Oh, I'm so glad this is bloody done. I've had some things really discouraging me lately. I'm watching all these Phantom films, and they're so wonderful that I feel like I'm just not being a good enough writer... At first Robert and Charles were inspiring me to write HT, and then gradually I just wanted to draw and write for THEM because they rocked so hard. I even have a fanfic idea, a CROSSOVER for God's sake, since Rob and Charles are such different phantoms, I thought they'd be hilarious having an argument about who's going to use Box 5 or something, although it's probably going a bit against Rob's character to make him fight so much with Charles, because... well if you've seen the movie... if he suddenly feels he's having an issue with someone else, they don't live much longer. *snort* I don't know why, I love Charles, but the idea of Rob lunging at him with a candlestick makes me laugh hard.
I came across this stupid quiz that doesn't even have all the phantoms and for some reason I really want to know what kind of results you guys will get, so if you have time: Which Phantom would you get it on with? Ignoring the typos, some of the answers were hilarious. "Kidnapping you, trying to rape you, killing your boyfriend and his police goons, and even when you try to escape 100 years into the future"... Well when you put it that way... Oh, and the reference to Charles: What kind of flowers would he give you? - "Flowers?! Baby, he's got his own forest." But somehow it came up with Lon Chaney. NO THANK YOU.
But anyway, another thing that's put me off is that HT is now 200 pages long and about 100,000 words (holy moly!), and this chapter was the last bit of the pretentiously titled "Part 1" of this book, but my planning for Part 2 and feeling ready to stop writing foreplay has made finishing it kind of boring in comparison to what I could be writing, so that's why I'm mainly thrilled. Part 2 is beginning now! There may not be a Chapter 31 by Sunday, I'm giving myself the excuse to be sporadic here, in order to have this website up before or by midnight of December 31. I'm trying~~~
21405 / 50000 words. 43% done!
I added Chapter 30 AND Chapter 24 to this, even though I wrote it a couple months before NanoWrimo. It sums up what I've completed for this whole year for the story.
HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 30 - Goodbye to 2006
The whole floor was flooding, but the water started in the center and moved out, almost like the middle of the room was sunken. I couldn't open the door, and for some reason my vision wasn't clear. When I turned around, I made out The Figure at the deepest point in the water, but his body seemed to be going under. The black clothing he was wrapped in was spreading out at the surface, and underneath was just the shape of a man made out in a raspberry red - almost like jam - he was falling apart and soon the water was a soup of him, I guess you could say. It started building up around my ankles. It was hot. I shook the knob of the door vigorously now, my hair whipping over my shoulders and in my face. Like it was no doing of my own, my knees swayed down and I was receding into the center of the floor. The liquid grew thicker, with human parts; I began struggling with arms, everywhere, trying to suffocate me. It seemed the only way to counter them was to raise my legs to the ceiling and spring upwards. I had to repeat this several times before the pool of red became the same puddle in the bathroom. The arms were scattered around me as I stood. My only escape was a vent at the top of the stall. Somehow I had the ability to climb up and jump through.
Through the ceiling, I crawled, which became a tighter place as I went along, until I dropped and landed square on my shoulder in the middle of a black hallway that faded into the dark on either side. Suddenly Erik (my Erik), strolled into view. He extended his hand and helped me up. He asked if I would like to go read with him and I asked if he had any clue what I had just been through. He said that he did know, because a "version of him" had just "collapsed" in the other room. I mentioned that this "version" grew tons of arms and tried to drown me. He said he thought I had already been drowned. I said no and for some reason tore off his mask, and he was hiding the same gelatin-red composition as his other, and he was so surprised/angry with me that his eyes were popping out of their sockets. Then he fell and started throwing up blood. I was so sickened by it that I screamed for him to stop, as if he had been doing it on purpose, and started running down the hall. I saw myself running from the front as if I were someone else but could still feel my legs treading.
This is when I woke up, just as hot as I felt in the dream while I was in Erik soup. You and I both are out of luck deciphering the message in all this. But while my dream was very nonsensical in itself, real life was only so much clearer.
