Eric - Section 3

I woke up the next morning to Eric gone, and Brooklyn sitting on the couch next to
me, holding my black thong in her hand.

“Have fun last night?” she asked bitterly.

I stared at her. “What’s wrong with you?”

“You could have told me you weren’t a virgin anymore, Trinity.”

“I am still a virgin,” I said, frowning.

“Then why are your underwear on the floor?”

I licked my lips and looked around. Most everybody else was gone or engaged in
their own conversation.

“Eric ate me out,” I said finally.

Brooklyn scowled at me. “Yeah, okay.” She threw my underwear at me and stood
up, walking away.

I stared at her retreating back disbelievingly. I sat up and fixed my skirt and while
no one was looking slipped my thong back on. I had no idea where my shoes were.

I just kind of sat there for awhile and thought. I don’t remember about what, but the
next time I looked up everyone was gone. I was kind of surprised. I stood up and
made my way towards the stairs to find Eric.

He was in the living room, laying on the couch, staring at the blank television, wide
awake, in clean clothes, his hair wet, freshly showered. He glanced at me as I
walked in.

“Do you want some clothes?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Sure.” He stood up and walked towards the stairs. I didn’t know
whether or not to follow him, so I just waited in the living room. He came back down
with a white Hollister shirt and a small pair of pink boxers that I recognized. He
smiled as he handed them to me. “You can change in the bathroom in the hallway.”

I locked the bathroom door behind me and the first thing I did was hold the shirt up
to my nose and breathe in deeply.

I got dressed and brushed my straight and strandy hair with his brush, used his mouthwash, and washed my face and dried it with his towel. I still didn’t have my shoes on, but I didn’t really care. My legs felt prickly since I hadn’t shaved them since the morning before, but I didn’t care about that much either. I threw my hair up into a ponytail and walked back into the living room. Eric was sitting up now, kind of curled up, with his knees next to him. I sat down next to him before I realized something was wrong.

He was crying.

Quietly, but he was crying.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked, moving closer and putting a hand on his leg.

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Writing about this is hard for me. I’m sure it will be hard for you to read.

Before I start writing this horrible scene, I just want to state how much I hate Eric’s
mother. I can’t believe he hasn’t disowned her or something; he’s got plenty of
reason to. He probably doesn’t want to get her in legal trouble or something. She
could always just seduce the state’s best criminal lawyer to do it without pay and
give him blow jobs during his lunch hour. It wouldn’t be that hard. Of course she’d
lose the case, though. Because she’s a slutty bitch.

If I believed in myself enough to think that I could get away with murder, I would kill
her. She’s the reason he’s the way he is.

I guess I can write it now. I’ll just try not to think about it too hard while I’m writing it.

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He sniffed and wiped his face with his hand. “You remember that time a long time ago when you asked me about the days when I was acting funny and stuff?”

I nodded.

“Can I still tell you about it?”

“Of course you can, Eric...”

He sniffed again. One tear crawled down his cheek and fell onto my hand.

“This is a small town, isn’t it?”

I thought it was an odd question, but it seemed like he was waiting for an
answer. “Yeah, it is.”

“Did you ever think that so many fucked up people could live in a town as small as
this one?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. “What are you
talking about?” I asked him.

“When I was younger, fifth grade and stuff, my mom would have friends come over
and they would comment on how adorable I was, and talk to me about how I must
have a girlfriend because I was so cute. Then one day my mom came home from
partying about two in the morning and I was still awake, watching TV, and I wasn’t
really paying attention at the time... But looking back on it now, I can tell that they
were hiding something, like they knew some delicious secret as soon as they
walked in the door.”

He took a deep breath. “You sure you want me to tell you?”

I rubbed his leg softly. “Yeah, I do.”

He sighed. “Okay...”

He was quiet for a minute. “My mom left to get some wine coolers and left her friend
with me. I remember whining about it, being a little kid about it, like why do I have to
hang out with your friends, mom? And her friend just kind of smiled at me... It was
really creepy, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.

“I remember my mom kind of grimacing at me as she left, and telling me she loved
me. I thought it was kind of odd, the way she looked at me, kind of deeply
miserable...”

He was quiet again.

“She had a hundred dollar bill in her hand. I remember that perfectly, and I
remember wondering why she needed a hundred for wine coolers, and why she had
it in her hand and not her purse.

“When she left her friend kind of got really close to me and started touching my leg
and my stomach. I was kind of frozen, and then she started to undo my belt. I
asked her what she was doing, and she told me she was doing what she paid my
mom to do.”

