A few missing arteries

This was my first entry for a writing challenge. The theme was a valentine's day story of beautiful love or destructive love.

A few missing arteries

The last thing I heard was the sound of that mirror breaking,”clink-clang” the sound of glass breaking was always unbearable for my ears, although somehow fitting, hearing that sound and marking my last encounter with him. But this conclusion means nothing without the whole story, so let's go back just a few minutes to when I thought I knew what having a bad day means.

I just got home from my part-time job. My parents were still out working, “good” I thought “they can't see the tears and I don't have to get creative about what happened”

I get up to my room and slam the door. I felt like breaking or forsaking with no room for contemplating anything and it just so happened that HE was there, waiting as always to do exactly what I didn't want to, It was one of the things that always made me curious about him, how he could always get into my house without a key or breaking through.

-Sup. He said in hes cheerful way. “Why the wet face? And there it was, his mean compassion ever-present, ready for a quick jab in a soft spot, and I have so many he didn't have to aim most of the time.

-Really? I haven't even taken my hoodie off yet.

-Looks like someone got dumped... again. He always had this grin on his face when he was talking about my breakups. Understandable, he was a jellos punk, always wanting me for himself.

-Look, I don't want to do this now so don't push me i'm in such a bad place right now it's almost a new experience. Fun fact: it was true.

-I know. The smirk never left his face.

-Good.

I thought I was gonna get the peace I needed, but I knew better.

-5 days this time, a personal best if i'm not mistaking.

-Shut up! Just shut up! It's your fault that I can't hold on to anyone, because sooner or later I feel the need to compare them to you in the most unfair way. I get mad at them because they can't read my mind the way you can or some other stupid thing that you do, witch I can't stand yet I need it to be there because that's the only thing I recognize as love. I never realised up until right now but you poisoned me everyday, with your vindictive logic, making me see foes in everyone and hate everything that wasn't known or familiar so you could keep me to yourself like a bottled echo. Your life's meaning spewed from the damage I took from my early days and out of those craters you came, taking the shape of my ideal friend and what I thought was nice and good, and under that guise you mined at my heart and mind, and after digging for so long you finally struck gold.

Well congratulations, but that treasure is one that I wont give up, but thanks for doing the work, if you wouldn't have tried so hard to find it and hide it I wouldn't knew it had existed. The treasure was of course my heart and with each beat it demanded it's freedom. “thum-thum thum-thum” it's kinda scary to hear it so clear but I was no longer willing to share it with someone who clearly rejected the one thing that should matter when love is involved. I should have done this the first time I met you, but here we are 10 years later and i'm ready to cut you down to size and out of my life.

He gave me the most piercing look any being can give another, cold, like he was looking at me from the bottom of a frozen lake and burning, so intensely you could almost hear the raging fire consuming him and me and the current conversation, it felt like hundreds of lighthouses stopped in one moment and focused their lights on me, inside me, to reveal all my scars and weak points, every memory I had that he was there and every moment he wasn't, the comparison having the sole purpose of clarity, revealing the fact that when he wasn't there for me I got hurt. Fear was there, but lately I was afraid whether he was there or not. Fear became a permanent tenant in those days.

Of course he didn't need to see them, he knew all of them having a hand in making some of them himself, through the advice he gave, through the view he imposed on me, it was unforgiving towards the rest of the world and unforgiving to me.

Yet, one by one he mended them, when I got hurt he was there to make it less hurtful, but in time his care became laced with anger and contempt for me it seemed that my own fragility that once drew him in and gave him voice to speak to me, was now the single reason he made contact, but only to remind me of it and to mock my latest fissure in it.

Thinking back to all of it I wanted to ask him one thing, what did change that made him hate so fully that which before inspired kindness in him? Was it my inability to change or the fact that he changed for me and he resented that I reminded him of something that he lost for me? Was it revenge he was after? I did not yet know but I suspected that the answer, should I ever figure it out will only bring me sorrow, for I am certain that somehow it was a consequence of my life, or lack of knowing how to live it that drove him in this one lane road.

-Listen here short, fuzzy and chubby, don't you dare blame one god damn thing on me. I didn't make you see me that way, I didn't want for you to need me for your sanity, I didn't even needed you to live. You think this life is something to be desired? Constantly playing mother and savior for someone who is to far gone in his fantasies that his real life is a chore for someone else? To witness all the misery coming your way and not being able to protect you from it because you always held me back, fearing not to be seen as the villain but always letting me take the hit and expecting understanding and appreciation for it!?

The kind of fool you are is almost criminal, for you and everyone who comes in contact with you.

True, I found it fascinating and so endearing at first but through the years the cost for keeping you in that state grew, and I grew tired of paying your bill, the cost in your emotional cuts became to high for anyone to cover. Under siege from your own life.

He shook his head in what I thought it was regret but I would later find out it was disbelief.

