Another Look Into the Anguished Mind of a Man named Ian.

I.

I fall asleep with thoughts of her. Tiny face, luminous blue gray eyes and a voice that has a million and one meanings all wrapped into a whisper, a song. My Elle. My big sister.

When we were young, her eyes were like blue stars that twinkled only for Keiko. I'd see them in their room, tangled in a heap of limbs on a bed they soon outgrew. She was paler then. She rarely went out on dates even though everyone wanted her. Not at first, anyway. She was like the idea of paradise; always there and yet out of reach. My friends would go to my house to catch glimpses of her and Keiko, but soon the novelty of Keiko's beauty went away. And then there was just Elle to look at, because she was so quiet and Keiko was always flirting with them and being beautiful and charming. But with Elle, it was different. She smiled a lot, like she knew that was all she needed to do.

She'd pop her head into my room and everyone's heart would stop. A quick flash of her gleaming, bright eyes. Then, that voice.

"I'm going out to buy food," she says. Or whispers. "Want anything?"

That was her. The guys would just stare at her and she'd ignore them. But there was always that almost smile on her mouth. The left side just a few millimeters up, like she knew what they were thinking. Being desired made her glow.

Even though she did this often, it always took me a few seconds to reply. About two blinks from her.

"No, I'm good," I answer. "Thanks."

She nods. Then leaves and I clench the video game controller. I listen to my friends talk about her, about how lucky I was to be living with her and Keiko.

"I guess," I shrug.

But then I knew that I wasn't really lucky to be living with them.

It was a constant torment.

To want someone like this.

II.

I saw her kissing Keiko.

Once. On the lips. But then I realized this was how they greeted each other. It was never followed by clothes coming off or tongues touching. It was just a quick smack, a peck. But it made my insides clench and it made me curse my dick for being there. I think maybe if I were a girl I'd also be included in their little world.

Then Elle finally got a boyfriend.

Quiet, beautiful Elle with her whispers and mood-ring eyes.

I don't know where she met him, because he didn't go to the same school with us. I just saw them at the movies one night, waiting in line. Her head was thrown back and she was chuckling at something he said and god she just looked so normal and happy. Their arms were looped together. His name was Bobby. What an awful name. But she looked at him like he was the sun and moon and the most beautiful night ever. He had blond hair and brown eyes. A little bigger than me, a little older, too. They were so intimate, so close to each other. How long had she known him to be in that place with him?

They kiss, and Elle's eyes are closed and you can tell, you can just tell that everybody is looking at them. Or aware of her presence and how she made everything spark on the inside.

I lower my head, trying not to get noticed. My face burns, my heart has grown four arms and they are shaking all at once. I walk past them, losing whatever interest I had for a certain movie I was going to see. But then, I hear it:

That whisper.

"Ian," her eyes are open, but she isn't looking at me. She's looking at the crowd and her forehead is scrunched and she looks surprised.

"What?" Bobby asks, sounding annoyed.

"Ian," she repeats my name, still frowning. "He's here."

"Who the hell is Ian?"

"My brother," she answers. He looks pissed off but then she silences him with her soft eyes and her mouth. When they buy the ticket, he looks happy again.

But I see him hold her hand like he's afraid she was going to suddenly leave him.

Elle just scans the crowd one more time but I keep on walking.

She may have chosen Keiko first but we've always had the stronger connection. I am with her even when I'm not, in Bobby and later on, in Derrick and in Conner.

-

One day, she comes home sullen. She scowls a lot. She doesn't talk for a while but I knew that Bobby was gone. Keiko talks to her for a while, stroking her hair and saying things in murmurs. Then, silence.

Until Elle creeps into my room in the middle of the night. I wake up and there is this figure standing in front of me, this tiny, quiet girl.

We were never close, Elle and I. Not then. But I open my arms and she slips under the covers. We listen to each other breathing. I tentatively stroke her hair too. The way Keiko does. And she purrs slightly like she's a cat and like I'm doing it right.

My heart, the one that has four arms, grows wings and flies around my body. Whatever the moron Bobby has done, even if he has broken her heart, I thank him. Because for the first time, Keiko hadn't been enough. For the first time, Elle needed me.

"You'll never leave me, will you?" she says in my ear. Her lips brush against my earlobe and I shiver. "You're the only boy who'll never leave, right?"

"Ellie, never ever," I promise solemnly, taking her small hand and grasping in the dark until I find her finger. I make her cross my heart. She does. I allow her to mark it as hers. X marks the spot.

She chuckles and then she leans back, quiet. I know she is watching me. And things are changing for us.

"Never ever," she muses. "I like that."

"I'm glad,"

Then she's quiet again. She takes my hand and wraps my arm around her. I hold on extra tight.

Now I know exactly how Bobby felt that night at the movies.

I'm scared to let go. I'm always afraid Elle will leave and never come back.

III.

