Was there anything out in the world that could faze him?
I quickly grabbed my work clothes and slowly backed out of my room to the bathroom in the hallway. My eyes stayed on him the whole time, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t turn around and walk forward like a normal person, or at the very least, look away.
Jackson seemed more amused than anything.
I waved at him when I stood at the doorway. He looked like he was trying to hold in his laugh when he waved back at me.
The next five seconds happened with me still standing there, still looking at him, until I finally got my brain working right and ran to the bathroom.
I stayed in there longer than necessary, fixing what little makeup I had put on that morning, to washing my hands for the third time.
I knew I couldn’t possibly stay in my bathroom forever, and that I needed to get out of there before I turned up late on my second day of work, or worse before my dad woke up and wondered why I brought a strange boy home.
Taking a deep breath, I unlocked the door and walked out, only to run into a hard chest.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately.
“Whoa. Hold on, sweetheart, there’s no rush. You still have time. And what are you apologizing for?”
“Err… well, I ran into you.”
“I was the one to block your exit.” He removed a strand of blonde hair from my face and put it behind my ear. Then he pouted. I could feel my eyes lighting up as I tried to suppress a laugh. “Forgive me?”
Adopting a more solemn expression, I nodded and said, “Hmm, I’ll think about it.”
“What if I make it to you?”
I played with the front of his shirt, twiddling my thumbs loosely around the fabric. I didn’t meet his eyes when I said, “How?”
He pulled me tightly into him, and with a deep inhale, he said in my ear, “Later, when we’re alone and have more than five minutes, I’ll show you.”
Right. My dad was in his room, and I didn’t want him waking up and catching me doing anything with Jackson, no matter how eager I was for him. I nodded, and he bent down and gave me a chaste kiss on my forehead. “Let’s go, sweetheart. I’ll drive you to work. Do you need me to drive you home tonight, or are you okay catching a ride with Grant?”
“I’ll be fine catching a ride home with Grant. I know you have your fight tonight.” The prospect of him coming into any harm, rather physical or emotional, was already becoming unbearable to me. “Promise me you’ll be careful?”
“I promise,” he replied softly.
It was a slow night, especially for a Saturday.
Jamie seemed oblivious as to why it was slow, but everyone else knew. The usual high school crowd was all at the fight.
I had always heard about it, especially the days that follow when everyone else was still high from the aftereffect of the fight and no one could shut up about it. But hearing about it when it was all said and done, and knowing it was actually happening left a sour taste in my mouth.
All night I couldn’t focus. I almost spilled coffee on an elderly gentleman with kind eyes and equally kind smile. I was lucky he wasn’t one of the ill-mannered customers.
Grant and Jamie seemed oblivious to my inner turmoil, as they chatted with each other about a new mystery book that had come out. Grant had been raving about it for months on end, and he finally found someone to share his enthusiasms.
What would he say if I told him about Jackson’s books collection? Not that I had the chance to tell him anything. Though we were pretty slow, it seemed I never got any alone time with him, be it because Jamie was always right there, or some of the other employees.
The bell chimed, and yet another elderly couple walked in. Did they know about the fight, and was taking advantage of the peace and quiet? I had never seen so many senior citizens all gathered up in the shop.
I greeted them with a smile and walked over to take their orders.
Already, I knew the night was going to drag.
My Sunday was very much the same as my Saturday night. Long and uneventful.
In the morning, Grant picked me up, and we had our usual breakfast together before he dropped me off and went to work an extra shift at Suzie’s Café.
Jackson never made any attempt to reach out to me, and I didn’t either, mostly because I didn’t know what I could say to him.
Taking the initiative had never been my strong suit.
So I spent my Sunday by myself, binged watching old comedy reruns while eating the leftovers I had purchased the night before at Jamie’s place. It was the only thing I could do to get my mind off of Jackson and the possibility that he might be hurt. The very thought made me sick.
Then Monday morning came, and I found myself putting in extra care to the way I look and doing so with the biggest smile on my face.
I even put my hair up into a high ponytail, when I usually had it down.
At seven o’clock sharp, I opened the front door and was surprised to see Jackson standing there, hand hanging in the air, ready to knock. Relief at seeing him well and strong and solid standing in front of me was instant, and I wanted to throw myself in his arms.
He stepped back, and even though he was wearing dark sunglasses, I could feel the heat of his eyes as he looked me up and down. “Ah, sweetheart, you’re killing me.”
“I’m sorry?” I responded a little unsure.
Jackson took my backpack and slung it over one shoulder before he pulled me into him. I hit his chest with an oomph, and barely had time to recover when his soft lips touched my cheek. “Why are you sorry?” he asked gently. “I’m not. Death by your hands? Sweetest way to go.”
I beamed at him. “You say the sweetest thing.”
“With the way you react, it’s as if you’re not used to hearing them.”
