so reckless you might start feeling; beth

[bethlehem]

I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.

Perhaps he understands it on some visceral level.
Were he to stop and really think about it, he might have been able to relate.
He had wanted something so fiercely that he had let it destroy him.
So, he’d stopped wanting it.
He’d forced himself to stop believing that it existed at all.
It’s not the same, really, but it’s close.

But he is a simple man and he has never felt any particular urge for introspection. So, he does not think about all of the ways this could apply to him, too. He does not contemplate whether or not he’d ever destroy something just to know that he’d broken it, just so that he could know that it had been his decision. Just so that he would not have to feel powerless in it. Just so that he could know that he was the master of his fate.

He watches her out of the corner of his eye but does not immediately speak. He has nothing useful to say. He has no wonders of encouragement, nothing left to ask, really. He swallows his breath and exhales it long and slow.

He should say something, if only to assure her that she has not said the wrong thing. She has not driven him into his own head. But he scrapes the bottom of his soul for something and comes up empty-handed.

They reach the edge of Taiga and Loess swims into view. He pauses only briefly, just long enough to fully shackle his focus to her face. Long enough to ask. “Are you going to be all right?”

He knows nothing of her history with this place but he’d felt the acid in her voice when she’d said it.

BETHLEHEM

I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.