Fisher's Light(91)

“You’re not doing anything wrong, you’re doing everything RIGHT, that’s the f*cking problem!” I shout.

He throws his hands up in the air in annoyance and shakes his head at me. “I have no f*cking idea what you’re talking about right now. If I’m doing everything right, why are you so angry?”

I watch it happen right in front of my eyes, just like every time. He realizes he just raised his voice, he just lost a little bit of his calm and he instantly feels bad. His face loses its tightness and his shoulders lose their rigid stature as he slowly melts into the cool, peaceful man that he thinks he needs to be for me.

“Do you really think this is going to work between us when you can’t even be who you really are in front of me?” I ask him sadly.

“Lucy.”

He says my name softly and it’s full of love and caring. It should warm me from the inside out, but all it does is leave me feeling cold.

“Do you know what I did the night you came back to the island and we saw each other for the first time at Barney’s?” I ask him.

Bringing this up right now is either going to make things go really wrong, or really right. At this point, I’m willing to try anything to get him to stop treating me like I’m a piece of glass.

Fisher shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything.

“I brought Stanford back here and I did everything I could to get him to f*ck me,” I inform him.

My eyes flicker to his hands, slowly clenching into fists at his sides, and I continue.

“I straddled him, I ripped his f*cking shirt and clawed at his skin, begging him to give me more. I wanted him to give me everything. I wanted to erase you from my mind and from my body. I wanted him inside of me so I could stop thinking about you all the damn time!”

Fisher knows I didn’t sleep with Stanford, but I never went into detail about other things we did because it didn’t feel right to torture him with that knowledge.

I see his chest rise and fall rapidly and his nostrils flare while I throw all of this stuff at him, fully aware that I’m poking the beast and trying to get him to show his damn face.

“I let him put his hands on me, I let him touch my breasts and I let him slide his hands between my thighs until he—”

Fisher is on me instantly, his arms wrapping around me tightly, pulling my body roughly against his.

“Stop… just f*cking stop,” he begs on a ragged whisper.

His eyes are wide with jealousy and anger and his chest bumps against mine each time he takes a deep breath. I can see him mentally counting in his head, trying to calm down, but I won’t let him.

“NO! You f*cking stop! Stop treating me like I’m going to break and like I can’t take what’s going on inside of you!” I shout into his face. “I let another man into my life! I let another man touch what should have only been YOURS! Does that piss you off?”

“YES!” he roars right back at me. “YES, it f*cking pisses me off and you know it! Why the f*ck are you doing this to me?”

His arms are banded so tightly around me that they shake with the anger he’s barely keeping in check.

“I’m doing this because I’m sick and tired of you hiding this from me! I can’t handle you thinking that I can’t take your anger or I can’t stomach you losing control with me!”

He shakes his head back and forth in denial. “Stop, please, Lucy. I can’t do that with you. I can’t hurt you like that. Why do you think I stayed away for a year? Why do you think I pushed you away to begin with? I can’t be that person anymore.”

I untangle myself from his arms and push him away roughly.

“Don’t you get it, Fisher? You ARE that person. I know you aren’t cruel, I know you would never physically hurt me, but I also know that this Zen bullshit where you refuse to let anyone ruffle your damn feathers is not you. You’re passionate and full of life and you’re hotheaded and get angry and jealous. It’s who you are and who you’ve always been. How do you expect me to be with you when I can’t be with ALL of you? Did it ever occur to you that I WANT your passion? That I’ve been pushing your buttons lately because I want you to let go?”

He runs his hand through his hair again in frustration.

“I let go with you once and I hurt you. I left bruises on you, Lucy. I destroyed our f*cking marriage because I couldn’t control myself!” he argues.

I can see the guilt all over his face and it all clicks into place. Why my entire world fell apart right after he came home from his last deployment, why he started drinking more and talking to me less.