Falling From Disgrace

“What the hell happened to you to make you think that?” he demanded. “What is it you think is going to drive me away?”

Adrianna tried to pull her head from his grasp but he held on, rubbing one of his thumbs across her cheek.

“Tell me, Adrianna,” Jack insisted.

“Nothing,” she lied while the tears ran down her cheeks. “Nothing happened, I just... I’m no good for you.”

“Why are you lying to me?” Jack seethed, angered now by her words. He didn’t think Adrianna was the type to be so self deprecating and he didn’t like it.

“I’m not lying,” she swore.

“You are lying!” Jack released her face and stepped away from her, the anger now coursing through him so violently he didn’t want his hands near her.

“This is why I told you from the beginning not to get involved with me!” she yelled back at him. “You’re asking me for things I can’t give you!”

“Bullshit! Don’t tell me you can’t, you’re choosing to close yourself off.”

When he looked down at her, sitting there on the couch, appearing so broken and sad, he softened. Kneeling down at her feet again, he took her hands in his.

“I don’t know about you but this doesn’t happen for me very often. I haven’t found someone I like as much as you in a very long time and I don’t want to give up yet,” he spoke softly. “But I’m not willing to be in a relationship that is one sided, Adrianna. Please, just talk to me. Tell me what it is you’re hiding and I promise you we can work it out.”

Adrianna wanted so badly to believe him but she knew once he found out the truth he would run the other way as fast as he could. She would never be able to handle being rejected by him and so she would be the one to reject him first.

“No,” she stated. “Just leave, Jack. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

He was hurt and disappointed but Jack didn’t have any more fight in him. He wasn’t going to push or beg any longer. He stood, looked down on Adrianna and said, “You’re throwing away something that could be really fucking great. I hope the next time you get the chance you don’t make the same mistake.”

He stormed from her place, leaving her sobbing on her couch and slammed the door behind him. He was surprised when he almost collided with a tiny brunette dressed in a cream business suit who looked up at him with wide eyes.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled and side-stepped her, continuing on his way.

Heather had been concerned when she came home and heard shouting coming from Adrianna’s apartment but it wasn’t her business, so she waited to make sure it quieted down and when it did, she turned to go into her home. Then she heard Adrianna’s door open violently behind her and she had been shocked to see a very handsome and angry looking man emerge.

After watching him stride down the hall she lightly tapped on Adrianna’s door and then let herself in. She found Adrianna just as Jack left her, curled up on her sofa, crying uncontrollably.

“Oh, toots,” Heather gasped, rushing to her side and pulling her into a hug. “What’s wrong?”

Adrianna let herself lean on Heather’s shoulder and cry. She hadn’t done that since crying on her mother’s shoulder when she learned Rachel didn’t survive the accident and she hadn’t realized how much she missed being comforted until now.

She couldn’t speak yet, her breakdown preventing her from doing so, and Heather just waited patiently, patting her back and whispering words of comfort, not caring that her jacket was getting soaked with tears.

“I take it this has to do with the man who almost ran me over in the hallway?”

Adrianna nodded and pulled away, hastily wiping at her nose. Heather left her, grabbed some tissues from the bathroom, and then returned.

“Thanks,” Adrianna whimpered nasally.

“What happened?”

Heather listened while Adrianna explained how she met Jack the night they went to Loki’s together and had been seeing him. She told her how much she liked him but how it would never work out and that she had just ended it with him.