The surge.
The part of me that doesn’t care about process or warrants or patience. The part that just wants a door and five minutes alone.
For months, the violence has lived in my head. Hypothetical. Controlled. A fantasy I told myself I’d never act on.
Until the elevator.
Until my fist connected, and something inside me didn’t hesitate.
That’s what’s different now.
It’s getting easier to picture crossing that line again.
Easier to justify it.
If this is what my life has become, waiting for someone to hand me answers, then part of me doesn’t want to wait anymore.
Part of me wants to find out for myself.
Handle it.
Like a man.
That thought should scare me.
It doesn’t.
That’s the problem.
Just then, my stomach groans. Most days, I barely eat. Hunger feels irrelevant.
That’s when it hits me.
The dinner.
I agreed to dinner.
One second, we were talking about Italian food, and the next, I said yes.
I could’ve said no. It would’ve been easy. A simple, clean no. I’ve gotten good at those. Good at shutting doors before they open too far.
But I didn’t. And I haven’t stopped thinking about that since.
It doesn’t make sense.
There is nothing in my life right now that calls for dinner, conversation, and sitting across from someone who still believes in normal things. No version of this is appropriate.
And yet—part of me wants to go.
Not because it feels good. It doesn’t.
It feels… charged.
Like standing too close to the edge of something.
I don’t understand what it is about her. It isn’t comfort. It isn’t distraction. It isn’t relief.
It’s gravity.
