The glass smashes, grazes her shoulder. She grits her teeth and clenches her fists and dodges the incoming missile, this time in the form of the mug she had bought for her girlfriend’s 25^th birthday. “Shy on the streets, freak in the sheets”.

She takes a few steps towards the basilisk in front of her. It but foams at the mouth, as it spits every profanity in the Korean language. Taeyeon makes a grab for a plate and Tiffany leaps and wrestles the girl to the ground- she yelps as sharp china lacerates her skin- and Taeyeon thrashes in response.

She pulls the girl’s hair back, but violent movements make it impossible. Tiffany tries to control her shaking voice.

“Taeyeon, Taeyeon” she is whispering, as lovingly as she can “Taeyeon, Taeyeon, come back to me, come back to me, Taeyeon”

Taeyeon is screaming “LET ME GO” back

“No. Taeyeon. NO!” she is saying more firmly “control it, Taeyeon, COME ON, come back to me. I know you’re still there”. She is wincing as a hand slaps her face “Please, Taeyeon, please, you’re stronger than this, I know you are. It’s all in your head, it’s all in your head”

She hugs her tighter. Warm blood seeps through an immaculate white blouse. She shuts her eyes, the throbbing pain gets worse- the wound tearing wider and wider as it makes friction with the floor.

“Please, Taeyeon, please” and tears are b at her eyes and she lets out a little sniff.

Taeyeon hears it. She stops moving.

Then they lie in the kitchen floor, maybe for an eternity, maybe for three minutes by the clock. Taeyeon is heaving and Tiffany tries, tries everything. She her hair and kisses her ear, she draws circles on the heated body. She tries, tries to forget about the intense pain she feels on her right side but fails, fails to forget about the intense pain she feels in her heart.

 “Tiffany” Taeyeon is whimpering in a small voice.

“Yes, Taeyeon, yes” she is saying encouranginly.

“Tiffany, I’m sorry, I should have controlled it better”

“It’s okay, Taeyeon. It’s okay, I’m here, I’m still here”

“You’ll be here?”

“Always”

But she didn’t know how long “always” was.

Then two days later they are standing in front of the psychiatrist office, consumed by the classical music playing, baffled by the abstract painting on the walls and apprehensive about all the other ing nutcases surrounding them. And the doctor comes out and calls her girlfriend name’s and Tiffany follows, because they’re basically one entity now and Taeyeon’s mind is her mind and she demands to know what she’s going to be subjugated to for the rest of her life, the nightmares that will occasionally haunt them.

And Taeyeon is smiling weakly, probably feeling guilty as hell. Then the doctor says her BDP is getting worse and if she’s still going to therapy, because she has to go to the therapy and both girls nod numbly because Taeyeon is not going to therapy because she was always more conflictive afterwards. Because there are no pills that really help, he says, none that are approved and all the other nasty little ers have failed, so its therapy and therapy. And Tiffany’s eyes wander around the room, making quick sums and subtractions because she’s pretty sure they can’t afford so much therapy and she can’t afford so much of her sanity to push Taeyeon through it. Because she knows it’s also trial and error, but more like error, error, error, till they find someone that clicks, that fits. And error is charged very pricey by Taeyeon. She bites her lip and thinks about their cracked kitchen tiles, abused by Taeyeon’s anger and her weight-thrower vocation. And then they leave, non the wiser, but at least Taeyeon feels slightly better. So that night they watch a movie and cuddle and not once does she accuse Tiffany of abandoning her, not once does she check through her phone and not once does she push her away, convinced she is seeing somebody else because Taeyeon’s too much of a piece of for anyone to bother with her.

So Tiffany mentions a few times going to therapy and Taeyeon yells a few times back, and cries back some more. She gets yelled at when she’s late from work, because she was clearly preparing to run away from Taeyeon, she gets yelled at when she leaves the laundry in the washing machine, because she’s trying to hurt Taeyeon, she gets yelled for doing nothing, because she must clearly be thinking about doing something else. And she survives and survives, but doesn’t live and still she doesn’t dare to think about whether she loves her or not. She thinks she already knows the answer.

One day she meets a girl, and she doesn’t yell. No, Jessica smiles and says thank you whenever she holds open the door for her, she laughs at Tiffany’s jokes and doesn’t second guess the intentions behind the little gifts she gives her. If Taeyeon was a contained hurricane, waiting to be unleashed, Jessica was the summer breeze during a sunset, the gentle rolling of the waves at night. Jessica doesn’t need to be restrained, doesn’t throw stuff at her and for once, Tiffany can breathe. She realizes the weight she’s been carrying and relaxes into her hold.

So when Taeyeon looks at her phone and demands to know who this Jessica-person is, Tiffany tries telling her to calm down, to regain control, to go back to her. And when she’s late from work and Taeyeon rages and weeps at the same time, she hugs her and tells her to calm down, to regain control, to go back to her. When she’s absent-minded, thinking about Jessica’s soft skin and the smell of her hair, and Taeyeon tugs her continuously asking what she’s thinking, she tells her to calm down, to remember she said she’d be there always. And when Taeyeon finds a picture of them kissing, saved in one of Tiffany’s folder in her ipad, Tiffany her hair and tells her that they should go and see the psychiatrist again, because she’s suffering from psychotic delusions. And she tells her it’s all in her head and to go back to her, even though Tiffany has been long gone.