Kiss of Forgiveness 26

I was sitting on the front steps when he pulled up, his car daring. The cement captured my fake attention. Not to look too interested, like always. The sun was shining. Wind calmly brushing warmth by my toes. He sat down beside me. An effort to grab my hand. Carefully intertwining his fingers into mine. He tried to hold on tight as if to hold back the fleeing. I wasn’t going anywhere, not today.

"You did a pretty good job damaging your hand. Not to mention the locker you inverted. I paid for the school damages, don’t worry about it.” He states accusingly. “Good thing it wasn’t my head." It was funny; I could have laughed, but didn’t.

"Yeah. I guess…" I was staring at the fields, watching as the north wind trickled through the growing grass.

"You okay, AJ?" He stared at me, but I kept my specific gaze. Might as well let it go.

"Last few months, my dad has been having nightmares. A few times, I get up to comfort the night terrors. He screams to himself, ‘Winter, Winter, Where are you?’ I kicked a rock away from the pathway. “Every time I get up and try to aid his worries, he stares at me with disgust, quoting I am not Winter. I could never be her.” I let the words shoot out my mouth. No strength to pronounce them. He grasped me in a caring hug. I almost indulge myself in it, but try to keep my need for comfort in a classified composure.

"Babe, I'm so sorry. You don't have to be like her. You are your own to be." He pressed my head against his chest.

Someone should have said this at my birthing ceremony. At any birthdays or landmarks in time, anybody could have uttered this simple yet complex phrase to me. A father would confess that it was okay to not live up to the standards of a sister, just my own.

"I love you just the way you are." The madness still swirling tremendous inside, I refused to accept his ignorance as an apology. I wanted more. The natural pain killers making me weary to fight against his welcoming spirit.

"Thank you." My eyes closed.

"Let's go, AJ." He picked me up and put me in the passenger seat of his car. I was freed from guilt.

I look out the open window. Vision moving back and forth in the spectacle.

"Jenkins. Why’d you pick me?" My answer sounding insincere, but I wanted the sincerity part of it.

"You're beautiful." His smile was gracious; I didn’t want it to be. I wanted to stay angry for far longer than I held in me possibly. Aches in my proud indulgence telling me to walk away from his.

"I'm serious. You’ve only shown me the secret garden? The secret world you worked so hard on for an escape. What made me so special I received the gift to see?" Waterworks swirl around my eyes like pools above the drain. He began to speak, but then retracted his words. He lowered his head and shook it. Frustrated we were yet going over this topic once more. Maybe there were no words for an explanation. There was a feeling inside no one could describe and perhaps that was the mute of his words.

"Jenks, I have nothing to give you. I don't know what you want. I might as well be a nobody." I admit, willingly.

"You’re not, though. You are Autumn Jazmine and I just want you." He put his head in his hands. "That's all I need." Any other girl would be ultimately satisfied with this answer.

Any other girl, but me.

"Then tell me what makes me so special. Tell me what makes me so good that I get to have a life at all when…because I really do not understand." My words were spitting, and my tears creeping.

"There is just something about you!" He grasped my face in his hands.

“I do not know why things happen. Why some people survive when others die. Surviving isn’t the curse, losing the will to continue is a jinx. We are living for Chatt and Winter. They had their lives and wish the best for ours. They want us both happy.” His arms open, like I was lost cause I saw my reflection as.

"No, I don't think so. It shouldn’t have been here! You know that everybody knows that!” I sighed, knowing all too well the standards I ached to live up to.

"This isn't about your sister, AJ! This is about you, and who you are!" He placed a finger on a cold heart.

"People may laugh and stare, but you don't care, you just brush it off. You have so much courage, you are not afraid to stand alone. You are the first person to stand up when someone is getting scrutinized. The first to be their friend. You stand up, because you can and it’s the right thing to do. You are the coolest girl I know. You don't fight, you don't get upset or angry over silly matters. You are just chill most of the time.” Looks at my broken knuckles confirming the one outbreak. “I love it, and I am so lucky to have you; you have no idea how grateful I am." He placed his arms around my shoulders. "I showed you that because you needed a new world. I wanted to give that to you…" He dropped his arms, holding onto my soft hands.

"I wanted to show you that there was a better world out there, an environment you could create, one you can control. A world that could save you from all your hurt and all your pain." He kisses my forehead.

"I am frightened, though." I grinned; he rolled his majestic eyes. "Thank you, Jenks. It does mean a lot to me. I just wanted to know, know why I was special, all by myself." I kissed his lips as he carried me away not only to his fairytale, but ours. The one we shared and started creating together.

Maybe I shouldn’t forgive all the words he shoved into my heart. The ones that made it seem insane and scream a betrayal to myself. There was rare attention to my soul, yet a part of me worried he was the only one going to know it still existed.

Reasons in my head tell me I can’t possibly deserve this. There are times in my life when everyone around me is a gaping stranger sent into my world to tell me I am improper. My father always looking beyond me, never seeing who is actually there. His cleanse for his mourning leads me to believe the only thing he caters to think about is that he lost his divine daughter. The firstborn was taken when, in a chance, it was his 2nd he wished to become extinct. I realize I am imperfect. I acknowledge that her demise was a choice given by destiny and might have been the one misleading.

