Reckless (Part Thirteen)

JACK


it had been a couple of months since the dance, and things were going well. ok, better than well, but there was still one tiny thing always at the back of my mind. i did my best to ignore it and push it out of the way, but it was permanently stitched there. it was like an itch i couldnt scratch.
truth is, i knew i would have to tell her. and soon. secrets werent good for relationships.
amelia had tried talking to me about it one night. kat had gone to be early, and i was up watching tv with my mother.
"does kat know yet?"
"know wha-? oh. no."
"if you dont tell her soon, its going to kill her when she finds out. you know that dont you?"
i scowled. of course i knew. i was just terrified that telling her would kill her too.


KAT


i know it looks like a dramatic transformation, but it isnt. its like all the shit that i was feeling before has been taken away to a different room, as opposed to diagnosed and cured. theres too much stuff in my head thats much better and more exciting to worry about how much i dont want to be here, because suddenly, i do want to be here. with jack. dont get me wrong, i dont think im fine, its more like ive been distracted well enough and long enough that i keep forgetting. which is good. i think. its always been my way to try and ignore the bad stuff, which was everything before, but now it seems to be doing the trick better than anything ive tried before. so why not go with what works? its certainly not harming anyone. at least not right now. heres hoping it stays that way.


JACK


hurting kat wasnt on my agenda. why would it be? i loved her. i was the only one who wanted to make her safe, except my mother. i needed to protect her. but what happened when protecting her and hurting her were the same thing? i knew that by doing one, i would also be doing the other. but i had no choice.


KAT


ive changed. im now one of those people i hate. theyre in their own little loved up bubble and they forget everything that isnt them or their significant other. everything has a nice warm fuzzy take on it, and all the worlds problems are resolved because they are happy. thats now me and jack. i disgust myself, but i dont want it to change because its nice. i smiled for no reason and i bounced. i bounced. love is disgusting.


AMELIA


the worst feeling in the world is happiness plagued by worry. you can see so many reasons to smile and be happy with whats in front of you, but one tiny little complication has to throw a spanner in the works and ruin everything for you. the thing is, the worry wasnt even mine. well, it was. just not the part i was focusing on the most.
yes, i realise its garbled nonsense.
jacks not telling kat something important, something im not allowed to interfere with.
i should be worried more about jack, but that worry has been there for so many years, its no longer at the forefront of my mind all the time. my main worry now was what would happen to kat when she found out. because she was going to find out, it was inevitable. whether jack told her or not, she would find out. and by not telling her now, he was betraying her, making the whole situation worse. but i was sworn to secrecy.













KAT





the day jack died, we all did.
it was two months after the end of high school. we had graduated, he with flying colours.
we had graduation.
and then we spent all day and all night doing what we wanted.

then he died.

i was called to the hospital, and automatically wondered that, if it wasnt me, then who could it be?
walking into a sterile white room and seeing jack white and still scared the wits out of me. i was standing next to amelia and we both stood there, stock still and whiter than jack. i had no idea how long we stood there, but we both jumped when the mortician came in.
"im sure the doctor explained what happened. im so sorry. is there anything else i can do for you?"
"my mouth worked, but i couldnt get anything out. i didnt know why i wasnt crying. or maybe i was? i couldnt feel anything. why was jack dead? why did amelia not seem as surprised as me? jack was 18, he wasnt supposed to drop dead suddenly like this. it was me. im supposed to die, not him. he had a future, a scholarship and me. how dare he leave me like this?
the mortician left, and we sat numbly on hard plastic chairs.
"what happened?" stared at the floor as i spoke.
"kat, theres something you have to know before i tell you anything. when you came into our lives, i knew he had to tell you. but he didnt, because you needed more help than he did. for years, i tried constantly to tell you but jack told me not to, it was his burden. he wrote you this letter, explaining everything."
and she handed me a huge fat book, the pages thin and crumpled in places.
i looked up at her as i took it and i could tell in that instant that she was as devastated as me.
i felt my scars throb and burn as i felt the intense guilt of being a burden for so many years.
the book was huge and thick and the tears rolling down my face in a steady downpour were the same. i wasnt sure if i wanted to read it non-stop until it was finished, or throw it at him or burn it or save it for a rainy day. it hung from my hand and i turned to say goodbye to jack privately for the last time. amelia left me alone in the cold white and silver room with my jack.
it was silent for a while as i paced around the room. jack lay on his metal gurney, eyes closed and barely breathing. no, he wasnt breathing at all. he wasnt asleep. this was for real. i dropped the book and carefully held jack. he was so stiff. i kissed his face gently and held his hand.
"i love you jack, but i hate you so much for leaving me. i wasnt allowed to leave you but you left me. how am i supposed to do this alone? ill never forgive you for this. never. you knew and you didnt tell me. for four years, you knew you were going to die on me and you never said a word. i hate you jack, and i love you. see you at your funeral."
and then i left.




JACK, AGE 14

ENTRY ONE
kat, i just met you, but i know we will be best friends soon. i know i probably cant help you, but you have to understand its all i want to do. so please let me at least try. i dont know when youre going to read this. hopefully you dont have to though, i hope i have the guts to tell you everything. just, maybe not now.
first, there are some things you should know, things i cant tell you to your face.
i think you are beautiful. i know you think im nuts for thinking this but i dont care. you are, even when youve been crying for hours. and as this first entry, ill leave it here.




