"Addie...?"
Her thoughts were rushing a million miles an hour, and it took all of her willpower not to scream. Because it wasnât as if he was physically hurting her, but everything just seemed to come one after the other and she couldnât handle it anymore. Not another year without Cristian, not another year without Vad, not Leo telling her how much he didnât care, not Agnesâ reluctant friendship, which was only forged because of their mutual love for Jacques and which was probably screwed up now because she broke him. Sheâs breaking him. Sheâs breaking the boy that was already broken enough, and thatâs enough to make her feel like sheâs slit her wrists again. Only this time, it wasnât her wish to give up. But oh god, she would have done anything in the world to stop him from looking so angry and sad and shattered.Â
Adela winced when he spoke, âI was going to! But then I thought, Iâve only just m-met him, l-let me get to know him f-first and then I will. But a w-week later I met A-Agnes and she told me you were e-engaged and s-so I figured it w-would be better f-for all of us i-if I just kept quiet.â she tried to explain, but her words kept on breaking apart and she kept choking and god she couldnât breathe. âI-It wouldnât have made a difference!â she stood up now, looking up at him, âH-How would you have r-reacted to some girl five years younger than you telling you that she had f-feelings for you only a f-few weeks after you had met? I-It wouldnât have been th-the same! W-We wouldnât have been Banner and Stark a-anymore, and I d-didnât want to loose that!â She felt the tears escape and her breathing get harder, her heart pumping so fast all she heard was blood rushing in her ears. She wondered if it would spurt through her wounds if she cut through the vein. She hadnât been sane the last time, so she missed it, but if she were fully aware of what she was doing instead of being half insane, would it be the same?
"I'm sorry!" she heard someone say, only to realize it was her. But she didnât recognize the voice. This voice was half crazed, full of every ounce of heartbreak and grief she hadnât let herself feel until she had come to this god forsaken island. She was losing everyone: Either they died or they left and each time they broke her heart and it wasnât fair. Â Was it too much to ask to be happy? To find someone who cared for her, even if she cared for them a lot more than they cared for her? Was it a sin?
Thatâs when she lost it. âWhat would you have done?!â her voice sounded strangled, as if someone was holding onto her throat and squeezing the life out of her and damn it she felt that way. She sucked in a shaky breath to try and calm herself down, and tried again.âIf the roles were reversed, would you have told me?â she asked him, her voice calmer. Still shaky, but better than yelling. Anything was better than yelling, to be honest. She never wanted to yell at Jacques. Ever. And god, heâs started walking away and it took so much willpower to stop herself from clutching onto him and begging him to stay. Please donât leave me here alone. Iâm with you until the end of the line. She didnât know if her heart could break anymore, but it seemed as if she was going to find out.
Adela stared at the boy with pleading eyes. She couldnât bring herself to say the words, so she just let the defeated look she gave him say it for her. She shoulders hunched as he spoke. Like armadillos or whatever those animals who curled into a ball for protection were called. Maybe if she folded into herself enough, his words wouldnât cut her so deeply. She bit her lip, trying to stop herself from releasing a choked sob. âSo this is it? This is how Banner and Stark end?â she looked up. No, shit, thatâs not what she meant to say. Well, okay, it was sort of what she wanted to say, but not exactly. She wiped the tears from her face, but new ones flowed down to replace it. It couldnât get worse than this, it couldnât. So she looked up at him from her hunched position, âI-I know I sh-should have told y-you, I-Iâm sorry. B-But it wasâŠI justâŠI didnât want to loose you. I still donât. I..I just.â She gulped, meeting his eyes, âPlease donât go.â she half begged, succumbing to the urge because damn it, she just needed him with her. Banner needed Stark, Wall-e needed Eve, Adela needed Jacques. She needed him.Â
She was spurting excuses, reasons as to why keeping the reality of what they are (were? he really doesn't know) was the right thing to do. He heard her, he just...He heard the desperation more so than the words themselves. He fucking hated this. He loved her and he hated doing this, being angry, pulling away, this. But he is angry and he did have to pull away, for her sake. Fuck, was he angry. "So you spent a week lying for no reason, and another three months for your own reasons. That's..." He thinks he scoffed, or sobbed. He's pretty sure he just sobbed. He fucking hates this. "Oh, my fucking god, Addie, five years youn-It doesn't matter! It does-...., our ages didn't matter as friends, it shouldn't fucking matter if this was...more." He cannot believe the amount of fabricated reasons she's got piled in that mind of hers. He gets it, he really does. He's more familiar with inventing himself excuses on excuses to basically do and be nothing in his life, but that's not Addie. She's always been what he needed; in lifting spirits and friendly chats and a good, light time spent together. It just isn't fair that she turns around now and tells him all that was not the same from her perspective. It might be hurting her but it's shattering him, and his shards are just digging into her even further. This isn't good, and it's not healthy, not for her.
