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With all hands pointing to the heavens, midnight arrived and with it, Jake returned.
Moonlight shone its silver sickle shimmer upon the world. A soft breeze seeped through her open window and ruffled her loose hair as she bit her lip, staring down at the dark garden. Her eyes scanned the grounds from side to side, head on a swivel as muffled grunts and panting neared where she waited.
Her heart pounded furiously, a shake in her hands as she held her breath to listen for the sound of her father racing down the halls. It never came. He slept like the dead. They would be safe tonight. There was a scuff and a sharp intake of breath that made her jerk and peer over the edge as a pair of familiar hands grasped the white windowsill. The royal blue curtains flittered in the breeze. Her web-fine smile solidified and her stomach fluttered, butterflies flying with abandon as Jake climbed the side of her house to get to her.
She saw his knuckles bleach bone pale, as he gripped the edges of the window frame and pulled himself up.
His blackened hair, wild and curly, danced upon his sweat bejeweled forehead as she stepped back to allow him inside. The muscles in his arms and shoulders trembled and pulled tight as he carefully swung a leg inside, the rest of him following and they stood and drank each other in as they both went still.
Her hands flexed at her sides, the urge to reach out and grab him almost impossible to resist. Her ears strained as they listened to the house settling, the creaks and groans of old wood too similar to footsteps for her as Jake met her eye. So many words passed from his sea-glass eyes and into hers, heard as though he whispered them against her skin. She knew he read her responses in her own gaze.
I missed you. We don't have long. I shouldn't be here. But I want you here. I'll stay until you sleep. Don't say goodbye when you go, my heart can't take it.
Instead of speaking any of them aloud, she'd heard them all before, they moved as one into an embrace so complete; she forgot she couldn't keep him. Just for a moment—he was hers again. But what a glorious moment it was. The stinging ache once reality swept through in the morning would never heal. Would always bleed. Until he returned from wherever he was hiding to spend a night with her.
Her heart couldn't withstand the constant pain of watching him go. She couldn't stop it from happening, though she had tried and tried. Jake wore a sad smile as she pulled back to study his face, down-turned at the corners of his plush mouth as his hands rubbed her back. His olive skin was ashen, lack of sunlight and good nutrition leaving their worn down markings on his handsome face. Dark shadows like thumbprint bruises marred his under eyes, lines of strain bracketed them and his lips. The stress of a life on the run hung from him like a weighted cloak he said he could never take off.
Her chest tightened, throat constricting to the point of pain as she swallowed down her pleas for him to stay or take her with him, and focused on having him here now. He even smelled tired, a mustiness that lingered despite the fresh scent of the soap he'd used to clean up before visiting her. She dare not ask where he was staying after tonight. He would leave faster if she did.
She cleared her throat. "Come on, tell me what happened."
Jake slumped in her hold, a harsh, toothpaste-minted breath pouring down her neck as he buried his face in it. She furiously fought off the burn behind her eyes and closed them, shoving the welling tears away as she nudged him with a gentle knee, pleased when he immediately moved to help her guide them over to her bed. The narrow little bed could barely fit the pair of them, but it never stopped them before.
She let him go only long enough to lie down on her side, letting him lay curled around her from behind as he pulled the blankets over them, holding her tight as though to keep her together. She knew it was the opposite way around. He needed to feel her and touch her, so he wouldn't disintegrate. It wasn't fair.
It wasn't fair that this kind, decent man had to live a life of utter misery and suffering just because terrible people held the power and they wanted no one to know it. Jake had discovered the truth, and he paid for it every second of every day. His only respite was here with her. Yet, the knowledge of their imminent separation tainted their time together, as they knew they had to part before dawn could break.
No matter how tightly they held onto each other, he couldn't stay. It was a love that burned fiercely, like a candle fighting against the wind—brief but blindingly bright. They found one another at the wrong time, in a world that was never meant for them. Every shared glance, every stolen and borrowed moment, filled them with a bittersweet joy, as they knew that time would always be their enemy.
That invisible clock ticked away in her mind as Jake muttered into her hair.
