Shutter [Jonathan Byers] Stranger Things I

XX: Ache

ache

noun

an emotion experienced with painful or bittersweet intensity.

They were wrapped up in a blanket of passion; swept away from all the thoughts of anything else in their world. Tears stained Emilia's cheeks but were not longer falling. Her hands were sliding down from Jonathan's cheeks and she gripped his jaw with one hand, her other sliding around his neck. His hands were upon her hips, nervous as he held her tighter instead of moving them along her body. Her body that he had dreamed of caressing and feeling; now that she was here and he was able to physically do that, he froze. His dreams always seemed so different from real life, but it was in real life that his heart hammered hard and everything in his entire body flared and tensed all at the same time.

It was electric.

Emilia brought her lips down to Jonathan's neck, feeling his smooth skin and wondering briefly if he shaved. Some teenage boys didn't need to, the hair didn't come in until they were older. The thoughts diminished as she placed her pink lips on the side of his neck. He tasted sweet, he smelled like some sort of mint. Her eyes were closed the whole time as she tried to tune in to the marvelous feeling that spread through her like wildfire. Jonathan's eyes remained wide open as he began to move his hands along her hips, to her back where his hands felt flesh; her shirt had lifted. Skin on skin. He shuddered ever so slightly.

Emilia jerked at the feeling of his hands upon her bare skin, but it wasn't enough of a movement for Jonathan to notice. She took a few shallow breaths and reminded herself that she was with Jonathan, someone that she trusted. A nagging feeling in the back of her head like a dark shadow crept out of the corners, spreading through her mind and making her cringe. Jonathan couldn't take notice of her worried expression, as her lips were still by his neck, she was tucked away. Emilia shut her eyes tight and repeated a mantra in her head, she trusted Jonathan.

She trusted Jonathan.

She had trusted him too once.

And you were young, hurt, and stupid.

I trust Jonathan.

Jonathan noticed that Emilia had frozen, and he slowly brought his hands back around, placing them on her hips lightly. One hand moved to touch her cheek; she flinched at the touch and he could see even in the darkness of the car that she was lost in some distant thought. Suddenly Jonathan noticed the discomfort of the position they were in. Her knees were jammed between the door and the gear shift, and thus dug into either side of his thighs. She was hunched so that her head wouldn't hit the roof of the car. He stopped everything he was doing because he knew that this was not right; as much as every part of him wanted to see where this heated moment in the car would lead them, it didn't feel right.

"Emilia?" He whispered, unsure why his voice came out so silent, but suspected it was because he hadn't wanted to startle her.

Whenever she disappeared behind her own veil of thoughts she became nervous and jittery.

Her eyes focused on him. It was as if she had been in a trance and only now realized what she was doing. Her hands fell to her lap, and she looked down, eyes upon his stomach. She just wanted to forget, to forget that ache that filled her whenever she thought about what had happened. She'd been young, stupid, desperate for someone to look at her the way... the way Jonathan did. But she hadn't noticed Jonathan back then, even though he had noticed her so long ago. Looking him in the eyes, his beautiful brown eyes, she saw something that she'd only seen with Jonathan.

She should have smiled.

Instead, Emilia detached from Jonathan, shifted awkwardly back into the passenger seat. Staring ahead, ahead at the very road where her mother's head had cracked under the force of a truck and a steering wheel, she fell back into a memory that was more like a nightmare. Cringing at the very thought of his hands on her body, the way his eyes didn't care about how uncomfortable she was. She was too stupid to say stop, too stupid to tell him that she wasn't ready. She made the mistake of saying she wasn't ready after it had happened, with a sheet draped around her lower body. Her bra was still on, but the scars were clear. More visible than they were today.

She told him that she didn't want to do that again.

He told her that he had done her a favour, because no one else would want to look at her.

He said the lights should have been off.

"Take me home," she blurted.

Jonathan was stunned by her words, an embarrassed feeling rushing through his entire body. His face reddened and he was glad that it was so dark. Pausing for only a moment, he wondered what he should say, if anything. The words should have come, he should have told her anything. That he didn't want to do anything she wasn't comfortable with, that he would never do anything to hurt her, to make her feel unsafe. The words were all there in his mind, on his tongue just dancing and ready to be released. But instead he furrowed his brow.

"Take me home!" She repeated, this time louder and with the edge of tears evident.

He turned the engine over, his hands shaking. It took twice for the car to start because his foot was shaking on the clutch. Faint music played, and it was the only thing that diffused some of the wicked tension in the car. Emilia repeated a new mantra in her head then, that she was an idiot. She was reacting to something bad inside of her, a poison that had never been flushed out. It was not Jonathan's fault that she had these filthy thoughts and memories in her head, almost as bad as the ones of her mother's death. It made her feel dirty inside, and she couldn't tell Jonathan.

He wouldn't want her if he knew.

Surely he wouldn't.

Turning her gaze out the window, she watched the trees go by just as she had been doing when the truck hit her and her mother. Five more minutes, and she could go home, she could forget this night happened, and figure out how she would explain herself to Jonathan. It was simple, she would tell him that she wasn't ready. And yet she was ready; she wanted so much to be with him, to share something that intimate and beautiful with him. She needed to cleanse what was inside of her, the poison in her.

Jonathan pulled up in front of the house that was not hers.

He didn't know what to say, he was shaking because he knew he was losing Emilia by not saying anything.

He wondered if it was about the scars. Those scars she was so terrified to show upon her stomach. He had seen them, only briefly, but they were not ugly. They were beautiful, and they proved to the world that she had survived what should have killed her. Survival is always beautiful, in every form it comes in. But he had not endured what she had, and so he didn't know how to say any of this to her. Jonathan had not the slightest clue that what was really underneath her skin and bothering her had little to do with the scars, but those who had hurt her in the past.

Tell him.

He deserves to know.

He'll never hurt you.

Everyone hurts me.

"I...." She began, ducking her head as she felt Jonathan's eyes on her. "I'm sorry."