day was already fucked up beyond fixing and romance would just add to the confusion. Hope was always better than reality for him anyway. Hope would get him to sleep tonight and if it didn’t, beer would do the trick.
Chapter 25 : Thinking and Drinking Alone
Melanie had remained behind with the Doctor.
Billy met him at the mouth of the elevator and walked him back to his apartment.
Jack didn’t talk because he didn’t know what to say. Billy must have picked up on his mood because he held his tongue.
He simply said goodnight at Jack’s door and walked off.
Maybe it was because a girl might actually like him or maybe his loneliness had hit a new low but he spent the first hour in his apartment thinking about Samantha and why she’d left him.
She claimed part of it was because their relationship was stale and he was boring but when she’d told him this he laughed right in her dumbstruck face.
He remembered bits and pieces of the rant that issued from his hysterical mouth that day.
It went something like:
' When I met you I had a motorcycle and cool friends, a badass wardrobe and I rode all over the country any chance I got. Then you came along, made me sell the bike when we were hard up for cash, mocked me for wearing Harley gear since I didn’t have the bike anymore and now you say I’m boring? You made me boring. You told me my friends were all shitheads so I started seeing less and less of them until now they don’t even call anymore. They used to call me Mad Jack in college. You replaced that with Jacob Sweetie even though you know I fucking hate being called that. But yeah, I guess it’s all my fault.”
Jack felt a little childish afterward but what could he do, just let her put all the blame on him when she was the one cheating and ending the relationship?
It was a bad breakup and ever since then Jack distrusted women in general. He knew it wasn’t a healthy attitude or even fair but it was all about self preservation. If you don’t let them in they can’t walk out, was his newfound motto.
But he decided, those days are over starting now. Melanie was a catch and he’d be damned if he missed an opportunity to get to know her because he was too cowardly to give it a fair chance.
With these final thoughts Jack realized he was daydreaming; all Melanie had said was that he was handsome. That in no way meant she was in to him or would even give him a chance. Shit, she might even have a boyfriend on the outside and was just doing a little harmless flirting with a coworker. Maybe she called everyone handsome? He shook all these thoughts from his weary, battle scarred mind. He was thinking like a love struck teenager, he was just as confused as one too.
He grabbed two bottles of beer out of the fridge with the knowledge that the second one would still be ice cold when he got to it.
He ordered another movie off pay-per-view and let the manufactured fantasy world of the movie smother out the actual fantasy world of his life.
By the time the movie was over he was drunk and yawning. He went to bed feeling lightheaded and peaceful.
A little after midnight he woke up sweating from the recurring dream. He was glad he hadn’t pissed the bed this time. Well, maybe a little, but nothing a wash cloth couldn’t take care of.
The dream had followed him from his teenage years, laying in wait, pretending it had been defeated. It had finally decided to resurface.
But he knew just how to put it to rest; he had to find a hypnotist.
Chapter 26: Day Five
“Absolutely not,” barked the General. “You think, with all the knowledge about our research that your head’s filled with, that I would even consider letting a damn hypnotist go poking around in there.”
Jack was saying, “That’s not how it works ,” when the General said with finality, “Not a chance. You deal with your bad dreams the way we all do; you shut up, ignore them and go about your day. If they start to cause insomnia we can
Chapter 25 : Thinking and Drinking Alone
Melanie had remained behind with the Doctor.
Billy met him at the mouth of the elevator and walked him back to his apartment.
Jack didn’t talk because he didn’t know what to say. Billy must have picked up on his mood because he held his tongue.
He simply said goodnight at Jack’s door and walked off.
Maybe it was because a girl might actually like him or maybe his loneliness had hit a new low but he spent the first hour in his apartment thinking about Samantha and why she’d left him.
She claimed part of it was because their relationship was stale and he was boring but when she’d told him this he laughed right in her dumbstruck face.
He remembered bits and pieces of the rant that issued from his hysterical mouth that day.
It went something like:
' When I met you I had a motorcycle and cool friends, a badass wardrobe and I rode all over the country any chance I got. Then you came along, made me sell the bike when we were hard up for cash, mocked me for wearing Harley gear since I didn’t have the bike anymore and now you say I’m boring? You made me boring. You told me my friends were all shitheads so I started seeing less and less of them until now they don’t even call anymore. They used to call me Mad Jack in college. You replaced that with Jacob Sweetie even though you know I fucking hate being called that. But yeah, I guess it’s all my fault.”
Jack felt a little childish afterward but what could he do, just let her put all the blame on him when she was the one cheating and ending the relationship?
It was a bad breakup and ever since then Jack distrusted women in general. He knew it wasn’t a healthy attitude or even fair but it was all about self preservation. If you don’t let them in they can’t walk out, was his newfound motto.
But he decided, those days are over starting now. Melanie was a catch and he’d be damned if he missed an opportunity to get to know her because he was too cowardly to give it a fair chance.
With these final thoughts Jack realized he was daydreaming; all Melanie had said was that he was handsome. That in no way meant she was in to him or would even give him a chance. Shit, she might even have a boyfriend on the outside and was just doing a little harmless flirting with a coworker. Maybe she called everyone handsome? He shook all these thoughts from his weary, battle scarred mind. He was thinking like a love struck teenager, he was just as confused as one too.
He grabbed two bottles of beer out of the fridge with the knowledge that the second one would still be ice cold when he got to it.
He ordered another movie off pay-per-view and let the manufactured fantasy world of the movie smother out the actual fantasy world of his life.
By the time the movie was over he was drunk and yawning. He went to bed feeling lightheaded and peaceful.
A little after midnight he woke up sweating from the recurring dream. He was glad he hadn’t pissed the bed this time. Well, maybe a little, but nothing a wash cloth couldn’t take care of.
The dream had followed him from his teenage years, laying in wait, pretending it had been defeated. It had finally decided to resurface.
But he knew just how to put it to rest; he had to find a hypnotist.
Chapter 26: Day Five
“Absolutely not,” barked the General. “You think, with all the knowledge about our research that your head’s filled with, that I would even consider letting a damn hypnotist go poking around in there.”
Jack was saying, “That’s not how it works ,” when the General said with finality, “Not a chance. You deal with your bad dreams the way we all do; you shut up, ignore them and go about your day. If they start to cause insomnia we can
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