//------------------------------// // What Price Glory // Story: A Story of Love (Among Others) // by TheMareWhoSaysNi //------------------------------// I hadn't even turned on the light. Nor the television and computer. Nothing. I could hear life resounding from outside. Steps in the corridor, doors opening, neighbors moving. Fluttershy knocked many times on my door but she finally gave up twenty minutes ago. I kicked the blanket. Earlier, I got it over my face so the dark would be darker but now, I felt like I was choking from heat. Yet inside, I was feeling cold. I'd lost the count of the neverending ringing of my phone, fallen down from the vibrations. Eight months. Eight months without a word from him, not even a letter. Only pictures in magazines, smiles that weren't addressed to me through the silver screen. As if I never existed, as if we never shared anything together. As if our kisses, our laughes, our silly conversations had been swept over by a storm and reduced to crumbles. I turned around in my bed, my back numb from the same position for too long. I threw away the phone, unceasingly ringing, at the other side of the room and I heard it slam the baseboard under my desk. Though I still could hear it, I couldn't see it. I wanted it to disappear from my field of vision the way I'd disappeared from his life. Because I wanted to be alone, I refused Coloratura's usual invitation and asked her to please leave me alone. I'd bought small bottles of vodka that I hid in my bag so the manager wouldn't see I was breaking the rule. I'd started to drink a few hours ago already and I lost notion of time. Phone calls had started around the beginning of the night. Soarin. He probably had been called by Coloratura or I didn't know who. Altough I should had taken my chance to hear his voice again, I ignored the call. And the next one. And the next one. And the other ones after them. The more Soarin called, the more I was drinking. I kept on drinking until my stomach screamed at me to stop. Lying on my bed where I lost notion of time even more. I couldn't get to answer. I know what would happen. I'd be relieved for a few minutes but as soon as his voice would disappear, rage would climb up in my throat again. In reality, even myself couldn't quite comprehend my reactions. Deep inside, I was dying to pick it up, to hear the sound of his voice, but deep inside too, I wanted everything to stop. I wanted to close my eyes and forget about it all. I couldn't take it anymore, feeling that I was a tool in the hands of a man, a man I only met twice. Someone was playing with my life and I hated every bit of that. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I stretched out my hand, my fingers getting in touch with the cold of a glass bottle. Not looking, in the dark, I weighed up the item. Once I was sure it still contained alcohol, I lead the rim to my lips and drank. The alcohol got my bronchial tubes on fire, I was coughing loudly. Translucent liquid flew along my mouth and I wiped it away with the back of my hand before it stained my pillow. Earlier, my phone rang tirelessly. It had been a handful of minutes now that the call had spaced out a little. Maybe he would eventually grow weary and think it was pointless to insist. It would be wrong. Wrong yet right. I wanted it to stop as much as I wanted things to be different. The bottled slipped out of my hands and crushed against the floor. My phone kept on ringing. Both palms pressed against my ears, I prayed not to hear anything anymore. But it felt like the volume was higher this way. Out of the fog of my drunkenness, Soarin's face emerged, like a series of flashes in which I could see his face gradually crumbling down, his hands clenched around his phone, pain gnawing at him. I wished I could chase these pictures off my mind but they came back all the time. I was a monster of selfishness. I only was thinking about me, about my deceptions. I hated that too. But there was nothing else I could do. I was like a prisoner of my own body. =================================================***====================================== It felt like I was Ryo Saeba and Kaori kept on knocking her club inside my head. Even opening my eyes was complicated. My lids hurt and my throat was dry and my mouth was made of cotton. My room looked like it had been crossed by some sort of tornado. Corpses of vodka bottles stretched within my field of vision, straddled together. If I weren't the person living here I would have said this was inhabited by on old alcoholic. So, I closed my eyes again, hoping the thumps in my head would eventually stop. But I couldn't go back to sleep. Memories from last night came back in my mind and were unforgiven. Never again had I touched degradation that close yet I spent most of my teenage years standing alongside of it. This all for what? A boy! How silly! Where had the real Rainbow Dash gone? The girl who always swore she didn't care much about love, and anything too sentimental, that it was for stupid dummies with sappy dreams of Prince Charming and that she was too cool for school when it came to that thing? I was ashamed of me for that, just the same as I was in pain. My eyes opened up again, almost against my will. From where I lain, I could only have glimpses at shadows, nonetheless, the lines of my phone at the back of my room was clear. I sat up and left my bed with a slow body, bottom on the floor. I put my hands down and a sharp pain pierced my skin. I had forgotten about the bottles that crashed last night. Shards of glass were buried inside my palm, I could feel drops along my skin. Once the light was on, I was obliged to blink in order to get used to it again. Things were even worse than what I thought ; a battlefield. I snatched the shard off my skin and saw pearls of a crimson liquid dripping. I wiped the blood against my sweater and started to gather the bottles. It smashed inside my trashcan and each clink was like a needle buried in my mind. I deserved all that. There was no one else to blame but myself. I knew what I was doing when I decided to be with Soarin anyway. Hard luck! When I got back my phone, there