the red fingertip and it had me retracting back to the edge of the table.

He slowly touched the finger to his lips with his eyes fixed on me. Slithering past his detection, the red that escaped from under the cold plastic was still dripping down to his chin.

“You don't need to become upset-” he tried, like it was a simple accident.
“I'm not upset. I'm just noticing that there's blood running down your face.”

He ran his hand over his lower cheek and fit it back into his glove. I knew that glove was stained, now.

“What did you do?”

We studied each other relentlessly for the next moment. He did not look bothered or shameful, only exhilarated over what I might say to him.

“I really didn't intend for that to happen,” he finally interjected.
“For your face to be bleeding, or for me to see?”
“Both, I suppose.” He pulled a cloth from his other pocket and turned away from me. If he was going to expose any of his face, I thought, I should turn away. I walked away from the table and crossed my arms, picking a place along the wall to lean so I could stare into the floor and wait.

“Are you okay?” His voice asked.

I couldn't think how to answer, so I just didn't.

“I've done a little too much today.”
“I don't understand... sorry?” I asked to the floor. No explanation about how he had been hurt earlier, like it was common to bleed randomly...
“I came to visit you sooner than I should, after...”
“After what...”







“...I thought you only cut your arms.”



“When I'm feeling a certain way, yes.”





“...Wh-... I... don't... ”



“...Y-your face?” His silence was enough confirmation. “You're serious.”
“Please come out of the corner,” he asked me. I hadn't realized I'd gone back that far. He tried to approach me but I raised my hand.
“Just stay.”







“...You were in the bathroom that one time, weren't you,” I sharply accused.

He was still a moment, then he flickered his eyes to the floor.

“Wow, y-...” I shook my head in exasperated thought. “I'm surprised you're not in the hospital after all the blood I've seen from you.”
“You're becoming a little too dramatic” he thought, and thought wrongly, was appropriate to remark.
“You knew I would be.”
“...True. But you had to know at some point. I guess now was it.”

A faint pink smear was still over his cheek. I did not want his blood on me ever again. I could not accept that it had even happened.

“Why?!” I tried.

He didn't look like he had any further interest in answering the question.

“You don't need to do that.”
“The damage is done... it's a part of who I am now. You don't need to be upset.”
“I don't need to be upset?! Wow, must think I'm psycho if I wouldn't care about you... mutilating your face.”
“I definitely think you would care... but... you must have expected something, right?”
“Expected something for what?”
“For why I'm wearing a mask.” He spoke to me as if it were a completely normal discussion.
“Because... you don't want me to know who you are?”

He exhaled in a slight laugh again.

“That could be anyone's reason.”

The moment he said it, the implications hit me like a train.

“What then,” I questioned firmly, my glare stern and anticipating. An answer I felt I already knew.
“To feel more like myself.”

My face froze in disgust. Suddenly, he broke out in laughter.

“Your reaction is even more priceless than it ever was in all my imagination.”

“I'm glad. I'm glad that I can...be of entertainment to you.”
“No... no... you're not entertaining... You're uncomfortable and it's my fault. ...I really didn't consider how much gauze to use before I came here. And I've done it so many times before... I was just so eager to see you.”

I gestured as much as I could that I wanted him away from me, but the space between us kept shrinking by his initiation. I saw distance, even objectivity in his expression as he raised his arms to each side of the wall.

“...Why do I need to know this about you?!”

I glowered at him as he attempted to stroke my arms soothingly with his fingers.

“You agreed to visit the dark...”
“This isn't what I expected. You're crazy. Why would you do that to yourself?”
“We went over this, Christine... You told me you're going to try to 'accept' me... I say... 'you don't know what you're dealing with', and you... laugh like I'm being irrationally self-critical...” He clasped my hands and tried to remind me why I let him closer to me than anyone else. But the contradictory stimuli made me realize that it did not make me safe.
“But you're scaring me.”



“Haven't I already scared you many times before?”
“If you do enough to scare me, I might choose not to see you again.” He smiled to himself and it made me angry with him. Not just because he thought what I said was an empty threat, but because it may have actually been.

