Page 30 of Lost & Found

“That’s right, Hollis. I did find you. I will always fucking find you. Why can’t you tell me what the hell I did to deserve this? Why go through all of this trouble? You said you had no one after I left but I’m right fucking here!” Jax’s voice raises to a pretty steady thunder; I worry someone will hear us.

“Jax, have you ever stopped to think about anyone else’s feelings but your own in any situation?”

“What the hell kind of question is that?”

“Was there ever a time where you thought that maybeyouwere the problem and that maybe you should try to dig a little deeper to figure it out yourself instead of acting clueless and demanding to be told what you did wrong?” I point my finger at him, letting my frustration out because all he needs to do is use the fucking context clues to figure out why I'm treating him this way. But instead, he simply narrows his eyes at me in confusion before responding.

“No.”

“Wow.” I wave my hand in the air and turn around. "I'm done," I add before reaching the door.

“Hollis, you know that’s not fair." I hear him shuffle my way, but I stay with my back facing him, hand on the doorknob. "If I’m the problem, cool. I’d fucking accept it and figure out how to fix it. But how the fuck am I supposed to know what you’re feeling or how you felt if you don’t fucking tell me? How am I supposed to apologize for whatever it is I did if you can’t even see that I am trying here. I can’t read your goddamn mind.” I feel his breath on my shoulder and a shiver travels down my spine.

A shiver that teeters the line of a cold pain being carried through my veins or of a warm desire that sparks in my core.

I lower my tone.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t see the point in us arguing about something that doesn’t matter eleven years later.” I bow my head, feeling absolutely crushed that someone I thought would be in my life forever is now the one person I need to stay away from.

Jax lays his hand on my shoulder, and I hate the way that my body reacts to his contact. It's almost as if I've been missing it my whole life, like a hole being patched up.

I dip my shoulder to shake him off and turn around. Again, we find ourselves toe-to-toe and being this close to him has my heart kicking up its pace.

“It matters to me. Fuck, does it matter to me," he whispers, and I close my eyes, reluctantly allowing myself to let his gravelly timbre embed itself into my head.

“You matter to me. You can’t tell me that I don’t matter to you,” he adds, and without opening my eyes, I open my mouth to speak.

“You have no idea, Jax.”

“Let me fix it. You brought up our last night together. Was there something about the night at that party that happened that I can fix now? Something you wanted to tell me. Give me anything Hollis, anything to go off of because I really can’t let you fucking walk away from me again.” I feel the sincerity laced in his voice. I feel the genuine concern he has and the need to fix what he doesn't even know he broke.

But this is where the stubborn parts of me come into play, and not in a nice way. I can't give in that easily. I need to hang on to what I can control and giving this to him would be like saying that the one night that led to the over thirty-six hundred more nights…it was all for nothing. And I refuse to let myself believe that my emotions and feelings were that pointless.

“Why? Because you’re the only one who gets to walk away?” I challenge, quietly this time, but still not holding back on the anger that I feel in the memory of him leaving me the day after that party and being so oblivious to the humiliation and hurt he caused. And the downward spiral it took me on.

He pushes back a lock of my blue hair behind my ear as I open my eyes and find him searching my own for any kind of sign. But he won’t find it. I’ve gotten really good at masking myself from the world.

“Do you have any idea how fucking beautiful you are?” he tells me and my breath hitches. God, does it take me to places I know I can’t visit. To the what-ifs and to our shared past and forgotten futures.

It’s too much. It’ll always be too much.

“You can’t say shit like that to me.” I turn my head slightly, but he only persists, and something in mewantshim to keep trying. Keep pursuing. I’ll keep running, but I want him to find me.

“Why not? It’s the truth.”

“Because you can’t.”

"But I want to. Remember, friends don’t lie to friends.” That part stings a little. We made a lot of promises to each other when we didn’t know about the demons that might stand in the way.

“I don’t want to be your friend," I admit, but I say it in a way that hides the face value of that statement alone, meaning that what I want, or wanted, is more than the wordfriendshas to offer.

“Then what do you want?” he asks. His fingers are still absentmindedly rubbing my ear lobe from after he tucked my hair away.

I decide in that moment that I want to try and figure out a way to start over. I really do. I want to tell him all about that night and what it did to me. And all of the night after. And how I tried so hard to forget him and how I did miss him, more than he’ll ever know. I want to tell him that I want to give whatever this is a second chance.

“I just want-”

Jax yanks me into him, crushing our bodies together and in the same smooth movement, his lips are on mine.

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