"Nothing, don't worry. Nothing happened. I've been left to dread."
She inhaled slowly, holding it, counting to five before releasing it.
"They haven't found you, though?"
His head shook. "No. They just... the dread—making me wonder where they are and what they're planning is worse than them finding and killing me. Either I'll run out of hiding places or they'll grow tired of playing with me. I'm not sure—I'm not—it doesn't matter."
Indignation rose inside her, but his arms dragged her closer, and he was mumbling into her ear.
"Please, let it go. I don't want to fight, love. I'm tired. I just want to be with you."
She swallowed the mouthful of caustic words and demands he be honest with her, nodding as she stared at the window neither had closed. A spider crawled across her peeling wallpaper, blue and white with daisies printed on it, but she paid it no mind. Her precisely chosen words, intended to soothe his instinct to protect and stay away from her, left her lips like a prayer.
"One day, when this is all over, all we'll have is time to spend however we want it. Don't say it'll never happen. I don't believe that," she said as she felt him tensing. "You'll be free and you'll be with me. I need you to trust me in this, Jake. If you can't believe in yourself, believe in me."
His answering sigh was a tiptoeing shiver down her spine as the tension left him and his heat bled through her. Her pulse kicked up as his hand traced shapes on her abdomen, the skin quivering as she tried not to wriggle. It had taken so long for him to be comfortable touching and being with her. She didn't want to tell him she was ticklish and ruin the moment.
"Okay. I'll believe in you, love. You're the only good thing I have left."
Her heart fractured, it was already Kintsugi; she did not think it could take much more abuse before it shattered. A sob crawled up her throat, but she trapped it there—refused to give it life as Jake deflated and pressed a kiss into her neck.
She hunted for something to say that wouldn't trigger his volatile disposition. Since she'd forced him to allow himself to feel his emotions, they were on a hairpin trigger and she was never sure when she'd pull on one. He'd spent years planting landmines in the ether of his thoughts in order to protect himself. Then came she, dancing around them, pushing his buttons, and falling in love with him. The price she paid for that, his temporary visits and his leaving, was worth the agony they left behind.
Sometimes, she would go so long without seeing him that her mind almost convinced her he was fictional by the time he finally fell through her window. Now he was here, he'd become real again. She could touch, kiss and hug him— love him.
She shifted in his arms, turning her head to look at him as she said, "Everyone is asking about you, wanting to know you're okay. I tell them little things, nothing that could harm you. Don't worry. But I keep you mostly to myself. I hope you don't mind."
She felt selfish around Lilly and Hannah sometimes. They were desperate to see Jake again, but she was the only one he returned to. She hoarded him for her own like a possessive dragon for the few fleeting hours they had together.
In her fanciful mind, their love and time together were like a fragile rose, gorgeous and fragrant, but destined to wither in the morning. Though she'd press the flowers between the weighted pages of an old book, dry them out, and frame them behind a thin sheet of glass that she could take out and peer at the rusted colors when the waiting for news grew intolerable.
Jake's head shook again, his voice barely audible, but she heard it all the same.
"I don't mind. I keep you to myself, too. They're safer knowing very little about me. You would be too—"
"Hush, you said you didn't want to fight. Don't start something you can't finish," she snapped quietly, grabbing his hand as he swirled his initials into her skin.
She threaded their fingers together and held tight until he sighed.
"Tell me something good." His voice was a tremulous thing, so many conflicting emotions in it, she couldn't pick one out and give it a name.
He often asked her that. She never knew how to tell him how dark life was without him.
In the stillness of her loneliest nights, her world lay shrouded in a desolate cloak of grey. Adrift in the absence of his comforting presence, her world was empty of warmth and color. His departure rendered everything monochromatic, akin to an old faded photograph—devoid of life and spirit. A pervasive hollowness and yearning would envelop her, casting a pall over every part of her.
Yet, when he returned, a stunning metamorphosis took place. Her world transformed into a kaleidoscopic wonderland, flaunting its vivid hues and radiance only while he was wrapped around her. The venom green of his eyes, the rose flush his touch always commanded, and the red wine stains his mouth left on her throat, the violets his fingers brought to bloom on her thighs were her favorite.
