He hugs you, tight and scared, and you can feel his muscles tremble beneath his skin. You don't know if it's because of panic or because of anger or because he rode so hard to catch up with you.
He squeezes you, arms strong and protective, and you crash against his chest. He smells like Joel (like horses and like leather and like faint whiskey and bitter bitter bitter coffee) and you can't find the usual sense of relief that his smell brings to you.
(Instead, you feel a hot spark of anger and a dull, aggressive sense of betrayal. You push him a little, freeing yourself from his embrace, and you can tell he's a little hurt but you can't bring yourself to stay in his arms).
(You're so damn angry and so damn confused and you hope he has a good explanation for everything and)
(You know he doesn't).
"What the hell were you thinking, running in the middle of the night like that?" his voice is deep and dark but scared and trembling, higher than his usual lazy drawl.
"You talk to me, you don't just leave me a goddamn note!"
Everything slows down. The world around you blurs and Joel's voice fades. Cold sweat collects on your forehead. Hot white anger shoots through your eyes and through your spine, like pain and like a lightning strike.
"Tell me…" you say, testing your voice. It's not as steady as you'd like but it'll do. "What happened here?" and you already have the answer, you don't really need for him to say it out loud, but if he doesn't you know you won't be able to move on.
Joel moves his weight from one leg to the other. He opens his mouth and closes it and opens it again. the expression on his face is answer enough and the pain of betrayal overwhelms you.
"If you lie to me one more time I'm gone, and you will never see me again," It's a stupid threat and the only one you're in a position of making. You watch his eyes (hard, angry, violent eyes, soften and glaze with tears). "But if you tell me the truth, no matter what it is, I'll go back to Jackson".
Joel looks like a man who's been beaten to the ground. He bites his inner cheek and take a deep breath and nod slowly. You know exactly what he's about to say and you want his to never say it. You want him to rage and deny and lash out. You want the angry, confident Joel you met years ago in a huge broken city. You want him to tell you to shut the hell up and pack your things and get on the damn horse.
He doesn't. The broken shell of Joel in front of you is sad and empty and tired. His eyes never meet yours and he just stands there, chewing on his bottom lip, eyes fixed on the ground.
"Just say it." You whisper, throat clogged with emotion and with unspilled tears (and when he speaks, his voice is deep and hard, deep and painful, deep and quiet like a rusty metal spike that went dull).
"Joel." You say and he nods his head, pleading quietly, without words.
"Say it".
"Makin a vaccine… it would have killed you".
His face is tight and sad and full of things you don't know how to name. He doesn't look sorry but he looks so old and so tired and suddenly you notice the creases and wrinkles in his tanned face. Blue veins stick from beneath his skin.
"So I stopped them".
You feel heavy and slow. You feel sick. You feel tired. Underneath there are the beginnings of something fast and something needy and something scared and shaky and angry and violent. Something desperate. Something uncontrollable.
Your hands are shaking the heavy shake of anger and fear.
You close your eyes and your stomach tightens. You try to make the sickening feeling go away. Your mouth is dry and the back of your teeth are pulsing with the heavy rhythm of your heart.
(You can't look Joel in the eyes).
You are cold and shaking and you can't move. You try to focus on something (anything) that isn't Joel and isn't his confession and isn't the deaths of all the people you saw in the hospital. You can't focus and you're cold and getting colder.
You can feel it coming and there is nothing you can do to stop it (you're not sure you want to stop it because the panic and the anger and the horror in your chest is so damn heavy you're having trouble breathing).
The wind is whipping sheets of frozen air. The sky above your head is black, ready to storm. There is a shuttering thunder and shocks of lightning and it takes you a whole minute to realise the thunder and the flashes of lightning are not in the sky but inside your chest.
The tears well in your eyes and the sob rips through your chest and there is nothing nothing nothing you can do to stop it.
"Oh my god".
Joel's eyes are thick and wet and breaking and you can't look at him (he's looking at you with something like pity and something like sadness and something like fear) so you avert your eyes and let yourself cry. You're tired and angry and everything in between and even though you know you crying isn't going to solve anything, you can't do anything to stop yourself.
Joel steps forward and puts his arms around you, but you can't stand his touch (bloody bloody violent touch) so you push him away.
"Don't you fucking touch me!" you've moved beyond anger and beyond sadness. You are numb. You are numb and you're having trouble feeling anything. All you know is that you don't want him touching you and you don't want him comforting you and you don't want him feeling anything but guilt (pure, raging guilt).
You are so very very angry (incredibly angry and incredibly sad and incredibly betrayed and alone. You're so fucking lonely).
