Page 34 of King of Jokers

“But you can leave, Win, that’s the thing.”

“You don’t get it, Jack!”

“Stop telling me I don’t get it!” I spat back, the frustration so thick I could almost taste it. “Do you think it was easy for me to pack up and leave everything I’ve ever known. Everything I loved? Of course not. There were days, hell there still fucking are, where I am so home sick I have to force myself not to call my coach and resign. Because I am lonely in the city. I have amazing friends and teammates and coaches but I don’t have my family and I don’t have you. So stop telling me I don’t get it. You don’t think I worry about you being here. Being in the same place as those pieces of shit who tormented you?” I stepped towards her, lowering my voice and imploring every bit of hope I had left. “I’m sorry, Win. I’m sorry I didn’t know. I knew they were mongrels but honestly, I thought despite that, you loved it here. I didn’t realise it was suffocating you from the inside. But that feeling of entrapment is why I couldn’t stay. Itisstifling. And I know the city scares you for so many reasons but it comes with space to breathe. I know it will be hard and your parents will nag you. Your mum will drop the biggest dump of guilt on you but only because she’ll miss you. And some days it will be difficult and maybe overwhelming, but one thing you will never feel is lonely. Because I will be right there with you.”

“I’m scared, Jack,” she whispered. “I’m scared of feelings I can’t explain. I can’t leave everything I know here only to follow you and watch you in a world I am not a part of. A world where I won’t belong. I’ve lived my entire life fitting nowhere. Always the weird, robotic friend who was in the periphery but belonged with no one.” Her words were like tiny pricks, piercing my skin with sadness.

“Feeling nothing with anyone other than…” With a flick of her wrist she cemented everything I’d only just realised.

The tears fell freely down her face now. “You never made me be anything different than I was. Never pushed me to be more social, more extroverted, more anything. You accepted me and supported me and loved me regardless. But that is not always enough, Jack. This mess is my fault.” She threw her hands out, moving them back and forth between us. “I did this. I ruined us,” she cried. “And now you are leaving and honestly, I don’t think we can be friends anymore. I’m not sure I will survive you leaving over and over because there will be nothing left of me if you do. And I can’t come with you, because I can’t leave this place and we both know that.” Her hand flew over her mouth as a sob wracked her body and I reached for her but she stepped back with a palm pressed out towards me.

She wasn’t ready. Fuck, was I too late. Now I was actually brave enough to finally speak my truth, it was too late.

I’d been unintentionally stripping her bare all of these years. The times my visits were fleeting because staying longer reminded me of everything I wanted but could never have. Of a woman who had one million different nicknames for me, but used them only when we were alone. A woman who was only her true self when it was just the two of us.

Why hadn’t I noticed this before?

“Please,” she whispered. “I won’t be able - I can’t-” She stopped, her shoulders shaking with heavy emotion, her chin on her chest in defeat.

I respected her wishes and didn’t touch her, as desperate as I was to soothe the ache.

Instead, I took the smallest of steps towards her so she could hear my words over the breaking of the waves and the sound of the rain which was gaining traction. I closed my eyes and whispered my secrets.

“Win, being your friend is all I ever wanted, all I ever needed…until I realised it wasn’t enough. Being your friend is a quiet thing. It feels like waiting for a sunrise that will never come, but still loving the night. It feels like the all encompassing comfort brought only from that very first stretch after a full night’s rest. It is unspoken but ubiquitous. It is reliable and comfortable. But at some point that changed and it became loud and messy and all-consuming. Everything you hate, really.” I said, placing the gentlest amount of pressure under her chin until she was looking at me through a sea of tears.

“I have loved hearing about your dreams and your goals, even when I know they’ll never include me the way I wish they would. And I am not sorry for anything we’ve done this summer or anything I’ve said. Because if I was sorry I had spent half my lifelovingyou, I would say it. But Win, I can never be sorry.” Her brows creased, her eyes flickering between my own as she struggled to believe my words.

I ripped my shirt off and threw it onto the sand, pausing for a second as I watched it splash into the water. Tapping my tattoo with my left hand I looked down at the image which reminded me of her every single time I saw it, before glancing back up.

“I got this the day you left Sydney. I needed something on my skin to remind me of your certainty with every single second, minute, hour that passed. Because it was you who made me see the light again. It’s always been you, Winter. You’re my North Star, my compass, my home. You have always been the reason I came back. And I can’t keep leaving you behind because it is destroying me too. So, I am begging you. Please break the rules. Break them for me. Come home with me and we can work the rest out. Once my contract is up I’ll move back here or we can go somewhere else. Anywhere. I don’t care, as long as you are with me. Because I fucking love you, Winter. I loved you when you pretended Summer and Jackson were not us in your fucking story. I loved you when I played for the Collies and we were beaten by ninety points in the pouring rain and you stood on the sidelines the entire game. I loved you when we rode to school and you stood on my pegs, your hands locked to my shoulders out of pure fear.” She huffed a laugh at the memories. “And I loved you when you came to me the second I called when I felt as though my entire world was breaking. I’ve always fucking loved you, Winter, it’s just taken me a long time to realise it’s okay to say aloud.”

I heaved, the weight of the words finally spoken leaving me both intoxicatingly empty and fuelled. Each truth carrying itself on the breeze and floating out to the ocean and up to the stars – the same place we had spent hundreds of nights together.

If we woke up tomorrow, alone, at least we had spoken our truths.

Before I could worry about what she would say or do, she lunged for me, throwing her arms around my neck, her mouth hitting my own in a clash of lips and teeth, her tongue imploring entry to meet my own. With the emotion that can only come on a secluded beach, with the rain pouring down, I kissed her back.

My best-friend. My North Star. Myeverything.

Her hands were in my hair, shoving my hat off my head so she could tug the strands in a concoction of pleasure and pain. Reaching for the front of her dress, I ripped it open, the sound of buttons popping only adding to the intensity as I stripped it down her body with no care for where it landed. I needed to feel her, take her, claim her with all of the love I’d dared to keep hidden.

Every unspoken word we never shared. Every sordid, secret thought either of us had over the years was in the intensity and carnality of our movements.

She undid my shorts and I stepped out of them with a disbelieving laugh, my briefs cast aside also. A quick glance both ways determined we were still alone as I took her mouth again, unlatching her bra as she stepped out of her own panties. There was no rush yet we were so hurried, achingly desperate for each other despite being together only a few hours earlier.

Our naked bodies writhing, the water from the sky making the sand below firmer, our bodies slipperier as I gently laid her down and moved above her, entering her already wet sex.

Fuck. Being inside her would never be anything less than perfect.

“You are beautiful,” I whispered against her lips.

She was the most angelic woman I’d ever seen and I’d gone far too long without telling her. I wasn’t going to censor my truths any longer. “Perfect. Everything.”

I punctuated each confession with a thrust of my hips and a kiss on her skin. “And you are mine.” I said louder, her fingernails digging into my back as her eyes rolled back with pleasure. She was panting loudly, her moans drifting over the sand and into the night air.

“God, don’t stop, Jack, please don’t stop.” She begged and I hooked an arm under her thigh, hitting her with an angle which sent me a little deeper, pitched us so much closer.

“Mine, Winter. Do you hear me?”

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