Why Won't You Fall Into My Arms?

It was odd that I hadn’t noticed the heat before. Sure, I’d known it was sunny and had felt the sun beating down on my neck like a spotlight but I hadn’t properly taken into account the sweltering air. The heat rolled down and across my skin so sweat danced along the rim of my clothes. I blew my fringe from my eyes and that was when the piercing siren ceased.

It was so sudden and abrupt that it made us both stop in our tracks. Silence. Complete silence. It shortly became more deafening and painful than the previous siren had.

I glanced over unsurely at Jack to find him frowning around, as if the culprit of the siren would suddenly jump out of the bushes and surrender. Without the background noise which had almost become familiar, the very air between us was awkward. I found myself wishing for the siren to commence again. Everything felt overwhelmingly more dangerous now that there was only the bleak hush.

“Come on,” Jack’s voice was almost a welcomed break from the nothingness “we’re nearly home unless you want to stop here and collect a pool of your sweat.”

Almost a welcomed break, but not quite.

“Shut up,” I retorted childishly, still spooked from the siren’s departure. “It’s really hot and you’re sweating buckets more than me.”

His brow glistened with the perspiration and his hand continuously twitched at the hem of his t-shirt until finally he wrenched it off. The movement moved over his body like water, one fluid motion. I got a glimpse of tanned, muscled torso before I closed my eyes tightly.

“I’m blind!” I shrieked, coughing on my shock and laughter.

“Very funny” I just knew he was smirking into the sunshine “you love it really.”

“Oh yeah, I just love guys who take every opportunity to strip off their clothes,” I murmured sarcastically.

“That’s right baby” his booming laugh was contagious and, no matter how hard I fought it back, I couldn’t help but let the small smile slip. It was the first time in years that Jack and I hadn’t been at each other throats for more than two minutes. In fact, it was the first time I could remember in a long while that I’d smiled while Jack was in my line of vision.

I put it down to our fickle human nature trying to block out what we both feared to acknowledge: that we were alone. We were joking and fighting and laughing, we were being what we usually were and what we usually weren’t just so that we wouldn’t have to recognise how our situation could be a lot worse than anything we’d ever experienced in our short lives.

After walking for more than ten minutes in a somewhat comfortable silence (with my eyes still refusing to take in Jack without his shirt on) what I took to be Jack’s house rose before us.

It was a large thing with beautiful white panels and red brick, traditionally American. It was in the wealthier part of town, in a neighbourhood I could only dream of ever affording and had only been close to when passing quickly through.

“I didn’t know you were rich” I stated pointedly. But then, what had I been expecting? Jack Adams in a slum somewhere? The only place he fit was in the kind of house which just screamed I’m-too-good-for-you.

He smirked again “one of the many things that you don’t know about me Soph.”

I merely snorted. There were many things I didn’t know and many more things I didn’t want to know. As much as Jack thought he was fascinating, he was actually highly predictable, bordering on cliché. And for all of his secrets he had a hundred different faces to hide them under.

It was just too bad I didn’t care to find out any of them.

Jack opened the large glass door to expose a long, empty hallway. The room alone was probably bigger than my entire downstairs.

I followed closely behind him as he made for the stairs, not wanting to get lost in any of this house. Or be left behind in it. Although the room was large it just meant there was more space to stand bare, empty. The walls were so white I could almost imagine falling into them.

“Come on,” Jack muttered, leading me along the landing into the only room with the door swung wide open.

His room was just as spacious at the hallway. It was light and airy, free of clutter except for the walls which were plastered with various music posters. A set of drums instantly caught my attention, lying proudly to the side.

I don’t know what I had been expecting. Probably half naked girls plastered everywhere and dirty clothes strewn over every available space of carpet. Something just as cliché as he was. Something which would choke me with male deodorant and disgust me with poor male hygiene.

It was strange to be wrong about Jack for once.

“You play the drums,” I stated stupidly because I couldn’t tell him that that I had been wrong with my perceptions on Jack.

“Like I said sweetie there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

It was nice to have an excuse to reapply my snarl and give him a disgusted look. It was nice to be reminded exactly what type of person Jack was, exactly what his pigeonhole was.

“Sweetie?” I scoffed “is that your new pathetic name for me?”

“I don’t know,” he pondered for a moment “you’re too sour to be sweet actually. How about baby or darling or fuck-buddy?”

The sarcastic smile on his tanned face made me suddenly subconscious, wishing that my jeans weren’t so tight and my top wasn’t so low. He stood there calmly, arms crossed over his chest, sending me a look which was probably illegal in some states.

