Chapter 1 

do you know where to meet me?

92 days remaining 

A whirr like sound echoes through the room as the lights of a computer monitor flicker in my eyes. A bright white light that would blind even the least light sensitive person hits the eyes as the computer fully loads. My hand moves in front of my eyes, shielding them before the screen instantly changes to the preferred background. 

A woman running across the beach, rocks silhouetted behind. The rays of the sun barely grace the horizon, but the gleam of light that bounces off the wet sand fills the picture. Though only momentary brightness, the gleam leaves an everlasting impact on the picture. 

The default picture background can create such thoughts in my mind. 

A reflection of poor mental state as seen through his eyes. No light lies in the bottom of his eyelids. His fingers only grace the keyboard to convey such emptiness. Sounds of despair that ring in his ears display vibrancy in hollowness. The same feelings that cloud his mind. 

What have I become? He asks himself aloud. 

“What am I now?” I blurt aloud. 

The thoughts rancid in imagination create a semblance of hope, but to no avail. He is far beyond lost. 

“Am I so empty?” I ask myself. 

Vibrant imagery of life’s precious moments flash deep in his mind as he stares even deeper at the default wallpaper of his operating system. 

I reach to my left, grabbing my phone. The display turns on after tapping my finger on it. 

No notifications sit on his homescreen. 

Just like his computer, no individuality exists on the screen that displays time and notifications. It sits the same way it did when the phone was purchased. 

“Guess everyone’s busy” I think. 

Opening my phone, I tap the icon for Messtagramm, instantly flooded with the lives of everyone I know. Though void is the appearance of myself. But who am I kidding? 

He works far too much, his soul lingers in his own home. He dreads his existence most days. 

He sees his friends journey across the country to places he wishes he could go. 

But he doesn’t reach out to see about their plans, because to him they don’t want him around. If only he knew this was a false pretense. 

My thumb moves in a scrolling motion for infinity. Until a notification pops up at the top of my screen. 

A message from Jackie. 

“Hey. Are you free to hang out?” the blue bubble reads.

My hands move feverishly across my digital keyboard. 

“Yeah! What time?” my blue bubble reads. 

Three dots appear after, going on for a minute. 

“Are you free right now?” her blue bubble reads back. 

A glow enters his eyes, glints of light bursting across them like a fireworks display on a national holiday. Clear colors ranging from the lightest greens to the darkest blues to the prettiest reds shoot streams of smoke over his pupils. 

“That was quick, lol. But yeah, I am!” my blue bubble reads in response. 

“Great :) Meet me @ the park?” her blue bubble asks. 

The computer monitor that just reflected the vibrancy of hollowness within his eyes glimmers the youthful hope and love one should expect his eyes to have. 

“Yep!” my blue bubble responds again. 

I stand up hurriedly from my chair, rushing to put on an outfit. Blue and white striped button up with a white tank top underneath, a pair of cargo shorts, and tennis shoes. My camera bag draped across my body. An ornate necklace from one of my favorite video games sits softly on my chest. I grab my keys off my nightstand, open the front door—making sure to twist the knob before closing it to lock the door—and dart to my car. The driver’s door unlocks, my keys in the cupholder, and I’m off. 

Before he knows it, his car enters a parking spot. The white exterior blinding in the summer sun. 

There she sat. The summer nature almost cascading around her. Trees warping in a magical way to protect her from the violent sun. Birds sang praises of her effervescent beauty. The flowers seemingly bloom as Mother Nature cuddles her only daughter with gentle palms. 

It’s like Mother Nature has a favorite, I think. 

In his eyes she is something that only the beauty of nature can hold a candle to. Simple and sweet like a piece of candy, the way the light bounces off her pastel blue skirt and white short sleeve. It almost blinds him to continue looking at her, kind of like the sun. 

God she’s like the sun. 

She sits there so effortlessly, the grass under her towel—sage green with white stripes—is greener than any grass I’ve had the pleasure of having under my soles. 

The hues of her irises are almost complementary. The subtle bits of orange that remind me of the edges of meringue on a lemon meringue pie, the sage green of the taffy my grandfather used to buy me that sits so gently under it, and the flowery blue of the lollipops she always eats sparkles and dazzles throughout.

 But the way these colors are in her irises differs from her left and right eye. In her right eye the colors are almost playful and look as though they’re moving, but in her left eye, the colors sit calm like the sky. 

A group of kids walks by me as I stand there in awe, and one of them looks at me funny. 

“What are you staring at her for, mister?” he says with befuddlement on his face, his brow raised judgingly. 

“There will come a point in your life, big guy, where you’ll look at a woman the same way. It’s male nature,” I respond, looking down at him. 

He turns and looks back at Jackie, then looks back at me. 

“Well you should get a move on then, right?” he says, looking at me. 

“I guess I should,” I say with a chuckle.

The kids walk past me, the kid giving me a fistbump on his way by. 

The crickets chirp behind her, her long hair drooping over her knee as she looks around. 

