Page 14 of Out for Blood
At first, I fought it.
I crowded her. I tried to talk her through every bad day.
Every instinct I have is wired to step in, be the protector, the fixer.
All I wanted to do was fix it, to take it from her and carry it myself.
But healing doesn’t work that way and that would have set her back even more.
I was always there. One room or call away if she needed me.
The shift didn’t happen all at once.
I stayed close enough to touch, convinced that if I loved every piece of her, I could somehow pull her back to me.
Every wall she threw up, I never budged in my devotion to her.
That wasn’t what she needed.
So, I adjusted for her even when it tore me apart.
I gave her space, even when it gutted me to do it. Enough room to breathe but never far enough to think she was alone. I stopped forcing conversations and started patiently waiting on her to come to me.
Some days that meant sitting on opposite ends of the couch for hours or listening to her cry through the bathroom door.
Little by little, she began finding her way back to me.
Not all at once or some dramatic moment.
Small things like a laugh that lasted longer, a conversation that stretched past a few words, her reaching for my hand first.
Tiny victories.
Everyone deserves a person that will sit with them in the dark and be their strength even when they are falling apart.
Over that time, witnessing her fight through it only pulled me in deeper.
From the moment I saw her, I was hooked. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I do now.
Biding my time for the moment, she decided to fight her way back.
I knew she would. It didn’t matter how long it took.
It was in her. Even when she couldn’t see it yet.
The joint therapy sessions were the worst of it.
Sitting there while she talked through what was done to her, what part my father played in her abuse.
I learned how to stay still, even when it felt like I was suffocating.
How to keep my expression neutral while everything inside me shattered.
After I'd leave the room, the first thing I would seek out is the nearest trash can.
The guilt ate me alive, and I still have moments where it slinks back in.
I dealt with it the only way I could, move forward and heal; I started attending my own therapy sessions, writing everything down, and needing somewhere to get everything I was feeling out.
