Fracture

“I remember the first time I met you,” Jack glanced over at me quickly before training his eyes back on the highway.

I felt a smile tug at my lips, “I do, too.”

“I thought you were so beautiful, even when you were all flustered.” He shifted the car smoothly into the next gear without looking over at me.

“Always the charmer, Jack.” I kept smiling and looked out the window at the night sky.

“Maybe with some people I bullshit, but I never did with you, Em,” He looked over at me for a few seconds.

I nodded and with his eyes back on the road he softly said, “And I don't ever want to say things to you just for the sake of saying them.”

He pulled off an exit ramp and slowed down, turning right at a stop light.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“You were beautiful the first time I met you,” He shifted gears again before running his hand through his hair, “And you still are.”

My heart begin to beat faster, and I felt incredibly ridiculous. Jack still had the ability to give me butterflies after all these years.

He continued, “I just mean that it feels impossible to lie to you, even after everything that happened. And before all this, when we first broke up, it took everything I had to be mad at you for just a day.”

“It didn't seem like you cared when you slept with that slut,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

He sighed and glanced over at me, my right hand lingering over my mouth, ashamed that I'd dragged a skeleton out of the closet.

“I'm sorry,” I bit my lip, “That was a dumb thing to bring up.”

“Don't worry about it,” He shrugged.

Jack silently pulled into the driveway of a large home with bay windows and french doors. He cut the ignition and quickly got out of the car, making his way to the passenger other side before I even had unhooked my seat belt. He opened my door and I thanked him as I got out of the car and he locked the car behind us.

“So, this is my house,” He told me as we walked up to the front doors.

“It's nice,” I nodded, looking wide-eyed at the home.

“It's kind of ridiculous, though,” He smirked, unlocking the deadbolt and swinging the door open, “I have this big place, but never anyone to share it with.”

We walked into the entryway and he tossed his keys onto a small table before pulling off his jacket and doing the same.

“Can I get your jacket?” He asked, turning to me.

“Sure,” I smiled and allowed him to pull it from my shoulders.

“I know we can't stay here very long,” Jack told me as he led me through the house, “But I just wanted to show you something.”

The walls were lined with photographs of his days on the road, a few platinum records, and memorabilia from over the years. I wondered if in the future he would hang a picture of Juliet beside his badges of honor.

He stopped and watched as I looked at the wall, “I had a picture of you and I up there for a while.”

“Really?” I turned to him, surprised.

“Yeah, after I divorced Holly. But then I figured that you would've thought it was weird, and the guys were always telling me it was weird, so I took it down,” He shrugged, his hands in his pockets.

I looked back at the frames and smiled, “I wish you hadn't taken it down.”

“Me, too,” He smiled, “But this isn't all I wanted you to see.”

I walked beside him as we continued our tour through the house, and he brought me to the back deck.

“This is one of the best spots in Maryland to stargaze,” Jack told me.

“I think you're probably a little biased,” I laughed.

“That's probably the truth,” He smiled and walked toward a telescope that was pointed toward the sky.

“Since when are you so into the stars?” I asked, walking to stand beside him.

He shrugged and looked at me with his dark eyes, even darker at night, “I think it started a little bit after you left. I'd look at the sky in every new city we were in, and hope that maybe you were looking up there, too.”

My breath caught in my throat, “I always was.”

Jack smiled over at me, then bent down to look through the lens of the telescope, “It's set on the little dipper right now if you want to take a look.”

He stepped back and I took his place, staring up through the lens at the galaxies that each of us had hoped we shared. And we had – even despite the distance and lack of communication – always wished that the other was staring at the same burning lights in the blackness of the night sky.

“You were probably one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Jack told me in what nearly came out as a whisper.

I pulled away from the telescope and looked over at him. He was sitting in a wooden chair, his gaze fixed on his hands. I walked toward him and gently guided his eyes toward mine with my fingers under his chin.

“Jack, you gave me more than I ever would have asked for,” I smiled down at him.

He nodded and looked away, and I could tell that tears were forming in his eyes just like they were in mine. I slid onto his lap and his arms wound around my waist just as comfortably as they had years ago.

“I loved you more than anything in the world,” I told him, laying my head on his shoulder.

We were silent for a moment before he took a deep breath, “I tried to love other people like I loved you, Em... But I never found it. My parents always said that your first true love is the hardest to get over, and I never believed them until you walked away.”

I pulled back and looked at him. His features, even when clouded by the night, were just as handsome as the first day I'd met him. My throat tightened and I felt tears fall from my eyes, but Jack reached up and wiped them away.

“You're still the only man I've ever really loved,” I sighed after a few moments had passed.

“I know, Emily,” He nodded, stroking my hair.

We sat there quietly, staring up at the stars we'd claimed as our own so many years ago. In those moments I began to truly believe that they really had been ours, something we'd always shared. Jack never knew about his daughter, but even Juliet had developed a love for the bright lights that formed when the sun dropped. I'd always been convinced that I'd kept Jack from her, but in reality, he'd somehow always been with Juliet.