#Thanksgiving Don'ts

JadeWest: Don't lock your annoying cousin in the basement. Your dad might call the cops on you.

BeckOliver: Don't let Jade say grace before dinner starts unless you want your family to cry.


Well, okay, I know this is really late. I started it as soon as I saw these posts on TheSlap, but I didn't think it was very good, so I wasn't going to post it. Then I decided that I just wasted a few hours writing something, so I reread it tonight and figured, why not? It may have two parts, if you guys like it. It's not my best story, but I decided to publish it anyways.

Please review! Thank you!


"Jade! I missed you so mu- oh. You dyed your hair?"

"Yeah, I did."

She crosses her arms and stares at her grandmother with a determined expression, almost daring her to say something else.

"Why black and blue?"

The old woman, who's not even that old, says the colors like their some sort of forbidden poisons. Jade rolls her eyes. "Because I like those colors, okay? Is that such a big deal?" Her grandmother, not looking surprised or hurt at all, shoots her a glare and walks away to deliver the pumpkin pie she brought to the kitchen.

For the tenth time that afternoon, Jade checks her phone. 2:37pm. She still has to wait a whole hour to see her boyfriend. Thankfully, her family planned for their Thanksgiving meal around 2:30, and Beck's family planned there's for 4:30. So, they'll each get some time with their own families, and then he'll pick her up and take her over to his grandparents' house.

"Supper time!" A too-cheery voice calls. Jade's family goes flying into the kitchen like they haven't eaten for days, and she rolls her eyes and trails behind them. Sitting at the one spot left, which is conveniently six chairs away from her father and stepmother, she watches at the food is passed around. She takes one dinner roll with a little butter on top, and a spoonful of green beans.

"Jade, aren't you gonna eat?"

"Yeah, what's the matter kid? You anorexic or something?"

She rolls her eyes at her aunt and uncle. "I already told you, I'm eating with Beck."

"Beck? Who's Beck?"

"Oh, that's Jade's boyfriend."

"Boyfriend? I didn't know Jade had a boyfriend."

"Oh yeah, she does. I met him once. He's freakin' hot."

"I thought is name was John?"

She tries to block out the sound of her clueless relatives talking about her and Beck as if she's not even in the room, and takes a bite of green beans, which are way too salty, but her stupid Uncle Jim doesn't want to give this up.

"So, tell me about this Ben person. How long have you been dating?"

"His name is Beck, and I've been dating him for two years and eight months. And like ten days or something."

"He goes to your school?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. Is he nice?"

"Yeah."

"That's nice."

She shrugs her shoulder awkwardly and finishes her "dinner," sneaking a peak at her phone again. 2:51pm. The family continues to talk, and there's a twenty minute conversation about her dad and step-mom's "out of this world" honeymoon, which she tries to tune out. When the table is finally cleared, most of the older women venture into the kitchen to clean, the men settle down in front of the football game, and the kids run around the back yard. Jade just keep checking the time on her phone. 3:17pm. Then, all of the sudden, her thirteen year old cousin, who's dressed in a slutty pink tank top and tons of makeup, walks up to her.

"So Jade, you have a boyfriend?"

"Mhhmm," She mumbles, not looking up from her phone.

"Is he cute?"

"Duh."

"What does he look like?"

"Like a seventeen year old guy."

"Whoa, you're dating an older man?"

"He's only like six months older than me."

"Can I see a picture?"

She sighs and rolls her eyes.

"Can you leave me alone?"

"No! I wanna see a picture of your future hubby."

"Man you're annoying."

"Please?"

She finally gets an idea and stands up.

"Alright, fine. There's a picture of us hanging up in Aunt Jane's basement."

"Why there?"

"Don't ask."

Jade leads her to basement door and practically shoves her in. Not even pretending to follow, she closes and locks the door with a smile. The girl starts banging on the door, screaming. Apparently she forgot to mention the fact that she's terrified of the dark.

"Hey! Let me out! Let me out of here now, Jade!"

Jade laughs as a few more of her cousins walk up to investigate, and then quickly call her father over. He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms.

