I guess it's easy to fall into a false sense of security. To ride the tides of peace even when the undercurrent spells disaster.

I should have paid attention to that flicker.

I'm coming home from another shift at the bookstore, trudging up the last flight of stairs. I have a manuscript tucked under my arm. Today was supposed to be the day. I told myself that I was going to talk to Minako's publisher today, but I freaked over the phone, pretended to be a pizza delivery guy looking for another address. I imagine telling you. I imagine your laugh as you say, "Pizza delivery? Find a new line of work, Yuuri?" I imagine the sorrow you feel for me, and the subtle disappointment lining your eyes.

I come up the last step and hear the laughter of two guys whose voices I don't recognize. And then you're talking and I find myself stopping just around the corner to our apartment. You've tuned your voice down, given it that honeyed quality it takes sometimes when we're alone together. You're being complimented, your pretty face, your dolled up hair, and I swallow at your flattered chuckle.

I don't want to look, but I do. You're bracketed by two guys, our upstairs neighbors, I think. You're wearing your favorite swishy dress and the heels that make your legs look miles long. You're leaning against our front door, casual, arms folded behind your back, legs crossed in front of you. I hate the smile you have on your face. The same smile you wear to welcome me home. The same smile you wear to wake me up in the morning. One of the guys, the one with a ratty band t-shirt and ripped jeans, his ears full of studs, puts his hand on your shoulder and I want him off.

Something crawls under my skin, an ugly thing, with spindly legs and claws that dig in as it works its way up my throat. I swallow it down.

"What are you doing, Viktor?" I ask as I come around the bend. There may be more bite to it than I intended.

You blink at me, as though you hadn't noticed me enter. You did, I saw it glimmer in your eyes when I peeked around the corner.

"I was just greeting our neighbors," you say, voice still oozing charm, and you put your hand invitingly on the man's forearm. "I never properly introduced myself. But they were just leaving. Weren't you, boys?"

"Already?" The other guy says. He's got fluffy black hair covered with a backwards ball cap. His grin makes the creature in my throat writhe.

"Sorry, my man's home."

The guys are disappointed, if their grunts are any indication, but they leave, not without a couple of glares in my direction and a whispered, "The little fag probably thinks that stare is intimidating."

You smile prettily and curtsy like I've never seen you do before. When they turn their backs you waste no time in flipping them off. "I've heard better compliments from cows."

"Impressive," I joke. "I've never been complimented by a cow before. What's it like?"

I don't ask about our neighbors. We don't talk about the situation at all. It's glossed over.

A part of me knows that you enjoy the attention. The same way I enjoyed making you jealous. It stings. I look at your shoulder and I feel the urge to scrub all of that man off of you.

You light up when you see my manuscript.

The pizza delivery story seems lacking now.


It's not the last time I catch sight of those guys. I come out of an unsuccessful writing session to find you missing. I search the apartment, open the door and hear you a flight up. You're talking on the stairs, leaning against the railing and talking to the one with the ball cap.

Still I don't say anything.

It's your life.

You're allowed to have friends.

Even if they are a little handsy. Even if you're two-tenths away from the line of flirting. Even if I can't stand the sight of you talking to them.

I don't say anything.

What if this is why you leave?

What if I kick up a fuss, and that's what gets you out the door.

Tonight is the final straw.

I come home to your laugh. It strikes me wrong, its tenor, the tremble to it. It's the laugh you use when you don't find anything funny. It's the laugh you use when something's happened and you want to leave. A little nasally, caught in the back of your throat laughter.

"Come on, it will just take a second."

"No, really. I think I-I'll just pass. Could you let go of me now?"

That has me racing up the next flight of stairs. My bag falls off my shoulder. I think I hear it thud down a couple of steps. I don't look to find out.

"Your blob of a boyfriend isn't here. Why don't we show you what a real man can do for you?"

"Yeah, sweets. Pop this and we'll show you a great time."

I round the corner to our apartment just in time to see you being led away from our door. There are three guys around you now, one new face that I've never seen before. Ball Cap Guy's grip looks near bruising. Stud-Ear has his arm around your hip, leading you forward. You're still trying to politely pull yourself back.

"I really think you guys need to back off now-"

The new guy curls his hand in the waves of your hair, tugs, "Shh, babe. Don't-"

I don't let him finish. The creature fights its way forward, past my fear, far past my insecurity, and screeches out of my mouth, "Viktor!" I huff in breaths. I'm terrified when they all turn and look at me. For a split second, they look caught off guard, but then recognition sinks into their eyes and they smirk and laugh.

