Page 110 of Yours, Finally

"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 knewhow 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'renotbreaking 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.