Re: Chinatown Apt: Robert/Selina
She didn't understand the laugh, too tired for that kind of perceptiveness, but she didn't like the sound. There was something gritty about his response, about his willingness to leave another man in the dust. It was a sentiment the kitty cat understood. Selfishness was something learned, a survival skill, and it was like breathing. She was terrible at it lately, at keeping herself whole and hale, and she really needed to stop thinking about other people. But she forgot sometimes, just like she forgot to breathe at times, not noticing until her chest hurt and the world threatened blackness. "I'm not better than I think." She wasn't, and she wasn't sure they'd been making it up as they went along. She wasn't sure of anything, and she hated that lack of footing.
She watched him as he sat on the floor, and it reminded her of Gatsby, of the way he'd crouched in front of her. It seemed like so long ago, and she had a hard time grasping the fact that things were worse now. That she was more broken than she'd been with heartache and a sliced arm. "I don't ever want to run," she admitted. "Not really. I've always wanted someone to chase me, until now. Now I just feel like walls are closing in, and everything is Ra's, and the smell of Tony dying, and the electric green of the Pit behind my eyes." And how to explain three days in darkness? How to explain what came after? But that was her, her, her, and she focused on him, focused on slowing her breathing down, because it had started coming like speed and impatience. "You won't make it worse," she assured him. "If you were going to snap, you would've snapped. This is the quiet after. This isn't dangerous."
"You aren't hurting me," she insisted. "I just need things that are different. I need casual, and I need space, and I need to figure out how to stop loving someone who doesn't love me back. I want you here. I care about you. I want us to be able to talk again. But I see shadows behind my own eyes, and I can't fit in my own skin. I'm not okay, and I think you need someone who's all in, and I'm not there today. Today, I need it to not be about someone else, and I understand that you're falling apart too, I understand."