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I knew she was trouble when she walked in, slamming the front door of my house in her haste to rummage for alcohol in my kitchen. I tried to feed her, to keep her attention, to reassure her, and ok, me, that everything was going to be all right, but she stomped up the stairs to my second floor with a hostile comment about coming out to her brother, and stating that there was no going back. I knew that she was freaking out, and frankly after the day she had who wouldn't? But I also knew I couldn't push her to talk to me. When I heard the bathroom door slam, I left her alone wondering just how much of her freak out was about being shot at, how much of it was about her friends who were in the hospital, and how much of it was about us. So I stayed downstairs and waited, and waited, and waited.

Trouble.

I allowed almost an hour of nervous pacing that seemed like an eternity to pass before cautiously mounting the stairs and coming to stand before my bathroom door. Other than the music coming from my iPod, it was quiet. Too quiet.

She was leaning on the sink with my scissors in one hand, and her pony tail in the other.

"Who cares, right? it's only hair."

She turned to me with a shrug.

In that moment, I knew what fear and relief tasted like all rolled up into a sour, salty ball in the pit of my stomach. I didn't know that I had been praying she hadn't harmed herself, until I knocked and there was no answer, and my hands were on the knob of the door, and my heart was in my throat. I turned the music down.

"So... This is happening..."

I managed to keep my voice steady as my world shook.

"Yeah..." She waived my scissors in the air, "I mean I saw your scissors and I thought, yay! Here's something I can just rewind" she said making a bad attempt at being nonchalant, before throwing them into the sink and sitting on the floor. I tried to concentrate on what she was saying but all I could do was helplessly stand there and watch as she brandished her ponytail before her, explaining what the inches represented in her life. It struck me hard that there was so much about her I still simply didn't know, and the fierce protective desire to gather her up and make it all better, to keep her safe.

As she grabbed for the bottle and drank again, I edged closer, coming to rest on the edge of the tub, wondering just how drunk she was, hoping she would let me help. "Ok... but Honey..." I began, softly.

"Look, look, look!" She interrupted with a smile too bright, "there's literally no bad inches," she was starting to hyperventilate, "cuz I'm just gonna go back to the beginning and I'm rewinding everything and I... She faltered, touching her shorn locks and panicking. "Oh my God! What'd I do? What'd I do?!"

"You cut off all your hair." I stated as calmly as I could.

She covered her face sobbing into her hands.

"I'm kind of freaking out a little bit, aren't I." She said with a wry face as she finally looked up at me, and my heart broke for her.

All I could do was nod and agree. "Yeah."

Trouble.

What was I doing? I knew that it was wrong. Unethical even. So wrong, and yet it felt so right I couldn't stop myself. Fight or flight paraphilia, the syndrome that causes sexual arousal after near death experiences. That was what we were experiencing, the logical, scientific part of my brain was screaming as I slid down the back of the tub to sit before her. I thought briefly about how I shouldn't be taking advantage of her, about how I had never seen her look so vulnerable, so raw, so trusting, and then I fell into her eyes, and she closed the gap between us. The touch of her lips erased everything else from my brain, and when she moaned into my mouth, fireworks!

Shit!

Trouble.

Breaking away from her, l coaxed her up on to her feet with every intention of stepping out of the tub and waiting while she washed the freshly cut hair, and maybe some of the craziness of the day away in my shower. I had done my best to fix what could have been a total hair disaster into a short, butch, pixie cut that looked really hot on her, if I do say so myself. As I was still admiring my work, she grabbed me by the back of the neck, reeling me back into a kiss that left me breathless. I had to do something, so I turned the shower on both of us. She squealed and laughed, and kissed me harder, pulling me into the cold spray, the heat of her body pressed urgently up against mine, adding fuel to the already raging fire between us. Before I knew it, her tongue was in my mouth, and her hands were sliding their way up my ribcage urging my shirt off as they went.

So much trouble.

I wrapped her in a giant towel when we stepped naked from our impromptu shower, rubbing her body as she shivered, my bathroom an explosion of wet clothes, hair clippings and an empty bottle of Honey Jack. The sun was rising as she took me by the hand and led me to my bed. Exhaustion, and liquor, and the stress from the past twenty four hours finally taking their collective toll. I could no longer function, not even as she sat on the edge of my bed looking up at me with those same haunted, trusting eyes.

"Don't you want me?" She whispered when I told her we had to stop.

I swallowed hard around the boulder that had lodged it's self in my throat, watching her eyes, fully aware of the unshed tears that glittered in the first rays of the morning sun that crept through my window.

"Oh Honey..." I sighed, still standing at arms length, "It isn't that. I'm exhausted. You're exhausted. It's been, it's been the most horrible emotionally draining day, for all of us, I think. And I care enough about you that if we do this, I want to do it right. Right now we need to sleep, and when we wake up we should talk."

"Do we have to?" She whined at me.

I laughed, and pushed my way past her sliding under the covers. "Come here!" I held my arms out to her.

She practically dove into the bed, crawling on top of me and wrapping her arms around me with a fierceness that made it difficult to breathe. As I reached out to turn off the bedside lamp she whispered into my skin "Don't leave me!"

I wrapped my arms protectively around her, murmuring "I'm not going anywhere Gail!", into her spiky, cropped hair, and held her close, as if I really could keep her safe.

Trouble. Trouble. Trouble.