Thanks are first this chapter! Yay! Here's to LittleSquirt1, Well-Yeah-There's-That, Dean's Leather Jacket, Queen O' Randomness, Sky-Pirate325, romantic.dreamer26, Haylee-chan, and chnoelle. You guys, as always, are the best!
Just to warn you, the angst is upped a bit in the beginning of this chapter, but I'm sure by the end of it you'll walk away with a smile on your face. I mean, this chapter's got it all! Paranoia, friendship, hugs, and a little Shakespeare.
Who could ask for anything more?
But it is a little shorter than usual. I was planning to put more in here but as I was writing what is now the end I decided that it was a good way to end it. All righty. Let's keep on truckin'!
Chapter Seven: Cry Mercy
All I wanted was for everyone to just go away. I could feel them all watching me; always wary, always wondering when I'll snap again. I hated it. I hated what I'd done and I hated the way everyone started walking on eggshells whenever they were around me. Most would just keep a five foot distance from me at all times, but a select few risked catching my crazy by coming close and trying to talk to me. I didn't want to talk to them. All I wanted was to be left alone. I knew what they were up to, the ones that talked to me. They all wanted to learn my secrets and use them against me. I'd already made the mistake of breaking down in front of them. There was enough ammunition in that to torture me, but they wanted more. I hated them.
I hated Susan and her sympathetic eyes. I hated Peter and his concerned stare. I hated Lucy and her innocent attempts to comfort me through childish things like hugs. I hated Edmund and his insistence on talking to me all the time. But most of all, I hated Caspian and his indifference.
We avoided each other, which was fine by me. I never wanted to hear his voice again. I didn't want to listen to his stories and interpretations of the stars. I didn't want to hear his kind corrections of my form with a sword. I didn't want to hear the bell of his laugh. Never again- but God, how I wanted to do all of those things at once.
I was a walking contradiction. Nothing in my mind made sense anymore. Thoughts were incomplete, memories had missing pieces. I could hardly put together the right signals to walk, eat, talk. Every time I tried to pull myself back I was interrupted by echoes of what I had done.
What is your problem?
Don't call me crazy.
I hate you.
I probably deserved to be miserable. But that didn't mean they had to watch me like they did. It made my skin crawl. I retreated to a dark room off of the forge and did nothing. They needed to stay away. I knew exactly what was happening to me. If anyone got to close I knew exactly what I would do.
First I would confide. I would let them think they'd broken through the barrier and helped me. Once they were hooked, I'd reel them in with false words, epic lies. Eventually they would bend, break, become a victim.
It's what I do when I lose myself. I lose my morals. I lose my light. I lose my conscience.
I lose my mind.
Don't call me crazy.
I closed my eyes and begged the echoes to fade. It was a never-ending clash of words back and forth against my skull. I covered my ears, but they only got louder. I wanted to pull them out myself, but something stopped me from tearing my hair out to get at my brain. A new voice, not my own, rose above the chaos inside my mind.
It is hard for me to comprehend how so much passion can fit into one person.
That's easy. Take a look at my arms. The burn marks from the stolen cigarettes. The jagged scar from when I thought there was a tracker under my skin and tried to dig it out. My life story told in bumps and curves. Do you understand now?
Cry mercy.
The voice I missed and hated. Loved and loathed. I curled up on the stone ground, arms wrapped around my knees, eyes closed, I whimpered, "Mercy."
A shadow fell across my eyes, blocking the little firelight that drifted into my chamber. My cell. My self-induced quarantine. Whoever it was sat down in front of me and was silent for a while. After several minutes of incomplete thoughts on who my visitor was, I muttered, "Go away."
"I thought you were asleep." Ah, so it was Edmund then. Why wouldn't he just leave me alone? Didn't he know I was gone? Didn't he know I was dangerous? I was hanging off the edge by my pinky finger. One single thread remained between my mind and my true self. If it broke, I wouldn't be Izzy anymore. I'd be someone entirely different. Someone who doesn't give a damn about anyone but herself. Some people call it a split personality. I just call her Lex. In actuality, she was a part of me, so I couldn't be classified as schizophrenic. But she was foreign, and strange, and ruthless.
