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It’s going to be a bad week.
He’s known this since the middle of last week, when he started getting an extra ten emails a day, and he’d prepared as much as he could, but it doesn’t help much in the end. The last of the quarter is on Thursday, which means he and all of his coworkers will spend the next few days working outrageous hours trying to complete an absurd amount of work, all while trying to wade through the dozens of people demanding their attention and dealing with Mr. Davidson breathing down their necks.
But to make matters worse, he gets there on Monday morning to find the front entrance closed for construction. No one has bothered to post detour routes, so he spends the first five minutes of his day wandering around campus, trying to get to his department. All the while, it sounds like they’re blowing up fucking bombs out there, and he fights against the instinct to cover his ears like a child. He clocks in late, which means he’ll have to stay late, which means he might not be have time to make dinner with Emma, which is the one thing in his life he’d considered a constant at this point.
Within the first hour, he’s dealt with three people frantically messaging him, Ted loitering around him to make obnoxious small talk, and Charlotte’s phone ringing non-stop in the next cubicle over. He can still hear the construction from his desk. That light near the window is still flickering, even though he put in a work order for it weeks ago. His jacket is beginning to itch, his tie growing incrementally tighter around his neck, and all of a sudden he can feel his teeth in his mouth and his eyes in his skull. His pulse pounds through his head.
The first time he escapes to the bathroom, he’s able to cool himself down. He locks himself in the disability stall, loosens his tie, clamps his hands over his ears, and paces back and forth in the small space. And it works, for the most part. His pulse slows and his thoughts quiet down, and soon enough he’s back out there, doing a good enough job of pretending he can handle all the things thrown at him.
“Hey, Paul,” Mr. Davidson says just as soon as things start to quiet down. The man is standing in Paul’s cubicle, and Paul might not be the best at reading expressions, but that looks like a hell of a fake smile to him. “Change of plans.”
Ah, yes, the absolute worst words in the world. But Paul just swallows down the sharp spike of anger and nods – he can handle this, he can handle it, he’ll be fine.
“About that meeting at two. I had something else come up at the same time, and this meeting’s more your purview anyway, so do you think you could just present it for me? It’s just this department listening in, no pressure. And you just have to read off the slides.”
“I don’t have the slides.”
Mr. Davidson laughs. “Yeah, ‘cause I haven’t finished them yet. I’ll send them to you.”
“When?” His boss’ eyes widen. That was too blunt a question, too impolite, he’s forgotten that he can’t talk to his boss the same way he talks to his coworkers, and he scrambles for a quick save, struggling to pull his words together. “When do you - when do you think they’ll be ready? I’d like to review them, if possible.”
“They’ll be ready when they’re ready. All you have to do is read the slides, alright? You have got to learn to loosen up a little, Paul.” A hand lands on Paul’s shoulder, and he flinches, despite himself.
All afternoon, he stresses over those damn slides – or rather, over the lack of them, because he never receives them – only for Mr. Davidson to message him three minutes before the meeting to say he actually can lead it, no need for Paul to worry about it. Then he starts it eight minutes late.
And Paul should stop worrying about it. For god’s sake, he just had a weight lifted off his shoulders, all he has to do now is sit back and listen, but he can’t stop the anger that rises at all these swift changes. No one around here gives a single fucking shit about sticking to a schedule, no one ever considers that maybe that sort of shit freaks some people out. But he seems to be the only one bothered by the late start or the juggling act he and his boss performed over a stupid PowerPoint, or by the way the projector keeps glitching or Mr. Davidson’s jarringly loud laughter or the fabric of the chairs or the fact that he can still hear the fucking construction outside. It takes everything, everything he has in him not to scream.
The second time he escapes to the bathroom, it doesn’t get better. He tries to pace and control his breathing and tell himself that he’s being stupid, he’s being weak, everyone but him can just deal with all of these little nuisances, he should figure out how to do the same, but it doesn’t work. Pure energy buzzes through him from head to toe, sparking at his fingertips, and he contains it all, contains himself, until he just can’t anymore.
He rushes forward and slams the side of his fist into the tile on the wall. He shouldn’t, he knows he shouldn’t, but he honestly feels like he’s about to explode, and he has to get all of this energy out, has to stop the racing in his heart and in his head. So he drives his fist against the wall again and again. The pain is sharp, grounding. It works. It always works, that’s the problem.
