The Tearsmith: A Novel

There are some types of love you cannot cultivate.

They are like wild roses:

They rarely flower,

And their thorns are like tenterhooks.

I remembered her, my mom.

Her curly hair and her sweet scent of violets, her eyes as grey as a winter sea.

I remembered her warm hands and her kindness, how she would always let me hold the samples she was examining.

‘Be gentle,’ I remembered her whispering as she handed me a beautiful blue butterfly.

‘Tenderness, Nica,’ she said. ‘Tenderness, always…Remember that.’

I wished I could tell her that I had held her words inside of me, that they were the foundation upon which I had built my heart.

I wished I could tell her that I’d always remembered, even when the warmth of her hands had disappeared and mine were covered in Band-Aids, the only colour left in my life.

Even when my nightmares were tainted by the sound of creaking leather.

But in that moment…I just wanted to tell Mom that sometimes tenderness wasn’t enough.

That not all people were butterflies, and that no matter how gentle I was, they’d never let themselves be handled with care. That I would always be covered in bites and scratches, that I would end up covered in wounds I was incapable of healing.

This was the truth.

In the darkness of my room, I felt like a forgotten doll. My gaze unseeing, my arms hugging my knees.

My phone screen lit up again, but I didn’t get up to reply. I already knew what it would say, and I didn’t have the courage to read any more. Lionel’s messages were an unending sequence of accusations:

Look what he did to me

I told him to stop

He started it

It’s his fault

He punched me for no reason

I’d already seen it happen too many times. I no longer had the strength to question whether it was true.

Deep down, this was how Rigel had always been.

Violent and cruel, that was how Peter had described him. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to write him into the pages of this new reality: he would never fit there.

He would always crush me, defeat me. Day after day, I would end up losing more pieces of myself.

I wished that Anna and Norman had never gone away, that Anna was here, telling me that nothing was beyond repair.

This would have happened anyway, I thought to myself. Whether they’d stayed or not…it would have fallen apart, sooner or later.

I sighed heavily, swallowed and noticed I was very thirsty.

I decided to get up. I had been there for hours and night had fallen.

Before leaving my room, I made sure there was no one on the landing. Bumping into Rigel was the last thing I wanted.

I moved through the darkness. It was no longer raining, and the moonlight shining through the clouds and illuminating the shapes of the buildings outside allowed me to find my way.

Downstairs was immersed in shadows. I stumbled into something in the kitchen and almost fell over. I gasped, grabbed on to the wall and stared at the floor, blinking.

What…

I quickly reached for the light switch.

The light hurt my eyes. I took a sharp breath in and instinctively stepped back.

Rigel was lying face-down on the floor, his hair spread out over the parquet flooring. His white wrist stood out against the wood and the sides of his face were covered by a fan of black hair. He wasn’t moving.

I was so stricken by the sight of his immobile body that as I took another step backwards, I realised I was shaking. The vision before me clashed with the image I had of Rigel, his strength, his ferocity, his unshakeable self-control.

I stared at him, wide-eyed, unable to make a sound.

It was him. On the ground. Not moving.

He was…

‘Rigel,’ I uttered in a strained whisper.

Suddenly, my heart thudded against my ribs and reality crashed around me all at once. With a violent shudder, I came back to myself. Breathing frantically, I crouched over him.

‘Rigel,’ I breathed, grasping the fact that there was a human being lying at my feet. My eyes ran over his body, but my hands were shaking too much to touch him. I didn’t know where to put them.

Good God, what had happened?

Panic rushed over me. A flurry of thoughts crowded my mind and I stared at him weakly, my chest tight.

What should I do?

What?

I reached my hand out far enough to touch his temple. Feeling him through my Band-Aids, I jumped.

He was burning hot. God, he was burning like a furnace.

I threw him one last glance before running into the living room. I leapt like a cat onto the armchair and grabbed the house phone.

Never before in my life had I found someone lying on the floor like that. Maybe out of panic, or maybe simply because I couldn’t control my panic, I found myself dialling with shaking fingers the number of the only person who came to mind in that moment of need. The only person I knew I could count on, though I didn’t have anyone to compare her to.

‘Anna!’ I burst out before she could say a word. ‘Something’s happened…something…Rigel!’ I gripped the receiver. ‘It’s Rigel!’

I heard a groan and a rustling of bedsheets.

‘Nica…’ she replied sleepily. ‘What…’

‘I know it’s late,’ I said hurriedly. ‘I’m sorry, but…it’s important! Rigel’s on the floor, he…he…’

I heard Anna’s breathing suddenly closer.

‘Rigel?’ There was more worry in her voice. ‘On the floor? What do you mean on the floor? Is he okay?’

I rushed to get my words out. In a ramble, I explained that I had gone downstairs and found him there, lying in the kitchen.

‘He’s got a high fever, but I don’t know…Anna, I don’t know what to do!’

Anna panicked. I heard her throwing back the bedsheets and waking Norman. She said they’d take a coach, or get home any other way they could.

