Yuku free message boards

Jacob

I stop what I'm doing when I feel her behind me, her arms drawing me against her. And somehow that feels good to me. After four days of almost recoiling every time she touched me, this was a pleasant change. The guilt hasn't left me, it's still right there in my heart, every time I give myself a moment to think. But it's not here, not like this, in her touch. She tells me that she'll come with me, and then asks a little more hesitantly, almost as if she's afraid of me, if it's okay. I close my eyes and lean my cheek into her hand resting on my shoulder, reaching back with my own hand to caress hers. I savour the moment, savour the way our relationship feels just like it used to be. Right. And good. And pure.

"Okay," I reply quietly, giving a small nod before, for some reason, I repeat myself. "Okay." As we both get on to getting dressed and ready, I watch her out of the corner of my eye. Even though she's insisting on coming, I can tell that she does seem tired. That, and on top of that the fact that neither of us have been eating right over the last few days. "Are you hungry? We can grab something to eat first if you want. There's no rush." After all, whatever it is that's at the station isn't going anywhere.

Jacob

After breakfast, I almost change my mind. I almost decide that I don't want to do this after all and turn around. Would it help at all? What else did I need of my father's, if I had his memories, like those Nessie and I just shared? Now that I'm finally starting to feel like I might be able to pick up the pieces again, I'm afraid of seeing whatever it is. Afraid of being transported back to the night of the crash and seeing it all happen again. That won't happen, I tell myself. It won't happen now. It's over.

I give a shrug in response to Nessie's question. My guess is as good as hers. Charlie just mentioned there was something, but he didn't say what the something was. "I really have no idea," I reply, glancing over at her briefly. "But I just feel like… I want to get this over with, you know? Whatever it is." Just get it over with and move on from this tragedy.

Upon arriving at the station, I pull into a parking lot and hop out of it. And go over to her side. And take her hand in mine. I'm glad she decided to come with me today.

Jacob

She's right. We don't. We don't have to do this today. And I know she's worried. Worried that it might be too soon, that the wounds are still too fresh. But I can't help but feel that if I hold this off, I won't be able to handle it all over again later. Might as well get all over and done with now, in one go. "We're already here, might as well," I say heavily, patting her hand before gently lifting it off its place on my cheek and bringing it back down to her side. "Let's go."

Inside I see Charlie, and he has me fill out some documents and sign them. Everything feels so final now. Like Dad's life has been reduced to a bunch of paperwork. Sometimes it still doesn't seem real, like it has to be some sort of nightmare. But it's not. Dad's dead. And buried. And even though I know it can't happen overnight, I need to start somewhere, need to start coming to terms with it. When I'm done, I hand the stuff back over to Charlie and he starts to lead us to the back.

I can't help but feel a shudder running down my spine as I get a sense of déjà vu. Following Charlie down a corridor. Remembering what it was like the last time. Surely nothing could be as bad as that. "It looks pretty new," Charlie says, indicating for us to follow him. "I'm guessing he must've just picked it up that night or something."

And my heart cracks. Not again. I want to stop in my tracks and say no, no Charlie I'm not ready for this, no I don't want to see this, keep it for me Charlie while I pull myself together, come on Nessie let's go. But I'm too late. We're already there.

Jacob

My eyes fall on it before we even get there, even before Nessie leaned in and kissed me on the shoulder, as if she were somehow trying to ease the tension. But it doesn't make it any better. It doesn't make me feel okay, or even comforted in the slightest. Because I've found myself looking straight at this… this thing, this thing that killed him. Nessie reaches out to touch it, marveling at how beautiful it is. But all I can think about is how it managed to stay so perfectly intact, when my father's face looked like it was almost splitting into two, how it survived when he didn't.

I can almost imagine what my dad must've been thinking when he decided to get this. It's not hard to guess who was on his mind. And… and there's nothing wrong that, it's not Nessie, not Nessie's fault, I tell myself. But all the same, I can't stand the sight of it. I keep my hands at my side, holding them still. Very still. I'm afraid that if I so much as move, I'll just go lunging at it, breaking it apart and pounding it to dust. That's what I'd like to do. I'd like to destroy it so that I never have to see it again. Ever.

She turns to look at me, a look of worry creeping across her features. Her soft eyes fix on mine. I hardly blink. My eyes feel like they're burning, just from having to see this thing. She quickly tells Charlie that she doesn't think we can take it now. My jaw tightens. My muscles tense. "Get rid of it," I say bluntly before turning my back on it and walking away.

Jacob

Driving home, any peace that I had been feeling this morning seems to have evaporated all over again. Gone. I sit here wondering how we managed to laugh and smile over breakfast, thinking that maybe I'd been dreaming. I wish Charlie had never told me to come get it. I wish it had been destroyed in the crash too. I wish I'd just listened to myself earlier and decided that I didn't want to know whatever it was. But I also wish that my dad were alive, and so wishes are just futile.

Yet it doesn't change anything. It doesn't change the fact that I can't help but have this burning, irrational hatred towards that thing. As if it had been driving that night, as if it had been the cause of everything. With the way I'm feeling, you'd almost think that the bookcase had come to life and bludgeoned my father to death or something. But I can't help it, I can't pretend that it's the most beautiful thing in the world when it represents this entire tragedy from start to finish. From the engagement to the crash.

