If there was ever a time that I thought the world was messing with me, today would be one of those days.
I ached all over, but the cast on my right leg was my biggest problem. When I woke up today, I didn't think I would face a lot of problems this week. This man, whom I have hated for years, the man I woke up hating every day and shared hate notes with, was the man who decided today would be the day he would fuck with my mind.
He had done it before-reduced me into a mess, took away peace and left chaos instead. He did it again. This time, I contributed. I had messed up my own mind when I kissed back. When I allowed myself to feel his kiss, to let him imprint himself on me. Despite the pain on my broken leg, it didn't stop me from feeling tingles every time I remembered Jesse had kissed me.
That said man barged into my hospital room, startling me. My breath caught when Jesse swept his gaze to my face and the cast on my leg. He slammed the door behind him and stride into the room. I couldn't tell what he was feeling, but the more he approached, the more my heart kept speeding up. The more my lips tingled.
Jesse stopped by the bed as he looked down at me, his hands on his waist. "I kiss you and the first thing your think is to run through traffic? Fucking great."
I turned my eyes away and gripped my sheets, refusing to look at him. I thought the kiss had been a mistake. I thought he would want to forget it happened, but saying it out loud made it real. Talking about the kiss to me felt like an attack. I could not understand how to defeat it. How to protect myself against the fact that he had kissed me.
And I sure as hell didn't know how to act.
"If I hadn't called your mum, I wouldn't have known you are here." He sighed. "Are you not going to look at me? Say something?"
I felt my face getting warm, but I refused to look at him or say anything. I remained stubborn. I wouldn't budge for anything, not even when he slowly chuckled.
"Okay, I will accept your stubborn ass, but you can nod, right? So nod or shake your head to my question. Are you feeling okay?"
Silence welcomed us again.
Then he said in a soft, jeering voice, "If you don't respond, Iris, I swear to God I'm going to give you a lot more to panic. In case you have forgotten this slight information, I don't give a shit what I do and damn the consequences. Respond or I will give you a lot more to run into traffic for."
I think I inhaled so fast it actually felt like I might choke, but I nodded defeatedly. I closed my eyes and opened them, turning my head to stare at him.
"Okay, good. Do you need something? Want me to call anyone?"
"No, you can just leave." My leg hurt, but it didn't hurt as much as it did the first time I was wheeled into the hospital four days ago.
"You can forget about chasing me away." Jesse gritted his teeth beneath a careless smile and added, "I kissed you and I'm taking that responsibility."
I flinched. "Can you stop saying that?" I drew a deep breath, steadying my nerves and my heart, which started to beat far too fast. I was completely defenseless against him now, and we both knew it. Completely defenseless if he doesn't drop the subject.
"What? Kissing you?"
The sound of his voice and the angry note in it stiffened me, giving me the strength to sit up. I couldn't do this while I was lying down. "Please stop," I clipped out. He was calm. I was frantic. I knew he could see it surging up in me.
He sauntered forward and frowned, as if uncertain what to say or do with her next. "Why do you want me to stop? Do you think I'm going to stop talking about it because you don't like it?" he demanded in a harsh, deadly whisper between gritted teeth. "I don't care if it makes you uncomfortable. I kissed you and you kissed back. I won't let you run away from that."
I was practically almost out of bed, but still sitting on the edge. "Why the hell did you do that? Do you know what you have done?"
You have ruined me.
His jaw clenched, but he drew to a halt next to me. He stepped in so my shoulder was brushing against his chest. "Yes, I'm fully aware of what I've done and I don't care, Iris. I did it because I wanted to."
"Have you lost your mind? You wanted to kiss me? Jesse, you and I-"
"-we've had our differences-"
"Differences? Is that what you're calling it?
"-I kissed you because it was the right thing to do."
"You did it because of Matt! Don't stand there and act like you did something noble. You've always been cruel, Jesse. Nothing will ever change. To get what you want, you'd go to any length to be cruel to me, and this is no different to what you have done for years," I cried out, shoving him back. He staggered, but didn't lose his composure. Heatedly and breathlessly, I added, "You're cruel and manipulative. Every time I'm near you, things fall apart. Things get messed up and I hurt. You make me crazy. So, please, I'm begging you. No more. I don't think I can handle anymore from you."
"What are you saying?"
"I don't want to feel like this. I hate feeling like this. This anger....this hate...frustration-I want peace. I don't want to feel these feelings when I see you. I don't want to go crazy every time I talk to you or think about you. I don't want to avoid places because you're there. I don't want to continue being annoyed at my family for treating you as if you're above me." I waited half a second before I drove a nail into him. "You always take things from me-my family, my life, my childhood, my relationships. All you do is take from me and you act like you don't care what it has done to me. I refuse to allow you to take the last bit of my sanity. You can't play with my emotions."