KAT


it was pouring with rain on the day i started reading. i sat on jacks bed, wearing all his clothes and read while the rain slid down the house. i didnt read much. it was the day of jacks funeral and i had decided i didnt want to go. i didnt want to be around people who didnt know jack, or who didnt really care enough to spend time with him when he was alive. fake people, and the real people too, wouldnt be able to look amelia and me in the eye. it would be awkward and embarrassing and far, far too sad to bear.
amelia and i werent talking much. we werent really not talking, we just werent communicating. we grunted and nodded at times, but talking about what had happened was not necessary. we milled around the increasingly dirty house and ignored what had happened. we werent ignoring jack, it just hurt too much to talk about the fact that he wouldnt walk through the front door, noisily drop his skateboard, kick off his shoes and ask for food again.
amelia knocked on the door. she was wearing a black tailored dress, stockings a coat and plain black shoes. she was going to the funeral.
"you coming?" she asked. her voice was flat and croaky from lack of use.
i thought about it for a moment.
"if it were me, would jack have gone?"
i watched as her eyes misted over. i wouldnt blame her; i could tell she was imagining me dead instead of her baby boy.
"no. no, i dont think he would. but youre not him. in six months time, in six years time, are you going to look back and wish you had gone? you can always leave if its too terrible."
it was the most either of us had spoken since we heard the news and it sounded strange. we had both become accustomed to our own thoughts and the shuffling of our feet. i shook my head, not an answer, more to refocus.
"ok then."
i didnt bother wearing fancy clothes. this was jacks funeral, and i was going to wear what jack would have worn if it was my funeral. i pulled on an old torn pair of jeans and jacks oldest hoodie. the smell of him made everything foggy. i closed my eyes and whispered to him as the tears returned. "why jack? you can tell it to a book but not to me? if you couldnt tell me, what was the point in all of this? i thought you said you were going to be honest, but all you did was lie. i dont care that you did it to protect me, i just care that for four years you lied to me. everytime i asked how you were and you said you were fine or good or ok, you lied to my face. even when i was close to death, i still told you how i was, even if i thought it might scare you or hurt you. and now youre dead and ill never hear you tell me the truth or scream at you until im blue in the face. i just wish you were here."
then i pulled on some chucks and left with amelia.


JACK, AGE 14

ENTRY TWO
so today was the second time we met, and it was so amazing. we just sat at the park again, but i told you all about me. most of it anyway. im not sure why i cant tell you, in person or even in these silly journal entries. i can tell though, because you cant tell me anything, that what you have to say is a lot to handle. but i can handle it. unfortunately, its been three days and already i know you cant handle what i have to tell you. its not that i dont want to tell you, its more that if i tell you you might run away and i dont know if i can handle that.
i hate this. because its been three days since we first met and already i know im in love with you. i hope you dont read this for a while now. because that sounds just stupid. or better yet, i hope you never read it. i want to say that to your face. i want to watch your face as i tell you im in love with you, because i want to be able to see if you love me too. you wont now, itll be far too soon for you to open up enough to trust me, let alone love me. but one day i hope to be able to look into your eyes and tell you youre the only one i want to be with. and that youll say the same to me.



AMELIA

i dont even remember the days and weeks after jacks death. i know i was fairly blank, but it is as though my memory wont let me revisit it, which i am thankful for. i had hoped kat would be the same, but her eyes were so wide all the time, i knew the shock of it wasnt going away. we werent really talking, but i knew there was more going on in there than just missing jack. i didnt even want to ask.
i had now lost the two men in my life, the ones i loved most, and all i had left was kat. i didnt know how she felt about the situation. we were still living together, but i could feel her tiptoe around as though she felt she didnt belong there without jack. it was easy to see she didnt know whether to stay or go, but i knew i wanted her to stay. i loved her more than her own parents, and this was her home. i didnt want her to be away from me, or from all of jacks things, away from his memory. this was her home as much as it was mine. while we didnt talk, it was comforting knowing she was in the next bedroom. a teenager in jacks bed was the closest thing i would ever have to another jack.



KAT


i didnt dare bring up the living situation with amelia. it was now a few days since the funeral and it felt like the days since jack had gone were racing by, and i was desperately grasping onto memories as though the more time that went by the fewer memories i could squash into my brain. i wished, as i contined reading jacks diary, that i had done the same. all of our time spent together was documented in an entry. and each entry seemed so very jack, as though he was sitting next to me, writing as i read.
the funeral was terrible. i didnt leave, but staying was so horrifying, i had tried to block it from my mind. we all stood around his coffin and amelia and i were the only ones truly devastated by his not-alive presence. our tears told everyone who thought to try and say something to us to turn around and walk away. neither of us said anything, but we listened to many other people talking about a person who sounded vaguely like jack, but still so very bland, as though they were talking about teenage boys who died young and left so many people behind. i screamed insults in my head, but they remained in my head, along with all the other words i was caging inside myself.

the house was disgusting. there were pizza boxes and noodle boxes and cupss littering the surface of anything that was higher than the ground and a disticnt smell emanating from every room. we showered so frequently we couldnt stand to be in the same room as eachother at times. we had run out of everything- not just milk bread and eggs, but sugar and coffee and teabags and deodorant and shampoo and probably anything else you care to name. we ate rarely and never cleaned. it wasnt until my parents showed up that we realised just how filthy we were.