Post by Non Compos Mentis on Mar 29, 2013 19:19:50 GMT -5
Nights are short and strange this time of year. The sky begins to lighten earlier every morning, fighting back the darkness further and further with every passing day. Spring has sprung, or so the calendars would have us believe. The weather begs to differ. This is to say, when my feet touch the floorboards at five o’clock this peculiar morn, a shock of cold travels up my spine.
This is the first day for five months I can remember waking up in my own bed. The first day for five months I haven’t opened my eyes to see my own scarred body staring back from the bathroom mirror. The first day in five months I’ve felt normal, and that scares me.
Feet powered not by mystical, unknown forces but by a knowing brain and muscles hit the floor and push off. My body follows shortly behind and lumbers uneasily forward, aimed in the vague direction of the bathroom. Bleary eyed and minded I pad across the wooden floor and into the well fitted washroom, making immediately for the toilet with an intense feeling in my loins. It is not simply a need, or a want, but a calling to piss.
The rush of darkened yellow liquid into the porcelain bowl rivals Niagara for intensity, all is consumed by the torrent of urine. All noise evaporates behind the pouring of water. All sights fade into obscurity, allowing the splash of stale urine to become all encompassing. Nothing exists but the act of slashing.
My head tilts back, my eyes close, the only notion in my mind is the gradually slowing stream of water from my morning-hard equipment and the subconscious aim designed by repetition. With darkness surrounding my eyes the sensation of urination continues to lessen and the noise dims to a light trickle. Soon there is nothing but a drip. And then nothing at all.
For a brief, blissful moment there is only silence and the dark. There is a peace that has been lost in recent months. Normality is scary now, I should know it wouldn’t last long.
My eyes flip open. Everything looks, smells, tastes and feels familiar. Everything. Everything but that one spot in the very corner of my eye. The reflection of the bathroom mirror and the man standing there. The man that looks identical to me, except for that smile, that ever present maniacal grin. He remains in the corner of my eye and I try to blink him away, hoping he’ll fade away like a bad thought, a malicious image brought forth and banished into the mist.
Blink.
Still there. And there too is a high pitched screech, leaking ever so slowly into my mind. It avoids the ear altogether, instead tapping directly into synapses and neurons to pass on one simple message… “Join me.”
And so I do, feeling partly by choice but mostly it is the pull of the noise. That dentist’s drill, whirring away without rest or relent, calling me in. I turn, lifting my shorts back over my dangling cock, not giving it a shake. I feel the moistness of a piss-soaked spot on the front of my boxers. I don’t care. I keep walking forward slowly but without halt. And he waits, patiently, grinning.
I arrive and look into the mirror at this man, this other Sean Rhodes with his insane smile. Lifting his hand he reveals a small object nestles deep in the ridges of his palm, a lemon-yellow pill. He doesn’t have to say a word, no word needs to be said. There is only the thought of the months spent believing that I have been swallowing these pills, that I have been taking the medication and getting better. That I will have to swallow one more bitter pill.
His pock-marked face turns, his blood-shot nebulous eyes stare. Not at me, but metaphysically past the mirror, to the cabinet that hangs at its side.
I stare at it, I stare at him, I stare at it again.
Reaching out I grab the door of the cabinet and open it to reveal the inside and the tube of pills marked by the name ‘Clozapine’. In it are a few disks of compressed drug, built to de-fog the mind and cure mental disease. I hold the plastic tube and look back at the still-grinning Sean Rhodes, “Do I take one?” I ask, he doesn’t answer, merely looks with those hollow mad eyes. Still looking at the cabinet.
I don’t take a pill. I lay it down on the washing basin and I look around the cabinet again, looking for another source of interest for my doppelganger. Odds and ends, cotton wool, antiseptic, dressings, pain killers, nothing out of the ordinary. If not the pills, if not the content, then what is it the mirror-man wants?
He is interested in the cabinet itself, I think, and the mirror-man nods.
