Alive Again

This was like a nightmare that Reese had been having. Unlike the recurring dream she would have about the night her father leaving, this hellish nightmare didn’t revolve around a memory. It was a true nightmare, one that ran its course and Reese couldn’t control. She would come home and find his vehicle in her driveway, and then she’d be standing in her foyer. She would be drawn to look at the couch where a hazy image of a fleshy embrace would horrify her dream-self.

The dream shifts (because in dreams, things change too suddenly to make any sense—like most tragic events in life) and Clary is gone but he is still there. He’s standing before her (fully clothed, thank goodness) and just looking at her. She’s paralyzed in this dream, trapped under his stare. His body language is casual, his hands in his pockets and his hips pushing forward while he leans back, away from her. He is smiling at her, his usual crooked smile. It is normal, sweet, innocent and endearing—but then it transforms into something sinister, almost smug. He is smirking at her.

Then Clary would enter the room and drape herself around John. It was always at this part in her dream where her subconscious would show that she knew this boy to be her friend. He would turn away from Reese, if only marginally, to pull Clary to him and then he would lower his head and mumble something before kissing her. Reese would wake up from these nightmares feeling breathless and with a dull ache in her chest.

She had this nightmare every night since John started to ignore her. It now appeared that her nightmare was on the verge of becoming reality. When she entered her home, she cast a wary glance at the couch, finding it abandoned. She heard the stairs creaking and whipped her head toward the source. John paused on the third stair from the top, looking down on her with guilty eyes.

Rage. Reese could barely function from the feeling. She had never felt this much, this passionately, before. At any moment she felt that she would collapse, to just pass out from how fast and hard it hit her. She could barely see straight, her fists clenched too tightly—nails digging into the soft flesh of her palm, her muscles so tense that her arms began to tremble at her sides. Her jaw clenched and her legs tensed—and Reese couldn’t find any form of control over her body.

“I thought you were different.” Her voice wavered—not in the way that Clary’s had when she spoke to John in her bedroom. Her voice was shaking with rage, disbelief. Her eyes, so guarded, were not vulnerable but glowing with passion. She was trying to smother the flame that his presence had ignited and failing. He opened his mouth, barely making a sound before her rage was unleashed.

“Don’t you dare say anything to me! Get out! Get the hell out of my house! Stay away from me, and stay the fuck away from Clary! Get out, get out, get out!” John initially flinched at her raised voice, her unchecked emotion. Then he was frozen in place when she began to tell him to get out of her house. He had heard her screaming feral incoherent things at Christine two weeks ago, but this was even more terrifying. If he allowed her to go on, she would scream her throat raw. He only began to move when she threw her arm toward the door, pointing her finger as she continued to screech at him—her voice cracking and straining in an uncommonly high pitch.

John skirted around her, giving her a lot of space. He wasn’t confident that she wouldn’t lash out at him, and he wouldn’t know how to react if that happened. He could never hurt Reese like that, and she had the potential to do some damage to him. He would let her hit him, he’d take it quietly and he’d never mention it to anyone—not because a girl beat him up, but because this moment of vulnerability on Reese’s part was a secret, something he was lucky to see. Despite what she was probably thinking, John would never betray her like that.

His back was toward her, his hand on the knob and his wrist slowly rotating when the realization hit him. If he left like this, he’d be no better than their father. Reese (and especially Clary) had only known men to walk out on her. She would expect him to leave, to abandon her because hadn’t he already been doing that? He ignored her for two weeks because he was jealous, angry, and afraid—and he finally realized why he felt that way. He was jealous because Kennedy seemed to be much closer to Reese than he was, and John was also angry about that, too. Here Kennedy was, having hurt Reese, using a nickname that John had coined for her—one that said something about their friendship. It was their inside joke.

And he was afraid that he was too late to change anything now. He was afraid of feeling this way about Reese. He was afraid that he had fucked it up. He was afraid that she and Kennedy would get married and have beautiful children and he’d be creepy Uncle John; in love with their mother and always staring, never married and without his own kin.

Fuck being creepy Uncle John. Fuck being afraid. And fuck being anything like her father.

John let go of the brass knob and turned quickly on the spot. Reese hadn’t been expecting that, she took a step backward as he began to rush toward her. He wasted no time, putting his arms around her and pressing her tightly to his body. He liked to think that he knew her, enough to know that she would fight him. He would wait for her to exhaust herself, and then he would explain.

Reese screamed, the sound muffled by his chest. She pushed against his body, trying to break free of his embrace. She twisted, kicked, slapped and stepped toward him. When she tried to duck down, out of his arms, John would follow and hold her more tightly. With her arms pinned to her sides, she couldn’t inflict much damage upon her friend.

