Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky (Jensen/Jared RPS) -- 47/51
Title: Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / Luanne (OFC); Jared Padalecki/Pete (OMC); Jared/Eric Kripke/JDM; stated Jared/Sandy; stated Jared/Rebecca (OFC) and stated Jared/Ryan (OMC)
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help. Things go (rapidly) downhill from there... then fester... then get better?
Come on! Hop in the handbasket! There be room here for everyone!
Spoilers: Overall there’s really nothing to see here… there are a few very vague spoilers for “Bugs” and some minor spoilers for “Faith”, “Bloody Mary” and "Shadow".
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Chapter Forty-Seven: Just Another Word for Trust
Rating: R for adult themes and some language
Pairing: Jensen/Jared in the vague not-quite-together-but-getting-there way
Word Count: 2,579
Chapter Forty-Seven: Just Another Word for Trust
“I suppose he told you to have me take the Lunesta, too?”
Jared nods, still on his knees on the floor near the couch. His elbows are folded and resting on the couch. He picks at lint, stares at his hands before glancing at me when I ask the question. “If you can’t sleep.”
My jaw tightens, my lips follow, forming a thin line.
“Jen… why?” He asks quietly. “Why won’t you take them?” It’s not pleading, not angry. It’s not anything except spoken words. Just a question.
“I just… I don’t like taking pills, Jare.”
“A lot of people don’t like taking pills, but they still take prescribed medication.” He counters. “If you need it…”
“One Xanax a day is not what I need.” I interrupt.
“No. You need three.”
I glower at him. “And I don’t need the sleeping pills.”
“When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep?”
I can’t answer him. I know he’s trying to make a point, and he succeeds.
“So I ask again, Jensen… why?”
I don’t have a good reason. It’s not like anyone in my family’s had a drug problem, or I’ve had a problem. It’s just that I don’t like taking them. I know the risks involved-addiction, and with the Xanax, the very real possibility of seizures if I come off them too fast. Maybe, in my case, the benefits outweigh the risks-okay, they do outweigh the risks. The benefits are greater, considering it’s my quality of life that’s in question.
“Jen?”
“I don’t have a good answer, Jared.” I tell him. “I just… I don’t want to.”
“I got that much.” He sighs, but won’t let the subject drop. “Addiction? Fear?”
“Sorta.” I look at him. “Look, Jare… it’s nothing… I just… it feels like my body and my mind… feels like they aren’t my own when I’m on that shit…”
“And they are when you’re having a panic attack? When you’re lying awake at night afraid to sleep because of the nightmares?” He asks, dumbfounded.
I have no answer for him.
“Jen.” Low and serious, he is. “I’m not going to do anything that hurts you, okay? I won’t hurt you.”
“I know.” I admit. I do know that, and I trust in that. “I know.”
“Do you trust me?” He asks suddenly.
I almost do a double-take, but just stare at him, puzzled, before answering. “Of course I do.” I laugh. “I mean… I’m up here with you… alone… I’m letting you live with me…”
“Not… like that.” Jared says quickly-too quickly. “Do you… trust me?”
I look at him, his earnest eyes so caring and somehow nervous. His nervousness rubs off on me, and I falter. “I… Jare… I trust you… but I don’t think you’re asking the way I mean…”
“If I got you a drink. Would you drink it?”
“Sure I…” And as I’m answering him, it hits me, and I wonder if he’d drug it to make me take the medication. The Xanax or the Lunesta. Part of me feels bad that I’d even think that Jared would do such a thing, wonders how or when I became so jaded to think that anyone, least of all Jared, would do such a thing to anyone.
He smiles. “You wouldn’t.” He nods. “You don’t trust me.”
“I do!” I object. But he’s right, I don’t. Not after that thought. I trust him to live with him, and I trust him not to take a baseball bat to my ribs. I trust him not to hurt me or to kill me, and I trust him not to switch my hemorrhoid cream (not that I own any) with Ben Gay. But I don’t trust him to bring me a soda.
Something small in the back of my mind says I’m right not to. Something equally small says the fact that I don’t trust him makes me a horrible person.
He shakes his head, a small, sad smile curling his lips. “No, you don’t.” He says, barely audibly. “It’s okay, Jen… I don’t blame you.”
“But you trust me.” My voice is hollow.
He nods quickly, whispers “With my life.”