It is not attached to the wall by any permanent means, merely hung on a sturdy metal bracket that is easily overcome. With both hands I hold the flimsy cabinet and lift, hearing the click of metal on metal as the fitting slides off and the weight becomes heavier. It is only in my hands now, everything is in my hands as if a sense of finality surrounds this moment.
Lowering the cabinet to the floor I leave it propped against the wall and, very slowly, very carefully, I lift my head. I take my time through anticipation, maybe fear, maybe nothing. My eyes drift up the plain white wall until they encounter another tone. It’s the tone of pale wood, the kind used to make ply-wood partitions in cheap apartments. It is not covered in plaster, or paint, or protected by a second layer that would make up the wall of the bathroom. It is bare, a hole in the wall filled with only a two-by-four that holds the separate sheets together.
It takes a moment to register, beyond the normality of wood, the yellow dots. Dot after dot, spot after spot, and the realisation dawns.
Over one hundred pills, too many to count, stacked neatly in row upon row. Over one hundred days of medication missed. Over one hundred doses of insanity gone unchecked. The blackouts were a deception tactic, a trick to make me believe I have been obeying my treatment regimen, hiding that I have been out of control all alone.
Out of control… or merely under the control of something else?
In the absence of attention, the high pitched screech has grown to a scream and blisters through my mind once again. My eyes snap, unwillingly but compelled by forces not of my body, to the mirror again. There, where the mirror-man had been with his devious, grim, smile, is nothing.
“You see now.” It speaks, inside the one place I can never erase it, never not listen to it. “You see that I’m with you, always. All the pills, all the doctors, all the effort and time and I am still here.”
The mirror-man, inside my head, speaks and speaks with calm considered words. He knows me. He knows me more deeply than a best friend, more intimately than a lover. “Months ago you took one yellow slice of heaven, you swallowed one pill of relief, and I spat it back out. You didn’t know, all you experienced was the darkness. Every pill from then on was discarded, hidden for posterity and you were in the palm of my hand.”
All along it was a lie; the feeling of getting better, the progress toward a real life, the PCW World Championship… all built on the fickle hand of madness. I thought I drew with Grimm because of the weakness of madness, but did I only get that far because of the strength it awarded? I thought it clouded my thoughts enough for my opponents to get the better of me, but had it put me there for motivation? I’m becoming aware now, very aware, that for five long months I have been a puppet and my strings are worn out from being pulled.
“I tried to give you what you wanted. I tried to give you what it took to be a great champion, a great man, a great lover… I tried and at every turn I met defeat.” The voice reverberates in my brain, through my body, until I can no longer move. Not a hand. Not a finger. Not a hair. I am not in control, but then again, I haven’t been for a long time. “No longer.”
Leaving the cabinet propped against the wall, the pills open to the world as proof of misuse, I begin to move. Against my will I amble from the bathroom and proceed to add a couple of meagre items of clothing to my nearly-naked frame. A t-shirt, a pair of tattered jeans, socks and boots. Items of convenience, items to cover modesty because of where my limbs unwillingly drag me next. Toward the door, toward the world. As my lumbering body approached the exit my other-worldly hand reaches out, it grabs something and my head only just catches sight of the flash of gold. The PCW World Title, now being wrapped around my waist but my hands, against my wish.
“I know what you want. I know what you have always wanted. Not to be loved, or even liked. Not to have a normal life. You have wanted control over the people around you. You have been too weak to take it by force, instead willing to settle for ‘normal’ and call it happiness.” It pulls me forward and I try to pull back only to find it hopeless. Instead I listen to its words, not that I would be able to avoid them. “I will give you what you want, the ultimate control, the ultimate power.”
Out into the corridor I walk, leaving the door open behind me, not caring who would walk in. Out of the door, down the corridor, step by step descending the stairs. All in some supernatural trance, all without knowing the destination.