"I'll go back," you choke out and Joel is looking at you with despair and humiliation and with eyes that are filled with endless loss and shame and disgrace, but not because he's ashamed of his actions, but because he knows he has lost you and he knows the deep dark anger that boils in you right now and he knows it will be horrifying and tiring and impossible to repair the damage that he's done.
"But we're done".
And you don't mean it but you think Joel doesn't know it.
//
It's dark and you feel like you're the only one awake. The pale, quiet walls are bare and the night is slow and lonely and shifting. Somewhere, you imagine you can hear the ticks of an unseen clock marking the moments of time. The world had stopped and it's not going forward, it's just existing and you exist within it.
You think you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be breathing and you shouldn't be thinking and you shouldn't be sitting on your soft bed and listening to the shifting depth of the night. You think you are taking someone else's space and you know you shouldn't be given this moment.
Your small place is dark and cold and smells like overheated electrical wires and like clothes softener and like Dina. It smells like Dina and it smells (faintly) of bitter bitter bitter coffee and suddenly you are trapped and you are angry and you are lost.
The fury takes over you in one flash, like a strike of lightning. It's blinding and immediate and momentary and there is nothing you can do to swallow it or quiet it or make it go away.
The fury takes over and it envelops every emotion you've ever had. It envelopes feelings and thoughts and hopes, it envelopes fear and it envelopes pain and it envelopes love (it envelopes love).
It consumes you like a raging fire. the sadness and betrayal are gone and you are raging raging raging. (The calm anger and the wet sadness are also gone and there is nothing but desperate, ugly violence and the rage the rage the rage).
Your hands are shaking and your heart is beating and your eyes cannot (will not) focus.
You jump, shooting to your legs like crazy, your body is shaking with deep anger that cannot (will not) be subdued. Your place feels small and claustrophobic so you put a coat on, lace your sneakers and leave.
You don't know where you're going. You don't want to see anyone and you don't want to talk and you want to be alone. It's late and the air is crisp and cold and clear. The lingering smell of fire and meat and booze are just small hints and you don't know what time it is, but according to the darkness surrounding you, you guess it's somewhere around midnight.
Jackson is quiet but not empty and you are so angry you almost choke on your tongue. You want to destroy everything you see as you storm through the thining streets of the town. Your heart is pounding in your chest, so hard it's almost painful and you feel the tense, bleeding muscle beating beating beating against your ribcage.
The air is cold but your body is warm and with each step, you take the fury inside you grows. You thought getting away from Joel and away from your place will do the trick but all it does is somehow fuel your anger. The rage is so needy and so present and so sickening it's white and hot and blinding.
You turn a corner. There is the cemetery, the pub, the park. You don't want to go to either of these places, so you keep walking. A few people are standing near one-story wooden buildings, smoking, and drinking, and laughing. A dog is lounging on a front wooden porch and a young woman with blue hair is feeding her newborn baby, laughing and cooing and laughing some more.
You don't stop and you don't say hello and you don't answer when people raise their hands and greet you. You're too consumed by the anger and by the pain and by the blinding rage that you don't even turn when someone calls out your name. you keep walking, long strides and swinging hands and head held low, so low you can barely see where you're going.
"Ellie?" you hear the voice and you know you should recognise it, but you don't.
(Your hands are shaking).
You walk and as you walk (fast and angry and like a raging tank, crushing everything in your way) you mind is playing Joel's words and Joel's face and Joel's sad sad sad eyes.
(He lied to you he lied to you he lied to you).
Your thoughts are a jumbled mess of angry screams and painful betrayal and hot hatred and all you want (and all you need) is to get the fuck away.
(Away from Joel and away from Jackson and away from whoever it is persistently calling your name).
(You want something to smash and something to rip and something to kill. The rage inside you is consuming every rational thought you've ever had and you are so angry you're on the point of puking).
As you go, you can still hear (loud and clear and as if he's whispering in your ear) Joel's deep, slow southern accented voice and you still hear the words, and still, everything hurts.
You storm through the streets and through the small empty park. You storm through alleys and tents and barns. You storm through the abandoned market, through the training square, through the side of town where Jesse lives with his cozy cozy family.
You leave the trail and force your way through heavy, frozen trees. You're still inside Jackson's walls, but it's on the far side from the main gates and there is little to nonactivity and it's exactly what you want.
You're shaking. Your hands and your chest and your shoulders. Your heart is racing and you ball your hands into fists and you clench your jaw and everything hurts and everything hurts and everything hurts.
