Moving On, Part IV

Chapter 34, "Half Agony, Half Hope"

Several weeks went by before Jackie was able to corner Hyde and get him to talk to her. By the time they did sit down together, Jackie had come to suspect that Steven's callousness, his nastiness, his coldness, all came from jealousy and from having been deeply hurt by her.

She noticed right away that he was avoiding her. He practically ran out of the Forman house every time she arrived. The same thing would happen at the Hub. As soon as she came in and sat down to join the group, he'd stay for a few minutes and take off. If she happened to be there before he came in, he'd stop by briefly to say hello, and take his food to go. A few times when their paths crossed, she briefly caught him giving her a furtive look before he retreated behind his mask. She knew him so well, and began to suspect that something was stirring inside him. Whatever door had been slammed shut in Chicago seemed to be inching its way back open.

She asked Donna, then Fez, Mrs. Forman, and even Mr. Forman if they knew anything about what Steven had done or gone through in Chicago. Donna hadn't really given it any thought, which wasn't surprising, given that Donna had been fairly self-involved that year. Ironically, Jackie's character was fixed in the minds of all their friends as the one in the group that was self-centered. When Jackie asked Fez, he made jokes about it and re-stated the obvious. After she pinched him a few times, Fez stopped with the stripper jokes, and confided that he had been very worried about Hyde at the time. Hyde had never disappeared like that before. Fez didn't know anything more, because Hyde was the last person to confide in anyone.

Mr. Forman cut Jackie off before she had a chance to question him. "No, no, no. This is Kitty's area of expertise." He directed her to Mrs. Forman. Mrs. Forman didn't know any more than Fez did, but she confided to Jackie that she was pretty sure that Steven had spent his time in Las Vegas trying to pull himself together. "Of course," Mrs. Forman added, "while he was there, he also happened to make the biggest mistake of his life."

Jackie even tried approaching Eric, but realized that she wouldn't get any answers from him. She and Eric had never been good friends, and he was Steven's best friend, anyhow. He might have the answers she wanted, but getting them out of him would be probably more difficult than pulling them from Steven.

As it turned out, it was Michael who was able to fill in some of the missing pieces. He had gotten his information from Sam. Even though Michael wouldn't have dared to make a move on Sam, he did like to hang around the basement when she was there and watch her try on her costumes. There were a lot of times when he hung out and watched TV. with her when Hyde was at work. Michael told Jackie that Hyde had been devastated when he found the two of them together in her hotel room. Hyde had gone there that night to propose to her.

"Wait," Jackie stopped him, "did Sam tell you that Steven actually had gone to see me to propose? Did Steven tell her that?"

"Yeah," Michael squealed. "Hyde told her all about it when they met. I mean he was totally wasted, and she said that she didn't think he remembered talking about it, but he bought you a ring and everything."

"What?" Jackie's mouth flew open, and she had a sick feeling in her stomach. She had been so close to getting what she had wanted so badly, only to have everything blow apart. And she felt guilty. She could imagine how Steven had felt, given how scared he was to allow himself to fall in love at all.

The next time she saw Hyde, she was prepared. She didn't take any chances. She spied on him from her car, and saw him lock up the store and get into his truck. She beat him over to the Forman's house, taking care to park around the block so that he wouldn't see her car. She waited for him in the den. He came through the front door. She stepped out, startling, even alarming, him.

"Steven," she said, "we need to talk."

Not surprisingly, he tried to get away.

"Please," she asked.

The two of them sat down in the den where they would have some privacy.

I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant... For you alone I think and plan. –Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes?

Jane Austen, Persuasion

So, Steven Hyde would never have written her a letter so openly romantic as this passage, but upon reflection after reading it, Jackie knew that Steven's feelings were for her were the same as the heroine's fictional lover.