CW/TW: homophobia, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harm to children.
PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
Did it work? Was I too late, maybe?
Gaelstrom twitched his fingers and gasped. I can move my hands. That means my spine's not paralyzed. I can move everything else except...my legs. Why can't I move my legs?
A gust of wind blew through the trees, creating an almost cacophonous whish sound as he lied there with his eyes closed.
If I hadn't used Cu Chulainn's protection to break my fall, my back would be broken without a doubt.
Gaelstrom struggled to lift his head and see the damage that had been done. He strained his eyes to look down at the rest of him, trying his best to wiggle his legs, but found the effort futile the more he tried. Poking through his skin were the fibula in one leg, and the tibia in the other. That explained it. Emerald eyes shut as the back of his head reclined against the ruptured ground created by the impact of Cu Chulainn's shield.
Dammit. Now what am I gonna do? I can't get rid of that damned woman all mangled like this.
"Gaelstrom!"
His eyes shot open upon hearing his name over the heavy breeze. Jean?! Though by the time he glanced up to see him, Polnareff had already climbed back through the window.
That's funny. I thought I heard...
🔸️ 🔸️
In order to keep her truest intent hidden from Polnareff and Sherry, Adel phoned for an ambulance, her voice distressed as she relayed the events, and not at all what had actually happened. Telling them the boys had a grave accident whilst playing around the second story window would be believable enough. A few hours before noon and already so much had taken place. Polnareff's father had left them behind, and Adel had taken it upon herself to plunder and root through Rhiannon's belongings, resulting in the ordeal between Gaelstrom and Polnareff; a fight that had rendered him unable to walk.
He'd lie in a hospital bed for who knows how long, no doubt irritated at the fact that his uselessness would far outweigh any other emotion, save for one. Anxiety. A racing mind was the very thing he didn't need. He needed to stay calm, cool, and collected. He needed to speak with someone about Adel's behavior and what she planned to do. Something needed to be done about her now, not later. Although his legs were broken, he'd surely give it his all to see that that horrid cunt would be dealt with by the law before it was too late.
He remembered the damning words of Polnareff's aunt as she towered over him that day in the morning sun. He recalled how she sent Polnareff to take his sister back inside, because she supposedly didn't want her to see what had become of him. What a crock of shit. She didn't want them out there because this was her opportunity to make matters much more grievous. It would be what sealed the final nail in the coffin for Polnareff and Gaelstrom's friendship.
The twittering of birds felt ill-placed amidst the bubbling of anger in Gaelstrom's stomach as he lied there looking up at Adel's cruel smirk. The sun shined behind her, darkening the front of her body, as she curled her fingers over and studied the pinky missing an acrylic.
"Looks like Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall."
Gaelstrom glowered.
"But unlike the story," she said, "all the kings men won't be placing your sorry ass back together." Adel lifted her red heel and pressed it into the snapped tibia jutting from Gaelstrom's leg. "Now, you're going to do exactly as I say, understand?"
He stiffened, wincing his eyes shut at the pain.
Adel leaned down. "You're going to give me those pearls, and admit to Jean that the whole thing was your fault."
"But...!" Her foot pressing harder onto the broken bone made him wail.
"You'll do it or else everyone will learn of your dirty, little secret."
His heart raced with fear. "Please don't! You don't know what it's like for me. If Jean finds out that I like him, he may never want to be my friend again. You don't understand how scary that is."
"I couldn't care less. Now, if you don't want your fractures to get bigger, I suggest you shut up and play along. Got it?"
Gaelstrom nodded, loathing that he felt he had no choice but to comply.
"Good. You're the culprit here, not me. You are the conniving, little shit. If Jean asks, I caught you red-handed when I heard noise from the west corridor. According to Sherry, you were both playing hide-and-seek. Hide-and-seek in the forbidden hall? Well, aren't we a hypocrite. Seems you betrayed Jean's trust on your own without my help. And now, you're going to suffer the consequences, not me. Screw this up, and you'll be in a much worse state than you are now. When you get to that hospital, you better sleep with one eye open, because I will be coming to pay you a visit alone."