I don’t want to know why. I don’t know, and am not sure I want to know what I’ve done to warrant that trust. I don’t know if I deserve it. It sends a spike of fear through me, and I stand up, the sudden want-need-to get away thick and pressing inside.
“I’m…” I don’t finish my sentence. I just walk out the front door, pushing it shut with a loud ‘click’ behind me. I don’t look back-I can’t.
I have to think. I need air.
It’s cold outside, I wrap my arms around myself and sit on one of the benches on the porch. I refuse to go back inside even to get a hoodie. I just can’t see Jared right now. I’m too scared of the look I know will be on his face-sadness and apology, like how I feel is his fault. I take deep breaths and watch the snow fall.
Half an hour later, the creaking of wood against half-frozen and poorly oiled hinges draws my attention to the door, and Jared’s presence. He’s standing in the center of the door, wearing a heavy woolen sweater over a horrid blue and gray striped shirt. He holds out my hoodie as if it’s a peace offering.
I give a wan smile as I take my hoodie and shrug into it. He closes the door and sits down next to me without waiting for an invitation. His feet are spread wider than his knees, and his arms hang between his legs, forearms pressed between his thighs. It’s a position that looks none too comfortable for a man his size.
“Should come inside.” He says, staring out at the swirling snow, either unaware of or purposely ignoring my gaze. “It’s cold out here.”
“When I was younger, my mom and dad… my family… never tried to talk me down from a panic attack, not even when it was one or two symptoms, just starting. They’d just… give me one or two of whatever medication I was on at the time, and y’know… tell me to lay down or something.”
“I thought you said you didn’t get that many when you were a kid.”
“I didn’t.” I lean back against the outer wall of the cabin and lift my feet to the edge of the bench, curling my arms around my drawn-up legs. “I’d get maybe… one or two full blown attacks a year… maybe three or four… five at most of the two or three symptom ones that they’d drug me for anyway. And there were a couple years… five or six… I didn’t get any at all.”
Jared nods. “So then this… this getting one every day… it’s pretty bad.”
“Yeah. Only other time I had them like this-this intense and this often-was in Los Angeles.”
“Maybe I should get you to a hospital, Jen.” He whispers, making no attempt to hide his concern.
“No.” I respond more vehemently than intended, then soften the words with, “No… this isn’t… that bad.” Though it is. And the nightmares are worse. It’s just that I know if I go to the hospital, all they’ll do is admit me, put me in a four-walled room with a tiny window and lots of stainless steel and starched whites, with an IV of fluids and sedatives, and keep me half-unconscious for a couple days, during which time my drug-muddled mind will hopefully find enough moments of clarity to work through my issues so I don’t dream when I sleep or have as many attacks when I wake and they take me off the meds and eventually release me. It’s all they can do. The attacks start from my own head, and whether they grow into what they are now and were then, coming on without cause, just depends on how well I take care of myself. Admittedly, I that’s something I haven’t been doing very well of late, which explains why the last one just… came on out of nowhere. I’m prone to them. Give them trigger enough to start, then add lack of sleep, lack of sustenance and mass quantities of caffeine, they’ll keep coming even when the trigger is removed.
I need that time just to let my body rest. To let my mind… catch up with itself. I’ve already worked out things enough where I don’t think they’ll make me panic anymore. I want to be with Jared. I want to give this-us-a chance. But the panic needs to subside for it to even have a chance.
“Okay.” I say finally, and with that word, my nerves are set on edge, because I know what I’m agreeing to here-letting Jared have control.
“Okay?” He echoes, looking at me.
I nod. I haven’t exactly been doing the greatest job of taking care of myself lately. It’s pretty safe to say Jared couldn’t do much worse in taking care of me, and at least in handing over the reins to him, I know I’ll eat regularly, sleep (even if it means taking the pills), and cut back on if not cut out completely, my caffeine intake. “Okay… just… I won’t take them myself.”
“I know.” He’s confused.
“So… I trust you.” And I suddenly flush bright red with the unexpected thought of Jared taking this… the wrong way… or too far… overstepping his bounds and taking advantage. I flush darker when I think I might not mind. I take deep, calming, cleansing breaths. “I… trust you.” I’m shaking inside. It takes a decent amount of effort to keep it from showing.
