Author's Note: I would have thought that with summer I would update this a lot more. As it is, I seem to be busier now than I was during school. I apologize for the wait!
Chapter 7
It's two o' clock by my cell phone clock when I wake up again. Sam's phone is buzzing on the side table beside him, and he's still fast asleep, face buried deep into his pillow. Groaning, I roll over and shake his shoulder. "Sam," I mutter, still blinking sleepiness from my eyes. "Sam, your—" Then I stop shaking him.
I know this is bad of me. I know that I deserve Bad Girlfriend of the Year award, but I can't stop myself as I reach over Sam's body and grab the buzzing phone. I can't help it as I stuff my feet into my Uggs. I have no control over my body when I grab Sam's jacket and slip outside the balcony doors. And I can't stop the disappointment that wells in my chest when I look down at his cell phone and realize that it's stopped ringing.
A few moments later, I jump in surprise as the cell comes to life in my hands. I fiddle with the phone and look at the screen: Dean. Suddenly nervous, I stamp the talk button and slowly put the device to my ear. Before I can even stammer out my greeting, a voice fills my ear.
"Sammy, this is stupid!" a deep, gravelly voice that I assume to be Dean's shouts through the receiver. "Dad is still in the hospital, and I need your help! Would you stop being so damn stubborn and come help me, man?"
I gasp out loud and pull the phone away from my face, staring at the dull light of the screen in horror. And then I realize my mistake. Dean seems to notice right away that Sam is not the person on the other line. Even though the phone is an arm's length away, I can hear the worry and the anger in his voice clearly from where I'm standing.
"Who is this?" Dean demands. "And what have you done with my brother?"
"I-I…" I stumble over my words. Clearing my throat, I say in a high-pitched voice quiet unlike my own, "This… I haven't done anything with Sam." I'm such a bumbling mess that I can hardly remember my own name.
"You better hope you didn't," Dean growls. "Because if you hurt him, I swear to God—"
"This is Jessica!" I blurt before I can stop myself. We sit in silence for a moment.
"Jessica?" Dean asks, his voice a mixture of shock and confusion. "Sam's girlfriend?"
"Yeah," I say breathlessly. "Yeah, I… He wasn't waking up, and his phone was ringing…"
"Oh, well, sorry," Dean says brusquely. "Didn't mean to disturb you. Tell him I called, would you?"
"Wait!" I exclaim. There is a silence, but I can still hear Dean's breath on the other line. "What do you mean your dad's in the hospital?"
"No offense, sweetheart, but it's kind of personal," he tells me.
"I'm Sam's girlfriend," I remind Dean.
"Yeah, well, if he hasn't told you already, I'm not telling you anything either," Dean says.
"But… is he okay? Your dad, I mean?" I ask, biting my lip. I'm genuinely concerned. I am. I may not like John Winchester on principle of everything that Sam's told me about him, but that doesn't mean that I want him in a hospital.
"…Tell Sam I called, all right?" And he hangs up.
Biting my lip, I turn off Sam's phone and wait, arms crossed over my chest, knees shaking, in the bitter cold. I look out into the mountains, and for what seems to be the first time in my life, I don't see anything when I look out. This is what I guessed. I'm supposed to be ready for this.
I hate being right.
LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES
With every snap, crack, and stumble, I wince even more. I have stepped on a million and twelve rocks and twigs and slipped almost onto my ass more times than I can count, and I'm getting sick of it. I hate hiking. I always have. I can ski if you want me to, and I can snowboard. I can do a lot of active, sporty things (not that I really care to), but hiking up a steep hill made of rock with no railings to stop me if I trip over my shoelaces? Not my thing.
"Jess, you look like you're about to wet yourself," Sam says with a laugh, coming up behind me with fingers hitched into the straps of his backpack. I know that Tommy loaded it with a bunch of completely unnecessary crap before we left, just to be annoying, but since Sam once bench-pressed my body weight, he hasn't noticed a single thing. Which seems to be pissing Tommy off. He wanted to make fun of Sam when he started complaining about the weight of his bag.
"Not a heights person, I guess," I say, scooting towards him and away from the side of the mountain.
We're hiking. I'll say it again: I hate hiking. Even growing up in the mountains, I hate hiking. It's high in the air and dangerous, and I tend to be klutzy when I'm nervous. And I'm nervous. But I think that has more to do with the fact that it's me, Melissa, Tommy, and Sam up on top of a very high mountain with no one else around. If Tommy wants to dump Sam off the edge, no one else is going to be here to witness it.
Sam hooks an arm around my shoulder and pulls me around him, to the side away from the edge. He squeezes me close. "You're not going to fall."
"Easy for you to say," I say. So far, Sam has been the best hiker out of all of us. "Were you in a hiking league when you were a kid or something?" I ask bitterly, side-stepping an icy rock.
