Page 22 of Fragile Facade
Walking into the room that was mine on the second floor, I know why. It’s not because I care about the walls and the plaster and the carpet. It’s not even memories that hold me hostage. It’s confusion and failure, self-loathing because I hate myself for being that weak. It was living a lie while my brother paid for the same lie because he didn’t know how to act. It’s the fact that I was someone here, learned to mask here, and lost myself here. A three-step process I never learned how to reverse.
I’m afraid to get rid of the house because… what if some clue about who I am under all my well-placed disguises still resides within these walls? Does the base version of me still exist here?
Safe up here to crack with no eyes on me, because I can hear Krypt and Remi’s footsteps on the first floor, I allow myself a single moment to feel weak. More pathetic than anything. Because I long for someone to fucking recognize me without all my masks. How pathetic is that? I’m Killian Hallows, Riot of Vile House, and no one’s opinion of me holds power over me.
To them, I am strength and sinister glee. I am the charmer, the chaos creator, the powerhouse, and the one with no morals getting in my way. I lack empathy and show no remorse, making me terrifying in their eyes, and I’ve come to enjoy being terrifying. I like my reputation, no matter whose perspective it’s coming from. Whether they loathe me because I’m better than them, need me because I’m more skilled than them, or love me because I fake it better than them, it doesn’t matter. All my smiles have a place and a purpose. Every look, mannerism, movement, and word packs a punch however I need it to, and I’ve become comfortable reading everyone so well that I know exactly how to charm or scare them.
I am power!
Internally, I’m powerless because I forget who I am. A thought I will never admit aloud. A thought I barely admit to myself. Because I learned to read people but lost the ability to read myself.
Some people have body dysmorphia. I have self-dysmorphia. I mask that, too. I’m buried under so many layers I’m suffocating while thriving, too chickenshit to start peeling them back to see what sits underneath the bottom one.
What if it’s nothing? What if I’m no one?
My nape prickles a second later, alerting me that I’m not alone. It’s not Krypt or Remi because I can still hear them downstairs. Only one person moves so silently, so I steel my nerves, tame my temper, and turn to face him.
“How long have you been standing there?”
Ghost leans against the doorframe to my former bedroom, arms crossed, not breathing hard enough to make a sound. Even his energy is quiet. He grins, blue eyes deep and bright, dark blond hair flopped over his forehead. I don’t know what he sees when he looks into my eyes, but whatever it is, his grin falters and his eyes deepen. He doesn’t move, but something about the way he’s standing changes. Like he relaxes or shifts focus or something. I know the look for what it is, and it’s not something that belongs on his face.
Fucking worry. Pity. Sympathy.
“Don’t,” I snarl at him.Don’t look for something that isn’t there.
“You’re not as hard to read as you think you are,” he says, voice calm. “You hate the quiet, don’t you? If something isn’t life-or-death or getting you off, you don’t know how to function. You don’t know how to be alone because you can’t manipulate yourself.” His grin comes back when I scowl. “So fucking transparent.”
“And you’re any better?” I scoff. “You taunt death because you can’t stand to live normally.”
His lashes feather his cheekbones when he looks down, pushing off the doorframe to step into my room. I only came here to ensure the house hadn’t fallen down, not to have this confrontation. His feet still don’t make a sound on the carpet, and instead of hearing his heartbeat, Ifeelit thudding in my chest. I clear my throat and shake my head to rid myself of the feeling, refusing to back up as he gets closer.
“Quite the pair we are to be in a bargain, yeah? Maybe Reaper Corp will do you a favour and kill me tonight when they come.”
“If Yates can be believed.”
He’s right in front of me now, his heart beating even harder inmychest. Why the fuck can I feel it? I look at his chest, trying to see the thump of it through his shirt. His pecs are taut under the thin, long-sleeved shirt he wears, but there’s no movement that I can see—not the expansion of an inhale or the beat of his heart. When I look up at his eyes, the blue of them sinks straight to my solar plexus, like a punch that hurts more than all this nostalgia.
Is he seeing through my masks?
“You know,” he starts, steps casually coming to a stop in front of me, “you’re not as tough as you think you are. I had all this faith in you, Riot.”
“What faith?”
His throat rolls with a swallow, moving so much more than his chest does. Something still beats in mine, and the feel of it is so overwhelming that my throat rolls to match his. To swallow this fucking pressure and the strange looks and the way he’s seeing something about me that even I can’t see.
“You’ve been my opponent for years now, haven’t you?” He shifts his weight to the other foot, not making a sound. I stare at the carpet, wondering how he commands it to shut up. “And you’ve never cracked like this before.”
“I’m not fucking cracking.”
Ghost laughs, harsh but mellow. “Oh, you’re already cracked wide open,baby.” The pet name comes out with a mocking cackle that worsens the beat in my chest. “I see it all.”
How?How does he see it all and how can I manipulate him into teaching me how without him knowing he’s giving me the lesson?
“You wear a different face for me, right? It never used to be this see-through, but a few months ago, when I started toying with you even harder, you became transparent. Actually, no.” He tips my chin up from staring at the quiet carpet. “You aren’t transparent. You keep donning new masks, layering them on so thick, trying to find the one that works on me, but it’s pointless now, Riot. Because I’ve figured out how to look beneath them.”
His knuckles under my chin are driving me insane, but I’m rooted here, a prisoner to his words and the way he wields them. It only makes me loathe him more. Anyone with the ability to read me better than I can read myself isn’t someone I want in this world. Ghost needs to die for real, because if he ever finds the very base layer of me, he’ll realize I’ve never been the opponent he thinks I am.
He's jagged and put together beautifully. I’m covered and masked to perfection. His ugly has already been morphed into something so pretty it hurts, but my ugly is simply hidden, able to be revealed. Ghost isn’t stupid. He’ll figure out that unmasking me is the epitome of breaking me. Because when the ugliness beneath is laid bare, it will end me and all my meticulous lies, and I’ll become the boy who sat in this bedroom and listened to his brother lose his mind, too pathetic to do anything about it.
