by Bea Paige
Erik works out for an hour at dawn every morning and at dusk every night. During those times, I pretend to be asleep and watch him through my lashes. He works out to the point of collapse, forcing his body way past what it’s capable of. I know why he does it, he does it to forget.
But he’ll never be able to forget what that woman did to him. Ever since he told me, I can’t stop thinking about it either. She tortured him, betrayed him. She hurt him so badly that the only way he feels safe is behind a glass wall. She made him afraid of women, yet she never managed to steal his belief that real love, exists. That’s what he holds onto. That’s why he reads Rumi, why he persists with me. His best friends, his brothers love me, and he loves them so I must be worth loving, right? He sees something in me that my own mother couldn’t.
It's both painful to realise and a comfort because they’ve crowned me the one. The one who can save them, love them. But that kind of crown is heavy, and I’m not certain I can carry the weight of it.
Besides, this isn’t a fairy-tale. They aren’t my knights in shining armour who can save me from evil, and I’m not the perfect princess who can give them their happily ever after. They’re the predators of the story, the heartless king with a thousand lovers, the twisted artist trapping his victims’ souls on canvas, the punisher who rips out people’s hearts so he can devour them, and I’m the fucked up heroine wielding a sword to protect myself. Barricading my weakness, my heart, behind a shield made of stone. Running, hiding, surviving.
Our kind of fairy-tale doesn’t exist. This is real life, it’s messy, it’s brutal, it hurts.
Like me, Erik was lured by the kind of love where words were given freely but had no meaning behind them. Both held captive, his torturer and mine had spewed lie upon lie, telling us both what we wanted to hear so we would fall for them. Then they destroyed us. They pretended to be someone they weren’t to get what they wanted. The only difference was that I knew deep down Roman was dangerous, but I fell for him anyway. His love was the warped kind, the kind that moulded me into what he needed.
I understand now that Erik needs the kind of love that’s real, that might be fucking painful but the kind of love you fight for, the kind of love that gives meaning to life. He wants what Anton and Ivan have. He wants the kind of love I’ve been running from.
And yet, today, it doesn’t frighten me as much as it once did. I’m not nearly as scared as I should be. You see, without even realising it, I’ve stopped running. Right here in this glass cage, I’m forced to face my fear head on.
To accept love, to give love, and not hurt anymore.
Erik was almost torn from this world in the most painful of ways by a woman who was the opposite of loving. She ripped him to shreds, she pulled out the monster he worked so hard to cage inside. She took what he loved, his music, and destroyed it with pain and torture.
She took from him, just like Emmie had, just like Ms Hadley is doing now. Just like his real mother did when she abandoned him as a baby.
And I want to give back what they took. I want to.
Being here with him, confined like this has opened up a deep need within me, one I can’t seem to shake.
I want more. It’s as simple as that.
Lying across Erik’s lap is his violin. I watch as his fingers run up and down the neck absentmindedly. My throat closes, my heart squeezes painfully as my gaze runs over him. I want him to touch me like that… I want adoration, tenderness, care. That desire has become a thirst I need to quench over and over again. I didn’t think I needed it, until now.
There’s no denying it, I want the man… I want him.
Swallowing hard, I sit up, needing to move, needing to get up and stretch out my aching muscles. I need to do something other than think about Erik and what I long for. Opposite me, he places his book on the floor by his feet and looks up.
“Need to stretch?” he asks, gazing at me intensely.
It’s an innocent question, but something about the way his eyes rove over me has the hair standing up on my arms. The air crackles with intent. Mine, his, I’m not sure.
“Yes.” I nod, pushing away the uncertainty I feel.
In a couple of strides, Erik stands before me holding his hands out for me to take. I hesitate for a fraction longer than I should, drawing a deep sigh from him. Old habits die hard, I guess.