Your feet are cold in your stupid thin canvas sneakers and it fuels your anger further. You are wearing a thin jacket and a short-sleeved shirt and stupid ripped jeans you haven't had the presence of mind to change before you stormed out of your house, in your blind fury and blind need to get the fuck away, as far as you can, from Joel.
The world is quiet and dark and the only sound is the crunching and the crushing and the snapping of the twigs and the branches and rotten leaves under your feet. The mud and some rainwater that gather in small puddles soak into your shoes and freeze your feet. the experience is uncomfortable but not something you haven't dealt with before, and it's not enough to cool you down, so you push forward and push forward and push forward.
Your arms remove whatever stands in your way (small branches and some cobwebs) and you don't really see your surroundings. All you know is the sharp snapping and the loud cracking of the forest floor beneath your feet and that you're ready to destroy and ruin and cut and kill everything everything everything.
You break through the trees into a small clearing. You're half-blind with hate and pain and anger and you don't recognise this part of town. A second look tells you you're in a place you know. It's a small makeshift arena where Tommy brings wild horses to train them, and it feels fitting enough so you storm forward.
You are walking, circling the wide clearing. You can't stop moving and your body is shaking with anger (with anger and with pain and with cold cold cold betrayal).
You can't seem to calm down.
(All you can hear and all you can see and all you can think about it Joel and Joel's sad face when he told you the truth and Joel's hard eyes, liquid with tears and Joel's broken expression when you told him you don't want nothing to do with him).
(And you don't. You're angry beyond belief. You are raging. You are chocking and you can't believe he did this to you, the fucking lier).
(How could he do this? How could he have subjected you to this life, to this selfish, ugly, suffocating existence, with the knowledge of how you could have helped and how you didn't).
(Fuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. You knew something was wrong and still, you fed like a hungry, blind, stupid baby on his stupid fucking lies).
(What a fucking idiot you are).
You try to breathe, to calm your nerves, to think about something that isn't Joel, and isn't the hospital and isn't how you single-handedly subjected the world to keep moving into ruin.
You know you can't keep on going like this (racing heats and sweaty palms and shaking hands and rising panic), but all you feel is anger anger anger and you know it's coming and you can't do anything to stop it.
You are angry and confused and horrified. You are angry out of your mind.
In one perfect moment, the hatred and the anger and the shame fuse into a perfect, beautiful, terrible fury, and you can't stop what is coming and you don't even try. (You let it come).
You go wild.
You scream and punch and kick and wreck everything in your way. There isn't much to lash out at but what is near you is destroyed in a perfect fit of pure raging anger.
You attack a small tree like a madwoman, screaming and destroying and crying and choking. Joel's words are replying in your mind, over and over and over, slow and drawling and mean, and you stomp and you tear and you throw and you break everything that's within a reach. You grab a small branch and pull and scream and roar, your world is a perfect, red, violent planet of nothing but rage and rage and pure rage.
Behind you, someone says your name and you ignore them, too busy to get spooked and too angry to care and too far gone to stop your attack.
You don't turn. Instead, you keep tearing and you keep screaming and you keep pulling. You cry, snot dripping into your upper lip, and down your chin. You are having trouble breathing now, but you can't stop, not bothering wiping the angry tears and the ropes of snot and the mud that's flying into your face from your furious kicks.
"Ellie".
(You rip branches, you wreck trees, you punch a small fence and you kick the dirt).
"Ellie…"
(You scream and you cry and you try to take in enough air to keep you going, your lungs are burning and your vision is blurred).
"Ellie!"
(You don't budge and you ignore the voice behind you and you lash out at the small tree and at the round brown fence like everything is their fault and if you hit hard enough if you bring the fence down and you rip the tree out of the ground everything will be alright).
The fence is strong and the tree is stronger and you can't seem to move them so you just keep kicking and screaming and punching and pushing.
You scream and shout and cry and gasp for air. You grab the tree and you pull and you kick and you punch and someone behind you is saying your name and then 'stop' and then 'stop' and then
("Stop, Ellie. Stop. Stop. Stop").
You turn around, breath heaving and you meet dark dangerous eyes (soft eyes, strong eyes, eyes like pulls of icy lake and like deep ink and like space). You see the clear tanned skin, the freckled nose-bridge, the furrowed eyebrows. You see the troubled sad expression and the pink soft lips and it takes you longer than it should to realise who had followed you from town.
Dina is looking at you like everything sad and nothing scared and you stand there, sweat dripping down your face, sweat and tears and snot. You stand there, breathing heavily and your arms and fingers are bleeding and your heart is racing in your chest and the world spins.
