Chapter Fifteen

Jack

The silence was nearly unbearable; I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Urging someone in the room to speak with my mind, I flinched when Dr. Romanov spoke.

“I think”—he stood up—“we should all get to bed.”

No one spoke in silent agreement.

“Rom, you can sleep in the guest bedroom upstairs.”

Romulus nodded, and without another word to disturb the silence, everyone drifted off to their rooms.

After about twenty minutes of lying on the couch, I finally managed to get comfortable but in another second, I felt mildly guilty.

There was a sob from Helena’s room, and then as my ears adjusted to the sound, I noticed she was muffling her cry with her pillow.

With all the craziness of the past twenty minutes, I had completely forgotten I was planning on asking Helena out. Though now probably wasn’t the best time, I was just looking for an excuse to see her; just comfort her. Sitting up, my eyes fell on the shattered glass of water at the other end of the room she’d asked me for only a few short minutes before Romulus had come bursting through the door. I slumped to the kitchen, and poured her a new glass.

Switching my hold on the cup between fingers, I walked slowly over to her door. I raised my hand to knock, but I heard another sob and wondered if I really should wait until the morning. Or longer than that.

I shook my head; I was stalling. The knocking caused her to become silent for a moment.

“Go away, Dad,” her voice cracked, even though I had reason to believe she was trying to keep it strong.

“It’s Jack,” I confirmed my identity, still reluctant to enter. “I have your water. Can I come in?”

Silence, followed by small footsteps and the click of her door unlocking. By the time I stepped into the room, she was already sitting on her bed again. Her petite form was curled into a ball, and her face held the mask of vulnerability. Even in the darkness, her brilliant red hair curled past her shoulders, framing her unblemished face. Red circles surrounding her royal blue eyes confirmed that she’d been crying. Despite her condition, she was still beautiful.

I was at a loss for words, so I set her glass down on her nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed. It was hard to believe that only a few hours earlier I’d been in the exact same position, and Helena had been taking an embarrassing digital photo of me. I heard her sniff.

“I’m sorry you had to see all of this.” As I turned to look at her, she wiped a tear falling from her eye.

“Don’t be,” I told her immediately. “It wasn’t your fault your godfather decided to drop in after ten years…”

She laughed sadly. “I meant…I’m sorry you had to see me like this. I feel so weak.”

“You’re not weak,” I said immediately, wishing I wasn’t always verbally incompetent. I’d suddenly lost my trail of words.

“Yeah,”—she sniffed—“right.”

“Really, you’re not. I honestly don’t know how you deal with…what you deal with,” I finished, shrugging my shoulders. “I don’t know how I would have handled losing my brother at seven—or any of my siblings for that matter.”

She was silent.

“I mean, I know it may seem like it,” I was ready to kick myself if I made her feel worse. “But my Mom can’t just produce another kid on command.”

The bed shook slightly with her short-lived, genuine laughter.

“I know,” she wiped her eyes again, clearly cheering up—if only slightly. “That would be some magic trick.”

Her voice was guarded, and something was waiting to be said behind closed gates.

“You think she could make my memory of the last hour disappear?” She asked, joking but at the same time, revealing her innermost desire.

“I really wish she could,” I said thoughtfully. “I really don’t like seeing you in so much pain.”

Was that out loud? Damn, damn, damn, damn—rewind, I didn’t say it out loud…

“That’s ‘cause you’re you, Jack,” she commented, leaning back against her pillow, gazing up at me. “You’re a good person—you don’t like seeing anyone hurt. Unless you totally can’t stand them.” She smiled sadly.

“I guess,” I agreed. “But I’m not sure if that’s the reason I don’t like seeing you cry.”

When did I suddenly become Mr. Loose-Lips? I’m going to have to kill myself…

Her eyebrows threaded together, watching me with wary eyes. Well, at least she’d stopped crying.

“What do you mean?”

I suddenly found my sweaty palms very interesting. I wiped them on my jeans, and swallowed, sitting up straight. “Well…I—um…”

I wished she would interrupt, but she continued to watch me, respectfully waiting for me to finish.

“Uh—uh, I um…” What am I, a broken record? “You know what? Never mind, it’s really not that important.”

