Blessed Is The Cursed

My days are numbered; I know. The fickle thing inside my chest that they call a heart was slowly letting rot poison its being from the inside out, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Well…maybe not ’nothing’. Do you know what I also knew? The gods we worshipped weren’t merely figurative figures. They don’t require pure belief alone. They exist. Everyone debated their reality, wondering if these gods were a mere part of our history and mythology, and have long since been gone. But I know they’re still out there. How? Because one cursed me.

Everyday was an internal battle. I didn’t even have the mercy of a faint remnant of any memory of what things used to feel like. What love used to feel like. What the world used to look like. Now, all I feel is the aching in my chest and the constant stabbing of the sharpest invisible claws gouging it every chance they got.

Roses in a bunch now looked like gaping mouths in which the abyss was nothing but a haunting and taunting reminder of what I’d lost. Crying felt like claws scraped and scratched at my under eyes from the inside, drawing blood to taint my tears with.

Everyday living now felt like the reminder of the Latin words, memento mori. I hated it.

“Isla.” I turned, hearing Julien’s call. My chest used to rap at just the sound of his voice. The sweet lilt in it. But now I felt nothing. Not even a heartbeat.

He peeked his head through the door. “Dinner’s ready.”

“I’m coming, honey.” I threw the sheets off my legs, feeling instantly the frigidness of the night come kicking.

I didn’t really want to eat dinner. I didn’t even want to face him, really. I’d tried my best—to fake what I used to feel, but he could see right through it. It wasn’t doing us any good. And I didn’t know how to remedy it but to get rid of this curse. If only I knew how.

Going down the short staircase, I saw the dining table from here. Our apartment wasn’t too small; it was just enough. Lights, the color of faded gold, flooded through the room. The kitchen was just ahead of the small dining table, bearing dishes of different sorts that Julien shared out the plates from. It wasn’t much. Tonight, he made chicken and pasta.

It was one of the things I always loved about him.

Loved. Tch.

He was a great cook. His food never failed to satisfy me, but now I couldn’t feel the usual rumble in my stomach that begged for his cooking—or any cooking, for that matter.

Still, I ignored the absence of feeling and took a seat, where Julien soon joined me with our plates of food, placing mine before me.

As we dug in, silence roared. At least, to me, it did. His eyes were dull and they only focused on his food. Would he say anything?

Say something, please. This silence is eating me.

Finally, he swallowed and took his first glance at me.

“I’ll be staying with my parents for the weekend.”

Oh. His words piqued my interest.

“Why?”

“I need a break. A breather.”

“From what?” It was a stupid question, I know. I knew exactly why he wanted a break. The tension between us these past few weeks—hell—even months has been thicker than I wanted to admit. The thickness and its persistence in building instead of thawing was growing too tough for even the sharpest axe to cut through.

I couldn’t blame him, but I still felt the annoyance and anger eating at me from the inside. I subconsciously took my lip beneath my teeth, biting into the wine red that spread across it in matte. The tension in the room permeated me and sent stiffness throughout my limbs.

His eyes only lingered on me, but even barely so.

“You know why,” he finally replied, turning his gaze back into his food, slicing the already sliced chicken into even smaller bites.

“I don’t think I do,” I said before I could think about it. I almost wanted to take back my words, but I let them stay.

A stressed sigh withdrew from his lips. “Why must you be so difficult?”

“I’ve always been difficult.”

“Not towards me.” Hmph. Was he wrong? I honestly had tuned it all out a long time ago. All that I could even fathom inside the cage of my head was the misfortune that was placed upon me and how it’s affected how I interacted with the world. Everything else is a distant memory. I’m not so sure I can ever get it back. Which is why I must find a way to make someone pay for this curse they’ve placed upon me.

“You’ve become more irritable,” he finished.

Was that all he had to say? I felt like he had more stuffed in his chambers, begging to release, but he held his tongue.

“Anything else you want to get off your chest?” I cut into my chicken, ignoring him as he finally looked back up at me.

“I don’t need your snarkiness, Isla.”

“And I don’t need your backhanded-ness, Julien,” I snapped back. He slammed his fork down in his plate, almost toppling it over.

