there's a video on instagram of a man kicking his partner's door in. the top comment is (with over 4 thousand likes): "how about you tell us what you did to make him that angry?"
barring emergency, nobody should be kicking anybody's door in. many of us lived in houses where it was always, somehow, an emergency. there is a strange, almost hysterical calm that comes over you in that moment - everything feels muted, and you almost feel, however incongruently, like you should be laughing. you are living inside of "the emergency." oh my god, you think. i am now a fucking statistic.
there is another comment with 2.8 thousand likes: "if this was a woman doing it to a man, nobody would give a shit."
do people give a shit now, though?
barring emergency, the door should remain standing. the emergency should be panicked, desperate - "i'm coming in there to protect you." many of us know what it feels like when the emergency is instead "i'm coming in there to get you."
1.5k likes: "and yet you post this for notes. glad to see being the victim has become your whole personality."
hysteria is a word connected to womb, from greek. what you're experiencing is so senseless and inhumane that you (a rational creature) try to find any ground within what is irrational and cannot be explained. one of the most frustrating things about staying in bad situations is that we also lie to ourselves. we also ask ourselves - wow. what did i do?
women can be, and often are, also abusers. abuse is not gendered. abuse is not just a "straight person" problem. abuse does not have a face or figure or sexuality. you cannot pick an abuser out of a crowd. an abuser could be actually anybody.
and then so many people rally behind the man kicking the door in. here is something nobody should be doing, right? you want to ask every person that liked that first comment: do you ask this because you side with him? do you ask this because it helps you feel safe from this ever happening?
in some ways, you're weirdly sympathetic to the top comment, because it is the same logic you see frequently. the idea is that the average, normal, sane person doesn't just break down a door. doesn't just shoot up a school. doesn't stalk and kill women. doesn't threaten sexual assault. doesn't run over protesters. doesn't shoot an unarmed black person. doesn't scream at underpaid walmart employees. doesn't just "lose it". something had to have happened, right? because the default (white. straight. cis.) - that is someone who is always, you know. "sane."
(right?)
on a podcast, you hear a sane, normal, rational person. "if you piss me off, i'm going to need to hit something. sorry but i'm not apologizing. that's just who i am that's how it is." his voice almost sounds like he's laughing.
you think of the door, and how you were almost laughing behind it, too. ironically, every real emergency in your life has almost felt peaceful in comparison. fire, car accident, flash flooding - these felt quiet, covenant to you. you'd stood in all of them, feeling them pass over and up to your chin, never actually overwhelming.
but when the door was coming down, you had felt - is there a word for that? there has to be, a word, right.
surely one of us has figured out the word for that, i mean. it's such a large fucking statistic.
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“simon riley’s dead,” ghost chokes out; bitter resentment coating his tongue. “i’m just wearin’ ‘is corpse.”
mactavish doesn’t shy from his venom; sees through his hiss and doesn’t fear his rotten-fanged bite. he reaches out, pressing the flat of his hand to his breast and ghost damns himself for the way his breath catches; for the way his shoulders curl in around it in a silent plea for it to stay.
“that’s no drum in your chest,” he whispers defiantly.
his hand slowly drags over his chest, coming to rest over his sternum and he feels its possession like a brand against his skin.
“it ain’t bellows inflating your lungs,” he dares and he involuntarily inhales; his body longing to rise to his challenge.
mactavish pushes and he rocks back on his heels just to sway in closer; just to beg for the pressure to chase the phantom weight of six feet of dirt from his bones.
“you’re far from rigor mortis, riley,” he promises and there’s air at ghost’s back instead of decaying wood and infested flesh. “i won’t let the earth take you from me yet.”
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it's raining outside, and higuruma is laying on your bedroom floor.
the soft pit-patter of raindrops coupled with his dancing fingertips against the exposed skin of your waist is a song you haven't quite learnt the tune to yet — he lays on his side, hair tousled and damp, dark strands curling over his forehead, sleeves rolled up and tie forgotten somewhere in the doorway.
admittedly, you're in no better shape. your cheeks are cold, skin of your calves wet with rainwater from running across the busy streets with him, armful of whatever ingredients you two picked out for dinner, his suit jacket held above your head and the occasional chorus of laughter when either of you stomp a puddle and splash the other.
it's raining, and higuruma thinks he falls in love with you every single day, like it's born anew.
he falls in love with the girl he wakes up next to, mouth open and cheek smooshed into the pillows. he falls in love with the girl who doesn't know a thing about law, but argues better than him in the heat of the moment. he falls in love with the girl who kicked her boots through puddles of rain, ruining his pants — the girl who made him laugh about something so mundane.
it's raining, and higuruma is laying on your bedroom floor, oddly paired with his formal white shirt and a pair of pajamas, his dress pants draped over the washer — the dryer broke a few days ago, he forgot — he holds you close as he watches the water droplets race against the glass window.
he loves you.
“do you like the rain?” you ask him, head tucked into his neck, his eyes fluttering shut for a second, the question is lost on him for a moment.
“i like you.”
you don't respond yet, and higuruma opens one of his eyes, only to find you staring at him. “more than you like the rain?” he almost laughs at that, almost, and he pulls you impossibly closer.
“a lot more than i like the rain, i’m sure.”
it's raining outside, and higuruma never really liked when it rained, not at all.
he proposed to you in spring. married you in summer.
but now he hopes it rains tomorrow, he hopes you still want him then, and he hopes you'll splash him with another puddle.
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