Rhapsody in Blue: Part Twelve
Author's Note: Hey guys, I know I've been super absent lately and I'm really really sorry. I've been busy due to my graduating from high school. This is my last week of school so after this it will get better, I promise. I might actually try to write again. YAY. Oh and other heads up. I will not be posting anything from June 5th to the 15th. I will be in France without technology. So hopefully you guys will be able to get along without me. I'm sure you will, you've gotten through so far. xD Anyway just wanted to let you guys know what's been going on.
Part Eleven
Part Twelve
(Hero)
Ariadne woke up. It was still night. She turned over quickly and easily. It was just shy of three o’clock. She sighed slowly and turned over on her other side. She jumped quickly. Robert was sitting on the edge of his side of the bed. His feet were planted firmly on the ground and his arms were draped between his legs. He looked lost and confused. His eyes were pointed to the floor.
Silently, Ariadne shook her head. She sat up and expected to get a look from Robert. He however, didn’t move at all. He just sat, obviously contemplating something deep inside his head.
Ari moved to him and wrapped her arms around him. She tugged him back to the center of the bed. She smiled softly and smoothed his hair. He didn’t look at her and kept his eyes looking off into some other world that only he could imagine.
“Robert, please, sleep…” Ariadne pleaded. This wasn’t the first time that Ariadne had awoken to find Robert awake. Over the past week and a half since the dinner outing Ariadne had woken several dozen times in the night to find Robert sitting or lying while pondering life’s questions. Every time she’d tried to urge him back to sleep only to find that she was never quite successful.
“What’s wrong?” She tried. It never worked, either he wouldn’t say anything or he would lie through his teeth and say he was fine. It hurt inside to know that she’d been trying so hard and it wasn’t working in the slightest.
Robert climbed back under the covers and lay down so that he faced up. He sighed and shook his head. He wasn’t going to say anything tonight. His eyes looked up to the ceiling. His hair was sticking up in hundreds of different directions, and Ariadne tried in vain to smooth it down. Her hand went over his head as she looked at him. His eyes looked big and puffy. Underneath his eyes dark circles rested making Robert look much older than he was. Robert’s chin was covered with a thin layer of stubble. She wondered absentmindedly how long it had been since he’d shaved. She supposed that it had probably only been a few days.
Softly, Ariadne rubbed her thumb over Robert’s eyebrows and then smoothed his eyelids, making him close his eyes. She kissed his cheek and his temple. She moved her hand down his shoulder and to the hand at the end of his arm. She smiled a tiny grin as she took a hold of his hand and squeezed it just enough to let him know, just enough to let him know that she was there for him. “There’s nothing wrong with sleeping,” she said as she settled herself down next to Robert.
As she curled around his form she knew he wouldn’t sleep at all. She had the feeling that he never slept if he could help it. She had caught him snoozing at his desk several times, which obviously didn’t count. It was more like he was passing out from exhaustion than actually sleeping.
She wished there was something she could do. He wouldn’t talk to her. He wouldn’t even give any indication to what was bothering him. She knew something had to be turning him inside out. Her suspicions pointed to the news of their coming child. That had been when things had gotten weird. Ariadne tried not to think about how things would be if Robert really never wanted a child. She tried not to realize how their life together would be if Robert had an aversion to their child the way his father had had an aversion to him. She honestly hoped that the whole ordeal wouldn’t turn out to be a cycle of unloved children and unloving fathers.
Another week went by. To Ariadne’s dismay nothing seemed to change for the better. In fact things as far as Robert went got worse and worse. She wanted to help him but she didn’t know how. How could she possibly fix him? It was all Greek to her. She’d honestly never been in a relationship with a man so sad. Sad was the only way she could describe it. He wasn’t angry, at least not overtly so, but he had a look about him that showed that somewhere deep inside he felt the world was ending. Nothing Ariadne could do would help him or make him snap out of it. She did get increasingly rare glimpses of the Robert she’d fallen in love with. Sadly, it had become her hobby to make Robert laugh. She lived on the glimpses of the real Robert that she got. She was lucky if she got one every few days. She just wanted to see him smile so that she could pretend that everything was fine.
Robert was also away a lot. Not necessarily away at work, but more hidden away in the house. Ariadne sometimes had to physically go to look for him in the large estate because she had no idea where he was half the time. The times she actually found him he would be sulking somewhere odd with a book or numerous sheets of paper in front of him. He hardly ever said anything in those moments. Rarely, he would smile. Mostly, he would shift his eyes in a different direction so that he didn’t have to catch a glimpse of her.
One night when Ariadne had been looking for Robert she’d stumbled into a heated argument between Robert and Browning. Thankfully, she’d heard them yelling before she entered the room so she could hide behind the door and listen to what they were saying.