I stared at him with horror. Everything clicked all of a sudden and hit me with a thud right in the head. I bit my lip to keep the tears in my head.

“And she’s been doing that ever since. Not just girls, either. She stopped this year,
though, because I got big enough to fight them off and to hit her when she tried to
make me.”

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And that’s Eric’s story. Well, not all of it. That’s just all I can bear to tell.

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Brooklyn...

Eric never made you feel like his attention was unwanted, like you were uncomfortable or dirty. He always started out real slow, small touches that didn’t seem on purpose -- that neither person acknowledged, really, but definitely were intended, small breaths, glances, gestures, his eyes boring into yours -- speaking. He wasn’t a quiet or shy person, but his eyes said a lot. Guys who walk up and say hey, I want to fuck you, baby, Tits, or other obscene things that they think flatter you make you feel sick to your stomach -- although since you can’t seem to get any tenderness you tend to respond -- but Eric sitting next to you on a couch full of people at a party, one or two fingers inching up your shirt, one warm hip touching your leg, his eyes telling you he wants to fuck you -- had the ability to arouse even the most celibate or innocent of a girl.

What always upset Trinity, though, was his motive. He had the same motive as any other guy. He did things the way he did because, indeed, he did want to fuck you, and that worked -- to do what girls liked.

I remember the first time Trinity succumbed to his manipulation {exploitation...}. It
took her awhile -- she really held out. She came over, quiet, withdrawn, but about
fifteen minutes later she broke down into tears in the middle of something on Vh1.

I don’t understand her. Why wait that long? Why be so upset about something so
beautiful? What mental block is keeping her from loving him?

Even though Eric and I didn’t really have a relationship, just casual sex -- we talked.
Sex tends to open up anybody. So I knew Trinity was different. He had wanted to
bone her since fifth grade. Not because she was just a pretty girl -- that’s what I
was for -- but because she was Trinity. But Eric had never known sincerity. He
didn’t know how to mean his touches, how to tell the truth with his hands.

Somehow, though, they worked it out. I never found out why or how, and after it happened I kind of felt like I was second important, like I was a bit out of the loop. It was like they shared something particularly special. It wasn’t like it was something else everyone else knew except for me, it was like I was the only one who noticed, cared or wanted to know. Maybe deep inside I was jealous of her. Maybe deep down I’m in love with him. I’m not sure. I’ve gotten so good at hiding my emotions and putting blankets over them {smothering, suffocating them} that I don’t know what I truly and honestly feel anymore except for stifled.

I have always liked attention. I have never liked sex. People make that mistake all
the time. Like all the times Trinity has called me a whore, a slut, a skank, whatever
name she can think of. She gets mad at me all the time, breaks down all the time and just screams at me. Throws things at me. Pulls my hair and throws me down.
Maybe she’s crazy. But I let her do it, because she always gets over it later, and I think deep inside she knows that I’m not like that. But maybe I’m wrong. I’m not very good with guessing things like that.

It’s like she hates me for some reason. She hates me for my ability to sleep with people and enjoy myself {appear like I’m enjoying myself}. I’m really not enjoying myself. Maybe she knows that. Maybe she wishes she had the ability to sleep with people and look like she’s enjoying herself. That’s because Trinity can’t lie. Trinity can’t fake anything. She can’t build a shell, a cover, a mask -- she has no barricade over anything, and that must be why Eric is in love with her.

But he’s not. He is the most emotionally unavailable person I have ever known. The
most emotionally distant, the most detached and isolate person I know, but yet he
gives off this horribly lonely vibe that makes you absolutely ache for him.

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Sometimes I’m exhausted. Entirely, absolutely exhausted. Like I don’t want to go out anymore. I don’t want to flirt anymore. I don’t want to date anymore. I don’t want to dance anymore. I don’t want to show my body to people anymore. I don’t want to be sexy anymore. I don’t want to try and fail diets anymore. I don’t want to go to bed with strangers anymore. I don’t want to have sex and be bored, I don’t want to have to fake my orgasm anymore. I don’t want to keep trying, keep impressing, keep faking.

So I stop for a little bit. I think about it for a little bit.

That’s when I realize that without that, without my mask, what would I be? What
would I have? Everything I have is built on my mask. I work at McDonald’s. My
money comes from my inheritance, my trust fund and whatever boyfriend I have at
the time. My clothes are nothing but slutty, preppy clothes. My music is what
everyone else listens to. My boyfriends are the guys who everyone else likes and
who unconditionally want to fuck me. Every word I speak is a lie.

