Mariella – Thanks so much for your compliments. I think characterization is such an issue on Glee, and I try to write these people as complex individuals. In this fic, I'm leaning towards dark places for both Jesse and Shelby, but I need it to still feel like it's the people we saw on the show, you know? I hope I do a good job of it. Also, I'm trying to make it believable that, even though they are in a bad place and they can do crappy things to one another, there's love in their relationship. So I'm glad you responded to Jesse smelling her hair.
Muriel – Thanks for reading both of my stories! I know my style is not the easiest. Too much flourish sometimes… But I try to make the tone more emotional and write as if from my characters head, even if sometimes it hurts the flow a bit (my beta is great at picking up my slacks though. She really is).
EmZ711 – I'm glad you're enjoying it. And I'm truly sorry 'more' is always taking so damn long. But it's finally here. Yay.
Lyra124 – OMG, I'm not sure that's where your screen name comes from but His Dark Materials is one my favorite things in this life! I so would like to have in me to write a Marisa Coulter fanfic. End of rant. I'm so flattered and I totally feel I don't deserve this much praise. Plus, I feel guilty to have your heart in my hands because I feel I'm just about to crush it with this chapter. I feel like I must apologize in advance or something.
Gabrielle – I'm sorry I'm torturing you (I'm feeling so guilty answering these reviews. I'm gonna go hide in shame somewhere). I do not want to be the death of anybody. So here, new chapter. Yay. I hope it was worth the wait. I want to give you virtual hugs if it wasn't because I feel bad for you being so totally sweet to my writer-blocked ass.
I usually respond to all my reviews through PM, but since I failed to do that since most days I arrive home feeling like my soul and energy have been successfully sucked out of my body, I have just been feeling tired and uninspired, and it's been hell to try and write. I really want to tell this story, but I feel like my excitement for this has been drowning amongst all the stressful stuff in my life.
Still, I have to leave a word for everybody that reviewed, because your comments always ignite the drive to keep going. It seriously helps me a lot. So thanks to all the one who did. And I miss all the ones who didn't, but I just hope everything is great on your lives and busy only in positive ways.
Chapter 3 – Shoulder To Shoulder
Shelby liked to think she wasn't a frigid person. She expected people to stay out of her personal space, and there was something about public displays of affection that just made her generally wobbly. It was ironic that she had chosen a dream career that basically required her to be willing to expose herself in the most visceral ways, to wear her vulnerability on her sleeve. But there was something about being on the stage, about being naked within a carefully controlled environment, about being blinded by follow spots and never facing the people she was denuding herself for, that made her feel safe. Real displays of affection carried within their rituals a heap of responsibilities. They made you vulnerable, and they sometimes held you hostage over misconceptions.
On that end, she would rather take her pick of words and songs any day. She liked being blunt, even while poetic. She liked to leave as little room for interpretation as possible. She didn't like to let people wonder about the meaning of a kiss or a hug, as she certainly hated to have to speculate herself.
But that didn't mean she didn't touch or let herself be touched. It was just a long way for her to get into that position of comfort in regards to somebody, and then there was the matter of circumstances. She would gladly hug every single one of her performers in a stage after a show or a win, but it was strangely harder to be so warm with any of them during a more private event. With Rachel, the decision between expressing fondness towards her daughter in that department had been palpably arduous, and in the end she had gotten only that one hug, which felt so insufficient, but anything else just seemed out of the imaginary line she felt push her away from the girl.
Jesse and she were a whole different matter. Shelby didn't know Heather St. James much; she had only met the older woman a couple of times and she seemed nice enough, if not a little hard on the edges and so quick-witted that she made Shelby herself look silly in comparison. She was very sober and withdrawn, but Shelby had never witnessed her having a problem laying her arm over her son's shoulder, or casually embracing him.
Jesse was thus very comfortable expressing himself that way, and maybe considering that moving back to Toledo to his much more collected father to attend Carmel had effectively left a gaping hole where his mother care had played a big part, he had easily latched on to Shelby, not caring much, in true Jesse St. James' style, if she could cope with that or not. Contemptuously, the more time Shelby had to get used to the notion that Jesse had little restraint pertaining to physical displays of friendliness, the more Jesse grew into a full man, and the more inappropriate it became for them to partake in such demonstrations. So they had developed a perfect measurement for body interactions, both in public and in secret. In a way, it was almost like their secret code. Their own language.
But whatever characters she had learned in these four years of being close to one another, Shelby found herself lacking the tools to easily process her state of affairs.
Her idiosyncrasies with Jesse were often borderline reprehensible, and troubling in a few different levels, but nothing that could have prepared her for the pit she had fallen in. Jesse's fingers on her cheek, his hand on her back… He had often comforted her in times of obvious distress, and a pat on the back was common, but maybe the conditions they were swallowed by had affected her.
Shelby had barely roused at first; the soft contact between his skin and hers had felt almost like an ethereal dream. The movements were hypnotic and soothing, and left little pools of warmth and a tingling of longing over her face and body. She could smell his almost departed perfume as he bent over her and the heat floating from him gave her goose bumps. It was inviting and sweet, and she wished she could just melt into the familiarity of him.
She had been navigating at the fringe of her consciousness; in and out, in and out. She craved to not lose the feeling of him, but at the same time, it was just too difficult not to let his caresses lull her into a murky peacefulness.
She sank into it, the darkness so heavy on her and so easy, and then it was as if the veil around her mind had been pierced by a thousand tiny specks, and she could vaguely taste the world around her, and it was cold all of a sudden. She was alone, the chilly air hugged her form under the covers, and she flinched against it.
But just after that she felt a feeble jolt of hot air blow through her locks and over her skull, and an electric shock pervaded her entire body and exploded into a burning, prickling sensation as his soft lips rasped the base of her neck, and her heart swelled with agony as his cold tear traveled from the edge of her jaw to her chin and his whole body quivered on top of hers. She could feel he was terrified too, and her mind went back to that little boy that was hers in so many ways, even as he most certainly did not belong to her at all, and she just wanted to hold him close and make everything better. She wanted to meet his breath, so warm on her skin, and breathe peace into him, even though she knew she was too not a peaceful person at all. But she didn't move, and then he was gone.
Shelby tried to go back to sleep but the veil had dissipated; she could keenly discern the rustic room that held her, with a sharpness that was cruel when all she longed for was to be oblivious. As she was thrust to arousal, she sensed the dull soreness on her face, and her back and shoulder felt as if there was sand being rubbed against the inside of her flesh, and an acute pain seized her entire head and strained the back of her eyes in a way that made it excruciating to keep them closed.
