Invulnerable

III

"There are things that have to be forgotten if you want to go on living."

― Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me

"What do you do when you can't go on?"

"Fake it."

"Until what?"

"Until you've had enough of trying to convince yourself."

He dreams that he's the sky. Kneaded and flattened out, knuckled higher, either blue or gray, or both. Dusty and gritty and opened wide. Tossed up, like pizza dough. Stretched out all around the world, close to tearing, bodiless, limbless, floating or falling up. Bird's-eye view: what the Goddess sees outside her window. Blurred, like fogged-over glass, fading at the edges where contours meet and overlap. Colored smudges below, green and brown and sometimes blue. The earth in the raw. A naked planet wrapped with a towel. Flocks of bird flying by, gliding on feathered wings, shadows on unbroken meadows. Ravens, crows, jackdaws, cawing and shrieking. All of them black. Clouds sailing past, snowy ones and ashen ones, shaped like women.

Women?

He stares harder: they are women, after all. Airborne women with their heads on backwards.

One of the women stops, tilts her face up. She wears a checked tablecloth; it billows in the wind, a red-and-white flag. Fire and ice. Her face seems familiar, like a fractured memory glued together, sewn together wrong. Features mismatched, coming undone. Unfurling. Pull the thread and she'd fall apart, nose first, mouth second. Her eyes are blue-gray.

She smiles, waves her checkered hand, she dives—no, she falls, and he doesn't catch her. He can't; he doesn't have arms. Someone screams. (Is it him or her? Or both? Skies don't have mouths.) She grows smaller and smaller, closer and closer to the ground, and he watches with helpless fascination. Whoosh, she goes; thud, she goes. That's her body far below, broken, bent at grisly angles. No blood.

He wakes up.

The damp sheets have wound their way around his legs, over and under and between. Sweat trickles down his brow and stings his eye. Time, what time: the bedside clock says 5:45 am. He curses, falls back down on the pillows. Too early, much too early. The sky outside is a domed ultramarine. Pitched clouds, crisp, low on the horizon. Like shiny patches on old tweed pants. A sky that promises green grass speckled with flowers, a yellow-crayon sun on one corner, with dots for eyes and a curved line for a mouth.

Unfortunate. He's too old to trust whatever the sky tries to promise. Sooner and later it will rain, the flowers will wilt, and the sun won't be smiling.

He yawns, stretches, kicks the covers away. Already the dream is fading, dissolving into reality. Whittled down into scattered remnants, splintered dregs lingering in the air. What remains is a sensation of helplessness. A rigidity of the jaw. Like watching someone die. Did someone die? He can't remember, not anymore. Dreams do not mean anything. Nightmares do, in the morning, after enough pondering. Dreams do not, so he shrugs and leaves it be. He thinks he can still smell it, that dream: it smells like stars. Hair bleach, hydrogen peroxide.

He tries to sleep again. Sleep evades him.

The pond lies flat on its basin. He sees himself reflected in the surface, a reversed version of him below the water, looking up. Disheveled, underdressed. Rugged, if he's generous: the king in his polka-dot pajamas, without his crown and scepter. Stripped of gold and layers of silk, barely a man. Barely awake. The great bastard himself, in flesh, come to drown, to sever his breath. Bury himself in a watery grave. Hah, no. Why rid the world of a blessing? Besides, he can swim.

He doesn't like this place. Too bright, too cheerful. Too much color gathered in one place. Nauseatingly vibrant. Colors yanked from the opposite sides of the spectrum and brought together and tamped down into the grass and engraved into the motley soil. Laved by crystal waters. The Goddess' own tears. Or saliva.

This early in the morning, the light is thin and clear and falls in freckled slats. Bluish, too: the same texture as the air, the same smell, and about the same color. Possibly the light and air are one: you breathe both and exhale both, only the air is cooler, lighter. A little softer. A little suffocating, if you breathe in too deeply, or breathe out too much. A slice of going under. Tap death on the shoulder and run. Bubbles on the surface of the water.

He misses her. The tangled laughter, the blue eyes that are more gray than blue. The rough man-hands. Maybe she misses him, too, maybe she detests him, always hard to tell with women. Love, after all, is too strong an emotion to carve neatly in two; unlike joy or anger, love does not discriminate: you can love a person you hate, or hate a person you love. Complicated thing, love, when it ought to be simple.

