I’m falling for DiAngelo.Every minute I spend with him hoists my heart higher and higher in the sky, and if the rope tethering me to him should snap, I have no parachute. My heart will plummet to the ground and shatter beyond repair.
I can see it playing out in my head, and I don’t know how to prevent it. How do I keep myself from falling for such an enigmatic man?
His all-consuming presence is too overpowering.
The complexity of his boorish nature, offset by a selfless, compassionate side, ties me in knots with the need for more. No matter how much I want to tell myself a fling with him would be purely physical, it’s a lie. If I hand him a part of me, the rest will follow. He already owns enough to do irreparable damage, should he choose to.
Even if he doesn’t choose to, it can still happen.
It’s true. Someone else could take him from me, and the result would be the same.
Decimating heartbreak.
I can’t breathe.
My diaphragm is seized up so tight, I have to rush to the toilet as soon as I’ve sequestered myself in the bathroom. One look at the empty toilet bowl, and my stomach revolts. I throw up every bite he fed me and gag until only acrid saliva comes up.
A thin layer of perspiration coats my body.
Did you forget where you were today? Do you want to lose another man in your life?
God, no.
I don’t want that. I don’t want any of this.
The ceiling looms over me as the entire world feels like it’s caving in on me. I need an escape from this feeling. I know my fears aren’t necessarily rational, but that doesn’t make the feelings go away. This haunting terror. The unavoidable certainty that something terrible is going to happen.
My stomach roils again, but instead of the toilet, I go to the closet and fish out my candle and lighter from my suitcase.
I shouldn’t, but I have to.
I don’t know how else to make the horror stop.
Needing to hide, I take the bath mat and my supplies into the shower and sit. My entire body is twitching and cramping—that’s what it does when these spells get especially bad. It makes me feel so out of control. Like I’m a prisoner in my own body.
I hate it.
I hate this so much.
I transfer the flame from the lighter to the wick and feel a trickle of relief ease the tension in my chest. My body melts against the shower wall. When the first beads of wax form, I hold the candle over my belly and allow the drips to fall one after another onto my skin.
The burn brings tears to my eyes.
I’ve broken my own rules and started the drip mere inches from my skin. This will leave marks. It may even blister.
Good, maybe then you’ll stay away from him and save yourself.
Shame leaks from my eyes in salty streams.
I am so broken.
D would be disgusted if he saw this side of me.
I don’t even want me when I’m like this, so I let the wax drip…
and drip…
and drip…
