Morning lit the spark that ignited the pain by his skull, the new day’s familiar warmth and light ushering him to awaken. For some reason, he could feel the prior night’s embrace become a vicious throttle to the perspective of his body. His scalp ached, and it felt as if his brain was throbbing erratically, as if every part of him refused to move an inch to avoid the looming sensation of pain.
But beds don’t usually have heartbeats, do they?
Or arms that secured him from leaving them. Or fingers that wove into the soft, occasional curls of his hair whenever it's about to cover his eyes with such velveteen care.
Aiden felt the hand sweep up the falling strands once again, and before it could leave, he caught it gently with his own and held it for a while. When a pair of lips affectionately kissed his temple, Aiden made his consciousness clear by shifting against the person beside him.
“Look at you,” Elsa whispers, caressing her lover’s cheek. She sighs, and continues her velveteen touch on his scalp as he rests against her neck. “Those eyes. That smile. Every bit of you.”
“What about them?” Aiden murmured, his ear pressed against her heart.
“They hardly tell me anything about you,” Her voice broke, then she made him face her, a protective storm brewing in her blue orbs. “Anything that happened to you before I met you. Before I made you mine without knowing why you looked so lost last night.”
The blonde’s last two words rang a bell in him, their prominence shoving back the whirlwind of events that gave more life to Aiden’s shame.
“Anything that can tell me how I can help you and make it all better.”
“I don't think I can be helped,” Aiden chuckled mirthlessly, “Or fixed.”
“Aiden—you’re not broken. Or for fixing.”
“Except I am, Elsa.”
He didn't exactly do anything. He just allowed the blizzard swirling in his mind to swallow an image of him trying to trudge through the snow too soon. His thoughts had betrayed his composure to the point he forgot to exclude her name from his bitter expense.
Elsa saw his panic showing through his expression and squeezed his hand, but it came far faster. The greens of his eyes looked ready to bawl out of guilt like a weeping leaf in May. While the sight broke Elsa’s heart, it also stirred her to mend his own.
“D-darl, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–”
Her voice cut his apology short, the sharp steel in her timing rivaling the cotton in her comfort. “Did you hear your voice at all?”
Aiden didn’t respond, the blonde’s question silencing him with enlightenment.
She made him sit, fixing herself in the same position as him afterwards. Aiden’s stare was limited to only his feet, the courage to speak far from his plans. Her touch slowly crept inch by inch to his hand, and a comforting electricity surged from her skin to his like a fire that is unable to burn anything. The sensation assured him, stayed with him, smiled at him,
Cried with him.
The gates of his heart broke, little by little; welcoming brief, violent glimpses of a boy maturing in the gray, but never growing in a place of color. A weed wanting to be a rose. A cloud wanting to be the sun, but the sky wants it to instead pour rain.
A vase that longs for flowers, but can never have them.
His breath began to shudder, while a watery sheen began to take over his eyes. He dropped everything as he allowed a tear to cascade down his cheek, demolishing the wall between him and his composure.
Elsa heard his first whimper and wasted no time bringing his face between her hands so she could shorten the distance between their bodies.
“You have to tell me,”
She pressed their foreheads together and embraced him completely, her own tears staining his scalp of raven locks the moment she trailed a series of kisses against his hair.
“What made you like this.”
Elsa cringed in guilt. It was as if she forced him to swallow poison through such bold, invasive words. But she needed to know. The way he trembled within her grasp, the way he murmured sounds she could only translate as words smothered together to the point of incoherence, told her she had to know.
“Who made you like this, Aiden?”
Aiden wanted to say something, yet he couldn’t—not just yet. He first needed to overcome the sea that was trying to drown him but he desperately needed to gasp for air to live.
To speak.
“I-i don’t know,” Aiden whispered weakly, crumbling under her, “I could never know.”
If it was him, or I allowed him to—and it’s actually me.
“You do, Aiden, because I heard you last night. I saw you last night.”
Her statement almost knocked the life out of him. Paranoia was ready to devour his entire being as he asked, “D-Did I hurt you?”
Elsa chuckled tearfully, and shook her head. She raised his hand, stroking the knuckles on the back of it. “No. I don’t think you could ever, baby.”