"Is that even a real thing?" Sam asks.
"You're a smartass," I say, laughing.
"Though Jessica makes a valid point, Sammy," Tommy says, coming up from behind us. I feel Sam's hand clench at the sound of his voice. I look up at him, but he's looking at a point in the distance, eyes hard and mouth set in a solid line. "You're quite the hiker. Have you done it before?"
"Yeah, I have," Sam says. "In the Appalachians and the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada range, I think. I was younger, but it's not really something you can forget how to do. It's just walking."
"Well, you seem to be the fittest one out here," Tommy says, catching up and standing on Sam's opposite side.
"Yeah, well, I had a lot of training when I was younger," Sam says, refusing to look Tommy in the eye. He's pissed off. I can tell.
"Training for what?" Tommy asks. This time, instead of sounding like a pesky older brother, he just sounds curious.
"My dad was in the army," Sam says, letting go of my shoulder and stuffing his hands in his pockets. "A corporal. He wanted my brother and me to know how to protect ourselves."
"You have a brother?" Melissa asks, speaking for the first time in a long time. She's so quiet. Sometimes I wonder how she found a guy like Tommy to marry. Or really, how Tommy found a woman like Melissa to marry.
"Yeah, an older brother," Sam says.
"What's his name?" Melissa asks.
"Dean. He's four years older than me."
"Did he go to Stanford also?"
"No, he didn't go to college," Sam says stoically, head back in the conversation. "My dad didn't really want us going."
"So why'd you go?" Tommy asks. Really, even after the talk Tommy and I had the other night, he's still prying. I wish something, anything would get through my brother's thick skull.
"I wanted to," Sam answers with a shrug. He's not trying to be rude. It's just that that was why he came to Stanford: he wanted to.
"You'll make a pretty good lawyer then, won't you?" Melissa asks with a laugh. "Being able to strong arm an army man into what you want? My grandpa was sergeant, and it was near impossible to crack him."
Sam just laughs and says nothing.
"Why so modest, Sammy?" Tommy asks. Sam's hands clench again. "Don't you think you'll be a good lawyer?"
"I guess. It's not really for me to say though," Sam answers.
"Oh, come on. Everyone deserves some gloating room," Tommy says, giving Sam a mock punch on the arm as we turn up a wooded path.
"What about you, Tom?" Sam asks, quickly changing the subject. "D'you like the medical business?"
"Sure," Tommy says, always ready to talk about himself. "It's hard work, but someone has to do it."
"So you think you're a great surgeon?" Sam asks.
"You'd probably have to ask my patients that." A few seconds later, Tommy has a shocked look on his face while Sam just smiles slightly. I grin like an idiot. I love it when people show my brother up. No one deserves humiliation more than he does.
We walk in a peaceful silence for a while, snow and dry leaves and tiny twigs crunch and snap underfoot. We hear the wind whistling through the barren trees, the rustle of pine tree branches as the air whips at them, the sounds of nature uninterrupted.
"So what's up?" Tommy disrupts the beauty. "What're you doing with my sister?"
"Tommy!" Melissa and I exclaim in unison, my voice angry, hers shocked.
"What?" Sam asks, eyebrows knit in an angry confusion.
"Well, I'm just saying, she's a good looking girl with loaded parents. Is that what you're after?" Tommy snaps.
"Tommy, stop it!" I shout at him. Sam looks appalled and livid. "Leave him alone!" I'm humiliated. I know that Tommy has reason to worry about me. My track record with men in high school was terrible. That doesn't mean that he has a right to attack Sam like this. I put a hand on Sam's arm, trying to see if he will calm down enough to look at me. He doesn't. "Sam…" I start, trying to get his attention as he glares at my brother.
"No, Jess, let Sammy answer this one," Tommy asks, squaring himself up to my monstrous boyfriend. Tommy has guts, I have to give him that. Not that my brother is a small man, but most men compared to Sam are pretty small. Not to mention that I don't think Tommy has worked out a day in his life, and I'm sure that Sam could knock all my brother's teeth out in one punch if he really wanted to. Part of me should be proud of my older brother for standing up for me despite the fact that he could get creamed, but it's too little too late at this point. He should have done this in high school, not when I finally found the right guy.
"First of all," Sam says, stepping out of my grip and sizing down my brother, standing right in front of him so close that I can see the clouds of their breath smacking each other in the face. "Don't call me Sammy."
"What's the matter, Sammy? Don't like your nickname?" Tommy sneers.
"Tommy!" What has gotten into my brother? He's never this cruel to anyone, no matter how much he hates them.
"You know, Tommy, I'm willing to put up with a lot for Jessica, I really am," Sam says heatedly. "But I've had it. What do you want from me? What can I do to show you that I'm not the bad guy here?"
