A/N: Any ill feelings towards this chapter and its direction are well-deserved. Here's your trigger warning: there's a
sprinkle
of graphic nonconsent/horror. Part of the reason I submitted then took it down was because of the inward confliction on whether I should censor some things, cut them out entirely, or just say fuck it. Obviously I said fuck it. Enjoy!
*****
Trust. It was a concept more sacred than love itself. It was the core of all emotions, the safety-net our minds fell back onto.
I felt nothing but vacant space behind me, horror vacui woven in its finest shade.
What's wrong, Grace? Just tell him. You can tell him.
Simplicity came in strides, half measures, and it could only be crafted by those of simple minds. Those who kept from spinning terrors in the corners of their head. As I stood there, Mr. Ryne filling the threshold of the doorway, I was beyond seeing him as something terrible, rather he was everything terrifyingly beautiful. Everything I wanted to believe in.
His eyes on me, I feared the sense of freedom to be dark. To demand then and there he tell me who the woman in the photo was. To be openly jealous of the past. To unconditionally sink myself into the unnerving portraits in the basement.
The only thing stopping me was him. If he had wanted me to know either discovery, he would have told me.
Two could play the game of secrets.
I mastered the nervous smile, endeavored upon my habit of wrapping my arms around my middle. I was the colors of frail he knew me as. "It's been a long day. I guess I'm still trying to get past the talk with my mother."
"Is that what we're going with, Miss Larson?" he asked no sooner than I'd spoken.
Confusion was trapped on my tongue as he stalked in close, fingers brushing over my forearms. I was half expecting them to wrap around me, pull me close so that I might fully experience whichever brand of displeasure crept from lips slowly forming a smile before me.
"Lies don't look good on you."
I gave him no satisfaction of an outward reaction, even if inside I became reaquainted with fear. One day spent in his company had me falling in line with his ways, much like an eager pupil to their flawless master. Except, the takeaway assimilation was by no means anything to be proud of. I was learning the game of deceit.
"I have to shower," was my only standing response.
"Mm," was his.
We regarded one another, both our lips sealed tight, thoughts locked away in our heads. Some things didn't require words. He doubted me, distrusted. It was a statement authored by his silence, the way he stepped back, refraining from challenging my words. Good, we were on the same page.
Then, with one last sidelong look that cavorted down my spine, he was gone.
I watched his shadow recede down the hall, down the stairs. The dim hands of the bathroom's light was my lasting company. For a long time, I didn't move. I wasn't in control of the replay of events. The gallery kiss, the unnerving portraits, the photo nestled in the book, word from my family, what had just been done in the kitchen . . . My next breath was an unstable rattle entering and exiting.
I hated it. I hated the triangular slant of light stretching from the bathroom. I hated the chosen forlorn bronze of its shade, how it spilled softly into the bedroom, allowing an obscure visual of plush gray duvets billowed over a California king. I hated the melancholy reach of this home, and the way it forced me into introspection.
The lives of those around me were often meaningless. I didn't make friends easily. I was too quiet, inside and outside, and I knew it. I embraced it, because never did I have a reason to be loud. To draw attention to myself. Relationships were demanding. Friendships were exhausting. Why put forth an effort for a social lifestyle when the byproduct was so enervating? Often, people confused my apathy with respect. The quieter I was, the more acquaintances around me whispered their secrets and trusted me not to spill, or, like Becky, didn't bother with a computer password because she regarded me in a deferential light. Today altered everything.
Because today I cared.
The longer I stood, saturated in the dark blue smell of Mr. Ryne and his history, the more frustration conquered me. The sea of unknown, its waters rose higher with the rain of my imagination, increasing the itch to unburrow more, to coax his mysteries into the light and decide for myself exactly who it was I found myself pining after so wholesomely.
My decision was made, possibly inevitably. I needed to know.
I stepped out of my reverie, studying the black empty hallway a moment longer. Nothing could be heard aside from the complaining howl of wind and snow careening outside.
This time would be different. The discovery of the portraits and photo had been accidental. Blameless. But this?
I closed the bedroom door and, feeling every bit as ignoble as the situation called for, I turned the lock. Dimitri Ryne's room was mine to exhume. Now was a matter of whether or not he kept anything worth uncovering within the room he laid his head at night.
