A/N: I have no idea where the hell I am heading with this story, but eh, at least I'm enjoying writing it...
I started looking for Jay the first thing that I did when I got back to the shop. Stacy had probably already headed out much earlier, after catching Kathy and Jay. I found him talking to Amelia, Chino's girlfriend. Chino.. He never liked me, I can tell you that much. Actually, I don't think he really liked anyone of the female gender, except when they were naked and under him.
"No. He won't leave me alone", Amelia said as I watched her closing in on Jay, and I rolled my eyes, christ, had the woman no shame? She knew very well that Jay was a minor, and she was definitely not a minor herself.
"I wouldn't either...", Jay replied shamelessly, "Can I suck on your-"
I went in to interrupt him, and grabbed his wrist as hard as I could to pull him away from Amelia before Chino returned and saw what's going on. I didn't stop until we were in the locker room which was empty once again.
"Are you crazy?!", I nearly screamed and punched him in the arm hard at which he let out a small 'ow', "That's Chino's girlfriend you were nearly pouncing on."
"So?", Jay looked indifferent, which was driving me crazy and I cursed loudly.
"So, he'll kill you if he finds out you're going around saying shit like that to her!"
He shrugged, making me even angrier with him. Fact is, he knew very well he was making me angry, and he was probably only doing it for his own entertainment.
"Oh, and Kathy -- your best friend's girlfriend? Really, Jay?", I continued, and at that, Jay froze.
"He can't handle her", He muttered and took a chug out of his plastic cup.
I glared at him, "And you can?"
"Apparently", He shrugged again, driving me off the edge.
Without any hesitation I slapped him hard across the cheek, and he was startled enough by it to drop his drink. It splashed up on both our legs, leaving wet stains on his jeans, and drops running down my bare legs.
"What the hell!", He yelped out and glared up at me, "You're fucking crazy, Maggie!"
"I am crazy?!", I clenched my fists, "You are crazy, Jay, what is wrong with you?!"
There was a beat of silence. It was one of those moments that feels like it's minutes, maybe even hours long, but in reality it's more like a few seconds.
Our lips crashed together violently, and Jay pushed me towards a locker so hard it hurt. I wasn't even close to the point where I would have actually noticed the pain, not with the adrenaline surging through my body. We started making out angrily, furiously -- every emotion being let out as we ripped at eachother's bodies hungrily.
"This is fucking wrong", Jay backed away from me suddenly, just like he had done months earlier that night when Philaine was working late.
I was breathing heavily, my red lipstick was smeared outside the lines, where I stood leaned against the locker. I was exhilarated because of what had just happened, but at the same time terrified because of what had just happened. I knew that what was about to happen was going to change everything forever, but I didn't care.
"Who fucking cares if it's wrong?", I uttered between heavy breaths before I grabbed his hand and pulled him behind curtain that separated the locker room from the showers that no one really ever used.
Jay looked like he was thinking for a moment, and opened his mouth to say something.
"No. Don't think, Jay, not now", I interrupted him and let my emotions get the best of me as I pushed my lips onto his, and this time he didn't back away.
We kissed violently, ripping off clothing articles one by one, each one with more force than the one before. We tumbled down onto the cold tile floor, I hit my head in the process, but I didn't care about the aching pain on the back of my head that was sure to leave a bruise or two. I was going to be bruised enough from the reckless hook up with Jay anyway.
"Are you sure about this?", He began to talk again by the time he was attempting to get off my jeans shorts that had a total of four buttons on them and it wasn't the easiest task to pop one of them loose either.
"Are you?"
There was a moment of silence, but then he just shook his head and blinked his eyes before going back to what he was doing. I started pulling the shirt over his head without much concern that he was at the same time trying to get off my pants, something that needed his hands. He finally gave up with the buttons after a few seconds, and instead just pulled the shorts down, my underwear coming down along with them.
Jay was just about to unbutton his own jeans when the sound of someone running through the locker room made us both bolt away from eachother, as the realization of what we were doing dawned upon us.
"Fuck, fuck fuck!", Jay cursed out loud and ripped at his hair.
We were now at more than a foot's distance from eachother, and the adrenaline that had been rushing through me had died down completely. I was starting to wrap my mind around what could have happened if someone hadn't sprinted through the locker room, I could have had sex with Jay. Because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where we had been heading.
"Let's just pretend this never happened", I said in a monotone voice, feeling as if I was traveling further and further into my own little world.
I unbuttoned the last buttons Jay hadn't managed to get undone, and pulled the shorts and my panties back up to my hips. He stared at me with an emotion in his eyes I couldn't really figure out while I pulled the leathery top over my head -- I hadn't worn a bra, because the top itself was tight enough for everything to be kept "in place".
"Maggie.. I..", His voice trailed off, as if he wasn't sure what to say, not that I could blame him.
"Let's just pretend this never happened", I repeated in the same monotone voice, and got up from the cold floor and grabbed my hip scarf, while feeling the tears brimming up in my eyes.
My first thought was that I was going to leave, right away preferably. I left Jay sitting in the locker room and headed out into the shop, still holding back the tears, and didn't even realize the absence of people until I got outside. The sight that met me made my body go cold, as I watched Skip on the roof of the Zephyr shop, screaming out obscenities I couldn't translate from his drunken slur to the English language.
