My reflection in the window's glass seemed far away from reality, like my image had become soggy, the way the pages of a book does when you leave it outdoors for a sacrifice to the rain. By the time you get it back, it's disdainful and ruined; something you usually decided to throw out in the bitter end.
I was feeling exactly the same; outcasted, rejected, and lower than the floor boards. I watched the snow begin to slowly unfold it's wrath; the icy pellets of frozen rain beating at the glass before me like tiny, determind intruders. I was glad I was inside, avoiding the moody weather, although my body felt so cold, so below zero...that it seemed like sitting in a wet snow bank and facing the frozen rain, snow and harsh winds would feel just the same.
I walked from the window, not wanting to view the gag worthy weather any longer, and I flopped onto my bed, that was located right in one of the corners of my room, protected by walls that were decorated in pictures, posters of my favorite bands, and other things that are, or used to be important in my life.
One picture in particular, however, always caught my eye whenever I retreated to my bed for comfort and warmth; they were pictures of the love of my life, Sephiroth, and I. I think it was the favorite pictures of mine, desplayed of us on my dark blue colored walls, because of the happiness and serenity radiating from the expressions on our faces. We were so satisfied with life back then, almost as if even having everything in the world wouldn't satisfy us more than looking into eachother's eyes. In this particular photo, we were crammed into a photo booth at the mall, looking uncomfortable as I sat on his lap and he sat in the tiny stool provided. I remembered easily how much he would complain about it, and the memory still brings the smallest of pleasureable smiles to my lips.
In the four panals that extended down, we looked different in each one. The first one I was looking into the camera and he was fixing his hair, something he still did seemingly by the minute. The second picture was us kissing, and whenever I looked at it I felt the sensation of his lips on mine; a warm, lustful feeling that just made me want to jump into his arms and never be away from his side. The third one, I wasn't even in it, because I had fallen out of his arms. My shoe was visible, as well as his startled expression. The fourth was quite simple, both of us looking into the camera's gaping lense, smiling just slightly, a small symbol that expressed our enjoyment while in eachothers company...I wondered why that had abandoned us, where it had flown off and if it would ever return.
Because, by now, of course he was too popular to go to the mall with me. He was much to popular to be friends with someone like me, and too famous at school to be in love with me. They treated him like a celebrity. Like he just walked out of one of the weekly magazines, and everyone worshipped him like royalty. Practically kissing his feet when he made his way through the building.
As for me...I was the wingless angel, the colorless rainbow...The dirt underneath everyone's shoes, as far as most people were concerned. He still claimed to love me, but most of the time...It felt like his love, the warmth that once defrosted my soul each and everyday, the one thing that became the light to push away dangerous shadows of terrible thoughts that could easily invade my mind without his protection, was drifting away from my grasp. I wondered with empty thought; was this truly the course our relationship was meant to take? Or did I trip on the path somewhere and uproot something that needed to be left alone?
Been thinking about you, your record's a hit.
Your eyes are on my wall, your teeth are over there.
But I'm still no-one, and you're not a star.
What do you care?
At times it felt like he didn't care at all. Almost as if, he only cared when we were alone, he didn't love me enough at all to see beyond a highschool reputation and the people he calls 'friends' who were probably only interested in the fact that his entire family was incredibly wealthy. They probably didn't care about him much. Because, if there was one thing I knew for sure, those best friends of his were not at all capable of maintaining a friendship. I knew first swing, up front...Dishonest bastards was all they'd ever end up being, although I couldn't think of anything better or more that I could possibly transform into...
My skin shuddered with gooseflesh, the freezing cold feeling not fading or distancing itself from me but somehow increasing. I thought for a second that maybe I was dying, but I figured that wasn't possible. All I had was cold feet, slashed open hands, wind burn on my cheeks and a twisted ankle. Injuries that I thought would be inflicted by me doing something stupid...like walking out on my patio with bare feet in the snow, being out without warm clothes on a much too freezing day, or slipping on a patch of ice on my way to school in the morning and falling, possibly cutting open my hands by doing this as well. These are all things that could have inflicted coldness, windburn and the pain that pulsed and surged through my ankle and hands.
However, the somehow hot and cold, tingling feeling on the flesh of my face, bitter and numbness of my toes and feet, and the constant, throbbing of the hurting in my injuries, all combined, couldn't overcome the screaming, frighteningly cold and painful, pins and needles my heart was experiencing. I thought he cared more than to let things like this happen...Isn't that what love was all about? ...Well, maybe your cliche, 'everything turns out alright in the end', fairytale love story took that course, as much as most people don't live up to that stereotype. I could easily recall the way his eyes looked...So serious, and so...Indescribable and dangerous. If I knew anything, it was that I never in my life wanted to see his eyes look that way again...
Been thinking about you, and there's no rest.
Shit, I still love you, still see you in bed.
But I'm playing with myself, and what do you care?
When the other men are far, far better.
---
"Look, Cloud, you have to go." He said, looking at me, his pupils dilating in a way that caused my spine to tingle. Everything was quiet in the upstairs bathroom, except the constant and slightly unnerving "plink, plink, plink," of water dripping off the fosset and into the barren sink. I swallowed, my thoat feeling dry and sore, like it would when you wake up while undergoing a bad cold.
