I am VERY interested in what people think of this chapter. While I was writing it, I basically couldn't believe that I'd gotten to that point. Some things were tying together, there was foreshadowing... it's just getting deeper.

Because I am able to write for him more, he's becoming a stronger force, and one that I understand more. That was a very necessary thing to continue with what I'm doing.

Anyway, I won't waste time. I've been sitting here writing this for like 3 hours and was supposed to do homework and call someone. (I'm hoping it's not still too late.)

I hope you enjoy it. And Sara, I hope that our recent discussion didn't irk you. If you don't reply to this, I understand.

NanoWrimo Count

39115 / 50000 words. 78% done!



HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 35 - Dream, Pt. 2


"I have something I'd like to ask you," I said, after a ways down the street. "Why don't you take me somewhere... that you visit all the time. Or sometimes. Somewhere that's important to you."

He took his time figuring out what to say.

"...What makes you think anywhere is important to me?"

"The theater's important to you, isn't it?..." I wished I'd not worded it in such a way afterward.

"It just as much oppresses as it helps..."

"What?"

"It's a mistake for me to be attached to anything,"

"Do you know someone there? Is that how you're able to do whatever you want?"

His walking slowed, and I wasn't prepared for his stop. I faced him quickly, the boldness of my questioning sinking in, for both of us.

"...That's a given, isn't it." Funny that his answer did nothing. "I-If you expect to know more, I'm... sorry." He came past me and I followed.

"You don't have to tell me more. I wasn't asking you to take me somewhere important so I could figure you out. I just wanted to understand you better. How you live, what you see..."

"You'd really hate to see what I see... And how I live won't mean anything, s'long as I can have you..."

"What?"

"I'd change it..."

He disappeared into a dark edge along a building wall and I came to it nervously. He was approaching a fence in the alley, it's shape hard against the light at the other side. He shook the door which appeared to be locked and paused. "Will you wait here a moment?"

"Sure."

He turned back to the fence and positioned his umbrella very particularly against the cement. Then, like nothing, he stepped onto the thick handle, gripped the top of the fence, and propelled himself over. The umbrella swung down and rolled. I stared at it all until he had retrieved it after unlocking the door and coming through.

Now that the light hit my face, he could see I looked surprised.

"...I've gotta try that some time," I accidentally said out loud.

He smiled and held my hand, leading me out of there. "Make sure it's sturdy. They snap occasionally."

He kept us walking along the street, his eyes downcast the entire way, to keep the stares out of his conscience. With a hesitance you'd think would be gone after all this time, my hands came around his arm and I took away some of that space between us. I trusted him to lead me and looked only at him, directly to his eye, to see if there was any way to tell what he was thinking. "You know, everything you do teaches me about the way you live, even though you think you're keeping it a secret... And I find it interesting."

"Heheh... If you had known what you were really saying, that'd be a wonderful compliment."

"I know a lot more about you than you think. It doesn't come from detail - it comes from... I see it. I hear it. ...Language is only half words. I don't get your words, but I think about why you use the ones you do and how you use them. In that respect, you are transparent. Sometimes..."

He didn't know what to say, either that or he'd decided to try ending it there. A railing ahead finally reached my right. We were passing over water. He stopped us there, right in the middle, and I saw the water flowing underneath the bridge's shadow. Ours became one when he leaned over my shoulder.

"I think this is where they end up sometimes," he whispered.

"Where what end up?" I squinted into the dark blue ripples, disappearing into a blackness, sparkling with the city's glow. It flowed into nothing, from this place. "You know that doesn't make any sense to me."

"I like to write things to people. I think they like the idea of messages from strangers. It makes them feel they have found something important... not by chance. "

"So you are, in fact, a Note-Sender."

"Heh... I suppose I am."

"Why do you do it?"

"I like the fact that you can communicate, and receive communication, no matter who or where you are... or when you are... what's more powerful than that?"

I didn't know what to say.

"We know about worlds that have been gone for millenniums. I feel that's how far you and I are separated sometimes, even though we can connect with things long gone..." I turned away from the water, right into him.

"Neither of us are long gone." He didn't bother to retract, only to put his hands on the railing each to my side. His hair started to fall in front of him, framing his mask and isolating this gaze I couldn't really describe.

