“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he’s still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he’s still left with his hands.”
If he were not broken bones and bruised lungs he might have laughed, not like someone would laugh at a joke but like someone would laugh at a sad movie, the way someone would feel a balloon in their chest that rises and rises until it's coming out. A laugh that's much more like a sob. If he were not anything at all like he is he might have dropped down to his knees and begged her to leave him like he left her.
But Michael is selfish, and hungry, and drunk when she touches him. He wants the way his soul takes root in his body. He wants the way the cold and the dead of him warms like it's been baked in the sun. He wants this, and this, and this over and over until he forgets why he left at all, or how it felt like he had to, or how he--terrible, selfish Michael--had not given her the chance to say no.
Because he looks at her and he knows, he knows he would not have gone at all.
At least he hopes.
He wants to be wholesome. He wants to be lovely. He wants to be worthy of the way she tucks herself under his chin and slots herself into the dip here his neck meets the slope of his shoulders. He thinks that he is sad, and so terribly scared, and that his guilt is this big, heavy rock that grows and grows when her teeth touch his shoulder and Michael has to hold his breath.
She is stronger than this. She is stronger than him. He just wants her to see that but Michael is not full of her light and all he casts is shadows.
He is torn between wanting her to leave, to run, fast and far, and the heavy thing in him that wants her to stay. Like he should have, like she says.
He should have.
"I should have."
Michael had expected her to hate him, and hoped that she wouldn't. He wonders why every time the tide pulls him away and then washes him back, he is never met with hatred. Somehow that makes it worse. He thinks he may be full of hatred, himself. Moira is tucked into the curve of his neck and Michael angles his jaw to lay his cheek flat behind her ears. His heart is beating fast in his chest and he feels like he is burning and drowning at once but the only thing louder than his heart is his guilt.
"Have you slept?" he asks, barely loud enough to hear. In the dark of the kitchen it is quiet. So quiet he can hear himself breathe. "Do you need to?"
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