“Jenny...” He trails off, and I think he’s caught on. “I do…”
“You can. I trust you, Jare… and I want… a chance for this… for… us… and if this is what it takes, then I’ll do it.”
He stares out at the snow, watches as it drifts onto the porch, beneath the awning. The wind’s coming in strong from the north, tearing at the trees and gusting through the falling white powder. The temperature has dropped since I walked out nearly an hour ago, and the sky has darkened.
“No backing out.” Jared says. “One hundred percent. All or nothing.”
I nod, ignore my insides that twist into a pretzel and make the shaking worse. I trust him. In my head I start repeating it. Jared won’t hurt me.
“You take my hand, there’s no backing out.” He says, standing up and heading towards the door. “You’re mine for the weekend. You do what I say, when I say, how I say.”
I nod, again swallowing the jumping in my stomach. “If I take your hand.” I stutter, and continue nodding, staring out at the snow. I don’t know if I can look at Jared. “Got it.”
He gives me a minute or two, maybe longer-time doesn’t exactly hold meaning, sitting in the cold, stray snowflakes melting on your skin, though they don’t chill me to the bone quite the way the question of relinquishing control does. I know Jared will care for me. I know he won’t hurt me, and I know he won’t let harm come to me. I know he’ll keep my best interests in mind, but I’ve never given up control willingly.
I can do this.
And thinking about it, I wonder if it would be so bad, even if he did… take advantage, as I’d thought of it earlier. I’ve already determined that kissing him isn’t so bad-more than isn’t ‘so bad’-I like it, even.
I trust Jared.
And it might be the best thing for me, because I know if I keep going the way I am, I will wind up in the hospital, or worse, completely unable to function.
Jared’s voice cuts through my thoughts, quiet and firm. To my ears, it sounds like an order. “Come inside.” He says from the door, one hand on the knob, the other extended, palm up, towards me.
I can’t do this.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Jared…”
He’s not angry. He just smiles, and comes to me, sits back down on the bench next to me. He reaches out a hand, curved to the shape of my head, but pauses before touching me, and I find myself wanting to lean into him, let my head slide into his hand. I want to feel his warmth, his strength, his comfort. I lean, just a little, until I feel the brush of his fingers against my hair. “Jare…” I whisper.
“I won’t hurt you, Jen.” He assures, and his hand moves down to my neck, slides across my shoulders until his arm crosses my back.
I swallow thickly. “I know.” It’s a struggle to get the words out, but they’re the truth.
He gives a little snort. “Sure.” He tugs at my shoulder, tilts his head towards the door. “C’mon, man. It really is fucking cold out here.”
“I’m… I’m gonna stay out here… couple minutes longer.” I give him a sad smile, lift one hand from my knees before letting it fall again. “Just… fresh air. Good to think.”
“Come on, Jen.” He’s not giving me an option. “You’ll freeze to death.”
I shake his arm from around my shoulders. “I’ll be okay.” I can’t look at him.
He disappears inside only to return an hour or so later. I’m stiff as a board-I’ll be sore in the morning. The cold has seeped into my bones, cold from the temperature and from my own insecurities. He stands just outside the door. I can smell dinner, wafting from the mere inch or two that the door remains open, and my head turns almost of its own accord, nose following the tantalizing aroma of food.
It’s probably something simple-pre-prepared or something from a can-because I’m still the better cook and we’re up in the mountains. But I’ve eaten little and kept less down in the last couple of days. I’m surprised I haven’t passed out just from malnutrition. Or maybe I’m making things out to be worse than they are. But I don’t think I am. Jared has a look of concern I haven’t seen from anyone in years behind those all-telling blue-green eyes of his, and the way he won’t leave me alone for more than an hour at a time speaks volumes.
“Come eat.” He requests, taking one step towards me and leaning against the cabin, arms folded across his chest.
I look back out into swirling white flakes and the blanket of fluffed cotton its made over the ground. “Jare…”
“Yeah, Jen.”
I turn to look at him, and swallow my pride. “Help me, Jare.” I whisper. I can barely hear the words myself, and I wonder if he heard them, and if he did, if he knows how hard it was for me to say them.
He holds out his hand again, palm up. “Come on, Jen…” He says. “Come eat…”
I stare at his hand. “And if I take your hand?”
“You trust me.” He says simply.
I stand, jerkily, limbs and joints protesting every movement in the jarring cold. I put my hand in his. “I do trust you.” That’s never really been a question.
