Chapter Text
There's always something better that we could have done. There's always something that we could do. Hero forgets the way she grew up tired. She wants the life that she has now because she doesn't know the good that she could have got.
But Hero holds on hope, as she always has, that life gets better. She is playing with the fancy irish peas left over from her carbonara as her husband drones on and on egregiously. She is half asleep already with dinner warm in her belly, yet a gnawing growing in her heart. Hero goes to speak but Claudio continues to talk over her. This is what he does. He is gallant and charming and beautiful. But lately he speaks around Hero like she isn't there. He knows her like the back of his hand, brags about it. Hero has grown quiet. She is demure, pretty, silent. A ghost of herself.
She picks up their plates, clinking them together and scraping the leftovers into the bin. Claudio keeps on talking, needing Hero in his conversation as much as he needs her in his life. She is not being fair to him, she knows. Claudio has never been selfish. Not by his own merits. He is loving and kind when he is loving and kind and Hero loves him so much the bad parts shouldn't matter. Her mind flashes back to that summer. Don John's lips to her hand, Claudio; ethereal- then demonic. She turns the faucet on too hot. The water blisters at her hands but all she feels is numb. She just never thought that it would be this way. She thought that she would get her happily ever after and be able to live with it too. There's a surge of resentment sharp in her lungs when she sees her husband slump into the couch, searching briefly for the remote to turn the telly on. Her brow furrows, anger spikes. NO! It is not his fault. She is never fair to Claudio.
She turns the water off instead of arguing and sweeps up the crumbs from his spot with her wet hands. Relationships take work. And it is her fault that she feels this way. Claudio had to reconcile with the thought that she had hurt him. The least she could do is put in the work to make this work. Reassure him. Take into account how he might feel.
Even now, the betrayal stings.
It is why he yells on the car ride home from his office's annual Christmas party, one too many beers in, slightly swerving on the road. It's why he grabs harshly at her in the grocery store, pulling her away from the men walking by. She cannot fault him for that. She cannot- Anyways, the bruises on her wrists have faded; she can barely even remember the pain. She sighs, a small quiet thing, and crouches down to sweep the dirt towards the dustpan. She should not dwell on this. It is not fair to either of them if she cannot be content with what she has.
There's a lacking in her life that she could let devour her. It melts on her like snowflakes leaking into porous skin. She can feel herself sinking, day by day, into the mindset that everything she does matters less and less.
But Hero holds on hope, as she always has, that life gets better.
There is water on the floor of the cupboard under the sink. She is sitting in front of the space watching as tiny rivulets drip down despondently. The faint plop plop that echoes remind her of raindrop drops. The cupboard doors sit next to her, carefully unscrewed from their hinges. They leak cardboard wet into the living rooms adjoining carpet. Hero sighs, thinking for a split second of calling the landlord to fix it, but what would Claudio think? If she invites Abram up to their tiny living space without her husband there, Claudio would jump to conclusions. He would accuse her or he would sulk and insinuate and Hero might never hear the end of it. No, It is best to suffer trying to fix this herself than it is to needlessly ruin things. She will make this right. Then she and Claudio can have a nice night out enjoying eachothers company. She does not need to make this a thing. She just needs to be able to stop the sink from flooding the apartment and drowning them while they sleep. Or while they're awake considering how when she pokes at the loose pipe at the back of the cupboard it cracks and spills water twice as fast towards her.
Hero jumps back from the flood. The water has turned brackish with the backlog and it splashes at her dress heedless of the fact she has just gotten clean. The flood cascades towards her in a lazy loop, washing her with muck and food debris. The carpet absorbs a fair amount and turns almost instantaneously into muckish grey bog.
Hero cannot swim. Suddenly she is terrified. She cannot call the landlord. She cannot call her husband-and what? Interrupt his last hour of work? She is stuck on the fact that she does not know how to swim in these conditions. She does not know how to breathe anymore. A fast sharp breath heaves out her throat just to force its way seconds later back into her mouth. She feels like she is trying to breathe while sticking her head out of the window of a car going 90 miles. She gulps at air like a fish out of water. Tears fall from her eyes obscuring her vision and adding to the sewer on the floor.
Hero runs. She gets into her car and drives to the riverwalk just to remember that things could be worse. The river water rapids churn a blazing white in contrast to how dark it has already gotten. She calls Beatrice. No matter how loud the river is, no matter how much it reflects the roaring in her mind that tells her she should be able to do this on her own, she knows for a fact that she has someone to count on. She knows without a shadow of a doubt that Beatrice is there for her. No matter what. The line rings.