"The fuck are you doing?" Dina's voice is strong but gentle, a breathy sort of whisper that holds pain and sadness but not pity and not hatred and not surprise and your heart is breaking it's breaking it's breaking with love and with need and with everything like temptation and nothing like fury.
But you're still angry and you can't seem to shake it off, even when Dina is the one standing in front of you.
Your voice is row and scratchy, your throat's sore from all the screaming. "Nothing," you croak.
Dina raises one eyebrow. "Doesn't seem like nothing".
You try to keep yourself composed. "It's nothing," you aim for offhanded but land on annoyed and you see Dina's hurt by your tone.
"It kinda looked like you were attacking the trees and this poor fence".
"What do you want?" you bark, still trying to catch your breath.
Dina's face is so blank you almost start screaming again. she's not sad and she is not surprised and she is not angry. she's perfectly calm and when she just stands and stares at you for a couple of seconds, you feel like an idiot.
She says, "I want you to stop," and you breathe hard, stare hard, tense, and shaking and coiled. You are still angry and still raging and you are not done with the damage you want to inflict on the world, but Dina is stepping closer (closer closer) and she does it with hard determination in her eyes. You try to move away, step back, but she grabs your face and the look in her eyes is so pure and so open and so honest you are drawn to her, and you don't try to escape.
Dina opens her arms and puts them around you and suddenly, you're not alone anymore.
Her left hand is sneaking at the back of your head and she pulls you closer and whispers in your ear.
"Hey. Hey. It's okay. I've got you. It's okay".
Her voice is calm and reassuring and safe (soft and intimate and full of emotion). Her arms are strong and warm and gentle beyond belief and you can't help but melt into her embrace.
She puts your head on her shoulder and you breathe in her familiar scent (she smells like grass and like mud and like fire. She smells like flowers and like dough and like mango shampoo. She smells safe and familiar and nice) (she smells like home) and you can feel your heartbeat slowing down.
(She smells like home).
It takes a couple of minutes for your body to stop shaking in her tight embrace. The anger, red and violent, and scary (blinding and stupid) is melting away and she holds you close to her breast and tells you that everything will be alright it will be alright it will be alright.
When you stand in Dina's arms you suddenly feel scared and small and weak. You feel fragile. (You feel stupid). Everything hurts and all you want is for the pain to stop (the physical and the one that is sitting heavy in your heart and press heavy on your chest).
You take a deep breath (the air smells like pine trees and like Dina) and the sob that rips through your chest is horrible and painful and you lose control. You don't try to fight it.
All the anger and the confusion and the shame and the weakness melt into nothingness, melt into her strong open arms and her nice, sweet smell and her reassuring powerful hands and you start to cry.
It comes in waves that roll from a deep, dark place inside you. You hug her tight, hold into her like a drowning person might hold into a piece of wood from his wrecking ship, and you cry with vulnerability and with weakness and with hatred and with loss. You cry with everything you can and with everything you cannot and you let her hold you and you cry in addicting, violent sobs.
All the terror and the anger dissolve into dense tears and heavy whimpers and shortness of breath and a profound sense of loss. It's overwhelming. It rips you open.
(You sob).
"Shh-Shh-Shh," Dina's rocking you slowly. "Shhh. It's okay. I've got you. It's okay".
You break down and you're weeping. It's strong and shaking, the sobbing and the wracking and the weeping. It's violent and heartbreaking and ou cry like a wound that will never heal. You cry about Joel and about the lies he told you and about the anger and about the betrayal. You cry about your bleeding hands and your cold toes and the fact that the girl you've been in love with forever isn't yours (she isn't yours).
Dina holds you and lets you cry and offers silent comfort to wounds that will never heal unless they heal alone.
When it becomes too much, she guides you gently to the ground but doesn't let you go. Her arms are made of love and her hug is made of trust and she is everything like family and everything like future and everything like dignity and you are reduced to a mass of mourning, grieving sadness.
Dina cradles you like a broken child. Your face is buried in her shoulder and her shirt is wet with your tears. You smell her clean hair and your hands are roaming all over her back, wanting and needing and full of something you're not ready to name.
She puts a hand on your face and it's soft and warm and caressing. Her lips follow it on the other cheek, full and wet and gentle. Her breath is sweet and you wish both her hands and her lips will stay, linger a bit longer on your overheated skin.
You touch her slowly slowly slowly. It's nothing sexual, and everything thankful and content and you can't get enough of her and you can't even take the small parts that you want.
