Constantly hating and bullying her, and people online in general is not something I condone. Though if youβre so against online hate get off the internet, people will do it regardless. Posting about her racist, narcissistic, and lying past is something that people shouldnβt just brush off as βhating on herβ because people are βjealous of herβ. It needs to be constantly said bc her and her fans just simple ignore it and donβt take accountability. Sheβs ignorant, but if youβre commenting on her body, and appearance bc of her ignorance thatβs not much better. Donβt be a bully, but stand up for what you think is right without spreading unnecessary hate.
helaenaβs butterflies going to find alicent immediately after her death / gwayne immediately jumping up to find daeron after tumbleton has been destroyed :(
The mug is in your left hand and your phone is in your right and you are four steps from the bottom when your foot comes down on the edge of the tread.
There is a sound the socks make on the wood β cartoonish, slick and fast β and then you are not standing anymore.
You get your left arm out toward the rail and you feel your fingers close on it and then not close, and then the stairs come up and take you at the base of your spine.
The rest is fast. Two more steps on your side, your elbow finding the wall, your shoulder finding the floor.
Then you are sitting at the bottom with your legs out in front of you and one sock hanging off your toes and hot coffee everywhere β the wall, the floor, soaking through your thigh where the mug came down with you.
The noise you make is not a word.
It comes out low and it keeps going, and by the time it stops your eyes are already spilling over, and you have not decided to cry, and you are crying.
Upstairs, the bed creaks and then his feet hit the floor and heβs already saying your name.
β
He comes down fast and stops three steps up, and you know heβs seen the coffee before heβs seen you, because thereβs a half second where nothing happens.
Then heβs on the floor.
Not lifting you. Sitting down on the wet hardwood in gym shorts, one hand going to the back of your head, the other flat on the floor beside your hip.
βHey. Hey. Iβm right here.β His hand moves in your hair. βDonβt move yet, okay? Just let me look at you first.β
βIβm fine.β
βI know you are.β He says it like he means it, and he keeps going anyway. βHumor me. Shoulder.β
He presses. You shake your head.
βElbowβs bleeding a little. Not bad, weβll clean it up.β His hand travels down. βNeck? Anything in your neck?β
βNo.β
βDid you hit your head. And I need you to actually think about it, not just say no.β
You think about it. βI didnβt hit my head. I landed on my side.β
βOkay. Good.β He exhales. βThatβs good.β
He gets his fingers around your wrist, the one that went for the rail, and turns it. You make a sound and he stops immediately and holds it where it is.
βYeah, okay. Weβre not doing that anymore.β He lowers your hand to your thigh and covers it with his. βYou caught yourself on the rail?β
βI tried to.β
βYou did, though. Thatβs why itβs your wrist and not your face.β
Then his face changes. βIs that hot? Baby, is that coffee still hot?β
βItβs not that hot anymore.β
Heβs already got the waistband of your shorts in two fingers, pulling the fabric off your skin. Itβs pink. Itβs not blistered. He looks at it longer than he needs to.
βYouβre wearing socks on these stairs,β he says.
βIβm aware.β
βI know youβre aware. Iβm not β β He stops himself. Puts his hand flat on your knee. βYou scared me.β
The tears are coming down slower now. You wipe your face with the back of the hand that works and get coffee on your cheek doing it.
βYouβve got β β He reaches up and thumbs the coffee off your cheek.
β
βOkay,β he says. βLetβs get you up.β
βI can get up.β
βI know.β Heβs already standing. He gets a hand under your good arm anyway. βSlow.β
You go slow. You get your feet under you and your weight over them and youβre up, and for about a second itβs fine.
Then it isnβt.
It comes up through the base of your spine and takes your breath, and you hear yourself say something with no vowels in it and grab a fistful of his shirt.
βWhoa. Hey.β His arm comes around you. βWhat. What is it.β
βMy β β You canβt get to the end of it. βGive me a second.β
βWhere.β
You put your hand at the small of your back, low, lower than that, and he watches you do it and his mouth flattens out.