What do I want? What does it think I want? Through the haze that covers not only my mind but my entire boy I try to think and conjure the thought of where I could be going. Down I go to the lower floor of the apartment building, down toward to street and the people, the people who suspect nothing. No fan watching me over the last five months would have realised what evil sat so close beneath the surface, no fan would have realised their glorious World Champion was in the grip of such terror. How could they? Not even he knew.
What do I want? What does it think I want?
And then I hear it. As I clear the stairs and walk into a beam of sunlight from the entrance, so fresh and virtuous, I hear that voice. Not the one I fear, the one I love. “Hey you!” It exclaims, her tone full of unhindered love. Stood outside her door and seemingly about to unlock it, she turns away toward me and smiles.
Do I smile back? Yes. I do. My lips curl and I want to call out for her to run but the only words that come out are “Hey you too.” She comes closer and I move forward with open arms. Is that what I what? An embrace?
Her eyes move down and catch sight of the golden glisten around my waist, the PCW World Title belt hanging there, seemingly superfluous to the scene. I question it myself, wondering why the mirror-man would have grabbed it on the way to this encounter. Sometimes things are simple though. This thing, this entity, wants control and the belt is the symbol of that very attribute. It represents control, status… power. It means I’m the best PCW has to offer, better than ‘Showtime’ and Grimm, and that I deserve my place atop the pyramid. It means, to the thing inside me, the darkness welling up like a river moments from bursting its banks, that I am a god and I rule over everything I see.
It means I have control, ultimate control, over Rebekah. And that is when I see what he wants. He wants her. Totally, unrelentingly her.
The moment of despicable clarity comes as I take Rebekah in my arms, the arms that I feel every twitch of muscle and sinew within but cannot move. I can feel them closing around her, I can feel the sadistic grin etched onto my face, I can feel the still-moist spot on my boxer shorts being pushed out by what lies underneath.
Scream, I tell myself, I order myself , but I don’t listen. Staying quiet, my body moves its arms seamlessly up to Rebekah’s shoulders, lightly holding them. Sliding, slithering down her shapely figure my hands seek hers but never get that far. I tell myself to yell, cry, bawl, whimper… anything to tell her this isn’t right and to leave, but nothing comes.
I grip her wrists, tight like clamps immediately she pulls back. Moments earlier and she would be safe but not now. Never again. “Sean, that hurts…” she protests, but the hold does not break.
It moves swiftly, before she can react with anything more than a token gesture of resistance. I lift, I push, I slam her uncaringly into the wall of her own apartment with nothing but unbridled hate. Her hands are pinned to the surface, not way to fight back and she, like the prey of the sickest of predators, goes still. “You’re mine, and I’ll take from you what I want.” I say, the words of the monster, the darkness.
“What are you doing?” in a voice so fast and trembling it is hard to make out, she asks. She suspects, perhaps even knows, what is about to happen and tries to struggle but there is no give. The man she loves holds her against her will in the most vulnerable of places and presses against her roughly. His breath flutters her hair unevenly and burns her neck. “Whatever the fuck I want.” It whispers. It is no longer me, it cannot be.
There is no hesitance when he releases a hand, he knows it must be done to accomplish what he wants. It rifles down her body and to the bottom of her close-clinging skirt, yanking upwards with savage intent. But she is already struggling and she tries to turn. Using the other arm, it releases Rebekah’s second wrist and lurches forward, pressing the elbow into her back to push her into the wall even further.
The free hand wanders violently, pulling wildly upward to reveal what lies beneath her clothing. A pair of black panties, and her face turns to terror as it grins that horrific grin once more. The hand goes down again, down to where she wishes it will never go and she squirms. Her body writhes in an attempt to get away again and doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop as his fingers pull down the zip on his jeans and let free the urge he has been waiting for.
“Get off!” The scream echoes around the building, but nobody hears. The people are either asleep or don’t care, most likely the latter. In Buffalo nobody cares. Holding her in place he tries to job forward, to take from her what he wants, and one last time I try to call out from the darkness. I try to shout and so something, anything, to stop this act of repugnant violence.
