Why Won't You Fall Into My Arms?

I begrudgingly stayed silent the rest of the distance, walking alongside a gloating Jack. It wasn’t a very long walk but it was long enough for my mind to become lost to thoughts. There was something about Jack. Something I couldn’t put into words. Something which managed to drive me insane in more ways than one.

I couldn’t help but to think that if I were in this situation with someone else, anyone else, then everything would be a lot darker. We were surviving through this unknown time together. It was weird using that word with him. Together.

The clouds edged ever closer to their threat of rain and I followed Jack’s wary glances upwards.

“Do you want us to get wet Adams?” I asked suddenly.

He smiled slyly “yes but not in the way you’re thinking.”

I shook my head at the nerve of this boy. It stunned me how quickly he had an innuendo and comeback on his tongue. I was used to dealing with guys who took at least five minutes to think of anything to say, but then most of them weren’t used to speaking to girls anyway. Jack had a lot of practice with that.

“You’re awful sometimes,” I muttered, more to myself than him.

“And you are beautiful all the time.”

I stopped sharply when those words escaped his lips. Jack kept walking though so I was left with the back of his head to bear my eyes into. He had just said that, right? I wasn’t just imagining things? I had never heard Jack Adams call any girl beautiful, especially not any girl like me.

“What did you just say?”

“I said you are dreadful.”

I narrowed my eyes but caught up to him regardless of my disbelief.

“You did not.”

“Yes I did.”

“Did not.”

“How old are you?” he laughed mockingly but it never reached his clear eyes.

I opened my mouth with a witty retort but shut it slowly and just looked away out at the passing houses. I wasn’t about to fight with him about this. If he said he hadn’t told me I was beautiful then that must be true – it wasn’t as if I was actually beautiful anyway. It wouldn’t have made sense if I was right.

A scattering of birds took up to the clouded sky as we approached and I watched them soar beat their wings violently to soar high up in the sky. The overbearing clouds looked so low I wondered if they flew just a little higher they might be consumed in them.

It made me sad, reminding me of how it was only us alone in this town. Everywhere I looked there were remnants of people, almost like ornaments, scattered around to show that it hadn’t always been so quiet and desolate. Now there was just Jack and I, and the birds circling lazily over nothing in particular.

Sighing deeply, I turned to see Jack staring at me curiously. I shot him a dangerous look and quickened my pace so the boy had to run to catch up with me.

“Soph I-,” he started cautiously before returning to silence. I knew what he was going to say. Somehow I knew and I desperately didn’t want him to ruin everything.

“So are you going to tell me about this surprise now?” I whinged quickly, hopefully cutting his stream of thought short.

He laughed and slung an arm around my waist to direct me along a different path. His touch lingered on me a bit longer than necessary and I shoved him a little when it was becoming suffocating. He didn’t have to be so brazen in his teasing did he? It seemed only recently he’d started using his body against mine, possibly sensing how vulnerable I was against him.

… Or against boys in general…

“You never did have any patience did you?”

“And you never had any tact,” I directed back with a mocking grin of my own, referring to how my arm was still burning from his touch.

Then something very strange happened.

While I was giving my best gloating face, he shot me an intense stare which had me momentarily stunned. Like an idiot, I just blinked stupidly at him, as if the look he was giving me was just a trick of my eyes.

He watched me look hastily away again after I regained control of myself, sensing the change in the atmosphere once more. Why did he have to do that? Why did he have to destroy my teasing mood with his severe one? Just what was he trying to achieve?

If it was to creep me out and make me feel very uncomfortable, well then congratulations to him. He’d succeeded.

“We’re here,” Jack’s voice finally broke the awful silence which was suffocating me.

I wearily observed the rising shops towering before us with only mild interest. I was so confused inside my very stomach felt uneasy, as if it had just been flipped in on itself.

“Come on then,” Jack had managed to already get to the shop door of the camping shop the next time my eyes focused on reality.

The shop was just as it had always been. Sleeping bags, tents, hiking equipment etc. The old smell of new shoes sweetened my nose considerably and I slumped into one of the folding chairs.

“So what’s this big surprise then?” my tone was as glum as my persona.

“I’m not showing you unless you cheer up,” his cheeky grin was back again and I couldn’t look at him for wanting to shake him. Since when had he become so bipolar? One minute joking with me, the next shooting me his goo-goo eyes and then returning back to some form of teasing?

Nevertheless, since I knew Jack literally wouldn’t show me until I tried to cheer up, I shot him my best fake smile. He seemed contented for the next minute he was brandishing grandly at a camping bed as if it were the most priceless object in the world.

“Ta-da!”

“A camping bed is the surprise?” I couldn’t help but erupt in laughter. I was secretly glad I hadn’t built my hopes up, but mainly I was entertained by Jack’s grand facial expression. Did he expect me to start gushing about how great it was or something?

“It’s for my room. I know you probably won’t want to sleep back in Annabelle’s room on your own again and I know how much you hate me so thought I could sleep on the camping bed. That way we can still be in the same room at least, I’d prefer it that way. It’s safer.”

I studied his face carefully but found no perverted meanings or hidden agendas there. He was dead serious and maybe even a little… sad?

I got up abruptly and crossed over to where he stood, half unable to stop myself and half compelled by a sudden need to be near him.

“I don’t really hate you,” I touched his arm gently in a way I hoped was comforting “I guess we’ve just been playing this game for too long. I mean… I suppose we’re kind of like… friends now, due to the whole being the last two people left and stuff.”