"Nope. Go away." I stretched out my legs and rolled over so I could stare at the wall.
"Everyone's worried about you."
Cry mercy.
"Not everyone," I mumbled.
"Yes, everyone."
Who did he think he was fooling? I hate it when people try to trick me. It makes me want to scream. It makes me want to lie.
"Okay. You can tell everyone that I'm perfectly fine."
"You've been lying in the dark for almost two days."
"I'm allergic to the sun."
"No you're not."
"I'm sick."
Edmund didn't reply to that one as quickly. Finally, he said, "I know."
The monster inside me gnawed at its chains. I contemplated the bruise on my knuckles from punching the soldier then knocked it against the wall as hard as I could. I hissed at the pain. "You know?"
"Well, not from experience, really. But I do know it's okay to be sick in ways that aren't physical."
"You don't know what you're talking about. Stop trying to make me tell you things. I won't tell you anything!"
"Calm down. I'm not trying to make you do anything."
"Then what do you want from my life?" Silly thread of hope. Silly bruise. I let my fingers tap a rhythm on it.
"I don't want anything from you."
"Liar. You're all liars." I hate liars.
"I'm not lying to you, Izzy."
"Izzy isn't hear right now. Please leave a message after the beep. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep."
Edmund sighed patiently. Why wouldn't he get frustrated and leave? Why? "All I'm trying to do is tell you that I understand."
I sat up, turned, and grabbed the front of his shirt in one fluid motion. "You understand?" He wasn't frightened at all, so I decided to give him a little something to understand. "Do you understand these? Pathological lying, impulsive behavior, paranoia, obsessively secretive, uncontrollable anger, self injury." I stopped listing and stared at him.
"What are those?" he asked calmly.
"Symptoms." I let go of his shirt and scooted back to sit against the wall.
"Symptoms?"
"My symptoms."
"Your symptoms."
"My six symptoms that they used to diagnose me." I scratched absentmindedly at the back of my not bruised hand. I wonder, if I chiseled away enough what would I find? Bones? Veins? Muscle? Blood?
What am I made of?
"Diagnose you?" Edmund prompted. He still didn't get it. I wanted to scream at him to run, but I didn't. Some little part of Izzy tugged on the string that was miraculously keeping me from falling apart. She was pulling me back together again. I could almost see it.
"Edmund, can you keep a secret?" I asked.
"Of course," he replied.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
"When I was thirteen I was diagnosed as a sociopath."
Edmund reached forward to touch my hand. Something changed. Gravity shifted. I saw that that he really wasn't all bad. When I admitted the truth, the gates were swung wide open, and everything spilled out. "I spent a year in a psychiatric hospital after my diagnosis. At first it seemed to make things worse. I thought that all the orderlies were out to get me. I wouldn't take my medication because I thought they were trying to poison me. I didn't see my family at all that whole year, because my father is in the army and he was transferred halfway across the country. I couldn't go with them because I was too unstable to be transported to a new hospital. The doctors didn't want to risk it." Edmund didn't say anything. He just held my hand. "They started forcing the pills down my throat. Every time they did I would lie in bed just waiting to die. I still expected poison. But after a while the medication started to work. A month later I was well enough to go to group. When I finally got out, I was happy for the first time in my life. I was fourteen and free!" I laughed bitterly. "But people talk. None of my old friends that I kept in touch with from old towns wanted to talk to me anymore. Even when I started at my new school in my new town kids would whisper about me. They called me Dizzy Izzy behind my back but some of them…" I took a deep, shaky breath. "Some of them called me crazy right to my face."
"Which is why you reacted the way you did when you had that row with Caspian," Edmund stated.
I nodded. "Wow." A small smile came across my lips. "Wow, I actually feel better."
"Talking about things usually helps," he agreed.
