Hands Made Of Feathers

JACKSON

I haven't moved for an hour or two. It might be three. I don’t bloody know. 

I sat on the bench by the bar, my eyes fixed on the glass of liquor in front of me. A glass I haven't touched since it was placed in front of me. Usually, I would have downed the drink just to try to numb these painful feelings in my chest. But no. No, I wanted to feel them all. I wanted them to burn. I wanted them to hurt. 

Jacob has been sitting beside me since the-however-long hours I've been here, but he hasn't said a word, just nursing his drink. I wish he would say something. I wish he would call me a bastard or a fool. Why? I didn’t know. I just needed something to hurt. I needed it to hurt even more. 

He suddenly shifted beside me, going tense. 

“What the bloody fuck do you want, Toria? Here to push the knife in deeper?”

“Calm down, J. I just need to talk to him.”

“Well, he doesn't want to talk to ya. Piss off.”

“Did you love her?” she asked anyway, and Jacob was already shaking with anger, while I just kept staring at the glass.

“I’m sure I just spoke English, not Chinese. I said, piss. Off.” 

She still didn't listen. “Was she really different? You weren’t going to hurt her like the other girls before her?”

Jacob was on his feet in an instant, getting into her face, and I could feel that familiar warmth of rage coming from him. 

“Listen here, To–”

“He did more harm than I could have possibly imagined,” I muttered, my voice empty where there were screams going off in my head. On the outside, I was calm, while inside I was boiling with things I couldn't even name. Jacob and Toria froze, both turning to me. “I would have never, and I mean never, guessed that he did something like that. She had survived something so ugly all alone.”

I finally moved, burying my face in my hands and inhaling a shaky breath, my voice trembling, my eyes wide. “God.”

They both moved, coming to sit on each side of me, quiet while I just broke silently. 

“God,” I whispered again, my voice cracking. “She… she went through that alone. She has no friend that would have been on her side. She has no family that cares about her. She was alone.”

I have seen that empty look in Marshall’s eyes when he looks at her. The man feels nothing for his own daughter, so I knew he wouldn't have been there for her. She had no friends. Nobody she could have hugged and broken down with. 

“She had been so alone,” I whispered with my voice thick with tears. 

The last time I had felt this great urge to cry was seven years ago, on that dreadful night. Ever since then, I have never felt this crushing feeling, and now it was suffocating me. And I let it. 

If I had known, even a little, I would have been softer with her. I would have handled her carefully. I would have treated her like she was made of glass. All those times we had sex, I would have been softer, careful, slower.

I wish I'd known what she was carrying before I touched the parts of her she was afraid to give anyone. 

She deserved that and so much more. She didn't deserve a bastard like me who has slept with more than half of the girls in this town. Who had a short temper and was aggressive. She deserved someone softer. Someone whose hands were made of feathers and wouldn't cause a single pain when he touched her. 

“God,” I croaked as I tugged my hair hard from its root, the tears stinging my eyes, my jaw clenched, and teeth bared. “God, it hurts so much.” 

Of course she would think I was just playing her after that hell she had to endure. Of course she would run the other way. But the fact that she had let me touch her. The fact that she had given me the privilege to make love to her and hold her means so much more than everything I had in my life now. She had let me have something so soft and fragile, and I didn't know what kind of blessing I had.

But now I did, and it hurts so much; the pain was blinding.

Jacob patted my shoulder softly, while Toria placed her hand on my arm, and I just broke, and broke, and broke. I hurt until the pain felt so physical, it felt like I was about to have a heart attack. And still, I let it hurt. 

She was so much more than I could ever deserve in my fucked up life. So much more than I deserved to be able to touch. I should have been a friend to her. Not a lover, not anything other than her friend, but I had been blinded by lust. 

“Fuck,” I groaned, my grip tight in my hair. 

~.~

As soon as I set foot in the house, I knew it was empty. The air was too heavy, too suffocating, and I knew she wasn't coming back. Before I went up to our room, I already knew I wouldn't see her things. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her name on my phone. I pressed the dial button. I rang and rang until it went to voicemail, but I expected that.

“Uhm… hey,” I said softly, clearing my throat when my voice came out too thick. “I… I just wanted to let you know that I'm leaving the house. I-I won’t be back, so you could come back if you want to. I’ll leave the key under the mat in the front door.” 

My finger hovered over the red button, about to end the call, but something in me couldn't just do it. Something in me stopped that finger from moving.

Instead, I raised the phone to my lips, my voice dropping to a whisper. 

“And Siri, I… I…” I rubbed my hand down my face, shutting my eyes. “I’m sorry.”