heart over brain

Part 21

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I come to myself to a tumult of voices. A flashlight blinds terrible.

"Let her go!" a police officer yells.

"Get her a doctor and I will!" Max snaps back.

I glimpse a gun – a gun – pointed my way and I almost lose it again.

I am not made for this. I definitely need to cut my relations with Max off. If this is how life with him looks like, well, I won't survive it.

Focus, brain, focus.

"I-I am fine," I mumble, I can barely force the sounds out of my throat. It is numb and dry.

Max puts me back on my feet, but doesn't let go entirely. Thank God, he doesn't. I cling to his arm, not risking that he changes his mind.

The police officers close in, Max looks between them like a rapid animal, like he is a second from snapping. His eyes burn with darkness, cold and calculating. Every muscle in his body tenses, preparing to attack at the slightest movement.

"If you play nice, so will we," Officer Stark says. The woman stands in safety in the second row behind her colleagues. Her face is dark and her eyes piercing.

Max bristles at her, stares her down for an endless second, then steps down.

On Officer Starks orders we are brought back upstairs the way we had come from. Surrounded by the officers we are escorted and locked in a holding cell a little further down the hallway from Officer Stark's office. 

The cell is small room, with stained yellowish walls and no windows. The policewoman stands a while in front of it, looking through the iron bars with a half-smile before going to process.

Then we are alone.

Max paces up and down the cell while I sit down on the bench and stare into nothing.

Great job, me. I really can't do anything right. Not even being a criminal.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath and press a hand on my chest to calm my heartbeat down.

Max eventually sits down next to me. The bench creaks dangerously with his weight. He looks sour, furrowed brows, lips pressed to a thin line, it's the same brooding expression he had staring out the prison window. "You really need to go see a doctor. That's not normal," he grumbles, shakes his head.

"I am not normal." Admitting it out loud in front of Max should be scary, but it isn't. He already knows anyway. He knows how strange I am. How toxic I can be and how ridiculously clingy. That I am practically a walking red flag. He knows and he still came for me.

He has already seen the worst of me. I can stop trying to hide it. With him I don't need to pretend to be something I am not. I don't need to fight myself, trying to act like expected from normal people.

The third switch clicks in place somewhere in the eternal maze that is my brain. The motor is finally running smoothly. For the first time ever maybe. 

I've never not felt wrong with people. 

Amazing.

"What is it?" Max says.

"What is what?"

"The fainting and hyperventilating and stuff."

"Oh." Oh. "No, that, I don't know. That never happened to me before." That's just an inconvenient side effect of his presence.