Shelby flapped her eyelids open tentatively, but even that wasn't enough. It was a full moon outside, and as Jesse had left the heavy curtains pulled back, the blue gloom struck her stridently. Her migraine intensified, fully agonizing then, and she jumped to her bare feet, surprised at her lack of shoes but not having any time to dwell on it, as her stomach clutched itself into a ball.
She staggered to the narrow hallway and examined it for a second, disorientated. There wasn't any distinct door that spoke clearly to her, so she just rushed through its length, pushing the doors open until she finally lurched into a bathroom. She let herself fall awkwardly onto the tile before the toilet, her knees complaining immediately about her recklessness, and she felt something bitter and oily burn inside her throat and choked on it. She honestly couldn't remember when she had last eaten, so it wasn't that surprising that her stomach was too empty to allow her to retch.
She remained on that position for a few minutes, cold sweats prickling through her pores as she tried to spit some of the bile, but finally she propelled herself up against the sink and splashed some cold water on her now uncovered face; she was grateful that her fretfulness had prevented her from producing some light, because she wasn't sure she was ready to confront herself in the mirror, but the shadow before her was still daunting. Her big eyes blinked back at her in the dusk, with a touch of misery and weariness she was more acquainted with than she would like, and she felt weak.
She scooped her hands together, gathering a shallow puddle of fresh water, and sank her face into it, holding her breath with all her might and hoping the darkness would just swallow her whole. She wasn't sure if it was tomorrow yet, but she wished the water would just wash yesterday away.
She released her air into her palms, her lungs meekly protesting against her masochism; she only wished she had the strength to be quite so histrionic, she could use the release, but instead, she closed the tap and without bothering with a towel, set out to locate Jesse. She already knew he wasn't in any of the accommodations, so she strolled straight to the living room, but he wasn't there or in the open kitchen attached to it.
She tried the door and shocked herself by being surprised it wasn't locked, but her brain wasn't quite sure which kidnapping assumptions it should be working with, and her feet brushed the wood in the threshold hesitantly, the limit between the house and the vast freedom of the outside almost intimidating, but at last she took two steps further.
The weather was as turbulent as her heart, and the wind blew the leftover drops of water into her eyes. She ambled around the house timidly, a little blind still, the moist dirt clinging to her soles. Apparently wherever she was, the weather was a lot more unstable and prone to storms than back at home, because she couldn't remember when it had last rained.
She saw the Cadillac still parked at a distance, meaning that wherever Jesse had gone, he had walked. She wondered for a second if she shouldn't be raging throughout the house after the car keys, even if to convince herself that she had tried, but then decided that it was enough to know that in her physical and emotional state, she would probably crash into a tree before she managed to figure out where she should be headed anyways.
She sat at the edge of the wooden floor of the porch and dared facing the moon once more. Her head was still mercilessly pounding, but it didn't take as much affront of her direct confrontation with light, and she found herself a little infatuated with the exotic orb. She felt bizarrely disconnected and connected at the same time, like the whole universe was embracing her despite the fact that she felt severed from its cloth.
She closed her eyes and let herself be calm until she was slipping into a daze like state, and in her reverie she let emotions flush through her, almost as if she could actually communicate them to whomever was out there looking out for her. She had her ideas, or at least her faith, and it was startling paradoxical for such a cynical person as her to pray as often as she did, but it was many times the only occasions in which she felt genuinely taken care of, and also it helped her to channel her chaotic thoughts. She sat there for what seemed like years though and she still couldn't convey her situation into one clear problem and beg God to make it better. Quite was her embroilment that she couldn't even find perspective.
It was grueling for her to try and comprehend how that nightmare had come about; she had been completely blindsided. However, that was the half of the relationship that had always come out with Jesse. The impulsive, spontaneous, unpredictable one. Once, she had been a hurricane herself; now, she felt very old, very tired, and very much conformed. Jesse was a breath of fresh air into her tightly controlled life; she had pulled everything in, hoping her failures wouldn't leak through her cracks. Jesse had seen her cracks right away, and near him she had learned to let everything burst through occasionally, even if it broke her whole self in the process; Jesse was good in pretending it wasn't all gruesome and scary, and being supportive from afar as she put herself back together. Hell, he had even glued a few pieces here and there.
She knew that their sick dependence cut both ways. She missed how he made her laugh, how he made her take herself and the world a little less seriously sometimes, and without that, she felt edgier. She felt more inclined to burst, and much more frightened about it. Being alone just didn't feel quite as easy and it used to be.
Jesse had worshipped the very ground she walked on; or so she had thought. Still, she might question the truthfulness of his feelings, but they hardly changed hers. She had felt wanted, cared for, adored. Her bitterness over him showing himself as such a self-absorbed jerk couldn't erase that; she wished they could.
And yet, as far as his actions supported her doubts, his hands, and his lips, and his body, and his eyes and his tear just challenged everything; they made her feel so wanted. Too wanted. It was ironic. She was a very lonely person, whom had craved to just be loved for her, not for what she could do or be to people, but just for what she was, Shelby Corcoran, in the height of its mess; and the wind stroke her face in a way that made her feel his knuckles instead, and she felt wanted so badly by Jesse, so much that he would take her hostage to not let her slip through his fingers, and she was terrified by it. But she longed it. She pined for his desire. And the entire thing was bewildering and overwhelming, and her head was reeling, and amidst that total pandemonium, she found her clearness. Please God, I need peace. Bestow peace onto me, for otherwise, I might lose my mind. Please God, just give some peace.
The pressure against her cheek grew full and solid, and Shelby jumped, her eyes ajar, and Jesse stood there, almost trapping her stretched legs, enough for her to feel him, but not to touch him, and her heart thumped hard, even though the scare promptly left her; the bruised side of her face was cupped into his smooth palm, and instinctively, she subtly leaned into it. Their eyes met in the dark, Jesse's face was obscured, placed against the moon, and she saw exactly the same in him as she had in herself on the dark bathroom, and it was sinister and comforting.
"Are you okay?" Jesse murmured apprehensively, breaking the moment, but she still felt rather withdrawn from the world to talk. Her hand came to rest on top of his, and she tugged at his arm, making him lower himself next to her. His fingers twiddled with her curls as if he was a little boy, and she kept his hand clutched inside hers, her brain struggling to reboot and reinitiate normal functions, until it did, and with nothing more than an attempted conciliatory smile, she unceremoniously dropped it. Him. And he looked quite fazed by it. Almost as if that mere motion had slaughtered all his hopefulness.
