7Dear Journal,
It's been a while. Didn't think it'd take three months to come back; a hell of a lot has happened. I won my first competition with an art piece! Erik was so proud, he had this look in his eye that mesmerised me. Could it be adoration? It was certainly full of pride. It's nice to think that my skill set has enough to be validated by itself. Of course, I admire Erik, he has this way about him that enchants people the moment they see him. His music has won dozens of awards, his architectural designs are notorious for their innovation, his projects that he keeps from my view end up selling for millions – restocking his own bank accounts.
But me? I sell art; pieces of my soul on canvas and with the steady drip of charcoal from my fingers. Maybe if Erik is like the modern-day anonymous Lord Sugar, then will I be the Picasso of our time? Only selling one piece and unrecognised for the rest of my life? Maria – my therapist – said I can't let myself feel overshadowed by my 'partner'. There's a balance in life and I have to accept that there will be differences in what I can achieve and be supportive with his.
You know, the usual 'accept yourself' malarkey. I think she believes if she tells me that enough times I'll start to believe it. Still, I refuse for Erik to pay for my own therapy. I know he has a larger income (he doesn't work in the conventional way, selling inventions on occasion, pilling in investments and waiting for them to pay out, putting music forward for movies and video games when he wants to do something productive), but I won't let him govern all of my finances. Maybe I spent my childhood under a 'looking after yourself' situation that made me too independent, but it's the way I am. I don't easily accept charity, especially from someone as close as Erik is. He respects that because it's the same for him as well.
Meg is going back to school. After graduating, she managed to get on stage as a dancer in a ballet company, but Michael – her boyfriend – took her home after party while drunk. The collision left him with a gravestone and Meg with a permanent limp. She's still trying to recover, two and a half months later. Annie is living with Meg until she can get back on her feet, but her mother can only do so much when the rest of Meg has to heal on the inside. Meg walks with a cane right now and she hates it, I know. A lot of physical therapy. A lot of guilt. A lot of rethinking. She's going to go back to college to study economics and use her grandma's inheritance to pay her student debt. I've visited her as much as I can, selfishly used her pain to create a series of art pieces that explore the feeling of entrapment.
Erik visited her and his music was the one of the only things that kept Meg sinking into a deep depression. I'm not jealous. What Erik feels for her is a compassion that rarely touches him so deeply. It's good for him, really, having someone else who understands having a physical limitation. Meg doesn't love him, however finds a refuge in seeing someone who struggles daily as well. They both benefit from it. I know that he speaks to her through music and Meg's learnt over years of dancing to understand it too. Meg doesn't crave it, or breathe it like Erik and I do, however, she's experienced it in a way that's been eye opening. She understands why I love him. In a small way, playing the piece he had kept between us gave Meg a sort of closure of her own injury.
Erik likes healing people, but he just is very select on whom he chooses to help.
Erik is also impatient. And stubborn. And perhaps a little obsessive. There are a lot of…Unique qualities to Erik. It makes life interesting. He's closing in, has slowly backed me into a corner, in a chivalrous, gallant and unsuspecting way. It makes it very difficult for me to tell how I'm in his home more than my own, or how I keep finding belongings of mine over at his, even though I swear I hadn't left them over last time I checked. Maybe he IS patient, and his plan to ensnare me has been progressing in increments over this year.
Perhaps it's in the way he subtly emphasises a shared bank account would allow for me to 'embrace opportunities', that it would be lovely if we were able to choose out curtains together in Ikea, how his home is barren without my touch. The dazed smile he gives me as I place an orchid on the dining table, brightening the room with it's blue-dyed petals. When he stops by the studio, he lures me back to his with my favourite take-out and lulls me to sleep on his sofa. He's devious, too.
Am I as scatty as I think I am, or did I really leave my favourite duvet set at his house? Erik's poker face is excellent. When I ask, ever so casually, he doesn't blink or bat an eyelash and supplies me with a perfectly good reason why I should keep it over at his. That man – I don't know how to defeat him. I think I've given up trying in some areas. After all, a healthy relationship is about give and take, at least according to Maria. Erik is choosy about what he gives and takes, while making out he's not.