"Jade, this is ridiculous. Let your cousin out."

"Not in a million years." She sticks her chin up with a smirk, knowing her father's too much of a baby to have any kind of control over her. Beck has more authority over her than he does, and he's just her boyfriend.

"Jade, let her out!"

"I said no."

"Let her out or I'll...I'll..."

"You'll what, Dad?"

He pauses for a minute before making his choice.

"I'll call the police."

It doesn't catch the stubborn girl off guard at all. In all the years she's known him, he's never kept one promise. Including threats. "Yeah right."

Jade's cousin is still screaming in the background, and she thinks it's hilarious. But now it's not just about teaching the brat not to annoy her, it's about winning the battle for control with her dad. It's a pride thing. He makes a pathetic attempt to push her away and unlock the door, but she kick him in the leg. Hard. Now embarrassed and angry, and with a crowd of other relatives standing around, he whips out his cell phone.

"One last chance, Jade." Jade doesn't move, but she watches him carefully.

"Alright, fine." She hear three beeps as he presses some buttons, and at first she thinks he's faking it to scare her, but then she hear an operator talking to him. "9-1-1, how can I help you?"

Her father glares at her and walks away to take the call, and Jade suddenly get nervous. Quickly, she opens the door and lets her cousin out. She's a hysterical mess. After her parents calm her down, she comes over to Jade.

"You're a slut, Jade. I can't believe you did that to me!"

"Call me that again, and I'll kill you."

Then I hear a car door, and I know it's not Beck.


Beck pulls into the driveway of Jade's aunt's house at 3:32, only 2 minutes late. At first he thinks he's got the wrong house, because there are two police cars in the driveway, but after double checking the address, he knows it's correct.

"Oh, crap," he mumbles to himself before slowly getting out of the car.

No one lets him in when he knocks a few times, even though he can hear people yelling inside. Deciding to do the impolite thing for once, he walks in. At first the room is all a blur of people, but he can hear Jade's yelling over everyone, and soon enough he sees her, her hair flying all over, arguing with two police officers.

"I did not threaten her! She's lying, I didn't do anything wrong! I was just messing around and my stupid, idiot father freaks out and makes a big deal out of nothing! On Thanksgiving day!"

"Alright, miss, please calm down. We understand you're upset, but there's no reason to-"

"Hell yes I'm upset! I didn't do anything!"

Beck just stands there for a minute, watching the scene with wide eyes. His girlfriend is angry, that's obvious, but he can see beyond that. She's not just mad, she's embarrassed. And she's scared, Beck can tell. Jade's done a lot of stupid things, but the police have never gotten involved. She doesn't want the fear to show, but he sees it.

Beck pushes through the mob of cousins and grandparents and other relatives. As soon as she meets his eyes, she feels a rush of emotions. It seems like all the yelling stops in an instant and Beck looks at her, forgetting about the others in the room.

"What's going on?"

He walks towards her and cups his hand under her chin. "Jade?" One of the police officers puts a hand on his arm. "Excuse me young man, who are you?"

"Her boyfriend," he replies without an ounce of hesitation. The officer turns to Jade's family, the kids are hiding behind their parents, one of her aunts is crying, and some of them are quietly arguing with each other.

"If you would all please disperse and continue with your normal activities, I'd like to talk to Jade alone and get this situation under control."

"The situation already is perfectly under control," Jade mumbles under her breath. If the officer hears, he gives no indication of it.

"You can stay here, sir," he says to Jade's dad. "And you, miss," he tells her younger cousin.

Even though he says nothing to Beck telling him to stay, the teenager stands still, knowing that Jade will break if he leaves even for one minute. The officer takes out a notepad and pen and starts to write.

"And make sure to write down that she kicked me."

"And she threatened to kill me."

"Oh come on! You know I wasn't serious!"

Beck pinches the bridge of his nose, confused, frustrated, and trying to imagine what on earth Jade could have done.

