Page 49 of Frost
Jack made it all too clear that he doesn’t want to see me again. He didn’t even tell me goodbye.
I rub at my chest as a dull ache passes through it. I used to think people were being overly dramatic when they talked about the pain of a broken heart, but as I sit here and remember the feeling of being in Jack’s arms, recalling his comforting scent of pine and berries, my eyes prickle and my heart weighs a ton.
After finishing the chapter, I brush my teeth and slide into bed. The wind picks up, moving the branches of the large tree outside my bedroom window and projecting shadows onto my wall. I watch them for a while until my eyes eventually close.
I dream of Jack.
He comes into my room and kisses my forehead. Fuck, I can even smell him, and I cling to the scent, never wanting to be without it again. I crack open my eyelids and stare into his pale blue eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, caressing my cheek with his knuckle.
When he starts to leave, I grab hold of his sweater. “Don’t go. Please.”
“I must.” He takes my hand in his and places a soft kiss to my upturned wrist. “I shouldn’t have come in the first place… but I miss you so much, Luka.”
“I miss you too.”
I wake the next morning with an achy heart and turn my face away from the window where the sun is streaming in. That’s when I see a leaf on the edge of my bed. I pick it up and twirl the stem between two fingers. How did this get in here?
Whatever.
I drag my ass out of bed, brew coffee, and get to work. My publisher expects the first draft of my manuscript by mid-February. That’s still three weeks away, however, I go through the story several times myself before I let anyone else see it. I’m a total perfectionist.
Two weeks pass, and each day is hard, but I push through it.
I visit my family nearly every day, not wanting to take a moment with them for granted. Jack’s pain over losing his mom made me see how much of a hermit I was letting myself become concerning my own parents. My mom asked me all the time to come over for dinner, and I always gave excuses not to go.
But that’s changed now.
Hearing how Jack’s dad discarded him as a baby made me appreciate how my dad was with me every step of my childhood. He showed me how to play hockey and supported me when I wanted to be an actor all through my early school years. While other dads bragged about their sons being sports stars, mine came to every school play and cheered me on like he couldn’t have been prouder. Then, when I took up hockey in the tenth grade, he came to every game, cheering the loudest.
“I’m worried about you, kid,” Dad says as I help him put together a bookcase for Mom’s craft room.
“Why?” I nail in the corner of the shelf before putting the hammer aside. We’ve been working for several hours, first putting together her workstation, then some shelves for the wall, and now the bookcase.
“You haven’t seemed yourself lately.” Dad stands from the carpet and holds out a hand to help me up. “You’re here, but you’re not here. I thought you were just worried about your book, but you said you finished it already. That distant look in your eyes hasn’t gone away.”
“I’m…” I’m what? I can’t exactly tell him about Jack.
“Do you miss Colton?”
“No,” I answer. “That was actually one of the easiest breakups I’ve had. He’s with someone else, and I’m happy for him.”
“Then what is it?” he asks, then sighs when I look at him. “I know, I know. Prying into your personal life is more of your mom’s thing, but I worry too, you know. I’ve always said I’ll support you no matter what as long as you’re healthy and happy, and I mean it. So talk to me.”
“I don’t know, Dad.” I walk over to the window and stare out at the sunny day. Green grass and sun look so wrong to me. It hasn’t snowed since the day I returned to Bedford. All the snow has melted with the exception of the piles of dirty slush in deep ditches on the sides of the road. “I just feel…”
“Depressed?”
“Yeah,” I breathe out. “Something like that.”
“I heard the fish are really biting down at the lake,” Dad says before squatting back down and hammering another nail in the bookcase. “My buddy, Mark, caught a good-sized white perch on Saturday. The warmer-than-average weather is making for some good fishing.”
At first, I’m taken aback by his random topic shift. But then it hits me: this is his way of trying to help.
My dad’s never been the best at expressing his emotions. He stays strong and composed. I’ve never even seen the man cry. The most emotion I’ve seen from him was the day I got lost when I was eight years old.
“I’m free tomorrow.” I sit across from him to hammer in the last nail. “We should go. I’ve recently taken up fishing.”