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Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / Luanne (OFC); Jared Padalecki/Pete (OMC); Jared/Eric Kripke/JDM; stated Jared/Sandy; stated Jared/Rebecca (OFC) and stated Jared/Ryan (OMC)
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help. Things go (rapidly) downhill from there... then fester... then get better?
Come on! Hop in the handbasket! There be room here for everyone!
Spoilers: Overall there’s really nothing to see here… there are a few very vague spoilers for “Bugs” and some minor spoilers for “Faith”, “Bloody Mary” and "Shadow".
-------------------------
Chapter Forty-Seven: Just Another Word for Trust
Rating: R for adult themes and some language
Pairing: Jensen/Jared in the vague not-quite-together-but-getting-there way
Word Count: 2,579
Chapter Forty-Seven: Just Another Word for Trust
“I suppose he told you to have me take the Lunesta, too?”
Jared nods, still on his knees on the floor near the couch. His elbows are folded and resting on the couch. He picks at lint, stares at his hands before glancing at me when I ask the question. “If you can’t sleep.”
My jaw tightens, my lips follow, forming a thin line.
“Jen… why?” He asks quietly. “Why won’t you take them?” It’s not pleading, not angry. It’s not anything except spoken words. Just a question.
“I just… I don’t like taking pills, Jare.”
“A lot of people don’t like taking pills, but they still take prescribed medication.” He counters. “If you need it…”
“One Xanax a day is not what I need.” I interrupt.
“No. You need three.”
I glower at him. “And I don’t need the sleeping pills.”
“When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep?”
I can’t answer him. I know he’s trying to make a point, and he succeeds.
“So I ask again, Jensen… why?”
I don’t have a good reason. It’s not like anyone in my family’s had a drug problem, or I’ve had a problem. It’s just that I don’t like taking them. I know the risks involved-addiction, and with the Xanax, the very real possibility of seizures if I come off them too fast. Maybe, in my case, the benefits outweigh the risks-okay, they do outweigh the risks. The benefits are greater, considering it’s my quality of life that’s in question.
“Jen?”
“I don’t have a good answer, Jared.” I tell him. “I just… I don’t want to.”
“I got that much.” He sighs, but won’t let the subject drop. “Addiction? Fear?”
“Sorta.” I look at him. “Look, Jare… it’s nothing… I just… it feels like my body and my mind… feels like they aren’t my own when I’m on that shit…”
“And they are when you’re having a panic attack? When you’re lying awake at night afraid to sleep because of the nightmares?” He asks, dumbfounded.
I have no answer for him.
“Jen.” Low and serious, he is. “I’m not going to do anything that hurts you, okay? I won’t hurt you.”
“I know.” I admit. I do know that, and I trust in that. “I know.”
“Do you trust me?” He asks suddenly.
I almost do a double-take, but just stare at him, puzzled, before answering. “Of course I do.” I laugh. “I mean… I’m up here with you… alone… I’m letting you live with me…”
“Not… like that.” Jared says quickly-too quickly. “Do you… trust me?”
I look at him, his earnest eyes so caring and somehow nervous. His nervousness rubs off on me, and I falter. “I… Jare… I trust you… but I don’t think you’re asking the way I mean…”
“If I got you a drink. Would you drink it?”
“Sure I…” And as I’m answering him, it hits me, and I wonder if he’d drug it to make me take the medication. The Xanax or the Lunesta. Part of me feels bad that I’d even think that Jared would do such a thing, wonders how or when I became so jaded to think that anyone, least of all Jared, would do such a thing to anyone.
He smiles. “You wouldn’t.” He nods. “You don’t trust me.”
“I do!” I object. But he’s right, I don’t. Not after that thought. I trust him to live with him, and I trust him not to take a baseball bat to my ribs. I trust him not to hurt me or to kill me, and I trust him not to switch my hemorrhoid cream (not that I own any) with Ben Gay. But I don’t trust him to bring me a soda.
Something small in the back of my mind says I’m right not to. Something equally small says the fact that I don’t trust him makes me a horrible person.
He shakes his head, a small, sad smile curling his lips. “No, you don’t.” He says, barely audibly. “It’s okay, Jen… I don’t blame you.”
“But you trust me.” My voice is hollow.
He nods quickly, whispers “With my life.”