Aiden tensed up again and shook his head viciously, eyes growing teary, “No, no, j-just tell me if I did, and-”
“YOU were the one hurt, and you have to admit that to yourself, Aiden. Please.”
“I-i was just seeing things, love. They happen from time to time, but they pass.”
“And you don’t deserve to see them again, darling,” She grits her teeth, “But I can’t make them disappear if I don’t know what they are.”
“It’s not on you to make them disappear, Elsa. I can't do that to you. I should’ve fixed myself before I loved you.”
“WHAT'S THERE TO FIX?!”
It used to be an ember of a noise she chose to bury somewhere in her until it was livid enough to smolder against her voice. Aiden gaped at her, eyes wide, as if he, too, was set aflame. He blinked at her, his mouth unable to form anything but a quiver of a movement.
Elsa took a deep breath, tears unwavering in the Arctic blues of her irises.
“What am I to you, darling?”
Before Aiden could respond, Elsa elaborates, her voice cutting into sobbing pieces as she whispers the best as she could.
“I... I used to wonder if you would ever call me darling.”
Aiden hugs her tight, murmuring:
“You’re my darling. That’s what you are.”
It was enough for Elsa to tremble again. He could repeat that a thousand times and she’d still weep, because, darling. His darling.
It was all she ever wanted to be.
“You could barely breathe,” Elsa mumbles.
“I know.”
“You saw someone.”
“Yes, I did.”
Elsa runs her hands through her hair, “And who is that?”
“Elsa, no...”
“Yes,” Elsa sternly says, “I want to make them pay.”
Aiden shakes his head tearfully, “No.”
“They hurt you,” Elsa screamed, “They slaughtered your childhood, damn it, Aiden. Don't do this to yourself, Aiden, please!”
“I don’t want to see him again,” Aiden tightens his tone, anxiety whirling in his face, “Elsa, he left. He’s gone. There’s nothing to do. Hell, I don’t want anything to do with him.”
Aiden gathers her in his arms, pressing his forehead against hers as she shakes and accepts his touch like a bird drawn to a tree. Her thumbs wipe the waterfalls beneath his eyes. They were too painful of a sight.
Aiden closes them, and exhales the breath his cries caged in his throat.
“He really left?” Elsa asks, running her lips down his cheek.
“He did,” Aiden nods, leaning to her touch, “Gone, my father’s all gone.”
His father.
Why?
Elsa chuckles bitterly, “I don’t think he's entirely gone. He’s still in your head.”
Aiden suddenly falls quiet.
No denial.
No words.
Just the truth with its transparent body.
Elsa holds him tighter, their lashes forming a butterfly kiss as she drinks him in—every part of him.
“Aiden Antoine Laurant. Where to even start?” Elsa laughs a watery laugh, “You’re a painting that came alive, love.”
Aiden tearfully shook his head, the dark denial clouding his thoughts telling him otherwise. No. He isn’t a painting. He was more of a worn canvas nobody would want to hang on their wall because the colors composing the picture are not bright enough.
“I.. I am?” Aiden weakly mumbles.
Elsa nods tearfully. She leans in and kisses his brow, her thumb drawing circles on his jaw. “It’s as if you were painted for me and I want to let you know how much I love every shade of you, from the darkest to the colors as gorgeous as your eyes.”
She hovers her face closer, her gaze as gentle as a caress.
“If I have to look at you for a long, long time, so you’ll know how beautiful you are despite how you were made, please know...”
Elsa holds him tight, her lips against his neck and her eyes screwed shut as she whispers,
“You’re worth every bit of my while, darling.”
Aiden squeezes her further into his body, a wail and a sob colliding against the soft meadow of her hair. The words banging against the door of his tongue were reduced into poignant breaths; lingering between the passionate shadow of denial and acceptance.
“You’re Aiden,” Elsa says, her voice overwhelmed with scarlet certainty, “Lovely, lovely Aiden who’s everything I can ever ask for and I’m happy that you get to be mine.”
He cries harder, as if she was his every shaky breath.
Elsa strokes his hair then closes her eyes.
“You’re Aiden.
And I love you.”
To be continued
on the next chapter...