Twenty minutes later sees him shaky and red-eyed and exhausted, straightening his tie in the bathroom mirror and flexing his abused hand. The entire outside of it aches, from the tip of his pinky to his wrist, and surely a bruise will bloom soon enough, but he gets off in a few short hours. He can hide it. He’s found that so long as he says nothing about things like this, about things that would concern another person if they saw it, no one will ever really notice.
And that’s fine. He doesn’t want people to notice.
-
Someone does end up noticing, though, and once she does, she won’t relent. “What the fuck do you do in that office?”
Relief, of all things, washes over him. It’s a stupid, selfish reaction, because he shouldn’t want people to see all the little cracks in him, because that leads to them worrying over him. And he can’t bear to worry her over any part of him, least of all this part of him he should be able to control.
“A lot of telling people to unplug it and plug it back in.” He gives her his best casual smile. His hand hurts, but it’s a pain he can deal with, a pain he should deal with, since he did it to himself.
“Are you brawling with your dumbass clients or something?” She steps closer, and he puts the cooking knife all the way down, because he doesn’t trust his clumsy grip on it. One of her hands wraps around his tender wrist, and she examines the skin with a frown. It’s an ugly purplish-red, sure to darken over the next few days, sure to be an interrogation starter for weeks to come. “Really, what happened?”
“Would you believe me if I said I punched the printer?”
She doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even crack a smile. Her gaze studies the bruise for a long time, then studies his face for even longer, and she does something he never in a thousand years would’ve expected: she brings his hand up to her mouth and presses her lips lightly to the bruise. Like a mother tending to a child’s scraped knees, kissing the wounds better. The gesture leaves him frozen, too confused to get upset at the imitation of such a childish scene. Or is it childish? Who decided that the need for such a comfort could be outgrown? Because he can confirm in the moment, he certainly hasn’t outgrown it.
“Well, the least you could do is ice it,” she says. “And for fuck’s sake, why are you the one making dinner?”
“Because it’s my turn to cook.”
“Your hand looks like a plum, I think we can switch things up for one night.”
He still just stands there, watching stupidly as she picks up the knife and takes over chopping the vegetables. After a few seconds, she glances over to him and shoos him away. “Go put an icepack on that.”
A stab of guilt hits him, unbidden. This is the hardest part of their relationship for him to navigate, the moments where she asks him to do something that puts more stress on her. On the one hand, she shouldn’t have to take on extra work; on the other, he doesn’t want to dismiss her by refusing her wishes. Or maybe he’s just grateful to have permission to take a break. Either way, he wanders over to the freezer.
“And, Paul?” she calls. He raises an eyebrow at her, already pressing a bag of frozen peas to his hand. She watches him for another long, silent moment, clearly thinking over her words, before her shoulders droop and she returns to her work. “You know you can tell me about anything, right?”
“Of course.”
“Anything,” she repeats.
He knows she really means it, and therein lies the problem.
-
Tuesday is better than Monday, Wednesday is worse.
He gets off almost two hours late, throwing off his whole schedule and plunging him right back into that tailspin of frustration and panic. At least this time he manages to reach his car before he falls apart. In the quiet seclusion, he stays his self-violent impulses, but this time tears spring unbidden to his eyes and he curls over the steering wheels and cries so hard he can barely breathe and hopes no one sees him. It takes another half hour before he pulls himself together and sets off towards home, which makes him bemoaning his schedule seem that much more inane, because now he’s running even later.
By the time he trudges up the stairs to his apartment, it’s properly dark outside, and he’s so exhausted he trips over his own feet on the way up. When he steps in the front door, he hears a quick patter of footsteps, and then Emma bursts into the hallway.
“Jesus, it’s like they’re trying to hold you captive.” She takes his jacket and bag from him as he toes off his shoes. “How much longer do you think this’ll last?”
“Tomorrow’s the last day of the quarter.” His voice sounds awful. He’d wrecked it losing his shit in his car, and only now considers how much of his breakdown shows in his words and his face and the weary slump of his shoulders. His eyes are probably puffy, his face probably splotchy red, and she’ll read him in a second and know more or less what happened.
She does figure it out, but thankfully doesn’t comment on it, just runs her thumbs gently beneath his eyes. “If you need somebody to fight your boss for you, I’m down. This is getting ridiculous.”
