ABBA – My Love My Life
After hours of tossing and turning on the living room sofa Clarice had sunk into a restless sleep. Her dreams were odd and they made her talk in her sleep; that forgotten and forbidden language we can't understand when awake. The words that left her lips were horrible to hear in their echo desperate as a death of a child. Her skin was cold but perspiring as her eyes, rolling under her lids, saw the dreadful imageries her mind created.
The walls of the house creaked because of the wind blowing outside. Her eyes flung open.
"Hannibal?"
The house was as silent as a tomb. No comforting closeness of his body, no gentle whisper from his lips to ease her nightmares.
She sank back into the false world of her subconscious. Had she even really been awake she wouldn't remember in the morning that she had called him, over and over again, during the dark hours of the night.
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She woke up just before dawn. For a single second, only one heartbeat, she had no recollection of what had happened and felt relaxed, looking forward for the day to come. Then the next second brought the memory with itself and drove away all positive feelings.
He's gone.
A clock ticked somewhere in the house. The thoughts came to her in drops like the breathing of a tuberculosis patient.
Tick. Over
Tock. Hannibal
Tick. Why
Tock. Gone
She felt she wasn't able to breathe properly. Closing her eyes and concentrating she inhaled deeply.
Why did he do it? Doesn't he love me anymore? What did I do wrong, why wasn't I enough for him? Why didn't he explain, tell me what's wrong? So we could have fixed it? Why? I can't understand this. I thought we were fine… Better than fine. I thought we were in love.
She put her hands on her face and realized her cheeks were wet. She had been crying and she hadn't even noticed it.
I don't want to feel like this. I don't want to cry after him. Never did I believe this day would come; I'm crying because of a man. I hate myself for being this weak, but I can't help it. What am I supposed to do now? I've built my whole life around him. God, how foolish I have been! I have lost everything. Every single fucking thing. He was my life and now if he really is gone I have nothing. This isn't how we intended things to be; how did we get here? What went wrong? We had it all. I believed in you, Hannibal. I gave you my e v e r y t h i n g. Wasn't it enough?
The disconsolately of the thought made her chest ache. Her life, her future, her love – all swept away. It felt like falling from an airplane without a parachute.
The truth was that Clarice was terrified. Still being in shock after his announcement she didn't quite realize it yet, but soon she would. The center of her world hadn't been taken away from her; it had left from it's own free will. That was the thing that hurt her most; he had left her. And it was torturing not to know why. She didn't know what the problem had been, so she blamed herself for the departure, questioning everything from her intelligence to looks. No matter how stupid she knew it to be she couldn't escape the accusations she kept on throwing against herself.
Wasn't I good enough for you? Was I a bore? What the fuck did I do wrong? You had no right to do this to me, Hannibal. You had no right to rip my heart out my chest and step on it. Jump on it. Or better, why didn't you? Literally? Fuck you, Hannibal, why didn't you just kill me? Would have been a hell of a lot easier for both of us. Coward. You didn't even have the decency to let me out of my misery. You must had known what your leaving would do to me. Are you enjoying this? Does my pain amuse you? Gongrats, cat, you got the canary.
She got up from the sofa she had been sitting on. As she stood up she felt how her shoulders and neck sent an arrow of pain into her brain. A night on a sofa is seldom a good idea, she had known it last night when she had decided to spend her night on it, but she hadn't been able to sleep in their bed upstairs. Now she would have to go the empty, lifeless room. The task to get clean clothes had never been this hard.
She rose the stairs one step of a time. For some odd reason, a cheesy love song started to play itself in her head.
…Why does my heart go on beating
One step up, hand on the banister.
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Up we go, all the way.
Don't they know it's the end of the world
Only a few steps now.
It ended when you said goodbye…
She stopped and closed her eyes. After she was convinced she had succeeded in exorcising the song out of her head she continued.
The distance between the upper end of the stairs and the double doors of their mine bedroom was only a few meters. She hesitated to take the missing steps for she didn't know what was waiting for her in the empty room. To see the unused bed would be the final evidence of his absence; whether she was able to take it or not remained to be seen.
For a while, she felt tempted to turn back and live in the evening dress she was wearing for the rest of her life, but knew that to turn back now would be nothing but lying to herself. She would have to face his leaving sooner or later. Though she, at the moment, would have preferred the latter, she walked to the doors and opened them.
The cool air greeting her scented faintly like vanilla and white musk. It felt as if the air of that room would have been softer on her skin than the air in the other rooms. Deliberately torturing herself she allowed her look sweep the room and didn't even try to block the memories floating into her mind no matter how much they tore her.
… Hannibal, still at sleep, lies in the bed. Clarice has gotten up and opened the curtains; the first beams of the rising sun are starting to creep in. She is focused on trying to capture them with a small mirror in her hand; as she succeeds in to gather them as a one, bright ray she smiles like a little girl. Carefully she points the beam to her lover's eyes. He is awake in a second and pretends to be angry with her – With not very good outcome; a few moments later they are already making love.
A smothered sob escaped her. The extract of their life she recalled had took place only a few days before.
"You bastard... I hate you!"
As the words had left her lips she wished they were true. Yet they were not and she knew they probably never would be.
It would make this so much easier if I could hate him. I can't. I just can't. That son of a bitch broke my heart and I can't even hate him. Well, I hope he is really happy now. Really satisfied with himself.
Skillfully keeping her eyes away from the bed she gathered the things she needed and left. The sound of the closing door sounded disgustingly final to her.
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Closer than she would have believed was the man Clarice was aching for. Dr Hannibal Lecter was living, at the moment, in a nearby hotel. Of course he knew he should have gone further but leaving Clarice had been much more difficult than he had ever been able to imagine. The thought that she wasn't physically so far away eased his being, though very little.
He sat by the large window in an old yet comfortable and stylish chair. From an outsider it would have looked like he had been admiring the view, but the truth couldn't have been further. His look wasn't focused on anything; he just stared. Had he even really saw what he was looking at it would have not appealed to him, though it must be said that the view was magnificent. In his eyes everything was hideous and ugly; it seemed to him like he was watching the world with a fast forward –button on. Everything beautiful turned to ugly and everything that mattered changed to unimportant.
Dr Lecter was a man who never had had problems with himself. He had always been fond of his own company – the thing that had kept him from turning into a creature like Miggs during the long years of his imprisonment. Always content with himself. That had changed; now, Dr Lecter was a man who loathed himself. He hated himself because of what he had done to Clarice. The look in her eyes on that faithful evening had burned itself in his soul forever and he knew it would be there till the day he would die.
"Well, it's not going to be long anymore."
His silent voice absorbed in the emptiness of the room.