Gaelstrom's face blanched with fear.
"Oh, before I forget." She firmly grabbed ahold of Gaelstrom's arm and pulled the bracelet off of his wrist. They clinked as she shoved them down in the pocket of her blood-stained khakis, a rumbling laugh in her chest to go along with the disgusting act.
The approaching sound of Polnareff's voice had thankfully driven some of that stress away, though it would've been all of it if it weren't for Adel's hateful words still fresh in his mind. Adel stepped aside, allowing Polnareff to kneel beside him. Clearly he'd been crying. This situation was tearing him apart from the inside out, and anyone that couldn't see that was either stupid, or apathetic; and to him, Adel was both.
Polnareff didn't know what to do with his frantically shaking hands as he sat there and studied the injuries Gaelstrom's body had sustained from the fall. "Oh, god! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! This is all my fault!"
"Hey," Gaelstrom said, "it's alright-"
"No, it's not! I took this whole thing too far."
Adel crossed her arms, glaring down at Gaelstrom. That's right, he was supposed to act indifferently according to the way she wanted things to go. Fucking bitch.
"Oh, yeah, I guess." he said, going along with her cold-hearted scheme. This was bullshit. All of it. God, he felt so sick to his stomach.
Polnareff lifted his tear-stained cheeks from his palms, hurt by his show of indifference. "You guess?"
"I mean...!"
There was that darkened scowl again present on her mascara-smudged face. Complying with her ridiculous, and heartbreaking plan meant that she wouldn't reveal to Polnareff anything he didn't want him to know yet - his infatuation for him. Gaelstrom wasn't ready for that. He didn't think he ever would be. Holding that over his head made him burn with anger and sorrow. The likes of which couldn't be staved off by any knight in shining armor.
Gaelstrom sighed, defeated by the circumstances looming over like a dark cloud. "That is...umm...you kind of overreacted."
Polnareff's countenance soured. "What the hell are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying that you always let your emotions get the better of you. You never stop and think for even a second before jumping to conclusions. If you had, you would've been able to hear my side of the story and draw your own conclusion from that, yet here we are. Here I am. Lying on the ground because of you." Gaelstrom turned his head, wanting to vomit for the shitty words that were spewing from his mouth.
Polnareff's nostrils flared. "Yeah? Well, I'm not the one that stabbed me in the back, am I?"
Gaelstrom's eyes shifted to him, startled by his angry outburst. He didn't want to argue, let alone go along with Adel's cruel scheme. "Jean, I-"
"How about you give me back what you stole?"
His heart sank like lead in his chest. The frown on Gaelstrom's face quivered with anguish. "I...I don't have it..."
"You damn liar!" Polnareff yelled in his face. "Where is it!?"
Gaelstrom swallowed, nearly weeping. "I don't know."
"You don't know?! You don't know?!"
As Polnareff sat there and raged, Adel placed her hands to his shoulders and spoke in a soft, motherly voice. "Non, mon cherie, we can always come back out here later to find it. There's no need to bite the boy's head off. I'll help you look for it after the ambulance arrives, okay?"
He took a deep breath through his nose and sighed harshly. "Fine." Polnareff scowled, wiping a tear away from his eye as he stood up from the grass.
Gaelstrom kept his head turned, finding it unbearable to look him in the eye. If their friendship could be salvaged at all, he'd wait until later to call him from the hospital to do so. But for the time being, all he could do was endure, endure, and endure some more. As Polnareff went to turn and go back inside, Sherry's presence startled him.
"What're you doing out here?" he calmly asked. "I told you to stay inside."
Sherry sniffed. "I just...wanted to-"
"I already told you: you don't need to see this."
"Don't be upset with her." Gaelstrom said, with his head still turned in the opposite direction. Polnareff spun around, ready to bite his head off. "She's got a big heart, that's all."
