The Tale of the Broken Umbrella-III

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The Tale of the Broken Umbrella

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Etude Number 3

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I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut
My weakness is that I care too much
And my scars remind me that the past is real
I tear my heart open just to feel…

(“Scars” – Paparoach)

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I think that the reason I hurt so much right now is because I’m not crying. When you cry, it’s as if all the tension leaks out of you, and then you feel empty in the most satisfying way imaginable; but when you stop yourself from crying it’s like locking everything inside while it’s trying its hardest to burst out of you and you feel as though your throat is too tight to allow you to breathe.

I don’t want to cry.

I’m sitting on the back sit of a beautiful stranger’s car. He wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and sat me on the back seat of his car and now he’s driving in silence. I stare right in front of me, trying not to cry because crying is only for the weak and trying not to think because I don’t feel like doing that sort of thing right now and just staring ahead. The headlight are throwing a ray of light through the falling snow, making each snowflake go from cold-bluish to bright golden white and back to cold-bluish before it falls from sight. It’s so pretty, so pretty, this damn snow that keeps falling and that managed to make him care more than he’d ever care for me.

Oh. My throat has gone a little tighter. It’s beginning to feel painful. I wish I had water, I wish I had a handful of that accursed snow so I could melt it against the warmth of my palm and drink from it. Isn’t it funny how skin always remains warm no matter how cold you feel inside?

“Do you even recognise me?” he suddenly asks, turning around to glance at me. His eyes are so dark…

Of course I recognise him. He comes everyday to the café where I work and stays all day long. I nod briefly—even nodding makes my throat hurt a little more.

“I’m Galen. I’m taking you home,” he says.

Galen…Galen. It’s a nice name. I don’t thin it’s British. Ah, who cares? Galen. Laptop-man is Laptop-man no more, now he has a name. What does it matter anyway? Even without a name he had a face. I always ad a name and that didn’t help me when it came to having a face…I wonder what it must have felt like, to kiss a faceless person…

“Guide me,” Galen says.

I look at him. I don’t want to guide him. I don’t want to let him anywhere near where I live. I want him to go straight back to the person he loves and who loves him and never set eyes on me again. I want him to stop coming to the café and to vanish straight out of my life. My life is like a silent dark room and he’s a candle in it and I need to blow him out before all the comforting shadows leave.

“No,” I shake my head curtly, and open the car window. He’s driving so slowly I just trip slightly when I get out of the car and fall to my knees in the snow, but I recover fast enough, stand up and begin trudging my way through the thickly falling snowflakes in the opposite direction Galen was heading for.

“Where are you going?” Galen’s annoyed voice reaches me, and a second later he’s standing at my side, his hand firm around my arm.

Aah…don’t touch me. I need to be touched so badly it hurts when you do because I know you don’t mean it, just like he never meant it, because I’m not worth it, I’m not worth touching or holding because no matter how hard you grip me at the end of the day I’m still just this, just an empty thing, just a broken umbrella.

I want to scream. I want to scream so long and hard he shivers and lets go of my arm and vanishes and never comes back. I want to scream so loud and long he hears me, wherever he is, and pauses in the middle of kissing whoever he’s found to replace me and think of me, even just for a second, because I can’t bear the thought that he probably never even spared me a moment of thought. I want to scream so loud and long my voice fades forever.

“I’m not giving you the choice. You don’t want to guide me to your home I’ll take you to mine. You obviously have issues and avoiding them won’t solve anything.”

Issues…do I have issues? I don’t have issues, I’m just broken. Do you ever tell an umbrella it has issues when it’s broken? No, you just chuck it, like everyone else. Chuck me, Galen. Like he did. Just throw me out to the bin. I’m just broken. I’m no use, you see. Not worth holding. I’ll let the rain fall onto you.

Do I have issues? Is hurting an issue? A lot of people hurt inside, don’t they? They hurt inside and they hurt outside and some people get legs and arms torn out and some people accidentally kill their one loved ones in freakish car accidents and oh, that must hurt. I only got rejected by the person I loved most. That’s all. Nothing to be so dramatic about.

