36
ALEXA KING
-Present-

Christopher Shaw's house
October 12, 2018
9:09 p.m.

CHRISTOPHER IS BENT OVER the windowsill, his head poking outside as a cigarette hangs loosely in between his lips. Smoke billows all around him, forming a gray cloud that creates a foggy image of him. From the doorway, I can make out the outline of his lean body. Over there, where he's unaware of my presence, stands a shadow of a boy I thought I knew. My eyes shift instinctively to the only flash of color in this portrait --- his dirty blonde hair that's covered by shards of glass that glint against the moonlight.

The room is covered by a thick blanket of complete darkness. The items that compose his room become mere shapes and figures that don't seem to be part of a whole. Christopher himself becomes an unmoving shadow that blends with the overall dark atmosphere in this room. In this moment, he's not a person. He's one with the darkness.

The full moon hangs on an otherwise starless night, its silver light bathing Christopher and forming a strip on the floor behind him. Despite the cigarette smoke that circulates around him, the sharp bulging of his back muscles makes it evident that his torso is completely naked. Some gray sweatpants hang low on his hips, revealing the beginning of his V-line. As I lurk in the shadows and admire the body I know so well by heart, a soft sigh escapes my lips.

The sight of him creates a reaction on my brain that travels to my entire body. There's a warmness growing in my stomach, reaching my heart and dispersing throughout my body. It's a bittersweet mixture of dread and longing and love and yearning and desire, mingling together to become one. They coexist inside of me, but the man who triggers this duality is the villain in Melody's recent letter. This is the effect he has on me. It's a fuzzy, little feeling that flutters in my stomach and makes me dizzy.

I place my hand on the doorframe, balancing my body so as to not fall face-first to the floor. It doesn't matter what Melody says about him. My body still reacts the same to him. In my eyes, he's the same Christopher who's been helping me with her murder; the same guy I've been in love with for the past four years.

It's not until now I realize that I miss him like crazy. While he went to God-knows-where and disappeared from my life for a few days, I felt as though I would never see him again. Although he promised he would be back by my side, there was always the fear of losing him forever. But here he is, so close to me, so close to reach. He seems like a perfect illusion, one that will disappear if I don't grab him soon enough.

I don't want him to slip away ever again, lost in the depths of my memory, becoming a figure of my imagination; like someone who's too good to be true.

He's a great liar. It's easy to be fooled by him. What you see on the outside doesn't match what resides on the inside.

Melody's words appear to me in her voice, as if she had the opportunity to whisper them in my ear before her death. It's certainly a wake-up call, a burst out of my dream-like state. I'm not here to admire his beauty or ponder over my love for him. I came to confront him, to hear his side of the story.

"Alexa, you don't have to hide from me," he says, his voice sounding like a grave echo in this silent room. His voice doesn't hold that playful tone that comes along with the double meaning of those words. Instead, it sounds tired and broken.

My heart begins to beat uncontrollably against my chest, the automatic reaction of him noticing me. Christopher looks back at me over his naked shoulder, his blue eyes finding mine like they always do.

There's something different in them, though. No longer do they hold that carefree, playful glint that distinguished them and set them apart from everyone else's. They're still shining, but that's just the surface of unshed tears. Heavy bags swell under them, and there's a silent sadness to them that makes my heart ache.

What happened to my Christopher?

Then, as if appearing to me for the first time tonight, I notice them --- the purple bruise swelling on his eye, the pink one turning darker on the corner of his lips, the black and blue ones dotting around his entire torso. He looks away, turning his attention to a place that seems to reside in his memory, and leaves me in the dark.

As I see him there, all battered and broken, a mere shadow of who he used to be, I begin to think that suspecting him is absurd. I rush to his side, like I always do, and enter the silver light that bathes him. My dark skin shimmers under the moonlight, while his bruises darken against it.

"Christopher," I whisper, his name a breathy secret of the night.

He doesn't respond, doesn't even look at me. His hand trembles as he takes the cigarette back to his lips. His knuckles are bruised a red hue, while his fingers are covered with cuts and splinters. The sight of him now breaks my heart. For the first time ever, I understand what's happening on his inside. It's manifesting itself on his usually perfect exterior.

But, if that's true, it means that his perfect exterior is residing on his inside. It doesn't look like he feels perfect, like the masterpiece he is. It's like his interior is multitasking between showing itself to me for the first time and amplifying his never-ending pain. The bruises that dot on his body will heal eventually, but I can't say the same about his inside wounds. Who's going to cure those? Is there ever healing for a broken soul?

I can't love you!

"Who did this to you?" I whisper in his ear, barely containing the quiver in my voice.

There's no reply, no movement, no signs that he heard me at all; no signs of life. It's like I'm not even here, just an echo of a reality that doesn't seem real enough to him anymore. I see a broken shell, but not the soul I fell in love with. Perhaps this new Christopher only exists on the nights where he hurts the most, both physically and mentally. Perhaps this is a part of him that he hasn't shown me out of fear of rejection, a side I can learn to love.

I pass the tips of my cold fingers on the bruises dotting on his back. They're warm against my feathery touch, warmer than the healthy patches of his skin. He winces --- a reaction, a sign that confirms that I'm here with him --- but doesn't flinch away from my touch. My eyes begin to fill with tears, the bruises becoming blurry spots of colors. Despite their abundant presence in my eyes, they don't come out. It feels like they're going to be frozen forever in them, a crystalized luster that symbolizes my own everlasting pain.

"Who did this to you?" I mumble, steading my voice this time.

