Ten Ways To Die

[Liebe.]

Hemorrhage. Today I wrote a letter to the university, explaining that I needed more time off to piece through my father's belongings. And then I did go to his rented apartment, to pack anything worth keeping in three huge duffel bags and then let the local secondhand store go crazy with the place.
Everything they left, I sent straight to the junkyard.
On my last rounds I realized he had slipped a photo of Isla in between his desk's glass and wood tabletop. I spent fifteen whole minutes trying to get it out, then I gave up and left it for the new tenant to care for.
As I leave, I worry about her. She was too much like him.

This new talent, for lying, was all I needed to get through the next two weeks. And then I'd see Isla again, and I'd put the world back on hold.
I feel ashamed, at one point, thinking I was dealing with this too well. It seemed unfair to my dad's memory. I just--
I don't know how I'd reached a state of torment where it all got clogged up leaving me with nothing to feel.
And then my cellphone rang, which made lunchtime at the bistro a stupid place for a reverie.
"Hello?" my voice was too loud, even in my own ears and despite the bustle of the bistro.
There was hesitation on the other end. I realize I hadn't even bothered to check the display. I prod, "Hellooo?"
Eventually, a woman with a thick accent I couldn't yet place came on the line. "Is this Lauren Ashton?" I cringe when she uses my married name. Almost no one else does.
In fact I can still remember the day when, as a joke, Luca changed my last name on his phone. It had been a joke.
"Yes?"
She hesitates again. "You must come. Something awful..."

---

I'm quite excited for the same chapter. Tell me, is this worse or better than Maps?

@Lonely Procrastinator I like to think of it this way: I guess Luca doesn't like having his wrongs brought to the surface, and Mikey dislikes having his friends hurt... even if it means despising the same people.

[Lonely Procrastinator]

Who owns the surname Ashton? Let us know. ;p

I think I like this more than Maps. You have this organized, while the other seemed spontaneous. Also, this sounds more mature. Nevertheless, both are really nice reads.

Mikey and Luca have contradicting personalities then.

[Liebe.]

Act of God.
I stopped to admire the Grecian columns outside Luca's hotel. There wasn't time for sight-seeing, though. I paid the taxi driver, extra because I didn't wait for change, and went for the elevator. Luca had the penthouse suite, which would gurantee instant death.
I was checking my watch when the elevator doors finally opened.
The hotel maid was a big stately Russian. I had a feeling, if she'd wanted, she was fully capable of throwing him off the balcony.
But not dragging him down from it. Even she wasn't stronger than a hundred feet's gravity.
"Where is he?" I demand, my voice was small and scared. Young, in a way it hadn't been for so long.
She doesn't answer immediately. "I had to call. Someone. He said he would jump if I got the police," she shook her head. "You had the same surname."
At last, she catches the desperation in my eyes. "I'll bring you to him."
French doors, which contrasted the Grecian interiors, led to the balcony. My heart swished inside my chest, like water disturbed. I couldn't see anyone from that angle, I feared he had already jumped, but the Russian opened the door, ushered me in and left.
Furthest away from the door, I saw him. My disturbed metronome swelled in relief.
But then I didn't know what to say.
I was scared of surprising him, obviously. If he slipped and fell... Or even worse, if he saw me, and then jumped?
Surely, sweet divine intervention wouldn't let that happen. I'm not sure how I could, go on.
Luca turns his head slightly in my direction, and lifts his hand, palm up, invitingly.
"The city's beautiful, Lauren," he relates. "You should see this."
I gaze doubtfully at the gray skyline, then at the almost narrow, engraved strip of stone that closed around the balcony.
"Come on." he encourages.
I shake my head. Then, I remembered why we were here in the first place.
"Luca?"
"Mm?"
"Come down, please." I mentally slap myself for saying that. What if he went down on the other side?
Luca makes no answer, nor any attempt to get down from the balcony--forward or backward.
"I'm scared." I admit. I take his hand, which is still inviting me up there with him. "Please, Luca?"
He wavers, slightly, and then he's down on the ground next to me. It's so simple, I feel like crying. Luca gives me an almost gentle look, "Let's go inside."

