Chapter 29
Glory and Gore
Robbie's POV
Being in Jade's house and watching Tori sit in the living room, rocking back and forth sobbing, is the most surreal thing I have ever seen. However, I would not ask to be in any other place at this time. I walk into the kitchen off the living room to find Jade with three water bottles that she had gone in to get fifteen minutes ago. I take the water from her and sit her down at the island so she can still see Tori.
"Jade dear, we will work through this," I tell her and I receive only a nod from her. I feel that I'm losing both of them. I need help, this is more than I can handle. I walk back into the living room and get my phone. I put my hand on Tori's shoulder while she kept rocking. She looked at me with red rimmed eyes, but said nothing. I walked back toward the kitchen, and dialed up Lane.
"Hey Lane. It's Robbie. You have to come over to Jade's right now." I listen quietly as he tells me that he is with someone else. That is when I hit my boiling point. "I don't care who you're with. Just get your ass over here," I snarled. He tells me I should call their therapist, since she would be better suited to help out in this matter. "I could also call the fucking Dali Lama, but I'm calling you. Now get over here!" He told me that he would be here in thirty minutes. "Yeah, I needed you sixty minutes ago; this isn't going to get better on its own." I hung up without saying good-bye. Turning around, I see Jade looking at me a small smirk and her studded eye brow lifted. She made a 'come here' gesture.
I walked back to the kitchen. "Rob, you have really grown in just a short few hours. I never thought I would see the day. Thank you for being there for Tori. I'm glad it was you that was there to catch her when she fell. When I…couldn't." She took my hand. I felt the slight tremor that let me know how close she was to actually losing control herself.
"Jade, remember, I was there when you first…fell." I leaned over, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. It was a leftover gesture from when, four years ago, I had been a scared kid trying to talk down the terrifying Goth chick that had tormented me every day in science class. I had found her in a tear soaked mess behind the middle school tool shed. She had a jump rope from the gym, and was fashioning a noose. She was sitting up on the retaining wall under a tree branch, and I knew she was about to kill herself. I'd not even thought when I saw her drop the noose around her neck. I'd raced over to her and started talking. We'd talked for what seemed like hours. Her father, her brother, the sense of being different and didn't know how or why. I talked and talked, and finally, I was able to get her to realize that she was going to make a big mistake. Just as she was taking the home made noose off, her foot slipped on the wall and she tumbled. I don't know how I did or even what I did. Later, Jade told me I had taken three running steps and kicked off the wall, grabbed the branch she was hanging from and booted hard against the base. The limb snapped off, and dropped both of us to the ground. I smashed my arm against the wall as we fell, and it broke half way between my wrist and elbow. But Jade was fine. As soon as she hit the ground, she was able to yank the rope away from her throat. We made quite a sight, walking back to the main school building, me with a clearly broken arm, her with a red welt around her neck and her arm supporting me. But we had been friends ever since. We waited together for Lane to arrive at Jade's.
Jade's POV
It was about eleven in the morning, and Tori was still rocking in the living room. I looked at Robbie from time to time, and I saw that he had become very tired as he sat with her. I was still working my way back into the living room, but I could not stay in there for long without wanting to cry myself. Maybe this was not a good place for me to be. But how could I leave Tori when she needed me? I was about to get yet another water bottle when the doorbell rang; I turned to answer it, hoping it was Lane. I opened the door to find a very worried Lane standing behind it. "Hey, I'm glad you finally made it," I grated. "I'm no expert, but I think she may be getting worse and Robbie is doing everything he can to get through to her." Lane gave me a piercing look.
"Why is Robbie the only one helping her? Aren't you her girlfriend?" he asked. His concerned look belies his sharp tone. I'm taken aback for a moment before I can answer.
"I don't know how. I can't do this, Lane! Look at her, she's a total mess," I tell him, not really knowing what is coming out of my mouth. Listening to myself, I hate what I'm saying.
"Yes, Jade, she is a total mess and she is having a break down. She needs help from all of us." He starts to walk away, then turns back. "You know Jade, Tori needs you to be her understanding girlfriend…not a total bitch. You could run away from this, but isn't that what your family been doing to you all your life?"
