"Ugh! Jesus!" I hit the telephone with violent force. It had awoken me, screeching like a greedy jackhammer straight through my skull, jerking me hopelessly out of my dreams. Lovely dreams, not for the dreams themselves, but for the fact that for a moment or so I had believed them, and reality had ceased to matter. Now I was awake, the sun forcing its way through my blinds and burning on my skin. Last night came pounding back to me, the weight of it sinking my battered body back onto the bed. Fuck, the damm telephone was still ringing! I picked it up off the hook and slammed it several times against the wood of the desk and back into its cradle. The sudden jerk of my arm awakened the fresh scratches there. Why? I promised myself I wouldn't do this again! I bit my nail, thinking how it all ought to be different. Somehow...

RING!

"Goddamm telephone!" In resignation, I grabbed it up, answering wearily. "Yeah?"

I dreaded the answer; the voice of a stranger would have confirmed, for me, the depth of my isolation...

"Chris? It's Julia-"

"You are God!"

"What?" She laughed.

"You're God! I fall to my knees before your greatness!"

"Well come over here then! I could go for that!" She laughed again, god I loved her laugh, it was so beautiful. She had no reason to hate, to fear, she had no reason to ever feel anything at all, she was so perfect, so fucking perfect, and every time I heard her laugh, It did something to me inside.

"I love you."

Three words, three, and how could they, how could any three words give her what I wanted her to have, how could 'I love you' tell her how I felt inside, how-

"Get dressed, I'm coming over. Wait, on second thought, don't get dressed." She giggled, and before I could protest, she had hung up. My heart skipped a beat. Not here. Anywhere else...not here. The place reminded me too much of myself. It hung down around me, it choked me and cut me and trapped me and kept me away from anything I could possibly have ever been. Not here.

But for Julia...

From "tortured soul" I became a flurry of activity, throwing dirty clothes, paints and sheets of paper, candles and broken glass and dirty dishes every which way, as if to clear away the trash that cluttered the room would clear away the Me that hung over it with equal intensity, as if I meant to hide myself from Julia, as I always felt I did.

Before I'd quite finished, a banging on the door interrupted me, the way the telephone had, enraging at first, until I realized it was her.

"Chris...you still here? Cause I am!" Her voice grinned through the door.

I glanced down at myself nervously, and realized with a shock that no effort had been made to conceal the fresh slashes of rage running down my arms, which made my hands tremble. If she found out... I quickly threw on a long-sleeved shirt, buttoned it, ran a comb through my hair, and checked my face in my "mirror". (It was really the largest piece of a mirror I'd broken once in a rage. Despite my superstitious nature I had picked it up and hung it on the wall.) The knocking came again:

"Jo-osh! Hurry up you bum!", Her voice tickled through the door.

"Coming!" I slid the chain off, turned the lock, and opened the door, shoving myself through before Julia could push past me into the oppressive little hellhole in which I've imprisoned myself.

"He-ey!" She laughed. I pulled her face to mine and kissed her hungrily, then locked the door behind my back.

"C'mon, we're going out."

"Where?"

"Anywhere. Hey," I said, noticing the little basket in her arms and peering in curiously, "What's in there?"

"I made brownies last night."

"Oh wow." I, like millions worldwide, am a brownie addict. "Mmm, give me one!"

She pretended to consider this a moment, and I reached around her, grabbed one, and put it in her mouth. She smiled and kissed me with brownie crumbs spilling out of her mouth; of course I didn't care, and kissed her back quite readily. We had our brownies and went out the door.

I cannot tell you how shocking it was for me to emerge from this "black hole" existence I'd created for myself and into a world that apparently had no regard for my suffering whatsoever. Every time it happens, it hits me with renewed outraged, as it did on this occasion. I, then, of course, remembered who I was with, and so deemed it entirely appropriate that the world should smile upon me. I was even able to smile back.

Julia stopped to stare upwards; "with a sky so blue" she said dreamily "One can't help but fade away." We were crossing the street to the park, and both of us, without thinking, stepped off the curb with our eyes in the clouds; A taxi driver screeched to a halt and honked at us. Julia grabbed my hand and ran, in a panic, the rest of the way across the street and into the park, where she doubled up with laughter and fell onto the grass, pulling me down with her. We tumbled for a while and then lay still together. Looking into her eyes, I found myself entirely trapped within them.

Julia was a dream, and I never wanted to wake up. Her laughter colored the air around her, her lips, her cheeks, everything pulsed vibrant and safe and warm and happy. Julia's world was not the sickening pounding of punishment that I had made of mine. Alone, with her, I forgot I existed, and so was able to, in a fuller sense of the word.

It was October, and the trees burned brilliant as we walked back home along Michigan Avenue, talking and laughing and singing and quoting back and forth. A leaf dropped from a tree above our heads and Julia stopped to watch it, uttering a heart-wrenching sigh. "It's so sad." She breathed, "They're so bright and colorful that everyone takes notice, yet seems to forget that the reason they're so beautiful is because they're dying. And then they fall, and crumble, and are trodden on, and die, never to be seen again." I smiled and hugged her to me. She bent to pick up one of the brighter of these melancholy objects and put it in her hair. "Why is it the only really beautiful things in this world are those born of pain?"

