I have to head out the door, so I'm just going to post this chapter right now and do the quotes later. I finished it just a half hour ago but tonight I'm going to a party with Kate and we'll be gone LAAATE.
Needless to say by the length and number of quotes, I turned out very happy with this one! I got very stuck with Lily and Erik in the "bedroom", just because... it's so strange that they're in there together, alone. o_o lol Maybe that scene wasn't terribly great, but it had its moments.
Lily's going to have a lot coming down on her in the next chapter, but this one I thought was heavy as well. I remember in Sept 2007, thinking of what the fights with Mariam would be like, knowing they'd take a while to get to, so it was interesting to write one, even not going too deep. Mariam thinks a lot of things that she hasn't said yet, just sticking with the general "he's creepy", but Lily will come to learn them, through Giry and to her face.
Also, interesting to write for Erik, for once! I mean, writing that isn't necessarily to Lily even though he knows she will read it. He's sorta dropping some bombs, and she can tell. Does he really have a disorder, could she get out of this if she needed to, why does it always sound like he's not really roleplaying?
I hope everyone likes it if they read it. ♥
NaNoWriMo Count
47562 / 50000 words. 95% done!
HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 37 - Into the Darkness
When the night had passed, I awoke with my eyes still closed, listening to the silence of the room, wondering if we were still together, or if he had disappeared.
I'd had a dream, an awfully clear one, that I sat up at some point, and he was gone. The door was locked from the inside, but it was the same black hallway, uninviting even on the opposite end of the stairs.
When I opened my eyes, he was across from me in the exact same place. The colors of the room had changed, but almost nothing else. I looked closer and realized there was one other thing that was different. ...He was out like a light.
I didn't feel this could possibly last for more than a second, under some belief he couldn't sleep at all. Each time I realized I was peering into the shadows on his closed eyes, I looked down to the comforter, to his hand, still and open. He had to be waiting... for some stir from me to reanimate him, but when I rose just a little and leaned forward, nothing changed.
Rather than waking him up, I spent a great while sitting next to him, fixing my hair as quietly as I could, watching his shoulder rise and fall.
He captured me, asleep. He reminded me of a porcelain doll, almost, with his hard smooth "face", and gloves, and coat tails dropping off the side of the bed. Unlike me, hair a'tussle and crinkled dress, he looked like he had simply been knocked over from his display.
You could break a doll.
Asleep, he was mortal, and vulnerable. Asleep, he could not grip me with his eyes, or reach out to touch me and make my blood rush. His control was gone right now, but it made me wonder how much he ever really had. What if he just waited, all this time, for me to see him in the window? To take him with me, rather than I with him? He let himself fall, when I said no. It was okay for him, as long as he fell next to me.
The more I observed, the more I came to find that there was something underneath the white sleeve at his wrist. I didn't catch it at first because it was tinted white, just a frayed cloth, tucked away. Inspection of this brought me closer, till I saw his phone behind his arm, slid into his chest by his weight over the bed. It would've been so easy to reach it.
I did what I shouldn't and caught it between two fingers, and removed it so slowly, so it wouldn't tap against him. He was completely still when I had it in my hands. I felt so much power at that weird little moment. It wasn't a particular power I loved - but he had exercised the same kind on me so many times, I almost didn't have regret.
So there I was, with my back turned, looking for his messages.
It seemed he had a lot, but the dates, at least at the top, were far apart.
The first one: You cant, Im sorry.
Sent... this morning at 2:48. From 5037918955.
The second: Youre going to have to ask him i have no fucking idea.
Sent yesterday, before I met him at the dance... 5:10 P.M. From "Demitri".
The third was from me... I texted him while I was getting ready, just to say so... It helped me feel a little less nervous... He never replied to it though.
The next was "I'll call you later," from me.
The next: The second week of feb, W 5-10, T 5-10, F 5-12
Sent 1/5, from... Theater?
A ton of these messages were from me, piled up one after the other, as if everything else in the past month or two had been deleted but these, and any type of information he needed to remember in the close future. It was like he prepared for someone looking through his phone.
I looked over my shoulder and he was no more awake than before.
Now for his contacts... A lot of names I didn't know, mostly guys, somewhat strange names... It made me conscious that he had a name himself... I looked at many of them trying to imagine if they were his... I didn't really know what kind of a name he looked like, either...
I watched him sleep again for another moment...
'Erik' was the only thing that made sense to me.
I was Christine in this list, as well.
My scrolling continued until I found Giry. I stared at the letters a moment, trying to remember if he ever had the opportunity to meet her... Know anything about her, really... Sure, I talked about him with her all the time, but never about her with him.
Not once.
...Did they talk or did she even know she was right here?
I finished up looking, although after the contact list, my inspiration to look had passed, just thinking that I might have discovered his real name this way. I set it back in his shadow, behind the arm, and got off the bed to take the mirror out of my bag and make sure I didn't have eye-liner smeared all over my face.
Before I could make it, I heard him breathe very audibly and looked over, surprised... hoping none of what I did before that moment was realized. As he dropped to his back his hands clenched. I dropped back down and sat in front of him, and his arms stopped tensing. His eyes came down on me and I tried to look like I wasn't worried about how terrible I must've appeared post-sleep.
I waited for him to completely come-to when I felt his hand, out of nowhere, grab the end of my dress.
"I don't think I'm awake yet," he said, tiredly.
"Why's that?" I asked back, smiling.
He averted his eyes and tried to prop himself up. I just kept waiting... I wanted to hear him speak more. He had a lovely voice when he was tired - I'd only gotten to hear it a few rare times that we stayed up to talk to each other.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Yes. What were you saying?" He turned his face and revealed the side he had been sleeping on. I could see where his mask ended and two thick wires came around his ear. They were tight. They made his skin pink.
