Chapter 45: JACOBS POV [BONUS - ]
Chapter 45: JACOBS POV [BONUS Chapter]
I knew she had a dark past, and I knew she was unstable, but I had poked the bear anyway because I was angry.
"It’s alright. At least you didn’t do as much damage as last time," I managed to say.
’ Better a damaged neck than broken bones and torn muscles...’ I thought, feeling a tad helpless.
I winced as I spoke, the words feeling scratchy in my throat.
I used a hand to feel my aching neck muscles; they were tender and swollen.
I knew that a bit more pressure and she really would have crushed my windpipe for good.
’ Darn is she strong.’ even now, I was having a hard time digesting just how strong she was.
"But it’s not... It’s not alright," Persephone said, her voice shaking. "Like you said, I always tend to hurt you, even when I don’t mean to. I tell myself I’ll protect you, that I’ll make you strong, but then I just..."
She looked at her hands as if they belonged to someone else. "I try to help, yet all I do is cause more problems for others. It’s always been this way. Even my parents, who wanted to help me... they ended up dying because of me."
Tears gradually began to stream down her eyes, drifting away in the water.
She tried using her hand to wipe at them, rubbing her face with her palms, but they just wouldn’t stop.
She looked completely lost, like one who’s life had been spiraling downwards with no idea how to fix it.
"Artria’s right. I’m nothing but a cursed child," she sobbed. "If it wasn’t for me, mother and father wouldn’t have had to die. They were good people. More kind than anyone... They didn’t deserve to have someone like me in their lives."
I sat there, frozen. I didn’t know how to handle a crying Persephone.
I was prepared for her to hit me or yell at me, but I wasn’t prepared for her to break down.
She looked so fragile right now, sitting on top of me while she cried her heart out.
"It should’ve been me back then, not them," she continued, her voice muffled by her crying.
" No, don’t say that. If you were a curse then why would they have taken you in so easily? Wouldn’t they have chased you away instead?"
I said, trying to help ease some of her pain.
" No... Mother and father were always kind. The both of them probably pitied me even though they never said it.
"If only they’d never taken me in, maybe then they’d still be alive. They would have been happy. They wouldn’t have had to..."
Seeing her like this, I couldn’t help but feel even more sorry for her.
The girl who had just been a terrifying force of nature was now just a shaking mess in my lap.
All the anger I had felt, all started to drain away, replaced by a heavy pit of pity in my stomach.
Sure, she was a pain in the neck. Okay, maybe a great pain in the neck.
And maybe she had a habit of solving every disagreement by trying to end my life, and she was as moody as a storm at sea.
But still, looking at her red eyes and the way she tried to hide her face, I realized I had been looking at her all wrong.
Honestly, she was just a girl cursed with bad luck. It wasn’t that she woke up every morning wanting to be a villain, it was that every time she tried to do something good, the world spit in her face.
She tried to save people, and they died. She tried to love her parents, and they were gone.
All in all , she was just born with a power she didn’t ask for.
Maybe that’s the only thing we had in common.
I didn’t ask to be here either. I didn’t ask to be stuck in this world as well.
We were both just drifting in a current we couldn’t stop.
And maybe her emotions tended to be a bit... overwhelming at times.
But beneath the screaming and the strangling, she only seemed like she wanted to help. She wanted a friend or at least someone who could stay by her side who wouldn’t hate her.
Though she just had the worst way of showing it because she didn’t know any other way.
I reached out and held her hands, stopping her from wiping at her tears. Her skin was soft but cold, and her fingers were still trembling.
She froze when I touched her, her eyes staring at me with an unsure, wide-eyed gaze.
She looked like she expected me to slap her back or push her away, waiting for the rejection she was so used to.
Of course I didn’t do either of those things.
I sat up straight, ignoring the ache in my neck, and pulled her close.
I wrapped my arms around her, bringing her head down to my shoulder.
"W-What are you doing..." she asked in a shaky, small voice.
She sniffled a little, her body stiff as a board in my arms.
From the looks of it, she didn’t know how to react to this.
"It’s just a hug," I said softly.
Poor girl... I thought. To think she’s this surprised by a mere hug.
It made me wonder just how long she’d been on her own for.
Was it years? Decades? Had anyone even touched her kindly since her parents died?
As a Merfolk , I had no idea how long her lifespan was.
The way she leaned into me, slowly and carefully, told me the answer was probably a long, lonely "no."
Now that I thought about it, it seemed she hadn’t left the village due to hate or a desire to be evil.
It was guilt and uncertainty. She hadn’t run away because she hated Artria or the mermen. She had run away because she was terrified of herself.