I never understood why.
In all my life, the mystery of Gunther's possessive clinginess has been a feature of his personality which in its reasoning has always eluded me. Not saying that a lot of things beyond broken bones and shattered hearts didn't go way over my head, but of all matters I did know, I had always believed in earnest that Gunther was the one I understood best. Forget stunts, or my favorite heroes who were also involved with my obsession in stunts- it had always been him that my time had been wasted studying the most.
Could I really call something so important to me a waste, though? I never thought of my broken boards or failed stunts a waste. I couldn't very well call my best friend a waste either. During those times where I couldn't even breath properly, where every bit of my body had been broken and torn and I was lying in a pool of my own bloody mess, he was the only hand I could hold- the only one in this world making me so adamant to spit in the devils face and, un-ironically, tell him to "go to hell". At times when I lay in bed and I haven't done a stunt in months and I can't move a single one of my broken bones because they're just so screwed up, it's that hopeful smile and gentle touch that kept my mind racing, that gave me that same rush that I needed more than anything in my life to even begin to believe I could keep living.
If I were honest to myself, and if I actually listened to my therapist (god help her patient soul), I would have known a lot further back that 78% of the reason I was so determined to keep at my dream was because he seemed so confident in me, so confident in my own confidence. Of course he would be. I never failed him, at everything he needed me for. I've failed myself, of course, but Gunter? Never. I would rather have married Jacky, or have Billy tell me I'd never result to anything as a stuntsman. I would rather let god himself come, and strip me of being able to ever feel that adrenaline rush again.
I had gone through it enough times to know that without Gunther I would be just a blubbering ball of nerves, trying to find any excuse not to try at anything, trying so hard to replace him so I felt like moving. A guy like Gunther was irreplaceable, though. With every cardboard cutout with my fake impersonation of his voice relishing in our friendship, or each day I tried to dress up a bag of potatoes like him, I realized long ago that I couldn't replace him. Not with all the Whacky Jackie's in the world.
It was his existence in my life that let me sleep when I felt scared.
He was always there.
Like some melodramatic tragedy that wasn't filled with a lifetime of awesome stunts, my life has always been about him.
And yet I never understood Gunther's possessive clinginess.
I held his body tighter, clinging my fingers further, curling into him like a child to their favorite toy and holding on desperate to the fabric of his shirt much like when I writhed in agony. And the both of us lay there in front of the fire with the comforter he had lain around us twisting knots and holding us in a warm cocoon, the heat in my body bursting in distant intervals as I listened to the gentle curve of his breathing, the soft hum of his heartbeat, the constant shift of his weight as his fingers held onto mine. The crackle and light of the burning wood creating a barrier in our world, in which it was only us, it could only be us and I would only let it be us.
I was always a bit obsessive in that sense.
Always, when it came to him.