“It’s not his fault, either. You’ll probably have to fight the CEO to get anything done.”
“Then just badge me in, babe, I’ll figure it out from there.”
He smiles, and she smiles back, then hooks two fingers around his tie and pulls him in for a kiss. The strain of the tie around his neck makes his skin prickle, her lips against his overwhelming in the worst sort of way. His body recoils at every little touch, every quiet sound around him, even the low light in the hallway, still reeling in the aftermath of the meltdown.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, pulling back.
“Nothing, sorry.”
“Nope, no, don’t do that. Don’t fucking lie to me.” Her words carry no heat. In fact, she’s being too soft on him, looking at him with such sympathy even after he rejected her advances. “What’s going on?”
All at once, he feels like he could cry again, if he only had the strength. He rests his forehead against hers. “I’m just so fucking tired.”
Her eyes go wide, and she wraps her arms around his waist, and he clings to her like a drowning man to a life raft. “Then let’s go get you some dinner, yeah? And after that you can go to bed.”
“I’m not all that hungry,” he admits. His stomach has been in knots all day, and the sobbing from earlier has made him faintly nauseous.
“Well, you should try to eat something. It’s been a long time since lunch, if you even took it. Try for me, yeah?”
For her, he’d try anything, but in the end he manages only a few forkfuls and pushes the plate away, dropping his head into his hands. She cleans up for him, putting the rest of the food up for later, then sits down beside him and runs a hesitant hand through his hair. He leans into it. Even though he could hardly stand any contact just a few minutes ago, he doesn’t just tolerate this, but welcomes it, the rhythmic motion soothing him and releasing some of the tension winding through his tired body.
Then he comes to a bitter realization. “I made you cook dinner again, didn’t I? It’s not your night.”
“You didn’t make me do shit,” she says. “I decided all by myself to make food, because I understand you’re having a hellish week and could use a little help. You don’t have to always take care of me.”
“I don’t think you’re incapable.”
“I never implied that you did.” If she doesn’t stop carding her fingers through his hair like this, he’s going to fall asleep right here at the table. “Hey, look at me.” He tries; looking into another person’s eyes feels impossible right now, but he gets close enough. “I know we agreed at the start of this that we were going to contribute equally to things, but that doesn’t mean we have to go exactly fifty-fifty on everything all the time. If you’re having a rough time, you’re allowed to lean on me. In fact, I want you to, ‘cause I don’t like seeing you like this.”
“But I should be able to handle this.” He’s not talking about dinner any more. He’s pretty sure Bill or Ted or Charlotte aren’t going home in shambles because their schedule got switched around, or the light over their cubicle was too loud, or they had to script conversations all day.
“Says who? Nobody can handle it forever, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” She stands and pulls him up with her. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”
-
Thursday… happens. Probably. He remembers it, every last second of the long endless drudgery of it, but not in the way he remembers most things. Everything he encounters seems broken into its constituent parts: the office space is a dizzying collection of lights and noises and textures that refuse to coagulate into a meaningful image, each word someone says to him sticks so long in his brain that he doesn’t hear the next one, each new task he’s given is a shock to his system. He wanders through the day simultaneously trapped at a dreamlike distance from the sensible world, yet so incredibly overwhelmed that he wants to rip his hair out.
His head pounded at first, but now holds a steady pressure, like someone tied a band around his skull. He can feel every inch of his clothes every single second of the day, and it makes him want to gag. Every sound, every voice, every last hateful artificial light in the building stabs right through to his brain. He looks no one in the eye, misses an impressive amount of social cues, and forgets every mask he’s ever fashioned for himself over the years.
Mr. Davidson sends him home early. Says Paul has helped out so much around the office, they can finish up what little bit is still left to get done. Says that Paul should take tomorrow off, too, to recover, to have a nice long weekend. Paul would argue, but all day he’s been struggling to even find words in the first place.
He stews in silence on the ride home, upset at Mr. Davidson for about two minutes before turning all of that anger onto himself. No one else in the office needs to leave early because they can’t handle their job, can’t remember how to hold a conversation, can’t deal with the flicker of a few lights or the feel of fabric against them or the sound of other people’s voices. No one else does such a terrible job at being human that they worry their boss bad enough to get sent home. No one else has to take a day to recover from the normal stresses of everyday life.
