A.N. ROAD TRIP!!! This chapter and the next few go back to the original setting of this series, Penzance, in Cornwall, which is a typical and gorgeous English seaside town. If you haven't figured it out already, bad shit happens to my characters in this town, so be prepared. By Chapter 15, you'll be getting some major plot twists, hunty. I wonder if you'll see them coming! If you have theories, don't be afraid to share - you might even get something right! Anyway, enjoy, xoxo, Clay.
"I never play the victim, I'd rather be the stalker."
-Rihanna
♔ Chapter Thirteen ♔
I came from a small town in the south of England, as far south as south goes - a plain and pleasant countryside they call Cornwall. It was a sleepy and forgettable place, where the elderly go to live out their golden years, where families grow up in their picketed, perfect houses, and where the sun shines, and everyone is happy.
The place I grew up in, Penzance, was a quiet Cornish town on the English Channel. All along the coast, the waters were a light blue, the people always quiet or forgettable, and the roads that ran between towns were never too busy. The drive to Penzance was less than an hour, following a back road that swept along the Cornish coast.
I'd always known Penzance was a shitty, backwards place. I hated the people, the places, nearly everything about it. My memories tainted the light blue waters, as clear as crystal, and the dozens of white boats and yachts that lined the docks near the quayside.
Growing up in Penzance ruined its timeless and sunny visage for me. It was stained by the blood of my family, of their corpses at the bottom of the ocean, entangled in seaweed, decaying. In my head, I'd try and picture their spongy, rotting bodies, even though I knew I shouldn't think like that. But I pictured it anyway, and I hated myself for it.
"How long has it been since you've been back here?" Luke asked, when I parked the car on the curb at the end of a road, somewhere close to the waterfront. I could hear the crashing of waves from nearby, and I could tell how close we were to where it all happened. Luke was sitting in the passenger seat and unbuckled his seat-belt, taking a quick look out of the window, taking in the sight of where I killed his twin brother.
"I'm not sure, probably a year or so. I don't really come back here that much."
"Too many bad memories?"
"And not many happy ones, either."
"I'm glad you brought me here, Isaac. Honestly, I was a bit scared to ask at first, but then it started to make perfect sense to me, to invite you with me. Everything you've told me about you and Tom, I can see that you loved him. I mean, I know you say it ended badly, but you loved him, and that's what's important to me."
I didn't know what to say, how to reply, so I just closed my eyes in that moment, and told myself over and over again, shut up, shut up, shut up.
I couldn't tell if I wanted Luke to shut up, or if I was trying to stop myself from saying something I knew I'd regret. If only he knew the truth, I told myself, he'd leave me, just like the last guy. If he knew everything, he'd run for the hills. I noticed that my hands were starting to shake, so I pulled them off the wheel of the car and slid them under my thighs.
"When I first met you, I wanted to try and figure out what made my brother fall in love with you, I wanted to know what it was that made him choose you. I think it's because, deep down, Tom knew you were a good person."
I couldn't bare to hear him say it. "Then he was wrong."
"What do you mean?" Luke asked, shifting his body awkwardly.
"Your brother was a good person. He was kind to everyone, when he wasn't too shy to even speak to them. But he didn't know how to stand up for himself. When I think about him now, I'm just reminded of what a tragedy he was. His entire life was just a never-ending tragedy, and a lot of that is my fault."
"Blame yourself all you like, Isaac, it won't change a thing."
"You still don't understand!" I suddenly shouted, trying to control myself.
I wanted to tell him, I realised. I wanted to open my mouth, and say everything in that moment. I wanted to scream it, to let the whole world know - I killed Tom. But instead, I sat there quietly, my hands shaking as I sat on them, and stared straight at Luke, almost wishing that he could read my mind just so I didn't have to actually say it, because saying it is always so much harder, saying it made it way too fucking real.
"What don't I understand, Isaac?" he asked, leaning closer, his eyes placed on me with a strange kind of intensity.
"You wanna know?" I asked, breathing steadily. "I'm not a good person. I treated your brother like shit. I used him, taunted him, played with his emotions, and I hurt him. I stringed him along for weeks, even though I had a girlfriend. I fucked with his head, ruined his life, and he still tried to save me."
