Untouchable ~ A Jared Leto/MARS Fanfiction

Chapter Twenty

Shelby's nervous and excited for her first day of school, and I can't blame her. She was up well before dawn and it's taken her nearly an hour to decide what to wear. When she's finally dressed, she leaves the rejected clothing all over the floor. "Carmen or Ana will pick it up," she sniffs when I tell her to put her things back where they belong.

"Oh, no. That's not their job," I admonish her. "Just because we have housekeepers here doesn't give you an excuse to make a mess and then leave it for someone else to clean up."

Grumbling, Shelby does what she's told. When she's finished, I have her sit on the bed and I sit behind her. She's requested that I French braid her hair; a style I'm only marginally proficient at. Gamely, I part her hair and comb the sections out and begin the intricate process of weaving them into a neat braid. Several times I have to start over, though, because Shelby refuses to sit still despite my frequent reminders to.

"It's getting late," Shelby complains as I continue attempting to braid her hair. Smokey, the gray kitten, hops up on her bed and she begins playing with him. She suddenly reaches across the bed for a blue catnip-stuffed toy mouse and I lose a section of hair.

"Damn it, Shelby!" I fling the rest of her hair out of my hands and sigh, aggravated. "You know what? Forget the braid. Just brush it out and be done with it!"

"Geez, you're crabby," Shelby glares at me over her shoulder as she waggles the toy mouse by its tail and Smokey bats at it.

Well, yeah, I'm not in the greatest mood, and patience isn't my strong suit right now. Lack of sleep does it to me every time.

It's been three nights since Jared made his decision to no longer sleep in my bed, three long nights of lying awake and missing his presence, his warmth, the security and safety of his arms around me, of feeling his heartbeat under my cheek, his body pressed against mine, his soft kiss of my cheek or my forehead, his fingers playing with my hair and caressing my face. Not to mention the nights when things turned more heated, igniting my body into an inferno of unrealized need.

My bed's entirely too big now, and my heart's entirely too empty. And I'm no closer to fully understanding Jared and what happened to cause him to be the way he is than I was before his confession in the living room three nights ago.

By day, we get along fine. At least there's that. He's not being the jerk he was that day he yelled first at Carmen and then at me. There's a deliberate distance, a building of a wall between us that's only discernible because I'm hyper-aware of it. No one else seems to notice. Not Magda, not the guys, not Constance when she came by yesterday for lunch and to go shopping for last-minute school supplies, not Jimmy, and not Shelby. But for me, there's no mistaking the shift, the chasm Jared's been building between us.

I'm going with Jared to his appointment at Cedars while Shelby's at school. I'm confident that he'll get into an air cast, or perhaps even a functional brace. That'll allow him much greater mobility, though I've warned him that it's going to be painfully difficult walking at first. His knee and ankle will be severely weakened by being immobilized for two weeks.

"I'll be climbing again before you know it," he winked at me when I warned him the physical therapy is going to be long and at times grueling.

Climbing? Oh, Jared...those days of dreaming about conquering The Nose of El Capitan are probably over for you. I just don't know how to tell you that without making you more determined to try it.

Shelby's looking in the mirror and running her brush through her hair. "I know!" she announces brightly, bringing me back to the present with a jolt. "I want a Katniss Everdeen braid." She turns to me. "Can you do that?"