"The rest is a little much."
"You've always been a little much, don't you think?" He found that entertaining.
I wasn't really thinking about it when I reached out to fix that messed up hair. When my fingers made it to his shoulders I took them back and smiled again, awkwardly.
"I was only thinking... There's much contrast between what happens to me when I sleep, and when I'm awake... This isn't a waking thing..." He sort of muttered to himself.
"It is. Actually." He was still looking down at the red sheets, not really showing one reaction or the other to my comment. After a long gaze he looked up at me again and that gripping in his eyes had come back again. I sort of felt pulled by it by now, to do things I wouldn't normally. Today that gripping was no longer just a force of thought, but a force of action. I put my arms down and moved to his side, and he welcomed me quickly, like there was no doubt in his mind it was the right place for me to be. My arms reached around him, fingers spread, trying to experience that action to its fullest, down to the feel of his shirt's fabric.
Why did it have to be this way? I was charmed like a snake. Gone. His.
We didn't even talk after this. All of the communication was in the unwavering embrace. Here I go off again, like a romance novel, never with legitimate words to describe how I feel.
Those doubts last night... no more... I wouldn't trade anything for this. I'd been waiting for it, underneath, for longer than I dared imagine. Even messed-up people need love.
A white hand came over mine before I freed it and held on, frustrated by the material between our skin. "Can I really hold your hand?" I asked quickly, not sure how he would take it, but he more than willingly gave me the chance to take hold his fingertips and free him of any barrier he had created, to me.
Room still silent as ever, my palm felt the pulse in his veins. My focus was on our hands, their difference in size, how mine, short and ordinary, contrasted with his - long, slender, almost as colorless as the gloves that covered them.
Except those red marks, hidden almost by his grip, but not completely... At this distance, they no longer seemed to be pen marks. Some had tiny dots even in the middle of the marks themselves... Some were of different shade. I was curious, but I didn't want that to be the first thing I said.
In time, his face slipped a little closer to mine, speaking to me right over my forehead. "I'm sorry... I didn't spend the whole night with you..." I didn't know how to reply. "I couldn't sleep... I went on a walk to tire myself out..." I felt the heat of every word, like he was temping me with a kiss. Again.
"I guess I forgive you."
"Maybe eventually I won't need the walk."
...
"I don't mind it though... Night is the perfect time..."
"The darkness is pretty," I added, more about him than outside this room. "But I'm not allowed outside by then. Alone."
"You should come with me, then."
"Heh, well see, that's not considered 'with someone' because you are... essentially... what my parents are protecting me from."
"...Do you think you need protection from me?" My eyes were still focused on the red marks.
"You make it seem like I do, but... You've had every opportunity to be something they think you are. ...But you aren't. Sometimes scary things protect you."
"...I hadn't thought of it that way," he said, no longer to my forehead.
The morning stayed like that a while before I thought to text Giry, and tell her everything was fine, even if 'fine' was a serious understatement. He brought the phone to me so I could do it right between us, while he watched ever word created.
My parents were both at work today, I didn't need to hurry home, but a lot of self-consciousness about being in my crinkled dress and my stomach growling, and... this sense that so much needed to be fixed had me getting ready. He knew he had plucked me out of my world, yet again, and as I fixed myself up with my mirror, he was standing near, watching.
He looked at me like I was a present to him, no realization that he meant the same to me, I just hadn't had those years to make a life capable of dealing with this feeling. Every time I turned my back to him, I felt like I was being approached, but maybe it was just the energy he emitted, the kind I felt in myself and didn't know what to do with.
"I'd stay longer, but I-I... I must look awful," I told him, clutching the doorknob.
"I completely disagree."
"Of course you do." I opened the door and his shadow came right after, following across the hall and up the stairs.
The found the sun hitting the front of the theater, snow completely melted, when I reached the porch. He was hesitant to come out from the dark, remaining to the side by the strip of light hitting the lobby floor. It disappointed me a little seeing the darkness trying to claim him again.
He pulled the black book out of nowhere and handed it to me, his hand remaining under the spine even as I held it.
"Thank you..." The way he said it, it was like I had saved his life.
"You don't need to thank me," I answered.
"I don't need to do anything, do I."
"Oh, no... It's either both of us are allowed to thank each other or neither." I brought the book to my chest and he let go like all along his fingers were on the verge of slipping. He was so passive about it, it didn't seem like it was the same... phantom...
"...Alright..."
"...I appreciate where you took me last night. And everything," I tried.
"Of course."
With me on the verge of leaving, he seemed to be departing in to himself as he had done on Christmas Eve. I may have been doing the same myself. He was still right in front of me, but I knew he wouldn't be five minutes later. Nor the rest of today. Maybe not even tomorrow.
"Send me something. I'll keep checking for it, okay?"
As I went further away from him, he leaned closer to the door, and his hand rose under his chin, almost like he were timid, or thinking, with a faint smile on his face.
- - -
The house was a weird place to be, after that. I was so thankful at a time like this that I had the place to myself - no hiding my smile, the kind someone would ask about because it's apparently "not like me"... No explaining to do - no more lying. At least for now.
I was going to jump in the shower immediately when I remembered how often we had come in contact... I didn't wanna wash that off... Odd way of looking at it... I'd come back 10x worse than the Ariel I'd described a month or so ago. A grin wider than healthy was spread across my face when the roses came tumbling down past my open closet door, beginning to dry. I caught a petal and held it under my nose, and as I knelt, a rose on top the pile, all with marks of missing thorns, came under my eye. I could imagine all of them, from every rose, like a thousand little shark teeth. Maybe some day I would have an answer for how much it hurt to do this work.
