#day 4: light

[demelzathemer]

My Heart Is a Haunted House

𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘈𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘴𝘦𝘴, 𝘗𝘢𝘺𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 + 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘢𝘬𝘪, 𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘛

@dbdpromptober Day 4: Light (words: 1270)

tw; abuse, injuries

“I can’t believe them!” Crystal shouted, her hands holding up the lighter shaking with rage. “Why can’t they just listen, for once?! Is that too much to ask for, huh?! From their only daughter!”

Charles leaned on his arms over his knees. He didn’t have anything to say anymore, just let Crystal burn through it.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she gritted her teeth. “But oh, Spain has so much better weather, Crystal, you would love it there, Crystal. Fuck that.”

She kicked at the patch of moss, her boots grinding the gravel on the road when she paced. The cold settled into Charles’ bones where he sat on a milestone, its engraved numbers illegible due to erosion.

They were at the end of the road. From out there, bigger cities, better worlds awaited them, an escape from this damned old town. Yet one of them was unwilling to leave, the other unable to go.

Aunt Reva had contacted Maa a few weeks ago. She wanted her sister and nephew back home.

Charles didn’t know ‘home’. He’d never been outside of England. This was all he knew. Going away felt like a strange dream, far from the possibilities of reality. And it was dangerous.

Fresh burns still stung on his upper back and shoulders. His palms had scrapes when he’d cowered in the corner of the kitchen, his cries and the sharp strikes of the belt ringing in his ears. His ribs twinged in pain if he breathed in too deep.

They needed to get out. He needed to get Maa a way out. Maybe they could get back to her family.

But they had no money to leave.

“Why can’t they understand that it’s not an option for me?!” Crystal screamed. She’d given up on trying to light up her cigarette.

“Can you guess what they told me when I said I wanted to stay behind?” She turned to ask Charles, her face twisting into a bitter smile. Charles cradled his cold fingers inside his palm. He shook his head.

“You aren’t responsible enough to stay here alone,” Crystal mimicked someone’s posh accent, probably her father’s. “If you were married, then we could consider your request.”

There was a moment when neither of them said anything. Crystal’s bewildered eyes betrayed how ludicrous she thought the idea was. Charles couldn’t weigh in; he’d never even considered marriage. With everything else going on, he had no reason to.

“You know I would help you if I could,” he sighed. “But I have something I need to do myself. You wouldn’t have a jackpot ticket just lying around somewhere, would you?”

Two days later, Crystal was banging at his front door. Charles had been holed up in his room, keeping quiet and out of sight, when Maa’s call pulled him back to reality.

“It’s for you, Beta,” she said, and Charles rushed down the stairs.

“Heyy, what’s the ruckus? You missed me too bad?” He grinned sheepishly and slipped outside, closing the door, instead of letting Crystal in.

“I know a solution to both of our problems!” Crystal announced, her eyes a wild gleam.

“You are going to marry me.”

Charles's hand shot out and grabbed her arm. He pulled her physically away from the door, his grin tight on the edges. When they were across the yard and by the front gate, he could let out a short sigh.

“What are you talking about?” He asked, feeling like he may have heard wrong.

“Listen and think about it for a moment,” Crystal insisted. “If you’re part of my family, you can have money, connections, protection. I can pull all the favors to help you. You and your mum can move in with me right away, we have plenty of room,” she waved her hand dismissively. “And I get my parents off my fricking back.”

“But Crys,” Charles managed, an uncomfortable lump forming in his throat and threatening his speech, “what about you?”

“I just told you-”

“No, what about, you meet someone you really want to be with? But you can’t, because you’re already married to me,” Charles pleaded, feeling slightly hysterical.

Crystal looked at him with a raised eyebrow like he’d just said something silly.

“We can always divorce later,” she pointed out. Then her face turned serious and she pressed her lips together, staring off at space again.

“Besides…,” she said quietly, “I no longer have her who I really want to be with. She’s gone.”

Niko.

The weight of her words twisted something painful inside Charles’ chest, and it wasn’t his abused ribs. The way she talked about Niko, the love in her voice. Charles wondered if someone would ever love him with the same reverence. The thought made his skin tingle and the corners of his eyes prickled.

Crystal could be brilliant and clever and Charles adored her so much, but this idea was beyond insane. Wasn’t marriage something you proposed only to the person you loved?

A memory of his parents’ dusty wedding photo shoved into a cardboard box on the moving day flashed in his mind. No one had dug it up ever since.

The lump in his throat fell like a stone into the pit of his stomach, making him sick.

Crystal was right. This was the best chance he had. He couldn’t afford sentimental nonsense to make him miss it. Whatever he had to do to get out, he would.

Charles drove himself crazy thinking about it for a day and a half. Then in the evening when Dad wasn’t home, he broke the news to his Maa as gently as he could. She was apprehensive at first, but listened quietly when Charles explained to her all the things that would change. He didn’t mention that he didn’t love Crystal, not in that way, or that it was just a marriage of convenience they had arranged to themselves.

The earliest they could go to a register office was in three days. Crystal and Charles only needed one parent each for witnesses, their birth certificates to prove they were both 18, and rings. At least that part Charles had covered.

It was just signing papers. No party, no cake, no fuss, just get it over with. What came after was much more important.

Charles knew that. It was strictly business. To help them out.

Then why did he lay awake that night, fiddling with the ring, his mind racing. It glimmered so beautifully in the moonlight. It was something so special, so precious, Charles couldn’t help but feel that it was a waste.

He dug out his spiral notebook from his backpack, turning it open to reveal the photograph inside. It was the same he’d found from the attic, of the boy who’d lived in the house decades before him. Charles picked it up, gazing at the dark hair, sad eyes and those lips pursed in a frown.

He’d been 18 too, when he’d died.

Did you ever feel like this? Like there is something more I should seek out, but I don’t know what, or where to start looking.

Were you alone when you died? Were you ever loved?

On the open spread of the notebook, Charles had scrawled his wedding vows. He would say those to Crystal, she would say I do, and everyone was happy. Charles hadn’t memorized them yet, but he had time, didn’t he? He wasn’t a bit sleepy.

The moon was high, its magical light illuminating the hills and the path that went through the back gate into the forest. The trees stood silent, bearing watch.

Charles sneaked out.

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