Jessica isn't so bad. Not really.
It's not like Trish even notices she's there, half the time. She's so quiet, and when they get home from school she goes straight to her room.
Dorothy, in a rare moment of compassion, tells Trish to give her time, she's probably still grieving.
Trish is fine with this. If Jessica stays in her room she doesn't have to witness Dorothy's cruelty, and the fewer people who know about that, the better.
Some nights through the walls Trish can hear her sobbing, but she pretends not to notice.
(Sometimes she's sure Jess notices the bruises, but she pretends not to notice, too).
The girls at school have been simperingly sympathetic, but not to Jessica. To Trish. Whispers of oh you poor thing having to live with her isn't it awful isn't it tragic?
One times Jessica walked by while the girls were saying this, and the look she gave Trish made her face burn with shame.
But it's not like it's her fault, right? Not like it's her fault her friends are fake and plastic and only want to be around her because she's Patsy, and they really want to be friends with Patsy. Not her fault her friends think Jess is a freak and so of course all their sympathy is directed at Trish.
But there's an ugly twist in her gut at it, still.
Things change, one night. Not enough so Trish would notice at first, but when she looks back on it, later-
They come home from school, Trish careful to hide her face as they walk up the drive in case some idiot with a camera is lurking. (It's happened before).
But this time, Jess doesn't go straight to her room when they get in. Instead, she turns to Trish, sets her bags by the kitchen table. Dorothy isn't home, she's out "managing Trish's career," AKA day-drinking and flirting with men younger than she is.
"Does it bother you?" Jess asks as Trish sets her bag down.
"Does what bother me?"
"Having me around."
Trish blinks. She doesn't know what she expected Jessica to say, but it wasn't that.
"I mean I'm not asking you to be best friends with me or anything but-"
"It doesn't bother me," Trish blurts out, and Jessica fixes her with a dark-eyed stare that stops her cold.
"You're a terrible liar," Jess says finally, in that blunt way of hers.
"No, it really—it really doesn't," Trish says, but she cringes at the weakness in her own voice.
"I heard you talking to your friends," Jess says. "So I guess it has to bother you."
"They're not really my friends," Trish says. Jessica blinks. "What? You're being honest. I can be too."
"Then why do you hang out with them?"
Trish falters for an explanation. Anything she says to Jessica now is just going to sound stupid.
"Because I have to."
"You don't have to do anything."
"No, you don't understand—" Trish says, but then stops.
What was she going to say?
If I don't hang out with them Dorothy will know and Dorothy will—
It's not like she can say that.
Trish sighs. "Forget it. Never mind."
"Trish—"
"I'm going to my room," she snaps, and picks up her bag before Jess can say anything else.
She can't sleep. And it isn't because of the bruise on her collarbone or the Trig test she knows she'll fail tomorrow, but the look on Jess's face.
You're a terrible liar.
What did she mean by that? Lying about having Jess here? Lying about her friends not bothering her?
Lying about Dorothy?
She has to know, suddenly. She has to know what Jess meant.
Trish pushes herself up out of bed, expertly presses her ear to the door. The TV in the living room is on, some late-night talk show, but nothing else.
Trish Walker is an expert at sneaking out, sneaking around. She knows which floorboards to avoid, which spots in the house will give her away.
She sneaks down the hall to the old guest room, now Jess's room. And she's about to push open the door, ask Jess what she meant, when—
Crying. She hears crying.
Fuck.
Jess is crying.
She doesn't know what to do. Trish is really, really awful at consoling other people—not that she's too selfish to but that she doesn't know how; it's not like Dorothy is a model of compassion or anything.
But Jess is crying. And before Trish can stop herself, she quietly pushes open the door to Jess's bedroom.
Jess is sitting up in bed, the lights off so Trish has to squint to see her small frame against the pillow.
"What are you doing?" Jess hisses.
"Are you okay?" Trish asks. And then, before she can stop herself— "I did mean it, you know. Having you around doesn't bother me."
"You're just saying that because I'm crying," Jess says, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve.
"I'm really not," Trish says in spite of herself.
Jess nods, like she's too sad, too tired to fight.
"Can I help?" Trish asks awkwardly after a minute, because fuck, this silence is killing her.
Jess shakes her head. "I don't think so."
"Okay," Trish says, and she pushes open Jess's door.
She's got one foot out when Jess speaks, so quiet Trish can't be sure she's heard anything for a second.
"Trish?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you... can you stay?" Jess asks, and she sniffs again.
Something in Trish cracks. Fear, the hard shell she's built up because of Dorothy, she doesn't know.
But she shuts Jess's door and she scoots in the narrow bed with her and before she can really comprehend what's happening Jess's head is on her shoulder and she's sniffing and Trish is rubbing her back and saying "It's okay, it's okay," over and over.
Though she doesn't know if she's saying it to herself or Jess.