Jude wasn't foreign to that mask of worry Reecy got when she was concerned about Justin. He saw it many times when they were dating and had been with her on some of the occasions she got terrible phone calls that Justin had harmed himself again. She had confessed to him early on in their relationship that she knew she would never be able to fully shake a streak of inner fear she always had that any one of those next phone calls might be the one notifying her Justin had lost the battle. She'd had bad dreams about being at his funeral. "Knowing him as you do, what do you think he'll do? If Sash wakes up and even if it comes to light he has permanent damage from the brain injury. Do you think Justin would return to being a performer? It's what keeps him alive. It might be the worst thing for him to retire and step out of the spotlight. The spotlight isn't why he does it. It's just a byproduct of why he does. I get it, though. Any time I've been on an ER shift and he's come to us, whether from self-harming or complications of his illnesses or treatments, he says he wants to quit. Not quit music. Quit 'being him', is how he put it. I know we have to take assume that is verbiage of suicidal ideation or intention but I always wondered if it just meant he was tired of trying to be Justin Campbell, the global superstar, when he was suffering being Justin Campbell, the severely mentally unwell and scared teenager. Do you still lie awake at night stewing on that stuff or has it gotten easier since he met Sash and settled a little?"
"That's the thing, though. The pace does feel fast with us, it just doesn't feel like fast is a bad thing. It's almost like having that history with you for both of us, we've been able to bypass some of that early dating bullshit. The small talk, the getting to know each other from scratch. We already know enough to jump ahead a few levels and it feels good. It feels safe and peaceful, which does scare me. I've never really had anything safe and peaceful. But it does feel like what I witness Renz getting with Lew when they met. For want of a better analogy, yeah, just like puzzle pieces go together easily without needing to figure out where they go or having to force them to fit. I want to live with, I want to share a bed with him, have all those domestic comfort things with him. That's secondary, though. Primarily, it's just because I want him close and to spend as much time with him as I can. It just seems that the overreaching general consensus of the world is going too fast isn't the best thing. Then again, I know people where it's been the best thing for them and they're still going strong." He sat forward so he could pour the tea for them, making Reecy's mug for her first and handing it to her. "Winston's clearly a sensitive person and I'd say he's huge on the gut feeling thing. Do you think he'd be getting it by now if it was going to happen? And more, would he tell me if he was? For me, I can really see a future with him."
no subject
"That's the thing, though. The pace does feel fast with us, it just doesn't feel like fast is a bad thing. It's almost like having that history with you for both of us, we've been able to bypass some of that early dating bullshit. The small talk, the getting to know each other from scratch. We already know enough to jump ahead a few levels and it feels good. It feels safe and peaceful, which does scare me. I've never really had anything safe and peaceful. But it does feel like what I witness Renz getting with Lew when they met. For want of a better analogy, yeah, just like puzzle pieces go together easily without needing to figure out where they go or having to force them to fit. I want to live with, I want to share a bed with him, have all those domestic comfort things with him. That's secondary, though. Primarily, it's just because I want him close and to spend as much time with him as I can. It just seems that the overreaching general consensus of the world is going too fast isn't the best thing. Then again, I know people where it's been the best thing for them and they're still going strong." He sat forward so he could pour the tea for them, making Reecy's mug for her first and handing it to her. "Winston's clearly a sensitive person and I'd say he's huge on the gut feeling thing. Do you think he'd be getting it by now if it was going to happen? And more, would he tell me if he was? For me, I can really see a future with him."