Not wanting to make a scene in front of his sister, all Polnareff could muster back in response was: "Whatever..."
Walking away from him, he couldn't help but stop and look back, uncertain about everything that was taking place. Part of him was telling him that something wasn't right, Gaelstrom wasn't really a bad person, though the words he heard had indeed come from him. And Aunt Adel certainly wasn't evil. In his eyes, women could never do wrong. All those that he'd met before were gentle and kind - especially the maidservants, once he realized how wrong he was for trying to get rid of them. His dad was the one that told him that all women had a kindness to them. To his surprise, he found his words to be true. So why should his aunt be any different?
🔸️ 🔸️
It was finally noon. The ambulance had come and taken Gaelstrom away to the hospital. For the past hour, all Polnareff could find himself doing was stare out the window at the birds hopping along in the grass in the front yard. What was it about that day that he seemed to be attracting so much negativity into his life? It's like he was a magnet and the most horrific experiences were just zipping towards him at the speed of light. The thought of repelling the good only made him feel more depressed than he already was.
Adel stood on the steps in the foyer, meters away from the window where he sat and stared gloomily at the birds.
"It kills me to see you so heartbroken," she cooed, "tell me, cherie, is there anything your dear auntie can do for you?"
His mind was lingering elsewhere when he acknowledged her (un)kind gesture. "I didn't mean to hurt him," he said in a saddened voice, "it was an accident. I didn't mean to, I swear."
Adel sat beside him on the loveseat and brought his head to her shoulder. "Awww, of course you didn't, darling. No one ever means to do these things. You were just angry, that's all."
"...did you see the bones...they were...will he ever walk again?"
"Unfortunately..." she muttered.
"Huh?"
"I said: Oh! Fortunately. He'll be fine."
Polnareff leaned his head away from her and sat up, staring at the floor. "I feel so bad for being angry. Why...why am I angry? They're just pearls, aren't they?"
"And why shouldn't you be? They're your mother's. That little rat tried to make off with them behind your back. If you ask me, he got what he deserved."
Those words didn't feel the least bit adequate coming from her. Polnareff quirked a brow, side-glancing at her. "Isn't that a bit much, though?"
Adel gasped, catching what she said as it would no doubt reveal her true nature. Can't have that. "Oh! Is it? Well, perhaps. He did deserve to be caught though."
"I don't know. Something feels so wrong about all of this. I can't place what."
"You're overthinking things." she assured him, confident that she was doing a brilliant job at covering her ass.
Polnareff furrowed his brows. "Maybe, but...what would maman say if she knew what I'd done? I think she'd want me to apologize and forgive him. I feel like I should."
Adel rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Wrong." she said. Polnareff looked at her confused. "I knew your mother better than anyone."
"You did?"
"Of course I did." Adel waved a lazy hand, knowing full well she was lying through her teeth. "Her parents were farmers from Northern Ireland. All of them grew up in poverty, that is until she met your father. After that, she ran off and married him against her father's wishes, and never spoke to her family again. Jean-Luc's wealth went to her head, I think. Oh, which reminds me: she hated me, you know."
"My mom hated you? I don't think -
"Well, she did." Adel's face contorted with anger. "She accosted me for everything. To her, I was no more than a mistake; a pebble in her shoe, you could say. I did nothing wrong, it isn't my fault I had a better upbringing than that...nevermind. You're lucky you don't have the opportunity of falling on her bad side anymore, what with her dead."
Polnareff looked away, unsure what to make of her insensitivity about his mother. "Still, I think she'd want me to do the right thing."
Adel turned in her seat to face him, clearly annoyed. "You want to know what she would think of this whole experience? She'd despise your friend. She'd tell you to move on and never speak to him again, because he's trash. Which he obviously is, don't you think?"
"Well, what he did was wrong..."
