Mutually Numb

“Claire, you’re acting like a child.” Ruki muttered as he flicked his head to fix his hair. He kept his hands firmly planted on the steering wheel and his eyes locked on the road.
“No, I am not! I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I crossed my arms and leaned my head against the glass window. It was pouring rain outside. Through the car window I could feel the brisk tundra temperatures on my scalp. It wasn’t quite cold enough outside for it to be snowing yet, but it was just cold enough that the rain was freezing and almost snow. It was the most miserable type of weather.
These conditions were only enjoyable when you were indoors, wrapped under a blanket, and had no intentions of leaving the house any time soon. We had been running back and forth from doctors’ appointments and errands all day today. I had my physical therapy earlier, then we ran off to get some more swabs made of my mucous to make sure all my infections were gone, and then I had to see the psychologist, which then led us to the psychiatrists, and then Ruki forgot that we had no coffee in the house, so we had to accomplish that as well. I was physically and mentally drained. There was only so much I could do in one day. I was poked and prodded mentally and physically too many times for a 24-hour span.
“Then just drop it, if you aren’t acting like such a child.”
“Why does standing my ground make me like a child?” I murmured, playing with a hangnail that had been there all day
“You’re just like a stubborn 4 year old. You think you know what’s best for you, and even when you are told not to, you keep insisting that you know what is right.”
I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I had been told that same thing a million different times. I was so done with him and this conversation, but I wanted to get that horrible, horrible man out of my mind and that traumatizing experience put behind me. I needed it for the closure.
“You are taking me to the police station. No questions asked.” I laid my words down firmly and gave no hesitation.
Ruki sighed and pulled into a nearby parking lot. He put the car in park and turned towards me. He lowered his head and rested his fingertips on his forehead, composing his thoughts. After a few moments of unbroken silence within the car, he nudged my shoulder so that I would turn towards him.
I was unresponsive at first, but since he was physically larger than me, he was able to manually turn my body in his direction. “Okay, Claire, let us say that you did win this conversation. So, I take you to the police station, right?” He raised his eyebrows waiting for a response.
I nodded my head slowly, not entirely sure where he was headed with this scenario.
“We go into the police station, and we need to ask for the same detective we had before, since he has the case files. Gil-Woo was his name, right? Maybe he is there, maybe he is not, and we don’t know his schedule. Now, let’s say Gil-Woo is there by some chance. We can sit down and talk with him if he isn’t too busy, but then what do you want to tell him? He’s drowning in so much other paperwork already. He’s sending in forums to get approved to do more searches for other women like you, who may have been kidnapped, but not found just yet. He’s writing appeals to lawsuits, and he’s trying to get as much dirt on Taro as possible so he can go to prison for what he has done to others. Claire, baby, this stuff takes time. You will be testifying in court against him very soon. While the paperwork is in the last leg of being revised, it will still be a few more months. You can pour your heart out when you are on the stand in the courthouse, but right now Gil-Woo can’t do anything more.” He took a deep and steady breath after that long spiel. Damn him for being so logical sometimes.
“I know that I’m really impatient,” I stuttered out with absolutely no confidence. Ruki’s speech really tore a lot of holes in my planning. “But I just really want the closure for myself. I just can’t seem to grow past this situation. I really don’t know what to do with myself if I will never be able to get over this.”
“It hasn’t even been that long, it’s barely been a year. Sometimes these types of things take many, many years to fully heal. You’re very strong and have made an amazing recovery so far. I am so amazed at how independent you’ve become since your most recent surgeries. Hell, you were a fighter from day one. You never wanted my help, not even when you first came back from the hospital. When I was visiting you while you were still in your coma, and I saw you lying there, cold and pale in the bed, I knew you were going to fight through it. You don’t take shit from anyone. That’s why I was so drawn to you at first. You may seem passive at heart, and while you are an agreeable person, you never back down from a challenge. I need a women that challenges me, because I also love to fight. We are different in many ways, but we’ll always connect to each other in our love of arguing with one another.” His eyes curved upwards with his warm smile.
“But, it feels totally unlike me to not barge into the police station and demand things get done right away. I don’t want to wait around. It feels like I am going against myself by doing nothing.” I cracked my neck and writhed in frustration. “I want to get this all done by myself. I just want to go there and get it all done in one sitting. Either kill him or let him suffer for the rest of his life in a dirty cell with nothing to eat but spoiled food, beat him, keep him tied up, bloody and exposed-“
Ruki stopped me mid-rant. “Claire, I know that it seems fair that he have done to him exactly what he did to you, but that’s never going to happen. Plus, killing him will land you in jail, too. I don’t think anybody wants that.” He bit his lip pensively, but remained quiet.
I let out an agitated groan and fidgeted more. There was nothing I could do. I hated that feeling. “Okay, so I can’t do any of that, but what should I do? I can’t sit here and decompose. It feels like I am waiting to die. I need to do something.” I sunk into the seat and stared at my shoes
“Don’t say that. I mean, if it makes you feel any better, in a way, everyone is just waiting to die.” He let out a nervous chuckle, obviously trying to break the awkward tension I just manifested.