I gave a halfhearted shrug. “Don’t tell me the other guy didn’t compliment you.” The other guy meaning Ethan. I think back to the two years we were together. I was sure he had complimented me before. But they never were sincere. More superficial than anything. His words were given with the purpose of making me give in to him, whether that meant less date nights so he could go off by himself to get high, or so that I could give in more to the physical aspect of our relationship.
They were all a form of manipulation on his part.
“He complimented me,” I told him.
“Often?”
“What was that?”
“Did he compliment you often?” Another halfhearted shrug, accompanied with burning cheeks. I looked down to avoid his gaze. “Well, get used to it,” Jackson said after a moment.
He led me to his car, and opening the passenger side for me, he waited until I was settled before closing the door and walking to the driver’s seat. “Have you eaten breakfast?” he asked me. I shook my head.
Jackson reached behind him and pulled out a brown paper bag. “Breakfast on the go,” he said, handing it to me.
“Thank you.” I cleared my throat, though I wasn’t sure why it was so clogged up all the sudden.
Opening the bag, I found a wrapped breakfast burrito. “Did you make this?”
“Ah, no. I didn’t have time this morning. But the place I got it from is good.”
I unwrapped the burrito and took a bite. Jackson was right. It was good. “I’m going to be fat if you keep feeding me like this.”
Jackson scoffed. “I like you whatever size you come in, so don’t worry. Eat to your little heart’s content.”
I couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped. “Are you sure about that?”
He briefly turned to look at me. “I’m positive.”
And then he pulled into the school’s parking lot and all of my cheeriness instantly evaporated. Right away, I knew people were staring at us. They had to recognize Jackson’s car. It was hard to miss, much like the boy himself.
And there was a lot of students hanging about. Most of them wearing the school’s jacket that let e
veryone know they were a jock. I wasn’t sure why they felt the need to announced it. Certainly, the school’s athletic department was nothing to be proud of.
Jackson got out of the car and jogged over to my side. I remembered what he said about letting him do all those things for me, so I stayed put.
He opened the door and bent down so he could work out the belt. If people weren’t staring before, they were definitely staring now.
But as much as I didn’t want the extra attention, I had to admit that having Jackson’s attend on me like that, it was hard not to feel deliriously happy.
“Ready?” he asked me.
“As ready as I will be, I supposed,” I answered quietly.
Grabbing both mine and his backpack, he swung them over his shoulders, and with a wink, helped me out of the car.
He held my hand with the biggest grin on his face, and because of how happy he looked, I couldn’t bring myself to care that everyone was talking about us.
We stopped by my locker first. Jackson waited patiently for me to switch out my textbooks, dutifully holding my backpack.
“Do we need to stop by yours?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “I don’t have a locker.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “I don’t really have a need for one.”
I eyed his backpack. I knew it weighted double mine and he carried it around like it was nothing. “You can use mine if you want,” I said. “The locker combination is 01-34-62.”
He smiled and moved in closer to me. “Thanks.” And with that, I watched as he unloaded some of the textbooks he had in his backpack over to my locker.
“You’re in AP Calculus?”
“Now, now. Don’t act so surprised. It hurts my feelings that you don’t think I am capable of getting into that class.”
I knew he was joking. It didn’t stop the blush from forming on my face. “It’s not that,” I said. Though I wasn’t sure what reason I had that made me so surprise.
He gently cupped my cheeks, and leaning in, he said, “It’s fine, sweetheart.”
I nodded then frowned. “Why are you still wearing your glasses?” It was strange that he hadn’t taken it off since we got inside the school.
He smiled sheepishly at me but didn’t reply. Standing on my tip toes, I leaned up and reached for them. He didn’t stop me, but something about the expression on his face told me I needed to brace myself. When I pulled away, I couldn’t help but let out a tiny whimpered. “You got hurt,” I said.
A small bluish bruise was already forming on his right eyes.
He shrugged. “If you think this is bad, you should see the other guy.”
“I don’t want to,” I said tightly. I knew my face was pale because Jackson wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Hey, I’m okay. Really.”
He held onto me, soothing away my nerves with the tightening of his arms. I didn’t think. I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on just as tightly.
“I was so worried Saturday night. I didn’t know what happened or what to do.”
“I’m sorry. I should have called you, but I didn’t know if you had fallen asleep or not. And Sunday was… well, let’s just say Sunday wasn’t a good day for me. Still, I should have called you. And I’m sorry.”
I nodded against his chest, before leaning back as far as his arms allowed, and looked up at him.
My eyes were begging him for the comforts only he could provide. He must have read it written all over my face as well because, with a small grin, he cupped my cheek and leaned down. I closed my eyes as soon as his lips touched mine.
Magic.
That was what it was.
Like magic.
