The Darkness Of Healing // Ruel // English

Chapter 4

I hear my footsteps thump on the hospital stairs. It reverberates throughout the room. Reflecting off all the walls that enclose me. It's like I'm in a hurry. Not that Ruel can go anywhere. I also don't know what makes me want to get up there so quickly. Maybe it's more restlessness in my body. My heart beating faster because I don't want to find him the same as yesterday. No one is with me now. No one is with me to stop any flashbacks. To save me from any setback. That I'm going to flip again.

The morning sun shines through the windows of the waiting room, shines into the hallway and leaves patterns on the floor. This place is nicer than it should be. It feels like you are walking into a place of happiness but it is quite the opposite. This makes me very bad and yet the warm sun lights up my heart. Makes it a little less painful.

Ruel is still in the same room. Somewhere in the middle of the very long corridor. There's no need to hurry, that is what makes me being watched by everyone around me. But they don't dare to do anything. They let me go like I'm transparent. Malicious. Maybe that isn't a bad thought. I feel the cold metal spinning around my finger, then I catch it again with a slap in my hand. It still comes in handy somehow. I knew where it was. I always knew that. It's never been a secret place for me, but it was only for emergencies. And this is one of them. The feeling of the metal makes a layer of hard steel form around my heart. Protected from everything. Banned from anything that comes flying at me. It's not my good, it's his.

The door to his room is already open. Yet no one is inside. The door would slam behind me maybe a little too hard if it wasn't fitted with a brake.

The gun revolves around my finger and is caught by my palm before I load the gun and hold it with both hands. I stand with strength in my legs at the foot end of the bed. Arms outstretched, barrel pointed at his head.

Without any emotion I turn my head to the side. Pull the trigger and hear a shot. I don't look back until I hear the high, steady sound of the heart monitor. The heart rate is in a flat line. The deep red blood spreads through its pillow, discoloring every fiber it has at its disposal. Despite the hole in his head, it looks like he's asleep. As if he died a second time. Apparently the first time wasn't good enough.

A cramp comes a hand. An intense pain, but only in my palm. Scattered through my nerves. I raise my right hand and see the familiar sign. The cross of death. Right next to Justin's. Also killed by me. Both same cause. I am a murder weapon. No one can fix me because I'm not broken. I'm set up to kill. First mentally, then physically.

I wake up screaming from my dream. I grab my chest. It feels pinched off, entangled, and I can't breathe anymore. At the same time, the bedroom door opens and Coco enters anxiously. She sees that I am in a panic and quickly comes to me. She probably heard the restlessness while I was asleep. She had probably been up all night in the room next door, afraid to sleep, maybe it even felt impossible.

Coco: "Are you okay?" Ruel's sister asks.

I burst into tears. Like wild rivers it flows down my cheeks. It feels like it has been laying still for years.

Yasmine: "I killed him." My words break. It's like there are cracks in every letter. If you hang on to it long enough, it will break.

I'm just rambling on to her. Throw all the negativity on myself. I can not help it. It just happens.

Coco: "It's okay. It's not your fault. We will never blame you either. He's still alive. Really." She tries to reassure me, but at the end of the day I will turn all her words back. Taking it all back on my shoulders. Maybe partly because it feels safe. Because it's always been that way. That behavior is learned.

Coco lays down next to me in bed, where I would normally lie, and takes the seal from the bedside table. The corners of my mouth curl up slightly and the sob is broken by a small laugh. A soft sound of chuckling. The soft animals lays between us and she takes my hand to hold it in the middle of the bed. This is how we fall asleep to get that little bit of sleep.

I drop my spoon back into my yogurt when I can't get a bite down my throat anymore. It's like it hurts. That if it eventually ends up in my stomach it feels like an impact and I want to throw everything out again. Hanging over the toilet where my tears mix with the water and I can flush them away. But just because those tears are gone doesn't mean everything is gone. It's not like all the pain is pouring down the sewer. Soon it will be stored somewhere and I can drink it again later, but then purified. It will stay with me. All the time. It is never a redemption, only a mitigation.

Someone puts a hand on my shoulder and with all my heart I hoped it was his. I had felt the heat spread through my body. Like the roots of a tree, which grow bigger, longer and stronger over the years. Scattered all over the ground, hidden from all that is visible. But they have power. Power to keep the whole tree standing through any circumstance. By blowing hard during storms to absorb the water when millions of drops fall from the sky. That the sky is a vague drawing where the colors are so mixed that there is nothing left of them. Ruel spread his roots like this. Planted himself in my body. Made me ground myself, with him.

I had hoped he was here now. Standing next to me alive. Just that I could hug him. He could hear his heart beating and not hear some kind of echo from a heart monitor that will tell me when it stops. Stops beating.

I am not weak. I am not weak. I am not weak. This has nothing to do with not being able to handle it. This has to do with losing power. Power I could never get myself. Only someone like him could flip that switch. And now the light has gone out, I can't find it myself anymore. It is losing a kind of security. A certainty that now made me feel like I could fly after all. Flying with broken wings. Not screaming in pain this time. It was safe. It became familiar.

I can see the pain in Ralph's eyes. It's like they're going to break soon. His eyes are thick and red. Tired, very tired. He sits down at the table and picks up the newspaper, rests his head on his hand and stares down. His eyes don't even go from side to side to read what's printed on the paper. It is painful. Mainly because talking about things like this, and even other things that are still valid as feelings, is not done by many men. Because it makes you weak. Because there is no listening to each other, no support. Not even when your son is on the edge of a cliff. He can roll off it and die, or he can regain his own strength and still grab the ground beneath him. Retreat and get to safety. But his actions are not ours. Not Ralph's. Not that of doctors. Only his. I want to talk to Ralph, I offer it, but he declines. Blocks himself. Still, I'll listen if needed. I will always do my best for that. Well, I try.

I see now what he's been staring at all the time. To his son in the newspaper. It is the newspaper that is standard on the table here. His smile is so pure there. Proud on the red carpet. As photogenic as he always was. So comfortable in front of the camera. Confidence if he knew who was behind it, who would take pictures, therefore always the same name. I know who all were with him that moment. It was a small group, but all people who would ground him and not let him get lost in all those flashes. The flashes that blind you and you can no longer see who you are purely inside. It is only the mask that is seen, often that is a good thing. But here, here he was himself. I want to take him and put him back there. Exactly in that same moment.

The father sees that I am watching and starts telling, telling about what he has been through with his son. The moments like this. The award shows, the movie and theater premieres. The concerts they've been to. That he was just a little boy who was already crazy about music. Listening, singing and dancing. That he bounced around his room like a bouncy ball. Pretend he was putting on a show himself and Ralph saw him having fun through a crack in the door. That the love for music came across, maybe just in a different way than the rest of the family, but maybe this was better. He is a born singer. He recounts the times when his sports fanatic son got him into football, which would come from all the time they spent together in front of the TV watching the England club, Liverpool. That they'd just given him a basket so the balls wouldn't crash into the garage door every time. And the moment he first stood on his surfboard. Actually was quite afraid of all the living creature below him. Afraid they would bite his toes. And look at him now, he is free on the sea. I didn't have to be there to know that these were beautiful and special moments.

When I put my food back in the fridge and close the door, I remember something. A notification I then got in the car with June on my way home and I knew I was going to freak out. The only thing I didn't know was what would happen next. I then swiped it away and never looked back at it. It was the voicemail, his voicemail.