i. summer

The Wisconsin sun was beating down on the amazingly gorgeous Jackie Burkhart as she made her way to Eric Foreman's basement the day after she got engaged. A sticky sweet smile was glued to her perfectly tanned, well-proportioned face as she breathed in; exuberance and giddiness, and the freedom of the summer before her that she could taste. Every bone in her body zinged and tingled with happiness. The world seemed to have a clarity, a freshness to it. She was feeling everything like it was new, and she felt magical.

Jackie giddly made her way down to the basement, hopping on the steps leading to the door. She couldn't reign in this happiness if she tried. She was a bit mad that michael neglected to answer his phone the night before, or that morning, but he had to be down in the basement and if he was, she would dispel any worries he had about their upcoming wedding.

"Michael!" she gleefully sang out, throwing open the door but stopped short at the sight of a nearly empty basement. The only people there were fez and hyde.

"Well, if it isn't the blushin' bride?" Hyde said cheerfully.

Jackie, glowered at him, her good mood diminishing, and there was a cruelty to Hyde's bright smile that she recognized and settled a stone in the pit of her stomach.

"Where's Michael?" She snapped.

Hydes smiles widened,and she felt a bit sick, and he said, "Looks like the groom-to-be fled to California with Donna."

And the amazingly gorgeous Jackie Burkhart thought surely, he must be lying. So she leveled a glare at him for that sick, dirty lie, and spun on her heel and flounced off to find her Michael.

ii. denial

And so she searched, high and low for her Michael, but she could not find him, not at the hub, not at his house, not even at any of the houses he frequented to play with dogs.

And the sun went down, and Jackie Burkhart went down to Eric Foreman's basement. There was Steven and there was Fez, but there was no Donna, and there was no Eric, and there was not her Michael.

She looked at Steven, and placed a hand on the basement door to close it. Sadness curled her lip and formed a lump in her throat and opened her mouth to ask: "why would he do this to me? He proposed to me."

Jackie Burkhart though Donna Pinciotti was tall and abrasive and not nearly girly enough as she should be, and a bit of a slut since she was off in california with her boyfriend, her fiance, but in that moment she wished she was there, because hyde had never been touched by the hand of love as she had. Hyde was cruel cruel cruel, and he said: "Well, think about it Jackie, who would want to marry you?"

"Oh, I would." Fez said reverently, and they ignored him, as per usual.

"Who wouldn't?" Jackie snapped. White, hot fury was crawling up her throat and she felt a little dizzy from all the emotions passing through her. Michael, michael, michael, stupid michael michael michael. "I'm gorgeous, rich and popular! What more could a man possibly want that I couldn't deliver?"

"Well," Hyde said, and the callous smile was back and Jackie decided that however much she hated Michael, in this moment she hated Steven all the more. Even though she didn't hate Michael, not really, because he wouldn't leave her, he couldn't leave her, not again. He loves her, he proposed.

"You suffer from a severe case of bitch-itis, which makes you fundamentally 'not-marriage type'." He said, his hands in the air for air quotes.

"Oh please, Hyde." Jackie said, nostrils flaring. She felt warm; this was familiar. This is what they do in the basement, they burn each other. "The only girls that are marriage type for you are ones that you can pick up on the street corner."

"Hyde, my friend, you might want to get some ice for that wicked ah-burn." Fez said, and as soon as he did the small smile on his face vanished, and there was a pause. The basement seemed to take a breath, and the silence was loud. Steven looked uncomfortable. They could all hear a faint echo of Michael's resounding, "BURN!", and Donna's laughter and suddenly Jackie felt off-balance because now. Now, this felt real. Michael had left her. Michael had left her.

"Oh!" Fez cried suddenly. "I miss my good friend Kelso! I can't believe that sonova bitch left me!" And then he got up from the lawn chair so quickly that it fell over, and he walked to the basement door.

"Good day my friends! I must go. It hurts too much to be here, standing where he once stood." He said, and left.

iii. grief

When Fez left, the basement seemed to get quieter.

Jackie's brain doesn't quiet down, and she feels a bit sick. It's not quite the same sickness as when she found out he was cheating on her. This doesn't just sit in the pit of her stomach it's thrumming all throughout her body, to her toes and the tips of her fingers. She feels magical again. Michael's made her feel magical again but there wasn't the clarity of before there. There was just a hazy fog. Her brain was moving fast but the world was muddled and grey.

"Are you okay?" Hyde asked gruffly, and Jackie snapped back to reality from inside her own mind. She looked at him and crossed her arms.

"Why do you care?"

"I don't."

And then there was a silence as Steven turned back to the T.V blaring "The Price is Right." Jackie took a deep breath and hugged her body tightly.

"I guess I should've expected this, huh." She says.

"Yep." He says.

Jackie goes to sit on the couch besides his chair and crosses her legs.

"Don't cry." He says.

"I'm not." She says.

"Good, because I'm not gonna comfort you."

"Good, because I don't want you to."

"I mean it, Jackie."

iv. cruelty

Jackie knows Steven is not really cruel. He's just poor, and poor people are awful so he doesn't know how to be any better than how the world twisted him when he was young. Jackie thinks he uses the cruelty he was taught as a shield, or maybe he's just reflecting what had happened to him. Jackie spends a lot of time thinking about Steven and his cruelty because she knows he is not truly cruel. No one could be truly cruel when the hands that wiped away her tears were so gentle, and the eyes that stared into hers as he explained, "It's just Kelso," were so understanding. No one could be cruel enough to fake that kind of compassion. Not even Steven.

The tone kind of changes from 'drabble to drabble' and that's on purpose. I was planning on posting three 'drabbles' per published chapter but I didn't like how incomplete it felt to leave off with just guilt. Please review, thank you!