Hello! This chapter may be a little confusing, but this is a recollection piece that answers some questions directly and indirectly. The bold is Ciel's text from the past. So enjoy and review!
Sebastian's POV
I have been in this state before. In this pseudo-death manner. I have been, but at this moment, it feels like it is something new altogether. It has similarities to that time. The time when I had woken up from my coma after the crash. I had bandages wrapped around my eyes due to the shards that evaded my eyelids which rendered me temporarily blinded. And dead. So when I gained consciousness, I felt like I hadn't. Like my family and my friends took it upon themselves to bury me without checking to see if I am alive. Like they had already mourned me and placed their memories and me in a convenient box, a coffin that could be forgotten in the dirt and past. I had truly assumed that I was dead. And due to my choices in life and love, I had somehow ended up in purgatory. A hell in which it was not.
My parents revealed later that they had me drugged most of that time since I was a danger to myself. It was only when the doctor had unwrapped my eyes that I gained some sanity. Of course, not being able to see and hear is one tragedy, and then being able to see and knowing you are really alive and then finding out you can't hear when you see the people you love mouthing their mouths at you and crying is another tragedy in itself. I was alive, but I was deaf. When I had realized that, I effortlessly plummeted into depression.
I can't remember much about the time I was in recovery. Or won't remember would be more accurate. The only vivid thing I can recall is when my parents had shown me that one word. That one name that stood out in black against the white erase board.
Ciel?
That was all it said, but I could breathe again. I remember looking around the room in hope. Then I remembered where I was, why I was there, and what state I was in, and I grabbed the marker that they had placed next to me to communicate. I wrote that I didn't want to see him and that I didn't want him to know of me. And that was that.
But it wasn't. Now that I had known of something from my past remained untainted by my accident, I clung to it desperately and pitifully. More so when Serena gave me my phone. It was a stupid flip phone that I had not needed but had gotten to keep Ciel close to me even if we were apart. I had grasped the cracked technology as if it had all the answers to my prayers.
And it had. Answers in which tore my already fractured heart even more. Because what that little device held was more than just a link to Ciel. It stored my future.
When I had first gathered up the strength, both physically and emotionally, to look at the contents of the phone, it was during the week that I was due to be discharged from the hospital. I had a grasp that my reality would forever be altered, and I was learning to accept that little by little. I was slowly recovering, but when I powered up the phone, a part of my full recovery would be nowhere in sight as I saw the alerts of my missed calls, unanswered texts, and unopened emails.
I knew that they weren't all from Ciel. I believed that, and it was true. Some were from other people like Bard. But the truth was that the majority were from Ciel. And I knew I should stop before I dare breech the point of no return, but I did it. I opened the first text:
Hey. We still on for today?
That was the day of the accident.
Dude! You stood me up!
Wait! Not like it was a date or anything but still!
Anyways call me.
This was the first day after.
Hey! Why aren't you answering me? Are you mad at me?
Second day after. I was still unresponsive to the world.
I'm sorry. Whatever I did, I'm sorry. Now will you talk to me?
Third day. It was also the day that the dates of the text messages didn't matter. It was what they said. What they meant that would seal my fate.
Hey! Pick up your phone!
I went to your house. No one is there. Where are you?
Stop ignoring me!
Answer me, dammit!
Are you just going to cut me out of your life? Fine! I don't need you.
I called your sister. You got her to block my calls too?
What's going on, Sebastian? My parents can't reach yours either. Text me back.
Call me.
Please.
It's not funny anymore! Talk to me!
I guess we won't be spending summer together. I'll see you in the dorms then.
I just heard! You dropped out?! Why?! Call me!
Is this because of me? We can work it out. Whatever it is, let's just talk about it.
Please call me.
Please answer me.
Please come back.
Where are you?
I miss you.
Then there was a break. Like he stopped caring enough to try. I wished that was the case because his incessant text messages killed me. But then he started up again. His messages, though, were different. They were drenched in his pain, and his intent to cause me pain.
You are an asshole! If you don't want to be friends, be a man and say it to me! Say it!
You pussy! You coward! Tell me you don't want to friends with me!
Shithead! Pick up! Pick up! Pick up!
You better be dead. That's the only excuse I will take from you.
Please, Sebastian. Don't you want to be with me anymore? I thought…
Never mind. Just…answer me.
I'm giving up unless you answer me.
I'm serious, Sebastian. Please just call me.
There were more that revolved around the same lines. It was the last few text that made me who I am today: crippled, unworthy, and damaged.
I don't care about you anymore. I'm happy without you.
Don't text me back or call me or whatever. I'm done.
I hope you're dead.
Because you are dead to me.
That was the final thing he wrote to me. I was crying by the time I was done reading them, but I still…read the emails knowing that I shouldn't. Knowing that if I did, I would only cause more inner turmoil.
They were some like his text, but after a while, it was of him telling me in detail what I was missing without him. He told of his summer adventure, his first week at the dorms, his classes, but then the emails were long poetic pieces of hatred directed at me. I read the rest, letting the knowledge that the man I loved no longer cared about me sink in.
In that particular instance, I was glad I couldn't hear. I was glad that the voicemails he left me were unattainable for me. Because if I could hear his pains or his sobs (Serena had listened to all of them and told me what he said), I would be in worse shape than I was. Ciel's texts and emails already done enough damage. I was detained to the hospital for longer because I no longer had stability. I went insane. And no amount of therapy would fix me.
And now, presently, I am swirling his messages in brain. Although I try to think of the good moments we have recently been having, only the past words are keeping me company as I, once again, cling to hope and sanity and life.
I might be numb to outside elements, but Ciel's heartfelt words brought so much old and fresh pain that I know I have to alive. I have to because even hell couldn't be this cruel. So while I am now blind and deaf, I try to find comfort in the fact that nothing that will happen to me will be as bad as then. Nothing.