I don’t want to know why. I don’t know, and am not sure I want to know what I’ve done to warrant that trust. I don’t know if I deserve it. It sends a spike of fear through me, and I stand up, the sudden want-need-to get away thick and pressing inside.
“I’m…” I don’t finish my sentence. I just walk out the front door, pushing it shut with a loud ‘click’ behind me. I don’t look back-I can’t.
I have to think. I need air.
It’s cold outside, I wrap my arms around myself and sit on one of the benches on the porch. I refuse to go back inside even to get a hoodie. I just can’t see Jared right now. I’m too scared of the look I know will be on his face-sadness and apology, like how I feel is his fault. I take deep breaths and watch the snow fall.
Half an hour later, the creaking of wood against half-frozen and poorly oiled hinges draws my attention to the door, and Jared’s presence. He’s standing in the center of the door, wearing a heavy woolen sweater over a horrid blue and gray striped shirt. He holds out my hoodie as if it’s a peace offering.
I give a wan smile as I take my hoodie and shrug into it. He closes the door and sits down next to me without waiting for an invitation. His feet are spread wider than his knees, and his arms hang between his legs, forearms pressed between his thighs. It’s a position that looks none too comfortable for a man his size.
“Should come inside.” He says, staring out at the swirling snow, either unaware of or purposely ignoring my gaze. “It’s cold out here.”
“When I was younger, my mom and dad… my family… never tried to talk me down from a panic attack, not even when it was one or two symptoms, just starting. They’d just… give me one or two of whatever medication I was on at the time, and y’know… tell me to lay down or something.”
“I thought you said you didn’t get that many when you were a kid.”
“I didn’t.” I lean back against the outer wall of the cabin and lift my feet to the edge of the bench, curling my arms around my drawn-up legs. “I’d get maybe… one or two full blown attacks a year… maybe three or four… five at most of the two or three symptom ones that they’d drug me for anyway. And there were a couple years… five or six… I didn’t get any at all.”
Jared nods. “So then this… this getting one every day… it’s pretty bad.”
“Yeah. Only other time I had them like this-this intense and this often-was in Los Angeles.”
“Maybe I should get you to a hospital, Jen.” He whispers, making no attempt to hide his concern.
“No.” I respond more vehemently than intended, then soften the words with, “No… this isn’t… that bad.” Though it is. And the nightmares are worse. It’s just that I know if I go to the hospital, all they’ll do is admit me, put me in a four-walled room with a tiny window and lots of stainless steel and starched whites, with an IV of fluids and sedatives, and keep me half-unconscious for a couple days, during which time my drug-muddled mind will hopefully find enough moments of clarity to work through my issues so I don’t dream when I sleep or have as many attacks when I wake and they take me off the meds and eventually release me. It’s all they can do. The attacks start from my own head, and whether they grow into what they are now and were then, coming on without cause, just depends on how well I take care of myself. Admittedly, I that’s something I haven’t been doing very well of late, which explains why the last one just… came on out of nowhere. I’m prone to them. Give them trigger enough to start, then add lack of sleep, lack of sustenance and mass quantities of caffeine, they’ll keep coming even when the trigger is removed.
I need that time just to let my body rest. To let my mind… catch up with itself. I’ve already worked out things enough where I don’t think they’ll make me panic anymore. I want to be with Jared. I want to give this-us-a chance. But the panic needs to subside for it to even have a chance.
“Okay.” I say finally, and with that word, my nerves are set on edge, because I know what I’m agreeing to here-letting Jared have control.
“Okay?” He echoes, looking at me.
I nod. I haven’t exactly been doing the greatest job of taking care of myself lately. It’s pretty safe to say Jared couldn’t do much worse in taking care of me, and at least in handing over the reins to him, I know I’ll eat regularly, sleep (even if it means taking the pills), and cut back on if not cut out completely, my caffeine intake. “Okay… just… I won’t take them myself.”
“I know.” He’s confused.
“So… I trust you.” And I suddenly flush bright red with the unexpected thought of Jared taking this… the wrong way… or too far… overstepping his bounds and taking advantage. I flush darker when I think I might not mind. I take deep, calming, cleansing breaths. “I… trust you.” I’m shaking inside. It takes a decent amount of effort to keep it from showing.
“Jenny...” He trails off, and I think he’s caught on. “I do…”
“You can. I trust you, Jare… and I want… a chance for this… for… us… and if this is what it takes, then I’ll do it.”