I feel my heart melt in my chest as the soft outline of her face meets mine.  Her hand moves in a guiding motion, and I’m seemingly intoxicated by her smile. 

He’s intoxicated by the face of an angel.

Like a puppet on a string I move ever closer to her. 

“How long were you standing there, Tom?” a cheerful giggle escaping her as she asks. 

My face turns a bright red, “Uhh…not very long,” I say, scratching the back of my head. 

She tilts her head, the necklace she’s worn everyday since the first day of eighth grade twinkles in the always present sun, and lets the crinkles at the edge of her lips do the talking to  me. 

“You can sit down, you know,” she says, patting on the towel. 

I shuffle for a second trying to comfortably sit down, not noticing her gaze, “Yeah. I know,” I say while wiping off my shirt. 

“That was quite a show, Mr. Willow, I must say. Five stars,” she laughs out. 

“Well I am something of a showrunner myself,” I respond, smiling. 

With a nervous look on my face, I open my mouth, “So…what did you have in mind,” I say, hurrying to look the other way. 

“I just wanted to sit and enjoy nature, figured you would want to join me,” she says with a slight giggle. 

“You don’t have to stare the other way, you know? You’re supposed to look at the person you’re talking to,” a slight wave of her hand over mine jolts me around, turning to gaze at her. To my surprise, her face is now mere inches from mine. 

My eyes blink rapidly, a shutter-like sound playing loudly in my head. 

The slight redness of her cheeks among the highlights in my mental flash.

“Can you count the freckles on my face for me?” her face transmutating into a Jacqueline special shit eating grin.

I squint my eyes, “I only see about six, are there supposed to be more?” 

A moment of silence.. 

“You should recount,” her finger boops my nose, moving her head back towards the park landscape.

Slightly under my breath so she can’t fully hear me, but still at whisper level, “I would gladly.” 

She turns back to me, “Did you say something?” 

I shake my head no. 

A gleam over the curves of her face as she turns her shoulder indicating her incoming question. 

“Want to walk?” she asks, her toothy expression full of joy.

My face, still a little red, albeit not as tomato-like, “I’d enjoy that.” 

She stands up, dusting the back of her pastel blue skirt, reaching her hand out to me, “Let’s get a move on!” 

I take her hand with such ease.

Pushing myself off the ground with just enough force to help her pull me up, I feel like a feather falling from a tree. To my disdain, however, I must have used too much force, as I find myself inches from her face once again. 

Though this time, it is her face that becomes slightly rosy. 

She looks down at her towel, then back up at me, 

“Help me pick up all my stuff?” 

A small laugh escapes my lips, “Of course.” 

She quickly picks up all the items she had scattered around on her towel—small things like flowers that she picked from the bush directly behind us, a single pen with accompanying note pad, and a book. 

The title reads “A Forever Valentine” by the author Bethany Gilman.

“Suddenly interested?” I look up, her tanned face only interested in the most playful of ways.

I let out a nervous laugh, “Can’t say I am, just feel like I know that name.” 

“I see, I see,” she replies, her index finger sitting in a bookish way on her chin.

A light smile forms at the creases of my lips, “Ready to walk?” 

Her face instantly morphs, the “READ MORE BOOKS” strewn across the tapered and tattered cream tote bag rippling as she imbues this “Chip-Chip-Cheerio” attitude into herself.

“Why yes I am, Mr. Intuitive,” she says with chagrin. 

The sun winds and waves through the trees like the tide. Illuminating only tidbits of our journey through the public park. Jackie almost subconsciously stops at each and every flower bed, noting things down in her faded dusk-purple leather journal. 

Just like the sun ripples and sways behind the leaves, so too does it to the photos I take of her as she walks down this path. 

But walking behind her is a mystery, a surprise almost. At any moment she could stop and jot something down, before quickly leaping back up to continue walking. 

She asks me to take her picture at each stop too. 

One in particular sticks out to me. 

A heap  of small irises all bundled into her hand, her sun kissed face showing only the truest expression of joy, an azalea I found sitting in her hair.

There’s this intrigue about her. 

Though I feel like I know enough about Jacqueline Acacia to consider nothing she does a jack-in-the-box. 

It seems I’m caught up in Jackqueline’s Box. 

She turns back, an explosion of colors that the human eye should not normally see staring back at me. Throwing unimaginable whirls into my world. All extruding in one giant circle around her head in the outline of a crown.  

She simply sticks her hand out to me with a deep smile. 

“Let’s go somewhere else!” she says, grabbing my barely extended hand with excitement. 

A warmth shoots throughout my body, the softness of her hand as she pulls me along the path, my body postured in a leaning way, her body upright. The jingle of our keys echoes throughout the tall pine surrounding us. The songs of birds plays so beautifully as Jackie runs with me in the palm of her hand. 

And who am I to not go along? 

The path that winds and winds and winds throughout this park finally comes to an end, and the full embrace of the summer sun blasts me straight in the eyes.