she hates the way the restlessness settles down in her chest when she sees him. jessica is an expert at creating storms, stirring up the dust, in crafting a thundercloud of a black-eyed lower paired up with the gaunt-cheeked hollow of her punchy scowl. each expletive from her lips is a lightning strike, & the liquor ... well that's just enough to cull a twisting violence that would keep anyone at arm's length.
she's cultivated a perfect life to keep everyone out. no happiness, no comfort, just the occasional damn skulking in a manila folder waiting for her professional attention.
she shouldn't want anything that looks like a future, which is why she presses her sour lips together to staunch against the fluttering bubble of hope that she passes off as stomach acid on a heartburn track. an elbow languishes across a sullied counter yellow & soggy from too many beers tilted over their glasses. her laugh is a bitter, bottom-shelf bark. whiskey sloshes into the edge of her lazy toast at whatever joke he's managed to make about her prospective career as a spandex-clad superhero. vigilantes these days are too rich in supply as is. can't walk a city block without tripping over some asshole in a clingy costume.
" i don't know, " jessica confesses, staring down the amber in her hand, rolling the astringent sting of it across her tongue. " queen camel toe doesn't exactly ring a bell. i think i'm better off ... " waving the last of her drink at the sallow corners of the bar, the peeling paint, the empty steins. " ------ doing this shit. " living paycheck to paycheck, taking the cases that come across her battered desk, earning it with a thankless grind & not thinking about the things she shouldn't have.
a sidelong glance flicks up at him as if daring him to say differently.