"I don't know if you'll ever be able to find it in your heart to forgive me…" he muttered, agony sipping through his every word in a way that made her a little sick. He may not be above harming her, but she found herself torn to pieces when he was hurting.
"I forgive you, Jess," she quickly amended, bluntly.
Jesse sought her gaze, an inquisitive stare probing for the "but" he knew she wasn't voicing, but her only response was to stare at her lap and chew nervously on the inside of her cheek, an implied shrug left in the air. She didn't know how to explain that she couldn't simply erase the traces he left all over her body, all over her heart, documenting that whole transgression in detail. She could tell he got the picture nonetheless, just by the overpowering silence that plunged over them.
She sighed loudly, and decided to meet him halfway, if only to make things easier. He was, after all, just a kid.
"I shouldn't have said what I did at the office. It was cruel of me. And… you'll always mean something to me."
"Then why did you say it?"
"Sometimes, people have to go their separate ways, Jesse."
"Obviously, you haven't heard of e-mail."
His tone was cutting, outraged, and it made her take a deep breath and try and strategize. She really didn't want to argue their situation in circles, and it felt like they were about to go down the same drain.
Jesse had drawn his knees up and sort of hugged them, his fists clenching and unclenching the longer she opted for silence, his eyes blazing with resentment. She hated that person she was looking at; she really did. She let her fingertips graze the outline of his cheek bone softly, and he turned at her and stared her down, hard, and she only stared back, looking, searching for him.
"Where did you go today?" she finally whispered, more to herself than to him. A part of her still didn't think she was talking to Jesse.
"I'm right here."
He had answered dryly, and she only managed to shake her head, disagreeing, because she certainly couldn't find him. But then, wasn't she the one arguing that what they had once was lost, that they changed and he was going to become a man, and go away and have, hopefully, a beautiful life? She couldn't push him on his way and expect him to still be her Jesse. But she loved that Jesse; he wasn't perfect, he was certainly a little too arrogant and flamboyant, but he was endearing to her. She had expected him to blossom into a decent, toned-down young man. This was the wrong direction altogether. She couldn't cope with him turning into someone so self-entitled that he could easily be pushed into being cruel.
She once again let her hand fall down and closed her eyes for a minute, because she had found something that she needed way more than peace. She needed to be able to fix this. To fix him.
She heard him sigh, and then his hand gently took place at the top of her head, but then it just scraped slightly the bump she had gotten, and it made her flinch. Still, she looked up at him, waiting.
"Look, I know I made all the wrong decisions with Rachel. I didn't think clearly when I decided to pursue a fling with her; I didn't know she would take things quite so seriously. I know it's not the excuse you want to hear, as her mother, but I had millions of those flings. No one gets too hurt. It took me a while to realize how ostracized she was at school, and how much having me interested in her mattered, but you have to understand that it wasn't just in the innocent way that you, as her mother, wants to believe it was. She loves somebody else. She may have been invested in our relationship, but the whole thing was more about upping her social status and reassuring her self-esteem than it was about a genuine hope on her part that she could build something with me. I put myself before her, and I continue to do so. So does Rachel. We are just not going to agree on this matter; you're her mother, and you get to feel more guilt and contempt on her behalf. I'm not going to argue with that, but can you please stop demanding of me something that is nonexistent? I liked her, but what we had was just… not right."
"Okay," Shelby agreed, trying to be fair. She really did want to see Rachel as a perfect girl, and there was not much Jesse could say that would blemish it for her. Rachel might not be her kid, but Shelby still felt that strange claim over whom she was, and even though Jesse was much more her creation than Rachel ever would be, it was hard to reverse the roles in her head. It was impossible to villainize Rachel; especially when she had sent Jesse on the girl's trail with dubious intents and when he had ended up egging her. Whatever Rachel had done to break Jesse's heart, or at least bruise his ego a bit, what they had done was escalated way out of proportion.
But Jesse was, perhaps, right. She couldn't force him to mend the situation to appease her own remorse. Even if she had ignited the whole blaze, in the end, it was his relationship. Of course, they had moved way beyond that quarrel by now. Now, it was truly all about them.
The silence lingered between them; she wasn't sure if he expected more of a reply from her. She turned to him, trying to convey silently that she was willing to bury that hatched, and he took an extra round of breaths, as if preparing another complicated explanation. She tucked her feet under her body, and patiently waited.
"You are right that I wasn't thinking about you… In the office, I could feel your heart beating so fast as I had that gun on you, and I could only think I needed to get you to a place where I could talk you down from basically ruining my life; as if I hadn't done that myself. But then we were in the car, and you begged me to let you go, and you sounded so helpless and frightened, and I couldn't imagine how horribly you must have been feeling not knowing where I was taking you, and not being able to move, handcuffed to the fucking door, and God only knows how much injury I caused the many times I hit you, and you must have been in more pain than you are letting on. So I almost did let you go. But I had no idea how to go about that, honestly. So I just kept going. I'm sorry."
She heard his voice crack, and watched as he tried not so subtly to hold back tears, and her stomach was twisting in a bad way. She just wanted to stop it. She would do anything to take his pain away, really. Even if his pain was brought out by trying to understand her pain. Even if that had been exactly what she had begged him to try and do for a change. She just couldn't stand it.
"It's okay," she whispered reassuringly, caressing his arm. "We both were out of line."
Jesse stared at her with a look of pure incredulity, and surely she wanted to slap herself after hearing the words that came out of her mouth, but the fact that even he was dismayed, made her a little disgusted at the lines of reasoning her heart was willing to exhort to shelter him.
"Out of line? I smashed a door into you! I backhanded you. I threatened you with a gun to keep you quiet. I…" His eyes roamed through her, and she felt self-conscious, knowing that in her shape, she probably looked quite vulnerable and victimized. Jesse's fingers went straight for the contusion she knew was blooming under her cheek bone, and even in the dim light the sorrow is his eyes was all too poignant. "If you came to school with that, and I knew somebody else had abused you, I'd want to kill the person."
Shelby thought that now he was the one that was muttering more to himself, but she couldn't just pretend that she wasn't there, and when his eyes became laced with stabbing pain and horror, she squeezed his hand fiercely, not wanting to let go.
"You are right. I don't know where I have gone today. That wasn't me."
