15 5.2: Oceans and Tomorrows (1/2)
`BUT THOSE PRETTY LITTLE EYES WERE SO FULL OF LIES, AND YOU SAID I COULDN'T SAVE YOU BUT I STILL TRIED`
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Jacob has changed out of his tux and into a casual, light, red flannel, grey undershirt and black jeans. His face is a blur of bright anger directed at a surprised Joshua and his fists are coiled next to him, ready to be used.
”You-” Jacob spits out as he storms toward him, his sky-blue eyes furiously glistening in the sun. ”What do you want with my dead sister, huh?”
Tobias and I share glances before I look back at the brewing fight, and he picks up an amused Benji.
Joshua is at a loss of words, staring at my younger brother. His eyes quickly study Jacob before he nonchalantly swipes back at his hair.
”I want nothing-” Joshua replies cautiously. ”Look, Jake, I want no trouble-”
Joshua calls him 'Jake' because I used this nickname when I talked to him about Jacob. Which was quite often, given how Jacob was almost my best friend.
But who told him that he gets the right to call him that?
”Jake? Am I selling a fucking joke?” Jacob says angrily, stepping even closer to a cool, collected Joshua.
”I came here for five and am leaving right away-” Joshua says. ”I don't want to-”
”Fight?” Jacob snorts. ”Well, you know, you're kinda right. Fighting won't bring my sister back from under the ground-” He then spits next to his dirty, navy blue converse. ”I'm not here to fight-” Jacob bares his teeth at a seemingly unaffected Joshua. ”I am here to kill-”
I drop my jaws and Benji grunts in Tobias' frozen arms. This is just getting way out of control. I was just about to tell Tobias to drop Benji to distract them when Jacob's fist comes flying to Joshua's abdomen.
Joshua stumbles back, fists pressed against his stomach, as he steps on a few roses' stipes. Instead of retaliating, he silently and patiently grits his teeth and looks up at Jacob through his hair cascade and his pain.
Jacob is standing triumphantly over him, his face screwed. And then very violently, with his breaking voice, he says, ”I hate you-”
Joshua shakes his head and tries straightening up.
Jacob kicks at the ground and points at him. ”I fucking hate you, Joshua. I hate you. I hate you!” Jacob's face has gone all red, and his golden hair is now stuck on his sweaty forehead. ”I hate you-”
And I want to close my eyes and never see shit. Because looking at the world with such a worked-up, lost Jacob is just too painful.
The way Jacob glares at Joshua makes me worry if his exquisite, red-wired, ocean-blue and ocean-deep eyes would pop out. There's an intense moment of silence where no one dares breathe. I don't even look at Tobias even though I know that he might have a lot to say.
In fact, everyone here, living or dead, has a lot to say.
Joshua is standing straight with teary eyes when Jacob's tensed up shoulders relax and furrowed eyebrows unknit. I eye them warily, not knowing what to expect anymore.
”I'm sorry-” Jacob whispers throatily as his flannel flutters against him. He then momentarily squeezes his eyes shut. ”I don't-I don't-” He points at Joshua. ”I don't know what has gotten into me-”
Joshua's response is a quick eyebrow raise and a vigorous head shake. ”No-” He says. ”Don't apologize-”
”I-I punched you and you're older than me-” He sniffs loudly. ”You could've crushed me but you didn't-”
”No-”
Jacob holds his hip with one hand and quickly licks his lower lip. ”You know, I'm just going crazy-” He taps his forehead and looks up at Joshua. ”Just trying to pin down a reason as to why she did this-”
Joshua nods understandably, but Jacob shakes his index finger at him.
”No, you don't get it-” He then uses both his hands to push away his blond hair strands from his transparent eyes. ”I'm sixteen. My sister killed herself a day ago. Twenty four hours- sorry, years ago. And I'm having horrible thoughts that are eating at my brain-”
”The pain is unbearable-”
Jacob looks at him, pauses, and then shakes his head. ”No, no-” He paces around. ”The pain is nothing compared to the thought that she found no reason to stay alive for. It's like-” He gulps hard. ”It's like my sister looked in her tomorrows and found big blanks. Found hopelessness and just nobody to fill her world with-”
”All her strings broke-”
”She snapped-” Jacob tilts his right fist to explain his words. ”And the thought that many people in the world feel this. The thought that I might one day feel this-” Jacob's eyes fill up with tears. ”It haunts me.”
”It's not your fault-” Joshua tries to say slowly, and Jacob snaps his neck toward him.
”Really?” He lifts his eyebrows in a way that makes it seem that it pains him. ”How?” A tear tumbles down his eyelashes. ”I, with all my love for her, wasn't in any of her tomorrows-” He sniffs. ”I, who was there for her, wasn't a string she thought she could always come back to-”
I blink at him, my soul in great agony and turmoil. I for once feel guilty.
”There's nothing you could've done-” Joshua tries, himself on verge of tears.
”Well, that's how people are driven nuts, yeah?” Jacob says quietly, waveringly. ”They keep thinking and thinking. Like I keep thinking of where I've gone wrong-” Jacob uncurls his fingers and flexes them. ”I've been there when you ditched her. I've been there whenever she needed it!” He says loudly.
Joshua's eyes flutter and tears leave his eyes. ”But I haven't-” He says. ”It's my fault-”
”Bad shit happens to all of us-” Jacob yells out. ”We meet lots of shitty people at lots of shitty times-” He says, indirectly insulting Joshua. ”But through it all, we know that there's at least one person in this damned world who wouldn't mind hearing about it!” He points at the ground. ”And I have been there for her, and it was never enough! I swear I have!”
”It's my fault-” Joshua says. ”I-I hurt her-”
”And I was there for mending!” Jacob explodes. ”I was there! I was always there! Why didn't she tell me that I wasn't being enough?! Why didn't she tell me that you've damaged her way more than she could handle alone?!”
Joshua closes his mouth and shrugs. ”I don't know-”
”Well, who knows?” He yells at my tombstone. ”She's gone with her pathetic excuse of an excuse. No fucking note. No nothing. She didn't even fucking stop to think of our tomorrows without her!”
”It's her fate-” Joshua says, and Jacob looks at him like he has just got slapped.
”Her fate?” Jacob repeats. ”Well, that's fucking ridiculous. Because she literally shook hands with death. Her tremendous efforts to orchestrate her death was so 'fate-like'. Buying a fucking blade, filling a fucking tub. It's like preparing one's funeral. It was her fucking brain that made her think that-”