βYou landed on it.β
βYeah.β
βOn the edge of a stair.β
He bends and puts one arm behind your knees and lifts you before you can get anything out, and you make a noise and get both arms around his neck, and he turns and takes you into the living room like you weigh nothing, and steps directly through the coffee on the way.
He gets you down onto the couch on your left side, which is the only way you can be, and puts a pillow under your head, and then he stands there over you with his hands on his hips looking at the coffee in the hall and the coffee on his shorts and the coffee soaking through the shoulder of your shirt where he carried you.
βDonβt clean it up. Itβs my mess.β
βIβm gonna clean it up once I get you settled.β He crouches down in front of the couch so his face is level with yours. βDo you want ice, or do you want me to sit here first.β
βSit here first.β
He sits down on the floor.
β
He brings ice wrapped in a dish towel. He brings ibuprofen and a glass of water and stands there while you take it. He goes back for a second pillow and gets it under your hip, and then takes it out again when you tell him itβs worse, and puts it under your knees instead.
He wipes up the hall. He puts your shirt in the wash. He comes back with one of his, and helps you into it, and gets your arm through the sleeve on the wrist side without you having to move the wrist at all.
Then he sits on the floor with his back against the couch and his phone in his hand and reads about tailbones for a long time.
βCoccyx,β he says, at some point.
βI know.β
βOkay, so itβs four vertebrae, fused. Sometimes five. And it says here itβs vestigial, which means β itβs a tail. Itβs whatβs left of a tail. Everybodyβs just walking around with a leftover tail at the bottom of their spine and nobody knows until they fall down the stairs.β
βJoe.β
βThey canβt cast it. Thereβs nothing to cast.β He keeps scrolling. βYou canβt splint it, you canβt wrap it, thereβs no β β He stops. Reads. βIt says four weeks.β
βOkay.β
βIt says four to eight weeks and to take ibuprofen and sit on a cushion.β
βOkay.β
βThatβs the whole thing. Thatβs the entire β thatβs the medical advice.β He turns his head and looks up at you over the edge of the cushion. βSit on a cushion.β
βIβm gonna be fine.β
He doesnβt answer that. He looks at his phone again, at whatever page heβs on, and then he puts it face down on the rug.
He orders a donut pillow. You donβt know that until later that afternoon when it shows up at the door, but he orders it right then, sitting on the floor, without saying anything about it.
Then he gets up on his knees and turns around so heβs facing you, forearms folded on the couch cushion by your ribs, and he looks at you for a while.
βI canβt do anything,β he says.
βYouβve done like nine things.β
βI moved a pillow around.β He puts his chin down on his arms. βY/N, I did the laundry wrong. You had to yell the settings at me from in here.β
βYou did the laundry.β
βBadly.β
βThereβs nothing else for you to do right now. Just sit here and be with me.β
He stays where he is. You reach out with your good hand and get your fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, and he lets his head come down onto the cushion beside your shoulder.
βOkay,β he says, into it.
β
He turns his face into your shoulder and kisses it there, through his own shirt, and then he sits back on his heels and takes your wrist.
He doesnβt turn it this time. He holds it the way it wants to be held, and he brings it up, and he puts his mouth on the inside of it.
Your face goes before you know itβs going.
Itβs not the crying from the floor. Itβs the last of it, and it comes up fast and stops almost as fast, and he holds still with his lips against your pulse until it does.
βThere we go,β he says. βGet it out.β
βIβm crying because this is the sweetest thing anyoneβs ever done and I feel stupid saying this out loud, but I think itβs actually helping.β
He doesnβt laugh at you. He kisses the same spot again, lower, at the base of your palm.
βYeah?β
βA little.β
βOkay,β he says, and keeps going.
He works his way up. The heel of your hand. The inside of your forearm where nothingβs wrong. Your elbow, which is scraped open and cleaned and has a bandaid on it that he put on crooked, and he kisses the skin next to it because he canβt kiss the bandaid.
βRoll toward me a little.β
βWhy?β
βBecause thereβs a mark on the back of your leg and you donβt know about it.β
You didnβt know about it. He gets his hand under your calf and lifts, and thereβs a line across the back of it, purple already, the width of a stair edge. You look at it for a second and then you have to stop looking at it.