"Hey, look, it's tubs," the new guy says, his hand loosening its grip on your hair.

Ball Cap shrugs. "Come to watch?"

They don't even care that I'm here.

It's at that moment that I realize how powerless I am. I can't look you in the eyes, haven't since I called your name. But it doesn't have to be just me. "Phichit!" I start, breathless, "Phichit and Mila and Leo's crew… They're right behind me. You were going to get the drinks for them, yeah?" I nod and it takes me a minute, but I find a way to be more convincing. I hear the front doors below thud open, a crowd coming in with the whistling wind. "Hey, Phichit, did you bring that speaker system?!" I holler.

The guys don't wait for an answer.

"Yo, let's bounce. We can hit the skank later."

"Right."

It's amazing how fast that suggestion gets them away from you. They're gone before I hear the incoming group hit the stairs. You're standing still, facing away from me. I notice your knees shaking.

"Viktor?"

The shaking stops. You right the jean jacket on your shoulders and fix the kink out of your hair. You turn and stride right into our apartment like you're made out of unbendable steel.

"What was that?" I slam the door behind me and it makes some of your tacked sketches flutter wildly. Some scatter underfoot. It's not my intention, it just happens. I'm suddenly angry, furious. It comes in waves, feral and roaring. "Were you just going to let them do that to you? Just let them lead you away to god knows where?!"

"You didn't need to do that."

"The hell I didn't!"

"I wasn't in any danger."

"You don't know that." Your face is impassive, tight with possible disapproval. You stand guarded in the doorway, your arms crossed. Like you believe what you just said. "You don't know that! There were three of them, Viktor. They could have- They could have hurt you or wo-orse." My voice is broken, cracking. I don't want to imagine what could have happened had I not come home. The images come unbidden anyway.

"Please, Yuuri. Because you had to ride to my rescue. I'm not just a pretty face with kitten claws. I could have stopped them if I'd wanted to."

"Then why didn't you?!" I ask, the words tearing out of me, blood spraying from an open wound. I don't understand what just happened. I don't know why you're giving me a look like I just drank straight from the milk carton. "Why would you want those men to talk to you like that? Why… Why would you let them touch you?"

That seems to break the spell. Your arms fall from you, dangling at your sides until your hands clasp onto the little ties at the bottom of your shorts. Your lip trembles and you bite into it just as tears shimmer along the seams of your eyes. Your head falls forward, obscuring your expression from my view.

For some reason I want to see. I want to watch you fall apart.

This has to affect you.

Doesn't it?

You're doing this on purpose. You're ripping me open and throwing my heart against one of your canvases just to see how it splatters.

"Am I not enough?"

Your head shoots up. You grab onto me, your grip fragile and uneasy. You're holding onto my elbows. I want to shake you off. I want you to hold on tighter. "No, Yuuri. Don't think that. You should never think that."

"I can't help but think that you want me to feel this way."

"You think I'm that manipulative?" You sound shocked. You look pissed.

"Why else would you do that? You know how I didn't like you with those guys before."

"Really?" You yank yourself away and I feel the scrape of your nails through my jacket. "I knew, huh?" you ask, right up in my face. You crowd me into the corner, the way you know I hate. It makes me feel small, belittled. You've never done this to me.

Nothing like this.

"You really told me how you felt, huh?"

The tears begin to fall. I feel them drip onto my face. It gives me a sense of ill-begotten strength. "Course I did," I say, but I can't recall a time when that sentence proves true.

"Bull shit. You didn't say shit about it. Not about them. Not about the marriage meetings-"

"The marriage meetings? What was I supposed to say about them? What does this have to do with that?"

"And what about that little mouse?" You point to the side, past our apartment, past our street, out to wherever Chihoko lives and breathes. You point to her with all of the anger in your body. "You know how I feel about her. Unlike you, I wasn't vague or subtle or silent in the slightest."

"She's a customer! She comes to my store for books."

"Yeah, so do I," you spit, caustic sarcasm slipping off of your tongue like venom.

I rake my hands through my hair. I have to hold onto something, anything, just to get the shaking to stop. I feel it in my bones, rattling until they're going to break. I have to take a deep breath, but all I breathe in are fumes. "She's an old classmate. That's all I see her as. Why are we even talking about her?"

