Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the story Bridge to Terabithia I am just a fan of one of the most emotionally powerful books that I have ever read.
A/N: Once again I would like to thank everyone who has read my story, and a special thanks to those who have read and reviewed. You people are too awesome for words.
The Phone Call Chapter 14
Jesse was twelve years old again; he was in Miss Edmunds car and they were driving to Washington. He was suddenly seized with a feeling of dread; something churned in the pit of his stomach as they passed Leslie Burkes' house. The unsettled feeling grew inside him until it overtook his emotions, and when he could no longer contain the anxiety he felt he shouted out "Stop Miss Edmunds! STOP!"
"What's the matter Jesse?" Miss Edmunds asked startled by Jesse's outburst.
"I need to go back!" Jesse voiced urgently.
"Did you forget something Jesse?" Miss Edmunds asked him softly.
"No…I don't know…I mean yes." Jesse said, trembling with a fear that he couldn't explain. The fear continued to grow inside him, consuming him. Miss Edmunds turned the car around and drove back the few miles they had traveled from Jesse's house.
As they came up the road nearing the Burkes' house Jesse said, "you can let me out here Miss Edmunds." Then turning to face her he saw, instead of Miss Edmunds, a figure in a black hooded robe sitting next to him in the driver's seat. The figure turned to face Jesse and laughed out a frightening maniacal laugh. Jesse was riveted to his seat. He tried to scream but there was no sound only his gasping intake of air as he beheld this horror. Then the thing slowly removed its hood and the wearer of the robe was revealed. It was Leslie, Jesse's jaw dropped and his eyes went wide with a ghastly bewilderment. Leslie smiled at him and said, "I love you Jesse Aarons."
As Jesse stared at her, his eyes still wide with alarmed wonder, Leslie's smiling countenance faded. Feature by feature bit by bit it slowly transformed, twisting grotesquely until it was Darcy he was looking at. Her face had a pallor that shocked and repulsed Jesse; she looked dead and empty to him. Her eyes were like red-hot coals that seemed to burn into his soul as she snarled and hissed at him in a deep throaty voice. A voice that did not belong to her, an unnatural voice, a voice that he had just recently heard before, "you're a freak Jesssse…" it hissed, "Your soul will soon be mine Jesssee… " Then to Jesse further horror he watched as the flesh melted away from its face leaving nothing but an empty skull. He felt sick with terror deep inside his soul. Staring at the thing unable to look away he saw its jaw move as it said, "Remember Jesssee…You only have until midnight tonight to save yourself and your precious friend… Jesssslieee…" Then the thing laughed it's dreadful bloodcurdling laugh.
"ARRGH!" Jesse screamed as he opened the door and leapt from the car. He heard the laughter fade behind him as he fell into an empty blackness.
Then in an instant the black void was gone and he found himself running down the trail that led to the rope swing. The terror continued to grow in his heart, getting bigger and more frightful by the moment. His feet pounded the muddy ground as he ran along splashing through the rain filled runnels that littered the forest trail. Dark ugly trees and shrubs lined the path he was running down casting grotesque gnarled and sinister looking silhouettes against a cold gray sky. Icy drizzle stabbed at his face and eyes as he ran on though the mean heartless forest. Breathless and gasping for air he came to the top of a ridge and looking down he saw Leslie Burke swing out on the enchanted rope. Her head was flung back and she had a wide smile on her face. He watched helplessly as the rope snapped and Leslie's smiling face took on a look of terror as she plunged to her death. She was falling through empty space, tumbling and twisting in the air. Jesse was paralyzed, unable to move, unable to respond to Leslie's frightful screams. Then suddenly the next moment he was in his parent's house, standing in his parent's living room, his father was saying, "she hit her head Jess, she was unconscious and she drowned…Your girlfriend's dead Jesse"
"NOOO!" Jesse screamed and sat bolt upright; his eyes went wide with the horror that gripped him. He was in his bedroom, in his own bed, dripping wet in his own sweat gasping and panting out his terror. His heart was pounding in his chest, his head ached, and he was feeling sick inside. His room was swirling and spinning before his eyes, and he was scared to death.
