I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
It is a lie and he has half a mind to call her on it.
To remove himself from her atmosphere and cast a spotlight on it.
But he is not cruel now, no. He is tender.
Too tender to tell her that he knows she’s lying when she had so viciously railed against everything he is and ever was.
How fiercely she had raged against him, all vitriol and venom. Spitting mad, just like their daughter. She had hated everything he was so absolutely that she had threatened to kill him, bared her teeth and lunged for his throat and he’d dared her to do it, too.
It is not all she has ever wanted from him. He wonders how she can even say it when the memory of her rage is still so fresh. But he has lied, too. They have both lied and they will both have to live with it.
When the world crashes down around them, perhaps their lies will be the only things they have left. The only things they have to show for it. Or maybe it will be what little truth they have afforded each other instead. He has no way of knowing what they’ll have caught in their fists, between their teeth. Only knows that someday they will reach their ruin.
“What a lousy thing to be,” he says with a rueful smile and he shakes his head. What a lousy thing to want, he wants to add but doesn’t. If he leaves, will she find someone better? Will his daughter be raised by someone more deserving of a family, of their love? Will it kill him to know it?
He swallows thickly and tries to dispel the darkness gathering in his head, in his chest. He clears his throat and he kisses her cheek again, as if this might bring him some light.
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
