Title: Glass Roses

Author: Shades of Hades

Date: July 2006

Thanks: to anyone who has reviewed this thus far. Reviews are much apprenticed. I love reading them, and receiving them, so please review and feed the author. Oh! And thanks to Ever Be! Where would I be without her!?

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Chapter Five: Of Past Lovers

With a great sigh of relief I throw myself into our old burnt umber armchair in the corner of our living room. School is over for the day and now, I’m finally settling down in my favorite chair to carry out the (slightly) better part of my day.

School had gone predictably bad. It had drug on and I had, naturally, made no friends, other than that girl on the bus who had been hitting on me. Not a person I would particularly want as a friend. As if no friends wasn’t bad enough I’ve been put into freshmen class, despite the fact that I’m a senior, classes that, I reminded my councilor when I paid him a nice visit, I have already taken at one of my other schools. At least the teachers seem understanding. They always do the first day. The students however never seem to change no matter what school, town or state I’m in.

My stomach protests, loudly interrupting my thoughts, reminding me that I had yet to put anything in it today. School lunches are always an atrocity and I haven’t packed my own lunch since grade school. The hunger throughout the day is something I have grown accustomed to over the years. Probably the reason I’ve remained so thin. My stomach growls again, and with a soothing hand, I rub it. Coaxing my stiff muscles off the chair, I start my quest towards the kitchen to quell my rising hunger.

A few minutes later I was back in my chair, a glass of milk in one hand and a plate with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the other.

I sat the milk on the little table next to the chair and picked up the remote, taking bite of my sandwich as I did so. T.V. has become one of my guilty pleasures over the past few years. The channels are always different, but the shows never change. There has never been one in particular I’ve watched, but the company is always nice to have. Sometimes I like to do my homework out in the living room when my mother is gone, it makes me feel at least a little less lonely in life to hear the comforting voices and laughter resounding from the T.V. In fact, I’ve spent a lot of time in front of the T.V. while she’s gone, either doing an honest day’s work (a rarity these days) or whoring herself around town, looking for a new man to seduce and rob blind in their lust. Not that she really takes their money. They happily give it to her when all she does is bat her eyelashes at them. It disgusting to watch, but it’s what has bought us this house and just about everything we own. I think she might have even forgotten what real work feels like. I dread the day her looks go and she has to look for a real job. I know though, that it will probably be quite a few years from now. She’s only thirty-three and from what I’ve seen of my grandmother, looks in our family don’t fade so quickly.

Smiling to myself I let out a soft chuckle, more felt than heard, at what I had stopped the T.V. on. There was a woman that claimed to be able to talk to ghosts.

“What is it that you’re watching?” I sat up with a start, nearly dropping my sandwich in surprise at the now familiar voice coming from behind me. The short hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I looked over at him. He smiled slightly at me as he walked towards the chair and situated himself on the floor next to me.

“It’s a show about ghosts,” I told him, watching him closely. I thought ghosts only came out at night, but I guess I was wrong.

As if reading my thoughts he answered, “It takes some energy and concentration, but we can come out during the day… Most people just don’t take any notice of us.” He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, then his attention turned back to the T.V.

There was amusement on his face as we watched the show. I could help my eyes from straying to him as they talked about ghosts caught on film.

“Those are for the people who believe but can’t actually see,” he tells me and I turn my attention back to the T.V. in interest of what he’s talking about.

“Hn. Orbs, huh? I’ve seen pictures like that.”

“Ghosts are said to exist because of murder, suicide or some great tragedy in their lives that they keep holding onto. It’s believed that most ghosts don’t even know they’re dead.” The narration on the show stops, and a lady holding a diving rod is brought on to the screen.

I glance over at him with a smile. “You do know you’re dead, right?”

Gabriel laughs softly. “Blasphemy,” he tells me with a smile. “People these days have no respect for the dead.” He shoved me with some affection and I shivered at his cold touch with a smile. “I’ve known I was dead for quite sometime now. It’s hard to except at first, but with how I died, how could I not know I was dead?”

He gave a snort of laughter as we listened to the T.V. again.

