Chapter 20
THE DAMAGE
Maybe the beaten feeling came from the shards of glass and broken doll remains scattered on the bathroom floor, so fine and powdery I could have inhaled them.
Maybe the amount of time I’d spent behind my desk had begun to hit, and the growing tension between me and Aster was taking its toll.
When I threw away the glass that I could and stood back on my feet, my shoulders ached and I realized that my eyes felt ready to close on their own.
I was tired.
Not the end of the day type of tired that could be cured by curling up in bed and sleeping ten to twelve hours to relieve the stress.
This strain of weariness penetrated my essence to the depths of my soul.
I considered lying down and sleeping on the floor outside the bathroom.
The only thing that stopped me was a fantasy of a concerned groundskeeper breaking into the house and finding me lying there, so close to the broken mirror, dead or beyond the ability to save.
I staggered to the bedroom on legs that threatened to drop at any moment. I didn’t strip my clothes off. Night had fallen, and that satisfied me. I didn’t want to be aware of anything until the right shade of white poured through those curtains over my bed twelve hours later.
I crawled on top of the bed and lay in a half-sprawled position for a few seconds or minutes. Then I pulled myself under the blankets. My movements were heavy and clumsy. My earlier hunger had hollowed into a nausea and a desire to eat nothing more solid than chicken soup.
Sleep should have been easy and natural, and I wanted sleep. But I didn’t sleep.
I lay still for a long time, counting to a hundred and down and then reviewing the day’s drama to get it out of the way. Then I shifted. I positioned myself on my side, facing the dresser. I thought of Aster, and then I tried to blot Aster from my mind.
This summer had taught me one thing: that my fate, ultimately, lay beyond my ability to control.
My ambition didn’t matter. It never had.
The only thing that mattered was getting out of this nightmare alive and finding a patch of untainted air to breathe.
My previously confident sense of identity had almost completely disappeared through the chaos, and I didn’t know how to get it back.
I listened. I trained my ears on the cries of a few free seagulls and the sound of the waves crashing on the beach outside.
That’s what I told Aster I wanted, wasn’t it?
Just a break from all the writing before looking at that screen one more time.
But I didn’t need Aster to tell me that his magic now superseded my wishes.
He’d kept me awake so that I could work.
He still kept me awake. He wasn’t my muse.
I was his artist, or his pet, or something in between the two.
The tears that spilled down my cheeks were hot and angry. I couldn’t call Aster back to me. Not after all that happened. I hated to admit any truth this ugly to myself, but I couldn’t stand the sight of him anymore. I was beginning to hate him. Hate, was that what I felt?
My fingers clawed into the comforter. No, I didn’t hate him. I was a logical person. I’d always solved my own problems before without needing to take them out on anyone else, without needing to blame anyone else.
Aster still made my heart burn when I saw him, but the burn wasn’t love. What else could it be? Frustration? Envy? No, it was darker than that. So much darker.
If Aster didn’t kill me the next time he saw me, I’d get revenge in my own way.
I could promise myself that much at least. I’d throw my fevered strength into the force of my hands around his neck.
Or I’d crush his head with a large rock.
The way he’d thrown the doll at the mirror.
Or I’d run, run far away, return to Wisconsin in an empty car alone.
Then my stomach flopped, and I remembered again that I was the one who threw the doll at the mirror in the end.
I still recalled Aster raising the doll and preparing to throw it.
Maybe he threw it but re-wired my memory to escape the blame.
Either way, I’d lost the ability to tell where I ended and where Aster—my inspiration, my muse, my greater self—began.
I’d blurred the line between artist and creativity.
I’d made the one mistake that no artist was ever supposed to make.
I cried harder, alone, abandoned, until my tears ended on their own.
What other choice did I have? I’d been an idiot back there, batting my eyes at Aster and thinking that I could take him and make him my own.
I’d never been swayed by any man’s beauty until Aster waltzed into my life and changed everything.
I’d never seen magic before, or miracles.
I was fighting on a battlefield my life had failed to prepare me for.
Eventually the dark outside the windows turned lighter.
I realized that morning had come. The sunrise was supposed to be sacred for me and Aster, but even he hadn’t brought it up in weeks.
Now when I realized the hour, I only felt sick.