His silences were starting to say much more than his words, though.
I could feel the book tucked under my arms and I didn't think I could wait. I backed up right into the bed and flipped through the pages, finding that only a few contained writing, some with less than others, as if he was trying to organize his thoughts rather than be chronological. He had given me no indication of what I should expect, but that kind of excited me.
Legible black writing, a very thin ball-point pen, I thought.
Page One
First words are never what they should be,
Neither are second, or third,
Or for me, any.
I'm not trying to be poetic. We both know I could never do that.
I make you angry so often.
But never as much as I have myself.
I forgot to be sorry, I guess.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I want to be everything instead of one person.
I could give anything, then.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She cares when I'm freezing.
Page Two
She likes the phrase "becomes a story",
As if it marks transition.
You are one or the other.
You have always been my Christine,
But I'm glad you haven't always known.
Witnessing that awareness has been the most amazing part of my life.
Second, only, to discovering myself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She's trying to make things fit.
I prefer to watch her. I know she's smart enough to learn new things, quietly.
Sometimes I'm unsure where she is.
She can't integrate me. She has to pick one or the other.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I give her the opportunity to manage a part of her world
That was always there without me,
Fighting for the surface,
Stalling just below it,
Afraid to find someone will be there to push it back down.
You can't drown in something like this.
It's your truth.
It'll hurt eventually.
I'm going to bring you utmost happiness,
Just like you will me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know delusions very well.
They last minutes, maybe hours.
Never years.
I'm happy to stay in this one,
If I'm proven wrong.
Page Three
Tangibility is not a trait of delusions.
She doesn't like to be watched,
I've turned away from her but her breath is right against my ear.
I can see her fingerprints on the cover,
She changes the room.
She finds darkness intriguing, but it can't hold off light.
She will destroy what has always plagued me.
Delusions can't destroy themselves.
You will wake up and I will have imagined that already for the thousandth time.
I still hope it happens again.
Don't forget I need your light.
At the end of these writings, I slapped the book shut, rather than re-reading a word. It was tucked under my pillow, behind Charles.
My reaction was best described indescribable.
- - -
In ways, I felt I had bought a ouija board, in this thing. He was my ghost, who knocked my books off the shelves, blew out my candles, and made my curtains dance... Communication I had to interpret without much luck. I found the idea of being haunted so exciting though, I needed more. Except now, that empty room made me a little more self-conscious.
- - -
At two, after finally showering, I remembered my phone was somewhere in the bag I'd left on the counter. If he'd left me a message, I wanted it. To see if I could somehow... find the hidden meaning in it, using the book as a decoder.
Instead, I had a message from Meg. Already, I knew I was falling from the height I had been brought, every inch up inverting right into my stomach. Fights with Meg scared me, truthfully, and I really didn't want to look at it, knowing it couldn't have been positive, and here I was completely intoxicated on Erik comments. It'd be on my mind even if I didn't know what it said, though. She told me-
...To text her when I was home.
I'd pissed her off and she wanted to make sure I was okay. I had to come to the living room and stare in space at the end of the couch, over something like that. I almost rathered she was too frustrated to want to talk to me, instead of this. Then being this shameless wouldn't seem so unfair.
I'm home. Sorry I didn't respond sooner.
I never received an answer that day or the following.
I didn't feel like calling Giry, either. Even though I owed her for all her favors... Not yet... What would talking to anyone do at this point? I was learning things I didn't want to share.
So many weird things. Giry's number in his phone, the roses, 'delusions', this heightened sense of infatuation... going both ways. Our relationship was a being of its own - personal - no longer the latest news, and advice for that dwindled as it grew weirder. I may have been the only one who could handle it.
- - -
My weekend was a bit reclusive. I was replaying our night in my head over and over again, trying to remember all details, how things had been said, when and how he had touched me... It was a lot of information to not only recall but connect to our book. I felt like there was a gravity to things now that I needed to understand before I saw him next, but it was out of reach, and suddenly I remembered I had homework, and needless to say... Monday started with me feeling in complete disarray, with the Phantom, with my friendships, with schoolwork, even though I'd done it somehow.
I didn't always see Mariam in the mornings, but this time I was very conscious of it, and I could have sworn I saw her pass by the door while sitting in my chair in the math room, my notebook closed. I was reminded here of our first discussion about him - her being grossed out by the length of his hair, how she snatched my letter and read it, like it was all such a joke. Neither of us were expecting anything would come of it. They were just a few stupid notes.
I didn't find her during break. I came to our spot at lunch alone. She was either mad at me still, or sick... I couldn't make up my mind if I had an appetite or not, so I just took my book out and read, bag sitting next to me.
After some time, there was a break in light from the windows down the hall and a soft thud against the lockers. That familiar magenta backpack came into my peripheral, but she was sitting somewhat far away from me. She didn't say anything, so neither did I. I couldn't focus on the words in my book, so I set it down and unscrewed my drink, unnecessarily slowly, hoping we'd just magically...simultaneously apologize out of nowhere before I so much as sipped it.
Within all the time it took, nothing happened. I took a drink, set it down, and came to look in her direction after a moment's hesitance. It looked like she was doing homework.
"...Hi," I tried. She paused, but her eyes just settled on the paper over her knees. I realized afterward that I was getting the silent treatment. I couldn't remember the last time it'd come to that between us. Maybe freshman year? 8th grade?
I left her alone for at least five minutes, trying to eat my lunch. Failing. It was like she had come only because she had nowhere else to go, not because she wanted to be there. I turned towards her again and exhaled through my nose, hoping she'd look up. Not at all.
