“I didn’t know,” Michael admits grudgingly. “It was Stan. He asked me why we weren’t married yet, what we were waiting for. And it pissed me off. I was furious, you know, how dare he say that? What does he fucking know?” He still sounds raw about it, bitter and sad.
“So I yelled at him and then I left. It wasn’t like I planned to do this, you know, I was gonna go back to work, but I couldn’t stop being angry. And I just got angrier and angrier at everything until I hated myself for thinking—for letting us be controlled—and I had to do something, I had to do this right away or—“
Or something inside him would have stopped working, as though it had been on a timer and he had failed to accomplish his task within the allotted amount of time. Maybe he would have dropped dead, or lost all his memories. Maybe everything would be rewound to November of ’68 and he’d have to start all over again. Maybe Lee would have disappea—ugh, no. He can’t think about that. He has nightmares like that sometimes, dreams where he wanders through the desert looking for her, his skin blistering and bleeding, no food and no water for days, finding nothing. Knowing he’ll find nothing.
He hugs her tighter, more tightly than he should. She’s right here.