Your Frown Is My Umbrella

‘Rain rain, go away… Come again some other day…’

Thunder rattled the windowpane, and her eyes snapped open so quickly that her pupils didn’t have time to adjust. The light cascaded into view, forcing her into a rapid blinking spree.

She had fallen asleep by the window again. Reign McLeod was used to that. She often dozed off while watching the spring thunderstorms embrace Gotham. She had done this for as long as she could remember, not that that was a very long span of time.

Her twenty one year old mind was like a sieve these days; shifting and filtering a little image here and a little memory there. Taking a lot of beatings to the head tends to do that to a person.

This often left her confused.

How can you tell the difference between what’s real and what’s made up when it all looks the same?

Like the dream she had just had; the one about the little girl and the needles. Was that one real? She took off the mitten from her left hand and glanced down, knowing full well that the scars would still be there.

Sure enough, the pale patch of skin was still decorated with dozens of tiny dented scars. It hadn’t been so much a dream as it had been a memory. She shivered, pulled the woolen mitten over her hand again, and rested her forehead against the cool pane of glass.

Why couldn’t the past just leave her alone?

She was tired of this. Sometimes she would go to bed at night and then wake up in a cold sweat because her mind had been holding her captive in her own body, forcing her to watch something she didn’t want to watch. It was like being trapped in a movie theatre with your eyes stapled open so you couldn’t look away from the horror onscreen.

Sometimes the dreams were so real that she forgot she was dreaming. Other times they were so bizarre and surreal that she was simply left baffled at her own imagination.

Reign watched the raindrops trickle along the pane of glass as gravity yanked them downwards in unpredictable, snakelike patterns; giving the impression that the window itself was crying. They sounded oddly ruthless in her ears today, almost like they were trying to pound through the glass in an attempt to get at her.

She shook away the thought and sat slouched in her chair again, still staring at the alley wall across from the window where she was seated.

As you can imagine, it was hardly picturesque. The only thing about the view that was remotely intriguing was the lonely brown leaf she saw skimming the surface of a rippling puddle. It was a maple leaf. There was a hole in the middle of it, and the edges were black; giving the impression it had been burnt. The stem was split in two, and each half had curled up into a little spiral. This made her think of antennas.

That’s what the leaf looked like; a shriveled, dead, butterfly.

That image did nothing to boost her spirits.

Thunder rumbled deeply in the storm’s gullet, making Reign instinctively bring a finger to the corner of her mouth as she often did without realizing it. A gloved fingertip lightly traced the shallow ridges of a scar that started at the corner where her lips met, and then curved downwards towards her chin.

She ran her finger along the indentations, subconsciously asking herself for the hundredth time; where did these scars come from?

The dreams and flickers of memory that tickled her psyche always seemed to trip around and avoid that subject like the plague. The frown scars that were imprinted on either side of her face were as big a mystery to her as the purpose of her miserable life. Only on the rare occasions when Damian insisted she go out with him would she apply a small amount of concealing foundation to hide the markings.

That’s not to say the absence of her scars made her look entirely normal. With jet black hair, ghostly pale skin and eerie grey eyes, she naturally stood out in a crowd. Hence, Damian hardly let her out of the apartment. He didn’t like other men taking in her petite and delicate frame.

Another flash of lightening snapped her out of the trance-like state that had grappled her drifting quarantine mind.

She glanced up at the clock that hung over the loudly humming fridge in the corner, and saw that it was quarter to six.

Damian would be home soon.

He was her boyfriend. Because she was unemployed, he was her only source of income. She rarely went outside long enough to catch a glimpse of unfiltered sunshine, let alone long enough to get a job. Jobs in this area of Gotham weren’t very preferable in her eyes. Without any special degrees or skills, prostitution would be her only option. At least Damian was kind enough to let her live with him.

Then again, men hardly throw away things they’re fond of.

He wasn’t the most serene of men, and was undoubtedly very protective of her. If she so much as made inappropriate eye contact with passers by, she could be punished. Reign flinched as she recalled one time in particular when Damian had beaten her senseless after he decided that he didn’t like the way her eyes went all fluttery at the sight of Richie-Rich-Pretty-Boy Bruce Wayne on the television. Now she was only allowed to watch it with his supervision.

Were his orders enough to stop her from watching the news while he was out? No. Reign was a spectacular liar, so he never knew about it. She felt as though lying was the only thing she was naturally good at.

