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“I miss you”.
The words slipped almost unintentionally out of his barely parted lips in a mumbled whisper, and Jimmy immediately regretted them. Chewing the inside of his cheek to the point of tasting the metallic, sour taste of blood on his tongue, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, in anticipation – halting, closing his eyes, holding his breath, as if he was just waiting for the worst to happen.
No way it’s gonna be worse than that pathetic line I just pulled. He sighed deeply. No fucking way it’s gonna be worse than the last few months.
They weren’t good at… talking things through, Jimmy and Kim. Well, no, they did talk a lot, just not when it came to… whatever that thing between the two of them was. Words had always felt kind of… unnecessary – embarrassing, even, to be more precise. They didn’t need to say I love you or… er, well, I miss you, like he had just so stupidly done: there was nothing they couldn’t express with actions. Jimmy making her breakfast, Kim lazily caressing his hair after a long day, Jimmy leaving silly messages on her voicemail, Kim letting him pick the movie they were going to watch… that kind of little things.
But what if even those deeds had gone quiet? Because they had.
Kim was sitting at the counter, still working, still drowning in documents with that fucking cowboy printed on the front. Fucking Mesa Verda. It was 11 pm. When she turned to face him, her ponytail cut through the air – and the palpable tension – like a knife through tender meat: there was striking, unmistakable confusion in her cerulean eyes. The blade carved deeper.
“Hey”. She smiled almost gloomily, furrowing her brows – he knew those puppy eyes far too well: that look that had kept him going every time he’d almost given up with law school, every time Chuck had pissed him off, every single time he had felt down. For some reason, though, right now it only managed to make him feel intensely uncomfortable, so he just stared at his bare feet instead. “Did I wake you?”, she asked softly.
Jimmy rubbed his tired eyes. “No, I…”. He couldn’t fucking sleep: the bed was too big without her, the bed was too small to share it with all of his lies and his messes; his dreams were too dark to handle without her body pressed to his to sustain him, a bridge over troubled waters, his nightmares weren’t infernal enough to match with the abyss he really felt had replaced his soul; he felt lonely. He felt like he was too much, like he was intruding in her life.
Like some ghost haunting her.
“Sorry, I should just… go back…”, he mumbled, shrugging desolately and pointing to the bedroom, and he almost turned around to head back to his sleepless night, when she spoke; it wasn’t the fact that she had talked per se that stopped him… it was something about her voice, in her voice. She’s worried, he thought at first, guilt and rage quickly mounting up inside him: he wasn’t supposed to be her problem… but then, unlike many other rough nights, he didn’t act impulsively. He didn’t start to ramble. He didn’t just blindly pretend everything was okay.
He stayed. He waited. He listened.
“Wait, I was almost finished… It can wait”. Kim stacked the documents and walked towards him. “Let’s go”, she whispered, her palm gently grazing his upper arm until it slipped into his hand, squeezing it tenderly; Jimmy looked at their entangled fingers and somehow found himself surprised at how perfectly they fit. On another rough night, he would have been crushed by the utter pointlessness of a universe where his thumb was allowed to brush the back of her hand like that, where such an amazing woman watched an asshole like him with such fervor, where after everything he had done – voluntarily or not – he was still loved.
“You sure?”, he asked softly. He fucking hated Mesa Verde, he fucking hated S&C, and it was easy to blame Kevin Wachtell or Rich Schweikart for how lonely he felt. It had to be their fault, right? They had reclaimed Kim back to where she belonged, Mount Olympus itself, where Jimmy, deplorable mortal, was never going to be allowed. Resenting them was obvious, almost effortless, but maybe that was the point: she had found her place, he had found his. And they just weren’t compatible.
“I’m sure”, she replied, and, as soon as she turned out the lights, she guided him to the bedroom. In the dark, as he slipped beneath the wrinkled sheets, she undressed slowly, deliberately so, as if she was inviting him to watch – to which he complied, of course: inhaling deeply and getting comfortable between the pillows, he observed as her fingers unbuttoned her blouse, removed her skirt, unclasped her bra. He took it all in.
More than rewarded, more than turned on, Jimmy felt… sad. Inconsolably, passionately sad.
Then, she just laid on top of him, and held him close. Her breasts against his chest, her lips against his jaw, her fingers cupping his cheeks almost didn’t feel real, as if they were meant for someone else: maybe it was young Jimmy, young hopeful Jimmy, who had stayed up with her all night for so many times to help her study for the bar and who had always had a silly joke to make her laugh when she was down… or maybe someone else entirely. Someone who was actually enough for her.
Jimmy circled her waist with his arms and closed his eyes. He felt like she was a million miles away.
The knife pierced his heart.