I don't have a choice, but I'd still choose you
Jane recalls gentle words about self-determination, and encouragement to create new choices while forging her own path to identity. For months she used that promise as a crutch, allowing her to exist in a solid reality without falling down the rabbit hole. It wasn't an authentic lucidity, but it was better than the ambiguity and the blankness she was carved in. But her world had shifted of its axis after that recording. With all those revelations in her consciousness, the fallacious prospects about beginnings and options were stained by the hovering specter of her old self. Every new course she determined bears a sense of untrue. Now Jane constantly envisions her end as a burst; a soul shattering into tiny, but sharp fragments, and she meditates about whom those slices would cut deeper. But she is too tired, too broken to mend it, to numb to stop it.
For weeks now, she discovers solace in the dark of the night; it soothes her senses and pacifies her mind. The bipolarity in her day so devastating that she only encounters clarity there, where is no shadows, when everything is a shade of solitude, with no one around to perform to.
But tonight Jane abandons her isolation, follows a trail that she has crossed a million times in her head, rehearsing carefully her steps. Because she mirrors a trapeze artist without a safety net bellow, that knows the number of steps between A and B, but that also realizes that between those two stations there is an enormous abyss waiting for her to miscalculate a move. Except this time it's not a metaphor or wishes and regrets conquering her subconscious, this time the ground beneath her feet is concrete, real, with the power to hurt her. And she wishes she could share her vertigo with someone, with him.
Kurt's reaction terrifies her to the bones, but she still yearns for it. Jane wants someone to break her, to confirm the validity of her fears, to draw a perimeter, a line that dissects good from bad, white from black. And who better than Kurt, a man who lives with borders so well calculated. She knows Kurt is confused, troubled by the erratic signals rippling from her. It's been weeks since bellow his furrowed brow, the look in his eyes range between longing, a failed attempt of masking it, and the piercing gaze of someone who can see through the charade.
Absorbed in her thoughts, Jane is there before she has the time to process it. She finds it there, her destination and her purpose. A solitary bench with the city as background. A singular man with the world as his burden. Kurt looks defeated. His face poised towards the starry sky, with closed eyes and a clenched jaw. His fingers gripping the bench. He is still in the same clothes he was wearing before and Jane speculates if he did even go home before coming here. Maybe his home feels too crowded and he too finds peace in the night, in the quiet.
Jane takes deliberate steps, trying to be the more silent possible. She just wants a moment to look at him. To drink him. To drown in him.
"What are you doing here?" he huffs, with an open eye now. The sound of his voice startles her, and she has to actively plant her feet on the floor to fight her first instinct; to run and run and run and never look back. For a sole moment they stay like this, he studying her through tender eyes, assessing which version of her is in front of him. And she trying to slow down the drumming of her stormy heart.
"I couldn't sleep," she whispers, unsure. This place is his territory, and she wonders if she is still welcome in here, if she has pushed him too far to reach back. But when he does a movement to concede her some space on the bench, she wants to scream at him. She doesn't understand why is he still fighting for her, willingly giving her his heart, when both of them know she is lying to him, avoiding and rejecting him over and over again. But she sits, because those few months of life have already teach her how to be selfish, how to be human.
They sit there in a serene silence, shoulder to shoulder, together. They haven't been like this in ages, too busy running in parallel, never sharing the same road. But the very contact of his shoulder against her informs her that this is it. There is no more running away, like earth, her destiny is round, always leading her to him; their colliding inevitable.
This truth alarms her, and her nervous hands start an unstable dancing on her own, fidgeting with the zipper of her hoodie. Her head is swirling too fast, and his heart is fighting physics to escape her body, to break loose for her ribcage.
"Whatever is troubling your mind, when you feel ready, you can tell me, Jane, I will be here," Kurt says, placing his hand in hers, giving it a sense of harmony, "and Jane, even if I can't promise you that everything will remain the same, I can promise you that we'll adjust to it."
She repeats his words in her head like a mantra, letting it embrace her. Only then the traffic of thoughts in her mind slows down, and the knot in her throat softs a bit, making it easier to breath. His voice and the warm of his hand are honest, real, giving her hope that they will be strong enough to survive it.
Her instincts were the root of her beliefs, the aphorism to her existence. And from the first breath after her eyes coincided with his, all her intuition cried out that she should trust that man. And it's funny how before she even knew that his side was her terminal, she chose to trust in the same man her old self believed. And she thinks that if somehow she finds the strength to let him in and to wait his verdict with an open heart, she may be ready to let go, to fight for her future, for Jane.
Her head founds support in his shoulder. Her eyes face the city because she is not ready yet to face his blue eyes. The city and the world seem to exist in a different distant reality. His presence the only survivor of the void in her heart. But even that, his presence, seems a lie with her old self still shadowing her feelings. Whatever she knew about Kurt and forgot along with all her memories, she wants it back. She wants to know this man, all the minimal things. Jane wants to discover the lengths of his patience, how much is willing to give. So she asks.
"Did you ever have a pet?"
Kurt laughs, and their bodies vibrate in unison, "I used to have a dog when I was a kid, he wascalled Miyagi. He was a terrible dog, too stubborn to teach."
"Why Miyagi?" Jane inquires, amused by the strange name.
"It's from a cult movie about martial arts. You should check it out, I am pretty sure that their stunts would look like a joke to you."
The night starts greeting the day and Jane is still asking meaningless questions to Kurt. Now she knows his favorite color (blue), that he used to play guitar but he wasn't that good, or that if he had to choose between pizza or any other food in the world, he would choose pizza every single time. Jane recalls Allison's words about walls and walls, but all Jane sees it is an open door.
"Why did you say to me that you didn't come here that night?" Jane asks quietly, just a little above a whisper.
"I thought that it was easier that way, I didn't want to burden you with my feelings," Kurt explains nervously, rubbing the back of his head, "I thought that it was what you wanted."
When the city bellow them starts awaking, Jane is one more time sure that her old self made the right choice, linking her forever to his name. And it's time to her do the right choice too.
"I am ready to talk, Kurt."