AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Despite this energy, Jamie remained distant, never returning the kiss.
I moved away. He stared at me, his eyes half-shut, zoned out.
“Jamie?” I asked.
“Hmm?” He swayed on his own, eyes shutting, lost in a trance.
“You need to wake up, love,” I said. “You knowme. The real me. You know the way I think, and I know you. We’ve been through so much these last few weeks. You need to wake up and remember.”
He shifted away from me and leaned into the table with his fists against the surface. “Of course I remember. You’re Jemma. The girl I dated. The last girl I ever expected to see again. The girl who tried to kill herself because I wasn’t there for her the way I should’ve been. And it took years of emotional maturity for me to realize the error in my ways. But what’s the use in knowing now?”
“Wrong.” I cupped my hands around his face, on either side, and tilted his head to face me. His eyes remained shut, though his hands found their way around my back once more. I walked him back against the wall as I spoke. “I’m Jemma. The girl who still loves you. The girl who will always love you.” We butted up against the wall, and he squeezed his fingers into my back.
“Jamie,” I continued, “you need to remember.”
“Remember what, Jemma?” he asked, eyes finally opening again. Through his haze, he studied me. “It’s been nice seeing you and all… but now you’re starting to really freak me out… the way you’re talking…”
I leaned forward once more to place my lips over his, but he turned his face to the right, and my lips met the other side of his face. My heart sank to my core as he shook his head. Then, his hands reached around mine and pulled them away from his chin. “We can’t do this. I’m sorry.Ican’t do this.”
“Jamie…”
“I’m sorry. It’s been great seeing you. Real great. Another time, it would’ve been great catching up with you. But not today.”
“Is it because you’re planning on killing yourself?” I blurted the words out before I could stop myself. “Where’s the rope? In your bedroom? That’s how you do it.”
“Rope?” he asked, eyes suddenly more alert than before. He moved away from me and headed to the other side of the table, placing distance between us. “What rope?”
He smirked as he continued. “Sorry to correct you on this psychic-wanna-be trip you seem to be on, but suicide isn’t my thing. Besides,ifI was gonna do something like that, I wouldn’t use a rope.”
“That’s how you die, Jamie,” I said. “That’s how you die, and you don’t have to do it because there are people that care about you. Especially me. And it will destroy me if you’re not here in this world.”
He started laughing. “Relax, Jemma. I’m not planning on doing anything like that. At all. So, you can go home now and tell my mom I’m okay and tell her she needs to stop asking and calling and leave me the fuck alone. Since that’s obviously why you came. Jesus Christ. Even you’re a liar.”
I scoffed. There may have been a time when he would’ve been correct—I had been a liar. Lying to everyone, including Jamie, about the internal state of my mind. About my internal wellness.
After everything I’d been through these last few weeks, however, Jamie couldn’t be more wrong.
“I’m not a liar,” I said. “Not with you… not anymore. And I certainly am not lying about this.”
“Alright, well. It’s time for you to go, okay?” He grabbed my hand and walked us toward the door.
“You need to listen to me…”
“I have been listening. Despite the fact you arrived at the worst time when all the fuck I planned on doing was getting blitzed out of my goddamn skull. I still let you in. I still talked to you. I gave you that much. But now, Jemma? You just… need to go.”
We reached the door, his hand still holding on to mine.
“Jems, I’m telling you this because I still have a place for you in my heart,” he said. “You need to leave and forget about me. I wouldn’t make for a good companion. I would only drag you down. The way I dragged you down before. So, please. Leave me be.”
Time slowed. Our hands entwined.
And as I breathed, I thought of good ol’ fucking Prometheus.
Always burning.
Despite Prometheus’ best efforts to rise above, despite his best efforts to subsist in his own personal hell… always, always, always burning.
Forced to relive the worst moment of his life over and over again as the beast returned for him specifically to make him suffer.