I desperately wanted to say something, opening my mouth but only to be silenced by the sinister doorbell that had slashed though the air several times by now. The perculiar look in his eyes increased. "But..Sephiroth, we're on the third floor..." I spoke, my words unintentionally almost a pathetic murmur or whisper.
"Look, there's snow outside, you'll be fine." As he shared his next sentance, I wondered if it would really shatter his life so much to have them see me with him just once. I wondered if he cared more about what they thought than what was best for my well being, and the health of our sickly relationship. And most of all, I wondered: Was he seriously going to force me to jump out his bathroom window, into the cold and snow, to shelter his reputation from the dark, sinister rain that fell from my very presence?
He pulled open the glass, as my mind participated in a race for words it could never win. The cold air invaded quickly, Jack Frost's breath sailing through me and chilling me all the way to my bones. "This is dangerous...Can't you just wait until--"
"Please, Cloud. You know I love you, but..." His voice trailed, as he stepped aside, leaving me to stare into the face of the winter, it's icy fangs beared in it's mediocre smile, waiting to accept the next offering. Sephiroth's voice had ended, the doorbell rang again. Many things ran through my head.
'If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't even be friends with those assholes...They were mine first. You stole them like material possestions.'
'I introduced you. You shouldn't treat the friend of the friend better...'
'All you guys are going to do is smoke cigarettes, drink fancy alcohol and talk about how great it feels to be living the good life. Oh, fucking yeah, it must feel great to have friends, I think what it feels like has sort of slipped my mind after all these cold, lonely years.'
'Why should I be hated for my Father's choice? It really isn't my fault he divorced my Mom after deciding he was homosexual..'
'I hope you all have fun poisoning your bodies, maybe if I'm lucky this fall will kill me and put me out of this prolonged misery.'
However, throught all these negative thoughts, a flower bloomed, shimmering and pure, and stronger than any steel. My love for him, my severe emotional attachment. It emvelped me like a storm, loud in my ears like strong wind. I just couldn't overcome the power this one emotion held, it seemed no matter how many problems he caused for me, they weren't big enough to stop my flow of love. I sighed, taking a few steps towards the window and trying to force my fear of heights to heel. I looked back at him for just an instant. Wondering if he could see the pain I was feeling, emerging from my skin like thorns on a rose.
All the things you got,
All the things you need.
Who bought you cigarettes, and bribed the company
To come and see you, honey?
His cold, ocean depth eyes shone with sympathy, something I could clearly see, but just as my eternal negtivity could not overcome my love for him, his ambition to impress those close to him overcame his love, or what remained. Soon his eyes were casted off to the side. "I'll talk to you later..."
I sighed. "Yeah, whatever...Bye." I replied, starting to push myself out the window, my heart fluttering and my fear growing grotesquely. Soon my feet and legs were hanging off the side, and I was just about ready to vomit. Shutting my eyes tightly, and embracing my fright like a parachute, I pushed myself away from my support and began to free-fall. It was unpleasant, the knowledge of losing the ground beneath me.
However, I didn't even have the time to wonder just how much of the cold, white powder was waiting to break my terrifying fall, before I had landed harshly. On both feet, driving them deep into the icy, hard snow bank. It felt like I had broken all the way through the earth's hard shell. The only thing that wasn't pleasant about reaching the much needed solid ground I longed for, was the way my ankle had positioned itself under all the weight of the ice and snow- and my own body. Some twisted and mutated manor, uncomfortable beyond belief and inserting a hard, pressurized pain into the bone.
My breath hitched in my lungs from the sudden shock; the wind blasted cold air and snowflakes into my face. I felt like it was the end. I tried to pull my ankle out, only to be greeted by more, sharp jabs of pain. I glanced up at the bathroom window, to see that it was closed, the blind pulled down all the way. I wondered briefly, even if he had seen my harsh situation, would he go greet his company or come down after me? I knew what Prince Charming would do. As for Sephiroth, I was quite unsure.
The pain was blossoming into full body terror, panic and intensity, as I tried pulling it a little harder. The same action followed, and I felt like screaming into the holwing wind. This wind was a sinister villain, and it seemed to whisper dark thoughts into my mind.
"There's no one here to help you."
"Your boyfriend doesn't love you and he'd rather spend time with his friends. There's no one here to help you."
"He's not going to come out and see how everything went. He has better things to do."
"It's not good to be dirt your whole life."
I let out a tiny, frustrated groan at the howling, the strange thoughts that weren't mine. I would have given anything to go home. So much so, that the pain became mind numbing as my hope for survivial thinned out. I used nothing but the raw flesh on my fingers and I began to claw away at the layers of solidified snow, the result of several snowfalls in the past month. It stung and hurt greatly, but nothing could overcome the torture running through that one ankle and foot, nothing could compare, and therefore everything was better. I dug until the once dove white snow was spotted with tiny splotches of my own blood.
I've been thinking about you, so how can you sleep?
These people aren't your friends, they're paid to kiss your feet.