He stares out at the snow, watches as it drifts onto the porch, beneath the awning. The wind’s coming in strong from the north, tearing at the trees and gusting through the falling white powder. The temperature has dropped since I walked out nearly an hour ago, and the sky has darkened.
“No backing out.” Jared says. “One hundred percent. All or nothing.”
I nod, ignore my insides that twist into a pretzel and make the shaking worse. I trust him. In my head I start repeating it. Jared won’t hurt me.
“You take my hand, there’s no backing out.” He says, standing up and heading towards the door. “You’re mine for the weekend. You do what I say, when I say, how I say.”
I nod, again swallowing the jumping in my stomach. “If I take your hand.” I stutter, and continue nodding, staring out at the snow. I don’t know if I can look at Jared. “Got it.”
He gives me a minute or two, maybe longer-time doesn’t exactly hold meaning, sitting in the cold, stray snowflakes melting on your skin, though they don’t chill me to the bone quite the way the question of relinquishing control does. I know Jared will care for me. I know he won’t hurt me, and I know he won’t let harm come to me. I know he’ll keep my best interests in mind, but I’ve never given up control willingly.
I can do this.
And thinking about it, I wonder if it would be so bad, even if he did… take advantage, as I’d thought of it earlier. I’ve already determined that kissing him isn’t so bad-more than isn’t ‘so bad’-I like it, even.
I trust Jared.
And it might be the best thing for me, because I know if I keep going the way I am, I will wind up in the hospital, or worse, completely unable to function.
Jared’s voice cuts through my thoughts, quiet and firm. To my ears, it sounds like an order. “Come inside.” He says from the door, one hand on the knob, the other extended, palm up, towards me.
I can’t do this.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Jared…”
He’s not angry. He just smiles, and comes to me, sits back down on the bench next to me. He reaches out a hand, curved to the shape of my head, but pauses before touching me, and I find myself wanting to lean into him, let my head slide into his hand. I want to feel his warmth, his strength, his comfort. I lean, just a little, until I feel the brush of his fingers against my hair. “Jare…” I whisper.
“I won’t hurt you, Jen.” He assures, and his hand moves down to my neck, slides across my shoulders until his arm crosses my back.
I swallow thickly. “I know.” It’s a struggle to get the words out, but they’re the truth.
He gives a little snort. “Sure.” He tugs at my shoulder, tilts his head towards the door. “C’mon, man. It really is fucking cold out here.”
“I’m… I’m gonna stay out here… couple minutes longer.” I give him a sad smile, lift one hand from my knees before letting it fall again. “Just… fresh air. Good to think.”
“Come on, Jen.” He’s not giving me an option. “You’ll freeze to death.”
I shake his arm from around my shoulders. “I’ll be okay.” I can’t look at him.
He disappears inside only to return an hour or so later. I’m stiff as a board-I’ll be sore in the morning. The cold has seeped into my bones, cold from the temperature and from my own insecurities. He stands just outside the door. I can smell dinner, wafting from the mere inch or two that the door remains open, and my head turns almost of its own accord, nose following the tantalizing aroma of food.
It’s probably something simple-pre-prepared or something from a can-because I’m still the better cook and we’re up in the mountains. But I’ve eaten little and kept less down in the last couple of days. I’m surprised I haven’t passed out just from malnutrition. Or maybe I’m making things out to be worse than they are. But I don’t think I am. Jared has a look of concern I haven’t seen from anyone in years behind those all-telling blue-green eyes of his, and the way he won’t leave me alone for more than an hour at a time speaks volumes.
“Come eat.” He requests, taking one step towards me and leaning against the cabin, arms folded across his chest.
I look back out into swirling white flakes and the blanket of fluffed cotton its made over the ground. “Jare…”
“Yeah, Jen.”
I turn to look at him, and swallow my pride. “Help me, Jare.” I whisper. I can barely hear the words myself, and I wonder if he heard them, and if he did, if he knows how hard it was for me to say them.
He holds out his hand again, palm up. “Come on, Jen…” He says. “Come eat…”
I stare at his hand. “And if I take your hand?”
“You trust me.” He says simply.
I stand, jerkily, limbs and joints protesting every movement in the jarring cold. I put my hand in his. “I do trust you.” That’s never really been a question.
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