Twisting the knife

“You hurt me.” I said, looking down at my arm where blood was running down my fingers.

“You hurt me too.” Came the reply, almost as if in the same breath.

I looked at you and saw there was some blood on your arm too. I scratched an old wound you had on your shoulder when I tried to stop you. I wanted to ask if it hurts, but I stopped myself. I never did that before. 

Normally I’d have come to you and checked how badly you were hurt. I would have cleaned your wound, cover it with a plaster, and place a kiss on top. I would have forgotten that I was hurt too. That the knife was still there, the blood still warm and dripping, my clothes soaked. We would sit in silence for a while and then you would ask if we should go get some food. I would agree, but say I need to go to the toilet first. I would clean my wound as best as I could, and tell myself that I’d get back to it later, when I got home. Then we would walk to the city, slowly, cause the fight we just had would still cling to our ankles. 

On the way, you would ask me if my wound hurt and I would say it did if I thought about it. You would ask if I wanted to think about it, or forget it existed. Sometimes I would say let’s just forget it, it seemed easier. Some other times I’d tell you where it hurt. You would seem to listen, you really did. You wouldn’t interrupt me most times, but when I’d be done, you’d tell me how I got it all wrong. I mean, you could see I was hurt, but the thing is, you didn’t mean to hurt me. So why couldn’t I see that? Why didn’t I understand that the way things went, it was almost inevitable that I’d get hurt. But it was never your intention. Just how the things went. So it was out of your control. What could you have done? It’s just the circumstances. 

I would say I understand that sometimes things are out of your control, but a lot of times things are well within your control. Like when? You would ask. I would tell you and you would ask why I never mentioned it before. Sometimes I did. But other times I really didn’t think it was needed. That you could have seen it for yourself. You would say you sometimes did and tried to do something about it, but it was me who wouldn’t bend. Why wasn’t I more flexible? Couldn’t I be more understanding? The way things were going, there wasn’t much you could have done. I could have been more understanding.

“I need you to help me take care of this, please.” I broke the silence that fell between us.

“I don’t know how to do that. I don’t even know how to take care of mine.” You said, and you seemed sincere, so I told you. You looked at me and, once again, you seemed to listen, only to then say “Yeah, I can’t actually do that.”