Fight or Flight

Chapter 12: Past comes back to haunt

You must have so many questions? Who is Jacob? Why is he here? What did he do? Why the hell does it take to so long to update?! Read and you might find out...MIGHT!

There I laid for quite some time, under the stress of intense feverish gazes. Feverish not of the usual sense you might come to expect in a hospital. But more so of hazy fearful excitement, replete with awkward glances and silent words that are more assumed than spoken. Though I can expect, knowing them both so intimately that each of our assumptions would be vastly different.

Jacob might find hatred from my bitter-tightly-clenched demeanor, when there is none (or at least very little) to be found. More disdain and anger than anything else ranging in the loathing territory. But how would he know that? In his position, I would conclude with the same hateful hypothesis.

Rachel being as scholarly as she is, will hopefully infer that hate is not a noun I would not use to describe her entirely so soon. She would acknowledge my hostility as mere anger at her for bringing this dastardly person back into my life. And then would recognise with my use of 'dastardly' (which is a word not commonly found in my vocabulary for people I despise, or any for that matter) that I do not truly hate Jacob. I am just using anger and hostility to mask my surprise, confusion and in the deeper parts of me...appreciation.

That is one thing I do hate about rachel truthfully, she can dissect my words carefully. Even though both these assumptions are purely hypothetical, and since neither of them seem to be talking, it will stay that way. So, not wanting to be the first to break silence I let the sour, nervous eroma continue to waft around the room. Rife with the same guilt it held 20 minutes ago.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"I don't know what to say" jacob breaths, with a beaten down exhaustion I have never heard in his voice before. "I'm sorry for everything. You know I have never been good with...expressing myself. I've been out for the last two months, and I knew you didn't want to see me. You made that clear, but I still love you...That will never change" he whispers softly to me. managing to ease closer, careful of my bite. I was surprised he was the first to talk and not Rachel but that is neither here nor there.

"I-I" I stamer incoherently.

"You can deny you love me too as much as you want, and you can rebuttal with the same lawyer-ass-shit...But it's going to change nothing. I know how badly I screwed up everything I had going for me, and I hurt anyone I love in the process. There is not a single, minute moment that goes by that I don't regret taking the drugs, but I did and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I messed up, and messed with you head not meaning to hurt you. And I'm sorry that it landed me in jail. I'm sorry that I didn't come to see you the moment I was out of that fucking waste hole I will never stop regretting that as long as I live. I will do everything I can to make it up to you...just don't forget me."

"Forget you? I can assure you that is one thing I will never do. I never told you this but you were the one who made me want to be a lawyer, you paved the way to all my dreams and helped me strive endlessly for perfection and justice. And then you crushed them by disregarding everything we believed in! Remember when we were kids? You were much bigger than me at the time, and we would play cops and robbers in the backyard?" he nodded wistfully. "You had those navy plastic handcuffs that were always breaking? You were always the cop and I was the robber. I remember back then we never thought about the relevance of that game, something think about frequently now, but there was no need because I could tell you still had the same strong morals as you did when you handcuffed my falsified criminal persona" I paused for a moment to take a breath, and the cold sterile air invades my lungs once again. "Do you recall that one summer when each night we sat ontop of mrs. baker's hill after it got dark. We thought we were such rebels for sneaking out" I laugh quietly reminiscing about those old memories. "We sat on the dirt and grass looking at the stars with such a juvenile sense of misinformed optimism. I remember talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up, even though that seemed so distant at the time" I look up cloudily at the ceiling imagining that picturesque star filled sky. "That was the first time you told me you wanted to be a cop, and it was the first time I ever seriously considered my future profession. After that I thought constantly about what I wanted to be, I contemplated becoming a cop too but you were always the athletic one. I thought about being a detective, and in my premature years even a slot at the FBI, but that was the most foolish of them all considering my skill set. Then one day it hit me. We were at one of your football games, and this man was lurking off the the side. I think it was jackson peters he was around 25 at the time, occasionally I would see high schoolers come to him and slip some cash his way and he would hand them something. Well, the police came and dragged him off the same day. Soon we all learned he was dealing multiple types of drugs" as I tried to remember the story I could see them both listening in intently. "He went to court A week later, but you remember him rich and arrogant as hell. His parents bailed him out in hours, got him a great lawyer and he was back on the streets. Again dealing to unsuspecting idiotic kids. After that I remember thinking, if a lawyer got him out of jail? Then one could get him back in... and my dream was born."

~*~*~*~*~*

He looked up at me a dazed shape to his taught mouth, like he was not expecting me to have such an odd reason to be what I am. Although I am not exactly as I planned to be, I am not a prosecutor.

"Is that true?" rachel asks from her protective corner. I only nod in response.

I wish now I had not told them that story. It was foolish of me to consider Jacob worthy of my strained words, and Rachel trustworthy enough not to use it against me. Years of vilifying a man for acting upon his basic wrongful urges can be disappointed when you accept the person you've been hating all these years has changed. Precisely saying there was and currently is one reason I have fortified my walls against jacob would be a lie. Also would be saying all the reasons are about him, but that I will never fully accept. At Least not in a way my consciousness can form full undisrupted conclusions, occasionally convulsive fragments of realisation try to form in my mind but I quickly push these thoughts and feelings away.

Me to even slightly consider myself at fault is a thought too painful. I know I am not at fault with his crime nor his ignorant problems but maybe I am for hating him?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Okay I'm about to say something that will only encourage this situation to get a hell lot worse...Get over yourself bitch."

"What?" I stagger, my brain not being able to compute.

"Your right! He's an ass, and a stupid one at that!" she professes towards jacob.

"Yeah..." he whispers to himself.

"But need to grow a pear and say no isn't a good enough reason to cut him out. Kick him in the crotch!? Punch him in the face and move on with it already?! He stole them years ago and did his time! So yeah get over yourself bitch" she spurts out confidently arms flailing this way and that to prove her point. I on the other hand are not convinced by her impromptu performance.

"Please don't do that" jacob gulps back fearfully.

"I can forgive, but I can't forget. Even if I do try to let you back in my life it will never be the same, we will never be able to talk to each other or help another out...I will never trust you."

"That's more than I deserve but if you let me I will try" he pleads.

"Fine."

"Thank you" he grins widely, white teeth poke out. "Now if it isn't too quick to ask who is this Ray?"

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