Splits in the glass

The black mantle of darkness surrounded me, confused me, wanted to tear me away from the light, make me lose myself in the depths of that forest that seemed to have no end.

I was short of breath, the rush that I was intent on perpetrating was draining me of all my strength, I could feel the strong beating of my heart in my ears, but there was also another sound that tried to reach me, pounding.

Not unlike a howl, but sharper, permeated by the pain that permeates a yelp.

I couldn't stop, it was my only certainty, I had to keep running and reach ... something.

Or someone.

I followed that faint sound that pined me from within, my hands raised to protect my face from the dry branches of the trees that tried to grab me, prevent me from continuing like wrinkled and withered old hands that clung to my clothes, pulling the edges with a force that could not belong to him.

The burning of the scratches on the face, and of the skin, when those dry wooden fingers got entangled in my auburn locks.

It was frustrating, my eyes stung with salty tears that tasted of helplessness, I did not want to be stopped, I did not want to remain safe, fragile and helpless, a child made restless by the shadows that seem monstrous to her in the night. I had to reach that person.

He.

- No - I gasped.

- No! - I yelled.

The light that breaks the darkness into little shards of human fear came.

The springs in the bed creaked under the pressure exerted by my small body, so quick was the click with which I sat up on the bed. My breath caught in my chest, an icy sheen of sweat beaded on my forehead and moistened my neck, all stemming from a dream whose essence I did not recognize.

Once I managed to quiet the bursting beating of my heart, I glanced quickly at the alarm clock flashing a time that made my head spin, in a whirlwind of overwhelming psychological fatigue. Well aware that I would not be able to abandon myself to sleep, I cautiously went downstairs, trying not to force my mother to suffer the pain of a rude awakening.

Arriving in the warm and welcoming kitchenette, equipped with a white table and fabric chairs, I served myself a glass of cold water, which, sliding down my throat, provides some relief to my vocal cords.

It was strange how what happened in a dream sometimes appeared parallel to reality, the rush that I had experienced in my mind seemed to affect my entire organism, outside of it.

Without even realizing it, I found myself observing the small ripples in the plaster of the wall, a small glimpse of fears that began to appear among the other thoughts that, with so much effort, I had tried to fill my brain, in search of a calm that it was light years away from me.

Deciding to confirm the real stupidity, I grabbed the house keys, put on my warm black coat and, wearing pink slippers on my feet, opened the door of the house and took the exit, in an action as mad as desperate.

The shadows of my thoughts reflected in my stomach, an overwhelming anxiety that, I kept repeating to myself, had no rationale.

The street was so small and little known that it did not need lampposts, and the only thing illuminating it were the weak lights strategically placed in the courtyards of the neighbors, in a silent solidarity with the unfortunate who had found himself walking in the shadows of the night.

You accelerated your pace, I had been walking that road since as a child I had learned to take small steps, hand in hand with my mother, but that time I did it at a speed that I had never thought I could reach.

When I arrived at the house I smiled, slightly embarrassed by the irrationality that had pervaded me, silence surrounded that place, no massacre was taking place under my helpless gaze.

However, when I tried to push the dark and cold metal gate of the garden, which Sebastian left closed at night, it swung open with a faint squeak, which shivered, cold as the faint touch of the frozen and forgotten fingers of an invisible ghost, along my pale back.

Sensing a persistent lump in my throat, I took courage and entered, finding the door of the house open as well.

The silence continued to hover in the air but it no longer seemed reassuring as before, now the effect it had on me had totally changed, into an unprecedented restlessness.

The thought of running away, going back there alone in the sunshine to see Sebastian lying on the bed as usual and bickering with him to exhaustion, was a faint presence, a powerful temptation, which I sensed just beneath the layers of sheer terror, and which I easily ignored.

I went up at a brisk pace, my soft slippers muffling the faint thud impressed on the ground by my steps, and, without further ado, for fear of giving up, I threw open the door of her room.

What I saw interrupted, for a fragile moment, all my vital functions, which suddenly no longer seemed to me to be so much.

Without even realizing it, I collapsed to the ground, sitting, knees pointed outwards, a painful moan crossed my lips, not caused by the impact with the parquet, but by the chain that seemed to have tightened around my aching heart, nausea my intestine pervaded me.

The comfortable pants of my snowy pajamas were smeared with a bright red, the red of the viscous substance that covered the ground with hateful calmness.

He was there. His back against the bed, sitting on the floor, his strong arms encircling his knees, his head buried between them. I wanted to say something, but all I felt I could express was pain.