"Like you said... I came from somewhere else, and you're following me back. It all started with me reaching, and there is something about that... It makes me want to live for it. At least a while longer."

I knew immediately he had turned this into something dark. Something I had no experience addressing. He was coming towards me without moving at all. I felt like I was tipping over the edge, the sounds of the water a little harder in my ear.


"Erik... You make out like you're this 'no one,' like there's nothing admirable about you," I tried to say calmly, staring into the space between us; at a stringy shadow that the fallen hair created on my extended arms, "but you think in a way not everyone does... a way that might give you something great... which you deserve... ...I don't want me... to be the only thing you have. And that weight on me that I could let you down and you'd never come back up. You're much... much... bigger than me. Inside, I mean..." The more I added, the less he began to react, like I had brought on great uncertainty, all by accident... I didn't mean it like I didn't want to be there for him. "I just get this feeling... you put me in front of everything. ...I can't make your life perfect just by being with you. I can try to make it better, and I hope I do, but I can't make it perfect. "

It would've been relieving getting that off my chest if he weren't looking at me in such a way. I only glanced to see that, keeping my focus on that space...

Eventually he retracted. He didn't say a word the whole way back to his car. It started to rain again and he held the umbrella over us, mostly me. He opened the passenger door for me and my eyes wandered to him, watching me situate, and drenched. "You'd be surprised what you could do," he told me, leaving no room for a response by closing the door immediately afterward.

* * *

Silence between us. I checked the clock as he was driving. It was 9:14. The dance was over.

I was supposed to be home, and that was the last place I wanted to be. Everything felt so incomplete, I almost couldn't stand it. I watched him drive... So much more carefully than I would have expected... I'm sure he was thinking, and I hoped his thoughts were similar to mine. I hoped I hadn't said something discouraging. Here, we had this wonderful night. He turned such a normal thing incredibly abnormal.

I liked that he was strange.
I liked his note-writing, his mannerisms, this feeling, completely sincere, that he was not of this world. If that was only up in his head, and he was crazy, it would make no difference.

Craziness was really the only way out of this world. The only kind of magic.

And so, in a way, I felt every mile was further away.

Then... I noticed the familiar setting: my street, and my house pass by. He turned down the theater road and I sat a little straighter. The building came closer and closer and I watched as our car rolled off the gravel, literally into the forest. He carefully applied the break and turned behind the building, where we stopped. He took no time opening his door and the car light went on, but it very little helped me see.

"What are we doing here?" I tried to ask, but his door closed too quickly. The rain was hitting hard all around, but I saw his black shape open the umbrella behind the gushing water over the window. My door was opened and he leaned forward as best he could, to keep the place directly to my side free of the rain. "What are we doing here?" I repeated.

"We're going inside."

I felt a little on edge suddenly, from the ideas of what might've been ahead of us at this point. What if we were continuing the night he answered my questions? ...I couldn't assume... I was afraid to freeze again already.

There was no time to sit there; I had to step out. When I did so, my feet were welcomed wholeheartedly by freezing cold grass. I grimaced and we both looked down. "I'm sorry," he muttered, but his reaction quick - he set the umbrella over the car and bent down. Both his arms whipped me right up, so fast I sort of grabbed him around the shoulders a little harder than I would have with a clear mind. Somehow he managed to clutch the umbrella with the arm underneath my knees and slammed the door closed with his back.

He walked in no hurry across the side of the building, grip unwavering. His steps made my forehead sift into his neck a little. I didn't know if this was necessary, but fuck, I didn't, or couldn't, mind an excuse to hold on so tight. I hoped he couldn't feel anything tense in me; any sign that I was... well, for lack of better terms, freaking. If anything was obvious, I figured talking might hide it.

"You're stronger than you look," I said, hoping it wasn't a backhanded compliment.

"You don't weigh much."

"Really? I put on a few during the holidays," I tried to joke, to bring us back to a place I knew.

He waited until he was ready to set me down before he responded. "If you did, I can't tell." I held his umbrella for him and he lowered me to the ground. "Nor would I really care..." he sort of said to himself, leading me towards the side door.