Jesse removed his hand and braced himself in a way that made him look very child-like, and then started slowly rocking back and forth in a manner that left her disgruntled and disturbed. She wanted to shout at him to stop, but knew that it wouldn't accomplish anything good, and might send them spiraling into an even more concerning place. She felt the seconds tickling by, agonizingly slow, or maybe Jesse was just doing that for hours indeed.
Either way, after a few minutes they reached a point where she felt she might start pulling her hair. Jesse's expression had transformed into one of deep revulsion, and his lower lip was trembling, and she couldn't take it anymore. She flung herself onto him, letting her arms take him into her, embrace him and try to pacify whatever demons he seemed to be battling in his head.
"Jess, please, talk to me," she begged in his ear.
"I was just trying to… put myself in your place and relive this…" he gestured a little wildly, and it shrugged her off, but she clung back to him and when he finally turned to look at her, they were actually only inches away from each other. She could feel his breath on her mouth, and his haunted gaze pierced right through her.
"You must have been so frightened." His voice was so dejected and caring, it was hard to associate it with the fact that he was expressing compassion over something he had done. It was hard to keep leveling with those eyes, and not want to let him take her into his arms instead, and cry out that indeed she had been so terrified, and could he please hold her until she felt safe again. "You still are, aren't you? Scared? Of me."
Shelby finally let go of him; she needed to give herself some space. She was starting to feel too exposed and fragile.
"Not so much, anymore," she at last came up with the courage to confirm, or halfway confirm his suspicious.
"But still, right?"
He kept pressing, and she had no idea how to unravel the amalgam of feelings that were rushing through her, so it took her a while.
"Jesse, I don't know where I am. I hit my head, and I don't feel well. And I don't wanna be here. I wanna go home. I have… stuff in my mind right now, and I'm being forced to stay in some mysterious house of yours in the middle of God-knows-where, and you used a gun to secure me here."
Jesse only groaned in a desperate way and buried his head onto his knees, and she really felt ill-equipped to deal with his breakdown while she was experiencing one herself, albeit much more layered and down-paced.
"It wasn't loaded, okay?" he murmured into his legs after a while, and even though she had heard him fine, she felt compelled to make him repeat, because the whole thing sounded startlingly like a bad hallucination.
"It wasn't what?"
"I wouldn't point a loaded gun at you. Of course, if somebody asked me two days ago if I'd ever point a gun at you, period, I'd laugh to their faces, but I really, really didn't take that thing into school to use it against you, and even as I decided I needed to use it to keep you quiet lest I wanted Mr. Baris to kill me, I wouldn't have if I thought it would be dangerous to you. I wouldn't put you in risk. I know you weren't aware and that you were terrorized, so I know it doesn't make it better, but just know that I would never – even crazy, unable to think, desperate as I was – put your life in danger by pointing a loaded weapon at your head."
Shelby gaped, truly dumbfounded at the latest development in that bad daytime soap opera her night was turning out to be, millions of things cursing through her head. The first was utmost relief. And the second was a new wave of goodwill towards Jesse, even if it was bit twisted and contrived, knowing that he hadn't, and wouldn't, endanger her life. The third was blind fury. How could he bluff with such a gruesome set-up? She had never felt so much fear in her life.
"Why the hell did you have a gun on you anyways?"
Jesse hesitated, chewed on the tip of his thumb anxiously, and then looked at her in a way that made her predict that she was not going to appreciate the truth. However, she wanted it anyway, and she raised her eyebrows to convey as much.
"I was gonna use it on myself. Pretend to use in on myself. Just to… persuade you to listen to me."
Shelby didn't know if there was a remainder of explanation and she didn't care. She was on her feet and charging away from Jesse, not even caring to ponder that she might want to press the issue, if not for anything else, for her later peace of mind. Not knowing was the worst to cope with. Not understanding how someone you loved could do appalling things was probably as thorny as it got. However, her fury had just blazed through her, making Shelby jump on her feet and demanding her to put some distance between Jesse and herself.
Her legs directed her inside for whatever reason, when obviously running astray into the woods that seemed to harbor the St. James' little haven would have endowed her with more space, more time, less claustrophobia. But she was blind with rage and common sense had not returned to the building yet.
She heard the living room door smash against the frame, and then the door of the room she had been put in crash even more thunderously. The whole hurricane she was wracking on the unsuspecting house felt like a distant event altogether though, and maybe because of it, had hardly been enough to consume her wrath.
Her head spun wildly around the room, somewhere from behind her incensed trance seeking anything that would serve as a scapegoat; it had been a long time since she had indulged in hurling blameless inanimate objects against walls but she reminisced it used to work well to both drain the destructive force building inside of her and to snap her out of hysterics. The room was quite barren though, and in a spark of complete mental breakdown she flung her right leg against the wooden wall, pain immediately shooting through her and making her crumble to the ground.
Shelby hugged her leg, trying hard not to cry out from the excruciating pain, and only then reminding that happened to be the same unfortunate limb she had already clashed against her coffee table. It had been a stupid, stupid thing, even if she hadn't been on rein of her actions at all; even if it had actually worked and she could actually feel the fire subsiding inside her.
Of course Jesse had to choose that moment to walk in. Not two minutes later when she would have been calmer, or five minutes later when she probably would have been taken over by the unbearable feeling on her injured leg, and wouldn't have enough adrenaline anymore to break his neck. As it was, she could still easily succeed on it; wounded animals tended to be all the more dangerous, even more so, she imagined, if they could experience the insurmountable feelings of betrayal and outrage that were searing through her.
"You are an idiot," she sneered through clenched teeth, noting that without the effort her jaw would almost certainly start quivering from the anger.
"I'm aware."
Jesse's reply was sober and too unaffected for her taste, but she quickly remembered his state just minutes before and managed to force herself into quiet gratitude over the fact that her loss of control had given him a newfound grip on himself. She could still question however his blatantly stupid decision to sit right next to her when her breathing hadn't evened back to human levels yet and she was sure her eyes were blistering with murder.
"What you were going to do Jesse is way, way worse than anything you have done to me so far today," Shelby was struggling so much to get the words out she might as well be stuttering, but her frayed panting wasn't allowing her much speech sharpness. She might as well be screaming, but there was not enough air in her lungs for that. "Do you not have any idea how much remorse and horror and despair I would feel thinking I had pushed you into a state of mind where you would consider hurting yourself?"
