Created

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“She was awful, Erik,” I breathed a voice nearly a whisper. “Like all the happiness had been sucked out of her. She was so bitter.”
I had found Erik that night laying face down in his bed miserably, alone and regretful. I told him Melissa wasn't coming back. He got up and shut the door in my face.
Now he was sitting before me at the table with dark rings under his eyes and an obvious slump to his posture. The sparkle of life in his eyes had blinked out suddenly and I was reminded of the phrase 'a shell of a man'. When Melissa left, she dragged Erik's happiness with her and didn't bother leaving any left over for this shell that stared blankly into a cup of herbal tea, disconsolate and empty. I wondered what he was thinking.
“Erik,” I probed quietly when he didn't respond and he made a muffled grunting noise in the back of his throat to satisfy me. He closed blank, tired eyes and roughly scrubbed one hand over his face and through his disheveled hair. “A-Are you okay?” I asked cautiously.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I just didn't get a lot of sleep. It was a rough night.” Tell me about it. It was the worst night I'd ever faced, though that honestly wasn't saying much as I'd only had a few weeks of life to compare it to.
“You can always just go back to sleep,” I suggested. “No one's going to stone you for a few extra hours.” He managed a weak smile and shrugged. “Really, Erik, you look like death. Just go rest before you fall asleep into your tea.”
“I don't know,” he sighed and I realized that sleep might not exactly fix the problem. He might look and feel a bit fresher, but the facts still rang true. Melissa wasn't here. And she wasn't coming back. Sleep wasn't going to fix the problem.
I didn't know what else I could say.
* * *
I met Arta in the kitchen. She stood at the stove and the smell of scrambling eggs met my nose agreeably. But even a good breakfast on the oven couldn't lift my spirits after that depressing chat with Erik. Arta, on the other hand, appeared completely content. She pushed the eggs in their pan and smiled, humming a cheerful tune. The sound of my feet on the clean, cold kitchen tile lifted her head and she met my eyes with a friendly smile.
“Good morning.”I didn't have time to respond when she continued, noticing my fallen countenance and frowning. Her thin, expressive eyebrows met in worry. “You look upset,” she noted aloud observantly. “Is something troubling you?” With a heavy sigh, I crammed my hands into pockets clearly too small and leaned anxiously against the wall.
“Melissa left,” I told her plainly. Arta made a 'hmph' sound in some clear confusion.
“Left as in 'never coming back'?” she asked for clarification. I was a little worried about seeing her jump for joy and pull out confetti when I nodded to confirm her nemesis's departure. But she only looked back down to her eggs calmly and asked; “What happened?”
“A big fight. It was pretty bad.” I kept my answer vague on purpose and Arta seemed to pick up on this and didn't demand details.
“Interesting,” she mumbled with another acknowledging 'hmph' and a shrug. “But, then again, not very surprising.”
“You expected it then?” I responded with a question that veered on the edge of statement. Arta nodded and pulled a stray strand of glittering hair back behind her ear.
“Yes,” she said matter-of-factly. I had the feeling that some thought had gone into her conjecture as she spoke of it confidently and surely. “Although I will admit that I had been wrong on the time aspect. When Erik and Melissa first met, I gave the relationship maybe a year and a half. I didn't expect her stubborn spirit to hold on twice that long. I did, though, predict a separation.” Arta shook her head and chuckled a little. “I can't imagine being with someone for three whole years. I guess I thought Melissa and I had more in common that what we really did.” I stood, dumbfounded, through her explanation of her hypothesis. What did she mean, that she couldn't imagine being with someone for three years?
“That's only three years,” I pointed out, clearly from an entirely different perspective. “What do you suppose will happen to us if only three years is too long?”Arta's dark eyes flickered up to me apologetically and her mouth pressed together in a puckered line.
“Adam,” she began in a soft, comforting tone. It was a voice easily recognized as one bearing bad news. “I'll admit it, I really like you. You're different. You're a sweet guy. But...” Arta trailed off, her face pity-filled.