"I want to feel desired!" Your yell seems to bounce off of the walls, as if we're deep in an echo chamber, stuck in a dark cave, trapped in a world of just us and our mistakes. There's a sharp whap sound when you slam your hands on your thighs. Your knees knock together until you fall. I half catch you and we slide down to the floor.

It's just us and the cold wood of the entryway.

I hold you while you breathe raspy, shaking breaths. You're forehead butts into my sternum and stays there. You hold onto me tight, tighter than I thought possible. It helps me see past the anger. My fury, my fear, drain from me as though the quiet is a vampire that sucked me dry of everything.

I still don't understand. I don't know why you do this. I don't know why you want to be desired by other people. I don't know why you claw at your skin in the dark of night. I don't know why you hate your parents. I don't know why you sneak into my things. I don't know why you don't like to talk about yourself. I don't know why you dress the way you do.

I just don't understand.

Maybe that's why we're here.

"That's all. That's all I want, Yuuri. I'm sorry. I know I was being dumb, it's just sometimes-" You grab my forearm blindly, fingers fumbling with the fabric of my jacket. The material makes a swishing sound that distracts you momentarily. "-sometimes I like people seeing me… as a man… as a woman… I like feeling wanted."

I don't understand.

"Viktor," I whisper gently. I take your face in my hands, thumbs circling your gorgeous cheekbones. "I want you. Is it- Should I show it more, or…? What do you want me to do? How can I-"

"Nothing, Yuuri, nothing." You assure me, your hands holding mine to your face. You pull one of my hands free to kiss the winding lines on my palm. Alleyways, you once called them, one night after we'd first met. You looked at my hands and traced the creases, said that they were alleyways, the secret passages to places you've never been. You said you would follow them wherever they take you.

"I like other people seeing me… but I feel… You're the only person that I want to see the real me."

"I want that, too."

You look up at me, through me, your eyes like fire, flames that engulf me in a heat that could melt my skin. I feel like molten lava under your gaze, melting into you until we're one. "I want to see you."


I get lost in the measure of your hands.

Every inch. Every touch.

I don't see you, my eyes closed though I can see the shadow of you blocking the light. You wanted to see me. I wanted to see you.

The lights are on, but my eyes are closed.

I feel how naked I am. Every inch. With every touch. It disgusts me. Just the thought disgusts me. I don't know how you can want this. I'm round and pudgy and all I feel is this heaviness that makes me want to curl up.

It's like I'm on an exam table, waiting to be told my faults. I'm being picked apart until there's nothing left. I'm too flawed to save.

I feel your hands caressing my skin. I feel your breath, heavy and warm beside my ear. I can feel your eyes all over me and I have to resist the urge to squirm away and hide. I must look hideous, yet you're growing harder against my thigh. Your breathing picks up, puffs of air panting against me.

I don't understand.

"Yuuri."

I hear my name.

It startles me.

It's the same name that I've had all of my life. I've never cared much for it. Always misspelled by friends. Always mispronounced at meetings and appointments.

The way you say it makes my heart beat again.

I open my eyes and there you are, my man of mystery, hovering over me, staring directly into my soul.

"Yuuri," you say again, so low and husky that it tingles along my skin. You're feeling along my body. The pads of your fingers, soft yet determined, slowly capture the shape of me beneath them and steal my breath away. Your breath hitches as your fingers slow along my sternum. Or maybe that's me. I'm barely breathing, dizzy, lightheaded. My body feels like a furnace, radiating heat as it sucks up the fire from your gaze, your traveling fingertips, and your words as your lips murmur muscles, bones, my anatomy into the quiet. It's the most sensual thing anyone has ever done to me.

This touch… It's with the same delicate finesse you apply when handling your brush. I remember you teaching me how to hold your brush in my hand, like a parent teaching a child to hold their first eating utensil. Except your brush isn't just a tool to you. You cherish it with every stroke.

You touch me and I feel cherished.

Looking into your eyes, I feel lost and found all at once. There's a hunger there, as you wait and watch. You devour me with your gaze. Staring into those eyes, I can almost believe that I'm something worth craving.

"Do you love me, Yuuri?"

The question is abrupt. Everything stops. I don't feel you anymore. You're hovering over me again, waiting. I want you to touch me. I want you to keep touching me until we've melded into one.

"Of course."

"As a man?"

It feels like a test.

You're looking at me, but you're not. The air cools between us. I shiver, now cold, left in the dark to stare at someone I don't know.

It's as if I'm the mirror you're looking for answers from.

I look at you, all of you, from your bent toes to the clipped ends of your hair.

