Loved

Chapter 1 - Fire and Ice

[Author note: Let me know what you think. Would love to hear your suggestions on how to make this story better! It's been growing in my heart for years. Now it's time to share...]

05 January 2015

I can't feel anymore

I don't care anymore

The hurt never reaches my soul

The reservoirs full up

With your hurt

With you hate

There's no space for me to feel

No emotion left to make me real.

Why is it when you're wounded,

You need to injure me?

Why, when your heart pumps ice,

Do you throw it all at me?

You see me, not feel me

As the burden of complaint

I'm the weight you own but don't need

I'm the sinner; you're the saint.

You've sold me in exchange for your freedom

For a life with less regret

I may not have money,

Perhaps not even looks,

But I had a heart to give

The one thing you never took.

- Ice

Just twenty more minutes. Twenty more, Jessie reassured herself.

She needed to get away. She wanted to be alone. She had to find some way to quiet the angry thumping in her head.

Attempting to breathe through her rising tension, Jessie used the back of her arm to wipe a bead of sweat off her forehead before making herself move.

"Here's your burger, sir," she said, placing the plate in front of a well-dressed man, probably in his early thirties. Mr Persnickety - she'd named him in her head.

"Are you kidding me!?".

Raising her eyebrows in question, Jessie waited for Persnickety to elaborate. She didn't trust herself to speak.

"I ordered a mushroom burger - not a cheeseburger! And a Coke Light. This," he gestured to the drink Jessie had brought him a while ago, "is not a Coke Light." He shoved the glass away, spilling the contents over the table. "It isn't exactly rocket science!"

Breathing in deeply through her mouth, trying to control her temper, Jessie leaned forward to clean the mess. The movement caused the raucous table behind her to erupt with comments she tried not to register. Despite the fact that her everyday outfit of jeans and a loose-fitting shirt were hardly provocative, Jessie never seemed escaped this kind of gross idiocy. Generally, she could handle it - she knew how to put them in their place- but today she was struggling to muster the energy. She felt too raw. Every word, every snicker set her nerves on edge, making her feel exposed. As though the hate-marred skin hidden beneath the thick denim of her jeans was somehow on display.