She gets up.
Robotically.
I can see she is spiraling.
She walks to her backpack.
Takes it.
I grab her left and right by the arms.
“You don’t get to freak out,” I say.
She looks at me, slowly.
The look she has frightens me.
“I am not freaking out,” she says.
“Yes, you are,” I say. “I can see it behind your eyes.”
She stares at me for one moment. And then, she walks back to the couch and sits down.
She is turned off the entire rest of the day, staring at the ceiling, and I know I have to watch her very closely.
She goes to bed that night, in the guest room, and while I pretend to go to bed, I don’t.
I sit in the darkness, with only dim light falling in from the streetlights outside. I sit there for half of the night, leaning against the apartment door.
She gave in too easily.
And sure enough, around two in the morning, movement happens. She walks through the apartment. I hear her, and then she stands in the corridor. Backpack in her hand.
Her face is hardened as she realizes I busted her.
“Let me go,” she says silently.
“No,” I say.
“I need to go,” she says.
“I won’t let you,” I say, as I stand in front of the door. “I am not letting you go.”
She closes the distance between us and grasps my face.
“You will let me go,” she says dangerously. “Because there is something I have to do. Something I cannot tell you, because you value rules, and I don’t.”
I grasp her face back.
“Don’t you understand?” I say with a raised voice. “Don’t you understand I won’t let you go alone? Don’t you understand that I don’t care about the rules? The only thing I care about is you. You.”
Her chest heaves up and down, and her warm breath caresses my skin.
“I will drag you down with me,” she says, pain in her voice.
“I. Don’t. Care.”
She looks at me for just another moment.