"I didn't mean for that to happen," I said very clearly. She apparently didn't hear. "I'm sorry I didn't stay with you. I'm sorry I invited him."
"Sorry you called me 'Meg' right to my face?"
Awkward. "...Yeah. That too." She suggested it, but that seemed to be the end of her reaction to my apology. "If I could've predicted what he did, I wouldn't have invited him. I would've told him to wait for another night. I'd've done that even then, if you'd said I should..."
She was busy scribbling another sentence before she answered. "... Then why didn't you?"
"...You told me to leave."
"Well, you listened to me." She sort of smirked at her work for a second.
"...Was I supposed to stand there and argue with you in front of everyone?"
"Maybe not. But you left."
"Well I felt bad. And he was waiting for me." The answer was no good. "Would it be okay for me to ask how it went for you?" She stopped again.
"It was great." She flipped through her folder before she continued. "I spent a lot of time with Paulina, a lot of time with Jeffrey... He wanted to meet you... Obviously couldn't..."
"Well.. we can meet after school, if you want... I just have to work it around my math tutoring..." I meant it, but we both seemed to feel some distance in it. She went back to work and I stared off down the hall, defeated by all of this awkwardness, and I found myself stewing in a desire to redeem him, like if only she knew how well he treated me while I was out of their picture... It'd change this resentment.
...
"He took me to dinner. ...That's it." I saw her eyes widen and then narrow as she wrote. "We talked a little... He gave me back that book I got him..."
"And you stayed the night with him," she finished.
When I heard her say this, it felt like this entire conversation had been a tightrope, and I had just fallen. My mind sputtered with every possible direction I could take us then. Was it Giry who told her, and why, when it was so clearly secret? I hadn't even seen her the past couple days and suddenly I worried I had lost her too.
"Did she tell you?" I asked, like there was an alternative, stupid from shock. Surprisingly, she rolled her eyes.
"No," she answered, looking me directly in the eye. "I called your house because you weren't picking up on your cell. It was late and I wanted to make sure you came back," she said a little matter-of-factly.
My eyes dropped to the floor.
"And I think it's really... sad... that... you and Paulina think I shouldn't have to know anything. That you just go talk to her and she's not even the friend that really cares what happens to you."
"That's not true. Don't assume how Paulina feels about anything. She's been a good friend to me."
"Okay. Forget what I just said then, how's this: I'm your fucking best friend," she asserted. I felt the challenging tone and looked around, hoping no one had heard.
"I didn't want to tell you because it's not what you think."
"And what is it that I'm apparently thinking right now?"
"That you... slept with him?"
"I know you don't have the guts to do that. I know you, Lily. That's not even the point. You put yourself... in such... I-I don't need to explain this."
"I wasn't in danger." She rose her hand, slowly and impatiently. "He had the perfect opportunity."
"Of course he did. Why do you think I'm mad?"
"You don't need to be mad. I made that choice using my own damn judgment."
This stare I was getting from her was starting to get to me. It didn't look like a concerned stare; it was full of disdain.
"...What has he said to you to make you so defensive about this? You know he's crazy. Right? Didn't we agree on this a couple weeks ago? He's crazy? He stalks you? And now you just follow him everywhere and go to Paulina for advice? Seriously?-"
"-You know what, Mariam? You don't know him at all," I asserted, my voice grown in volume. At this point, I didn't give a shit who heard me. "I can't tell you what he's said to make me 'defensive'," I did air quotes, "because he's said a little too much... And you weren't there, and when someone's not there, they don't have the right to tell people how they should feel about anyone else."
"Oh I'm sorry, I thought we shared these kind of things. I thought involving you with you-know-who would give you some type of incentive to talk about 'The Phantom'! But you don't!" I noted how derisively she mentioned him...
A person walked by just then and noticed us. I sunk into myself a little, scratching the handle of my lunch bag repeatedly, but it only provided a moment of cooling off.
"...No, because you don't take any of it seriously and you say things that are rude..."
"Not on purpose."
"Then I guess 'thoughtless' is a better word."
"Okay."
"'Okay', then you admit to being thoughtless."
"Shit, Lily, would thinking about it make there anything better to say about him?" I was ready to snap my handle in two, impossible as it was.
"You don't know him."
"Neither of us should, to be honest.-"
"-I'm not going to stop seeing him! I admitted it was my fault what happened, but it's not my fault that I have to divide my time-"
"You think this is about me being jealous?!" She laughed to herself, as if only to make me all the more uncomfortable. That wasn't what I was trying to say... "No wonder we're fighting about this. The whole time you thought I was just being a bitch, instead of having reasons to believe you're dating a weirdo."
She broke my last straw with that. I shoved everything into my bag and slowly stood up, knowing if I didn't collect myself, I might say something so pointlessly mean to her, that I couldn't just take back later. She was watching the floor between us when I turned towards her, still scratching, at my own hands... I almost felt Erik's pricks, all for me, on my own fingertips.
"You put all this emphasis on him... Well I'm not as normal as you think I am. If you can't deal with 'weirdos', then maybe I was the wrong choice for you."
I walked away thinking I hadn't seen a stunned look like that on her face before. I don't know if she even believed me. I even felt uncomfortable saying what I did.
This was the first day I sensed this story of mine was going somewhere dark, and not the kind I admired in that dream.
Favorite Quote(s)
Needless to say by the length and number of quotes, I turned out very happy with this one! I got very stuck with Lily and Erik in the "bedroom", just because... it's so strange that they're in there together, alone. o_o lol Maybe that scene wasn't terribly great, but it had its moments.