Browning had been doing most of the talking but Robert seemed to be holding his own and said more in one sentence than he’d said in the entirety of the past few weeks. The argument seemed to consist of the fact that Browning had found out that Ariadne and Robert were expecting a child.
Browning was yelling at Robert much like a father would do. Robert seemed to resent this and made it known to Browning that he was not his father. Browning went on to make it known that he thought Robert should marry Ariadne because of ‘what he’d done to her’. He also made it known that he was sure that this, this being that the owner of Fischer-Morrow had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, would jeopardize the public opinion of the company, and that people would turn away from the company for something that the owner had done his personal life.
It was obvious to Ariadne that Robert thought this idea was absurd. He yelled back at Browning and told him that because he was the owner of the company he would worry about it if it became an issue and that he didn’t think it mattered.
When Browning started patronizing Robert on how he’d been dumb with the runnings of the company and his personal life, Ariadne walked away and went to find something else to do.
Ariadne walked through the house. It was just pasted eleven in the morning. She knew without a doubt that Robert wouldn’t be working. He hadn’t seemed to be working very much lately. She knew that he was probably sitting in the music room at the piano playing urgently.
She took the stairs to the second floor and rounded the corner to find the door to the music room wide open. Ariadne peeked in quietly. Sure enough there was Robert.
He was different though, than she’d imagined. He wasn’t playing the piano at all. Instead he was sitting in front of it staring into empty space. The key cover on the piano was closed and Robert’s elbows rested on it. Robert’s chin rested in his hands.
Robert’s hair was longer than it should have been and looked as if it could have used cutting more than two weeks prior. It was shaggy in places and his bangs hung down so that they covered most of his eyes. His eyes looked tired and matched the worn look that his body had. Under his eyes the dark circles had progressed to pale patches of skin that held small flecks of purple from the exhaustion his eyes were experiencing. On his face was a perpetual frown that had seemed to wear itself down day after day. His jaw was covered in a layer of hair. It was all too obvious that he hadn’t shaved recently, and it didn’t seem as if he was considering shaving anytime soon.
His clothes looked much like the rest of him did. It didn’t look like he’d tried very hard at all to get dressed. He wore a wrinkled light blue button up shirt and a wrinkled pair of dark grey trousers. His sleeves were rolled up roughly and cufflinks were not to be found. The top two buttons on his shirt were unbuttoned and the tie that should have been resting just under his Adam’s apple was pulled down and loosened considerably.
The look on Robert’s face was enough to break Ariadne’s heart into several pieces. He looked completely lost. Usually, Robert would be sitting at his piano with his coffee next to him playing a song. He was always playing a song. He always had a melody to sing or a song to be played or a tune to be written. It was worrisome that music wasn’t emanating from his body at all.
Ariadne went in to the room slowly. Robert didn’t turn at all to watch her enter. He simply continued to stare into the space that was above the piano. It was as if he thought he could find that answers he was looking for there, dangling in space.
As she eyed Robert, Ariadne stepped closer and closer to the piano. When she reached the musical instrument and the man sitting before it she sat down on the bench. Robert scooted over quickly, allowing Ariadne room to sit. As she sat she looked over the piano and imagined all the times that she’d spent with Robert here in this room in front of this glorious instrument.
Gently, she wrapped an arm around Robert’s middle. She frowned deeply and whispered to him. “Please,” she said, feeling her eyes get a little watery, “please, tell me what is wrong…. I know something isn’t right…. Robert, please I want to help you, please just tell me. Just tell me what the hell is wrong with you, please…”
She watched his face, hoping for some sign that he could hear her, for some sign that she was breaking through the stone cold exterior to find the man inside. Sadly enough, she didn’t see any signs at all. He did look at her quickly when she said his name. It was not a look that held a lot of weight. It was simply a glance, simply a look that told her all too well that he felt trapped in his skin, trapped in his body, trapped in his life. She wished that she could cut him free like an animal from a fishing net but it just couldn’t happen. She kept trying to reel him in but as soon as she readied her knife he was back out at sea again, drowning in dark waters.
Robert remained silent. It wasn’t that Ariadne thought things would change. It was simply that she was tired of everything. She was tired of the silence. She was tired of loving a man that did not speak. He did speak a little, but it was of nothing important. If he opened his mouth it would be to talk about the weather or about odds and end things like how he hates listening to static on the radio. Everything that spilled from his mouth was either nonsense or a lie.
Ariadne nudged Robert a little. She hoped to get something out of the man, only to find that he was as unresponsive as usual. She placed her hands over his. Her fingertips touched his knuckles and rubbed softly on the flesh stretched over his hands. She leaned into him, allowing her head to rest on his shoulder.
