The Bad Boy.. Loves Me? [𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐃]

Chapter 51: "you have to go home"

⚠️ TW for suicidal ideation⚠️

Jackie 

People always say surviving a near death experience is a miracle, but I'm not so sure.

Sometimes I wish I had died in that fire. That Marcus hadn't pulled me out that night, bundled me into his uncle's car. After all, it was my fault Hellmore House went up in flames. Shouldn't I have deserved to die?

But life is hardly, if ever, fair. Instead, the person to die that night was a good man. When I close my eyes, it's like I'm taken right back to that fateful moment: Satan's dad in the middle of the road, changing one of his tires, how Marcus shouted for his uncle to slow down, that he was going to hit him.

And how instead, Carl accelarated.

It should've been me that night. I was the one reckless enough to go to that party. I was the one stupid enough to play with matches, then have the gall to be surprised when I got burned. The scars on my body are only a small price to pay for my survival. I'd give anything to be the one who had died, instead of Satan's dad. He was so kind, so loved, and what worth do I have? How can his death be justified when I am simply trapped in this joyless hell, a life I never wanted?

If my life is imprisonment, then death should certainly be freedom.

But life is hardly as simple as you'd like it to be.

I look out the window, and there he is. Sitting in the middle of the grass, still as a rock. He hasn't spoken since he woke up, and I haven't worked up the courage to go up to him. All I can do is watch him through this glass, hating myself for every minute I let pass by before I go outside.

He must hate you, the voice tells me. 

I know it must be right. Why wouldn't it be? There is no one left in this world who could love the person I've become. Who I let the Browns twist me into. I'm a monster now, a husk of the person I used to be. Sometimes I wonder if I'm a person at all: I look in the mirror and all I see is a ghost. When I can't sleep, I stretch my arms up into the air, and convince myself that they're not there at all.

Marcus said to me once, "you've changed, Jackie."

But he was wrong. I never changed. No, I was broken. Broken into a million tiny pieces that can never be put back together again. Broken into something beyond any kind of repair.

But that day, when I looked at Brok, looked into those familiar warm brown eyes, I found that for a brief second, I felt complete. When I touched his hand, it was like I'd momentarily travelled back in time, that I was suddenly the girl I thought I'd lost in the fire. I was happy, I was content, and I was me.

But I should've known the moment wouldn't last. He crumpled to the ground as if he was nothing. I think about how something as small as a bullet could devastate someone so big, so physically strong. 

I screamed at Eric for that. How could he, I sobbed, how could he do that? I could hardly walk, hardly breathe, and I think a part of him liked seeing me that way. It was the first time I'd cried since I was taken to Marcus's house that night, introduced as his girlfriend, even though I wasn't.

All he ever wanted was to control us. And when Marcus ran away without me, Eric turned all his attention to me. I could be the daughter he never had, the family that had deserted him. He made me stay at home, spend my days cleaning the house, doing stupid chores in the garden. 

He threatened me into staying. He said he'd tell everyone I was the one driving that night, that I was intoxicated and that I killed Satan's dad. He said even if he didn't claim that, that's what everyone would think. Why would some girl let herself be thought of as dead if she didn't have something to hide?

I was so lost, so scared. I couldn't face Satan, not after being in the car that killed his father. And I didn't want to see him and Brok, didn't want them to see how the fire had branded me forever, both on my skin and in my mind. I thought they'd take one look at me, and run away. I didn't think they'd love me anymore.

But when Brok looked at me, all my fear melted away. He looked at me, and there was no hatred, no disgust, no revulsion.

There was only wonder.

With a deep breath, I push open the door, and step outside. The grass is dewy and cold under my feet, and I shiver in the slight breeze. He must hear me approach, but he doesn't move, doesn't turn around.

I sit down next to him, not caring that my jeans are getting wet. "Hey," I say softly.

Brok turns to me, but doesn't respond. Instead he looks at me in a strange way, searches my face as if looking for something. And then he reaches out his hand, and touches my cheek.

I can scarcely breath. I just sit there, as still as I could possibly be. I let him brush his fingers along the skin of my forehead, before tucking a few strands of hair behind my ear. I almost melt into his touch; it's so familiar, yet so new to be touched like this after so long.

Finally, his hand drops. And then he asks, "how can you be here?"

And I say, "someone got me out."

He holds my gaze, before shaking his head. "We need to leave this place."

"He'll follow me everywhere," I whisper. "There's only one way I can ever be free of him."

I can't say it out loud, but a silent and grave understanding passes between us. An understanding of what needs to be done to fully free us, to fully free me from the grips of Eric Brown.

"Then we'll go together," says Brok, giving me a questioning look.

"You can't give up your family for me," I say quietly, looking down at the grass. "Brok, you have to go home."

"And what about you?"

I glance up to see him looking at me with a sadness in his brown orbs. When was the last time someone truly worried about me, I wonder? I struggle to swallow, and give him a half smile. "I'll survive," I tell him lightly. "I always do."

"Then let's survive together," he says, and I'm surprised at how firm his tone is, just like his chest.

"Brok," I say, bewildered. "You can't—"

"I can't what?" he asks. "Help you? Be with the girl I love?"

I can't look at him anymore. I'm afraid that if I do, I'll say yes. "You can't," I repeat, in a heavy tone. "You have people who love you. You can't let them think you're..."

"Then I'll send them a letter," he says simply. "Tell them I'm alive."

I pick at a blade of grass, a strange feeling in my chest. "And then what? We live on the run? I have nothing, Brok, I—"

"You have me," he says, and I look at him, startled. I see the stubborn resolve in his orbs, and know that nothing I say will change his mind. 

"Okay," I say, heart skipping a beat. "Then... we'll figure it out."

He reaches out and touches my face once more. He doesn't smile, but he leans in until his breath tickles the side of my face like a feather. "You have me," he whispers, before letting his lips touch mine for the barest of seconds.

I let the moment take me away from reality. Soon Eric will be awake, and me and Brok will have to talk about what we're going to do, how we'll run away, what we'll be willing to do to get away. How he'll let his family know he's alive, where we'll go...

But that's for later.

For now, I just let him hold me. 

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