Glass Eye (Eyeless Jack X Reader)

Chapter Forty-Two

 Tim, unexpectantly, was behaving quite a bit more reasonably than Brian, whom for the most part, always kept a level-head. Of course, I could see Brian's perspective; I hadn't been able to finish the assignment in a timely manner. But then again, there was reason enough to assume that the boss himself had a hand in making it so difficult to proceed with her. Perhaps it was necessary for him to get involved; I never could have handled her on my own, and the better part of me knew that he knew that fact too.

"You're hurting me,"

Not sparing the woman even a glance, I loosened the grip I held on the back of her shirt as I continued to push her forward toward the cabin, toward (Name).

The only place I had come to find that was even capable of clearing my ever-overflowing mind had been converted into one of the only places I had ever felt compelled to actively avoid. Seeing her meant speaking to her, and speaking to her meant I would have to endure the onslaught of emotions unknown. Feeling something for her wasn't enough; I hadn't even a single spare moment of time to sort out exactly what those emotions were, and until I knew, I wanted to stay distant.

Deep down, somewhere miles beneath my skin, miles beneath my understanding, a burning desire for her had been ignited every time her lips had met my own. And that's when I knew it had become dangerous; not just for her, but for everyone involved. If she was to be hurt, the culprit was to be dead, and being beside me assured that she would get hurt. I feared that if I didn't solve my own internal conflicts regarding her, I'd be the one to hurt her. I knew I would be the one to hurt her. Unintentionally, I'd hurt her, but irrevocably, I loved her.

"Where are you going, Jack?"

Brian's voice, laced with confusion and annoyance, pulled me from my melancholy thoughts.

I took a moment to intake my surroundings; I had been straying pretty far off the path. As I veered back over onto the original path, I found myself wondering if veering back to the original path with (Name) was something even tangible. Thinking about myself less and about her more had served as answer, however. It had gone too far, as had we. And we had let it. And if I was honest, I'd let it go too far a million times over.

--(Name) POV--

My suspicions had, yet again, been confirmed as I read through any and every news article I possibly could whilst I remained alert for Jack's awaited return. 

Everybody had been pronounced more than dead upon arrival by medical staff, all except for Jack. No traces of him were left; there was no blood, there were no fingerprints, and there was not even one single shred of evidence about what had truly happened in those woods behind his college.

I couldn't blame him for wanting to cover up what had happened to him; he never seemed very willing to speak about it. I outright refused to believe that going through something so grotesque, something so traumatic, didn't leave him without a few invisible scars.

I couldn't help but to let a few tears roll down my cheeks as I grieved a version of Jack I hadn't been blessed enough to know. If only I had been there, if only I had been able to save him.

But what was done was more than done, and now, it wasn't a matter of Jack figuring out how to love somebody else, it was a matter of getting Jack to love himself. As much as I knew that, the selfish part of me still pondered if it was possible for him to love someone else at the same time. I knew I had fallen in love with Jack; it would have been harder not to.

He had hurt me, but sickeningly enough, in all the very best ways. He had forced me to face the darkest parts of myself and embrace them fully. I hadn't loved Henry in the way that I had told even my closest friends that I had; I lied about loving him to the point where I had even convinced myself. But there was no way to love someone who had no love for their own life; someone who never even tried. Is that what was so different about Jack? That he tried? Even after all he had been put through, he still had that spark, though small and indignant, that flickered, the smoke of hope billowing from within him, spilling from his every pore. Jack could one day see himself as I saw him, and that was all the difference I needed. Deeply, and rather foolishly, I fell for him, and I surely wouldn't be getting back up very soon. In a way, we had been able to overcome our stark differences and grieve together in our separate ways, fully on the same page almost never, save for when our lips met and silently told each other all that we needed to really know; we had somebody in our corner that understood.