Bloody Mary

Killing Me Softly

  Your eyes shot open to find the room still dark. The familiar sense of dread had returned, and you quickly sat up. In the shadows, you could see the outline of Arthur sitting on the far edge of the bed. You whispered his name, answered with silence. You crept out from under the sheets, moving to sit beside him. His face was downturned, the same vacant look from earlier.

  "I had a bad day." He whispered, and you scooted closer, gently brushing at his hair.

  "Do you wanna talk about it?" You asked quietly, aching for him.

  The room was silent for a long time before his low, expressionless voice crackled back to life. "My mother let him. She didn't stop it. She could have stopped it."

  "Stopped what, Arthur?" Your blood ran cold when he let out a disturbingly calm chuckle.

  "She said there was something wrong with me. She knew the truth the whole time. It's her fault. She let it happen."

  "Arthur, you're not making any sense." He laughed again, and you wondered if he was even aware of your presence.

  "They all abandoned me. My parents abandoned me. My mother abandoned me." He giggled.

  "Arthur... your mother loves you."

  "She is not my mother." He snapped, and you winced at his harsh tone. "She let him hurt me. She let him do this to me."

  "Arthur, who did what to you?" you cried, desperate to understand his scrambled thoughts.

  "I don't know!" his voice rose to a fever pitch, your blood chilling at the sound. "I don't know him. He hurt me, and she let him. He hurt my head."

  Trying to fit the pieces together, you thought out loud. "Ok... So your mother, who isn't really your mother, let a man hurt your head?"

  "I'm adopted." He stated the words simply, factually, coldly.

    Your stomach flipped. "She adopted you and then let a man hurt you?" your brow furrowed. "Arthur... is that man the reason you... suffer episodes?"

  He started laughing, a hollow sound that erupted from his throat. It carried on for minutes, but you quickly realized it wasn't being triggered by his affliction. This was a different laugh, one that didn't seem at all painful. You were simultaneously greatly relieved, and deeply disturbed.

  "She's... crazy." He said between laughter. "Thomas Wayne told me. I read it at Arkham."

  With every sentence, you found yourself more baffled. "You went to Arkham?"

  "I took the file so I could read it. I found the adoption paper. I saw the pictures. He tied me up. She let him. It's her fault ... She knew, she's always known. She let it happen. She could have stopped it." He kept repeating the last sentence to himself, over and over again.

  "Arthur, please just lie down with me. You need to rest, and in the morning you can explain everything. I want to understand it all. I've been so worried about you; do you know that? I've been scared to death that something happened to you. Please relax with me so we can talk about this in the morning. Will you do that for me?" You pleaded with him, softly tugging on his arm. Your only response was him silently looking at your hand on his arm.

  Wordlessly, he moved up the bed, resting back on the pillows and facing away from you once again. Eventually you climbed under the covers, resting you head on a pillow and gazing at him miserably. You were torn, so badly wanting to comfort him, to feel his arms wrapped around you. He hadn't looked at you once tonight, and his lifeless eyes made him seem like an empty shell, a shadow. The last time he was in your bed, you were sharing your bodies with one another, connected in every way. Now you were too afraid to touch him, the inches of space between you feeling more like an infinite void.

  Your tender, sweet, innocent man seemed broken. Someone had hurt him, and you wanted more than anything to heal the wound.

  As you cried yourself to sleep, you silently hoped that he wasn't listening.