I feel that I have to give a precursor for this chapter only because... I don't know. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be 21.

For the past couple of chapters, I've written just to write and this will be no exception. I'm really aching to get inside of Tommy's head. I want to show the world how beautiful the man really is. I don't know. It transcends IS fanGIRL-ness into another realm of writing and poetry. I have to write even if it makes no progression. I don't want it to make sense.

This is what it is.

Chapter 8 / Momentum

When is time just another something that we must try to forget? When does it all come crashing down around us? When do we actually see the error of our ways and realize that the only way to get things back is to move forwards? Oh, you questions, you! Must you always taunt me?

For what felt like the Second Coming, Jude sat beside Tommy in his beloved car. She was motionless, expressionless, aimless and all the while, completely reckless by just breathing. He stole every glance he could find to steal, taking it and smuggling it behind the borders of his mind. With her just there, the day was good. The day was what he'd always pinned his desires upon. The day was everything it was supposed to be and more. She made for him the day.

Traversing between the ice and snow never felt as natural as it did when she was with him. He was the man of ice; he was the man of snow. He was he man everyone turned to for brutal honesty and fleeting looks of contempt. With her next to him, he didn't have to pretend not to care. He only had to be. He only wanted to be.

He couldn't fathom ever living another waking day without her next to him. Though time only counted to twelve the days they'd been apart, it felt like a lifetime he didn't want to live. Every waking hour was spent trying to prepare himself for an even longer journey through the unknown and every waking minute was spent trying to convince himself that this was what it was all about; that this was really something good for her. He failed miserably the test Fate tried to make him take. He failed living without her.

He felt selfish and arrogant in his thoughts. He wasn't the one to make her better. He wasn't the one to change anything. He was just the man trying to fulfill a dream. He was the poor soul that rested his burdens upon the shoulders of a someone they called a child and prayed she didn't snap more than she already had.

By karmic intercession, she placed her hand on his knee. The soft skin against his rustic, worn denims broke him down. How he wanted to feel her forever! Screw the road; screw the people; screw all of the dead ends and repercussions. This was the touch he'd wanted forever. This was the touch he'd fantasized about when he was drunk and planned on when he wasn't; the loving touch of a girl who saw him for what he was – a broken, reclusive man in the twilight years of his juvenescent stardom.

I love you.

It reeked havoc yet built new cities of gold and platinum. Oh, how he loved her, how he yearned for her, how he wished to bring her back from the brink she'd fallen over unbeknownst.

I love you.

Diffused, a life force that never seemed worth counting, he was alive within his love for her. It made him count. It made him human and real and touchable.

"I love you." The words passed so easily from thought to verbalization. He didn't break his back and forth, see-saw visuals from road to her, but he knew she smiled somewhere unseen. He knew she hung onto all three syllables.

"I love you, too." Four syllables. Four sounds, four tones, four pieces that fit the puzzle and made him complete. Without her four, he was a picture without corners. How she filled his every corner.

Tommy found himself back at home, a home that awaited the subtle warmth amidst permafrost of his friend, partner, and someday lover. The drive was long and short and entirely built on the rampant thoughts of those who should have been called crazed, not the one they labeled as such. He smiled the brightest smile he'd ever smiled in his entire generation, happy to know that he was with his one and only; happy to know that life was worth living again.