another little ficlet
Sometimes, I can't stand myself. I lie awake at night and think about what I've asked of her and how it almost killed her. And then I think about how it isn't really that she was in pain that bothers me but that I almost lost her. It's all from a frame of me, my needs, my love for her. I think I must be the most selfish bastard in existence. Is that what I want for her? To be a doll there for me to dress up and play with? She's too strong for that. She's stronger than most adults I know. There's no way she'd let me. And then I hate myself for believing she'll keep me from going off the deep end into the darkness. And then I hate myself for doubting her.
Sometimes, I can't figure children out. How is it that when a boy falls down on the soccer field and skins his knee, he's a baby if he cries, but somehow the inability to see the latest episode of Magical All-Star Fashion Dream Team is worth a two-hour-long silent treatment, an hour of which is sobs in the bedroom? I am kind of glad she wasn't around when I was a child. I hate to think what she would have thought of me.
Sometimes, I can't understand why he lets me stay. I can't cook, I can't read. I can clean worth a damn, which he can't do, but that's hardly enough to justify it. I mean, I understand that he wants Molly to feel secure. And I know Molly loves me. But I can't sustain a decent conversation on any of the topics that interest him. I don't know a thing about biology or culture. I'm completely hot-dogs-and-pizza American, and he's so international and multicultural and complex and fascinating. But his fingers trail across my arm and pause on my bicep, and it's like having arm muscles is the sort of thing worthy of a Nobel Prize, when it's just a function of doing push-ups. The physics of that should be simple enough for even a big lunk like me to understand. But he wants to watch my morning routine. He wants me sweating around the apartment after my jog. It's a good thing I can clean,because I might kick myself out due to the stench.
Sometimes, I can't keep my feelings inside. There will be a moment when he smiles or laughs and the little wrinkles near his eyes form, and something about the line of his face will be like poetry that needs reciting. And I'll feel myself grab him with both arms and press him close to me, and his warmth will surge through me like a song. And I'll whisper hotly how good he makes me feel and how much strength he gives me and how beautiful he is and how lucky I am to even know him, and he'll laugh and ask what brought this on, even though the answer is always the same. You. You brought this on, Mohinder. You made me adore you.
Sometimes, I can't remember what my life was like before him. I know that somewhere in the distant past there was a regular shape to life. School, job, marriage, family. That was before the echoes began sounding in my mind, before a serial killer tried to kill a little girl and a man in horn-rimmed glasses stole two days of my life. That's before the shape of my life went from sensible square to weirded-out trapezoid. (Trapezoid? Oh, lord, my brain has gone dorky through exposure to his.) It is hard to remember what normal life looked like. What? Isn't this normal? Solving murder cases by reading suspects' minds, then going home to my beautiful little girl who also could be MollyMaps.com, and her equally beautiful other father? It sounds pretty normal to me. I guess that's just how far gone I am. Pardon me, though, if I don't ever want to go back. It's too wonderful on this side of the equation. (Equations. Again. It's your fault, you big intellectual bastard.)
Sometimes, I can't come up with the words for how much I love them both.
Sometimes, I can't help but think that's OK.