Even that time Sebastian was my anchor, albeit destroyed, albeit sore and hurt, his gaze turned to me, a silver rock that I would always have been allowed to cling to, never would he let me drown.

I moved towards him, not caring that I was dragging that cursed vermilion substance with me.

The perfect features of his face twisted into a compound of tortured physical suffering, the kind of suffering I had never before seen on his face, or in the depths of the mighty lead of those irises.

- Rose - he groaned, surprised that he could find his way into his voice, barely audible under the haze of pain, and a need I never believed he could possess for me.

The chains on my heart pulverized, flying away in the wind and finally letting the strength to take a deep breath reach me.

I held him in my arms in a vice that made him moan again, but I didn't care, wallowing in the selfish belief that he deserved it, given the pain he had caused me.

Strange how love could start from the extremes of selfishness and then reach the highest peaks, permeated by endless empathy and selfless altruism, which led to the total annihilation of oneself for the other person.

I couldn't live without him. Because my life was made up of the fragile reflections of his smiles, his kind words, his breath, his laziness and his smell of the woods.

Simply of Him.

If my life had been a world made up of reflections in the mirrors of the soul, He would have been in each of them.

And I was not ready to see them fragment in the cracks of a gray existence devoid of any warmth.

When I let him go, Sebastian gently ran a hand over my face that seemed to soothe some of my pain during its sweet journey, staining itself with liquid tears, fruit of my grim suffering.

I did not remember when they started to scratch my cheeks, furrowing them with slight salty traces.

A slight sob, as thin as the residual strength of my soul in that instant, crossed my rosy lips.

- Don't worry - he said, with a certainty I wish I had.

I nodded, but there was nothing I could do to control the air as it escaped and reached my lips at an uneven pace, matched by the rapid beating of my heart muscle.

She gently brushed my sweaty hair away from my face and placed her forehead on mine, her hand intent on a gentle caress.

- I'm fine, I'm here - I felt with gentle fingers the texture of her face, her cheekbones, pale and perfect, her lips, pink and soft, and the defined frame of those features I loved so much. I nodded again, more convinced, accompanying the gesture with a weak - Yes - exhausted.

- What happened? - I whispered then, withdrawing my hand with regret, to be able to wipe my tears with the sleeve of my soft jacket.

He shook his head - nothing - I was amazed at how he could say it with so much conviction, I would have even believed it if the room hadn't been reduced to such a disastrous layer.

- Yes, sure - I blurted out, venting my frustration in a patently hysterical laugh. - Rose - he called me back - Sebastian - I returned, angrily, the nerves that could no longer hold up.

He let out a faint grunt of pain and I lavished a worried look, forget the rest of the world - where are you hurt? Do we have to go to the hospital? - I asked frantically, aware that I was talking nonsense dictated by fear.

He snorted with a smile - I'm not hurt - he stated and I couldn't help but wonder if I would ever learn how to tell his lies from his rare truths, he noticed - really - he burst out - I was, but my wounds heal quickly, if you had arrived at the right time ...- he then added with regret - You shouldn't have seen all this - Total disbelief filled me and I couldn't help but torture myself, wondering how many times he had been hurt without my knowing anything, certainly not so badly.

He pulled himself up onto the soft bed with a slight effort - I only have a few bruised ribs - he informed me.

- You shouldn't move too much - I admonished him, pretending that, in reality, the fact that he had risen had not strongly reassured me - what were you doing before I arrived? -

He shrugged - I was trying to regain my strength, rather, you shouldn't have come so soon, you must have been scared, I worried when I felt your heart stop -

I flared up, seized with embarrassment, but also with frustration, I could not bear his total lack of understanding of the feelings that animated me, I had no idea how he could not have understood that I was not only scared, but also worried about him.

- You're really a dog - I snorted, preferring to laugh at that detail that made up one of the many facets of his soul and that, after all, I appreciated and accepted, like everything else.

He seemed clearly reassured - now I recognize you, I was just about to ask myself what happened to my Ro - I ignored his dig, too busy looking at the surrounding space and my soft slippers, stained and corrupted by blood, like my pants.

- We have to clean up this mess, just think if your grandmother decided to come and see you today, she would have a heart attack - I reminded him.

Sebastian did not fail to easily downplay the situation - Naaa, he'd probably think you've finally gutted me and look for you to come and give you a high-five - corrected me.

I looked at him, pretending to be annoyed and puffing out my cheeks, but I couldn't hide a smile.

With a treacherous kick he threw me on the bed where I bounced for a while, dazed, and then I sat up showing him a quick tongue.