There was a woman on there, the one that had been on when I first found the show, standing in a room and talking to the narrator. “I’ve been trying to get William to cross over to the other side for years, but with no avail.”

Gabriel gave a sigh. “What she does not realize is the fact that we don’t CHOOSE to be here. It isn’t like we want to relive these painful memories over and over. It hurts so much to remember. Why would anyone WANT to stay here? People who commit suicide tried to leave, but found there was no way out. They spent their whole lives feeling miserable and now they have to spend their whole afterlives feeling the same. How can we believe God exists if he can do this to his creations?”

I felt great pity at his words, but understanding as well. I’ve felt miserable my whole life too, and I’ve contemplated suicide, but I never had the guts to carry it out. I never really thought that I would be just as miserable in death as I was in life until I met Gabriel.

“What happened to you to make you so bitter?” I asked staring at the pained look that crossed his ghostly features.

“I was betrayed by everyone I loved. My friend, my family, my lover…”

“Lover?” I repeated, eyes wide. This boy in front of me was barely older than I am. I know they married young, but I thought taking on a lover was against the church. “Surely that would have been seen as immoral in your time, wouldn’t it?” I finally asked him after a moment of silence.

“It was. I was engaged to be married, but I had no desire to be so. The engagement was because of my parents. The girl came from a wealthy family, and my father thought that if her father were in favor of me, then I would receive some of his fortune. I wasn’t in love with the girl I was supposed to wed. I was…” He gave me a pain filled look, eyes searching mine. Obviously finding what he was looking for, he carried on. “I was in love with her brother.”

It took a few moments for this piece of information to sink in. He had been in love with his fiancé’s bother. “You told him that you were in love with him?”

“He knew before I did. I was in such denial. It was against everything that I had come to believe as truth. I had led my life by the rules of the church. I had never known the touch of another human being before him. I had always been taught that sodomy was wasteful and a sin… it kept me from him for so long, but I could feel myself drawn in by his beauty and charm. I was truly hypnotized by it. I tried to vanquish such thoughts, as they were unholy, but every time I saw him, no matter where it was, I was always plagued by my thoughts of him. I could barely look at him during church. It was so painful knowing what I was thinking was against God, but I was unable to stop them… Finally, he came up to me one day after church and told me he knew about the thoughts I had been having. He told me it was a sin. He told me it went against everything the church stood for. He told me no one would understand and except my feelings. And then he seduced me.” He glared down at the ground, lips tightened in a bitter scowl.

“He had me on my back in less then a fortnight, crying out beneath him. It was shameful and disgusting, and I couldn’t stopped myself from indulging,” his fist tightened as he spoke the words, anger evident in his voice and body language.

“I couldn’t get enough of those hands and the way his fingers felt against my skin. The way his lips and mouth seemed to burn as they met mine. I was so addicted to him; obsessed with him. I couldn’t stop myself from falling in love with him.”

Tears threatened at the edge of his eyes and I laid my hand softly on his shoulder, slightly alarmed when I just passed through. He looked up at me, blinking his large, blue eyes, and smiled, grabbing my hand with his icy fingers, his body feeling more solid then it had moments ago.

“We had both grown rather careless in our lust. I had begun sneaking out more and more seeking him out. Eventually, our meeting attracted the unwanted attention of my fiancé. I had grown distance to her. We had been friends since childhood, but never anything more. It was not her love for me that had brought her out there that night however, for I knew she had felt the same as I, but I feel rather, it was her love for her brother. She had followed him, afraid for what her brother could have been doing. This was during the witch trails in Salem, mind you, she was afraid that he had been practicing witchcraft.” He gave a snort of laughter at this as continued on, “She had watched in horror and disgust at what we were doing, but we didn’t know it until the morning. She had told her father the following morning that I had bewitched her brother into acts of sodomy. Being from a poor family and him from such a dignified family, naturally, the blame feel to me. I was led through a quick trail, in which I was found guilty. My parents refused to even appear at the trail. They were so ashamed at what I had done. I had done irreversible damage to their family name. When I was in prison that night, my father paid me a visit. He told me he was refusing to have me buried in the family plot. He told me he couldn’t consider me his son after what I had done… I was hung for the practice of witchcraft that following day, and buried in an unmarked grave near the hanging tree.”

