Jack🦋

I sent this to my reading app muse whom I haven't met yet and she replied with, "I'm jealous of how you get to visit spaces and places with just your mind" 

Anyway, go ahead, and listen to 'Till Forever Falls Apart' by Finneas and Ashe as you read this story❤️

I needed a job for my lengthy school break. I knew a couple of joints I would have worked, one a library or a cafe downtown or a cashier at a supermarket next to my block. The library one was eventually not an option, they were closing for renovation. I didn't want to work so close to home so I chose the cafe downtown. Not in the kitchen, no, I got the cashier spot. Atleast I would wake up early every morning and go sit down all day collecting bills. I wasn't looking for excitement out of this job, I was looking to be busy and of course a salary. I needed to get a yellow bike for my small sister's birthday too. My only friend at the cafe was this old woman, Jane, who used to package take outs for customers and was always complaining about something or judging what I wore to work. The other 'close friend' was Jack, some kitchen guy who made a point of saying hi to me on his way in and out of work. He brought up the weather a couple times with me and eventually we would walk home together in the evening.

Wierd how we went to the same campus, but had never crossed paths or anything. He was a bit laid back though and looked rare to me. By the second week, we were already so close, and we'd make a point of hanging out after work for an hour or two, or walk each other home. No! He walked me home all the time, I never did. We began to visit cafes together, share music, talk alot and mosty rant about our parents. Every single day we'd drop by this place where they let you read books for free as long as you bought two coffees. Jack insisted on reading out loud his best parts of certain books for me, in a fake French accent, of course you should have guessed. Ps. It was not allowed, the noise and the hard laughing. The old man who owned the joint had his head turn everytime we made a noise until he got used to it. One time Jack left a small note inside the pocket of my jeans saying, "listen to till forever falls apart, my best part is that Finneas sings that there is nothing more romantic that dying with your friends and am not sorry."  Was that supposed to ring a bell at me? He knew it right? I thought it was beautiful, despite the fact that I didn't know what to make out of this song. It was sad and happy and tragic and had all sorts of emotional frequencies to it.

He had subtle taste in music and something about how he spoke or how he read to me or his messed up handwriting or how he held his pen. Or how he thought I was a loner by the night. Or just how I thought he saw my worth beyond my face!

I couldn't share with nobody how exactly I was feeling. You ever had an incredible/great experience with someone and you just can't put it in words, because however you say it or however you try to explain to someone how this person makes you feel, they wouldn't really understand, it's like you wished for them to experience the same thing or to experience this person to actually understand how you feel about being around them, that is Jack for me. Anytime I lifted my phone to call Melissa and tell her about Jack, I couldn't even start to explain. Y'all feel me? And am not playing pretend!

And no we never had to fight over unread messages or switched off phones, or text messages left on read we literally fought over unreturned letters and lost letters or replied letter but written in ugly ink and this one time, he was legit mad that I had forgotten the lyrics to someone by you by banners and  I think it was kinda beautiful...I can swear on every line of the songs we shared that he felt something too.

Friday the 13th, November, 2020, by far the happiest yet most tragic day of all my existence. I remember it raining so heavily in the afternoon all through the evening. I was stuck at work upto around 7pm. With everyone else of course. I finally got touch of dad who took me home. Jack let have his jacket through the driveway as he waited for the rain to go down so he could get a hold of a taxi atleast. This jacket, a heavy one with red and black patches and tonnes and tonnes of pockets. I had to get it back though! But in between the moment I got home and the following day, I almost felt like I had learned 

Jack's whole existence in a night. That he was real jealous of his younger sister who used to play the violin, that he loved and missed his Mum so much who was working abroad, that his puppy hated him, that he wished his hair was longer, and most of all that he wrote about me a couple of times and he actually used my name. In his jacket pockets was an old and ratchet notebook, with a SpongeBob cover and brown pages. He literally sprawled his while existence on this book. The worst part was that he never wrote dates and I could not quite figure out the timelines, but the book looked like a diary to me and a place he visited often. 