Christopher puts the cigarette out on the windowsill, where five --- six, eight, ten? --- other cigarettes already rest. He turns to me with his eyes casted downwards, resembling an embarrassed little boy. From this angle, I can see the pink turning to red on the corner of his lips and the purple on his eye swelling to a lump. There is black dotting on his collarbones and red scratches on his chest, the sides of his stomach.

What happened to my Christopher?

When he finally opens his mouth to talk, I notice his split lip. His once white teeth are covered in a dark red, letting me know that there are also internal injuries.

"I..." He looks around without searching for something specific and doesn't finish his sentence. Instead, his bottom lip trembles until he can't hold it in much longer. He breaks down in front of me, just like he did in front of the diner, and lets me in once again. This is the second time I see him crying. Even like this, he's still beautiful; a piece of heaven on earth.

The words DEPRESSION and ANXIETY come to mind, big bold letters that didn't mean anything until tonight.

Christopher clutches his chest in an attempt to search for air, his nails digging into his skin, creating pink indentations. The tears come out of his tightly shut eyes in streams, the transparency in one of them turning to a light pink. Here, in front of me, stands a broken boy waiting for someone to pick up his pieces and glue him back together. I want to be that person for him, but I don't know where to start. What should I heal first? The pain that resides inside of him or the abuse done to his body?

It feels like someone is squeezing my heart, draining it from all its blood and leaving it squashed, shattered all over a void. My stomach bubbles with a familiar hot fury, a side of my darkness that's willing to kill anyone that hurts the people I love. It appeared for the first time after I found my mother, returned after I found Melody, and is reviving right now as I see the boy I love dying while being alive. I guess it's true what they say --- when you're in love with someone, you feel everything they feel.

I drop my bag to the floor, leaving Melody and the accusatory letter behind, and hug Christopher. His body trembles against mine, while his shoulders shake as he continues to cry. The pain-stricken moans that leave his pretty bruised lips are getting louder, gasps for air sounding a little more desperate. Tears are staining my white t-shirt, but I don't care. If letting it all out on me makes him feel any better, than I'll be whatever he wants me to be --- a shoulder to cry on, a pillow to hug, a friend who doesn't demand answers, but instead comforts him in silence. I can be that to him.

I'm always watching. I'm everywhere. I'm omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. Be careful. You wouldn't want to end up like Melody, would you?

You can play detective all you want, but if you find me, you're as good as dead.

My throat constricts, the pain becoming too unbearable. What if U kept his promise and took it out on Christopher? What if these bruises are the result of an attempt on his life? A shiver runs down my spine, cold and ominous. The sensation resembles tree branches scratching against my back or long nails pealing my skin off.

It should've been me, not him. If only I'd listen when he told me to confess everything to the police, this wouldn't have happened. It's my fault. This is another flaw I have to bury deep within me.

I bite my bottom lip to prevent from screaming. "It's okay. I'm here," I whisper as I stroke his hair, shards of glass falling to the floor. "You're safe here. You can talk to me."

There's a moment of silence after that. The cold wind blows inside the room, blue curtains moving to its unusual rhythm. The atmosphere turns darker when Christopher begins to calm down. A piercing silence created by his loud cries settles in, a substitute for his pain. We're exposed now, mere subjects to the infinite night. I look at the full moon and can't find beauty in it. There's something somber about its light tonight.

"I don't want to die," he whispers in my ear, sending more shivers down my spine.

All the hairs in my body stand on end, goosebumps prickling my skin. My body goes rigid for a moment, eyes growing wide. Something in the atmosphere changes. A darkness I haven't felt before finds home between us, so I detach from our embrace to look at him.

"Why would you say that?" I mumble, blinking rapidly. As he appears to me in flashes, there's a calmness to him that wasn't there before. A switch has been flipped.

You can't trust him, even if it seems like you can. He's all charm and cocky attitude and dreamy eyes and handsome face, but that's all that he is in the exterior. That's all you can see. That's all he will allow you to see. See, he's excellent at pretending. He's, what you call, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

"It felt like dying," he says, a crooked smile appearing on his face. "I felt I was gonna die and there was nothing I could do."

I gulp down the lump that's growing in my throat. "What are you talking about, Christopher? Where were you?"

The red smile doesn't leave his face as he turns around to look outside the window. "I was planning to stay in Sebastian's summer house for a little while. I really needed that time away from here." His bottom lip begins to tremble again, but he rolls it back and winces when he bites on it. "That was stupid of me."

"Was someone in Seb's summer house?" I whisper, holding my breath.

Did he see U? Isn't Sebastián living there, though?

He looks at me over his shoulder, his eyes capturing me in their blue glance. "I didn't get the chance to go to his house," he mumbles, looking away into the mysterious night. "Someone put a bag over my head and kicked the shit out of me while I was on my way."

"What?" I say breathless, my heart beating-beatbeatbeatbeat. "Who? When? Why? Who would do this to you?"

I know it's a natural reaction, but it's still stupid of me to ask. Of course I know who would do such a thing. I just don't want to believe it. I don't want to believe that U exists.

Christopher sucks his cheek in, while shaking his head. "I-I don't know. I didn't get the chance to see him," he mumbles, throwing the cigarettes outside, one by one. "He was tall and strong, but I... I don't know who it was."

"It's my fault." I turn away from him, my limbs going weak. My entire body goes numb, my guilt growing to a monstrous size.

What have I done?

•Word count: 2,445•

This is PART ONE of chapter 36!!!! Proceed to PART TWO now to have the whole chapter, final word count, and end-of-the chapter questions from yours truly.

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