When I turned to my side and found Meg on the floor, still out like a light, I gently rose from the bed and walked past her, phone in hand, to head for the bathroom. It was only 9:30, but we'd been up until two making each other laugh in the darkness, with occasional orders from my parents to keep it down. I told countless Jeffrey jokes and scenarios and she made fun of Erik for being such a creep. She wanted to know what was the furthest I had ever gone with him and I admitted to once curling up in his lap, which seemed to have happened so long ago, I couldn't remember what we talked about. It had never happened again because we just weren't very physical people.
Of course, having this conversation, having someone insist that I was crazy about him, made me realize... I could barely stand that there was...s-something between us... and the world kept cutting us off. I know you've heard all about this, but just try to put it into perspective... you know a guy for three months and the most time you've spent with him is an hour and a half, on a generous day. In retrospect, half of those three months we were probably arguing, and a couple weeks were just sending scraps of paper to each other.
I could have sworn the universe was trying to tell me we were not meant to be - that we were urging two magnets of the same polarity together.
He tells me he's on a roof, and I want him in my room. I don't want to think all the things he must be doing out there.
And what about his face? Three months later, his mask IS his face to me, and it's unsettling, almost, even though I know he's my Phantom... I had gotten so used to it I almost had no interest knowing what he actually looked like under that mask, until my mind had the audacity to dream that I was ripping it off...
- - -
"Na-na na-na na-na na-na, na-na na-na na-na na-na, Spiderman! ...Spidermannn."
"Here comes Peter on the clothesline, but his name's not Peter, it is Spiderman! ...Spidermannn."
No song was more appropriate as I came down the hallway, ten minutes before Giry was to arrive, after finally making the plans.
"Come on, Lois, let's get busy, maybe in the garden, right here. Spiderman! ...Spidermannn!"
"Touch my can, with your hand, Spidermannn!"
"LILY~!" My mother's voice fluttered somewhere behind the hallway door as I searched for a coat. When I wandered into the kitchen, a piece of paper was in my mom's hands that she held more like a dead fish than anything else, but for some reason she was smiling. This is what she did when she was extra frustrated.
Of all the mail I had received that I didn't want her reading, God thought my grades sounded like fun.
Art – A
Acting 3 – A
History – B
Science – C+
English – C-
Math - F
I explained that the Science grade was nearly a B, that my English grade would go up after Winter break because I usually loved English and we were starting the Great Gatsby unit...
As far as math goes, I told her point blank that I just really really hate it and had thought of some better ways to spend my time.
No dice. She gave me that look that makes you know you've really screwed up and there's nothing you can do to redeem yourself, except stay after when school starts again to bring up your F, side by side with Mr. Darelle. Alone, in the classroom. Talking about numbers. I just couldn't wait.
- - -
"...I think it's pretty unlikely that he's... actually in love with you, Lily." Giry admitted, instead of looking at me, watching the ice turn in her drink as she swirled the straw. I looked around the shop to make sure no one was paying much attention and turned back to her, bringing my sweater in under my crossed arms.
"Why would he say it, then?"
"Well... isn't it his character to love yours?"
"I know, but... I guess I've forgotten that the two are separate. Ighg- I mean he really... eh.. I just don't know anymore. There's no switch. He's just Phantom. All the time."
"True, but you don't see him anywhere else. He has to be the Phantom all the time to you."
"I know, and it's not even that, that makes me feel that he's making everything overlap.... it's when he talks about me... Me-me... He calls me Christine, but that's about as much as it gets. He's mentioned school... he called me a Freshman numerous times. It's pretty well implied."
She didn't seem to have an answer readily apparent.
"Well... it would make a statement like 'I love you' all the more ambiguous, wouldn't it."
"He didn't say 'I love you' per se... He actually... only said... 'It would be very easy to be in love with you' or something to that effect."
"Guys don't say stuff like that with a meaning any more complex in mind, hun."