Was I supposed to tell him? Now that I knew these feelings I had for him were mutual and even heavier on his side, or should I have waited until he openly confessed. I thought of letting it slide and never talking about it. I couldn't wait to go to work the following day however, everything was finally making sense. I got up late, it was raining even harder and dad drove me on his way to work. 

On arrival, the whole cafe was surrounded by wierd yellow lines, like those at a crime scene. There were two police cars outside and atleast I  could recognize Jane. She was outside on a corridor under an umbrella and was on call. Beside her was a cop who was making a call too. 

"What's going on?" Dad asked.

" We just got here I can't tell. Can we go check?"

"Of course," 

Dad said rushing towards the corridor. 

I followed him and bumped into Jane asking her what was up. I could spot some people inside the cafe and I figured Jack was there but what the hell was going on! 

The rain was getting heavier and I was soaked already. Jane looked at me and almost broke down. This had to be a big deal. She silently whispered under her mask "Jack" and my heart began beating crazily. My dad was talking to the cop beside Jane and I had him say melatonin. Jane proceeded to explain that she found Jack lying on the kitchen floor when she got to work and he had melatonin pills on his hand so they assumed he overdosed. Melatonin are sleeping pills so he possibly can't be dead I thought. 

"Can I see him though?"

"They took his body,"

It had not hit me until she said body and I had to re ask, 

"He is dead?"

For a moment I was floating on space, I couldn't feel my body and I swear time stopped. Jane fall into a hug rubbing my back and I think at this point I was crying uncontrollably. I don't know how I got to the car but somehow I just did!

Was it intentional? Was it suicide? But why would he possibly do that? He had a lot going on with him and never once  had  he ever mentioned having trouble falling asleep. Dad walked in and asked me if he could take me home or to the hospital and all I wanted was to run. Run to nowhere. How would I start to tell dad that I was in love with the boy? That night I resolved to write, my eyes were red and heavy and I could feel the pain of every single tear, I wanted answers.

Dear diary, 

I'm sorry you have to carry the weight of this sad heart of mine with me. Do your pages hurt when I press a pen in black to tell you about him? I think you are the luckiest thing in the world, just being a book and not having to feel any kind of hurt, or to walk in the shower and almost drown to tears, or to say goodbye to people. I want to be a diary in my next life, like you. I want to be owned by a 17 year old who meets their lover on a Friday evening in an empty street. Can we talk about Jack now?

I was dreaming in a world that I knew had the cards right for me. Spending part of my life gambling with my heart.  You know people fall in love with the wrong people sometimes. Some mistakes get made and it's just fine. Some mistakes are falling in love. Some mistakes are getting attached. Some mistakes are stars aligning perfectly but for the wrong people.

You really can't undo or untell or unlive a love story. The feelings. They can't  go away. So you have to live with the memories of an old love that was lost. Right?  And slowly maybe learn to love another person or another thing? But who is really up to be broken once, twice and more by one, two, three, and more people. How cruel of the universe to send me wrong lovers, how cruel of life to make me  so unlucky at love? How cruel of love to draw the line at me? 

Wierd how the best things I wish for in life are things I can never have or people I can no longer reach for. It hurts that they are no longer a phone call away, you don't even know if they are really out there, or they ceased to exist, and you can't be someone to them, you can't touch them, or hear them and you begin to forget how it sounded like when they said your name or how you felt when they touched you and that is when it hits home. That their impact is slowly fading but it shouldn't. Where do dead lovers go?

The letters I was afraid to send, the songs I held back to share, the words I should have told you but was scared, the bracelet I was to give you on your birthday. What do I do with all these stuff?

But I'm proud that I was chosen last for you, 

And if up there there are memories I know you think of your last with me. And I swear on the rythmn of the last poem you wrote me, that I was happy you were my last too. 

I hope you realize how short life is and how limited time is to second guess and play small about how you feel towards the people you love genuinely.🤍