Inside, I see the many things I'd failed to notice the first time. The clothes strewn all over, (how long had he been here, anyway?) half-empty bottle of I don't know what staright from the bar. As we pick our way through, I can't help picking up some discarded clothing from the floor and tossing them rightfully in his open suitcase. It had been giving the illusion of an explosion.
Luca gave me a few curious glances, but said nothing. I can still see the cut on his jaw.
It sets off all the cold fury I'd felt this morning when the hotel maid called. "How dare you?"
"What would you do if I fell?" Luca wanted to know.
I sat down on a strategically placed armchair and rubbed my palms over my face. It was damp with cold sweat. "I don't know. Maybe I'd jump in after you. Maybe I'd think you deserved it." I glared at him now. "Monster."
"You'd be sad, wouldn't you?" he looks pleased.
"Would you rather I be happy?" I snap.
"Yes," he says honestly. "Yes, of course. But not relieved."
"Maybe I'd be sad and relieved."
He frowned.
"Could that hurt you though?" I wonder.
He doesn't answer me, but asks, "Aren't you freezing?"
I realized, in my haste, I'd left my jacket on my chair at the bistro. Before I can answer, he takes a coat from nearby and hands it to me.
"I'm not cold." I mumble. I hold the thing in my arms. "I'm happy." I add, for no reason. There's no point hiding that from him.
"That's good," he says. Luca has leaned against a wall and closed his eyes. He looks tired, I see, not just because of today's events, but many things prior.
I ask, politely, "How have you been?"
He opens his eyes and makes a so-so gesture with his hand. Suddenly, animatedly, he asks me, "How are you? How's..." he can't bring himself to say her name.
I mimic the so-so gesture. "Isla's  alright. She reads, a lot. It's becoming a vice."
"Reading's good." Luca notes.
"Oh, and Mikey used to visit a lot." I somehow don't find anything wrong with mentioning him. Luca didn't keep grudges. "He's a bit depressed. Writer's block and all."
Luca nods attentively to all this, encouragingly, but I'm all out. How can I be so boring?

I muster the courage to ask, "How's Michelle?"
Luca hands me bottled water. "You sure you want to know?"
"I'd like to... For future reference."
"She's not a part of your future." Luca points out. But then he shrugs, and begins with careless abandon. "She minds my moods, doesn't ask questions."
He glances at me. "Her hair's darker than yours, and she doesn't have your freckles. She doesn't know about Isla."
"So I guess she's perfect for you," I can't help saying, bitterly. "Personality-wise, I mean."
Luca scoffs, "Lauren, the painstakingly obvious--"
"Doesn't apply. I don't get it."
Luca stops, stares at me blankly. "Maybe it's better that way."

Luca and I go out for dinner. It's early, but the sky is dense, ugly black. Winter. Luca walks a few steps ahead. We pass by an alley between two buildings. It's a patch of stark blackness against the city brights.
"Spare change?" someone croaks.
I pause, and squint into the darkness. Eventually, I make out a gnarled, old man, ill and weather-beaten to such an extent that I am torn between pity, and revulsion. "Spare change, ma'm?"
I start digging inside my purse, but Luca lays a protective hand on my arm and starts dragging me away. "Come along now."
When he loosens his grip, we are many feet away from the bum I'd been planning to help.
"It was just a second." I grumble.
Luca stops to glare at me. "This is New York. You grew up in it. Don't act like you don't know what it's like."
"I spent half my life at boarding school, with you" I remind him. "And it was just some change."
He drops my armwith a resigned look. "Fine. Go. Go get mugged." Now free, Luca takes small steps forward, as if testing his capacity to disconnect from me, then resumes his normal pace.
I look after him. Seconds later, I give in and run to catch up with him.
Luca gives me a sideway glance. "What happened to--"
"Oh, don't be smug!" I sigh. "You weren't really leaving, were you?"
"Yes. I was starving. You take time."

