April 5, 2007
We stayed at T’s old haven last night since our upstairs bedroom is still under repair. I awoke tonight to find her gone…strange as it is a compulsion of hers to awaken together. I finally found her upstairs in the shower, and strange again, the door was locked. That was not like her but not too surprising in the wake of Jago’s treatment. When she did not answer I moved on into the kitchen to look for an ashtray, but when the shower continued to run for quite some time I got worried. When she did not answer the knock again, I forced the door open and found her curled up in the shower floor sobbing. It was a sight that made even this cold, dead heart convulse with pain despite the fact that I’d been expecting it ever since her return. She’s been far too chipper and I have been waiting for it to catch up with her.
I reached out to touch her and as I expected, she cringed back for a moment, seeing another in her mind I am sure. She then seemed to realize it was me and as I helped her out and dried her off, she apologized. This, too, pricked at my heart for she has nothing to apologize for. Jago’s shadow still haunts her and she said that she feels like a liability to me, that she did not know how to ‘fix’ herself. I am ashamed to admit this now, but this made me angry and I said to her that if she was going to let one asshole ruin her life then she was not the woman I thought she was. I tried to tell her I did not mean it but she said I did and it was true.
I can sense this is slowly killing her, that unless she deals with it openly so that it loses its power over her she will be forever as broken as she fears. When she pulled back from my touch in the shower, a secret fear I have been harboring came to light, one I finally gave voice to tonight. She had to know, had to be told so that we can deal with this as well. I see how she still flinches when I touch her unexpectedly at times, how sometimes, some word or phrase seems to lock her away from the rest of us…that sometimes it seems like she is seeing him instead of me. Even as I said the words, I hated myself for it and it made her so very angry, angry to the point she slammed me against the wall. Good! She needs to get mad as hell, lay Jago’s terrible actions to rest, understand none of it was her fault. She insisted that she never sees him when she looks at me, that the reason she pulls away is that sometimes her body forgets where she is for a moment, which I have heard is quite common in trauma victims. She asked how I could possibly think this and my only answer was to whisper that it was because I saw him in me that night.
I saw a dark side of myself that I thought was long gone, one that seems to have gotten stronger of late, even though T insists that I am her light, a light that shines far too brightly for the blackness to ever swallow her again. Let’s hope that it is strong enough, T.
