Captivation

32: Stars

Stars (noun): a fixed luminous point in the night sky that is a large, remote incandescent body like the sun.

We stay a night longer than Bradley told me. We’re stuck in some bar with women who flock to Henry, but I can’t seem to make myself leave, to stop watching, to end the knife driving into my abdomen. I tell myself that the more I witness this all the less I will care.

And then something very strange happens. I see Henry walk over to the piano in the corner, and he sits on the bench. He doesn’t touch the keys though and I wonder what exactly he’s doing, but the other girls are quiet and wait, so I take this as my cue to be quiet and just see what he may or may not do.

Then his fingers hit the keys and the notes come sparingly an far in between, but then once I think he’s messing around with the instrument he starts playing a melody that is more than familiar. He doesn’t sing the words, but I don’t need him to in order to know the song he’s playing.

A drop in the ocean, a change in the weather.

It is the song I played the first time I met Mary and Jane. I didn’t know he played, and then I remember the piano in Peter’s room at his mother’s house. I can’t believe he knew this song, and that he didn’t say anything.

I can’t believe he’s playing it now.

He gets through the first verse and chorus and then he stops there. He turns around and briefly makes eye contact with me. The girls around him coo with how brilliant that was, and how great it all is. But I know he didn’t do any of that for them. He played for me.

It’s like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert.

And so he drives the knife in deeper.

I walk out of the bar after that. Someone follows me out and I turn around and see Jamison.

“Madelyn,” He says, and I can tell that he wants to comfort me, or excuse Henry, or both, but he stops because words always fall short.

“He can’t do that.” I tell Jamison.

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Jamison tells me.

“He knows me well enough to be aware that it would just hurt me.” I say.

“I think he was hoping that you would know that he still cared about you even though you basically sentenced him to hell the other day.” Jamison observes.

“I sentenced him to hell?” I ask, “Me? Really? He’s the one who’s ruined it all, anything that he has gotten he’s given himself.” I tell Jamison. “And if he cared about me at all then why is he in there flirting with other women?” I say, happy the my voice is level, and that I’m not yelling.

Jamison is silent, taking in my piece, and then he answers me, but only my last question, “Because that’s all he knows how to do. You have to understand that Henry is messed up in more ways than one. You also have to realize that he wishes he was strong enough to be everything for you.” Jamison tells me. “He never had any relationship to look up to, he has no idea how he’s supposed to act.” There is a pause and then Jamison smiles, but it’s partially a smirk. “You terrify him, Madelyn.”

“I’m not scary.” I defend.

“No, but you are his sun, moon, and stars; and without you, his whole world would be gone. He told me the other day that he doesn’t know how he let that happen.” Jamison raises an eyebrow. “Just remember that you’re both hurting.”

“We’re both hurting at the edge of his sword.” I say, “I can feel no sorrow for a man who saws off his own leg and then expects my pity for his pain.”