Broken

Chapter 2

                                                                                                    C ʜ ᴀ ᴘ ᴛ ᴇ ʀ ● T ᴡ ᴏ

It had only been a few short days since that fateful morning. A few short days since Lacie's heart had collapsed in on itself. A few short days since she had learned that the love of her life had been killed.

She hadn't looked at any of his stuff since then. She couldn't bear the thought of him being gone, not in her life anymore.

Another thing she also didn't do was open that box. It was sitting in front of her, on the small oak dinning table. Her arms were crossed on the table as she contemplated opening it.

Chances were it only held some cigarettes, like Jack had claimed it would would. But there was the slightest notion that he had really used it how it was supposed to be. Lacie could only hope it was the former as she unlatched the brass hook and gingerly lifted the lid.

The very first thing to hit her was the sweet smell of cigars.

The second thing was that he hadn't used it to store his cigarettes.

Lacie's eyes began misting as they grazed the contents of the box. With a certain tenderness, she picked up the first thing her eyes had found. It was a picture of her, worn down from all the times of a thumb slowly rubbing the image in love. She remembered the very day Jack had taken it.

4 years ago

"Jack." Lacie whined as Jack began traipsing through the field, tugging her along.

"What?" He asked a bit distractedly as he kept holding up his camera, looking for the perfect shot.

"What could there possibly be to take a picture of in an empty field" She was a bit peeved that they were spending their precious time together tromping through a field.

"It's not empty. And you can always find a perfect shot, even in the most broken and unsightly of places. You just have to search it out." He turned to her just long enough to smile tenderly, coaxing a smile from her lips.

She didn't say anything, just began looking for a perfect picture with him. Jack loved photography and could find beauty in even the most boring things. Only they weren't boring, not after he made you really look at them in a different perspective.

After an hour of corrupting the field without so much as one shutter from the camera, Lacie lay down right in the middle of the field, in the carpet of wildflowers. She let out a small sigh.

"What's wrong, Lace?" Jake plopped down next to her, setting his beloved camera next to him with extreme care.

"I just thought we would be spending more time with each other." She avoided his gaze and plucked an ivory flower from next to her arm, busying herself with twirling it in her fingers, "But you seem to want to spend more time with your camera, these days, than me."

"Lace. Lacie, look at me." Jack rolled onto his side as Lacie gained the courage to turn her head to the side, looking him right in the eyes.

"What?" She inquired with just a whisper.

"I love you. Someday, as soon as we're out of school and I ask your father, I'm going to make you my wife. I'm going to buy you a big, beautiful house in the mountains. I'll let you decorate it any way you dream of and I'll get you a dappled gray, just like you've always wanted. And it'll be just us two. Just Lacie and Jack, for all eternity." As he said it he had plucked a plum-colored flower from the ground and tucked it behind Lacie's ear.

He had watched her brightening expression as he'd taken her left hand and began stroking her fourth finger with his thumb. It was bare for now but he aimed to stay true to his promise and put a stunning ring on it.

Lacie's bright green eyes had grown large at the speech and began sparkling like the Tennessee sun shining down on a lake in mid-July, "Really? You really mean it?"

"Yes. You don't have to worry. You just wait, soon we'll have the rest of our lives together." He smiled at her blissful expression as he reached for his camera and snapped a picture of her. Capturing that moment forever.

"I think I just found my perfect shot." He mumbled before Lacie pulled his lips to hers.

 

She felt tears fall and trail down her cheeks at the memory. Only four years ago, and they had only been eighteen. They hadn't even graduated from high school yet. She let herself dwell in the happy memory for a little longer until she saw her tears begin to drip onto the other thing in the box. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt before picking up the second thing.

A stack of letters. All tied up with an all too familiar red silk hair ribbon.

The tears threatened to spill over once more as she saw that they were all addressed to him in her chicken scratch writing. He had kept all the letters she had sent him when he was away. She felt the corners of her lips tilt up.

Jack had always thrown away everything. He never kept birthday or holiday cards or anything like that, as, according to him, only women did. So she had always thought he hadn't kept the letters since they would only be another thing to keep up with. But she was proven wrong again.

She stopped herself from untying the ribbon, it would be too soon. She knew she couldn't read them yet without breaking, plummeting into a dead end place that she would never leave. With that in mind she lowered the letters and the picture back into the box and gave it one more gaze before lowering the lid and latching the brass hook. Lacie took the box in her arms and padded down the hall, pushing the door open to her bedroom and flicking the light on with her elbow.

She glanced around and tried to ignore the overwhelming memories of Jack that assaulted her every time she took a step in their bedroom. She had contemplated moving into one of the guest bedrooms upstairs but couldn't make herself do it. She didn't know what it was but even with the memories associated with the room, she just couldn't bear to slept in another.

Lacie went over to the bed and knelt on the cold hardwood floor, sliding the box right under the bed. She made sure to slide it next to her old shoebox, the one that held her letters from Jack, before standing back up and walking back to the dining room.

She was about to gaze out of the sliding glass door, out into the sunny country day, when something caught her eye. She noticed something metal sitting on the kitchen counter, glinting from the sunlight coming from a slit in the curtains. She walked over to it and picked it up, turning it over in her hands and examining it.

They were Jack's dog tags. She remembered that they had been giving to her the day that she had gotten the news of Jack's passing. She gripped them in her palm, squeezing her eyes shut and sending a silent prayer for Jack, before dropping the chain over her head. The tags rested right between her breasts, under her shirt, and she pressed her hand over them.

She felt more comfortable knowing that she was wearing them but she was nowhere close to being fixed. She didn't know if she ever would be fully fixed of this heartbreak.

Steph here! I didn't really proofread this either.... but I hoped you liked it! Also, I hope my chapters don't sound to robotic to you :/ not too great at writing emotions.

Dedicated to @IsabellaEvans for the beautiful cover :)