Why Won't You Fall Into My Arms?

I gazed at Jack through half lidded eyes; he was spellbinding in the pale moonlight that shone down through the open window. I watched as his chest rose up and down slowly, his breathing so even in sleep, before I finally tore my eyes away.

It was late, I didn’t need the clock to tell me that, but I glanced anyway to see the day grazing 1 am. I loved the night. Stars winked up above as if they saw into all my secrets and remained carefree nonetheless. I found my secrets overwhelming and the unconscious boy dreaming next to me was what they all revolved around.

I rolled myself carefully out of bed and stood in Jack’s dim bedroom. I grabbed a jacket to hug myself within as I walked down the dark stairs to finally get outside. I just wanted to be away from him, from our temporary prison, for a little while. My head never seemed to be on straight when he was around.

I already knew that these feelings for Jack were becoming unbearable. It was getting harder to push him away every time he’d crawl up and breath delicately on my shoulder. I would get shivers. He’d lean in closer and then would come that harsh breaking thought that Jack didn’t really care about me. I’d push him away and the entire cycle would be repeated over and over until darkness consumed the sky. I was breaking and could feel the cracks lingering beneath my skin.

I shrivelled up my nose as the cool night air hit me with some force. That horrible oppressing feeling of being alone dwindled on the edge of my mind but I pushed it away awkwardly. The last thing I needed now was to feel alone.

But then, as I strode along the deserted streetlamp filled street, that oppressing feeling caught me again. I suddenly missed my brother. He would know what to do in this kind of situation, girls practically threw themselves at him as soon as puberty had hit him. He got the looks and I got the brains. I wanted to suddenly find myself stirring in my bed, devoid of any body but my own, to smell burnt toast and my brother’s overpowering cologne.

I missed my old life.

I missed my friends.

I missed school and all the interactions involved.

I even missed the old Jack if just for a little piece of what I had thought was normality.

I couldn’t stand my own feelings any longer. Jack Adams confused me and nothing seemed to make sense when nobody else was there to tell us what to do. Even if teenagers were renowned for disregarding rules, it would have been nice to at least have them there to rub in the dirt. I didn’t want to be living in between knowing what we were living and what we had once lived. I was scared too because we were still clueless as to what had happened to the rest of the world.

Hugging the jacket closer, the notion to scream my heart out struck me as quite interesting but the idea of breaking this dawning silence was too depressing. All I really wanted was another living soul to talk to who wouldn’t cloud my mind with silly, teenage thoughts.

My legs carried me swiftly over the road where cars still stood frozen with doors slightly ajar. Past empty houses that seemed to glare in the half light cast by the motion lamps. Past the town’s pre-school. Past my high school. I pulled myself together with a quick shake before carrying on to wherever it was that my feet planned on leading me.

Eventually I reached the small street containing the town’s convenient stores. A flicker of light caught my wandering eyes and led me over to the TV shop. Pressing my face carefully against the glass I watched the light flicker again, illuminating the other dead TVs, right before my hot breath misted up my view. Excitement rose in my stomach at even the prospect of us not being alone.

The door handle burnt my hand with cold as I tugged it open. With the thrill of a child at Christmas, I bounced past the blank screens until I came to the thing casting such an impressive glow.

One of the monitors was turned on. On the screen played ‘Edward Scissor hands’, my favourite movie of all time. I hugged the jacket closer as a coarse fear tickled my skin. This was too bizarre. The entire town was deserted except for us… wasn’t it? Yet here lay a TV which had just been started onto a film without anybody here to press the buttons. Gulping hard, I daren’t move as if some terrifying serial killer would come bounding out of the darkness brandishing the remote control at me dangerously.

Now I was going crazy…

After a few minutes of stiff silence my attention was captured by the film playing out before me. It was at the moment where Edward was being taken home to a maze of multi coloured houses. Instantly there was a smile pulling up my lips and I decided to risk watching the rest.

Settling comfortably on one of the comfy chairs, I lay the jacket over me in a blanket and watched with bleary eyes. This film had me on the verge of tears throughout. But no matter how much I fought for consciousness my sleep deprived mind won out. Just as Kim was twirling under the ice sculpture’s snow, my eyes drooped for the last time and I fell deeply into dreams.

---

The awful cold of night was broken as I felt two warm arms slip under me carefully. I rolled my head around, half conscious, until I found a broad shoulder to lean against. His hot breath tickled my cheek as he held me close enough for his heartbeat to resound through my body. My jacket was still wrapped tightly around my body but it couldn’t protect me from the numbing cold.

“Why on earth did you just go wondering off?” he whispered in a tone that made me wonder if he expected an answer.

I opened my eyes slowly to take in Jack’s agitated face, his jaw clenching against the freezing temperatures.

“Don’t talk,” I pleaded restlessly, so tired that my very body was screaming out in fatigue. He looked at me as if daring me to make another sound.

“I had to heave my ass out of bed and go looking for you only to find you’re camping out in the below freezing TV shop. What on earth were you thinking?”

“Pipe down Dad,” my words were jumbled through my stupor but I felt his low chuckle anyway.

“Sophia, do you even know what time it is?”

“Time to go to sleep,” I cuddled closer to his warmth.

“Yet here we are – both awake. You really scared me Sophia. We don’t know what could be out there.”

Furrowing my eyebrows, I opened my eyes to give him a questioning stare.