That was the first time either one of us had spelt it out in so many words. I hadn’t considered us friends since we were 12 but it seemed to fit now. Even if I used the term very loosely without much affection.

Oh, but his smile melted my heart like butter.

“I like your idea,” I moved my hand away quickly “it’s very… gentleman-like.”

“I told you I could be a gentleman.”

“Well I believe you now.”

We stood there watching each other for a moment. I just couldn’t work him out, and that scared me. I didn’t know how to feel around him, how to act. If we weren’t enemies and we weren’t best friends then we were treading ground never before covered.

“Sophia,” Jack murmured breathlessly after some time, closing his eyes as if saying my name was pleasurable.

And there were the alarm bells.

“Well we’d better get our stuff from the supermarket next door,” I turned away and picked up my bag of stuff “I’m desperate for some real food.”

I didn’t give him a second glance; it would be like giving in to my conflicting emotions, when I stalked out of the door.

And, in a fitting clichéd fashion, as soon as my foot met the walkway the heavens above opened up. A torrent of rain fell onto me as if the Gods were punishing me for walking away from Jack.

“Was I the only one who heard the alarm bells?” I whispered like a mad woman. Great, now I was’ talking to myself.

“Sophia!” Jack called out, desperation thick in his voice.

I turned. I turned around to him and I turned around to what I had been pushing back for the past day and night. Something in me wanted to be near Jack, something which hadn’t ever stirred before, especially not for a guy.

“Sophia you dropped this,” Jack was holding a now dripping black bra of mine and wearing an infuriating smirk. I cursed myself for bolting out of there with the bag half open, but I cursed Jack more for making me so flustered!

“Douchebag,” I snatched it back, feeling that horrible sinking feeling hit my stomach. I’d faced my feelings and that is where it got me – with a smirking Jack brandishing my undergarments in my face. He didn’t care, he never had and he never would. He was just playing mind games with me.

“I’m sorry I picked up a dropped item of yours,” he said defensively.

The rain pelted into us. My hair was dripping pathetically, water ran down my body and my clothes became both clingy and baggy at the same time. I found again the unsaid reason why I didn’t stand outside in the pouring rain, especially not with intense, stupid boys like Jack.

“Whatever Adams,” I muttered darkly, elbowing past him on my way to the supermarket.

“Oh no you don’t Soph.”

Before I could understand which way was up and whish way was down, hands caught me by my waist and heaved me onto a shoulder. I watched my bag topple to the ground, clothes spewing out everywhere, but that was currently the last thing on my mind.

“Just what the hell are you doing?” I screeched as he carried me away from the supermarket, albeit away from shelter. He just laughed like a maniac about to carry through his evil master plan.

It was obvious what he was going to do. I already knew where he was taking me and I started hammering my fists into his back and shouting profanities.

“Put me down you dick or so help me I’ll strangle you while you’re sleeping tonight with your own fucking nasty socks!”

He just laughed harder at that.

Finally, he stopped and swung around so I could see the town’s lake sprawled out below me.

“Say that Jack Adams is the hottest guy in the world and you want him in your pants badly.”

“I’m never going to say that, I was taught not to tell lies,” I sneered as if he could see my face.

He loosened his grip on my waist slightly so my body jolted closer to the water. I screamed across the silence only broken by Jack’s brash laughter.

“You are such a fucker Jack!” I yelled loudly before screaming again in frustration.

“The longer you put out the longer I’ll have to hold you here. My hands are known to wander shamelessly and in the end you’ll be chucked into the lake.”

As if to prove his point he lifted up the sopping shirt from my back slightly and pressed a freezing hand against my skin. It sent my body into fits of shivers that weren’t purely from the cold sensation.

“Okay okay,” I moaned “Jack Adams is the hottest guy in the world.”

“And?” the hand crept up my back slightly.

“And I want him in my pants badly,” I screeched.

The next thing I knew I was toppling into the water, my arms tightly entwined around Jack in a death grip. That bastard had tried pushing me in anyway. Well too bad for him that I wasn’t going down without him.

The lake hit us both with a loud smash. The water was then everywhere, muting everything, blurring everything. I kicked to the surface and took in a large, outraged breath.

It wasn’t even that cold and I wasn’t really any wetter than I had been with the rain but I was still incredibly pissed. I saw Jack break the surface just seconds after me, floating close by with mirth written all over hi s soaking face.

“You stupid, horrendous, evil boy! I can’t believe you threw me in anyway!” I yelled.

Already, though, his infuriatingly mischievous smirk was replacing his momentarily mollified expression. I rolled my eyes at him and his ability to block out all the things I was saying (shouting) at him.

“And just so you know, my words earlier are void. Partly because you double crossed me but mostly because you’re the hottest guy in the world because you’re the only guy currently in the world.”

“I love that you pretend I wouldn’t be the hottest guy to you anyway,” he said smugly. “Don’t worry though, I’ll save you Soph.”

Jack chuckled before pulling me against his body as we floated in the water. My arms instantly wound around his neck as his gripped my body to his. It was like a beacon of warmth next to the rather cold water surrounding us. I put my actions down to being still rather dazed and desperate to get out of the water.

“You’re still a douchebag,” I muttered.

“I know,” Jack smirked “but you love this douchebag.”

“Keep dreaming.”

I tried my hardest to ignore the fact that our bodies were jolting together as Jack swam both of us to shore. And that I could feel his muscles working as we moved purposively forwards. In the end I failed though, because my face was burning up with more than just the cold.