Chapter Text
Jack has three freckles buried in the curve of his neck. They nestle against his skin, cinnamon-soft, like muted stars in a twilight sky. They fade to almost nothing in the winter, just one last fingerprint of summer lingering on Jack’s skin, but as soon as the sun comes out, they bloom and blossom into something beautiful.
Everything about Jack is beautiful.
Bitty wants to kiss those three little dots, cover them with his mouth, press his lips to them as he whispers three little words. They form a circle, somehow. Bitty thinks it used to be something harder, more angular and harsh, but they’ve seemed softer since Bitty’s got to know Jack. The whole world has seemed softer.
Sometimes, in bed at night, Bitty thinks of the light Jack brings into his life. People think Jack is rude or robotic, and sometimes he can be colder than the ice at the rink, but deep inside, he’s got the warmest heart of anyone Bitty’s ever met outside of his family. Jack’s just careful with it, and Bitty thinks maybe he’s guarding it from gaining any more scars. Jack is caring words in a clipped tone; calloused tenderness in the hand he offers time after time during checking practice.
Bitty has moments where he wonders if the persona Jack shows the world is actually who he is underneath it all, whether his rose-tinted heart has colored his eyes and made him see what he chooses to. But then there are times like Jack walking to the library in the middle of January so Bitty wouldn’t have to trudge home alone in the dark, or a Starbucks cup showing up outside his room in the middle of finals, filled with a drink he’s mentioned loving only to Jack.
Those freckles are a sign that Jack is real, almost. That he isn’t just a perfect figure Bitty had dreamed up one lonely night, desperate and suffocating inside himself. It should be a comfort.
Instead, it’s a reminder — that Bitty is lovesick for a boy with a constellation written on his skin. That Bitty is just one person, flawed and terrified, and Jack is made of whole galaxies.
It’s a reminder that Jack will never, ever love him back.