I looked on with a feeling of great pity, not quite sure what to say after hearing the story of his death.

He let go of my hand, absently rubbing the mark on his neck as he stared at the floor, obviously reliving the painful memories that I had brought up.

“I’m sorry,” I managed to mumble after a few moments of awkward silence. Curiosity at his story, however, did not leave me. “But, what happened to your lover? And why is it you haunt THIS house?”

Gabriel looked at me, the anger back in his eyes. “My lover? Nothing happened to him. He got away free. I had cast a spell on him, remember? It wasn’t his fault. At least that how it was in the eyes of the judge, his father.” Bitterness was thick in his voice, and I could understand why. The judge had ignored the evidence against his son and condemned only Gabriel to death. No father wants to think that his own son betrayed him. Not that I would know a lot about that considering I had never met my father.

“As for the second question,” he continued. “ This house’s foundation sits on my unmarked grave.”

My eyes widened at his answer. “But surely they would have found your remains when it was built, right? Yet they still built it?”

“As I said before,” he told me with a bitter smile, “people these days have no respect for the dead.”

“I guess you’re right,” I told him back. After a few minutes of silence in which we had both turned back to the T.V. I smiled and looked over to him. “After hearing about your life, it makes mine seem a little more bearable.”

“I glad my death as made you feel better,” he said, bitterness back with a vengeance as he started to stand.

“I’m sorry,” I told him quickly before he could leave the room. “I-I didn’t mean it like that!”

He continued to walk away despite my apology and I got up to follow him, trying desperately to grab his wrist, but my hand passed through it every time I tried. He stopped and turned towards me at the edge of the stairway.

“What is it?” He snapped back at me.

“I’m sorry,” I told him again. I felt so vulnerable as I stared at him, tears welling up in my eyes. “I didn’t mean it… Please, don’t leave me alone.” His ghostly eyes stared into mine, and I couldn’t seem to stop the tears that began to roll down my cheeks. “Please, don’t leave, you’re the only friend I’ve ever had…”

Wiping my sleeve hard across my eyes, I was startled when I felt cold arms encircle my body.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in my ear. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry.”

I dropped my hand, my arms lying limply at my sides as he continued to embrace me. I could feel all my hair stand on end as he touched me, but I didn’t protest. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had hugged me. I couldn’t even remember the last time anyone had apologized to me. I was always either the victim of hatred, or a pest to be ignored.

I raised my arms around him, my knees feeling weak from emotion, and was surprised to find a nearly solid form beneath my body.

He lowered me to the foot of the stairs, wiping my tears from my face, a soft smile on his.

“A life without friends, is worst then a life that ended in betrayal,” he tells me as I lean hard against the railing of the stairs. “But I will make sure you never feel that emptiness again…”

“Thank you,” I say when I find my voice, realizing the friendship he was offering me.

I lay back on the steps of the staircase, tears subsiding, and he leaned down over top of me. He felt almost weightless against my body. If it weren’t for his cold hands and his face that was mere inches from mine, I would barely know he was there.

“And I promise,” he told me, tears frozen in his blue eyes as he stared down at me, ghostly hands still rubbing my cheeks were tears once stood, “I’ll never betray you like my friends did to me.” His lips were so close to mine that I could feel the chill that radiated from them. “No one should have to feel that pain.”

I thought he would kiss me, his lips were so near mine, but instead he sat up and stared down at me with wide eyes, as if realizing what he was about to do.

It was an odd thought to have, to realize that a ghost had almost kissed you, but I was often full of odd thoughts these days.

“I’m sorry,” He told me and stood, and I watched in painfully slow motion as he walked up the stairs and away from me.

He vanished before I could even get to my feet.

I went to bed early that night and cried myself to sleep.

A/N: Yes, another one. After this chapter, obviously I had to go back and fix a few things in previous chapters, but that’s what I get for not writing an outline and all that good shit. *sigh* I’m sorry, I didn’t think that the story would change as much as it did, but I’m fairly happy with this, even if it IS a bit sappy.