Know, know too well.
Know the chill.
Know she breaks
my Siren.
No teenage flesh.
Know that she’ll
know she breaks
my Siren.
Siren-Tori Amos
I’ve been fighting with this blog for days. Everything that I’ve been feeling seems wrong somehow, and putting it in writing just makes it all seem that much worse. It makes everything real.
Peter came back to me. It’s ironic, only a few hours before he reappeared, I’d been confessing my darkest secret to Mary; that I was angry with Peter for leaving me. I know it’s irrational, he had no way of knowing what would happen while he was gone, and he has no obligation to protect me anyway. There’s no guarantee that Cassian wouldn’t have come back, even if Peter had stayed. I know the logic of the situation, but it didn’t matter. When he came walking back up the street, acting as if nothing had happened, I was livid. I even slapped him; the first time in 59 years of marriage that I’ve ever laid hands on my husband in anger. To his credit, he took it. He took every ounce of anger I had, and when it all faded to fear and grief, he took that, too, wrapping his arms around me and promising not to let go.
I can’t seem to make my head quit spinning. We’re here in Las Vegas, in the city of sin and nightlife, and spent the afternoon and better part of the evening in the jacuzzi bathtub with my SkullCandy earbuds in. I can’t seem to find any peace. Peter does his part to try to help; night before last he lay his hands on me and used his gift to lull me into a restful state. I would call it sleeping, but it’s not. Just…like floating on a cloud with my eyes closed, all of my limbs relaxing and my mind spinning into that wonderful state halfway into your subconscious where thoughts get tangled and don’t make sense. My sanctuary. My Peter. I want him to hold me all the time. I need him next to me, touching me, gripping my hand, brushing hair out of my eyes. Even if he’s not using his gift, I’m craving the assurances that he’s still here with me. That he understands that I’m crazy, and terrified, and that he loves me anyway.
I meditated tonight, just in an effort to slow things down in my head. It worked, somewhat. For some reason, my Massive Attack playlist just washes over me in waves and can push worry and doubt away. Then I wake up from that state and I remember that we’re running again. Trying to slip underneath the radar and stay out of sight. Again. Knowing that my name is on the list. I know where he’s going next. I know what his next move will be. I can’t tell anyone what I know, I have to keep it hidden. Even from my husband.
I’m surrounded by the only people in my life that matter anymore. Some are old friends, and some I’ve only just met. This is my world now, and I have to grab onto it with both hands. I have to put back the pieces of our lives and move on. These people and this place? The only things that are worth protecting. I can’t do anything about what’s coming next. None of us can. All we can do is let it go and try to minimize the fallout in our own world.
I think I’m going to go take another bath.