Why did he think he could hide it? Why did he think this job, these friends, this relationship would be the one where he could finally cover up all the ugly parts of him, where he could disappear into that fake, average persona he’d created? Now he’s exposed himself as strange, incompetent, fragile. Now everyone will see him differently – Mr. Davidson, Ted, Bill, even Emma.
God, Emma. He can hear her now, asking him why he’s home early, and he won’t have an excuse ready for her because he can hardly get himself to speak at all. He doesn’t deserve her, and she doesn’t deserve this, shouldn’t have to deal with him melting down over nothing. She should have a nice, normal partner who doesn’t take too much from her, who doesn’t fall apart at her feet and force her to pick them up and put them back together.
His pulse has begun to race, jackhammering through his already aching head, awakening a body already run ragged from doing this whole thing just the day before. He can’t believe he even has the energy to get worked up like this again, but it’s happening anyway, regardless of logic or reason.
It’s always without logic or reason. He got away from the place that was making him miserable, he should be happy, should feel relieved, should figure out how to calm himself down. But instead the tension climbs and climbs, the pressure in his head spreading to wrap like a vice around his chest, his muscles clenching up against his will.
By the time he gets home, he’s far past the point where he can stop what comes next, so he has two choices: wait it out here in this confined space dressed in clothes that burn him with every touch, or go in his apartment to get some relief but have to face Emma. And in the end, he’s selfish. He stumbles out of the car and up the stairs and into his apartment in one great indistinct, panicked rush.
She’s home, back in some other room, calling out to him, the creak of her steps over the hardwoods echoing in his ears like gunshots. He’s made a mistake, coming in here. She shouldn’t have to see this, he doesn’t want her to, doesn’t want anyone to know this part of him. He can barely stand to acknowledge it himself. But she draws closer and he has no time to hide and she’ll see everything and what if this is the breaking point? A person can only take so much, he’s a prime example of that. What if this is it? What if he’s taken too much from her for her to bear?
“You’re home early,” she says, just like he knew she would. Even her voice hurts his ears. “Does this mean you’re done with all those stupid deadlines?”
He can’t even pull a full sentence out of his jagged, careening thoughts, much less get his mouth to move. His breath catches in his throat. He kicks off his shoes and peels off his socks and tosses his jacket on the floor, but when he tries to wrench off his tie, his hands shake too badly to even get his fingers wrapped around it. Of course he’s so fucking useless that he can’t get a fucking tie off, and so sensitive that the feel of it cinched tight around his neck almost shatters him right then and there.
“Paul.” She stands before him now, a blur of colors. “Let me.”
Later, her word choice will stick with him, and he’ll turn it over and over in his head. Let me. Simple, direct, efficient. She doesn’t bother asking if he’s okay, because he’s so obviously not. She doesn’t bother telling him to calm down, or berate him for being dramatic, for overreacting. She doesn’t even roll her eyes at him – though she should, though he deserves it – and complain that she has to deal with this two days in a row.
Instead, she deftly undoes his tie and pulls it off him, then closes the door he left open as he brushes past her.
He crashes into the bedroom without turning on the light, racing to change into the softest, least offensive clothes he can find. He paces back and forth in the dark, hands tangled in his hair, tugging at the strands, that little bit of pain the only distraction from the all-encompassing urge to take his palm and strike it against his temple. It’ll end this faster, he thinks. It’ll scare her, he thinks. So he keeps his hands busy, fights with every last scrap of control to keep from causing harm to himself, for her sake, always for her sake.
But his whole body is on fire, and the task seems impossible, monumental. Every part of his brain springs to high alert, and somehow his worn-down body betrays itself, forces itself back to life, puppeting him around like a reanimated corpse. Exhaustion and overwhelm engulf him, half of his mind screaming incoherently, the other half wishing someone would just cut the puppet strings and let him sink to the floor.
And she stands in the doorway, a silhouette in the painful light from the hall beyond, and again her voice breaks through the madness and reaches him. “Paul, hey, it’ll be alright. Don’t fight it. Just let it happen.”
Apparently all he needed was permission, because the floodgates open and he collapses onto the bed, curled up and clenching at the duvet with both hands. He presses his face into the pillows and wails.
Anger and guilt and frustration and fear pour into him, melding together until they become a singular, unbearable sensation of pure feeling. It’s like it always is, like his body is too tangible, too finite to hold the emotions that permeate every pore; they fill him up until they overflow, until he is not himself any longer, not a reasonable creature but a mass of burning, shrieking nerves that cannot make sense of anything or anyone.