Lily's going to have a lot coming down on her in the next chapter, but this one I thought was heavy as well. I remember in Sept 2007, thinking of what the fights with Mariam would be like, knowing they'd take a while to get to, so it was interesting to write one, even not going too deep. Mariam thinks a lot of things that she hasn't said yet, just sticking with the general "he's creepy", but Lily will come to learn them, through Giry and to her face.
Also, interesting to write for Erik, for once! I mean, writing that isn't necessarily to Lily even though he knows she will read it. He's sorta dropping some bombs, and she can tell. Does he really have a disorder, could she get out of this if she needed to, why does it always sound like he's not really roleplaying?
I hope everyone likes it if they read it. ♥
NaNoWriMo Count
HE'S (@) THERE
Chapter 37 - Into the Darkness
When the night had passed, I awoke with my eyes still closed, listening to the silence of the room, wondering if we were still together, or if he had disappeared.
I'd had a dream, an awfully clear one, that I sat up at some point, and he was gone. The door was locked from the inside, but it was the same black hallway, uninviting even on the opposite end of the stairs.
When I opened my eyes, he was across from me in the exact same place. The colors of the room had changed, but almost nothing else. I looked closer and realized there was one other thing that was different. ...He was out like a light.
I didn't feel this could possibly last for more than a second, under some belief he couldn't sleep at all. Each time I realized I was peering into the shadows on his closed eyes, I looked down to the comforter, to his hand, still and open. He had to be waiting... for some stir from me to reanimate him, but when I rose just a little and leaned forward, nothing changed.
Rather than waking him up, I spent a great while sitting next to him, fixing my hair as quietly as I could, watching his shoulder rise and fall.
He captured me, asleep. He reminded me of a porcelain doll, almost, with his hard smooth "face", and gloves, and coat tails dropping off the side of the bed. Unlike me, hair a'tussle and crinkled dress, he looked like he had simply been knocked over from his display.
You could break a doll.
Asleep, he was mortal, and vulnerable. Asleep, he could not grip me with his eyes, or reach out to touch me and make my blood rush. His control was gone right now, but it made me wonder how much he ever really had. What if he just waited, all this time, for me to see him in the window? To take him with me, rather than I with him? He let himself fall, when I said no. It was okay for him, as long as he fell next to me.
The more I observed, the more I came to find that there was something underneath the white sleeve at his wrist. I didn't catch it at first because it was tinted white, just a frayed cloth, tucked away. Inspection of this brought me closer, till I saw his phone behind his arm, slid into his chest by his weight over the bed. It would've been so easy to reach it.
I did what I shouldn't and caught it between two fingers, and removed it so slowly, so it wouldn't tap against him. He was completely still when I had it in my hands. I felt so much power at that weird little moment. It wasn't a particular power I loved - but he had exercised the same kind on me so many times, I almost didn't have regret.
So there I was, with my back turned, looking for his messages.
It seemed he had a lot, but the dates, at least at the top, were far apart.
The first one: You cant, Im sorry.
Sent... this morning at 2:48. From 5037918955.
The second: Youre going to have to ask him i have no fucking idea.
Sent yesterday, before I met him at the dance... 5:10 P.M. From "Demitri".
The third was from me... I texted him while I was getting ready, just to say so... It helped me feel a little less nervous... He never replied to it though.
The next was "I'll call you later," from me.
The next: The second week of feb, W 5-10, T 5-10, F 5-12
Sent 1/5, from... Theater?
A ton of these messages were from me, piled up one after the other, as if everything else in the past month or two had been deleted but these, and any type of information he needed to remember in the close future. It was like he prepared for someone looking through his phone.
I looked over my shoulder and he was no more awake than before.
Now for his contacts... A lot of names I didn't know, mostly guys, somewhat strange names... It made me conscious that he had a name himself... I looked at many of them trying to imagine if they were his... I didn't really know what kind of a name he looked like, either...
I watched him sleep again for another moment...
'Erik' was the only thing that made sense to me.
I was Christine in this list, as well.
My scrolling continued until I found Giry. I stared at the letters a moment, trying to remember if he ever had the opportunity to meet her... Know anything about her, really... Sure, I talked about him with her all the time, but never about her with him.
Not once.
...Did they talk or did she even know she was right here?
I finished up looking, although after the contact list, my inspiration to look had passed, just thinking that I might have discovered his real name this way. I set it back in his shadow, behind the arm, and got off the bed to take the mirror out of my bag and make sure I didn't have eye-liner smeared all over my face.
Before I could make it, I heard him breathe very audibly and looked over, surprised... hoping none of what I did before that moment was realized. As he dropped to his back his hands clenched. I dropped back down and sat in front of him, and his arms stopped tensing. His eyes came down on me and I tried to look like I wasn't worried about how terrible I must've appeared post-sleep.
I waited for him to completely come-to when I felt his hand, out of nowhere, grab the end of my dress.
"I don't think I'm awake yet," he said, tiredly.
"Why's that?" I asked back, smiling.
He averted his eyes and tried to prop himself up. I just kept waiting... I wanted to hear him speak more. He had a lovely voice when he was tired - I'd only gotten to hear it a few rare times that we stayed up to talk to each other.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Yes. What were you saying?" He turned his face and revealed the side he had been sleeping on. I could see where his mask ended and two thick wires came around his ear. They were tight. They made his skin pink.
"The rest is a little much."
"You've always been a little much, don't you think?" He found that entertaining.
I wasn't really thinking about it when I reached out to fix that messed up hair. When my fingers made it to his shoulders I took them back and smiled again, awkwardly.
"I was only thinking... There's much contrast between what happens to me when I sleep, and when I'm awake... This isn't a waking thing..." He sort of muttered to himself.
