Chapter Twelve: Make Your Choice

All night, he had been finishing the walls of the future bedroom, smoothing the plaster to ready the application of embossed wallpaper. Christine would need her own en suite bathroom which would require the addition of a couple of walls. His hands were coated in a fine layer of plaster dust as he meticulously placed the linework of his design for the room on paper. The space was adequate to accommodate such an addition. Perhaps a custom marble clawfoot tub…

It was the crying which snapped him from his visions of hand carved bathroom features. It filtered through the heavy wood door of his bedroom and floated to where he sat at the kitchen bar. Abandoning the pencil, which dropped like a dead soldier onto the countertop, he approached the bedroom door which stood on the other side of the room. Her sobs were raw, guttural, as though she was being spiritually split in two. Glancing at his watch, he took note of the hour. His productivity often resulted in a negligence of time; he had not realized it was approaching early evening.

His hand reached towards the doorknob, but when his fingertips brushed the cool metal, he stopped himself. The terrible song of pain coming from within was far too much for him to bear, causing his innards to twist and writhe. She was hurting and it was hurting him as well.

Was this empathy? He had not believed himself capable.

In the end he found himself frozen in place, hands awkwardly pressed flat against the door, with his head tilted downward as he processed this newfound ability. Why her? What was it about this woman that had pierced him so?

The wretched sound eventually came to a stop and he felt a great relief, as though a heavy sword had just been pulled from his belly. I was too painful to hear her cry, but even more painful knowing his inadequate abilities to offer solace.

His fingertips itched with some subconscious longing and he found himself gravitating towards the piano. It stood like an old friend who was ready to listen to his woes. Expressing himself was only ever truly possible through music, it was the only language in which he felt emotionally fluent. The relationship between an instrument and a musician was an awful and intimate thing. An instrument required blood, breath, the very beating heart of the person who touched it.

Perhaps it could be used as a means to console? He could not walk through that door and hold her as a man, but he could do so through music. Perhaps that could be enough.

The improvised melody came spinning from his fingers like he was weaving the notes on a loom into a complicated tapestry. The music was delicate, fragile almost. A single wrong note could cause the entire thing to crumble. It floated about the air like a sweet cloud of sugar crystals suspended in time and space. It was, perhaps, the most pleasant music he had ever crafted.

His whole world was lost to the notes coming from his terrible hands, his mind swept away in the throes of creation. He did not see her until she was sitting beside him on the piano bench and placing a hand upon his shoulder. His reaction was violent, as he was yanked from the universe he was creating in his head, his hands crashed upon the piano as he tumbled from his reverie. The beautiful illusion was shattered, merely because he was ill equipped to accept a simple touch.

He muttered an apology and quickly shut the piano's fall board.

"Did I startle you?", she asked in a soft voice. He knew she was looking up at him, so he drummed up enough nerve to glance in her direction from the corner of his eye. She looked anxious, almost panicked.

He did not respond.

"I'm not ready,", she said, her voice breaking slightly as she began to fight back tears. "I don't think I can do this. I feel so broken. Can't I just try a different day? Please…I just don't think I can do this."

He sighed, the brand of despair staining her voice was an addict's calling card. "You almost died in that bed, Christine. You would have died in that alley, had I not intervened."

Her body was quaking slightly, he knew she was growing physically ill. "I'm afraid to feel everything.", she wailed with an agony that blew through him like bullets. Putting her face in her hands, she began to sob again. "What would my father think of me now?", she managed to choke between shuddering breaths. "God, what a failure I've become. I don't want to die, but I'm so afraid to live, it all just feels so daunting." She sniffled, dashing the tears away from her face with the sleeve of her flannel pajamas. "You probably think I'm pathetic."

"I do not.", he said calmly. "I find it to be good that you fear death, I did not."

"You didn't? Why?", she asked, leaning her head against his shoulder. It caused him to flinch, but it went unnoticed by her.

"One has to get used to everything in this life, even to eternity. Between life and death, life seemed the least pleasant of the two options.", he said without emotion, he did not speak of the coffin he had nearly purchased to place within his apartment, how he had considered death to be a sweet siren's song. Instead, he said, "However, I already lived in a prison, and addiction was like being inside two, a prison within a prison. Stacked like little Russian dolls." Even as he made the admission, he knew he would never truly be free. He would never shake his tendency towards obsession, never break loose from the shackles that come had from being a societal outcast, a murderer who lived on the fringes.

She did not respond to his bleak admission, she simply stood from the bench and announced she did not feel well and shuffled back into the bedroom, closing the door tightly behind her. It was a few more hours before she emerged again, looking like a beautiful, sick specter. It was near agony as she fell to her knees before him, gripping his pant leg like a desperate animal, and begged, pleaded that he release her to the outside world. Her tears could have filled an ocean, it was a wonder she had any left. Her cries were low, moaning, strangled sounds, as though she was pulling them up from the deepest parts of her sorrow.

"Please don't cry,", he choked, "It gives me pain to see you cry."

He had found himself nearly breaking, ready to fetch a new bottle of pills he had tucked away. Could he not simply give her what she desired? Would that make her need him, and bind her to him? The thought was so tantalizing, so alluring. He found himself imagining a world where she depended solely on him, he, her supplier. She would need him, and he could monitor what she used, it could be the only way she may he truly his. It seemed such a simple thing, to give in to her wishes and become her twisted savior.

Yet he denied her, and it was quite possibly one of the hardest things he had ever done.

She stood and gave him a furious look, her hands balled into fists as she stomped back into the bedroom and slammed the door in a fit of rage, leaving him standing in the center of the room feeling helpless.

A half hour later she emerged once more. He sat stony and silent upon the sofa. Her countenance was different, she sat next to him and began to flirt. He was utterly baffled by this new behavior as she began to paw at him like a little cat begging for treats. She continued her pleas for release or relief, and there was something else insinuated between her touches. It was a level of desperation that he did not consider possible for someone so sweet, yet here it was, presented before him, in all its hideous glory.

Foolish, sick man that he was, he found himself considering such a thing!

Yet again he denied her. Each time it felt like he was disemboweling himself, the rejection and disappointment pointed in his direction nearly destroyed him. He felt his will cracking each time.

She ran into the bedroom again, neglecting to close the door behind her and rushed to vomit into the toilet. He followed her into the room and stood in the bathroom doorway as she lay, curled up in a fetal position on the bathroom floor, wailing like a wounded feline.

Withdrawal had taken his sweet little dove and turned her into a monster. He would give anything to have the same woman who had only a night prior declared herself ready for this intense process, who had vocalized her distaste for his mask, who had said the words 'I'll accept you'.

He found himself entering his walk-in closet, shutting tight the door behind him and accessing the secret panel where he kept the drugs. He was holding the bottle in his skeletal hand. It spoke of possibility, but also of death and destruction. Would he rather a living, breathing woman or an automaton? It felts as though he were damned regardless of his choice. Why did she choose his street corner to sing!? Why him! She had brought nothing but conflict and pain into his life, all dressed up in a pretty little package disguised as hope.

The chalky white pills seemed to stare back at him from their little orange plastic prison. They taunted him and his weakness.

He held his palm up into the light, to look at the long scar which glowed brightly upon it.

Addiction makes monsters of us all…

And in that moment, he wept, for he had made his choice.

I have been beyond touched by the support I have received for this story.

Some of you have even gone so far as to share a bit about your own personal stories, or have spoken of loved ones whom you have seen struggle.

I did not realize this would resonate with others the way that it has.

Thank you for those who have read, followed and given thoughtful feedback.