your jaw steels. your hand twitches. your fingers jump. if any moment has ever reared its head where you just wanted to swing, it is this very moment right now, right here. itâs tight in your throat, your chest. swing. you imagine it. youâre red behind the eyes when your pupils swim into the irises, enlarge from the thin slits into a massive pool of black. your hands twitch again and your shoulders move with the bulk of it, oxygen in, oxygen out. donât you dare donât you dare donât you DARE bring her into this! angerâs in your gut, and it burns. you have to struggle to keep your hearing up and running, focus in hard. color practically changes in your sight.
jess. your heart does a flip, then a flop, a backwards, upside down somersault. jess. and now you can protect her, canât you? you can protect her, you can protect karen, you can protect so many people now. youâre more, now, but all you can think is--
âdonât you dare bring her into this. donât you dare try to use her against me to cover up your recklessness. that is not something iâll tolerate. she doesnât need me to protect her, but more than that, donât use my feelings so you have an excuse to go on a suicide mission!â
the end of that heightens. you hear it. itâs like a plane dipping down and then zipping up in a sharp line.
your hands are shaking at your sides. your throatâs closing. itâs tighter and tighter and tighter with each passing motion. your jawâs stuck even harder, trembling, shaking, and exhausted by the sheer clench. youâre shaking and you know it, and your eyes burn. sheâs not the only cryer here.
âi am always going to have to make sure youâre safe, too. if for one and a half seconds you could stop being selfish and tenaciously shredding through everything to insist on the heart of something, youâd realize that the shit you pull affects other people. affects the people who love you. youâre not being safe. youâre going in guns blazing and fucked be anyone elseâs strategy or thought if it doesnât adhere to your desired adrenaline rush. i know what that feels like. i have been there. and i have learned that it doesnât help anybody.â
to think. you saying youâve learned. what a concept.
ââiâm not asking you to protect me.â are you kidding me? what? has our entire relationship with one another been one-way blind? because iâm going to protect you. but youâre sitting here giving me no choice but to do this your way and tell me youâre bringing the fight to me. youâre trying to do this alone, together. do you not fucking see that, karen?â