"It is. Actually." He was still looking down at the red sheets, not really showing one reaction or the other to my comment. After a long gaze he looked up at me again and that gripping in his eyes had come back again. I sort of felt pulled by it by now, to do things I wouldn't normally. Today that gripping was no longer just a force of thought, but a force of action. I put my arms down and moved to his side, and he welcomed me quickly, like there was no doubt in his mind it was the right place for me to be. My arms reached around him, fingers spread, trying to experience that action to its fullest, down to the feel of his shirt's fabric.
Why did it have to be this way? I was charmed like a snake. Gone. His.
We didn't even talk after this. All of the communication was in the unwavering embrace. Here I go off again, like a romance novel, never with legitimate words to describe how I feel.
Those doubts last night... no more... I wouldn't trade anything for this. I'd been waiting for it, underneath, for longer than I dared imagine. Even messed-up people need love.
A white hand came over mine before I freed it and held on, frustrated by the material between our skin. "Can I really hold your hand?" I asked quickly, not sure how he would take it, but he more than willingly gave me the chance to take hold his fingertips and free him of any barrier he had created, to me.
Room still silent as ever, my palm felt the pulse in his veins. My focus was on our hands, their difference in size, how mine, short and ordinary, contrasted with his - long, slender, almost as colorless as the gloves that covered them.
Except those red marks, hidden almost by his grip, but not completely... At this distance, they no longer seemed to be pen marks. Some had tiny dots even in the middle of the marks themselves... Some were of different shade. I was curious, but I didn't want that to be the first thing I said.
In time, his face slipped a little closer to mine, speaking to me right over my forehead. "I'm sorry... I didn't spend the whole night with you..." I didn't know how to reply. "I couldn't sleep... I went on a walk to tire myself out..." I felt the heat of every word, like he was temping me with a kiss. Again.
"I guess I forgive you."
"Maybe eventually I won't need the walk."
...
"I don't mind it though... Night is the perfect time..."
"The darkness is pretty," I added, more about him than outside this room. "But I'm not allowed outside by then. Alone."
"You should come with me, then."
"Heh, well see, that's not considered 'with someone' because you are... essentially... what my parents are protecting me from."
"...Do you think you need protection from me?" My eyes were still focused on the red marks.
"You make it seem like I do, but... You've had every opportunity to be something they think you are. ...But you aren't. Sometimes scary things protect you."
"...I hadn't thought of it that way," he said, no longer to my forehead.
The morning stayed like that a while before I thought to text Giry, and tell her everything was fine, even if 'fine' was a serious understatement. He brought the phone to me so I could do it right between us, while he watched ever word created.
My parents were both at work today, I didn't need to hurry home, but a lot of self-consciousness about being in my crinkled dress and my stomach growling, and... this sense that so much needed to be fixed had me getting ready. He knew he had plucked me out of my world, yet again, and as I fixed myself up with my mirror, he was standing near, watching.
He looked at me like I was a present to him, no realization that he meant the same to me, I just hadn't had those years to make a life capable of dealing with this feeling. Every time I turned my back to him, I felt like I was being approached, but maybe it was just the energy he emitted, the kind I felt in myself and didn't know what to do with.
"I'd stay longer, but I-I... I must look awful," I told him, clutching the doorknob.
"I completely disagree."
"Of course you do." I opened the door and his shadow came right after, following across the hall and up the stairs.
The found the sun hitting the front of the theater, snow completely melted, when I reached the porch. He was hesitant to come out from the dark, remaining to the side by the strip of light hitting the lobby floor. It disappointed me a little seeing the darkness trying to claim him again.
He pulled the black book out of nowhere and handed it to me, his hand remaining under the spine even as I held it.
"Thank you..." The way he said it, it was like I had saved his life.
"You don't need to thank me," I answered.
"I don't need to do anything, do I."
"Oh, no... It's either both of us are allowed to thank each other or neither." I brought the book to my chest and he let go like all along his fingers were on the verge of slipping. He was so passive about it, it didn't seem like it was the same... phantom...
"...Alright..."
"...I appreciate where you took me last night. And everything," I tried.
"Of course."
With me on the verge of leaving, he seemed to be departing in to himself as he had done on Christmas Eve. I may have been doing the same myself. He was still right in front of me, but I knew he wouldn't be five minutes later. Nor the rest of today. Maybe not even tomorrow.
"Send me something. I'll keep checking for it, okay?"
As I went further away from him, he leaned closer to the door, and his hand rose under his chin, almost like he were timid, or thinking, with a faint smile on his face.
- - -
The house was a weird place to be, after that. I was so thankful at a time like this that I had the place to myself - no hiding my smile, the kind someone would ask about because it's apparently "not like me"... No explaining to do - no more lying. At least for now.
I was going to jump in the shower immediately when I remembered how often we had come in contact... I didn't wanna wash that off... Odd way of looking at it... I'd come back 10x worse than the Ariel I'd described a month or so ago. A grin wider than healthy was spread across my face when the roses came tumbling down past my open closet door, beginning to dry. I caught a petal and held it under my nose, and as I knelt, a rose on top the pile, all with marks of missing thorns, came under my eye. I could imagine all of them, from every rose, like a thousand little shark teeth. Maybe some day I would have an answer for how much it hurt to do this work.
His silences were starting to say much more than his words, though.
I could feel the book tucked under my arms and I didn't think I could wait. I backed up right into the bed and flipped through the pages, finding that only a few contained writing, some with less than others, as if he was trying to organize his thoughts rather than be chronological. He had given me no indication of what I should expect, but that kind of excited me.
Legible black writing, a very thin ball-point pen, I thought.