“When was I being backhanded?!” Anger clouded his once bright, blue eyes that favored glaciers. Now, they felt like glaciers. Small bumps arose on my skin any time I looked into them. Where did the warmth that I used to love so much go?

Right. They left along with my sanity after this heathen of a curse possessed me.

He shook his head and reached for his tie, slackening it just the slightest, as if it was choking him. He then continued to chew on the food that was in his mouth. By the thick bulge that eventually slid down his throat, I could see the tightness from here.

“I’m leaving tonight.”

I sighed. I don’t want him to go. I knew he needed the break, and I was being more than he could handle, but it wasn’t my fault. The heat that crawled beneath my skin wasn’t my own. Ever since I’d fallen in love with him, it went dormant. I just wished he could understand that.

“Jules, please,” I begged. “Let’s spend the night together—”

“What—more sex, Isla?” The frustration canvassed his silky voice. “Sex does nothing for what we’re currently going through. It’s not even a temporary fix.”

Something pierced my heart. My breaths grew shallow and finicky. I tried to contain the stress that hitched onto my walls. Every attempt went to an abyss of emptiness. It only heated my skin more.

“Not sex.” I swallowed. “We can do something else.” Like sitting by the fireplace just how we used to. Me, in his arms as we talked about anything that came to mind, and letting the conversation run deep.

“I need a break,” his once strong voice fell to a whisper.

“It’s not my fault, babe. You know that.” I tried to find the calmer soul within myself. But the war was ongoing, and the darker, more heated side was winning.

Another frustrated sigh arose from his chest. “Are you still going on about that, I?” I ignored his judgment and fixated on his nickname instead. It’s been a while since I last heard it; “I”, to mimic the first syllable of my name.

I wanted to say it was a good indicator of him still caring about me, but he liked picking and choosing when that was.

I watched his lips. Their softness. It was like I could still feel the ghost of them against mine. Then I remembered the conversation at hand

“I’m not crazy—”

He scoffed. There it is. “You really believe that some stupid god cursed you?” Disbelief was slapped across his face as he looked at me with incredulity. He never was a believer.

“I know one did.” I don’t know why I still tried to defend myself. It never went anywhere, did it?

He laughed, incredulity jumping out with every sound. “When I proposed to you,” he chuckled, like this was all a dream. “I didn’t realize I was proposing to a lunatic.”

My heart swallowed itself. That anger that I tried so hard to suppress came barreling right to my mouth.

“You’re such a dick.” I slammed my utensils down. “If you really cared about me—if you really loved me—then you would at least try to understand me!”

“And I have!” His eyes were wide open, fixed on me. “I have tried understanding your bullshit, I! I just can’t! Because it’s bullshit!”

“And what about this?” I pulled down the collar of my dress to reveal the tattoo that magically embedded itself in my skin.

“You went and got that done your fricking self!”

“I’ve spent every waking day with you! You know that’s not true! And you know I don’t care for trivial things like a tattoo!” I thought he knew me. I guess I was wrong.

He scoffed and started nodding. What was that supposed to mean?

“So let me get this straight.” He leaned back in his seat, one arm on the table, and the other, dropped, as he stared at me. “A tattoo,” he slowly started, “just…magically…turned up on your breast.”

“It’s not my breast; it’s my chest.”

“Same thing.”

“Yes,” I answered his question. He only scoffed once more.

“And you want me to just…go along with it?” He slowly ticked his tongue in his mouth.

The longer I stare at him, the more it begins to feel like I’m drowning. He watched me, never once reaching a hand out to save me. To even hear my screams.

A strong, overwhelming pumping began pulsating in my chest. It washed me of all rationale and strength to keep fighting. For my sanity. For my past. It all so quickly became history. Right now, I saw no going back.

“You don’t have to.” I finally came out with it, though with a weakened voice to go along with it.

Heat wrapped around a dying flame in my soul, and a further coldness on top of that licked at everything inside me. The war was slowly consuming me.

“Enjoy your parents’.” I wiped my mouth solemnly and stood up, withdrawing myself from the table and the room.