words are weapons ( kids with tennessee accents would yell, hey, it’s wacky jackie, and she’d feel herself shrink. ). she’s learned to equip herself with every snide retort and quip in the dictionary. every sharp response only builds up her arsenal, each word a bullet trained to shoot with utmost precision. as a trader, it’s an asset, honeyed words earning her the winning bargain in every deal, but even before that, words have always meant more. it’s strength. there’s so much power in knowing exactly what to say to get under a person’s skin.
but around david, she feels disarmed. the head comes empty, and the heart beats useless litanies — pulsations drumming the most honest of rhythms: i’m sorry. i wish i didn’t ruin things. i wish i stayed. any response she comes up with sounds pathetic to her own ears. logic, she finds, drowns in all the feelings she denied existed. it was enough of a curse to feel, but around david, she feels so much, and so many things at the same time — confusion, anger, wistfulness, regret — every emotion works against her and makes her WEAK. words are weapons, but when her demon of a heart consumes her, her weapon of a mind stays quiet.
she manages a sentence, at least. “didn’t expect you to go for small talk, adeyemi.” in her attempt at disguising her nervousness, what was meant to be a tone of casual contempt turns more aggressive, more like anger. way to fuck up, brosnan. “where’ve i been? three years gives you lotsa time to be everywhere. see that tacoma over there?” she says, pointing to the pick-up truck parked nearby. “ain’t she pretty? her name’s shelley. she takes me aaaaall over. just yesterday she ran over like four or five biters on the way to a trade run. ain’t that sick?”
this isn’t the same. the act never feels like an act when it’s anybody else, but david knows her— no, he knew her, before this facade, before she built up a shell of apathy, before she donned LAYER over LAYER of feigned facetiousness to protect herself from ever being broken. he’d known her when she was just fresh out of tennessee, a place that had cast her out and branded her a pariah for merely thinking differently. the girl david knew was different from the girl standing before him now; she’s no longer vulnerable, because vulnerable is no longer something she allows herself to be. but she was, once, and david knew it. she’d opened up to him, and in return, he’d offered her tenderness. how disgusting.
half of her wants it back, the unadulterated, innocent friendship they shared before her dumbfuck heart turned everything to shit. “i actually gotta ditch and pick something up at the capitol,“ she says. part of her doesn’t want him to leave. part of her wants him there with her, blasting hip hop on the tacoma’s barely working stereo. the image is as inviting as it is frustrating. ”i mean,” she adds, with feigned indifference. “you could come if you want. i don’t suppose you’re doin’ anything, no? figured after all that happened burger king and victoria’s secret won’t need a mall cop protecting ‘em no more.”
david wanted to stand as a formidable source of the casualties from his past. he watched as friends and family left, died, moved onto a new realm, and he LOST it all. his parents he lost at an early age, and beyond that, it was hard to fathom that it would happen again. but it did, and he could recall the nights he spent staying up, refusing to eat or sleep until all the blood was wiped clean. the long overdue mental breakdown of a guy that longed for UNATTAINABLE happiness. at the time, he felt lost and scared, despite already being a grown adult.
none of those feelings had truly left him, even with the three-year difference. hell, he might even say that he felt WORSE. especially with having seen two ghosts from his past appear like apparitions. the confirmation of them ever being real was light as he relied on the emotions that came with it—useless words sparking pain & misery for him as he committed himself to being the sensitive one, to not being able to UNDERSTAND them because too much time had passed. the problem was, he knew jackie at one point. their souls were intertwined in the most beautiful way one’s soul could be—FRIENDSHIP. he treasured it, nurtured it until it blossomed into something more. something romantic in one way and confusing in another.
he had learned earlier in the year that a friendship so deep could not just be picked up and glued back together. he had learned that some fragments were so microscopic that even tweezers couldn’t pick them up and place them back properly. the hairline FRACTURES of a lost love wasn’t something that could ever return back to normal, even if you did your best to repair this. he knew this from olivia, whose dynamic was similar ENOUGH to transfer the message across and wear it shamefully across his chest. he was alone, and even with jackie there in person, something told him that the same principals applied.
❝ people change, i guess, ❞ david replied cautiously. her tone conveyed a certain emotion that he was UNFAMILIAR with, but he could only assume it was something mixed with scorn. what did he do to her ? the question beckoned him, URGED him to look back on the past and pick apart each and every action. he was willing to take the blame for something he didn’t do, so he took on her anger, accepting it as something he probably DESERVED. after all, he had lived through enough years to be labeled a sinner, so it wasn’t too far off to ASSUME that he had been in the wrong.
❝ nice, ❞ his gaze followed to the car, a simple nod following. it seemed like such a JACKIE car, something that she would obviously be drawn to. it reminded him of the days he used to spend with her in the passenger seat as they sang stupid songs and LAUGHED. if he had known that there would be so much pain down the road, he would have stopped the car and stayed in it longer, learned to take mental pictures of the moment so he could remember it BETTER. still, his memory served enough, and while it wasn’t as detailed as he would have liked, it was there—a surprising feat once one realized how many concussions he had suffered from playing football.
david gave a smile to her offer—genuine, yet somehow FAKE. it’s gentle and hardly there, but it exists. despite the catastrophe caused by the loss of time spent with jackie, he’s willing to let it slide for now and PRETEND like nothing ever happened. ❝ yeah, alright. i’ll go with you. ❞ it almost feels silly doing this, like children acting as if the world never ended in the first place, all of the heartbreak gone, but the awkwardness that sat heavy between them remaining the same. ❝ you got a camp or somethin’ ? ❞ he questioned with a tilt of his head as he slowly began to take a few steps over to the tacoma before he stopped. was it WRONG to feel jealous of her ? based on this interaction alone, it already felt like she was better off without him, HAPPIER, even.
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