“It doesn’t.” I exhaled. He tried, but that wasn’t very motivational. I guess he couldn’t help me if I didn’t want help, but I didn’t know what I wanted.
“Look, I’m sorry I was a little hard on you earlier and I drilled you with that speech, but I didn’t know what else to do. I know I seem like an insensitive, un-caring dick sometimes,” I cracked a small smile and nodded my head in agreement, “but, trust me, there is definitely a method to my madness. I’m not this hard on just anyone, Claire, if I hated you, would I really have put up this much of a fight?”
“I guess not.” I stated in defeat.
“I’ve stayed up with you when your medicines had awful side effects, and done everything that you allowed me to. I can be very hard to read, but this has been a roller-coaster for me too. I wouldn’t have done any of that for you if I didn’t love you.”
The air in the car immediately changed from awkward to tense. My muscles tensed and I remained frozen from Ruki’s use of the l-word. He’s never said that to me. Ever. Not even when he was in the hospital as I was giving birth to Aimie. Did my manipulation actually do something? Did he genuinely enjoy when I faked pains and he had to come to my rescue? Now that I heard him say what I’ve been wanting to say for years, he couldn’t have picked a less appropriate time to say it. There was nothing more in the world that I wanted to have a normal family life with him, but that wasn’t going to happen soon. I was bouncing back from appointment to appointment, sleeping almost all the time when I was home, and having sex with Ruki behind Ash’s back. I couldn’t take care of Aimie on my own. Ash does almost everything for us. I can’t break them up now. Ruki was supposed to get with the band again soon to work on some more music, which means a tour would be upcoming for them. Why did he have to choose right now to drop this bomb? I had no idea how to process this information, let alone react to it.
Essentially, this was all my fault. Okay, maybe it was one hundred percent my fault. I shouldn’t have asked him to break up with Ash yesterday. I really needed help with my impulse control.
“Maybe,” He quietly breathed out with a cracking voice, “I shouldn’t have said that.” That was the first time I had ever heard his voice crack so much. The man had such amazing control of his vocal chords, I could only imagine what he was feeling right now to have his voice sound like that.
“That’s all I’ve wanted to hear you say for so long.” All the feelings that I had been holding in for years came flooding out. I started to cry, but it wasn’t just any type of cry. It was an over 7 years of sexual frustration ugly-cry kind of ordeal. I hid my face in my hands and tried to scrunch up in my back brace. I wanted to dissipate into the seat, I just wanted to dissolve and become nothing again.
Ruki leaned over the center console and tried to console me the best he could.
It was still pouring outside, and thunder cracked in the distance. It was the first time Ruki had ever said he loved me, and we were sitting in his car in an empty parking lot off a main road. I certainly hadn’t imagined it ever happening like that, but all I can really ask for is that it did happen at one point.
“Hey, let’s get back home, okay? We are almost there. You can lay in bed and I know you’ll feel a lot better.” He quietly requested.
I nodded my head and we made the rest of the drive back in complete silence. However, it wasn’t silence like before. This was peaceful silence. We were happily coexisting.
Ruki helped me out of the car as usual and led me up the stairs to the apartment. My legs were noodly and my brain was fuzzy from everything that had just happened. I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. I stumbled in through the door and immediately plopped myself down on the couch. I held my head in my hands trying to regain my center of balance from this odd vertigo attack. My hearing was going out, it sounded like I was hearing things underwater. I managed to hear well enough, and was able to eavesdrop on Ruki for the time being. I stayed perfectly still so that I did not miss a word.
Ruki’s loud footsteps made their way into the kitchen and I heard a female’s voice, which was almost definitely Ash’s.
“Ash, we really need to talk right now.” Ruki said. I could barely hear him through the wall.
Ash’s voice was so quiet that I didn’t hear the first part of what she said, but I was able to distinguish “Please, not right now.”
“It’s either now or never. I need to get this out in the open.” Some other inaudible dialogues continued before Ruki continued, dropping yet another bomb. His words sounded very rushed, but they got their point across, “Claire and I have been seeing each other behind your back for a month.”
The words slithered into my ears, leaving a gross slimy trail along my ear canal. I refused to believe that he had just said that, I wanted to be in denial. However, I knew it was true.
Suddenly, an uproar of voices came from the general area of the kitchen. It was way more than just Ruki and Ash in there, for sure. I had to have been imagining it. I raised my head up and made my way into the kitchen to investigate for myself. I didn’t want to face Ash directly, but I had to make sure I wasn’t going crazy.
Waddling around the corner, I saw all of Ruki’s bandmates emerge from various rooms adjacent to the kitchen. There was a cacophony of disagreement with both sides. I made eye contact with Kai, whom I actually hadn’t seen in months and lost it yet again. I slid down on the wall so that I was hidden from everybody else. I felt so gross. I felt like I needed to take a thousand showers just to get this gross feeling off of me. I hid my face and chewed on my lip so that I didn’t sob too loudly and give away my location.
Kai slithered out of the room and greeted me silently. He sat down next to me and let me bury my face in his chest.
Through my tears I heard Ash violently state “I said not now because all your bandmates were here. They wanted to stop by and surprise you with news about the new album you are working on. But, I guess today you decided to let them know that you are a specimen of human scum.”