Chapter 15. Jude #2
I write about how kink was a valve of self-destruction for me. I hurt myself in an acceptable way. And that's why I swore off it. But I couldn't, and I can't. Self-destruction is part of me, maybe all of us, and kink helped me to explore it safely, unlike alcohol did.
And I write about how scared I am of getting hurt again.
My heart is stone, and I try my best to leave it like that.
Stones are hard to break. And it hurts so much to have to be like that.
I was never afraid to love. In my entire life, I poured myself out for people.
I gave all the love I had to everything.
I still do but now when I catch myself doing this, I retreat.
I don't think I will survive getting as hurt again.
I'm crying. My knees begin to throb around the twenty-minute mark.
The cushion has compressed to almost nothing beneath me, and the cold of the stone seeps upward.
I shift, trying to redistribute my weight, and the movement sends a bright spike of pain through my right knee that makes me hiss through my teeth.
My hand cramps. I shake it out and keep going.
I keep writing. I write about Ford and how I am the one who doesn't want to give him a chance.
I don't want to ever let anyone in ever again.
I want to bury myself in my pit of pathetic despair and stay there for eternity, maybe not even breathing.
That I regret going to the club and I regret listening to his banter, and I regret going after him at the church, and I regret falling for him.
Because that was destroying all my armor that I placed brick by brick in the course of a year.
It was making me vulnerable all over again.
And my heart is too fragile for that. I wouldn't survive.
And I hated how he reminded me of who I used to be.
I used to love easily, openly, everything, everyone, without a second thought, a second of hesitation.
Emmett had killed me. I wasn't who I was before.
I was this new horrible disgusting untrusting version of myself, and I hated it.
I hated it with a burning passion, that's why I wanted to destroy it.
And Ford made me remember old Jude. The na?ve childlike version of me.
Still, the best version of me. If it still existed in me, it was so scared, curled inside of the darkest parts of me, like an undying fetus.
I'm crying so much I don't even care that Ford sees it. I stop writing and just start rubbing my eyes, trying to make the tears stop. Then I see him close to me. He gives me a cup of water and puts his hand on my shoulder. I take the water but I don't drink it. I look at him, so big from my knees.
"I think I'm done…" I try to say but he interrupts me.
"Silence," he says, still strict, but calm. "You may speak only to use your safe words. Yellow and red. Otherwise, if you're done, you will wait quietly until time is up."
I want to be a brat, speak, or at least beg to know how much time I have left. But instead I only nod and cry some more.
"Drink your water," he says, still close to me. I do because I feel so fragile and empty that I don't have it in me to complain. The water is cold and my throat welcomes it gladly.
Slowly, the tears subside and stop. My breathing starts to come back to normal, even if my face is wet and full of snot. I stay in position for what seems like forever more but I feel better now. Calm and well.
Then, I pick up the pen for one last time.
I don't know how to ask for forgiveness because I don't believe I deserve it.
After being so na?ve and trusting, dumb and stupid, I should be eternally punished.
The punishment is a life without love. But when I think about this, I don't think I can go on.
I can't live like this. I have to love. I desperately want the thing I've been running from.
I need it. I need it so I can rescue the good Jude that's buried beneath the sorrow.
I want to be yours. I'm terrified of what that means. But I want it anyway.
I fold the letter in thirds with cramped, trembling fingers. I don't speak but I hand it to him.
"It's yours. I don't need to read it unless you want me to," he says. I keep my arm stretched and I nod. He takes the letter.
The paper is damp in places, warped where tears have fallen, yet Ford unfolds it.
He reads it slowly, his eyes moving across my ragged handwriting, and I watch his face searching for signs of what's coming.
His jaw tightens at certain lines. His throat works.
Near the end, something in his expression cracks open, just barely.
He folds the letter again with the same care I used, and tucks it into his breast pocket.
"You may stand now. It's been forty-seven minutes, but I think it's enough."
I try to rise, and my knees scream, my legs aching and numb. They shake beneath me. The blood rushes back into my lower joints and the pins and needles start. Ford gives me a hand to help me and I stay in place, trembling, until the blood starts flowing normally.
Ford's hand rises. It moves slowly, giving me time to flinch, to retreat, to do anything. His palm settles against the side of my neck, his thumb resting just below my ear, his fingers curling against my nape. It's not a grip. It's not a caress. It's something I don't have a word for.
I close my eyes and feel my pulse beat against his palm, and I know he can feel it too.
Neither of us speaks. There's nothing left to say that the letter hasn't already said, that his hand on my neck isn't already saying.
The vestry holds us in its dim, sacred quiet, the candles burning low, the saints looking on with their ancient, unreadable faces, full of pity and forgiveness.