Sink Or Swim | Chapter Seven, Wake Up

And she spoke nine words,
And now we're sinking,
But I can't find it in myself to want to lie
To keep this thing from going down.
Sex, EDEN

(AN: WARNING: There are some very dodgy, if not explicit, references in this chapter alluding to child molestation (the aftereffects, if not the subject itself, nothing explicit) and some homophobic slurs (not in relation to someone gay, just as a general slur and self-deprecating manner). Usually I don't provide warnings, but I am aware that these are harmful to people and I don't want anyone reading this story to be affected strongly by the content of this chapter in a way I never intended. I only want Jamie induced tears, thank you very much. I also want to emphasise that the homophobic slurs are used self-deprecatingly, while not within a sexuality context it could still hit a sore spot, especially in terms of internalised homophobia, so please keep that in mind.)

There was only darkness, solid for a time but phasing in and out in varying shades of grey and gloom. Before that darkness had come a light, a blinding white light- the whitest thing she'd ever seen, the kind she s'posed would burn your eyeballs outta your head- but there was no relief. It was an overwhelming blur of pain and no pain, instances where she felt crippled but couldn't identify the place where it hurt- Tell me honey, or better yet, show me, where he touched you, where did the bad man touch you? - and then came the aching numbness, and with that she knew she'd done something to her ribs and her shoulders, but that knowledge would fade as the pain flared once again.

Point at the doll, sweetie, point where he touched you, that bad man, that very bad man. In this case the bad man was the pain, and for the life of her- the pain spiked, an all time high, and she wished she could scream but she couldn't move and no sound left her lips- she couldn't point out where it was. She supposed that was suitable, the bad man never paid for what he'd done, the perpetrator went untouched. But just like the child in her muddled mind, the one who'd been abused and used, she was left confused and scared.

The light, that was something important- and God said, "Let there be light." And so there was light- that was all she was capable of holding on to in her dull mind and battered vessel. Internally she wailed, and for just a moment she could feel her ribs, could feel the agony her body had been put through, and then she felt lightheaded and the pain simply became one again, indistinguishable from the next guy.

She wished she was dead, she didn't know it as her shoulder blades burned alive, but it was coherent enough during the period of numbness- oh, how she longed for nothing at all, pure oblivion, where the pain was gone and she went brain dead.

So she lay there, and as numbness swept over her as the tide came in, she knew. She wished she was dead, she wished to God that she was God damned dead. But a small part of her, the intellect she'd lost during the pain game that made a reappearance soon before the encore, rationalised that she was already dead.

Dead as a doornail, Jamie, dead and gone. But that left her too once the numbness left the shore, and all she knew was pain once again.

Let me be dead, oh Lord almighty, let me be dead.

Gone with the light, Jamie faded to black.

The funeral was today. Tyler was currently behind the Church, suited and booted, tugging at the collar of his starch white shirt with his tie undone. God, it was like he couldn't breathe. Suddenly he could hear Jamie's laughter, seeing him in a suit would have made her crack up, if only she was here to see it. For a moment he could see it, as the sun shone in his eyes and his vision blurred. She was standing over him in the too bright light, the sun shining like a halo over her shroud of black curls, her yankee cap stuffed over the mass with the cap peak facing backwards.

Jamie was grinning amusedly down at him, circles under her eyes and skin ever so pale, a nebula of freckles dotted in arrays across her cheeks and nose. Her lips were pulled up, baring just a bit of tooth as a husky laugh escaped her. She was pretty, and she was familiar, and his chest ached. He could feel tears in his eyes, hurriedly wiped away, because Tyler Lockwood was no pussy. That made him laugh, and he could hear her laugh too as his voice came out strained and broke midway through, fading to nothing. She faded to nothing.

"Shit, Jamie." He swore desperately, sliding down the wall, "Why'd you have to go and die on me, huh?" He was choking up, he realised ashamed. With his head hung low, knocking against his knees, arms hanging over them as hands gripped tightly and shook, Tyler Lockwood cried.