Remember how it started? That first day when you started to fear being alone and seeing that you were so avoided by the other children and looked upon with suspicion by the adults you started to step back. It was then that you started to hate rainy days, it rained when he pushed you away, you took a gesture meant to define personal space like a declaration of nullification. Not even you expected such a simple gesture to affect you so much. And then as you were staying on your porch crying so slowly, and that look, the look that had that question that you never wanted to know the answer to,”What did I do wrong?” You were quite the egocentric being even back then thinking that it was something you did, he scoffed.

But I came to you and I remember wanting to make you happy, and back then it was so easy, a joke or a hug or a silly thing would buy so much ease for you. And after some time I discovered how fragile you were and what a delicate world you fashioned for yourself that held all in such beauty of an esoteric kind. I remember you describing it to me like “the daylight is the benevolence and kindness from you and all of the people who remember how to do it, wouldn't that make the sunrise a more interesting and appreciated event, knowing that your actions made it possible to see and feel warm and have a new chance for a new way of doing anything?” You said while smiling...

He changed his tone a little, and his eyes looked past me as if he was remembering those days with feelings other than resentment for the path it lead us both.

-I can't believe you remember that. I said sincerely surprised.

-I know what you know. Haven't you figured that out? Just now you wanted to say that you always had wings for gliding not for flying. Hmpf! He scoffed. You really like that poetic crap don't you.

I looked at him and for the first time I settled on asking him how he did that. How he seemed to see inside my head. I always felt what he was doing was the reverse of an introspection, with all the focus and none of the impartiality.

-How do you do that?

-Do what?

-Know what I want to say before I say it.

He remained silent for a prolonged moment, while I started to get that cold tightening feeling you get in your chest when you know something bad is about to happen, and right before he started talking I knew that what he was about to say will make so much sense in the worst way and it will change everything. It was as if just for this one time I was the one seeing his thoughts, and I already heard this conversation that held the promise of an end. For whom the end was coming I honestly didn't know.

-How do I look to you? He said plainly, and in a fleeting moment I thought I saw in his eyes the first look he gave me so many years ago a look of...pity which I mistook for compassion that was so fast that I just now remembered he gave me.

-You know how you look. You look like you always look. Is that a new scar on your lip? I said amused. I'm guessing another win for you and another punk learned a lesson.

It's true that he wasn't that smooth, clean and nice guy he was at first but I assumed that being the warrior type guy he was, it just came with the territory, a broken nose, a chipped tooth, scars on his face and... a burn on his neck? When did that get there? I could swear that wasn't there when we started talking.

-Sieges are a bad strategy for living Phill. You may be safe for a while but the walls have to take the damage and walls crack and brake and get scratched. Always from within, when the end get's near.

-What? Was all I could say. That little cold spot inside me was growing. My answer was drawing closer.

-When was the last time we went out, to do something? Or anywhere else other than this room? How do I keep getting in even though the house is locked? Why do I get a new injury every time you register one, physical or emotional. And maybe the most important and the most simple one of all... What's my name?

The answer was now ready to take form, like a torrent of dread the truth, was tugging at my own denial, demanding entrance in my very being in order to usher my future, a future I then realised would be one without him. My brave strive for independence was going to leave me a plain plain. Something, yet not really anything.

-We went to the... last week I know we... Slowly, so slowly the thick transparencey and the make believe paradise that I wrapped myself in, dissolved, and at the hands of the glimmering effervescence of truth, I knew.

-Who are you? I asked, already feeling like I lost something from deep within.

-You didn't even bothered to give me a name. He said while smiling. Even children name their imaginary friends Phill, although, i'm not your average imaginary friend am I?

I took a step back. I wanted to run. I wanted to cut my ears off. I wanted to scream forever only so I would not hear him.

-But h-h-how?... For so long, didn't anybody notice your absence? My family?

-A very rare form of dementia caused by emotional trauma. The part of your brain that is responsible for creativity and empathy has some faulty connections to the other parts of the brain, i'm kinda like a filter that allows you to experience the world, making sure not to let to much in.

As for your family, they indulged you because I was the only positive thing that was keeping you functional. They were worried about me, but they were scared of what would happen if they would confront you about me.

Before I came, you were alive just because you breathed. They even meet with the school staff to convince them to humor you about me, even though only here was I given a voice and a body. For a time I wondered if this was done because you were cruel. Children can be so cruel in their playfulness.

But I knew better, the pain you inflict on me and on yourself has its source from your naivete, that long overdue innocence you went to war with every law, instinct and social convention in order to keep.

That's what gave me life, that's what I wanted to protect and that's what I fell in love with then, on that rainy day, and after a while I started loving all of you. I look forward to your return, and in your room we spent hours talking and playing, having adventures and trying to see where the future was taking us. But as the years past you became smaller, more out of touch with everything, even me, sinking carelessly in a drowsy apathy that felt like bliss to you. And lately that's what I wanted to punish, bully and harass out of you.

I wanted your life. I still do in fact. When you infused me with all those necessary qualities for living: courage, determination, ruthlessness, aggression and the endurance that came with your way of seeing things, as long as patience is provided the world can be as I wish it, you made me a better person to live your life than you are.

