Ghosts ✔

094 • Juice/Dana

Juice put away the razor and stared into the mirror. His face still had a shade of gray and there were dark circles below his eyes. He tried to smile at his reflection, but the grimace he created made his stomach cringe. 

Maybe he should cancel it. Maybe he wasn't ready for this. 

But he didn't want to disappoint her again and despite his conflicting feelings he wanted to see her, wanted to be around her. Now he wasn't fighting so hard to be away from her, he had to admit that it felt good to have her around. He had the feeling she never judged him, that she knew him better than he knew himself and it gave him some peace of mind – a peace he had been craving for the past years. 

After taking a deep breath he went downstairs. The apartment was quiet. Fye was at work, but he wasn't sure whether he wanted her here or whether he was relieved she wasn't around. An encouraging smile might have helped him to steel his nerves, and at the same time he was glad she didn't see his nervousness. She was very understanding, but he knew she had a hard time dealing with the situation. That however encouraged him to go through. The sooner he had found a way to act around Dana in a normal way, the sooner he could offer Fye some stability. Since his conversation with Dana, Fye and he had kissed a couple of times, but they hadn't gone further. To his surprise, it wasn't that hard to live without the intimacy – he concentrated on other things now, tried to find other ways to show her how much he cared about her. Whether he was doing it for her, for himself or for Dana, he didn't know. 

Maybe for all of them. 

He closed the front door behind him and walked to his bike. A week had passed since his outburst at the clubhouse. He knew he had destroyed something that night, but he felt no regret. Maybe it had happened in a rude way, but he had told Amy nothing but the truth. It wasn't his fault that Kozik had hidden the true nature of his relationship with Dana. Mentioning something that had happened such a long time ago was easier to accept than the fact that his friend hadn't told him that Dana was still alive, not even when he was about to murder her friend. 

His nerves made his hands sweat as he pulled over the bike in front of Kozik's house. The past days Dana and he had shared a few words, but there had always been others around. Today, none of his brothers would be with them. That knowledge frightened him; what if he would behave like an ass again? What if he could no longer control his feelings for her? He tried to find some middle ground among all the emotions she called up inside him, but it was hard. Still he hadn't been able to say 'no' when she had asked him to go to the carnival with her. He had been close to refusing, though, but the words of their last conversation had been racing through his mind; that they needed to find a new way to behave around each other, that it would make them both happy. 

And he wanted her to be happy. 

Damn, he wanted to be happy too, if that was still an option. At some moments he even wondered if she might ever be able to forgive him for what he had done to Cherry, but he kept sending these thoughts away. Before he was his old self again, he didn't want to try to get into a relationship with her. It was probably healthier if they both went their own way, and if he could handle being friends with her, it would feel like a blessing as well – something he neither deserved. 

The door opened before he had gotten off his bike, as if she had been waiting for him. She was wearing a dark jeans and a green chiffon shirt, that was longer on the left side than on the right. 

"Hey." She showed him a hesitating smile as she had neared him. 

"Hey."

Although Dana always wore a bit – or a little more than a bit – make-up, he had the feeling that she had really tried to look more beautiful. Not to seduce him, he thought, since she wasn't wearing some hot dress, but to feel more confident.