"Exactly. If you walked up to him like it never happened, and let him back into your life, she'd despise you for not doing the honorable thing and shutting that piece of shit out for good. Rhiannon believed you deserved better. And she's right! If you run off and forgive him now, he'll only keep taking advantage of you. Let me give you some advice in your mother's words: some doors are meant to be closed, so that others can open. Don't focus too much on that connard's betrayal. Your friendship has ended so that something new can replace it."
"Something new? Like what?"
A sinister laugh rumbled in Adel's chest. "How should I know? It's your life. I'm certain you'll figure it out sooner than later."
Polnareff committed her words to thought. "Yeah, maybe you're right. Do you think things will ever get better? That I'll stop losing people who are close to me? I don't think I can take much more of that."
Adel shrugged. "Ahh, all things happen for a reason, mon ange." She let out a sigh and stretched her arms. "Well, I'd better run into town and get some cigarettes."
"Huh? I didn't know you smoked, auntie."
Adel's eyes trailed away from his. Everyone one knew she hated cigarettes, cigars, and smoke in general. "Well, that is, I do occasionally. I'll be back shortly, okay?"
Polnareff smiled. "Okay. I love you, auntie. Be careful."
Adel cringed, not wanting to return those words. Hell, it wasn't like she felt the same anyway. "Uhh, feelings are mutual, cherie." She turned away from him, making her way to the front door. "Don't worry." she said under her breath. "After I take care of your snot-nosed little boyfriend, I'll be back shortly to finish the job with the two of you."
🔸️ 🔸️
Getting cigarettes. What a clever lie that was. Adel laughed to herself as her car pulled out of the driveway and made off up the road. Even more to her amusement, she'd acted the part of the concerned aunt quite well, fooling Jean-Luc into believing she really cared if he'd gone and left his children behind. Adel knew what she was doing all along, ever since Jean-Luc had contacted her and filled her in on every detail.
The small community had houses spread out with few trees around them. A wooden fence followed along the roads, tall blades of grass reaching to the bottom planks. Horses grazed in the pasture not too far away. Every so often, there were a few stone walls in the place of fences.
"What a shit hole." Adel remarked, sneering at her surroundings. Her eyes wandered up to the rearview mirror, narrowing at the bruise below the outer edge of her eye. The tip of her finger coursed over it and she let out a scoff in disgust. "I'm going to enjoy killing that worthless brat."
She drove through the town of Ville d' Archambeau, where the houses were much bigger and well maintained on the outside. Given the lack of distance between their yards, those inhabiting the homes could easily stick their heads out the windows and hold a fairly typical discussion if they wanted to. Erectly standing in the middle of town was a statue of none other than the founder of the community, one of Adel's and Polnareff's ancestors - Léon d' Archambeau.
He was sitting atop a horse rearing its front legs, donning what looked to be cuirass, sabatons, and metal gauntlets. The only defining features of his head were his face and meticulous beard, as everything else was covered by chain mail. The statue served as a reminder of Adel's self-deprecating, and why she could never be grateful for the things she did have. Because no matter what good came her way, there was always some reason it could never remain, and it was all thanks to that damn curse. Whether it be people, or material wealth. Her luck was absolute shit, and she'd gone mad by it.
"Get ready to give my piece of shit brother and his two mistakes a welcoming party in hell." she said to the statue, seething in her hatred for all of them. "Oh, and can't forget that ugly friend of theirs. I'll teach him to hit me, fils de pute."
Tires screeched on asphalt as she sped off from the stoplight, cutting people off in her fit of rage. Store buildings zipped past her vision. The engine roared the harder she pressed the accelerator. People on the sidewalks darted against the buildings, some holding each other in fear she'd hit them. Whether she did or not, Adel didn't care how her actions affected them. Gaelstrom was on her mind, fueling her rage. He'd rat on her for sure. She had to get to the hospital before anyone could suspect the wicked scheming she was doing.
It couldn't be avoided. He was going to stay there all summer long anyway, by now he was already too involved. What was one less annoying brat running amok? If anything, she was doing Dr. Callaghan and his wife, Eileen, a favor.
