Torn Tears

Side Effect

I'm miserable.

It feels like a waste of time to be even a room away from Jess when I know that the odds of us being together one week from now are nearly nonexistent. I need Jess in a way that I didn't know you could possibly need a person.

Everything hurts.

My body from my fight and not being gentle with myself. My head from too many thoughts. My heart from circumstance.

I want to roll my aching body out of bed and walk down the hall, slip through Jess's door, hold her close. Or I want her to come to my room and lay beside me, let me keep my arms around her. Only that. Just to have her near me, no more and no less.

No, Lucas.

I can't let myself think too much or it just turns to pain.

My whole body is sore. Mostly from the tension I carried during the fight. Also, from not taking it easy the rest of the day. Maybe, because I kissed Jess too much.

I finger the cut in my lip, wincing. I don't regret it. The rat had it coming. Slowly, I take off my shirt. As my muscles contract and relax, lactic acid burns beneath my skin. I note that I have bruises on my stomach from blows that wouldn't have happened if I had my brother to wrestle with like I used to.

Jackson is another sore spot. I think about him probably more than is healthy, but it's impossible to stop. Time and again, I wonder if Jackson would support my actions relating to Jess. I wonder if he would hate me for putting everyone I love in jeopardy. Dad wasn't wrong. My plan is a good way to get shot if I screw it up.

I feel like Jackson would hate me.

I do, to an extent.

Jess is simultaneously the one part of myself that I love and my biggest source for self-loathing.

I guess it's true that you only break what you love the most.

I need to sleep. I'm growing scattered and restless. I need to shut my brain down and go to sleep.

Jess.

I've got to stop. I am not going to her room. I am going to stay right here in my own room on my own bed all night long without an incident. I will be a perfect gentleman. I am respectful to myself and the girl who I love more than anyone.

Yeah. I don't think sleep is coming soon.

I snatch a book at random from my desk and settle into the night.

My reading attempt lasts all of ten minutes before I get distracted. I miss the brief period of peace that Jess and I shared between her graduation and the day our life went to hell. Today is July 3. In less than three days, I will be nineteen. I was the youngest of my graduating class, not turning eighteen until the middle of summer.

I find myself crying silently without realizing when I began.

My door opens.

"I only want to sleep." Jess, wearing one of my T-shirts and knee length athletic leggings, comes into my room and sits on the edge of my bed uninvited.

I would never turn her away.

I swallow hard. Everything could be so easy if we cared about nothing. I roll farther to the side of the bed nearest the wall.

"I'll stay on my side and scare off the bad dreams." I meet her eyes.

"Thanks." She smiles weakly, seeming embarrassed.

If I were a nicer person, I would tell her that I was an inch away from going to her room.

I jerk the blankets back so Jess can slide underneath them.