Control slips out of his fingers, and he can only watch as he hurtles down and down, as he sobs so hard his lungs feel like they might tear. Oh, he thinks from some distant place amid the maelstrom, this is a bad one. She shouldn’t have to see a bad one. But he’s not in command right now, so he has no choice but to let things run their course, and in time he returns to his body and manages to quiet himself to nothing more than a few pathetic whimpers.
“Emma,” he chokes out when the bed dips beside him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, I’m so sorry.”
“Shh, none of that, now.” She touches two fingers to his face, then, when he doesn’t jerk away from her, presses her whole hand against his cheek. “Take a deep breath.” He does; his ribs already ache. “Good. Another one.”
They stay like this for what could be hours or could be minutes, locked in this delicate, tremulous peace, just breathing in sync with one another. He hides from her as long as he can, shame digging its claws so deep into him that the mere thought of seeing her and being seen nearly sends him into a panic all over again. But when he does look up, he finds her in bed right beside him, her eyes red-rimmed, her cheeks tear-stained, the smile she flashes him shaky on the edges.
He made her cry. He’s worked so hard, not just over this week but ever since they met, to cover up the worst parts of him so he’d never hurt her, and here he is, breaking her heart.
“Easy, Paul. Breathe.” Her free hand comes to rest flat against his chest, and he uses it as a tether, feeling it rise and fall against him as he struggles to regain control. He can’t bear seeing her cry any more, and she wants him to calm down, so by god he will do everything in his power to make that happen.
In time, he stills completely, at last so spent he physically cannot break down again. He can hardly keep his eyes open. She smiles again, a little more relieved this time, a little less teary, and gets up to find a blanket, throwing it over him and kissing him on the temple. Apologies gather on a tongue that feels too heavy to move, stick in a throat hoarse from sobbing, but he tries to make them over and over again until he finally, finally falls asleep.
-
When he wakes, the clock and the dark world outside his window tell him it’s a bit past eleven at night. He feels odd, displaced, not quite himself, like he hasn’t yet fit properly back into his body. Emma is nowhere to be seen, but beyond the closed bedroom door, the TV murmurs, and he considers talking to her for all of five seconds before determining that he cannot talk at all right now.
Instead, he rises and showers and brushes his teeth, then changes into actual pajamas, emerging back into the bedroom to find her under the covers, facing away from him. He crawls in beside her, surprised when she turns over to nestle herself into his side, an arm flung over his waist.
“I’m not mad at you,” she murmurs, voice sleep-slurred. “Don’t know if you think that, but I’m not. Just need you to know.” And then she’s asleep, and he follows soon after.
-
He wakes again around mid-morning, feeling like three buses ran over him in quick succession. His swollen eyes throb, his limbs are leaden, and his head is that terrible, numb, empty sort of quiet. But he won’t waste another second in here when he should be out there giving her an explanation, so he hauls himself up and pulls himself together as best he can and tidies up the room before leaving. Her side of the bed is empty but still faintly warm.
She’s leaning against the island when he enters the kitchen, scrolling on her phone, with her free hand wrapped around a mug. “Coffee’s still warm,” she says when she spots him, straightening with a grin. “Would you like some sugar with it for once, or are you just gonna drink hot bean juice for the rest of your life?”
His mouth opens but no sound comes out. His thoughts have been quiet since he woke up, but he thought that he could at least find the words when it mattered. She deserves an explanation and an apology and a promise to never let this happen again, a promise that he will keep this time if it kills him, and yet all he can do is stand in the doorway and gape like a fish and force her to take care of him once again.
“Not feeling like talking?” She still doesn’t look mad – how the hell is she still not mad at him? But she asked a question and he can manage this much communication, so he shakes his head. Her eyes crinkle in concern, and he’s fucking done it again, he’s worried her again. So much for that promise. “Paul, it’s okay,” she says, breaking through to him before he can spiral. “You don’t have to talk. Would you like coffee?”
He nods. She pours him a cup of it, black, and the sharp taste wakes him the rest of the way up, though he still feels sore and drained.