Doubts fill my mind and I wonder if the stupidity was lingering upon my skin, along with my cranium. Something inside me told me I needed him. I wanted him; he ached for me. Was I being foolish for trusting him again? Was I being the fool once more? Did I have reason to trust him? He had come to my house every day for three weeks straight. He would leave things when I wouldn't go to the door, little notes or letters, sometimes poems.

Before he would leave, he would look up at my bedroom window and wave to me as he drove away into reality once again.

On the morning of the last day, he came to my house, which ended his streak of trying for forgiveness. I told him a secret. You can make a heartbeat, you can break it in two so that it is broken, but you can't make it heal.

Puzzles gathered all around my mind. He loved me, so he said. Did he? I wondered every night I put my head down to sleep. Sometimes, I would stop and stare at him to see if he had really changed, to see if he had a mask on. He never failed; there was no mask. No other side of Jenks waiting to surprise me. There was one. Who changed his appearance of an arrogant being to more attractive personalities. He changed for a becoming-woman, who seemed to steal his heart overnight.

I kiss Jenks, coming back to our romance. He kisses me back. We just make sense, he told me.

"We connect. There is just something about you and about me that makes everything better AJ. I know you feel it too." He stared down into my brown eyes. I blinked away, embarrassed that I was able to be this special creature.

"I know," I replied, turning the afternoon into the evening.

"I need you, AJ." He held me as I lay on his chest.

"Why?" I ask, breathing out in a sigh.

"Because I'm afraid..."

"You aren't afraid of anything." I sit up and confront his lingering sad eyes.

"I'm afraid of losing you." He turned his head and looked away.

"What are you talking about? You're not going to lose anything. Unless you cheat on me again and if that happens, then I don't know if I would ever talk to you ever again." I made a joke, but he wasn't kidding.

"Autumn, I'm being serious...I was so stupid before. I am sorry I ever looked at another girl. I have just been thinking about how much Chatt loved your sister." He sat up putting his head into his palms. I sat there in silence. "He loved her so much that he couldn't, wouldn't be without her."

I sat there, frozen, not wanting to think about her. "You know after their first date, he drove over to my house and he told me she was the one. I told him he was crazy, you are only a teenager. What did they know of true love?" Jenks positioned his chin on the platform of his knuckles. I listened carefully; I knew a tremendous amount of things about Winter and Chatt, but not necessarily specifics on Chatt’s side of the story.

"He said, you are only fourteen what do you love? Action figures? We wrestled a little bit and then he gave up. Lying on the grass, he said, I just know, Jenks, Winter and I are meant to be." It was true when they were together there was a light surrounding both of their circumferences. They really just brought each other to life.

"What does that have to do with us? You're not Chatt and I am not Winter." Saying it so softly.

"Because it's what we are. We may not have the energy or the radiance as they did. But, we are nothing short of that kind of love." He looked at me with something new in his eyes. Real love.

"Yeah, they were together for four years, they basically grew up together through high school." I am confused. Why was he comparing us to them?

"So, we can be together for three years or three hundred, AJ. Let's grow together. We have that love, Autumn Jazmine. I want that love with you, I always have." I start to walk away with all this silliness.

"We are each other’s meant to be." I left him on the downstairs couch. Striding up the stairs, wondering what was happening. I wasn't confused anymore. I knew what he was saying and what he wanted me to know. But, I was a few keys higher than shocked. Nobody has ever loved me like that; nobody even mentions they have loved me, except Winter...

He was behind my step, holding me, in a careful hug.

"I have to tell you something." I turned to meet his questioning face. I pulled him along outside.

We sat on the swing set outside. He held my hand as I swayed back and forth, patiently waiting.

"I was there on that day at the bridge." Admittance to a secret that no one else knew.

"I know, I picked you up,” he said, unfazed.

"No, no I mean I was there..." I was getting nowhere and I didn't know what else to say. "I watched them take their turn to jump, Jenks. I heard their screams. I saw them die..." I let it out, I held on no more because it let go of me. "I hid in the trees for a while and I knew it wouldn't be the same going home. I knew I would feel the emptiness. After a while, I just got up and started walking. In hopes, I would find her and convincing myself my mind played an awful trick." I kept my head down, exhaling. Jenks stayed silent for a couple minutes; I shut my eyes as I tried not to picture her jumping to a definite demise she had no knowledge of.

He grabbed hold of my swing; he brought me close before the tears fell from my eyes. He gently, sweetly kissed me.

"I love you, Autumn Jazmine." It was all that needed to be said. What could be said really and that's all I really needed to hear.

"I love you too.” The clarity of who I was thanking neglected to show a preference. I waited for a victory song; in my heart, I heard it ring true.

We spent the remnants of the evening gossiping about our belonged families, reviving the best days of our wonderful lives. I comment that we never brought up that appalling day. It was a day like this no key points that were brought to our attention about the forecoming of tragedies. A very minute that changes perception for every other day you notice for enjoyment.

The one item bringing us back together, each day as we seemed to find a piece of ourselves in one another. Each day finding a little portion in between the sleeves of our shirts.

Hope and love, tucked beneath the folds of skin. We began discovering happiness in the crevices of our bodies. Memorizing the feeling of life in our bones once more.