✓ WICKED VOWS| JAKE (Book II )

53- Heart In A Fist

ps; The next chapter ends with blood

Jake's pov

My heart was a fist, that pockets a prayer or holds my rage. If I had stayed with her I wouldn't know what I'd done. I was having a child.

A child that might never be born.

The thought clamped around my chest, making each breath feel like the inhalation of shards of glass. Dusky twilight filtered through the window, laying long, ominous shadows across the room, as if even the walls had conspired to close in on me. It was a bombshell-her words-exploding the fragile calm I had tried so desperately to hold onto. My throat was dry, my mind racing. One word, and everything would unravel.

Fuck.

I wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel, my knuckles ghostly white as the leather bit into my palm. I tried to breathe, to shove aside the tension lodged deep in my chest, but it refused to budge, clinging to me like a leech.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I muttered under my breath, low and guttural, a snarl. The inside of the car seemed to fold over my head, the quiet from all sides a physical pressure against my skin. I slammed my fist into the dashboard; the dull ache in my hand did nothing to soothe the storm inside. I couldn't make her keep the baby's body, it was her choice the thought that my child, our child, would never draw a breath. it ripped me up. If she didn't want to raise it, I would. I'd give that child a life. I would have given that child everything.

But my life was a lie. The ties to my future had been so violently severed that often it just felt like I floated through life as though I would simply disappear. It wasn't until then that it dawned on me that I maybe I will never have a family of my own.

And now, with the night's falling, all those seemed to come rushing back, like shadows under the setting sun.

Dark green eyes, as bottomless as the sea, haunted me for years staring right through my soul as if the power of that intensity sliced through every defense I had erected. I attempted to say her name, but words caught in my throat with the heavy feeling of a stone. Was she really standing there deep in my mind, or was another ghost conjured up by the gnawing guilt at my day and night? What did it even mean anymore? Once, I had guidelines that reminded me how to treat others, and not be the monster I was so afraid I was capable of being. You didn't kiss someone unless you were ready to give them everything. You didn't mess people around. You didn't screw up other people's lives simply because your own was a mess. But with Ana. those rules had dissolved and crumbled to dust like the old gravestones that littered the city's cemeteries.

As I drove through the dimly lit streets, my vision blurred and the city lights smeared into streaks of orange and white. Tears? I blinked them away, yet they left an ache in their wake. Was Harry's death the thing that stabbed at my heart so viciously? He'd died tonight-rambling Harry with his endless monologues about life, death, and all the points in between. He was more than an old friend. He was a link to a past I tried to forget but never seemed to get away from. Now he was gone. Part of me, maybe, was mourning more than just his death. Maybe I was mourning the child I might never hold, never get to see grow up.

A sudden ringing pierced the air, wrenching me back to the present. I pulled over to answer, my shaking hand bringing the phone to my ear. It was David. His voice was calm, steady. He'd found Harry's late wife's grave. They were going to bury him tonight, under the last light of the setting sun. Harry had no one else. No family. No one to mourn him but me and David.

I put the car in gear and headed out, taking to roads that were empty and eerie in the gathering darkness. Ahead, the gothic arches seemed to soar as I approached Kensal Green Cemetery, the last rays of sunlight casting a haunted glow over the iron gates.

The fog had finally laid its blanket on the cemetery, and I could hardly see the gravestones. My legs felt like lead with every step as if the earth was trying to pull me down. The cold was victorious, gnawing at my skin, but I hardly felt it; my mind was elsewhere, lost in some tangled web of emotions that would just not sort themselves out.

David stood at the entrance and said nothing while I approached. He nodded once, knowing this was not a time for words. I walked past him, and he fell into step with me, the crunch of gravel beneath our feet the only sound breaking the silence. "He didn't have anyone else," David said quietly as we neared Harry's grave.

I nodded, unable to speak. Harry had been a man full of contradictions, always there in the background of my life figure seemingly knowing more about me than I knew about myself. His death had left a hole inside of me that I hadn't anticipated, a feeling that gnawed at me now as we walked through the darkened cemetery.

The spot where they would lay him was already dug out a wide hole in the ground, just waiting to swallow him in. The hearse drove up and I watched as the men moved to the back, retrieving the simple wooden coffin. No one spoke; no words of comfort or tribute were given. All that could be heard now was the hollow thud of the coffin, as it went down into the earth, the thud of the earth as it hit the wood, and that chill in the night air which seemed to grow colder by the second.

I stood there and watched Harry's burial. My mind was elsewhere, torn between the man being laid to rest and the child that would never be born. I could feel David's eyes on me, a silent presence at my back; the other guards were stationed around us, their faces impassive, their attention sharp.

I watched as the last of the earth was shoveled over Harry's grave. I moved closer, my legs threatening to go out from under me but I kept my facade. The gravestone was simple, unadorned, like the man who now lay beneath it. I fell to my knees, the damp soil immediately soaking through my pants, but I didn't care. I reached out, grabbing a handful of earth, feeling the cold, gritty texture against my skin.

I stood and held the dirt in my hand, looking down at the grave. "I'm sorry," I whispered words barely audible to even myself. They weren't just for Harry, but for the life that would never come into this world. For the child which would be lost before it ever had the opportunity to live. That fact tore me up inside, and I felt the sting in my tears but refused to let them fall. Grief suffocated. Grief paralyzed me. I felt ruined, I felt ached. I was hurt.

The darkness closed in about us, the fog thickening as though the world outside itself was in mourning. I could feel David's eyes on me, but he didn't say a word. He knew, as he always had, this was something I needed to come to terms with by myself. I sat there, knelt beside the grave, lost in my own mind. It was comforting, a blanket protecting me from the cruel reality was my life outside the grounds of that cemetery.

I finally struggled to my feet, my legs wobbly but firm. I gazed at the gravestone one final time, aware of the very real probability that in a very short period of time, I may well indeed be placing my own flesh and blood under the earth. It ran an unwanted cold thrill to my very core, but I tamped down hard on it and buried it deep inside me, just as we had buried Harry.

"Let's go," I said in that rough, hollow voice. He nodded, and we turned together away from the grave, into the fog's dark swallowing again. As I walked out of that cemetery, I knew the weight of the grief of this night was to stay with me, to haunt me for a length of time well beyond the life of fog. I just know that I will punish myself for my whole life, my whole life I punish. 

A/N: I had ripped my heart out to write this chapter because I didn't know how the build-up of Harry's character was built until I found myself writing my dear grandpa who died one year and a half ago. He was a dear human being, and his plants and flowers were his heart friends, he used to take care of them a lot. He does not have a shop, but his penthouse is all of flowers and green plants, now we take care of them along with my grandma. I bet if he was here now, he would say to you- thank you for supporting my child. All the love, winter.