Talk To Me

21 || Let's Be Cruel

The sky was rumbling outside; groaning and shuddering, as if it couldn't decide what exactly to do with all the horrific weight it held within its clouds: let it all shower down or just evaporate into nothingness?

 Inside my own bedroom, pacing like a caged animal, I was that sky. Arms crossed. Teeth attacking my nails. Striding in circles. Round and around and around and around....we go, oh, now tell me now tell me now tell me now you know....

Fuck. There was no room or time for Rihanna now. I couldn't think straight; I think I really had lost it.

 I don't even know why I was this shocked; this unhinged about what had happened. Since when has strangers shooting strangers ever bothered me? But he wasn't a stranger. He should be, for his own good and mine, but he wasn't, he'd gone from A Stranger to An Angel in a matter of days, a matter of words, a matter of smiles, touches, and kisses.

 A crack of thunder rumbled ominously and I flinched at the sound, glancing at my well-worn copy of Memories—I'd come straight into the room and had grabbed it and yanked it open almost unconsciously, trying to absorb some calm from its heavenly pages—thrown open to the page 181, showing me the last paragraph of Angels that I'd conveniently forgotten as I'd kissed Jared for the second time.

Though here is a word of warning—you may grow to love this person but remember they are not yours to keep. Their purpose isn't to save you but to show you how to save yourself. And once this is fulfilled, the halo lifts and the angel leaves their body as the person exits your life. They will be a stranger to you once more.

The windows tremored ever so slightly, was it mirroring the effects of the oncoming storm outside or that inside my own brain because even though I didn't want to admit it, I knew I had grown to love him and it made me beyond devastated to even think that he wasn't mine to keep. Maybe his purpose wasn't to save me, maybe it was to show how to save myself but how do you save someone who's dead inside?

 How can I be dead inside and feel alive whenever he looks at me? He had to stay by my side till he turned all the stone inside me into blood and passion, right? Considering the devil I was, it would probably take a while. A long, long while. A long while before it's fulfilled, and the halo lifts and the angel leaves his body and he exits my life.

They will be a stranger to you once more.

I didn't ever want him to be a stranger to me again.

 My hands were upon the maroon hard-cover of Memories, the soft red one of Love & Misadventure and the dark gray of Lullabies, holding onto them, digging my fingertips into their yellowed pages as I tried to block out the words I'd just heard, the words I'd heard in the lot, and the words I'd heard from my phone barely a few seconds ago.

 He'd sent me a recording. A recording of Tallulah's last session. The one he'd been listening to, before he'd—

 "So these nightmares, then. They've been getting worse, you say?"

 Quiet. Educated. Sharp. Curious. The voice of the therapist, who was no longer alive.

 "Yeah...a lot worse. I mean, it's so frightening—you know, normally they used to just—hit me in my sleep and slowly fade away before it got worse...but for a week or so recently, it's been—it's been intense. It doesn't fade away. It stays there—until it's the only thing I can see—and I can't—I can't do it. I just—I wake up. Sweating. Gosh, it's awful, Dr. Sandhurst..."

 The innocent, confused voice of Tallulah, who doesn't know she sought solace in the man who she thought was her loving brother, the man who'd murdered the one source of comfort she'd had since that dark night.