Disclaimer: Bridge to Terabithia is the property of Katherine Paterson and her official affiliates. No copyright infringement is intended.
Philadelphia
Preface
One of these days, she's just going to have to kill Jesse Aarons, and it very well may happen tonight. It's either that or lose her mind, really. She's running out of options. No, actually, she's just out of options. Although murdering her best friend isn't what she really wants to do – most of the time, anyway– the only other choice she can think of scares her on a level she has never before experienced. It's the fear, she thinks, that prompted her to crawl out of her window in the earliest hours of the morning and stalk after him into the forest. He had thrown rocks at her window and called out We need to talk. She hadn't answered; she couldn't trust herself to speak.
She can'tdo this. She just can't do this anymore. She can't lie to him anymore – she can't lie to herself anymore, although she's still trying for some unfathomable reason. The charade is becoming too complicated; there are holes in her performance, and she knows everyone can tell. She doesn't know who to be anymore, and the fact that this is happening with him, of all people, crushes parts of her she didn't even know could break. If there's one person on the face of the earth with whom she should feel completely stable, it's that dark eyed boy who wandered so unexpectedly into her life all those years ago. The fear she feels around him – too many kinds to name – is enough to make her burst into tears at any given moment.
She's grateful that his back is turned; she'll be able to blame the paths of salt water carving their way down her face on the rain that's beginning to fall from the sky. She loves living in Lark Creek.
(She's fairly sure she loves something – someone – else too, but she can't go there now, not now, because that's just asking for pain. Leslie Burke will not become one of those women, not for anything, even if the alternative will hurt her in a way she's fairly certain she can't currently imagine the depth of.)
He can break her heart without even trying to and she hates it, hates herself for letting this happen. It wasn't supposed to be like this with him. It was never going to be like this with him, of that she had felt so unbelievably sure. She had gone years – five perfect years – without the slightest non-platonic thought aimed his way. Her relatives would raise their eyebrows; kids at school would make jokes, and it never stirred so much as a feather in her. It didn't mean anything, after all.
Until, of course, it did.
And somehow, because of a bunch of looks and smiles and flutters of the heart she simply can't explain, she's here, standing in the rain at three o'clock in the morning in nothing but high tops, purple sweatpants, her LCHS Track T-Shirt, and a black hooded sweatshirt that's doing nothing to repeal the sheets of water that are now falling from the sky. If he brings up that it's his she very well may punch him in the face.
(She's not entirely sure she can reach his face anymore. Sometime during their sophomore year he got taller, so much taller, and she likes it. A lot. She disgusts herself, really.)
It's pouring now, the drizzle that had begun falling only moments ago soaking everything. He's led her to the woods she once led him to and the depressing irony is not lost on her, even amongst all those other powerful emotions. Their place is foreign to her now – "what do we call this place?" "Terabithia" – dark and shadowy in the gloom of the storm and the unfamiliar light of the night, rendered cold and distant after months of absence. Maybe he's brought her here so he can end it where it all began.
The weight of the idea numbs her so deep that it effectively ends her tears, and she's glad. If he's going to do this to her tonight, this way, after all of this, he's lost the privilege of seeing beyond her inherent strength. The one thing she will keep is the pride that comes with the fact that she will not stoop to the level of showing him how much he's hurt her. How irreparable he and he alone can render her. It shakes her in a way she's felt before, only a handful of times; the wobbly, semi-numb sensation threatens to send the soup she ate a few hours ago onto the pine needles covering the forest floor.
Somehow they've stopped walking, and started shouting. Words are coming out of her mouth but she doesn't really believe it's her talking – I don't even know who you are anymore, Jess. How can you say that? Like you care about silly old Leslie Burke more than you care about her…what kind of an idiot do you take me for? You know exactly what I'm talking about…! How dare you…I can hang out with whoever I well please, you are not my father, Jesse Aarons. That is the most hypocritical thing I have ever heard… – because she doesn't really mean the words she's screaming. They're just somewhere to put all the hurt: the hurt pride, the broken heart, the shaking realizations, the jealousy, the grief, the resentment. There's so much, more then she could even realize. She's trembling, fists clenched at her sides, freezing and drenched and exhausted and so desperate to cry but too proud to do it.
She's hurting him; she can see it all over his face. She's breaking him and it's breaking her, but he has to realize what he's done to her, she has to make him understand the pain he's put her through, and right now it seems the only way she can do it is by causing him pain.
His pain cuts her the deepest. It cuts away everything, and suddenly she sees.
Just like her, he's completely drenched from head to toe. Although he put on jeans before coming to find her, he's wearing nothing else other than sneakers and a dark blue T-shirt, which has been dyed black with rain. His hair is plastered to his forehead, curling ever so slightly. His fists are clenched at his sides, and she can see the muscles stand out in his forearms and shoulders. The skin on his knuckles is red and cracked from labor, and she remembers the callouses coating his palms and the pads of his fingers, and how they'll never really go away.
The bath was too hot, she rationalized. She overheated herself, was all. She had been trying to relax, let her mind wander…and suddenly she sees rough fingers drawing lazy shapes against a soft, pale abdomen, and a warm, deep voice murmuring gentle reassurances and apologies, and she knows it's going to burn but the ache is so bad she doesn't care…and now her heart is flying and her abdomen is aching but there's no one there to relieve the pain and suddenly she's dizzy and sick and water is splashing out of the tub and she's crawling on her hands and knees to her bedroom. She dry-heaves onto the hardwood before she can stand to open the window and collapses wet and trembling onto her bed.
It doesn't mean anything.
She falls asleep and dreams the same dream only she watches the blonde hair turn red and she wakes up crying and has to stuff the edge of the sheet in her mouth to muffle the sobs.
It doesn't mean anything.
She doesn't understand why he doesn't like the callouses. She's always been fond of them, herself.
Not now. She can't do this to herself now. But it's already too late; she's let her mind go there and that oh-so-familiar aching heat is pooling between her thighs. The knot of fearful anticipation in her stomach, however, is new.
This has never happened before.
She's soaked and she's not wearing a bra and somewhere in the back of her mind she's both horrified and thrilled because she knows he's looking at her and it makes her feel powerful, of all insipid things.
He's looking at her. The ache turns to a desperate thrum.
The shouting has stopped, she realizes. One of them said something just now – what was it, who was it, she doesn't really care – and now he's staring at her like she just might break him open if she touches him.
She wants to break him open.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she walks towards him. When she's several inches away she stops, reaching her right hand out towards his shoulder. He follows her movement with a shaky breath. Placing her palm against the fabric of his T-shirt, she gently moves her index finger to follow a drop of water down his collarbone.
He breaks.
Author's Note: I realize I really have no excuse to post yet another work in progress with so many left unfinished, especially after such a considerable hiatus, but here it is. This story is very different from any other I have ever written, in both style and content. I hope this preface was somewhat easy to follow; although it was intended to be a little bit disconnected and rushed with missing bits of information – following Leslie's train of thought during one particular instance in time that we'll revisit with more clarity later on. The entire story won't be present-tense; it just sort of came out that way. Hope it wasn't too alienating!
A warning: This story is definitely worthy of its rating. It deals a great deal with the idea of late-adolescent sexuality; although there is nothing explicit, it plays a great deal into the plot of the story. I wanted to play with the idea of Leslie not being so accepting of the fact that she's in love with her friend, and perhaps having her body tell her what her mind is unwilling to accept. That, of course, leads to a whole other set of problems. ;) I look forward to your input!
The title of the story comes from a song of the same name, performed by the band Parachute.