With or Without

Clarisse was in her towel, brushing her teeth at the bathroom sink, not even having brought her pyjamas from her room to get changed into.

“Clarisse,” Luke called out from the living room. “Don’t go outside, okay?”

Her toothbrush paused as she frowned at her reflection, almost expecting some explanation to come from her counterpart in the mirror. “Yeah?” she mumbled over the toothpaste foam pooling up in her mouth. “Okay.”

It was only once she resumed her brushing that the answer came, not from Luke’s mouth but from two screaming voices at last travelling into the bathroom for her to hear. The bristles on the brush began to scrape right down to her gums now. She was sending her own silent message back to them – or to anyone that would hear, really – ‘I hope this doesn’t break them’. Yet the man’s voice was throwing phrases and the woman’s voice was merely shrieking up and down.

“Do you hear them?” Luke asked as soon as Clarisse came out into the living room. He was standing by the front door, half inside, half outside as he looked out onto the street.

“Yeah, of course I hear them,” Clarisse murmured, wandering closer to the door. “What’s happening?”

“He’s abusing her. They’ve been up and down the street at each other—”

“Wait, wait, like… hurting her? Hitting her?”

Luke peered out the door again, beckoning Clarisse nearer still as she teetered on the edge of popping her own head outside with his. “I went out there before when they were up the hill, but I didn’t wanna get too close. I wanna check on them again, though.”

At last, Clarisse swallowed her reservations about being nosy and stuck her neck forward past the door.

“Hey, woah, what are you doing?” Luke exclaimed, pressing against her towel to push her back inside.

“I’m not going out there, I’m just seeing.” She looked and saw trees, the street, the house on the other side of the road and darkness. “Where are they?”

“They went up the hill again,” Luke sighed. “I’m gonna go check that they’re alright.”

“What?” Clarisse pulled her head back inside to look at him. “Well, just wait ‘til I get dressed and—”

“No, no, you’re staying here,” Luke said, moving inside and facing her. His hands and eyes did a better job of communicating his concern rather than his firm tone, and Clarisse didn’t miss it.

“I won’t go all the way,” she bargained. “I’m just gonna stand at the front to keep an eye on you in case anything happens.”

“No, Clarisse.”

“I’ll just be there to see you. Come on, I’ll be changed in, like, thirty seconds.” She turned to go to their room, but Luke was adamant, stepping forward and grabbing her arm before she could take a step.

“I’ll be quick. By the time you get dressed, I’ll probably be back. Just wait here.”

“Fine,” Clarisse agreed, letting her shoulders fall. But the fading screams seemed to stop her from warning him not to get involved, and she merely squeezed his hand with a small nod.

As promised, Luke appeared at the door just as Clarisse was coming out from their room in her pyjamas – though, admittedly, she had taken longer than thirty seconds to dress.

“Do you want to come out, actually?” Luke panted and checked over his shoulder briefly.

“Yeah, what happened? Did you see them?”

“They… they’re going further up the street just… just going crazy.”

Clarisse swallowed, sending her message to Luke now through her gaze as she crossed to the fridge and poured a glass of water. ‘We can help them. They’re going to be alright.’

Luke breathed in and out as slowly as he could manage, fighting to keep his eyes from darting sideways at each shout. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I just thought it would be better if we both went. I don’t wanna get involved if I don’t have to, but I can’t let them pass by like that, he… he’s hurting her, and I don’t know why. I can’t understand what they’re saying, but I have to see.”

“I know, Luke,” said Clarisse and pressed the glass of water in his hands with a small smile that he barely replicated. “Let’s go, then.”

It took a couple of seconds before Luke realised first what he was now holding and then what Clarisse had said, whereupon he nodded once deeply, drained the glass without feeling the water and opened the door wide for Clarisse to follow him. “If anything happens,” he warned as Clarisse stepped forwards, “you run, okay?”

Clarisse grinned up at him, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Okay.” Then, placing her hand in his, she started them off towards the street with a glint in her pale eyes. Luke did so well at making situations feel more dramatic than they would probably turn out to be

Yet no matter what visions of fights and chases flashed through her mind, he was equally good at killing the drama shortly after.

