Our Scars

I See You

16

I See You (Title by MISSIO)

Jay found himself struggling time and time again with what happened to Marcus West in the following week. His guilty conscience was eating him alive, no matter how hard he tried to bury it.

His sleeping disorder was flaring up again, of course it was.

Because he didn't want to resort to self-medicating, cause it was usually making him drowsy and tired the next day too, he kept exhausting himself with work and physical exercise after work and mostly took more than one nightcap of bourbon to take the edge off. He was extremely thankful for the Intelligence workload once again and that there wasn't a day going by he got to leave at a reasonable hour.

Even though she got a full plate at work as well, Rianne had been checking in with him regularly, shooting him a text, popping by the station for a quick coffee-break or meeting him on his running route one morning. That had been a one-time experiment though because she claimed there was not a single competitive bone inside of her that would aid her to even try to keep up with his fitness-level. Her candor about that was sort of inspiring.

He appreciated that she tried to be there for him and didn't give him the impression she now thought he was a complete mess. Still Jay managed to feel guilty about her possibly feeling obligated to keep him from falling over the edge, after having witnessed his breakdown last week. They never saw each other at night though. Part of him would have wanted Rianne to sleep over at his place or crash at hers every night to just have someone to hold on to. But he felt this was still a barrier between them he didn't want to cross for that reason alone. And in addition to the time frame problem he didn't fully trust himself at the moment.

Instead when he went to sleep Jay kept hearing Marcus scream at him:

"It ain't me man! I told you it ain't me!" It was hard to forget the look on that man's face when Jay had left him at county. It was haunting him.

On impulse he visited his graveside, one week after his death.

Jay wanted to pay his respects, promising himself that he would not ever forget what he had caused. How quickly one false move could change not only one, but several lives forever...

He didn't even have to fake the tears. They were falling the second he took in Marcus' name on the simple cross placed on a freshly dug grave. It was like the reality of this, of his actions, hit him square in the face once more. Hoping no one was watching him Jay knelt down at the graveside and ran his fingers along the inscription, silently apologizing that he had gotten it all so wrong.

"Hey, you! What do you think you're doing here?"

Jay turned around nervously. A black woman in her 30s stood behind him, a thin little boy next to her, staring at him like the invader he was. He knew from Marcus' file that this were his wife and kid.

Trying to reign in his sudden rapid heartbeat and control the urge to fall down on his knees and beg for their forgiveness, Jay looked Angela Nelson in the eyes for a minute. Then he stood up from the ground and walked over to them. Before he could really stop himself he said:

"I'm sorry, but I knew him. He was a good man. I'm Jim by the way, nice to meet you!"

She tentatively reached for his outstretched hand and shook it, a thousand questions written all over her face.

***

Rianne climbed out of the water soaking wet and was hurrying over to her camper to get changed into something dry, when she noticed a familiar truck parked a few feet away from it in the lot. Jay was leaning against the hood, denim legs crossed cooly and holding two cups of steaming coffee. He walked up to her when she got near, smiling cheekily: