Hope I did this correctly. I love me a good tragic love story.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiyfnIPAZAb
181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy68jKzLLgX
Ari is startled when Jason arrives. He’s quick in wiping away his tears. He's cold, but the shock of events he’d endured not just a few hours before kept him from leaving his bedroom.
Jason stood in the doorway, his shaking hands at his sides, catching his breath. His hair stuck to his damp face and he seemed confused but no less alert. The two stared at one another. Ari would normally have been intimidated, but he was too numb to feel any such emotion.
“Where is she?” Jason finally breathed out.
He didn’t know he was too late. The tragedy was that there was no hope in saving her if he’d left just a few minutes earlier. He would have needed a few hours’ head start. It was half a days drive, if he was lucky. Luck didn’t seem to find Jason favorable very much those days.
Ten years.
It was just over ten years since he and Eva's involuntary split. After five years sticking together through it all. Partners. Possibly the closest thing to family he had left, even after…
But that all seemed like ages ago.
Clear moments of trust between them, among other things, but it was dangerous. Impossible. They were running on borrowed time. Neither was safe from the real world. Jason couldn't stand to imagine what would possibly happen to her if he slipped up. They were after him anyway.
After a severe close call, they made the undesired choice. He’d made a childish mistake he could no longer take back yet ultimately it was her who made the decision.
“Jason. We should split .”
He didn’t mean for her to get injured. Her bad arm getting further injured. Except, they were a team. They were all they had left in the world. She was his stars in the crisp night sky after a day full of rain. Though, it seemed most of his days were ultimately filled with rain. But sooner or later, everything needed to come to an end.
“I know. You’ve been thinking of running for some time already.”
Jason never commented on the fact that she kept a packed bag near the bed, covered by unused blankets. She did her best to keep it hidden right in plain sight. Anyone else would have been fooled, but Jason knew her too well. She grew distant. He couldn’t blame her. The witch had good reason to be afraid.
“Jason-”
To think, Jason actually believed for a time that he was given the chance to live freely. Peacefully in such a rundown world. With her. Those meager two years of absolute bliss, after having realized the spark that seemed oh so clear after their previous three years together. Something so apparent and yet they never acted on it until one fateful morning.
“Don’t. It’s alright, it really is. Who were we fooling other than ourselves? We were running on borrowed time…”
An accident. A mistake. And yet if that was all it was, Jason would make the same choices all over again. Each incident, each accident and mistake . He would go down the same path all over again, as many times as it took, as long as he’d get to spend that time with her once more. Time, it seemed, was never in their favor.
“… Borrowed time, Eva. My only regret is not having realized it sooner.”
It was for the best. Something never meant to be. It was just that simple and just that complicated. Not in such a fucked up universe… maybe in a different world. A different life.
They may have been meant to fall for one another but they certainly were not meant to be together. Only few things in life were meant to happen but that didn’t signify they were meant to be.
Ari, the boy who’d been gifted as her son. Jason never asked about the kid, but now it was too late. He’d done the math. Two years apart, and her insistence of separating in the first place. Yet if not his, whose?
He didn’t even want to think of such a possibility, so he never asked. But… she would have told him, wouldn’t she?
When he reaches the shed in the backyard, it’s been disturbed. Both doors having been ripped off their hinges. Ari covered her with a blanket, the edges having been tucked in underneath her. Jason didn’t want to think of the attack. The pit in his stomach sunk deeper, his chest aching as he looked down at her blanketed form. A strand of her dark hair had escaped, loosely having fallen on the cold, cracked concrete below.
Jason wiped his face. If only they’d been given more time.
“I’m sorry,” croaked a small voice from behind him.
Jason turned, his hair pricking his eyes. There he stood, Ari, with a look of guilt. He bundled up in the warmth of his hoodie, arms closed into his torso with his hands in his pockets. Jason couldn’t help but think he looked almost… normal. Like a boy being scolded for playing out in the rain for too long, his voice on the edge of catching a cold.
“What for?” he asked.
Ari narrowed his eyes, red and puffy from crying, “I couldn’t protect her.”
Of course. A crude warning Jason mentioned once, years ago. Something he’d muttered while halfway out the door. Though they never properly spoke, this was the only time Jason ever addressed the boy. He was an idiot.
“Take care of your mother, kid. You only get one of her.”
Who was he to give such a request?
Jason wanted to take back all he hadn't done. The things he’d never done, the time he never gave the poor kid. All because he was in denial that a child such as Ari could exist in their world. Jason couldn’t wrap his head around it, or maybe he just refused to.
I’m sorry for putting such weight on your shoulders. I’m sorry for being so distant. I’m sorry for letting her leave. I’m sorry...
For years they kept their distance from each other. To Ari, Jason was nothing but a stranger. A friend of his mother’s, but a stranger, nonetheless. The same stranger who arrived at any time during the day or night, randomly splattered in blood, at times with wounds that made no real sense.
A stranger he would soon come to see as a protector.
Had he been given a second chance; Jason wouldn’t hesitate in begging her to stay. Screw the danger. Screw fate. They would find a way. A scrappy family trying to make ends meet was still better than what they dreadfully ended up with. As long as they were together.
“You know what?” Jason takes a step forward. He wipes away the dampness on his face. With his silver tongue, all he’s able to say is, “I’m sorry too.”
It was the best he could do, but at least it was the truth.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