"Okay," I replied a little uncomfortably. "Well whichever way he means it... what do I say?"
"Well what have you said?"
"He looked like he wanted to kiss me," I muttered, sinking into my seat. "And I freaked out and... didn't do anything. And then my mom called me and ordered me to come home."
She paused.
"...Yikes."
"Yeah... And then he was gone for almost a week. And I left him a gift in that time that he has never mentioned again."
"...You haven't seen him since then?" She seemed like she was actually concerned things went down so poorly.
"Actually... I thought he might've been frustrated with me until Christmas Eve, when he showed up at my house after covering my yard with flowers-"
"I MISSED THIS?!" She seemed shocked and delighted all at once. I looked around again. Nobody even looked up besides a girl working the espresso machine behind the counter. I scooted closer to Giry.
"And Meg took the blame for it-"
"Oh my God!"
"And Erik said... he had more planned, but... couldn't... and he seemed... exhausted. And freezing... and I don't really know what was wrong with him..."
"Love-sick, it sounds like, hahahah-"
"He almost seemed it, Giry..."
"What did he say?"
I was too embarrassed to bring up the comment about my eyes. If you hadn't been there, it'd sound like an awfully bad pick-up line.
"Well... A mixture of weird things and compliments... as per usual... And he wouldn't let me thank him for said flowers."
"Why not?"
"At first it was because I had already thanked him apparently, then it was because I should be able to 'take things from him'... then we bickered."
"So you guys were adorable, basically."
"I... But he didn't mention anything about... you know... being in love with me or anything again... Actually, he seemed surprised in a bad way when I tried to touch him."
"Uhhh..."
"I don't really know why."
"Your Phantom's bipolar. At least to my knowledge."
"Perhaps he really is... he seems highly interested in abnormal psychology after all..."
"Yeah, I'm still kind of lost on what he was exactly expecting from you..."
"After we bickered, he kissed me on the forehead-" I uttered. That's all I was going to say - I wasn't even going to mention the music box. She was already staring me like if she stopped holding onto the table, she might fall backwards and hit her head. The fact that I had never hit mine was miraculous, too.
"......I need to find out who this guy is."
"You most certainly do," I echoed, but not very enthusiastically. "Although... he's said some things that make me think... he really doesn't go to our school... I'm afraid he's older than me."
"I think so too, actually. But not by much."
"But-"
"And if he's not going to school, then that would explain a lot, because I've looked high and low for him, and nobody has that hair... and nobody would be able to walk around with all those marks on his face."
"You have a point, but... it's not like he just... never leaves his house, or the theater. He's made it known that he goes places. Just a couple days ago he told me he was standing on a roof."
"Maybe he wears the mask everywhere."
"Hmph... " I thought a moment. "...You know, I can't even remember telling you about what he does to his face. I think I'm getting old."
"Oh, heh-"
"Wait... so you really think he is cutting up his face."
"Well... I don't know."
"I mean by your logic, which is probably a lot better than mine, he's just trying to fit the role. He could've faked it all to make me think he's hiding something under there. Maybe in public he doesn't have to wear it, and he... I don't know... puts his hair in a hat or something.
"Maybe, and when you think about it... whether he wears the mask or is all cut up, he's easy to distinguish that way. Which is why it would be smarter for him to have faked the cutting than to have gone through with it. Not that I'm saying he didn't do it."
"He's admitted to um... committing some self-injury, though-... that could've been a lie too."
"It'd be easy to check-"
"-No. I don't think it would. He's covered head to toe and I'm not taking the chance of pissing him off by yanking up his sleeve-"
"One of these days, you never know..."
"...Is there a point in lying to me about all this?-" She looked at me like I was going crazy. "Oh, yeah... he's... trying to be Erik..."
"...You're forgetting over and over that he's not really Erik, Lily..." Oy. She just laughed at me when something in my face showed I realized. "He's got to be a very good actor to keep you on the edge of your seat like this... Either that or he's crazy about you and you're egging him on... You just have to decide... if you really want to egg him on anymore."