I often wonder if it is a healthy relationship. He never pressures me, or is toxic, or controlling. He respects how I live and shares values in the important parts of it. But then, he is devious and he has issues sometimes when he knows I'm hanging with Raoul for half a day. He's persistent and we've butted heads over living arrangements when I've made it clear I am not moving into his until I'm ready. He thinks I am, only that I'm afraid to give into 'our love'.
He has a penchant for being dramatic, even despite being the sour-dispositioned type he is. Yes. He can be grouchy. Oh, but in the mornings, when he's there, gazing at me with love in the great canopy bed that he pretends is his as well, it makes up for everything. The intensity is hard to escape and we have had a few mornings where he has been unable to let me leave the bed, keeping my mouth locked with his until his name is a prayer in my head. But the amour comes with a price, as with each passing day I am in his domain, I can't find myself ever wanting to leave.
Then I emerge from his cocoon for the studio and when I return home, I see the food I bought that week has started to turn, the house is musty with stale air and there is no warm smile, no greeting velvet tenor, no smell of food from the kitchen, no Erik. There I stand, lost and hating the grey taste of loneliness when he is not there waiting for me. I can't be bothered to cook for one. Not anymore.
My bin is full of microwaveable dinners. If Erik saw, he'd give me a disapproving look and a stern click of the tongue. I almost want that. Oh, but I can't go back. No. I have to be independent. I can't rely on him for everything.
He wants marriage. I'm not ready. I can't be ready. It scares me and at the same time, I just want to leap into his arms and not part at the end of the day. Does that qualify as a marriage basis? Marriage. Marriage. It seems so final, till death due us part and all that. He's been ready all his life, ready for someone to be by his side, always and forevermore. But me?
I just am terrified by the thought, and desperate for it. I crave more, it's so easy to give him everything, when he gives me those wanting, simmering eyes. Demanding, begging, desiring all in one look and my body surrenders to him. But not all the way, he won't take until his conquest is assured, until I am engaged to him, the butterfly's wings trapped in the lace of a spider.
My fingers ache, I am clenching the pen too hard, it's slick in my hands, and yet I am afraid if I stop writing, I'll give up and return to him. God, he proposed.
And what did I say? What did I say? I ran out the door, I broke his heart, I heard his sobs.
I am a horrible person, Journal. I hurt the one person I love more than the red scarf Papa gave me before he drove to his death. I hate myself, knowing the other side to my soul is in agony because of me. Me, the one person who's supposed to protect him. I can't stop crying, but the tears are frozen.
I want to call Raoul, he'd know the side of a broken heart, he'd tell me what I did was reasonable and not awful. But it feels awful. And I can't escape that. I can't escape the sounds of Erik's dreams crashing.
He offered a long engagement, of two months, but refused to commit to another year. Oh I knew! I knew this would happen. But, if I stay away, maybe he'd be willing to reconsider. I love him. I love him.
There was one thing that scared me, oh it was the look in his eyes, one I've been scared of igniting, one that reminds me of his sordid past and the bodies he left behind beaten up in a jail cell. It made me doubt that if I let him collect himself over the initial grief, that he'd keep me there in his world until I changed my mind.
I've enraged a tiger and I am scared there is a panther left in its place.
I'll be ok.
I'll be ok.
Yes, I added a new entry! Who'd have thought! I really wished for an easy-to-write escape and this called to me and spoke my name, :P
I should probably hope that this better reading, I feel like it's smoother than the previous entry. Mostly because I kept with better tenses (fingers crossed).
I know there isn't a lot of dialogue, again, there's enough action that you should be able to visualise events! :D
Thanks for reading and I hope it piqued your interest! I kinda destroyed the fluff tone to this, but ;) it was bound to happen! Muahaha. That's what happens when the author craves angst and fluff, you get angst and fluff. I am half interested in continuing it, but also like leaving it on an unfulfilling cliff-hanger. XD
Let me know what you think! :D
- Enigma