I've been waiting for you forever

"I'm afraid you're going to hate me." Arthur's voice was shaking as he tried in vain to control his visibly accelerating breathing. "If I tell you everything, you'll find out bad things about me and you'll hate me."

"You haven't scared me yet," Eliza joked, trying to keep the atmosphere relaxed and playful. But when she saw that Arthur was incredibly tense and looked like he was about to have another panic attack, she became serious again and reassured him: "Arthur, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. It's okay if you don't want to talk to me about your past, I don't want to force you. We've only known each other for a short time, after all. We have all the time in the world to get to know each other better…"

"No, I want to tell you everything, really. I think I'm just afraid."

"Of what?"

"That you won't look at me the way you look at me now."

"And how do I look at you now?"

"As if you were… beautiful." As if you weren't rotten inside.

"Well, I think you really are. Handsome, I mean."

"Do you really think so? Even with… with the bruises and scars?"

Eliza nodded. "Yes, I really do. Do you… do you feel a lot of pain?"

"No." Arthur said quickly, placing a hand on her shoulder in a reassuring gesture, momentarily forgetting that Eliza didn't like to be touched.

"No, it's okay, you don't have to worry about me. I'm not in pain." It was a half-truth: the bruises from being beaten by Jackie and his henchmen, as well as the old scars from when he was a child, had stopped hurting physically. Emotionally, though, the pain would always be with him.

Eliza didn't seem repelled by his touch; in fact, she covered Arthur's hand with her own, but he pulled away from her grip as if he were being burned by a hot fire.

He knew, rationally, that Eliza didn't mean to hurt him, but it was an instinctive reflex to move away from her.

In his entire life, the touch of others on his body had rarely resulted in anything other than pain.

"Why did you do that? Can't you stand for me to touch you?" Eliza's voice was hurt, so full of sadness that for a moment Arthur seriously considered telling her everything,

all the horror that had marked his life, to make her understand that the problem wasn't her, but him.

But the thought of how disgusted Eliza would look at him once she knew the truth was enough to stop him from doing so. She seemed to have guessed something, though, because she said, "Arthur, have you been mistreated?" Eliza knew the answer deep inside, but it still sounded like a question.

"Mistreated is a soft word."

"What did they do to you?" Eliza's voice shook as if she were about to burst into tears, as if deep inside she already knew all the answers.

Arthur took a deep breath, fighting not to give in. He wanted to hold Eliza in his arms and reassure her, to tell her that she shouldn't be sad, that he didn't deserve her tears.

He wanted to tell her that everything was okay, that he had had a happy life, never darkened by suffering.

Instead, he chose to be honest; hiding his past from her would have been an act of kindness, not cruelty, but Eliza deserved for him to be honest.

He couldn't let her think that she was to blame for her discomfort.

"I wasn't even two years old when my mother's boyfriend came to my bed for the first time. To cuddle, as he called it. I had to let him touch me everywhere. He would come into my room and undress me. Sometimes he would tie my hands behind my head with a rope. Then he would touch me everywhere. Not just with his hands, but with his mouth, his tongue, his…" He couldn't say it, the thought alone made him nervous. "He would often beat me with a stick or a rope… anyway, this went on until I was seven. The social workers found me tied to a radiator, with brain trauma from the beating. Something in my brain has been damaged since then. That's why I have this laugh."

"And… and your mother? She didn't do anything?"

"No."

"Maybe she didn't know…"

"He spent nights in my room and I screamed and cried, she had to notice. She watched while he hurt me. She… she even made up a story to stop me from crying and trying to kill myself."

"What story?" Arthur was silent, exhausted and drained from recounting those painful memories. He didn't want to tell her about Joker, the clown born from Penny's story, who had always told him his purpose in the world was to spread joy and laughter.

"Arthur, please don't shut me out. Talk to me…"

"Why, what's the point of continuing to talk about it?"

"Because I need to understand…"

"What? Do you want to understand why he tortured me, why he vented his perversion on me? Why my mother, who wasn't even my real mother, did nothing but lie to me all my life? What is there to understand, tell me?" Arthur was screaming now, while Eliza began to cry and buried her face in her hands, shocked and upset.

But when Arthur regained his composure and said, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled at you. None of this was your fault. But you have to understand that my life is a complete disaster. I am a disaster. And if you're smart, you'd better run away," she shook her head firmly and smiled despite the tears streaming down her face. "I'm staying here with you."