Chapter Thirty: Years and Years
~Nothing to hold but the memories and frames
Oh they remind me of the battle I face
Without your love,
without you, I drown
Somebody save me I'm going down
And I don't even know how I survive
I won't make it to the shore
without your light
No, I don't even know if I'm alive
Oh, oh, oh without you now
This is what it feels like~
"Goodnight, Jack. Sweet dreams..." I whispered as I kissed Jack's forehead. A tear fell from my eye as I pulled away, splashing on his cheek and rolling off his innocent face. Smiling down at the peacefully sleeping boy, I wiped the wet residue from my face with the palm of my hand and sighed as I brushed the hair from his forehead.
"I don't know if you can hear me, Jack. Maybe you can, somewhere in your dreams. Whatever they are, I hope they're peaceful." I could feel the insubstantial tendrils of my power within him. With every word I spoke they burrowed their way deeper into his mind, and into his heart and soul. Rooting themselves in the darkest places of his being and growing there like weeds. My breath shook and my commitment wavered and guilt gripped my heart like a vice but I didn't stop. The power itself pushed me to keep forward - to keep talking. So I did.
"I know you don't understand what I'm doing to you right now. To be honest, I hardly understand it myself."
Don't play with fire. Don't mess with the things you don't understand. That's what everybody says. But I could control this. I had to control this. This would be the last time I Sweet Talked anybody. I could stop after this. I was the one in control.
"I'm so proud of you, Jack. You're so powerful, more powerful than you know. You sensed that something was wrong and you were even able to fight back. Jack, nobody has ever caught on to me. No one has ever fought back. You're amazing and you're good and I wish I could be something pure like you."
I pursed my lips together, letting out a breathy noise and I couldn't tell whether it was a laugh, a sob, or a sigh.
"But I'm not."
I trailed a finger over his sleeping features, a tight, watery-eyed smile stretching across my face. He was so pure and so loving and so innocent. And so painfully naïve.
"You don't have to be scared, though; I'd never hurt you. Just know that when you wake up, you'll still be you and you won't remember any of this. But I need to tell you anyway.
"I'm sorry, Jack. Really, I am! It's just that I'm scared, you see. Not-not of you, exactly. I know you'd never hurt me - not on purpose - because that's not who you are. You're good, Jack. You're good. And you're so frickin' special!
"I- I'm not scared that you'll find out the truth about me - that's not what I'm afraid of. If things work out and if Felix doesn't win, then I'll tell you the truth myself; someday, I promise - I-I swear I'll tell you everything!"
My lungs rattled in my ribcage as I took a deep breath. I grasped Jack's hand.
"I'm not scared of the truth, I don't think. Jack, I'm terrified of what comes after. I don't know just yet who you take me to be, but I'm not whatever version of me you made up in your head. I-I know you think quite a bit of that girl - a-and please, you have to understand this - I want to be her, Jack! I swear, I want to be her, you make me want to be her! And I'm trying, really, I'm trying. But I don't know how!
"I don't know how to be the girl you see me as because you see me as somebody honest. You see me as somebody human and pure but I'm not because he took it!"
Rage bubbled up in my chest as hot and as fast and as powerful and as painful as a wildfire.
"Felix took it, Jack, he took my humanity away! I want it back, I want it back so bad but he took it! He took it and I can't have it back and I hate him! I hate him so much! I hate him and I wanna kill him because he took everything away from me!"
And then one look at Jack's innocent face and the burning rage cooled away, leaving emptiness behind.
"That's why I can't be the girl you think I am. I just don't know how to. I don't know how to tell you the truth because I'm an evil, hate-fueled monster who knows little more than hate and lies and bloodlust. You kill those sorts of things because they want nothing more than to kill. I want nothing more than to kill, and not just the bad things, not just the monsters like Felix," I said, my voice falling into a whisper.
"It's you. You! Jack, I want to kill you. More than once, I've come close. You've done nothing but help me since the day we met; yet, any time I'm close to you, any time a breeze blows from your direction, everything you've done for me doesn't seem to matter. I want to kill you , I want to hurt you , I want to rip you apart just to see how you'd taste.
"I wanna kill you, Jack, and I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, but I really wanna kill you!" I sobbed, the ache in my chest for once hurting more than the ache in my stomach. Taking a deep shuddering breath didn't seem to help me.
"So, you see, Jack. That's why I can't tell you. That's why I have to lie. Because if you knew the truth then you would hate me; maybe almost as much as I hate me." All of this hurt so bad yet all I could do was smile.
"And I know it's selfish of me. But, Jack, just this one time - universe forgive me - I wanna be selfish. I lost everything. Felix took everything. Then suddenly, the world gave me you and you-you look at me like you want me and you look at me like I'm something good and that makes me want to be good. I was losing starting to lose hope and I was starting to lose the desire to be good, but you gave me that back. A-and I can't-
"Jack, I can't lose that. I can't lose you! That way you look at me like I'm actually worth something - I can't lose it!"
I don't know how it came out.
"I think I love you, Jack," I whispered. It felt good to say.
"I think I love you, and I know I shouldn't but I just can't help it. Even though I know you don't love me back, it doesn't change things. So, I can't tell you the truth, because if you knew it, even if by some beautiful mistake you didn't kill me, you would never look at me the same. I'd just be another monster to you, and you would look at me with the same disgust I saw in your eyes when Felix made his phone call. See, I'm already hurting so bad, Jack. If you were to look at me that way... I-I really don't think I'd be able to take it.
"I can't let you go, Jack. I can't let you leave me. Everyone leaves me. I can't let you leave me too, not when I've only just now found you. You are the only thing I have that's real. I don't have anything else, I've just got you. I can't lose you. I'm sorry but just can't.
"It would hurt, and I think I'd do something bad - I am terrified I'll do something bad! I don't want to do something bad. Please, Jack, please, when the time comes I am begging you - please don't hate me, because I wanna be good like you. That's why I have to do this, when the time comes, I need you to be on my side.
"See, I'm not doing this because I don't care about you enough. I'm doing it because I care too much. I'm in too deep now, I couldn't let you go even if I wanted to.
"So, when you wake up, you're gonna forget that you heard any of this. I hope you heard it so when the time comes you'll know how sorry I am and when you find out the truth I can make you remember this and you'll know just how much it hurts me to do this to you. I am so selfish, Jack, and I am so sorry.
"I'm sorry I can't tell you the truth right now, I'm sorry I'll never be good enough, I'm sorry I'm a monster, and I'm sorry that I want to kill you. But more than anything, please know this, Jack: I am so, so, sorry that I love you!"
With that final confession, my tears ran dry and my breathing finally calmed.
"You shouldn't have to suffer because of me. But I'm selfish, so I hope you can forgive me someday.
"Someday when we're older, maybe you and I could be and us. I know it's stupid, but it's all the hope I've got left for me. And I swear I'll wait for you. I'll wait for years and years if that's what it takes. Because you're good, and you're worth it, and I want you way too much."
I smiled down at the boy who would forget all my words by morning, allowing myself to imagine that in his slumber he was smiling too. Then I slid off his bed and tucked him in, kissing his forehead before I left the angel boy to his dreams.
~ Nothing to hold but the memories and frames
Oh they remind me of the battle I face
Without your love, without you, I drown
Somebody save me I'm going down
And I don't even know how I survive
I won't make it to the shore without your light
No, I don't even know if I'm alive
Oh, oh, oh without you now
This is what it feels like~
Lyrics from: This Is What It Feels Like by Jasmine Thompson