"I definitely put them here..." Charlotte mumbles to herself as she fumbles through the bottom of Jack's wardrobe. Jack sits patiently on his bed watching her disappear further and further into the wardrobe, not having the slightest idea of what she's looking for and being too anxious to ask.
"Ah-ha!" she cries triumphantly and pulls out a small shoebox sized clear container.
At first glance, it appears to Jack to be filled with random papers, letters and the sort. He isn't wrong. Charlotte pops the lid off and starts scrambling through the contents.
"What is all this? And how did I not know about it?" he asks.
"This right here, is our relationship in a box. You didn't know about it because you never paid attention to what I was doing unless it involved being naked or alcohol. I printed pictures of us, kept cards from birthdays and holidays. I even kept the odd journal entry when you were too much to bear, I had to vent somehow," Charlotte explains as she flicked through the papers. "I kept it here in the hopes you would stumble upon it, flick through and maybe realise how great we are when we're not fighting. And if you saw the journal entries, well, there was a sliver of hope that you'd read them and want to correct your flaws in how you treated me. Guess that was wishful thinking on my part."
"Oh." Jack looks down. "Well, why are we looking at this now?"
"Because you silly goose, this might help you self-reflect, see what you had before it was too late, here." She holds up a picture of the couple, smiling contently at the camera in front of a well-lit food stall, people bustling past in the background into the night. They wore big puffy coats and Jack sees how glowing Charlotte looked, the lights behind them presenting a golden angelic shine behind her head.
"Do you remember this?" Charlotte asks.
"Yeah, I do. It was our third date; we went into London. We walked a lot, got a lot of food, you laughed a lot, I remember. We had a few drinks at that market, then went home and had sex for the first time." Jack's lips curl into a smile.
Charlotte looks surprised by the details he recalls. "Yes, okay, not bad. Anything else?"
Jack thinks for a moment, before adding, "I don't think so, it was a good date, right?"
"Yes, it was, but this was the first time you began to get comfortable with me and test me with your little manipulation remarks. This was the day it all began." Charlotte looks deep into Jack's eyes; he suddenly feels like this whole self-reflection session may not work in his favour.
"Like what?" he asks reluctantly.
"So, it was things like convincing me I didn't want a certain cocktail because it was too strong, or insinuating I was looking at a passer-by a bit too long and that I was making you insecure. I was constantly reassuring you that I wasn't interested in anyone else. You said halfway through the night you had run out of cash and forgot your bank card, so I had to pay for the rest of the evening, with the promise of getting the money back as soon as we got home. Did I see that money again?" Charlotte asks pointedly. Jack lowers his gaze to his feet and shakes his head.
"Nope. You learnt from an early stage that you could get what you wanted from me, that I would happily oblige whatever you asked or hinted at. What do you think of that?"
"I think I was a total asshole, Chaz." Jack still won't meet her eyes.
She continues, lifting another picture of them. This time laying on the sofa of Charlotte's home, Charlotte cosily snuggled into Jack's chest. It's clear Jack was the one to take this picture, allowing himself a corner of the shot and Charlotte at the centre. "What about this one?"
YOU ARE READING
The Dead and the Broken
General Fiction"If there's evil in anyone, if it exists at all, that's what that boy is made of." Jack, thus far, has glided through life by his own rules and has successfully kept out of consequences' reach, no matter what chaos he has caused and no matter who he...
