▸ Column · Modern noir Gotham — Selina Kyle reading her mail between jobs, with the Bat cutting in over her shoulder.
CATWOMAN replies.
The letter
My Gotham therapist keeps telling me I'm "making progress," but last week Marcus — the steady one, the good one — forgot to call when his shift ran late, and I spent three hours certain he was either bleeding out in an alley or simply lying to me, flipping between the two with equal faith in each. My father taught me that calm was just the quiet before something landed, so my whole nervous system reads safety as the trap. I've read every book the therapist assigned, I do the breathing, I can recite my own damage like a case file — and I still sat there at 1 a.m. scrolling Marcus's feed to confirm he was breathing. He was gentle about it, which made it worse, because now I'm just waiting for him to decide I'm too much work to keep. Does the trust ever drop from my head down into my bones?
Catwoman replies
Sugar, let's find who's actually holding the leash, because it isn't Marcus. He forgot a phone call. Misdemeanor, at worst. No — it's your father. He taught you that "safe" was only ever the room before the floor gave out, and the man isn't even in the building anymore. He's running your nervous system rent-free, and you keep paying.
So here's what I won't tell you: relax, drop your guard, trust him in your bones. That 1 a.m. watchfulness kept a scared kid alive. I keep one claw out in every room I've ever loved being in — it isn't the flaw, it's the survival. The flaw is the clock you started, the one ticking down to when he "decides you're too exhausting." That clock isn't Marcus's, handsome. He never set it. You did, in your father's voice.
So pick the pocket back. When the panic purrs "he's leaving," say it out loud: that's not him, that's an old landlord trying to collect. You don't have to trust anyone in your bones to stop cutting that man a check. Keep your exits. Check the locks if it soothes you. Just quit letting a dead grip bill you for a love that's already paying its own rent.
— Catwoman
Batman weighs in
She tells you the watchfulness is not a flaw. She is right. Then she tells you to keep your exits. That is where she is wrong. I have watched what those exits cost her. Selina has never once stayed in a room long enough to learn it was safe. She keeps a door open and calls it freedom. It is a cage with better lighting.
Trust is not a feeling that arrives. It is evidence. Logged. Your father was a small sample. Marcus is new data. Do not drop your guard. Build the pattern until it is undeniable. Then decide. The dawn comes after the dark.
— Batman
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