Jessica Jones hasn’t heard an “I love you” since Kilgrave.
Luke had tried saying he loved her, once. She didn’t let him because the guilt was cutting in her stomach too deep, so she broke him halfway through the sentence.
But Matt Murdock said it, like it was such an easy thing to say. As if she wasn’t unlovable, as if loving her wasn’t the most difficult task anyone could ever achieve. As if she hadn’t constantly done everything in her power so no one could dare say those words to her. And he said it without hesitating, without thinking twice of what it meant to love Jessica Jones. To love someone who’s fists punched so hard her knuckles would bleed, to love someone who got wasted every other night. Someone who had nightmares while wide awake, someone who forgot to take showers every now and then, someone who’s heart rate would pound fast every second of the day like a loud drum in her ears. Someone who was a piece of shit.
She didn’t blame him for seeing the good in her. People usually made that mistake. Luke did, and she disappointed him. How long would it take to Matt be disappointed in her?
But she was certain he could hear her clenching her fists so tightly she almost cut herself, she could feel them pulsing. He could most definitely hear how fast her heart was beating, more than normal, she could hear it loudly herself. She also knew that it was what gave her away, because he used his callous hand to take one of her fists, unclench it, and hold it.
“Don’t try to convince me it’s not worth it.” He said, and she looked in his eyes to see him staring blankly back to her. There was a part of her that desperately wanted to say it back, a naive part of her that she tried killing so much times but seemed to flower every now and then.
God, she didn’t even know what to say after an “I love you”. Well, normally you’re supposed to say it back, but those were words she would never say to anyone in her life. And she wasn’t going to say them to Matt Murdock.
“I’m only saying this one time. It won’t became a recurring thing, I promise.” He said, still unbothered by the silence between them. She was smart enough to know that to him, there was no silence. He was hearing everything. And it was like a melody to his ears, a song of their own.