The Heart Stealer

Jack didn’t know why he did the things he did sometimes. There he was, sitting in a stairwell, still drunk off his ass, with a girl passed out in his lap. How he got into these situations, he’d never know. One stupid decision and another drunken mistake, over and over again. It had become a monotonous thing for him.

Kelly was different.

She didn’t seem to be falling for any of his charms, didn’t seem to believe anything he said. The look in her eyes suggested that she knew something he didn’t. Jack was still trying to figure out if he liked that or not.

Kelly stirred in her sleep, readjusting her position. She turned over and leant heavily on Jack, wrapping her arms around his skinny torso. Jack found himself smiling down at her, which was odd, because he never really smiled when he was on his own. His only two serious attempts at a relationship had both failed spectacularly, which was probably why he’d become such a slut, for lack of better words.

He looked down at Kelly and sighed, wondering just what it would take to fuck her and forget her. Jack thought back to that first night when they’d met in the gaming arcade in the middle of the night. He smiled to himself again. That was the girl who had caught his attention. He’d been interested in her then, and not just for a few hours of bliss. The girl in the games arcade that first night was special. But the one that lay in his arms now was completely different.

Jack had no idea what had happened. It was like everything had shifted somehow when they ran into each other for the second time. Kelly was a completely different person. She’d become just like all the others – flirty, easy, forgettable. And Jack couldn’t understand why.

“What the fuck?”

Kelly’s obnoxiously loud voice broke Jack out of his trance, and he looked at her again, noticing her messed up hair and blood-shot eyes. She still looked attractive. It wasn’t fair. He felt like shit and probably looked even worse. He had a strange feeling settling in his gut and it wasn’t nausea.

“Hi,” he said.

“Would you care to explain why I’m in your lap and I can feel your boner sticking into my back?”

Jack felt his cheeks heat up in embarrassment and pushed her off of him, watching with amusement as she toppled down the stairs. Once she landed at the bottom, she picked herself up and marched right back up to him, her hands on her hips. He looked up at her lazily.

“You’ve sobered up, then,” he observed dryly. She rolled her eyes.

“You’re such a fucking asshole, you know that?”

Jack just looked at her. This was the girl he’d met in the gaming arcade a few nights ago. This was going to be fun. Angry sex was the best kind.

“I’m working on it,” Jack said with a smirk, leaning back on the stairs and closing his eyes. The fluorescent lights were really starting to bother him and everything still felt hazy. Kelly snorted in laughter, causing Jack to snap his eyes open in surprise.

Kelly sat down on the step beside Jack, letting out a deep sigh. Jack turned and looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “What?” she asked, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden.

“You’re more attractive when I’m drunk,” Jack slurred, grinning goofily. Kelly shoved him in the shoulder, muttering “asshole” under her breath. She laughed with satisfaction when Jack’s head hit the wall and he groaned loudly.

“You’re just like me, you know,” Jack observed. Kelly’s heart leapt to her throat. Had he figured out her plans already?

“How?” she asked carefully.

“You’re an asshole, too. You just don’t want to admit it.”

“Well, I guess everyone needs an asshole, don’t they?” Kelly said.

“What?”

“You don’t shit, you die,” Kelly said. It was a phrase Becca’s father always used, and it always caused her to smile. Becca’s father was a lot like her own and she liked him a lot.

Jack’s obnoxiously loud laughter broke Kelly out of her trance. She looked over to see him doubled over on the stairwell, clutching his stomach as he continued to laugh. Tears started to form in his eyes from laughing and Kelly couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him.

“Where the hell did you hear that?” Jack said, once his laughter had died down.

“Becca’s dad says it all the time.”

Jack fell silent immediately. He always did at the mention of Becca’s name. He didn’t know what to say when Kelly brought her up. He wasn’t Dr. Phil. Talking about her dead best friend only made things awkward. Kelly sensed this. She noticed the smile disappear from Jack’s face when she mentioned Becca. She rolled her eyes and sighed, getting up and marching up another flight of stairs, away from Jack.

Just as she was about to escape into one of the hotel hallways, she was stopped by Becca. She gasped in surprise, and had to bite down on her bottom lip to stop from screaming. Becca was standing right in front of her. It wasn’t just a voice anymore. It was real. It was like she was back, like the accident had never happened.

Kelly silently reached out to touch her, and her hand passed right through her friend’s stomach. Becca laughed. “Hey!” she complained. “That tickles!”

Kelly stepped back, her eyes growing wide. Her lips trembled and her hands shook. Her stomach was twisted in knots. She didn’t know if the ghost was real, or if she was just having a drunken hallucination. Was she completely crazy? She wouldn’t doubt it if she was. Not for a second. Not with everything that had happened lately.

“Becca?” Kelly whispered, looking at the ghost curiously.

“Kelly Veneziano, you need to turn the fuck around and get back down those stairs to my precious Jack,” Becca said. Kelly rolled her eyes.

“Your ‘precious Jack?' Are you for real?”

“Don’t question me, you chile!”

“Why, Becca? He’s an asshole.”

“So are you.”

Kelly just looked at her. “You know, that’s not really endearing,” she said.

“You’re an asshole, he’s an asshole. It’s a match made in heaven!” Becca said enthusiastically.

“What are you? Cupid?”

“Nope. I’m a motherfucking ghost! I float and haunt and do other epic shit. It’s fantastic,” Becca said.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You love me.”

Kelly raised her eyebrows at her dead best friend.