Adel smashed the brakes with her other foot still on the accelerator, swerving her car around the corner and onto the highway. She was heading straight for Paris, to the hospital where Gaelstrom was transported. Cigarettes. Adel laughed at the thought of telling Polnareff she was going out just to get some. What a dumbass. He'd believe anything she told him just because she was family.
The roar of the motor decreased as her foot gently let off of the pedal, keeping the car going at a steady rate of 65 mph. Her fingers tapped the steering wheel as she let out an aggravated sigh. "How should I go about killing the little bastard? Dammit! I didn't even think about that."
A loud blare sounded. Adel had slammed her palm against the horn. "Merde! I'm going to send you all to hell, you hear me?!" Her foot mashed the accelerator. "Every goddamn one of you is going to join that lowlife, Rhiannon, rotting like the trash you all are!"
Adel looked in the rearview mirror, once again worrying over the bruise. It made her look so ugly, she thought. While she was going over it, something caught her eye in the backseat. Someone. Medium, sable curls draped over the familiar woman's shoulders, accentuating her fair complexion. Soft, blue eyes stared back at Adel. It was a spirit she believed had come back only then to haunt her, or maybe it was all a hallucination? It didn't matter.
Rhiannon sat there with poise, one hand overlapping the other in her lap. What a conniving bitch; even in death she was trying to make her feel guilty. Well, it wasn't going to work.
"Don't you look at me like that," Adel snarled, "this whole thing is your fault!"
Rhiannon's gaze stayed the same, unfazed at her words.
"That money was mine. You knew it was, yet you couldn't stay away, could you!? You had to push me further out of the picture like the selfish cunt you are. My brother felt sorry for you. You were a nobody, a broke-ass farmer! Who would ever give a damn about a worthless piece of shit like you? Him?!" Adel laughed. "Had to go and have kids to cheat me out of my father's inheritance, what a bitch! Well, you know what they say: what goes around, comes around. Now you, my brother, and your stupid kids can be together right where you belong... in hell!"
She hadn't realized how much pressure she was applying to the pedal, making the car speed up to a frightening speed of 98. Her eyes were so fixated on the rearview mirror, shouting at no one at all in the backseat, to notice that the car drifted into the opposite lane. In merely a split second, with almost no time to react, the brunt force of two vehicles colliding into one another smashed together like soda cans crumpling under pressure.
Adel had snatched the steering wheel in a foolish attempt to save herself, which sent her and her car flipping on impact. Glass shattered, littering the highway. The metal door of the car was dented to hell and back, detaching from the body with loud clangs against the road. This was it. Adel was done for.
A haze of gray clouded the sky above, casting its dark shadow over the highway. A humid mist lingered in the air until sparse raindrops dripped onto the pavement. Steam hissed from the car that hit her, where in the driver's seat lied the corpse of a woman who'd been crushed like aluminum.
Authorities were shocked to find that Adel's body was nowhere to be found at the scene of the wreck. They had eventually ran the license plate tracing the car back to Adel's ex, the man she was having an affair with at the time of her husband's demise. How someone could plow right into another car - a car speeding rapidly down the highway at that - with no driver made absolutely no sense at all.
And what's more, authorities discovered a black handbag at the scene, finding a driver's license inside; they had come to the conclusion that the driver was in fact Adelaide Polnareff. A middle-aged, Parisian woman.
"Heyyy, I know her!" one of the officers declared, pointing to the ID with widened eyes. "That woman's got one hell of a criminal record."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, man. She served time in Le Santé prison twenty years ago for aggravated assault."
The two other cops studied the photo ID, trying to jog their memory. One of them let out a gasp as though a lightbulb went off over their head. "Isn't she the lady from that one movie? What was it called? Uhhh, A Touch Of something?"
"Hey, yeah, A Touch Of Evil. If I had the choice between using toilet paper and that piece of shit excuse of a movie, I'd wipe my ass with the film in the projector."