Strike three. And it’s my first swing. Way to go, stupid.

I was expecting her to roll her eyes and shrug, but instead, her face scrunched up and she began shaking. What had I done to make her cry again?

She sat up and buried her face in her hands, quivering. I was about to put a hand on her back—hopefully to comfort her—but I realized she wasn’t crying. She was…laughing. Hysterically.

Her eyes found their way to mine as she began to shake harder, probably from my bewildered expression. Joyful tears spilled from her eyes, and she wiped them away slowly, her giggling fit dying down.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” she wheezed, clutching her stomach. “What were you going to say—really? It can’t hurt for you to tell me…”

Her smile was confident, eyes flashing with knowledge. I looked down, feeling my face redden deeper then ever, before I muttered, “How did you know?”

Her features fell instantly, and she scooted next to me. “Jack, I”

“You don’t have to say it,” I interrupted, saving us both a lot of embarrassment. I should have known I’d never have a chance with someone as…amazing and attractive as she was. “I know you don’t like me as anything more than a friend. Just forget I even mentioned it.”

She laughed, and I felt a little offended. I didn’t find the situation very funny.

“Jack, that wasn’t what I was going to say.” Had she really just put her hand on my arm? She’d done it before a thousand times but this was different. “I was going to say that Morganne told me and”

“Morganne,” I whispered to myself, already plotting a plan for revenge that would surely fail. “Well, it doesn’t matter now, anyway. Your laughter was a good enough answer for me.”

I stood up, ready to exit the awkward atmosphere, but something caught my arm and pulled me back into a sitting position with surprising strength. I felt my eyes widen as I turned to look at Helena.

Her face was amused, but sympathetic at the same time. “Jack, will you let me finish what I’m going to say before you decide to make a big deal of leaving?”

She smiled and being under her sparkling, luring eyes only allowed me to nod and wait for her to speak.

“Yes, Morganne told me,” she confirmed. “But she thought it was for my own good because she didn’t want this to ruin our friendship.”

“It won’t will it?” She gave me a look for interrupting her. “Ruin our friendship?”

“I hope not,” she smiled. “Can I continue?”

I nodded again, tightening all of my muscles in preparation for the rejection that was sure to be carefully woven in between comforting words. Helena would know exactly how to capture the “Sorry, but no”.

“Well, she thought it was for my own good because,” she took a deep breath and folded her hands together. “Well, because she knows there aren’t supposed to be any secrets between the three of us. She thought that if I knew you’d kept something from me, that I would be angry with you.”

“Are you?”

She shot me the look again.

“Sorry,” I held up my hands. “I just want to know.”

“I’m not angry with you,” she told me sincerely. “It’s hard to be angry with you. You’ve never done anything to make me mad. Well, except for the first day I met you.”

I smiled at the crystal clear memory, surrounded by more cryptic ones of that same day. I’d stolen her pack of markers because I had lost the orange out of mine the night before. But I did give it back…it was just out of ink because I’d been drawing a large portrait of myself.

“Anyway, I’m hoping this won’t ruin what we have now.”

“Actually, if you could forget about it altogether, that would be great,” I pleaded, knowing I was not going to sleep when I went back into the living room with the conversation of rejection replaying in my head over and over.

“Jack,” she laughed and shoved me playfully. “You’re”—she jabbed me with her finger—“not”—again—“listening.”

“Ouch,” I rubbed my arm. “That one hurt.”

“How? You’re arms are huge,” she emphasized ‘huge’. “And I don’t mean hippo huge.”

I reactively covered my biceps, knowing they were out of proportion with the rest of my body. “Whatever.”

“Jack,” her voice was pleading me to look at her. “Morganne was wrong.”

“What”

“Whoa,” she held up a finger. “I know your mom taught you better manners than that. Especially since she refers to you as ‘my polite one’.”

“Morganne was wrong because,” her words were slow and well thought out. “She didn’t know that the feeling was mutual.”

My brain was racked with confusion and I didn’t want to try and decipher the riddle she’d just put out. “Big word, Helena. It’s nearly three in the morning.”

Her blue eyes rolled back and her hair swayed side to side. “Jack…she didn’t know that I like you as well.”

