The Stupid Details That My Heart Is Breaking For : 'A Few Clichés'

 

AUTHORS TRIGGER WARNING

This story contains sensitive and disturbing themes such as kidnapping, blood, violence, threats, abuse, substance use, PTSD, and death. I have decided to publish a reduced and softened version of this content, but it may still be triggering for some readers. The content is entirely fictional and has no connection to real events. I advise emotionally sensitive readers to consider this warning before reading.

 Note: When you reach the end of the story, I highly recommend listening to the song "Elvis Costello - I Want You" that I have included.

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The Stupid Details That 

My Heart Is Breaking For 

Gwen, opened her eyes painfully, hands and mouth bound, to the sound of a rusty, creaking bed in the dark and damp second floor of an abandoned shack. Her mind was numb from drugs, dazed and weak. Sharp pain and heat radiated from her wrists and ankles, making it difficult to breathe. She brought her hands closer to her face. Her wrists, unable to withstand the tightness of the bindings, were bleeding. Her fingers were swollen and blistered. The flickering light of a single candle around her deepened the room's gloomy and eerie atmosphere. The candlelight created strange shadows on the walls and ceiling, making it feel as if there were other entities in the room. The walls were darkened by moisture, and the smell of mold permeated every corner. The wooden beams of the ceiling were rotting, creaking as if they might collapse at any moment. The walls bore remnants of once brightly colored paint, now peeled and flaking. The floor was covered in a layer of dust and dirt, which rustled like a carpet with every step, making footprints clearly visible. She turned her head to the right with difficulty and saw an old, faded photograph, its edges torn, pinned to a dusty table by a bloody knife. The blood running down the knife covered much of the photo. She didn't want to think about whom the blood might belong to. Keeping her eyes open was a struggle; everything was blurred and shrouded in darkness. She couldn't clearly make out what was in the corners of the room. The oppressive environment around her, combined with the cold wind seeping in from all sides, created a chilling atmosphere. As she scanned every corner of the room with fear-filled eyes, her heart pounded rapidly, and cold sweat trickled down her forehead. Each breath filled her lungs with the stifling air of the room, reminding her of how impossible escape was. Despite her hazy mind, she told herself this was a nightmare. It had to be a nightmare; any moment now, her boyfriend Liam would wake her up by saying, "G, breakfast is ready, you have five seconds to get here before your coffee gets cold!" and then jumping on her, hugging her awake before counting to five."

Chris Sullivan, with blood dripping from his hands and a nearly finished cigarette in his mouth, staggered but climbed quietly and slowly up the dark wooden stairs of the shack, very drunk and under the influence of drugs. Each step he took echoed in the silence of the house. The green-black striped sweater he wore was worn, faded, and torn in places. His long, beautiful blonde hair, usually parted and loose, was now cut carelessly, dull, and uncombed. His face, expressionless and covered in dark shadows, was marked by the fatigue of days and years; his forest-green eyes, once lively and bright, had lost their sparkle, now sunken and filled with indifferent emptiness. The bags under his eyes and deep lines were reminders of his suffering, sleepless nights, and the toll of alcohol and heroin. His silhouette blended with the gloomy environment. The dampness and darkness in the air made each step slow and shaky. As he reached the upper floor, his steps grew even quieter. He clumsily wiped the blood from his hands with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket and dropped his cigarette to the floor. He slowly approached the door of the room and stopped. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Smiling meaninglessly into the void, he touched the doorknob and slowly opened it, trembling.

Only the distinct outlines of his silhouette were visible in the flickering candlelight. As he scanned the dim room with his eyes, he began to whistle and murmur to himself. Gwen could barely make out his face. Wait a minute... Chris?... It could be anyone... anyone. But Chris? After a moment of silence, he met Gwen’s pained gaze. It was the first time they had made eye contact in a long time. Chris took a few trembling steps towards her and stopped. He took a slow, deep breath. As he exhaled, the only word he could utter was an awkward "Hey..." His voice, low and muffled, echoed with emptiness and despair, fitting the darkness of the room. Gwen's heart was pounding as if it would burst out of her chest. Chris couldn’t take his eyes off Gwen’s. Completely locked onto her, he found a wooden chair in the darkness and pulled it towards him to sit down. He gave a painful smile into the dark void and slowly began to speak:

"I know you don't want to see me. I understand that. But... I had to see you one last time... Yes... I'm here to finally say what I need to say and maybe, for once, for you to listen and understand me... I want to say that we could have made everything better... Neither of us was perfect... But that doesn’t mean we should have stayed silent under bad circumstances."

Gwen struggled to believe what she was hearing; her mind couldn’t cope with the reality, and she hoped deep inside that it was all a cruel joke.

"...I know, I got angry and I was violent. But you know, no one can remain passive when mistreated by someone they love... What other choice did I have? I had to try to make you understand how important you are to me... and... and I’m sorry I had to be so rough to show that I cared. But you left me no other choice... You were ignoring my messages, dismissing my calls."