All three of the officers laughed. "Yeah," one of them concurred, "the toilet paper is way more valuable than her movie career. I mean, come on. Her acting is the most subpar shit I've ever seen! Has this bitch ever heard of acting school?"
After getting what little information they did have on Adel, it was made evident that she had no valid contact information.
Her phone had been disconnected shortly after Jean-Luc phoned her about coming out to their childhood home, no doubt due to her snatching the phone out of the wall because of their argument. Her home in Paris was the same as she left it - an absolute disaster. How someone could up and walk away from a devastating car wreck leaving hardly any evidence behind left authorities baffled. The next step was to look into the files and see if she had any known relatives. Few. Jean-Luc and his children, and that was it.
Police phoned the Polnareff residence that afternoon in hopes that they would give the grievous news to her brother, and maybe even squeeze what little bit of information they could to further their investigation. However, that wouldn't quite go as planned. A child answered it in his place instead.
🔸️ 🔸️
The phone rang loudly from the living room and into the foyer. Mere hours since Adel had left, and the house was completely silent, save for the breeze blowing against the windows. It was as if no one was home to answer the phone call. The door slightly creaked open in the wind, making an eerie noise. Sherry had locked her bedroom door, staring out the window in hopes that Gaelstrom would be coming back. Faintly, she could hear the phone ringing from the first floor, wondering if her brother was ever going to answer it.
Trudging around the corner and down the staircase, Polnareff made his way into the living room to pick it up. With a gloomy, depressed tone in his voice, he answered.
"Bonjour?"
From the other end, came the sound of a friendly cadence belonging to a woman. "Hi, there! Is there a Jean-Luc Polnareff available?"
Polnareff spoke lowly, irritated by the very mention of that name. "He's...out for a minute. Can I ask who this is?"
Composed and mannerly, the woman continued to speak to him. "Oh, alright. No problem, are you one of his children?"
He gripped the phone, speaking softly in annoyance. "Yes..."
"Alright, well, hey. My name is Helena Dubois from the Préfecture de Police in Paris. We're calling in regards to an Adelaide Polnareff."
His attention piqued. "Did something happen? Is she okay?"
"Are you where you can sit down?"
He looked at his feet, not sure why she would request him to do that. "Um, yeah, I guess?" Pulling the phone chord down with him, he sat cross-legged below the phone hook on the wall, eagerly awaiting an explanation.
"I'm so sorry," the woman said, "I really don't want to have to be the one to tell you this, but..." she took a breath in and let it out, taking a short pause afterward. "...your aunt's been in a car accident."
PANG
Those words numbed him to the core. A sinking feeling dropped into his gut. His stare was blank, eyes opened wide in disbelief at what he just heard. As the phone slipped from his grasp, the woman's words continued from the other end, but he didn't catch any of them. The phone made a clonk on the floor. All he could do was stare at the wall.
"Now we're still in the midst of investigating, so nothing's turned up yet, okay? I promise, we're doing the best we can...hello?...Hello?"
Her voice was tiny, hardly comprehensible. Gently placing it back on the hook, he trembled, fumbling it before hanging it up appropriately.
Helena had pulled the phone away from her face, bemused by the dial tone. "What the...? Did that kid seriously hang up on me?!"
Three people gone all in one day. Too exhausted to think, too exhausted to cry, he quietly left the room and sat on the loveseat in the foyer, motionless. The excess of sorrow he'd felt all day left him bone dry, unable to shed anymore tears. He expected there to be more bad things to come his way, not welcoming of it, but not surprised if it happened either. He'd just have to roll with it to the best of his abilities. But even the strength to do so seemed wavering.
Again, the phone rang. It had to be the Dubois lady calling him back. Not feeling up to answering the phone again, but simultaneously feeling bad if he didn't, he picked it up anyway.
"Yeah..."
A familiar voice filled him with surprise. "Jean? You're okay?!"