“Let me help you, Rose.” He murmurs the same sentence he’s uttered every single day since he held me against him tied-up and helpless, broken and bleeding, haemorrhaging my last secret. I should be saying that to him. Not the other way around. Squeezing my eyes shut, I place my hands in his and let him pull me to my feet. Erik’s arm wraps around my back as he steadies me. He moves to step away, but I wobble, gripping hold of him. Pain shoots from my knee, up my leg and into my back.
“Fuck, that hurts.”
“What can I do?” he asks, concerned.
“Will you help me?” I blurt out, even though it tears me up inside to ask, to admit that I’m weak when I need to be strong.
He had no one to help him.
“Every damn time, Rose,” he responds, supporting my weight. Not making a big deal out of something that really is a big deal. I don’t ask for help. Ever. Using his arm as a barre of sorts, I gingerly put weight on my sore knee. Then cry out in pain again.
“Fuck!” I exclaim, tears pricking my eyes in frustration and shame. He survived the worst kind of torture, weeks and weeks of it. If he can do that, then I can do this. I will do this.
“What do you need me to do?” he asks again, concern furrowing his brow. Despite what happened to him, what he harbours inside, there’s so much kindness in his heart, it breaks mine a little more.
“A new knee might be an idea,” I quip, only half kidding.
“That’s not even remotely funny, Rose.”
I grit my jaw and plaster another fake smile on my face. “I can deal.”
Erik scrapes a hand over his face, scrubbing away his concern. “What are we doing?” he asks, and I’m more than positive that his question isn’t about the fact I need to stretch out my tired muscles, but I respond literally anyway.
“Stand behind me. Hold my hips steady, I need to stretch out my lower back,” I explain, shifting in his hold. I can just about manage a painful knee, but if my back seizes up, I’ll be in a wheelchair permanently. A knee can be replaced, a bad back isn’t so easily fixable. “For now, I need you to support me.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.”
Erik steps behind me, his large hands finding my hips.
“What now, Rose?” he says gently.
His soft breath tickles my ear and I’m all too aware of the firm muscles of his chest pressing into my back. I lean back into his touch for far longer than I should. His arms wrap around my stomach, a sigh releasing from his mouth as I melt against him. We savour the moment, neither of us able to pull away.
But of course, I’m the first to break this moment between us, pulling away when his arms tighten and his heart rate increases. Don’t get me wrong, selfishly I want him to fuck me again, but this isn’t that. This is something else, something more and I want it so much it scares me, so I do the only thing I know how to do; I distance myself.
“Still afraid to feel, Rose?” he murmurs.
Yes. No, I think. No.
Beyond the glass Anton watches us, his gaze stripping me bare, whilst Erik’s touch does the same. I ignore his question and Anton’s interest. At least with Ivan I have some control, he keeps me steady where Erik trips me up. Ivan left late last night, his turn to watch Ms Hadley and rest. I miss him. I miss both Anton and Ivan every time they’re gone. Pushing down the gut churning feeling that realisation gives me, I focus on what I need to do.
“I’m going to lean forward and stretch out my back. I can’t hold my weight fully because of my knee. Hold my hips steady, keep me from falling. Can you do that?” I ask Erik.
“Yes, of course,” he responds, gripping me firmly.
“Easy, Rose,” Erik warns, picking up on my distress.
“Just hold me steady… please,” I add, realising how ungrateful I sound. Dropping my head, I allow the weight to stretch the muscles in my back.
Does accepting Erik’s help make me any less of a fighter? Does it make me weak for needing him? A few days ago, I would have said yes. Now, now I don’t know.
Rising slowly, I shift out of Erik’s hold and move towards the bathroom, his gaze heating my back as I limp away from him. He doesn’t try to stop me or question me. He lets me do what I need to do. Sliding the bathroom door closed, I lean against it, pressing my eyes shut.
What now? It’s been over a week since I walked into his glass cage. Almost as long as that since we fucked. I sigh heavily. I’m at a loss. I don’t know how to be around him anymore. His story has knocked the wind out of me, has slapped me into reality. He needs someone who can help him. Someone better than me.
