Page 55 of When She Unravels
“Holy shit,” I choke out.
“Who goes swimming at night when the sea is rough like this? You could have drowned, youidiot,” he hisses. He looks angry enough to kill me. Darkness clouds his eyes.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to…cool down.”
He’s staring at me like he wants to take me apart piece by piece just so he can see exactly where nature went wrong. “There’s AC at the club. You would have cooled down if you’d stayed put like I told you to.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “No.”
“What do you mean no?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
He grips my shoulders and gives me a hard shake. “You don’t get to say that to me after I just dragged you out. You nearlydied.”
He’s not wrong. I might have died if he hadn’t come to my rescue.
Would that really have been so bad?
That would have been one way to keep my violent urges from ever causing havoc again.
Am I really considering suicide? No, I can’t give up. Not after everything I did to get away.
A sob works its way up my throat. It sounds awful.
Damiano’s grip on my shoulders loosens. “Talk to me.”
“I hurt him,” I say as tears overflow my eyes and slip down my temples.
“Nelo?” He barks a laughs. “Who gives a fuck about him? He’s gone to the medic. They’ll give him a Band-Aid and tell him to fuck off.”
I move to sit up, and Damiano moves his hand to my lower back to help me.
“You don’t get it.” The truth wants to spill out. I want to tell him every detail of everything that I’ve done so that he can see for himself that I’m not worth even a second of his concern.
But when I look at his face, I realize that I’m a liar. I like his concern. I don’t want to reject it. I want to burrow deeper inside of it.
“I was violent,” I mutter, folding away everything else I was about to tell him. “And I didn’t even feel bad about it in the moment. What kind of a person does that make me?”
Damiano exhales an exasperated breath. “You acted on instinct. You wanted to protect Astrid. That makes you a good friend.”
“My instinct was to stab him with an ice pick.”
“Many would have done worse.”
“I doubt it.”
“I don’t.” He tips my chin up. “Look, I know what you’re feeling.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. What you did feels violent, but it wasn’t. By its nature, violence is peak selfishness. What you did wasn’t that. You acted with the goal of defending a friend.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Violence is a part of my job.”
“You mean people getting into fights and stuff at your clubs?”
