Prelude to kisses

Chapter 36

There are only a handful of things one can forget. And there are memories too precious to be at the forefront of one's mind. Those precious memories one only remembers from a scent, a place, a building. A word said, a phrase maybe. Memories and pictures than play themselves just like that, the ones you find yourself smiling over without realizing it. Like right now, they are watching the waterfall. They've been here countless of times already and yet; this is the only time that the memory of Matt comes to mind. He's on top of her, his fingers are buried somewhere deep inside her and she arches her body into him when he works them in and out in a torturous rhythm. He takes his fingers out and she feels empty, but when her eyes snap open to meet his, she can never forget his eyes as he looks at his fingers. Looking at the waterfall, she saw herself in his eyes, ready, accepting of him...all of him.

She doesn't know how to feel about the memory now, but it torments her all the way back home. It unsettles her even as she lay in bed, it was his face she saw. It was him in that moment she saw. It was his voice she heard, you're such a good kisser.

I won't force you; you know why? Because that would be rape.

He's here and there all around her she even dreams of him that night. There are some things one can only wish to forget and fail miserably over and over again. How did she go about this? How did she put his memory to rest, in a box somewhere she never had to look at again.

Jackie had been thinking about Matt for two weeks straight now. She'd asked Mahita and Zandaya what she should do and just as she expected, neither knew what to tell her. No one lived in her head twenty-four seven, none of them could tell her what to do when they had no idea of the depth of her situation. So now here she was again, sitting here alone in her room. They'd gone to sleep late again watching movies over a bottle of champagne. She'd come to believe she had everything under control and knew what she was doing but now she wasn't so sure.

Who did she turn to when no one outside the comfort of her room could provide her with the answers she needed, when she was angry at herself for still having feeling for him. He didn't want her, he never had. He made that clear that night, so why couldn't she get over him. And why now after all these years was the memories of him coming back to her? She took a deep breath, listening to herself and the loudness of her endless thoughts.

Closure.

That's what she was missing. When she'd left Mathew's house, she'd made the decision to walk away, but she hadn't really allowed him to give her a reason, an explanation. She wanted that, she craved it and that's why this felt so hard to come to terms with. She realized that it wasn't just that waterfall that made her think of Matt, because she was always thinking of him. Since she left him, she'd never stopped thinking about him and missing him. She had just ignored it and covered up that part of her life with Christian and work later on. But it didn't erase the questions and hurt that lived there. And there seemed to be a desperation to want to have been loved by him.

Jackie desperately wanted him to have loved her, for some reason that didn't quite make sense even to herself. It didn't matter if she'd been loved by other men, she still wanted to have been loved by Mathew, she still wanted him to have found her beautiful, intelligent and smart. It was uncomfortable to admit and even more shameful, but it was the truth.

When she packed a few things and got in her car to take a long drive to see Angie, she knew she'd get all the answers she needed. She wanted to put an end to this, an end to all these feelings and most of all she wanted him to know that it was amazing to know him. That she'd felt loved and precious even if it was just in those words, he'd said to her when she found herself on the fence about having sex with him. She wanted him to know that he'd been loved by her. That she looked up to him, that she wanted to selfishly be around him for his energy, for his intellect, for his goals and dreams. She wanted to listen to him tell her about all the writers he knew. To watch him watch her the way he did. That she'd loved all of him even if he wasn't hers in the end.