Element Empress

Episode 1: Esabelle

“I’m sorry! Please, just talk to me again! I’m sorry.”
“No! I’m sorry, too. I thought you wanted this as much as I did.”
“I do want it. But, not now. This isn’t the right time.”
“You always say that. But the truth is it’ll never be the right time for you.”
She picked up the bottom of her wedding dress and hurried back down the aisle with many worried looks following her.
Darius sat remembering that fateful night, when is only love turned away from him. As Darius sat at his window and saw the raindrops fall on his window and take shape of the umbrellas people the tiny people below is gaze were using, he remembered the look on his now former fiancé’s face.  He could see the pain on her face twist around her eyes, which she had shut just after he said ‘I can’t.’ He saw the tears they had turned into. To him, they made her eyes glisten even more in the light of the moon they stood under. The moon. Darius thought about how empty it looked that night and couldn’t help comparing it to how empty he had made her feel. As he got out of the armchair and turned painfully from the window, he realized something.
The fact that he couldn’t bear to turn from the one thing he could look out of for the life. The fact that his windows, all around the house, reminded him of her. Darius realized he had wanted to marry her. No, he still wanted to marry her. He ran to the phone and picked it up. He started to dial the numbers he had been so used to dialing in. Even her number was a part of him. Just as her face was. And her smile, and even the weird, funny looks she would give him when he said something stupid or off topic. In the few seconds or so it took for her to answer her phone, Darius thought about everything that he loved about her. Her deep red hair and how it still managed to stay neat after she’d woken up from a long night of sleep. Her eyes and how they held some much love in them when she looked at him. And her hands. Her hands are what he missed the most. The way they caressed his cheek when they kissed or how they ran through his hair, coaxing his scalp. Just as he was getting lost in the thought, his love answered the phone.
“This had better be good Darius.”
“I need you to come over. It won’t take long.”
“Why?”
“Because it would be better to talk face to face. Please, Ezie?”
It took a while for her to answer.
“Fine. I’ll be there in ten minutes, and you’ve only got twenty.”
“That’s good enough.”
She hung up the phone, and after hearing the click on the other line, so did Darius. Before he went to sit back down in his chair, a frightening thought plagued his mind. What would he say? He sat on the closest chair to him which was at the table where he had shared many of his best meals with her. Darius sat, puzzled at the thought and scared of what he might say on accident. Something he might say on accident that could hurt Esabelle even more than he already had. Just when the answers to that question finally started to come to him, the doorbell rang. He went to answer the door and stopped. What if it was a mistake?
“Hurry up and open the door.”
When he opened it, Esabelle rushed in with her umbrella and coat dripping from the rain outside.
“Esabelle…I…”
“You what?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to say.”
“That’s what you say to me after I drove here in pouring rain?! I don’t know?!” She begins to walk back to the door, but Darius stopped her.
“I’m sorry. But just hear me out. Here,” gesturing towards her coat, “I’ll take this.” Esabelle took off her jacket and stared at him with suspicious eyes. This was the man she almost married. How can she not know what he was up to? Although, he was always unpredictable. That’s why she loved him. Because she could never know what to expect. Shay loved it when he surprised her. She wasn’t so sure about now though.
“Look Darius,” she said as he was walking up to her, “if you’re planning on an apology then you can forget about it. If you weren’t ready after…” Before she could do anything to stop him, his hands covered her cheeks and he kissed her. But it wasn’t their normal kiss. This kiss was made out of passion and fire she hadn’t felt in all the others. She couldn’t fight it. Even if she wanted to. Soon she found she had completely fallen in his will. When Darius broke the kiss, they stared at each other with tears.
“I had no idea what to say when you came in. But I know what I want to say now. It just depends on whether you’re willing to hear it,” Darius said, wiping the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs.
Esabelle thought on it for a short while. Her mind didn’t want to hear it, but her heart gave her no choice. “I’ll listen. But maybe we should sit down first.” They both sit down at the table. It would’ve been the couch they chose, but the chairs at the table were closer. When they sat down, Darius took a deep breath and began.
“Okay, I know I screwed up. I know it. And I’m sorry. I really do want to marry you, but I just kind of panicked. I thought about how many times I could mess up and how bad those times would hurt you.”
“Darius I…”
“Please just…wait until I’m done. I love you Ezie. I just didn’t want to get the chance to have you by my side for life, and lose it because I messed up. I would never hurt you on purpose. I would never take the chance on doing something that might hurt you. I hope you know that. If you still want to let go and leave, then I won’t stop you. But as long as you can promise me you won’t forget me.”
