Dear Little voices in my head that I'm venting to in the written form,
"Today I won the 400-meter relay! Meaning that I, Jesse Vital, am going to the championship meet two towns over! I can't wait to tell Mom and Dad!"
Jesse Vital quickly scribbled in her old journal while ignoring her teacher in her last class of the day. She had a swim team meet earlier that morning and was officially the first freshman to go to the championships in over twenty years. She put her journal away in her bag and went back to what she had originally been doing and stared at the clock watching the seconds tick by as they counted down the moments to when she could rush out of there and get on her rusty moped and race home to tell her Mom and Step-dad.
Jesse had never met her real father; her mother was still pregnant with her when her father was killed in the line of duty. He was a cop, a deputy to the sheriff, and his best friend is the current Sheriff of Beacon Hills. Her mother remarried when she was four years old to a really great guy named Daniel. Jesse thought of him as her Father and therefore called him so, never forgetting who her father was. Not that she had a choice since her mother had his picture in almost every room of their small home, and Sheriff Stilinski himself would stop in to check on his old partners' family every now and again.
Trina Vital, Jesse's mother ran her own business out of their garage. It was a cleaning service, and yeah Jesse hated that her mother reinforced the Hispanic stereotype of being a 'cleaning lady', but her mother's business was very popular and they did ok for themselves. Sometimes when the hospital was short staffed on the cleaning crew, they would call her mother and they would clean the hospital at night. Trina would hire a lot of high school students and Hispanic retired residents of Beacon Hills.
Daniel was a broker at a bank, that's where he met Trina and Jesse. He fell in love with Jesse as much as he had with her mother. Dan, knowing how close the Vitals were to the Stilinski's, made sure to get his approval of the Sheriff before asking Trina to marry him. He was the one who first introduced Jesse to surfing and swimming. They would occasionally take trips to the coast and go surfing at Dan's "secret spot". Hence why Jesse was so excited to tell him when she got home, sure she could text him but she wanted to see his face of shock and then let him spin her around their living room in joy. Jesse always protested being picked up but secretly loved it.
Dear little voices,
"The second I got home I ran inside and tripped over my own feet trying to find mi Familia. When they walked out of the kitchen wondering what the commotion was, I told them my news from the floor with a huge shit-eating grin on my face. My got all teary-eyed and wailed in excitement while Dad picked me up off the floor into a hug and spun me around as we laughed. He told me he was so proud of me as he put be back down. "That calls for it! We are going surfing this weekend! You, me, the waves, and the stars" I was so excited doing my happy dance that I almost missed my mom saying that we are not allowed to go night-surfing with it still being too cold out."
Jesse, Daniel, and Trina all packed up and drove the two hours to the cost to Daniel's "secret spot" and camped out of the back of the van so there was heat seeing as it was winter in California. In the morning while Trina was cooking breakfast Daniel and Jesse walked the coast looking for sea glass for Trina's wind-chimes that she made. After breakfast, the whole family went out for a morning wave. They came back in for lunch then Jesse and Daniel went back out while Trina worked on her latest windchime made of wire and sea glass. Eventually, Trina called them in so they could make the drive back home while there was still some sunlight left. Jesse and Daniel hung their wet suits in the back of the van and slept on the drive back.
The meet was on Friday and the Winter formal was that night. Jesse wouldn't typically go to dances but her friend Erica wanted to go, and Jesse would be damned if she let her only friend get teased at a dance while she was all alone with no one to distract her. Jesse and Erica were each other's best friends and planned on keeping it that way. Jesse wasn't antisocial or anything, she talked to a lot of people, but she was fiercely protective of the epileptic girl. She wasn't sure if she would consider Stiles her friend seeing as the only time they hung out is when they were babysat together when they were kids or at the holidays when their, then broken, families would combine. Her best friend also happened to have a huge crush on Stiles but couldn't muster up the courage to talk to him; not that the spastic boy made it easy to talk to him.
Her mother made her dress for her and Jesse, being the nerd that she is, wore her favorite heels… her only pair of heels. Jesse has a huge thing for fairytales, the original versions, Grimm versions, Disney versions, all of them she loved fairytales. Which is why her heels were a metallic gold color with butterfly/fairy wings on the back by her ankle. They were her statement piece with her simple dark blue dress. Erica's mom dropped her off at Jesse's house where the two girls got ready, and packed Erica's bag in case of an attack.
Before the two girls left, Trina made them pose for pictures. Daniel laughed at the girls' silly faces and poses before deciding he wanted in on the fun and started posing with them. Suddenly, Daniel dropped to his knee and pulled out a ring and presented it to Jesse that made her giggle. It was made of the sea glass stones they had collected the past weekend. Jesse put it on hugged Daniel goodbye before Trina drove the girls to the dance.
