32. Chapter 32
Chapter 32
Jake
My feet were welded to the ground. My biceps twitched. I still couldn't understand what my eyes saw— the concrete of the path we were on didn't make sense, when it seemed blurry and red. I closed my eyes.
"You told me you didn't want me fighting your battles." The statement came out of my throat, but not out of my own volition— they were apart from me. "I failed."
"We should go." Vi's hand rubbed the skin of my arm. "We need to talk."
"If you hadn't stopped me, I could have… I might have punched him."
My lips tingled and I rubbed them together. I tried counting through a few breaths; it didn't quite work, but it helped somewhat. I opened my eyes.
"No. Jake— I tried to stop you— catch your attention several times. You did not move. If you had wanted to hit him, you would have. You didn't."
I gazed at Vi. "How is that any better? I ignored you. All I could see was him. I clenched my fists— I wanted to feel his face under my knuckles—"
"But you didn't! Come. Let's find a private place."
The skin in my arms quivered with the leftovers of the fight, and it was hard to breathe, but I let her guide me to a bench nearby. Enough trees surrounded us that we could sit in the shade, despite the early afternoon sun.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. I rubbed my face. "I need a session with Vanessa."
The organs caged in my chest rattled in place, as a shift in my connective tissue gave way to a buzz. I must have been grinding my teeth a lot, because my jaw pounded with tension.
But we didn't have enough time before Vi had to leave. Taking care of the chaos inside would have to wait.
I gulped. "I apologize, Violeta."
"For what? Andrew didn't deserve the punch but he deserved the fight."
"I should have let you handle him. You were right about him from the start."
"Okay— fine. Apology accepted." She rubbed a hand on my back. "You didn't need to go bouncer on him, but I liked having you as my bodyguard."
"Is that what you think I did?"
"That's exactly what I think. Andrew was a jerk. He badgered us. He poked and prodded trying to get us to react. Come to think of it, he never knew how to pick his fights. How to let it go in time."
"You're giving me too much grace, Vi." I dropped my hands and wrung them together, hard. My inner world was on the edge of anarchy.
Her hand moored on my shoulder, where she squeezed a few times. "That's my prerogative, big guy."
I snorted and shook my head. We were alone in the park, not even a breeze kept us company. The temperature was mild, at least, and the balmy air cushioned the needles in my arms.
"You deserve better, Vi." I sat back on the bench and looked at her. "You deserve the best."
"And what I want is you." She leaned on me, taking my arm between hers in a hug.
It brought her close to me; enough that tree silhouettes took shape in the reflection of her eyes.
"You're not taking this seriously," I said.
Her eyes widened. "I am! Don't you see? What's serious about this is what we're going to do about us. Not whatever garbage Andrew spouted."
"But he wasn't completely wrong. I made a mess of it. How am I going to show up to your parents and tell them that I've hidden how I felt about you for years? That they treated me like a son and I wanted even more. That I put it all at risk when I lost control of myself?"
"Didn't I make a mess of it, too? I came up with this brilliant idea of hiding it! But I also know that, even if they're angry or disappointed, they'll get over it."
"You can't compare that— Vi, please. I almost hit someone! I almost— I did— I let my anger take over. I failed you. I failed myself."
"No, Jake. I refuse to believe we made too many mistakes. We have to fix this, and we should do it now before my parents go away on their trip. We can't go another month like this."
"What if they need time to process the news? Then we're ruining the party. They'll spend their trip thinking about how we hurt them. How I lied about my feelings. How I— fuck, how I could be an angry guy with you, too."
The buzzing inside me intensified. Atoms organized into a single bright line, a crack of some kind. I went back to clenching my jaw, bruised and tight as it was. Balling my hands into fists couldn't be allowed, after what I had done, and I needed something to pulse away the sensations plaguing me.
Vi curled a leg up on the bench, so she could face me more fully. She dug her fingers into the muscles in my arm. I didn't know what she searched for with the gesture, but all she would find was rock-solid tension.
"You're not an angry guy. You got angry! It's not the same. Don't let it be the thing that gets in the way of coming clean to my parents. We need to get this ax hanging on top of us out of the picture. It's the only way you'll stop worrying about their reaction. It's the only way we can fix this! You need to see they won't stop loving you."
"It's not like we have any options, Vi! We have to face this. I have to face this. Tell them the truth."
She put her hands on my face, an encouraging smile tilting her mouth. "Then do it. Tell everybody I'm yours, Jake."
My brow hurt with the strain knotting my forehead. "I want to scream it from every roof! Tell everyone that I love you. Do you think I would have picked that song otherwise? I love you, and it's all at stake."
It wasn't difficult to say the words, even if we hadn't said them before. Even if I was the first to say them, in the middle of this fight or whatever it was. I had sung them before. My body knew how to do it, no matter all the noise and discomfort running through my limbs.
Vi's shoulder loosened up. The lines in her brow disappeared. "I know. I heard your song, remember?"
"I can't lose you. I can't lose them, either. I love them, too."
"And they love you, too! You have to know that."
"I know it most of the time but, right now, I just… I don't…"
At that moment, what I had known in the past didn't matter. I could have ruined all of it with my failure to act like I should. The way they had shown me was possible. What they had wanted for me.
