Chapter Ten: Everything I Am 

----------Justin’s Point of View--------------

I’ll never let you down 

Even if I could 

I’d give up everything

If only for your good

“That’s as ugly as it gets, isn’t it?” I say to him softly.

“Yeah,” he replies,  meeting my eyes.

“And I’m still here, aren’t I?” 

He nods and a small smile forms on his lips. 

“Brian…this isn’t okay. It’s not okay to treat yourself like this.” He nods and will not meet my eyes. 

“I can’t have you hurting yourself any time you’re alone, or any time you want to feel something. That’s not fair to you, or to me,” I say, my voice deep and soft. He meets my eyes now, his eyes bright and misty.

“I know.” 

“ I can handle your pain and your hurt. I can be there with you through that,” I say, so soft I know he can hardly hear me.  He swallows and looks up at me, eyes wide. “But it can’t be like this. You can’t hurt yourself any more… I need to know that you won’t. That this was the last time.” 

--------Brian’s Point of View---------

There’s another world inside of me 

That you may never see 

There’s secrets in this life  

That I can’t hide… 

I feel myself getting deeply calm as he speaks. It’s true. He saw everything. He saw not only how I felt….how I truly, genuinely felt… but he also saw what I am capable of… He saw the darker side, the side that isn’t calm, rational and businesslike.  He saw the depth of my pain and the ugliness of my desperation. 

And he is still here.   And he isn’t going anywhere. 

Somehow I feel like that’s more believable now; like it’s more true. I used to hide so much from him. How much I cared about him, the guilt I felt after the bashing, the very fact that I loved him, that I wanted him to choose me over Ian… that I had cancer… that I really did want him with me through all of that… I never told him that I worried he would never return from California. And I never tried to keep him with me even when he came back. 

I hid all my heartache, all my pain and loneliness from him. Well, from everyone. 

 Maybe I didn’t trust that he would love me if he saw it all… if he saw all the imperfection and the very depths of me. And I guess I feared that if he did know everything… if he knew all of me… that he might leave.

And now he knows; he has seen it all. And he is still here.

Knowing this… that I have him here unconditionally, that he really loves me… it’s an incredible feeling. And within this safety I think we can get through anything together. So when he tells me he needs me to promise that I won’t cut myself any more, I can. 

“I won’t ever do it again,” I say. He nods and puts the blade in the box, and the box in my hand. 

“Throw it away,” he instructs softly. 

I do.