Running for Home - 54. February 9, 2022

February 9 2022

So I did it.

I went to see Dom.

Finally.

Finally? It should have been longer. I wish it could have been longer. Fuck, I wish it could have been never.

Sigh.

Big sigh.

Mega. Fucking. Sigh.

Okay, fine, so I went to see him. Sort of. I mean, it wasn’t really seeing him since he’s sedated in a power-dampening chamber in one of the medlabs. I didn’t go inside the chamber. The walls are mostly tempered shatter-resistant glass anyway. I could see him lying there, supine, his chest slowly rising and falling. It was more than I wanted to see. So much more than I wanted to see.

I’ll never be rid of him, will I? Never be able to completely walk away.

I was so fucking happy when I walked out of court. I should have known better. I should have known it was too good to be true. Nope, I just had to let my guard down and walk right into his trap. One whack on the head by some asshole and that was it, lights out Johnny. If I’d just been careful, been fucking careful, none of this would have happened. I would have beat the shit out of whoever Dominik sent to get me, let Jubilee know what was happening and then booked it back to New York. I’d have been pissed off, knowing he tried some bullshit, but unsurprised. And then what? Nothing, that’s what. I’d have gone back to Bobby, been embraced, been comforted that even though he tried one last assault on me it didn’t work, and then I would have been back teaching. Writing. Living my life. Dominik’s brain would have continued to degrade and his grip on life with it. In a few months, he might have been hospitalized. Within the year, dead. Maybe I would have heard about it, maybe not. Would I have mourned him?

The angry part of me says fuck no, of course I wouldn’t. But the deeper reality is that I would have. I loved him. His shadow looms large over my life. As large as Bobby’s. No, larger. Probably. I guess they aren’t really comparable, are they? Their influences have been so different. But I loved Dominik. That love will never completely go away, even if I try to bury it behind all the hurt. I have enough experience trying to do that with my feelings for Bobby, so I know better - look how well it worked for twenty years.

Regardless, Dominik isn’t dead. His brain is massively fucked up to the point that Emma is treating him like he’s incapable of making medical decisions for himself. I’m still upset that the onus falls on me. So I needed to see him. I needed to see the fucking bastard and try to deal with whatever complex emotions that spring forth so I can move on. For my sake. For Bobby’s sake. I have to move on, but I have to find sympathy for him within myself. After everything he’s done to me, I have to find sympathy.

I’ve done a lot of thinking. I was in awash in such a deep sea of grief, frustration, anger, confusion and god knows what else after Emma gave me the news that it was hard to think about everything he’s done since Freedom Force disbanded. But it was even more difficult to avoid it, to not think about it, so think I did. Dominik did some stupid shit once in a while back in the Brotherhood and in Freedom Force when we had down time, but it was nothing like some of the things he started to do after we moved to L.A. and were officially a couple. It’s not like there was a sudden change, either. Things just gradually deteriorated. I thought it was all because he was frustrated by our situation, by his inability to find a direction or the kind of employment he wanted. His expectations were too high, yeah, but that wasn’t all of it, was it?

The carjacking was the first severely bad decision. I knew he had changed when he got out of jail, when I took him back. I thought it was just because of prison life and bad influences while he was inside. But it wasn’t just that, was it? How much prison life affected him versus how much the progression of that virus was shaping his behaviour I will never know. But no matter what, I know now that the seven years he was in there was definitely enough time for there to have been major changes in his brain. Even though I visited him once a month, I didn’t really see the changes. He was happy to see me, for the most part. We never talked about what he did. We never talked about why he did it. I couldn’t. If I did, I would have ruined those short times we had together during that period.

We didn’t talk about jail, either. We didn’t talk about him, other than saying he was okay. But he wanted to know about me. About how I was doing in school. About the people I was getting to know, the books I was reading in my literature classes. I even loaned him some of the books after I’d finished with them. And he read them. We talked about them. We had a fucking book club right there in the jail visitation room. And when it was time for the visit to end, he’d kiss me and I’d be left there trying to hold my emotions in as he was lead away, back to his cell. I cried in my car afterwards more than a couple times. He was showing me his best, obviously. My visits were the highlights of his life during those years. I should have visited more often, but I don’t think I could have handled it.