I want to move on. I want to become like he was. I want to stop caring about the fact he probably never thought of me once. I want to stop thinking about him. I want to stop hurting and I want to get a personality and a soul so I can finally stop having to pretend having one.

I want to let go and cry. I want to stop wanting to cry. I want to stop loving him. I want to stop loving him so I can stop pretending not to love him, because it’s so tiring, to keep pretending.

I still love him. I still love him. I didn’t stop loving him, ever, not for a second. Not when he broke my heart, not when I left, not when I kept telling myself I didn’t need to be loved to live. I love him so much, I always have. I love him, and it’s my love that made it unable for me to love him. Ah…what an ironic world. I wish I could stop thinking about all of this and tell myself that that people are suffering worse things. I’m so selfish. I’m so selfish it’s disgusting. No wonder Knight hated me. No wonder he could never love me. Beautiful Knight…with his beautiful face and his beautiful mind and his beautiful soul.

“Come on, snap out of it. We’re here. Let’s get you sorted.”

The car door’s just opened and Galen is standing in front of it, staring at me with his black eyes. I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to look up. I want to curl up on the back couch and sleep and never wake up.

Galen grabs hold of my arm and drags me out of the car. I skid a little over the snow but manage to catch myself before I fall by gripping his sleeve. We’re standing in front of a tall block of flats, squares of light dotting the dark surface through the snow, which is falling more thinly now.

Still firmly holding my arm, Galen leads me away from the car and up the concrete path, which is slippery with snow. I look back and see our footsteps imprinted in the snow. I scarred the snow. The snow is going to melt. It’s going to die.

Inside the building it’s cold and draughty, and in the lift the mirrors show a tall, handsome man firmly holding the arm of a younger man. The younger man’s hair is wet and in disarray and the rims of his eyes are crimson and his cheeks are flushed and he looks painfully tormented and he looks sad in a way that shouldn’t be allowed and he is goddamn ugly.

The inside of Galen’s flat is wide and clean and warm and yet cold. Knight’s apartment was imbibed with his essence, everything that made him. Bright colours, a clutter of pretty objects, his precious possessions, pointless ornaments that made the room incontestably his. Galen’s apartment, however, was impersonal: books filed neatly on shelves, stacks of papers piled in baskets on a tidy desk, spotless white carpet, luxurious leather couches, a half empty cup of coffee forgotten on the floor beside the ouch the only way of telling the room apart from a catalogue page.

It’s warm. It’s warm. But…it’s lonely. Doesn’t…doesn’t Galen live with the person he loves? Or is the person he lives with a very neat person?

Galen lives alone.

I stand still, on the threshold to the living-room, frozen in shock. Why? Why would someone like him live alone? He has a face! He is beautiful! He exists. He isn’t like me. He doesn’t deserve to be alone like I do. Ah, I hate this. If I’m alone, why shouldn’t he be? Maybe…maybe he enjoys being alone? How could you enjoy being alone? I wish I could enjoy being alone. If only I could love loneliness then I’d love my existence, but I have this longing, this devouring longing to be held and to belong and to be possessed and it’s eating my up from inside and how does he not feel this? Maybe he knows something I don’t. Maybe he is so assured in his own existence that he doesn’t need someone to prove to him he exists?

If Galen had been with Knight, Knight would have loved him. They would have argued about Knight being too messy and Galen being too tidy and they’d ignore each other out of spite and then Knight would step up behind Galen and kiss the nape of his neck and Galen would forgive him and they’d talk a little about Knight’s latest con and then they’d go out for a walk in the snow. They’d have been perfect, two beautiful faces.

“Stop thinking,” Galen snarls quietly in my ear, making me jump. “Go sit down. I’ll run a bath so you can warm up.”

What is he saying? Doesn’t he see I’m broken and worthless and empty and faceless? Why is he being so kind and sweet and nice? His dark eyes aren’t smiling, they just burn, and when I look at them they are unreadable and it makes shivers run down my spine. He scares me. He is a stranger. I know nothing about him, but his name. He could absolutely be a serial killer and kill me there and then and I would never be able to stop him. Would I even try? Would the inner love for life that exists in each single person overpower the terrible misery and wish to just let go and sleep forever that has been blooming in my heart ever since that evening when Knight destroyed me?

