Dangerous
by Shira
I remember… when I first thought that I might actually be in love with him.
I was down and out, bloody and beaten, and he showed up like a knight in
shining armor to help. I thought at first it was merely the emotion of the
situation and the adrenaline ripping through me that made me feel the way
that I did, but my opinion on that changed quickly. It changed when that
part of me that I’d completely turned off and hidden away suddenly sprang to
life, becoming renewed every time I was near him. Oh yeah, he was something
back then all right, and that internal gage inside me went off with bells
and whistles like never before. My ability to shrug him off and ignore my
damaged emotions had completely deserted me as I regarded him in awe,
wanting only to be near him, if only for the euphoric feeling that I got
when I was.
For the first time in my life, I think I needed someone, like /needed/, from
the emotional standpoint. Not like everyone needs a mother or you need
someone to take care of you, or you need friends. This was a different kind
of need, and one that I can’t really explain. I just knew that I needed him,
and wanted him to need me too.
Problem was, he was completely brainwashed that /he/ didn’t need any of
/that/.
/Let my spirit ride on a one way mule/
/Blistered skin in a cold hearted pool/
/Distant emotion hides a concrete wall/
/Naked and anchored I’ll climb right back/
/To you/
But you know, the thing that always has had me so bent out of shape about
him is that for the life of me, I just can’t figure him out.
/And love me for my mind, coz I’m a dangerous heart/
/When I’ve got time to kill I’m coming back to you/
He distanced himself from me. Really, he distances himself from everyone,
but I had noticed then that he seemed to more so with me. It was almost as
if he could feel the warmth running through me when we were close, and it
scared him. Either that, or he truly didn’t like me, but I don’t think that
was ever the case. I’ve experienced enough people and their personalities to
be able to sense when a person honestly and truly doesn’t like you, and that
is not the feeling that I was getting from him.
I certainly wasn’t getting any gushy, head-over-heels warmth from him
either, though.
I sensed confusion from him. I felt a deep-rooted loneliness and the
desperate need for companionship, though he always pushed it away. Still
does, and it’s a year later and we are much better friends now than the
first time I noticed that I liked him. I feel a fear rolling off him, a fear
of becoming attached. A fear that he is not good enough, even though to me,
he is the best. Something, someone, I think, has really played with his
emotions and he is afraid to let anyone in. I know what that’s like. I’ve
been the same way many times, having been hurt by people, and usually
through no fault of their own, but hurt all the same. It’s a lot easier to
just turn your emotions off. It’s much less stress to simply smile and
pretend that there is nothing bothering you, even when inside you are being
torn to shreds. Eventually the pain does go away, when you start to actually
believe that smile, and your heart gets dulled to the sharpness of the pain
so that it is only a weak throbbing that is easier to discount. Eventually
that smile becomes as hard and strong as a cement wall, encased around your
soft insides, hiding them from any more abuse.
That’s why I know he’s special. Because way back then, when I was as
emotionally entombed as I have ever been, he crashed through my barrier, and
without even trying. My wall was no match for him, even though he
intentionally did nothing.
I just wish I knew what was spinning inside his head when he looks at me
with those icy blue eyes of his, making me weak in the stomach the way he
does.
/Distant memories in a cage by my bed/
/Viscid dreams stick to holes in my head/
/But a patient career of sleep in a Sunday dress/
/Rides my wake/
In spite of the effort that he expends to make himself believe that he
doesn’t need people though, I know he knows better. I know he admits it, to
himself at least, that having someone would be…nice. Gratifying. Dare I say
it, comforting? I think he actually does like being around me, though anyone
else might not see it. It’s the subtleties in his personality that make me
think this – the way his eyes suddenly have to dart away when they meet
mine, or the way he fidgets now when we are together. It’s been a very
gradual change, one that most people wouldn’t have detected, but I have
noticed it. It’s a big part of my job to notice things, and he is hard for
me not to notice. Even if it wasn’t, I would still notice. I can’t be within
a hundred feet of him without going all fluttery inside, and the longer we
know each other, the bigger the butterflies are getting. God, I hope I don’t
do anything stupid and embarrass him. Or me.
The other thing that keeps me wondering so much is the fact that there have
been more than enough occasions for him to just bail out on this entire road
show, but he has stayed. OK, yeah, so have the rest of us, but it was
different for him. He nearly died at the end of the war, and believe it or
not, I think that left an impression on him. He’d never admit it in a
million years, but I think it scared him, as he sat face to face with his
own death out there, trying to save everyone else instead. Luckily he saved
himself as well.
For a while there, I was sure I had seen the last of him, but he surprised
me. He came back. The only reason I can think of why he might is because
there is something here making him want to stay, and I can only hope it’s
me. Not trying to be self-serving or anything but the fact remains that he
only tolerated her, and had little to say to the rest of them by the end of
the war. We, on the other hand, have had a number of quite enlightening
conversations, that is once he let his hair down a little bit and relaxed
around me.
He still drives me insane though, because most of the time I have no clue as
to what he’s thinking or feeling. I can only guess that because he allows my
company, and on the odd occasion even seeks it out, it means something good.
Or maybe I am just fooling myself, and he isn’t thinking anything at all?
Nah, that’s impossible. There’s got to be way too much happening in that
mind of his if you ask me.
/And love me for my mind, coz I’m a dangerous heart/
/When I’ve got time to kill I’m coming back to you/
As long as I’ve known him, he’s always been the kind of person who just does
what he needs to do, gets what he needs to get and thinks about what he
needs to think about and nothing more. Hasn’t the time for all the useless
stuff that a lot of people fill their time with. I can’t see him wasting his
with me here unless he’s starting to feel comfortable being with me. Yeah,
maybe.
He did actually smile at me the other day. It was barely noticeable, just
like all of his “emotional outbursts”, but I saw it. It melted me right
there on the spot as our eyes connected. Then as soon as he realized that I
saw his little smile, that I was looking at him with my eyes going all soft,
with me probably doing a pretty good job of looking like an idiot, he
blushed and looked away. Heh, for that matter, I think I was blushing too,
because my cheeks were really hot. And that feeling, that sharp heaviness on
my heart, it was there again.
God, I love it when he does that to me. I just wish… I just wish…
/I’ll stake out just to find/
/The knife in a dangerous heart/
/When I’ve got time to kill I’m coming back for you/
So, I don’t really know what’s going to happen between us. I don’t even
really know if there is an “us”, or if this is simply me misinterpreting the
body language of someone who is, for the most part, un-interpretable. I know
what I want to happen though.
I’d like to think that he’s stayed because he wants to be with me, the same
as I want to be with him, but I have no way of knowing for sure. My insides
though, they tell me otherwise. They tell me that he’s here because he’s in
the same boat that I’m in, only troubled with acknowledging his needs as a
human and an emotional being. I know he has emotions. Deep ones. I know
because I have seen him struggle to hold them back, and that is all the
proof that I need to know that somewhere deep inside that shell of his is a
person just wanting to be free of its cinder block wall.
/And love me for my mind, coz I’m a dangerous heart/
/When I’ve got time to kill I’m coming back for you/
That’s why I think he stayed, because now it’s my turn to break down his
wall.
/I’ll stake out just to find/
/The knife in a dangerous heart/
/When I’ve got time to kill I’m coming back to you/
He is truly a dangerous person, but not in the way that anyone would ever
have imagined.
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