All the things she inspires in me.
I crave them so much, so fucking much that my heart won’t stop thundering.
It hasn’t stopped ever since that night in the snow when she told me that it was alive, and I have to tell her all of this.
I have to tell her that I want her, I crave her but I don’t know how to keep her. How to not fuck this up because this is the first time I want something.
Something other than soccer, and I’m fucking panicking.
I’m quaking in my boots.
But I’m willing to believe in myself.
Like she believes in me.
That’s what she told me, right?
She told me that she believes in me and if she can believe in me, then I can learn to believe in myself too.
I can learn to believe that I can be whoever I want to be.
I always thought that if I accepted my flaws and forgave myself for my mistakes, if I didn’t beat myself up or shame myself for screwing up, I wouldn’t be my father’s son. Or if I focused on something else even for a second, I wouldn’t be my mother’s son.
I wouldn’t be The Blond Arrow.
But maybe there’s another way.
Her way. My way.
A way that I can embrace all parts of me and be whole. Be hers.
Her Arrow.
So yeah, I have to tell her all of this.
In fact, I’m going to her now, right this second. I know it’s Monday and school is in but fuck it.
I’m not waiting.
I’ll pull her out of class if I have to but I’m talking to her and maybe she’ll reject me.
After everything, I wouldn’t blame her.
But I’ll take it. I’ll take it like a man and I’ll keep trying.
I’ll keep trying to be her Arrow.
But just as I’m about to kickstart my bike, my phone rings in my pocket. I almost ignore it but something makes me fish it out.
It’s Mom.
I don’t really want to talk to her right now but it could be important. It could be about Salem and her time at St. Mary’s.
My mother is out of town for some conference or whatever but a day ago, I called her up and told her that she needs to get Salem out of that hellhole and bring her back home. My mother was reluctant – because every mistake has to be paid in full – but I was adamant. She can punish me all she wants and she can keep punishing me for the rest of my life but no one is touching Salem.
No one ever touches Salem.
Even my mother, the woman who raised me and the woman I owe everything to.
So I’m already expecting to shut her down but as soon as I pick up, she says, “Arrow.”
Just my name.
And my fingers clutch the phone tightly. Forcefully.
I think she knows that she has my attention because she sighs. “It’s about Salem.”
Something grabs me by the gut. Something vicious and unrelenting. Something that makes me grip the phone even tighter.
“What about her?” I ask slowly.
“They found letters,” Mom says. “They were addressed to you.”
I write you letters…
“Someone alerted the warden that Salem was missing from her bed,” she continues. “And the warden told Samantha Miller. And they found boxes and boxes of letters in her room and…”
I have shoeboxes full of them…
The thing in my gut spreads, slips into my veins and every corner of my body.
It’s hot and savage and animalistic and it has claws. They’re digging inside of me, in my muscles, making me growl into the phone, “What did they do to her?”
“People said that she freaked out when she saw Miller reading them out loud and she charged at her. The guards had to get involved. They had to restrain her; she passed out. She’s at the hospital. She’s fine though. She’s fine. They think she got really hysterical and that’s why she fainted.”
“Which hospital?”
“The one in town. Listen, Arrow, did you know about the letters? Was she sneaking out to see you?”
The claws twist in my organs and I choke out, “Yes.”
Because I was a stubborn, foolish asshole who was going to leave her.
“Is it because of her, then? Is that why you won’t get back together with Sarah? Because you have a thing for her sister?”
I’ve heard that tone from my mom before.
It’s a tone that brings a hot surge of shame. A surge of crawling bugs.
But I crush them now. This thing inside of me crushes the shame into a million pieces and that’s when I realize what this savage thing is.
It’s my heart.
It has turned into an animal. It has turned into an organ of fury. An organ of anger with claws and roars and it’s pounding so fast, so ferociously that it’s making me shake.
“No, Mom,” I say with a voice that’s shaking too. “I’m not with Sarah anymore because we shouldn’t have gotten together in the first place. Our whole relationship was a mistake and the evidence of that is the fact that she cheated on me. And I didn’t tell you because I was ashamed. Because I thought I’d failed and I wasn’t perfect. Because I thought perfection was everything and I didn’t want to disappoint you. But I’m glad it happened. I’m glad she cheated. I’m glad I’m not perfect because if I was then I wouldn’t have noticed her. I wouldn’t have noticed the girl for whom I’m going to fucking destroy this Samantha Miller. That’s her name, isn’t it? For her, I’m going to tear apart those guards because they dared to touch her. And I’m going to fucking crush every single person who stands in my way. And I’m going to do all of that because she’s the girl I’ll do anything for. She’s the girl I’ll be anything for. Do you understand? She’s my girl and I’m going to her.”