"No!" Jesse shouted with exasperation, and when their eyes met she couldn't get past the fact that she could actually see him doing something against himself just to frighten her and it disturbed the shit out of her. "Don't be surprised, Shelby. You are not the only one who thought the other didn't care. I had to see if you still gave a damn, because it surely didn't feel like you did."
Shelby sensed her heart wrench and thump with acid guilt. All the time she spend self pitying about Jesse's narcissism, she hadn't spared much thought to how her complete disentanglement from him would cause him the same feelings of abandonment that had been depressing her so much. How could she have been so self-centered herself? She had been saddened and befuddled, but her attempt to pass an eraser over a six-year relationship in order to wrap it up with the least suffering had been, too, in a way, cruel.
She was the person that needed to flee and gather herself when she was overwhelmed, that needed to hole up and lick her wounds, and Jesse was… Jesse. Jesse needed proximity; he needed physical comfort, and an attentive, sympathetic audience to his vents, and assurance that he was loved and supported.
She had condemned Jesse for being egocentric, and he certainly was, but she had been too. She had been incredibly self-centered, her sense of self-preservation kicking in and trying to protect her from losing Rachel and Jesse both at once with the same intensity he was trying to protect himself from it. And they both had lashed out. In that they were very similar too, except Shelby would always lash out on herself. Jesse was, if way more inconsiderate, at least also more practical. Her self-deprecating resignation towards the situation hadn't achieved more than hurting them both too. In a way, they were both victims and perpetrators.
Shelby had curled into herself, her closed eyelids buried into one of her palms. She felt so ashamed she couldn't bring herself to face Jesse. Still, two wrongs don't make a right. She knew that her whole rhetoric, or lack thereof, was based on the firm belief that eventually they would both be fine. Better, even. Time and other relationships would fill the void they would leave in each other's lives, and fix what they had broken along the way. All of that conviction would have been washed away from her instantly if Jesse had threatened to hurt himself. In a cold light, it was clever. In her soul, it was perverse. She just could not cope with that responsibility.
She felt Jesse's hand close around her knee and flinched. As much as she now wanted to embrace him and apologize, and hopefully find a solution to their difficult predicament, she still wanted to slap him just as badly.
"Don't touch me," she whispered coarsely, trying to caution him into not getting himself killed; perhaps if he survived the next few minutes things might even start going in his favor.
"What am I supposed to do then?"
He asked, half desolate, half really pissed in a way that of course was rubbing sand on both of her dilemmas. She had no idea how he managed to make her sympathize with him more and aggravate her horribly at the same time; it had to be a gift. She knew what he meant; this was all Jesse knew. When words failed, he sang; when music failed, he went physical to express himself. He caressed, he touched, and well… he apparently got aggressive too. Reaching for her was his way of trying to express how vital she was in his life, she saw that. But she neither felt deserving of his affections nor quite ready to reciprocate.
"Am I unforgived now?"
"That's not a word."
Shelby heard him sigh, annoyed, but she didn't look up. If anything she curled tighter into a ball. Her leg had been throbbing the whole time, but after Jesse had touched her it was like he had magically unlatched a gate, and the hot, raw feeling had spread all over her entrails, making her feel as if her flesh was boiling from the inside out.
"Shelby, tell me what to do. Or at least, do something. Say something, scream at me if you have to. Slap me. I'll even turn the other cheek. Please."
Shelby groaned at how preposterous Jesse's appeals were building up to be, but then she realized she was doing it again. She couldn't deal with the situation, so she was withdrawing into herself, and it had to be distressing him.
She sat down straight, leaning against the wall besides him, which made their shoulders meet, but she didn't pull away. She could feel his gaze heavy upon her, demanding. But she was drained, and she had nothing to give.
"How can you not realize that we are both better off drifting away from each other, Jess? We are toxic together. We bring out the worst in each other."
She had whispered aguishly, the effort to even disclose something so emotional consuming her even more, and her eyelids fluttered close for a brief moment. Jesse jumped next to her and before she had even reacted to that, he had kneed across from her, both of his hands grasping at her tights and startling her.
"We also bring out the best!"
Jesse's tone was forceful, almost as if he hoped intonation would suffice to shove that down her throat. It brushed right past her, in all honesty. She had been more taken with his hands; a part of her wondered if she should move them from her, but in the end she had just cupped them inside her own.
"Yes, we do, Jess," she agreed lightly, looking into his eyes once and for all. Her thumbs were absentmindedly brushing his hands, and his palms started stroking her sides up and down, and she damned herself and Jesse for making both of their lives such an intricate shit mill that she was in no position to just give in, when that was all she wanted to do. "But all the beauty, and the success, and human character improvement in the world doesn't balance out the unreasonable amount of destruction we instigate. And now we are this close to destroying each other!"
"Only because you are trying so hard to shut me out. I can't simply let it go, Shelby. You are one of the most important people in my life, if not the most important. How can you just flip a switch and not love me anymore?"
Shelby draw a deep breath for patience, even if Jesse's needy little boy eyes broke her heart, his manipulative immaturity got on her nerves.
"I still love you." She made sure to clarify quickly, though the confession felt weighty on her tongue. If the night had only been really, really short of becoming a tragedy of epic proportions – she could still picture the images her head had conjured of something going horribly wrong with that gun and her lying in a pool of her own blood, both of their lives terminated because of stubbornness and recklessness on both of their parts – she couldn't deny that at least they had indeed come a long way. They had started the day thinking the other had never really loved or cared for their happiness. Now they were on the other side of the curtain altogether.
Their previous scenario was easier on them though. Grieve, accept, move on. That was a clear path of action. She had no idea what to do with Jesse right at that moment.
"And you are just gonna rationally discard me? Because you can't live with this gray, dark, whatever situation over your head? You are gonna tidy everything up, rein in your emotions, numb yourself?"
Shelby shook her head, frustrated. If only it was that easy, if only she could just settle down for a chaos of life and have him instead, then that whole mess probably wouldn't be tearing her apart.
"You are going to fucking California. And I have…"She wondered if she should mention Beth, but she wasn't sure dropping the 'I adopted a baby' bomb would do them any good. A kidnapping was probably more than they could handle to begin with, "other things I wanna do with my life. And this is twisted, and insane, and bad for the both of us. We have a chance of doing better, Jesse. Then maybe, a few years from now, when we do become better people, we can be friends."
