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“That’s what Iknowhappened, Jax.”
“Damn it, Hollis. Why didn’t you tell me any of this? You mean to tell me you went this whole time thinking that I had intentionally…” he stands up and runs his fingers through his hair, obviously pissed off and upset over something.
“Are you getting mad at me?” My insides start to feel like they're catching on fire, and not the good kind. The clamp in my chest seems to squeeze tighter and I immediately feel regret in wanting to have this conversation.
“God, no. I’m not-” he takes a deep breath. “I’m not mad at you. I just- I’m trying to understand how you allowed this to fester for so long. Why did you think that you had to take any of this on by yourself? Why wouldn't you have just talked to me?” He leans down to his haunches where I’m still sitting, his eyes are about level to mine, and I see tears hiding behind his lashes.
My internal panic seems to calm down just a bit as I watch him show an emotion I didn’t know someone could feel when hearing about someone else’s pain. But the way he’s looking at me is how I know I can’t tell him the rest. I can’t tell him the physical pain I thought I needed to endure because it might break him the way it did me. Ironic because I’ve wanted nothing more than for him to feel my pain and now, I don’t know if I can handle being the one to light that match.
“Hollis, I also had something I wanted to confess to you that night. But I didn’t want to hurt you or disappoint you.”
My brows curl in, curiosity painting my face.
“Well, you did that anyway.” I lower my head and avert my gaze to my lap.
This conversation goes way deeper than it ever has when I had it with my therapists. Probably because they are trained and licensed professionals who need to remain neutral and don’t have emotions tied to their patients. Jax and I have those emotional ties, those deep seeded bonds that got buried under mounds and mounds of time, and without any sunlight, we got lost in the dark.
“I guess I did.” He stands up and turns to face the wall, giving me his back. “What did you wanna tell me?” Jax’s voice sounds like it’s beaten down, like he’s reflecting the disappointment to himself and I my heart aches to hear him in pain.
I think about the question and realize how silly the answer is going to sound. Especially since we’ve both already established that there was a mutual likeness as more than friends between us.
I stand up and decide to wrap my arms around his torso from behind. I remember telling myself that if I had someone to hug me without asking if it’s what I wanted, that I might feel a little better in those harder times. It takes him a second, but he returns the gesture by encompassing my arms with his own, laying them on top of mine. I lay my head against the back of his shoulders before I tell him my secret.
“That I liked you, as more than my friend. And I really did want to kiss you.”
I can feel his shoulders sag, his air leaving his lungs like he already knew what I wanted to tell him. Like he knew but he didn’t want it to be true because it would mean that all of this was for nothing.
“What did you want to tell me?” I ask him back, already having a feeling about what his confession will be.
“That I also liked you as more than a friend. And I also wanted to kiss you that night.” Jax lets go of my arms and turns to face me. We both stand in front of each other, the rise and fall of our chests indicating the intensity of what we just admitted, even though it was so long ago, and it seems a little ridiculous now.
“Then why did you leave? Why did you let me think that I wasn’t good enough for you? Why did you leave me the next day without telling me how you really felt?” My mind wonders about all the ways my life could have been different if Jax had just told me the truth. Or if he would have let me tell mine. Though I don’t want to place blame on him anymore. Not entirely.
“That’swhyI didn’t tell you. It wasn’t right of me knowing I had to leave the next day. I knew it wouldn’t have been fair and I-”
“What, Jaxon?”
Jax takes my cheeks into the palm of his hands and lowers his face till his lips are caressing mine. He kisses me with a slow, passionate kiss that I let consume me with every ounce of surrender I have.
When he lets go, he looks me in my eyes.
“Hollis, I was in love with you.”
My heart seizes, my breathing turns sporadic. Panic rises where panic shouldn’t rise, and I take a step back from the space he stole from me.
“You what?” I ask it like I’m accusing someone of theft.
“Wait, what just happened?” His facial expression turns from soft to hard, rocked with confusion as he watches me freak out about his much-deeper confession.
“You mean to tell me that after all this time, after everything I went through. You…” I turn around not wanting to face him any further. I knew this would happen. I knew it would start to feel this way. Like the last several years of hurting and aching would feel pointless at the hands of the person who caused it, because he really did feel the same way I did, buteven more.
But instead of owning up to it like a fucking man, he shut me down, shut himself down and was perfectly content with walking away and giving up on it for good.
“Do you know how small I felt knowing that the only person in the world that I trusted was the one who made me doubt myself? I couldn’t stand the fact that you rejected me like that. I still don’t know how to explain that feeling but it was like a domino effect to every negative thought I ever had about myself.” I turn to see Jax take a step in my direction with a woeful look on his face, and I put up my hands in protest as I step back and continue.
“Then I started school feeling so alone and so out of place. You weren’t there to help me. But you promised you would be. I just kept thinking that you were having the time of your life while you partied with college girls, and I was just this sad broken doll that started to lose her self-worth in a sea of kids who had already found their way.”
Dejection emanates from Jax like smoke to a flame.
