"Fuck..." Jade mutters quietly under her breath as she sends yet another rejection email to her trash folder
Everyone...her parents, her friends, and even her therapist...had encouraged her to wait to start looking for a job until she was really sure she was ready. Although right now she's not quite sure if she's ready to be working, she's ready for normalcy. It's not normal to be home all day, as much as she enjoys getting the time with Aiden, and if anything she's starting to feel like it's hurting her to do so. All of her friends have jobs, and are able to provide for themselves. She wants to be able to do the same for herself and her son.
Unfortunately, she isn't having the best luck finding a job. When they were getting ready to graduate, Jade knew that she wanted to spend the rest of her life writing. She wanted to write movies or TV shows that would make people smile with joy and then turn right around and make them cry. Ideally, Beck would star in a few, if not all, of them, but in the beginning she wouldn't be picky. She would take whatever job she could get, writing whatever people asked her to so that she could get her name out into the industry and start building a reputation. Now she has a reputation, but it's not the best one.
Nobody wants to hire 'the missing girl'.
Not only does she lack the experience most production and theater companies are looking for in their writers, but people also know her name and associate it with something horrible. Sure, seeing it attached to a project would probably intrigue the general public, but it would also do so for all the wrong reasons. The public doesn't care about her writing abilities, they care about getting the gruesome details of what it was like to be kidnapped and held captive in a basement for four years. They care about a story she's not ready to share yet, and no one wants to hire someone who could bring them bad press. She can't even find part-time work, everyone in the area knows her face too well from the news now. Offices don't want to hire secretaries who will draw unwanted attention, and restaurants don't want to hire waitresses who will draw in patrons that will just fill up the building trying to get to her rather than order something.
"Another rejection?" Chris asks her, noticing the disappointment on his step-daughter's face
"Yeah." She sighs, slipping the phone into her pocket and sliding off of the couch to sit on the floor next to Aiden "No one wants to hire the missing girl, I guess."
"Give it time." Chris advises her "Something will come along."
"If I was in charge, I would give you a job!" Aiden assures her, jumping into her lap "My dump truck needs a driver, do you want to do that?"
He knows she's looking for a job, but he isn't' really able to comprehend what that means just yet.
"I would love to do that." Jade chuckles as Aiden reaches for one of his Tonka trucks and hands it to her
They sit on the floor together for a while, playing with Aiden's trucks and matchbox cars while Chris and Tyler watch a baseball game on TV. Every once and a while something big will happen in the game and Chris and Tyler will cheer, and Aiden will stand up and cheer right along with them. Jade thinks it's precious, the fact that he really doesn't know what's happening on the TV but that he still wants to be excited anyways because Papa and Uncle Tyler are.
Eventually, Kaitlyn calls them for dinner. Most of the conversation revolves around Tyler's impending high school graduation at the end of the month. It makes Jade a bit sad, her own college graduation had been ripped away from her just hours before it was set to take place, but at the same time she didn't think she would be around to watch her baby brother achieve such a milestone. The fact that she's able to makes her happy, and that cancels out the sad.
The doorbell rings as the family is cleaning up dinner, and Aiden takes off running for the door.
"Beck!" He exclaims
"Aiden!" Tyler, who is closest to him at the time, chases after him "Hey! You know the rule about the door!"
Jade turns away from the sink where she had been helping her mother and moves towards the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway that leads to the foyer, but doesn't go any further. She doesn't want to be overbearing, but she also wants to make sure Aiden doesn't answer the door for a crazy reporter on accident. Sure, they were expecting Beck, but that doesn't mean someone else hadn't shown up before him. A wave of relief rushes over her when her brother opens the front door to reveal her boyfriend standing on the other side.
"Hey everyone." Beck smiles as he enters the foyer, immediately picking Aiden up and resting him on his hip "How's it going?"
"Better now that you're here." Jade smiles
Beck grins back at her. Normally he would kiss her, but they're still trying to avoid PDA in front of Aiden. He'll give her a hello kiss later, when there's no small eyes around.
"Hearing that makes me happy." He says "Did you guys eat?"
"Yeah, we just finished." Jade tells him "There's leftovers, do you want something?"
"I'm good. I ate too." Beck admits "Thank you though."
"Beck!" Aiden bounces up and down in the man's arms "Are we gonna build the fire tonight?"
"You bet, little man." Beck chuckles "Should we do it now?"
"Yeah!"
Tonight was the first time in years that Beck and Jade and their high school friends were all going to get to spend time together as a complete group. 'Hanging out' felt like a bit of a juvenile term to them all, but that's exactly what they're doing. Jade's mother had been more than approving when she asked if she could invite a few people over, knowing how much the quality time would mean to her daughter and her friends. The plan is to build a bonfire in the fire pit and tell stories and sing songs, just like they used to in high school.
