Rage against the heavens: chapter 32: Selfishness, love and how the both of them are murder but in another name

Humming and the sound of things beings cut, humming and the smell of flowers under a sky tainted, dyed by the golden hour of the day.

From where I stood, at the side of Charlotte Huntington, this place may as well have been paradise itself. It was thus only logical for there to be a snake in the garden even if this one was not a literal one.

“Charlotte, you known I don’t love you, right?”

For a moment there was silence. I wouldn’t call it an awkward one but it was as if a shift had occurred in the vibe.

There was nothing else to expect when you said to someone you knew love you but you didn’t love back such.

“I know,” she said softly after a moment. Her limbs that had frozen, that were cutting through thorns and flowers stems and whatever else was cut in a garden went back to doing their assigned task.

“I’m sorry,” I told her even if i didn’t truly feel like it. Just said it because it was what felt like appropriate.

“Don’t be,” she said back her back still turned, her hands still working in nurturing Earth. “I already knew.”

“You did?” I questioned feeling truly surprised. If she had known, why had she acted as such? If she had known that I didn’t love her back, that what she hoped and dreamed would not happen, then, why, why had she still acted the same?

“I’m not as smart, as clever as my father or you, Alex but I’m not that dumb I hope. Still hurt like a bitch hearing this though,” she spoke and if there was a flicker in her voice, none of the two of us commented on it.

“Then why? Why all of this Charlotte.”

“Why?” She said the word as if it was a foreign new thing she was tasting. “Because I love you Alex. Because I loved and I still love you.”

“I…” many things could be said. There were many things I wanted to say yet none felt right.

“I’m not that dumb but I am still Dumb, Alex. I can’t help but be the way I am and to be honest, it’s kinda your fault.”

“My fault?!” Nah, this bitch was tripping. All the  sympathy I had toward her was gone.

“Yes, your fault! Did you see yourself? You look so pretty that it’s ridiculous, even more now those last days!”

At that I said nothing. I had thought that the mist on top of illusions and the like would be enough to hide the way I had changed with reconstructing myself using C’tan parts and eating a chakra fruit.

“You also have that tortured woe-the world-is-against-me-pathetic-look.”

“Excuse me?” Nah, she was truly tripping because there were no way she was calling me in others words emo looking. Who did she think I was, Sasuke?

Truly the gods must hate me because she didn’t stop “and all of that was before you gained two daughters. It’s like you’re doing it on purpose at this point. You should be ashamed of yourself! Even a whore would think the same.”

“Woah, woah. First of all, we respect prostitutes in those surroundings and secondly, what the fuck is wrong with you Charlotte because something truly is.”

“That’s my charm, Alexander. It is something unique to me. That’s why everyone like me.”

“Firstly,” i riposted “I think special would be a more correct term than unique in this case and everyone liking you, do you truly want me to go there when the facts can write by themselves?”

We stayed silent after that. Nothing was said for what could have been a minute or an instant. At least, this time the silence didn’t feel weird.

“I always had what I wanted you know. Because of my father, because of my name. I won’t say any bullshit about me not liking it because I love being rich. I love being able to take the jet to have a brunch in Paris before coming back. I love being able to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on stupids things like bags, clothes, jewellery and the like. I am spoiled, spoiled as fuck. There were nothing I ever wanted I didn’t gain and of course it attracted sycophants and the likes, fake friends and leeches ready to do anything I wanted just to have some of my money. Others would say that it’s not a good thing, maybe that’s immoral but it is what it is. Each of the party, them and me got what we wanted. They sniffed at the freedom, at the wealth I have and in return, they are my bitches.”

“If you expect me to feel bad for you, you’re mistaken. You said it yourself. The both of you had what you wanted,” I informed her.

“You can be so cruel~! Weren’t you taught to be nicer to girls?”

“I am a feminist. I hate women as much as I hate men so sorry not sorry.”

She snorted “Touché. Touché. I’ll steal that. So where was I?”

“You sad but not really sad backstory?” I answered her.

“Yeah, that. So, like I was saying, I didn’t feel bad about it. I was fine, more than fine even. That was before you entered the picture. If only you knew the number of conversations about you that happened at the Sunday brunches the people of the neighbourhood had about you when you began to live in the neighbourhood.”