"You keep piling your own reasons in your own head, but the fact is you never told me. You never even gave me a chance to think of feeling the same, you just decided!" He's spent a whole lifetime having decisions made for him or taken from him entirely, shoved into a corner and told to be as quiet and obscure as he can be. To disappear and mute into the backgrounds, never let that voice be heard. But this is Addie. This could hurt her, he would've at least liked to think on what would've made her happy. He might've even loved her, he might feel the same nuttiness about her as he does Agnes. But she never gave him the chance to wonder. "This is about me as much as it is about you, it's both of us. I stand to lose you, and I don-" He took in a breath and it was shredded and horrible to hear, and it made the length of his throat down to the very base of his lungs tickle with a burn that drove him temporarily mad (and drove temporarily atop his lungs into the shivering beats of his heart). He's always somehow loved people wrong, always loved way too much, and he doesn't wanna fucking lose Adela because he flopped on that this once. With her, of all people.
And then she yelled, and he gets it, he's glad she's yelling. At least she's not hiding from him anymore, that he couldn't bear to carry. But what she yelled boiled the little fire at the base of his lungs to the surface; to the tip of his tongue and the edges of his fingers and the blood-rushed arteries he can practically feel beating against his skull. "Don't. Don't even try that, Adela! I'm not you. We're not on the sa-...I'm engaged. To someone I could actually love; maybe forever, I think. I'm a total mental case. I'm never gonna be running a country. I'm not you. Don't ask me to put myself in your shoes, my feet are just too...fucked to fit them." He wasn't her. He loved her, he felt more at home with her than he does probably anyone, and he'd never imagine somehow who got him more. She was the very first consistent slant of light that's come into his space since...since Gustav. (And Gustav was more a small spark that quickly bee-lined out of his sight before his nine-year-old mind quite registered the hat on his head.) But Jacques wasn't Addie, he wasn't like her. She exudes light in the hopes it'll reflect back on and into her. And he knew this, he knew she needed some light to reflect into her, he knew she wasn't as life-loving as she made herself out to be. He'd made an effort to reflect every bit of happiness she'd sprung his way right back onto her, and so they'd made each other happy. He just had no idea most of the love and light she was dishing his way was nowhere near how he'd interpreted it. He was starting to feel so empty and so oddly heavy, wondering how much every bit of happiness he'd experienced with her had been agony for her.
He smiled, and it was so fucking sad, he wished he hadn't even gone for a smile at all. The tears that dampened the corners of it melted his lips back down into nothing but a sad, broken line. "If the roles were reversed, I don't even think I would've been brave enough to feel anything at all." Somehow, this anger and sadness and the small, withering pieces of them both lost somewhere on that couch and these floors and probably a bit in the pot of that plant, that all seems better than never having had any of it at all. He hopes to any god that'll listen she feels the same, hopes the pain she felt around him this whole time doesn't overshadow that.
She hunched in on herself, tears slipping right across her face and disappearing from there, arms too close to herself and shoulders too curled in. She was pulling her all into herself and...he just didn't belong there now. Not right now, there was no getting to her. He could change his mind; wipe both their tears, erase that distance and hold her into him instead. He wanted to, he ached to. He just couldn't. If he pulls back in now, she'll either latch too hard onto him, and they'd fall back exactly into where they were. Or she'll never be okay being...okay around him again, having had fallen apart and been put back together by him, she'll feel too apart being with him anymore. He's been there, he's been the broken one far too many times, he knows how this works. He's not leaving her alone, he actually couldn't. He'd likely die, genuinely. He just needs her pieces to rearrange themselves a little bit, letting him slip out through the cracks, she shouldn't need him. "No, it's not, this is just...Me, giving you time to stop...loving me. For your good." He doesn't think they could ever end. Even if she does realize she doesn't love him, maybe even that she doesn't like him at all. Even if she cuts him out, he'll still love her. So, she'll never end for him. But he needs to for her, or at least become less significant. "You're not...I swear to you, you're not losing me. You would never." He took a breath, and then her eyes caught his and he felt the coldest gust of wind blow at the bones of his knees and they shook like sad, thin towers begging to fall loose. "I'm not leaving you, Addie. I just need to...think. About things you never gave me the chance to think about beforehand." He doesn't think his feet'll walk him out of this room, honestly. He's not sure how he'll leave, he'll just shut his eyes and hope. "You should too."