He didn’t move away from her at all. He sat, completely still. Even though he was allowing Ariadne to rest herself on him she got the idea that he didn’t really want to be there. Perhaps it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be there. Perhaps that he couldn’t be there, not physically of course, but mentally. Whatever he was dealing with in his head was enough to make Ariadne realize that Robert was going through the motions and he was doing a terrible job. His mask was fully in place and Ariadne wanted nothing more than to rid him of it entirely.
Part Thirteen
Part Eleven
Part Twelve
(Hero)
Ariadne woke up. It was still night. She turned over quickly and easily. It was just shy of three o’clock. She sighed slowly and turned over on her other side. She jumped quickly. Robert was sitting on the edge of his side of the bed. His feet were planted firmly on the ground and his arms were draped between his legs. He looked lost and confused. His eyes were pointed to the floor.
Silently, Ariadne shook her head. She sat up and expected to get a look from Robert. He however, didn’t move at all. He just sat, obviously contemplating something deep inside his head.
Ari moved to him and wrapped her arms around him. She tugged him back to the center of the bed. She smiled softly and smoothed his hair. He didn’t look at her and kept his eyes looking off into some other world that only he could imagine.
“Robert, please, sleep…” Ariadne pleaded. This wasn’t the first time that Ariadne had awoken to find Robert awake. Over the past week and a half since the dinner outing Ariadne had woken several dozen times in the night to find Robert sitting or lying while pondering life’s questions. Every time she’d tried to urge him back to sleep only to find that she was never quite successful.
“What’s wrong?” She tried. It never worked, either he wouldn’t say anything or he would lie through his teeth and say he was fine. It hurt inside to know that she’d been trying so hard and it wasn’t working in the slightest.
Robert climbed back under the covers and lay down so that he faced up. He sighed and shook his head. He wasn’t going to say anything tonight. His eyes looked up to the ceiling. His hair was sticking up in hundreds of different directions, and Ariadne tried in vain to smooth it down. Her hand went over his head as she looked at him. His eyes looked big and puffy. Underneath his eyes dark circles rested making Robert look much older than he was. Robert’s chin was covered with a thin layer of stubble. She wondered absentmindedly how long it had been since he’d shaved. She supposed that it had probably only been a few days.
Softly, Ariadne rubbed her thumb over Robert’s eyebrows and then smoothed his eyelids, making him close his eyes. She kissed his cheek and his temple. She moved her hand down his shoulder and to the hand at the end of his arm. She smiled a tiny grin as she took a hold of his hand and squeezed it just enough to let him know, just enough to let him know that she was there for him. “There’s nothing wrong with sleeping,” she said as she settled herself down next to Robert.
As she curled around his form she knew he wouldn’t sleep at all. She had the feeling that he never slept if he could help it. She had caught him snoozing at his desk several times, which obviously didn’t count. It was more like he was passing out from exhaustion than actually sleeping.
She wished there was something she could do. He wouldn’t talk to her. He wouldn’t even give any indication to what was bothering him. She knew something had to be turning him inside out. Her suspicions pointed to the news of their coming child. That had been when things had gotten weird. Ariadne tried not to think about how things would be if Robert really never wanted a child. She tried not to realize how their life together would be if Robert had an aversion to their child the way his father had had an aversion to him. She honestly hoped that the whole ordeal wouldn’t turn out to be a cycle of unloved children and unloving fathers.
Another week went by. To Ariadne’s dismay nothing seemed to change for the better. In fact things as far as Robert went got worse and worse. She wanted to help him but she didn’t know how. How could she possibly fix him? It was all Greek to her. She’d honestly never been in a relationship with a man so sad. Sad was the only way she could describe it. He wasn’t angry, at least not overtly so, but he had a look about him that showed that somewhere deep inside he felt the world was ending. Nothing Ariadne could do would help him or make him snap out of it. She did get increasingly rare glimpses of the Robert she’d fallen in love with. Sadly, it had become her hobby to make Robert laugh. She lived on the glimpses of the real Robert that she got. She was lucky if she got one every few days. She just wanted to see him smile so that she could pretend that everything was fine.
Robert was also away a lot. Not necessarily away at work, but more hidden away in the house. Ariadne sometimes had to physically go to look for him in the large estate because she had no idea where he was half the time. The times she actually found him he would be sulking somewhere odd with a book or numerous sheets of paper in front of him. He hardly ever said anything in those moments. Rarely, he would smile. Mostly, he would shift his eyes in a different direction so that he didn’t have to catch a glimpse of her.
One night when Ariadne had been looking for Robert she’d stumbled into a heated argument between Robert and Browning. Thankfully, she’d heard them yelling before she entered the room so she could hide behind the door and listen to what they were saying.
Browning had been doing most of the talking but Robert seemed to be holding his own and said more in one sentence than he’d said in the entirety of the past few weeks. The argument seemed to consist of the fact that Browning had found out that Ariadne and Robert were expecting a child.
