#150: Bound

Grace knew all along this was how it would end. Her natural reaction is to shut down, close off those parts of her most vulnerable, most easily hurt. And once that process began, it doesn’t end.

She knew Peter wouldn’t understand. That he wouldn’t be patient with her, be understanding, accommodating. And it is too much to ask another person to leave your space when you don’t know that is what you need. Nor can you articulate for how long you need that space.

They take it as a separation, an ending. He is reconstructing his life from the pieces she has left him with. Which is almost nothing.

But he keeps wanting more, needing more when there is nothing left to give. It is as if she is bound up against her will, and everyone is demanding things from her.

Peter doesn’t see things the way she sees them. She warned him against having the kids stay over. Knew they weren’t ready for it. She was happy they go over for dinner. Happy for a lot of things, but she knew that the disruption of sleeping in a new place would compound their feelings of being abandoned, by not only him.

She knows her part in all of this. That it is her heart that has scarred over in places where it should burst in love.

There is an instinctual reaction in her that makes her cower at the needs of others. As she watches her children exit the block of flats, the pale street light, accentuating their tiredness, she wants to scream to the world that she is sorry.