I try to move. My arm slips from her back. My arm, not his. It moves and suddenly I find my voice for the briefest of moments, bellowing “STOP!” as loud as I can. I shout and a moment later an elbow finds my face, splattering my nose and forcing me backwards in a wave of thankfulness.
It stopped.
I stumble backwards, knocked into a daze by the strike, and hit the opposite wall. It wants to go forward again, to satisfy its urges. I tell it to stay, whatever power I have managing to hold it still for the time being. I try to talk and cannot, not because I’m being prevented from doing so, but merely I have no words for what just happened. My mouth opens, and I hear words. Not me. Not it.
“Get out.” She murmurs, half-hearted at first. She doesn’t understand what happened. She doesn’t understand why I’m not trying again. She doesn’t understand why the man she loved, maybe still loves, is cowering against a wall in the aftermath of a failed sexual assault. She doesn’t understand, but she knows one thing. I no longer have a trusted place under her roof. “Get out! Get the fuck out!”
I begin to move. My legs, my own muscles and tendons and sinews controlling them, push me slowly toward the door while still pressed into the wall.
It didn’t expect her to fight back, I think to myself. It underestimated Rebekah. When we met she had been a timid woman with inner strength but an endearing meekness. Her time beside me, helping pull me from the countless pits of darkness I fell down, had strengthened her and now she stood her ground and forced me to retreat, back to the door. Back into the unknown.
I don’t break eye contact. I don’t say a word. I don’t try to argue. There is nothing I can do to redeem what has been done whether I had a hand in it or not.
I reach the door and back out of it slowly, feeling the cold draught through the t-shirt. She looks shaken, but resilient, ready to strike again if I was to return. Pushing the door open I move out into the Buffalo morning air, the freezing feeling choking my lungs, and I take one last look at Rebekah.
“Sorry.” I gasp, unsure if she hears me, unsure if she cares. And I run. I run wherever I can and I don’t look back. I run into the streets with nothing. Everything in my life gone except a pair of socks, shoes, a t-shirt, a pair of jeans and the PCW World Title.
This is the first day for five months I can remember waking up in my own bed. The first day for five months I haven’t opened my eyes to see my own scarred body staring back from the bathroom mirror. The first day in five months I’ve felt normal, and that scares me.
Feet powered not by mystical, unknown forces but by a knowing brain and muscles hit the floor and push off. My body follows shortly behind and lumbers uneasily forward, aimed in the vague direction of the bathroom. Bleary eyed and minded I pad across the wooden floor and into the well fitted washroom, making immediately for the toilet with an intense feeling in my loins. It is not simply a need, or a want, but a calling to piss.
The rush of darkened yellow liquid into the porcelain bowl rivals Niagara for intensity, all is consumed by the torrent of urine. All noise evaporates behind the pouring of water. All sights fade into obscurity, allowing the splash of stale urine to become all encompassing. Nothing exists but the act of slashing.
My head tilts back, my eyes close, the only notion in my mind is the gradually slowing stream of water from my morning-hard equipment and the subconscious aim designed by repetition. With darkness surrounding my eyes the sensation of urination continues to lessen and the noise dims to a light trickle. Soon there is nothing but a drip. And then nothing at all.
For a brief, blissful moment there is only silence and the dark. There is a peace that has been lost in recent months. Normality is scary now, I should know it wouldn’t last long.
My eyes flip open. Everything looks, smells, tastes and feels familiar. Everything. Everything but that one spot in the very corner of my eye. The reflection of the bathroom mirror and the man standing there. The man that looks identical to me, except for that smile, that ever present maniacal grin. He remains in the corner of my eye and I try to blink him away, hoping he’ll fade away like a bad thought, a malicious image brought forth and banished into the mist.
Blink.
