9
JASON
I go out on my break to get a breath of fresh air. It’s a special night, the sky is clear and this mid-spring air is cold, but tolerable.
I exhale heavily, letting my nerves relax, enjoying the tranquility of this place and the view of the pier on the other side of the street, illuminated only by the lanterns on the floating boats at dock.
A reassuring silence that’s almost unnatural is able to uplift a part of my mind that has been too heavy in these days.
And then I hear it.
Her voice, her laughter.
Those relaxed muscles go rigid and I look around, trying to pin down where it’s coming from. And I see her a few meters down, joking around with Rain.
The wind is mussing her hair, which falls back over her shoulders. A waterfall of golden hair illuminating her face, which has taken on a grayish hue that worries me.
I stay where I am, watching her, but don’t let her see me, because I wouldn’t want to intrude on this moment.
I hear her talk, I hear her laugh.
I hear herliving.
I’ve missed all of this so terribly and I curse myself a thousand times over for having thrown it all away and having denied myself these very same moments for all these years.
I wish I was the one who was making her laugh.
Five years have passed. Five shitty years, five years that seem to me like I haven’t lived myself.
I’ve had different female companions, it’s true, but I never let anyone get close to me, or to even touch with one finger something that was always destined for someone else.
I set my heart under lock and key a long time ago. After having seen first-hand what can happen to a man in love, I decided not to allow myself that luxury and find out to my cost.
My father loved my mother to death and look at how it ended: she’s dead and his happiness went when she left him.
As far as I’m concerned, I once tried to love someone. The result was a race against time to the hospital, a heart attack and the risk of death, death in fact for both of us. Because if I had lost her that day, I would have surely have died as well.
And now she’s alive, she’s here, a few meters away, and the only thing I want to do is to look at her and imagine touching her one more time just to see what it feels like.
I can’t allow myself to even go down this line of thinking. I can’t love, I can’t let myself get dragged down in these emotions, I can’t become one with someone and then lose her.
I can’t lose her.
“Hey, there you are!” Liam comes up from behind me accompanied by one of the guys who helps us out at the pub. “Come on Keith, I want to introduce to you to Rain’s friend Alex.” And so saying, he puts his hand on this asshole’s shoulder and leads him toward the two girls.
My vision goes cloudy, I lose my sense of reason and I can feel that I’m about to go raving mad, embark on a violent spree that would keep me behind bars.
Liam approaches Alex, bringing that asshole with him. She smiles kindly, but keeps her eyes down. She’s embarrassed and pale.
Shit. This is not okay.
I join them quickly, without thinking remotely about what I’m doing; she realizes that I’m approaching and is paralyzed, touching her heart with her left hand.
There we go, I’ve done it again, I’ve upset her.
I stop in front of her, take her hand and bring her away with me.
“What…Jason? Hey, what’s going on here?”