Love should be packaged in a cardboard box. Giftwrapped, doled out, given away by hand, one by one, so the message is clear and easily reciprocated. One for you because I love you, one for me because I love myself too, and one for the little boy who lives down the lane.

Birds up in the branches. Birds, again: he remembers part of his dream. Hazy, like the moment before falling asleep. Ravens and crows and jackdaws. Caws and shrieks. Blue jays, these ones, blue and black, like twittering bruises, white-chested bruises. Trees in bloom, flowers on the grass, birdsong from above. A fine, misty morning. He hates all of it: Everything else has no right to act cheerful when he himself is not.

Oh, drown me, he thinks. Hold my head underwater and don't let go until I stop breathing.

Footsteps patter behind him, hesitant ones, slowing down as they draw nearer. A shuffling of feet, a suppressed sigh. The swish of cloth rubbing against cloth. The sound of fidgeting: the sound of indecision. He doesn't even bother turning around, he knows it's her, knows it by heart; somehow he knows by instinct, as though her footsteps have a voice of their own. A secret song of the feet, the crunch of gravel under rubber soles.

She's behind him, now, a little to the left. He hears her breathing.

So near and yet so far: Only now does he realize what the phrase means. To have something within reach, but not the ability to grab it. As though she's made of snow, and he of fire: Touch her and she melts, touch her and lose her, watch her spill into a wet puddle on the ground. As though she's a ghost, a specter, the memory of a distant dream, dissipating at a blink of the eye. A mirage that blows away with the wind. A note written on the sand.

She clears her throat; he ignores her.

Allen, she says.

Don't you have something important to do?

No, not yet. Somehow I thought I'd find you here.

So you're psychic now, princess?

With a measure of hesitation bordering on shyness, she steps closer, stands next to him. Now he can see her: all hail the beautiful princess, in her favorite overalls and leather boots, as rumpled and bedraggled as he. Exhaustion shows in the rounded slump of her shoulders, in the slothful half-blinks of her eyelids. She sighs, gives him a sideways glance, as if meeting his eyes would burn her. There's always that possibility.

You're up early, she says.

Aren't you the master of the obvious.

Anything wrong?

Isn't there always?

They stand side by side under a cloud of quiet consternation. Any moment now and the cloud would cry and pelt them with rain. Locusts falling from the sky. Or knives, to make it easier. Slash us, kills us. Make it dramatic. Hit us in the heart, where it hurts the most. Ooh, shocking. He brings a fist to his mouth and yawns.

She has something in her hand; he catches a glimpse of it, dark blue and fleeting. Her elbow obstructs his view of it, whatever the thing is. She toys with it, fiddles with the edges, and—by Goddess, there it is again, he can see it this time, and he doesn't doubt what it is. Something cold and bitter slithers down his throat, settles into his stomach where it writhes and foams at the mouth.

What makes you think I'd even accept that? he says.

She purses her lips, tries to hide the crestfallen expression that puckers her face. Opens her mouth and closes it, her cheeks coloring: cadaverous, in the blue light and blue air. Like someone drowning, whose throat is filled with water, whose eyes are blank and glassy, whose finger-ends are stiff and soggy-wrinkled. He kicks a stone into the pond; it makes a small plop and disappears, leaving concentric circles behind.

What are we, exactly? she says. You tell me.

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and waits for an answer, traps him with a blue-gray stare. Like a statement that ends with a dot, like a noose knotted, like frost on a winter eve. He remembers her tears: limpid beads running down, dribbling down, leaving a gleaming streak on the dappled cheeks. Splashing onto the tablecloth. There you go, the stars would say. Wish granted. Happy now?

He decides no, he's not. Birds chirrup; he shifts his weight on one foot, rakes his hair with his hand.

I'll tell you what we're not, he says. I'm not a shoulder to cry on. I'm not your friend, I'm not your confidante. I'm not your rock, or your anchor, or your knight in shining armor. It just so happens that I'm in love with you and you're in love with me. That's all we are.

Her eyes avoid his. In her hand the feather lies crushed, dampened at the tips. Not the best thing to propose with.

She says, Just two people in love, huh? She attempts to laugh and fails. Poor us.

We could do worse.

