𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐎 𝐃𝐎𝐋𝐂𝐄; rigel wilde

ii. 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧

The institute was called Sunnycreek Home.
             
It stood at the end of a decrepit, dead end road, in the forgotten outskirts of a little town in the south of the state. It housed unfortunate children like me, none of whom I ever heard call it by its real name.
             
Everyone called it The Grave, and it didn't take long for me to understand why: your soul would be seven feet under before you could get out of there.
             
I felt like I was living behind bars in The Grave.
             
I spent every day longing for someone to come and take me away. For someone, anyone, to want me. I would've taken anything. But no one had ever chosen me. No one had ever wanted me, or even noticed me. I had always been invisible.
             
Not like Rigel.
             
Unlike many of us, he hadn't lost his parents. No tragedy had taken them away from him when he was little.
             
They had found him in front of the institute's gates in a wicker basket, with no note and no name, abandoned in the night with only the stars to watch over him like great sleeping giants. He was only a week old.
           
She named him 'Rigel' after the brightest star in the constellation of Orion, which was shining that night like a diamond on a bed of black velvet.
             
For all of us at The Grave, that was where he was born. It was obvious even from his appearance that the night shone through his skin, as pale as the moon, and his black eyes stared with the steadiness of someone born from the dark.
             
Ever since he was a child, Rigel had been the jewel in The Grave's crown.
           
"The son of the stars," she used to call him. The matron adored him so much that she taught him to play the piano. She would sit with him for hours, with a patience that never extended to the rest of us, and with note after note she transformed him into an impeccable boy who shone out against the lifeless walls of the institute.
             
Rigel seemed as good as he looked. He had the perfect smile and was top of his class. His hair was silky like no boy's hair should be and by the time he was twelve he was fluent in four different languages.
             
He was the child anyone would have wanted.
             
But I knew that he wasn't really like that. I had learnt to see behind all of it, beneath his velvety words, his pale lips, the mask of perfection he wore with everybody else.
             
I knew that he harboured the night within him, and that hidden in the folds of his soul was the darkness he had been plucked from.
             
Rigel had always acted different with me.
             
I had never been able to explain it. It was as if I had somehow done something terrible to deserve his silent glares and sharp words. It all started the day I got into The Grave. He knocked into me, and I fell, grazing my knees. I brought my legs up to my chest and brushed the grass away, but when I looked up, I saw no trace of an apology on his face. He just stood there, staring at me with those hunted eyes.
             
Rigel would yank at my clothes, pull my hair, say mean things to me and untie the bows at the ends of my braids just for the fun of it. The ribbons would flutter to his feet like dead butterflies, and through my tears I would see his lips curl into a cruel smirk before he ran away.
             
But he never touched me.
             
In all those years, he never once made direct contact with my skin. Just the hems and material of my clothes or my hair. He would pull me over by my sweater, and I ended up with baggy sleeves, but never bruises. It was as if he was so disgusted by me that the idea of touching my skin was a torment.
             
Rigel spent most of the time by himself, rarely seeking out the company of other children. But once, when I was around thirteen, a new boy came to The Grave, a blond boy who was transferred to a foster home about a week later. He immediately took to Rigel – the one boy who, if possible, was worse than he was. They would hang out, leaning against the crumbling walls, Rigel with his arms crossed over his chest, his lips twitching and his eyes shining darkly with amusement. Their idea of fun was picking fights with other boys at school and smoking in abandoned buildings.
             
Then, on a day like any other, the new boy came down to dinner with a black eye and a swollen lip. Mrs. Fridge glared at him unkindly and in a thundering voice demanded what in God's name had happened.
             
"Nothing," he mumbled without looking up from his plate. "I fell over at school."
             
But I knew full well that it wasn't 'nothing'. When I looked up, I saw Rigel lowering his face so that no one would see his expression. He was smiling, a thin sneer cracking his perfect mask.
             
And as he got older, he grew into his beauty in a vicious way. Nothing about him would ever be sweet, soft or gentle.
             
No.
             
It scorched you to look at Rigel, but your eyes would be drawn to him, like to the frame of a burning building or a dead body on the side of the road. He was viciously beautiful, and the more you tried not to look at him, the more his twisted charm wedged itself under your skin, filling your veins until it infected your whole body, just like a fast acting poison.
             
He was a masterpiece, so heartbreakingly beautiful that it made me want to die.
             
My worst nightmare, that was him.