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“Your fucking time starts now.”
“I choose you.”
She groaned, clearly frustrated. “You said that before and guess what? It disgusted me. You have four minutes left.”
“You are counting too fast.”
“Four minutes, thirty seconds.”
“I mean I want to love you,” I snapped suddenly and she froze. By froze, I meant she stood completely still, eyes on mine and I nodded at her.
“You are crazy,” she snickered and turned to leave again, but I tugged her and pinned her against the wall.
“Is it called being crazy? Okay then I’m crazy, I’m fucking insane.You can’t blame me, I just found you, I can’t let you go again. You’re mad at me, I know. You want to kill me, I know. You hate me, I know, but I want to love you.” I placed her hand on the left side of my chest.
“You’ve been here since the beginning, Flower, and you will be there till the very end. You can do your thing. Kill my brothers, kill my dad and when it’s time for you to kill me, I’ll gladly bend my neck for you. Just please let me love you. Let me know what it’s like to love you just once. I have imagined it since we were young, let me experience it just once.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said and I groaned.
“Why? You like me, I know you do.”
“I LIKED YOU,” she screamed. “I used to have a crush on you, not anymore. I don’t like cowards, I don’t like weaklings, I don’t like men with pussies.”
“What?” I asked in a whisper. I was right, she saw me as a coward, as a weakling who couldn’t protect his girl.
“You raped me, Jayden. You raped me because your dad told you to do so, you cut me because he told you to do so. You would have killed me if he said so.”
“I wouldn’t,” I argued. “I was doing everything because I didn’t want you to die. He was going to kill you if I didn’t, and you know it too.”
She scoffed. “Yeah right. it doesn’t matter, you are still a rapist.”
“I WAS FIFTEEN,” I glowered and she didn’t even flinch. She just stood there, glaring at me eyeball to eyeball with so much hatred that I almost hid. “You are being unfair to me, Flower, I was fifteen. I was young too, I was used too, you know I was. I was raped too if anything, I was a victim too.”
The walls were closing in on us and I was suffocating.’ I needed to breathe,Flower do something. My chest tightened, constricting like a vice around my lungs, as if air was being cruelly dragged away from me.
This couldn’t happen now, not now when I needed to talk to her, not now when I got to see her alone after ten years. My heart palpitated and my body tingled in a really weird way. My heart raced, its beat echoing loudly in my ears, drowning out any other sound.
My vision tunneled and I couldn’t see anything anymore. I couldn’t see Jordan, where was she? The room moved and I rubbed my neck when I felt like I was choking. I stamped my vision on her vanity table, and even though I heard sniffs coming from her, I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the table.
I tried to remind myself that I wasn’t dying, that it was just a panic attack, that it wasn’t the first time, but rationality seemed to slip from my fingers. The room spun and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to die please. I still needed to talk to Jordan, I wanted to love her, I wanted to tell her I was sorry, I wanted to tell her I cared.
I felt her hand on my arm, rubbing up and down as she sniffed again. “Breathe,” She said, her words gentle but firm. I tried to focus on her presence. I could see her slowly, she was still in my reality, she was still with me.
I tried to follow her instructions, but I got physical pain each time I drew air into my lungs. “Jayden, count with me.” She said again, her voice unwavering, contrasting with the sniffs she made. “10” she began.
“9”
Count? What is a count? Oh count!
“8”
“7”
I joined her and we both chorused
“6”
“5”