"It's past 9:00, you know," I said up to him. He just kept going, keeping focus on me.

"I know."

At the door, he reached for his keys and unlocked it. He had to use the light outside, mostly that of the moon, to take off his coat and put it on the wrack. But when he closed the door, there was very little to see. "What are we doing here?" I asked him, but he wouldn't answer. He took me along the front of the seats and stopped somewhere in the middle to lift me up to the edge of the stage. His hands stayed. I could feel him but I could barely see him... It almost felt like that very first time...

The silence that followed made the nerves kick in even more. The touch on my waist went away, but I couldn't make out what he was thinking, what he was about to do... not even what I could do in reaction. Suddenly a dim light came over the floor and the first few rows. A very dark grey mask was sort of floating in front of me. Out of instinct, I looked behind and found the Christmas lights dangling down the curtains were glowing all by themselves. I turned back to him and his hands were rising from the dark. They landed on the sides of my knees. It looked as if he was staring at me but when I concentrated, he was looking off across the bare stage floor. There was nothing out today.

"Are you okay?"

He didn't answer.

"Is there something you want to tell me?..."



"No... I..."



"You say a lot of things... And it takes me a while to process. ...I know you mean them, but I don't know if they count..." He trailed.

"..Of course they count-"

"If they count, then I'm more important than I would have expected." I hoped my following silence confirmed. I could see his eyes shift in my direction. "Are you sure I'm the right person?" It was a rather strange question to ask me.

"The right person to what?"

"I want to make sure you're not confusing me with someone else."

"I couldn't confuse you with anyone."

"I have to know you're aware of what you're doing."

"I want to be here and I've told you I care about you. You don't listen... I think you should..." The words sounding just like his, I realized I was entirely caught up in him. He took a while coming to a response with that comment. I was still so full of nerves, I dropped my hands over his, just to be sure they'd stay where they were. "You don't need to make sure of this anymore. I-I trust you. I want you to spoil me. Erik-"

"-Will you stay here?" The question was abrupt.

"You want me to stay... at the theater."

"I want you to stay... with me."

"I... I don't know. I don't know how I would do that, even if I wanted to."

"Does that mean you want to?"

"I..." Oh God, what did I say? What answer did I even mean? What did he want from me? "It depends what would happen."

He laughed a little, quietly, and I was losing control of my... oh blast... what are they called... Hormones. I couldn't remember a time in the last seventeen years I had ever felt the way I did just hearing that.

"Nothing more than what you want."

My hands came around his fingers a little tighter.

"To be honest, I'm a little confused about that."

We remained stuck in this thought as the clock ticked in my head. The time was all gone for me to be with him without anyone wondering where I was... But he was that dream... that dream so good... You keep waking up from it and wondering if it meant something or if your mind just wanted to breathe... Here was this chance to stay asleep. He needed to be played out once and for all, and...

"Can I just keep talking to you?" I asked.

He paused... I wondered what that pause meant. "...Of course."

"...Can I know I'm safe... if I fall asleep..." He paused again. "And you won't stare at me when I do," I added, only half joking.

"...You won't find yourself safer.... with anyone else," he pronounced very clearly, eyes coming right through me.




I still wasn't sure. Oh God, what if I had done this... However would I: it just kept running through my head.

"I promise. I won't stare at you and I won't so much as touch you when you fall asleep."





"I promised you wouldn't regret leaving. Do you?"



"No."

"Then I keep promises."

I continued to think and his eyes wandered. He wasn't acting desperate, but I felt I would be letting him down so much if I said no. He was the extra push to stay, even though I was confused with myself.

A ringing came from my purse and I think all the blood drained from my face. I wasn't too quick reaching for the phone, but when the text over the front was too long to be "mom" or "dad", I checked to find it was only Giry.

"It's Giry."

"You should answer it."

I flipped open the phone.

"...Hello?"

"Hi..." I took a deep breath. "Are you home yet?"

"No." I'm sure she knew that I knew the time. At this, I couldn't think of what else to say... "...Uhm... How... How was the dance?"

"It was... good... Is everything okay over there?"

"Yeah... it's... okay enough to want to stay..."

She didn't have an answer. I knew I was going somewhere uncharted with even Giry feeling unsure.