Cat and Robbie arrive first, actually driving themselves instead of having their driver drop them off. Cat wants to make a comment about how nice it felt to sit in the passenger's seat while her husband drove instead of in the back while someone else did, but it seemed like such an insensitive comment to make to Jade. After everything her best friend had been through, Cat had very little room to complain about anything.
Tori and Andre arrive just a few minutes after Cat and Robbie do, and then Aiden starts assisting Beck and the other boys in building the fire. Jade is a bit nervous, but eases up when her boyfriend tells Aiden to take three big steps backwards before he lights the pile on fire. Flames engulf the logs and newspaper Beck had filled the fire pit with, and for a moment Jade feels as if she's back in Ron's basement.
"Get out, Jade!" She hear's Ashley's voice in her head as memories of the night she escaped flood back to her "Go!"
"Jade?" Cat touches her shoulder "Are you okay?"
"Huh?" Jade turns to look at her "Yeah, sorry. I'm fine."
"Did it trigger a memory?"
"Yeah, it did." Jade looks down at her feet "I'm okay now though, I'm learning how to separate it. That happened in the past and I can't change it. I can be here in the present though and make mew memories, happier memories."
Cat doesn't say anything, but squeezes Jade's arm reassuringly and offers her an encouraging smile.
Normally Aiden goes to bed around 8:30 but tonight, Jade is going to let him stay up a little later. She wants him to not only spend time with her friends, but to see her with them. He wants him to get the chance to see normal interaction between adults who aren't family. She wants her friends to get to know him as well.
"Is that real?" Aiden gasps as Andre pulls his guitar out of it's case
Everyone is sitting in chairs around the fire now, with Aiden snuggled up comfortably in Jade's lap. He's bounced back and forth a few times since everyone arrived, starting with Cat and moving to sit with Beck at one point. But in the end, with his mom is his favorite place to be.
"Sure is." Andre grins, positioning the guitar across his lap "Wanna try?"
"Can I?" Aiden looks to Jade
"Sure." She nods with a smile "Just be careful."
Aiden slides off of her lap and walks over to Andre, careful to avoid getting too close to the fire.
"Here." Andre takes the little boy's small hand in his and moves it across the strings "It makes noise, see?"
Aiden giggles as the strings vibrate beneath his fingers, looking over his shoulder at Jade with a smile. She smiles back at him, and pulls her phone out of her pocket to take a few pictures of him. Her little boy is absolutely enamored with the instrument.
"Each string plays a different note." Andre explains to Aiden "And if you put your fingers in different places, you can play even more notes. Play a bunch of notes together, one after another, and you can play a song."
"Will you play a song for me?" Aiden asks anxiously
"Duh." Andre laughs "That's why I brought it."
"Yay!"
"You know what?" Andre leans down to whisper to the little boy "I bet if you ask really nicely, you could get your Mama and your Aunties to sing."
"I love it when Mom sings!" Aiden exclaims, erasing any sense of secrecy between him and his uncle "Mom! If Uncle Andre plays a song, will you sing it?"
"Bud..."
She's been singing to him his whole life, even when he was still in the womb. But she hasn't really sang in front of anyone but Aiden or Ashley in years.
"Please, Mom!"
"We'll all sing for you, Aiden." Beck suggests, sensing his girlfriend's hesitation "Together. How does that sound?"
"Okay!"
Beck has never really thought of singing as a talent of his, but he can carry a tune decently. He knows his friends can too, especially Cat. It's how she makes her living. Jade could have gone that route too, if she had wanted. Her voice is amazing, but she had been more interested in drama instead. Just as he had been.
Andre begins moving his fingers across the guitar strings, beginning to play a song his friends can all easily identify as 'Island in the Sun'. Another large grin spreads across Aiden's face as he listens to his mother and all of her friends begin to harmonize together and sing the lyrics. He's never heard this song before, but they all seem to know it. He likes the way it sounds when they all sing together, and how it all sounds with the guitar. Still smiling, he runs back to Jade and climbs back into her lap. He curls up against her, resting his head against her chest as he looks up at her. Her eyes close every now and again and she sways back and forth with the music. When she notices him watching, she looks down at him with a smile.
This goes on for a while, Andre playing different songs and everyone singing along. Some of the songs are newer in the past four years, and Jade doesn't know them, so she gets the same pleasure as Aiden in getting to hear something new. But most of the songs she does know, and she feels so happy getting to sing them with her friends. For a short time, everything feels normal.
