Caged Bird // Jessica Jones

Bisector

A clear line paved the level I would go, and the level I wouldn't. 

But like many things, I had to forget about such things. A line, no matter how clear, needed to be crossed in order to find Jessica. 

Even if that meant looking for dead bodies.

...

I found myself sitting at a bus stop, drenched in discomfort and rain. My hands were pale with anxiety and cold, my skin boreal. I stared at the view in front, oozing with the mist splashed from the moving cars, across the wet tarmac. The sky blended in with this; a lack of colour flooding my eyes, with little care or little emotion. I half expected to see Jessica come storming out of it, like she did in New York, drunk and raged. 

But she didn't. 

Instead, I continued to sit at the bus stop, losing control in a still position. I thought that maybe, I'd find something at this point - anything. But after a month of being alone, everything was slowly fading back to grey once again. I had allowed hope to build, stripping me of sanity, as if it were a disease, thinking I was getting someone. But I'm getting nowhere.

I've been waiting for this bus for half an hour, and now walking in the rain seems tempting. 

I found myself trudging along in it ten minutes later, still lonely in the soft mist littering, hot air seeping from my nose. A guilt deepens while I walk however, and I find myself plummeting through the days I have spent here, in this street. I shouldn't have been taking this long. It was supposed to be quick, finding Jessica was a must but now even just getting somewhere warm felt like it obtained a low possibility.

It got to nine, that evening before I did find somewhere. I stood in a small room, thickened with a dampness, water gathering in puddles as I stayed. Wallpaper packed the walls, although neatly, juxtaposing the dust settled on the windowsill and the pictures hanging crookidly along the walls. It felt like it had half a heart, but a heart nonetheless.

Hot, steamy jets of water cleared away my numbness and I collapsed onto the mound of sheets folded and dumped onto the bed.

I slept until three in the morning, when sirens broke through the heavy rain, tapping against the window.

I stumbled from bed, focusing on the flashes piercing my eyes. A haze ran through me like cold water through a sponge and I shook my head to cut out the buzzing knocking against my ears. The window hosted a chaotic scene across the road.

A hysteria of shouts and people and metal and glass and medics burrowed itself into my eyes, refining through my mind. A first glance would tell you that it had been a car crash. A second view would tell you much different.

A pair of boots. Jeans. Leather jacket. A body on the road. Black hair.

I snatched by coat from the bed post, and found myself sprinting through the hallway, down the countless whirlwind of steps, down to reception, out the door, outside, down the road, through a storm of foreign voices to demanding me to stay back, into the scene, and then stopping.

Stopping as an ambulance swerved round the corner, her body gone.