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These bright lights have always blinded me
I should have seen the signs. It's what I do. It's who I am. I see things that others don't. And when it is someone else, when I can be outside of the situation? I see everything. I don't miss a trick. I can't because if I do, there could be maybe a moment between me and a bullet.
But when it's you, when you are the face that is usually on the other side of the glass? Everything is different. No matter how strong you think you are, how many layers of Kevlar and ill-fitting polyester you have, the fact that there is a gun strapped to one hip, cuffs on the other. No matter what that badge pinned to your shirt says… all of that is just for show. It can't protect you when you don't have it on.
And so I sat.
The flashing blue lights from the cruiser cast cold shadows across the darkened walls, blinding me with their insistence and I could see, even in silhouette, the all too familiar form of my partner heading up the path. I should answer the door, it was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen steps from my current place on the kitchen floor but I just… couldn't. I couldn't face him, not now, not like this.
And so I sat.
No. My face was tight from dried tears, and I could feel the swelling already, my cheek was still hot from the sting and there was no way I could hide that. Not with the sharp pain with every breath, the squeak that threatened to catch in my throat as I moved, just trying to catch my breath. My bare feet stung, a single misstep, and a hundred sharp edged shards. The bright red looked nearly black in the dark; grisly spatters against the white tile.
And so I sat.
I wasn't supposed to be so weak, I couldn't be. There was nothing I could say that could make this change. I had searched for every word in the book, some way to explain this, just to myself but I couldn't, I couldn't speak the words, I couldn't find the strength.
And so I sat.
The knock was authoritative and insistent, his voice filled with worry. It was THAT tone though. That one that he used around victims. The ones who couldn't fight back. The ones who lay crumpled and incomplete. The ones that couldn't speak, not anymore. I couldn't answer, I couldn't reply because that would be confirmation. It would be admitting that weak and those were words I could never speak.
And so I sat.
I ignored the pain. The sharp, aching reality that I knew wouldn't go. I ignored the tears that fell, once again down my cheeks. I ignored the flashes of memories; the carousel of moments, that golden ring that slipped through my grasp time after time. I ignored the help that stood just a few steps away, offering help I wasn't able to take, not yet. It wasn't time yet.
And so I sat.