Still there. And there too is a high pitched screech, leaking ever so slowly into my mind. It avoids the ear altogether, instead tapping directly into synapses and neurons to pass on one simple message… “Join me.”
And so I do, feeling partly by choice but mostly it is the pull of the noise. That dentist’s drill, whirring away without rest or relent, calling me in. I turn, lifting my shorts back over my dangling cock, not giving it a shake. I feel the moistness of a piss-soaked spot on the front of my boxers. I don’t care. I keep walking forward slowly but without halt. And he waits, patiently, grinning.
I arrive and look into the mirror at this man, this other Sean Rhodes with his insane smile. Lifting his hand he reveals a small object nestles deep in the ridges of his palm, a lemon-yellow pill. He doesn’t have to say a word, no word needs to be said. There is only the thought of the months spent believing that I have been swallowing these pills, that I have been taking the medication and getting better. That I will have to swallow one more bitter pill.
His pock-marked face turns, his blood-shot nebulous eyes stare. Not at me, but metaphysically past the mirror, to the cabinet that hangs at its side.
I stare at it, I stare at him, I stare at it again.
Reaching out I grab the door of the cabinet and open it to reveal the inside and the tube of pills marked by the name ‘Clozapine’. In it are a few disks of compressed drug, built to de-fog the mind and cure mental disease. I hold the plastic tube and look back at the still-grinning Sean Rhodes, “Do I take one?” I ask, he doesn’t answer, merely looks with those hollow mad eyes. Still looking at the cabinet.
I don’t take a pill. I lay it down on the washing basin and I look around the cabinet again, looking for another source of interest for my doppelganger. Odds and ends, cotton wool, antiseptic, dressings, pain killers, nothing out of the ordinary. If not the pills, if not the content, then what is it the mirror-man wants?
He is interested in the cabinet itself, I think, and the mirror-man nods.
It is not attached to the wall by any permanent means, merely hung on a sturdy metal bracket that is easily overcome. With both hands I hold the flimsy cabinet and lift, hearing the click of metal on metal as the fitting slides off and the weight becomes heavier. It is only in my hands now, everything is in my hands as if a sense of finality surrounds this moment.
Lowering the cabinet to the floor I leave it propped against the wall and, very slowly, very carefully, I lift my head. I take my time through anticipation, maybe fear, maybe nothing. My eyes drift up the plain white wall until they encounter another tone. It’s the tone of pale wood, the kind used to make ply-wood partitions in cheap apartments. It is not covered in plaster, or paint, or protected by a second layer that would make up the wall of the bathroom. It is bare, a hole in the wall filled with only a two-by-four that holds the separate sheets together.
It takes a moment to register, beyond the normality of wood, the yellow dots. Dot after dot, spot after spot, and the realisation dawns.
Over one hundred pills, too many to count, stacked neatly in row upon row. Over one hundred days of medication missed. Over one hundred doses of insanity gone unchecked. The blackouts were a deception tactic, a trick to make me believe I have been obeying my treatment regimen, hiding that I have been out of control all alone.
Out of control… or merely under the control of something else?
In the absence of attention, the high pitched screech has grown to a scream and blisters through my mind once again. My eyes snap, unwillingly but compelled by forces not of my body, to the mirror again. There, where the mirror-man had been with his devious, grim, smile, is nothing.
“You see now.” It speaks, inside the one place I can never erase it, never not listen to it. “You see that I’m with you, always. All the pills, all the doctors, all the effort and time and I am still here.”
The mirror-man, inside my head, speaks and speaks with calm considered words. He knows me. He knows me more deeply than a best friend, more intimately than a lover. “Months ago you took one yellow slice of heaven, you swallowed one pill of relief, and I spat it back out. You didn’t know, all you experienced was the darkness. Every pill from then on was discarded, hidden for posterity and you were in the palm of my hand.”