"I'm not even egging." The word sounded funny once I said it, enough to make me laugh, but I was trying to say something serious to her. "No matter who he's really being, I want to stay with him right now. I really do..."
"Then stay."
"I should?"
"Yes. And we'll find out who he is."
"Heh..." I made it seem like I was happy the endeavor continued...
The truth is, I didn't know anymore if I wanted to unmask him.
- - -
Giry was invited to a party and could not join Meg and I for New Years, but we wore cheap cardboard "2007" crowns on our heads and sat on her porch watching other people's fireworks. We were in a very silly mood and the parents let us have at the champagne, so when I went to the bathroom with phone in pocket, I texted Erik to say "I bet you'd have a nice view of the fireworks on that roof you were talking about." We did not stop texting each other the rest of the night. Even Meg knew I was distracted.
Then later, when our night reached a close, he called me. I told him everything was sort of a perfect mess at the moment, and he told me it was something to be envied, and it was very easy to fall off the tight rope of perfect and have only the mess part. He also told me he had the notebook I gave him. He was trying to think of something he could write in it that he could give back to me, and we could share the book to try to communicate things that were difficult in person. I thought that sounded lovely.
His voice was something addictive to listen to, just lying there in bed. He could articulate without sounding mechanical, like me. He seemed calm no matter what. He wasn't singing but my brain seemed to register it as such.
I didn't realize I had fell asleep on him until the clock read with a two instead of a one, but there was no dial tone. I asked if he was still there and said I thought I'd fallen asleep. There was no response. "Goodnight, Erik..." I tried. I held the phone in front of me, about to flip it closed, when I heard something on the other side and the time of our call blinked and remained at 2 hrs 31 minutes.
Favorite Quote(s)
Progress
..............................................................................................................................................................
He's There (writing)
Pages (57/100)
Planning for Part 2
Chapter 30
He's There (website)
Promo Poster
Profiles (70%)
Illustrations (Still deciding how many I really want to do... for now let's say 50%)
Layout (50%)
Crystal Palace 3
Part 11 (35%)
..............................................................................................................................................................
I came across this stupid quiz that doesn't even have all the phantoms and for some reason I really want to know what kind of results you guys will get, so if you have time: Which Phantom would you get it on with? Ignoring the typos, some of the answers were hilarious. "Kidnapping you, trying to rape you, killing your boyfriend and his police goons, and even when you try to escape 100 years into the future"... Well when you put it that way... Oh, and the reference to Charles: What kind of flowers would he give you? - "Flowers?! Baby, he's got his own forest." But somehow it came up with Lon Chaney. NO THANK YOU.
But anyway, another thing that's put me off is that HT is now 200 pages long and about 100,000 words (holy moly!), and this chapter was the last bit of the pretentiously titled "Part 1" of this book, but my planning for Part 2 and feeling ready to stop writing foreplay has made finishing it kind of boring in comparison to what I could be writing, so that's why I'm mainly thrilled. Part 2 is beginning now! There may not be a Chapter 31 by Sunday, I'm giving myself the excuse to be sporadic here, in order to have this website up before or by midnight of December 31. I'm trying~~~
I added Chapter 30 AND Chapter 24 to this, even though I wrote it a couple months before NanoWrimo. It sums up what I've completed for this whole year for the story.
HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 30 - Goodbye to 2006
The whole floor was flooding, but the water started in the center and moved out, almost like the middle of the room was sunken. I couldn't open the door, and for some reason my vision wasn't clear. When I turned around, I made out The Figure at the deepest point in the water, but his body seemed to be going under. The black clothing he was wrapped in was spreading out at the surface, and underneath was just the shape of a man made out in a raspberry red - almost like jam - he was falling apart and soon the water was a soup of him, I guess you could say. It started building up around my ankles. It was hot. I shook the knob of the door vigorously now, my hair whipping over my shoulders and in my face. Like it was no doing of my own, my knees swayed down and I was receding into the center of the floor. The liquid grew thicker, with human parts; I began struggling with arms, everywhere, trying to suffocate me. It seemed the only way to counter them was to raise my legs to the ceiling and spring upwards. I had to repeat this several times before the pool of red became the same puddle in the bathroom. The arms were scattered around me as I stood. My only escape was a vent at the top of the stall. Somehow I had the ability to climb up and jump through.
