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Chapter 24: A Walk on the Wild Side

Chapter 24: A Walk on the Wild Side

Find Jay

Funny enough, I didn't have to search high and low and to the ends of the earth to find Jay. All I had to do was search my heart and the answer came to me.

"You come here often?" I had asked him on the first night be brought me to his beloved cliff.

Jay shrugged, "Only when I feel lost." he paused and then smiled, "So yeah, I guess I do come here often."

In the moment Jay was feeling lost, so of course he'd resort back to his comfort zone, back to his cliff. There is no where else for him to go. That thought saddens my heart. Another one, is that it's always me chasing him down. When will he come after me?

He sits on the cliff's edge, his legs dangling below just a top of the dark waters beneath him. I had noticed his dark shadow beneath the stars almost immediately after I caught a taxi and got here as fast as I could, say fours hours after our argument. 

The four hours gave me time to think. I want Jay more than anything, but I want him to want me back, so until then I'll be backing off from now on, until he decides he's ready to step up. Bust first I need to apologize.

He must hear the leaves being crunched beneath my steps because he starts talking, "When I was little, I was told I had anger issues." Jay chuckles, sensing my presence as I walk up to him. "My foster father use to  bring me here whenever I lost myself to my temper. He'd make me sit out here for hours with him. He'd make me shout out my problems over the cliff, my words echoing for miles out, but for only me to hear. I use to think he was crazy, but afterwards I felt better, less angry at the world. Knowing that there was at least one person other than me that would hear me shouting, my foster father, made it worth it. I could survive with him by my side."

I stay silent and take a seat beside him, no longer fearing the height of the cliff seeing as I'd jumped from it before and lived to tell the tale.

"But then one day he gave me up. I was taken back to orphanage and I hated it every second of it. Did the workers treat me respectfully and feed me? Sure. But all I wanted was a family. Eventually I gave up on that vision. Life had screwed me over one too many times to allow me to trust the world again. First my birth parents give me up and then my foster family." Jay states quietly before adding, "The worst part is, my foster dad never gave me a solid reason for letting me go. One day he was there and the next...well he wasn't gone...but I was."

"Jay." I sigh, his story breaking my heart.

"I admit I have anger issues and maybe a short temper, but it's because I'm pessimistic. I only see the bad in everyone before even looking for any good." he keeps his eyes straight ahead of him, focusing on the black horizon, "But you...you're the complete opposite. I envy that in you." he confesses and I can't help but feel dead inside with the way he's going. His life is so empty, bleak, meaningless and that destroys me on the inside. "I've always been told to figure out where my anger comes from in order to resolve it. Little did these people know that I'd already figured it out. First my real family gave up on me and then my foster family gave up on me too. They were suppose to be the ones that I could count on, but they gave up on me too. I guess I'm just so use to people giving up on me. I mean I must be really f**ked up for two families to give me up."

"That's not true Jay, I -"

"Then you came along Aqueela." he continues, clearly not wanting my sympathy. "You pushed me beyond my own limits. You didn't quit on me. No one's ever done that for me before. Sure in the beginning you kind of snuck up on me and kept following me around, being your ever so annoying persistent self, but the point is you stayed because you refused to give up on me. You stayed with me even when I did everything in my power to push you away. You're relentless in your crusades, you know that?" he asks, slightly chuckling to himself.