Broken- And Fixed Again- (A Jamilton Fanfic)

Chapter 24: It's Quiet Up Here

//TW: swearing, emotional manipulation\\

Wow you guys don't trust me at all.

(Edit: I mean you shouldnt lmao)

Thomas

I wasn't scared. Not as much as I should have been. Even as much as I dreaded the idea of his touch, even as much distance as I tried to keep between us as the gravel crunched underneath my feet with every step, even as much as I wished that I could have been anywhere except for where I was, I wasn't scared. And I truly have to ask myself if I'm ever going to be scared again, at least on the same level I had once spent my days perpetually rotting in.

Maybe now, I am finally free. And the thought was so light, so warm, that I simply could not be scared.

The park gave way before us, me leading the way, him following silently behind. I kept him in my peripheral, determined not to let him disappear. But the deeper we got into the forest, the more at ease I felt. Surrounded as I was by the thousands of plants and creatures that inhabited the forest, I was protected by invisible guardians, eyes trained on our small procession. Nothing could hurt me, not now.

The trees started to loom a bit taller over our heads, like rows and rows of old, abandoned towers left to the woods. The trunks become thicker, marked by an age that nothing in the rest of the forest bore. The further the path led to the forest, the less urbanized it all became, the remaining hints of the bleary, dull city retreating if not disappearing completely. As the path slowly changed from gravel to dirt, it no longer seemed like we belonged to New York City. It seemed as though we had returned to the forests of Virginia, the forests of our youths. The last thing we probably had that still belonged to both of us, that still marked us as equals. The last thing we had that was reminiscent of what we were, of where the both of us had come from.

And finally, in the center of it all, rested that tree. That beautiful, unchanging tree, perhaps centuries old, perhaps older than even the city itself. I didn't pause, trusting my limbs to remember the ascent to those solid branches even when my mind barely clung to those half-formed dreams lazily fleeting by. I managed to pull myself up, to taste the sky on my tongue. It tasted like summer, like fluffy clouds and ice. Like memories dipped in vinegar, as bitter as it all suddenly became. But I brought myself to the one branch where two letters were messily carved, two letters that stood embedded in a tree longer than they could in real life.

J + T

How cliché, I thought after a moment, running a thumb along the letters. I took in a deep breath of the forest, for it had changed from a park to a forest in the long walk it had taken to get us from here, and somehow, I laughed. Laughed for all we had lost, laughed for what we had become, laughed for all that we will never see. I took in the world and the strange irony of it all and I could not do anything but laugh and wonder why I had never seen it before.

I stared out at the park below us, thoughtful. My fingers dug into the hard bark of the old tree; the wind tussled my hair. The branch stopped shaking as James took his place next to me, observing the land below us as well.

You could see so much from up here. Right behind that ridge of trees there no doubt waited a group of uneasy dots, pacing near that rushing fountain and dreading what happened in the places they could not see. But if they had lasted three months, this would be nothing. Just a few more minutes, and I would be safe once more, returned to the light. But of course, you could see the buildings that towered all around us like that glorified jungle so many often compare it to. What a world we live in, where skyscrapers are trees and trees are towers, but all abandoned regardless, just in different ways.