“They’ve gone too far up,” he announced, peering up the street where the screams could barely be heard anymore. They had taken two steps off their own driveway.

“Well, we can jump in the car,” Clarisse suggested, believing his biting lip and frowning eyes more than his statement.

“No,” he said automatically. “No, no, it’s okay. I don’t want him to jump in front of the car or…” He still hadn’t removed his attention from the street ahead. “Or, you know, grabbing you out or something…”

“Luke.” Clarisse grabbed his hand, finally prompting him to turn his face back towards her. “I’m happy to go for a quick drive if you want to. We don’t have to get out.”

The street was silent now and the broken streetlights had died probably for the fiftieth time that night already. Luke bit his lips again and looked down at Clarisse’s hand grasping onto his, stroking it with his thumb absentmindedly.

“No, let’s go inside,” he said without looking away from their hands. “They’ll be alright.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded firmly and followed his hand up to her face, which he patted gently before extending his arm across her shoulders to lead them back inside.

A soft whoo sound somewhere in the night air faltered their steps for a moment as they climbed the stairs up to the door, but neither turned their heads to investigate.

They were not long indoors after parting hands when more ordinary dilemmas arose to constrain their minds within the walls of their apartment. Clarisse sat against the wall on the end of the bed with a book resting on her drawn-up knees, hardly glancing up when Luke walked in from the bathroom and not paying the slightest notice as he was getting changed in the corner of her eye. Even when he laid himself down she merely took a deep breath from the pressure of having to finish a paragraph quickly and then glanced over the pages at Luke now scrolling through his phone. She rolled her eyes with a small shake of the head and opened up the book again, only just managing to limit herself to the end of the chapter before making a proper effort to gain Luke’s attention. Laying forward on her front, she stuck her head in between his face and his phone, tapping him gently on the head with her book as she reached over him to put it on the bedside table.

“You can keep reading.”

Clarisse frowned, propping herself up on her hand to put herself somewhere in his vision as he continued to scroll. “No, I’m finished.”

“Alright.”

“Are you tired?” she probed and slipped her free hand under his shirt to let her fingers dance across his chest.

He didn’t react. “Not really,” he said, making no attempt to conceal his boredom.

Clarisse fabricated a yawn, but Luke refused to reciprocate. “What’s wrong?” she whined, reaching her fingers to his chin now.

“It’s stupid, don’t worry about it.”

“You seem to be worrying about it,” Clarisse pressed and was glad to see him finally sigh in exasperation and look elsewhere, even if it wasn’t at her.

“Sometimes it’s like I don’t exist for you, Clarisse,” he complained at the ceiling.

“What?”

“You used to forget about your books the moment I walked into any room and then you couldn’t keep your eyes off me the whole time, but now you hardly bat an eyelid.”

“Okay,” Clarisse allowed, “but I’m not always reading.”

“I know that.” Luke was already using his phone as a baton in the air to help illustrate his point. “It’s just an example, but—”

“Exactly. You’re picking out one thing that I only do sometimes and acting like I ignore you all the time.”

“No-o. That’s one example, but you do it with other things too. Whatever you’re doing – cooking, working on something, watching things – you get inside your own little world that apparently I’m not part of.”

Clarisse couldn’t help a short snigger as she finally withdrew her hand to herself. “Uh-huh, oh,” she jeered, “so I’m supposed to follow you around and affirm everything you say or do with a laugh and smile and kiss and a joke, huh?”

Luke turned a long, hard gaze on her. “You know that’s not what I mean,” he said quietly. “I just miss the moments when you would actually look up and acknowledge me even when you’re in the middle of something – even for a second or two. Yeah, a smile, a comment, a laugh or two, I wouldn’t mind a kiss—”

“What? And I don’t do that?”

“Yes, of course, you do, but you seem to think you have to put everything else aside beforehand like I’m just one of the things you have to allot time for in your day. I miss when I could just be a constant presence beside you that you didn’t have to give a hundred percent of your attention and time to because you would give me every small moment in between without grudging it.”

