Double Jinx (Wattys2017)

Chapter 4

Something must be very wrong with me. My eyes must be playing tricks on me as they have so many times before. I must be dreaming or hallucinating, an unwelcome flaw from my trauma as a child. But this felt different from the other times, this felt ...

    ... real.

    But it couldn't be. This couldn't be real. Because the person who had asked that simple question, that one word, it was the boy I've been dreaming about since that night ten years ago. His crop of dusty brown hair, those stormy grey eyes. They were exactly the same. But he was so different as well. A chiseled jaw, ungodly bone structure, broad shoulders, and full lips. Features that had once belonged to a still undeveloped boy.

    Now he stood before me, as a man.

    Ace.

    Something snapped in my chest, something painful. What was going on? How could this be happening? Ace was dead, he died a long time ago. I knew that to be true yet here he stood before me, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.

    This had to be some sick joke right? Maybe Jason was behind it, or maybe Lady. Maybe it was grandma, her own strange way of welcoming me back. But, none of that made sense. I couldn't imagine why my brother or my best friend or my own grandmother would want to put me through so much pain. They all knew how important Ace had been to me, how horrific that night was.

    Everyone else around us had frozen by now, looking back and forth between me and the boy who had spoken the nickname Ace used to call me due to my obsession with Filly, my stuffed bunny. But my mind refused to believe that this boy was Ace. It has taken me ten years and counting to get over what happened that night and the only thing that brought me relative peace was knowing Ace was somewhere better, resting in peace where his horrible parents couldn't reach him. If this was the boy who saved me all those years ago, then that meant he didn't die that night. And he's been living with those monsters all this time.

    I couldn't accept that.

His grey eyes were wide, so stormy and deep that I feared I might fall prey to their depths. His mouth had gone slack, hanging slightly open as his breath caught. When I didn't reply, or move, the boy took one step closer, his head cocking to the side as if he too couldn't believe was he was seeing. When his head tilted, I saw it. The small scar marking the skin on his neck in the shape of an 'X', the scar his father gave him the night Ace set me free.

    I was knocked backwards, almost off my feet.

    It was him, it was really him.

    Ace was ... alive.

    Another strange and painful snap entered my heart but this time, it was almost desired. Because it also freed me from the trance of disbelief I was under. My fingers curled into fists at my sides, my bottom jaw chattered as it always did when I got anxious, and my feet moved me another step back. Away from the man in front of me.

    Was this all just a dream? A very impressive and terribly vivid dream?

    Creston's eyes were wide as well, his gaze raking over me then shifting to Ace, then back to me, "Wait. You mean this is ... this is her?"

    I flicked my eyes to Creston, then back to Ace who by now looked like he had seen a ghost. I could relate. His eyes were so bright and bottomless, just like before. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't breath. He remembered me. He ran his fingers through his hair, his hands shaking, taking a deep breath in the process. The confusion and surprise in his features deepened with each passing second, then he locked gazes with me once more and asked with uncertainty, "Genevieve ... is that you?"