Falling Through the Cracks
by Aimme,
with touches by My Note Book
Summary: His mask was flawless. His walls were perfectly structured. Protection and cautionary containment at its finest. Even a perfect pretend held fractures, though, and no matter how strong his glue, under the right circumstances, glue cracked and had to be gutted and filled in again.
Author's Note: Ai, well... my writing plans have officially been frustrated by the writing itself. This chapter was not at all what I intended it to be...and what I mentioned of it in the last chapter's ending author's note does not apply to this chapter at all...but rather chapter 12. I intended for this chapter to be longer and, even, different. Then it took its own liberties and I ran out of time, again. I like what is here, and the conversation herein I am very pleased with...I am just feeling a bit vexed that for the past several weeks, my plans haven't been completed on time. I need to call my agent and have a long discussion about my schedule...
BlackKeys96, indeed that age-old line is very true of her. And I enjoyed getting inside her head, but I do not know if that will go anywhere. I do not know if we shall hear from her again. For me, seeing how easily he convinces himself of these things is scary—because I know it is real, and I know it happens. All too often. And that you are feeling something for him, your heart breaking for his crushed hopes, etc.—that is a most excellent sign! I hope that, even though this week's chapter wasn't all I had intended last week for it to be, that it doesn't disappoint. I appreciated your review, as always! Your reviews are always a delight to read.
The Unknown, great to hear from you! (Are you our anonymous reviewer from chapter nine?) I am glad you loved what happened in the last chapter! And that this chapter meets the excitement fittingly. I cannot say what the readers will think... As for the reference, kudos for catching it! Nope, it was not a coincidence. I intentionally slipped that in, as a sort of hail to the Sprouse twins since they brought these characters, whom we love so dearly, to life.
And now, onward...
-0-
Chapter Eleven - A Lot That is Known
-0-
"Things are going crazy and I'm not sure who to blame. Everything is changing and I don't feel the same. I'm slipping through the cracks of floors I thought were strong. I'm trying to find a place where I feel like I belong." -unknown
Silence rang, thick and unsettled. It filled his mind, but unspoken meanings, which sink in deeper and heavier in his gut, carrying the echoes of a communication that surpassed the seemingly innocuous words that were spoken, captured his attentions. His thought process was replete with it, and as he struggled to make sense of all the implications and the revelation given, he could hardly think straight.
Even though he was sitting, a rush of vertigo assaulted his senses. His heart was, once more, beating too fast, too hard as it poised precariously on a knife-edge.
Nurse Hatchet released his arm, and a part of him felt relieved, but his cornered feeling hardly lessened. He felt trapped and held, and this was a condition he never coped well with. There were times he could handle tight places, but here, he felt claustrophobic and the phobia was opening the doors for the panic attack that he had become susceptible to and he had been struggling to prevent, avoid, keep at bay.
He hoped it would not pounce him, but the fear that it was coming and the trepidation of that hounded his senses.
He watched her every move like a hawk, his body tense and his nerves on edge. His very being had gathered into a tight ball, ready to bolt. Far away, very, very far away. His whole body was on the edge of the bed, awaiting on the precipice of fleeing the room as fast as he could.
As she opened a cupboard and removed a swath of cotton gauze, her voice sliced through him.
"Do you find this to be acceptable behaviour, Mr. Martin?" Sharp, pointed, cynical—and, for reasons he could not identify, that scathing tone cut him to the core. Her voice dripped with disdain, disgust, and in a far corner of him, he felt a hint of shame rustle, but he felt dread far more strongly.
He could not answer.
When she turned back, her dark, jaded gaze pierced straight through him and his breathing hitched. He fought the strong waves of anxiety washing over him, determined to drag him down where he would suffocate on his own terror.
She stalked back over to the bed, seeming to him to be the picture of a menace on the prowl. He watched her with wide eyes, full of a fear he could scarce contain, let alone fight against. He remained too shaken to summon nonchalance, knowing that his charade was known to her.
"Very well," she intoned -for he had not answered her question- as she returned to him, but as she reached for him, he unconsciously jerked back. She withdrew, giving him a searing look. "Contrary to any belief circulating of my dubiousness, I am an adroit caregiver—and I most certainly am not out to get you."
Suddenly infused with self-consciousness, he dropped his gaze and murmured sheepishly, "Sorry."
She did not comment further, her shrewd gaze recognising that the disturbed young man before her was on edge. She held out her hand and he slowly placed his arm into it, his movements deliberate and done with a great effort of his will to overcome his own feelings of being trapped and nervous and jumpy.
In silence she returned her attention to the wound she knew he had inflicted upon himself, and he fidgeted for a moment before clearing his throat. "Uhm…what…what does adroit mean?" he asked, his voice dropping off in his own hesitance to utter his question. He swung his left foot back nervously, kicking a rung under the mattress he sat on.
She glanced at him from the tops of her eyes, peering up at him from beneath her thin eyebrows and frizzy brown hair. He avoided her hazel gaze immediately, an embarrassed look flitting across his face.
Mentally slapping himself for asking the question, he tried to keep from fidgeting beneath the gaze that flickered up to him upon the utterance of a question which implied that there was a spark of intelligence flickering in his mind. Granted, she knew he wasn't what he let on, but revealing that he was more than he let on? He should have let the question alone, instead of feeding it and giving out under the weight with which it hung in his mind.