Great. Now I’m dreaming. I was sure I’d gotten up and mustered up the courage to even walk into her room…

“Uh, what?”

“Dear God, Jack,” she hit me coyly. “Way to pick the worst time to not be paying attention. I said: I. Like. You. Comprehend?”

“You like me?” The words came out more drunken then I’d hoped. I couldn’t hide the excitement that originated at my pounding heart and branched out to every limb in my body. I smiled. “I mean, you really like me?”

She smiled, nodding, obviously expecting the reaction she was receiving from me. Which happened to be quite a few. Excitement, happiness, a lot of shock, and I was even on the verge of possibly using the word giddy.

“Jack, breathe,” she reminded me.

I inhaled and exhaled deeply, silently thanking whoever created humans for creating Helena. The world would definitely not be the same without her. And she was…mine now?

“Really?”

She sighed. “I give up. What do I have to do to prove it to you?”

A flash of longing immediately clouded my thoughts; she was kissing me deeply, her pale, beautiful hands entwined in my hair along with my abnormally large arms wrapped around her small frame. Just a flash of longing.

“How about this?”

I was shot back to reality just in time to see her leaning closer to me. Suddenly, something soft touched my lips and it only took me a moment to comprehend that it was hers. Despite the overbearing urge to keep my eyes open, I closed them, letting my sense of touch skyrocket. Her lips were velvety and warm, just as I had imagined them. The kiss ended too soon for my taste, but I didn’t want to take it too far too soon. To me, that made things less special and I wanted things to be special with Helena. I couldn’t hide the grin that spread across my face.

I opened my eyes, surprised to see her on the verge of laughing again. “What?”

“Nothing. Morganne just told me to make sure you fainted on something soft.”

I snorted and she giggled. The silence that covered us was no longer uncomfortable. She said yes. She said yes.

“Thank you.” She placed her palm on top of my hand, and ran her smaller fingers lightly over my giant ones.

“For what?”

She smiled, completely unaware of how it affected me. “For making the real world disappear for a while.”

“Anything to make you happy,” I said quietly, suddenly wanting to reach up and touch her hair. I lifted my hand, her palm glued to the back of it, and wrapped a curl around my finger. The tingling her feather-soft hair sent through my arm reacted with my nerves, and I ran my hand through her red tresses. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, suddenly lacing our fingers together. Our hands fell as one on her bed and she leaned against my chest.

“I miss him…” she whispered, voice vulnerable and distant.

“I know,” I answered, giving her hand a small squeeze. “You should probably get some sleep, though.”

“After all that?” She snorted, and looked up at me. “I don’t think so. But you must be exhausted.”

“Not really,” I replied truthfully. “My heart’s beating at about one-hundred miles an hour right now…”

She laughed. “Mine, too.”

I heard her yawn, contradicting her earlier words. “You are tired.”

“Maybe a little,” she admitted in between more yawns. “But…I don’t know how to explain it…all I want to do is sleep, but I’m not really tired. I think I might be afraid that if I sleep, I’ll be expecting all of this to be a dream and wake up with the reality that it’s not.”

I was at a loss for words again. Well, that boost of confidence didn’t last very long…

“Is there anything I can do?” I came up with quickly.

I knew she was considering my words, though it was beyond me how I could help at all. I couldn’t bring Mikey back or anything that she really wanted. Was it possible she just wanted me? Or was it way too early to be thinking about things like that?

“Would you mind staying with me, tonight?” She asked meekly, her eyes finding mine. Which of course only made it ten times harder to speak.

“Um, I’d like to, but your dad”

“Incase you were zoned out through that entire chaotic conversation in there,” she nodded to the door. “I’m not exactly ‘buddy buddy’ with him right now.”

“Yeah, I know and you have every right to be mad at him, but,” I bit my lip, not wanting to anger her. “I don’t really want him to tell me I’m never allowed over here again because he catches me in your room this late—especially in the morning.”

“Jack, you’re like his son.”

“He won’t think like that when he finds out I’m dating his daughter,” I countered, imagining him exploding at me and screaming that Helena and I weren’t to be friends anymore.