Dear sentient diary to whom I disclose the important things to,
"Erica looked absolutely beautiful tonight, I wish I had a camera to take a picture of the girl in front of me, she was so happy and more confident than usual. It made that dance almost worth going to. Daniel, the stupid sap made me a ring from a welded piece of my mom's gold wire and the sea glass we found together… I love it."
The girls were nervous as they entered the school prepared for the teasing, Jesse was fully prepared to use her heels as a deadly weapon on anyone who ruined her friend's night out. The girls began enjoying the decorations and after a lot of persuading left their seat at a table and danced to a few songs. Towards the end of the night the dance was ended prematurely because there was an animal attack. Jesse and Erica begrudgingly grabbed their coats to leave
"Of course it would be Lydia-freaking-Martin, it always has to be about her" Erica said moping while the two girls waited for their ride. Jesse put her arm around Erica's shoulders in comfort.
"But you had fun in the mean-time right?" she asked. Erica smiled and looked back up at her friend from where her head was previously resting on her shoulder. "Good, cause I do not get dressed up for nothing" Jesse joked trying to improve her friend's mood. After about an hour the girls were once again getting agitated.
"Where is your mom?" Erica asked.
"I don't know, maybe there's a lot of traffic with the animal attack and all?..." Jesse guessed as they were one of the last few people left to be picked up.
"Jesse!?" she heard her name called. Jesse looked over to see the Sheriff walking over to her with a serious face.
"Hey Sheriff, crazy about that animal attack huh?" she said in greeting.
"yeah, is Lydia ok?" Erica asked. Jesse sent her a look before rolling her eyes at her friend who just wanted to see if she would be rid of her competition for Stiles' attention. Jesse looked back at the Sheriff and the smile fell from her face.
"Sheriff?" she asked, he was looking at her sternly. Not angry, but sympathetic.
"Chloe I'm going to be giving you and your friend a ride home tonight" the sheriff told her. Chloe screwed her eyebrows together.
"Why? My mom should be here in a bit, she's just taking longer than usual" Jesse informed him. He was probably just trying to be nice, and wanted her away from a recent animal attack; which had been happening a lot around town lately.
"Your mom called me and told me to give you and Erica a ride, She's busy at the hospital" he told her. Jesse's mom got last minute calls to work at the hospital every now and then so this wasn't out of the ordinary. Sheriff Stilinski led the two girls to the police cruiser to where Stiles was already sitting in the front seat impatiently waiting for his dad.
"Come on Dad! We need to get to the Hospital to check on Lydia" he pleaded like a small child. Jesse and Erica climbed into the back of the car, Jesse rolled her eyes at Stiles as Erica went silent and stared at the boy.
"Stiles, will you calm down! We need to drop off Erica first then we will go to the hospital. Alright!?" he told his spastic son to pacify him. Stiles huffed and slumped in his seat in acknowledgement to his father's request.
"Hi Stiles" Jesse said in a condescending/playing tone. With out turning fully around Stiles glanced back at her
"Hi Jess" before facing back forward to bounce his leg as his father drove the speed limit.
"So Erica, were do you live?" the Sheriff asked. Erica was still dumbstruck that she was in the same car as her crush, Jesse smiled and nudged her friend in the side.
"N4956 green way, it's by the industrial park" she said in a croaky voice. Jesse suppressed a giggle at her friend as the Sheriff just nodded and began taking them to Erica's house. Once Erica was dropped off they finally began their trek to the hospital where Stiles only became more jittery.
"You could've said hello to my friend Stiles" Jesse said to break the silence of the police cruiser. Stiles turned to look at her in confusion then shrugged and turned to face back forward. Jesse rolled her eyes and smiled. If Stiles had spoken to Erica, she would've surely had a seizure of pure joy.
They arrived at the hospital, Stiles didn't even wait for the cruiser to be in park before he hopped out and ran inside. Jesse chuckled at him before letting the sheriff open the back door for her to get out as well.
"Why couldn't you have just taken me home as well?" Jesse asked the Sheriff. He looked down at her with that sympathetic look in his eyes.
"Because I figured you would want to be here" he told her. Jesse scrunched her brows up at him before they entered.
"Why would I want to be here to watch my mom clean?" Jesse questioned the seemingly moronic situation she was in.
"Your mom isn't cleaning Jesse" the Sheriff informed her and Jesse froze.
Dear stupid little voices,
"Last night Daniel died…. It was a car accident. His fucking boss called him in for the night shift. My mom was able to say goodbye. The last words I said to him were "pick up some peanut butter so we can have PB&J"… how fucking dumb is that?! I don't have a Dad again…. I feel like I'm drowning"