“Come on… if you carry on looking so empty you’re going to fade away…”

Galen leads me away from the neat living-room and into a brightly-lit, warm bathroom. The bathtub is filled in pale bluish water, icing of bubbles floating on top, steam rising to the ceiling and covering the mirrors and windows with a thin misty film. A large, soft-looking blue towel is hanging on a rack beside the sink, and the room smells like violets. It’s strange…Galen doesn’t strike me as someone who would use violet-scented bubblebath. Knight would have done though….

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A dark September afternoon. Luke and Knight stumbled into the flat, Knight’s arm around Luke’s shoulders, their hair dripping water down their necks. Knight bent slightly as Luke struggled for breath and licked at a drop of rainwater rolling down the nape of his neck. They’d just run straight from the art café Knight had taken Luke to, the rain soaking them to the skin.

“Come on, little boy,” Knight grinned against Luke’s neck. “Let’s have us a bath.”

Luke looked up to smile at Knight, and grabbed his hand briefly before letting go to remove his coat and shoes. While Luke proceeded to put the wet clothes in the washing machine, Knight when to run the bath.

“Come on!” he called. “I’m freezing and you’re having the bath with me!”

Smiling happily to himself, Luke removed the last of his wet clothing and rushed to the bathroom. Knight had lit the clutter of candles on the windowsill and shelves and switches off the light. The candlelight danced over the bathwater, steam rose to flat against the ceiling like misty hangings, and the room was filled with the perfume of violet and apple. Knight stepped into the bath, and lay back, tugging Luke towards him. Wincing a little at the warmth of the water against his cool, moist skin, Luke stepped in and immersed his body in the water, settling down over Knight’s body, tangling his left hand in the silky wet strands that spread in a halo of colours against the pale ceramic of the bathtub.

Outside, the rain was falling heavily under the growing night, hammering against the windows. They lay quietly in the warm, scented water, feeling heir hearts beat against each other’s, listening to the falling rain, completely engrossed in the utter perfection of the moment…

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“Ah!”

I step way from the bathtub. Ah, why do I remember these things? Why do these images haunt me, and keep haunting me? Why must I be so weak? I know now, I know that all of these moments that were so perfect for me were nothing to him. While I was thinking about his soft his skin was beneath my hands or how sweet his breath felt at it brushes past my temple, he was probably thinking about what bother I was to him, how incredibly pathetic and pointless my existence was…ah…ah, that hurts. That hurts. Why do I do this to myself? Why am I so weak I can’t even spare myself?

“Are you scared you might stop existing if you stop thinking? You should try to stop thinking some time. It would do you good. Off with these clothes, now.”

Galen’s hands are around my shirts’ hems, and he’s tugging them upwards. He’s treating me like a child…like a young, helpless child. Luke used to do that to. He told me I was useless and then ruffled my hair and kissed the tip of my nose and helped me with whatever I’d been struggling with. I used to take it as affectionate reprimands. But he meant it, ever word of it, he’d always meant it, always meant it in the worst way possible. Ah…why didn’t he tell me earlier? Why did he let me rise so far and then bring me back down so hard? If only he’d broken my wings before letting me reach the clouds…maybe I wouldn’t hurt so much now…did he do it on purpose? Was he feeling too sorry for me and tried to delay the blow? It couldn’t have been because he loved me. Knight never loved me, he said so himself. Why do I keep thinking about this? This man is standing in front of me removing my clothes and all I can do is think about him. Knight still owns me. He always owned me, from the first moment we met…that very first moment…

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A stormy October afternoon. Luke was running down the street under the lashing rain, a pile of textbooks held protectively over his already-soaked head, his head bent determinedly down against the rain that threatened to blind him. He only realised he was about to run into someone a split of a second before he crashed right into the person, his books flying out of his hands, the impact sending both of them falling straight down onto the pavement, and into a large puddle. Appalled, Luke jumped to his feet and grabbed the person’s hand. It was a young man with kohl smeared in eerie trails down his cheeks and over his temples around startlingly odd eyes. Bright pale hair streaked in vibrant blue was falling in curtains around his face, and his mouth was slightly opened as he sat up in the puddle, his hands sinking up to the wrists in the water.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I’m so, so, so incredibly sorry! I was running with my head down so rain wouldn’t go into my eyes and I didn’t see you until I was too late and I know I should have been watching where I was going and I’m so sorry please please forgive me! Are you alright?”