Through the ceiling, I crawled, which became a tighter place as I went along, until I dropped and landed square on my shoulder in the middle of a black hallway that faded into the dark on either side. Suddenly Erik (my Erik), strolled into view. He extended his hand and helped me up. He asked if I would like to go read with him and I asked if he had any clue what I had just been through. He said that he did know, because a "version of him" had just "collapsed" in the other room. I mentioned that this "version" grew tons of arms and tried to drown me. He said he thought I had already been drowned. I said no and for some reason tore off his mask, and he was hiding the same gelatin-red composition as his other, and he was so surprised/angry with me that his eyes were popping out of their sockets. Then he fell and started throwing up blood. I was so sickened by it that I screamed for him to stop, as if he had been doing it on purpose, and started running down the hall. I saw myself running from the front as if I were someone else but could still feel my legs treading.
This is when I woke up, just as hot as I felt in the dream while I was in Erik soup. You and I both are out of luck deciphering the message in all this. But while my dream was very nonsensical in itself, real life was only so much clearer.
When I turned to my side and found Meg on the floor, still out like a light, I gently rose from the bed and walked past her, phone in hand, to head for the bathroom. It was only 9:30, but we'd been up until two making each other laugh in the darkness, with occasional orders from my parents to keep it down. I told countless Jeffrey jokes and scenarios and she made fun of Erik for being such a creep. She wanted to know what was the furthest I had ever gone with him and I admitted to once curling up in his lap, which seemed to have happened so long ago, I couldn't remember what we talked about. It had never happened again because we just weren't very physical people.
Of course, having this conversation, having someone insist that I was crazy about him, made me realize... I could barely stand that there was...s-something between us... and the world kept cutting us off. I know you've heard all about this, but just try to put it into perspective... you know a guy for three months and the most time you've spent with him is an hour and a half, on a generous day. In retrospect, half of those three months we were probably arguing, and a couple weeks were just sending scraps of paper to each other.
I could have sworn the universe was trying to tell me we were not meant to be - that we were urging two magnets of the same polarity together.
He tells me he's on a roof, and I want him in my room. I don't want to think all the things he must be doing out there.
And what about his face? Three months later, his mask IS his face to me, and it's unsettling, almost, even though I know he's my Phantom... I had gotten so used to it I almost had no interest knowing what he actually looked like under that mask, until my mind had the audacity to dream that I was ripping it off...
- - -
"Na-na na-na na-na na-na, na-na na-na na-na na-na, Spiderman! ...Spidermannn."
"Here comes Peter on the clothesline, but his name's not Peter, it is Spiderman! ...Spidermannn."
No song was more appropriate as I came down the hallway, ten minutes before Giry was to arrive, after finally making the plans.
"Come on, Lois, let's get busy, maybe in the garden, right here. Spiderman! ...Spidermannn!"
"Touch my can, with your hand, Spidermannn!"
"LILY~!" My mother's voice fluttered somewhere behind the hallway door as I searched for a coat. When I wandered into the kitchen, a piece of paper was in my mom's hands that she held more like a dead fish than anything else, but for some reason she was smiling. This is what she did when she was extra frustrated.
Of all the mail I had received that I didn't want her reading, God thought my grades sounded like fun.
Art – A
Acting 3 – A
History – B
Science – C+
English – C-
Math - F
I explained that the Science grade was nearly a B, that my English grade would go up after Winter break because I usually loved English and we were starting the Great Gatsby unit...
As far as math goes, I told her point blank that I just really really hate it and had thought of some better ways to spend my time.