“Let me go, stop, just fucking leave!” she shrieked into his face, tilted her face upward to catch her breath. John shut his eyes tightly, and pulled her even closer. Reese fought and fought but eventually lost her gusto and began to sink into his body. The side of her face pressed to his chest, feeling his accelerated heartbeat. John pressed her closer to his body, reveling in the feeling of elation before he shattered it with his voice.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured. This seemed to be like a spark, for Reese finally escaped his arms and her anger was ignited once more. She had her back pressed into the doorway leading to the kitchen, her eyes glazed and her jaw set in defiance. She lifted her head up, trying to keep gravity from pulling at her tears.

“Sorry for fucking my sister behind my back or sorry that you got caught?” In that moment, John could clearly see the resemblance between Reese and her sister. He stepped forward, one large stride and gripped her forearms, matching his hands over the spot where Kennedy had left bruises. In that moment he could see how it happened—Kennedy gripping her arms desperately, not realizing how tightly he was holding on to keep her there. He let his hands slip to cup hers, tightening his grip when she tried to pull away, but to no avail—she slipped away. He stared imploringly into her eyes, desperate for her to understand.

“Don’t fucking touch me, John! You’re just like every other guy in our school. Did the soccer team put you and Mitchell up to sleeping with my sister or something? I thought you were my friend!”

"Will you just listen to me for one fucking second? Stop screaming and pulling away and just let me talk. I didn't want it to be like this, Reese. You know me, you know me probably better than everyone else, and you know that I'm not like that."

Reese opened her mouth to retaliate; to point out that she didn’t even know his middle name, but he didn't let her get a word in.

"God, you'd have to be so fucking blind not to see it," he continued, his hands trembling. He tried balling them into fists, but that didn't work either, so he moved toward her again and grabbed her hands, not letting her pull away this time. "When are you going to realize that you're the only one who matters to me?"

Before she could catch her breath, John was leaning down and pressing his mouth so hard that their teeth clashed. The kiss was nothing but anger and frustration pouring out between them, pulling at their clothes, pushing themselves so close that Reese's ribs began to ache, and a tight pain formed across John's back. His teeth closed down on her lip, and her fingers gripped his waist so tightly he could feel bruises forming. It felt so right, but at the same time, it felt so wrong too.

"John," Reese mumbled against his lips, pulling back, and her cheeks were still slick with the tears she hadn't been able to stop yet. "I can't – I'm not..." She sighed, taking a step back, but he caught her hands again.

"That wasn't right," he said before she could wrench her hands from his grasp. "I'm not fucking your sister, Reese. I would never – I could never do that to you. When are you going to realize that you're the only one who matters? You mean so much more to me than you realize. Fuck, I thought you might have at least noticed by now that our school doesn't sell Reese's Pieces in the vending machines."

Reese relaxed her clenched jaw, but her tears were relentless. She blinked and then they fell, and John allowed her to pull one hand back to wipe away the evidence. He smiled crookedly when she placed her hand back into his.

“I love seeing you smile, and I know that it makes you happy. Sometimes I stop at the corner store on the way to school and pick up a box for you. I know how much you hate people buying you things, but a dollar for some candy on occasion didn’t seem to bother you.”

Reese opened her mouth, and John stopped. She wasn’t able to find the words she was looking for, and shut her mouth again. John gave her another smile, rubbing circles on the back of her hands with his thumbs. He stepped closer to her, giving her hands a slight squeeze.

“And I know that you’re with Kennedy—“

“I’m not with Kennedy, John.” Reese stared up into his face, genuine confusion in her clairvoyant eyes. John had never noticed how expressive her eyes were—so clear and bright. Maybe the issue was that she didn’t have much to express. Seeing the same sad, lonely expression stops standing out after a point. Now John could see her unguarded emotion in her eyes.

“And I’m not with your sister, if that’s what you think. Reese, I care about you and I think that... if we gave this a chance, I could love you... more than I do right now.” Reese laughed the sound melodious and light. John couldn’t help but laugh along with her and smile, something she returned.

“I... I don’t understand what you mean,” she admitted. Her smile became more timid, her shoulders rising toward her ears. John felt the heat crawling up his neck as he toyed with the idea of showing her what he meant. His hands moved to cup her face (which was heated under his touch) and her hands followed, gripping his wrists tightly. John brought his face down, pausing and pulling back tentatively before convincing himself that it was too late to back out now.