Jade excuses herself around 9:15 to take Aiden to bed. He's fallen asleep on her, and as she carries him into the house and up to his room she regrets letting him do so. He smells like campfire smoke, and now his whole bed is going to as well. She'll have to make sure that she bathes him right away in the morning and changes the sheets on his bed too.
"Mommy?" Aiden stirs a bit in his sleep as she sets him down
"Shh...it's okay baby..." She whispers to him as she tucks the blankets in around him "Get some sleep, alright? I'll see you in the morning."
"Mmmkay..." Aiden yawns, hugging his stuffed elephant to his chest and rolling onto his side "I love you."
"I love you too." Jade smiles, kissing him gently on the forehead "Sweet dreams, baby boy."
She makes her way back downstairs, briefly says hello to her mom and step-dad who are in the living room watching TV, then goes back outside to join her friends. Andre has stopped playing, but is still holding his guitar on his lap, leaning both of his arms on it. Everyone is laughing as Jade approaches them.
"What's so funny?" She asks as she sits down on Beck's lap
It's the first time she's done that since they've been back together, but it had felt so natural that she hadn't even thought about it. Both she and Beck are surprised, but share a smile as Beck wraps the blanket he had draped around his shoulders across them both.
"Just talking about Beck's first day of teaching." Tori informs her "He was a mess."
"It's a miracle they didn't fire me on the spot." Beck adds "I showed up to the wrong class twice, left my school-issued laptop at the Grub Truck, and was late to the staff meeting after school because I didn't know which room it was in."
"Those all seem like typical first-time teacher mistakes." Jade admits with a shrug, trying to be sympathetic
It is quite amusing to hear about though. Beck has always been very put together and on top of things, trying to imagine him all out of sorts and clumsy and confused like that would definitely warrant a laugh.
"It's still a good thing that Helen really likes me." Beck chuckles "And that Sikowitz is kind of my boss."
"Isn't Helen your boss?" Jade asks him
"Well, yeah. Technically she's everyone's boss." Beck shrugs "But I work for the drama department, which Sikowitz is the head of. And then Helen is head of all of the departments."
"Look at Sikowitz moving up in the world." Jade smirks "How is he?"
"He's good." Beck tells her, looking to Tori who nods in agreement "Still as nuts as ever, but good. He's been asking about you. You'll have to come in with me at the end of the year to help me clean my room out for the summer. There won't be any kids around, and you could say hi to some of the staff members if you wanted."
"Do I even know any of them besides Sikowitz?"
"We haven't been out of high school that long." Tori laughs "The staff is still almost eighty percent the same from when we were there."
That's true, of course. They only graduated high school eight years ago, which in the grand scheme of things isn't really that long. Jade feels like she's lived a million lifetimes since then, she feels very old all of a sudden. Very old and very burdened.
"Jade?" Beck nudges her "Are you alright?"
"Yeah." Jade sniffs, fighting tears "Yeah, I'm okay."
"No you're not." Cat shakes her head, standing up from her own chair and kneeling down next to Beck's "Jadey, we're sorry. We were just reminiscing is all...we weren't trying to make you feel bad."
"You didn't!" Jade assures her as she feels Beck's arms hug her tighter "It's just...I dunno. You can say high school wasn't that long ago, but all this time has passed since then and I missed half of it. That monster stole four years of my life from me...and there's all of this stuff that I missed out on that I can't get back."
"Jade..."
"You got married, Cat." Jade reminds her "And you've built this whole career for yourself. You've all built these awesome careers for yourselves. I can't even get Inside Out Burger to call me back! And I don't want any of you to feel guilty because you shouldn't! But I just can't help being upset that I missed out on a bunch of stuff that I can never get back."
Beck leans forward and kisses her shoulder gently, resting his chin on top of it after he does so. They all knew that these thoughts and feelings existed inside of Jade. How could they not? But he knows he's thinking the same thing that the rest of his friends are, and that is that they absolutely despise Ronald Cook for causing Jade all of this pain.
"It wasn't for nothing." He reminds her "What about Aiden?"
"He's the only good thing that came of this." Jade nods, looking down at her hands "And I would do it a million times over if it meant I would get him out of it...I just wish that life could get back to normal...but I don't think it ever will."
"It will." Cat assures her, taking Jade's hand in her's "You still have a whole life ahead of you to live too. You and Aiden. We're all going to be here for you while you do."
"I don't deserve you guys."
"Sure you do." Cat smiles, standing up and wrapping her arms around her best friend "Group hug!"
Andre, Tori and Robbie all stand up and rush over to join Cat and Beck in hugging Jade tightly. Her tears turn to laughter as they all awkwardly shift around to make sure no one is suffocating. She knows she's lucky to have such a strong support system to help her through all of this trauma that she's endured...but part of her will always wish that she didn't have any trauma at all.