But if I were to stop that... It’s too late. It’s just too late. I can’t go back in time and
pass school and not sleep with people in fifth and sixth grade. I can’t go back in
time and go to college, get a job, wear clothes I would wear, have a house I would
buy, say what I would say {be myself}. It’s too late for any of that, and Eric is so
sunk into his own head that he knows that, doesn’t love me for it, and doesn’t take
the time to help me. Instead he takes the beautiful, skinny, honest, brash, unique girl, who gave up on all masks and fakeness a long time ago. I won’t pretend to not know why; I’ll just pretend to not wish I was her and had the ability to be myself like she does.

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I wonder what insane is. I know there’s all kind of technical symptoms or whatever that tell you if you’re crazy and what kind of crazy you are... But does that really tell you anything? Who is to decide where the line between crazy and unique is? Is Trinity crazy because she has impossibly high standards for sex and lacks the emotional and mental ability to lie, fabricate, fake or exaggerate? Am I crazy because I crave attention at any costs, no matter what I have to make up or pretend to be? Is Eric crazy because he has no feelings? Because he is completely without the means to love? None of us have hallucinations. None of us have delusions. We all have a twisted view of reality, and we know it. We can’t change it.
Doesn’t everyone have a twisted view of reality, though? Is that truly insanity? Are we all insane? Is the ‘standard’ of mankind so high that only a rare few can be considered not insane? We keep coming up with these new classifications, these new diseases, new forms of craziness -- why are we so certain that these things
aren’t just traits? Sure, they can kill you. So can traits. Simple things like your
inability to be loved, your inability to love, your fear of love, can drive
anyone ‘insane,’ whether by technical terms or not. Aren’t hallucinations and
delusions in the same family? They can all be flaws and handicaps in the right
situation to the right people. Not everyone can be the image of perfection -- tan,
blonde, skinny, smart, involved in sports, has a healthy social life, a healthy sex
life, lots of money, pretty clothes, makes fun of people but isn’t mean or a bitch and
everyone loves? What is that? Is that charisma?

But just because that’s not who you are doesn’t make you insane. It just means
you’re different. The people who turn their noses up at you are closer to being
insane than you are.

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I remember high school like it was yesterday. That tiny town had its tiny high school with about 20 kids in each grade. We changed classes, but I’m not sure why. Each teacher taught fifth through twelfth grade -- each class a different hour. I’m not sure exactly how the system worked, but it did, and we had the same
teachers every year. The same kids each year. The same 600 people in the town
every year.

So I dropped out. I didn’t even bother stay for graduation. I took a bus to Baton
Rouge and never came back. I got my job at McDonald’s and saved up for a small
apartment. I don’t know how they turned out back there. I don’t want to know. I’m
never going to go back.

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I like to think of Eric as a rose. A rose is beautiful, but restrained. All its sharp, probing thorns that make you bleed... Its thorns keep you from holding it, stroking it, holding it to your skin, feeling its cold drops of water on your stomach.
I went outside and picked a rose once. It was really late at night, and the rose was
covered in dew. I took it inside and kissed it, held it against my skin, feeling its
cold, tingling wetness as well as its hard, rough thorns cutting into my belly.

I was covered in scratches, a few so deep I still have the scars.

When I was done with the rose, it was warm from my touch. I took a pair of
scissors and snapped its thorns off. It was bare and skinny, its stalk limp and bent.
I put it in a cup. A few days later, it started to wilt. Then it turned brown. It looked
sad, desolate and dead.

I still have scars... But someone else has my rose.

{beautiful...} Eric is just like a rose... {beautiful...}

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Gabriel...

Why can’t we all be beautiful?

That’s why I know there’s not a god. If there really was a god, we would all be
beautiful and equal. “It’s the inside that counts” is just a grandma excuse to tell
people who are ugly and to keep them believing in God.

I made it through high school fine. I was a jock. A mean, asshole fuck of a jock. I
was smart. I was attractive. Girls came to me. Love didn’t. Still hasn’t. There’s just
something wrong with me, and I have learned that, adapted myself to it.

Every real tendency I’ve ever had I’ve hidden. Maybe I could have been a serial
killer. A model. An eccentric writer. A photographer. A fashion designer, a lawyer, a
neurosurgeon, a librarian, a politician. But I molded myself into the American image
of faultlessness -- dumb jock with white teeth.

