Carry My Heart
Page 17
I didn’t do it because I wanted to forget him. Not really. I didn’t want to forget late nights listening to him talk about the world and what he was going to do to change it. Well, he discussed and I tried to keep up. Jake was smart. Really smart. I watched him grow from someone like me, who enjoyed trashy TV and comics to someone who could do quadratic equations in his sleep. He studied Latin, he understood Latin, he knew what scintillation meant. He taught me what scintillation meant. We used it every time we saw the fireflies. Sometimes I’ll use it now, I think it would make him smile. I didn’t do it because I didn’t want him in my life. He was my Jake. My best friend. Only he was better than me. When I first started to realize I was scared. I was scared that he’d leave me behind. That I wouldn’t be necessary or important. But that wasn’t him. I was his life in a way I never fully understood. That didn’t stop the pain, when it came, of course. The pain, well it was excruciating. Feeling like you couldn’t breathe when you were just standing there. Feeling like your heart was being torn out of your body when no one was touching you. Not being able to eat. Not being able to think. Not being able to count to ten without thinking that your brain was being tested more than it should.
I stare at the letters on the table, wondering what I’d read if I open them. I wonder if I’ll cry. I wonder if a spark of something will ignite in me a memory that will lead to other memories. However, I always just sit on the floor and hold myself tight, feeling empty, hollow, lost in my own head. Sometimes I just stare at the light bulb. I love it when it flickers at night. It reminds me of my one true memory. It reminds me of the fireflies. Scintillation.
Jake feels deep worry, weird and scary thoughts, pain, striking jarring nerves in the pit of his stomach. He’s unsure, so very unsure of himself and of me. Yet, in all his uncertainty, there is no doubt in his heart that he loves me. His doubt, his doubt stems from himself, stems from his worry about life. He is worried about pain. Not the pain that comes when you prick a finger or scrape a knee. The pain that comes from inside. That feeling was an unfamiliar emotion to me. However, his anxiety controls my body when we’re together. It’s something I don’t always understand. His memories and his thoughts, they scare me, they scare me because they make me worry for him. My friend, my best friend. He’s so much deeper and darker than I’d ever have known. His inner thoughts, they’re scary. I know that inside he’s troubled and unsure. I know that he’s desperately trying to prove himself, trying to find himself, trying to understand what will make him happy. I know that as much as he loves me, as much as I’m all he lives for, I’m not enough to fix him. And I know that he knows it too. I also know that I don’t know that I want to fix him. I don’t know that I care.
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Also by J. S. Cooper
The Hookup
The Forever Love Series
The Ex Games
Table of Contents
Title Page
Contents
Untitled
Untitled
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Prologue
Untitled
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Untitled
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Untitled
EXCLUSIVE TEASER
Prologue
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Also by J. S. Cooper