How to be Forever Alone [#Wattys2020]

13.

I'm staring at Jack who still insists that the best way for me to get down from the roof is to jump.

"You're insane," I tell him.

He raises his arms up to me as he says, "Come on, it will be fine."

I wasn't really high up and I knew me jumping off of the roof probably wouldn't end up in me hurting myself, but there is that one part of me that still says that this is incredibly dangerous.

"You'll be fine, I promise," he says, smiling.

"You better be right," I say, shaking my head.

I'm going to do it, I'm going to jump off this roof.

In my head, I kind of do a last minute prayer, hoping that I don't put myself in harm's way. Of course, I would be absolutely dumb not to realize that that's exactly what I'm doing.

Well, this is it.

I don't jump off the roof, it's more like I'm taking a step off of it.

It was only a split-second before I was crashing on to the ground, and on top of Jack.

Slightly, I lifted myself off of him, crushing him less than before.

I look at him and for a moment it felt as if you could have placed us in the most romantic movie you could imagine. And even with the sweetness of this moment, I knew I couldn't let it last any longer. I wasn't going to give in to what I had been holding back from all this time.

"I'm so sorry," I say as I slowly get up.

I made sure to be careful and not hurt him any more than I already had.

"No worries darling," he says in that accent of his that had become so familiar to me.

I extend my right hand to him and help him off the ground.

"Oh jeez, I'm really sorry," I start apologizing, "I got you covered in mud."

I try brushing some of it off of him, but I'm pretty sure it just made it worse. It covered almost all of his back and legs.

He takes hold of my shoulders, getting me to stop what I was doing. He looks at me with a smile, but I still didn't feel as if the situation had been rectified.

"Claire, don't worry about it," he tells me.

"How can I not?" I reply biting my bottom lip. "I worry about everything."

"How about we go inside and get in to clean clothes," he says.

I nod my head and we make our way back into the house to dry off.

I'm sitting on the couch all huddled up, trying to keep warm, in my clean hoodie and Jack is walking out of the washroom. He shakes his hair in a towel and he's shirtless.

I can't stop staring and I know that I shouldn't be. Luckily, I don't think he even noticed.

Jack walks into his room for a few minutes before re-emerging in a new dark green T-shirt. It suited him quite nicely, yet in a way, it didn't really blend in with his ripped up jeans. And come to think of it, I never imagined him to be the type of person to wear ripped jeans. It's not like I didn't know how comfortable they can be, but I assume that most people wear them as a fashion statement and not for relaxing.

The ringing of an old rotary phone brought me back to reality and I watched as Jack went to pick it up.

"Hello?" he says.

I tried not to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help myself and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only person in the world to ever do so.

He ruffles his hair as he continues, "I'm you know... just at home, helping a friend."

"A friend?" I can hear the muffled response. "It sounds like this is a new friend."

He looks back at me, "Yeah, we met quite recently."

"Great," the voice says, "I'm standing right outside. I can't wait to meet your new friend."

"You're what?!" Jack did a double take.

And without a spare moment, there was a loud knock at the door.

Quickly, I watched Jack hang up the phone and go to his front door. He opened it slowly, but not in a scared kind of way.

"Aileen!" he smiles at the woman.

She has this really curly brown hair tied up in a ponytail and has a beautiful pink lip-gloss on that make her lips shine in the light. I couldn't see her outfit clearly since her arms were full carrying two brown paper bags filled to the brim.

"Here you go mister," she hands Jack the bags.

And as he's bringing them to the kitchen, the young woman turns to me.

"So you're the new friend," she says all with a happy grin.

I stand up and extend my hand to shake hers, "I'm Claire."

She doesn't take my hand but instead pulls me into a hug.

"I'm Aileen," she replies. "And that man," she points to Jack, "never buys himself any food. If I never came around he would be starving."

Her comment makes me laugh and even from the small amount of time I've spent with him, I could tell that what she said was true.

She sits down at the end of the small love seat towards the left side of the room, and I sit down on the long couch facing the fireplace.

"So where are you from in America?" she asks me.

I assumed she was asking from what part of the United-States I was, but like everyone who asks me that question, I correct them.

"I'm from Canada," I reply, "Ottawa to be specific."

"Ooh fun," she lifts her right shoulder in an alluring kind of way, "the capital. I've never met a Canadian before. But then again, I find it hard to differentiate you guys from the Americans most of the time. Who knows, maybe I have met a Canadian before."

"Actually," I start, "it might sound a little weird, but you just have to look at our mouths when we speak. Canadians tend to stick their tongue out, just a little bit when we speak. It's hard to notice if you don't know about it."

"Well someone must have spent a lot of time staring at mouths to figure that out," she snorts as she laughs.

I can hear Jack fumble and drop a can of vegetables in the kitchen, Aileen gets up to help him.

"Poor man still needs help with the simplest of tasks," she says, "but thank God I love him so much."

She kisses his shoulder as she goes to help him put the rest of the groceries away.

Love him?

Like love him love him?