He puts his mouth on it. He stays there.
βJoe.β
βMm.β
βWhat are you doing.β
He doesnβt lift his head right away. When he does, he says it like heβs telling you the time. βMy mom used to do this.β
You donβt say anything.
βAnything happened, sheβd kiss it. Didnβt matter what it was. Broke my thumb in sixth grade and she kissed my thumb.β He sets your calf back down on the couch. βItβs stupid.β
βItβs not stupid.β
βItβs a little stupid.β He moves your hair off your face with two fingers. βIt worked, though. Every time.β
Heβs quiet then, and you can see him look down toward the wrong end of the couch, at the part of you heβs been avoiding this whole time, and you watch him get an idea about it.
βWhat if I rubbed it.β
βAbsolutely not.β
βNot on it. Around it.β His hand is already hovering. βEverything around itβs gonna lock up by tonight, and then thatβs gonna hurt worse than the actualββ
βJoe.β
βIβm just saying I have hands.β
βYou are not massaging my tailbone.β
βThatβs not what I said.β Heβs fighting a smile now. βI said around it. Thereβs a difference.β
βThereβs no difference.β
βThereβs a considerable difference.β
You laugh. It hurts, which makes you laugh harder, which hurts more, and you get a hand up to make him stop before he says anything else, and he catches it and kisses that too β the back of it, once, without ceremony, like heβs just going to keep doing this now.
βLie down,β you say.
βWhere.β
βHere. Behind me. Thereβs room.β
He looks at the couch and he looks at you and you can see him running the math on whether he can get behind you without moving you.
βIβll be careful.β
βI know you will.β
β
The doorbell gets him up an hour later.
He brings the box in, opens it in the middle of the living room floor with a kitchen knife, holds it up, and looks at it, and neither of you says anything for a second.
βItβs a pool float,β you say.
βItβs medical.β
βItβs a pool float, Joe.β
He puts it on the end of the couch and doesnβt make you use it yet.
You eat dinner sideways, which is not a thing anyone should have to do, and he doesnβt try to make you sit up for it. He eats his on the floor with his back against the couch so youβre not looking at the top of his head.
At nine he turns off the lamp and puts something on youβve already seen four times, volume at eleven, and then he stands at the end of the couch and works out the logistics.
βOkay. Donβt help.β
βI wasnβt going to.β
He gets a knee up on the cushion by your feet. Then a hand on the back of the couch. He comes over you and down behind you in one long movement with his weight on his arm the whole way, and the couch takes him and you donβt move an inch.
βSee,β he says.
βI didnβt say anything.β
He gets an arm under your neck and the other one over your waist and pulls you back into him until thereβs no space anywhere.
The room goes blue and then dark and then blue again from the TV. You stop following it somewhere in the second act.
His hand comes off your waist and goes low, and lower, and the heel of it starts working in slow circles into the muscle beside your spine, four inches above where it actually hurts.
You donβt say anything.
He doesnβt either. He doesnβt stop, and he doesnβt get closer to it, and he doesnβt ask, and after a while your breathing does what it does when youβre not in charge of it anymore.
He feels it happen. His mouth finds the back of your head.
βThere you go,β he says, to nobody.
β
You come up once, later, for no reason.
The TVβs still going, the same show, a different episode β the one after, or the one after that. His hand isnβt on your back anymore. Itβs around your wrist, and heβs holding it against his chest, and heβs kissing it.
The inside of it, the same spot, over and over, because thatβs the one he can reach and heβs not done trying.
You donβt open your eyes. You donβt tell him youβre awake.
yall r dead annoying you sit on this tag complaining about so many people/her fans talking about her and then will have your whole blog full of her. shut up its the same shit every single time, you all need to stop caring about his personal life so much.
Courtside. Actual courtside β no rows in front of you, your feet almost on the hardwood, the photographers kneeling six feet away with their lenses swinging back and forth like windshield wipers.
