The person was quicker this time, putting a stop to everything with a single touch.
A warm hand wrapped around my arm, right at my elbow. Instantly, I stopped moving. I may have stopped breathing, as the touch warmed my cold skin. I could feel it spread up and down my entire arm, but I couldn’t move.
“Please, Koda.”
I turned my head farther away, eyes moving everywhere. My mind spun, my heart, despite it being so heavy, thumped away in my chest.
“Would you just –“ he stopped, taking a deep breath. “Listen. Please, little dove.”
My teeth crunched against each other as I finally closed my eyes and drove him away.
Maybe I was so lost in my mind that his touch, his presence and voice, was just a part of my mind trying to give me something of comfort.
But I didn’t deserve comfort. I didn’t deserve happiness.
“I’m so freaking sorry, Koda. So much.”
I refused to hear him. I refused to let him enter my mind in any sort of way.
I put every ounce of energy, every ounce of focus, in just breathing. My lungs didn’t want to work, but I forced them to do so anyway.
I pulled slightly, finding no weakness in the grip on my arm. If anything, Jasper’s hand went up more, instead of down.
“I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for leaving like I did. I’m so sorry for everything.” The last part was broken, like his own emotions were at the surface.
My chin wobbled, but I still didn’t turn.
“Tell me what to do to fix us. Tell me how I can be a friend again.”
I sniffed, pulling again to try to get free.
There was nothing he could do. He wasn’t anything to me. He never was.
His grip didn’t loosen, if anything it tightened a tad.
Jasper moved closer, one step at a time, putting him right beside me. So close his warmth seeped into me, calling to me.
Why? Why was he so persistent? Why couldn’t he just let me go, and forget about me like I had been doing?
“Talk to me, little dove. Tell me what I can do to fix things. I hate seeing you like this, so sad and depressed that you aren’t eating.You aren’t sleeping. You won’t look at me, and you're hurting Dawn.”
Did he really want to know the reasons? Did he really want to know the pain he caused me?
“I’m not going to leave you alone until you talk to me, Koda. I’ll keep showing up. I’ll keep bugging you until the day you give in. Tell me what’s wrong, so I can try to fix it. Tell Dawn, someone. Anyone.”
As he continued to talk, anger grew in my chest. So much so, I grabbed onto it with both hands. I held it tightly, letting it fuel power with each passing second.
Anger was good. It was better than letting the darkness take me, like it so often did.
“I know you, Koda. You can’t keep living like this. Barely living, yet you put on a show for everyone to make them think you’re perfectly fine. You aren’t. I see the cracks in those walls you put up. And it’s time to let that wall crash.
“I’ll catch you.”
Pulling again, this time with as much force as I had in me, Jasper let me go. Not expecting that, I ran into the counter, the edge digging into my side, right below my ribs. But I’d take that pain over the one that felt like my heart was about to explode.
“Koda…”
“Don’t,” I huffed, half cried, holding my side with one hand and the other up towards him, like that’d actually stop him from coming closer. “Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. Just go fuck off.”