Gwen tried to focus, but she couldn't. Her eyes kept closing, and Chris took it as an insult. He turned his head and continued:

"...I don't like being ignored. I don't like it when people make me feel invisible. And you... you were the one who was supposed to love me the most. That's why we were together. But you treated me like I was invisible. Yes... That really bothers me. But I'm not here to bring up the past. I don't care anymore. I'm much calmer now and in a more balanced place in my life."

Chris's voice quivered with intense emotional weight, highlighting his anger and inner turmoil. Somewhere deep inside, there was still an unextinguished flame for Gwen—a flame that had turned into a hellfire, causing him to forgo food and sleep, a burning love that still lived in the palm of her hand... a vortex of deep passions.

“I went to a doctor, got some medication, and now I don't feel these intense emotions anymore. The feelings of happiness, anger, obsession, and rejection have all calmed down... Huh. Rejection... The storm has passed, and now I feel much more like myself because I feel absolutely nothing... This may sound strange, I understand. But please understand... This feels incredibly liberating right now. I'm no longer controlled by my emotions, I'm not blinded by love, and I can assess this situation like a mature adult... The mature adult you expected me to be. In fact, right now,  I am the person you always wanted to be with. I am just the way you wanted me to be.”

He took the old, bloodstained photograph from the table. He tried to wipe away the blood and showed it to Gwen. The photograph was of a happy moment they had shared together. Chris and Gwen stood side by side, smiling under the summer sun. Gwen held a bouquet of daisies in the middle of a field full of flowers, her eyes sparkling with pure happiness. Chris, embracing Gwen, looked at her with a protective, caring demeanor. The photo was a stark contrast to the brutal reality of their current situation; Chris’s eyes sparkled. As he looked deeply into Gwen’s eyes, he thought about how beautiful she still was and how she needed to preserve that beauty. A sense of distortion and complexity appeared on his face. His eyes reflected Gwen’s deep pain and his own inner hell, turning into what seemed like the eyes of a monster in the darkness of the room.

He paused for a moment, leaned towards Gwen, and then touched her cheek with the photograph, feeling its warmth even through the image. Then, as if hypnotized, he began to trail his cold fingers over her lips. They locked eyes for a moment, and Chris was drawn to her like a magnet. He brought his lips closer to hers, missing her intensely. Tears streamed from Gwen’s eyes, her breath held in terror and silence. Noticing this, Chris stood still with a chilling calmness, and a cruel smile spread across his face.

"But you still look at me with those terrified eyes. I hate that you look at me with fear in your eyes. I remember how you used to look at me, and that's why your current gaze hurts so much. Because when you looked at me before, your eyes were filled with hope and love. You looked at me as if I were a person. But now you look at me as if I were a monster. You look at me like I'm a monster, don't deny it!... Like some damn monster..." His breath was cut off, and he was trembling... Suddenly, he straightened up, his body tensing with rage. He grabbed a nearby chair and hurled it violently against the wall; the chair hit the wall and fell to the ground, the crash echoing through the room. Chris’s face was twisted with the cruelty of anger and madness.

“LOOK AT ME!” he roared, his voice echoing into the dark corners of the room. The scream had deafened Gwen, whose eyes were fixed on a vacant point. Gwen flinched, her heart skipping a beat... Chris continued:

"...And don’t even try to deny it! I can see you clearly because I know you, and I’ve loved you for so long. To think that someone who has loved you for this long wouldn’t know what a lie coming from those little lips of yours looks like is a complete insult...

"Know that you will always be my baby, but that doesn’t mean I’ll forgive you for what you’ve done to me... Don’t tell me it’s been hard for you; you don’t know how much my heart ached when you left me. You don’t know what you put me through. The months I spent hungry and sleepless, turning into a damn alcoholic and heroin addict... Wondering what I could do... Hating myself for loving you. And you did this to me. You said you would never leave me. You said you would love me as I am, and when I showed you the real me, what did you do?...  Tell me, what did you do when I showed you the real me!? YOU STOPPED LOVING ME! You didn’t want to be with me. The moment you saw who I really was, the moment I thought I could drop the mask, you just left. You didn’t even look back. You went to Liam. You called me a monster. You said I couldn’t feel love, that I didn’t have the capacity for affection, but you’re wrong because I FUCKING love you so damn much. You never understood how much I loved you."

He turned to Gwen. Kneeling beside the bed, his voice trembled with a break that carried the pain of his words. His face bore an expression of carelessness, where madness and despair fused; it was marked by signs of devastation and exhaustion.