Page One
First words are never what they should be,
Neither are second, or third,
Or for me, any.
I'm not trying to be poetic. We both know I could never do that.
I make you angry so often.
But never as much as I have myself.
I forgot to be sorry, I guess.
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I want to be everything instead of one person.
I could give anything, then.
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She cares when I'm freezing.
Page Two
She likes the phrase "becomes a story",
As if it marks transition.
You are one or the other.
You have always been my Christine,
But I'm glad you haven't always known.
Witnessing that awareness has been the most amazing part of my life.
Second, only, to discovering myself.
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She's trying to make things fit.
I prefer to watch her. I know she's smart enough to learn new things, quietly.
Sometimes I'm unsure where she is.
She can't integrate me. She has to pick one or the other.
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I give her the opportunity to manage a part of her world
That was always there without me,
Fighting for the surface,
Stalling just below it,
Afraid to find someone will be there to push it back down.
You can't drown in something like this.
It's your truth.
It'll hurt eventually.
I'm going to bring you utmost happiness,
Just like you will me.
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I know delusions very well.
They last minutes, maybe hours.
Never years.
I'm happy to stay in this one,
If I'm proven wrong.
Page Three
Tangibility is not a trait of delusions.
She doesn't like to be watched,
I've turned away from her but her breath is right against my ear.
I can see her fingerprints on the cover,
She changes the room.
She finds darkness intriguing, but it can't hold off light.
She will destroy what has always plagued me.
Delusions can't destroy themselves.
You will wake up and I will have imagined that already for the thousandth time.
I still hope it happens again.
Don't forget I need your light.
At the end of these writings, I slapped the book shut, rather than re-reading a word. It was tucked under my pillow, behind Charles.
My reaction was best described indescribable.
- - -
In ways, I felt I had bought a ouija board, in this thing. He was my ghost, who knocked my books off the shelves, blew out my candles, and made my curtains dance... Communication I had to interpret without much luck. I found the idea of being haunted so exciting though, I needed more. Except now, that empty room made me a little more self-conscious.
- - -
At two, after finally showering, I remembered my phone was somewhere in the bag I'd left on the counter. If he'd left me a message, I wanted it. To see if I could somehow... find the hidden meaning in it, using the book as a decoder.
Instead, I had a message from Meg. Already, I knew I was falling from the height I had been brought, every inch up inverting right into my stomach. Fights with Meg scared me, truthfully, and I really didn't want to look at it, knowing it couldn't have been positive, and here I was completely intoxicated on Erik comments. It'd be on my mind even if I didn't know what it said, though. She told me-
...To text her when I was home.
I'd pissed her off and she wanted to make sure I was okay. I had to come to the living room and stare in space at the end of the couch, over something like that. I almost rathered she was too frustrated to want to talk to me, instead of this. Then being this shameless wouldn't seem so unfair.
I'm home. Sorry I didn't respond sooner.
I never received an answer that day or the following.
I didn't feel like calling Giry, either. Even though I owed her for all her favors... Not yet... What would talking to anyone do at this point? I was learning things I didn't want to share.
So many weird things. Giry's number in his phone, the roses, 'delusions', this heightened sense of infatuation... going both ways. Our relationship was a being of its own - personal - no longer the latest news, and advice for that dwindled as it grew weirder. I may have been the only one who could handle it.
- - -
My weekend was a bit reclusive. I was replaying our night in my head over and over again, trying to remember all details, how things had been said, when and how he had touched me... It was a lot of information to not only recall but connect to our book. I felt like there was a gravity to things now that I needed to understand before I saw him next, but it was out of reach, and suddenly I remembered I had homework, and needless to say... Monday started with me feeling in complete disarray, with the Phantom, with my friendships, with schoolwork, even though I'd done it somehow.
I didn't always see Mariam in the mornings, but this time I was very conscious of it, and I could have sworn I saw her pass by the door while sitting in my chair in the math room, my notebook closed. I was reminded here of our first discussion about him - her being grossed out by the length of his hair, how she snatched my letter and read it, like it was all such a joke. Neither of us were expecting anything would come of it. They were just a few stupid notes.
I didn't find her during break. I came to our spot at lunch alone. She was either mad at me still, or sick... I couldn't make up my mind if I had an appetite or not, so I just took my book out and read, bag sitting next to me.
After some time, there was a break in light from the windows down the hall and a soft thud against the lockers. That familiar magenta backpack came into my peripheral, but she was sitting somewhat far away from me. She didn't say anything, so neither did I. I couldn't focus on the words in my book, so I set it down and unscrewed my drink, unnecessarily slowly, hoping we'd just magically...simultaneously apologize out of nowhere before I so much as sipped it.
Within all the time it took, nothing happened. I took a drink, set it down, and came to look in her direction after a moment's hesitance. It looked like she was doing homework.
"...Hi," I tried. She paused, but her eyes just settled on the paper over her knees. I realized afterward that I was getting the silent treatment. I couldn't remember the last time it'd come to that between us. Maybe freshman year? 8th grade?
I left her alone for at least five minutes, trying to eat my lunch. Failing. It was like she had come only because she had nowhere else to go, not because she wanted to be there. I turned towards her again and exhaled through my nose, hoping she'd look up. Not at all.
"I didn't mean for that to happen," I said very clearly. She apparently didn't hear. "I'm sorry I didn't stay with you. I'm sorry I invited him."
"Sorry you called me 'Meg' right to my face?"
Awkward. "...Yeah. That too." She suggested it, but that seemed to be the end of her reaction to my apology. "If I could've predicted what he did, I wouldn't have invited him. I would've told him to wait for another night. I'd've done that even then, if you'd said I should..."
