Page 25 of Raise Up, Heart
“I’m here,” you say, emerging with the wet cloth.
“It’s cold,” he hisses as you swab the sticky come from the hair on his belly and chest. It’s already drying on and it’s hard to get off. It would be easier if the water were warm.
“Colder than a dream would be,” you say.
“Yeah,” Cole agrees. “I think I’m past thinking it’s a dream now.”
You touch his face and kiss his lips tenderly. “Good.” Though you wonder if he’ll regret that in a few minutes.
You bend to the floor and pick up the composition book labeled with a giant black number 1 made in Alex’s hand with a sharpie pen. You climb into the bed next to Cole, pulling the covers up around you both, and hand the book over to him. “Fun bedtime stories,” you say. “Enjoy.”
Cole holds the journal in his hand like he’s not sure he wants to touch it. Finally, he opens the first page, and he begins to read.
You watch his face, and when his eyes go wide and his lip goes between his teeth, you know that he’s reached the part where Alex describes the pain the transformation caused him, the internal stabbing sensations, the blood running from his nose, eyes, and ears, and the agony of it all.
Time is lost for me. I scream in pain. I want to die but can’t find a way to make myself end my torture. Every time I attempt suicide, I am stopped by this demon heart. I wake up hours later still screaming, whatever instrument I’ve chosen for my death is destroyed and useless, or simply gone. He won’t let me go.
You now have reason to hate your excellent memory.
“Oh my God,” Cole murmurs as he reads on.
You sit back and wait for him to finish. It’s a strange read, you know, with Alex’s handwriting twisting in and out from his own to something similar to Damon’s and back again.
Alex describes it in detail—not only the physical pain, but the agony of leaving Emily, and his family, knowing that they must be scared and hurting because he’s vanished, but also knowing that he can’t go back to them, that what is happening is so far out of his control, so far outside of reality, that it will only make them hurt worse to see his agony and his pain.He won’t stop until he owns me.You remember how true that was, though you had no idea what that actually entailed as you fought so hard to destroy him.
You close your eyes and remember the words that Alex wrote, knowing by Cole’s noises, and the subtle way he shifts away from you, that he understands now. He’s filled with the terror and horror of what you are, what you’ve done, and you don’t blame him at all. The days that you’ve spent trying to understand, doing tests, cutting small wounds into your inner thighs to see if they bleed, to see how they heal, and any number of scientific attempts to prove that this is not happening, all lead back to the knowledge that you exist against nature. You should not be here. This was Alex’s life to lead. You wanted that for him. And yet you viciously rose up and stole it from him. For what?
You open your eyes and look at Cole. His eyes are glossy, and his mouth is open with shock. He’s absorbed in the journal, and he’s shaking again.
For Cole.
This is for Cole. You hate that he knows it as well. You wish you could have spared him, but the reality is something he must deal with, just as you do. He’s owed that, and you need him to know.
He looks up at you with bright eyes. “Damon…” He sounds like he’s going to pass out. “Damon, this is all my fault.”
You should have seen this coming.
“Don’t be like that,” you say.
“It’s true. I wanted you so much. I made you have to come to me.”
You roll your eyes. “Did you also force me to have feelings for you? Did you make me love you so much that I killed a man to get back to you? Come on, Cole. Your control issues really don’t belong in this discussion. So, bzzzz, wrong answer. Try again.”
“Would you have…come back or…killed Alex if I was…happy? If I’d been in love with Michael? Like you say you wanted? Would this have ever happened?”
You rub your forehead. He’s so infuriating. Sometimes you have no idea what you love so entirely about him. He’s bad at chess, and melodramatic, and thinks he controls the universe, or can influence the laws of nature with the force of his love. Never mind that he apparentlydidactually manage the latter, at least in conjunction with your own intense attachment to him, but you can’t let him focus on these things. He’ll make himself crazy with guilt.
“I never said Iwantedyou to be in love with Michael,” you say, concentrating on the one aspect of that comment that you can readily clarify. “I said Ihopedyou could love him.”
“What?” Cole’s shaking his head and getting worked up.
You want to say something to calm him down, but you’re going to offer him truth instead.
“Cole, listen, this—me and you, right now? This isn’t what I wanted for you. I can’t go back to Maryville or even to the world. Youknowthat. I love you—and you deserve a life like you’ve always wanted—”
“I want a life withyou.”
“I know,” you say. “And…I know now that I was wrong. Being with Michael isn’t an option for you or for me. Dealing with the truth of me, it’s not what I wanted for you, but that doesn’t matter now, does it?”