The soft thrum of wings flapping past their window seemed to take the air from Clarisse as she slumped to the side and clenched her teeth in an effort to find a word or two to grind out.

“I’m sorry,” Luke sighed and patted her hand. “I told you it was stupid.”

“No.” Clarisse managed a sloppy shake of her head as she bent her neck. “I’m stupid, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s just…” A tear fell into her voice at Luke’s squeezing grasp. “You make it sound so simple, but I don’t know if it’s so simple to change. Like, I don’t mean to ignore you like that, so how can I know when I’m doing it, or not?”

Clarisse’s sulking voice grated against Luke’s ears and set his heart hammering with more force than if she had screamed back her own defence. In the corner of his eye, the wooden floor spread itself out before him, beckoning his forehead to stoop down and – bang! bang! bang! – in time with the drumbeat in his chest. “I don’t know, Clarisse,” he mumbled, but he hardly heard his own words let alone her response as he scrunched up his face and dug his nails into his palm to shut out the taunting of the floor.

It didn’t work. With a distressed growl, he flung himself out of bed, causing Clarisse to scramble backwards in shock mid-sentence. “I don’t f*cking know how to help you, Clarisse!” he yelled at the wooden floorboards. “You’re the one with the problem! How is it so f*cking hard to look up and notice me for half a bloody second in your day?”

He rested his throbbing head against the floor for a moment, but the pounding didn’t stop. Now it was coming from the front door, which was rattling wildly in the door frame and sending the banging through the floorboards straight to Luke’s buzzing ear.

“Hello! It’s the police!”

His body stiffened and broke into a sweat.

“I’ll get it,” Clarisse said softly and laid her hand on his shoulder as she passed by him.

“No, Clarisse!” he wanted to shout after her, but he couldn’t let the slightest puff of air pass his lips.

“Hi, there,” came a deep voice that sounded much too close. “We received a report of a disturbance in the street. Do you know anything about that?”

Luke shook his head in his hands and bit his lips together. If only the gap under the bed was large enough for him to fit under!

“Um, yeah, it was about twenty minutes ago,” Clarisse was saying, and Luke couldn’t help a small groan. “It was a man and a woman screaming at each other, and I think he might have been hurting her…”

Luke was by her side before he noticed he had even sprung up from the floor, squeezing a warning in her hand as he faced the officer whose calmness was vexing. “Yeah, they came from down the street that way and hung around here for a bit, so I went out to check if they were okay, but I didn’t want to get too close. They ended up moving up the hill, though, and we haven’t heard them since.”

The officer nodded. “Right. Okay, thanks, guys.”

Luke managed a thin smile and a curt nod in reply but saved his breath of relief for after the officer and his colleague had reached the driveway.

“I hope they find them,” Clarisse said, and Luke found himself nodding again.

“Yeah. Me, too.” As he was reaching out to the doorknob, he noticed a pair of beady black orbs that made the shadows in the branches look bright as they blinked at him, but they only made him swing the door shut with more haste. “Let’s go to bed.”

Clarisse didn’t stir a finger when Luke woke early at the sound of talons scratching against the wall outside, nor did she lose a breath as he slid his arm out from her neck and stole out of the room. He allowed himself one small sigh on his way to the door; even a twitch of the lips would have been nice to get out of her.

There was nothing to be seen outside once he had walked around the corner to their bedroom window, but that didn’t stop him from standing in the crisp morning air and staring at the ugly brick wall until the sun began to poke its fingers in his eyes. From the first moment, he questioned himself as to why he had bothered to get up and come all the way out to check on something that wasn’t very alarming. Yet that questioning also took time, and that time was spent staring. The longer he stared, the more he questioned, which of course meant more staring and longer questioning. In the end, he drove the sun insane as it watched, for there wasn’t much to stare at, after all, even if there was quite a bit to question. The poking, then, was an act of kindness – pity, even – at last steering Luke away from the wall and out into the street.

He looked up the hill first. It didn’t look appealing. So he turned to the other direction, thrusting his feet in front of him before he could persuade himself not to go that way either.

“Afraid of what you’ll find up the hill?”