“This almost makes me miss ‘Soph’,” I laughed sardonically, arms fiddling in my top.

“Good” he seemed satisfied with my answer. As if I’d now condoned his calling me that.

He twisted around to turn on the computer propped up on his desk. With a smooth whirring suddenly breaking our silence, I sank down onto his large double-bed as if the whole world suddenly seemed too much. Here we were, sitting calmly in his room and waiting for our last hope of communication to start up. The implications if this didn’t work weren’t worth thinking about. In fact, my mind being the hopeful small thing that it was couldn’t even comprehend them.

To distract my burning mind, I let my eyes rest on Jack with his body still turned away from me. It would have been nice to be able to deny that he was attractive, to have the ability to lie to myself and say that nothing about Jack Adams was beautiful. It was sad really, that such a jerk could look the way he did.

I traced the grooves in his back where his muscles were flexed, moving, his skin dark from the sunshine. Highlighted brown hair fell down into his eyes, grazing his neck, always managing to remain at the perfect length as if it never grew any longer. His jaw was strong, like every character ever used to portray Prince Charming in fairytales. His eyes were bright blue.

In fact, the spectacle that was Jack Adams was almost sickening. He was so obviously good looking and so obviously conceited about it that, to me anyway, it made him beyond repulsive. Not even the fact that he had a six-pack or long eyelashes or beautiful eyes could…

These thoughts were quickly banished from my mind when he caught me staring. “Like what you see?”

“God no, I’m just wondering how long it takes you to print your muscles on in the morning” I retorted, a little too quickly.

He picked up on it and collapsed dramatically onto the bed with the computer’s whirring noise in the background. It was almost soothing to have it there after the siren’s sudden silence, and it would have been too if Jack’s closeness hadn’t had my body completely on edge.

“I’m 100% real baby,” he winked from where his head was resting against the bed, hair almost completely obscuring his crude gesture.

I wriggled away from him, conscious that we were currently sitting within touching distance and on a bed nonetheless.

“Do I make you uncomfortable Soph?” he was grinning from ear to ear, watching me intently. I continued to fidget.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I rolled my eyes irritably. “You make me uncomfortable in the sense that I can’t stand you, not in any suggestive way which you were implying.”

He just smirked like he knew all of my secrets and bit his lower lip. Consciously, I pulled my top slightly so it covered as much exposed skin as possible before standing up.

“Is this computer working yet?”

He got up too and fiddled around with the machine a bit before announcing that it was indeed working. Hesitantly, I rested back onto the bed after scouring the room unsuccessfully for somewhere else to sit.

During a few tense minutes of strained silence filled by Jack’s aggressive typing I found myself getting thirsty. Unbearably thirsty. It was still ridiculously hot and I’d had nothing to drink all day, so caught up in everyone’s’ disappearance and Jack’s petty arguments.

“I’m going to get a drink” I announced, too proud to ask him for direction.

“Yeah, sure ,whatever,” he mumbled distantly.

Stilly slightly aggravated, I noisily made my way down the staircase. His living room was gigantic (no surprises there); boasting three huge windows, a grand fireplace, the flattest television known to man and a grand piano alongside with 3 sofas. I stumbled in, almost tripping over my feet in amazement. Jack wasn’t just rich he was freaking loaded.

I moved toward the fireplace with a long shelf hanging above it, overpowered by my curiosity. I had never seen Jack’s parents, not even in our childhood years of being friends. They were a mystery as was his entire family. I didn’t know if he had brothers or sisters or cousins. Heck, as far as I was concerned Jack was an anomaly who didn’t even have a family.

Photographs were littered along the mantelpiece, giving me what I was suddenly so curious for. I reached for them one by one to examine more closely. There were plenty of a tanned looking couple cuddling on various holidays and some of a pretty young girl on an assortment of special days like the first of school and posed blowing out a single candle.

But none of the photographs had Jack in them, not even a baby picture. This was strange to me, I had no parents nor did I miss having them because I was so young when they passed away, but my brother still kept photos of our family everywhere around our home. For us, keeping photos of everyone made sure they could never be forgotten, they could never be over-looked and would always belong in our family. But Jack wasn’t here at all. As if he was a stranger, an intruder, as if this wasn’t his house at all.

They were his parents grinning in the photographs, though. Just one look at the man and the resemblance was unmistakable. Same blue eyes, same cute dimples, same tanned colouring. And that must have been his sister proudly showing her missing teeth to the camera – she was Jack Adams reincarnated into a beautiful little girl. Although where the real Jack Adams seemed to be was a mystery.

