Page 70 of Running Feral

“Is anyone really normal?” he asks, already looking a thousand times more like himself than he did a few minutes ago when he walked in.

I swear, nothing has scared me quite like the sight of him standing there, bristling with unvoiced anger as he looked downat me like the broken mess that I am. At first, my instinct told me I was in danger.

Then my higher thought processes had engaged, and I knew that I wasn’t. It was a weird feeling. It’s not like I made a logical argument with myself that Gunnar would never hurt me. It was more like the alarm was ringing, but when I looked at the threat, my body refused to believe it was real. Gunnar wouldn’t hurt me. Not like that.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t still panicking. Because although even my most paranoid, alcohol-saturated brain still trusts Gunnar not to hurt me physically, I felt even more afraid at the idea that he might be getting sick of my bullshit.

Him leaving me is a very real fear. Because he should. I don’t do anything but drag him down, and there’s no sign of me getting better anytime soon. That was the fear that had me scrambling to my feet to stop him from walking away from me.

If I’d been afraid ofhim, I would have kept cowering on the couch. Instead, I ran to him, practically begging him not to leave me because I’m so much of a mess I can’t make it through a day by myself without drowning the silence in alcohol and fictional violence.

Gunnar looks to the side, his eyes unfocused as he thinks about whatever story he’s trying to force himself to tell me. I want to let him know he doesn’t have to share if he doesn’t want to, but the truth is that I’m dying to know. He can’t start something so bonkers and then just drop it. So, I hold my tongue.

“I guess my family was normal,” he starts. “I had a mom and a dad, my brother was two years younger than me. It was all very nuclear family, white picket fence. Or a slightly rough-around-the-edges version of it. My dad owned a pawnshop that did pretty well. You know how it is around here. There was alwaysfood on the table and bills always got paid. They owned their own home. That kind of thing.”

I’m watching him, but he pauses to chew on some intangible thought for a few minutes before he continues.

“I was kind of difficult as a kid. My parents weren’t exactly the warmest people, if you know what I mean, and I struggled a lot. This isn’t a fun place to be closeted, especially back then, and I was still figuring a lot of stuff out. I wasn’t a disaster, but I was just stressed out all the time, and I think my parents gradually realized that having children was a lot more work than they wanted it to be. It caused a lot of friction in the house, and my brother—Lukas—got lost in the shuffle sometimes.

“I partied a lot in high school. Drank a lot, did a lot of drugs. I came out of it pretty unscathed, thankfully, but Lukas followed in my footsteps, of course. He didn’t just stick to partying, though. He started dealing a little, then dealing more, and before I even noticed anything was happening, he was in way too deep with some local guys who did a lot of the stuff that the Banna does now.”

He gets quiet again, but this time I see the emotion brimming in his eyes. It’s a stark contrast to all that anger that he was holding earlier. That he’s been holding since I got back, I guess, now that I let myself think about it. Without pausing to second-guess myself, I move forward, crawling into his lap until my back is pressed against his chest and his arms are resting over my shoulders, wrapped around me where they belong.

Gunnar freezes at first, before taking in a deep breath and letting it out, with so much of the tension in his body going with it. He tangles his fingers in mine again, playing with them absently while he keeps talking.

“Anyway. It all happened so fast. By the time I pulled my head out of my own ass long enough to realize what was going on… I don’t know. I tried to fix it, but I underestimated how serious itwas. I’ve thought a lot about what I wish I’d done differently, and I don’t have a good answer. I’m sure this is all sounding familiar to you right now.”

I nod, letting him feel the movement against his chest because I’m not sure I’m capable of vocalizing anything right now. Yeah, this does all feel very familiar.

“I still don’t know the details of exactly what happened. I think he owed money, and thought the easiest way to get it would be to rob our dad’s pawnshop. It’s a cash-heavy business, and he knew the ins and outs of it, so he thought he could get away clean. He came in with a friend all dressed up, expecting to scare the shit out of my dad, I guess. They were high at the time, and it probably seemed smart. Dad wasn’t taking it, though. He fought them, because he had a short fucking temper, especially for shit like that. I honestly don’t know what Lukas was thinking. As if it was Dad’s first time getting rolled in a town like this?”

His voice trails off as he loses track of what he’s saying. I burrow in deeper to the protective shell of his chest, trying to let the warmth of him chase off the chill from all my own memories that are crowding around me right now.

“Anyway. There was a struggle, a gun went off. You know. Dad died. Lukas went down for it, and he made it about a year and a half into his prison sentence before he got killed in a brawl. He was collateral damage, I think. Just in the wrong place, wrong time. Like every other aspect of his life.”

Gunnar leans down and presses his forehead against my shoulder. His next words are muffled, but I can still hear them, and the feeling of his hot breath on me as he speaks is like an anchor.

“It was all a total waste. That’s the worst part. It was completely pointless. Gangs work so hard to look glamorous and cool, but everyone ends up like this. These clusterfuck endings where nothing but sadness comes out of it. My mom’s life wasruined. She and my dad had their faults, but they were fucking in love and she never got over it. She just mopes around the house and lives off his life insurance. I spent years being a wreck and feeling like it was all my fault until I decided to pull myself together and try to at least help other people. Something to make up for how selfish I was as a kid. But they’re still dead. My family still barely exists, and the gangs are still just as powerful and ruining as many lives as they were before.”

That’s it. I can feel the end of his story without him needing to announce it, as well as I can feel all the unspoken implications of it—seeing his bar destroyed, seeing me get pulled back into Eamon’s shit—it was probably more than just a rational amount of upsetting. Because it was all a shadow of the shit that he already lived through once and failed to prevent.

I get it. I always feel like I’m stuck reliving the same shitty consequences of my actions over and over again, and it makes me so angry I want to scream until I puke.

It makes sense now why he’s been so much more on edge than I expected.

We sit in silence for a long time, burying ourselves deeper in the comfort of each other’s presence, even though we’re also the source of each other’s pain. I trace the edges of Gunnar’s fingers, feeling where the skin is callused and where it’s soft, and he continues to breathe in the scent of my neck.

“I’m sorry, Gunnar.” It’s the only thing I can think of to say.

He squeezes me a little tighter.

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were caught up in a bunch of bullshit, just like Lukas was.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t do anything wrong, either,” I say. His silence tells me he doesn’t totally agree, and I know better than anyone how difficult a point that is to argue, so I let it lie. Eventually, I ask the question that’s burning a hole in my chest. “Where do we go from here?”

Gunnar lifts his head, nosing along the side of my face and placing a kiss there before he speaks.

“Why don’t we go to bed for now, and talk about this later. Sober. And less… in our heads.”

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