He couldn't go in there, not now. Not with tears streaming down his face, looking too pale and seeming to lose more weight by the second. He could see it dropping off of him in heaps, the way he seemed bony and lanky without all that muscle to bulk him up. But how was it possible to eat when she was dead? How in the hell was he supposed to live without her? He didn't know the answers, and he was so scared. Jamie had always scared him a little, she was too real, she knew too much, and she was dead. It didn't get any more real than that, he thought fleetingly.

You know a guy for a long while, your entire life even, and you couldn't just accept that they were dead in an instant. Gone.

Tyler was mean, he was angry and mean and he hated the world. Just like his Dad. Tough, he thought vaguely, his old man was one tough son of a bitch, and he didn't give a hoot about no one but himself. Not his wife, not his kid, absolutely nothing. You get mean like that, and you look out for number one and number one only, and you didn't get hurt. Tyler was all too much like his Father and all too different, but that was going to change. Because when you get mean like that, when you get that tough, you didn't get hurt. And he was so tired, despite the weight loss he felt heavier than ever, and he knew sleep would do nothing for it.

He'd rather have anybody's hate than their pity.

Tyler Lockwood, the boy whose Father smacks him round, with a boozy housewife of a Mother. For all his money, artistic ability and athletic brilliance he couldn't keep a friend for the life of him. It painted a sad picture alright, one that'd make you weep. So he got mad, he took out his anger on the world, and he got mean. Because Tyler Lockwood would rather have anybody's hate than their pity.

He imagined what his Father would say just then, pale face peering up from over his knees like a child, staring into the too bright sun. And his face went stern and his quaking hands pointed ahead determinedly. "You're a piece of shit, Tyler, a no good faggot- stop pussying about and act like a man for Christ sake!" His voice broke halfway through, he choked on his own spit and jumped over syllables.

"Fuck!" He let out, fist slamming against the concrete, the slapping of skin coming into contact with the ground sent his head reeling and he didn't feel any pain, "Fuck, fuck- fu... fuck." He'd lost his gumption by the time the last one came about, weak and disbelieving. Numb. That's when he started to run.

He found himself in the bathroom, locking the door and panting heavily. It was hard to run in a suit, the seams and folds of the fabric were constricting, he couldn't move freely. He was too contained, caged in his own garments and mental state respectively. Like a caged animal, he paced. He leaned over, feeling sick, gripping at the basin of the sink. He struck the mirror. Fumbling, he turned the taps, water washing away blood, tears washed away in shame.

"Tyler?" A voice, too kind and warm, called out.

It was Pastor Young, he realised dismally, but his thoughts weren't all put together yet. He'd lost his calm, he always seemed to lose his calm eventually, no matter how hard he tried not to, it just slipped through his fingers at ease.

Back in first grade Tyler had dabbled in sports, but he had never been a team player. He had Jamie, and that seemed like a whole lot to him, because she had it all. She could kick a ball, jump a hurdle, swing a bat and run for the hills, she was his first and only pick. But Pastor Young saw something in him, something he couldn't name or explain, because no one but Jamie had ever seen any worth in him, not even himself. He was a self conceited little shit, still was if he was being honest, and God did it feel good. Sometimes, though, Tyler didn't feel so hot about his behaviour, about all the shit that he did. Doubt would creep in at the dead of night, when his Father would shout and get a little handsy, when his Mom looked at him through dim eyes, there but not put together. But above all that, the mean and the hate he carried around with him, he'd been a good friend to Jamie, and he repeated that over and over in his head. It was all he had left, and he didn't even have that anymore, the comfort and reassurance it once brought were gone. Buried six feet under.

If Tyler Lockwood had one redeemable quality, it was his friendship with Jamie Gilbert. No matter how badly he acted, how crap he treated others, him and Jamie had always been there for each other. Except for that one time, the incident with Randall Harrison. That had been on him, he knew, because he'd deserved that bloody nose, and that was the truth. Randall Harrison gave him a bloody nose, so Jamie broke his.

Suddenly, Tyler felt sick to his stomach.