That sounded almost silly, like those pledges high school sweethearts make when they have to move apart. Then, they effectively grow apart and it's over. She told herself she was lying to Jesse, to appease him, but she knew she was trying to placate her own inconsolable heart too. Wouldn't it be wonderful if five years in the future, when he had actually become a man and she had become a much, much better person, less lonely and reliant, they could be in each other's lives again? Maybe they just had a timing issue. Either way, they certainly had issues, and they weren't going to go away at that moment. She couldn't look through them, walk around them, forget them. She couldn't see the exit from their situation. She felt like they had reached that dreadful point in a relationship where you just can't stop hurting the person you love anymore. Where you just can't find the happiness.
"But right now, it's just a terrible idea. I can't. I'm not a monster; I don't wanna be a monster, Jesse. All that happened with Rachel, and with me today, I can't help but to know I somehow molded you into this. I took that sweet, dreamy little boy and I turned him into this, and it makes me sick. I robbed you of your innocence and taught you to be ruthless and selfish, I got you involved in my private problems, and it all bit me back in the ass and it's fine. But I don't want this for you. You deserve better, to be better."
"I rather feel anguish, and misery, and distress, than not feel anything at all. And so do you! You feed on drama!"
Shelby felt Jesse's grip on her legs increase in pressure to the point where it bothered her, but she didn't want to lose her composure when he was so obviously not able to keep his.
"That's true, but it's not alright either."
"Shelby, us without passion would be what? Where would humankind be if we decided to all be zen and better, and fucking blasé and aloof? I'm scared to find out I'm capable of doing such extreme things, but the bad comes with the greatness."
Jesse was talking so close to her face now, it made her feel trapped. It wasn't scary, just bothersome, and it made her get his hands off her with an exasperated brush and tug closer to the wall to try and create some space to breathe.
"See? You are talking like me, and you are defending the fact that you just committed crimes that could land you in jail for the rest of your youth! You need to realize that things have gone too far."
Jesse jumped on his feet and briefly paced a small path back and forth, before turning and towering over her, and Shelby felt incredibly small at that moment.
"Maybe. But I'm not pulling away. I'm not, Shelby! I'm not giving you up, even if I'm thousands of miles away, I'm not letting you turn your life to the equivalent of watching beige paint dry, because that's just bullshit. You might as well be dead. I'm not letting you kill your soul."
Shelby had to resist the temptation to smack her head repeatedly against the wall, but what favors would another concussion do her? It was cute, and almost too flattering that he wanted to save her from herself. It made her love him all the more. But it was maddening. Shelby would never be able to appreciate anyone else trying to govern her life. She was too independent and pigheaded. If she wished to be self-destructive, she was going to be god damned self-destructive!
"If I want to, I have the right," she seethed, glaring at him in a way that usually had people flying to get out of her way. Jesse had taken two steps back from her, conditioned to respond to it, but he was obviously feeling bold because he otherwise didn't cower.
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do!"
Shelby jumped on her feet, frustrated, but aware that any demonstration she had wanted to pursue of self-assurance wouldn't do with the manner she had promptly swayed on her feet. Jesse scattered close to steady her, but she shoved him away, sulking from the idiotic turn they both had pushed each other towards.
"I'm gonna win either way, you know? You can't force me to interact with you at school, even in VA, and especially after you leave for LA, and you can't keep me here forever."
Shelby listened to herself and thought she sounded downright infantile. It was the exact opposite of what she wanted; she truly would rather talk and figure things out for themselves. But he was grating on her good judgment.
"Yes, I can. Don't underestimate how easy it is to make a person disappear, Shelby; my mom is an FBI agent, I know how. Nobody knows you've been taken. By the time they realize, they won't be able to find you. If somebody even cares to try and find you. Maybe Mr. Baris, because he always had a huge crush on you, but he is a family man; it's not like he can devote himself to finding a mere missing teacher. You can't escape, and don't test that theory, because I still have the bullets for that gun. If you are not going to cede even a little bit, neither am I."
Shelby knew she was gaping and that her body was pressing against the wall as if it was possible to blend into it, something she would actually be thankful for, but she couldn't pull herself together. She couldn't believe Jesse's nerve. She just really couldn't fathom how he could dare to threaten her. After all the tears, the heartfelt apologies, the little shit was trying to terrorize her.
Of course, he was succeeding, to an extent. She sensed her right hand nervously shaking, and clenched it into a fist and shoved it behind her back. She knew her whole body would follow soon, and that she wouldn't be able to contain it. When she was extremely emotional or frightened or furious, her body trembled. She was, of course, feeling all those things at that very moment.
She had no idea what he was trying to mean with "disappear" and she didn't want to find out. She felt her conviction in him falter, wanting to shun completely the idea that he might even consider doing something so perverse to another human being, let alone her, but not being able to. She couldn't convey that he wouldn't grasp by now that even insinuating that he would keep her captive was cruel. They had just engaged in that conversation; he had, just ten minutes before, pushed her to acknowledge that she was afraid of him. How could he be so insensitive to use that new discovered weakness to subjugate her?
Jesse's expression was a mixture of remorse and determination. She could see he felt bad for saying it, but he wanted to keep the threat on the table. He took a tentative step towards her and she pressed her back harder against the wall, not that it was helping. If anything, it was probably making her look even more like an easy prey.
Jesse held up both of his hands, in a pacifying gesture that didn't soothe her anxiety at all, but at least he didn't try to get closer. She felt like she was inching closer and closer to snapping, and him cornering her would be the last straw.
"Shelby," he whispered as if he was talking to an ambushed, fearful animal, which she felt was in many ways fitting, "please, come and sit down."
Shelby crossed her arms in front of her chest defiantly and raised her chin to maybe remind him that he was the kid, and he was not going to talk to her like she was a helpless little thing, no matter how indeed defenseless and terrified she was feeling.
"Bite me, Jesse!"
She realized that confronting him like that was the wrong move; it hadn't paid off before and she knew it wouldn't then either when Jesse's eyes hardened, but he kept pushing the button that was responsible for her self-respect, and she kept trying to clung to the very last bit of dignity she had available, even if there was absolutely no glory in acting hostile. Jesse started backing away towards the door, as if he was planning on locking her in there and her heart hammered inside her chest.
"Jess, please, just let me go home. Please."
Her submissiveness surprised him for a second and he stopped on his tracks as he seemed to take her miserable plea into consideration. Then, his brain probably processed that she was begging him to do the exact opposite of what he intended to be doing, and that her meekness was not giving in enough, because he kept going for the door.
"Jess, don't! Please!"