In his firm embrace, he resurrected all the colors missing from her life, flooding her with a grand but tarnished luminosity that only he could ignite. It was as though she could only see clearly when he was with her. But he needed to hear something positive to ignore the many voices in his head telling him to leave her once and for all.
"I'm taking self-defense classes and last week, after weeks of him beating me up, I finally put Dan on his ass. He took me out for a drink after and we got drunk and toilet papered Phil's house. He's still furious."
Jake's snort made her bite her lip to keep the bubbling, childish laugh locked inside. He still hated the bartender. Any mention of an inconvenienced Phil brought him joy. She used Jake's distraction to wiggle around until she faced him, hiding her face under his chin as she pressed a kiss to his throat. The warm, musky scent of his skin eased some part of her she didn't realize had been so tense.
"Next time, wet the toilet paper and throw it like snowballs. It'll be like chipping away cement by the time he can get it off."
She chuckled, pulling back to look at his smiling face, a sight so rare, she often wondered if it hurt him to do it. He was beautiful, whether brooding or grinning. She loved his poison eyes and his rough stubbled jaw, sharp enough to cut diamonds. She loved the dimple in his right cheek whenever he smirked. The bold brows that spoke more than his plump mouth did were her favorite. She was fluent in the language of those dark eyebrows. One was half cocked above his twinkling eyes. The light of life finally returned, and she leaned in instead of replying. Kissing him as she'd longed to do from the second he'd messaged her to tell her he'd be here tonight.
As their lips met, time, that brutal mistress, at last, went still. It was both familiar and new, like she was meeting him for the first and last time all at once. Soulful and tender, his mouth parted for her and she swept her tongue inside to get his taste back in her mouth. He gave a gruff groan, his hand sliding around her and splaying wide on her lower back, sending ripples of lovely heat over her skin as he kissed her back.
Months of yearning and begging the sky to return him to her culminated in that kiss. It ran through their bodies like a thrumming charge, their hands grasping and dragging them closer, legs entwining under the fluffy pink blanket. She breathed in his familiar scent, savoring the taste of their long awaited reunion as heat and want built and built.
Every worshipping caress of his fingers up and down her spine, his other hand lacing through her hair, was a testament to the depth of their connection despite the months apart. But as the kiss deepened, so did the ache in her heart. They both craved touch, and their kiss bled with desperation, reflecting their shared silent plea for the night to prolong its ephemeral grace, which they could taste on their tongues.
Soon, the instinct to feel skin on skin took control, and the bed shook and creaked as they snatched and grabbed until a feast of bared flesh lay before them. Panting breaths and hearts hammering in tandem, she felt their twinned anticipation in that split second before his first touch, electrifying every nerve in her body and brain.
That anticipation was something precious, intimate, and private. Something she treasured so highly she'd move heaven and earth just to feel and be with him for a night. Jake's entire being came aflame as the tension between them heightened and his hands remapped her body, familiarizing himself with her and what made her come alive for him once more.
They couldn't stop touching and tasting, his lips latching on and sealing over hers as arousal and heat spiraled. Teasing and tempting, he made her burn beautifully. As his fingers found their way between her legs, he coaxed murmurous sighs and whimpers from her as she grasped his shoulders. Her rushing blood roared in her ears. She couldn't get close enough or touch him as much as her greedy hands wanted to.
She had to memorize every single detail of him to tide her over until the next time. The burn behind her eyes came back, spreading across her cheekbones as she kissed him and kissed him, silently urging him to push inside her. Each caress of his hands, and the brush of his tongue in her mouth, ignited a storm of sensation, heat and desire filling her up. As she felt him slide inside her, her eager body pulling him deep, the breath in her lungs passed from her to him and soon, she couldn't think of anything but him.
How right he felt. The hurt she paid for this moment all seemed worth it as he made it his mission to erase the looming distance between them. Her nails scraped down his back as he moved within her, their shifting bodies slick with sweat and clinging to each other. She gave him all of her and knew he'd keep it safe, as he gave her all of him and she let no one know he had been here.