I regretted how scared my ineptitude was making her. Maybe, if I’d been able to keep my head, I could have called an ambulance, or I might have realised that it was just light-headedness from the fever that had made Rigel pass out.

But instead, I had panicked and called her, while she was thousands of miles away and could do nothing. I was so ashamed of my stupidity I wanted to bite my hands.

‘God, I knew we should have come back, I knew it,’ her voice trembled. ‘I could have made sure he was in bed by now…I could have been looking after him…and maybe, maybe…’

Anna seemed beside herself. I wondered if she was maybe overreacting, but then again, there had never been anyone who worried about me, so I had no standard to compare her to.

Maybe she wasn’t overreacting, maybe it was like this in other families. Maybe if I hadn’t been so rash…

‘Anna, the fever, I can…I can deal with it.’ I wanted to fix my mistake, to make myself useful in some way. I felt the need to try and calm her down. ‘I can try to get him upstairs and into bed…’

‘He’ll need an ice pack,’ she interrupted me anxiously. ‘Heavens, he’ll have got so cold on the floor! Medicine! There’s drugs for fevers in the bathroom, in the cupboard beside the mirror, they’re the ones with the white lid! Oh, Nica…’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, though it was clear that she was beyond worried. ‘Now…now, I’ll sort it, Anna! If you tell me exactly what I need to do, I…’

She rattled off instructions and I etched them into my brain. I hung up, promising that I’d understood and that I’d call her back.

I went back into the hallway, stopped a metre away from Rigel and took a deep breath. There was no time to lose.

I would have liked to say that I lifted him onto my shoulders and carried him in a dignified manner up the stairs. But this was far from the case.

I placed a hesitant hand on his shoulder blade and noticed my fingers were shaking.

‘Rigel…’ I lowered my face towards him and my hair tumbled over his back. ‘Rigel, now…you’ve got to help me…’

I managed to turn him onto his back. I tried, in vain, to get him into a sitting position. I put my arm around his neck and lifted his head. His black hair fell over my forearm and onto the floor. His head flopped backwards and his white skin was tense over his throat.

‘Rigel…’

The sight of him so defenceless knotted my stomach. I swallowed, and threw a nervous glance at the stairs before looking back at him. I was very close to him, and didn’t realise that I was gripping him tighter than I needed to.

‘We’ve got to get upstairs,’ I told him quietly, tender but determined. ‘The stairs, Rigel, that’s all…’ I pursed my lips and lifted his chest. ‘Come on!’

Well…these were fighting words.

I was used to tending injured sparrows and rescuing mice from traps – creatures of much smaller size.

I tried to convince him to put a bit of effort in, but he showed no sign he could hear me, so I started to drag him along the floor. I blew a strand of hair off my face and my feet slipped on the parquet flooring. Somehow, I managed to get us to the foot of the stairs.

I gripped Rigel’s t-shirt and managed to pull him up enough to prop his back up against the wall. He was terribly tall and powerfully built; I was miniscule in comparison.

‘Rigel…please…’ My voice strained with the excruciating effort. ‘Get up!’

It was a colossal task. With an exhausted groan, I nestled his head against my abdomen to stop him from falling to the ground again. I buckled under his immensely heavy weight, my legs shaking.

I gritted my teeth and we struggled up the stairs, Rigel barely managing to stay upright. His arm was looped around my neck and I felt his jaw against my temple.

I sighed heavily in relief as we approached the top of the stairs, but on the last step, I slipped. My eyes flew open, but it was too late: the walls spun and we crashed down.

My hip collided with the edge of one of the stairs and I bit my tongue in pain.

‘Oh God…’ I trembled, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.

Could I really be this much of a disaster?

I crawled towards Rigel. I put a hand to the stabbing pain in my hip and anxiously checked his head for injuries.

I couldn’t get him upright.

Hobbling, I finally managed to drag him up the stairs and into his room, and with a superhuman effort, I heaved him onto the mattress and pulled the covers over him.

I wiped my forehead and allowed myself a moment to catch my breath. His arm was dangling off the side of the bed, his hair was strewn all over the pillow.

Exhausted, I ran to the bathroom and filled a glass of water. Then, I opened the cupboard and found the right medicine.

I heard the springs of the mattress as I sat back down on the bed and took a pill from the tub.

I lifted his head, cradling it in the crook of my elbow.

‘Rigel, you’ve got to take this…’ I said, in the vain hope that he could hear me, that just for once he would let me help him. ‘It will make you better…’

He didn’t move. His face was alarmingly pale.

‘Rigel,’ I tried again, balancing the pill on his lips. ‘Come on…’

His head was pressed to my side. His forehead came against my ribs, just under my breasts, and the pill fell from my flustered fingers.

I frantically hurried to retrieve it from the folds of the bedsheets, feeling my nerves burning under my skin.

I clumsily shoved it into his mouth. His lips fell apart limply under the pressure of my fingers, and I only just managed not to brush them with my index finger as the pill disappeared into his mouth.