Pastor Young had commended their friendship, said it was something worthwhile, something great, he recalled blearily.

"Tyler, son, I saw you come in here. Come on out."

He was the man who showed Tyler the way, the value of teamwork and the qualities of leadership. But it had been Jamie who gave him the nod, Jamie who made people listen, Jamie who made sure that they didn't write him off just yet. It had been Jamie that had given Randall Harrison a broken nose.

Then he could see her, standing at the sink and peering down at him woefully.

"Meet me at dawn at the playing field."

Tyler chucked up his guts in the bathroom of the Church, everything came spilling out until there was nothing left. Just a boy with his head hung over a toilet bowl, mean and angry and full of hate, with not one redeemable quality left to his name. And he cried.

He was back, clearer than ever. She could make out his pale skin, his hooded eyes, dark and strangely content for the time being, and the faintest twitch of his lips. He had wrapped his arms around her body, filled her with warmth and took the pain away.

It was solid, she was coherent enough to realise, and she could feel it. Skin on skin contact, foreign but comforting. Jamie sunk into the embrace, head lulling forward and body heaving, exhaustion racking her slim frame. She wanted nothing more than to stay like this forever, and she was scared it would end.

"It's time to wake up, Da...n..."

Her grip faltered, his touch faded, the volume phased in and out. Blinding white skin, the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel, white noise.

"It's time t… go. Wake up."

But Jamie didn't know how, and more importantly, she didn't know if she wanted to. Here the pain was gone, here her mind was at rest, and she was content to just stay there. With him.

She moved closer, and his arms tightened their hold on her waist, pulling her closer, welcoming the contact. He didn't want her to leave, and she understood, because she felt it too. In her weary mind she pleaded for him to be selfish, to enjoy it while it lasted- prolong it for as long as he could, because she was so tired of the pain. She didn't want to think anymore.

Her head picked itself up, and she could just about make out his eyes when he spoke once more.

"Wake up."

Jamie woke up like she so often did, the heavy feeling of water in her lungs and the burning in her chest that made her heave was there just like always. But her cheek was settled against something cold and wet, her hands were grasping at damp dirt and the sun against her figure was warming and cold all at once. She didn't open her eyes, not yet, instead she kept them clamped shut so as to try and process everything beforehand. It gave her a moment to think, think about what was the question, and all that she could come up with were blanks.

She cracked open an eye at once, and she could already tell that she had been put through the ringer. It was like the pain wasn't there when her eyes were closed only to hit tenfold when they opened for good. The other eye followed, and she was met with water running over rock, her body on the bank of a water front where dampness and coldness were rightfully at home in the soil, she was just visiting, a tourist by right.

The sun, burning bright in the morning sky, was shining down on her broken figure. It was warm, the water was cold, Jamie was shaking and her skin was aching. It was a commodity, and she wasn't entirely equipped to handle it at that very moment in time.

Calculating, hesitant at best, Jamie indulged in the time to prepare herself mentally, not that it'd do much, but moving seemed an impossible feat. She knew she had to though, move that is, somehow, but God was she tired. One by one she tested the mobility of each limb, a painstakingly long routine, one that made her want to scream and cry, and while she was feeling indulgent she didn't have the damn luxury of noise, not without expelling the water from her lungs that may or may not be real this time. She wouldn't let herself give in, not now. It was time to wake up.

Nimble fingers flexed, brushing against the rock bed under soil and dirt that her eyes strayed to look past. Cool, clear water, taunting her, reminding her just how thirsty she was. It washed against her skin, found it's way underneath her clothes and brushing against her like a lovers touch, kissing her neck and folding itself in on her. Her arms were shaking, but she reached out, no inexplicable hope or fancy ideas of the past or the future, this wasn't The Great Gatsby, it was just a broken body trying to pick itself back up again. F. Scott Fitzgerald be damned. It was her right side that ached, the side she had been resting on, and her shoulder screamed, stiff and throbbing.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Jamie rasped, angry and half sorry for herself, with cracked lips and bright eyes. She never understood why she remembered any of it, she had hated Nick and thought Gatsby was a fool. "You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me."

