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We talked about faith too. I had never tried to have it, had never even been inside a church. Frost, however, had been intensely Catholic for most of his life and had lost that faith several years back, he said. I didn’t ask why, but I knew it would be the same reason he attempted suicide. I could tell by the way he spoke of the church he had attended, its sweeping architecture, the passion in the priest’s voice, and the mystery of the rituals, that he missed it and had once loved it. I imagine that the way he looked when he talked about church was a lot like the way I looked when I talked about writing.
We talked about mindless things too, simply, I think, because with everything we’d been through in the past few days we couldn’t stand the tension anymore. He confessed a cooking obsession. The first thing I thought of was Mrs. Aaron covered in lasagna entrails and related the story of the lasagna recipe that she couldn’t seem to work out. He assured me, though, that it was a healthy and safe obsession and vowed to prove it to me sometime. As a trade-off, I confessed how much I hated order. “Mr. Aaron has OCD and he used to have me in charge of cleaning the house, to ‘earn my keep’, so he said,” I told Frost. “So, now I can’t stand it when things are neat and orderly. Clean, sure. You wouldn’t believe how disgusting that apartment was when I started renting it. But there has to be clutter. And low light with dark furnishings to make the room small and warm. I have books covering almost every surface of my apartment and sweaters and jeans and shit all over the place. It’s not comfortable if it’s not trashed.”
He laughed warmly and nodded. “I agree on making it small and comfortable. Warm, dark colors and all that. Hence the red all over and the curtains. I can’t let it get messy, though. It’s probably a cop thing. I have to be able to find everything.”
“Oh, I can find everything. But nobody else can,” I said with a wide smile, laughing quietly. Frost’s eyes were molten and passionately happy, his smile broad and almost triumphant. After a long moment of quiet, I looked down at my hands hesitantly. “I can’t remember the last time I laughed. Really laughed. I’m not sure I ever have.”
He touched my hand lightly, stroking the back of it and my fingers softly with his fingertips. “You must have. A person can’t go a lifetime without laughing.”
My smile slowly returned. “And now I know I haven’t.” I sighed softly and met his impassioned gaze curiously. “Frost, I don’t know how to repay you for what you’ve done for me. And don’t say you don’t ask payment. I know you don’t, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it.”
Eyes not leaving mine, he took a lock of my dark hair that had fallen across my face between his fingertips and tenderly tucked it behind my ear. My cheeks burned and I bit my lip again. “You’ve already repaid me. Hearing you laugh was worth all the hell you’ve put me through.”
I looked away sadly, answering, not for the first time and not for the last, “You cannot fix me. You may get close, but it’ll only be close enough that I’ll destroy you slowly. Trying to repair something that doesn’t exist will break you.”
He enveloped my hand in both of his and rested his head on my shoulder, whispering, “Darling, you keep forgetting that I’m already broken. I’m no stranger to pain.”
After a long moment, I whispered back, “What did you just call me?”
“That depends. Would it bother you if called you by a term of endearment? I won’t be hurt if you say ‘yes’. I know as a general rule you don’t do well with…it sounds bad to say positive emotion, but…”
“But it’s an accurate descriptor. I know.” I thought about it for a long time. It bothered me that he was getting so attached to me, partly because I didn’t understand why and partly also because I didn’t want him to get hurt. I was not looking for a white knight. They were either wolves in soldiers’ dress or too easily infected by the poison that was my touch. But the way the word ‘darling’ had rolled off his tongue…could it really be so wrong to want more? To hope? Did I believe in this man? Because I needed to work that out and make my decision clear to him before either of us got hurt by this unnatural…regard? Affection? Finally, I responded without the answer, “You scare me sometimes, Frost.”
He sighed despondently. “I know.” He released my hand gently and I looked to him in sadness. “Consider it forgotten,” he whispered, a pained understanding in his ice-blue eyes.
I tightened my eyes against the hollow feeling in my chest, the chill racing across my abandoned hand. I simply couldn’t win. This was exactly why I hadn’t attempted a relationship with anyone in seven years. I was not capable of balancing what I wanted and what I feared. I wanted to tell him that there was nothing in this world that I wanted more than for him to hold me and whisper sweet words to me. But honesty is contingent upon a feeling of sanctuary, of complete trust, and I could not permit myself to carry those emotions anymore. Not after the last time. So I said nothing, not even an apology or consolation. Not even an explanation. I just looked down at my once-more ice-cold hand in shame and wished that my life could be simpler. “Hey,” Frost muttered, touching my shoulder lightly. It was enough, though, even through my heavy sweater, to fill me with agony and longing. “Don’t shut down on me.”
Shaking my head, I answered, “It’s what I’m good at. I…I’m tired, Frost. And you look as bad as I do.”
“Not by a long shot,” he mumbled grimly under his breath. Before I could contradict him or apologize for the hell he had been through, though, he’d stood from where we sat on the couch together and taken the cardboard from the pizza to the trash, walking slowly and wearily, as though each step was painful. “You can have my room. I’ll stay out here on the couch.”
“Frost, that’s not necessary…”
“It’s not up for discussion,” he said quietly, rubbing his eyes.
I stood slowly, wrapping my arms tightly around myself, as I had when I rejected him in the library and at my apartment. It was not so much the protective stance it once was, though. In the past few days, it had become a way to hold myself together because each time I pushed him away, it felt like Mr. Aaron stabbing me in the side. “Frost….” He met my gaze as though against his will, unable to stop himself. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know, Poe. Get some sleep.”
TEN
It’s only a dream, only a dream, only a dream….
But it was never only a dream. It was my personal Hell.
Screams rattle my eardrums, reverberate inside my head, make my skull ache, make my ears and eyes bleed, and it takes me a moment to realize the truth. The screams are all my own. Everything is red, as it always seems to be, the carpet saturated in blood, the wallpaper peeling from the walls all around me it is so soaked in it, thick, heavy drops falling from the bloodied chandelier and landing like hail upon my head and shoulders. I kneel upon the sponge-like carpet, the blood soaking through my jeans and feeling like warm poison against my legs, bend over him, and clutch him to me. His brilliant blue eyes stare up at me vacantly as I lay his head on my lap. My wails are so loud and agonized…I feel searing pain in first my right ear and then the left as my eardrums burst, and then it all becomes silent, I can only feel the raw pain in my throat that tells me I am still screaming. Blood runs from the corners of his ice-blue eyes, staining pale white skin. It oozes from his ears, between his barely-parted gentle lips. He is bathed in his own blood; we both are now. It coats his chest, his arms, his legs, his throat, even his face now. And in the silence, I hear the whisper I have come to know so well these past few days, “Nevermore, Poe.”
Hands grip my shoulders, attempting to wrench me away from him. I cling to his limp body, my throat bleeding as I scream ever louder. Not again. Never again. Not now. And a lurid whisper I know like my own pulse. “Oh, how I’ve missed you…”
I am dragged off his body and I scream and beat at the Monster, thrashing with my arms and legs as he laughs at me…
“God damn it! Wake up!”
My eyes snapped open, wide and saucer-like, and darted about the foreign room, panicking, my heart and breath racing, and I screamed again and heard the scream this time, and continued to thrash and try to free myself…
Warm fingers twined into mine tightly, pinning me down, and I felt his weight settle over me as he straddled my stomach. “Poe! Stop! It’s gone! Poe, it’s me! Frost!”
The name felt like a sedative pouring through my veins. I stopped struggling and looked up into his terrified blue eyes in the darkness above me. “It’s me,” he whispered softly. “I’m here.”