"Gaelstrom?! How are you calling here?"
"I'm using the hospital phone," he answered, "I had to beg like a damn dog, do you know how embarrassing that is? I mean I didn't really, it's just an expression, but still."
He wanted to laugh. A small smile began to quirk, but he caught it, refraining from expressing that reaction. He remembered what Adel told him about shutting toxic people out of his life, and how his mother would feel about him letting Gaelstrom back in it. She'd despise him. Both of them. Polnareff frowned at that reminder, his eyes downcast.
"I was so scared that she'd already gone and done it," Gaelstrom confessed, sniffing over the phone as he wiped his nose, "you know...hurt you?"
Polnareff clenched the phone in his hand, brows furrowed. "That's why you called me? What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"I'm sorry, I can't help it. I'm worried to death about you both, okay?"
"Look, we're fine!" Polnareff snapped. "Stop with the lies about my aunt, she's...! Nevermind. Just...don't call here anymore." Before he could move the phone away from his ear, Gaelstrom's voice raised from the other end in desperation.
"Wait! Don't hang up!"
"Why shouldn't I?"
"I need you to keep the phone off the hook - stay on it as long as possible with me, alright? Please?"
Anger bubbled up inside of Polnareff. He was getting sick and tired of hearing him go on and on about his aunt being an evil person, and how she intended to murder him and his sister in cold blood. That had to be the most ridiculous lie he'd ever been told in his life. And for someone who was supposed to be his good friend to make it up, no less - outrageous. Adel was right. He didn't need him in his life anymore. He could already feel the sanity being sapped from his being just standing there listening to the nonsense spewing out of his mouth. What nerve he had calling him just to keep it going.
"Enough already!" he snarled. "Look, auntie's dead, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?! She got in a car accident and now she's gone. There! You can rest easy now, you idiot!"
Gaelstrom's caring demeanor changed. His voice came back in response with a saddened tone to it, addled by the sudden outburst. "What? You mean...your aunt's really dead? Well, at least you're safe now. I promise when I get out of here, I'm-"
"Just stop, okay?!" Polnareff yelled. A long pause came over the both of them. Disgusting. How could he act so happy at the mention of her death? What Adel told him about cutting him out of his life sounded more and more like the right thing to do by the second. Knowing it's what his mother would've wanted certainly gave him the urge, and after all - he owed her that much; honoring her by doing the right thing.
"I'm sorry," Gaelstrom said, "how many times do I have to say it?"
"If you're so sorry, then tell me where you hid it."
"Hid what?"
"You know what!" Polnareff spat. "Why do you keep acting so stupid?!"
With the way Gaelstrom was beginning to sound over the phone, it was as if he'd completely threw out his attempt at being kind, and let his Irish temper take control of the reigns. Bad idea. "I'm getting real sick of you callin' me stupid." He blew a breath of hot air over the phone. "It's like talkin' to a brick wall. Know what? Maybe that's exactly what you are! I can't convince you of shite no matter what I do! Hell, I go out of my way to show you how much I care about you and -" Gaelstrom cut himself off.
"And what?" Polnareff asked, clearly annoyed.
"Nothing. Just forget it. It's not like someone as dumb as you would understand anyway."
"Someone as dumb as me..." That was the straw that broke the camel's back. To think their friendship had been reduced to this. As far as Polnareff was concerned, their supposed friendship was now dead - just another experience he was having to serve as a horrible reminder: he had no real friends, and he probably never would.
Gaelstrom realized the weight of what he'd said, immediately feeling the pang of regret. Quiet words followed the silence; words that cut through Gaelstrom like a red-hot knife through his soul.
"Since I'm so dumb, why don't you go find a new friend to stab in the back? Don't ever call me anymore. In fact, I hope I never see you again as long as I live." With that, the line disconnected and the dial tone replaced Polnareff's voice.
And like that, the final nail had been hammered into the coffin, marking the end of a friendship they once believed would never be broken.