I reached for the glass of water with shaking hands.

I managed to get him to take a little sip and finally he swallowed the pill.

I lowered his head onto the pillow and jumped up. My cheeks were irritatingly hot.

I dashed down into the kitchen and prepared an ice pack as Anna had told me to. Then I returned upstairs and pressed it to his burning skin.

I stood still, close to the bed, thinking hard.

Had I forgotten anything?

I tried to recollect Anna’s instructions, when suddenly I heard my phone ringing. I glanced at Rigel then ran to pick up. It was Anna’s name on the screen.

Despite the fact that the situation was more under control, I could sense her agitation even more acutely. I reported that I’d done everything she had told me, to the letter, not forgetting a thing. I told her that I’d closed the curtains and put an extra blanket on Rigel. She told me that they were about to take a coach that would get them home in the early hours of the morning.

‘We’ll be there as soon as possible,’ she promised anxiously. All her concern gave me a warm, unfamiliar tightness in my chest.

‘Nica, if you need anything at all…’

I nodded vigorously, but then remembered that Anna couldn’t see me.

‘Don’t worry, Anna…if anything happens, I’ll phone you straight away.’

She thanked me for how diligently I had taken care of him, and after giving me a last few pieces of advice and promising to see me soon, she hung up.

I turned around and went back into the bedroom, closing the door behind me to keep the warmth in.

I silently stepped towards the bed, placed my phone on the bedside table, and slowly lifted my eyes to Rigel’s face.

‘They’re coming back,’ I whispered.

His face remained as still as polished alabaster. I couldn’t move either, I was frozen beside his bed as if held hostage by the sight of his face.

I don’t know how long I stood there watching him, worried and indecisive. Finally, I perched carefully on the edge of the mattress, scared that the sound of the bedsprings would wake him.

I couldn’t imagine how furious he would be if he knew that not only had I come into his room, but I was even sitting on his bed, watching him as if I wasn’t scared of the consequences.

He would have snarled at me. Chased me away. Glared at me in that scornful way that cut me like a blade.

‘You’re the Tearsmith.’

I thought back to his accusation with a bitter, indefinable pain. Me? How could I be the Tearsmith? What did he mean?

I gazed at his sleeping face with the wariness of someone tiptoeing towards a wild, unpredictable beast.

And yet…

And yet, watching him in that moment…I felt something inexplicable. An indescribable peace.

His beautiful face was relaxed. His long lashes cast shadows on his elegant cheekbones and tranquil lips. His proud features were marked with a serenity that I had never seen in him before.

He had never let me see him like this. His lips were always twisted into a sneer, his gaze darkened with malicious intent.

I swallowed. Unfathomable feelings seized my heart. I watched his broad chest gently rise and fall, his heartbeat pulse in his throat…he had never looked so beautiful. His hollow cheeks and the shadows under his eyes, far from detracting from his harmonious beauty, lent him the charm of corrupted, faded youth. No matter how ashen, he would always be enchanting, and there was no scratch, cut or wound that could dim his light.

He was so beautiful when he was peaceful.

How could such radiance hide something so…dark and unfathomable?

How could the wolf look so graceful, when he was supposed to be frightening?

Suddenly, Rigel took a gasping breath and his mouth fell open. He limply moved his head and the cold compress fell to one side. Without thinking, I leant over him to pick it up. I held my breath and my anxious eyes urgently flicked back to his face, but he…

He was still immobile, just a breath away from me. I stared at him, on the brink of an intimacy he had never allowed me. I saw him as if he wasn’t the Tearsmith. As if he was just…Rigel.

Just a young man, sleeping, ill, with a heart and soul like many others.

An indescribable sadness came over me. I felt crushed, crestfallen, powerless. Covered in bruises he had given me without ever having touched me.

I hate you, I wanted to whisper, as anyone else would have in my place. I hate you. I can’t stand your silences, nor anything that you say to me.

I hate your smile, the way you don’t want me near you, all the ways you’ve hurt me.

I hate you for how you always ruin beautiful things, for how violently you leave, as if it was me who had deprived you of something.

I hate you…because you’ve never given me any other choice.

But I didn’t say a word.

I didn’t voice the thoughts. Let them dissolve my heart. I felt drained by a sense of resignation. I was suddenly utterly exhausted.

Because it wasn’t true.

I didn’t hate Rigel. I would never hate him.

I just wanted to understand him.

I just wanted to see that there really was something down there in the shadows of that heart just like any other.

I just wanted to convince the world that it was wrong about him.

‘Why do you always push me away?’ I whispered in anguish. ‘Why don’t you let me understand you?’

I would never hear answers to those questions. He would never give me the answers.

I felt myself slowly slipping down onto the mattress, increasingly foggy with exhaustion. Darkness enveloped me.

And in the end, all I could do…all I could give him in exchange for what he had always given me, was just a deep, slow sigh.