Safe

April breaks the haze and receives something real.

My gut instinct was correct, as you're on the hammock alone. The trail has been blazed into the dead grain, everything golden and green gone to hell beneath your imposing bootsteps. I follow it step for step, my footsteps leaving nothing but the passing of a living ghost. The path leads to you- to many things, really, but primarily to you, rocking in the hammock, stone-faced. I slowly sit next to you, trying to let the words flow into me. You don't face me, barely acknowledging my existence. I tap your shoulder, and you don't respond, so I can't speak to you, so I wait for you to speak.

“You know now,” you say. “Don't you? About the knife.”

I nod, but I gasp. I remember seeing it in the bag, but didn't think much of it.

“Yeah, there you go,” you say. “Papa thought it was proof that I wasn't safe. Well, no s**t, Papa. The world isn't safe. He's a f*****g cop, right? He should know that, right?” You stop short of a rant and ask me “He should, right?”

He does, but when you love someone rationality can slip away. I just nod again. You swallow, slapping your leg quickly, trying to find the right words.

“I've had this under my bed every night,” you blurt. “Just in case. And sometimes I'll wake up thinking I was stabbed but it's just the knife under my bed. But whatever, it's something. Ya know, to keep something to protect me, cause... I'm always on the lookout for her... and she's in prison, that's the funny part. I don't know, I just expect her to show up, pretend nothing happened, like she always did.”

That's the most I've ever heard you speak about it, and my hand instinctively finds your back. You let it happen, but flinch. I pull away, but you grab my arm, still looking away, but your facade cracking into visible emotion.

“That's why I'm not ever going to let you go through anything as awful as we have ever again. Because we can't lose each other. But you have to trust that I can't be exactly who you want me to be, because sometimes you're not all that and a bag of chips either, okay?” I wince, my self-confidence trip slowing, but at least you're honest, at least you're saying what you need to say.

“Whatever, sometimes I'm too close, but I never got someone to help me up when life shoved me around. Sometimes you're really pushy, and you really want me to talk when I just want to shut the f**k up and enjoy the silence, but I know that you hate it being quiet. So just...”

The first sob hits before the first tear, and I know I've done it, for better or worse.

“For you to say that I don't trust you, or that I pity you...” A black tear falls. “Jesus Christ, what did I do to make you think that, April? Because I hold you too close or I try and keep you together? Because if anything ever happened to you like it did to me, it would send me right back to square one? You're the first woman I've trusted since it happened.” More tears hit dead grass, like poison dew settling in. “You're the reason that I'm not looking over my shoulder all the time. Hell, I can't even go to a f****n' locker room but...” You stop, as if you're unprepared to go this far. I know why, and it hurts, because now I am the salt in a longstanding wound. "You know that I trust you in ways no human being deserves from me." I blush, ashamed, and you choke out a laugh. “I goddamn love you, you dumb broad, so would you cut that s**t out? Because when you said that, you just...”

You don't finish your sentence, swallowing your sob, clearing your throat, and letting the silence in. “Whatever, right? Just... whatever.”

No, it's not whatever. That might be your favorite word, but I know a futile cry when I see one.

I lean over your shoulder, slowly wrapping my arms around you. Softly, carefully, making sure every movement is just fine. When I'm certain you're okay with it, I whisper at the top of my lungs “I'm not going anywhere.” It doesn't sound like much of anything, but I swear I can hear something in the wind echoing my statements, and somehow it gives me faith that my message has been heard. You relax ever so slightly and place a hand on my shoulder. A lone crow, the final one of the migration, flies above our heads in complete silence, letting me be, haunting me no more. The blackbird's song is over now.

You realize something, and fumble for my scarf on your shoulders, realizing it's not there. “April,” you say silently; not from accommodation, but shock. It's a small gesture physically, but the scars plead otherwise.

I smile, weaving my hand into yours so intimately that we may never be separate entities again, yet at the same time, that's all we are- two parts of the same heart.

“Let it happen,” I dare the world.