what is he supposed to say to that ? tongue runs ravid with the DRYNESS of uncertainty --- perhaps discomfort, too. light irises are trained on the curled strands of strawberry blonde, eyebrows TWISTED into a frown almost tinged with pain, if one could believe TEEN MEAN possible of such a thing. LOVE. it was, to some people, the purest & simplest of emotions, one that flowed so gently from heart to head to fingers and to lips, one that -- once felt, you could never truly get rid of. the one that left it’s mark. but to JACKSON, it was nothing more than confusion. it had all unravelled at SEVEN, with the revelation of his adoption. love for a son had quickly turned into material affection. because the whittemores had realised that their son wasn’t their son anymore, they’d attempted to BUY it from him. over the years that had transposed into a selfish affliction, vanity to the nth degree ... it had culmulated at HIGH SCHOOL, the ice cap that kept him frozen out from the WARMTH. his transition into a kanima had proven that tenfold. it had shone a light on the loneliness that hid behind HUGO BOSS & lacrosse victories. and he would have absolutely despised that fact, if it hadn’t allowed him to realise he did know what love felt like. but they still had no idea how to SWITCH off the scales and the trail of dead bodies he left behind on the nightly. yes. jackson whittemore finally understood how it FELT to love someone. but as he looked at her, he realised that he’d discovered this understanding too late. he’d already caused her so much pain. and he wasn’t about to deny his mantra, of ‘me first, you second.’ but if there was anything that COULD serve as an exception to that rule, it was LYDIA. she deserved more than an arrogant jock, it had been pointed out before -- and he’d sneered, but it was true. he’d just been too blind to see it, no matter how much he did return her feelings, he wasn’t BLIND anymore. ❛ well, i suggest you try harder. ❜ there’s a pause, own eyes staring into her’s, before the moment, if you could call it that, is lost behind a pair of GUCCI lenses. ❛ you like rom-coms, lydia. try --- he’s just not that into you. ❜ a devastatingly big leap backwards for his happiness, but an equally large step forward for his morality. and this might be one of the only times in what, at the moment, is looking like his SHORT life, they happen in that orientation.
