We’re in bed and he says, “I dunno, what’s wrong with a Band-Aid over the eye? Sometimes you need a Band-Aid in a place like that.”

I stiffen. “It was just a normal Band-Aid, not an eye patch, I don’t know. It was weird.”

Jacob throws his hands up in the air. Not angrily, just kind of meh-ish-ly. He’s barely paying attention; X-Files is on. “I just don’t think it’s that big a deal.”

I burst into hysterical tears. This makes him pay attention.

“I’m not saying, I mean… what??”

“You make me hate myself!” I howl, eventually, between sobs. His jaw is slack and his eyes wide, “not all the time! If it was all the time you better believe I’d be gone, but sometimes! Sometimes I just hate myself around you, I hate myself, I don’t want to be myself, why, I’m not as bad a person as you make me out to be you know!”

“I… I know you’re not a bad person, I-“

I’m up and out of the bed, running sobbing down the stairs.

Grateful, on the deeply buried sane level, that our daughter is sleeping.

That’s the thing I don’t understand about these moments. When I was actively using they were like hurricanes and I couldn’t see jack shit through the carnage of them. Now they’re more like lightning strikes. I don’t have any power to stop them, and they’re sudden. But I know enough about what’s happening to understand I’m being completely fucking bonkers.

I sob it out on the couch until I can’t cry anymore, and then I’m just embarrassed.

“Olly?” he calls cautiously from upstairs.

I take a deep breath. Go on up again.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now I just want to go to sleep,” I snark.

“Ok,” he says. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“It’s ok, you’re fine, I’m…” I trail off.

We lie in silence for a while. Dana Scully makes a phone call, but it turns out she doesn’t. Mulder rushes to the rescue anyway. A giant snake constricts around an occultist.

“You know,” he whispers after a while, and I am almost asleep but I hear him anyway, “this is why I love you.”

That wakes me up. I don’t open my eyes. I’m scared I’ll cry again.

“Huh?” I mumble instead, feigning more sleep than I have.

“The fact that you do… like, crazy, insane things. I love that. I love getting an in on your perspective. I love learning how you see things. Cuz it’s not wrong. It’s just… crazy.”

I’m quiet. I take a peek. He’s not even looking at me; just looking up with a soft smile. “Do I sometimes wish you could be a little less crazy? Yah.” I shut my eyes again, “But I’m not too worried about it. I like the ups and downs.”

We are quiet for a long time. He pushes his feet against mine under the blankets. I push back. “I love you,” I whisper.

“Yeah,” he whispers back, like we’re kids at camp, like it’s a secret. “I love you, too.”