She was busy scribbling another sentence before she answered. "... Then why didn't you?"
"...You told me to leave."
"Well, you listened to me." She sort of smirked at her work for a second.
"...Was I supposed to stand there and argue with you in front of everyone?"
"Maybe not. But you left."
"Well I felt bad. And he was waiting for me." The answer was no good. "Would it be okay for me to ask how it went for you?" She stopped again.
"It was great." She flipped through her folder before she continued. "I spent a lot of time with Paulina, a lot of time with Jeffrey... He wanted to meet you... Obviously couldn't..."
"Well.. we can meet after school, if you want... I just have to work it around my math tutoring..." I meant it, but we both seemed to feel some distance in it. She went back to work and I stared off down the hall, defeated by all of this awkwardness, and I found myself stewing in a desire to redeem him, like if only she knew how well he treated me while I was out of their picture... It'd change this resentment.
...
"He took me to dinner. ...That's it." I saw her eyes widen and then narrow as she wrote. "We talked a little... He gave me back that book I got him..."
"And you stayed the night with him," she finished.
When I heard her say this, it felt like this entire conversation had been a tightrope, and I had just fallen. My mind sputtered with every possible direction I could take us then. Was it Giry who told her, and why, when it was so clearly secret? I hadn't even seen her the past couple days and suddenly I worried I had lost her too.
"Did she tell you?" I asked, like there was an alternative, stupid from shock. Surprisingly, she rolled her eyes.
"No," she answered, looking me directly in the eye. "I called your house because you weren't picking up on your cell. It was late and I wanted to make sure you came back," she said a little matter-of-factly.
My eyes dropped to the floor.
"And I think it's really... sad... that... you and Paulina think I shouldn't have to know anything. That you just go talk to her and she's not even the friend that really cares what happens to you."
"That's not true. Don't assume how Paulina feels about anything. She's been a good friend to me."
"Okay. Forget what I just said then, how's this: I'm your fucking best friend," she asserted. I felt the challenging tone and looked around, hoping no one had heard.
"I didn't want to tell you because it's not what you think."
"And what is it that I'm apparently thinking right now?"
"That you... slept with him?"
"I know you don't have the guts to do that. I know you, Lily. That's not even the point. You put yourself... in such... I-I don't need to explain this."
"I wasn't in danger." She rose her hand, slowly and impatiently. "He had the perfect opportunity."
"Of course he did. Why do you think I'm mad?"
"You don't need to be mad. I made that choice using my own damn judgment."
This stare I was getting from her was starting to get to me. It didn't look like a concerned stare; it was full of disdain.
"...What has he said to you to make you so defensive about this? You know he's crazy. Right? Didn't we agree on this a couple weeks ago? He's crazy? He stalks you? And now you just follow him everywhere and go to Paulina for advice? Seriously?-"
"-You know what, Mariam? You don't know him at all," I asserted, my voice grown in volume. At this point, I didn't give a shit who heard me. "I can't tell you what he's said to make me 'defensive'," I did air quotes, "because he's said a little too much... And you weren't there, and when someone's not there, they don't have the right to tell people how they should feel about anyone else."
"Oh I'm sorry, I thought we shared these kind of things. I thought involving you with you-know-who would give you some type of incentive to talk about 'The Phantom'! But you don't!" I noted how derisively she mentioned him...
A person walked by just then and noticed us. I sunk into myself a little, scratching the handle of my lunch bag repeatedly, but it only provided a moment of cooling off.
"...No, because you don't take any of it seriously and you say things that are rude..."
"Not on purpose."
"Then I guess 'thoughtless' is a better word."
"Okay."
"'Okay', then you admit to being thoughtless."
"Shit, Lily, would thinking about it make there anything better to say about him?" I was ready to snap my handle in two, impossible as it was.
"You don't know him."
"Neither of us should, to be honest.-"
"-I'm not going to stop seeing him! I admitted it was my fault what happened, but it's not my fault that I have to divide my time-"
"You think this is about me being jealous?!" She laughed to herself, as if only to make me all the more uncomfortable. That wasn't what I was trying to say... "No wonder we're fighting about this. The whole time you thought I was just being a bitch, instead of having reasons to believe you're dating a weirdo."
She broke my last straw with that. I shoved everything into my bag and slowly stood up, knowing if I didn't collect myself, I might say something so pointlessly mean to her, that I couldn't just take back later. She was watching the floor between us when I turned towards her, still scratching, at my own hands... I almost felt Erik's pricks, all for me, on my own fingertips.
"You put all this emphasis on him... Well I'm not as normal as you think I am. If you can't deal with 'weirdos', then maybe I was the wrong choice for you."
I walked away thinking I hadn't seen a stunned look like that on her face before. I don't know if she even believed me. I even felt uncomfortable saying what I did.
This was the first day I sensed this story of mine was going somewhere dark, and not the kind I admired in that dream.
Favorite Quote(s)
Unlike me, hair a'tussle and crinkled dress, he looked like he had simply been knocked over from his display.
Even messed-up people need love.
Sometimes scary things protect you.
I know delusions very well.
They last minutes, maybe hours.
Never years.
I'm happy to stay in this one,
If I'm proven wrong.
He was my ghost, who knocked my books off the shelves, blew out my candles, and made my curtains dance... Communication I had to interpret without much luck.
I couldn't focus on the words in my book, so I set it down and unscrewed my drink, unnecessarily slowly, hoping we'd just magically...simultaneously apologize out of nowhere before I so much as sipped it.
She was watching the floor between us when I turned towards her, still scratching, at my own hands... I almost felt Erik's pricks, all for me, on my own fingertips.
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