That stuff, that’s why I took him back after he was released. That’s why I never let him go. He loved me. Even if he made a decision idiotic beyond my own comprehension, he loved me and goddamnit I loved him back. That’s why when he got out of jail, it was easy to discount things at first. It was easy to dismiss the problems as him having trouble adjusting, getting back on his feet. I guess whether he was truly capable of that or not is one big question mark.

No, it isn’t. He must have been able to do it. If he could have somehow gotten his shit together over the last six months or so, he could have fucking done it two years ago when he was healthier. Maybe he just didn’t have the motivation.

I wasn’t enough motivation.

It hurts, that. I can’t ever know if it was the disease or if I just wasn’t good enough a reason for him to work harder at getting work, steady and good-paying work that would save us from the ups and downs of my precarious employment in the gig economy. He knew what our finances were. I shared everything with him. There were no secrets. I thought there were no secrets, anyway. Clearly that wasn’t the case. Not over this last year, not with him finding the wherewithal to start his goddamn bar.

So there I was, standing in the medlab, watching him lay there. Watching him and wondering if the man I knew was dead. If, when everything is said and done and he awakens from this stem cell treatment, the person alive in that body is going to be anything of the man I loved for so many years. If, over time, he could return to being that man.

I wept, quietly.

When I returned upstairs, I bumped into Bobby. He’d been looking for me. He knew immediately that I’d been crying and wanted to find a way to make things okay. I didn’t want it, not the knight in shining armour act. I didn’t need shielding or comforting from the deep emotions that were overwhelming me. It was important that I feel them. Still is, now and moving forward. There are times for comfort and there are times for facing shit head on. I think right now is a time for the latter.

Bobby didn’t take my rejection well. I probably didn’t do it as graciously as I should have, but goddamnit you’d think he’d get a clue that I wasn’t in a good place emotionally so of course I’m going to say things the wrong way. I could see the hurt in his eyes and I almost apologized, but then he got defensive and started telling me, me, about how I should come to him and let things out. I barely contained myself. He can think what he wants but after everything I’ve been through I know far more about my own psychology than anyone else, and I know what is and isn’t good for me. Yeah, I don’t always do what’s best, but right now what he was offering was not what I needed and I wasn’t going to fake it just to make him feel better and feel like he was being a good partner petting the injured puppy.

Fuck.

I walked away. I walked away from him, and he didn’t follow me. I don’t know whether to be worried about that or not. I guess this is where shit gets real. This is the first ‘fight’ of our relationship. He’s got to be mature enough that he can move past this. I’m probably going to have to sit him down and talk about what happened. It’s what I should do, just to make sure he gets where I’m coming from otherwise this will set a bad tone for dealing with me whenever I’m emotional in the future. I can’t have that. I need him. I really need him to be there for me, just not right then. That was my time. My time to deal. I won’t apologize for that.

There is so much I still need to talk with him about. So fucking much. All of this bullshit with Dom, from my capture to this health crisis, has completely fucked up my relationship with Bobby. It’s robbed us of time that I could have used to get to know him better, the Bobby who’s last twenty years I’ve missed out on. And I guess that’s part of this, isn’t it? He doesn’t know me as well as he probably thinks he does. No, this is probably not a conscious thing at all. Have we fallen into the trap of subconsciously expecting one another to be our sixteen-year-old selves?

I’m tired. I need to go to bed. Today was emotionally exhausting, obviously, and I’m going back to work in five days. I need my body to be ready for it. Hell, I need my body to be ready every day anyway because of all this emotional shit I have to sift through.

I need to go to bed, even if it’s still early. I just hope Bobby comes, even if I’m already asleep when he gets here. I need him. Fuck, do I ever need him.