The moment that thought comes to mind, I realise that Nessie's hand is holding mine and she's asking me to say something. "About what?" I respond more harshly than intended. "About that, that- thing?" There is still some small sense of comfort in her touch, as there was just before, and I could cling to that. I could hold onto it and let it keep me where I am, keep me from shutting off completely. But my mind seems so dark and clouded over again, her touch mingling with unhappy thoughts. I pull my hand away and place it on the steering wheel with the other. My eyes stay on the road, fixed hard ahead, concentrating harder than I need to. "There's nothing to say."

Jacob

I hear her pleading softly with me, to talk to her, to open up to her, and I want to. With all my heart I want to. But at the same time I feel like I don't know how to do that anymore. And that rips me apart even more, the fact that I can't talk to the one person that I've always been able to connect with. She begs me not to shut down, but I wish I could. I wish I could shut down. I wish I could shrink away so that I don't have to feel, feel like this.

I let out a groan of frustration as I swerve sharply and bring the car to sudden halt on the side of the road. I need to calm down or I'll get us both killed, just like Dad. Resting my elbow on the side of the door, I lean back in my seat, still unable to look at her. "I don't think I can do this, Nessie," I say in a tone that's quiet, but once the words leave my lips I realise how icy they sound, as if I were hearing someone else say it. "I can't do this anymore."

Jacob

I hate this. Hearing the tears in her voice, knowing that I put them there. Under normal circumstances, my first reaction would always be to reach out for her. But now I'm frozen in place, frozen cold. I keep my eyes closed, not wanting to see her pain, pain that I know I can do nothing to wipe away. All I know is that this is getting too much for me. All of this. It's consuming me and dragging me down and it'll drag her down with me. She asks what it is that I can't do, and how do I tell her that it's this? It's this that I can't do. Us. I don't know how to look at her anymore without seeing everything that's gone wrong. Without seeing that ring, that bookcase, my dad.

I decide not to say it aloud, to voice it. So instead I ignore her question, cutting straight to the chase. "I'm sending you home." And this time I'm not asking.

Jacob

She's begging me. Pleading with me. And I know deep down that I don't want to be alone. But I don't know how she can believe that things can work anymore. Somehow I just don't feel like I can possibly share that faith anymore. And when she asks me to look her in the eye, my heart aches even more. For her. For this. Of course I need her. Of course I love her. Of course I don't want to lose what we have. She knows full well that I can't look her in the eye and tell her all that. But it's like we've already lost it. Why does she want to force it? I want to soften up with her, I want so desperately to be gentle, but the next thing I know I'm snapping at her before the words even get processed in my head. "What do you want me to do, throw you out?"

It's something I've never dreamed of saying to her. Even to my own ears, it sounded so cold and harsh. But I can't, I can't look her in the eye but I can't find it in me to make this work either.

Jacob

My heart shatters at the tone of her voice, so sad, so deeply hurt. I want to take it all back but I can't bring myself to. And before I know it, she's gone, leaving me alone in the truck feeling broken and empty. Hot, burning tears run down my face as I let out a cry of despair, slamming my fist onto the dashboard. Something cracks, but whatever it is, I don't care. I don't care anymore. After a long moment of just sitting there, feeling defeated by whoever or whatever it is up there that's out to get me, I start the car up again and drive back home. Alone.

And hours later, I find myself in the garage, tinkering with the car, for no reason in particular except to just keep myself occupied. If I don't, I'd be sitting in the house with Nessie, just letting the awkward tension build up in the room. I'd rather not have that. Even though she's here, even though I know I can't not be around her, I also know that if I'm too close to her I might say or do something that I'd rather avoid.

I'd come home earlier to find Paul waiting at my doorstep, with a look that made me wonder if he was just looking for a fight, because if that's what he wanted, I would've given it to him. And it would probably have been a repeat of what happened a couple of years back, the last time Nessie and I took time apart. That would be sickly ironic. But he seemed to be struggling to control himself as he spoke to me, and what he said shocked me. Nessie had gone straight to Rachel. And here Paul was sticking up for her.

At first he was relatively calm, telling me that grief was no excuse for throwing it all away, that I need Nessie as much as she needs me, that like it or not we can't live without each other. And then I got defensive. I shouted at him for butting in and told him to mind his own bloody business. Since when had he ever given a damn about Nessie anyway? If I recalled correctly, it was just days ago that he called her a 'heartless half breed'. He growled at me through his teeth and yanked me up by the collar. "Quit being an ass and get some sense into that head of yours before I knock it into you."

And even though Paul has never been the epitome of 'good sense', nor have we ever been the best of friends, I still couldn't deny that what he said was true. Nessie and I needed each other. That was the way it always had to be. The whole time, it seemed like he was holding something back, like he was trying hard not to say something. But whatever it was, he didn't get around to it. He just left it at that, and just a while later, Nessie was back. But now she looked timid and seemed to shy away almost, for fear of provoking me again.

So I figure I'm doing her a favour now. By staying well out of the way, fixing a car that needs no fixing.