And rings. And rings.
She calls Ben.
"Hello?"
"Benedick! Oh my god! Put Bea on I need to talk to her, my place is flooding and I need-"
"You've reached Ben! Maybe next time this could be a text? Anyways: at the beep you know what to do!"
"Fuck."
Her place is flooding. And she doesn't know how to make this right. Or how she's supposed to take care of herself. She just needs someone to tell her what to do. So she goes to the one person who lives nearby who, reasonably, should still be home.
Don John opens the door in a fluffy green robe five minutes later, hair wet, disgustingly pretty and probably warranting the burden of being named her best friend.
"I need your help." She says first thing. And miraculously, he doesn't even take a moment to formulate a reply that could turn her down.
"Okay." is his immediate response.
She tells him about her apartment in the car on the way. She confesses, while he drives because she is becoming manic about it once again, that she has absolutely no idea how this could have happened. He stays quiet while she speaks.
When they get back to her apartment the landlord is there. He has turned the main water supply off to the entire building and is asking for the key to her apartment door. Apparently the tenants below her complained.
"It's unlocked." She tells them looking at John. And the three of them journey up two flights of stairs to her door only to find Claudio standing in the sea of what is supposed to be their apartment.
"Hero," He says tense, "What the fuck?"
"Well, " replies the landlord while Hero squeaks, "You are going to have to pay for that."
It's been hours since the incident and everything is put back to normal. The landlord fixed the pipes with Claudio hovering close by. Hero said her thanks and goodbyes to John. And graciously, Abram had gifted them with a fancy water vacuum they use to mop up the carpet. Everything smells like fish. And mold. Hero takes an extra long shower to avoid the confrontation about it with Claudio, then dresses back into a fancy dress complete with a fancy new cloak for the wintertime.
She is determined to have a wonderful celebration of their fifth year of marriage no matter the cost. She has been saving up to buy her husband one of those fancy cologne sets. So she goes into the livingroom to talk to Claudio and apologise for ruining their kitchen. She finds him, curled up under a blanket looking cute and exhausted, in front of the tv.
"Claudio." She says, "What are you doing?"
There must be something in her tone of voice because as soon as the words are out of her mouth Claudio emits what can only be called a screech. "I just wanted one day where I didn't have to deal with stupid insolent people who cause stupid fucking problems for me to clean up!"
She feels the sharp sting of his words like a dagger through her heart. He thinks she's stupid? Well, it's true. She can't even touch the sink without causing a major flood in the middle of their apartment. "I'm sorry." She says, meek. "But we fixed it. It doesn't have to ruin our anniversary, we can still-"
"Stop!" He says, and for a moment the whole world does come to an abrupt stop. Hero is holding her breath unconsciously at the thought of him angry. She doesn't quite understand her own reactions. She loves him... Doesn't she? Something is wrong with her because when Claudio stalks towards her she flinches. He goes to the newly pristine kitchen and pours himself a drink.
They don't go out that night. They don't do anything for their anniversary at all. It's not the first one they haven't celebrated. He has been busy and she hasn't felt the need to be reminded that another year has passed blissfully married, because they should be celebrating this everyday. She is still as irreversibly in love with her husband as the moment they exchanged wedding vows. But five whole years, she thought, is a milestone that they should acknowledge. But they go to bed barely speaking. He turns out the light before she is done brushing her teeth and gets into bed before her. They sleep next to each other's pools of warmth, barely touching, and the gift set she painstakingly saved up for him gathers dust in the back of her closet.
"Claudio," Her voice wavers just the tiniest fraction, she takes a small breath to calm herself enough to speak. "I need to talk to you."
"Is this about the floor? I swept!"
He's exasperated, shaking his head from side to side off the back of the couch like she's some kind of mother hen.
"No." She says in a soft voice, "Not about the floors." Though secretly she thinks the worst of him- that he hasn't swept, just told her he has.
"Okay. What?" He says distracted with the TV still on and tuned into the sports channel. The Raiders are losing to the Seahawkes only mildly so Claudio shouldn't be too invested. The sound is muted to a low hum of commentary. This is the perfect time to talk. If only Hero could just get herself to speak! She inches closer to the couch, smoothing the leather of it tightly with her hands. "I'm starting to blame you for even the mundane things, and that's not a fair thing to think of you." His face is emotionless when he turns around to face her. After a beat she starts to think he hasn't heard her. Or doesn't understand what she has said, so she tries again, getting more and more frantic the longer he stays passive. "So I think I have to leave. I think we have to let eachother go. I think this isn't right. That it never was. That whatever this is, we-"
"Of course!" Claudio cuts her off, his voice the roughest she has ever heard from him. "What did you think?" He shouts, waving his arms about in anger. "That I would try to keep you? Or that I couldn't?" He shakes his head and rounds the couch towards her.
