Jillian froze at his words.
"I love you."
I love you?
I love you?
I love you was unreal. Love was unreal. Love did not exist. It didn't. Love was what Romeo and Juliet supposedly had. There was no love; only extreme infatuation with another human being. There was no such thing as love, at least not to Jillian. If love was supposed to be about unconditional kindness to someone else, then it was in no way real. People fought constantly, married couples, unmarried couples, even friends. She did believe in friendly love and compassion, but not true love. There was no such thing.
Jeff was not even technically human. He and all the other Creepypasta's were either demons or working to become demons. If a human was incapable of love, then a demon surely would not be able to.
Jeff stood waiting for her reaction. She did not move, just stared at him wide eyed. Jeff thought that she would be happy for him saying it, that it would show how much he cared about her. Instead, she stood there dumbfounded.
"Jillian?" He asked tentatively, testing the waters.
Perhaps he had done something wrong. People said those words when they really cared about someone, right? He did care about her, a lot, so it made sense to say it. Maybe Jeff had not been human for so long that he forgot appropriate times to say it. Come to think of it, Jeff never did say those words to anyone that was not family. He also had not thought about that word much since the accident. He loved his brother, and did do whatever he could to protect him. Liu even protected Jeff when the police came for him.
Even so, he did love her. He knew that some people described love as something that makes you want to change to make another person happier. He was trying to do that. He even tried bringing down the number of kills he made each night, or at least try to avoid killing children.
Jeff needed to stop his thinking. Jillian's inability to react to his words was giving him an excuse to be angry at her, fully infuriated in fact. The urge to kill her started to resurface again, and it had been gone for quite some time.
He clenched his hand into a fist, attempting to redirect the tension. He knew that the situation had just become dangerous; he had not killed in a while, and he now had a potential target right in front of him. She needed to say something immediately and distract him from the thoughts. However, in the silence, they could be heard loud and clear.
"Jeff." Jillian stated coldly, now staring down at the ground. "Love is a dangerous word."
Jeff just listened to her as she continued.
"It doesn't exist. Just…just don't say that word to me." She finished. She felt extremely cold even in the large sweatshirt she was wearing.
"Fine."
Jillian could hear the bitterness in Jeff's voice. She suddenly felt bad, but she would not say something that she did not mean.
"Jeff," She began. "I care about you. A lot. A substantial amount, as I know you do for me or you would not go to such lengths to protect me from myself, your family, and yourself. I am not ungrateful for that, I just don't believe in the idea of love and soul mates and all that. It's pointless. Love is just…nothing. There's no such thing okay? It's overused and has no more meaning to it and therefore it does not exist. One hundred percent pointless." She waited for him to respond. When he did not, she continued. "And by using it people are only more entitled to get hurt so it's better to just avoid it entirely."
"Fine." Jeff repeated.
Jillian sighed. Great, now I pushed him away.
"Jeff, I-"
Jeff shot her a look. "Let's just drop it." It was clear that he was not going to give her an option in this.
She hung her head. She was not trying to get on his bad side. She scared was all. Jillian did believe in love, but denied it. To her, it was only something that resulted in pain. She could not handle pain herself, but would do so for the sake of others. Now she hurt him, but she had to admit that it would hurt him further if she lied. Also, if she did say it back, she did not think she would be capable of dealing with the pain that could come with him leaving.
It would be just that complicated.