You run your palm from the crown of her head to the base of her neck. Her hair is soft and clean. Her neck is hot, almost burning your palm. You twist your fingers in the hair close to her neck and tug gently. She doesn't say anything so you keep running your hands up and down her neck, then slowly to the base of her ribs. She shudders but still says nothing.
Then she leaps forward and kisses you on the cheek. She holds her lips on your skin for a couple of extra seconds. Your instinct is to pull away, but you don't. her lips are warm and wet and so soft you wonder how will they feel against your mouth, and when this thought blooms, she moves away and your face is flushed and red and you're nervous.
"Keep playing with my hair. It was nice." She says in a whisper and you bite back a moan.
You wave your fingers back in her soft hair and you run your hands on her smooth skin and it's perfect like this so you do it again and again and again. you know eventually, you're going to have to stop, but for now, you keep running the tips of your fingers all over her head and neck and back while she cradles you and keeps you sage.
//
The moon is falling behind the trees, behind mountain tops and the cold is running deeper as the night progresses. Midnight is descending and you're so tired, completely spent and completely empty and no tears left in you and no anger left in you.
Dina pushed you gently away and smoothes your hair with soft hands. You can only imagine what a mess you are right now, but there is no indication of it in Dina's big dark clear eyes. She is looking at you like you're some kind of a miracle like you're important and smart and something to love.
"What?" you ask softly.
She stares and you stare back. Her eyes are black glass and clear ice and jet black pools of kindness and softness and love. Her skin is tanned in a natural, soft brown and scattered with dark freckles. Her hair is dark brown like chocolate and like a deep forest and like ancient times and her body is strong and fit but small. You stare at her cheeks and her lips and her wrists and you see young life and you see terror and you see loneliness.
(You are jealous. Dina is so strong and so beautiful and even though you love Jesse and he's a dear dear friend, you are jealous of him).
Dina smiles. She smiles and she is speaking with her eyes and her hands and motions of her head just as much as she speaks with words. She smiles her crooked, soft smile and she puts a warm, rough-skinned palm against your cheek.
Up this close, your mouth goes dry. Your heart jumps (a different kinda jump) and your hands start to shake (a different kind of shake) and something in your chest ignites and starts firing. Suddenly, you're nervous beyond any normal range of nervousness and you don't know what to say or where to look and you're a little pissed at yourself for that.
Dina just stares and her eyes are on fire but she somehow sedates and calms and relaxes you. Her eyes are beautiful and burning but they are also simple and true (so true) and it all that matters.
You look down at the ground between you. "I'm sorry." You say and you want to find a deep hole and climb in and disappear.
"For what?"
"I'm sorry you had to see me like this and had to…" you make a circling motion in the air and Dina is smiling a deep smile. It's not a type of happiness, her smile, but rather a rare kind of what comes when something inside you is woken and brought forth to life.
"It's okay." She whispers and her eyes are on fire.
You reach up and gently wipe a tear away from under her eye. Her skin is soft and the wetness of the tear is warm on your finger. You slide your fingers from her face, down her chin, and she takes them in her hands and holds them, steady and grounded and simple.
"You think you want to go back home?" she asks.
"I think it's time." You say and she stands and pulls you up with her. you're a little unsteady and your legs feel like jelly but it's nothing compared to the look in her eyes and Dina still has her arms around your waist and she doesn't let go.
"Hi." She says, cheeky but a little out of breath.
"Hi." You say, face burning bright red.
"I have to do this," Dina says, and her voice is hard and tough and louder than before and for a long long moment, you're confused. Then she leans forward and kisses you.
Though you knew kissing Dina would be different, you're struck with just how deep and how strong and how loud are your feelings for her.
She puts her lips on your mouth and kisses you and her kiss is secure and electrifying. Her kiss is full and deep and true. Her kiss is protective and impenetrable and needy. She doesn't try to deepen the kiss and you don't move. When she pulls away, breathless, and with swollen lips, her eyes are shining stars and it takes all your self-control not to lean in and kiss her again.
"I had to do this, at least once." She tells you.
"I'm not complaining".
She looks at you funny but doesn't say anything. Instead, she grabs your hand and starts pulling you toward Jackson. When you enter the main street, a little wobbly and a little breathless and still thinking about the kiss, Dina's hand slips away and she moves a little to the side, away from you.
When she says goodnight and gives you another hug (tight and wonderful) you don't think about Joel and you don't think about lies and you don't think about cures and immunity and how selfish you are.
You wish, when she moves away and steps on her small front porch, that you were a little more selfish.