Her tears were rushing down her cheeks nonstop, she couldn’t believe the level of what Jack had done to her. He would break her apart, say hurtful things to her that will make her want to end her freaking life and he would come back and act as though he was just a stranger that wanted to comfort her? She recalled about what happened in Florida, how he warmly hugged her and gave her the comfort she wanted. How he listened to her story as though he wasn’t among the people that shattered her heart that day. What did he take her for?
She didn’t even want to remember about all the things that had happened in this house. How mercilessly he had broken her to the point that she knew she could never get her heart back in track again in her life. And then he followed her, hugged her, and uttered sweet nothings in her ears. She fell for that comfort because it was the best of its kind she had ever gotten. She fell asleep and Anna heard when he took her to the car, she was frightened that he would leave her alone and when she begged, he stayed. She slept on his body, thinking that he was just a stranger whom she had never seen but she knew whenever she was in anguish, he came to her bearing relief and comfort. How stupid must she have been that she hadn’t look at his face even for once in her life, she heard when he got out of the car in the morning after he had texted Julia, she urged herself to know what this man looked but she wanted it to be like that.
“So, it was you?” She choked on her words as she unbelievably stared into his eyes while her tears made a fountain of her cheeks. “Jack, it has always been you!” She wasn’t relieved that Jack was that man, her comforting angel as she had named him in her soul, but she felt stupid and used. “All this while, it was you, Jack. You were that man, my comforting angel.” She lifted her face and chuckled humorlessly, she had never believed it when Jack said she was stupid and an idiot until now, because all this while, she only proved to him that she was one.
“What are you talking about?” He asked with a low voice and her anger surfaced in full force.
“Are you even asking me what I'm talking about?! You knew, didn’t you? You thought that I was so stupid not to have realize it’s you. But I do, Jack!” She thundered and when he took a step toward her, she stepped back, her tears intensifying as her whole body shook with the agony she felt in her heart. “Don’t come near me! That has always been the way you get to me, this explains everything!” She was screaming as she slumped on the floor and palmed her face as she cried bitterly.
“This is why I felt I had a soul deep connection with you, Jack. I wondered why because all I did my whole life was hate you, but somehow it felt as though you’re the only one that can understand both me and my pains. I have never imagined that the man that comes to comfort me whenever you either broke or help someone on breaking me was you. The same man that shattered every living piece of my heart!” She was speaking silently as she looked at how he stood there, either surprised at how she knew it was him or sad that she had found out about his baby plan early.
“What? Don’t you have something to say now? Aren’t you going to defend yourself like you’ve always done or better, make fun of me?” He moved closer to where she was and she flinched backwards, “I’ve always known that part from your Mother being the reason you accept our marriage, you want to use this way to hurt me while I have no chance to leave because I'm freaking stuck with you for five years!” The pain was surging through her as though an avalanche in a forest. She felt that she wasn’t strong enough to feel this and still be alive, she wanted everything to be gone, everything to be forgotten by her and everyone that could remind her of them.
“Anna...” He began, but she shook her head.
“What do you think you have to say to me? That you’re my husband and you want to mend your ways right, Jack? I of all people should know that you don’t love me and never will, I wonder what game you’re playing but I'm certain that it will leave me a crumpling piece of pain whenever you’re done playing and you want to see him shattered, foolishly waiting for my comforting angel not knowing that all this while, the balm that soothes me was the thorn that pierced through me.”
“You need to listen to me...” She cut him off again as she stood up because she knew if she was still on the ground, he might catch up with her.
“No, you listen to me! I'm not the Anna Brayden that could go to a company to have my revenge on you anymore. Hell, I don't even want to avenge, I declare you the winner already, Jack Roberts even though I'm still in suspense of what your revenge will be this time.” She took an enigmatic step toward him that Jack wondered if she had a knife she would want to kill him with. She furiously took the car key that was laying on the sofa and turned away from him. “I'm done taking any revenge on you Jack, because no matter how much I’ll try, you've done the best revenge on me by this...” She lifted her hand and saw the ring on it, feeling as more bitter filled her heart.
“I wish I could take this goddamn ring off!” She screamed, cleared her tears, and stomped out of the house.
A stupefied Jack stared at where she had left, and he didn't know what he was supposed to feel. Relieved that she had finally known that it was him or surprised at all the words she had uttered? She said she felt a deep soul connection with him, right? What would he have said? And she recognized the hug from him and how his voice sounded when he was trying to console her. The sound of the car engine brought his thoughts back and he knew he had to stop her unless he wanted to have the most grievous regret of his life.