She had actually watched the news just this afternoon.

There had been another special on The Joker, and Reign had been captivated by everything the report told her. He was depicted as a total madman who would kill someone as soon as look at them, and because Reign had no other solid source of information on the man, she believed every word.

His scars fascinated her more than anything else.

The scars on her own face were nowhere near as gruesome as his, but she had decided very early on that it was because he chose to embellish his flaws with red lipstick. His scars looked as though they’d been cut with a jagged rock or shard of glass, while hers were neat and narrow.

To say she felt some sort of connection with the man (the freak) she had never met before would be absurd to the greatest extent of absurdity.

Then again, Reign was known for her absurdities.

Her gloved fingers twitched uneasily as she stared at the front door. Any minute now, he would come home from work.

Where exactly did he work? She didn’t know, and didn’t care.

She supposed in the cases of most people, the saying ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you’ could be relevant. It was too bad she didn’t fall under the category of ‘most people’, because that saying seemed to hold quite the opposite meaning for her.

Then almost expectedly, she heard the locks clicking by the front door not three feet from where she was seated by the kitchen table. She watched the rusted knob jiggle and turn, and her stomach mimicked that movement by wrenching itself into a knot.

The wooden door eased open, squeaking on its rusty hinges, and Reign found herself averting her gaze to his boots.

“Hey Rainy,” Damian greeted, closing the door behind him.

She glanced up and nodded in acknowledgment.

“Still no smiles from you?” he asked jokingly as he always did while hanging his keys on the small rack that hung on the wall.

Her bottom lip twitched as he stepped forward and clasped his hands on either side of her face, forcing her to look back at him. She stared up into his hazel eyes, looking as blank as a sheet of un-ruled paper as she tried not to cringe away from his touch. Physical contact was not something she favored. Just suck it up, she told herself. You’ve done it before, you can do it again.

“Have a good day?” he asked softly, his gaze calm and collected; for now.

She knew the calm demeanor he wore now would soon be washed away with a few beers and maybe even a couple snorts of cocaine.

She nodded. “Yep.”

He sighed and released her face, sitting on the chair across from her. She knew that after all these years, he was still sulking over the fact that he couldn’t make her smile.

For as long as she could remember, she was incapable of showing happiness in that simple, underappreciated gesture. There was something wrong with the muscles in the lower half of her face, and her thin lips were always held in a rigged, stiff line. A violent shudder leapt up her spine as a more recent memory slapped itself into view on the movie screen of her subconscious.

“SMILE, DAMN IT! HOW FUCKING HARD IS IT?!”

Drunken Damian grabbed her face and yanked her cheeks upwards into a false smile.

“See?! Just smile!”

He let go and watched as her lips dripped right back into her trademark unexpressive frown. He growled, folding his gentle fingers into vicious fists.

“I can make you smile. You’ll see. Come here, freak –”

“Reign?” he asked, leaning forwards in his chair.

She shivered and looked back up to him. “Yeah?”

“You know I love you, right?”

She wasn’t surprised. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time he confessed his so-called love. Love, she thought bitterly. If this is love, I think I’d rather feel nothing at all.

“I know. I love you too,” she responded mechanically as she stood up and pushed in her chair.

She had just turned around when she felt his arms wrap around her tiny waist. Fighting back another cringe, Reign said nothing as he rested his chin on the top of her head and swayed back and forth as if they were doing some sort of awkward backwards dance.

“You know, I really missed you today. What do you say we…” he trailed off, kissing up her neck.

Damian was a good looking guy. Anyone could see that.

It was just such a shame that his physical beauty had to contradict his inner beauty so terribly. His exterior may have been beautiful, but his interior was as rotted and hollow as a decaying tree trunk. He had become emotionally dependant on Reign over the years, and he invested all of his unstable heart in her.

She was his property. She could tell by the way he held onto her waist like a businessman holds onto a briefcase full of money.

Not that Reign was anywhere near as valuable as a briefcase full of money, but to Damian her sentimental value was through the roof. She was the only woman who hadn’t run away from him, and that made her special. Without her, he would be alone.

“Relax,” he purred, gently tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

Almost as if to emphasize her unease, gooseflesh erupted all over her body as she silently summoned the numbness that made everything easier to swallow.

And then he told her the lie that only eased her worries for a short period of time; “I’m not going to hurt you.”

He sniggered breathily into her ear and tugged her lightly towards their bedroom.

‘Rain, rain, go away…’