Two steps back but his hands leap forward, grasping fingers on her bicep. His nails, digging into the meat of her arms, painful as he tugs her ever closer. The acrid stench of alcohol hits her like a freight truck. His voice lashes over her; static echoing the feel of her bruises underneath his fingernails. Is this even Claudio? She is struck with a sudden bolt of terror as his voice rings out louder, roaring with his heavy baritone. "IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK OF ME!?!?"
"HERO!"
Claudio has never hit her. Well, there was that one time on their first attempt at a wedding: But that wasn't her. And it was just a little shove. He didn't mean to hurt her, just who he thought she was. Which Hero is starting to realize is just as dangerous as Claudio holds her jaw firmly in his left hand. His thumb is digging painfully into her left cheek, making her bite down into the mimetic muscle his fingers shove down her throat. Hero is starting to think that Claudio has always been...near...violent.
He got into a fight once, with that guy at Applebees over whether or not he had cut in line. (But he was right! Hero was there, holding his place.) More and more though, he yells at people. The barista at what used to be Hero's favorite coffee shop, the director at the local theater she used to volunteer at, the publishing officiant she used to sneak off to ask questions on her break. The lady returning a copy of 'As You Like It' at the library that one time. The librarian, also that one time. Hero. At home, like this. He yells at Hero, sometimes. Sometimes he throws things. But never once has he hit her. In their five years of marriage, this is the first time.
She finds herself knocked to the floor of their shared apartment thinking, vindicated! 'He didn't sweep' She is decidedly not clutching at the bright red handprint blooming vividly on her cheek. She is not crying. There is decidedly something wrong with her. She is sitting there, the cool tile of her husband's unclean kitchen floor chilling her to the core. Emotionless. Despondent. Scared. She is thinking about the dust left under the kitchen table and imagines herself capable of being swept away, small and unclean, with the dirt.
"You Bitch!" Claudio slurs at her. Then he walks away.
The television is still on. Somewhere in the scuffle the volume has been turned up high enough that the deep excited monotone of the announcer irritates Hero's ears. The remote is missing, so she walks up to the TV and turns the whole thing off by the power button under the screen.
Her eyes close. A spark of want finds its way into her chest just at where her heart had been. Her eyes start to water. She takes a shaky breath and holds it, trying desperately not to cry. Claudio is gone. Like becoming a ghost, he has disappeared. Hero decides to follow in his footsteps. Slowly, she takes her coat down from its place where it hangs on the rack by the door and slips it on. She puts her shoes on methodically: one after the other and without any socks. Then she simply leaves. A ghost again, she walks twenty minutes in the frigid weather not quite warm enough. She's lost the big puffy winter coat she once had in one of Claudio's tantrums - he's always saying she should be more careful. And the summer coat she does have has mysteriously gained a hole, so she guesses he has a point. By the time she walks through the doors of the observatory's brightly lit lobby, the cold has covered up the handprint mark on her face and replaced it with a deep blush all along both cheeks.
There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy and we have nearly charted around 1% of them. Hero feels like an uncharted star leaking into the orbit of planetary motions. She goes about her day like it's an automated list: Wake up, Brush her teeth, Eat, Work, Home, Cook, Eat, Sleep, Wake up, Etcetera. She feels less herself, more like a pod person or a maid. When she is at work she feels like she's eaten lead the more she thinks about going home.
Claudio is fantastic. He is Charming and beatific. He sent her roses the day after their anniversary, both an apology and an acknowledgement. Everyone in her office thinks he is the most wonderful, dashing, charming person they have ever met. Everyone in the office thinks Hero is so wonderfully happy, as she should be, and the luckiest person in existence to be married to someone so, so, so wonderful.
And she is. She is lucky that Claudio loves her. He is wonderful and dashing and charming. So there is something wrong with her. Because all Hero feels when they talk about her life so enviously is that she wants to make herself throw up. But then she would have to go home.
Moving through her life she forgets that she could be a star that belongs to a constellation. But then what would be the point of breaking free of her father's Ursa Major just for Claudio's Minor? She feels like she is drifting away from her sister-cousin, Beatrice and Benedick, creating their own constellation further and further away from where she can reach. Two twinkling twin stars creating a whole new sky. And Hero, who has Claudio. That should be enough.
