Jane looked down to him, sitting on the floor in shock, and nodded repeatedly. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” Panic began to creep in, crawling up her back, and her inner voice began to berate her like it always did. 

[i]”See? You should have just let it be. Look at him. Look what you did.”[/i]

As her eyes lingered on him, she involuntarily frowned before taking a deep breath and sighing. What could she do at this point besides give him the time he had asked for? Nothing. Although, Jane didn’t want to. She wanted to crawl up next to him. To hug him. Touch him. Put her lips to his neck and jaw line. Run her fingers through his hair and stay with him there until he was ready.

But, Rob was different than her.

Jane was touch. Rob was words. In the same magnitude that she felt the energy and vibrations off of people, he analyzed them. She must have drove him crazy over the past few days, but only realized it now, in the silence that pulsated between. A hand had made its way to the back of her neck, and it clawed at her skin as some sort of unconscious punishment Jane’s body was giving her. The disconnection between her mind and her mouth had always frustrated her, but never to this level. 

[i]”Say something.”[/i]

“I’m,” she cleared her throat, weak and quiet from both the show and the liberation of emotion she just experienced, “I’m gonna go to bed.”

[i]”Something else.”[/i]

Jane froze in place for a moment as her brain scrambled to find something that wouldn’t make things worse. If there even [i]was[/i] something that wouldn’t make things worse. 

“I'm sorry. Good night, Rob.” 

That was all she could let out. Out of all the thoughts she was thinking, lust she was feeling, the affection she wanted to give him – a “good night” was the best she could do. It made her shake her head in pure anger at herself before forcing her legs to carry her to her room and close the door quietly. 

Jane stared at herself in the mirror that sat above the dresser across from her bed. Her almond shaped, glossy eyes that always looked like she didn’t sleep the night before. Her hair, an intricate system of knots and shades of blonde, fell down over her freckled shoulders and hung below her breasts that were only shielded by a thin layer of white fabric. Hip bones jutted out at an angle right where the band of the jeans she was wearing began. Black fabric that stretched around thin legs supported by feet too small for them.

She remembered when she was younger, how much she hated these things about herself. Her lack of curves. The scars and freckles she collected. The boniness of her frame. All the things she was teased for. But now, Jane always felt something surreal when she looked at her reflection, as if it always took a moment to recognize herself. She no longer hated her appearance, but after not bothering with it for so long, it was almost like it wasn’t her body anymore; it belonged to the world, and she was just its navigator. 

After stripping, throwing on a tee shirt, and brushing her teeth, she crawled weakly into the cold sheets and positioned her headphones gently in her ear. After a bit of mindless scrolling, her eyes locked on [url=https://youtu.be/JDZaiM8oAOU]Smother by Daughter[/url]. The guitar softly hummed in her ears as she closed her eyes and held herself. 

[b]”I'm wasted, losing time
I'm a foolish, fragile spine”[/b]

Regrets, not only of what happened with Rob, but of the past twenty-three years were flooding her memories. All the energy and affection she gave to people that didn’t deserve it. Her relationship with her brothers that had completely deteriorated. 

[b]”I want all that is not mine
I want him but we're not right”[/b]

How she didn’t take care of herself. And didn’t want to. That she could never be sober. That she went through life disregarding anything that would require her to dig through the wall she had built around her feelings, yet she would expect people to remain close to her – to still love her even though she couldn’t love them.


[b]” In the darkness I will meet my creators
They will all agree, I'm a suffocator”[/b]

Jane lit a join and puffed on it slowly as she laid in a fetal position when she felt tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes. “Stop it,” she whispered to herself. The joint was put out just as the last line of the song began. 

[b]”I sometimes wish I'd stayed inside my mother
never to come out”[/b]

Jane pulled the plush white comforter over her head and buried her face in the pillow forcefully. In that moment, Jane allowed herself to full-on cry for the first time in years. Why she felt the need to, she wasn’t sure. Rob didn’t reject her or scream at her. He loved her.

And she loved him.

A new feeling for Jane accompanied the emotions she was feeling. In this moment, she hated herself, but in a different way than when she was a child. She hated the inside. 

After the tears subsided and her thoughts began to blur, she eventually drifted off to sleep in the fortress she built out of the comforter.