He leans forward, closes the gap between their faces, brushes his mouth to her ear. She goes still; she's holding her breath. She smells of morning dew and the musty, slept-in pong of stale bed sheets. I don't even like you, he whispers. He feels her shiver.

You don't like me, she says breathily, but you love me?

There's a fine line between extreme dislike and love, darling, and you are that line.

He pulls away, gives her a detached smile. This close to her, he sees her lower lip trembling. Possibly more in anger than in aching. Her hair hangs flaccid around her face, uncombed, snakelike. Waiflike. He resists the urge to straighten it, to run his fingers through it: he's not here on business. Must act professional and all that. Damn you, Rio. You and your unruly hair.

She sniffs, but she doesn't cry.

Sometimes, she says, I forget you're also human.

Even I forget. You always remind me, though.

They slide into a moment of blankness, where silence reigns and voices falter. What else is there to say? They are past the point of explanations and tearful apologies. Past scathing witticisms and wavering pretenses, heading straight into a tunnel with no light at the end. Not the buttoned-up chop of a period. Not the diffident skid-pause of a comma, not the drawn-out puzzle of a question mark. A colon, yes, or an ellipsis: something that says It's not the end yet, watch, there's more to follow.

Stay tuned. Wait for it. Keep waiting. Tick-tock, tick-tock. He thinks time doesn't sound like a clock: time sounds like running water, from a tap. Not cold, harsh ticks, like frozen water-pellets hitting roof tiles. Soft, smooth, flowing. You never realize time is running out, slipping past, sidestepping you, slinking away. Eddies swirling, going down the drain. Trickling: drip, drip, drip. Running away, always away.

Never coming back.

I don't know how else to say sorry.

Then don't say it.

He's on a precipice. Standing on the edge, teetering. Swaying back and forth. On the verge of something he doesn't know, doesn't understand. Black ahead, black behind. At the bottom something waits with its mouth open. One shove and he'll fall. Into what? A boundless pit, a new sky. Another life. He has to make a choice, it seems. Red or blue, coffee or tea, glasses or contacts. Stay or jump. Forgive or forget.

I love you, she says.

I know.

I miss you.

I know.

There's no one else. I was just flustered, that's why I—

I know, Rio. I know.

Allen…

She sounds as if she's about to cry. He's guilty, plain and simple. Guilty of drawing the feud out, dragging it out like a pool of rainwater. Smeared feelings, hurt. Bruised. Dark purple, yellowing at the edges. And for what? A pathetic stab at revenge?

How far will you go, he says, for forgiveness?

As far as necessary, she says. But not so far that I get lost.

He laughs. A dry, strident noise. A laughter that says You're an idiot. She steps closer to the pond, leans forward. A shove and she'll fall in. His arm tingles but he doesn't push her. The Goddess pond where the Goddess lives or tries to live. Why a pond? Why not a mortared castle with turrets and ramparts, soot-stained parapets and waterlogged drawbridge, a fortress where deities ought to live? Shoo, dear Goddess. Scram. Leave the world of mortals and save yourself while you still can. Go home, wherever your home is.

I don't want to go on like this, she says. Either we are or we're not. What are we?

Victims of pride, he says.

Your pride, you mean.

Maybe.

A weakness, that's what it is. Vanity. A strength and a weakness both. She wrenched his pride open when she turned him down, held it by the tongue and squeezed. It bled and bled dark red blood, ran into a wet patch thick and glossy. Liver-colored. It's still bleeding. Now he's sore and sulking like a baby, a poor wittle baby sucking his poor wittle thumb.

When will the poor wittle baby grow up? When the mirror cracks and the man in it has half a face, half a smile. When vanity looks out to the world from within sunken eyes that roll upwards. When the mouth that smiles starts concealing crooked teeth and bleeding gums inside. When red hair turns white. When the sun is charred black and the stars are eyeless children that visit every night, when rules are no longer rules and the sky turns rosy and the grass purple, when nothing makes sense anymore, and by then it's too late.

But he's overreacting, and even he knows that.

Guilt, she says, is not a pleasant feeling.

Would you rather feel pain?

Pain, yes. Closure. Love.

I feel love now but it doesn't make me happy.

No, it doesn't.

It used to.

I know.

