Jack Weber
His beautifully etched jaw spilled warm words out excitedly, normally when he talked to me like this it set my heart on fire. It ached a sickly pain this time. His eyes gleamed like the stars above, although those stars didn’t sparkle for me.
“We’re really going so far.” His smile was so genuine, the deep dimple beside his sweet lips was a dark shadow in the dimly lit night. “She’s my warm hearth on a frigid winter, I feel so alive.” His sweet laugh warmed my chest, moments before its acid seeped in. He wasn’t talking about me, so desperately I wanted him to. That warm summer night was icier than the stinging of a February wind.
February hurt too.
How could he not have guessed? His words were arrows piercing my heart, but in his excited ramblings he lost himself and likely couldn’t see my tears. Why didn’t I walk away? Tell him to find someone else? Find someone new for myself? Because I was a fool.
A fool so deeply in love.
“Oh, Amber, I wish you’d see us together.” The corners of his eyes scrunched up as an ecstatic grin painted his face. They had just come back from the Valentine’s dance. Well, Stevie had come back from the dance. I had sat outside the gym, shivering as I watched the sun fall beneath the crooked apartments down the block. My cheeks stung cold as I watched the dark sky pepper with incandescent sparkles. If only he was there to warm me, be my warm hearth, or at least to dry my eyes.
Many dances we attended with each other. Each one a preview into what our future would look like. Holding each other close, our bodies touching as we swayed to the music. Perhaps I misapprehended what it all meant because that night he held someone new, held her closer than he held me.
“That’s really wonderful, Stevie. Are you going to the same school in the fall?” My chest heaved as I dragged the words out. Why did I urge him to keep talking? I didn’t want to know, to hear his soft words trip over themselves because the girl in his mind owned his heart. His words stumbled, his sweet round cheeks turned red, his boundless blue eyes dilated, all just like me. But not for me. Stevie was in love, and that made him so happy. When Stevie was happy, I couldn’t help but be happy in some sense of the feeling.
Even if my heart cracked with each word.
“Yeah, she already planned to attend WSU too, so it’ll all be perfect.” His now nearly black eyes looked to the shimmering sky above. “You know what she said to me?” His cheeks blushed noticeably even in the pale moonlight. “She kissed me,” a sting in my chest, “and said she loved me.”
A dagger in my heart.