She brushes back my hair.
“You slept for twelve hours,” she says.
She looks exhausted, her eyes tired, still red, dark eye rims, hardened eyes.
“I suppose I had some sleep to catch up with,” I say. And she immediately removes her hand.
“Don’t,” I say, pulling it back towards me, as carefully as possible so that I don’t do anything to her healing wound. I am still scared of experiencing that again. I am not good in crisis, and when I saw her with her cut open arm, the blood flooding from it?—
I shudder.
“You don’t have to be here all the time,” she says.
“I’m not leaving,” I say. “You can try to push me away all the way you want, but I will not leave you.”
“But you have work, research, lectures, your cat?—“
“All taken care of. I’m here. Nothing else matters.”
“I’m sorry I messed up everything,” she says. “You, your life. It’s all?—“
“Stop it right there,” I say.
“But—“
“I decided to be here. It ismydecision.”
“I don’t deserve you,” she says. “After everything I did,—“
“You deserve to have someone in your corner. Someone who tells your little mindfucker to shut up. Someone who loves you.”
She swallows hard with my last words. I can still see the pain on her face.
“You are not betraying El,” I say. “Rationally, you cannot betray someone who isn’t physically here. Emotionally, I know it’s easier said than done, but allow me to say this: Love is infinite. You can love two or even more people at the same time, and it doesn’t change anything how much you love each person. Otherwise, parents couldn’t have more than one child.”
Amelie retracts, and her hands tremble.
“Your brain might not see it right now, because it is convinced it was all your fault, but El kissed me. She kissed me. She invited me. She wanted me to be there, do you think someone would do that who feels betrayed by that love?”
She shakes her head, her eyes getting tearful again.
“If you ask me, you are so used to feeling guilt that you cling to it as the only known constant. Guilt is what your brain and body know, so you search for it everywhere.”
A long silence follows.
“But how do I stop?” she asks me finally.
“Rewire your brain,” I say. “Mental rehearsal. Become familiar with the moments it happens and decide to act differently.”
“I don’t know how to let go of it,” she says.
“Then, tell me. Every time that thought pops up, you tell me.”
“I don’t want to be your project.”
“You are not. You are the woman I love.”
“Still a project.”