The way his full lips pressed against mine, and how he held it there, not taking it any further than how it was.
And the sigh he did at the end?
Well, that was just as perfect.
I wanted to capture that sigh as if it was something physical, something tangible, and keep it in a jar so that I would always have it with me.
He pulled away, but I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes yet. I didn’t want the moment to be over, and it would be over the very second I register the other students in the hallway.
How I wished we were alone.
Jackson traced the seams of my lips with his finger before he pressed another kiss to my lips, this one quicker, yet equally nerve-wracking as the first.
The bell rang, and I finally forced my eyes opened. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me for that. Not when you just gave me the best kiss of my life.”
“The best?” I asked, incredulous. “But you’re…” He was experienced. That was what he was. It was hard not to hear stories about him in school. Not when most of the girls would brag to one and another that they had Jackson, even if it was only for one night.
And I knew better than to believe everything I hear, but with enough people talking about it, I figured there had to be at least some truth to what they were saying.
He must have known where my head was going because he pulled me in by the waist once again and said even more firmly, “The best.”
I nodded. I believed him.
“Come on, let’s get you to class.”
“Okay.” I quickly gathered up my things and closed the locker door. “I’m ready.”
7
Present: Jackson
Jackson stood at the front of his car, leaning on the hood as he looked up at the starless night.
Even the summer sky seemed sad.
A reflection of himself in the past days, when he could barely bring himself to get out of bed. If he could, he would have stayed in his room, the room that smelled so much like her and drowned in the memory of her as he began to fade away.
It was finally on the fourth day that he got out of bed and dressed, due partly because he needed to get to her, another to the fact that he could no longer smell her scent off her pillow.
It made him sick to the stomach when he was lucid enough between the binge drinking he indulged in to realize that it might be that way from then on. Where her scent would slowly fade into nothing.
Would all of his good memories of her fade as well?
He couldn’t imagine ever forgetting her when she had been the focal point for all of his memories.
He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or bad.
Not when he hurt so much.
He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up as it hung loosely from between his lips. He hadn’t smoked since he was fifteen.
The smoke was like a balm to his much too tender soul, and at the moment, he couldn’t bring himself to care about the risked to his health that one little cigarette could do.
Or the whole pack.
It didn’t matter anymore.
His eyes burned and couldn’t decide whether it was the smoke that burned them or something else.
Jackson didn’t cry. He didn’t cry when his dad died three years before from lung cancer. He didn’t cry when he took a beating from a group of kids in high school because they thought the fights he and Aiden used to host were rigged.
But he cried when he found his wife lying lifeless on their gray linoleum bathroom floor a week ago. Or when he held onto her and begged for Aiden to call the ambulance.
He never thought he was capable of crying so much then. It seemed, all of his tears, he gave to her.
During the ride over on the ambulance, he couldn’t help but think all the memories they shared.
He remembered their first kiss.
He wasn’t lying when he told her it was the best kiss he had ever received from anyone, even when all they did was pressed their lips together. He didn’t take any further. Not when they stood in the hallway with too many damn people around. But he had to taste her lips. He lost the will to fight against the urge. Just one taste, he had told himself. Only he found, one taste wasn’t enough. It was never enough. He had wanted more. Wanted to do
nothing but take her away from the school and hide her away from the world. But he had to slow down. At the risk of scaring away the best thing to have happened to him, he slowed down. Pulled away and walked her to class, as if he hadn’t been entertaining the thought of stealing her.
And she was so responsive to him. It was as if his one chaste kiss had affected her as much as it had affected him. She had trembled as she wrapped herself tightly in his arms, just as tightly as she had wrapped herself to his heart.
She felt so small in his arms then, he knew he would do whatever it took to take care of the girl in his arms.
He failed.
He slumped back against the car as another bout of shivers ran through his body, leaving desperation and emptiness in its wake.
He had begged, cried, and bartered with a God he never did believe in to begin with. Nothing worked, and even if there really was God, that God was cruel, too cruel.
The pack of cigarettes in his hand fell to the ground along with the lit one from his mouth, and he couldn’t even bring himself to care.
He would have thought he was done with the tears by now. But they still came, though no sound made way out his throat.
No, he was silent, and if there really was a God, could he hear Jackson’s silent pled to take away the hurt?
It didn’t work.
8
Past: Emily
I was able to catch glimpses of Jackson in the hallway during passing period. But since we didn’t share any classes together, it was impossible for more than a passing smile here and there, small touches from him that would send a kaleidoscope of butterflies to my stomach.
Grant noticed Jackson attentiveness as well, and I wasn’t sure if he approved, because he had been unusually quiet during some of the classes we shared together.
It didn’t matter. I was happy, even with all the whispers around.
In history class, Beth had walked by my desk with a scowl on her face as she stared down at me.
Jackson's Girl: Being His Duology Page 8