She made a 'hmm' sound in the back of her throat as she dropped her gaze away, and his gut twisted tightly.
'Idiot. You shouldn't have done that. You've done enough damage, already—do you want to make it worse? Why don't you just go shout all of your truth from the top deck so that all the boat can hear you?'
Self-deprecating. He recognised that Voice when he heard it, but he didn't refute it. He sunk silently into his dread, a cold knot eating away at his insides.
"You are indeed more than meets the eye, aren't you?" as she dabbed antibiotic ointment onto the cut, she spoke at last, but her words did not assuage the uneasy dismay yanking, coiling, tightening in him. There was just enough time for her question to feed his edgy nerves before she continued. "Adroit means skilful."
And he settled again, put at ease when the subject dropped quietly and nonchalantly away.
As Nurse Hatchet laid the gauze strip against the treated wound, silence descended with it among them. The quiet left both of them to their own thoughts—Zack to his demons and the darkening thoughts awaiting him, and the nurse to her feelings about all of it. While the oldest twin felt a constant murmur eating away at his heart, the Voices rustling, waiting to articulate coherent thoughts determined to douse him in their suffocating fire, the rough-edged woman pondered how long this had been going on and wondered what had happened the first time that made him feel this was the only way out—and whether anyone else knew…but she doubted it very much.
She was the first to break the silence, which Zack was not at all happy about. He wanted her to finish and let him go, and he wanted her to then forget everything she knew about him.
"And what, Mr. Martin, is your story?" she asked with a shrewd jab bating her words.
He swallowed hard, letting his gaze drop away as she raised her eyes to look pointedly at him in anticipation of a response. He struggled to find the words…but there were none. How did she see so clearly, so easily through him? Of all people, Cody should be the one able to do that—and Cody was the one who was the most fooled.
"Your obstinate brother -that Tasmanian devil in skin-and-bones disguise- will have needed an explanation. And what is your story?" She knew he had a cover-up, an alibi, and she wanted to know what tall tale he had spun this time.
He shrugged unconvincingly, refusing to make eye contact. "N-nothing. Nothing. It was an accident," his voice was quiet, but grew firm as he spoke the words. He knew it was a lie. But who cared what he knew? It had made little difference before, and it wasn't about to make any difference any time soon. He wouldn't let it. He couldn't let it.
She released an aggravated sigh, shaking her head disdainfully. "An accident?" she scoffed. "An accident, Mr. Martin?"
The obvious note of disgust hit a nerve.
"This" -she held his arm up for example- "is hardly an accident!" the last word she bit off with intense scorn.
He bristled. "What do you know?" he snapped. "What makes you think you know anything?" The defensiveness lent a harsh note to his tone.
"I know a lot of things," she answered in a strict tone, unmoved by his insolence—the way he was lashing out.
"A lot that is known isn't worth knowing," he shot back bitterly, blue eyes as violent storms flashing with a cynic's jaded disillusionment.
"Touché," she returned, "Indeed, well said, Mr. Martin. We are at an impasse, then. Let us agree on a truce, for we shall get nowhere." She regarded him with a hard, dark look, one he returned staunchly. "But perhaps there is a lot that is. Worth knowing, that is."
However, her own jaundiced view shaded her tone and did not lend credence to her words. They felt empty, pathetic, useless—even to her. And he would pick up on it—the boy was quick as a whip, sharp intellect grasping more than he let on.
He snorted, barely audible, but the scoff communicated to her. She issued a spurious, grim smile, shook her head and turned her attentions back to what had brought him here in the first place -what had revealed him to her suspicious eyes- and as she wrapped the gauze firmly around his arm once and taped it into place, she offered no further exchange on the topic.
When she had finished, she dropped his arm and stood up. "If you would sit tight for a few minutes, I have a few tests I want to run."
A shade of colour dropped away from his face, leaving pallor in its place. "Tests?" he questioned, giving her a suspicious, searching look.
"Yes. Tests." Feeling particularly edgy after everything that had happened, she felt like being particularly vague.
Was it tormenting him? Perhaps.
If she had known the way it tormented him, though, perhaps she would not have been so vague. As it was, she did not know how he had spent the entire time in the infirmary wrestling with the darkness in the corners, the demons lurking in the shadows, the Voices determined to escalate into coherent taunts inside his head.
As she walked away to retrieve God-knows-what, Zack's heart became a drunk driver—weaving around everywhere with jerky, uncoordinated movements. He felt sick and he wondered how long he had been in here—it felt like forever.
It had been fifteen minutes.
"Give me a reason to keep believing that everything isn't misleading … 'Cause I'm a tear drop away from crying and a few breaths away from dying." -unknown
-0-
Author's Note: Well...what now? The ending here came about unexpectedly for me, but I quite liked it once I hit that final period. And then the quote...ah, the quote! I shall say no more... Do I dare ask for your thoughts? Yes, I suppose I dare. What do you suppose I am leading up to? Do you think I know? Any guesses about the next chapter? It may have been a short chapter, but what about Zack did we learn in this one? I found several tidbits to be most interesting...and they have made me even more curious.
Vocabulary:
adroit - skillful: displaying physical or mental skill
jaundiced - (adj.) from noun jaundice—jaundice - (2) cynical state of mind: an attitude that is characterized by cynical hostility, resentment, or suspicion
spurious - (1) not genuine: different from what it is claimed to be, not authentic, or not valid or well-founded