I want no part in this, I thought as I let the tears glide down my cheeks, like someone opened the floodgates.
"These Dogtown parties are great!", A guy dressed in a white suit that looked expensive nearly snickered and I watched him blow past me towards an even more expensive car.
I recognized him as Topper Burks, though I had actually never seen him. But when you saw Topper, you just knew it was him. He was hard to miss. I wanted to punch his face, but instead I headed down the street before anyone could notice me, to the sound of Skip throwing another surfboard to the pavement while cursing about how skateboarding was selling out.
The walk was quiet. It always puzzled me how Dogtown could seem so quiet at night, even though it at the same time was one of the loudest places I ever lived in during my whole teenage and adult life. I wasn't sure what the clock was, but it was late, probably the type of late that means "early morning". I knew this because I caught a glimpse of the sun rising as I slipped in through the window into Jay's room like I had seen him do several times, as to not wake up Philaine.
When morning dawned upon Dogtown the next day, you could feel something had changed. Jay was missing, he hadn't come home the night before, Stacy and Kathy had broken up, it wasn't even on topic to talk about Blanca and Tony, and the biggest change of all - the Zephyr shop was closed. No one had even bothered to clean up the trash outside the shop, shattered fiberglass boards, and equally shattered liquor bottles that were spread out in huge circles from where they had hit the ground. Kind of like meteors. Liquor meteors dropped from the roof of the shop.
I didn't want to leave my room at first, but I had to because of school. Frankly, Philaine probably didn't care that much if I ditched school or not - I wasn't her kid after all, but I knew that she'd let my dad know if she found out, and even while he was locked up in a cell hours away, he still managed to scare the living shit out of me when he got upset.
"Last night was a mess", I muttered to Peggy where we had huddled up on a bench between classes, passing a cigarette between us.
"Tell me about it", Peggy groaned and took a drag from the almost burnt up cigarette, "I have scratch marks from Tony's crazy bitch trying to claw my eyes off."
Before that, I had actually never heard Peggy speak badly of Blanca, though this time, I couldn't blame her, "Not gonna lie, I am fairly sure she wasn't out to get ya'."
"He's a moron", She continued and handed me the cigarette, "Blanca's crazy, and that other chick, Gabrielle? Equally crazy. Only difference is she has money."
I nodded, though I wasn't particularly listening anymore.
"Did you hear Jay beat up Chino, by the way?", My eyes perked up at that statement, and I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.
"Why the hell would he do that?"
Peggy snorted, "Beats the hell out of me. Chino's saying he's going to, and I quote, kill that little son of a bitch if he ever sees him by the Cove again."
I closed my eyes. So that was why Jay had gone M.I.A, because Chino wanted to kill him. You couldn't blame me for not warning him though, because I had. Then again, that conversation hadn't ended very well. My stomach flipped anxiously as my mind traveled to the previous night and it's events.
"That explains why Jay didn't come home last night", I mumbled absentmindedly and received the cigarette from Peggy, taking a drag from it before putting it out against the bench and flicking the butt onto the pavement, "Afraid Chino's gonna be there waiting for him with a baseball bat or something."
We both sighed in unison before Peggy huffed exasperatedly and muttered something about her American History lesson starting in five minutes.
I opened my eyes, "I'll see you later. Are you going skating with the guys this afternoon?"
Peggy nodded and I pressured out a smile before I watched her head out of my line of sight and inside the school building once more. I tapped my fingers against the bench as I realized Jay's birthday wasn't that far away, and how things were looking right now, it wasn't going to be a good one.
The sudden idea to call my dad again struck me when I walked past the teacher's lounge. I slipped inside after feeling on the door handle - not much of a surprise it wasn't locked, and pulled up a chair next to the phone on one of the desks placed strangely in the room. It was completely deserted, everyone was probably teaching, but I kept an eye at the door just in case. I figured, if a teacher would catch me in there, I'd just pull a lie out of my ass or something, as an excuse for being in there.
"Maggie?", I had talked to a guard of some sort for a few minutes before finally I recognized my dad's raspy voice over the line.
"Daddy", I breathed out, my teeth clenching as I forced back tears.
I wasn't sure why I all of a sudden felt the urge to cry, maybe it was because of the recently transpired events. Goddamn, it wasn't supposed to happen like it had. Those words had been repeating over and over in my head. Actually, they had for a few months at that point, but all the same, I was coming near a breaking point.
"Are you sure you can't get out early from prison?", My voice trembled slightly as I blurted out the question, which frankly, was a stupid question.
My dad chuckled, obviously assuming I was joking, "Yeah of course, I'll just walk right out the door. How's everything?"
"Same old, same old", I muttered, deciding not to tell him about well.. anything, "I got an A on my essay about The French Revolution."
"Really? That's fantastic, sweetheart!", He sounded genuinely happy for me, which only made it feel more like a stab to the heart when I thought about what I was really doing with my time in Dogtown -- drinking, smoking, and not to mention nearly jumping the bones of my halfbr- Jay.
"Yeah, fantastic."