“But...?” I prodded. In my heart, I clung to the night she had held my hand and told me we were gonna be something special. When she said we might work out. I didn't know she'd had a time limit in mind when she told me that. How long would we 'work out' until, according to Arta's hypothesis, we fell apart like everyone else?
“I don't give us more than a year tops. I'm sorry,” Arta confessed apologetically. I was baffled and heart-broken.
“Why? I love you. What could separate us?” I demanded. I realized with a start how naïve and simple I must have looked to her when I asked that, but I honestly needed to know. What could separate us?
“What could separate Erik and Melissa?” she retorted in a second, turning my innocent question back to me. “Nothing is forever, Adam.”
“Love is.” I was stubborn and utterly resolute. Melissa's hard-headedness must have rubbed off some.
Arta pursed her lips again and gazed impatiently at me as one might at a stubborn child.
“Please, Adam,” she begged frusteratedly for my resignation. But I wouldn't give in.
“It is!” I argued passionately. “Love is eternal and amazing and beautiful!”
“Love,” Arta fought back while dumping her half-forgotten eggs onto a plate. “Is pointless.”
“No, it's not,” I said.
“Yes, it is!” she cried. “It's silly.”
“There's no point to life without love.” I shrugged. It was simple.
“That's untrue.” Arta fought adamantly.
“Arta-” I began and was cut off.
“No!” Arta cried, throwing up one flat palm to silence me. Compliantly, I closed my mouth and waited. She continued. “Listen to me, please Adam. Love is simply a silly fairytale. It doesn't last and it doesn't fulfill and it's not happy. It's an entertainment, yes, a change from the usual routine, but it's not a serious pursuit. One must cling to reality to find real happiness.”
“Arta-”
“Stop! I know you're upset, but Adam, I'm happy for Melissa. I'm happy she left! She can finally get over her fantasies and get on with her life.”
“You're wrong!” I exploded with emotion and passion. “Love is a very serious pursuit and a very true happiness. You're happy for Melissa giving up her dreams and hopes?”
“Her silly dreams and impossible hopes!” Arta cried.
“Her love, Arta,” I corrected her. A vein in Arta's temple pulsed angrily and her jaw tightened.
“This is ridiculous,” she spat angrily.
“It's important, Arta,” I spoke. “This is important.” Arta avoided my eyes and looked towards the tile floor beneath us, letting out a slow, calming breath. When she turned back, her face was a pitiful mixture of sadness and frustration, so much so that it was nearly impossible to read. I wished I could know exactly what she was thinking.
“I'm sorry, but I don't have the faith in love that you do,” she told me calmly and almost more than a little sadly.
“Clearly,” I retorted. “But I'll help you!” I saw one eyebrow shoot up her forehead in a gesture of skepticism.
“Help me?” she scoffed.
“Yes!” I cried excitedly, a wide, childish smile breaking out onto my face. “I will prove to you the importance and wonder and grandeur of love! I will show you.”
“You can't-” Arta began shaking her head, but I interrupted.
“I can. I will.” While those confident words rang proudly in the air, I turned to leave, motivated by the excitement and adrenaline buzzing through my body. I would prove it to her! Before I could leave, though, it occurred to me to say one more thing and I couldn't stop the words as they left my mouth. I turned back around to say; “You're wrong again, by the way.” Aarta looked back up from where she had begun tending to her nasty, room-temperature scrambled eggs. A fire of rage and adrenaline burned in her black eyes, but it didn't frighten me.
“Pardon?” she asked icily.
“This isn't the end of Melissa and Erik. They will far exceed three years. And you'll be wrong about us, too.” Now, I was finally done. To my retreating back, I heard Arta sigh.
“We'll see,” she said.
* * *
“Lissa, please,” I heard Erik's distraught voice beg from somewhere down the hall. Curious, I followed the sound.
