You're standing on the precipice, dancing along the edge of something so much bigger than you are ready to admit, staring it in the eyes, daring it to consume you. This thing inside you is terrifying, and freeing; brutal, and oh so beautiful. You have a choice (have always had a choice but admitting that is a step you can't quite take). You can punch the monster or kiss the man. Sense is telling you to hit him. The chip isn't working and he could be dangerous. You see exactly how it will play out. How you'll hit him hard and kick him away. Can almost hear the door slam as you walk out into the night. But fighting him is making you feel more alive than you have in weeks. This is real. More real than the quiet house or the concerned sister or the traitorous best friend waiting for you somewhere out there. This is real, he is real, and he is making you real. So you kiss him. You've done it before but this feels different. Bigger. More important. You slip forward and tumble into the abyss. The noise around you falls away until he is all that exists. His lips, his tongue, his hands. Oh god, his hands. You are so distracted by the way they move against your body that you barely notice what your own hands are doing. You are barely aware of pulling at his zipper and ripping at your underwear until he's there. Right there, and this? This so much better than fighting. This is better than anything and it makes you feel alive. You shudder, groping for something to hold onto, but before you can blink he is staggering backwards and the two of you are crashing through the floor, into the room below. You roll your hips and arch your back, the concept of pleasure, of any feeling besides pain, has been lying dormant for months, but it's all coming back to you now. This is what it means to be alive. You stare down into his eyes, and you are lost. Lost to everything but hands and tongues and skin on skin. You can hear the house crashing around you but it might as well be the whole damn world coming apart and rebuilding itself into something new and unexpected.

The next morning you run. Shame burns through you, and you swear to him that this will never happen again. Tell him that he is nothing but a convenience. But there's a wicked little voice, buried deep in your mind, whispering that none of it is true. No matter how strong your convictions, a part of you knows that this is not the end. Because you may have fallen off the edge last night, but you are nowhere near the bottom.