One of Elle's friends, Janine, comes to my room one time. She sits on my bed with her long legs and her gum chewing that drives me nuts. She eyes me quietly, all long and tanned and blonde.

"Have you ever been with a girl?" She asks.

"No," I reply.

"I think you're hot," Janine says.

"Thanks," I don't reciprocate her compliment not because she wasn't beautiful, but because I didn't want to play this game with her.

"Don't you find me attractive?" She pouts, blue eyes sensual.

"I guess,"

Then she sits next to me, and her breath smells like Doublemint. She plants her mouth on mine and she kisses me.

"I've wanted to do that for a while, but Elle never let me." She admits, smiling. She finds a piece of paper from her purse and places the gum there. She puts the paper in her pocket.

She slips her hands underneath my shirt and her skin is cold, her nails are too long. She starts kissing my neck, whispering all these things that are supposed to make me feel good and horny and they work.

I want to get lost in her voice, I want to find beauty in her whispers too.

So I let her take my clothes off and then I kiss and nibble on her body, exploring it. I like how it is long and tan, I like how her hair is blonde and light. I like how she moans and says my name, like I am in control. For once, I am in control of how I feel.

Janine takes a condom from her purse and she rolls it on me. I'm stiff and god the ache, this excruciating period of waiting to be inside her.

"Beautiful,' she breathes, touching me and stroking me. She places her mouth on it and her head bobs up and down like I am her god and she is sucking on the altar. I grit my teeth and gasp and when I can't take anymore, I push her away and I enter her.

The searing perfection of it all! To be completely sheltered like this, to move and moan and be entwined like this. Janine is kissing my shoulders her mouth is open and she is moving against me, too.

And then the door opens behind me.

"Elle," I suddenly say even though I don't see who actually opened it. It's like that night at the movies, only I'm the one who senses her now. "Elle," I say again, my voice stronger. The orgasm ripples through my body at the mention of her name. My bones are nothing but dust and I want to laugh and cry because of the explosions happening inside me.

I pull out of her and turn around, and sure enough, it was her. She just stares at me quietly. Then her gaze lowers to my still erect dick.

Things

Keep

Changing.

She looks back at my eyes again. She ignores Janine, who says sorry even though she sounds like she's really not.

My arms are itching to move, to do the same thing I did that night when she came home sad about Bobby. To hold them out for her, to ask her to lie with me on my bed and to hear her ask me to never ever leave her.

But she just closes the door. Janine sits up to hug me and she kisses the back of my neck.

"Beautiful," she breathes again and again, as though she is on drugs or something. She touches my hair, my lips, my stomach. She hugs me, offering her body for me to taste and explore any way I wanted.

I don't take the offering.

I don't feel 'beautiful'. Nothing about me is beautiful. Only my sisters. Only my Elle.

IV.

Keiko just died.

Elle is so quiet, like she's dead too. She won't let me touch her, talk to her, even just to say hi. She has the eyes of a doll, all glassy and shiny and lifeless. We buried Keiko a week ago.

I am worried that she will die, too.

I am worried that she'll leave, too.

Please don't ever leave me. It's not fair that I made the promise and you didn't. It's not fair how you get to leave and I don't.

Her grief loves her, molds her into someone whose beauty surpassed Keiko's. She goes on dates, gets boyfriends, and even brings them home. I hear them late at night. I hate how she talks to them and not to me. But even her moans sound anguished, and the pain from them rips me apart so much that sometimes I need to turn on my CD player to drown her out.

One day I just can't take it anymore.

"Don't do this to me," I say. "Please don't, Elle."

She looks up. "Do what?"

"You're not the only one who lost a sister,"

She doesn't reply.

I sit next to her and grab her chin. I force her to look at me, really look at me, not with those doll dull eyes of hers. She does. Her hand touches mine and she strokes my palm with her thumb.

"There's something wrong with the way I want you," I tell her, and then my eyes are tearing up and I want to tear them out of my sockets. "you know that. I love you more than anyone I've ever known and will ever know. Don't shut me out."

She opens her mouth and only her breath comes out. Without a sound.

"I'm scared," she finally says.

"Of what?"

"That you're like her," she replies softly. "That you'll make me love you and then suddenly leave. I'm scared to want you the way you want me because when your brains are all over the wall I wouldn't run away. I'd scoop them up and put them in a jar and keep it with me forever because it's a part of you. Then I'll fade into nothing."

"I'll never do that to you," I wipe the warm tears from her skin. And I kiss my thumb, kissing her tears. "I promise."

She kisses my hand and holds it against her cheek.

"My Ian," she says.

Your Ian.

V.

She calls me one day to tell me about Selena Wade.

I fly to New York just in time to see her having lunch with a man at the restaurant we always ate in. Pale, curly dark hair. Maddeningly intense eyes. I lose my appetite. I don't know how I always walk in on her dates. The weight of her presence crushes me and makes me feel alive at the same time, and all these long months away from her multiplies the longing by a million.