Shelby's legs were sprung to action and she darted so hastily she actually reached the door at the same time as Jesse. They both tried to squeeze themselves out of there at the same time, and of course, got stuck because the door frame was too small for two struggling bodies. She was smaller though, and she slipped right into the hallway, but Jesse grabbed her by the back of her shirt.
"Didn't I warn you to not try to escape, Shelby?"
Jesse hissed on her ear, his hot breath making the hair on her neck stand up. She turned to him, both of her arms trying to grasp his hand and make it let go of her blouse, unsuccessfully. She realized she could have used her shoes at that moment, but still, she kicked his knee, hard, and it made him stagger enough for her to effectively push him into the door.
"You'll have to shoot me then," she muttered, irate, before rushing towards the living room. Her mind was reeling and it was difficult to reason, but her instinct was urging her to find the car keys, because there was no way she was making it out of that place on foot. The living room was as simple as "her" room, but even with the lights on, she couldn't place the set of keys. She rummaged through the couch, throwing pillows away and even crouched on the carpet for a second before rushing into the kitchen and examining the counter, but there was no sign of the metallic glow and she felt her stomach drop.
"Looking for this?"
Shelby whipped her head around and saw Jesse leaning against the entrance of the kitchen holding her means of escape and wearing a rather smug smirk. She had been amazed that it took him so long to catch up with her, but now it was clear that he had no reason to hurry at all. She was indeed entrapped, at his mercy. But she surely wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of begging anymore.
Her bare soles moved backwards subtly on the wooden floor, but she knew Jesse was going to notice that she was moving towards the kitchen door soon; she was just trying to gather even the most minimal advantage before she tried to make a break for it.
"Shelby, let's be reasonable. Come and sit on the couch. We can talk."
"I have nothing to say to you anymore."
Shelby sprint as fast as she could, but Jesse managed to seize before she even touched the handle. His arms closed around her waist like iron and he lifted her off the floor, and started to drag her trashing body back. He appealed "Shelby, stop struggling, you are gonna make me hurt you again" in a tone that was almost gentle, but she was beyond the point of appeasement. Her legs aimed back, fruitlessly, but her arms did so too and her left elbow punched Jesse in the gut, knocking the air out of him and making him drop her.
Shelby sort out how to pry the door open, even though Jesse was crouching behind it and blocking it. She reckoned she probably did hurt him in the process, but while her heart occupied itself with that, her legs swiftly carried her away from the house. To where, she had no clue, but it hardly mattered because before she managed to reach the outskirts of the woods, she was tackled to the ground.
Shelby tried to cough out some air. She hadn't downright collapsed against the floor; she had actually been lucky that her body had reacted fast and she put her weight on her knees and elbows, so she didn't have another concussion or something of the sort of an internal bruise to worry about, but the impact had left her body shocked anyway. It didn't help that Jesse's much heavier body was crushing her.
Shelby tried to pull on her hands and dislodge him, but Jesse grabbed both of her wrists and twisted them behind her back, forcing her chest against the dirt ground while he handcuffed her. Shelby made herself turn her head in a way that made all the muscles in her neck strain and faced him in the dark. She was sure though that her eyes were so wide with fear he could see them just fine, just like she could see his clouded and set ones, the same way they were when he had taken her against her will back at Carmel.
She felt herself shudder under him, a strangled "Jesse" dropping out of her mouth; it was intoned more as a warning then a begging, she knew he was about to cross a line that he would regret crossing, and afterwards her forgiveness might be a moot point. She wasn't sure if he wasn't going to end up doing something that would prevent him from being able to live with himself. Before she could further preach him on the likeability of a tragedy however, Jesse forced a piece of cloth over her eyes and fastened it around her head. She gasped, but her terror was beginning to escalate in such fashion she couldn't bring herself to do much more.
"You wanna take a midnight walk around the woods? Why Shelby, I'll be glad to oblige you," Jesse whispered in her ear, and she shook her head with as much vehemence as she could muster, but he gripped both her arms and pulled her to her feet, and then forward, anyways.
Shelby could feel the ground change under her feet; the dirt was drier, probably because of tree coverage, and she was stepping onto leaves and twigs. Probably insects too, and she tried not to dwell on that, but as soon as her brain had registered she started to feel things crawling at her, little legs on her skin. You are imagining it, Shelby, it's all your imagination, she forced herself to remember again and again, but then she felt a small burning sensation on one of her toes and jumped, screaming in an exaggerated manner. Something had most definitively bit her.
The woods were chilly and windy, and she started to shake harder. It felt like having ice rubbed against her skin and it didn't help that she was barefoot and the ground was cold. Jesse kept pushing her and turning her, and she wondered if they were just walking in circles so he could fuck with her. It hardly mattered. She was disoriented and anxious, and the constant whirling while blind was making her dizzy. She knew she had promised herself she wouldn't beg Jesse again, but she couldn't help herself.
"Please, Jesse, it's enough."
She heard Jesse snort behind her and then hold her tighter when she entangled her foot on a tree root and tripped. It was the worst thing, feeling like you going to fall when you can't see and your hands are restrained. It was like one of those Freudian crooked nightmares.
"This is gonna be a great acting exercise, Shelby. Trust me," he finally replied, and his voice was so jovial and yet snickering, it made her sick. How could he be taking pleasure in what he was doing to her? "It's a good alternative to the Russian roulette I never got to do for you. You are not going to enjoy it, but I suppose that's the point. To be enlightening. Think of this as walking through life alone, without having even one person to care for you. Without having me."
Shelby scoffed and wriggled a bit inside his grasp. She wasn't really trying to get loose, just to feign some resistance. "You know you are only proving my point, right?"
"Yes, but I'm also living to my recent promise. If you don't give, neither do I. We'll both cave a little, or this is just not going to end anytime soon."
Shelby huffed, but even her fake haughtiness deflected her quite quickly when she felt Jesse's hands remove themselves from her. She waited to see what would happen next, but literality nothing came to be.
Shelby carefully rotated her body in the direction Jesse had just been a second prior, but she couldn't feel the heat emanating from him or his perfume, and it irked her. She knew he had to be there, he was just trying to scare her. So she stood still. She closed her eyes. She tried to remember her breathing exercises from yoga. She even let herself relax and meditate.
However, after what surely had to be hours, she was bored and aggravated. She opened her eyes again but the blindfold actually made her swoon where she stood, and the lack of balance freaked her out. She knew she was standing solidly on her two feet, but now she felt herself falling to the sides, unable to stop herself, to catch herself with her hands tightly bound as they were and she got a little panicky.