Luca stuffs me some place that serves "amazing...ly expensive" shrimp (we're big on seafood). I forget to tell him some New York protocol. Like, the more fancy food is here, the more bland it is. Actually, I think I made that up.
But it was true. I saw at another hole in my rubbery squid with my knife before Luca and I give up.
At a loss of what to do next, Luca humors me again. "How is... Isla?"
He gets the desired effect this time. Filial pride flares up inside me. "Perfect," I gush, smiling into air. "She's smart. She draws a lot. She's learning to play the piano, Mr. Ashton insisted..." I am forced to slow down there, les this excites some resentment in him. Luca remains attentive. "And she likes Math." I finish.
"I liked Math when I was younger." Luca reveals.
I wrinkle. "Did you? I didn't know. I guess all those advanced Math courses should have said something."
Luca grins. "Don't be jealous."
"I'm not."
He continues, smiling. "So you finished Biology?"
I nod. "It destroyed my heart, and soul."
He says flatly. "I thought I did that."
We both look away. Luca becomes caught up with his phone.
He looks up suddenly. "Should we go?"
I nod.
Outside, to my amazement, was an SUV, almost a clone to the one I'd driven to New York.
"When did you..."
"Lauren, if you're planning on talking to every homeless person you see, in New York, you'll kill us, both."
He helps me into the passenger seat. There he stops, presses his lips on the top of my head. "You're killing me. Gently." he sighs.

When we get back, I tell Luca, that after all today's excitement (this I say with weary sarcasm) he must be exhausted. He denies this, but let's me drag him to the bed.
He pauses there, "I should change." And returns wearing clothes he can sleep in.
I get him in a state of almost slumber, and was about to leave, putting this whole, impossible day to an end, when Luca catches my arm.
"Wait. Stay. Please."
He had scrambled to a sitting position, and his expression was near that of begging.
So hesitantly, I sit down beside him and throw the covers on my legs. Luca looks at me, and lets that rare, uncopyable shade of purple blow me away.
"Stay," he says simply.
I gesture around us, "Well, if you can't tell, I already am."
"No, no," he shakes his head. "I mean stay. With me."
I frown.
"For good." he adds.
Fury bubbes up again, but I can feel strains of hope leftover, and I hate him for having that ability over me. I let out a breath, as well as the hate. "That's different."
"How?" Luca asks, calmly, like he is expecting to win this argument. "This is how it's supposed to be. I mean, today," he smiles "is probably the happiest I've been in half a decade."
"Dont--"
He cuts me off. "..rivalled only by that day, at the funeral. I was happy, seeing you hadn't changed. I could still come back, and we could pick up where we left off. I mean, maybe we could."
He made it sound so simple. This must've been one of the few times I've seen Luca vulnerable, and his voice promised more.
"No, we can't," my voice cracks. Even if I'd wanted that to sting, to hurt him back, I was just being honest. "We can't. There's Isla, to think of. And Mikey, and Michelle.."
Luca snorts. "What's Mikey got to do with this."
"He'll think it's a bad idea."
"It's a good idea."
"NO!" Luca looks hurt, and I feel immediately shameful. "I mean, shut up." I bit my lip.
"I'll think it over." I say.
"Great. Sleep on it."
"You sleep." I counter.
Luca relents, turning to his side facing me. He closes his eyes. I wait this time until he really is asleep before I slip the ring off my finger. It left a strip of paler skin, because I'd never felt a need to take it off.
Until now.
I curl his fingers around it. Luca sleeps like death. I know the term uses 'the dead' instead of death, but Luca needs a more dignified adjective. I pull the covers to his chin.
Carefully, I creep out the room. As I'm about to leave the bedroom however, I double back. I don't know when I'll see him this way again. I don't know if he'll go back to the balcony. Will he be here tomorrow? I shake my head, dispelling those thoughts. Then, I go.

[Lonely Procrastinator]

It;s not easy to pick up something that has long been buried. Speaking from experience. ;p

[Liebe.]

Idiocy. Everyone did stupid things. A lot of them, irrevocable.

I tried picturing it, never meeting him. It left a lot of blanks in my history.
We'd been kids when we'd met. That must account for it. We, so numb to consequences, and forming those thin strings of attachment, never knowing.
I was dead before I knew it.