There was a knock at the door that made him jump and gasp. A voice from the other side asked softly, "Jess are you alright?" It was May Belle. "Jesse are you ok?" She asked again a little louder this time.
Jesse gulped down his fear and said, "ah… yeah… I'm ok."
"May I come in Jess?… There's someone on the phone for you." She said.
He pulled the blankets up around himself still trembling with fear and said hesitantly, "yeah… you can come in."
May Belle, gently opening the door, asked again, "are you sure you're ok Jess?"
"Yeah…I'm ok", he said, "I…I just had a bad dream is all."
"Oh good," she said with a sigh of relief, "it was just a bad dream... I heard you scream, and it was kinda scary," she paused a moment, a look of concern on her face, then asked again, "so you're sure you're ok?"
"Yeah I'm sure May Belle," he said forcing a smile for his sister, " I'm ok… really." May Belle smiled back at him and said, "there's some guy on the phone asking for you."
"Who is it?" he asked, the terror rising in him again, gripping him tighter. He tried not to let it show, concealing from his sister the fear that he was feeling.
"I don't know," she quipped with a shrug, " just some guy. Probably one of your goofy friends," she said with a playful smirk, then handed the phone to Jesse.
"Hel…Hello," he said cautiously. Those dreams he just woke from really bothered him; it scared the hell out him in fact.
"Hey Jess, sorry to call so early, I thought you'd be up getting ready for class… So how you been? How's it going?"
"Huh?…Who is this?" Jess asked still shaking from the dreams he just woke from, and not knowing what to expect.
"Ahh…um, Jess… it's me Scott, Scott Hoager, remember me, I just talked to you a couple of days ago remember, or did you knock me out of your memory to make room for all that stuff you've been studying." Jess heard Scott laugh on the other end, so he began to relax a little and calm down.
"I… I'm sorry Scott, I just woke up and I…ah…" He was almost going to tell him about the dreams he just woke from. Tell him about the strange voice on the phone that has him so scared. Tell him about Miss Edmunds and the dark figure and about Leslie falling to her death. Maybe he should he thought, get it off his chest. Maybe he should tell him about Darcy too, and what happened last night. No, he better not, not yet anyway, it's all too weird. He'd have to think about it a little more before he told anyone.
"Hey sorry I woke you Jess."
"That's ok Scott I had to get up anyway to go to class, so what's up?"
"Guess who I ran into yesterday?" Scott asked cheerfully.
"I don't know…who?
"Guess."
"I don't know…ah…um…Willard Hughs."
"Willard Hughs!? What would make you say that? Why would I call you special to tell you I ran in to Willard Hughs…?"
"I don't know?" Jess said, "Last I heard he was in Philadelphia."
"Well it wasn't Willard Hughs. Guess again. This time think female."
"I don't know Scott… it's too early for this." Jess said, feeling a little better now and chuckling at Scott's game.
"Come on Jess, guess."
"Ok… was it… um…Janice Avery?"
"You're not even trying you goofball…. Now guess again: Think girlfriend."
Jesse felt his heart skip a beat, he was breathless.
"Leslie" he said softly feeling like a bullet was tearing through his chest. He was trembling, he had believed he was going crazy and now he wondered if he were hallucinating. Last night with Darcy, then those weird dreams, and now this. This is all too weird he thought, what's going on, what's happening to me.
"Jess? You still there…oh Jess?"
"Yeah… I'm here," he said, he wanted to ask him how she was but a part of him didn't want to know. He had pushed the memory of her away so many times and for so long now that he was afraid to ask. The thought of it terrified him. I need help he thought to himself; I'm going crazy.
"Jess, are you ok?"
"Yeah, just tired I guess," he said.
"Don't you want to know how she is Jess?" Jesse cringed; he was trapped, trapped and scared. He was afraid of what he was about to hear. He doubted Leslie would even remember who he was other then some dumb kid she use to know.
"Yeah, sure… ah… of course," he said apprehensively.