The sensation that bugs were crawling all over her was back, and she started raising her legs harshly, which made the sensation of falling even more pungent. She tried to spy under the blindfold, but then a circle of blue light started expanding and contracting in front of her eyes, and then it was black, and then both, and she just had had enough of it.
"Jess, whatever you want me to do, I'll do it. Just please, take the blindfold off."
When Jesse didn't respond, Shelby's mind didn't even bother concocting that it might all be still part of his play. She was afraid he was gone. That his move was leaving her there and her panic escalated exponentially, times a million.
She pulled against the handcuffs, trying to slid her hands through it, but they were tight and it felt like they were dilacerating her wrists. She didn't stop pulling. The lights were dancing faster in front of her eyes, and now she was sure she could hear the insects creep up her skin, sucking at her and injecting her with poison. She didn't even know if she was allergic; she had never been outdoorsy. Her head was immediately convinced she was most likely very allergic and was going to die. She called Jesse a couple of times more.
Shelby felt something slick run down her wrist and wondered if it was blood or something more sinister. If it was blood, at least it would explain why both of her hands were numb and tingling at the same time, but soon the sensation inched up to her arms, and her back, and her neck, and then fell down her entire body until it was on her toes. Her chest constricted and she was sure she wasn't getting any air at all, so she forced herself to inhale, forgetting all the rules about how to not hyperventilate. It didn't matter; if anything, her chest felt more and more restricted. Her neck and face were on fire, and she started to turn, and turn and turn, screaming for Jesse, until she was so lightheaded that it took her all of two steps to stumble and fall.
Luckily she felt on her butt, not on her face. Not so luckily, that meant her whole body weight crumpled on top of her bound hands painfully. She would have groaned, but she was still trying to catch her breath.
She felt a hand sweep into her back and raise her up a little, and another one started massaging her chest, and Jesse's voice traveled back to her as he cooed "Ssshhh, breathe now," amongst other similar things, to her repeatedly. Shelby clasped onto his warmth, way too relieved that it was over, that he was actually there and that she was not going to be devoured to death by unseen creatures to give much thought to what had just transpired. She leaned forward and to her side a bit, and her face met his chest, and she was all too happy to just sink into it, letting the smell of his cologne coupled with fabric softener sooth her.
He hugged her close, his fingertips still trailing little circles near her breast for a couple of minutes while she regained some level of composure. When she started to relax into him, she felt his fingers move up to her face and slid her blindfold down. She, nevertheless, downright refused to raise her eyes from his chest. Blood was returning to her brain, and she was starting to get a grip on what he had just submitted her too.
"Are you ready to talk now?"
Jesse asked finally, and she didn't know what to do. She was in no condition of carrying out even the most trivial conversation, and most importantly, she really didn't wish to. However, at the same time, she didn't want to say anything that would prompt him to indeed leave her there, or worse, secure the blindfold back. So she stayed silent, but he kept nudging her.
She sighed, frustrated and just positively desperate and tried to make her voice cooperate when her mouth was very, very dry.
"I think it'd be poor timing considering I'm feeling a strong sense of hatred towards you right now."
Shelby still didn't look up, but she sensed Jesse stiff against her body and she was petrified. He would abandon her in the middle of that place, for sure.
She looked up for a second and his face was filled with contempt and irritation, and she didn't know what to do, but when he got up he actually pulled her with him, and before she could think he had thrown her over his shoulder, like he was some type of caveman or she was just a potato sack. Shelby gasped, indignant, and wriggled a little because his shoulder blade was pressing against her tender stomach, and coupled with the inverted position of her head, it was making her need to vomit. But she didn't struggle much. Of all evils, that must have been the lesser. At least he was taking her back. Plus, if she slipped, it was going to be an ugly fall.
When they finally emerged upon the cabin, Jesse marched inside, straight to the room and aggressively tossed her on the bed. She whimpered from the pain caused by landing on her sufficiently wounded and sore arms, yet again, but didn't brood over it much since Jesse was soon on top of her. Shelby pushed her feet against the covers, trying to move herself away, but really it was all futile when Jesse had such advantage. He pulled her arms towards him and worked her handcuffs, and as soon as he freed one hand, Shelby took upon herself to struggle as much as she could.
Jesse grabbed both of her wrists without much effort and gripped them tightly, making her cry out in pain and any energy she had to resist him seemed mooted. He pinned her down to the bed, one of his knees pressed against her abdomen in a way that made it impossible for her to move even if she recovered, and secured the handcuff to the headboard, locking her other wrist up so strictly against the piece of wood she couldn't move her arms at all.
She didn't bother facing him. Instead, she made quite a contortion to look at her wrists and found that one of them was indeed smeared with her blood, and she knew that if she thrashed around she would only deepen the gash, so she stayed very quiet, even though she could feel her arms becoming strained right away.
"Maybe we both do need a little time to ourselves," Jesse spat angrily at her, before jumping off the bed and leaving her locked, alone, in the dark.
A/N: Yep, another one. I actually just wanted to talk about the song that I used for this chapter, since it wasn't featured within the story as I had done previously. I'm going to post the lyrics down here just so you can understand why I felt this song in particular was so right for this story, and this chapter. And for anyone who is curious, the song is performed by British Singer Rebecca Ferguson. She's so great and I hope some of you do take the time to listen to this song in particular, because it's really good.
Shoulder To Shoulder
Rebecca Ferguson
Cause i feel safe when you're near me
And i can hold you completely
Though you constantly hurt me
And we fight
And we cry
And we tell the same lies about love
And we cling to each other shoulder to shoulder against the world
So i'm gonna drag you down
Whilst you drag me down
And i'm gonna shout at you
Whilst you shout at me until we realize that real love is free free
And i get a kick when you worry
That you are just no good for me
And i feel weak watching you plead
And we fight
And we cry
And we tell the same lies about love
And we cling to each other shoulder to shoulder against this world
So i'm gonna drag you down
Whilst you drag me down
And i'm gonna shout at you
Whilst you shout at me until we realize that real love is free free
Don't be my downfall
Don't be my downfall
Don't be my downfall
Don't be my downfall
Let's leave it alone
We can work it out
Find our way
Forget the past
Cause i love you and you love me
So let's crawl free
So i'm not gonna pull you down
Whilst you pull me down
And i'm not gonna shout at you
Whilst you shout at me because i've realized that real love is free
Free