Page 102 of Duke's Daring Bookworm
“Jess!” Charles called as I ran. I had just enough clarity to grab my coat and boots before slamming through the front door and out onto the porch. My tears came hot and fast.
The snow was still falling heavy against the ground. I could see drifts building up all around us. Lightning shot across the sky, lighting the whole of it in brilliant white light long enough to see the dark clouds behind the silhouetted trees.
How dare she do this to me?
How dare she trap me here with these memories and this pain and no way out but through?
My chest was heaving and my breath mixed with the cool air in front of me, causing it to fog. I couldn’t feel it though, not the cold. Everything else I was feeling was too loud and immediate for me to register something as mundane as well below freezing temperatures. The hot tears slid down my face, providing a sharp contrast to the wind. I turned my face to the sky, hoping the cold would freeze my tear ducts, so I didn’t have to feel them sliding down my face. It didn’t work. I don’t know why I thought it would.
“Can you count right now?” My therapist would probably say if she were here with me. I took a deep breath and counted backwards from one hundred. This was too big to start smaller. By the time I got to the number one, my breathing had evened out and I could think again. The sun was setting, and the landscape was darkening as I just stood there, staring at nothing.
I wondered what Charles was thinking. I left him there with the remnants of us, with no excuses or explanations. He probably thought I was insane. Who would have such a big reaction ten years after something happened? A psychopath. Ohgod, he probably thought I was a psychopath and now the snow had trapped him in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with me. He was likely wondering when I would kill him and if anyone would find the body.
Get it together, Jess.He’s a Marine, he can handle himself. No, wait, he doesn’t need to handle himself because I’m not a psycho and I won’t kill him. He has to know that, right? I was pacing now, my steps matching my racing thoughts. Some part of me knew this was just another way to panic about the situation we found ourselves in, but I couldn’t seem to stop it.
I lost myself in my steps. The snow crunched under my feet until the cold seeped through and overrode my feelings of insecurity and panic. I still didn’t know what I was going to do about Charles or the time I had to spend here with him, but at least my heart rate had calmed down and I wasn’t crying.
I gave in and went back into the cabin. The sun had long since set, and I was shivering. I grabbed a blanket and curled up on the couch. “I’m sleeping here,” was all I said before closing my eyes and pulling the blankets up to my chin. Sleeping next to Charles tonight was a step too far after my breakdown, and I didn’t want to deal with that step, not right now. Sleep came fitfully and in starts and stops. The couch dug into me in the worst way, and I quickly developed a kink in my neck from the angle of my head against the arm. I refused to get up and get a pillow from the room, however, and resigned myself to suffering through the rest of my time here.
Chapter 4
Charles
It wasn’t hard to figure out what was bothering Jess. She obviously didn’t expect a box of our stuff up here, and why would she? As far as I knew, she had never spent time here. Charlotte, the meddling wench, must have stashed it here when she dreamed up her plans.
When she ran, everything in my body screamed at me to chase Jess down, but I knew she had nowhere else to go, so I let her go again. I didn’t understand her. I didn’t understand what went wrong, and I didn’t understand why it was so hard for her now. So, instead, I tortured myself and tried to walk the line between pushing her and letting her figure it all out on her own.
Rather than go after Jess, I sat down with the box and looked through it. It had almost felt like an invasion of privacy, except that it was my face in those pictures, too. That was my handwriting on those letters. That was my teenage heart and soul bared clean. I had a right to this as much as she did. Instead of reading the letters, after all, I knew what was in them better than almost anything, I looked through the pictures. We were so young, and she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was still the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Inside and out. Even though trying to get close to her now was like trying to hug a cactus.
Everything was here. So many pictures, so many memories. I picked up a simple braided bracelet. I had the matching one at home. She had made them for us and I proudly wore mine all the time, despite my buddies’ ribbing. They had been jealous, and I was happy to rub in everyone’s faces that Jess was mine. I slipped the bracelet into my pocket and picked up the picture it was sitting on. It was us on the beach. I remembered it like it was yesterday.
“I love the feel of the ocean air on my face,” Jess said, right before I took this picture of her. We were on the boardwalk on Tybee Island not long after we started dating. The wind was blowing her hair behind her and her cheeks were pink from too much sun. Though with her pale skin, it didn’t take long for her to burn. “I love how it feels like freedom.” Her eyes were still closed when I snapped the picture, but the look on her face was peaceful and I wondered, not for the first time, what she could mean. Something about the way she said things and seemed to experience the world puzzled me. She was the most fascinating girl I’d ever met. We’d only been on a few dates, but I already couldn’t get enough of her.
When she opened her eyes and looked back at me, they were clear and bright and so hopeful. I reached out and grabbed her hand, quickly stuffing my phone into my pocket with my other hand. She pulled me down to the beach and we kicked off our shoes and shirts before running into the cool, clear water. When a wave pushed her over and she landed in my arms, I knew heaven for the first time in my short life. I knew then that I wanted to have her in my arms forever.
The next photo was from our senior trip to Disney World. We had been dating for months by then and had become so comfortable with each other that it was like we didn’t even need to communicate verbally sometimes. We snuck off early that morning and climbed the stairs of our hotel to the roof so wecould watch a storm rolling in. I had pushed her up against the low wall of the roof and wrapped myself around her. She took the picture this time. I was kissing her cheek, but remembered desperately wanting her mouth instead.
“Charles, we can’t just make out all the time,” she insisted.
“Why not? We’re teenagers. Isn’t it what we are supposed to be doing?” My hands wandered wherever they could reach as I kissed down her neck.
“I don’t know,” she said, sounding distracted. “I just thought we should, I don’t know, do something else.”
“Do you really want to do something else?” I stopped my exploration of her and stepped back. Maybe she did need space, and I was being an ass. “Whatever you want. I just want to spend time with you.” I assured her in case she needed it.
“What if — what if you get bored with making out with me and then — then we have nothing else in common?” She was toying with a piece of her hair. She hadn’t moved closer to me, and I was suddenly sure stepping back was the right thing to do.
“Jess, first off, I don’t think I’ll ever get bored with making out with you. You make this sound when I suck on that spot behind your ear and it’s like everything in the world is right in that moment. Second off, we don’t have to have tons in common to want to spend time with each other.” I took a tentative step towards her and grabbed her hand. I didn’t want to crowd her, but I still wanted contact.
“I just — I’m scared sometimes,” she admitted. She wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes scanned the horizon, watching as the storm rolled in, but her hand gripped mine tight like she was afraid I was going to disappear.
“I will always be here for you,” I said with conviction. “All my plans have you in them. I’m not going anywhere.”
She turned towards me, her eyes were red rimmed, and she nodded her head before hugging me and tucking her head in myneck. I brought my arms around her and held her tight as the rain started. We would be soaked, standing out here in the rain, but it didn’t matter. As long as we were together, we could deal with anything else.
I’m going to get you back, Angel,I vowed as I pulled out another picture from prom.
This one was of us when I picked her up. The grand staircase of her grandma’s house curved around us and was draped with greenery and twinkle lights. I’m sure Charlotte did that just for the pictures.
