"You're getting married!" Exclaimed Jackson.
"Not if you give me a reason not to!" April said, her words choked with tears.
For that moment when April thought Jackson had died in the explosion, she thought part of her had died too. Everything inside her screamed out in pain and she felt that she would be swallowed up by the earth – until he emerged through the flames. That's when she knew.
"Jackson…" April said, taking a step forward, "I love you. I haven't stopped. I don't know how to stop but you're what I want. You've always been what I want!"
Jackson, face aghast, remained motionless in his hospital bed, burn wounds visible all over his chest. His mouth moved to speak but he could not think of the words to say.
"April…" he breathed.
April moved closer to his bedside. Sobbing, she crumpled to the floor next to him because she didn't need him to answer. She knew. She knew before she had made it to his bed that they would never be together. The suffocating self-realization that she loved him and had given him everything – only to never get any of it back – consumed her.
"April…I don't know what to say."
"That's an answer enough," she sobbed.
Without looking him in the eyes, she ran out of the room. She did not see or know where she was going but she had to keep moving because she knew that the moment she stopped it would hit her. All of the pain would fill her so she must keep moving.
The thoughts found her anyways. She knew she could not work here anymore as long as Jackson was here. It would be unbearable. She could not speak to him again. She could not look at him again or even see his number in her phone.
How long could this pain last? She felt it around all the edges of her being, squeezing into her chest threatening to immobilize her. How would this ever pass?
And then there was Matthew. Could she still?
Yes. And she would. Because nothing else would ever numb this pain.