No dice. She gave me that look that makes you know you've really screwed up and there's nothing you can do to redeem yourself, except stay after when school starts again to bring up your F, side by side with Mr. Darelle. Alone, in the classroom. Talking about numbers. I just couldn't wait.
- - -
"...I think it's pretty unlikely that he's... actually in love with you, Lily." Giry admitted, instead of looking at me, watching the ice turn in her drink as she swirled the straw. I looked around the shop to make sure no one was paying much attention and turned back to her, bringing my sweater in under my crossed arms.
"Why would he say it, then?"
"Well... isn't it his character to love yours?"
"I know, but... I guess I've forgotten that the two are separate. Ighg- I mean he really... eh.. I just don't know anymore. There's no switch. He's just Phantom. All the time."
"True, but you don't see him anywhere else. He has to be the Phantom all the time to you."
"I know, and it's not even that, that makes me feel that he's making everything overlap.... it's when he talks about me... Me-me... He calls me Christine, but that's about as much as it gets. He's mentioned school... he called me a Freshman numerous times. It's pretty well implied."
She didn't seem to have an answer readily apparent.
"Well... it would make a statement like 'I love you' all the more ambiguous, wouldn't it."
"He didn't say 'I love you' per se... He actually... only said... 'It would be very easy to be in love with you' or something to that effect."
"Guys don't say stuff like that with a meaning any more complex in mind, hun."
"Okay," I replied a little uncomfortably. "Well whichever way he means it... what do I say?"
"Well what have you said?"
"He looked like he wanted to kiss me," I muttered, sinking into my seat. "And I freaked out and... didn't do anything. And then my mom called me and ordered me to come home."
She paused.
"...Yikes."
"Yeah... And then he was gone for almost a week. And I left him a gift in that time that he has never mentioned again."
"...You haven't seen him since then?" She seemed like she was actually concerned things went down so poorly.
"Actually... I thought he might've been frustrated with me until Christmas Eve, when he showed up at my house after covering my yard with flowers-"
"I MISSED THIS?!" She seemed shocked and delighted all at once. I looked around again. Nobody even looked up besides a girl working the espresso machine behind the counter. I scooted closer to Giry.
"And Meg took the blame for it-"
"Oh my God!"
"And Erik said... he had more planned, but... couldn't... and he seemed... exhausted. And freezing... and I don't really know what was wrong with him..."
"Love-sick, it sounds like, hahahah-"
"He almost seemed it, Giry..."
"What did he say?"
I was too embarrassed to bring up the comment about my eyes. If you hadn't been there, it'd sound like an awfully bad pick-up line.
"Well... A mixture of weird things and compliments... as per usual... And he wouldn't let me thank him for said flowers."
"Why not?"
"At first it was because I had already thanked him apparently, then it was because I should be able to 'take things from him'... then we bickered."
"So you guys were adorable, basically."
"I... But he didn't mention anything about... you know... being in love with me or anything again... Actually, he seemed surprised in a bad way when I tried to touch him."
"Uhhh..."
"I don't really know why."
"Your Phantom's bipolar. At least to my knowledge."
"Perhaps he really is... he seems highly interested in abnormal psychology after all..."
"Yeah, I'm still kind of lost on what he was exactly expecting from you..."
"After we bickered, he kissed me on the forehead-" I uttered. That's all I was going to say - I wasn't even going to mention the music box. She was already staring me like if she stopped holding onto the table, she might fall backwards and hit her head. The fact that I had never hit mine was miraculous, too.
"......I need to find out who this guy is."
"You most certainly do," I echoed, but not very enthusiastically. "Although... he's said some things that make me think... he really doesn't go to our school... I'm afraid he's older than me."
"I think so too, actually. But not by much."
"But-"
"And if he's not going to school, then that would explain a lot, because I've looked high and low for him, and nobody has that hair... and nobody would be able to walk around with all those marks on his face."
"You have a point, but... it's not like he just... never leaves his house, or the theater. He's made it known that he goes places. Just a couple days ago he told me he was standing on a roof."
"Maybe he wears the mask everywhere."
