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There I was... sitting on Jace’s bed, in his room, trying to play it cool when my heart was hammering like crazy. He had that perfectly messy black hair that fell across his face like he didn’t care, a rose tattoo on the side of his neck and this clean, addictive scent—something smoky and sharp, with a hint of cologne that felt like it was drawing me in.
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His room was a whole damn mess. Clothes were all over the floor, band posters were slapped onto the walls, and a half-crushed soda cans leaned against a pile of crumpled cigarette packs on his desk. It was the kind of room that told you he didn’t give a damn about anything—or anyone. He sat next to me, one knee drawn up, his back against the wall, cigarette smoldering between his fingers. He was wearing a black shirt that had definitely seen better days, baggy jeans slung low on his hips, and around his wrists? Stacks of black bracelets, dozens of them, snug against his skin, covering his wrists. It was like he was hiding something under them, and the mystery only made him hotter. And I had to sit there, just a foot away, trying not to lose my damn mind. Thanks to Mr. Price—who clearly had no idea what he was doing with these “partnership” assignments—I was stuck here with the one person I wanted to look at but couldn’t quite look in the eye. Silence was hanging between us, thick and heavy, and while I was practically vibrating with nerves, Jace didn’t look fazed at all. He kept taking long, lazy drags of his cigarette, eyes flicking over me every so often, his expression unreadable. He was calm, like this whole situation meant nothing.
I tried to clear my throat, forcing myself to break the silence. “So, uh... maybe we should start writing down some notes before we, y’know, get everything together for the presentation?”
He took another drag, his gaze steady on me now, smoke swirling as he exhaled, and shrugged. “Sure…” His voice was low, smooth, almost bored. He flicked some ash onto the floor and finally looked up at me through his dark hair. I could feel my cheeks heating up, and he probably knew it too, because a faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He didn’t give a damn about the project, maybe not about anything, but those bracelets, that lazy smirk, that scent that was all him—it was getting under my skin. And while I was here, stuck in the thick of this weird, charged silence, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe he knew exactly what he was doing to me.
I caught myself stealing glances at his wrists, watching the way his bracelets shifted as he wrote in his notebook. My heart started pounding when I noticed something underneath—a few faded scars, faint lines and little round marks, almost hidden but not quite. Cigarette burns. My throat tightened, and a cold, heavy feeling settled in my chest when it clicked. I knew exactly what those scars were because I had some of the same ones.
I bit down on my tongue, hard, feeling the urge to say something rising up, but I forced myself to hold back. What the hell would I even say? That I understood? That I knew what it was like? I was afraid to break the silence, to let on that I’d noticed anything at all. So I just sat there, feeling like I’d been hit with something sharp and heavy, trying to swallow it all down, my eyes fixed on the paper in front of me, but my mind miles away.
I tried to keep my eyes on the notebook, on the scribbled lines and bullet points that didn’t mean a damn thing right now, but my gaze kept drifting back to his wrists. When he shifted, just for a second, the bracelets slid down, and I caught a clearer look. They were scars I recognized too wel cause i had them too. I had to fight the urge to reach out, to say something, anything.
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Instead, I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, forcing myself to stay quiet, to keep my face neutral. It wasn’t my business. And the last thing I wanted was to make him feel exposed, like I’d caught him with his guard down. But that heavy feeling stayed with me, lingering between us, a silent weight that hung over every word.
Jace didn’t seem to notice my tension—he was scribbling down something in his sloppy handwriting, the bracelets shifting with each movement, hiding and then revealing those marks again. He took another drag from his cigarette, exhaling a slow, smoky breath, and I tried to act like it was all normal, like I wasn’t sitting here with a knot in my chest and a thousand words stuck in my throat.
He finally looked up, his gaze steady, a little too intense, and for a second, I wondered if he could see right through me. If he somehow knew that I understood, that I’d seen those same marks every time I looked in the mirror. But he just went back to his notes, looking relaxed, like he had all the time in the world.
I forced myself to breathe, to let the silence sit there between us without filling it, without doing anything stupid. Maybe that was all we needed—no questions, no pity, just two people who’d been through some shit, sitting in the same messy room, sharing the quiet.
I decided to steer the conversation toward something deeper, something about mental health or whatever, hoping it might make him open up. It was risky, probably dumb, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should at least try. Problem was, I had no clue how to bring it up without sounding weird or like I was prying, so I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
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“You ever think, like…people don’t get you? Or that, y’know, it’s hard to explain stuff to anyone?” I cringed as the words left my mouth, my voice awkward and stumbling, the words sounding forced and out of place.
Jace looked up, one eyebrow raised, the ghost of a smirk tugging at his lips, like he couldn’t believe I’d just gone there. He took another drag, exhaling slowly, and gave me a sideways glance that was half-amused, half-skeptical. “What, like…mental health stuff?” he asked, his voice low and a little rough.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, suddenly feeling ridiculous. “Or, like…anything that’s hard to explain.” I could hear how dumb I sounded, and I wanted to sink into the floor. This wasn’t me; I wasn’t the type to sit here and try to “get deep” with someone, especially not someone like Jace. But now that I’d started, I couldn’t stop. “Sometimes I just feel like people don’t really…see the whole picture, y’know?”
He was quiet for a moment, eyes narrowing a bit, his expression unreadable. Then he shrugged, rolling his shoulders like he was brushing off the weight of whatever he was thinking. “Maybe it’s better that way,” he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. “Most people can’t handle it when you show them the real shit.”
I nodded, trying to act casual, like that didn’t hit me right in the gut. “Yeah. Guess that makes sense.”
Jace’s eyes flicked to mine, and for a second, there was something there—something raw and unguarded, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted me to keep pushing or just shut up. But then he just leaned back against the wall, flicked ash from his cigarette, and let the silence settle again, this time a little less heavy, a little less tense.
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Maybe he didn’t need me to say anything else. Maybe it was enough that I’d tried. And as awkward as I felt, I realized that somehow, in this messy, broken way, I’d cracked the door open a bit.
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