She wasn't looking for him. Didn't even remember until the moment that she spots him paying the teller for his own ticket that he is the reason Hero even knows about this particular sanctuary. Not until she is face to face spilling tears on his jacket shoulder does she remember Don John had told her that he frequents the observatory near her house. He holds her, gentle and patient, in a way Claudio would never let himself be. Eventually, the choking, gasping pleading cries of a woman subside, and Hero comes to the uncomfortable conclusion that she was that woman.
"Shhhh. Hero, it's alright." John hums. And somehow it is. She lets herself feel this moment. John , real and alive in a way she has forgotten how to be. He asks her to join him in looking up at the observatory's fake starlit planets, and they spend the night not talking about what could be troubling poor Hero.
The planetarium's concave structure immerses Hero in a world much different from her own. She forgets herself for a moment and her gaze travels north, from the glittering stars to the pull of her heart she finds herself looking more at John whose smile is like a lion's mane; toothy, sharp, beatific. And when he tilts his head to look her in the eye after he sees her staring, Hero leans forward until their noses touch.
"Hi." He says, never quite losing his smile, but cautious now that Hero is acting less herself.
"Hi." she whispers back.
When they part, nearly midnight but not quite yet, she gives him one last hug and tells him not to worry. She can take care of herself. Claudio is not a hard beast to master. She will be okay. She just forgot herself for a moment.
Slowly, she fights with herself to bring past joy back into her life. She brings Claudio flowers as a gesture of goodwill. She cooks his favorite meal on days she knows he is working late and would appreciate it. She still feels like an unwanted constellation stuck outside the cosmos somewhere no one cares about. But she tries.
Somewhere along her trying she grows lazy. She starts making carbonara every single day of the week because Claudio is always working late and is never there. She starts a playlist of her favorite songs to listen to while she cleans their too small apartment but never puts more than two songs on it. And never plays it while she cleans anyway. She starts drifting away from her planetary galaxy and starts becoming untethered even to her own constellations.
Beatrice calls her back and she doesn't answer. Her father comes to her door and they talk about nothing over earl grey tea. But she has felt unconnected to her family ever since she moved out. Without the constant company of the people she cares about it's hard to remember that she used to be a part of them.
Eventually, Beatrice takes her introspective silence as a sign that something is heinously wrong with her and drags Hero out of her routine for a "girls day." Benedick is there. He trails along beside Beatrice unlike a guard dog with a chew toy and more like a person who wants to be there. Hero marvels at the different kind of husbands a wife can have. But behind closed doors everyone is the same. Isn't it true that people think Claudio is wonderful? Which he is, it's just not always how Hero can think of it. There's something wrong with her after all.
They go to the mall. Beatrice makes her try out and eventually buy what feels like half the stores and even more of the gross mall pretzels she is in love with. They share amongst the three of them smiles and food and laughter. Hero feels a lot better in the mall with Beatrice and her family. She needed Bea. Why she forgets to lean on her is a mystery. But here, now, with the love she can once again feel radiating off of the people she loves in return, she is enamored with the joy you feel when you know that the people you're with like you. She feels like herself for the first time in five years.
"I've been too busy, Beatrice. I'm sorry."
"I know. I've been busy too." She emphasises with a hug.
They make plans to see eachother again soon, to talk really and to share more smiles. Somehow, Hero has convinced Bea that everything is alright. Because it is. There's something wrong with her that she also has to keep convincing herself. But the days go by without Beatrice and once again Hero feels alone. She thinks she should call, but doesn't. And her life continues on in its monotonous way once again.
She lives her life again the same way it feels like she always has. But the week after Claudio- The week after Hero (almost) betrays Claudio again - Don John's breath at her lips - A week after.
Hero still thinks about it. She cleans the kitchen floor until it's sparkling. Until you could rest your head on the floor like a pillow and come away with nary a speck of dirt. Lick the floor and only get the scent of lemon fabuloso. She washes the dishes with the view of the empty lot in front of their apartment for hours after Claudio goes to sleep. The rhythmic swish swish of the scrub brush in her hand clearing away suds from already cleared muck. Once, a shooting star falls across the landscape at her window pane and she is transported back to that moment with Don John - something bad she didn't have the guts to do.
She starts remembering fables told to her as a little girl. Her grandmother's lilting Italian verses forming fairytales of old as they sit together on the settee by the fire. She becomes foolish. Starts yearning for the things that she can't have.
She becomes brave. She wishes on the star that her life could change. She wants . For the first time in Hero's life she needs to be someone wanted as more than a woman or a daughter or a friend. She wishes, aloud, still quiet on a late September night, that she is somebody people think highly of. "I wish...."