Joe didn't dress down for it. Black leather jacket over a knit, the good pants, boots, one chain sitting just under his collar. He looks like he's supposed to be here. Two people have already asked for a picture, and he said of course both times, and both times he was watching the court again before they'd made it back to their seats.
He's watching it like film. Tracking the ball two passes before it gets there.
Late in the first, somebody misses a wide-open three and he makes a noise in the back of his throat.
"That's a shot he makes."
"Is it?"
"Ninety times out of a hundred." He leans back, knees wide because there's nowhere else for them to go. "Watch. He'll be pissed about it on the next possession."
Your hand is already halfway up before you know it's moving β the back of his neck, above his collar, where you put it on the couch and in the car and in line at the airport when it's just the two of you. You get as far as his shoulder.
Then you think about the lenses. And the broadcast camera on the dolly that's rolled past you twice. And how someone put him on the jumbotron in the first four minutes and the whole arena made a sound.
You put your hand in your lap.
Two seats down, a guy has his arm along the back of his girlfriend's chair, hand on her shoulder, and she's leaned into him with her head almost on his chest like it's her own living room. She's been like that since tipoff. Nobody's looking at them. Nobody's going to.
You watch it a second longer than you meant to and make yourself look back at the court.
The Lakers get a stop. The guy who missed pulls up from the same spot and buries it, and Joe says, "There it is," and puts his hand out for you to hit without looking over.
You hit it.
He glances at you then. Quick, sideways, down at your hands in your lap and back up to your face.
He turns back to the game.
β
Second quarter, official timeout, and the arena goes loud in that manufactured way β music up, some sponsored thing at half court involving a guy in a giant foam costume.
Joe stands up to get the blood back in his legs. He's been folded into a chair built for a person eight inches shorter than him since tipoff. You stand with him because sitting alone at courtside feels stranger than standing.
His hand settles on your lower back. Whole palm, low, warm through your shirt. He isn't doing anything with it. It's just where his hand goes.
He says something at your ear, under the music. Something about the foam costume. You don't fully catch it, but you catch the tone, and you laugh.
And then you sit down.
That's all you do. You don't lean back into his hand before you go. You don't turn your face toward his while he's that close. You put six inches between you and fold your hands and look at the guy in the costume.
His hand comes off your back.
He sits. Picks his water up off the floor, drinks, sets it down. Says nothing.
The timeout ends. The teams come back out and the noise drops to a normal noise, and he's got his forearms on his knees now, watching the inbound.
He doesn't look at you for a while.
β
He drives. The arena empties out around you in the garage for twenty minutes before you're even moving, and then you're on Figueroa and the city's going by orange and dark through the tint.
You're tired in a way that isn't about the game.
"You good?"
"Yeah."
He doesn't say anything to that. Doesn't ask it a second way. He takes his right hand off the wheel and puts it on your knee.
You look at it. His thumb moves once, then stops.
At home you'd have your hand over his by now. Or your legs turned toward him. Or something. You keep your knee exactly where it is and you say, "That was a good game," and he says, "It was alright," and you watch a gas station go past.
His hand stays. He drives the rest of the way like that, one-handed, and he doesn't ask you anything else.
β
The house is dark except the light over the stove that neither of you ever turns off. He drops his keys in the bowl, gets a glass down, fills it at the sink. Drinks the whole thing standing there with his back to you.
You're at the island taking your earrings off.
"You were weird tonight."
"I wasn't weird."
He turns around. Sets the glass on the counter. Leans back against it with his arms crossed and waits, and the waiting is the problem, because you can outlast a question but you can't outlast Joe not asking one.
"I was tired."
"You weren't tired." He says it without any edge on it. "You didn't touch me all night."
You put the second earring down on the counter. It makes a small sound.
"Come here."
You don't move.
"Babe."
You go. He uncrosses his arms and you end up between his knees where he's leaned against the counter, and he puts his hands on your hips like it's nothing, like they've been waiting to go there all night.
"You think I don't want it."
"I think it's not fair to want it from you when I know what it costs you."
"You don't know what it costs me." His thumb moves against your hipbone. "It costs me nothing. Getting on a stage with a microphone costs me something. Doing an ad read costs me something. You putting your hand on my neck during a Lakers game is not on that list."