“Rose, do you need some help?” Erik repeats and I almost laugh out loud at the irony.
“No, I’m fine. Thank you,” I respond, my voice cracking with sudden overwhelming emotion. What the hell is wrong with me? I’m not this person, afraid to face her fears. I’m stronger than this.
I survived Cerulean Blue; I can do this.
Stripping out of my clothes, I take my tablets with a glass of water filled from the basin, then step into the shower. What I really need is a long hot soak in the bath, but this will have to do. Pressing my hands against the tiles, I lean my head forward letting the water cascade over my skin. I stand beneath the spray until the water runs cold.
Part of me had hoped Erik would follow me in here. That he needs me as much as I need him.
But, of course he doesn’t. He doesn’t need me in the same ways as Ivan or Anton do, and it’s messing with my head.
For me, sex has always been a weapon of sorts, one that I’ve wielded to protect myself, to feed the demon within. As a child, sex was used to control me. As an adult I’ve used it to gain control. With these men it started out the same way, but somewhere along the line that changed. Feelings have crept in, even though I’ve done everything in my power to bat them away. Fear still keeps me distant from them all, despite the fact I shared my last secret.
I fear the power of love and its capacity to destroy, because that’s all I’ve ever known.
Making a decision, I turn off the shower, grab a towel and wrap it around myself before opening the bathroom door. I stop on the threshold, Erik is standing in the middle of the room, holding his violin. He has it cupped between his chin and shoulder, the bow resting on the strings, his fingers pressed lightly against the neck. His eyes are squeezed shut and his fingers are moving but there’s no sound.
“Erik?” I question tentatively.
Beyond the glass Anton stands, dropping his pencil and pad, the sketch he’s working on falling to the floor.
Erik opens his eyes.
“I miss playing, Rose. I want to take back what she stole.” He lowers the violin and bow and places them on the armchair behind him. Beyond the glass wall, Anton visibly relaxes. “Will you help me to do that?” he asks.
“How? The music brings out the worst in you.”
“It does, but you, Rose, you somehow bring out the best. You appease the monster.”
“Through dance, and I can’t do that right now,” I respond, limping towards the bed.
“You dance inside my head where no one else can see you…” Erik says, his gaze roving over me.
“That’s beautiful,” I respond, feeling the crushing weight of his confession.
“Rumi… wisest dead man I know,” he smiles ruefully and my heart hurts.
“Still, I can’t dance for you, Erik,” I remind him.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. When my mother came and stirred up trouble you didn’t dance then. You survived the monster by drawing out the man, by opening up to me. I want you to do that again…”
“How?”
“By letting go of the fear once and for all…”
Chapter 30
Two more days pass.
Two more days where Erik and I observe each other, where we find a tempo that’s unique to us both. He hasn’t forced me to reveal how I feel. He’s just allowed me the space to get used to these unfamiliar emotions and the new rhythm of my heart. It’s been a gentle kind of rhythm filled with mutual respect and growing trust, and far removed from anything I’ve felt before. I never realised how on edge I always was until now.
Erik works out as usual and I stretch twice a day, working through the five positions the best I can with a knee that really is beyond fucked. I wasn’t joking when I said I needed a knee replacement, but right now that’s not a priority.
Being here with Erik is. Healing is.
We’ve spent time just being still, finding our way together. We talk, or just enjoy the silence, finding peace within it.
This morning, however, tension seems to pervade the air, filling the space with an impatient kind of energy. When I look at Erik, I know he feels it too.
“You okay?” I ask, sitting up.
“Honestly, I’m not sure…”
“You feel it too, huh?”
He glances at me, running a hand through his hay-blonde hair. “It reminds me of the feeling I get every time I pick up my violin, as though the molecules in the air are getting ready for the notes to expand, to fill the space. It feels like…” His hands clutch the armrests, his knuckles turning white as his amber gaze flickers with something dangerous.