The buzzing in my body flooded my head. Not a good sign.
Vi caressed my face, and I could barely feel it. "Do you know that I love you, too?"
I breathed through the erratic heartbeats, confused, suddenly sad. A single bright spot somewhere inside of me at her words, but too far to reach.
"I want to believe it." It was my voice, but again it seemed disconnected from me. I frowned, overwrought with everything going on. "I can't fuck it up."
"We won't. Give us a chance to prove it. You can't be more scared of their reaction than of losing what we have."
"I'm trapped between the two— scared to lose you, lose them… scared of what I'm capable of. I can't ever scare you like I just did— how can you want this? I didn't listen— I wasn't by your side. If you need to break up with me we still should tell them… and if they're angry with me…"
I froze. I got queasy. The crack in my chest became an event horizon, giving way to a black hole. I closed my eyes so the world would stop turning.
"Shit," came out of my vocal cords. A floaty feeling took over my head. "I think I'm triggered."
"Jake?" Warmth appeared on my face. I flickered through images in my head, trying to place its source. "You didn't scare me. We're not breaking up. Open your eyes."
A part of me must have still been present enough to listen, because I did. She gazed at me with worry in her eyes. Her hands were on my face— they were the source of the warmth.
I could use that. There were things I could do to help. I knew this, somewhere in the corners of my mind. I had practiced.
It wasn't clear— but there was a mental list. This didn't need to happen. I could stop it… maybe…
One, two, three… her thumbs did an arch under my eyes. I could use that. That was a place in my body that felt good.
She did it again. The floatiness went away, but the black hole remained. My insides quaked, unstable, and my mind still felt fuzzy, but I did not feel like I would leave myself anymore.
"Can I hug you?" Vi asked. I nodded. "I'm going to hug you."
She blanketed me as best she could right there on the bench, and I let her become an anchor— I needed to count through breathing, catalog what felt good, study the horizon and realize there was no threat coming our way.
Andrew had left. I had not punched him. No one came at us with anger on their face.
One, two, three…
I put my arms around Vi's waist, and I took in her smell with my next breath.
Four, five, six…
Her perfume mellowed me. Familiar.
One, two, three…
She felt good close to me. I still trembled, but I could feel my chest moving now— the black hole faded behind my sternum.
Four, five, six…
We were still at the park. The white noise of traffic reached me and, if I wanted to, I could move my feet. I did, pressing inside my shoe to feel the ground.
"I'm okay," I said. "I'm okay."
"I'm going to hold you for a bit longer, if you don't mind."
A scoffing chuckle loosened from my throat. "Go right ahead."
I caressed her back while she squeezed me as tight as she could.
"It's okay." I gulped. "It's been years since the last time this happened."
"I had never seen you like this."
"I've worked hard at keeping it at bay. It would happen sometimes, but with therapy it stopped— unless I pushed too hard in session, ironically. But I'm okay now."
"Yeah? Feeling better?"
"Yeah. I got close to dissociating, but I didn't. It's okay."
Vi pulled back enough to study me, a frown on her face. Her arms remained around my neck.
"I'm not asking so that you comfort me, Jake. I'm asking because I want to know if you need more time— do you want to go back to the building? We can try to find some water."
"No, it's fine." I shook my head. "What time is it?"
"I don't know."
"It's hard for me to track time when I feel like this, but you have to go spend time with your aunts and uncles."
Her mouth hung open. "I am not leaving you!"
"I just need some time to ground myself again. You can make up an excuse for me—"
"They can wait. I am not leaving you."
Most sensations had quieted down. The buzzing remained, but it hummed away from me. I took a slow, deliberate breath.
I put my hands on Vi's forearms, her hands still on my shoulders. "I need to email Vanessa. Figure out what happened that this is all affecting me so deeply."
"I can help. I want to help."
"I know." I took another deep breath. "You also have to go spend time with family you haven't seen in years, and prepare them for the party on Wednesday."
"I was going to do that with you… I wanted you close… I thought we could go to my parents tonight… surprise everyone at the party…"
I pulled her arms away from me, and held her hands on my lap. "I need a chance at a session, if Vanessa can fit me in. Please. I don't want to do this without that help— I owe it to you and everyone to unfuck myself before I do this."
"Jake… this isn't sitting well with me."
"Let me do this. Please, Vi. Let me prove to you that I will scream my love for you from the rooftops. I simply need a day or two to figure it out. How I'm going to tell the truth to Gabe and your parents. I'll take their reaction for us. I promise you that by the time of the party all of this is going to be better."
"I don't need you to prove it—"
"I need it, Vi. I'm not sure why yet, but I need to prove to you I can be the kind of guy you deserve."
"But you are—"
"Vi. Please."
She ground her teeth. Her eyes filled with tears. My heart ached but, in the middle of the turbulent last hour, that certainty had become a cornerstone.
"The hero isn't supposed to ask permission for a grand gesture," she said. "I never thought it would be this hard to say yes."
I scooted closer and held her face in my hands. "Maybe we're writing our own version of romance."
"As long as we get our happily ever after…" Sadness weighed down her smile.
"We will." I ran a thumb over her bottom lip.
"Next time I tell you I love you, I hope you take it in."
I smiled and gave her a soft kiss. "Me too."