“He doesn’t have to find out until tomorrow,” she smiled slyly, lifting her head from its place on my chest. “Until then, he can think of you as just my friend.”

“Even if he finds me in here?” I asked skeptically, though I was fighting my own desires just to shut up and stay.

“If he finds you in here, he’ll think I needed comfort from a friend. My dad doesn’t tend to think there’s any deeper meaning then what he sees on the surface. Or, at least, that’s the way I’ve come to know him. Please?”

I gave in. “Okay, but would you at least lock your door? That way if he tries to get in, I’ll have a head start at waking up.”

“Jack Braddock, I didn’t know you thought ahead,” she teased, passing me to fasten the door shut.

“On occasions.” I went along with her mockery only because I knew it was in good humor, while Morganne’s on the other hand, varied from just banter, to slander.

She slid under the covers of her bed and I rose to try and figure out how I was going to fall asleep in the only wooden chair occupying the corner.

“What are you doing?”

I turned, taken aback by her question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, where are you going?” She asked, this time sitting up a little, watching me with mystified eyes.

“Um, to the chair,” I answered, eyeing her carefully. “Something wrong?”

“When I said ‘stay’ I meant”—she lightly patted the space next to her—“here.”

“Do you want your dad to slaughter me?” Because he surely would, even if he knew I was only a friend to his daughter, but if I was caught before I confessed the truth to him, there would be no getting out of the situation.

“Of course not,” she answered. “But it’s not an issue of whether or not you want to?”

“Are you crazy?” I meant it as nicely as possible. “You’re asking me to sleep in the same bed as you. No, that is most definitely not the issue.”

She sniggered. “The door’s locked.”

“I know…” my voice was falling. But what exactly was I fighting if there was no chance we’d be caught? Any guy my age would have already been in the bed, half asleep, or doing other things—but I had to be me, and try to get out of it, for the good of maintaining good relation with her father.

“Fine,” I gave in, standing next to her bed, not knowing how to go about getting in the bed…did she even want me under the covers? I shoved my hands in my pockets, watching her scoot to one side, when something cold touched my hand. “Oh, I almost forgot…”

I pulled the silver chain from my pocket, being careful with it. I heard her gasp and I wondered if something was on my face. “What?”

“It’s gorgeous,” she watched the trinket swinging from the chain.

Obviously, my older sister hadn’t been lying to me when she’d gone to pick it out with me. The glimmer string of silver held a pendant, with brilliant twisting vines caging a black rose into place. I had no idea the attraction girls had to jewelry, but at least I knew it was there.

“You like it?”

“Of course,” she leaned closer, examining it from every angle. “I’d be insane not to.”

“Well, it’s yours,” I let it fall into a small pile in my hand and held it out to her.

“I know Morganne said jewelry, but I didn’t expect this,” she was gazing at it in awe.

“You knew about the necklace?” I asked, going through the revenge plans in my mind. Again, I couldn’t find one that Morganne couldn’t outsmart.

“Yeah, that’s kind of how she figured it out in the first place,” she shrugged sheepishly. “She didn’t know it was a necklace, though.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s got too many brains for her own good,” I muttered, sitting on the bed before sliding cautiously under the covers. She didn’t protest, or tell me to get off, so I figured I was okay.

She thoughtfully placed the necklace on her nightstand, and shocked me by also rolling on her side, facing toward me. My muscles froze when she closed the small space between us and snuggled up against my chest. My arm was frozen in the air, unsure of where to put it.

Almost as if she knew my thoughts, Helena reached up and pulled my arm down around her waist. “Goodnight, Jack.”

“Goodnight, Helena,” I echoed, leaning down to place a kiss on her head. But of course, any moment that I tried to actually make a moment was caught off guard by some sort of awkwardness. This time, it was how much more I towered over her; I felt like a chicken, craning to the ground for food without being able to reach it.

But suddenly something soft touched my lips—her hair, I realized. She’d pushed herself closer to my face just so that I could do…what I was doing. She pulled back a little and gave me a short look before pecking me on the lips and getting comfortable again.

Helena fell asleep in ten minutes. While I, on the other hand, didn’t fall asleep for another hour. My heartbeat was too loud.