Something about Us

Old

--Oliver--

How can I feel like this? What right do I have to feel like this? I have everything I've ever asked for, everything I've ever needed. Yet here I am, feeling more alone than ever. Arthur is always at my side and I love him with more than I can ever explain, but I still feel like there are pieces missing. I feel unsettled and alone.
What is wrong with me?

When Arthur found me in the bathroom after our performance, I was too shaken to realize what I had just admitted to myself. I didn't deserve him. As long as that rumor about me was alive and burning, he would get hurt too. He would hurt because I hurt. And there is nothing more unfair to him than that. But I couldn't make myself leave him, I just couldn't. I loved him too much, I needed him too much. So I begged him to leave me.
"Arthur... Let me go... I don't want to hurt you," I said. "I don't want them to hurt you. I don't want to see you hurt,"
Yet he refused to let go. Instead of letting go he held me tighter. He told me things would be okay, he told me that he would make them better, that he would fix things. That he would fix me.

-T I M E S K I P-

It's been three days since our performance on Friday and I haven't talked to Arthur since. I stayed home from school today and I'm not sure why. Arthur's been calling me and texting me constantly yet I can't make myself pick up the phone. I'm not angry at him at all. But I just... I can't make myself go to school. I cant make myself see him, and the pain and worry I cause him.
I can't go back to school and listen to all of the evil words people say about me. I can't go back and listen to them anymore. So I'll just... Stay home. I can barely make myself shower let alone get up at a decent hour. So why not? School has never done much for me anyway, other than give me a place to feel horrible at.
But I can do that at home now too.

So at about two in the afternoon when I woke up on Monday, I grabbed a bottle of wine I kept in my kitchen and sat on my couch and nursed it until I felt numb and couldn't think anymore.
"Sweet bliss," I said, smiling at the almost empty bottle. "My savior,"
I sat there for a long time before an idea hit me.
"Piano!" I gasped and stood up. I shakily walked towards my bedroom, but instead entered through a door in the hallway which most people would assume was a closet. But it opened to a huge room, with one wall that had floor to ceiling windows and the only thing in it was a black grand piano. The piano was there when I moved in, and I didn't want to take it out so I taught myself to play.
I sat down at the bench and ran my fingers over the cold ivory of the keys.
"Haven't played in awhile..."
I skipped over the book of songs I had in my mind, looking for one I had memorized and I loved.
Then I began to play.
A slow, mournful melody escaped from my fingers and the piano played its sounds, giving voice to my thoughts and the movement of my hands.

"I'm so tired of being here. Suppressed by all my childish fears,"

I started to sing, knowing the song by heart and then letting it speak.

"You used to captivate me, your body resonating light. Now I'm bound by the life you left behind,"

I could feel my throat start to constrict with the threat of tears, but I shoved them down.

"Your face, it haunts my once pleasant dreams. Your voice, it chased away all the sanity in me,"

My voice got louder, building up for the chorus, and I slammed onto the keys a bit stronger, feelings and thoughts of Arthur flooding into the air and onto the ivory.

"These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real, there's just too much that time can not erase,"

I let the tears fall, the words hitting me and understanding me in a way I couldn't explain.