Little Glass Houses

Chapter Twenty

The Yellow Sun

The colours of the world drained before his eyes—grey mottled carpets became even duller, insignificantly coloured walls become paler and glass tables became cold and unwelcoming. With every step he took, he could hear every creak and feel every nail pressing against his feet. He could smell charcoal and fire and felt a daze. His throat was dry and there was a lump as big as a rock forming in his throat. The fear was building, building, building until it solidified into something and then dissolved into nothing. But somehow, it was still there. He was drained before he saw her, exhausted by the events of the-day-month-year-years, exhausted by the weight of the secrets, of the thoughts. This was it, the opening of Pandora's jewelled box, the bottom of the vacuum that he was suspended into. The apocalypse, the end before his very eyes. And he was alone.

Penelope was wearing a white top that night. He could distinctively remember the first time that she bought it three years ago. She was flipping through magazines of glass house weddings, each of them looked more fragile and fantastical than the last.

Her eyes were glassier than the houses, and he looked into them and saw a reflection, but he couldn't recognise the person that stared back at him. He was paper, cut into pieces, scattered, directionless, nothing.

For the first time in months, Percy could remember feeling the clock tick-tick-tick. He could remember staring at his watch and feeling time in a way that he hadn't been able to in years. He could remember feeling Ginny's hand on his back, and the comfortable feeling of his clothes on his body, like they'd belonged to him. He remembered how nice his mum's couch felt like. He could remember timings: six-thirty-eight, six-forty-two, seven, seven-twenty-one, and he could remember where he was in all of them. He could taste the cold chocolate from Ginny's croissant.

"Percy, what do you think of this?" Penelope asked, but she wasn't really asking. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Beautiful," he echoed. Out of all the things that Percy could remember that day, he could not remember the glass house wedding that Penelope was showing him. He couldn't remember what colour the brides' hairs were, or what kind of tiaras they were wearing. But he could remember the light in her glossy blue eyes.

It'll be okay, Ginny's voice echoed into his mind. A false hope but comforting almost. Just tell her.

"I know all of your faces, Percy," Penelope said coldly. As she realised the gravity of the situation, the excitement had disappeared. All that was left was cold, hard steel blue eyes. "What have you done?"

"It was Ginny," Percy pleaded. "She said that-that we don't love each other—"

"Oh Godric, Percy, of course I don't love you!" he knew, of course he knew but hearing it out loud was painful. She stood up, throwing the magazine across the room. The sound of it hitting the ground, the crinkling of the pages frightened him. "I can barely stand to look at you half the time! The only reason I'm still with you is because there's still some part of me that believes that I can fix whatever is wrong with you! I mean you're better than before," she paused, as if contemplating this. "But you've gone from being so argumentative to being so spineless… but I'm sure with a little more time, you'd be perfect. If you tried hard enough. If you actually listen to me. If you cared enough, we can be happy."

Percy didn't know if he could ever be perfect for Penelope. "I…I've tried," he whispered.

"I know you have, love," Penelope talked to him in a condescending tone. "But even your family agrees that you don't do nearly enough for me," she was right. "I'm the only person in the world that can even put up with you. You should be happy that you have someone like me! You're bloody lucky. Everyone says so."

He went numb on the inside. There was a half-eaten plate of biscuits on the coffee table.

"Everyone," Percy echoed. He believed her. His own family took her side. How was he going to…?

Penelope nodded her head, and flipped her long, blonde hair away from her shoulder. "Yes, love, everyone." She rolled her eyes, as if he didn't understand what it had meant the first time.

"But when we're married, you have all the time in the world to make it up to me…" she pushed him down onto their couch. "We're going to have our wonderful little glass wedding, with the nicest cake and the most beautiful flowers. I'll be wearing the loveliest pair of dress robes and you—well, you'll look fine…"

Percy froze when she tried to throw off his jumper. It had gotten stuck around his bandage.

She tsk-tsked. "Look at what you've done to yourself," she said in disapproval, as she unzipped his trousers. Penelope wasn't wearing underpants. He could feel it, and he was retaliating underneath her touch.

"Please, no," Percy didn't know how he wasn't used to this by now. "Please, stop," he begged.

"We'll start with that," Penelope said firmly, pulling his chin up. "What's with that horrible attitude? Do you know how many men right now would be grovelling over a woman like me?"

Percy closed his eyes, whimpering. He couldn't help himself. He was anticipating the pain.

"No, please," Percy begged, his voice cracking. "I'll do anything."

Even knowing what she was going to do, he was still surprised when clothes starting flying everywhere. Buttons were torn, zippers were broken, and her hands and teeth were all around him. Percy tried to inch backwards but there was nowhere to go. Her hands were pressed up against his, holding them down. She was straddling him, and her clip had fallen somewhere. Her hair was all over the place, her lipsticks made impressions into his skin. And there laid no witness but him.

"Why can't you enjoy sex like a normal person?" she asked him.

"I'm… I'm sorry," Percy replied back, more feebly than the last. "Please don't hurt me."