But Eric never was. He was the image of androgynous American rich boy. Long
blonde hair, skinny but slightly curvy in a masculine way, right clothes, dark tan,
jewelry, obsession with shopping and grooming -- everything I always wanted to be
but never was able to pull off.

And worst of all, he hated me. Completely and entirely hated me. Never left me
alone and was always going after me for something or other. Maybe I hated him
too. But I really just wanted to be him.

There was not a single person who didn’t like him. I tried to find someone who didn’t
like him. Anyone. I found no one. Of course, they could have been lying, but it didn’t
seem like it.

I know that I really just wanted to be him, to be his best friend, to be on the same
level as Kenny and Trinity, people he seemed to never get enough of. I wanted to
touch him, to feel every inch of him, to possess him, to possess his beauty, his
perfection, to have him belong to me. So I could strut through life and tell people,
with a smirk, Eric is mine. Not to tear him down or imprison him -- no, that’s not
what I wanted -- but to own him, own his flawlessness and every inch of his
agonizing charisma -- that would be the real prize, the real joy, the real happiness --
if I couldn’t be him, to dominate him and his magical, horrible, painful magnificence.
To run my fingers through his hair, to kiss every cell in his body, to caress every
moment, every movement, every action, every thought, every subtle change in
emotion, and to copy and imitate every miniscule detail in his programming, in his
insides, in his heart, his stomach, his gut, so I could be just like him, so I could be
him. That’s the one thing I want more than anything else in the world. Not to
capture him and tame him... But to find out what his secret is, what makes him so
appealing, so appetizing, so irresistible to anyone who looks his way, because I
still don’t know why I can’t be like that, what makes everything I do so wrong.

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Eric...

You know what? There’s no such thing as a perfect person. There’s just good fakes. I wonder if you figured that out by now.

Everyone has some horrible secret.

Think about it. Everyone you know is a fake. Everyone you know lives up to the
fakes and fakes it themselves and in turn fucks up their own lives.

Anyone who makes it is a fake.

I would know, because I am.

I try to make myself feel, I really do. I push really hard. I shut my eyes and I push.
It’s like my mind is dancing in flowers in front of my eyes, my stomach is swimming
against the current and before I know it I’m lurching forward, falling over a cliff and
I’m crying all at the same time. And I can feel. For a split second I break the shell
that has been built up and I break through for a second. But it’s so intense I don’t
think I can stand it.

Maybe being a fake is safer than being real.

But being real is so beautiful...

Like Trinity. How fresh she is, sunny, beautiful, and she’s all mine. I could do
anything to her, with her, and she would just look at me and go along with it.

So I sit here in our beautiful condo my mom bought for us with my fuckmoney and stare out the big window in the living room at the lake. The lake she loves to go boating on, loves to swim in, that I’ve made love to her in. I don’t know why it’s called ‘make love.’ I wish I could make love so I could know what it feels like.

I look at our beautiful, huge house, full of our beautiful, expensive furniture, our beautiful, expensive clothes and belongings laying around the house. I look at everything we have and I wish I could give her more. I wish I could give myself to her. I wish I knew how to love her.

She looks into my eyes sometimes at night, when the moon shines in the patio
window, her eyes hollow, empty and longing. Her ring is cold on my skin.

I should have just killed myself. I should have just ended it before it started it. She
would be better alone that with me. I can’t give her what she wants. I can’t even give
her what she needs, what she deserves.

So I look into her lonely eyes and I wish I could cry.

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Trinity blames my mom. I don’t know who I blame. I just don’t like thinking about it. She fell in love with me as a kid, when she could see my potential and what I would have become without the influence of my mom and what she did to me. I didn’t become that person, but she loves me anyway.

Maybe I really do love her. I don’t know what love is like. Shouldn’t it be heavy, thick
and mindblowing? Shouldn’t it hit me like a car? Shouldn’t it make my eyes
sparkle, make her eyes sparkle? If I love her, why are her eyes still hollow and
empty?

Why do people fall in love with people who can’t -- can’t -- love them back? Why do
people keep falling in love with me? What is it? I want to end whatever it is that
seems to attract everyone. Like a bug light.

I should have killed myself.

Maybe I should have stayed with Kenny. I wonder if looking into Kenny’s hollow
eyes every day would be more bearable than looking into Trinity’s.

I should have stayed with Kenny.

