[fiction] Lovefool
It’s funny. It’s funny that though a person can live, breathe, and sleep with a raw, festering pain that never dulls, that same person can be hit with that same pain once again. And realize that the constant press of loss against his chest was nothing. Would always be nothing. And that the here and now-this moment-was the true pain. The only true pain. Even the moment of immediate hurt was nothing.
There was a new song on the radio today.
I don’t listen to the radio, generally, but I was passing by a record store (I know cds have taken over the music business, but to me they will always firmly be record stores. I can't live in anything but the past) on my way home from a job. It sounds like I’m making excuses for my lack of enthusiasm. I’m not.
The song was in English, one of those imports that everyone thinks is so trendy and yet can’t remember it five minutes later.
I’m not bitter.
But the song…the song…
Dear I fear we’re facing a problem / you love me no longer I know…
It caught me. Almost forced me to my knees in one blow. I knew that I should rush past, ignore it.
Mama tells me I shouldn’t bother…that I ought to stick to another…another man
I entered the store.
So I cried and I prayed and I begged...
I’m well aware of how foolish I appeared when I asked the girl behind the counter for a copy of the blaring song. I could barely talk, and even without one of Hokuto-chan’s outrageous outfits, I knew I was standing out.
Love me, love say that you love…fool me, fool me…go one and love me
The tears burned in my eyes as I paid for it.
Love me, love me, pretend that you love me
I left, the slim plastic case banging against my thigh in an oddly comforting rhythm as the bag jostled every time I took a step.
I played it the minute I got home. I hated it. I hated it because it was a stupid song and yet it summed up my life. Reduced my life to nothing more than a few clichéd phrases in English, set to an upbeat tune.
But I couldn’t turn it off, so it repeated all through that long afternoon.
Afternoons tend to last longer. University may have been a means to an (failed) end, but at least it occasionally would allow a diversion.
I can’t care about anything but you.
I made extra for dinner that night.
I could pretend it’s unconscious, that I always want to have Hokuto-chan with me, so I deliberately fool myself into believing she has only stepped out for a moment, a late afternoon shopping spree, and that she has left it up to me to fix supper.
But I never cooked when she was alive.
Reason will not plead to solution…I will end up lost in confusion…
And I don’t always cook extra now that she’s not. Only for nights such as these. Nights when I am certain. For there are nights that I am not and then I do not prepare food. But I could not believe for an instant that night of all nights he would leave me alone.
I don’t care if you really care so long as you don’t go
Most of the Sumeragi-Obaa-chan included-don’t understand the nature of my marks. They see what he wanted them to see: a flashy, arrogant way of marking his pray. After all, etching five-star inverted pentagrams on another’s hands seems an impressive way of throwing down the gauntlet. But he always loves a hidden purpose.
Misdirection, illusion. You are so concerned about watching the paper tiger that you fail to notice the stiletto between your ribs. The Sakurazukamori is the best at what he does.
But I’ve dedicated my life to tearing down his precious maraboshi.
And so I know that the marks so tenderly cut into my skin link me directly to him. There is no nothing I can do that he will not know about; no activity too intimate for him to observe and no emotion too private for him to study at his leisure.
He claims he loves nothing but that is not true at all. He loves many things, not in the least of which is watching and waiting and setting up his machinations and then waiting and watching some more until he can predict what will happen if I so much as brush my teeth a half-a-minute behind schedule.
He does not understand his humanity and seeks to gain it by feeling by living through the silvered lines on my hands.
Love me, love me…I know that you need me…
“Good evening.” His voice was cheerful as he removed his shoes. I didn’t turn from the stove-top, but I had seen him replace shoes with slippers so often I still saw it.
I can’t care about anything but you…
I turned off the cd player, affecting casualness when I had none. I am guileless, as he is ever fond of telling me. Waited.
Arms slithered about my waist. Lips pressed against the back of my neck.
“Such a good little wife,” he said laughing that inane little laugh I have heard since boyhood. That laugh that means nothing and yet everything. You can’t touch me, says the laugh. You can never touch me. “My favourite.” Which it was. He prefers truth when he can use it. Truth cuts deeper. “Whatever have I done to deserve you?”
It hurt, like he expected it to. He always manages to twist the knife.
“You stink of blood,” I managed to retort before I had to either shut my mouth or utterly breakdown.
I cried and I prayed and I begged