Fallen

Chapter 3

Day once again. The sun fell through the window and shone upon Deena's face, a spotlight on a contemporary dance of slumber.
"Deena! You're going to be late!"

Her sleep-filled eyes fluttered to consciousness. 7:46. School began at 8:00.

Running out the door, Deena's pace slowed to Caleb's cool stride.
"Morning" he smiled.

The halls were especially talkative that day. They all spoke, no one listened. As the bell rang, conversations scattered and hurried into Deena's ears. Every dismembered sentence carried the same word; Prom.

Yes, it was once again that time of year. Frilly dresses wore blonde, lipglossed-girls with matching tuxedos trailing behind, exchanging looks of somber empathy.

And there was no escaping it.

"It's like every time I turn my head there's a flyer." Caleb tore the colourful piece of paper from his locker. "I don't know about you but I think all this is overrated." He inspected the A5 object. "I mean, look at this. The school decides to go on a spending spree for glossy brochure paper, but 'forget the leak in the AP bio classroom! It's not a health and safety risk at all!' What do you think, Dee?"

"Dee?"

But she wasn't listening. Not with her ears, anyway. And certainly not to the expectant boy in front of her.

She heard the deep blue of his cotton shirt, the tan suede of his Doc Martens, the dusty brown of his shower-wet hair. She heard everything, and he didn't even say a word. Caleb on the other hand had to say multiple words, and even then he failed to capture her attention. His question still hung in the air as he shut his locker. Glossy, as he walked away.

"Look at that sky, Caleb,"
"Huh?"
"It's beautiful. It's so blue and wide, like it never ends."

At that moment, Caleb thought an unspoken truth. "Just like your eyes. Deena, you're more beautiful than that sky or any sky in any galaxy to me. And my love for you never ends."
The words leaped across his tongue, buoyant young letters, ready to enter the world and express young emotions, but as they reached the tip, the gate to a new world, Caleb clenched his teeth, and the gate shut.

Instead he replied with a simple: "You're in a good mood." As he won a staring contest with the floor.

Once again they ascended the steps.

"Dee, are you ok?" His gaze snuck toward hers.
"I'm perfect Caleb!" She sighed, "just perfect."
"Ok something's up," he reached over to her and placed a hand on her forehead. "Are you sick or something?"
"No!" She wacked his hand away and frowned.
"That's more like it," he mumbled.
"Can't I just be happy without you being suspicious?" She dropped her bag at the foot of her bed.
"You're never this happy around me."
"Honestly Caleb not everything is about you."
"You're right, it's not about me, it's Landon."
"Seriously, what do you have against him?"

A beautiful picture. A defective girl encased in happiness turned sour, and a clay boy, his molded eyes only see a defective love that he longs to feel.

He knew. He'd known for a while. Like a young man finding out his lover is dying of disease. It started off small, just a few abnormalities, but now, it'd taken over her whole body, her entire being was Landon Vice. He knew there was no cure. But how could he just hand her over to something that would kill her? The answer is, he couldn't. So he kept trying. Stayed at her bedside, day and night, hoping against hope that she'd open her eyes.

"Dee, I need to ask you something."
"Yeah?"
"So you know how prom is coming up and everything?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about."
"Really? I've been meaning to talk to you but the time was never right -"
"I'm finally going to ask Landon."

And just like that, his world fell apart.

- A story of origin -

Once, he was happy. A newly born sculpture, barely even molded. He was so young, so innocent, he never knew any better. As the days plodded on, he slowly began to take shape. The shape of a boy, still wet behind the ears. He'd never understood the way life was to be lived, never known how, but one day he saw her in a window, the window of an old toy shop on its last leg, gasping for air.

There she was.

Her dust-covered face looked on as the last doll was tentatively carried through the door, the second last doll. For months after that day she would watch as each toy found a home, and the home she was destined to stay in collapsed under her feet. No one wanted her, no one even looked twice at the defective doll. The defective girl. She'd always known a day would come when she couldn't watch the happy faces disappear any longer, she didn't know it would come so soon. The rubble fell down on her and crushed her already-broken frame. She shrieked for help, but no one came, no one ever came. As she looked out of her window one last excruciating time, a clay boy caught her eye, as she slipped away.

Hand-in-hand, they fixed each other, cared for each other, loved each other. But each day he'd look deeper into her eyes, while she looked at another. He tried not to care, telling himself she'd one day see how eternal his love for her was.

But time waited not, and every day she pushed him away, his clay exterior hardened, and his body slowly began to crack.

He looked in the mirror as he attempted to mend his fractured skin, but it was getting harder and harder to cover the bruises. Until that one day. That day changed everything.

She looked him in the eye and finally did it. Finished him off. Finally shattered him.

She threw his fragile body to the floor and every piece of him exploded, howling from the pain, the unbearable, slicing pain as his heart joined his broken body beneath her feet.

A single tear.

"Caleb?"

Then another.

"Caleb speak to me."
"Why?"
"What?" She looked up at him, brows drawn in worry.
"I've tried so hard to be what you want. I've done everything right, but you still choose Landon."
"What are you -"
"He'll never love you" he spat. So venomous, Deena hardly recognized his voice.
"What is wrong with you!" She screamed.

Silence.

"I've never seen this side of you." Her voice quivered. "And I hate it."

"Dee" he reached out to touch her arm, but she pulled away, and he saw the pain contorting her face. It was as if his fingers seared her skin, scorched her body.
"Get. Out."
"Dee, I'm sorry, please don't-"
"If you won't leave, I will"
"Where are you going?" Panic rose in his chest, hot, climbing his throat.

"Why do you care."