He never told me he loved me, but I know he did. I remember that day in eleventh
grade when we were out on the track for PE -- the way he just looked at me for a
few minutes and then never looked at me the same way again. There was some
horrible, torturous longing deeply lodged in his eyes, intensely etched into his
exquisite face. Our ‘relationship’ seemed to taper off after that. I was too scared of
the look in his eyes. Too ashamed. I thought that he knew I didn’t love him. I
thought he knew it was just a way to get those feelings, those urges out of me.
Maybe he did, but fell anyway. I guess I’ll never know, though.

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Trinity is kind of like a rose.

I like to touch roses. Their petals are so soft, so fragile.

Their thorns are so sharp, so painful.

It’s like they are protected, sheltered, but at the same time they are deprived,
sheltered, stifled...

I buy roses for her all the time. I think she knows what they mean.

Sometimes I just sit and stare at them. They look lonely, especially when I buy just
one. The way their stem bends to one side, their sad pedals drooping more and
more as each day goes by.

I look at how fragile their stem is and sometimes I grab a knife and I cut it off. I cut
off all of the little thorns and then the stalk is bare, bare, bare, and it can feel
everything, it can feel touch, and it finally knows how to love, and sometimes I cry...
Because then it dies.

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Trinity...

You know how sometimes your eyes glaze over? Other people can't really see that you can't see very well but they can kind of tell? Like when you get really stoned, and though nothing is obvious and on the surface everyone around you is laughing at you and asks if you're stoned? Well, it's not Eric's eyes that are like that, it's his whole life. I'm the most open, blatant and honest person that I've ever known, and it's like he's trying so hard, pushing at his shell, like he's trapped inside a horrible, horrible screen, and I want him so bad, I want him so, so bad... Sometimes I just sit outside on our deck and stare at the lake and our boat and I cry and cry and cry and cry, and I know that wherever in the house he is he's crying too, crying and crying and crying and crying...

Then after a few minutes I realize I shouldn't be sad... I should be mad. And I grit my teeth and I scream, I open my mouth wide and I scream, scream, scream and scream. I hate his mom, I hate his mom, I hate his mom. I hope wherever she is that she thinks about him every day, and what she did to him. She ruined him for everyone, ruined his life, ruined him entirely. He will never even be a person. He hasn't been a person since that disgusting day back in elementary school. And yet knowing this still doesn't keep me from wanting it, from wanting him.

Sometimes when I'm slicing bread at the counter and he's leaning on the island drinking wine I stand there and stare at the knife and think for a minute, I could put him out of all his misery with just one movement. Just stand back and swing. I know it would make both of us happy. He wouldn't have to cope with being unable to live a real life anymore, and I wouldn't have to love a dead shell anymore.

Sometimes when we're just laying in bed I just touch him. Run my fingertips over his bony collarbone and his small chin and his full lips. I just gently entangle my hands with his, touching his fingers and wrist. Then my hands go down to his hips, his perfect abs, his beautiful, beautiful abs and I wish, I wish so hard, that he could love me back.

Maybe someday I'll stop this whole thing and make both of us happy. Maybe someday we will be, maybe.

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Kenny...

Eric and I had been best friends since preschool. I never thought he knew my secret. I thought I hid it well enough, but maybe he really knew it all along, or maybe he just was going to do what he did whether or not I wanted to.

It was in ninth grade, about halfway through the year. I was staying the night at his
house as was usual on Fridays. He wasn’t having a party that Friday, either, so it
was just us, having fun.

We got on his computer, watched some porn, ate a bunch of ice cream -- like two
pints, I think -- listened to loud music, watched a couple movies, and finally laid
down in the dark to try to fall asleep.

“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to kiss a guy?” he asked
suddenly.

I stopped breathing for a few seconds. “I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe.”

“Do you think...”

I looked over at him carefully, the moonlight shining on his face. I couldn’t read his
expression, though. He turned to look at me unexpectedly. I had the sudden urge to kiss him, but resisted the urge because I didn’t know how he would respond.

He reached over and kissed me.

I kissed him back eagerly, overwhelmed by the softness of his mouth and the
sharpness of his cologne.

His hand traveled down my side and under the blankets. He started pulling at my
boxers and the next thing I knew his

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It happened again and again. All through high school.

It didn’t seem to mean anything to him. Then again, nothing did.

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I don’t know when it happened. I just know that one early summer day I looked at
him during PE when we were outside on the track, his long blonde hair blowing in
the wind, touching his fragile collar bones that looked like twigs, and I knew I loved
him. I knew I’d done the unthinkable -- fallen in love with one of the few people in the
school who was entirely mentally and emotionally incapable of loving me back. So I
never told him, and maybe that’s where I went wrong.

