VI. "What's Behind Your Painted Face?"Bobby's face spilled to the floor in a flurry of suntanned skin, fake eyebrow rings, and badly pasted on hair. How had that mask ever appeared lifelike? It laid on the floor in a pool of repressed aspirations.
That wasn't what I was concerned with. She had shown her true face.
It was mine.
She held her hands up to her face, my face, and cupped them. Her breath crossed her pale hands, and small snowflakes spun around in the air, it soon got hard to see, what had she done?
Everything spun into a death of itself, I watched as the color leached from the room and sank into the middle of my vision, I was destruction incarnate and she was my representative. Please, rip me to pieces, tear me asunder, I want no part of this. All was gone.
Click of lock being turned, tumblers shifting as something released. Opened my eyes to see Paige looking down at me. Heat across my neck, was it blood? Smiled wearily at him. "P...paige..." My throat was raw and ragged, it felt like I was going to tear apart from the inside out. My wrists flopped to the bed as he released them. Ankles undone, leash gone, collar removed, I can breathe again, I can live again.Paige said nothing about my nudity, the blood on the sheets, the huge crusted trail of crimson that ran from my eyebrow to my ear. I let him help me dress myself, then leaned against him for support. "Where's Ryan?"
He shifted so that he could face me...somewhat. "I saw the Snow Queen." he said. "She had Ryan, they were going back to the palace, he had a leash around his neck." It looked like he wanted to say more.
"She had my face." I murmured. Somehow it didn't seem as wrong as it had when I had seen it the first time. "Paige, does it mean that I'm the Snow Queen?!" I shrieked as I shook him.
His arms covered me. "She was just wearing another face. Remember? She was wearing mine, and I'm not the Snow Queen, am I?" He must have seen that it hadn't allayed my fears. "You've just gone through a lot, but you finally told Ryan. Just think about that. Don't think about her." I looked at my fingers, but all I could see were claws.
I didn't hear anything else from the Snow Queen, but a few hours later Ryan came back. He wouldn't look at me, but the one time I brushed up against him his skin was the same temperature as hers. And when I saw him shirtless by accident, I noticed this blue-purple hand-print on his shoulder. What had she done to him?As for me, I was smothered in Paige's concern. Not that I minded. It was nice to have someone concerned about me, someone who wouldn't want sexual favors later. In fact, it seemed like it was more of an asexual relationship, though I longed for more. Perhaps he thought that if I let him have sex with me, he'd turn into Ryan. Maybe he was right. I ached for some human contact that wasn't friendship, some meaningful exchange of sex and love and pleasure. That seemed stupid. After being with Ryan, how could I ever trust anyone again?
Home again, away from the snow and the repressed tension that surrounded that house. The house that I thought would be my sanctuary, my protection from Ryan, the house that had become my desecrated manor of disaster. I let the relative heat of the world outside surround me, but I never felt like it truly sank in. It was as if I was an iceberg floating along, my outside melting, but the inner core still as frozen as before.And I was alone again. I didn't want to rush into something that I couldn't control, and I didn't want to be hurt again. So I let things resume as before, I hung out with everyone, but we weren't close on any level. Paige grew distant, only because I pushed him away.. Ryan was someone that I pretended that I had just let join the band as a favor. I don't think I said anything at all to him for months.
I lived alone, I thought alone, I existed alone. Nothing truly touched me anymore. Everywhere I looked I saw her face, her hands, her smile. They were all mine. Mirrors, silver, glass, all entranced and yet at the same time repulsed. Soon I stopped going outside. Disconnected the phone, cut off all ties. Then I didn't leave my room. Finally I didn't even leave the bed. She was my only company, yet I didn't want to see her. Didn't want to see anyone.
One day someone knocked on the door. I ignored it. I paid my bills, I was quiet, nobody should have the need to disturb me. Unless it was her. At the thought I ran to the window and looked outside. No...the ground was still free of any white clumps. The knocking grew more insistent.
Opened the door. Ryan was there.
Milky white eyes looked up at me. He was shivering even under two winter coats and three sweaters, gloves, scarf and hat. His skin was frost. "Jay...please, help me!" he whined.
"Why should I?" Fished in my pocket for a cigarette.
"She told me that I'm like this all because of you. You must have some influence with her. She does have your face!" he yelled. I lit it carefully, paying him no attention.
"I don't give a shit about you. Deal with it." I said. He grabbed onto my arm.
"Jay, you loved me once!" Slapped him away. "At least you said you did."
"I never said that I loved you. I don't think I ever even said that I liked you. You just assumed. And, being the little fuck-up that you are, you decided that forcing was the same as loving, and that your desire was what came first. So you brought this on yourself." I moved to slam the door in his face, but he knelt on the ground and started kissing my feet.
"Please! Just talk to her!"
"Leave."
"Jay! I'll die if I'm not warm again!" he screamed.
"No you won't. Leave."
"Just help me out this last time and I'll go!"
"I WON'T HELP YOU SO FUCKING LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!" I shrieked, pushing him away and slamming the door. Drag on the cigarette, mood back to normal. He could rot in hell. I knew I was going to be rotting there with him.
Paige came a little later. "Jay, it's been two weeks since anyone's seen you.""I know." He raised an eyebrow.
"Don't you think that's a bad thing? I know you're reacting badly to the Snow Queen, but still..." He was staring at me as if I was someone entirely different than I was before.
"Being with you guys wouldn't help. Especially since you still keep Ryan around."
"Is that all it's about?" Her face reflected in the whites of his eyes. Glanced away. I didn't want to continue this conversation. "Jay, you broke up with Ryan. He's not going to hurt you anymore."
"I'm really tired. I think I'm going to go to bed." I said, turning away from the door. Something held me back. Paige? "Just let go! I don't want to talk about it!" I snarled.
He moved me so that I was facing him again. Why were my eyes draw to his lips, and why wasn't I struggling? Clenched my eyes shut and tried to continue to think about other things. "Ryan told me how you can free him." Paige said after a long pause.
Opened my eyes to slits. "How?"
"You have to learn how to love again."