Rave*
It wasn't entirely what she said that hit his chest like two defibrillator paddles, charged to one-eighty. Although that did make a huge impact. Rather it was the tone in her voice, the tears pooling in her eyes, brimming at the rims, a blink the only thing standing in the way of them slipping over and trickling down her flushed cheeks. Her voice was laced with a kind of sadness that he's never heard before. It sounded the epitome of utter heartbreak, her voice resonating a kind of tearing sound, a cracking, crashing, burning. Every word spilling from her lips filled him with grief like water filling a drowning man's lungs.
"You have this thing, this thing where, when you start feeling like everything is against you, suddenly you're alone. You seem to forget that we're supposed to be a team. But you go off to do what you did last night, without stopping to think about the aftermath. You never think about the consequences of your actions. About me and what I'd think, how I'd react. You always do this.
You were so angry. And rightly so. I let you stew in your anger and allowed you to feel your feelings because you were more than in the right to do so. I was sympathetic to all of that anger because I know how much what they said angered you and more so hurt you. But you didn't afford me that same courtesy. You were so blinded by your anger, your eyes like red neon lights, unseeing, failing to notice my eyes and how they were downcast in shame, burning with the same kind of anger. Because even though they insulted you, I was upset too because they are my parents and they had no place saying the things they said. They didn't know what they were talking about. But you, you painted me with the same brush as you did them. They were the villains and because they are mine, I became a villain by association.
Even though they spoke the words, behaved liked complete dicks, you told me I was like them. I didn't say anything, didn't share their opinions but I was guilty all the same according to you."
She spoke each word in nothing but a whisper but her voice never cracked, her determination never wavering. He knew this was a first for her. But the steel confidence in the words she spoke was contradicted by the thick tears that cascaded her cheeks like a waterfall. He knew that even though her voice didn't falter, her determination ringing true, her heart broke in the very same way. Her chest constricting, burning a third-degree burn.
And just like two peas in a pod, a united front, two people joined against a common enemy, a team; the way he should always have thought them as, his heart broke too. It crumbled to pieces as tears mirroring the ones in her eyes fell from his own. His self-righteous indignation collapsed because he knew that her words were true.
She was right.
They were a team. She was his partner and he wasn't being a very good team player.
- Aisha Rowbottom Isaacs