"Hmph... " I thought a moment. "...You know, I can't even remember telling you about what he does to his face. I think I'm getting old."
"Oh, heh-"
"Wait... so you really think he is cutting up his face."
"Well... I don't know."
"I mean by your logic, which is probably a lot better than mine, he's just trying to fit the role. He could've faked it all to make me think he's hiding something under there. Maybe in public he doesn't have to wear it, and he... I don't know... puts his hair in a hat or something.
"Maybe, and when you think about it... whether he wears the mask or is all cut up, he's easy to distinguish that way. Which is why it would be smarter for him to have faked the cutting than to have gone through with it. Not that I'm saying he didn't do it."
"He's admitted to um... committing some self-injury, though-... that could've been a lie too."
"It'd be easy to check-"
"-No. I don't think it would. He's covered head to toe and I'm not taking the chance of pissing him off by yanking up his sleeve-"
"One of these days, you never know..."
"...Is there a point in lying to me about all this?-" She looked at me like I was going crazy. "Oh, yeah... he's... trying to be Erik..."
"...You're forgetting over and over that he's not really Erik, Lily..." Oy. She just laughed at me when something in my face showed I realized. "He's got to be a very good actor to keep you on the edge of your seat like this... Either that or he's crazy about you and you're egging him on... You just have to decide... if you really want to egg him on anymore."
"I'm not even egging." The word sounded funny once I said it, enough to make me laugh, but I was trying to say something serious to her. "No matter who he's really being, I want to stay with him right now. I really do..."
"Then stay."
"I should?"
"Yes. And we'll find out who he is."
"Heh..." I made it seem like I was happy the endeavor continued...
The truth is, I didn't know anymore if I wanted to unmask him.
- - -
Giry was invited to a party and could not join Meg and I for New Years, but we wore cheap cardboard "2007" crowns on our heads and sat on her porch watching other people's fireworks. We were in a very silly mood and the parents let us have at the champagne, so when I went to the bathroom with phone in pocket, I texted Erik to say "I bet you'd have a nice view of the fireworks on that roof you were talking about." We did not stop texting each other the rest of the night. Even Meg knew I was distracted.
Then later, when our night reached a close, he called me. I told him everything was sort of a perfect mess at the moment, and he told me it was something to be envied, and it was very easy to fall off the tight rope of perfect and have only the mess part. He also told me he had the notebook I gave him. He was trying to think of something he could write in it that he could give back to me, and we could share the book to try to communicate things that were difficult in person. I thought that sounded lovely.
His voice was something addictive to listen to, just lying there in bed. He could articulate without sounding mechanical, like me. He seemed calm no matter what. He wasn't singing but my brain seemed to register it as such.
I didn't realize I had fell asleep on him until the clock read with a two instead of a one, but there was no dial tone. I asked if he was still there and said I thought I'd fallen asleep. There was no response. "Goodnight, Erik..." I tried. I held the phone in front of me, about to flip it closed, when I heard something on the other side and the time of our call blinked and remained at 2 hrs 31 minutes.
I know you've heard all about this, but just try to put it into perspective... you know a guy for three months and the most time you've spent with him is an hour and a half, on a generous day. In retrospect, half of those three months you were probably arguing, and a couple weeks were just sending scraps of paper to each other.
I could have sworn the universe was trying to tell me we were not meant to be - that we were urging two magnets of the same polarity together.
"What did he say?"
I was too embarrassed to bring up the comment about my eyes. If you hadn't been there, it'd sound like an awfully bad pick-up line.
"Well... A mixture of weird things and compliments... as per usual..."
"...Is there a point in lying to me about all this?-" She looked at me like I was going crazy. "Oh, yeah... he's... trying to be Erik..."
"I'm not even egging."
Progress
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He's There (writing)
Pages (57/100)
He's There (website)
Promo Poster
Profiles (70%)
Illustrations (Still deciding how many I really want to do... for now let's say 50%)
Layout (50%)
Crystal Palace 3
Part 11 (35%)
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Current Mood: 
relieved
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