All along it was a lie; the feeling of getting better, the progress toward a real life, the PCW World Championship… all built on the fickle hand of madness. I thought I drew with Grimm because of the weakness of madness, but did I only get that far because of the strength it awarded? I thought it clouded my thoughts enough for my opponents to get the better of me, but had it put me there for motivation? I’m becoming aware now, very aware, that for five long months I have been a puppet and my strings are worn out from being pulled.
“I tried to give you what you wanted. I tried to give you what it took to be a great champion, a great man, a great lover… I tried and at every turn I met defeat.” The voice reverberates in my brain, through my body, until I can no longer move. Not a hand. Not a finger. Not a hair. I am not in control, but then again, I haven’t been for a long time. “No longer.”
Leaving the cabinet propped against the wall, the pills open to the world as proof of misuse, I begin to move. Against my will I amble from the bathroom and proceed to add a couple of meagre items of clothing to my nearly-naked frame. A t-shirt, a pair of tattered jeans, socks and boots. Items of convenience, items to cover modesty because of where my limbs unwillingly drag me next. Toward the door, toward the world. As my lumbering body approached the exit my other-worldly hand reaches out, it grabs something and my head only just catches sight of the flash of gold. The PCW World Title, now being wrapped around my waist but my hands, against my wish.
“I know what you want. I know what you have always wanted. Not to be loved, or even liked. Not to have a normal life. You have wanted control over the people around you. You have been too weak to take it by force, instead willing to settle for ‘normal’ and call it happiness.” It pulls me forward and I try to pull back only to find it hopeless. Instead I listen to its words, not that I would be able to avoid them. “I will give you what you want, the ultimate control, the ultimate power.”
Out into the corridor I walk, leaving the door open behind me, not caring who would walk in. Out of the door, down the corridor, step by step descending the stairs. All in some supernatural trance, all without knowing the destination.
What do I want? What does it think I want? Through the haze that covers not only my mind but my entire boy I try to think and conjure the thought of where I could be going. Down I go to the lower floor of the apartment building, down toward to street and the people, the people who suspect nothing. No fan watching me over the last five months would have realised what evil sat so close beneath the surface, no fan would have realised their glorious World Champion was in the grip of such terror. How could they? Not even he knew.
What do I want? What does it think I want?
And then I hear it. As I clear the stairs and walk into a beam of sunlight from the entrance, so fresh and virtuous, I hear that voice. Not the one I fear, the one I love. “Hey you!” It exclaims, her tone full of unhindered love. Stood outside her door and seemingly about to unlock it, she turns away toward me and smiles.
Do I smile back? Yes. I do. My lips curl and I want to call out for her to run but the only words that come out are “Hey you too.” She comes closer and I move forward with open arms. Is that what I what? An embrace?
Her eyes move down and catch sight of the golden glisten around my waist, the PCW World Title belt hanging there, seemingly superfluous to the scene. I question it myself, wondering why the mirror-man would have grabbed it on the way to this encounter. Sometimes things are simple though. This thing, this entity, wants control and the belt is the symbol of that very attribute. It represents control, status… power. It means I’m the best PCW has to offer, better than ‘Showtime’ and Grimm, and that I deserve my place atop the pyramid. It means, to the thing inside me, the darkness welling up like a river moments from bursting its banks, that I am a god and I rule over everything I see.
It means I have control, ultimate control, over Rebekah. And that is when I see what he wants. He wants her. Totally, unrelentingly her.
The moment of despicable clarity comes as I take Rebekah in my arms, the arms that I feel every twitch of muscle and sinew within but cannot move. I can feel them closing around her, I can feel the sadistic grin etched onto my face, I can feel the still-moist spot on my boxer shorts being pushed out by what lies underneath.
Scream, I tell myself, I order myself , but I don’t listen. Staying quiet, my body moves its arms seamlessly up to Rebekah’s shoulders, lightly holding them. Sliding, slithering down her shapely figure my hands seek hers but never get that far. I tell myself to yell, cry, bawl, whimper… anything to tell her this isn’t right and to leave, but nothing comes.