He smiled - We'll clean up, but not now, let's get some sleep, otherwise we won't be able to stay awake at school - he justified himself.

- School? - I asked incredulously - are you almost dead and want to go to school? -

- Don't overdo it - he muttered, stung in pride, lying down - I'm not nearly dead, you should see the others, they are dead - he smiled, as if in response to a joke that only he could have caught.

- Wait - I stopped him, lying down too and taking my favorite position on his chest - the others? - I asked, watching him between the auburn lashes.

He blinked, pretending to be confused - Oh what about the others? - he muttered - I was wrong, what fell on me was a tree, I destroyed it

-

I watched in shock and he spread his full lips in an innocent smile, letting me see his pearly teeth.

- I'll leave you alone for the moment just because I'm so tired, but it doesn't end here - I promised sure, willing to torment him just to receive even a shred of truth.

- I know - he replied, kissing my forehead, her lips soft and warm.

The sweetness of those little gestures, which he made without thinking, always warmed my heart.

I fell asleep, basking in its forest scent. When I woke up I immediately glanced at Sebastian, who was still sleeping peacefully, smiled and began to tidy up and clean.

He joined me shortly after, seeming to have completely recovered from the spiral of pain that had filled his features a short time ago.

While I did my best to lift the knick-knacks that should have been on the desk from the ground, I found myself in my hands a familiar pink-framed photo, a gift from me, a small memory of a joyful moment of happiness.

I gently touched with my pale fingers the cracked glass that was placed to protect the image, shattered, like a painfully trampled heart, only that it could be changed, or fixed.

- She must have fallen to the ground last night, when I came in - Sebastian murmured, over my shoulder, I only became aware of her presence at that moment, he had washed and changed, he put his head close to mine to better examine the photo - tomorrow the I will arrange -

I carefully scanned the two children who were pictured there, their innocence perfectly imprinted on the paper, unconscious.

Lips resting on the cheek of the child with gray irises, his mouth curled in a disgruntled pout that at that age looked adorable, a little girl flaunted herself and two long fiery red braids, fitted with chocolate ice cream.

Both did not seem to pass the twelve-year mark.

- Do you remember when we took this photo, or rather, when my mother took it? - I asked, filled with memories of a life that seemed to have belonged to another.

Sebastian nodded quickly, a curious look passing over his face, he seemed unable to understand the meaning of that question.

- We were at the Luna Park, for me it was the first time, you convinced Aunt Kate to buy us ice cream, but you dropped it, so I gave you mine - he answered patiently.

When Sebastian was little Aunt Kara, his mother, was always busy so he found himself spending most of his fond memories between the two fires that my mother and I were already at the time.

And, since the red apple never falls too far from the tree, she immediately took a liking to that little boy with the beautiful eyes, sulky and a little too mature for his age, immediately giving him permission to call her aunt.

- You were such a goofy - Sebastian abruptly brought me back to reality.

I blushed and slapped him on the back, my sadistic streak, however, was not satisfied, the untouchable being as powerful as a wolf that he was, in his not very common everyday life, was back.

- I was a child - I tried to justify myself, not taking my eyes off the photo, that little piece of the long slide of my life - we were so carefree, we didn't have to worry about anything -

Sebastian gave me a look that seemed to have the purpose of taking over my soul and finding its shadows - Rose - called me back, trying to find my blue irises, in a silent surrender, I turned to him - you don't have to worry about anything not even now - he stated, certainty was intrinsic in him and in his reassuring words.

I smiled - I know, that's the problem - I mocked and he looked hurt.

- What's that supposed to mean? - Asked me with a smile to pull a corner of the full lips.

- Nothing, nothing - I said blandly, giving him an impertinent blue look.

I put down the photo with millimeter attention and then I turned to him - So? Here we go? - I imitated his words of the day before receiving, in return, a shy and tender slap.

I had already prepared myself, taking advantage of that disastrous opportunity to put on the clothes I left, just in case, scattered around the drawers of Sebastian's tidy room, occupying them.

I had to go home just to get the backpack, at least in this way my mother would have avoided an early death from heartbreak at the sight of her daughter in dirty bloody clothes.

We left the house, Sebastian muttering in a bad mood.

Yet a slight and melancholy scent continued to accompany me.

I could not, as wise as I did not wish to be, to shake off the horrid feeling that something was moving on the stage, preparing itself in my wait and that I was forced to wait behind the scenes, unaware, a dark curtain to hide the sight of evil , until it was time to push it aside.