My eyes still stung when I pried them open from my position on the bed.
I felt hot and cold at the same time, feverish.
Taking a deep breath of air into my lungs, I propped myself onto my elbows. I leaned my head on the wooden headrest against the wall. “Aster,” I said, not especially loud or eager. “Aster, come back. We need to talk.”
When he did not appear in the doorway I assumed that he reciprocated my frustration. Aster was done with me. Either he’d snapped and fallen deeper into his madness or I’d offended him and chased him away, but now I was alone with the miserable aftermath of my own bad decisions.
I narrowed my eyes and then closed them and pretended that if I waited long enough, I’d transform into a seagull and fly away from this place unhindered into the sunlight.
When I opened my eyes again, unable and not expecting to sleep, I noticed that the weight on the mattress had shifted.
Aster sat on the opposite side, where he had slept beside me before many times over.
He sat, bowed over, facing away from me.
He did not speak. He didn’t even appear to be breathing.
“Aster?” I asked.
At first he didn’t respond. His chest lifted and his back straightened, so I knew he’d heard me.
“I can’t sleep,” I said.
Still, he said nothing. He reached a hand behind him and groped for mine. I took it and realized that I’d never noticed the callouses on his palms until now.
“It’s what you did to me,” I clarified. I kept my voice deceptively level.
I couldn’t afford for him to lash out at me now.
“It’s because of how you made it so that I wouldn’t have to sleep.
It turns out that I do still need to sleep, but I can’t, and if I have to stay awake any longer, I’ll lose control. I know it.”
Now at last he turned his head. I got one glance of that strong, projecting chin before his pale eyes lighted on my own. Why do you persecute me? I only ever tried to help you, he said.
“Help me? You’ve ruined me. I don’t know who I am anymore.”
My hold on his hand tightened. I could feel his bones now, claw-like under his tanned flesh. Animalistic. But those eyes still saw through me. I quivered.
I still want to help you, he emphasized hypnotically. I would be your slave. I would do anything.
“Anything?” My voice choked. “Can that include leaving me alone when I need space?”
You’re not the same as me, he said. I’ve done what I can to make you more like me, but it backfired. And that’s always the problem whenever one tries to force anything. I never should have touched you. I never should have laid a hand on you.
“Regret won’t fix anything now,” I said, minutely aware of Aster’s lack of apology. “Now will you help me? Will you take away what you did and let me rest?”
Aster released my hand on the bed and stood up. He circled around me with his arms crossed like a doctor about to make a diagnosis. The warm gold of the sun brought out a hazy glow in his own features.
When Aster reached my head again, he stopped. Can I kiss you right now, or would that make you mad?
I straightened my sitting posture and smoothed out the old quilt that lay across my lap. “Of course you can kiss me,” I said. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself.” And so tired I couldn’t fight back.
I thought again of the broken glass in the bathroom. I still needed to clean it, to pick out the broken pieces and prepare a large check for the residency program to cover my damage. When Aster leaned forward and placed his lips on mine, I found myself pulling away and resisting his touch.
He rested his hand on my arm. What’s wrong?
“I’m confused,” I said. “About the mirror. Who broke it? Did you throw the doll, or did I?”
That doesn’t matter, does it?
He kissed me again, and this time I reciprocated. I lowered myself until I lay flat on the bed, and then I rolled over onto my side. “Can I sleep now if I try?”
Do you really want my help?
I breathed in through my nose. “I don’t want magic. I’m done with that. I want you to give me advice.”
He held up a hand. Advice? So be it. If sleep is something you truly need, then you’ll find it the moment you stop trying. Do you understand?
I nodded, unhappily.
I won’t help you sleep, but I might be able to help you relax. Would it be too distracting if I cleaned up that little mess on the bathroom floor?
I folded my hands together. “Really? Do you even know how to clean up something like that?”
He looked over his shoulder out to the hallway. I’ll figure it out. Now how about you settle back and rest your head on that pillow. Yes, just like that. And I’ll be right over there if you need me.
He left out the door, and for a minute I lay awake and wondered what powers I’d surrendered myself to this time.
I needed to get out of this mess. I’d put myself here and, the drama would continue until I ended it.
