| Fan Fiction |
by heartsong
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I awoke to find a flustered Chun pacing the length of the room, stopping suddenly to stare at me, then starting again. His steps were quick, jerky, anxious.
I stared at him curiously until he finally came over to sit at the edge of my bed.
“Ella, there’s something I don’t know if I should tell you.”
I looked at him, a question spelled out in my eyes, on the tip of my tongue.
Instead, when I unraveled my tongue and let my words roll, they did not come out in the question I had expected them to.
“Ariel’s telling you to stay away from me but you don’t know how to tell me that you have to leave me alone from now on for the sake of your future happiness?”
After I realised how selfish the wrongly-worded question had sounded, I turned away, embarrassed at my sudden logorrhea.
“No,” he murmured, so softly I could hardly hear it.
I supposed my sudden straightforwardness had stunned him. After all, I had spent months locked up in my own world, unable to reach out to anyone, much less let anyone reach out and pluck me from my shell.
I suppose it was the knowledge that Chun still cared after all – that had successfully extracted me from my cocoon without breaking my wings.
“Then?” I waited, expectant, preparing myself for the worse.
He started pacing again, the sudden loss in weight on my mattress causing me to momentarily lose balance.
I propped myself against my pillows and stared at him again.
“What’s eating you, Chun?” my tone was softer, tender, as though if I listened, I could take away his pain and make it my own.
It seemed foolish to think he was hurting just because he looked frustrated, but for the past few months, I had been this way too. When I felt like the sky was collapsing on me, leaving me to bear the weight of the world on my shoulders, I had simply appeared ruffled and frustrated to others. It had been nothing compared to what I actually felt like on the inside.
“Ella,” he gritted out, clearly perturbed. He ran a hand through his hair.
I looked away, thinking: If he was not going to tell me that Ariel didn’t want him to stay with me anymore, it had to be the other thing. Which meant this: he was going to tell me that no matter what, Ariel took priority, and I needed to understand that whenever Ariel called, she would get more attention even if I was dying and she just broke a nail.
“I –”
“Don’t say it,” I mumbled, unwilling to hear the next words.
“I think I love you.”
I stilled.
What?
What had he said?
Then I relaxed back onto the headboard, cushioned with my down pillows. Of course he didn’t mean it in the romantic way. Come on, he was on the brink of being engaged to my sister; how could he mean it that way?
“Well,” I swallowed, “Of course you do. How could you not love your best friend?”
“No –”
He hesitated, and for a moment I saw the truth darken his eyes.
I held my breath, for I already knew what came next.
“I meant, I think I’m in love with you.”
I blinked at the sheer impossibility of it all, and started to laugh. How he managed to deceive himself into thinking that I would fall for such a trick, I never did know. Ariel could be behind my curtains this moment, listening to this conversation. Maybe this was a test, to see how I would react, to see if I was able to keep my sister and my best-friend close to my heart at the same time.
I threw my head back and laughed, for the second time in a few months.
I was laughing so hard I doubled up, and my sides ached. I laughed – and then suddenly he was kissing me, hard, relentless.
And in the next instant I was returning this passionate affection with equal fervor, clinging onto him as though my life depended on it.
He ran a hand down my back and I pulled away from him hastily, staring, for a moment, into his eyes.
“I can’t do this,” I said, staring straight at him.
Then, taking advantage of his stunned composure, I bolted out of the bed and slammed the bathroom door behind me.
I stepped into the shower and turned on the faucet. The water was hot, scalding hot. It rained down onto my face, upturned like a sunflower to the sun, welcoming the scorching heat. I sank down onto the cold tiled floor, warming in the flood of hot water, and kept my face turned to the spray of water.
I kept my neck tilted this way, until I could feel the hot water beneath my skin, until I could no longer feel the tears coursing down. I kept myself in this position, still as a mouse, until I could feel my face swell and turn pink under the flow of water, until the water burned, scalded, so hot that I could feel the cold of it.
I sat this way, until I believed I might just be able to make my whole body numb to everything; until I believed that I might just disappear.
This was wrong, and the odds were stacked against me. How could I deny my sister her rightful happiness?
---
When I walked out of my bathroom, expecting to see Chun sitting on my bed and waiting for me, I was fully prepared to tell him that whatever it had been just now, it wouldn’t work.
I saw my sister, her back turned towards me.
“Ariel?” I whispered, and she turned.
She looked upset.
“Ella,” she addressed me, in a tone I had never heard before – but knew all too well.
“Ariel, that isn’t going to happen again, I promise.”
She nodded – and started to cry. I folded my arms around her, bringing her into a protective embrace that came to me as easily as my tears.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, rubbing a hand over her back to soothe her – it always worked when we were young.
“I hope you don’t hold it against me, Ella, but Chun and I – I love him, Ella, I can’t live without him.”
“I know,” I murmured, and left the rest of my sentence unsaid. I continued to murmur words of reassurance and comfort to her, when all I wanted to say was this: I loved him first. And without him, I wouldn’t have to live; because he was life itself.
But here was my sister, crying for all she was worth, trying to salvage a love that was not lost.
When I looked into her dark eyes I could not see a shred of blame or a ray of malice, just pure, unadulterated sorrow and broken love.
“What would you suggest I do?” I asked gently, fearing her answer but fully prepared to accede to her request at the same time.
“Ella,” she started, her voice soft and trembling, “Could you leave? Just until we get married. You’ll come back for our wedding. Please, Ella, I don’t wish to see that he’s even tempted to see you again. It’d hurt me far too much. Ella, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she was repeating the two words like they were a prayer, over and over, until she finally looked at me and realised that the only words I had to say were laid out plain on my expressions.
I swallowed and carefully schooled my face into a blank mask of consent.
“I’m sorry; Ella,” she whispered, broken, “But I need him, Ella,”
So guarded, so fierce were her words that I had to nod. I could not deny my sister what she needed any longer.
I would find a way to move on, but Ariel would not. She had not been accustomed to living without Chun; she had had him from the start. I would not be the one to take him away from her.
I lifted my lips to form a shaky smile, just for her, and ushered her out of the bedroom.
She shuffled out reluctantly, looking back as if to ask if I was really okay.
I didn’t let the smile fade until she left.
And even, then I did not waver.
I didn’t doubt Ariel’s sincerity in her apologies. I knew she had to have him. I knew she needed him more than I did.
And I knew that Ariel meant no harm.
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This chapter is for kylemaleen, who's going through a rough patch. Dear, everything will work out fine(:
heartsong.