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Every night in your life you have spent alone. No exceptions.
No drunk one-nighters, no college experimenting, no passing fancies, no unexpected mistakes. Every single night. And this morning you wake up alone as well. It stopped being a problem years ago. Longing for something else felt like a forgotten weird dream now.
And then there is Phoenix. And Phoenix is unceremonious and overfamiliar. And Phoenix, of course, is there when no one should be allowed to see you, such is your emotional condition.
Your first instinct is naturally to push her away, but Phoenix seems to grow immune to your poisons, leaving you defenseless. She talks some nonsense about safety, which you can not comprehend right now, and then her arms are around you and her heartbeat is so, so close.
Reality shifts softly and suddenly there’s nothing else in the world except her.
It’s suddenly not disgusting. You suddenly want it. To be vulnerable. To let her see you’re hurt. To acknowledge there is something wrong with you. To let her take care of you. It is weird. It is so foreign and unescapable. So present and independent. Impossible to ignore. Out of your control. Yet so needed. So relieving.
The realization hits hard. All your escapist little habits, your weighted blankets, hot teas, soft fabrics, boiling showers, it all comes crushing down at you. The weight of the years of existing separately from anybody at all is almost unbearable. Your primal instinct kicks in again: run away.
“Your primordial clinginess is not needed.”
That wasn’t how you wanted it to sound at all. Yet the desperation grows, and you feel like a wolf in a beartrap, ready to bite off its own leg. Phoenix is not hurrying to free yourself of her presence though.
“If you’re going to be needy, at least send me a two week notice so I could-”
“Well, I wish”, Phoenix interrupts your awkward attempt to be sarcastic, “I wish I was as… Self-sustained as you are!”
You try to give her a shaming look, powerful and arrogant, but that just happens to be a look of a shot deer, wounded and cornered. It does the job, in a way. Phoenix visibly regrets saying anything. It should be good enough, yet it doesn’t feel like an achievement. Perhaps, you’re overdoing it.
“It’s been some time”, Phoenix says after thinking for a moment. She’s not angry anymore. The desperation peaks and you still find yourself in her trap. Heavy wave of exhaustion washes over you. “I think we both proved we can do anything on our own. You don’t have to do it anymore.”
Phoenix once again eclipses the whole world and this time there’s nothing in you left to fight it. The kiss is expected and alien. It is so unmistakenly happening to you that it almost hurts. Its indisputable and undeniable. It’s also the most caring anyone has ever touched you. Like you’re fragile. Like you’re falling apart.
You’ve lost your touch. You’ve lost all of it, Miles Edgeworth.
The very next morning is the first one you do not spend alone.