Half of My Heart ✔️

38 | running in circles

"I'm taking a shower first," I declare, stopping in front of cabin number 12. Jack follows close behind, holding both our bags.

I twist the key in the lock several times, twisting the handle and attempting to open the door to the cabin. I do this for a few embarrassing seconds, but the door won't open.

"Need some help?" Jack asks behind me. I shake my head and keep trying.

"Let me do it," he says, sliding his hand over mine and twisting the key in the lock in the exact same way I had. But this time, the door creaks open when he tries.

"Unbelievable," I huff. As Jack opens the door for me to walk in, I think about the last time Jack had to help me turn a lock. It was a few weeks before our relationship began.

And here we are, a few weeks after it ended. We're back at square one, and I can't bring myself to confront how weird that is.

"It's all in the hands," Jack says, interrupting my thoughts. Even in the dark, I can see him flash a lazy smile.

Jack sets down our bags and flicks on the light. The cabin is set up a lot like a dorm room: a large main room with a small kitchenette in the corner and a door to a small bathroom. But there's one major difference between this cabin and a normal dorm room.

"This is just perfect," I say, sitting on the single queen-sized bed. I understand why there's only one bed in here—to keep Jack's family in the dark about our break-up—but this laughable inconvenience just solidifies the oddness of our situation. "Good thing neither of us sleeps naked."

Jack throws his suit jacket over the foot of the bed. I watch as Jack unties his tie and slings it behind his neck. He undoes the first two buttons of his white dress shirt. "Who says that I don't?" He says, dragging his hand through his manicured hair, returning it to its usual messy state. "A lot can change in two weeks."

I start taking off my heels. "Well, if you even try to get into bed in your birthday suit, you'll be going to campus with one less appendage," I say. Jack watches me, leaning up against the wall. I turn my attention back to my shoes, ignoring the heat crawling up my neck from having him look at me like that.

The disheveled suit look should not look that good on him. Then again, I've yet to see a look that Jack has failed to pull off.

"You won't have to worry about that," he responds. I still feel his eyes on me. "Just give me a blanket and a pillow. I'll sleep on the floor."

I groan. "Don't be such a hero, Jack. Bullshit you're sleeping on the floor," I say. "It's fine. It's not like we're gonna spoon or anything."

Wrong thing to say. Now we're both thinking back to the many times that we did spoon. Before I allow myself to get lost in the memory of his body curved against mine, I try to change the subject. "What you did was really sweet. Walking Haley down the aisle."

He turns from me and sits in the rocking chair in the corner of the room, running his hand through his hair again. "Yeah, it meant a lot to both of us. And Mom," he says. "I wanted to do everything I could to make sure she didn't feel his absence."

I straighten, setting my heels on the bed beside me. Jack hardly ever mentions his dad, even in passing like this. But despite how sore of a subject it is for him, throughout our relationship, he tried his best to open up to me. From what Archer has told me, I know that I'm the only person that Jack has shared so much with.

I also know enough to know that his dad is probably the most damaged part of Jack's life—that one painful wound that has never quite healed properly. The reason Jack had to learn to be a man far sooner than he should have.