I want to stay in this moment forever. Or at least until I can figure out who I am when I’m not running.
I look at him, and I say, “Thank you.”
He doesn’t answer. He just sits there, watching the seconds crawl past, like maybe if we stay still long enough, the world will forget about us.
Then out of no where, an animal wailing fills the space around us.
I feel it break in my chest before I realize I am the one making the noise. It starts as a shudder, then a gasp. Then the kind of cry you don’t let yourself have, not ever, not even when you’re alone. I try to bite it down, force it through my teeth, but it punches out of me in waves.
I hear my voice and it is ugly.
Doubling over, knees pulled to my chest, the blanket falls from my shoulders. My fingers claw into my arms until the skin gives.The floorboards are hard and cold and real beneath me and I want them to splinter, to let me sink through and disappear.
I don’t know how long I am like that.
Time loses all shape. I am all sound, all shaking, the ocean of every humiliation and horror and loneliness pouring out at once.
I only notice him when he’s right in front of me, crouched on his haunches, eyes level with mine.
He doesn’t touch me at first. He just waits, watching, not judging. His hands hang between his knees, strong and open. I see a scar across the back of his right hand, a thin white line, and I stare at it until my eyes blur.
Finally, his hand moves. He slides forward on his knees, slow, and puts one palm to the floor so I can see the movement coming. He brings his other hand up, knuckles bent, and wipes a tear from my cheek with his thumb. His skin is rough, but the motion is so light I almost don’t feel it.
“They want you like this,” he whispers, close enough that I taste his breath. “But they made you stronger. Made us stronger. Let that pain fuel your steel. Become impenetrable.”
I try to pull away, but he holds my face in his hands, both now, fingers spread wide like he’s memorizing the shape of me.
“You don’t have to be brave right now,” he says. “You just have to be real until the pain is replaced with calm anger. Then you can help us dismantle it all.”
Something in his voice cracks me open again. I sob, and he doesn’t look away, doesn’t flinch, just wipes the tears as fast as they come.
“They’re all going to pay,” he says. “Every one of them. The Board, my father, those fucking animals at the party.”
He says it with the calm of someone who’s already decided what he will do.
“You believe me?” he asks.
I don’t, not really, but I want to. I want to believe that revenge is possible, that the world can ever be tilted in my favor. I want to believe that pain means something, that it can be used like a tool and not just a weapon against me.
I nod. It’s a lie, but it’s a start.
He lets go of my face and sits beside me, back against the couch. He spreads his legs so I can curl between them, and I do, because it’s easier than holding myself up.
He puts his arms around me and I let my head fall to his chest. The sound of his heart is loud and sure.
I listen to it, counting the beats, trying to match my breath to his.
When the shaking slows, he speaks again, voice softer now.
“I know what it’s like to be used up. I know what it’s like to have nothing left but the need to destroy the people who made you.” He runs his hand through my hair, untangling it with his fingers.
“They turned me into this,” he says, “but you make me want to be better. I only want to become that monster if it means protecting you. Avenging you.”
The words are simple, but they almost make me cry again. They make me feel visible in a way that doesn’t hurt.
He holds me for a long time. The crying stops, but I can’t move. I’m weightless and heavy at the same time, like gravity forgot about me and I’m floating somewhere between his body and the rest of the world.
He rocks me, just a little, like you would a child. I don’t think he knows he’s doing it.
