Back to the Start
They say if you love someone to set them free, the lesson is that if they love you too they'll come back. But I've never had love , not that deep warmth on the night of ice kind of love. How would I , how could I let love go. I didn't have to , but I felt I should.
His name was Fin, he was a monkey around my age from the city. He didn't grow up in a nice place and I knew when I met him he was damaged goods. But Fin was a happy guy, at least he tried to be , he was happy just to be included. A simple phone call was enough to light his eyes. He was always open minded and eager to help, that's how we met.
Fin was working as an assistant to a therapist I was seeing at the time. I had anger management problems that I was smart enough to know needed to be worked on. As A wolf some people take one look and see danger , so naturally fits of rage didn't help me.
I saw Fin every other Friday morning. Those were the time I could see the therapist with my work schedule and lack of funds to schedule more frequent and better arranged appointments. I wasn't a morning person so for a long time every time I came in Fin would see part of my bad side. One morning I was so pissed off I think I threatened to bite his throat out , then again It was a threat to anyone in the waiting room so he may not have taken it personally. The thing about Fin is that no matter how much of an ass hole I was ,and I was a big one, he was always this nice person. And when I noticed how nice he was it freaked me out.I could literally see when I terrified him , he was fragile as fuck and somehow something in him made him love anyway.
Then came my birthday. It was on a Friday that I got lucky enough to schedule a therapy appointment more mid day. I always hated my birthday I didn't have anyone to spend it with or anywhere to go , that was assuming I'd even have the money to make plans. I told my therapist about my hate for the day and he she had a lot to say to me. My main take away from everything she said was "maybe its time to find someone to share your time with" as If up until that point I'd been against the idea of friends. I walked out of her office and realized I had nowhere to be. You don't know sad and lonely until you've made the decision to stay in a waiting room rather than go home. I stayed for so long Fin was about to leave.
He was a good looking guy , the hands for feet thing took some getting used to but he looked normal enough. I'd seen him enough times to not be a stranger. Plus my therapist was leaving her office and I didn't want her to see that I'd chosen to stay in a waiting room 4 hours after I'd seen here earlier that day. I followed Fin outside to his car and in retrospect I should have known how it would look for me to walk up behind him in a parking lot without saying anything. I scared him and I'm an ass for how I laughed at the moment. I asked him if he was doing anything. You'd think he would come up with some reason to blow me off , hell I would , I saw him thinking about it. But he said he was free.
Its against some kind of rules for therapists to date their patients but secretaries don't have to follow those rules. I guess you can say that was our first date. We lived in country town just outside this big city so there was always some place to see but the drive to get there made it feel like too much work. Fin drove me to this fish place on in the city. The drive was long but it didn't feel like it.
And don't forget this guy didn't know me. He knew off me because we saw each other and maybe spoke every other week but he's only seen the grumpy morning me, or the dickish asshole me. Despite the impression that I'm sure he had of me we talked on the way to that fish place as if we were best friends. In that one car ride with Fin I think I had more break throughs than the entire 3 years I'd seen my therapist.
We talked about our families, work , hopes dreams , we could have written a book on all the stuff we learned in that hour. That's when he told me about his abusive dad , and I told him about mine. I learned about he was kicked out school because his brother sold drugs in the boys locker room. I told him about how I got kicked out of school for almost killing another kid in a fight. We were almost the same people. We both had shit parents that eventually left and rocky child hoods. But where life seemed to always take a crap on Fin I always was in a fight with it , and somehow Fin was better than me. He was just a better person.
Needless to say that wasn't the last time Fin and I went out. He understood me in a way I didn't Think was possible , and to top it all off he tried to help me be better. He went through life never throwing a single punch and maybe its because he knew you could never win against life, all you can ever do is keep standing. That was a revelation that took some getting used to. I felt a need to to stand in guard if Fin wasn't going to fight back, and I knew he didn't want me to but I couldn't help it. I cared, I gave a shit about this guy and I didn't want life to beat the crap out of him.
