zentropy | mileven.

²⁴⁾ need

[JANE POV.]

❝ it's a long way through the cold day, why do I need besides what I, recoil and lay besides, why do I need that ! ❞

━ CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

⋆⋆⋆

MY HEART drops at the sight of him.

it's not like I don't remember what his eyes look like, but now, looking into them for the first time in months, I feel every ounce of passion and emotion I had spent so long trying to scrape out of the hollows of my bones come rushing back all at once with the final twang of the band's guitar, knocking me off of my feet so effortlessly, so easily, just the same as if I were looking at him for the very first time all over again—how does one look manage to do this to me?

more importantly, why in the hell is he here?

the intermingling of our eyes having its very own conversation through just the contact of a look was enough to block out the bustle of music and screaming kids surrounding me, applauding the last song on the set list. I barely even catch the echo of ben's voice seeping into each corner of the venue, announcing that the band will be taking a short intermission before continuing on with the show.

I'm too busy wondering if he's really standing there, or if it's just a figment of my imagination, a remaining piece of the idealized mike wheeler I had made up in my head for all those years come to life. if it's just a visual ghost of the way he left me and how I've been trying to murder the thought of him from my brain.

but as he began walking towards me,
I realized that this wasn't some illusory figure that had somehow manifested from the flood of fights and unrequited pain he had forced me under. this was real. he was real.

"jane."

his voice came out soft and poignant, drenched in a sense of sincerity and sorrow all at once, slapping me awake from the nights I had spent tossing and turning, trying desperately to rid him from my mind.

"mike," I breathed back, feeling a rattling pang enter my system, spreading throughout the premises of my flesh and drawing a hitch to my breath, "what–what are you doing here?"

"my, uh, my friends. they dragged me here," he replied, his eyes suddenly flickering back and forth at our surroundings, his gaze wandering about like a lost child tottering through gravity.

"your friends?" I questioned, not even noticing the way my voice had begun shaking at the seams.
"yeah," he mumbled, "kind of. troy, lucas, james, and uh, max."
"oh," I uttered, my own focus shifting from the boy's face to down to my feet for the first time since we had first locked eyes.
"max and I—we're not–she's with lucas now. we're all...friends," he stuttered, as it seemed he was almost desperate to let an explanation slip.
"oh," I repeated, still in enigmatic shock at his very presence and the very existence of our exchange.

what the hell was I even doing?
I had sworn that last night we fought never to speak to him again. and yet here I was, flustered and fallen apart, my arms and lungs spread open in opposite directions once more for him to reach inside my chest and take my heart for his own.

no. no more.

I had changed now. I was no longer the insecure scared little girl desperate for acceptance and a boy who would never pour himself into me like the way I had invested every inch of myself into him. I was tired of begging people to love me. I had spent too long trying to put myself back together after the way he had picked me apart limb my limb, tearing away at each tendon and muscle with the words of still loving her staining his tongue.
I didn't want to hurt anymore.