“Like an oncoming storm, like lightning, where beauty and danger reside…” I murmur, the hair on the back of my neck standing.
“Yes, exactly that,” he agrees, regarding me. Then he stands suddenly. “I need to shower. I need…” his voice trails off.
“A moment…” I finish for him.
He nods tightly, glancing at his violin then giving me a pained look before striding over to the bathroom and sliding the door shut. Beyond the glass wall Anton stops drawing, resting his pencil against the pad, an expression I can’t read flitting across his face.
“Morning, Rose.”
“Morning,” I respond.
When I think about how long I’ve spent in Erik’s company, it’s really no time at all. But in this glass cage, this fishbowl, it feels like an eternity. Time slips by endlessly, the only indication of a passing day is the food brought for us to consume and Erik’s exercise ritual at dawn and dusk. A week feels like a month, two days so much longer than a mere forty-eight hours.
Anton and Ivan still take it in turns to sit with us. I have a feeling they will continue to do so for the rest of their lives if it’s needed. I hope to God it won’t be. This morning it’s Anton’s turn and as usual he’s spent the time drawing, the soft scratch of his pencil against paper a comfort.
I rub my hand against my chest absentmindedly. For the past day I’ve been searching within for my demon, prodding the empty space left behind from her absence. She came to me so suddenly, and now she’s slipped away silently as though she never existed. Now she’s no longer a part of me, I’m not sure how to be, who to be.
Thinking about how or why she’s abandoned me is as much of a mindfuck as the way Erik persists on avoiding any kind of sexual encounter between us.
I know he wants me. I see how he looks at me. But he’s waiting for something.
They all are.
Ms Hadley remains in the farmhouse waiting for me to give up so she can have her son back.
Ivan is waiting for me to finally relent and open the door.
Anton is waiting to see if I can help his best friend as much as I’ve helped him.
And Erik is waiting for my fucking heart
to crack open and bleed.
In some ways, I guess I’m waiting for that too.
Sliding my legs off the bed, I stand and move towards the nearest glass wall, placing my palm flat against the glass. Anton’s gaze follows me as I move.
“Okay?” he asks.
“I’m not sure,” I respond, honestly.
I hear the water running, and a sudden urge to climb in the cubicle with Erik fills my mind. Thoughts of his large hands running over my skin, his thick fingers slipping between my legs and dipping inside my wetness flush my cheeks red.
“Jesus, Rose,” I mutter, feeling my heart pumping faster.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Anton asks, a knowing glint in his eye.
“It might cost you a bit more than a penny,” I retort with a half-smile.
“How about I show you what I’m drawing, and you can tell me what you’re thinking? Seem fair?” he asks.
“Why not?” I reply, sweeping my free hand out to the side as I stretch out my sore muscles. My knee is still fucked, but the pain is manageable with medication.
Anton tucks his pencil behind his ear and slowly lifts the sketchpad around.
“What do you think?” he asks.
“What do I think? I think it’s amazing,” I say, a rush of heat covering my skin as I gaze at the image. He’s drawn an almost exact replica of the sketch he did of me after I took him to see Cerulean Blue. Every detail is exactly as I remember it. If anything, it’s even more intricate. Somehow, in this sketch he’s captured not only the truth of me, but the truth of him too. I’m blown away.
“I can’t believe you’ve drawn that from memory, Anton. It’s extraordinary.”
“Thanks.” He shrugs, tucking the sheet back into the pad. “So, want to tell me what you were thinking about just then?”
My cheeks flush pink as Erik steps out of the bathroom behind me. I flick my gaze to him, taking in the wet tendrils of hair, and the firmness of his chest beneath the fitted t-shirt he’s wearing. A pair of grey tracksuit bottoms finish off his outfit. He couldn’t look sexier if he tried. I turn back to Anton, trying and failing to hide my feelings from him.