Apparently, his effort of choosing a direction was useless. “Why would I be afraid?” he asked, turning around with an air of complacency that would have surprised himself if he had been paying attention.

“Haven’t you heard?”

Luke shook his head at the shadow under the umbrella, trying to squint through the sun’s glare to catch a glimpse of the stranger’s face.

“Don’t look at me.” It was a man’s voice; Luke could tell that much, however mellow and calming it sounded. “I’m not the one who let them be last night.”

“What are you talking about?” His frown could be heard in the question.

“He killed her,” cooed the shadow and the umbrella twirled in circles. “Last night after you left them. He killed her.” No warning was given before the shadow stepped forwards, swallowing Luke under the umbrella. A pale face with small, black holes for eyes glowered over him. “How do you feel about that?”

The unblinking steadiness of the pale face seemed to rob Luke of his own composure, leaving his jaw trembling and his fingers scratching against his forearm. “I… I… I…” he repeated over and over again but couldn’t get another word out.

The pale face pursed its triangular lips into a leering smirk and poked his stomach with an impressively sharp nail as though inviting Luke to join in with his hollow chuckle. ‘Hoo Hoo Hoo’ it went, blowing puffs of warm air into Luke’s face. “That’s alright. I won’t tell anyone that you could have saved her.” Now his claw of a finger was lifted to his lips as he arched his wiry eyebrows in an excited grin. “Your secret,” he whispered, and patted Luke on the shoulder with his free hand, “is safe with me.” Then he nodded, turned on his heel and headed back up the hill, twirling the umbrella behind him.

Luke didn’t wait for the shadow to disappear over the hill. He was already running back to the apartment the moment his arm flinched away from the shadow’s pat. Once inside, he bolted the door, pulled the curtains closer together and fled back to his bedroom. “Clarisse!” he panted, flopping himself down on the bed and scrambling to find her in the blankets. “Clarisse?” He checked under the pillow, lifted the blanket up and swept his hand up and down the sheet to find nothing but the bed. “Where is she?” he fumed, his breaths becoming deeper and heavier as his chest sent its flames up his throat and drew tears from his eyes. “Clarisse!”

“Are you alright?”

He whipped his head up like a dog caught in the kill. Clarisse was standing in the doorway with a towel towering on top of her tilted head. “Where were you?” Luke breathed, crossing the room in under a second.

Clarisse allowed a faint frown as her eyes drifted sideways towards the bathroom. “In… the shower…” she said, then stumbled back with a small grunt of surprise when Luke extended his sigh of relief into her arms, while wrapping his own tightly around her back. She let him hold her, soaking in his thunderous breaths and wiping the rain from his cheeks until the storm had subsided to a mere patter that her own voice of calm could be hear over. “What’s wrong, my love?”

Like a tree shivering in the wind and dropping a mini deluge beneath its canopy, Luke shuddered against Clarisse’s body and squeezed her closer still so that his hiccupped inhale vibrated in her chest. “I didn’t save her, Clarisse.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice may have been a gentle breeze, but it spread goosebumps over Luke’s skin. “My love?”

“She…” Luke scrunched up his face and pressed his fingers into Clarisse’s back, putting all his might into restraining himself from digging through her shirt into her skin. Even her body was not warm enough to sustain the chill that was creeping all the way into his bones. “Last night. I…” At least if he was able to breathe properly it might have been easier to speak, but the frost emanating from Clarisse was freezing his air before it could travel low enough to fuel his voice. She was hardly better than an ice-block now yet she insisted on keeping him within her grasp, while he, like a jammed vice, could not release her. “Let me go,” he rasped, but if he did not lean on her for support, he felt he would collapse. “Please Clarisse,” he tried, advancing to a whimper now as he pawed her neck clumsily. “Let me go.”

At last being able to make out his words, Clarisse jolted back, holding his shoulders at arm’s length. “What?” she gasped, boring her gaze into him. “What did I do? What’s wrong?”

“No.” Luke shook his head before thinking how it would ache. “No, no, it’s not you.”

“Then what? What happened?”

“We should have followed them.”

“Last night, you mean?” Clarisse was fighting to maintain Luke’s attention. “Luke? Did something happen to them?”