He let go of my hands and stepped behind me before I could react.

“You're not going anywhere... You couldn't get rid of me now even if you knew it was the best thing for you.”

He could be right all he wanted-- I wasn't letting him know it.

“But that doesn't fix this problem here, and you are worrying me-”
“I don't intend to fix it.”
“Don't touch me,” I demanded, so bothered I jabbed him in the chest when he tried to enclose me. “I-I'm sorry but I cannot-j-hdgh-” I waved my hands around and breathed heavily. “I'm in no place to go back to doing whatever you want me to do. I do not accept this right now, and I won't tomorrow, or next week, so you had better fix something because you're... you're insane!”

His approaching posture dropped to my utterance.

“And you agreed that that's fine,” he answered... complacently, almost.

I glared at him before opening the door and hurrying to somewhere where people would surround me, where he couldn't say a word more, or touch me, or manipulate me. He was already using things I'd said against me, so call my reaction contradictory, my only desire was to no longer be there.

The eyes of someone in the lobby, innocent and grey-blue, unaware of our struggles, fluctuated somewhat when they met mine, like I was visibly troubled. It made me bolt for the front doors even faster that I'd planned, running into freezing night air that made the walk back seem impossible. Godamnit. What was I going to do. I searched for my phone in my pocket but it was missing, and that's when I'd realized I left my coat, with the phone in it, sitting on the table in that room.

“Oh, you have got to be shitting me!” I voiced, not even quite sure if I was alone. My eyes darted to the curb for any cars and there he stood, dangling my possessions in front of him.

“You might need this.”

I took it from him without saying a word. I could not tell if he'd changed his mind and felt a little guilty at this point, but he was standing there, expecting something more, after the coat was on me and I was clicking through my contact list.

“Do you want me to walk you home?”

My eyes rose exasperatedly to his face.

“That's alright.”
“Don't go home upset.”

He still kept persisting on me with those wide eyes.

“Sorry, but one of us has to be upset over this, and obviously, you aren't.”

Much as it needed to be said, this was not the kind of conversation I wanted to have at a public place. There were people just beyond this door. Maybe not many, but enough. I could not decide if Erik was unable to think of a response or felt my concern was not enough to merit it. He loomed very close to me in his turn for the stairs. He was casual in descending them, the same hand with blood stains surely inside the glove, gliding down the railing. He paused at the sidewalk and smiled to me.

“Have a good night.”
I shook my head in disbelief and turned my back on him to return inside, my call to Giry already ringing.

I knew the moment I told her I felt uncomfortable walking home alone out there that she'd have questions, but I did to convince her to pick me up.

The maroon car rolled up in front about eight minutes later – I had counted the time on my phone. The friends she had been with when I called, two of them, accompanied her, and I had to sit in the back, where I quickly put my seatbelt on and leaned into the window with my hand along my forehead. They were all staring at me, to make it worse.

“You alright?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”

The friends, not even bothering to glance away from my area of the car, had me clenching my free hand.

“I'm fine, really,” I said through my teeth. She took the hint and put her foot on the gas. Oblivious to- no, I suppose that is the wrong word... Unknowing of what I had been through, and not seeming to realize that it wouldn't help, the three chattered on mindlessly all the way to my street, laughing over things that happened earlier that I didn't get or care to have explained to me at all. But Giry slowed down the car along the curb to my house and I stepped out as soon as we were no longer in motion, realizing that simultaneously, so did she, obviously after me for more questions. I got as far as the first half of the driveway.

“Are you okay?”

I swung around and shrugged my shoulders.

“Don't I look fine?”
“Well... you said you didn't feel safe walking home, so...”
“Yeah. Well, it's cold and dark.”
“We can always talk at my house. Upstairs? Those two can entertain each other.”
“No, really. It's fine. I'm a little creeped, but nothing happened to me, and I just wanna go inside and watch some television or something.”

She half-smiled and exhaled into the dead air.

“Okay. I'll see you tomorrow.”
“Thank you, for giving me a-”
“Yeah.”



PS: I REALLY must do that photoshoot... :< I could make a new layout with ittttt...