"Well first off, she's looking good Jess, I mean knock out. I thought she was pretty before, but now. Wow!…" Jess could feel his heart ache for her. Hearing Scott talk about her brought up all those old feelings he thought were long gone. The feelings he had tried to bury.
" Anyway," Scott continued, " I was off campus with Fulcher and a couple friends and we stopped in our favorite coffee shop. And who should be standing in line in front of me but Leslie Burke…"
"It couldn't have been Leslie," Jess said interrupting, "She hates coffee." Jesse laughed softly hoping the joke would relieve the tension he was feeling.
"She was ordering a tea dumbass," Scott said, "now stop interrupting and listen…Ok….Anyway, there she was. Fulcher and the other guys had to go back to classes so Leslie and I sat and talked for like… twenty minutes. She misses you man. She asked how you were. Then she asked if you were in college, and if you were still living in Lark Creek, and if you still go running, and if you're still drawing, and on and on; question after question. My voice was hoarse by the time I finished answering all her questions for cryin' out loud. Then she asked if you had a girlfriend…You should have seen her face light up when I told her you didn't. She smiled one of those thousand watt Burke specials, you know what I mean?" Scott paused for a moment, and Jesse asked, "What is she doing in Philadelphia?" He wasn't sure if he really wanted to know. Then continuing he asked, "is she staying with her grandparents?"
"Well…yeah, she said she had stayed with her grandparents for a while but they moved away from Philly. So she shares an apartment with a couple of friends now while she looks for a job"
"She's looking for a job?" Jess asked a bit startled by the news, he thought she would still be in school.
"Yeah she's looking for a job," Scott continued, " she got her masters degree and now she's looking for a teaching job, can you believe that, leave it to Burke to go to college for three and a half years and come out with a masters degree." Scott said chuckling.
"She'll make a good teacher," Jesse mused.
"Yeah she will," Scott agreed, then he added, "Oh yeah…She asked if I thought they were looking for teachers in Lark Creek, we had a good laugh over that." Scott paused a moment, then said, "You know, now that I think about it, I think she might have been serious."
"You think she wants to come back to Lark Creek?" Jess asked hopefully.
"Maybe, I don't know…maybe…. What do you think Jess?" Scott meant it as a rhetorical question.
"Probably not," Jess deadpanned, "why would she want to come back here, there's nothing for her here."
"There is one thing I can think of…Duh," Scott snickered. There was a quiet pause on the line then Scott went on to say, " I tried to get her phone number for you. But she just got real quiet and said that you and her had decided to go your own ways and that hearing your voice would be too painful. I told her how stupid that sounded and she got all mad at me. Well, anyway, I apologized to her and she was cool about it… Oh, and then she gave me a hug and told me to give it to you. I asked her if I could just shake your hand instead...she laughed. Then she got real quiet again and said on second thought not to tell you that I ever saw her, but I told her I couldn't do that to you."
"Maybe you should have kept it to yourself Scott." Jess said, "you know, I had almost forgotten about her."
"Don't go all stupid on me Jess. You know you didn't…you know you still love her." Scott paused a moment, took a deep breath, sighed and said, "Ya know, for two of the smartest people I know you two are just plain dumb you know that Jess, dumb. I should have pounded you back in the sixth grade when I had the chance, cause I sure in hell feel like beating some sense into now…" Scott paused again, then in a stern serious voice said, "Ok… Listen up Jess…When I hang up the phone you better go after her, you find her… somehow, someway you find her, got it…. You two belong together…Ok Jesslie." Scott laughed after that last part, then said, "Well I'll let you go now Jess, but don't forget, you go find her or I'll disown you as a friend." Scott laughed again, then said "Bye Jess, I'll be seeing ya."
"Yeah, goodbye Scott, and thanks," Jess said as he hung up the phone. He was hurting inside. He wanted to find her, he wanted to follow Scott's advice but thinking that Leslie wasn't interested in reuniting with him caused him to push her to the side once more. Besides, he thought, it's been so long since he had seen her the idea of seeing her again scared him. Leslie had been right, that old pain resurfaced and he felt his heart break all over again.