His head dangled forwards in a half-hearted nod. “To her,” he mumbled, then groaned, forcing Clarisse to hold his chin up to look at her.

“But how do you know?”

“He killed her.”

Clarisse flinched as though he had tried to hit her, then shook her head firmly. “No,” she told him. “No, remember? The police came. They would have stopped him.”

“But they didn’t,” Luke whispered fiercely, blowing his icy fire into Clarisse’s face in an attempt to freeze her tears before they overflowed onto her cheeks.

“No, Luke.” Her tears came pouring out all the same, but at least Luke had managed to choke up her throat. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” It was only Luke’s insufferably low voice that kept Clarisse from moaning over the top of his words. “Someone saw. And he knows.”

In a sudden frenzy, Clarisse seized Luke’s hands and pressed them against her cheeks, digging his nails into her skin with her own strength. “Look at me!” she commanded, but her eyes were wide and begging. “I’m. Still. Here.”

Luke blinked through the blur in front of him as Clarisse flashed on and off before his eyes. He clawed at her face now with the same urgency. “I know, Clarisse,” he insisted, and pressed her forehead against his. “I know you’re here. I know… I know…”

He closed his eyes for a moment and almost jumped in panic when he didn’t see her for a good two seconds after opening them again. “Clarisse!” he cried, but upon finding he could not hold her any tighter than he already was, he smothered his salty eyes over her whitening face. “Stay with me, my love. You’re still here. You’re still here.”

Clarisse’s eyes were drained of colour and her lips could barely manage to brush Luke’s own for a kiss. “What happened to her, Luke?” she sighed with a breath that wouldn’t lift a speck of dust.

They were too soft for Luke to hear (or admit to hearing), in any case. Instead, he staggered back, horrified by her deathly appearance, and turned away to rid the sight from his mind. Long, night-coloured hair, waving about her peppered caramel skin – that was the Clarisse he knew. And she had a deep burgundy smile that stretched right up to her majestic cheek bones. But her clear ocean eyes – those were what he loved to lose himself in the most. He could float in those crystal pools for hours on end. Yes, there was Clarisse. Calm Clarisse. Happy Clarisse. Quiet Clarisse.

He turned around. “Clarisse,” he breathed, beaming with joy.

She smiled in answer and walked up to him, folding him in her embrace and pressing her lips against his as she pushed him down on the bed. Luke’s sun was no longer outside, but right beside him, breathing him in and out until she set, heedless of the tiresome journey still ahead for the one in the sky. It didn’t bother Luke. He gladly adapted his schedule to suit the sun beside him and rested peacefully in her warm embrace.

Admittedly, it had been quite a while since Luke had spent long enough in the sun to get properly burnt, so his horror upon waking from the searing heat boiling his heart was somewhat excusable. He stared up at the ceiling, almost wanting to yell at it for not gazing on him with pity, yet not daring to drop his eyes to his chest where Clarisse was… or had been… or… he didn’t want to think about what else. She had to be there, so that meant she was. Clarisse was here – with him.

He still had to repeat this to himself hundreds of time over before even thinking about looking down to check.

That was how he discovered his body was soaking with sweat to the point of drenching his clothes and sheets. Even so, it wasn’t the sweat that made him stiffen in an effort to keep his heart locked in his chest, but the sight of himself – alone. For a dreadful moment, he couldn’t think who it was he was missing until he squeezed his scorching arms against himself and remembered someone else who had embraced him in a different way. He pictured her face, laughing with her lips closed like she always used to do.

A hot shiver rattled his body, making the bed quake as though proclaiming its own lament for his sorry state. At least something in the room was sparing a moment to commiserate with him, unlike the ceiling which earned a reproachful glare amidst his frenzy. He shook his head and heaved himself to his feet, storming straight out into the living room without forgetting to let the door bang shut on his way out.

“Did you have a nightmare or something?” asked Clarisse from the kitchen, hardly bothering to turn over her shoulder as she stirred the sauce on the stove.

“You’re a nightmare,” Luke retorted and plopped himself down on the couch.

Clarisse snorted over the sauce. “Wow, I’d love to see a good dream of yours then.”

