For the past month, Jerry had been trying to figure out what his next move would be. It was never easy to figure out what to do next, but for some reason this time around proved to be especially difficult. He had only meant to stay one night in Arizona’s home, but it was now over a month later and he still wasn’t exactly sure when he would finally get his ass out of there. It had to be an inconvenience for Arizona to keep him there; he just figured she was too nice to say anything about it. Jerry still couldn’t quite understand why the woman insisted on extending her hospitality to a man that hardly showed her the respect she deserved. That wasn’t to say he was especially cruel or anything like that, but he did make it a point to ignore her half the time and he was sure that annoyed her a bit. Jerry had days in which he refused to speak to her altogether and simply wanted to be left alone. This was turning out to be one of those days.

Jerry had kept to himself the entire day, avoiding any contact with Arizona if he could. It wasn’t that he disliked her. In fact, it was more of the opposite. When he had first met the girl, the idea of growing attached to her in any way didn’t so much as cross his mind. He had been too broken and disgruntled to possibly be thinking about any potential relationships. However, after spending a month living with this woman, there was something about her that sparked his interest in a way he was afraid to admit. His life was unlike any other. It simply wasn’t possible to live life like any normal person could and he had proved that to himself a hundred times over. There were no words that could possibly describe just how difficult it was to live each day. It should be surprising that he hadn’t ended his life already. If he hadn’t met Paulina, rest assured he wouldn’t be here today. She was the only thing that kept him going. He felt he had something to live for when it came to her and the kids, but now he was back to feeling sorry for himself and being unable to understand why his assailants refused to give up.

He could never forget the day in which he had walked in on her while she was in the nude. It had been a horrifying experience for Jerry. Not that what he saw was horrifying, not in the least. Arizona had a gorgeous body and he had always known that, but it was instances like that that made him extremely uncomfortable. He had flown out of the bathroom in a flash, hoping she wouldn’t get too upset over the matter. It reminded him a little of the night he had met Paulina. A lot of guys would love to have seen what he saw and they would have no problem with it whatsoever. Jerry’s view of sex was quite different from the average guy. It simply wasn’t something he thought about, probably because it hadn’t really been much of an option throughout his life and so there was no use in caring about it. No man could possibly fear being seduced by a woman as much as he did. It wasn’t simply that he struggled with his confidence, but it also had a lot to do with his fear of getting involved in another relationship.

Even though Jerry was starting to have feelings towards Arizona, he continued to put himself in denial about it because he didn’t want to drag anyone else into the hell that was known as his life. As soon as he started feeling a certain way about her, he had started working harder on figuring out where he was going next. He didn’t want to hurt her and he knew that whatever feelings he had would only grow stronger if he continued to stay there and that would make it more difficult for him to ignore it. He would never tell her, but there were nights in which he’d come downstairs in the middle of the night because of insomnia and he would just sit in a chair in the living room and watch Arizona sleep. He was sure that if he told her she would be infinitely freaked out, but his reasons for doing it had never been about admiring her body or anything like that. The thought of caring about someone and having someone care for him back was always a something Jerry had wanted, but he would never admit it. He needed to have someone that would stand by him no matter what and let him know he had some sort of purpose in the world.

Jerry had kept himself secluded in Arizona’s room for the past few hours. He still didn’t feel right about taking over her room, but she refused to switch places with him and he had given up on arguing with her over the matter. He was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, tears still evident in his eyes from when he had sobbed a little while earlier. Yes, there were days in which it all got to be too much for him and all he could do was cry. He always made sure to do it behind closed doors and so Arizona had never witnessed it, but he was sure she could detect some depression on his part on most days. Life just didn’t seem worth it to him anymore and while he was in the midst of figuring out what to do, he began to wonder if it was really such a bad idea to just let the bastards kill him and get the whole thing over with. As appealing as it sounded to end his miserable life, Jerry was too much of a coward to let it end.

It was a little while after staring at the ceiling that he decided to get himself a glass of water from the kitchen. He slowly made his way downstairs and could hear the sound of a movie playing in the living room, which he assumed Arizona was watching. He tried to be as silent as possible so that he didn’t disturb her, but also because he hated drawing attention to himself, especially since he was feeling rather stressed and frustrated at the time. He reached for a glass from the cupboard and set it down on the counter. His hands were shaking a little from the stress he was under, which made getting a glass of water harder than he ever thought it could be. He grabbed the pitcher of water from the fridge, but as he turned towards the counter again, his elbow knocked the glass to the ground, causing it to shatter. “Fuck!” he shouted, easily loud enough for Arizona to hear over the sound of her movie playing. He slammed the pitcher down on the counter, which caused a little bit of water to spill out of it and onto the counter. Jerry looked at the mess and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. After a mere minute or so, Jerry simply couldn’t help himself any longer. His eyes began to tear up and before long he was sobbing quietly. He had one hand over his face and the other was placed on the counter to prop himself up as he leaned forward a little. He still had no idea what to do and it had been eating at him for a long time. He was tired of the way he was forced to live and sometimes he couldn’t help but cry.