He rushed out of the house just when she was about driving out of the premises and Jack knew there was only one way to stop her even though he wasn’t sure if that was relevant or not. He ran and stood on her way, closing his eyes as he waited for the car to drive over him. If he was lucky, he could live with a few broken bones. But if he wasn’t, well, he wouldn’t have regretted his death. The sound of her brake made him opened his eyes and she stared at him through the window.
“Move away, Jack!” She yelled, and he stood even more gallant in front of the car.
“You’ve said that you hate him, didn’t you? You can drive over me and take the final revenge, that way, you’ll win, Anna.” He spoke ever so calmly, and he could tell that what he was saying was riling her up even more.
“I'll show you that I've never hated someone like I hate even the idea of you!” She burned out angrily and reversed the car so that when she drove toward where he stood, she couldn't even control herself. She closed her eyes, feeling the way her heart was tightening at the thought of him, but she quickly brushed that away, reminding herself of all the horrible things he did to her and she knew he deserved to die.
She added more pressure on the car and drove so fast, but she didn’t know when she opened her eyes and tapped the brake to the point that it made an echoing sound. She opened her eyes, but Jack was no longer standing on that road and that stopped the circulation of her blood for more than five minutes. With a weak body and her heart threatening to stop beating as well, Anna walked out of the car and she dreaded the sight that will be in front of her. She first checked the tires to see if she could see a stain of blood but didn't. What had she done? New wave of fresh tears rolled down her cheeks and they weren’t for the anger she felt or the pain she felt because of what Jack had done to her. She felt them because she dreaded the possibility of her killing Jack.
She moved in front of the car and there he was, laid on the ground with no blood stain on him. She went to her knees and lifted his face to her laps, “Jack?” She called out with a shaking voice, afraid that even if she hadn’t killed him, his heart had beat so fast that he had lost his life. He didn’t move, nor was there a sign of life in him. “Jack?” She called out again, this time slightly shaking him even though she was afraid that if there was a vein that could’ve let him live, she shook it off.
“Jack, please. I didn’t mean to do this to you, I was just furious.” Her lips were trembling along with her whole body as she dreaded what this meant. She slowly tapped his face, crying bitterly with her words coming out in hiccups, “I know you can hear me, Jack. Please, I stopped the car right on time, you can’t do this!” Seeing that it was more than three minutes and nothing from him, not a single sign of life, Anna knew this would likely be the end of her own life as well. She brought his face to her chest and hugged him so tight. “Jack please, you have to wake up. I can’t imagine what loosing you would make of me! Jack!” She screamed at the pitch of her voice but miraculously, she felt his strong arms around her body and her heart froze.
Slowly, as though she was afraid that if she acted as if she had felt that touch, she will find out that it was nothing but just a figment of her own imagination. She broke his face from her chest and he was staring at her with a soft and sad smile on his lips, “I thought you hate me, Anna?” She broke into tears, and these, she was sure were tears of joy.
“Jack please don't ever play this game on me.” She was crying bitterly and her whole body was still shaking due to the fear of what might have happened to him.
He sat upright and pulled her to this chest, she wrapped her hands around him and cried so hard that Jack began to get fear what would be of her chest if she exhausted them. “Shh...it’s fine. You’ll be alright, okay?”
She shook her head and snuggled her head even more in his chest, “It’s not fine. I hate you, that’s one thing but I'd never want to see you dead. You’re my freaking husband, Jack!”
Instead of the phrase ‘I hate you’ to him hurt like it had always done when she uttered them to him, Jack chuckled at her last sentence, ‘You’re my freaking husband, Jack.’ He kissed the top of her head and brought her closer to his body. “I know, I won’t dare die without you giving me the permission to, okay?”
She slowly lifted her face from his chest and glared at him, “You promise?”
He nodded his head with a smile, “Yes, I do. But you have to promise me that you’d take care of yourself too, you shouldn’t fall ill at all cost.”
Vehemently nodded her head at him, she smiled which was the first time Jack had ever seen her genuinely smiled at him. “I promise as well. But just so you know, I'd never give you the permission to die, so get really to live forever on this earth.”
He chuckled and leaned closer to her face; the moon glowed beautifully on her face. “So long as you’d live beside me, healthy, that’d be fine.” He merged their lips, not giving her the chance to utter her next words because he knew what he said would've to be stuck in her heart for a while. She wrapped her hands around his neck and kissed him even more passionately. Oh god, he didn’t know what he would call the kind of relationship they had. They hated each other, but at the same time...well, he should just stick with the hatred.