by Jay, Jess
For a minute, he stood silent, then he closed his eyes. Thea waited, holding her breath. All he had to do was say yes and she would stay.
But he didn’t.
Tears closed her throat as he admitted defeat. She had wanted him to let her go but it still hurt when he did.
“Thank you.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“For what?”
“For understanding. For coming after me. For letting me go.”
He looked at her and gave a small smile that meant nothing, then nodded and shrugged. Thea tried to return the smile but found she couldn’t. She was going to miss him. She was going to miss Jojo. She had known them for a short period of time, but they had been through a lot together. A bond had formed and she hoped they remembered her fondly.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, and both of them knew it was a lie. Jack clenched his hands into fists, staring at the ground. She reached for his hand, but stopped short, knowing her will to leave was tenuous and any contact might break it.
Instead, she nodded, turned, and mounted her bike. She didn’t look back as she kicked off, but she didn’t speed away either. She felt defeated, lost. She had won the argument, had convinced him to let her go, but in doing so she condemned herself. It didn’t matter. It was the right thing to do.
Footfalls rushed up behind her and her bike jerked to a stop. Breath caught, she turned to see Jack holding the seat of her bike, breathing hard, but not from physical exertion.
“We’ll deal with it,” he said, meeting her eyes.
Thea didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He stared into her, expression conflicted but intent. She felt her resolve fracturing.
“What if we can’t? What if I’m broken and I can’t be fixed?”
“You aren’t broken,” he said as if he knew what he was talking about. As if he knew better than she did.
“What if-”
Jack cut her off, pulling her into an embrace. Thea froze, her mind clunking to a stop, her eyes wide and watery. Her arms hung limp at her side, like weights, her chin resting on his shoulder.
“It’s going to be fine,” he lied, and she believed him.
She didn’t have the energy to fight anymore, against him or against herself. Her bike fell to the ground and she stepped over it, melting into his embrace, breathing in his scent, his warmth. Her arms moved, her hands gliding up his back until they latched onto his shirt, holding him tight. It differed from the last time he held her, less intimate and more at the same time. She felt safe in his arms, as if he could make everything all right.
Maybe he could.
Thank You
I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank you for reading this book and for getting this far. It has been a crazy journey for me to get to this point, and I can’t say how much I appreciate each and every person who took their time to read my work. I am diligently working on the second episode of this series, and hope to get it out as soon as I can. If you would like updates on progress, as well as other fun content, make sure to sign up for my newsletter on my website! The link will be included in the About the Author section right after this. Thank you again!
About the Author
Jess Jay lives a relatively normal life in a relatively normal town somewhere in the United States. Her life is filled with her hobbies, of which she has way too many, and of puppies, of which she can never have enough. Ever since she was a child, she’s loved stories and has dreamed of telling them in one way or another. It wasn’t until college, where she got her bachelor’s degree in English and her master’s degree in Creative Writing, that she finally decided on doing so in prose. Shriekers is her first published work, and the start of what she hopes to be a long career.
You can connect with me on:
http://jessjayleigh.com