Your name is Jane Crocker, and you do not want to be in love with Jake English.
You had felt a comforting sense of relief alongside the pain when you had to last without seeing his face for weeks on end - but those occasional pesters from him always brought you right down, face-first, into cement. And at the same time, raised you up so high that clouds filled your eyes and made you dizzy.
You should have anticipated that seeing him in person again, after a couple months of being with Roxy on LOPAN, would tear your insides out and set them aflame, while you could do nothing but stare on from the sidelines. And when his jolly smile became directed towards you, paired with a genuine "It's great to see you, Jane!", you were just a wreck.
Good thing putting on a believable smile while dying on the inside had become a successful practice for you.
It's always hard to keep back the tears when he wraps his arms around you, warmly possessive and sweet as his hugs are, giving you a small squeeze to let you know he's here and there is hope. When he says you look exactly the same, and he's missed your face. That you look beautiful even with your fake mustache. You never know how to respond with anything but a short laugh that's always cut off by the choke in your voice, embarrassing and obvious enough that you have to bury your face into his chest.
You feel like an idiot.
You still love him, that ray of sunshine you call a friend, and with every ounce of your being you wish to rip the feelings out of your heart and pound it into submission beneath your heel.
But whenever that familiar green text pops up on your screen, or his voice is in your ears, you find yourself falling. Every single time. And you want to close your eyes and drown in it, drown in the feeling that, perhaps, there is hope for you. That one day your lips will connect, and Jake's eyes will be on nothing but you.
This game isn't the only thing playing you.
When he pesters you after a week of silence, of peaceful quiet for your mental and emotional state, and he says he needs your advice - surrounding the subject of Dirk Strider, of course - a chord within you strikes, tightens so painfully that you have to take a few minutes of deep breathing before your fingers move to type out a reply.
You want him to be happy. You want to be happy, knowing he and Dirk are a good pair.
You want his eyes and his laugh and that smile to stop being so goddamn beautiful when those things will never be yours, to quit making the world seem so right when it's crumbling around your feet. When it's such a dark and dangerous place.
Jake English is always the light that shines through, and your throat closes up when you realize this, imagining his toothy grin.
There are times when you wish you could be anyone but Jane Crocker. That you could be... Jack Crocker. Or one of those insane trolls. But you know, deep down, that it wouldn't change much. He would still steal your heart, every single time.