I stood there hearing all that he was saying and his words were like millions of puzzle pieces for every frame of the movie he was making me remember.

-I... think I felt I was loosing that war. I said after the waves of memories calmed a bit.

I remember wanting someone strong to come and help me, to save me from the world that I rejected because it rejected me, I wanted someone who would keep me safe in this world while I was living in mine. I needed someone who would appreciate it and me but not be a part of it. I think I offered as a sacrifice the life that could have been lived here in the form of you for the one that i created for myself.

I took a few steps forward and touched his face. But the clashes of what is and what I wish it was became more violent. I moved my hand over his scars, each one of them was a punch, a kick, a form of hate from the outside I didn't have to go through, each one a mark he didn't have to have. He closed his eyes and let me touch him, it was like we were back when we loved each other.

So, what do we do now?

He stood in front of me with his strong demeanor like the unyielding protector I made him to be.He sighed.

-You're going to end it. Today.

-How, did they found a cure or something? I said, trying not to think about what I was about to do and the colossal impact it was going to have on me. I will no longer have a refuge in his arms or in his words.

-No, it's an improvement. You reached a point in your life where you feel you want the real thing unfiltered, I felt it too hence the hostility towards you, but we can't keep things the way they are now. I don't want it and you don't either. So i'm going to return back inside your mind and I'm afraid it's going to have to hurt a bit more than you would like. You know reconciliation is a painful experience.

This will not be a loss, you're not going to lose what I am. I will return back to being the sum of those particular traits that were outraged at the sight of hurting and your decision of denying them action.

-Pain. It's always have to hurt doesn't it? I think someone once said that pain is the currency of life. I recall thinking “what a load of bull crap”. Ok, how do we do this?

He walked up to me, and gave me a bear hug. Those always made me feel better. He would pick me up and twirl with me up above his head. When he put me down he was his young self again. His scars were gone, and he had those young eyes, absent of hate and pain, only wonderment remained.

I stayed with him in my arms a while longer, and just as I was going to ask him why he changed back, he disappeared in my last blink of the eyes. I only had a second to feel sad before the mother of all headaches payed me a visit. He was right, all the time he lived, the separation and the set of actions he would have made regarding my life, came back to me like a flash fire in my mind.

I grabbed my head in agony. A raging volcano was behind my eyelids I started to wobble furiously in my room. Not the best idea seeing I had a big mirror next to my wardrobe, but it's hard to keep balance when a grenade went off inside your head.

As I was flinging my head around the room, I smashed through my mirror face first. It felt like a boiling hot shower washed over my face and after the impact I fell down on the floor and deeper still in my mind. The sound of the mirror breaking was the last thing I heard before I succumbed to the depth that was clawing at me from below, the very last thought I had was “i bet im gonna have scars on my face just like he had”

“Beep, beep, beep, beeeeeeep”. I feel so heavy and I can't open my eyes. That digital beep could raise the dead, I swear, I try to get past the beeping and listen to the room to see if anybody is there.

-Hello? I sounded so weak and rough, guess its been a while since I had a drink.

-Phill? Phill?! Nathan, go get a nurse, the doctor, anybody I think he's awake!

That would be mom. Okay, so i'm in the hospital and I can't open my eyes. Before I had time to ask a question I hear a door opening and some ruckus ensues as my parents start the verbal barrage of the medical staff.

-Mr. and Mrs. Eldrich please calm down, the doctor said. Phill, Phill can you hear me? The doctor asked me.

I said yes in my mind but I didn't hear me say it. A few seconds later I hear my voice: Yes.

I don't remember having speech lag before.

-It's not speech lag a voice said, and I wish I could say it was unfamiliar but I knew the second I heard it that it was him.

You gave it your best Phill, and for a moment I thought you would make it but I guess your better side was better than you or I thought.

I remained entombed inside his words for what it seemed like infinite moments ignoring the fact that a conversation was ongoing with my family, the doctor and my voice were participating.

I don't know how much time passed since that, for me, from that day nothing has changed. I remember waking in my room, in my bed with him next to me looking again with that wonderment he had when I first met him.

-The fact you survived is the incredible part here, not my little switcheroo trick.

-You took my place? I asked with tears already forming in my eyes.

-Yes. That's all he said about it. Till the end of our lives he never said anything else.

I cried, I screamed, I begged but nothing was added to that conversation. Ocasionaly we meet in our room, he looks at me and I look back at him but words never come. As for me, all that remained was my enchanted world to torture me everyday with wondrous figments, far away, in places that couldn't exist and most wouldn't not want them to, but always keeping me inside my room, anchoring me there and denying me full absence. The only times I could return to the world were when I would stare through my window and see through his eyes fractures of a stolen life put to better use by him. But as the years passed we both realised that living is not as easy as he thought and dream worlds are not that wonderous as I hoped. So I existed there, not really trapped, not truly free. The result of an emotion misunderstood on both sides.

Love. I hate it.

The end.