“Turn your skinny ass around and go make out with Jack!” Becca demanded. Kelly flipped her the bird. “You should work on your personality,” Becca called after her as Kelly trudged back the stairs. She couldn’t believe she was actually doing what Becca told her to. She hadn’t when she was alive. Maybe that’s why she was now. Guilt?

Jack heard her approach and stood up, wobbling just slightly. “Decide I was worth it, eh?” he slurred. Kelly rolled her eyes and groaned internally. Why did Becca want her to be with Jack so badly? Could she see the future, too? All Kelly knew was that the present fucking sucked.

“You suck,” Kelly said bluntly. “You should fix that.”

Jack laughed and stumbled up the steps to her, draping an arm over her shoulders. She tried her best not to shrug it off and bit down on her lip to stop an insult from escaping her mouth. “I feel like shit,” Kelly stated.

“Me, too,” Jack replied. “Wanna watch late night psychic network?”

“Fuck yes.”

*

Back in Jack’s hotel room, he and Kelly dragged the duvet off the bed and sat on the floor, wrapping it around their shoulders as they huddled together watching the psychic network and eating ridiculous amounts of bread.

“This bitch has got it all wrong,” Kelly said, gesturing to the TV with the piece of bread she was holding in her hand. “She doesn’t even know what she’s talking about. Oh, she’ll meet a tall, dark stranger? Really? That’s not fucking cliché, is it? Fuck, man. Is there some sort of psychic handbook that we just don’t know about?”

Jack laughed. “It would be one of those ‘…for dummies’ books.” Kelly nodded and laughed in agreement, her eyes focused on the screen. She gave up on the program and threw a piece of bread at the TV in protest. “Fuck this shit,” she muttered, leaning back to rest her head on the foot of the bed.

Jack looked over at her, watching as she closed her eyes and took slow breaths. Kelly had shown him the real her. She’d opened up. She’d started to let him in. Starting with her rants about the bullshit that was the psychic network. Kelly was there and Jack had needed to talk to someone for so long and so he did.

“Do you believe in love?” he suddenly said. Kelly opened one eye to look at him dubiously. She sat up and looked at him, eyebrows raised.

“Is that a serious question?”

“Yes.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Believe in love?”

“I’d like to think I do, but every time I try, I seem to fail in the most spectacular way,” Jack mused.

“At least you’re good at something,” Kelly quipped. Jack just looked at her, causing her to sigh and apologize.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“No need to apologize. You’ve been snapping at me all night. I’m beginning to find it endearing,” Jack said, a small smile settling on his features. He meant what he said, but couldn’t quite believe the words escaping his mouth. She was endearing? What was that? Why was he being nice? Why didn’t he care about jumping her bones any more? Why did he want to talk? What the actual fuck?

“So, do you believe in it?” Jack prompted.

“I’d like to think so, but I don’t know these days. How can you know? I think I’ve gotta figure out what love is before I decide if I believe in it or not,” Kelly mused. Jack nodded solemnly.

“Why so serious all of a sudden?” Kelly asked, nudging Jack in the ribs with her elbow.

“I just got to thinking about Roxxie. …And Alex.”

“Are they the two you supposedly fell in love with?”

“Apparently. At the same time, too. I’ve just made a huge mess of everything, really, and I don’t know how to get out,” Jack admitted, completely letting himself go now.

“I don’t know what to say to fix it. I don’t know the words to fix anything, really. What I do know is how to get drunk off my ass and forget for a while,” Kelly said.

“Alcohol loses its appeal when you consider the hangovers that come with it,” Jack said, sighing. “There has to be another way to forget.”

“I could run over you with my car in the hopes I’ll damage your brain and give you amnesia?” Kelly suggested. Jack smiled wryly at her.

“That would just end in a major lawsuit,” he said with a smile.

“Fuck, man. Let me be the pessimist for once, yeah?”

“Sorry.”

“There’s another way, you know,” Kelly said after a long moment of silence.

“What is it?” Jack asked, looking at her, his brown eyes wide.

“Live music,” Kelly said. “Nothing compares to that feeling.”

“Playing on stage…” Jack trailed off, getting lost in his own memories of what it felt like to play the music he loved in front of thousands of people.

“I think it’s the feeling you get just before you see your favourite band walk on stage. The anticipation. The way your heart rate accelerates…then, in that moment when the curtains open, or the sheet drops, and you see them. And you just think, is this even real? And you look at them, and you feel the pulse of the music moving all throughout your body, and you scream the lyrics you’ve lived by at the top of your lungs. And you mean it. And your heroes, they’re real. They’re right in front of you. And they’re smiling and it’s perfect. And just for a moment, you’re a part of their world. The music overtakes you completely.”

Kelly stared straight ahead, her head swirling with the memory of the first time she saw Fall Out Boy live, at one of the very first reunion concerts shortly after they finally came off hiatus. It had been perfect. Her and Becca had danced and screamed side by side, holding each other’s hands so tightly they felt their fingers would break. It was the night that had saved Kelly’s life.

“That’s beautiful,” Jack whispered. Kelly turned her head slowly to look at him, feeling a tear escape the corner of her eye and trickle down her face. Jack wiped it away ever so gently with his thumb. He stared into Kelly’s eyes and held the side of her face in his hand, thinking that she really was beautiful, and maybe this girl was the one he’d never want to forget.

He swallowed his pride and felt his stomach flip as he leant in to kiss her.