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It was a Friday. I’d asked him if I could stay over Friday.

“Um, no,” he said slowly.

“Why not? Your mom actually going to be home?”

“No... I’ve got to babysit my... cousin.”

I didn’t even have to look at him to know he was lying. I didn’t look at him. I stared
at the ground. “Okay,” I said. I turned and I walked the rest of the way home.

He had had to babysit his niece the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before.

I walked home slowly, something buzzing in my head. My eyes were kind of milky,
like I had stared into the sun too long and then walked into a dimly lit room.

I stared down at myself, my breath coming kind of uneven.

I was wearing clothes Eric had bought me, because I had no money. It was that
simple. I was lucky to find food. All I ate was at school.

I clenched my teeth as I felt my eyes start to burn.

Eric could never love someone like me.

Someone he had to help to make acceptable.

Without him I would have been nothing. Another poor boy who only owns one pair of
underwear, one pair of jeans, one pair of shoes, and a hoodie that he doesn’t even
have the money or means to wash.

But Eric helped me. It was out of pity. Out of sorrow. Then he fucked me to get off, got blowjobs from me to get off, because someone like him could never come clean to something like that or do it openly. And now that he knew -- because somehow he did know -- that I loved him, out of pity and sorrow, he couldn’t bring himself to do it again. Maybe he thought that by sleeping with me he was doing me a favor. I’ll never know what was really going through his head, though. And I’ve learned to deal with that.

I ran into an alley and threw my gym bag and binder onto the ground.

Gym bag and binder that Eric had bought for me.

I stomped on them and tore the paper out of my binder.

Paper Eric had bought me.

Homework Eric had helped me with.

I stomped and stomped and ripped and tore and covered everything with dirt. I yanked off the necklace I had on and tore it into tiny pieces.

The necklace Eric bought for me.

I kicked off my one hundred and twenty dollar skateboard shoes and threw them as
hard as I could.

One hundred and twenty dollar skateboard shoes that Eric had bought for me.

I threw my ten dollar professional gym socks.

Socks that Eric bought for me.

I hastily unbuttoned my eighty dollar name brand jeans and threw them.

Eighty dollar name brand jeans that Eric had bought for me...

I tore off my forty dollar brown name brand shirt and ripped it in half. Then I threw it.

The forty dollar brown name brand shirt that Eric bought for me.

I fell down to my knees in the dark, muggy alley. I sobbed into my hands. I could
see my skin turning red like it did when I got mad.

I reached over for my gym bag. I sorted through it, past the clothes, deodorant and hundred dollar sneakers.

Hundred dollar sneakers Eric bought for me.

Finally I pulled my razor out. Without hesitating, I drove it into my right arm. I thrust
it in and out over and over and over, feeling the pain searing up my arm and deep
into my stomach, deep into my head, my eyes.

I leaned my head against the building behind me and closed my eyes as I fucked
my arm with the razor.

I looked down and saw the blood dripping down onto my legs and the sidewalk.

Blood I bled for Eric.

I switched arms.

After a few minutes I started to feel a dull roar in my head and my eyelids started to
close. I tried to open them, tried to refuse with my mind, but it kept turning black. It
started to get hard to breathe. As I shoved one last slice into my arm, I thought I
heard something crack as the life left my body as I died.

Died for Eric.

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So now I’m just kind of floating around in his head.

It’s so nice to be able to hear every thought, feel every touch, experience everything
he does.

Sometimes I’ll sit in their living room, reading his books, watching his TV, reading
Trinity’s poetry, her beautiful, longing, heartbroken poetry, and I’ll almost cry. I can
feel the dull ache pulling at my eyes.

It’s so nice to not be able to feel. To have a conscience yet be able to ignore it or
turn it off at will. It’s nice to be able to get inside people’s minds and mess them up. To make them do things they wouldn’t normally do, to make them submit to things
they would never ordinarily submit to, to mess them up forever like we were. The
love we had that was never fulfilled.

Sometimes it hurts so bad I want to get inside him and do something drastic and
horrible and make him love Trinity. Part of me just wants to see him happy. The
other part wants to see him happy with me. Neither one will ever come true.
Something happened to him. Something ruined him and he never got back into
anything. Ever since then he’s been.. Off. Just not right.

Sometimes I dream of holding my fingertips to his and staring deep into his eyes...
Only this time there’s something in his eyes. Something happy. Something whole,
innocent, pure and deep. Something meaningful. It’s Eric had he grown up normally,
unblemished, untainted. This Eric can love.