Truly Madly Ghostly

Chapter Twenty-one: Hold My Hand

Alex was here. He would hold her. He wouldn't let her fall.

But let her fall he did.

At the last moment the fingers of his outstretched hand curled inwards to close into a fist.

She watched horrified as he let her go. Sucked by gravity she tumbled down the steps.

And the jolts of pain that hit different parts of her body were nothing compared to the painful strike her heart took.

Thankfully when she reached the bottom of the stairs she was able to bring forth her hands before her head. Thrusting her open palms against the hard ground she deterred what could have been a deadly hit to her head. She lied there on her side, shaking, the upper-half of her body still elevated by her hands.

Her hair had fallen down over both sides of her face like a curtain and fluttered due to her labored breaths. When an unexpected gust of air blew past, strands of hair slapped against her skin, they stuck to her sweaty skin, matted by dust.

"Char!" She heard him cry her name. He had come down now. "Are you—are you alright? Charlotte?"

Slowly, she moved. Immediately pain shot through different parts of her body, yet nothing felt broken, which was supposed to be a good sign. Dragging herself weakly to the wall beside her she sat slumped against it, facing the railing.

Alex was bent over her, relentlessly asking about her well being. But the ringing in her ears was drowning everything else now. Her head spun. She was drained, in pain and despite all her limbs seeming just alright, there was something inside her that felt so utterly shattered. Then came a point when every bit of patience went off inside her.  

 "I can't take it anymore!" she shouted making him stop with his act of worry.

A bitter cold settled in her stomach.

"I can't...," she muttered, her voice so low. Her hands shook as she hugged her knees. "You're breaking me, Alex. I can't play this game of tug and pull anymore, I've no more strength. It's breaking me."

Alex was silent as he straightened away from her.

She sobbed into her knees.

She knew she was coming off as perhaps the weakest person in the world right now—sitting before his feet, slumped against the wall, battered and probably bleeding from some places, crying into her knees. But she didn't care. She didn't care anymore.

She had reached the point when he had successfully managed to break her.

"Please—" he muttered, clutching his head with his hands. "Please don't misunderstand me."

Through a veil of tears she looked up at him, the fire in her eyes trying to tear apart her liquid sadness. "Then, for God's sake, Alex, make me understand you."

When he stayed silent and just stared back at her, she bellowed, "Make me understand you, Alex! Why won't you?"

She realized that her palms were all scraped up when she lifted a hand up to the wall, to help herself up to her feet. She winced as the cold wall grated against the now bleeding cracks of her skin. Her legs throbbed having to hold her entire weight upon them. 

"Because heavens know how you've been killing me every second since the moment I met you. Sometimes you make me feel like your world revolves around me, but then you withdraw and your absence tell me we're worlds apart. You words, your songs, your smile never fail to reach my heart, you make me believe that their solitary purpose is just that, to reach my heart and yet you can never bring yourself to touch me, not even when I'm falling from the stairs, not even when you know getting hurt will be the consequence. At times I feel like it is how you're but then, Alex, you make me think if you're a sadist to be this way, and...," She blinked against the tears that dropped from her eyes. She swallowed against the painful lump lodged in her throat. "And I wonder if I'm making a mistake—" She circled a hand around her stomach, feeling knots of emotions convulsing with vehemence. And she continued in a whisper, "—if I'm making a mistake by letting you break me this way."