"Sam, you don't have to do anything," Melissa says quietly from beside me, watching hopelessly as her hotheaded husband and my pissed off boyfriend square off and get ready to beat each other senseless. I think she knows that Sam will win too. "Tom is being irrational—"
"No, Melissa, I'm not being irrational!" Tommy snaps. "Jess comes out of a bad relationship, and all of a sudden this Prince Charming shows up? And what? He expects nothing out of that? You're full of shit, man! You haven't told us one honest thing since you got here, have you?"
"What are you talking about?" Sam asks, exasperated. "I haven't lied to you—"
"Bullshit! Bullshit, Sam!" Tommy yells. "I'm not an idiot. When I asked you about those scars on your arms, you told me they were from some kids, but I've seen a lot of acts of random violence in the ER, and I know for a fact that none of them end up looking like whatever the hell you have."
"Tommy, nose out of Sam's business!" I say, a bit woozy. I step in between the boys and place a hand on each of their chests, shoving them apart. Sam lied about that? There's no way. That's the story that he told me two years ago. He wouldn't have lied for that long. "Back off. I mean it. Back off," I snap at both the men. They don't take their eyes off each other, but Sam takes a step back. Tommy doesn't move. "What the hell is your problem?" I bark.
"My problem is that this guy has already lied to me once," Tommy shouts, stabbing a finger at Sam. "What else has he lied about?"
"Nothing! Okay? I haven't lied about anything!" Sam yells.
"I'm telling you: there is no way that the scars would come out that badly," Tommy tells me rationally, lowering his voice and looking right into my eyes. He's begging me to see his logic. I can tell, just by one glance into his baby blues that he has good intentions. He just wants to make sure I'm making the right decision. "They'd be clean. And if a doctor checked them out, there would hardly be a scar left, not unless those kids took a chunk out of his arm. And if they did that, he probably would be dead right now from the amount of blood loss. Medically, his story doesn't fit."
Reluctantly, I look back to my boyfriend. "Sam… is that true?" I ask him quietly, ashamed. I know that I should have more trust in my boyfriend, but Tommy is being logical, medical. He has facts. I'm going off blind faith with Sam, and that's not fair to me. If he's been lying this whole time, Tommy's right: what else has he been lying about?
Sam bites his lip and looks me right in the eye. He can tell he's been backed into a corner. "Fine," he snaps. "You want to know what really happened?" I bite my lip and nod my head, though now I'm really not sure I want to know. From the tone of Sam's voice, I can tell it's nothing good. But do I want to know just how bad? God, why couldn't I just stay ignorant? Tommy puts an arm around my shoulder and glares hard at Sam. I shrug away and wait. "I was seventeen, and I told my dad I got a full ride into Stanford, that I was going to school the next fall." Sam pauses and blinks a bit. I can see the pain on his face, and all I want to do is tell him to stop, that I don't want to know. But I've created this monster, and I have to deal with the damage he creates. Sam's voice is thin when he speaks up again. "And he took me by my shoulders and chucked me through the screen glass door."
Tommy and I stand beside each other in shocked silence. We had not been expecting something like that. I open my mouth to say something, to apologize for making him bring it up again, but Tommy speaks first.
"So… what? He let you bleed to death on the front porch?" he asks. I want nothing more than to punch my brother's lights out, but I'm paralyzed, rooted to the ground and staring open-mouthed at my boyfriend. After three years, I find out that my speculations were right, that John Winchester had been more than a depressed drunk. He had been abusive also. And knowing that, knowing that I was right, has never brought me more horror before.
"My brother didn't want to take me to the hospital because my dad would probably go into custody with the CPS, so he stitched me up all he could on the living room floor with a sewing needle and half a bottle of whiskey." He glares at me so icily that I shiver. "That what you wanted?"
"Why'd you lie in the first place?" Tommy asks after a brief moment of silence.
Sam laughs that same bitter laugh I heard him use on the phone the other night. "Would you want to tell anyone that, Tom?" he snaps.
"I wouldn't want to lie to people," Tommy says defiantly.
"Well, why don't I toss you through your front door and see who you'd want to go talk to?" Sam offers menacingly, stepping closer.
"Hey, hey, hey, calm down," I say, speaking finally as I reach up to still my boyfriend and brother who try to step up to each other again.
"You know what, Jess, you calm down!" Sam snaps, making me step back in disbelief. He never gets this mad at me. "I'm sick of this!"
"You were caught lying, and that's why you're sick of it," Tommy says smugly.
"No, it's because I know that whatever I do won't be good enough for you," Sam says. "And notice I'm not prying into your personal life. Or Jess's. Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"Because I'm not going to let you take advantage of my sister!"