Her fingers closed around a smooth pebble, she let out a breath and let her muscles relax and tense, and she shifted and heaved her weight until she was held up. She pushed herself off her arms, her legs folded in on themselves like a broken doll, and a hollow laugh escaped her, busy and tired. What are the chances, dead or alive, that she'd find herself in water yet drowning in her thoughts and her thoughts alone. Swim, Jamie, swim god dammit! Gone were the thoughts of Gatsby and Fitzgerald, the only thing that existed was the swell of pain and the way the water caressed her battered body and how the sun swept over her jaundiced skin.

One step forward, two steps back. She rose on slender legs, like a fawn taking its first steps in spring. Remember Bambi? Jamie shook all of those thoughts out of her head, fell, pushed herself back up, palms slipping on rocks as her knees trembled and her thighs shook.

On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures. Jamie felt hollow, like a ghost, but she remembered Church all too well. How good are you with theology? Nicene Creed ring any bells? Snorting, clumps of wet hair falling into grey eyes, Jamie lowered herself onto her knees. Her ribs ached, her shoulders burned, and her head was swimming.

It ain't March, and I ain't Jesus, she amended tiredly.

She stood up then, and this time she wouldn't fall, somehow she was sure of it. Third time's the charm, though she reckoned she'd had a lot more than three tries. One foot in front of the other, left, right, left, stumble a little but that's okay. Rome wasn't built in a day.

The funeral was today and they still hadn't found the body.

Jeremy stood at the pews of the Church, at the front reserved for family for the first time but not the last. Somehow he knew that much, somehow he understood it and acknowledged it was the truth. Jamie had once told him that death was not a singular occurrence, it came in numbers and it came about quick, and it took everyone by surprise. He wasn't sure how she knew that, but he knew that she was right, because his eldest sister was always right. Somehow.

In that moment Jeremy knew a lot of things. He was sure of a lot of things for the first time, and it all came about because of uncertain times, and it was fleeting. But he didn't know about Rita, or Enzo or the other townspeople that had dropped like flies during that time. He hadn't kept track like Jamie did, didn't know she had cut out that section of the paper for a couple of months straight, that she had a mound of clippings she kept in her bedside locker because she knew those people. That had been a very strange time in her life, surreal almost, and Jeremy was only beginning to understand. She would have told him about it if she was there, would have told him straight, the whole truth. But she wasn't.

There was no body. The funeral was today and they still hadn't found the body. But Jeremy knew she was dead, because Jamie Gilbert wanted to be dead and she always got what she wanted. She wanted to be dead the night of the crash, had wanted to be dead long before that night. This was all very clear in his mind as the eulogy rang out through the rancid air of the Church.

It was stifling, the standing and the sitting and the staring at coffins. One for Mom, one for Dad, one for Empty space, because Jamie was different, even in death. She couldn't just die normally, could she? Not after living so unimpeded from the rest, having a sempiternal hold of those around her just hadn't been enough. Now she offered them some sort of sick, fallacious hope.

It would never be enough, it wouldn't even come close. Because his sister had been great, so much better and burning so much brighter than anyone could comprehend, and she was dead. He knew she was, knew that the anomalous conditions of which she had perished from was a hopeless situation, a means to the end. There was no hope, because hope was a damning thing.

Standing at the pews, Jeremy saw himself thirty years in the future, with a wife and kids and a white picket fence. He wasn't happy, he didn't really know what happiness was- not to the full extent at least, because he hadn't really had time to live yet, and neither had Jamie- and they'd find her. After all that time they'd find her body at the bottom of the lake, and he'd get the call, and he'd- Someone pinched his arm, and his head snapped up to see his Uncle Billy watching him carefully.

William Gilbert saw the strange look in his eye, and he understood it all too well.

All her life it had felt like a struggle to stay afloat, and she was hell bent on swimming. Jamie Gilbert's life was a wreck. A complete and utter catastrophe from beginning till end - How's that for a eulogy?

