Lovers: Boarding School

_dance

"Jack? Jack? Are you here?" Violet stood at the boundary of a large, ovular clearing that had once overflowed with flowers the very same shade of white as the snow that buried them in pearlescent sleet. In the middle of the meadow laid a familiar, lanky body that was sprawled over the snow--the same way he did when white flowers were blossoming under a naked moon.

"Jack," Violet gasped, running to the middle of the meadow where he was laying. When she reached him, Violet noticed that his lips were a sickly pale blue and that his glassy eyes were looking upwards towards the sky.

"Jack," Violet said as she knelt down beside him and reached for him with violently quaking hands. She feared that he would not react, that he would be as lost as the barren landscape purging the colour from the trees, but when she scooped his face from the snow he awoke from his catatonic daze and looked up at Violet like she was spring.

"Violet?" he said groggily as if she'd awoken him from a nap and not a near hypothermic hibernation.

"Jack, what are you doing here?" Violet said, her eyes weaning tears. Jack, with eyes still glazed in absence, stared at Violet unaware of the frigid weather or Violet's worry.

"The flowers," he said looking out to the meadow, "they're gone."

Violet tugged on his arm harshly. "Jack, you shouldn't be here any longer. You'll get seriously ill."

"Why do seasons change?"

"Jack. We have to get back--"

"Why do things have to change?"

A lump the size of her fist stuck itself in her throat, strangling the words that were waiting their turn to escape her mouth. Slackening her shoulders, Violet cradled Jack's head to her chest and wept.

She did care about Jack. She felt that she, as the protagonist of this game, was responsible for him, that she was culpable of slaying his demons and leading him to the path of redemption because she was the protagonist of this game and she could save Jack with her "love." She wanted to be with him because she  sensed there was good in him, that there was humanity in this wounded "monster" despite his horrific misgivings, his unresolved traumas.

But she also cared about Gin and, dare she say, loved him. There was something there the breathless seconds before their lips joined, before their eyes were lost in each other's in wonder of this miracle they stumbled upon in the No Man's Land of a secret war. It was as undeniable as gravity and as the sun that always rose from the East.

It was that.

Love triangles used to be flimsy firecrackers to Violet, brief sparks of unnecessary splendour that fizzled out predictably and left no lasting mark. But this twisted geometry of relations wasn't a harmless firecracker; it seared and scarred like a flaming hot brand at her selfish, traitorous heart, a permanent tattoo of her indecisiveness.

This love triangle wasn't exciting or thrilling, predictable, or cheesy. She would've settled for either of those wonderfully simple things.

Instead, it was agonizing.

"Jack," Violet whimpered, "I'm sorry."

"Oh yeah, I forgot," Jack said his voice and eyes  vacant halls in haunted houses, "will you go to the Winter Ball with me?"

XOXO

"I think I should end this."

"You're finally going to make up your mind?"

Violet sighed and turned her eyes away from the glowing gold nightscape below to her midnight chauffeur lounging on the hood of his rented black sports car. Puffing on one of his signature modes of silent death, Gin's silvery eyes pierced through smoke stacks wafting over his face to her.