I see a book held tight in your hands. I see a heart-shaped smile that's as dorky as it is charming. I see the paint that spots your clothes. I see your wrist moving elegantly as your fingers adjust your hair. I see the flick of your brush. I see magic in your eyes.

I answer honestly and I'm ready for you to leave.

"I love you as you are."

You stare at me for the longest time.

I don't move. I don't blink. I don't dare breathe.

You smile a wobbly smile and you deflate on top of me as your arms give out.

"Ugh. I feel like you enjoy crushing me. Do I look like one big cushion to you?"

"I love you, Yuuri," you say in a jumble against my chest, "as you are." You kiss between my ribs. I feel it sink into my heart. "Never forget that."


"The world does not wait for one that sits still, Yuuri."

"I know, Minako-sensei. I will. I'm sorry."

I'm walking home from the bookstore, talking to Minako over the phone. She's finally finished yelling at me, reminding me that I should submit my manuscript. She has a right to be concerned, as my boss and my mentor. She might as well be my family. She has my future in mind, has nourished my potential into something somewhat worthy of publishing.

"I don't want your apologies. I want to see your name on a book cover. Got it?"

"Hai. Hai."

I turn off my phone and shove it in my pocket, readjusting the load of papers in my arms.

I take a blind step up the stairs to our apartment, my body moving with muscle memory as I return to reading over my work. Suddenly I feel like I've hit a wall. I slip down a couple of steps, gripping the railing just in time to wrench myself out of a tumble. My papers aren't so lucky. They scatter and flood down two flights. A couple even flutter down and stick to the entryway door.

"Sorry. Didn't see you there."

It wasn't a wall.

My eyes widen the second I notice who it is. I stare at his stud earrings. It's the first time I've been close enough to see that his earrings are green, the bottom ones shaped like jade seahorses.

He smirks at me and I very much doubt his apology.

But I don't want trouble. For me or for you. I don't know what I would be able to do with trouble.

He doesn't say anything more. He continues down, my papers crunching beneath his clunky boots.

I'm at my desk later that day, trying to read around a splotch of dirt when you literally run out of the shower. You're naked and dripping water all over the floor. You barely have a brush in your hand before you're painting again.

I watch, amused. The first time this happened I screeched and ran for a towel, tried to wrap it around you while you painted. Now, I wait to see your shower epiphany given life, then I'll scold you.

You're soaking wet, hair a mess of tangles and split ends, but you're focused. There's life in your eyes. The blue of your irises has never been so vibrant, so intoxicating. You finish with a sigh. You need another shower with the green swatches on your chest and arms, but it's just another part of you, something necessary like a liver or an esophagus.

I tell you you're going to catch a cold if you don't dry off. You whip me with your mane of drenched strands and giggle when I scramble to protect my papers from the glitter of rain it creates. "Viktor!"

"What? Most of them are messed up anyway. Why do they have boot prints and dirt on them?"

I freeze momentarily, but say, "I love the soggy dog look you've got going on. Your most charming look yet."

You pout and mutter as you stomp off to get a towel. You blow dry your hair in the living room, grinning when I have to lay myself on my desk to weigh my papers down. When you're finished, you shut off your wretched machine with a pointed click.

"God, your hair is everywhere." I'm plucking it out of my coffee and sweeping it off of my desk. I'm pretty sure there's a piece of it caught between my molars.

"It is, isn't it?" You say with pride in your shoulders as you fluff your hair between your hands and hug it around your face.

I take the opportunity to tease as I look at your newest piece that you slaved over for the better part of two weeks. It's propped up in the living room, well within sight of my desk. "Is that a strand stuck in the blue?"

"What?!"

"Nope. Just a darker streak. My bad."

You sulk. "I ought to rope my hair around your neck."

There are more incidents like the one on the stairs. They aren't anything more than minor teases and blurted insults, not enough to get worked up over, but I still keep them from you.

Until I can't.

I'm sliding the key into our mail door when I hear the squeak of shoes on the floor behind me. I turn to see who it is when they grab the mail door and wrench it open into my face. I feel the burn as the door hits me bluntly in the nose, the rip of my skin as the metal tears across my lip, and the soreness when I cup my hands around my nose and fall to my knees. My glasses clatter to the floor, frames bent and a lens broken.

I recognize the laughter as Ball Cap Guy runs up the stairs with a new trail of insults.

I hear a pitter patter before I look down to see red drops on the floor. I quickly wipe them up with my sleeve.