Esabelle couldn’t speak. She thought and thought of something to say that could refuse him. But that power wasn’t in her.
“Esabelle, do you remember how it rained on our last date?” She nodded. “Do you remember what I said to you? I said, ‘I wish it could stay this way. I wish I could have just you and the rain. And I’d be happy for the rest of my life.”
Esabelle stared at him. She saw pain. For the first time in the years she had spent with him, she saw his pain, his fear, and the love for her he had hidden. She knew he loved her. She just had no idea how much until now. She couldn’t refuse him. It was impossible to her. “I don’t think I’ll be walking away this time.”
~          ~          ~
He walked down the street and watched the sky.
“That was years ago. I wonder why…why she left.”
He looked down just in time to see that he was about to bump into someone and stopped walking.
“Watch where you’re…huh?” He looked down at a girl with eyes as blank and gray as the moon but, strangely, as warm as the sun.
The girl looked up at him with a curious expression.
“Mi—Michael…” Just before she could finish the sentence she fell to ground.
“Who the hell is Michael?!!”
He debated whether or not he should help her and decided to call 911 and wait. When the police and the ambulance got there, the cops questioned him on the girl and what he was doing with her.
“I don’t know her! I told you that a thousand times already!”
“Then what were you doing with her,” said the officer said squinting his eyes.
“Huh?! Huh?!!”
“I told you, I was walking home and I almost bumped into her. Then she stared at me and called me Neji or something right before she passed out.”
“Whatever,” he said apparently not caring what he said, “Look…we’ll keep in touch, got it?!” The officer walked backwards towards his car pointing at his eyes with two fingers and then him.
“I’ve got my eye on you!!” He drove off with his partner staring intently at the man.
“Weirdo,” he said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Unexpectedly, one of the hospital officials had walked up to him.
“Um…sir…we need you to come with us.”
“What for?!!”
“Well. She’s asking for you.” The doctor pointed to the hospital van. “And it would be much easier if you just came with us because she won’t stay still unless you’re in the van.”
The man looks and sees the girl pointing at him.
“Fine! Whatever!!”
~          ~          ~
When they get to the hospital, the doctors told him to sit in the waiting room just outside the patient’s room. After they had taken care of the girl and called him in, the doctors left the room whispering.
“Awww. Such a good couple, huh?”
“Yeah.” The second doctor replies, smiling in a dreamy way. “…They almost make me want to come out of the closet.”
“…We’ll just keep that quiet for now, okay?” He stared at them as they turned off into the hallway.
         “I do not know what to think of that.”
“Michael?”
“I’m not Michael!! DAMMIT!!”
“You’re not?”
“NO!!”
“Then who the hell are you?!!”
“I’m Darius.”
“Oh. Sounds stupid.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean,” he yelled glaring at her.
“Nothing,” the girl said nonchalantly.
“Why were you asking for me in the van?”
“Oh…I thought you were someone I knew.
“Who?”
`“Not important.” She blushed as she said this. “Um…where are my clothes,” she asked looking around on the floor.
“I don’t know. Look. I’m going home.” He began walking to the door but she calls him back.
“No! Wait…um—boy.”
Darius stops and turns slowly to look at her. “Did you just call me…boy?!”
“Yeah,” she replied shrugging her shoulders, “who cares what your name is! I need your help.”
Darius looks at her with an incredulous look on his face.
“Why should I help you?! You can’t even remember my name! And I don’t know yours.”
“Oh fine!!” The girl shakes her head and crosses her arms. “Fine! My name is Esabelle. What’s yours?”
“…Bye.” Darius starts towards the door, ready to leave everything behind not knowing that it would change his life forever.
“WAIT!”
"What do you want?!"
"You mean you really don't remember me? It hasn't been that long has it?"
"What? What are you talking about?"
"It's me...Esabelle."
"What?"
"Y'know..Ezie!"
         Darius stared at her and noted how her eyes looked like his ex-fiancée’s. He saw the same pouted lips and slightly pointed ears.
         “So? Remember me now?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders.
         “Why’d you leave?” Darius glared at her with now crossed arms. How can someone leave like that? Was she still mad at him? Old emotions filled the room with tension as the two stared at each other.
         “I’ll answer that for you if you agree to help me.”
         “ Why should I help you? I thought you forgave me. And then you just left me there.”
         “It’s not that simple. I—”
         “Well when it becomes simple enough for you to answer then call me.”
         He left the room and Esabelle smothered in the heavy atmosphere.