"There were photographers six feet in front of us."
"There were." He nods, agreeable, like you've made a nice point about the weather. "And they were gonna take the picture whether you touched me or not. That's the part you're not β " He stops. Restarts. "I keep it off my face in public because I don't want a hundred strangers in it. That's about them. It was never a rule about you. You made it a rule about you."
You don't say anything, because he's right and you're not ready to say he's right.
He takes your wrist. Brings your hand up and puts it on the back of his neck himself, under his collar, exactly where you started to put it in the first quarter and didn't.
"That's all I wanted all night," he says. "You've been sitting on your hands and I've been sitting there wondering what I did."
"You didn't do anything."
"I know. That's worse."
His arms come around you then and he pulls you into his chest, chin on top of your head, and you feel him let a breath out that he's been holding since the second quarter.
β
Thursday he gets back a little after nine from lifting with Micah, and you hear the shower go, and then he comes out in sweats with his hair still wet and stands in the doorway of the living room for a second like he's deciding something.
Then he crosses the room and lies down and puts his head in your lap.
You're in the middle of an episode of something. You pause it. He's got his face turned in toward your stomach, one arm hooked around your waist with his hand at your lower back, feet hanging off the far end of the couch because there was never going to be enough couch.
You put your hand in his hair.
He makes a sound. Not a word. Something out of his chest that you feel more than hear, and then he goes heavy in a way he only goes heavy here.
You do it for a while. Wet hair, temple, down behind his ear, back up. The dishwasher runs. Somewhere out on Beverly Glen somebody's alarm goes off and stops.
"This is my favorite place to be," he says.
Your hand stops. "Do what?"
"You heard me."
"Over Paycor?"
"Mhm."
"Joe. Over any football field in America on a Sunday."
"I didn't say it was an easy decision." He shifts his face further into your stomach. "But yes. And I'm confident in it."
You start again β behind his ear, back up through the wet at his crown. His arm tightens around your waist and stays that way.
After a minute he turns his face up toward you, eyes closed, and says, "Don't stop doing that."
You don't.
His breathing goes slow. You think he's gone, and then he says something into your stomach that you only get half of.
"What?"
"I said I love you." He doesn't open his eyes. Doesn't move.
You bend down and put your mouth against his hair and stay there for a second.
He's asleep before ten, which is early even for him, and you sit there with the TV paused and your hand in his hair until your leg goes numb and then a while after that.
β
Two weeks later, a place on Melrose with no sign on the door and eleven tables inside.
He pays. You get your jacket. He holds the door and you're two steps onto the sidewalk before you register the guys on the curb.
There are more than four or five. The first flash goes off close enough that you lose the street for a second β everything white, then everything purple, and you put a hand up before you can stop yourself, which you know is the worst thing you can do with your hands out here.
"Joe! Joe, over here β "
"Who's the girl?"
They say it again. Somebody says it a third time, louder, like you might answer.
You don't know where to look. Not at them, not at the ground, and forty feet suddenly reads like a very long distance in these shoes with white spots in your vision.
Joe takes your hand.
He doesn't slow down and he doesn't speed up. He just reaches over and takes it, laces his fingers through yours, and his grip is tighter than he holds your hand at home β tight enough that you feel exactly where he is when you can't see well enough to check.
You hold on. You hold on harder than you'd let yourself if there weren't cameras.
He doesn't answer any of them. Doesn't look at them. He walks you to the valet stand at a completely normal speed, and when the kid takes too long with the car he stands there in it with his thumb moving on the back of your hand.
He lets go to open your door. Then he shuts it behind you, walks around, gets in.
Two blocks of nothing. The city sliding by.
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
He looks over. Waits.
"That was a lot," you say.
"It was a lot." He puts his hand back on your knee, squeezes once. "You did so good, baby. Held onto me the whole way."
You reach across and put your hand on the back of his neck.
He leans into it, and his right hand comes off the wheel and settles on your thigh, and neither of you says anything about either one.
You keep your hand on him the whole way up the canyon. He doesn't ask you to move it.
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