She knew she was in Mystic Falls before she even so much as stepped out of the water front. It was a small town, and she'd explored every inch and boundary of it at least once. That's how she knew which direction to head towards, that the Salvatore Boarding house was the closest landmark she had. And she nearly collapsed when she saw the roof over the hilltops of the meadows. Christ, did she really used to bike around these parts as a kid? Was her stamina really not up to snuff? But then again she had just been in an accident, she thought carefully.

The accident.

It hit her like a two-by-four, the sudden realisation that she'd been involved in an accident.

Flashes of muted tones of blue, her Father's elbow slamming against the window, her Mother's head lulling haplessly, Elena- Elena!

Jamie fell to her knees, reduced to all fours as the water finally bum rushed through every available orifice and evaded her senses. The putrid burn in her throat made her heave some more, fingers knotted in grass, eyes watering as a natural response to the burn. Oh, fuck- that was the only thing coherent in this whole ordeal. Oh, fuck, is right, Jamie amended weakly.

She pushed herself back up, ready to acquaint herself with the land of the living once more. Zach would help her, because Zach Salvatore was a good man when it came down to it, and he'd extend his help to anyone. It just so happens that they were friends, and so he better roll out the red carpet because Jamie Gilbert was back, baby.

Ignoring the tinge of blue that clung to her vision, the way in which she ambled on unsteady legs, she promised herself that she'd think it over later. First, get help, there was plenty of time for reflection later.

"One for the money, two for the show." She hummed absently, and a smile nearly reached her lips at that. "Three to get ready, now go, cat, go."

"But don't you chuck up on my blue suede shoes!" She crooned breathlessly before peeling off into incomprehensible laughter. "Aw, shit-" She let out between gasps, "Elvis ain't got nothin' on me!"

So she walked, singing and laughing to the tune 'Blue Suede Shoes' by the King himself, Elvis Presley, and she didn't have a care in the world. The sun was shining, the birds were a-singin'- she was too- and Jamie Gilbert was alive. And what a beautiful thing it was, she thought as she trudged up the porch steps, swiping the newspaper as she reached for the door.

It would have been easy to overlook, the accident had been on the 23rd, today was most likely the 24th, the paper was only a few days old. Maybe Zach was away, hadn't informed the paperboy not to bother coming out, he was a recluse after all, or maybe he just forgot to pick that paper up and only picked up the recent ones. But Jamie was sparse to over look anything, not even something as minute as the date.

May 22nd, 1994.

Fist halfway suspended already, she faltered, and it was only as her knuckles brushed against the wooden panel protruding from the stain glassed window that she realised they were torn upon.

Blurry, blearily, she saw her pale skin against the gloom of blue smash against the window repeatedly, then struggling with the seat belt as the space where Elena once sat went empty.

Jamie swallowed, immediately regretting the decision as the fresh taste of sea water rose.

She was sailing down shit creek without a paddle, alright.

(AN: I never thought I'd use warnings in this story, but it's gotten a bigger audience than I had counted on and I didn't want anyone who is affected by certain topics to suffer on account of my insensitivity. Sometimes harmful topics and controversial words create a better impact, and I wouldn't use it if it didn't have a place in the story. This wasn't shock value or anything of the sort, it was a way in which I portrayed Jamie's physical and mental state and Tyler's spiral. There was nothing explicit, in my opinion, but there were hints, and I am mindful of this especially in relation to internalised homophobia.

*THIS ISN'T A FULL CHAPTER, IT'S PART TWO OF CHAPTER SIX BUT I FIGURED INSTEAD OF DOING PT 1 & 2 OR A & B I'D JUST MAKE IT CHAPTER SEVEN.

The story has progressed, and I am very thankful for everyone's reviews and the following this story has received. I thought the storyline was pretty obvious, it was one of my main worries, but so far it seems like I'm still in control. Hopefully everything is revealed as the story progresses, and that I don't just give everything away- gotta build up that suspense.

In other news I wrote a 12,000 word novella for my EPQ (Extended project qualification) AND I aced my creative writing mock for my english class, so all is going well on this end.