I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
It is in these moments he feels closest to her.
When she is soft. When she allows him to feel as if he can be close to her.
And he so desperately wishes things were simpler.
Or maybe he merely wishes that he were better.
He has spent a considerable amount of time wondering how he might best explain this to her without hurting her feelings. She deserves so much more than him. Even with her rage and her venom and her unflinching need for it to be heard and felt and experienced. What he does not realize is that perhaps what she needs is him – a stone to soften her edges against.
She is quiet for several moments before she answers and he is quiet for several moments after. He cannot relate, really. He has never had any real valid reason to loathe himself. He has never wanted to scratch his way out of his own skin. Even in the beginning, when all he’d wanted was to be loved. He had thought himself unworthy of love, certainly, but he had never blamed himself for it. He had never really thought there was anything that he could have done different. He had merely accepted it as gospel and never thought to place blame.
After awhile, he drags in a shuddering breath and asks, “why do you think that is?”
He does not mean to play the part of some sort of therapist. It is not that he has any overwhelming desire to bring her face-to-face with her problems, it is simply that he wants to understand her. Despite his lack of softness, his inability to love the right way, he does want to help her. He wants her to catch a glimpse of herself through his eyes. Strong and fierce and fearless. Absolutely lethal and devastatingly beautiful.
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
