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"No." There is an argument there that you stifle as always, tired of repeating yourself, knowing that saying it again will only add to the pooled frustrations between the two of you. He hadn't just gotten away with it—you had fought, torn his flesh and made him bleed—worried all this time that he had fallen to decay, a man lost within wilderness, within anguish, to the corners and cobwebs of the minds that had known him. He had not just gotten away with it, and neither had you. You are quiet in your rebellion of his beliefs, his promises of violence, of a come-to-jesus moment that will never happen for the sad excuse of a man tangled in all of his black desires, quiet in your relief (he wasn't around), a relief that is smothered by the complacency of his stare, your heart still bent against the absolution that he proffers.
"I just..." don't want to see you hurt the way I am, don't want to see the way the things you'll do will change you. You almost want to say it again, and again and again until he understands that there is more than revenge, that there are things worth being here for when he is consumed with vengeance, rage, promises of carnage and justice. Almost, but your lips only press together tighter, a part of you certain that it would only drive him away when these things have never been up to you, when he has grown harboring such a need for retaliation for too, too long to change with sentiments and words so quickly. You cannot help but think of your boy with sand skin and seaglass eyes, all of his anger towards you for keeping him too close, for protecting him too much, for thinking you know what's best when all he has wanted is everything else, and how it has driven him away, fractured the relationship between the two of you.
You cannot help but think of the man that had fathered him, to think of the way that his answer to everything had been violence, revenge, and how it had once (when you were too young to realize) pulled you to him. It had been different then; different because he had never chased your ghosts or the breath of fear in your dreams. Different because you had never seen him fall, too tired, too weak, to stand again (wounded, bleeding, burned, but never so defeated). It had always been for selfish things, prideful things, and though something in your stomach twists, because it truly isn't any better of a thing to fight for, the conviction within the boy before you frightens you more than a man's skewed intentions ever had.
"Worry about you."
You relent for now with just a whisper, your resolve just a burning weight within your chest.
'What am I supposed to promise?'
Only a deep breath is your response at first, glancing at his face before your head tilts downwards to watch the ripples move along the surface of the water from your body to distract yourself from the accusations that lay heavy on your tongue, dissolving so very slowly in the honesty you swore you saw composed somewhere along the fault lines of confusion and anger within him. You wonder if he would have even asked if it was untrue, if he would have told you (I did, he wasn't around,) in the first place if it was only to be a lie. Wonder if it would even be worth it to voice your concern, to have him promise with words he has already given, promise once more about crimes he hasn't committed. (No.)
And so you shift, ignoring as best you can the soreness of your tired body, your bruised muscles and once-broken things still mending, folding yourself along different sentiments entirely. "I don't want you to feel like you have to hide things from me." You begin, watching him from the corner of your eye, hoping only that it does not upset him, does not open more wounds between the two of you. "Even if you don't think I'll understand—maybe I won't—but I don't want to lose you, don't want things to change, because of a maybe."
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