His mouth pressed into hers tentatively, awaiting her reaction. John would never kiss her; really kiss her, if she didn’t want him to. She gasped and her lips parted to make the sound. Reese didn’t pull back like she wanted to; her body was conflicted, some part of her wanting to pull away and blush while the other wanted her to press closer and never let the moment go. Her stomach had that feeling of falling, the empty hollow soaring sensation that a rollercoaster and jumping from a bridge with a bungee cord elicits.

It felt risky, dangerous even, but Reese pressed her partially open mouth to John’s and stepped closer. Her body began to tremble against his, her hands slid slowly from his wrists to travel down his arms until she had a firm grip on his shoulders. John dropped his hands from her face, accidentally caressing the side of her breast in the process, to hold her up at the waist. He wanted her closer and his height made that difficult. He pulled her flush against him, making her stand on the tips of her toes and stumble into the corner between the kitchen and the living room. The contact jarred them apart briefly, but John’s mouth seemed to gravitate to the underside of her jaw, to her neck and her slightly exposed shoulder.

Reese was gasping and curling her toes in her shoes. Her head tilted backward to rest against the wall for two reasons: to give John more access to her neck and because she needed air, she needed to breathe. John’s kiss had literally knocked the breath out of her. The kiss was so shy and tentative that just the thought of how softly he had pressed his mouth to hers made her body flush, her toes curl and her teeth press into the flesh of her lower lip. She brought her hands from his shoulders to his back and trailed down until she was gripping his hips while he kissed the hollow of her throat. She cried out, a mixture of a gasp and a breathy moan from the back of her throat—a sound that she tried to trap with a clenched jaw. She was unable to stop the louder noise of an actual moan when John bit down on the soft flesh of her throat.

She had never made a noise that like, felt this heated or passionate before. She was embarrassed about it even though when she had kissed Kennedy he had made more noises, with a much louder volume. She bent her knees and pressed John’s lips to her own, accidentally catching his lower lip with her teeth. John let out a gasp and a whimper at the unexpected roughness.

Reese pulled back and looked at him through half lidded eyes; she almost looked intoxicated in her current state.

“Sorry,” she whispered, her eyes sliding closed again.

“Don’t worry about it,” John whispered back, bringing his mouth to hers again. He playfully bit her lip and Reese felt like she was sinking into the floor. If John wasn’t holding her, she would have collapsed. Her hands did fall lower, coming from his back to his sides. She hardly noticed when her hands slipped under the fabric of his shirt and began to rise—lifting the fabric from his torso. John paused and pressed his cheek to Reese’s. Each exhale of his breath hit her ear and she was certain that he was experiencing the same sensation. Her hands stopped to rest on his ribs—she could feel the rapid pulsing of his heartbeat. John’s fingers lightly danced across the newly exposed skin. The wall had Reese’s shirt pulled up against it, and John hadn’t been unaware of this. He didn’t want to move this fast.

It was supposed to be a kiss, something to tell her how he felt. How had it progressed to his body pinning hers to the wall—to the hands wandering and leaving marks? It was going too fast, he knew that after a certain part it would be impossible to stop. Reese deserved better—and if he took her now in her living room, it would make him no better than the nameless boys that fucked and chucked Clary. It might make him worse, since those boys usually had the decency to be invited into her bedroom.

Five minutes ago, John was being kicked out of her house.

After he had regained some self control, John lifted his head and kissed Reese’s cheek. He let his lips linger and then the pulled away, forcing her hands to fall from his ribs. He caught them in his and stood much closer to her than he would have beforehand.

“I would like to take you out on Friday; on a date.” Reese swallowed and looked up at John, shyly nodding her head. She had never been on a date before; slowly but surely all of her insecurities were rushing back to her, but she wasn’t going to show John that she was nervous.

“I think I better get going...” John didn’t want to finish his sentence—to admit to Reese that she looked so tempting with her hair in disarray and her lips swollen. He didn’t want to be tempted to add to the hickey he had left on the side of her neck, or to touch the soft skin of her back.

“Okay,” Reese murmured and pushed herself off of the wall. John watched her straighten out her twisted shirt and smiled crookedly when she took his hand and walked him the five steps to the front door. He was unable to resist the lingering kiss he gave her, standing on the threshold of her house. He pulled back and grinned at her, catching movement from his peripheral vision. He turned his gaze to the top of the stairs, to Clary sitting there and wiping her eyes on the back of her sleeve. She gave him a watery smile and he knew that in some fucked up way, Clary had helped to give him the push he needed to confront Reese; and to get Reese to realize that she cared about him.

Clary stood and walked back to her bedroom, her heart feeling heavier with every step. The tears were a constant reminder of doing the right thing, the emptiness and loneliness she felt wasn’t going to be permanent but it still sucked.

Why did doing the right thing always have to hurt so fucking much?