“Stop it.I told you I’m done with this,” I said.
With what?he asked in seeming innocence.
“This.The false compliments, all to drag me back behind that desk.Maybe some of us are only meant to write odd rhymes and limericks, as you said.Right now I want to go to the beach.It’s not a big deal.”
At first, Aster did not look up.His hold on the doll tightened.The creases on his fingers turned whitish-yellow with the tension of his hold.He didn’t want to acknowledge anything I had just said.
I took a breath and tried to soften my sentiment.“I asked you here for your help.I love what we’ve done, but there’s more to this residency than just typing.”
Do you really expect me to believe that you’d turn down my services so easily… after everything I’ve given you?His voice sounded more hurt than angry.Genuinely confused.
I straightened and inhaled.
And after everything you’ve given me?he continued.I poured my very soul into our work together.Our time together.I thought we had a future.I thought you and I would stay together forever and create masterpiece after masterpiece until both of us were etched onto the legacy meant for us, that the world has reserved for us.Both of us.Together.
“Maybe later, but right now I’m stepping out.”
I love you.Stella…
A pause elapsed.Aster waited for me to return the sentiment while I tried to divine whether there was any truth to the words at all.I didn’t know.
“You weren’t with me there on the beach tonight,” I started.
I…
“You weren’t, or you would have remembered it.”
He started to say something, but scratched his head instead.
“That wasn’t you.That was just a dream version of you, and I want the real thing.What does it matter if a person in a dream tells me he loves me?”
Oh, but I do love you.One hand he touched to my cheek.His flesh was hot, burning for mine.And despite the fact that I wanted him to back down on me, I also wanted him closer.I wanted the passionate part of him, and I wanted it directed to me.Not to my books.
“I think you only love my writing.And my potential.”
His hand left.I touched the spot where my skin still remembered him.He took a step back to the bathroom door, still facing me.He moved like a newly caged tiger desperate for an escape, but his hands found the door frame at the last moment and held him in place.He raised the porcelain doll and held it near his head.
You—you don’t understand anything at all, then, do you?
I didn’t know what he meant at first.Even later when I looked back on the way he asked that question, the unexpected inflection that he placed over the word “anything,” I reluctantly agreed.I didn’t understand.Not anything, at all.
But I never found a chance to review the matter with him.His eyes had gone wild.He didn’t look at me.He looked again at the figures dancing around me, the Fates who remained unseen to my eyes.
Eventually he calmed.I reached forward and tried to lower his hand with the doll—I realized that he meant to use it as a projectile and throw it either at me or at one of the people I couldn’t see.
Aster looked at me for one piercing moment.If I didn’t love you, you would never have seen my magic.
I swallowed, and my throat burned.“I just want a break,” I said.
Then the squint returned.The sullen mask strapped over what expression he gave me earlier.Aster was done being heartbroken.If he couldn’t have me, he wouldn’t try to help.
“Don’t do anything rash,” I warned him in advance.
Aster didn’t care to listen to me now unless I apologized.He raised the porcelain doll again, and this time he threw it.At me.
I dodged.I blinked during my movement and didn’t see him leave the premises.Nor did I see myself moving into his space, as I must have done.
Now I was the one standing in the door.The vanity mirror made a sound like breaking glass, and the doll fell from the now hopelessly cracked mirror onto the porcelain of the sink below, ruined.