was specks of dust stuck to the screen. I chased them with the back of my hand without a care about some sticking to the blood. My inbox was full. I had a message from my telephone operator saying it went the same with my answering machine. Most of my short messages were from Soarin, except a handful by Coloratura, Pinkie, Rarity and Fluttershy. I made all my friends worry... Not even reading any of them, I chose to erase everything. If they wanted to know how I was feeling, they would have to wait until Monday morning. Until then, I would have to do my best to be okay again, and I knew I could do that. I was going to pull it together, I was going to get on with my life and put all this in the past, and maybe in a few months I would see it all as a bittersweet story I could laugh about once older, and tell my children, if I ever have some, that once, a very long time ago, I dated a superstar. I didn't know how Soarin was doing... If my memories were correct, little by little calls and messages slowly stopped. I doubted he could do anything to change our situation. I put my phone away on the bedside table, tidied the room and my stuff. I heard when the outside is clean, the inside benefits from it. I hoped it would work for me. Anyway, I had to keep busy because I was convinced this would be the only way to get better real quick. Wallowing in self-pity had never been my style and I didn't want it to become an habit. Once everything was ordered, I gathered clothes and rushed to the bathroom. Thankfully, there was no one on my way. There would have been nothing worse than meeting someone, especially Fluttershy, since she would have want an explanation and I felt too vulnerable to talk about it yet. I carefully avoided mirrors, scared to see something I wouldn't like. With the hard night I had spent, I knew the result would be horrible and take some tricks to look at least presentable. I did everything slowly yet precisely. Shower, wash my hair, brush my teeth, applying makeup. Back in my room, I settled with my cello. One of our teachers asked us to learn the partition of a passage of "Six suite pour violoncelle", by Bach. And it was giving me a particularly hard time. Just because I was heartbroken didn't mean I had to neglect my work. I knew for sure that we were not in the movie "Clueless" and that none of the professors would accept to change my grades after a good negotiation from me. Someone knocked hurriedly at my door, getting me out of my focus. In the meantime, my heart bolted like it was suddenly going back to life. I stared at the mirror which vibrated from the insistance. There was no way it could be Fluttershy and I wasn't feeling any more ready to face her than I was earlier. I didn't want to see anybody yet. But I couldn't forget about the knocks. Something inside me was shaking, prancing about. My instinct whispered to me not to leave this business unfinished. And if it wasn't Fluttershy, then I would see what to do... I had barely opened my door that everything froze around me. Soarin. I was dreaming. There was no way. Locks of his raven wig stuck to his cheeks, redden by the cold outside. A thick white scarf was hiding the whole bottom of his face. It couldn't be real. I clenched my fingers around the knob. And he fell on my neck, his arms knotted around my back. I had to face the facts - I wasn't dreaming. It was Soarin holding me in his arms, on my doorstep. In this hostel he hadn't come to for so long it felt like centuries ago. I closed the door behind him and as soon as it slammed, I could feel him tightening his embrace. I felt my heart thumping frantically, as if trying to come through my clothes and meet his. I wrapped my arms around him and could feel his body was frozen through the thick layer of clothes. When he looked at me, his eyes were shimmering and I noticed the tip of his nose was red. I wanted to smile but I couldn't. My expression changed and instead of surprise and relief, I was shaken by rage. I slaped his face, unable to control myself. "Why did you do that to me? Why, Soarin? Why did you do that to me?" First, he was too stunned to react. I knew I was the one who deserved anger. I also knew that he could have asked me the same question. Why? I had my reasons for sure but now he was in front of me, they seemed far away, too far. All I could do was express the frustration and rage I had held back for so long, and unfortunately, for lack of the person it was really targeted at, he was the receiver of it all. He grabbed my wrist, his eyes now burning of a flame I'd never seen before. He would never forgive me... But instead of letting me go, leave and forget everything about the ungrateful person I was, he brought me closer and held me tighter he ever held me. I kept on trying to get out of his embrace before my anger melted abruptly and I held him even tighter than he did. Whispering, I asked him to forgive me. I repeated it over and over again until the words lost their meaning. Little by little, the links that girdled my whole body went undone and I turned suppler, softer in his arms. This thin layer of ice which froze me from the inside was gone. Slowly, he led me to the bed where we both sat. I put my hand up and got him rid of the wig he wore without the rest of the material. His real hair was electric. He did the same with my hair, but I pushed away his hands and lowered my head. "No, don't look at me. I know I look ugly." "Don't say that," he whispered. His eyes met mine. They were shining with something I couldn't quite put my fingers on. His arms once again joined behind my neck and he put his lips on mine, eager. Instinctively, I answered his kiss, tightened my embrace around him. Something took over me, like a bolt coming from my lower belly up to my eyes. Soarin never got away from me, conversely, he seemed like trying to be as close as possible... His thick woolen scarf fell on the floor, heavy yet light. His body pressed against mine, my back pressed against the mattress of the narrow single bed. Last night seemed to belong to a bad dream, beribboned with some white fog, like dream sequences of my favorite black and white movies.