I knew who I needed.
I called home from the hotel phone, "Pick up, pick up..." I begged. It rang three, six, twelve times before I was convinced Isla was asleep.
So I called Mikey, even though I was the last one he wanted to talk to. "Meh. Hello?" he sounded a bit drunk. A female laugh tittered in the background.
"Mikey," I squeak. The reciever was sliding off my sweaty palms. "You know I need you, right?"
Silence from the other end. Then, "Where are you? I'll be there."
So I told him.
Mikey looked almost ill when he saw the state I was in, curled at the foot of my bed, probably half-deranged.
"What did you do?" he demanded. He dropped down next to me.
Unable to answer, I rubbed my now bare left hand fingers on his skin. He didn't realize, at first, but when it registered he shrank away like I'd burned him.
"Oh no," he moaned. "You didn't!"
"I did."
Mikey looks at me with what I plainly see as disgust. And well-deserved disgust it was, but it softens to something mellow soon afterwards and he helps me onto the bed.
He hesitates, then settles down next to me. I remember doing almost the same to Luca just hours ago. Soon, Mikey would go home, and that girl I'd heard on the phone would comfort him too. Just another cycle.
"Mikey?"
"Mm?"
"Why didn't I marry you?"
He snorts. "You were kind of engaged with someone else."
"Yes, but why him?"
It takes Mikey five long seconds to come up with an answer. Then, he looks at me.
We are both lying down on the bed, and I thought this must be what it would've been like.
"Because he needed you more than I did. And you need that."
He smiles at my doubtful expression. "You knew he had problems. All you wanted was to fix him, and when that didn't work..."
He turns his gaze to the ceiling. I manage to fall asleep after that, feeling secure. It almost made sense, then. One thing for sure, I should've ended up with Mikey or someone, else. Friendship was easier to put up with, you wouldn't destroy each other, you wouldn't--I was confused.
Vague sunlight peeks from gaps in between the curtains, and I wake up. It's six, to my amazement. I'd slept for five hours that felt like minutes.
First on my agenda was Mikey. I checked the bathroom, the outside hallway. He wasn't there.
And then I realized, Luca could be doing the same thing, at the same moment. Looking for me, puzzled, lost. Disappointed.
I wanted to go back. But I couldn't; I realized when I checked the date on my phone, Dad's burial was today.
I pulled on a pair of jeans, and flats. My hair was in a severe ponytail that hurt my skull.
Luca probably wouldn't be there.

----------

Next chapter will be the end, I think. Then an epilogue. This will be the first story I ever finish, since I gave up on Fix You and everything else. C: Epic fail.

I have a new story up.

[Lonely Procrastinator]

Mikey did feel something for Lauren. Well. </3 Love really is dangerous when no handled well.

[Liebe.]

From: Luca (ljashton@     .com);
Sent: Wed 12/09/09 8:46 am
To: laurenashton@        .edu;

I've been unfair to you. Both of you. And it's plagued me every day. I owe you an explanation if you'll have it. I left for both of us. I don't know why caring about you meant giving you the power to destroy me, but I would have gladly given that last night. You and I are like anti-soulmates, no matter what we do, we drive the other apart. But maybe that's just me, maybe that's always been just me. Either way I'm sick of ruining our lives.
I'm glad you're okay.
-
From: Lauren A. (laurenashton@        .edu);
Sent: Wed 12/09/09 9:50 pm
To: Luca (ljashton@     .com);

Do you remember that poem about candles burning on both ends?
-

The drive home was pretty uneventful. Peaceful, really, in that mind-numbing way. I reminded myself, it would be hours, minutes, until I saw Isla.
That should've been enough, but it wasn't.
I was a bad parent.
I trouble myself with that deeply for the rest of the trip.

My mother had already left when I arrived. That made sense, I told myself. She didn't want all the gory details of the funeral.
Maybe what she couldn't stand was the Luca-aftermath I'd be sick with. Eitherway, she was gone.

The maids (they'd hired a couple more in my absence) told me Isla was outside. The Ashton estate had a huge expanse of greenery, one of the reasons I could never take Isla away from here.
She finds me first; I feel her clinging on my leg. "I lost. At chess."
She sounds distressed, and with good reason, because her grandparents would always let her win, and I was no good at games.
"To whom?" I take one of her hands, already fingered and delicately-boned at this young age. Pianist's hands, I always thought.
He tells me. "I couldn't let her win. A whole-life winning streak was too much."
He grins.

