He Took Me in the Night

Chapter XXIV: Freed

"Our bird when it found the cage open would not fly." -Bram Stoker, Dracula

Chapter XXIV: Freed

I slump, heart pounding, with my back resting against the black wall and just... come apart. I scream wordlessly. Rock myself back and forth with my face buried in my hands, but nothing works. Nothing I do- scream, cry, gasp- can make this burning, stabbing pain go away. It's crippling, seizing, paralysing. Everywhere hurts.

Tears flow unrestrained down my cheeks and I wait for it to get easier, for the numbness to be my relief. But it doesn't happen. The pain just keeps building and growing and destroying me from the inside out. There's no remedy for a broken heart.

It won't end.

I curl up into a little ball and hope that the smaller I become, the smaller the pain will become too. But no matter how much I try to chase it away, to make it disappear, to cry it all out, it won't leave. Not until it fulfils its purpose and paralyses me. Because that's the thing about pain- it demands to be felt.

Unbearable. That's the perfect word to describe it. I'm staring at the black ceiling now- still and alone- and I wonder for the first time about death. Would it hurt as much as this? Would I know I was dying as it was happening? Would it be better once it's over? Right now, in this moment, this is how I imagine death to feel.

Even when I thought I lost Erik it wasn't as bad as this. At least I knew that there was nothing I could have done. It was beyond my control. But with Drake, he is saveable and yet he won't let me save him.

But why?

Why couldn't he give me a chance?

Why couldn't he believe in happiness?

Why wasn't I enough motivation to try?

Why did he give up?

Why didI let him give up?

The answer to all these questions are simple and it breaks me all over again. I abandoned and condemned him, and now he doesn't want to risk making the same mistake again. I think the worst part of this is that I don't even blame him.

I continue to stare at the ceiling. So empty, eerie and dark. It's just like a midnight sky, or a bottomless lake, or a pair of haunted grey eyes. I clutch my chest as another sob threatens to escape. This is all my fault.

'Tomorrow, I'm giving you your freedom back and you'll never see me again.'

What did that mean exactly? That he'd stay clear of me for the remainder of my time here? That he'd get a new slave and I'd get a new master? That I'm going to be punished? Or worse... killed?

All these potential outcomes seem impossible, unfathomable, intolerable to me. After seeing him today I've realised that I cannot let him go. He needs me just as much as I need him.

But how do I prove that to him? How do I show him that I'm worthy of his forgiveness?

When I think of that piece of artwork and how sad he must have been when he was painting it, I regret what I did even more. That painting must be old by now, and in the time that we were together he seemed genuinely hopeful. Which means I'm what's sent him back on his path of despair. I'm the reason there is no light in his eyes.

He trusted me. He let me in by telling me about his mother and his affections for me, and then what did I do? I practically threw it all back in his face.

All because I was too quick to blame him. If I had just listened to him none of this would have happened. He would have told me he saved Erik and I'd probably be in his arms now, not wrapped up in this pathetic ball of regret and pain. What's more, he would be on his way to finding happiness.