“It is not up for discussion, Mr. Moore,” Melissa exaggerated the cold formalities that Erik himself had addressed her with only the night before. I could tell by Erik's desperate voice that it was tearing him to pieces.
I found the two in Melissa's room. An open suitcase sat half-full on her stripped mattress. The sight dissolved my previous excitement and conviction, replacing it with a sick feeling in my stomach.
Melissa stepped briskly out of her open walk-in closet, holding an arm full of clothes. Her steps were long and straight and she squared her shoulders coldly, pressing her mouth into a sort of expressionless, stern line. Erik trailed pitifully behind her with an identical arm-load of clothing heaped onto him, presumably by Melissa. He continued to beg and plead and Melissa continued to mercilessly brush him off. It certainly was a disarming and humiliating sight. I'd never witnessed Erik so pitiful. All of a sudden, I was rethinking what I had just promised to prove to Arta minutes later. At this rate, could they make it one more day?
Melissa dumped her arm-load into the open suitcase, then unburdened Erik his and did the same. Erik, so absorbed in his broken pleas didn't notice my presence, but Melissa did. She returned my stare with a friendless smile and a too-polite 'hello, sir'. In my stunned, disheartened state, I could only manage a mumbled 'hi' in response.
Erik, on the other hand, saw me as a new recruit and pulled me in frantically.
“Adam, help me!” he cried. “She's going to leave again!”
“Melissa,” I addressed her. “Can't you see what you're doing to him?”
“I do,” she replied. “And he deserves everything he's getting right now.”
“Melissa, please,” I tried desperately to reason. “Isn't this enough? Look at him; he's dying.” And it was true. Erik was past the end of his rope. He looked crazy enough with no sleep and his uncombed hair, but now that he was desperately begging the effect was really homed in.
“Suck it up, Erik,” she said heartlessly, not even really bothering to listen or look up.
“What can I say?” he moaned. “What can I do?”
“Nothing,” she spat. “Now please, let's not make a scene here.”
“Melissa,” I said quietly, the only thing I could muster.
“What did I do? Where did I go wrong? We've argued before, Liss, how is this any different?” Erik cried. Melissa laughed sardonically and I was reminded of last night when I had become the brunt of her anger. She'd laughed the same way then.
“This isn't about that stupid fight, Erik,” Melissa cried. “This started long before last night.” Erik's face fell, if possible, even further.
“Before?!” he gasped and Melissa rolled her eyes.
“Men,” she grumbled and tossed the last few articles into her suitcase, struggling now to close it.
“I don't understand!” Erik cried.
“Clearly,” Melissa huffed, tugging her suitcase off of her bed and pulling it to the door of her now-bare bedroom. Erik trailed after her and I followed.
We made it all the way downstairs and to the door, conversation mirroring the one previous.
Erik was trying anything now that we'd reached the doors. He apologized for anything and everything that came to mind.
“Is this about that time when I spilled juice on your new shoes? Well, I'm sorry about that. Or when I accidentally called your mother fat? I'm sorry about that, too. Or when I set your hair on fire? That was an accident and I'm really sorry!” Erik blabbered his apologies endlessly, naming every little thing he'd ever done to her. The closer she got to the door, the faster he spoke until they stood only inches away. Melissa's fingertips rested on the handle and Erik's voice cracked in fear.
“Melissa,” he gasped quietly. “Please.” I stood, watching from a few feet off, feeling sad and awkward and alone. Erik went on. “I can't... Live without you.”
When Melissa turned back to face him, she had tear running down her cheeks.
“But you still don't know,” she whispered painfully through her tears. Erik's frightened blue eyes searched her face desperately. He opened his mouth and spoke the fatal word:
“What?”
Melissa seethed.
“Unbelievable,” she hissed furiously. The sound of her slapping him in the face rang in the air and Erik staggered back, open-mouthed and stunned. His cheek blazed a violent crimson. He watched her, wordless and wide-eyed, as she turned and walked out the door.