"You need an alibi, right?"

"For the whole night." Erik just watched me. It was... hard to come up with my words.

"...Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I have to," I said. "For me... For both of us, I mean."

"Is he there right now?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Do you want to talk this over with me? Because if you do, you can tell him to back off."

"What? No... We've already talked about it."

"You don't sound sure."

"I am," I lied. "I-I understand if you can't help. You've already done a lot for me, and," I wanted to add... maybe someone should be talking me out of this. I couldn't with him right in front of me. "If you can't, I have to come home." Suddenly the other line was beeping. I checked and it was Mom.

"You can tell your parents you're staying with me but I just want to make sure he's not pressuring you."

"He's not." Beep.

"Alright. Well I can come get you in like ten minutes. Where are you?"

"I'm at the theater." Beep.

"Okay."

"I owe you for this, I really do. I have to go. My mom is calling me."

This perked up Erik pretty quickly.

"Okay," Beep.

"Bye."

"Bye."

We looked to each other for a moment and I switched lines.

"Hi Mom."

"Hi Lily - where are you?"

"I'm just... heading out. I stayed a little longer with Giry and she's taking me back."

"Giry?" Oh dear.

"Sorry: Paulina."

"Oh. Well Mariam just called the house. I... wasn't sure what was taking you so long."

Mariam was calling me... ?

"Yeah, sorry, we were talking at the front and I forgot to call."

"You've been forgetting a lot lately."

"I know. Sorry."

"It's okay... I know you're just up the street."

"Heh... Uhm... Paulina wanted me... to sleep over. I thought I'd just come by and... you know... get some stuff and go."

"Okay..."

"Yeah... w-we're gonna go now. I'll see you soon."

"Alright."

"Bye Mom."

"Bye Lil."

I hung up and took a deep breath. Several was more like it. Erik took his hands out from under mine and stroked my arms.

"Aghh..." I sighed, dropping my face. He leaned a little closer to me.

"That strength I need from you... I see it now."

My face rose again at the peculiar words.

"What? The strength to lie?"

"You have to."

"I know. But I never used to lie to my parents like this... I'm not used to it. They don't deserve to be lied to."

"But you deserve to be happy."

"You keep saying that but I don't want to be happy and hurt people. I... I wish it wasn't so difficult to spend time with you. I just don't feel I could ever tell them you even exist."

"You won't have to lie anymore when you leave."

...What.

"Leave... You mean when I go to-"

"College... is what I meant." He stopped looking at me again and I felt weird. Either he didn't mean what he said, or he expected us still to be this way two years from now. I couldn't begin to perceive what I would have that far in the future.

"Sometimes being seventeen really sucks..." I trailed... though that probably wasn't in much character... not that I ever was entirely.

"It all matters who you are with...and how they treat 'seventeen'... I wouldn't hold you back..." He whispered. It seemed so sincere, and so eerie all at once. "Let's wait for her, then." He stepped back a little and waited for me to hold to him. As I did, and he brought me back on the floor, I realized he hadn't been told she was coming.

"How did you know that?"

We stepped through the exit door into the black hallway and he made our way across the entire lobby without even seeing where he was going. On the way he asked, "know what?" As if it wasn't clear.

"That Giry was coming to get me."

He opened the front doors and I heard no response after that... the only sound that of the hard rain, still pouring so relentlessly. How Giry could see out here, I didn't know.

"It was... easy to figure," he finally answered.

"If you say so."

From behind, I felt his hand rise onto my shoulder. He tilted his head and smiled a little.

Her car came down the road a few minutes later and I sprinted for it a little hastily. She took her time turning us to face the road again, watching Erik in the doorway. He was nothing but a face and a collar, never blinking, growing smaller behind us. What I would have with me tonight. It was like coming out of bed to sleep in the closet with that shadow I always watched, back when I believed in monsters.




Favorite Quote(s)

"So you are, in fact, a Note-Sender."

Craziness was really the only way out of this world. The only kind of magic.

"You don't weigh much."

"Really? I put on a few during the holidays."

"You won't have to lie anymore when you leave."

It was like coming out of bed to sleep in the closet with that shadow I always watched, back when I believed in monsters.