A tear escaped my eyes as I took an angry inhale before exhaling. I waited for a moment, noticed when he stepped back. A voice in my head told me to shut up, but I didn't. I couldn't. Whatever I felt at that moment was real. I felt every inch of it, and I didn't care if it was hurting him. He hadn't cared when he kissed me and bullied me for existing.
I didn't need to hold on to that hate because it brought me nothing. Hating him gained me nothing, and I finally understood that. I thought it would make me feel better, make me feel like I was keeping a size of my win to myself. Hating him didn't make me feel better. Hating him didn't make me feel like I had achieved anything. Instead, all he had taken was every piece of my thoughts and all my emotions. He took them all, and I hadn't realized.
And the fact that I was physically hurt because of what he did scared me. I could have died. He could have been the reason for my death, for anything to happen because I allowed him to get to me. I gave him the choice to control me because I let him be a huge part of me. Because Cece was right. I made him the centre of my world, and if I didn't cut him off and step back, my entire world would collapse. It would be too late before I realized he was a sickness I had never been able to recover from. A rot that has been eating me away for years.
It hurt to breathe and to let the words out, but I forced myself. "I hated you before, Jesse, but I hate you even more now that it's suffocating." He went rigid. I didn't stop. "I hate that my skin crawls when I look at you and my tongue tastes bitter when I talk to you. No more." Whatever shock my words might have dealt him was far too quickly masked, except for a brief, sudden flare of white light in his eyes.
The doctor came at the right time to discharge me. "Iris, you are free to go if you sign this...." He handed me a paperboard, not aware of the tension between me and Jesse, who stepped aside to let the doctor stretch the clipboard to me. With shaky hands, I signed my discharge papers.
After he left, the tension resumed. Jesse didn't leave like I expected him to. He continued to stare at me as if he was seeing a puzzle. My heart pounded, wondering if he was going to walk out, let us go-half fearing he would and half needing him to. I tried to ignore his presence when I grabbed my crutches, resting my legs on the ground and trying not to hurt my broken leg.
Jesse's hand circled the back of my neck, and my heart jumped into my throat. "Let me help you to the car."
I glared at him. "I can walk just fine."
His eyes were dark as he wrapped his fingers around my upper arm. "Yeah, but so it happens, you're careless with your life. I don't want to regret leaving you and something happens-like you falling down the stairs or slipping and breaking your neck."
I shot him another glare, huffing and pushing forward. "I'm not a child."
"You constantly act like one."
He helped me out of the room as we walked down the hallway. He didn't need to do that, not after what I said. He shouldn't want to help me. I wouldn't help me either.
Once outside, I refused to let him drive me home. He refused to let me wait outside for the Uber driver to come get me. I didn't know about him, but this was horrible to me. He was nicer and caring now. Usually when I tried to hurt him, he hurt me right back. He never lets me have the last words, and he made sure his words cut deeper than mine did.
And now, he wasn't doing anything. He was being careful and helpful. I wasn't used to this version of him. It frightened me that there was a side of him I didn't know before. He had never shown it, and I didn't know how to act around him. Anger. Hatred. Frustration. Those were the things I felt around him. Those were the general emotions for me.
Side by side, we stood together, but a distance separated us.
I watched the road. I watched the people moving in and out of the hospital, and I watched patients being wheeled inside. I glanced at Jesse. He was watching the world like I was, and I caught myself wondering what he was thinking about. He had made it known he wasn't leaving until I was safe in the car. Only then would he leave.
It took ten minutes before the Uber driver arrived. I limped to the car and Jesse had not left his spot. He watched me fight to get inside the car and pulled in the crutches. When I shut the door, he didn't move. He watched me.
When we drove away, that was when he did.
Through the rearview mirror, I saw his eyes cast to his shoes. His head hung down. His shoulders slumped. And then, I realized he was displaying the emotions I had expected to see when I told him to fuck off my life. I realized he had been strong, putting on a mask in front of me.
--
The rain came out of nowhere. I found it funny because Jesse's kiss had came out of nowhere, but so did what came next after.
The sky was unforgivable as the rain falls hard on everything in its path. I wasn't lucky enough to escape its wrath, drenched from head to toe as I pounded on Cece's door. It was not the goosebumps that covered my skin from the brush of cold or the water that dripped behind me, or my wet hair or clothes for that matter. It was the feeling I was getting. A prick in my heart. I couldn't soothe it, and I was convinced I wasn't shivering from the cold.
I felt different.
I felt disturbed and unsettled.