I lost count of what date we were on, but I felt like Fin and I were somewhere special. I invited him over. He had never seen my apartment, it was a hell hold with no life of love in its design. I had furniture that didn't go together , broken windows, and the locks on my door were for show. When he saw it he was less than thrilled or inspired , as nice as he was Fin did nit tell lies. He told me point blank it was a shity place to live and I swear that's when I knew I loved him. He was special. He didn't fight life he let life fight him , he wasn't a push over he just wasn't a dick to people, and his childhood might have made him fragile but he didn't let fear control him. He was my exact opposite, I admired him and I wanted him. I tried to kiss him..... but he stopped me.
He asked me "what are doing" and I said "I thought we should move forward". He didn't know what I was talking about. He didn't know we were dating, because we never were. He realized it just as I did and tried to salvage the moment somehow make it less embarrassing. He couldn't , until he did. He kissed me . It was deep and passionate, long and hot. I got that warm sensation that people talk about and I wanted to keep it burning. He later told me he wast sure if he was gay but he felt something for me. I knew his past , he'd been abandoned like me maybe in even worse ways. I thought to myself was I abusing what I knew to make him think being with me was what he wanted.
Maybe it wasn't the perfect start but I genuinely loved him more than I could express. We were good together. I needed him to keep me tame. He needed me to let him know the difference between being strong and being an ass. When he couldn't tell the difference he wouldn't be ether. And that's where things got rocky. He always wanted me to be better, and for lack of words I guess you could say I wanted him to be worse. I had to much of a bad side and his was too small . In the beginning i felt the need to protect Fin from being taken advantage of but when we were together I found it made me furious that he needed me to be his back bone in situations. He made me look week when I had to fight his battles , when I had to pick his battles because he was too nice to know when he was being wronged. He rolled with the pushes but never threw one back.
We fought about it.
All the time , every other day I would bark at him. So it shouldn't have surprised me that he stopped answering my calls. I tried to talk to him in the waiting room before therapy but he changed his schedule to not see me. That fire , he gave me was burning out , and in its place was a void that only he could fill.I thought he was my pet , my soft fragile thing that gave me love and it was my responsibility to let him go , but it was the other way around. I couldn't have that.
I found where he lived and waited for him to come home. His land lord let me in his place , told me he was glad to see he had friends. I wasn't a friend.
Fin came home and rather than going with my plan of talking things out , I attacked him. He left me , he tried to leave me , I couldn't let him leave me. I don't know what made me stop , but I'm glad I did , he was on the verge of something I couldn't handle. He passed out and I waited for him to come to. When he finally woke up I tried to play down the event that had taken place , I think I said "we're guys , we can talk things out and get physical right? you can take it right?" Or maybe "you know I love you, I would understand if you got mad , get mad". I'm sure I offered to let him get back at me , I begged him to hit me even just once but he sat there on the floor watching me. Was he in shock? He was stunned.
All I know is that it wasn't the last time it happened. It got worse, I forced myself on him like a vine on a tree and if tried to cut me off I came back. And I wish I could say that eventually he left me , he called the cops and I got what I deserved but I didn't. He...we got used to it ,and it became normal, it shouldn't have been normal.
One night I broke him down. It was worse than anything I'd done before by a mile. Fur always helped hide bruises but I broke bone that night. I waited, like I usually did for him to wake up but he didn't. He was in the hospital for weeks and still didn't wake up. He lost his job because he couldn't come in to work. His place was still trashed from the fight. I don't know why it took so much for me to realize I needed to go, I was nothing good to Fin's life.
I was lucky enough to not go to jail, I think I disappeared before I could be blamed. I was on my own again until the day he found me. I opened my door and he was just standing there. I thought he wanted revenge or to tell me I was going to jail but he just stood there until I invited him in. He forgave me and I knew there was something wrong.
He became my pet , my slave , my toy. At first I couldn't understand it, like he was standing inside himself. He did what I told him to , went where I wanted him to go. But I knew he was broken when he failed the test that he had passed so long ago before he or I knew it was one. He moved in with me. He said he loved my apartment , he praised it. I kept myself under control and didn't hit him again but I felt like I was doing something worse. But I couldn't go back to cold and alone, even if Fin had become hollow. He wasn't my love anymore, he was pain wearing the mask of love.
I couldn't let him go because he was all I had , and I'd broken him to the point that he couldn't leave me even if he wanted to. I did the only thing I could do , the only right thing left to do. I told him to leave. Abandoning him was the last act of love I could offer, but he would always come back.