When he broke the kiss, his eyes fastened on hers, peering into her very soul as she arched and let out a quiet, airy moan. She could feel him in every part of her. In her clenched fists and stinging eyes, her trembling lips and curling toes, buried inside her—he was real and he was everywhere.
He was hers. He belonged to her.
He was hers —only until the morning.
A sob not entirely of pleasure slipped from her and echoed the distress in his emerald eyes. Silver lined his gaze. Anguish screamed through his fingers as they dug into her skin and refused to let go. She pulled him down and drank from his mouth until she was drowning in him. Salt spilled free of her lashes and ran in rivulets down her face and into her ears as he returned her famished kiss with equal intensity. When she lifted a shaking hand to cup his cheek, she noticed his face was wet, too.
Pleasure and fire cascaded through her like dominoes falling into place as tension coiled and coiled inside her, tautening until she quivered and couldn't breathe. Every languid movement, every bittersweet touch, it all brought her to a peak she desperately needed to leap off its edge, shatter like glass and burn, but part of her wanted to stay there. Balanced on the edge, stop time just to feel him like this forever, keep him here on this plateau because the crash after she leaped into the sparkling abyss of release would be a bone crush.
She felt the same need run through his body with every plunge he made inside hers. His intensity increased as the tension shivered and pulled too tight, their bodies pressed so tightly together. He didn't need to touch her to make her fall off the precipice. She had felt nothing like the feeling of pure, overwhelming pleasure he inspired in her. Grasping hands, and shaking limbs, muscles jumping under her clawing fingers as he followed her into bliss were all she knew as she burned to ash beneath him.
There was neither a scream nor a shout for either of them as release took them down into euphoria. A relieved sigh and clutching embrace as he collapsed on top of her were the only sounds. He smelled like her now, their intertwined scents a fragrance she wished she could bottle and wear while he was gone. He greedily inhaled her sweat dappled skin as they shuddered and shook, both perfectly content to stay locked inside each other forever as his mouth found hers again.
Their twin pounding hearts and sticking skin melted together, the tears still rolled down their faces, and neither bothered to swipe them away as fatigue settled into their bones. She counted his heartbeat, stroking her fingers down his back as they said everything they couldn't say aloud into the kiss. Her eyes wanted to close and stay closed, sleep calling like a siren luring a sailor to their death.
She wanted to fight it, stay up all night and watch him leave. The thought of seeing him leave her drenched her mind in frosty water. A jagged, iced pain sliced through her chest as though someone had knifed her and twisted the blade. Her sharp gasp turned into a sob as Jake shushed her, parting from her lips for a second to soothe her.
"I'm so sorry, love. If I could stay longer, I would. You know I always promised to come back to you. That promise still stands."
She nodded and drew him back down to her. Silencing them both. She didn't want to talk, she just wanted to feel until she fell asleep. If their love was a flame for just one night, it was better off guttering and dying while she wasn't awake to see it. It was easier that way. She knew it was. But invisible blood would still leak from the wounds his absence left behind. Still, she enjoyed his lazy kiss and never wanted it to end.
Eventually, exhaustion forced them to part. Sleep stole them away, not before she opened her tear-stained eyes and memorized him in that vulnerable moment. He was so young. Only four years above her twenty-two years, but the weight of his running life and the gradual wearing down of his hope had aged him.
She internally vowed to set him free. An oath she would endeavor to fulfill before his next visit. One day, he would be hers for real.
One day, he would only leave for work in the morning and come back for dinner each night.
One day, this pain of separation and the nagging worry he'd been caught or killed or jailed would not exist. It was the last thought she had before sleep claimed her, too.
When she woke to the sun gleaming through her closed window, her bed bereft of any sign of him, her mosaic heart disintegrated into a million glistening pieces. The pain was so acute, she barely felt it. Like her mind tried to protect her from it. She lay curled sobbing silently on her side, hugging the pillow he'd slept on tight against her chest and she huffed in his already fading scent as icy agony spider-webbed through her veins.