"I've never told anyone that before. Not even my best friends. I was always so afraid they'd think I was contagious." Is that my mind I see on the horizon? I pulled on the cord as hard as I could, reached out my arms, found myself. Everything looked different. I saw for the first time the true motivation of their prying eyes. The fear was for my safety, not theirs. I'd been so stupid. It seemed so funny. Slowly, laughter bubbled up and out. I saw the look on Edmund's face and laughed harder. I laughed for a long time and didn't fully sober until his expression turned weirdly serious.
"You aught to tell him, Izzy," he said.
"Tell who?" I played dumb.
Edmund only sighed his patient sigh. "Caspian, Izzy. You aught to tell Caspian."
Cry mercy.
I recoiled. "Why would I want to do that?"
"Because he's been moping about almost as much as you!" he exclaimed. "And he won't even tell anyone why he's so upset, but I know it's got something to do with you. Every time he walks into a room he looks around with this hopeful look on his face. I know he isn't looking for flying monkeys."
"Narnia has flying monkeys?" I asked excitedly.
"No! Don't change the subject."
"Edmund," I whined. "I'm just starting to feel better. Why do you have to go and pull this now?"
"Why is Caspian walking around like a wounded puppy?"
"Because…"
I hate you.
My heart curled into itself. What have I done? All he was doing was trying to look out for me and I blew everything up. I had to do something- anything. I had to make it right.
"Because I said something terrible," I finally admitted. "And it wasn't something that can just go away. It must have hurt. It would've hurt me." I shakily got to my feet and walked over to the door. While I was waiting for my eyes to adjust to the brighter light, I mused more to myself than to Edmund. "You know, it took me three long years to lock all that away. Now it's running circles in my head all because of a person I hardly even know."
Edmund appeared at my side and put a hand on my shoulder. "That must hurt a lot," he said. "Particularly your heart."
"What do you know of my heart?" I caught myself quoting Sense and Sensibility defensively. I let myself calm down before I continued. "My heart is a mosaic of broken glass pasted together with a glue stick." I shook my head and laughed. "It's the most painful thing I've ever felt, and I carry it with me always."
"Why don't you go and talk to him," Edmund suggested. "You both want to and it's going to happen sooner or later anyway."
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
"Well you don't fall down in front of someone's horse every day now, do you?" He smiled and started walking away.
"How do you know about that?" He shrugged. "It was Trufflehunter, wasn't it? I know it was! Next time I see him he is so in for a noogie!" Edmund just laughed. "Hey, Ed!" He stopped and turned. "Don't tell anyone." With a reassuring smile and a nod, he went on his way. Now to clean up the royal (literally) mess I'd made.
I found Caspian standing watch from a ledge on the left side of the How. Doubtless, the east side was being watched as well. When I climbed up, his back was to me, so I had a little time to gather the courage to say something. "Mercy." His entire figure went rigid at the sound of my voice.
"She speaks," he said softly, then continued after he warily turned around and saw that I came in peace, "Speak again, bright angel." I realized with a start that he was quoting Shakespeare. It seemed like he was rushing to get the words out."For thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds and sails upon the bosom of air." He smiled a little at my surprised expression. "I've been…practicing."
"I can see that," I replied. "But practicing for what?"
"I thought that if I apologized in his words it would be better than anything I could come up with," Caspian said.
"You memorized Shakespeare for me?"
"Yes. I know that it's your favorite." I felt a blush warm my cheeks and he looked down at his feet. "I wondered if you could ever forgive me for what I said."
"That depends," I said softly. "What else did you memorize?"
Caspian looked up, saw my nervous smile, and returned it. "Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will."
I nodded. "Go on."
"Here's much to do with hate, but more with love. Why, then, O brawling love. O loving hate. O any thing, of nothing first create. O heavy lightness. Serious vanity. Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms." Caspian came towards me as he spoke, his eyes locked on mine, and I found that I was having trouble breathing. "Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health. Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is." He took my hands in his and finished in a voice barely above a whisper. "This love feel I, that feel no love in this."
