Quote:
Occurs before Dear Enemy
Jack Burnett’s breakdown was not as abrupt or evident as the snap of a post or a crack in a wall. Ever since Faustite had shown up at Rhona bearing news of Rowan’s - of Alrakis’ - corruption and the murder of his parents, the temptation to simply collapse weighed him down with tanks of unspilled tears. Rather than drown himself in his grief, however, he resolved to absorb it in acceptance.
He took hard swallows when, as Sinope, he first realized that he could no longer mirrorwalk into his old home. He choked down a few more after getting there the long way and discovering all the mirrors within had been smashed. And then he stumbled upon his parents; meticulously examining the state of their corpses with the knife in his mother’s chest, the tell-tale, blackened cavern of her mouth, and the gorey, unrecognizable countenance of what must have been his father. It was undeniable that they had died in pain.
His chest tightened and his throat constricted, but he commanded himself to take deep breaths on his way out. Someone must have seen him enter because the police arrived on the scene shortly after he did. He slipped past them through his bedroom window and launched into the night, not once looking back. Why should he have? There was nothing left for him there. He’d abandoned it months ago.
”I’ll be fine.” Those were the last words he’d spoken to his mother while she had been alive. But there had been one very small problem with that statement. It had been made with the assumption that he would have always had his parents to anchor him down to reality, even after he ran away. That they would still be there to accept him with open arms if and when he was ever ready to come home. All this time he had taken them for granted. Jack had been so busy avoiding making attachments to others, he had completely overlooked the strongest ones he’d had this whole time right under his nose - his familial ones.
But then...this was a good thing, right?
His deepest bonds had been severed. He was finally, absolutely free.
He owed it all to Faustite.
And Jack always repaid his debts.
Like his house, the structure of Jack’s mind appeared solid from every angle - except within. He gulped down the poison called denial that had been labeled as joyful acceptance, evaporating his grief. Rather than disappear, however, his trapped emotion condensed and absorbed into the walls of his mental fortress, plaguing it with mold and rot. Not that Jack noticed. He was too busy maintaining the outward appearance to bother with the interior. If he kept up a strong front, no one would question him. No one would need to take a peek indoors.
For the next few weeks, Jack remained with Rhona. She had been generous enough to offer to legally adopt him once it was official that his parents were dead and his next of kin were located in the United Kingdom. He forced himself to sleep, eat, and carry on as normal, refusing to perceive his losses as setbacks.
At one point he discovered the young man whom he had once known by two other names but no longer went by either. Sinope couldn’t help but apologize, his guilt weighing in on him once more, but that encounter was closed with the reminder that nothing could be done to change what had already occured. His apology was in vain because it was too late.
((More TBA))