"That's not true." I said. "You're beautiful."

"You think I've never had any pain in my life?"

"Well, no, but- well, you - you just know things Julia. You just understand things."

"I suppose," she said, shaking her head as if she didn't, "but that's not the same thing, really."

"I guess not." I said, although I wasn't really sure what she meant. "Look at the sky, too. That's beautiful, and the sky - well, there's no pain in it."

"Ah, but what's more beautiful than a dark night, and you can't deny that's painful."

"Peaceful."

"Eye of the beholder, I guess. To me, it looks - like it's hiding some deep dark secret - like one giant sigh of pain."

"No, it's peaceful. Quiet, reflective. Dreaming, perhaps."

"Nightmares."

Julia had gone. I had closed the door behind her myself, the barrier barely secure between us before agony struck, launching my thoughts into the same desperate monologue- god, I love her. It isn't fair how much I love her. I don't ever want to be away from her. Julia, come back Julia! In my distress I began to talk out loud, cursing her and myself and the world together, because it shouldn't be this way, and is. god I love her.

I crossed the room to the window, opened it, and stuck my head out, taking great gulps of air. Below, the street was dark and deserted, and I couldn't help but feel the same way. So I left it, absorbing myself back into my apartment, where I belonged. Except that I didn't.

I saw something shimmer, a glint of light on the couch. I walked towards it- it was Julia's hand mirror, a graceful thing, its deep black handle decorated with faded roses. I looked into it, trying to see her beautiful face, hoping some trace of it had been left there for me- some little piece of perfection, to comfort me in my torture- and I recoiled to see so ugly, defeated a creature staring up at me, trapped behind my face. Why couldn't it have been hers? Why can't I be as beautiful, and vital, as real as her? As anybody! The whole thing disgusted me, filled my mind with a frenzied hatred, as I stared into that blackness, that hollowness I'd made of myself, so sickeningly revealed through the eyes, the face, the scars- I couldn't take it anymore, and smashed my face, this hated emblem of my soul - smashed it hard against the glass!

The mirror shattered, and I felt blood. This calmed me for a moment, but soon I became frantic -Julia's mirror! I'd broken it! Feverishly I grabbed up the pieces, cutting my fingers on them as I tried hopelessly to piece them back into the frame- to no avail. Something screamed inside of me; I've broken it! I've broken it! Desperate tears blurred my vision; I stumbled, felt a jolt of pain- saw blood running down my hand where I clutched a thick shard of glass like a dagger. Looking down at it, violence pounding through my blood, the old escape calling me, the weapon ready in my hand, I did the only thing I could do- I used it.

She was the one who found me. She had returned, having missed the mirror. She visited me in the hospital the next day, brought me flowers. She tried to smile, spout trivialities, but she couldn't go on very long that way.

"I have to ask, Chris. I'm sorry."

"Why?" A prediction; it seemed to have been the question of the day.

"Yes." She said, "Why. Why didn't you tell me, Chris? Why didn't I know?"

"How could I tell you?"

"How couldn't you! Don't you know Chris, Don't you know I care about you? I thought- I thought we had something- an understanding." She looked like she was about to cry. She thinks I don't love her. I realized; She thinks she doesn't matter to me! But how could she possibly think that!

"Julia-YOU have been my only happiness."

She smiled sadly, and her eyes lowered for a moment.

"I just- I just don't understand why you couldn't trust me with this-"

"Can't you see it's not about that?" I rose wearily; then sank back down as pain shot down my arms, through my bandaged wrists. I saw her eyes trace their way across them, then back to my face. I was surprised to see how they suddenly steeled themselves as she spoke-

"Silence is suicide Chris." I had never seen her look so hard. "Literally. I know." She gave me a sardonic smile. "For me it was aspirin." I looked up at her in surprise, concern- revelation.

"I never would have thought-"

Her eyes softened, she put her hand over mine.

"Chris, I'm sad too, sometimes." She continued, painfully. "I have scars. I've even gone crazy a couple times" She smiled, "You have to trust me. We have to trust each other. I know what you've sacrificed for me, and I love you for it. But I don't deserve it. I don't need it. I'm not so fragile that I can't see your scars, and you're not so strong that you can't show them to me. We have each other, and that's all we have, but if we can't help each other what are we worth? No secrets, Chris."

And all of a sudden I felt free. She knew! The ugly things I'd done, the ugly thing I had become- she knew. But she understood. I knew just by looking at her, she understood. All the love, the devotion I'd given to her- she accepted it. All the pain I'd lived under, subjected myself to- she knew it all, and loved me all the more! I felt wonderful. I felt free. Somehow, I felt real.

"No secrets Chris." Now I don't need them! My hand grabbed hers, and she looked at me, expectantly. My tongue found words-

"No." I said, "No secrets."

Promise.