But I don't intrude. She smiles and laughs and she looks kind of like the way she did with Bobby. And sometimes she looks a bit like when she's with me.

And that troubles me.

But I don't say anything.

Instead, I pretend like I never saw anything. I'm afraid of the answers she will give, because I know she will never lie to me.

-

She has the biggest smile on her face, she jumps into my arms and kisses me all over with her pink lipstick all over my skin and I laugh and whisper "I missed you,"

Elle says, "Me too,"

She holds on to me just a while longer and it's okay. I bite the words back: I love you, Ellie

Then she talks. And talks. About Selena Wade. And I am lost in her words, in her voice, in this love.

When a woman named Kathryn introduces herself to me later on, I just smile. I think I like this woman. She doesn't look like the other women, all the Janines in the world. She is someone else's and I am someone else's too.

VI.

I expected Elle to jump into my arms again.

But she doesn't.

She's happy with the gift, the video. She watches the murder with a small smile and every so often, she'd reach out for me and hug me and kiss me.

"You're wonderful," she says. "do you know that, Ian? Do you?"

I don't reply. I just pull her against me and we watch the movie for a while until I get sick of the blood and everything. I look around the room and there is a framed photo of Elle and Conner. And she's smiling

Fear clenches my heart into a fist. Tighter, tighter.

"Elle," I kiss the top of her head.

"Hmm?"

"Will you do something for me?"

She looks at me. "What?"

"Leave him,"

"What?" she asks disbelievingly. Then, coldly. "What did you say?"

I repeat it.

"No," She stands up, turning off the television. "I will not leave him."

"Why not?"

"None of your fucking business!" She yells and I cringe, because I am not used to hearing her speak at that volume. "I want him and I'm keeping him!"

"You don't need him! You have me!" I grab her arm but she shoves me.

"The things he makes me feel, Ian! You can't possibly have a grasp on what it's like—"

"You're right, I don't." I cannot contain the pain that makes me feel like I am the one being killed. "I can't have a grasp on that because all there ever was in my life was you. Because I promised you that it was only you, and I'm sorry for that. I'm fucking sorry for feeling this way."

Elle rolls her eyes. "Don't give me that bullshit."

"How does he make you feel then?" I challenge her. "How the fuck can you feel dissatisfied from everything I've given you?"

"He doesn't make me feel guilty!" She screeches, her face red. Her eyes are furious, teary. She kicks a chair. She throws the phone. She knocks a lamp off the table and I watch the light bulb break.

"Guilty for what?"

"For kissing! For wanting!"

"There's nothing wrong with us!" I try to touch her but she slaps me. She claws at my arm and I wince in pain.

"You don't understand!" She slaps me again and again until I lose my patience and I hit her back. It isn't fair that she's the only one who gets to hurt me.

Things break. Blood is shed. Bruises form. Hearts break and die.

And then, silence. Around us are broken things beyond repair. Elle has a split lip and I think I may have broken a rib. We just stand there staring.

I tell her. "You know I'll do something about it. We'll never be like before."

"Please don't," her voice trembles. "Please, Ian. We can't end like this."

Her eyes beckon, shiny and vulnerable.

"Without you, I'll die," Elle whispers. "I'm sorry, god I'm sorry please don't do this, you can't leave us like this,"

She crumples to the floor, her palms in her eyes and she's shaking. Like clockwork, I go to her. I kneel and wrap my arms around her, shushing her through her soft hair.

Things keep changing and I just want to stop everything and make it the way it was. Flashes of our youth come to me as we rock back and forth, soothing bruises and each other as though we were still children.

"Choose," I whisper.

She hiccups, grasping my shirt tightly. She holds on to me the way Bobby held on to her hand and the way I wanted to hold on to her that night he broke her heart.

"I want to stop," she's shaking so much that I'm worried she's gotten sick or maybe some sort of infection or maybe this time I've hurt her too much. "I just want to stop being sick and start feeling things. Please understand."

But I don't understand. I really don't. I can't understand anything because Elle is too busy eating my heart up with its four arms and wings. I stop moving. I grow very still and she looks up, her eyes wide and so beautiful oh god they are exquisite.

"Come on," I say instead, not having the heart to do this now. So I carry her and she sighs in my arms and for a few minutes everything is right in the world. We cuddle with our hurting bodies and she says that things won't change, that she can be with Conner and me too.

But I've never liked sharing.

So when she falls asleep, I kiss her forehead and I leave.

I want to cry but I can't cry anymore. She's taken my tears and my heart and she's never giving it back because she's eaten my heart and washed it down with my tears and it's inside her digesting.

I ache without a heart and without tears that would have warmed my otherwise cold face.

For the first time in years, I talk to Keiko.

Please help me.

Please take me.

There's nothing now.


A/N: Sorry for those who're still reading this. I actually wrote this bit to prepare for a different story outside CI.