Disclaimer: I don't own Jack. Unless I write in a guy named Jack. And the song in this chapter is called "Your Heart is an Empty Room" by Death Cab for Cutie.
Note: Again, thank you all for the wonderful reviews. I appreciate each and every one.
Chapter eleven.
xoxo
I'm deaf, and blind, and mute. I can't answer the door. I'm paralyzed. I can't hear you. I'm not listening. I press my hands over my ears and I think it's Tommy until the voice calls my name soft and sweet. Soft, soft, soft skin. He calls my name. It's like a million hands running over my body. Jude, Jude, Jude. I can't hear you. At the door. Pounding. Smothering in the sent of violets growing in wild vines up the walls, rich greens and purples meshing. I can't breathe, the scent of violets, petals opening toward the sun. I can't hear him. You. Shut up, shut up, shut up. This is a dream. I know this is a dream. And I'll scream, and I'll wake myself up. I'll just scream. But I can't open my mouth. I'm mute, I'm mute. "I look forward to when we'll meet again."
Cold sweat clinging to my skin. I can sleep without the pills I left at Tommy's but I wake up at four am, five, six am, seven. I wake up the monster man calling. I can feel him. I can feel him. I said I was raped, and I cried in Tommy's arms. I want to know where it ends. When this stops. When I can open the windows and breathe again. But I've been avoiding the world for days. Sometimes somebody comes pounding at my door but I stay quiet. The lights are always out. I go through old journals, and school papers, old notes written between friends, old poems, and doodle-drawings. I go through my past and try to find a trace of me I can still connect with. Something I understand, something I can feel. Remember. I don't feel things anymore. Not the way I used to. But all the papers and all the words belong to another person. A stranger. Who died in an alley. Who's never coming back.
IIIII
"Jude?"
It's a voice from a memory. It's James, I know it's James. That doesn't make sense and so I open the door and he's standing there looking distressed. Looking surprised that I answered. Maybe somebody warned him that I didn't. Maybe he was hoping that I wouldn't. So he could walk away knowing that he'd made some effort to see me. It's not his fault. I wouldn't want to see me either.
"Hi," I haven't spoken in days. "Come in."
I step aside and he walks through, gazing around my new home in fascination. I try to imagine how it looks in his eyes. I don't think I can. This is just my hide-away. It's my safe place. Where only I can hurt me.
"How are you?" he asks, his voice soft.
"Fine," I tell him.
And everything we ever had was a lie. I don't see that changing now.
"I wanted to talk to you," he offers me a half-smile, a bitter smile. "Now I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything," I sit on the couch with my feet curled beneath me. "We could just sit here..."
So James settles himself beside me and glances in my direction every so often before relaxing. Before the silence is calming and non-threatening. Before we move closer, leaning against one another, touching in hopes of finding peices of ourselves imbedded into eachother's skin. He stole my hope and I broke his heart. I want it back, and each kiss we share is to return another lost. To find something, to gain something, to lose something, to love something. We kiss, and we kiss, and we kiss, and we kiss, and it's not fucking, or making love. It's giving. And afterwards I let him hold me and he lets me sob against his chest. His chest, James' chest. Never Tommy's.
IIIII
"Jude, I'm so sorry I didn't come back sooner," she calls through my door. "I know you're angry with me. And, I'm so sorry honey, you have every right to be. You don't have to let me in. Just... Just say something. Please. I need to know you're alright. I need... I need to know you're okay."
It's my mother.
"You need?" I scream, my blood boiling. "You need? YOU NEED? FUCK YOU! Fuck what you need! Fuck you! Get the fuck out of my apartment building! Get the fuck out of my life! Fuck what you need! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!"
And I'm punching the door and I'm crying until I fall back and lay sprawled out flat across the ground. The apartment above me stomps hard, they want me to shut up. And my mother is silent. Gone.
She needed to know I was alright and okay. Well, I hope that answered her question.
I laugh and listen to the sound echo, bouncing off the walls and into oblivion.
IIIII
We haven't talked in awhile and I know she wasn't expecting me. I don't know if she still hates me, either. But I'm already crying when I see her face, and her mouth opens as she stands there for only a moment. Then I'm wrapped up inside her arms as she's whispering, "Jude". And I bury my face in the curtain of black curls. She heard about what happened. Everyone heard. I'm forgiven. I'm sorry.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you," she whispers.
"It's okay," I say through tears. "Be here for me now."
IIIII
I can't remember Jude Harrison. The things that made her laugh, and cry. I can't remember her face. I don't know what she sounded like anymore. When I try to sing now, it feels wrong inside me. Every note broken like every bone in my body. I like being alone now because I don't have to pretend. Because it's like the opposite of playing dead. And I try to sing, I really do. Old stuff, something that might make me remember. But, all I can remember are the wrong things. And life is wasted on the living. I never knew what I had until I was raped in an alley by a psycho fan. It's almost funny when I look at it that way. Death is funny. Everything is so fucking funny. And back then the worst thing was my dad cheating on my mom. And he wasn't trying to hurt anybody. He was just unhappy. I can understand that now. I hardly even blame him now. I can't be angry anymore. About anything.
I hear Tommy's voice calling me and calling me and I think I'm hearing things. I hope I'm not. So I open the door and he's not there, but I pretend he is anyway. Just standing in his modest way and his head is down and he's looking up at me and he's nervous. Like I'm nervous.
"I'm scared," I tell him, my voice breaking.
"Of what?"
"Forgetting."
He isn't crying with me and I'm not in his arms. I'm not safe. I'm all alone. In the hallway. Talking to myself.
IIIII
"Burn it down till the embers smoke on the ground
And start new when your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue."
If I could just feel beautiful one more time. For just a moment. One second.
"Home's face: how it ages when you're away
Spring blooms and you find the love that's true
But you don't know what now to do
Cause the chase is all you know
And she stopped running months ago."
If I could create something beautiful. If I could be happy.
"And all you see
Is where else you could be
When you're at home
And out on the street
Are so many possibilities
To not be alone."
If I didn't need to be alone. If I could miss myself.
"The flames and smoke climbed out of every window
And disappeared with everything that you held dear
And you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn't need
'Cause you knew you were finally free."
If I could find salvation in the pain. If I didn't feel caged.
"And all you see
Is where else you could be
When you're at home
And out on the street
Are so many possibilities
To not be alone."
If everything wasn't so far away. If I could let go.
Sorry it was so short, guys. I know I make you guys wait awhile before each update. It's a hard story for me to write. I really have to be in it, you know? In order for it to come out feeling real. I hope it feels real. Anyway, I'll try to update soon. Again, thank you for all the reviews. They mean so much to me.