In the event he decided against his earlier decision to let the matters rest and come back demanding to know everything, which I didn't think he would, I headed into the bathroom to turn the shower on. At least have him think I was underneath it, not snooping. Surprisingly, everything was disturbingly neat, down to the even stacking of heavy white towels, washrags, new toothbrush and loofah settled on the lowered hood of the toilet. Unsurprisingly, the shower was absolute black marble with an overhead stainless steel rainfall showerhead. I sighed, and after a minute of searching for the shower's handles, only to find out they were digital buttons, I spent another minute trying to figure out how to turn the thing on.
In the end, when the modernized bathroom finished challenging my outdated intelligence, the shower was up and going, a sleepy haze of icy water disguising me.
I pushed the hair from my face, the loose curls immediately falling back into place. I would just search the closet, I told myself, mindful of the running water. But when I found cynical rows of the exact same brand of black button-ups, black and gray pants, black belts, and three varying footwear selections, my hope of uncovering anything in a room so barren dipped below normal pessimistic expectations. I expanded my search to the bed, underneath it.
Nothing. Positioned directly across from the foot of the bed was a backless lounger, set up against the wall. There was nothing behind it, nothing beneath it. The thing was as gray as his duvets.
That was when I noticed the oddity. I loved art. I kept it all around me. My laptop, my dorm room, my phone. Anywhere I could commonly be found, some medium of flexed creativity could also be spotted.
Such wasn't the case with Mr. Ryne's bedroom. His walls were empty. The room's vibe upheld a contemporary persuasion. Sharp angles. Bland. Colorless. If not for the potent cloak of his scent, I'd have thought an entirely different man slept within the walls around me.
Beside the bed, something hummed quietly. A closer look showed me a glossy, spotless wine cabinet with an electric icebox. It was fully stocked. This man . . .
Unmotivated now, standing clueless at the center of the room, I was prepared to give up, shower, and say my goodnight, but something caught my eye across the room. A dresser nestled off in the far corner, residing in shadows thrown by the curled boughs of the trees outside.
When I walked towards it, the same ominous nausea filled my stomach to the brim as when flipping through the portraits below. It was a portent, thick and sweet wave. The dresser was hardly illuminated by two lapis dome skylights installed in the gentle sloped ceiling. It stained all the dresser's contents blue. A brown hairbrush now violet, an already blue hardback Webster's darkened, new and long white candles now a pale blue. They were ordinary accessories, which made it all the more unordinary.
I bypassed the top drawer, where he had assured me the shirts would be. I skipped to the last, as it made sense the contents would follow a linear order of categorizations. What lay inside was a mix of things, momentarily stunting the haunting in my chest and leaving behind the residual components of confusion. Just barely, I made out the colorful expressions of a summertime sundress. Blue and yellow water lilies decorating the laces, the midsection was pleated with gold fleurs de lis markings. In the dark, it was mesmerizing. Nearly enough to keep my eyes from straying to the manila envelope resting beside it, on top of black silk. It had to belong to her. Clare LaMonte.
Tossing a cautious glance to the door, I searched for my phone to use its light, only to realize I'd left it down in the kitchen, having been sidetracked and whatnot. And this was one of many reasons I could never pursue a career in detective work or any other field requiring good memory recall: I'd forget where I left my own skin if it were possible.
I kept the groan down, knowing it was much too late to go skipping downstairs to retrieve it. Queasy bathroom light it was. Snagging the envelope, I closed the drawer and crept softly across the room, unsure how noisy the floors were bound to be. The bathroom had long since chilled, the still going showerhead having run cold and colder. My paranoia flicked the locks to the door, where I then sat down against its back, crossed my legs and went to town.
The face of the envelope was blank, but the crease and weight of its stomach told me a book of sorts lay inside. My luck hadn't been tarnished just yet: the envelope was sealed by a brass fastener and not a peel-and-seal or gummed inconvenience.
Quickly, but with intense care, I turned the manila upside down, its insides
slishing
out between my legs. Varying material lay before me. A black and white composition book stole my attention first. Never in my life had I come across one of them that wasn't marked on nearly every page, and going by the heading on this one, 'Memories and Things', I had a feeling the streak wasn't about to end anytime soon.