“What do you mean ‘what could be out there’? We’re all alone here Jack, there’s nothing here except us.”

“Have you any proof of that?”

My head throbbed slightly with the cold but I could see where he was headed.

“Look Sophia, I can’t let anything happen to you. You’re my responsibility.”

“Well who’d have thought the Jack Adams would be taking responsibility for anything but himself.”

“Ouch,” his eyes caught mine and held them for a pained moment.

“Sorry,” I grumbled, finding my sleepiness had caused me to say something inconsiderate. I should have been grateful really. Jack didn’t have to come looking for me. Jack didn’t even have to care that I hadn’t been sleeping beside him when we awoke.

I peered around at our surroundings painted with darkness and recognised exactly where we were. His house looked almost haunting at this time with so many empty windows and sad memories.

“Can we just sit out for a while? I don’t feel like going back in just yet.”

I knew by his small sigh that he was rolling his eyes. I knew as he squeezed me a little tighter that he was smiling. I shouldn’t have known these things, not really. He should have still been as much a mystery as the darkness clouding him.

“You’re crazy,” he chuckled “it’s freezing out here.”

I leant up and nuzzled my cold features into his neck, making him squirm. The white fence lay around us, glowing brilliantly in the moonlight as Jack stood on his front lawn, shying away from my freezing lips pressing to his neck.

“Well don’t expect me to give you a jacket,” he lowered himself carefully onto the dew carpeted grass with me still in his comfortable arms.

“I wouldn’t expect anything of the sort from you Jack,” I snorted into the silence. “Just what is the time anyway?”

“Oh so now you want to know.”

I playfully pressed my face into his neck again until he answered me.

“Okay okay okay,” he squirmed and craned his neck to get away “when I left to search for you it was about five so it’s probably six or so now.”

“Why did you come out and find me?”

I turned my eyes onto his face lit only by moonshine. Sighing, he met my stare with one that sent shivers through my body. His arms curled tighter around me, mistaking my shivers for the cold.

“It’s just you and me here Soph. We’ve got to look out for each other don’t we?” his tone contradicted his eyes.

“I suppose,” I murmured, trying not to be disappointed with his answer.

“Anyway, the moon looks hot tonight.”

“Did you really just say that the moon looks hot?” I snorted.

He grinned wickedly and I understood he was trying to wind me up.

“Honestly,” I sighed “out of all the adjectives to choose you picked ‘hot’. Why not beautiful or stunning or spellbinding?”

He jostled me as he shrugged “I’m a boy, we have a fairly limited vocabulary.”

“You just offended your own kind.”

“And who’s here to do anything about it?”

I laughed at him. “Me. I won’t let you slander boys as a whole; there are good clean guys out there.”

“Whatever you say,” it was Jack’s turn to laugh at me now. Pouting, I twisted in his lap so my back was pressed against him and my arms were folded against my chest.

“Not all boys are horny sleazebags.”

“No, all boys are horny sleazebags but some of them hide it better than others.”

“And you’re one of those that fail at hiding anything right?”

Jack’s arms loosened from around me slightly and
instantly I felt the temperature drop.

“Maybe I’m just more truthful with my feelings” his tone sounded wounded. I should have stopped right there and thanked him for helping me out in the first place but I was stupid. I was angry. I was desperate.

“Jack Adams doesn’t show his feelings. All he shows is his intolerance of people and huge ego that dominates everything and everybody else,” I got up quickly so our bodies were no longer touching.

“Nothing is ever good enough for you Sophia. Everything I do is wrong.”

“That’s because everything you do is wrong.”

“So coming out here in the dead of night to freeze my ass off finding you was wrong?”

I sighed, not having any other reply to his words. This was all turning so ugly so fast. I was messing it up when all I had wanted was for Jack to tell me how he felt.

“Admit it Sophia, you’re still jealous that I became the popular one and you didn’t,” he brushed himself off and stormed up into the house. My long legs propelled me after him, outraged at his statement. I had never been jealous of him, I had just been scared that he would hurt me.

“That has nothing to do with how I feel about you. I couldn’t care less about you being popular, it’s how you became when you were popular that turns me off so much.”

He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around so we were facing each other, our ragged breaths uniting in front of our eyes.

“You were the one who changed. You were the one who always teased me. You’re the one who still pretends I don’t have feelings when there are certainly a lot of them buzzing around in here,” he grabbed my limp hand and pressed it against his chest. Instantly, warmth rushed through me, alighting my cheeks in a deep unwanted flush.

“I was just hurt that you left me,” I murmured, fighting back sudden tears. “I was never good enough for you when you became popular.”

“But you were always good enough, too good even,” his voice was still hard. I put my other hand on his chest and moved into him.

“I’m sorry I was such a bitch,” I didn’t even know if I was referring to moments ago or all these years.

“Yeah well I suppose I was kind of a jerk,” he stressed the words and I beamed up at him, knowing we were okay for now. For some reason this knowledge made me happy in ways I knew it shouldn’t.

“I’m not tired” I moved away from him, back onto the lawn to sit down. “Come watch the sunrise with me?”

I couldn’t see him from such a distance but a few seconds later he was close enough for the moonlight to illuminate. A smirk entwined his lips and made me scoff at how confident he seemed to be. He settled himself beside me, not too close but not too far. For the moment we were friends and, as he put his arm softly around my shoulders, I entertained the briefest idea that we could ever be something more.