Scars Upon Your Heart - 5. Part 5

Someone somewhere is about to learn the answer to one of the most philosophical questions known to man…

I guess you could say that I was glad. Glad that he loved me.

All I ever wanted was love. That eternal connection that binds us all.

He was to stay. Isaac was to stay with me. He was to move over. Just for me.

The day he moved in was just so brilliant…

I thought he was going to stay in a local hotel; I already had the idea of booking him in to the best hotel in town. Isaac was so wonderful so he had to have the best. All expenses paid.

I wouldn’t want him not to have somewhere to stay. I would like him to stay but that is entirely impractical. I guess I wasn’t ready yet. But I knew I had to throw myself into it, go in for the plunge.

No pressure Jason.

He turned up on my street. He turned up on my street and just stood there. I could hear him through the door. I stood there leaning, listening. Oh how I loved his alluring Australian accent.

‘So you must be Lucian…’

I did the first thing that came into my head and I ran out and I just threw myself onto him. May be I was a little too forward but he appeared to like it. I looked over his shoulder and threw such a happy smile at Lucian. He would be happy for me. Of course he would…

‘I’m so glad to see you.’

‘It's good to see you too. I need to sit down; I’ve been travelling for over a day and a half. You can understand how tired I am.’

‘Come in. Come in.’ I guided him in and took his stuff into the living room.

‘Are you going to move me in or what?’

I was shocked. ‘Move you in? What?’

‘Well you don’t think I was going to travel here and stay on my own did you? I want my first night back with you to be special. Don’t forget my letter. I meant every word.’

I was in such shock but I was so happy. I impulsively kissed him. Not a kiss of passion but it was a kiss of love. A kiss of eternal devotion. Oh the joy that ran through me.

He was also happy. He had been travelling a lot, and so was incredibly tired. He spent the evening lounging on the sofa and I waited on his every need and it felt so good. I kind of liked the role of the housewife. Incredibly entertaining.

Of course, our relationship wasn’t entirely this. Oh no. We would have such deep conversations. We were as passionate as we were intelligent. He also adored literature but he preferred the Victorian Romantic era whereas I was in was in love with the 18th Century through and through. William Blake and Henry Fielding all of the way.

There was one conversation that I will always remember. We were sat on the sofa with my legs up on him with the record player in the background. Isaac had such an extensive collection of records so we always liked to have one on in the evenings.

‘Jason, what do you think is love?’

‘Unquestioning Self Humiliation.’ I looked at him and gave him a sexy little smile.

‘You may think you are Dickens but you are not. Tell me, what do you think it is?’He ran his hand up my body. I think I knew what he was going on about.

‘It is both a physical and an emotional connection. You must desire the other partner but you must also be friends. A relationship cannot be a relationship without a friendship behind it.’

‘Well done. You know, you could put it so much more simply.’

‘How?’

He put his lips near my forehead. ‘Us.’

He was so romantic…

I finally had that chance for true happiness…

It was all going so well, there had to be something that was to go wrong.

Oh how right was I.

Someone somewhere is looking at that last little drop of rainfall at the pier of abandoned dreams…

I felt a vibration in my pocket. I took the phone out of my pocket and instinctively answered it. Oh so many commonplace things that you do, that you regret…

‘Hello, who is it?’

‘It. It is me.’

‘Hi Lucian, what do you want?’

‘Come. Come to me.’ There was a great sense of desperation in his tone. ‘I’m at the pier. I’m on the edge.’

And with that he hung up the phone. A rush of worry and panic went through me.

‘I’m sorry Isaac; I have to go get Lucian. He’s being… funny.’

Of course I was worried sick so I quickly jumped in my car and drove to the local pier. I got out of the car and saw he wasn’t there. There was only one other pier in town and that was the abandoned old one.

Ah. I should have known. He always loved his antiques.

I had to get across town. Please don’t jump. For Christ’s sake don’t jump before I get there. In fact, don’t jump at all would be better. Much better.

It took over half an hour but I made it to the edge of the pier and I saw him stood on the edge. Oh Christ he really was desperate. He was swaying with the wind…

The wind brought the water to fever pitch, enough to destroy such an innocent soul. Oh Christ. No, you can’t do this to me Lucian. You were stronger than that!

The wooden mouldy layering of the pathway to where Lucian had put himself wasn’t very stable so I tried to stay on the safest bits possible. I moved as quickly as I could but I missed my footing and crashed through a completely rotten piece of wood and fell to the floor. I pulled myself up, desperate to get to him. To try to save him. I knew I could. I wished I could. I pulled myself out, luckily with only a few scratches to my leg. The wind got stronger and I saw Lucian falter and I felt my heart wrench. I got over to him and I was horrified by the sight of him…

He was a mess. His eyes were wide from lack of sleep with deep bags under his eyes and the most greasy hair. He was curled; oh I couldn’t look. I couldn’t stare at his eyes. They were dilated and they looked so sore. He could have been crying or they could be black eyes, I couldn’t tell. The water was picking up pace and it began to rain. Oh the rain. Oh how it ran down his delicate face. I saw a strange sense of joy erupt through is face, but then he returned to that deadly look…

Something was seriously wrong with him. Something he had hidden from everyone. From me. From Cameron. Why didn’t Cameron see it? He is his lover for Christ’s sake, it’s part of a lover’s duty to spot when things are wrong. I could have helped if I knew. If I had known before. But I didn’t. I couldn’t lose hope. I could still help. I could still save him from himself. I had to try, for my own sanity.