"Who says I'm taking advantage of her?" Sam yells. "Seriously, if I just wanted to sleep with her and run, wouldn't I have run a long time ago? It's been three years, and we haven't had a single problem until I came here and met you."
He turns on his heel and starts to stride away. I glare at Tommy and start to walk towards my boyfriend.
"There's still a hole in your story, Sam," Tommy says to Sam.
Sam stops and turns on his heel to look my brother in the face. Sam says nothing.
"When all this was going on, where was your mom? Why wasn't she doing anything about it?"
I'm too mad to even open my mouth. If there's one thing that Sam doesn't ever want to talk about, it's his mother. The only things I know about her are her name and that she died in a house fire. He told me once, and I've never forgotten. I don't think I ever will.
Sam doesn't turn around. He goes rigid, and for a moment, I think he's going to wheel around and beat the crap out of my brother. Instead, he storms away without a word, knocking a low branch out of his vision and leaving a trail of muddy boot prints in the snow. I wheel around and glare hard at Tommy. "Thanks, Tommy," I snap.
"Jessica—"
But I'm already off after Sam who has covered a considerable amount of ground with his long legs. I'm ducking around tree limbs and sliding all over the place, calling out his name. He doesn't hear me and plows on. "Sam, wait!" I yell, grabbing onto a stone ledge before I topple onto my ass. "Just wait a second, all right?"
He spins around, fire in his eyes and voice. "Why? So your brother can interrogate me again?"
"No," I say quietly, casting a guilty look at the ground. "He's not here. It's just me." Sam huffs in annoyance, turning his head away and squinting off into the distance, just so he doesn't have to look me in the eyes. I take timid steps forward. "Can we talk about it for a second?"
"I just did more talking than I ever wanted to do, thanks," he spits bitterly.
"I'm sorry, Sam," I apologize. "I really am. I had no idea that he would do that."
"So why didn't you back me up, Jessica? Why didn't you just tell him to stop?" Sam snaps.
Always defensive as I am, I feel like he's being a bit unfair. Sure, I pushed him to tell me something he didn't want to tell me; but if he had told the truth originally, I wouldn't have had to push him. "Why did you lie to me in the first place?" I snap back.
"Because I didn't want to talk about it!" Sam shouts. "I was thrown through a glass door by my own father! That's not something I go around boasting about." He glares hard at me. "That's something you don't understand."
My eyes narrow. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
"What do you think?" We sit in silence for a moment. "Jess, you have an amazing family. You have parents who love and support you and siblings who care about you. I didn't have that. I wasn't encouraged when I was younger. I wasn't hugged or pat on the back. I got a full ride to Stanford, Jess. Stanford. And instead of congratulating me, my dad threw me out a glass door. Why would I want to tell you that?"
"Because I'm your girlfriend!" I exclaim. "It's not like I'd judge you for what your dad did."
"No, but you'd judge my dad, wouldn't you?" Sam asks. "I know how much you hate him. I know what you say about him if our friends ask, and I'm not around."
"Your dad was an asshole, Sam! You said so yourself. What do you want me to say about him?" I snap.
"It's not your place to judge him, Jess!" he retaliates. "He's my dad! I was the one who had to deal with him. I don't want you going around and bad mouthing him. If I wanted people to know, I would've told them, all right?"
"You could've at least told me," I murmur at the ground. My cheeks are hot despite the bitterly cold wind. He's right, in a way. I don't understand why he's upset about me disliking his dad, and I'll probably never know why, but it is his business. I know I should probably leave it be like that, but I can't. I can't just let him bottle it all up inside him like he is. Obviously it makes him pretty volatile.
"So you could go tell your family about it or something?"
"So I could help you," I say, hurt. I may have not defended him back with my brother, but that doesn't mean that I don't care about him anymore. I know that he's upset, but I wish he would stop treating me like this. "So we could talk about it, and you wouldn't have to be like this all the time."
"Like what?" Sam barks.
"Angry. Closed off. Scared," I say. There is no response. "Maybe you could tell me why you wake up yelling for people and why you spend nights without sleep. Let me help you, Sam. Let me in. I want to know. I want to. Please."
He turns away and starts down the mountain trail, cutting it dangerously close to the edge. A rock at his foot breaks off and skitters down the steep hillside. I bite my lip nervously. If Sam were to fall off the side, he'd break his neck. "Sam, please!" I beg, chasing after him. "You don't even know where you're go—"
For an instant, I feel steady, and the next, the ground crumbles below my feet, and I slip backwards. "Sam!" I screech, waving my arms out wildly and trying to grab hold of something nearby. I fail and start to tumble off the side. Screaming, my hands desperately scratch at the rock wall, feeling for a foothold or a ledge that I can grasp. I'm falling, and I have a strange feeling that Sam's name might be the last thing that ever came out of my mouth.