Luke shrugged and stared at the floor. “I don’t have good dreams.”

“Mm, I see.” Clarisse swung around with the wooden spoon in her mouth and slid over to sit on his knees. “That must be because your reality is too amazing already.” She didn’t give him a choice whether he wanted to lick the spoon but thrust it between his lips before he could bat her away. “Nothing can compare.”

The spoon fell on the floor, so forcefully did Luke spit it out. “It might be amazing if you were like this all the time.”

“Oh? What am I like in other times?”

“Not like this.”

“Yes, I gathered that much.”

Luke nodded and pushed her off his knees. “Good.”

“So, what, then?”

“What are you making?” Luke asked, sniffing the air and peering over at the stove.

“Pasta. What am I like?”

“Red sauce?” For a moment, his face lit up with the puppy-like enthusiasm he could never suppress when discussing such things like pasta.

Of course, Clarisse didn’t notice. “Didn’t you taste it just then?” All she did was pick up the spoon and mope back to the kitchen to wash it before returning it to the pot.

“Like this, Clarisse,” Luke called after her, having watched every movement she made as though in slow motion.

“What!” she cried, hitting the sauce with the cleaned spoon and spinning around with red droplets spattered over her face.

It was all too amusing for Luke, who raised his eyes with an exasperated chuckle. “You really are so oblivious, aren’t you?” he teased, only serving to aggravate Clarisse further.

“Of what?” she burst, only just restraining herself from flinging the spoon across the room. “You liked me a few seconds ago, then pushed me away, but now you’re annoyed with me and all you can do is mock me.”

“Why did you leave me in there?”

“What? In where?

“In our room. It was perfect. Why did you come out here?”

“I don’t know! I just woke up, I saw you were still asleep, so I came out to do something nice for you and cook you pasta, but I guess that’s wrong, too!” A glugging sound behind her brought her whipping back around to see the sauce bubbling and sticking to the saucepan like glue. “Oh great!” she chirped and didn’t sweat her instinct of throwing the spoon down onto the bench. “Never mind about the pasta, I ruined that anyway, so you must be right. I should have stayed, after all!”

It was probably a good thing Clarisse still had her back to Luke’s thinly pressed grin as he eyed her shaking the pot and turning it in her hands. “Sometimes, Clarisse,” he sighed. “You just need to stop and think which is more important – your husband or some pasta.”

The saucepan clashed on the stove top, but Clarisse didn’t let go of the handle until it was flying across the room, sending spots of red splattering over the walls, seats and floor until it skidded to a stop in front of Luke’s feet.

He was up in a flash, not forgetting the saucepan on his way out the front door, close on Clarisse’s heels as she fled up the street, screaming as she went. “Maybe I wouldn’t have to keep saying this all the time if you didn’t f*cking overreact every time I suggest something!”

In two steps, he caught up to her, locking his arm around her throat and thrusting the saucepan into her flailing hands.

“Go on. Hit me,” he taunted, swinging her around to face him. “Hit me!”

She shook her head.

“Hit me!”

She tried forcing herself free, but his grip was like a vice, and he only shouted louder the more she whined.

“Hit me! Hit me! Hit me!”

Finally, he gave up and renewed his headlock, dragging her up the hill, all the while screaming taunts back at her shrieks. At the top of the hill, he stopped in front of the old farmhouse, and closed his mouth mid-sentence. He even seemed to have forgotten about Clarisse as he allowed the seasoned building to gaze down upon him. Somehow, he sensed that its eyes could see him better now in the dark rather than if it were still day, and he felt at ease. Here was something that noticed him despite the covering that shrouded the space between.

He leant down to Clarisse’s ear. “Alright, my love,” he whispered. “You don’t have to hit me.” Then he raised his arm and stared straight back at the farmhouse as he kissed Clarisse’s head over and over again with the edge of the saucepan, refusing to stop until the beady-eyed barn owl rushed at him from the house and loosened his grip on his wife.

She fell to the ground, her skin now as white as the owl’s feathers, which batted against Luke’s neck as he fled back down the hill to safety – without Clarisse.