She lay in a bed of sorrow and chilly fury until her eyes ran dry and her chest stuttered in every breath. It was all her own making. She'd asked for this. Claimed she could handle it. Claimed she was strong enough to endure until they could thrive. But the sobering reality, with only his ghost left behind, always struck her like a sledgehammer blow to the skull.
It was startling in its violence and intensity—she half expected to look down and see she was dripping in blood. She never got used to it. But for him, she did it.
For them , she did it.
As she readied for a long, horrendous day where she had to hide all the broken shards of her behind her heavy makeup and her pretty clothes so her family and friends wouldn't catch wind of her secret trysts. She slowly repaired her broken heart. It never quite felt the same, but she did it. It wasn't until she finished styling her hair that she saw the note he'd left for her, poking out from under a book on her nightstand. Her eyes swiftly devoured his neat handwriting.
Please forgive me for the hurt I'll cause you while I'm gone. I have to leave, but I don't want to. It's hard for you to watch me go. Please believe me when I say that it's almost impossible for me to leave and I'd give anything to stay.
Know this, love—every step I take away from you is a constant torment of its own. I struggle not to run back to you. Your pain weighs on me. I know how much you hurt. You try to hide it, but I can feel it. I love you; I do. But I will understand if one day you can't do this anymore. If that day never comes and we can do all the things you say we will once this is over, it'll all be worth it. I'll see you again, love, I promise you that.
You're the only thing on my mind when I'm gone. I'm always working to get back to you.
Yours soon,
I love you,
J .
A tiny splash of water made the ink bloom on the paper as it quaked in her hand. In an instant, all the work she'd done to make herself appear whole again to her loved ones dissolved. She had the presence of mind to be glad she put on waterproof eye makeup before the floodgates opened. It was as if someone had cut her throat as her mouth opened to howl at the sky, but no sound came out. The note crumpled in her hand instead of allowing herself to crumble.
A gaping chasm had opened in her chest, as if someone pried her bones apart and proceeded to pour salt in the wound where her heart once rested. She pressed her fist to her mouth as she dragged in oxygen through her nose.
She could do this. It always felt like this that first day, but slowly, it would ease. The slicing agony would fade into a grinding pain, then that would become a numbing ache she could live with and push aside when needed. Just get through today.
Just make it through the day. Her parents moved around downstairs as she gradually rose from the ashes of his leaving. She painstakingly mended all her internal gashes with clumsy stitches, and the sound of her dad leaving for work was the jarring soundtrack to her new life. Mere seconds before her mom called her down to eat, she gathered herself and hid the balled up letter Jake had left in her vanity drawer.
She stole a quick glance at her reflection. Her red-rimmed eyes would give her away, but she would blame it on the book she was reading. Her mom—a teacher—wouldn't question it.
As she left the sanctuary of her room, she braced herself for a day of acting perfectly fine. It was like slipping into character as she painted on a smile and forced warmth into her voice. It wouldn't last, but it would have to do.
Jake was gone.
Again.
He would come back.
Again.
And she would hurt.
Again.
But it would be worth it.
It would be worth it.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket as she chatted about her plans for the day with her mom. They were on summer break, and she couldn't check the messages until her mom left to drive into Duskwood. Her mom often went to the Gate of Hope to help Cleo's mom in organizing a fundraiser to clean up the waterfall after Richy filled the water with something toxic.
Her heart raced faster and faster as she read Alan's texts. Hope and dread blended together as she hurried to leave her house, and find out what Alan meant. She was driving to Duskwood before her mind could catch up. Alan's messages echoed in her mind as she drove, and crossed her fingers.
Alan Bloomgate: I don't want to get your hopes up, MC, but I may have found something.
Can you come down today?
If not, it can wait. As I said, I don't want to get your hopes up, but it's niggling at me. I think there might be something we can use as leverage. Let me know what time to expect you. Alan.
Hope laced through her pining brain as she drove. She welcomed it. Encouraged it to grow wild and free. This fresh hope Alan had gifted her would carry her through the ache of missing Jake.
She smiled as she passed the cheerful town sign, welcoming her to Duskwood, and put her foot down.