"What are you saying, Isaac?" Luke asked, his eyes narrowing on me. "You raised your hands to my brother? Why?"
"Because I'm a bad person, Luke. Because I'm fucked up, can't you fucking see? And being in this place, it makes it worse. It's all so fucking fucked up."
"You're feeling guilty," Luke announced, opening the car door and stepping out. "And if what you just said was true, you have reason to be." The car door slammed, and I watched from the rear-view mirror as Luke leaned against the car and sparked up a cigarette.
I stepped out and briefly glossed over the countryside around me. Where I'd parked was near a tiny beach mostly covered in sharp, dark grey rocks that poked their points above the surface of the water. Above the beach, towering over it and casting a long black shadow, were the cliffs. I turned my back to them to face him.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"What are you saying that for?" he asked. "You didn't do it to me, you did it to him. And he's dead. So what's the point in even feeling guilty?" he said bitterly, his eyes lost out at sea.
"The guilt is all that's left," I sighed.
"That's a good thing," he continued. "It means you aren't a psychopath. It means you're trying to be better. You shouldn't beat yourself up over it, I guess. What's done is done."
"This is where it happened," I said. "Up there." My finger pointed behind me, to the cliffs that towered over the beach. Luke turned around to take in the sight of it, to picture his brother standing at the apex, his arms outstretched as if ready to embrace his God.
"He never seemed like the type of person who had the guts to kill himself," Luke murmured. "It must take guts to let go like that."
"Everyone is capable of it," I disagreed. "When you're pushed to that point, to that place where it feels too hard to keep on living, where it seems like there's only one option left, it would be too easy to do it. Killing yourself is easy. Forcing yourself to get back up and pick up the pieces, that's hard."
"Sounds like you've thought about it quite a lot," he relayed.
"Yeah, when I'm lying in bed at night and staring at the ceiling, it's one of the first things I think of."
"Killing yourself?"
"Everyone thinks about it at some point, don't you?"
"Sure, but never seriously."
"It's the only serious thing I think about," I admitted.
That was when I felt his hand take mine, his fingers folding through mine, the warmth of his palm pressing against my skin. I stared down at our hands, in that moment, and quickly back up to his eyes. Almost out of instinct, I reached out and felt his face, round to the nape of his neck, and pushed him forwards so hard that he tripped and fell onto me, his arms wrapping around my chest as he did. I let myself hold him there for a while, neither of us daring to speak a word.
I wanted to hold him there forever, to convince myself that he was Tom, to squeeze him so close to me that I could feel his heart beating in his chest. I knew he wasn't Tom, though. I kept reminding myself that he wasn't. He was Luke, and he was so different to Tom, he was almost nothing like him at all. He was so much better. It felt like I'd been given a second chance.
We pulled apart after a moment, and I saw in his blue eyes something that I hadn't expected to see - surprise. "You know, if you ever need to talk about anything like that, I'm a pretty good listener, and I care about you. Maybe more than I should, but I care."
"You're not at all like Tom, you know, except in maybe one way," I said, my voice barely a whisper over the crashing of waves nearby. "He cared too much too."
"He had a big heart, but he was broken, and I'm not."
"That's what I like about you," I said. "You're not broken."Yet.
My hands ran through his coarse, black hair, and when he looked at me, I knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself. I kissed him right there, by the sandy beach and the bright blue sky, by those high cliffs, and sharp rocks, right where I killed his brother, and I didn't even feel bad about it. Our lips met, and his were soft, and wet, and for the first time, I wasn't thinking about Tom while we did it. I was thinking only of him.
So many things drew me to him, and I knew I'd already done the worst thing I could ever possibly do - I let him in. I liked him. I wanted him. I'd convinced myself that falling in love was nothing more than a disaster in my life, but they don't call it falling for nothing - you can't stop it from happening, no matter how hard you try. And even then, I don't think I wanted it to stop, because it felt like the best feeling in the world.
I should have known it wouldn't fucking last.