I wait for the blood flow to slow, grab the mail and my glasses and make my way up the stairs. I'm not sure why our neighbors have turned me into a toy. I doubt it's about you anymore. The trip ups, the names, the physical assault. This is just a game for them now.

It hurts, but I try my best to cover my nose up before I make it to our door. I'm thankful that you won't be home. You're choosing pieces for another exhibition with your agent.

"Yuuri! What happened?"

At least, you were supposed to be.

"Ah- Um, nothing," I reply through a cupped hand, pinching my nose until it warps my voice.

Skepticism quirks your brow, but you run to the bathroom and emerge with a wet wash cloth. "Move your hands for me, babe." I do as asked. You dab at my face and it burns at first, like you're prodding at a nasty bruise, the black and blue kind that don't disappear for weeks. It becomes soothing in time, the warm cloth on my skin, your care as you hold it there. You're a smudge behind the prickles of cloth. I have to squint to see you. You're looking at my side. You don't look happy.

"It really is nothing, Viktor."

"Nothing?" I feel my glasses being slipped out of my jacket pocket before you wave them in my face. It makes the room look like it's caught behind the blades of a fan. Or maybe that's the dizziness talking. "This is nothing?"

I slip the cloth out of your frustrated hand to apply it myself. "It isn't a big deal," I try, but you're having none of it.

"Is this the same 'nothing' that keeps messing with your papers and spilled Pepsi all over you last week?"

I swallow, but it doesn't help me think. Instead I start to choke. All I taste is the tang of blood, the smell of rust stuck in my nostrils.

"It's those assholes, isn't it?"

I panic, but I can only choke more, coughing into the washcloth. You're moving and I have to stop you, but I can't. I can't do anything. Again. Dread curdles the blood in my veins.

I worry about what you'll do. I worry about what they'll do to you.

I wait to hear the slamming of our door, to hear you yelling and pounding on the neighbors' door upstairs.

None of that happens.

There's a steady grip on my arm. You lead me over to the couch, sit me down and flick on all of the lights in the room. You take the cloth from me with more gentleness than I probably deserve. Before I can question you, there's a flash, swift and sharp like a flint spark. There's another one and you sigh.

"Did you just take a picture of me?"

"Evidence." The cloth is placed back on my nose, my folded glasses slipped into my palm. You hug my head to your shoulder and your scent of paint and pine stabs through the musk of blood. "Lucky for you I think we still have some tampons from when Mila slept over."

I laugh. It buzzes painfully through my nose. "I'm not sticking something that belongs in a vagina up my nose."

"Heh. Let's go to the clinic. Just to be safe."

I go to work the next day even as you beg me not to. A knock on the nose isn't an excuse to miss a shift. I won't hide, either.

"Besides, if I take today off, I won't be able to go to the exhibition," I whisper, my voice still horrendously nasally.

You clench onto my hands, but let me go.

I'm cautious on my way home. I tell myself that there's nothing to be afraid of. Your voice is in my head. "They're just some snot-nosed punks," you said when we sat in the waiting room, watching some obnoxious game show on the TV in the corner while getting sneezed on by a literally snot-nosed punk. But a part of me is afraid. I feel weak. I feel more than a little helpless.

I hate it.

I make it to our door without incident. I thank the cosmos, carefully glancing towards our neighbor's place, but stop when I see a group outside of their apartment. Two are uniformed officers, the third a well-dressed man in a suit, briefcase in hand. Your agent is there, too. He looks at me, frowns, and turns resolutely back to the door.

I don't think it's the cosmos that I should be thanking.

Three days pass. I don't see the trio at all after that. It takes me until a new tenant arrives to find out that those men are no longer in our building.

"Why do I feel like you and your kitten claws had a hand in this?" I cross my arms as I lean my hip against the living room wall.

You're filing your nails on the couch. Your calm expression turns menacing. "I wanted to gouge out their eyes with the ends of my paintbrushes."

I wince. "Remind me to never get on your bad side."

"Chris said he could figure out a less messy and more legal way of dealing with things."

"Your agent," I breathe. I'm grateful, but it strokes the petty cat of inferiority in me.

"So I sent him the pictures of your nose and glasses. Besides," you lean against the arm of the couch and hold your hand out to assess your work, "I'm too pretty for prison."

"Thanks, Viktor."

