Page 59 of My Lovely Tragedy
And then they spoke to me. They didn’t know they were, but I listened just like they wanted me to. They begged me to let him go. To bring him no harm.As if they have any idea.
I nearly broke my laptop gripping the sides as tightly as I did. For them to evenassumeI wouldever…Air in my lungs. A sharp, unsteady exhale. My fingers ease from the fabric of my pants, and a quick glance shows they’re already wrinkled.
I do plan to do exactly as they asked, just not on their timeline.
With a breath of exasperation pulling me back to the moment in front of me, I say, “Yes. They are worried about you, darling. Is that what you wanted to hear? That you are missed, that you are cared for?” My words hold a bite of venom I don’t expect, but I can’t take it back now. Not when it was far too sharp to dismiss.
Brooklyn’s eyes narrow into slits, every bit the angry boy I first met. “How do you know that.”Not a question.
I spin around, putting the counter at my back with my hands folded in my lap. “Oh, but you’re all over the internet, my beloved. Articles, a news channel. They even held a press conference. It’s quite the spectacle. But I must tell you. Your proclivities for alcohol have created quite the dilemma.”
“W-what?” he stutters, and I nearly lose my composure at his slip up. The taste of it grazing my tongue. His vulnerability slipping through the fissures of his hastily built walls.
Walls meant to keep me out—but I was inside once, and I will be again.
“The police aren’t exactly chomping at the bit to search for you. The collective is that you are on a bender, drinking your days away as you drown in your little black hole.”
Brooklyn falls back, his legs wobbling, knees buckling. He reaches for purchase behind him but comes up empty and crashes to the floor in a pile of weak limbs and silver chain. I ache to reach out to him, to wrap his pathetic little self in my arms and never let him go, but he won’t let me.
Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever again.
He needs time, and I respect that, but we are running out, and there is still so much I need.
“They know that I wouldn’t do that,” he rasps, eyes staring blankly down at the floor. I shrug, even though he can’t see me.
“According to some direct quotes, it’s apparent on all sides that they know of your depressive episodes and that you have fallen off like this before. Though, your bandmates must not believe it to be true this time because they’re fighting to locate you, regardless of past inclinations.”
His chest shakes and shutters. A breath of pain or of relief, I cannot be sure.
“So, I just disappeared.” A choked whisper. A shot of realization.
“Precisely.”
“And you planned it that way.” His thumb traces a link across the padlock, hanging heavily against his wrist. Bound and tied to me.
“No,” I correct vehemently. “This was never my intention. Although, I must admit, I got greedy. And selfish.”
He scoffs. “I’ll say.”
I tap my fingers against my leg. My food rests behind me, long forgotten and most likely cold. Brooklyn doesn’t look to be hungry either, though I do wish he’d eat. He has lost far too much weight, and it’s unhealthy. The loss of muscle mass and the shrinking of healthy fat in his stomach and hips. Even the bulge in his thighs has slimmed.
“You fascinated me from the moment I laid my eyes on you. All wings and chaos. Pain and suffering. It was palpable, bleeding into me from the second we touched.” My index finger grazes the bridge of my nose, where a ghost of a mark remains.
“Inspiration swarmed me for the first time in so long. It consumed me, and you were in no state to argue as I requested your presence to follow me home. From that point, just having you around was enough. I was content with the knowledge of you leaving, accepting even, though I knew it would maul me.
“But then you stayed. You allowed me to take care of you.To see you…”I whisper, reminiscing of a time so close in the past, I can still taste it. “And seeing you gave me something I cannot let go. I can’t let you go, Brooklyn. Not yet. And I am sorry for that. For what I’m doing to you—and what will happen.”
Brooklyn digs his fingers into his temples and sighs. It’s wet with tears clogging his throat. “Tobias…”
I swallow my own, but they bleed over anyway. “I know. No apologies, but I…” My face twists at the sharp bolt slashing through my chest. “I want you to know, if there was another way…”
That makes his head jerk up, and finally,finally,he gives me his eyes. And that fury is there. Candescent blue flames with agony licking in the center, black and hollow. “There is. Let me fuckinggo.” He yanks on the chains, but there’s so much slack, they only slide across the wood floor.
“I will.”
“That doesn’t mean shit.” I wince at his venom.
“I know you no longer trust me or my word, but I haven’t lied to you, and I am telling you the truth now.”