“I took the day off.” She looks him over; he ignores her gaze. “So we can just hang around here today. Take a breather, you know?” The silence stretches for an uncomfortably long moment before she speaks again. “I do want to have a conversation about this, but it doesn’t have to be now. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Whether or not he gets hurt is irrelevant; he messed up, so he should fix it as soon as possible. He struggles to pull his thoughts together, using all of his focus to get the words in order and make his mouth move the way he wants, finally rasping out, “We can talk now.”
“No, not like this. You clearly need time to recover and I won’t force you to rush it. I’ll wait as long as I need to. It’s alright.”
I’m sorry, he tries to say, but can’t.
“Do you think you can eat?” she asks.
The thought of eating and all it entails makes him feel even more sick than he already is. Any sort of texture in his mouth seems repulsive. Even the idea of touching a plate or utensil right now sets his fingers twitching. If he has to hear the scrape of silverware, he thinks he might spontaneously combust. He just sits there, giving her no answer.
The corners of her mouth droop. “You didn’t eat last night, either.”
He knows. He’s well aware that he’s fucking up in every way a person can fuck up. She shouldn’t have to put up with him. But when he crumbles further, dropping his head into his hands, she rushes over to him.
“Okay, Paul, okay,” she says. “It’s okay, we’ll worry about that later. Is there anything I can do to make this better?”
Before Emma, in the wake of a day as bad as the one yesterday, he would just sort of wander around, either at work or at home. He would drift through his life, hardly able to think, much less to think about ways to pick himself up out of the muck. It usually lingers for a couple days, maybe even a couple weeks, and until it resolves on its own, he just goes through the motions, just survives. But he has a feeling that won’t slide with her around.
“How about this?” She puts a calming hand on the back of his neck. “I’m going to turn on a movie and probably just scroll on my phone instead of watching it. Would you like to join me? You don’t even have to do anything.”
She wants him to join her, in other words. He’ll probably just sit around uselessly wherever he is today, so he nods, letting her lead him over to the couch. For some reason, as soon as she gets settled, he slowly but doggedly leans over towards her, and she lets him, and he ends up with his head in her lap. He doesn’t deserve this, he shouldn’t be asking for this sort of comfort, but when she starts to thread her fingers through his hair, he doesn’t object.
They stay like that for a while, maybe for the duration of the movie, though he watches none of it. She keeps the volume low and doesn’t say a word. He relaxes as best as he can against the cushions, focusing on her gentle, soothing touch and the steadying weight of the blanket she pulls down over his shoulders. His anxious thoughts slow, unspooling until he isn’t thinking of anything much at all. At some point, he shuts his eyes and rests his hands over his ears, and despite the stab of embarrassment he feels at doing something so childish, it helps. He floats for a long time in that dark, quiet space, where for the first time in a long time, everything he senses is something good. No harsh lights, no sudden noises. Just the tether of her hand rhythmically carding through his hair, the warmth of her body next to his, the even pressure from the blanket.
All of the nerves he’d so abused the night before start to knit themselves back together. He no longer feels so tender, or so worn-out, the world around him no longer seeming so unbearable. It’s still too bright and too loud, of course, it always will be, but in a matter of hours he’s back to something much closer to his usual baseline. All because of her.
He levers himself back upright, and she puts her phone away and turns to him, a patient but searching expression on her face.
“Emma,” he says. His voice is scratchy, from his wailing last night and his disuse today, but at least speaking no longer feels like such a chore. “I’m—”
“If the first words out of your mouth are an apology,” she says, deathly serious, “I will play the Cats soundtrack at full blast for the rest of the day. Don’t try me.”
That draws a laugh out of him. “That’s cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Desperate times, and all that.” She shakes her head, still looking solemn. “I refuse to listen to you apologize about something you had no control over.”
“But it’s not - I could’ve, if I wanted to—”
“Could you have controlled it? Come on, Paul, be honest with yourself.”
“Alright, but you shouldn’t have to deal with—”
“Nope, no, I’m not arguing with you about this.” Her hands snakes across the space between them, and he takes it, squeezing it a little. “I don’t care about whether or not you can control it, I don’t care about whether or not I should deal with you, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. I just want to know what caused it, so it doesn’t happen again.”
She means it, he knows she means it. If she’d found this whole thing disturbing, if she wanted to leave him, if she ever even thought about saying something disparaging about it, wouldn’t she have already done it? And anyways, it’s not like he has much left to hide.
So, for the very first time in his life, he stops running, stops fighting who he is, and explains everything. She listens to all of it.