I guessed, maybe this wasn't the end I wanted. The end I expected. Not the end, at least, and who knows? Maybe it isn't.
Mikey stayed for a while, helping me feel normal again. I asked him what happened to that girl, his girl, and he got a dark look on his face. I knew never to ask again.
Isla did not have much friends, as she was home-schooled. Mikey became her bestfriend as he became less mine.
But he never grew into anything more. If anything, our bonds were disintegrating, losing grip.
And then, just as suddenly as he came, he left.
Eventually, I figured out what I hated most about his brief affair with us.
It wasn't the odd looks the household help gave us, knowing I was definitely married to someone else yet not knowing who that was, or if he did (really) exist.
It was knowing he'd leave, too. Borrowed time, I felt like the little seconds he spent here were my life. That it would run out. Like a cancerpatient not knowing how long he had to live and what he'd have to go through, I was always half-dead. But that would change.

-

So this is the end. Plus, an epilogue some time in the future. I'm not really sure what I meant by this, and I'm sorry Lauren sounds so dead. It was also very vague I think, and if you think anything needs clearing (or is inconsistent), tell me.

[Lonely Procrastinator]

The harsh reality: Even the ones who care will leave us in time. This story is brief but worth the time. Congratulations on this.

[Liebe.]

I never used to wake up late. I was an early riser and it drove Luca crazy. He said he didn't like waking up alone. 'Course I always wake up alone, but that's different.
It's genetic, apparently. Isla has an almost pained reaction to sunlight. She said it hurt to look at. That's just me I guess, happy and in pain. Two things that have never coexisted in anybody else.
I descend the Ashtons' carpeted staircase. My first few steps send dust motes in a frenzy around me, a viscious and equally harmless snowstorm. Halfway down the sun reflects from my eyes. I close them and open them again, but it doesn't help. I am blinded.
Finally, from the last step I hear melancholy notes from the piano being played.
My daughter, the only one who had any musical talent in the household (there was Mr. Ashton, but he always treated the instrument like furniture) did not play like this.
Isla played with a flourish, eagerness to please coupled with real bravado.
This new character, jaded from acquaintance, gave something closer to an exasperated greeting.
I rushed into the sittingroom where the grand piano was kept. I stop, and I stare.
It's him. Of course it's him.
Posted a wary arm's length from the keys, a refusal to sit down that spoke his refusal to actually play. He looked up.
"Oh," I sigh loftily. "Thank God."
Then I fling myself at him, knowing full well I will not be denied. Not this time, or any other time.
That's just the thing. Luca's eagerness to shoulder the blame when I was just as responsible. Luca had left me, and I had let him--down. We'd killed each other.
His fingers snaked down my spine. "Hi," he says shyly. Dust motes, ever-present in a large house whirl around our heads, destructive halos. Ghosts. Thoughts.

At around 10:29 a door slams overhead. "Mom?" Isla seeks. I instinctively turn in the direction of the staircase but from the back of my head I feel Luca stumble, nearly fall off his chair. He coughs, choking on his coffee. He makes a mad dash for the adjoining room.
Isla barely catches a retreating door slam.
"Who was that?" she asks, curious.
I smirk for no real reason and she gives me a weird look. In her six years I don't think Isla has ever seen me truly happy. It's a start.

The day sets in. Isla is safely tucked away in her morning tutoring session (homeschooled, but that might change soon) and Luca and I somewhere, everywhere. The house feels full, throbbing with energy. Again maybe that's just me.
We're actually cowered under the huge bay windows on the second floor, our feet bathed in smoky light.
I turn to Luca and say, for the nth time, "She's just so much like you."
He snorts. "Yeah. Me. With your face. It's kind of bemusing.
"I'm going to pretend you said that in a caring, paternal way."
"But I did." he tells me, his eyes shining.
I sigh. "I believe you."
I return to our sinewy bliss, but Luca, it appears, has other ideas.
"It's true, though."
"Hmm?" I raise my eyes to his neck.
"She's you." Luca stresses. His neck bends so that his eyes can see my face, searching for belief, acceptance. "Just with dark hair and oddly-colored eyes."
"It's not odd." I scoff. Pacing back to our train of thought, I add, "But I'm not as smart. Or as gentle. I'm not as good."
I smile. We both smile.





I just needed like one happy ending.