“Um…I think. Just sort of…wet? I mean, I just fell in a puddle.”

Luke grabbed the young man’s hand, helping him to his feet and blabbering away:

“I’m so so sorry, it was just raining really hard and oh my God your clothes are soaked, you can come to my place and change before you get a cold, I mean, yeah, it’s better than staying in these but, oh, do you live near?”

The other sighed slightly, dragging wet hair away from his face and smiling slightly.

“I live quite a way from here. But it’s alright, don’t bother. I’ll be fine. You run home quickly and get yourself all dry and warmed up, mkay?”

And he raised his hand, and ran his knuckles down Luke’s face. Luke stood in shock and watched as the stranger turned around and walked away.

He wasn’t quite out of sight when he suddenly raised his own hand to his mouth, and ran his tongue over his knuckles. Luke watched and a sickening feeling of warmth twisted suddenly in his stomach. He didn’t know what had happened, but he didn’t want the stranger to go. He just wanted to stranger to touch him again…and again…

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“It’s like you’re not here. It’s like your soul is so busy trying to escape your body you barely even exist anymore.”

I look up and meet the intensity of Galen’s black gaze. I don’t like him. I don’t like him and I don’t like his eyes and the way they are so intense it’s not normal and the way he speaks things that he shouldn’t speak and the way he’s taking my clothes off me before neatly folding them and putting them down on top of the laundry basket beside the door, even though they’re wet and folding won’t really make a difference. I don’t want to be standing in the same cramped space as him.

He finishes removing all the clothes covering my upper body and his fingers pause at my waist.

“Take off your trousers and get in,” he snaps, and goes out of the bathroom, quietly pulling the door shut behind him.

I take off my trousers and get into the bath and sink into the water until my mouth is immersed and I can blow tiny bubbles that come to break the transparent surface of the water just beneath my nose. Pretty broken bubbles dying. The bath is warm and smells sweet and feels unbearably good against my cold, humid skin.

I close my eyes, and for an instant allow myself to dream that the room is lit with candles instead of a bright electric bulb and that Knight is going to slip into the water any moment, to pull my head against his shoulder and hold me close and never let me go.

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:sigh:

How angsty. Seriously, I never wrote something so depressing and angsty before. Oh wait…I did :blush at the memory: actually this story is still floating around on here somewhere, now I think about it…hehe, my embarrassing debut as an author. I got, what, 30 reviews for 22 chapters over a length of several years………O.o

BUT NOW I HAVE WONDERUFL AWESOME READERS WHO GIVE ME LAODSIE AND LOADSIE REVIEW AND I’M A HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY AUTHOR!! Looove you all.

Thank you all so much. I kind of feel bad for writing such an enthusiastic authors note at the end of this chapter because it kid of ruins the mood, neh? Luke having depressing and desperate thoughts and struggling with his broken heart while I giggle away…I’m such a cold person :(

HOPE YOU ENJOYED. Please tell me what you think. It’s the first time I try to write something so serious. I know nothing much happens in this chapter: right now I’m just trying to let the readers (that YOU, guys) know about what’s going on in Luke’s fragile little heart and mind. We’ll be getting more of the flashbacks as they are proving a VERY important point.

What do you guys think: will Knight be making a reappearance? Come on, think well about it and tell me. You can just drop a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ if you can’t be bothered typing a review.

I’d still love you better if you sent a review though :)

Soundtrack for this chapter was: the Advent Children Soundtrack. Buy it. Download it. Anything. Just get your hands on it, lock yourself in a dark room with good headphones and listen to it until you can touch your own soul.

Yes, it’s THAT good.

If you want to know where to download it easily, just PM me with your email address and I’ll send you the link to the website I got it from. Mkay?

Adios hombres. I love you all infinitely.