Mending Ryan Falls ✓

4 | in which she wants him back

You don't know what pain is,
Until you're standing in front of a mirror,
Willing yourself not to cry. 

.\.|./.

Crystal Monroe

|in which she wants him back|

Life sucks. Period.

My mind is far from my body which is cruising down the Alaska highway cleared only mildly of the snow still spiraling down from the sky. Struggling to juggle the mess that is my life and the fact that I should focus on the road, I blink twice to clear my head of all the bullshit I have gotten myself into. 

Never had I seen myself turning out the way I am today, the ghost of a girl long dead, trapped an in eighteen-year-old, living, breathing body. So what if I walk around like a half-dead zombie with the mask of a robot plastered across my face? Nobody notices.

Nobody cares. 

"Hey, Jem," I speak into the speaker of my phone for the dozenth time this week. "I hope you're doing okay. I just ... I want to ask you how you are and ... when you're coming back. I know you're mad at me but we can talk about it. Come back home. I'm ... I'm sorry ..."

I wait, keeping my gaze fixed on the road stretching ahead of me. I hate how he always makes me beg, how I'm always the one to apologize even when he's the one at fault. He hasn't asked me to say I'm sorry, but I know I have to say it. I want him to come back. I want him to come and fill the void he has left in me.

He should be the one saying sorry. He should be sitting in front of me and telling me he won't overreact next time. Promising me there won't even be a next time. He should be making excuses, telling me he got upset but he'll get help. He should be saying he'll see a shrink and try anger management so that he doesn't blow up again. He should tell me he's sorry he called me a slut for sitting alone in a coffee shop because I accidentally missed my class and wanted some space to myself.

"I miss you, Jeremy," I mumble into the microphone, sighing in defeat before hanging up and tossing the phone in the empty passenger seat. My hands grip the wheel tightly and I purse my lips, wondering when he'll reply this time. He comes back and I know he will, but how long before he does?

He can't stay away from me, I know he can't. Just like can't stay away from Alaska. He loves Alaska; cold like he is. Everything from his sea-blue eyes, to his white-blonde hair, the thin lips hiding those pearly whites that glitter like snow. He's my human version of Jack Frost.

I love Jack Frost.

I lost myself for Jack Frost.

Ignoring all the red flags and turning a deaf ear to the blaring sirens, I followed him into the dark night, desperate to be the Wendy looking for freedom. He was my Peter pan. He promised to take me to Neverland. Just the thought of it was ecstatic. Like the first punch of Pina colada. Beautiful and simmering and sweet.

Only one fact I missed: Neverland isn't heaven. It's not a utopia to hide from all our flaws and insecurities. It is a home for lost souls.

And that is what he made me into.

A lost soul.

I stop the car in the campus parking lot, sitting in it for a long time and struggling to make myself move. I should get to class. I should go sit with normal people and pretend to be normal. I should be able to do that, right? I should be able to at least act like I belong amongst them. All the girls and boys my age, with dreams of accomplishing great things and changing the world for the better. I had been like that once. Until Jeremy came along and turned my life upside down.