Madness

Chapter 19

~ Soul meets soul on the lips of lovers. ~

With agonizing slowness, he approached. In the meantime, a stony silence had fallen. Suddenly, my heartbeat reached my ears. His expression was cold. There was no emotion on his face. It was like an icy mask in which it was impossible to read any emotion he might feel at that moment. For my part, I felt almost a lack of emotion, a feeling somewhere between panic and excitement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Maat and Steph. They were leaning against the door frame with amused smiles on their faces. I thought my heart would explode on the spot when I saw him sitting in front of me, just a few inches away.

"We're ready to go!"

I watched him walk to the door and out. I took one last look at the girls waving for me to go, and I plucked up the courage to follow him. I got into the luxurious metallic gray Jaguar as the engine roared with eagerness to go. He didn't say a word all the way. He was just concentrating on driving the car. I felt awkward with him in this great silence. I was used to it with everyone else, but with him it was so... noisy!

"So... where are we going?"

He did not even turn his head to look at me or give me an answer, which made me more and more nervous. Not long after that, he pulled up in front of a dimly lit wooden building with a flight of stairs in front of it. I stood stunned at the sight. I had no particular expectations, but I thought he was taking me to a fancy place. He had specifically told me to dress up.

"You coming?"

I recoiled and started walking towards the front door, which creaked open. He took my hand and led me firmly down a narrow corridor. When we entered a room, I was completely speechless. I raised my head and saw the sharks circling swiftly above us. The stingrays flapped their fins like birds flying through the sky. I could see the bright blue of the water mixed with the striking purple of the lights that were illuminating the aquarium. Golden jellyfish were dancing among them, along with many angelfish and clownfish, which were traveling in great numbers through the huge glass tube. A giant octopus was moving peacefully on the bottom of the tank and two sea turtles were traveling through the water together. I was shocked by all this. I almost felt a knot in my throat when I thought that he had done all this for me. As I felt his warm breath on my neck, a shiver immediately ran down my spine. I swallowed. I tried to calm my breathing and my heart, both of which were now out of control.

"Did you have the aquarium open just... for me?"

"I did more than that."

He led the way into the narrow room to the sound of the animals tapping on the glass as if in welcome. At the end of the corridor, I saw a small table covered with a red tablecloth. There were two cups and a bottle of wine, lit only by the dim light of candles. I stood there in awe. I felt my heart fill with hope. As soon as we had taken our seats, a young man in his twenties brought us a plate of pasta with mushrooms. Once again, silence fell between us, making me anxious, but to my amazement, I was not the one who had to break it.

"What brings you here to America?"

"I wanted to get away from home and... "

"...what better than 7,780 miles."

"Yes, that's right!"

"How come you wanted to leave? Did you have a bad relationship with your mother?"

"No, it's not that. I just wanted to see what the world was like. I never had a chance to travel when I was little."

"I traveled a lot instead. My father did it to cheer me up, and that woman wanted me as far away from home as possible."

"The only time I went abroad was for a trip to Athens with my class, it was a wonderful experience, too bad I didn't go more."

"Yeah... the trips with the school!"

"Have you... ever done them?"

"We can say... so."

He brought the goblet of wine to his lips and drank it all in one gulp, then poured himself more. I watched, horrified, as he made the gesture, and he responded by smiling mockingly.

"Sometimes you just have to drink."

"Why do you say things like that?"

He raised the glass again, but drank only a drop.

"When you have a childhood like mine, alcohol is the only thing you have to hold on to."

"Wasn't it a happy childhood? I mean, after your mother died, you couldn't seem to find... balance?"

He picked up the goblet and swirled it with his hand. The liquid inside swirled in circles and banged against the glass.

"Do you have any thoughts about your funeral?"

"What? >> I was horrified by his question. I almost thought it was a joke, but when I read an eerie seriousness, I answered strangely. "No, I have never thought about that, why? Have you... yes?"

<<Think about it: a troubled kid, bullied from an early age, who in high school became the bully he despised; think about that rich kid, surrounded by a group of hypocritical friends, those who fear him and those who despise him; think about his funeral, who will attend. Among those who are there, who is really in love with him? Who will be there because they cared? Answer: nobody."

I felt a shiver run down my spine. He told it all with a petrifying naturalness.

"Have you... ever thought about suicide?"

He shrugged as he finished his second glass of wine. He was playing with a ring on the ring finger of his right hand, which was resting on the table. I saw his nervousness and discomfort at my question, but he did the answer anyway.

"It's not hard to do it, there are so many ways to do it: slit your wrists, take poison, throw yourself into the water, except that the human instinct for survival will bring you back to the surface. Sometimes you don't really want to kill yourself, you just want to kill a part of yourself that you can't bear to live with."

After these words, I instinctively squeezed his hand and felt a pain in my heart. As I enjoyed the warmth of his hand and caressed it with my thumb, I felt him flinch imperceptibly at my spontaneous gesture.

"I don't think there are any parts of you that need to be killed, just accepted."

I smiled warmly at him as I felt his hesitant hand still clenched in mine. I saw him staring at me with a helpless, strangely sincere, and heartbreakingly sad look. He reached for it again, but before he could pour any more, I blocked him and made him look stunned.

"We're eating? What do you think?"

He just put the bottle down and started to eat without answering me. The evening passed quickly, but after that intimate conversation, I felt terribly close to him. For the first time, I felt the great pain he must have felt every day. I also felt that he must have trusted me a lot to tell me these things. I felt flattered by his trust in me. When I realized his intentions when we got home, I started shaking. He had me pinned to the door with his body and his kisses were even more insatiable than the night he took me to the poker game. As he began to grip me with his arms, I felt my whole body surrender to him. With his hand resting on the doorknob, he began to open the door slowly, but just as I managed to push it open, the sound of someone clapping made us pull away abruptly.