Arms encircle me, a welcome I wouldn’t soon forget. Something that felt like family, like foundation, an explanation to the unknown.
…
I haven’t heard from you in weeks.
I remove myself, attend parties. Meet other beautiful men who remind me of you, but they are not. After a night of dancing and of drinks, I retreat upstairs to be alone, past the parlour and into the ladies room to lay my forehead against the cold marble of the sink. My dress– long, black, and glittering, shifts with the slightest sign of movement. There is a presence beside me, a ghost perhaps, but with my head laid out onto the counter I refuse to believe that it is anything but a misplaced hallucination. I close my eyes, lift my face to the mirror to see yours beside me. A hand at the small of my back to guide me again to that hell from which I came. I feel faint. “No,” I say. His eyes seek to impale me to the spot, to immobilize. A hypnotist. A Houdini.
Turning me around gently, he says, “I’ve returned. How I missed you.” He kisses my face, smelling of cologne and incense, seeking to be irresistible.
He is.
Acid rises in my throat. I want to spit on him, to tell him he is the lord of lies, but my head swims as I shake it, no. No, I will not go with you. No, I will not return to your side. No, never again. Never. He kisses my face, tucking a hair behind my ear as he turns me towards the mirror. His initials appear, tattooed into the curve of my nose, under my right eye. Unavoidable, impossible to hide. A claim.
He kisses my neck, runs his hands through my hair as tears fall. He is whispering in my ears how he loves me, how he wants me, how he is here now. Here for now. The mark on my skin is enough. I sober up, expelling this intoxication, raise my arms between us. “No,” I say again. I push him backwards. “No”. I can’t seem to form other words, to tell him how he has hurt me, how he has been merciless, cruel, unkind. How he has deceived, demeaned me with his absence, his abandonment.
He can’t hide the surprise in his eyes. He rushes towards me again, and with my arms extended I say no, again, louder. When he comes into contact with my touch, I push him.
Say it again. Say it until he believes it. Say it until you believe it.
He grows angry at my resistance, my unwillingness to comply as I always have. Forgive as I always have. “No”. I shout it this time, back away from him, towards the door. I want to leave. I want to leave as he has left.
My hands search for the doorknob, but instead find a gun. Its weight heavy and compact in my hands. And this time, when he rushes towards me, I believe he means to hurt me. To take me by force. No. I scream. I raise the gun.
I fire.
Shocked, he flies backwards, away from me. So far that I can’t see him, can’t feel his presence. He is here, but he is not here. I feel nothing. I can breathe. The door behind me opens, and I fall through it as the room turns, floor lifting from my feet.
I land on a wooden stairwell, gun in hand, as his tribe emerges. Ready to avenge their Prince, their ruler, the royal. A crown I rejected years ago, before I had a chance to become loyal to it. They advance, weapons raised, at the ready. So willing to strike down the woman who loved him, a woman who could have been their Queen, if only she could keep him. If only he would have stayed.
Do they know that her loyalty would have remained? Can they fathom what has occurred in dreams, in silence, in secrets exchanged without saying anything at all? Do they understand their Phantom Prince, my Phantom Limb, my unobserved weakness?
“No”. Say it again until they believe it.
Say it again until you believe it.