But Aster had reached the status of full personhood.
He could make messes, yes, but he could also clean them up.
He wasn’t an idea that I could set aside and decide never to revisit.
I traced over a patch of blue on the quilt, trying to quiet the growing noise in my head.
My thoughts refused to calm. I thought about Aster and my gut tightened like even my body wanted to expel him from me.
How long had I seen him as a burden on my life?
I leaned back and closed my eyes, finally inhaling a breath of fresh air.
Then something clinked nearby. More broken glass. A gasp—an involuntary measure from Aster. Then silence.
Now I sat up, and I pushed the blankets aside. “Aster?” I asked.
Over here.
I left the bed and crossed my arms at the chest, and I found Aster crouched on the floor in the middle of the mess, sucking at an open wound on his right hand. “Did you cut yourself?”
I might have underestimated this task, Aster admitted. He pulled his hand away from his face and winced, pressing down on the wound now with his left thumb.
I watched the scene with wide eyes and an opened mouth.
Aster, wounded? Until now, I hadn’t been sure anything at all flowed through his veins.
Then I glanced up and located a medicine cabinet within reach.
After I pulled out a box containing a variety pack of adhesive bandages, I selected the one best for the job.
Then I squatted on the floor next to Aster, careful not to step on any of the glass. “Hold out your hand. Let me fix it up.”
Aster’s eyes were wide, a sea of confusion. I’ve never been hurt before. Not like this. I didn’t realize I could bleed.
“The glass did it,” I assured him. “Slivers like that could cut anyone. Even a muse.”
Aster handed me his hand and lifted up his thumb from the cut. From what I could tell, there was no glass left in the wound, but the blood itself fascinated me. Aster’s blood was dark, more brown than red, with a blue tint. It didn’t look human.
Is something wrong? Aster asked when my shadow stilled over him.
I swallowed, unaccustomed to his respect.
“You know, when I was a kid, I got cuts all the time. My mom used to kiss them before she put a bandage on. Heal them with love.” To demonstrate, I lifted the hand to my lips and kissed the wound over the blood, taking in the odd toughness that his skin had evolved since the first times I had touched him and the unexpected sweetness of the blood itself.
A second later, I pulled my lips away and applied the bandage.
“There you are. Good as new, and it should feel better soon.”
Aster stood. You know what? Your mother is a wise woman, and I think I’m feeling better already. Tired, though. I’m going to go take a nap for now. You can sleep beside me if you wish. Those bandages do more than they let on, don’t they?
I smiled and followed him into the bedroom, but already I knew this was not the result of the bandage. I felt different too. Energetic, tingly in my fingers and toes.
For one terrifying moment, I wondered if I was hallucinating.
Aster wanted to whisk me away on a dream again.
Or he wanted to kill me. The scenario played like a tape in my mind: Aster’s blood was poison.
Aster poisoned me by playing at pain, and now while he slept pleasantly beside me I would soon find myself writhing in silent agony and slipping away into more than just the sample of death he had feared for me.
The shadows grew darker. The whole room did, even though I could see that the sun was glowing brighter outside.
The warm colors, like the wood on the closet door, grew warmer, burned, and the cool colors, like the bathroom on the other side of the hall or the white of the wicker dressers, all turned to a particular shade of frost.
Then the shadows began to move.
Instantly I stiffened and held my breath, watching for any signs of a dream or hallucination. The hall, the closet, the space behind the dresser all began to take shape, to step out of their places into what should have been direct sunlight. Then I blinked, and they stepped back.
“Aster,” I said.
He grunted and budged.
“Aster, something’s happening. I’m beginning to see things.”
Another grunt.
“Please, Aster, I’m scared. I think I accidentally tasted some of your blood back there, and it’s doing something to me. What’s going on?”
A third grunt, and he rolled over to face me. Don’t be silly. My blood wouldn’t do anything like that.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
His eyes opened more fully. Well, it’s never happened before. But that would be crazy, wouldn’t it? If your tasting my blood would make you... more of a muse, and me more... He wiggled his fingers. Human? Look, whatever you’re seeing is going to pass. Don’t worry about it.
I waited for him to say more, but sleep had already overtaken him.
My heart sped, and for the first time I began to understand what it was to be a muse.