He looked over to me, he spoke in his hoarse voice and as he spoke, he laughed the laugh of a mad man. ‘There’s nothing anyone can do anymore.’ He laughed; it appears as if the laugh came from the very centre of his being, simply dragged out by bitterness. ‘I fuck up everything I do…’

‘Lucian there is always another answer.’ I took another step towards him. ‘You don’t have to do this’

‘That’s the problem. I have to.’ The voracious wind whipped through his distraught hair. He embraced the wind. ‘I can never make anyone happy. I ruined you.’ He pointed at me, his arms open wide and lost his footing and fell towards the deck. I ran in to catch him but he instantly sprang back onto the edge. I couldn’t get near him; I didn’t want to scare him. I already was too close; I could sense it. He began to cry. ‘I ruined your heart.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘Don’t treat me like a child,’ he said scowling. ‘Of course I did. And so it must happen, I cannot do this anymore.’

He turned to the storm like water, its ripples growing in intensity, crashing up against the rocks under the pier. The rain. The glittering rain made his skin look liked it had been burnt. Refusing to look at me, he just stared at the tempting water that attracted him so. He was so unaware of my terror, of my absolute horror. I was going to lose him… And he was so helpless…

He muttered loudly, ‘Goodbye.’

And then, in one single moment…

He was free.

Someone somewhere is finding that little bit of life that they once lost…

He was free. At last he was free. Or, so you would think.

The journal was full. There was no more to be written. I had put down my antique pen for the final time. I could not write for my own sake. The experience I went through was beyond traumatic. I could not even think about it.

He didn’t die.

Of course he didn’t.

His body wasn’t as weak as that. He could not be as weak as that. Not him. Never him.

He was fished out of the water and taken to the local accident and emergency department.

I flicked the page.

From my new page, I read that he acquired several bad injuries but after several hours of treatment and a few weeks of intense care with a clinical psychologist he was declared ‘sane’. Well as sane as you can be, when you go through the experiences we went through. He went through.

He saw someone once a week, on Mondays at 7pm. Of course I know. I have to take him there.

He wouldn’t let Cameron see him when he was there. He just couldn’t let him go through that. He cared for him, despite everything; he truly did care in the deep recesses of his heart…

He was finally stable, thankfully.

At least, I thought he was stable.

He now works for a top law firm here and makes quite a fair bit of money for what he does…

He has the odd blip now and then but we know how to properly deal with it now.

Cameron, however, was a totally different subject. He stayed. By some odd chance, he stayed. Just for him. Despite all what happened he stayed. He was forever faithful. I never understood. I never really got what he was after. I guess it was eternal love. Something we all search for within ourselves and for that I admire him.

He has been working for the same company for the last few years and got himself promoted to management. Lucky bastard.

Myself, I was and still am a lecturer at the local university. Isaac also being quite passionate about literature managed to get a job alongside me and in tandem we run the Comparative Literature modules at Harvard University. I lead a lot of the key modules for exams and Isaac does the coursework. It’s a fun job really, seeing students fret because of how hard the exams are going to be. I make their mock exams very hard but then the real exam much easier. It’s just the way I work. I also mentor a few students alongside the counselling service. It’s what I do to give back to the world. I’ve always enjoyed myself doing that.

One of my students that I gave counselling to joined GA after one of our sessions and we had discussions on there without realising. It’s amazing what you discover through someone’s online façade. He even complimented me, his therapist, to my online persona. Such a façade can be held. The student eventually found out who I was and they were more than happy. Actually, they were glad they let their heart out to me. I felt so good. You get some many facades but then you see the people without the masks, the people that have nothing to hide. People like Cameron…

Someone somewhere is going to leave everything behind them and start a new life… A better life…

There was a knock at the door, the sunny afternoon that I was reading my journal. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was Lucian. He was a little better, he cleaned his hair up and his eyes were not as ‘wild’. He was still a little unwell; he had lost a lot of weight. It really had affected him. He was already skin and bone, so you can imagine what he now looked like. He didn’t speak. He just looked at me and pulled me out of my house.

He forced his lips upon mine and then kissed me forcefully.

It was passionate. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t pull away; Lucian, despite being thinner, was too physically strong. I couldn’t get out of his grip, I didn’t feel safe. For the second time, I was worried. He would not let me go, I hit him, I attacked him but he would not release me from his vice like grip.

‘Next time you leave the house, make sure you lock the house, we could get…’

It was Cameron and I watched the anguish in his face. I saw him take his house key off of his keying and I then saw him drop it at his feet. He was… destroyed. He just walked away. I eventually got myself out of Lucian’s deathly grip.

‘What the hell was that? I don’t get you. You turn up and you do that. You need to get yourself sorted out.’

‘Look…’ He grabbed my arm with a firm grip.

‘I love you Lucian. Of course I do. I truly do. But I am finally happy. I am so happy with Isaac and you need to learn that. You need to understand that. You just can’t go round doing these things. I cannot betray the one I love. I’m sorry Lucian.’

A sound of a shot. I was sure it was just someone’s exhaust firing up but it was something far worse than that…

‘Jason… what’s going on? What’s happening?’ He looked at me with the eyes of a child.

‘Stay here, I’ll go and find out.’

I went outside of the house and went down the alley where I kept the trash and he was lying there.

Bleeding.

It was Cameron and he was most certainly dead.

**

Lucian followed me into the alley. I watched him go through such anguish and pain. I watched him walk to Cameron and hold his hand whilst I phoned for the ambulance.

It wasn’t long before we made it to the hospital before they pronounced him dead. I already knew.

A fatal wound straight through the skull and into the brain. He had no chance.

I watched the pair of them. Despite all of the pain and the suffering, he loved him.

But it was their shared passion that killed them.

It was how much Cameron loved Lucian that led him down the road of eternal darkness…

A path that many people follow.

Including people closer to you than you could ever imagine…

**

I took a postcard from him and looked at it.

I took the lighter from him and burnt it.

And then I watched it burn.

I watched every curled letter and the wavy signature burn into a crisp.

And I enjoyed it.