Now who's being the bitch? He had no right to say that to me. I so want to kick his ass right now. I'll show him that I'm no pussy. He can come in here and taunt me about running away, but there's no way someone else is going to take care of my girlfriend. I walk into the living room, mad as hell at him. "Alright, where do we start?"
Lane's POV
I wish that the other teachers at school could see just how easy it was to get to Jade. You can make that little girl work, all you had to do is challenge her, tell her she can't. No one ever saw that until Tori. I think Sikowitz knows. He just has fun making her feel that she has the upper hand before he pulls the carpet from under her feet.
I just had to get Jade mad at me so she forgot her fears and faced them head on. She is so scared the she is going to lose Tori that she can't see she is the only one that can really help her. Jade was the last person Tori saw before she passed out in that car and the only person that hasn't been treating her like she's broken. Jade is the only person that Tori wants and needs in her corner right now. But Jade is too afraid of her own past to help the girl she loves. Well, they called me here to help them and I'm pulling out all stops. If that means I have to call Jade a few names to get her back to her girlfriend's side, then so be it. I'm not in school right now and I'm sure as hell not scared of Jade West.
"Nice to see you decided to join us. You think you could sit close to Tori and talk calmly to her?" I want her to know that I'm still on her side here. I'm just not going to take any shit. Tori is in a really dangerous place right now, and if she sees that of all people, Jade can't handle her, she just might do something to hurt herself.
"Yeah, I think so. But I might need some help." Yes! Jade asked for help. I think we may be on the right track here. But it's going to be a long and tiring ride.
"I'm right here whenever you need me," I say in my soothing counselor voice. I turn to Robbie, knowing that this session is going to be long. "Why don't you call for some food? Nothing too heavy, but filling. And I know you wanted to keep this between the three of us, but I think we're going to need some help here. I want you to call Trina, Andre, and Sikowitz." He nods and digs into his pocket for his Pearphone.
"Why Sikowitz?" Jade asks me from where she sat next to Tori. I see that Tori has clutched Jade's hand. Another good sign, Tori is responding to Jade.
"He may be a crazy teacher, but he is a good man and knows a lot about these types of things. Plus he cares for you kids as if you were his own." In the ten years I have worked with Sikowitz, I have never seen him care for a group of kids like he does this group. He has invested more time with this group of six kids and even Trina. He puts everything he is into teaching, however when it comes to this group, he put everything he would have been as a father into them as well.
"Shouldn't we call her parents?" Robbie asks me as we walked into the kitchen.
"No, not right now. I think having Trina here will be all the family we will need. Her folks will only try and fix her by taking her to a hospital. Where she would get the help, don't get me wrong. But she will also be in there longer than she needs. I want to see if we can pull her out of this and then find a good group setting for her."
"So she can talk it to death." Honestly, Robbie sounds like he doesn't want this. I guess he was hoping that I'd be able to pull some magic "get un-fucked up free" counsellor card out of my wallet. I'd love to be able to, but no.
"Well Robbie, would you rather her talk it to death or meet death when she kills herself because we did nothing for her?" I said, a little upset that he would take this attitude. I fix him with a stare, and he had the good graces to look ashamed.
"I'm sorry. I'm just worn out. I'm going to make those phone calls and then try to catch some shut eye," Robbie told me as he looked down at his shoes.
"Sounds good, young man. And remember, you did a really good thing here today. I hate to think what would have happened if you were not the good friend you are to these two girls. Robbie, you have been dealing with this longer than the others have. It's time for you to take a step back and let someone else take the wheel for a bit. Even the best captains take a day of leave, son." I laid my hand on his shoulder before returning to the living room to wait for the others to arrive.
Later that evening.
Jade's POV
We had finally got Tori calmed down to a point where she would eat something, and was now sleeping on one of couches in my family room. I turned the television on so she would have some background noise. I walked into the joining living room to the rest of the group so we could talk about where we go from here. Trina had just gotten off the phone with their parents and came back into the living room. Sitting down next to me, she said quietly, "I told them that we all thought it would be nice to give them a nice, quiet weekend alone." She looked around all of us. "Yes, they believed that I wanted to be nice," she protested when I gave her a smirk and shook my head.
