Page 69 of Running Feral

My hands shake as I try to grasp onto something rational inside myself—anything—and feel like the old me. The calm, collected version of myself who always knows what to say instead. Because repressing my emotions is clearly not enough for him to not be affected by them, and ignoring this irrational anger isn’t making it go away.

An idea hits me out of nowhere. It’s the best I’ve got, so I do it.

I sit. I sit down on the floor, crossing my legs and looking up at Tobias. Now he’s the one looming over me, at least, and I can stop feeling like I’m halfway to becoming a monster who haunts his dreams.

“No, I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m upset and I shouldn’t have let it scare you like that. I’m not angry at you. I’m angry, but not at you. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I hold my hands out to him as I say it. He slowly takes in a deep breath, and I can see the fear leech out of him.

I can also see the moment that embarrassment tries to crawl in to replace it as Tobias starts shuffling his feet and looking away from me, but I don’t let it.

“Hey,” I say softly. “Don’t be embarrassed. I’m the asshole right now, okay?”

He nods. Reaching up, I hold out one hand to see if he’ll take it.

Tobias slips his warm fingers between mine and then follows as I tug him down to the floor, sitting opposite me in the same position, mirrored so our knees are touching.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I was pissed about something else before I even came in here, and then I saw the vodka and I started to get scared, which I guess turned into more pissed, and then I scared you. Which scared me back. I’m sorry.”

Tobias nods, ducking his head and his gaze at the same time. “It’s not your fault I’m a mess.”

“No, but it’s my fault I’m a mess. I shouldn’t be falling apart right now. That’s your job.”

I’m trying to make him smile, but it doesn’t land. He’s not smiling, and neither am I. There’s an unspoken tension between us, I think, because neither of us knows what the fuck we’re doing from here.

“Actually,” I rub my forehead with one hand, trying to relieve the pressure lingering there but not succeeding. “I’ve been kind of a disaster the past few days. Even more of a disaster than you would expect, given the circumstances. And it probably has to do with some childhood shit that I try not to think about, so instead I’m just walking around, acting like an asshole all the time for no reason. Well, for no obvious reason.”

Tobias finally lifts his face so he can look me in the eye. He’s still alcohol-hazy, but his focus is entirely on me, which makes this a little harder.

I hate talking about this. I only went to therapy to talk about it when it became obvious that if I didn’t, the messy anger I was carrying was going to boil over and potentially kill me, and now I feel like I’m right back where I was seventeen years ago. Except this time, Tobias is in the sights of my unregulated emotions.

Which isn’t something I’m willing to risk.

“So, it sounds worse than it is. Well, it is awful. But it sounds so bad when you say it. Which is why I never talk about it to anyone, but I guess you deserve to know. Just listen to the whole story before you make any judgments. Okay?”

He nods.

I take a deep breath and try to wall off the part of my brain that produces mental images, like I always do when I think about this. Eventually, when I’m still nowhere close to ready, I speak.

“When I was nineteen years old, my brother killed my father.”

Tobias looks at me with wide eyes. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, I know. Just let me tell you the whole thing.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Idon’t know if it’s the alcohol, the adrenaline, or just my brain finally giving up on active participation in the world, but I swear the words he says don’t penetrate my consciousness.

His brother…killed his father?It sounds like a Telenovela.

Gunnar squeezes my hand where it’s still held in his, and the warmth and familiar strength of his grip brings me back to reality.

I think he’s about to keep telling the story, and I know I’m supposed to listen, but the words tumble out, anyway.

“But I thought you were normal?”

Gunnar stares at me for a second, then makes a huffing noise that’s on the cusp of being laughter.

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