I grip her wrists, tight like clamps immediately she pulls back. Moments earlier and she would be safe but not now. Never again. “Sean, that hurts…” she protests, but the hold does not break.
It moves swiftly, before she can react with anything more than a token gesture of resistance. I lift, I push, I slam her uncaringly into the wall of her own apartment with nothing but unbridled hate. Her hands are pinned to the surface, not way to fight back and she, like the prey of the sickest of predators, goes still. “You’re mine, and I’ll take from you what I want.” I say, the words of the monster, the darkness.
“What are you doing?” in a voice so fast and trembling it is hard to make out, she asks. She suspects, perhaps even knows, what is about to happen and tries to struggle but there is no give. The man she loves holds her against her will in the most vulnerable of places and presses against her roughly. His breath flutters her hair unevenly and burns her neck. “Whatever the fuck I want.” It whispers. It is no longer me, it cannot be.
There is no hesitance when he releases a hand, he knows it must be done to accomplish what he wants. It rifles down her body and to the bottom of her close-clinging skirt, yanking upwards with savage intent. But she is already struggling and she tries to turn. Using the other arm, it releases Rebekah’s second wrist and lurches forward, pressing the elbow into her back to push her into the wall even further.
The free hand wanders violently, pulling wildly upward to reveal what lies beneath her clothing. A pair of black panties, and her face turns to terror as it grins that horrific grin once more. The hand goes down again, down to where she wishes it will never go and she squirms. Her body writhes in an attempt to get away again and doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop as his fingers pull down the zip on his jeans and let free the urge he has been waiting for.
“Get off!” The scream echoes around the building, but nobody hears. The people are either asleep or don’t care, most likely the latter. In Buffalo nobody cares. Holding her in place he tries to job forward, to take from her what he wants, and one last time I try to call out from the darkness. I try to shout and so something, anything, to stop this act of repugnant violence.
I try to move. My arm slips from her back. My arm, not his. It moves and suddenly I find my voice for the briefest of moments, bellowing “STOP!” as loud as I can. I shout and a moment later an elbow finds my face, splattering my nose and forcing me backwards in a wave of thankfulness.
It stopped.
I stumble backwards, knocked into a daze by the strike, and hit the opposite wall. It wants to go forward again, to satisfy its urges. I tell it to stay, whatever power I have managing to hold it still for the time being. I try to talk and cannot, not because I’m being prevented from doing so, but merely I have no words for what just happened. My mouth opens, and I hear words. Not me. Not it.
“Get out.” She murmurs, half-hearted at first. She doesn’t understand what happened. She doesn’t understand why I’m not trying again. She doesn’t understand why the man she loved, maybe still loves, is cowering against a wall in the aftermath of a failed sexual assault. She doesn’t understand, but she knows one thing. I no longer have a trusted place under her roof. “Get out! Get the fuck out!”
I begin to move. My legs, my own muscles and tendons and sinews controlling them, push me slowly toward the door while still pressed into the wall.
It didn’t expect her to fight back, I think to myself. It underestimated Rebekah. When we met she had been a timid woman with inner strength but an endearing meekness. Her time beside me, helping pull me from the countless pits of darkness I fell down, had strengthened her and now she stood her ground and forced me to retreat, back to the door. Back into the unknown.
I don’t break eye contact. I don’t say a word. I don’t try to argue. There is nothing I can do to redeem what has been done whether I had a hand in it or not.
I reach the door and back out of it slowly, feeling the cold draught through the t-shirt. She looks shaken, but resilient, ready to strike again if I was to return. Pushing the door open I move out into the Buffalo morning air, the freezing feeling choking my lungs, and I take one last look at Rebekah.
“Sorry.” I gasp, unsure if she hears me, unsure if she cares. And I run. I run wherever I can and I don’t look back. I run into the streets with nothing. Everything in my life gone except a pair of socks, shoes, a t-shirt, a pair of jeans and the PCW World Title.