“I don’t care how you feel right now. You should be scared because I’m angry. I’m only not hurting you right now because I love you. If it were someone else, like Liam... he’d be covered in bruises and blood. Of course, if he were still alive... He won’t be bothering us anymore. It’s just you and me now.” Gwen was frozen in shock. This was a lie. Chris, with a stern expression on his face, said, “Don’t think I’m joking...” He then pulled out something from his pocket that resembled a parchment with Liam's tattoo and threw it towards Gwen. Gwen was familiar with his manipulations and wasn’t going to play his game, but as she looked away, she suddenly realized it wasn’t parchment but actually Liam’s withered skin... No. No. NO She wanted to scream. She was on the verge of losing her mind, unable to bear it any longer. Chris, disregarding Gwen’s reaction, continued, “But I didn’t come here to threaten you, and I didn’t come here to pour out my feelings either. I came to try to fix things, and I’m going to do it whether you like it or not. And you will like it, understand?”

Chris suddenly stood up, his hands trembling. He started to walk, struggling with each step. His movements were unsteady and erratic. With every passing minute, he felt the effects of alcohol and drugs coursing through his veins more intensely. The ground beneath his feet seemed to slip away. What had he used so much of? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to remember... He tried to choose his words carefully again, standing on the brink of a deep internal collapse.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be perfect for you. I’m sorry for being so emotional. I’m sorry for caring about you so much. I’m sorry for having the damned courage to care about you. Because people like you don’t really care. You don’t want people who will truly love you; you want a certain type of man. You don’t want someone who will love you properly. You don’t want someone realistic. You don’t want the good along with the bad; you only want the good... You want Liam. Then, when something bad happens, you run away immediately. That’s exactly what you did. But I can’t blame you because you don’t even know yourself... You have so much insecurity about yourself that you projected it onto me, making me feel flawed... Don't you think that's manipulative?”

“… But what I really wanted to say tonight is… I’m sorry… My attention is a bit scattered… I had some vodka before coming here… um… I think it was vodka…” His sentence trailed off, left hanging incompletely and incomprehensibly.

Chris’s eyes momentarily went blank as he lost himself in thought. He shook his head and looked at Gwen with an expression of sorrow. Tears streamed from his eyes. And then, silence… He didn’t speak for a few minutes, staring ahead. After a few minutes, he took a deep breath and, with trembling fingers, reached for the knife on the table. The sharp knife that would unite their lives forever... His eyes remained locked on Gwen’s sorrowful gaze. The knife was made of dark black metal with a sharp tip; the tip held the glint of a dark threat. Gwen’s name was ominously engraved on the handle; the letters appeared like bloody writing on the knife. Each letter marked the knife like a curse. Chris held it gently between his fingers and raised it in front of Gwen. Gwen’s eyes widened in horror; the room darkened, and she felt as if she was losing consciousness. Chris slightly turned the knife, examining the reflection of the metal. The cold metal of the knife felt heavy in Chris’s hands. His thoughts and feelings had come to a complete standstill. He had come here for only one purpose. This was the only thing that could save their love... He took out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. With a blank expression, he said:

“I’ve dug two graves in the backyard. Because I don’t want to go anywhere without you, but I don’t want to stay here anymore either. So, what do you say? I wish you could speak... If you think I’m going to remove the tape from your mouth, you’re very wrong. This time, you have no say. I gave you the chance to be an independent person, but your thoughts were quite horrifying, indifferent. This time, we’ll do what I want, and I don’t want to be here; I don’t want you to be here without me either. And honestly… like in clichés…

'If I can't have you, no one can!'”

He moved even closer to Gwen, his eyes filled with twisted determination. He reached out and gently touched her face; his touch was cold and stubborn. Gwen recoiled, her eyes shining with terror and panic.

“… And I know this is frightening. It’s terrifying to think about what’s going to happen. So, are we moving on to another world, or are we being erased from existence? Will this be the end of everything for us? The end of all our life experiences, extinguished? Or will we continue? I don’t know, but I’m ready to find out with you. So let me bring you a little closer… and let's do this properly....''

Chris gently lifted Gwen from the bed and into his arms. Despite her numbness, Gwen resisted with a bravery she had never shown before, her heart-wrenching, painful moans echoing in the dark room. Chris’s movements were careful and deliberate. He held her tightly; their embrace was almost like a waltz, but his grip was stubborn and relentless. As tears streamed from Gwen’s eyes, Chris stroked her hair, gripping the knife firmly, and suddenly threw her back onto the bed. He whispered softly in her ear:

“So you… oh no, no, no, you don’t have the strength to fight me, do you? We both know that. But I still won’t hurt you. I won’t be harsh, but I can’t allow an escape… Hey… shhh. shhh. shhhh…. No more pain. You’re with me. You won’t feel anything. This is our end. We are ending it like this... Not with a separation and broken hearts, but lying side by side as our blood flows from our bodies, my love. And I want to leave this place like this because I don’t want to live without you. Thank you for the love you’ve given me in my life, and thank you for joining me as we move on to our next life. Don’t be afraid. I’ll never let anything bad happen to you…  You will always be mine..."

                                        &

Elvis Costello - I Want You