Sunlight bounces off the pond like embers rising from a bonfire. Red stars gliding up and disappearing. Like dying fireflies. Light dancing on her face, golden light thin and watery. The blue in the air dissolves. Light and air breaking apart. No longer suffocating: He breathes easier, inhales air and exhales air. The way it should be. She closes her hand on the feather and idly twirls it.

He's lived with his pride as a symbiotic parasite but now it's time to part ways, just for the moment. Otherwise he's bound to lose something else that weighs more and matters more. Something that needs to pay more attention to her hair. Here we are, he thinks. Good old pride. Time for me to swallow you whole.

In the times before, he wouldn't even think of relenting. Let the women cry for him, let them pine and waste their time dreaming up an ending that won't hurt. Dreaming up a scene in which the view is his face instead of his back walking away. But that was long ago. Rejection does things to people, and so does love.

How far would you have me go, she says, for your forgiveness?

As far as necessary. But not so far that I'd lose you.

Oh? Seems like I'd get lost anyway.

Abruptly he grabs her hand and pulls her against him, takes hold of her chin and turns her face up towards his. His other hand on her arm, gripping. Claw-like. She breathes in ragged gasps. Puffs of warm air curling on his face. Moist. She blinks, wets her lips, blinks again.

Allen—

What will you do, he says, if I kissed you right now?

She flushes a delightful shade of pink.

I—well, I don't know, for heaven's sake. I guess… I guess I'd give you this.

She holds out her hand and the blue feather in it. Twisted, dank, wilting. Ugly thing. And yet he takes it, crams it in his pocket and grins. Unorthodox, the woman proposing to the man. But who cares. He's swallowed his pride and it tasted good. It tasted of sweet things, forgotten things. Of an egg-sun rising from the horizon. Of a new beginning.

I accept your proposal, he says. Pauses, and adds: Grudgingly.

She frowns. A hopeful frown, anxious. A frayed crease between brown-blond eyebrows. A slant of the mouth, fine lines branching out of eye-corners. Fair strands falling around her face, like starched curtains shredded and torn.

Are you sure? she says. You changed your mind pretty quickly.

He shrugs, holds her closer. Goddess, how he missed her. To have her now within the circle of his arms, without acerbic words and cut-off sentences, is heaven in its own right. Just him and her and a momentous hush. Water rippling. Leaves rustling. Two people breathing.

A broken skyline to the west. Reeds and bulrushes shooting up by their feet, around the pond. Water lapping at the edges of the basin like shapeless fingers caressing the slope. Wetting the earth. Still he holds her and holds her and says nothing. Her small hands rough and calloused resting on his back, creeping up, down, tracing patterns. Her face is pressed to his neck and her eyelashes brush his throat whenever she blinks. It tickles.

She blinks, again, slowly.

So we're good? she says. Just like that? After all that drama?

Rather unceremonious, isn't it?

It is. But it's okay. I don't mind. But—

She lifts her head and stares at him.

Aren't you going to kiss me? she says.

He laughs, lets go of her and walks away. She jogs by him and tries to keep pace.

Save it for the wedding, he says.

They walk home together and leave the pond behind, with its trees and birds and bulrushes and reeds. His hands in his pockets, taking one step at a time. Flattened grass underfoot. With her walking beside him. And all around is the invisible silence heard by those who listen with their hearts open and their eyes closed.

"To love is to be vulnerable."

— C.S. Lewis

Disclaimer: I don't own Allen, which is too bad because I'd really like to do things to him. Various K- to T-rated things. I also don't own Harvest Moon, which is okay because Harvest Moon isn't a gorgeous redhead and I'm not really attracted to it that much.

a/n:

Aaaaaaand that's the end of that. Pretty anticlimactic, eh? Sorry it took so long to update (Got distracted by LoL's Ezreal and his TPA skin *drools* and a lot of other things I fangirl, you know, like Mikhail and Ivan and Amir, oh, and Will too, sometimes), and sorry if it makes no sense or feels rushed. I'm just so drained right now. Completely out of ideas. Confused. Speaking in fragments.

I try to keep my style constant, but I tend to get influenced by whatever book I'm currently reading, which, in this case, is The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's written so ornately that in fear of accidentally emulating it, I overcompensated in this chapter by being too curt. Too bland. Too fragmentary.

Anyhow, what's done is done. Thank you so much for reading! And thank you for your kind reviews. Thank you so, so much. I can't say it enough.