Browning was yelling at Robert much like a father would do. Robert seemed to resent this and made it known to Browning that he was not his father. Browning went on to make it known that he thought Robert should marry Ariadne because of ‘what he’d done to her’. He also made it known that he was sure that this, this being that the owner of Fischer-Morrow had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, would jeopardize the public opinion of the company, and that people would turn away from the company for something that the owner had done his personal life.
It was obvious to Ariadne that Robert thought this idea was absurd. He yelled back at Browning and told him that because he was the owner of the company he would worry about it if it became an issue and that he didn’t think it mattered.
When Browning started patronizing Robert on how he’d been dumb with the runnings of the company and his personal life, Ariadne walked away and went to find something else to do.
Ariadne walked through the house. It was just pasted eleven in the morning. She knew without a doubt that Robert wouldn’t be working. He hadn’t seemed to be working very much lately. She knew that he was probably sitting in the music room at the piano playing urgently.
She took the stairs to the second floor and rounded the corner to find the door to the music room wide open. Ariadne peeked in quietly. Sure enough there was Robert.
He was different though, than she’d imagined. He wasn’t playing the piano at all. Instead he was sitting in front of it staring into empty space. The key cover on the piano was closed and Robert’s elbows rested on it. Robert’s chin rested in his hands.
Robert’s hair was longer than it should have been and looked as if it could have used cutting more than two weeks prior. It was shaggy in places and his bangs hung down so that they covered most of his eyes. His eyes looked tired and matched the worn look that his body had. Under his eyes the dark circles had progressed to pale patches of skin that held small flecks of purple from the exhaustion his eyes were experiencing. On his face was a perpetual frown that had seemed to wear itself down day after day. His jaw was covered in a layer of hair. It was all too obvious that he hadn’t shaved recently, and it didn’t seem as if he was considering shaving anytime soon.
His clothes looked much like the rest of him did. It didn’t look like he’d tried very hard at all to get dressed. He wore a wrinkled light blue button up shirt and a wrinkled pair of dark grey trousers. His sleeves were rolled up roughly and cufflinks were not to be found. The top two buttons on his shirt were unbuttoned and the tie that should have been resting just under his Adam’s apple was pulled down and loosened considerably.
The look on Robert’s face was enough to break Ariadne’s heart into several pieces. He looked completely lost. Usually, Robert would be sitting at his piano with his coffee next to him playing a song. He was always playing a song. He always had a melody to sing or a song to be played or a tune to be written. It was worrisome that music wasn’t emanating from his body at all.
Ariadne went in to the room slowly. Robert didn’t turn at all to watch her enter. He simply continued to stare into the space that was above the piano. It was as if he thought he could find that answers he was looking for there, dangling in space.
As she eyed Robert, Ariadne stepped closer and closer to the piano. When she reached the musical instrument and the man sitting before it she sat down on the bench. Robert scooted over quickly, allowing Ariadne room to sit. As she sat she looked over the piano and imagined all the times that she’d spent with Robert here in this room in front of this glorious instrument.
Gently, she wrapped an arm around Robert’s middle. She frowned deeply and whispered to him. “Please,” she said, feeling her eyes get a little watery, “please, tell me what is wrong…. I know something isn’t right…. Robert, please I want to help you, please just tell me. Just tell me what the hell is wrong with you, please…”
She watched his face, hoping for some sign that he could hear her, for some sign that she was breaking through the stone cold exterior to find the man inside. Sadly enough, she didn’t see any signs at all. He did look at her quickly when she said his name. It was not a look that held a lot of weight. It was simply a glance, simply a look that told her all too well that he felt trapped in his skin, trapped in his body, trapped in his life. She wished that she could cut him free like an animal from a fishing net but it just couldn’t happen. She kept trying to reel him in but as soon as she readied her knife he was back out at sea again, drowning in dark waters.
Robert remained silent. It wasn’t that Ariadne thought things would change. It was simply that she was tired of everything. She was tired of the silence. She was tired of loving a man that did not speak. He did speak a little, but it was of nothing important. If he opened his mouth it would be to talk about the weather or about odds and end things like how he hates listening to static on the radio. Everything that spilled from his mouth was either nonsense or a lie.
Ariadne nudged Robert a little. She hoped to get something out of the man, only to find that he was as unresponsive as usual. She placed her hands over his. Her fingertips touched his knuckles and rubbed softly on the flesh stretched over his hands. She leaned into him, allowing her head to rest on his shoulder.
He didn’t move away from her at all. He sat, completely still. Even though he was allowing Ariadne to rest herself on him she got the idea that he didn’t really want to be there. Perhaps it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be there. Perhaps that he couldn’t be there, not physically of course, but mentally. Whatever he was dealing with in his head was enough to make Ariadne realize that Robert was going through the motions and he was doing a terrible job. His mask was fully in place and Ariadne wanted nothing more than to rid him of it entirely.
Part Thirteen