Words wouldn't come. I knew the risk he was taking when he chose those lines to quote. Sincerity was written all over his face, and his dark eyes smoldered. He meant to bare his soul in exchange for my forgiveness. What kind of person lays everything on the line in hopes that it will ease another person's pain? What kind of person does that for someone they hardly know? Is this nobility? Is this valor?
Caspian frowned. "You're crying," he said.
"I am?" I hadn't realized it, but two days worth of tears had started rolling down my face while I was trying to figure out what was going on inside his head. I noticed the bruise on his cheek for the first time and winced. "I'm sorry for hitting you."
"I deserved it." He drew the fingers of his left hand over my cheeks to wipe away the tears while still holding both my hands in his right. "The things I said were unforgivable and I would understand if you never want to speak to me again. Though, I would give up a thousand crowns if it would keep you in my life."
I sniffed and stared at him in wonder. "How can you say something like that? We met less than a week ago."
"I know it sounds ridiculous but…" He wiped away the fresh tears and let his fingertips linger on my cheek. "I have never grown to care so much for someone so quickly before." Every word out of his mouth was just making me cry harder.
"But I'm crazy," I hiccoughed.
A pained look came over Caspian's face. "I should not have said that. I was angry and let it get the best of me. I didn't mean it."
"But it's true!" I sobbed. "I am crazy! I'm a paranoid, violent, pathologically lying, compulsive, secretive, uncontrollable-when-angry lunatic!" I pulled my hands away and stepped back. "But not always." My voice was small again. "It's been a long time since I lost control like that and I tried so hard not to but then you called me insane and…and…" I searched the corners of my mind for words that could describe the way I'd snapped and decided that Emily Dickinson had the right idea. "And then a plank in reason broke."
"I…don't know what to say," Caspian breathed.
I nodded hastily. "It's okay. It's fine. I'm used to it. I'll leave you alone." I turned to leave, but he grabbed my wrist.
"Wait!" he exclaimed. I slowly pivoted to face him. "Have you not been listening to a single word I've said? I distinctly remember telling you that I would decline a thousand kingships to keep you by my side."
"Even though I'm crazy?" I sniffled.
Caspian smiled. "You are not crazy, querida. You are perfect just the way you are made and I would not want you any other way." Wow.
I don't know who moved first, but I was suddenly wrapped in his arms with my forehead resting in the crook of his neck and my fingers splayed across his shirt. I closed my eyes and breathed in his scent while I waited for my heart to calm. I could hear his beating, through cloth and skin and muscle and bone. My heartbeat slowed until it coincided with his.
"Caspian?" I said softly.
"Yes?" he murmured.
"What I said…after I hit you…"
"Mm?"
"I didn't mean it."
He didn't reply, but I felt him twirling a lock of my hair around his finger. A little delayed, he said, "I think I knew that, somehow. But it is good to hear you say it."
"That's why I did." There was a comfortable silence- possibly the first one we ever had. I counted his heartbeat, imagining the blood bringing warmth all the way to the tips of his fingers and back with each pulse. I wanted to melt into him, warm him, join the tiny red cells in their journey through his arteries and veins. His heart. With slight amusement, I realized that I was a little jealous of his blood. What a silly thought. Something else suddenly occurred to me. "What's querida?"
"It doesn't mean anything bad, it that is what you are worried about," Caspian replied.
"But what does it mean?"
He chuckled. "That is for me to know, and you to figure out."
"Is it Spanish?"
"Maybe. The Telmarine tongue is a mixture of many languages."
"Oh." Yet another thought popped into my head. "Caspian?"
"Yes?"
"What am I made of?" I knew that a biological explanation wouldn't satisfy me, and for some reason I thought Caspian would have a better response.
"You?" He took a moment to consider my question. "Querida, you are made out of dreams and stardust."
I liked that answer.
Just a little P.S. I wanted to add in here: Don't be alarmed by the change in my pen name! I just grew tired of it because my obsession with Japan fizzled out months ago. So now I will officially be signing of as Gina, because that is the name on my birth certificate.
Love and pancakes,
Gina