"Don't thank me." You fix your eyes on my purple nose and broken lip. "I'm sorry. I let their empty praises go to my head. You got hurt because of it." You reach out and grip onto the sleeve of my shirt, pulling me to the end of the couch. You sit up on your knees and this way we're the same height, breathing into each other's space. I think I can see into your soul now, too, in the colors swirling through your eyes. Your hand ghosts over my injuries. "You're my fire, my light, my redemption."

Redemption for what? You don't let me ask. You just kiss me until I forget the question.


It's hot tonight. The dregs of summer stagnate our apartment with a dense heat that leaves us lethargic. You're laid out on the couch in one of my dress shirts that you carelessly tossed across your shoulders. I'm close, slumped on the floor, trying to absorb the coolness of the floorboards, too distracted by the somehow alluring scent of your sweat to concentrate on my paragraph.

Your latest piece is in front of me. I catch myself glancing at it every other minute. It's something abstract, I think. There's a mixture of colors and it reminds me of the paintings Yuuko's daughters used to do, watercolor splotches going every which way. I'm sure there's more to this than that. You're a professional. Me comparing this to a child's attempt at art is probably insulting. So I search deeper.

It's made up of such dense strokes. I can feel the emotion in every one.

I think of thoughts, jumbled and left in a disarray. The heavy patches of paint are like clouds upon clouds of thoughts. They're entangled and intertwined. I imagine them as if the thoughts are my own, exploding from my mind only to bleed onto canvas.

"What's this one's name?" I ask, poking the air with my pen.

You loll your head to look at me, then your painting. "Still untitled."

I hum in acceptance, but your eyes still rove over it.

"Do you ever wonder what it would be like to choose to feel something?"

I cross out a word. My pen makes that scratching sound, like a mindless scribble. It used to be my favorite sound that I associated with Minako. "What?"

"Like if you could bottle emotions, store them, and feel them later. Would you want to?"

"You mean like remembering that guilty kind of shame you feel after not meeting a deadline?" I laugh with a curt snort. "It would be nice to pop open a jar and remember that feeling to keep me from procrastinating."

You click your tongue and push yourself up. You roll your eyes like I've underappreciated one of your artworks again. "Think a little grander, Yuuri. Imagine if you're feeling down, or grief-stricken, or lost… You could unscrew a lid and remember what joy is. Remember why it feels right to breathe, feel the air on your face, be alive. You could open yourself up to a moment of adventure. Like you're cannonballing into the open sea, full of bone-chilling water and that sand smell that sticks to your skin for days. Standing on the tip top of a mountain, one with the sky, high enough that it sucks the air from your lungs. Or you could open it up to remember what it was like to be as free as a child, where the world was expansive and limitless. Feel the slap of your feet on a blacktop and listen to the chains of swings rattle. Feel the rush as you jump off of a swing and fly. You land on your feet, feel the impact tingle up your legs until you fall. Your knees sink into the dirt and your hands smell like rust."

It's a vivid picture that you paint, not with a brush this time, but with your words. I truly wonder what it would be like if one could bottle up their emotions and store them for later. I wonder what it would be like if people could exchange them, feel another's pain, their happiness or envy or pride. I would voluntarily take a drink of your confidence. "But wouldn't that cheapen those moments?"

You're hands are up in front of you, curled to grip those imaginary swing chains. You look as if you've been caught in that breath of a moment. The moment pops, and you stare back at me as if I've shaken you from a pleasant dream.

"I feel like those emotions and experiences would be less special if you could feel the joy of your wedding day by cracking a lid or experience the bliss of falling in love by taking a sip off of a bottle. Where would your sense of adventure go if you didn't have to go anywhere to experience it?"

"I… I never thought of it that way."

"And even if you were in pain or grieving, those are important emotions, too. You're experiencing them for a reason. You shouldn't override them."

To this, you laugh. It's mocking, in a way, but I don't think you're making fun of me. "Some emotions… aren't supposed to be felt with such potency… Not all of the time."

My anxiety is the first thing your words peck me with and I realize how naïve I sounded. It's an instant example of a time that I would choose to override my emotions. It might also be an emotion that I would extricate from myself entirely, lock it up and throw away the key.

I look back at your painting and it changes. I see emotions, your emotions, a chaos of feelings bursting into each other. Some of them are bright and hopeful, like blossoms, and others are jagged explosions of colors that burst into others with shrapnel-like cuts. It's a painting full of conflict, the range of emotion within the self. But beneath all of the color is a darkness. It oozes from the background and permeates through everything else. Once I notice it, it's all that I can see.

I think of you bottling it up and shoving it away.

This enduring will of sadness.