“Let me guess. Something probably boring, sentences turning around money, background, drug money and everything else old most likely racist while people like to talk about?”

“Yeah,” she giggled. “Stuff like that. It probably would have been worse than what you probably imagine had it not been for my dad. My dad also was the one who wanted me at the beginning to speak, interact with you, you known, making connections and playing good neighbor at the same time. My dad is the kind of person who always seem to know how things will happen in advance so it is always a good idea to listen to him. Believe me. I remember once I was in middle school and I didn’t listen. Let’s just say that that day was the worst I ever had and let’s leave to that. All of that to say that at the beginning, before knowing you were like that, being friendly with you, real friendly and not like with those leeches and sycophants sounded like a tall order in many ways.”

“I feel like you went on a tangent, that you lost what you wanted to say  somewhere because I still don’t see the point,” I spoke.

“The point was, is that you were on top of being gorgeous one if not the only one, the only person not related to me I could be the real me with, the only person I don’t have to pretend with and it’s cliché and probably sound as if coming from a very bad romance novel written by a girl with too much imagination and not in a good way but it is the way it is. I love you even though I know you don’t love me and it is this and that.”

I love you even though I know you don’t love me and it is this and that. That sentence, I don’t think I would ever forget it. This was the kind of thing, word that felt defining or something the like, something important.

She continued tending to the plants with what felt like all the care in the word as the same time that she continued to speak “It’s probably pathetic. The wise and logical thing to do after hearing your words would have been to bolt out of this garden, lock myself in my room and cry and angst for like a week or something and there is a part of me, a great one that want to do all those things. It wants to do the wise and logical thing but I have never truly been wise and logical. I always had been a spoiled dumb little brat with too much money and not enough cleverness to make such money who always had what she wanted so… I-“ her voice broke.

She didn’t try to speak after that but she didn’t need to. I understood. What kind of spoiled brat hate the chase?

Weren’t things the most precious when they were hard to obtain, when they were near impossible to gain?

And now, I was feeling bad. “Had things been different, I would have probably not said what I said to you. Maybe I would have try to see how things would, could have gone between the two of us but there is so much I have to do, I…am a lot Charlotte and not the kind of lot that some therapy and love would be able to fix.”

I was planning to fight, to war against gods, against the order of the word, to install a new age, create a new era, for humanity by humanity.

This wasn’t the kind of thing you dragged into a relationship especially with someone who would have their worldviews shattered manifolds.

That’s just how it was. “I’m not what you search Charlotte. The same way you feel like you can truly be yourself with me, the same way you should have someone who is truly honest with you.”

“I know that,” she said softly. “I know that there is a lot I don’t know about you. You sometimes seem as if you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Again, I know I should probably listen to that part of me telling that I should do the logical and the wise thing, I should listen to you but Alex, I won’t lie to you. I can’t and probably won’t do so.”

“Charl-“

“I always found stupid and ridiculous the way those poets and philosophers described love, as if it this all mighty thing. One of those guys, an Asian one I forgot the name had said something like Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the senses. I found a lot of what he said bullshit but that stuck with me. I honestly thought that they had too much times to think to be honest but he showed me that they may right on at least some things. I know you don’t love me and even though, it hurts, I can endure it because love is stupid and doesn’t care about logic. I want to see the true you, to help you with what you shoulder. I want you to tell me one day I love you and meant it in an equally strong way than me and I’m ready to work, to wait for it. It’s probably toxic as hell and some kind of harassment but I never said that I was a good person.”

How could someone be so fucking stubborn? “You know that nothing would probably change, right?” I warned her.

“I know yet I still want to try. I still want to do my best until one day, you feel the same,” she told me.

“You know that’s it’s not normally like that it works, right?”

Narcissuses, yellow roses, sunflowers, buttercups, blue violets and birds of paradise are intertwined until they become à multicolour dazzling whole.

I am given them by Charlotte and the act feel like a sentence, a declaration of intent in a language, in words, in a way I don’t understand.

It is something that makes me think of something both mournful and hopeful, of something twisted and right, of love and devotion and so many other things.

“I know,” Charlotte say to me “but I prefer an ending where I would have tried until the last minute, the last second, where I would love with everything I have and more than regrets of what could have been.”

“Trying, huh?” The whisper escaped from my lips by its own will. I would have preferred it to not come with bitterness, flowers and pretty rich girls crying.