"Hey where is Robbie? I haven't seen him since we had the tacos," I said, standing up.
"I told him to go get some sleep. Maybe he went up there." Lane pointed with a casual flick of his wrist.
I wasn't too concerned about him going into anyone's room. Robbie has been here before and knows which rooms to stay out of. It just really worried me that he would be gone for so long. I walked up to the second floor and looked into the room that Beck had used when he would stay here and didn't find him in there. So I moved on to the first guest room. No luck, the next nothing. I went on to the third floor, where he would only be in two rooms here. So I looked in the two guest rooms on that floor and no Robbie to be found. I leaned against the wall and called out for him. "Robert, where are you?"
"Galactic coordinates ten-zero-eleven-zero-zero by zero-two from galactic zero center" I hear a very bad English accent coming from the game room, the only room I didn't look in.
I walk in to find an exhausted Robbie sitting in front of my Xbox one. I think he was playing a game; he looked at me through his shirt that he had taken off and put on his head like he was a ninja. He was pointing one of my pen lights at the Xbox while making a weird whistling sound.
I was about to leave when he looked up and that's when it got strange. "Ah, yes. You found us. Shall we go, my impossible girl?" He came over to me with this weird swagger, takes my arm and walks me down the hall. He stops me on the second floor and looked around like he was listening to the wind. Shaking my head, I pulled him down the stairs.
He stops me on the last three stairs and points to Sikowitz. "That man needs a fez." My jaw clenches tight and my eye grow wide as I look at him. This guy has lost his ever loving mind.
"Andre, come get this idiot before I snap his head off in his ass." I didn't understand anything that boy was talking about. I walked over to Lane and flopped down beside him. "That kid lost his damn mind," I told him, rubbing the back of my neck. "I found him in the game room; after he said some weird ass thing about galactic coordinates, then he was pointing a pen lights at my damn Xbox while making all these weird whistling sounds. Then the nut case called me his impossible girl." Lane started laughing. I just hoped that he was finding Robbie funny and not losing his mind, too.
"Wow, he must have been watching Doctor Who up there and never went to sleep. I think Robbie is experiencing sleep deprivation," he told me, and I had to laugh. Only Robbie could miss that much sleep and become even a bigger dork.
We all sat around talking when we heard a blood-curdling cry from the other room. I ran into the family room to find a terrified Tori. She was covered in sweat and crying. I tried to run to her only to be stopped by large, strong hands. Sikowitz had stopped me. I gave him a look of Death. "The hell, Sikowitz? Let me go," I snapped, twisting to try to break free. He just held me back.
"No! Let her wake up first Jade. You could do more damage than good by grabbing her," he told me.
"What is it with the people in this house? They don't get enough sleep and dork out, or wake up in the middle of a fucking nightmare. Great, what's next? Am I going to wake up dead?" I said, watching Tori from where Sikowitz held me.
"Like you wouldn't love that," Trina laughed at her own joke from the doorway. "Tori, wake the hell up," she called to Tori, who jumped then looked around for a second. "That's better, now let's get you cleaned up. Jade do you want to help?" Shaking my head at the craziness in my house right now, I smile to myself as I follow the two Vega girls into the hall bathroom. Thanks to Robbie, this is the most life this house has had in years, and I have to say I love him for it. I just wish Tori could be here with me to enjoy what life she has brought back to my home. I have faith that Tori will be here by my side to enjoy everything soon.
Now that everyone has come to help us, I do believe we will find the end to this pain that both of us are living in. With all the glory that is Tori and I comes this gore that we battle within ourselves every day. I look at Trina, she has become more than just a friend, she has become my sister. I think of the others out in the living room, and they were just teachers and friends. But it was this one girl that came into our lives that made us all a family. It was this one girl that became the glue that keeps us all together and now we are all here for her. Tori is the reason for us to be here, fighting to help her, and I feel myself healing, in a way, because I belong to a family that cares about me. We all came to help Tori find her victory, and I find mine too. Victory is contagious and we are just the clan to fight the war to the end.
