Subdue-X

The Perfect Reason

I lay on my left side on the carpeted floor, staring out the window in our room. The sod fields were still a vibrant green, stubbornly clinging to life even as the trees surrendered to autumn, their leaves turning yellow and orange. A tear slid down my cheek, and I wiped it away with the hem of one of Christian’s baggy white t-shirts. It draped halfway down my thighs like a short dress, offering little comfort as I crumpled the material tightly in my hands. I couldn’t shake the suffocating heat. My body, slick with sweat, made my hair cling to my neck and chest. The crimson underwear I wore felt almost out of place—bright and stark against the dull backdrop of this moment.

I heard him enter the penthouse, the sound of his boots slipping off, thudding against the floor. My muscles tensed, and I found myself holding my breath. His phone buzzed, and he grumbled before answering in that sharp, impatient tone he always used when he didn’t want to deal with something.

“What?” His voice was clipped. Papers rustled as he sifted through them, and I could almost feel the stress radiating off him. “Alright, I’ll look into it,” he sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world rested solely on his shoulders.

I turned my head just slightly, catching a glimpse of him standing in the center of the room. He stared at his phone, emotionless, as if the screen held more answers than I ever could. For a moment, I imagined I could see the emptiness in his eyes, though I knew it was impossible from this distance. But I knew those eyes too well. I knew what they looked like when they were lost.

He jumped, startled, when he finally noticed me lying there. His eyes locked on mine, and in an instant, he crossed the room. I felt the weight of his gaze, heavy and concerned.

“I’m fine,” I said, the words falling out of me like stones, heavy and dull. His expression made me pause. I couldn’t recall a time I’d ever seen him look at me that way—with sadness, regret. He knelt beside me, his hand gently wrapping around my wrist to check my pulse. The touch was too much, too invasive. I pulled away and turned my face from him, unwilling to meet his eyes again.

“Not great,” he muttered, as if the words were for him more than for me. He slid down to the floor beside me, resting his back against the bed frame. “Can we talk?”

The seconds stretched into silence as I tried to find the right words, tried to form a response that wouldn’t shatter me. The new black and silver clock on the wall ticked away the moments like a countdown. “Talking to you,” I started, my voice barely above a whisper, “is like talking to a ghost.” I turned my head to look at him. “Everything goes right through you.”

His gaze followed mine out the window to the pink sky, shifting colors as the sun dipped lower, almost out of sight. The day had passed in a blur of nothingness, a void that consumed me. I had thought the battle would be against endless thoughts, but instead, it was against this growing emptiness, this numbness that ate away at me.

“There’s a storm on the horizon,” I murmured, my words slurring from exhaustion. The dark clouds loomed, heavy with the promise of rain, flickering with distant lightning. It felt almost comforting, that brewing storm.

“You don’t have any idea what it was like,” I whispered, flat and emotionless. “After just a few minutes, you stop feeling human. You become something else, a pincushion, and you just… lay there. An entire night.”

He gnawed on the inside of his cheek, his forearm resting on his knee. He stared outside, shifting uncomfortably on the hard floor. This was not a conversation he ever imagined having, I could tell.

“I prefer being a target for bullets and blades.”

His gaze snapped to mine, and we sat there, studying each other. “I couldn’t do anything,” he confessed, rubbing his forehead like he was trying to push the tears back inside. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Anger tried to rise inside me, but it fizzled out before it could take root. I knew what it meant to have no choice. This syndicate leaves you no room to maneuver, manager or not. It’s called being outnumbered.

Christian shifted, preparing to get up, to leave me alone with my thoughts, but I reached out, grabbing his arm. “Can you be with me?”

His hesitation was palpable. “I don’t know how to respond to that,” he mumbled, continuing to stand. My fingers slipped from his skin, and I felt the distance between us widen like a chasm.

“Can you stay with me?” I asked, my voice betraying the hopelessness I felt. “I’m afraid.”

He turned away, his body angled towards the living room. “I think you need to figure that part out on your own.”

His words struck me like a physical blow. My head throbbed, my stomach churned. How could he ask that of me? How could he just walk away?

Slowly, I stood, the left side of my head pounding nauseatingly. Christian watched me, torn, I could see it. But I didn’t care. I slipped past him, numb to the concern in his eyes.

I grabbed a pair of his black sweats and pulled them on. He didn’t move as I tied up my shoes, didn’t say a word as I swung open the door. But his voice stopped me just as I was about to leave. “Run as fast and as far as you want.”

I turned back, glaring at him through tear-filled eyes. “One day, you’re going to regret what you just said.”

His expression flickered, like fireworks going off, like alarms blaring in his head. We held each other’s gaze, both broken in our own ways. Then I turned to leave, shaking my head in disbelief. I couldn’t stay here any longer.

His hand wrapped around my bicep, stopping me in my tracks. “Wait.”

But I twisted away from him, backing out of the room slowly, unwilling to let him see just how much his words had hurt me. I headed down the stairwell, the sound of my footsteps echoing in my ears like a death march.

Outside, I threw myself into a Civic and started driving down a dirt road, no destination in mind. The rain began to fall, washing over the world, over me. The sunset was just a red ball on the edge of the field, disappearing into the earth.

My knuckles were white, my head pounding as tears streamed down my face. My teeth clenched, my soul shattered into a million pieces.

“Harness the anger,” I heard Pin’s voice echo in my mind, the memory sharp and clear. He had tried to prepare me, tried to ready me for this world before reluctantly letting me go.

“Don’t feed the fire,” he had said, his voice softer, gentler. “Unless you have a perfect reason for it.”

I couldn’t think of a more perfect reason to let the fire consume me.