Footsteps on the stairs pulled me abruptly back from my perplexing thoughts. I jumped away from the photos in alarm, not wanting him to think I was prying, even if I was. The shame of it was almost unbearable; the embarrassment of Jack knowing that he intrigued me.

I was fast in my movements but I was still too slow.

“Having a good snoop Soph?” he asked bitterly, eyes zeroing in on the way my body had lurched from his photographs. Busted.

“The kitchen is this way,” he motioned before I followed him sullenly to be handed a glass of water. I sipped it in silence to watch him fume silently, just waiting for his insults to flow out.

“Find anything interesting in my family photos, did you?” he practically spat.

I refused to meet his angry gaze; instead hiding behind the tiny glass of water as if it could explain away my nosiness. I had never known him to be this upset with me. Sure, he’d blown a fuse after he’d found out about my little stunt in the girls’ locker room with a black marker explaining all over the walls that Jack Adams had genital herpes. And he’d been pretty mad the time I had spilt red grape juice all over his favourite ‘pulling’ shirt. But now, standing facing me in his marble kitchen, he looked about ready to attack someone – probably me.

Despite how much I loathed him, I did owe him an explanation. Even if it was a half assed one.

“I wasn’t snooping.”

And a lie.

“It sure looked that way Soph.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble Jack but you’re really not worth investigating. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the most boring specimen on this planet.”

He evaluated me for a brief minute before realising my answer was complete bullshit. I wasn’t that good at lying and I was terrible when I had a guilty conscience.

“Got a good eye-full of my parents did you? And my,” his voice faltered before he said the next word “sister.”

I frowned and placed my water down on a tabletop.

“I’ll have you know I was admiring the decorations in your lounge. It isn’t often I come across a room worth more than most peoples’ houses,” I quipped, planning on ignoring his little slip up.

I didn’t care about Jack. I didn’t care if he had choked on one word. I didn’t care that my curiosity was killing me.

“Then I guess you aren’t at all intrigued about why there are no pictures of me around the house then?”

“None around the entire house?” I asked incredulously, thinking that the to replace their absence in the lounge. Too late did I realise that I had given myself away.

Jack grinned bitterly “has anyone ever told you that you’re practically transparent?”

I burned crimson and turned away from him, truly ashamed. I hadn’t meant to snoop, and even if I had I hadn’t meant for it to be so personal to Jack. I’d just wanted to see some embarrassing young photos of him which I could snap on my phone to use as later blackmail.

Okay, my original motives hadn’t been so innocent either. But Jack and I were enemies, we weren’t friends. Only friends should feel this bad when caught out on things like being far too nosey.

I did the only thing I knew and the only think I was ever taught.

“I’m sorry Jack.”

We were both shocked at my apology. Jack’s face morphed from angry to surprised to amused in a record three seconds. And I was just frozen with the horror that I had actually apologised to Jack Adams.

“Well…” his grin was slowly spreading, getting bigger, threatening to devour his entire face. “If you’re really sorry I can think of a few ways you can make it up to me.”

I groaned and turned away from him in disgust “go jump off a cliff.”

“Now that wasn’t very nice, I expect another apology.”

I squeezed my eyes shut in an effort to control the violent thoughts which suddenly looked very appealing staged out in my mind. There was no way I’d ever say sorry to him again, not even if I stabbed him with a conveniently placed knife (it was calling to me, just out of the corner of my eye).

“Did you manage to communicate to anyone on the computer yet?” I forced myself to remain calm.

“Hmmm,” Jack’s voice was far too close to me “I was just about to check when I heard the definite sounds of someone snooping coming from downstairs. I had no choice but to come and investigate.”

When I felt his hot breath tickle the back of my neck I practically ran upstairs, wanting to put as much distance between his body and mine. And as much distance between my apology and myself. I didn’t know what was more humiliating; being caught prying or saying sorry for it.

Either way, I was determined to get Jack back in some way, even if it wasn’t technically his fault I was so flustered. And I was doubly determined to find out about his mysterious missing photographs, and the reason behind his choke-up. Jack Adams never choked up on words normally. There was more to his family than I had originally thought.

There was more to Jack than I had originally thought.

I watched the boy fiddle some more with the computer before his shoulders slumped forward. No matter what, I could read him like a book and always had. Even when we were children his every emotion was obvious through just a simple twitch.

I already knew that he couldn’t communicate with anyone on the computer. There was no internet. There was no email. There was just Jack’s slumped body slack with disappointment.

And there were no people to communicate with.