Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi
Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions. Oh let's go back to the start; running in circles, coming in tails, heads on a science apart.
-The Scientist, Coldplay
It had been a sunny summer day when she'd first kissed him.
She had been over his house, and he'd been patching a roof with his dad, and she'd watched him nervously, but after a while, she'd calmed, realizing he knew what he was doing.
They had sat in his garage. Her sitting atop of her workbench that had become her unofficial seat here, and he'd been sanding down some wood. She was reading a book, and put it down.
"Have you ever been in love?" she asked.
"No," he said, already too accustomed to her improv game of twenty questions.
"Have you ever wanted to be?"
The no was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't say it. Did he? He'd never really thought of it. He wanted to love Clare. And he had, but not in a romantic way. He shrugged. "I wouldn't be opposed to it."
"Hmm," was all she responded, and he looked at her.
"Why? Are you in love?"
She rolled her eyes. "No."
"Have you?" he asked, mocking her questions.
"I wanted to be," she admitted sadly, her hand tracing across the workbench. "But no, I haven't yet."
He nodded, and went back to sanding.
She hopped down off the bench and walked over to the mini fridge and grabbed a water, holding one up in his direction as a silent off, which he accepted. He moved over to her, leaning against the work bench.
"So what's with the sudden interest in love, Moreno?" he asked, tilting his head to the side and gave her a smirk.
"Don't flatter yourself," she said, smacking him on the shoulder playfully. "Well the thought does often come up when you read a Nicholas Sparks book." She held up the book and he rolled his eyes.
"Did Clare recommend that to you?"
"As a matter of fact she did," she said, setting the book beside her.
In the past few months, Imogen had woven her way into his world. She'd been over the Martin-Edwards house so much, that she and Clare had made amends and could at this point be reasonably called friends. There was always a place setting for her at the table when she was over, and Helen never even asked her to stay, it was a requirement.
It was the first time in his life where his father actually knew the names of one of his friends; even though he was sure Glenn suspected that they were something more than that.
He snorted. "Another hopeless romantic is born," he teased, earning another smack from him.
He playfully shoved her, and suddenly they were in a shove war, which escalated to him stepping in between her legs and tickling her. At her cries of surrender, and when she was in danger of falling off the bench, he'd stopped. She was breathless and red faced, and he wore a grin. And then their eyes caught, and everything was eerily quiet, and then she was leaning forward.
He barely registered the kiss until his hands were tangling into her hair and she was tugging him closer. Their kiss was long, heated, and his hands roamed along her curves, while hers stayed balled at the collars of his plaid shirt. When they broke for air, neither said anything. The tension was thick between them and suddenly she shoved him aside, got off the bench and began to pace.
"Oh my god," she murmured in disbelief, and then turned to him and repeated the phrase louder with a hint of disgust.
"Imogen," he said, making a grab for her which she evaded.
"This didn't happen," she said sharply, and not bothering to collect her book, she left, leaving him dumbfounded.
She was avoiding him. And what was insulting, she had continued to keep in touch with Clare.
He was so beyond pissed, he didn't even think his anger was logical anymore, but he didn't care.
He brought her into his life, and one screw up and she ran.
Though he hated thinking that that kiss was a screw up; it didn't feel like a mistake. But obviously she felt that way with him.
He just wanted her back in his life. He wanted her to sit with him in her spot as he worked. He wanted her to pelt him with random questions, and to text him, and to talk to him.
Her absence left a big gaping hole that even his dad had noticed her gone.
"Did you two break up?"
He gritted his teeth, "We weren't together," he said.
His dad nodded, thought Jake knew he didn't believe him. He gritted his teeth. Typical Glenn, he acted like he knew everything about his son, when really, he ignored the things that would help him actually know him at all.
His comments, opinions, anything of any real value, had always been brushed aside. He had a girlfriend? Break up with her, they were moving to Toronto. Get another girlfriend? Too bad, I'm marrying her mother, even though I never asked you if you wanted her or her daughter to be a part of your life.
It was always him giving, and his dad taking. So often he'd been the parent, and his dad had been the kid. He blamed his mother's absence for that.
After her death, Glenn didn't know how to deal with it, and Jake had been so young, that it came at him in snippets. He'd remembered looking at his dad in front of an old church as people filed in, waiting for his dad to say something. Anything at all that might help him understand, or maybe feel less sad, but Glenn had stayed in a stony silence, and led him up the church steps.
He'd remembered his dead talking them up to the cabin, even though he'd had school, and them being in the cabin without his mother in silence.
There was always silence. Why share the pain when you can bottle it up and move on? Why comfort? They'll learn to stand on their own better by themselves.
He didn't hate his dad. It was obvious Jake would do anything to make him happy, but sometimes, he wanted that in return from his dad. He wanted what he had to say to matter and taken seriously. But it never was. Not once in seventeen years had Jake's words mattered to Glenn, so he'd learned not to use them.
"Did you two get into a fight?" Glenn asked, hammering a piece of wood into another.
"I guess," Jake said, unsure of what this was between him and Imogen could be considered a fight.
"Give it time, Son," his dad said, "it always gets better in time."
Jake didn't give it time.
He gave her another few days, and then he drove to her house. When Louis Moreno answered the door he was delighted to see him.
"Jake," he said, opening the door wider to let him inside, attempting to hold Volta back, but failed. The dog leaped and panted and attempted to lick Jake's face and he petted the dog. After a quick apology, Louis went to go find Imogen for him.
Jake nodded at the man as he wandered into the kitchen and he waited in the foyer surrounded by the pictures of Imogen, her dad, and Volta. He absentmindedly petted the dog, starring at a picture of Imogen with braids making a snowman, when her voice broke him from his daze.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him in a hushed sharp whisper.
His brow furrowed. "Why have you been avoiding me?" He asked in return.
She crossed her arms across her chest. "I haven't."
"Bullshit," Jake spat at her.
She grabbed him by the arm and dragged her outside.
"You have no right coming to my house like this," she said once they were out of earshot from her dad.
"And you have no right avoiding me because we kissed, so it's only fair."
She rolled her eyes.
"Why have you been avoiding me?" He asked her again, his voice harsher this time and she flinched.
"I didn't have anything to say to you."
"It's never stopped you before."
"Well it was different this time."
"How?" he asked.
"It's stupid."
"Try me," he said, feeling annoyed by the suspense of his answer.
She looked at him, and then their lips were together in a heated kiss, though it was shorter than before, and before she had a chance to take off, he grabbed her wrist gently. She tugged at it, but his grip was unbreakable.
"Why?"
"Because I like you, okay?" she snapped. "Are you satisfied? And it's stupid because you don't like me that way, and –"
She didn't have a chance to finish her sentence before he was kissing her again.
"You talked too much," he murmured when they broke for air, his nose against her forehead.
She lead him inside, and he'd stayed for supper that night, and after a few more kisses he'd gone home, feeling more full than he had in a long time. And he knew the fullness had nothing to do with food, but with her sweet lips, her demanding need when her lips touched his, the way she fought him. He loved it all. And maybe, just maybe, he loved her too.