Dreams of 18

“And the reason I didn’t tell you any of this…” I lick my lips and make sure that I don’t look away from him, “is because I thought you’d think I was weak and a coward, as well. I thought you’d think I was defective. You’d think I have this crazy illness and all these stupid phobias and that I’m pathetic. I’m flawed and I don’t know, a million other things that I think about myself anyway. So yeah, I’ve been lying and hiding things and you should probably hate me now.”

But I don’t want you to…

I don’t say that because well, I don’t think I can say anything. I’ve said all I had in me to say.

I’ve said it all and I can’t look at him anymore. So I go back to staring at his clenched fists. I notice that the tendons on his wrist are standing taut now. His veins are almost bursting out of his skin and I’m so afraid to look at the expression on his face.

What if he thinks all of that and more?

But then, he’s always saved me, made me feel beautiful and special. He’s made me feel like his world.

So I don’t know.

I don’t know and I’m so afraid that when he begins to move toward me, I clench my eyes shut. I even take a step back. I tighten the muscles in my stomach and curl my toes and if I could, I’d roll myself up in a ball too.

At last, he’s going to say all the things I’ve been dreading, isn’t he?

He is. He is. He is.

I know that. I know.

“You’re defective.”

His words – that I knew he was going to say – still knock the breath out of me. They make me pop my eyes open and take him in.

His features are pulled tight and made angular and sharp by his fury. He’s looking at me with violence in his eyes. So much violence that I don’t know how to return his gaze. But at the same time, I don’t want to look away.

I can’t.

He’s this beautiful, magnificent thing in my life and I love him so much that even when he breaks my heart, my soul, I have to watch him do it. There’s no other option.

“You’re weak. Pathetic. Flawed. You’re a coward.”

I flinch, my lips parted, taking in hiccupping breaths.

“Is that what you are?”

I nod.

Because yeah, that’s what I am. I’m all kinds of defective and I’ve been so stupid in thinking even for one second that I’m not.

I’ve been so stupid in thinking that he’d be the one person who wouldn’t think that about me when everyone else has always written me off.

So stupid, Violet. God, you’re so stupid.

At my nod, he brings his face closer to me, his chest moving up and down. “Then explain something to me. Explain how you’re standing in front of me, telling me all these things about yourself?”

“What?”

My confusion bugs him and his next words are ripped out of his clenched teeth. “How are you still here? How are you here after all the things I’ve put you through? All the awful, cruel things I’ve done to you right from the beginning. Why didn’t you run away and lock yourself up in a room because it’s safe, huh? Because it’s so easy to pretend everything is okay. It’s so easy to lie, isn’t it?”

“I...”

“I’ve given you every opportunity to leave. In fact, I’ve gone to great lengths to have you leave. Why didn’t you? If you’re so pathetic and such a coward, why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you take the easy way out of this, Violet? Why the fuck did you give me your journals? Because if you hadn’t told me, I never would’ve found out. Why tell me? Why tell me when I can clearly see the fear on your face? Why tell me when there’s a part of you that thinks I’m going to reject you for the truth?”

Why tell him?

Doesn’t he already know? Didn’t he read it in my journal, the one I started writing in after I came here?

“Because I love you,” I tell him with watery eyes, with my sweaty palms groping his shirt that I’m wearing, my curled toes poking holes in his creaking, ancient hardwood floor.

“You do, do you?”

Swallowing, I nod. “Yes.”

He narrows his eyes. “Even when I don’t? Even when I can’t. Even after I told you a million goddamn times that I’m never going to love you, you still love me.”

A tear makes its way down my cheek and he follows its journey with a harsh, tormented expression. “Yes,” I whisper. “I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I always have. Right from the start. Because you make me feel safe. Protected and warm. And because love isn’t about asking someone to love you back. It’s about… loving. It’s about jumping off a cliff with both arms open wide and hoping that those arms become wings and you can fly. But even if you can’t and you hit the ground and you die, it’s okay. It’s okay because very few people get to die in love. Very few people get to die while doing what they love. Very few people get to be that shiny and luminous and bright and… and brave, you know? And…”