They don't know what I know, and why should you care?
When I'm not there.
However, at this time, the breaking flesh of my hands and fingers were too numb to understand what sort of pain should have arrived. It took a long time for my ankle to become lose in it's icy grave.
Finally I hauled it out, sprawling my body across the winter infected ground. Immidiatly trying to stand up, I felt my ankle's torture shoot up through my leg, spreading like cancer. I toppled over again, breaking my fall on my shredded hands. Retaining my balance as best as possible in my scared and vulnerable state, I lifted my hands from the snow and balanced on one foot. Two bloody hand prints were written in the snow, a marking of what kind of horrible torture I had been through in the last twenty minutes.
I somehow hoped, as I hopped across the snow on one foot, rushing towards the closest tree for support, that Sephiroth would look out this very window in the morning, see the mild blood sprayed where I had gotten my foot stuck, and the bloody handprints, and think that I was dead. Then maybe he'd finally care.
This tree was a great hope for me, because I could cling to it and use it for a great crutch to balance myself. It was going to be a long walk home, especially having only one properly functioning foot.
---
My mind zoomed back into reality extremely quickly, as I examined my walls and bedroom bitterly. My ankle throbbed harder than ever; my hands bled continually, as I took the tissue from my end table to wipe them off when they got too bad. The condition of my hands could have easily been compared to what my heart was also experiencing. They were ripped and torn like an old rag, as they stung and bled endlessly.
Been thinking about you, and there's no rest.
Shit, I still love you, still see you in bed.
But I'm playing with myself, and what do you care?
When I'm not there.
I wondered simply what Sephiroth was doing; it had been almost an hour since I had made my expedition out his window, and then became an escape artist to remove my foot from where it was jammed in the snow's strong jaws. Was he feeling bad? Was he wondering what and how I was doing, just as I was him?
...Then the real question surfaced in my mind, unpleasant and bitter cold. Did he really love me at all? My eyes wandered the walls, covered in pictures of our smiling, laughing faces...His eyes, his hair, his face, his entire being...Was all so perfect to everyone else, and as much as he always told me I was perfect and nothing was going to change that... the bitter asumption of the many lies he had fed me was rising in my mouth, feeling like vomit emerging from my throat.
Lies.
How could he mean anything at all that he said? My heart's beating increased wholely, getting faster and more threatening as each thought swam through my brain quickly, overwealming me like a large ocean wave. I continued to gaze at the several pictures, that were supposed to depict our love, strong friendship and support- however, by now...Every picture of Sephiroth that was taped to that one wall, could have been images of grinning demons to me at this particular moment.
Spawns of the Devil, decieting, lying, icy cold spawns...Grinning with their sharp, manical teeth and huge, gaping holes that served for eyes...In my mind, he could have beem closely related to one of these beings, for I didn't feel too sunshine jolly or even happy about him at all. It seemed like everything I had ever known had just melted, inflicted by the flames of pain and lies. My hands continued to bleed, and I did not wipe away the oozing, red liquid this time...My thoughts carried me away faster and faster, before I had stood up on my bed, and...Began doing something rather immature; but strangely satisfying.
I reached to the wall, gripped a picture with my hand, and pulled as hard as I could, letting my frustration and pain fuel my strength. I tore it from the wall brutally, releasing it and watching it fall to the floor, drifting, like a far away dream or memory; it's true form. I eyed the rest of the wall, justifying my thoughts and taking hold of another useless material memory.
All the things you got,
You'll never need.
All the things you got, I've bled and I bleed to,
Please you..
One after the other, I ripped down picture after picture, thoughtless and feeling empty like a gorge. Some of them were tainted with my blood, marked with my pain, and all of them fell to their fate; the floor.
Eventually, I found myself staring into the last one standing; looking deserted and naked without the other pictures at all sides. My favorite picture strip, hung in seclusion, and I let my eyes wander over the past that sat in my vision like a road block. I could easily hear his laugh, ringing in my ears, and his face and smile in my head. Haunting my mind.
However, it occured to me, that regardless of whether I was to take it away from sight or not, I would always be haunted. By his presence, his laugh, his smile and face, among many other things...I hopped down from my bed, my bludgeoned hands continuing to sting and tingle unpleasantly. I switched off my bedroom light, the wind howling and singing me a monstrous lullabye outdoors as I pulled down the covers and crawled in under their warm protection. I didn't care at all how much blood got on my sheets, there were certainly worse things.
The noise outdoors combined with the heaviness of my heart in my ears was large and extremely loud, I was beginning to wonder if I was going to get any sleep at all. Thoughts of him raced in and out of my mind, like a slideshow. A slideshow of my life, and how great everything was as it used to be. My mind soon gathered himself and began to push him out, and tried to force sleep in.
However, as brutal of a reality as it was, I knew our relationship was bending the wrong way. It would soon either end, or begin to fix itself. Knowing my luck, it would all blow up in my face like a bomb.
For, I had known the instant I saw him look at me so strangely while in the bathroom, that everything had changed, and was probably stuck in such a frozen, toxic state. For his eyes just looked so...sorry.
Been thinking about you...
//END//