Penelope laughed, as if it were a joke. "Hurt you? I'm going to make love to you, silly," Then he heard his family laughing, in the table that day, with Ron's story. He let his body flop down in defeat. He could still smell the way that her white lily perfume clung onto her clothes, her hair, her skin, her, her, her. "Didn't you always want someone to love you, Percy? Isn't that what you wanted so badly? For someone to love you?"

Percy tried to stare at the ceiling-the wall-somewhere that wasn't here, but she was everywhere.

Penelope dug her fingernails into his hips. "What did you do, Percy? What did Ginny tell you to do?"

Percy shook his head, hot tears burning into his eyes. "I'm sorry," his voice was distant, and he could taste the lie on his tongue. It was acidic, sour, and it came with a price that he couldn't pay. "Our wedding…"

"You're not sorry, Percy," she instructed him. It was an instruction. He knew it. Stop saying you're sorry because you don't mean it. "You're not sorry, because if you were sorry, you wouldn't be this sad pathetic waste of a person. You'd enjoy me showing you my love."

"I don't deserve love," Percy replied back in a croaked voice. She was straddling him, thrusting into him, and their skins felt like they were searing. Dry, dry, friction, wet, wet, splotchy. He was unable to look down just in case he got sight of bruises and the semen. He couldn't feel anything but wetness and skin. He couldn't tell if it was his blood, or hers, or something else that he'd rather not think of. "Please, stop…please."

"Oh, Merlin, I'm almost done," Penelope sounded annoyed. "What happened with Ginny, Percy?"

He didn't want to think about Ginny when they were doing this. It made him feel even dirtier.

"Percy?" Penelope shook him, but she still kept going. "Percy?"

There were more sounds, more feeling, more of her, more, more, more and all Percy could do was close his eyes and beg, "Please." Then after, "Please," a little more desperately, followed by a dejected "Please."

He didn't know how long they'd been like this before she slapped him. "Oh Godric, I'm sick of this." He supposed he deserved that one. "What did she SAY?" she finally got off him, but he still could barely breathe. "What did GINNY say that's so important you had to tell me?" she sighed. "Merlin, I'm starving."

She walked towards the kitchen and Percy followed her soon after he'd put on his clothes as quickly as he could. His jumper was torn, and his trousers were tricky to put on with all that blood around his…well…

The kitchen smelled clean. The counters were gleaming. The glass table was filled with even more magazines of glass houses. Glass, glass, glass, glass, glass everywhere.

"There's no wedding anymore," Percy remembered opening his eyes and feeling how utterly dirty and used that he was, how unwanted. He had felt defiled. Every time that she touched him, she took a little bit more and more of him, and he wasn't sure what she was taking anymore. When Percy had gotten up, he tried not to look down at his body. "Ginny said—well…" he didn't know how to explain what happened. "It's gone."

"What do you mean it's GONE?" Penelope realised. "MY wedding is gone? That thing I've spent months and months and months organising? It's GONE?" She looked at him, with a hard look. "Because of YOU?"

Then immediately afterwards, Penelope shoved him backwards. He fell straight into their glass table. In that moment, he'd realised just how unsteady and fragile it was because his weight and the sheer impact of the fall had shattered it into a thousand little pieces.

Penelope got on top of him, grabbing him by his neck. "Why do you have to destroy everything that you touch?" she asked him. "Why couldn't you do one right thing just once?" his vision was blurring. "Destroyed your family. Killed Fred. Every time someone talks to you, they end up in a fight… now my wedding!"

I'm sorry, he mouthed, unable to speak. He shook his head. It didn't matter that he couldn't speak.

"I left our baby with you for one day and you killed him," Penelope reminded him. Percy stopped moving and just stared at her with widened eyes. She let go of his neck. "You killed him."

She grabbed a thick piece of glass from the table, and he stared at it, stared at her hand.

"This is your fault," Penelope told him, but he didn't know what she was talking about. "This is all your fault. You did this to yourself. You've done all of this to yourself."

His vision was coated in arterial red, as she stabbed him with that thick, heaving piece of glass over and over in his chest. Vision bleary and black, the only thing he could remember was him shaking his head. "I'm sorry," his voice cracked. He remembered their nearly-one-year-old baby, crying and screaming for hours. He could still hear it ringing into his ear, in the darkness. Echoing, echoing, echoing.

"You're right," Percy admitted. Peter had been in his arms when he drew his last breath. "I killed him. I killed Fred. I've destroyed everything." He didn't know why he couldn't see it before. "I did this to myself."

Penelope dropped down the piece of glass onto the floor, her hand was covered in his blood.

"I'm sorry," he said, and he knew that she knew that he meant it. She had to know. "I'm so sorry."

"Oh, just listen to me for once and shut up," Penelope told him. He could barely see her, but he could smell her. He could smell her all the time, that perfume…

He watched her stand up and leave. He was immersed in darkness, but in the midst of that void, there were snapshots. He could feel the dampness around him, but he heard the shower. She was taking a shower, washing his blood, his sweat, his bodily fluids, him, off her. Before she left him there alone, he saw a flash of a sunflower tote. He heard her shut the door. Then Percy saw something beyond darkness. There was light, a distant glow in his hazy, dying world. But by then, he was so tired of waiting. He just wanted to sleep.