My fist pounded against the door, and it took her another minute to open the door. Her eyes widened when she saw me. I didn't know what she was shocked to see-my drenched body, the cast on my leg, or the fact that I came to her house unannounced. She stared at me standing soaking wet in the middle of her threshold, a small puddle forming around my feet where water dripped off my hair, clothes completely plastered to my frame.
I didn't care. I walked past her to get inside. Well, more like limped my way in. I was annoyed and frustrated that I wanted to take off the cast because I felt that it was stopping me from reaching my goal. But I knew the cast was not the enemy. It was not what I was pissed about.
"What happened to you?" Cece asked in alarm as she watched me find a place in her couch. I put my broken leg on her coffee table, not rushing to find something to cover myself or attempt to dry my clothes. I found that I quite liked it like that. I could feel every stab of ice on my skin that I thought I deserved. Cece came to sit beside me, still wearing a confused and bewildered look on her face. "What the hell happened to your leg?"
I glanced at her, my lips trembling from the cold. "He kissed me." It was not the answer she sought, but it was what I could say right now. I've held back a lot that I needed to unload. I was barely keeping myself together.
Her brows went high. "Who?"
It hurt to say his name out loud. "Jesse."
"Jesse?" She was confused, but there was nothing to be confused about. And then again, no one would expect Jesse Price to kiss me.
"Jesse."
She cocked her head. "Our Jesse?"
My heart jolted at the use of that word. Our. He has never been mine, but he was Cece's friend. He was family, and if I knew Jesse well enough, then I knew whatever I had told him at the hospital hurt him. I had said a lot to him over the years, but I knew he never considered anything I said. This time had been different. This time, he kissed me and I pushed him away cruelly. I knew he was going to stay away.
Did it mean he would stay away from the people close to me? Would he do that?
I should have just said yes, but clearly, I was in a mentally weakened condition because I was suddenly pissy. "How many Jesse's do you know, Cece?" I bit out, cold, frustrated, and agitated. And scared. Scared and.....sad?
Cece's face held back a shock. "Jesus, okay, calm down, but what do you mean he kissed you?" She raised her eyebrows in question, and I knew she was trying to be calm. Calm, so she could process what I was saying. It was a lot to process. It was a lot harder to say it out loud.
"With lips," I told her, getting the urge to touch my lips again.
"Jesse kissed you with his lips?"
"Be on the fucking page with me. He kissed me! Why the fuck would he do that? He kissed me! What the fuck am I supposed to do? He's ruined everything!" I threw my hands in the air.
Cece's smile was small, but amused. "Am I going to get paid for listening and being your emotional support?"
"Is that all you have to say?" I narrowed my eyes at her. "You're a freaking therapist. Shouldn't you figure out why he did that?"
"There's two possibilities, Iris, and I don't want you to jump me for saying this, but it he's attracted to you or...." she trailed off, fighting off a smile. "or he loves you."
"Love?" I practically choked. I think I was choking and wheezing. I couldn't breathe. The air in my lungs choked me and I had to close my eyes, inhale slowly before I could feel air entering and leaving my lungs. Cece noticed that it freaked me out and grew concerned.
"I'm sorry, but it could not be love." She gulped. "Iris, I was joking. He could have done that-"
"-to mess with me," I finished.
She shook her head. "No, that's not what I'm saying. You can't know what he could have meant by it if you don't talk to him. Communication matters, Iris. Talk to him. Find out."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I told him to fuck off."
She rolled her eyes. "You always tell him to fuck off."
"This time feels different." The memory of our last encounter resurfaced, and I gritted my teeth. "I feel this time he's going to do exactly that."
"What did you do?"
"It doesn't matter now." I scrambled off the couch before I walked past her, heading for the door.
"Where are you going?" she called, but I was already wrenching the door open. "Iris, it's raining!"
I slammed the door shut.
Fuck the rain.
It took me somewhere else. Somewhere I knew my answers would be, and I knocked on the door. Drenched in water and shivering, nothing else mattered other than the fact that I was here, and I wasn't leaving without answers. I could be out of my mind, you know. My emotions have been heightened, the dam that held me composed destroyed, so I could only held onto what I had now. The street was flooding with water, but I was the one who felt flooded.
The rain continued to pour, louder this time, slapping against everything as if it moved with my emotions. The harder it rained, the faster my heart beats. The more I couldn't seem to settle my mind.
It didn't matter whether I was drenched from head to toe. It didn't matter that I was shivering and my teeth were chattering. What mattered was the door opening and seeing him standing before me. Matt was surprised. He offered me warmth, but I denied it. I had long known cold before I knew his warmth. So, I demanded to know the truth.
He didn't hide it. He told me everything, and by the time I left his doorstep, my legs buckled under me. The rain continued to fall harder than it did before, beating against my skin.
And for a minute there, I collapsed against the side of the road, clutching my heart.
I was devastated.