"They're making such a big deal out of-"

"Jade, lower your voice," he commands in a firm tone. He takes both of her hands in his gently and she looks at him, immediately start to calm down. "Take a deep breath, and listen to the police officer. Please, baby." He gently brushes across the palms of her hand with his thumbs. He can feel her body relaxing, and the flame of anger in her eyes is slowly fading. Jade's father and both of the police officers stare in amazement, as if Beck has some sort of magic power. After a moment of peace, one of the officers speaks again.

"Well, as long as everything's calmed down here, I think I'll let you off with a warning, Jade. But next time we get a call about you acting up, we're going to have to go to the police station and file a report about this. Understood?"

Jade hesitates and Beck gently nudges her, and she quickly mumbles a "Yes, sir."

The officers both nod, shake her father's hand, and leave. As soon as they're out of earshot, she lunges at her father. "I hate you!" She feels tears burning her eyes as she screams at him, and Beck's strong arm wraps around her waist and pulls her back.

"Okay, let's just go out to my car and talk, baby." Trying to be a gentleman and not make a terrible first impression on her dad, he turns towards Mr. West. "Is that okay? Can I talk to her alone?"

"Do whatever you want."

Beck nods, and notices that Jade has already left. Through the open front door he can see that she is kicking at his locked truck door, and he cringes at the scratch her combat boot might leave. He turns to stop her but Mr. West grabs his arm.

"Thanks. I don't know how you got her to listen to."

Beck pauses for a minute, contemplating what he could say, and then decides to speak up.

"Well, maybe if you show her some respect then she'll respect you. And, you know, it also helps if you talk to her more than twice a year."

Mr. West looks shocked and Beck simply mutters "Happy Thanksgiving," and turns to walk away. He's not sure what caused him to say something so bold to Jade's father, but it was about to time he heard it.

When Beck walks over to his truck, Jade is still kicking the door.

"The funny thing is, no matter how many times you kick it, it's not going to open."

She turns to look at him, rolls her eyes, and steps out of the way so he can unlock the door for her. Since she's obviously in a bad mood, he goes so far as to open the door, help her get in, and then close it behind him. He gets in the driver's side and sighs.

"Alright. Tell me what happened."

She shakes her head. "Damn it! I'm such an idiot!" She slams her hand against the dashboard and lets her head fall hopelessly into her lap. Beck gently pats her back, then rubs it, then draws little pictures with his finger. He smiles a little when she flinches because it tickles. She finally lifts her head and looks at him.

"It's not my fault Beck. Really, I didn't do anything wrong." She sounds like a toddler trying to get out of being punished, and her eyes are shining with tears she refuses to let come out.

"I'm not mad at you. Just tell me why the police were in there."

"It wasn't my fault," she states for the second time. "My stupid cousin was annoying me so I locked her in the basement and wouldn't let her out."

"That's-that's it? That's all you did?"

"Yeah. Then my dad got mad and I didn't listen to him and I kicked him, lightly, when he tried to push me out of the way, so being the big coward that he is, he called the cops."

"Jade Elizabeth..." His tone is frustrated, slightly stressed out, and kind of annoyed, but not angry. "Why didn't you just listen to him?"

"Beck, the police already gave me this talk, alright? I don't need you to yell at me."

"I'm not yelling. But this whole thing never would have happened if you weren't being so stubborn."

"Yeah, it's all my fault, isn't it?"

He can tell by her eyes that he's hurting her, she hates it when she feels like he's angry with her. He reaches his hand over and strokes her hair, wishing the truck was big enough for him to hold her right now. Not knowing what else to say, he starts the truck and backs out.

"It's not your fault, babe. It's not your fault that your dad is a horrible person who can't see a beautiful, talented girl when it's right in front of his face. Okay? It's not your fault."

Jade silently prays that he's too focused on the road to catch her smiling to herself. They pull into the driveway of a large house, and Beck pauses before getting out. "So, besides the whole police incident, how was your Thanksgiving so far?" He pretty much expected getting punched in the arm, but he doesn't care.


Should I continue? I know that was long, but I never got to the second post about Jade saying grace. Review! Please & Thank You :)