"Hey." Beck asks Jade as he sits beside her on the couch "Was everything okay with your brother earlier? He looked a little upset when you were saying goodbye to him."
Kaitlyn's PearPad rests between them on the couch so they can keep an eye on the graduation ceremony. Neither of them really care about the other 749 students that are graduating, but they both want to make sure they see Tyler walk across the stage and accept his diploma. With the last name 'Parker' they know he'll be towards the end of the list, so they're not paying too close of attention yet. Aiden plays nearby on the floor, completely unaware of what it means to 'graduate' or why he should care that his uncle is doing so.
"He just...had a moment." Jade sighs
"A moment?"
"A 'I'm so happy, you're not dead' moment." She explains "It almost makes me feel a bit guilty."
"What?" Beck raises an eyebrow at her "Why?"
"I caused a lot of people a lot of pain, Beck. I know that." Jade explains "And just when they started figuring out how to deal with it...I crashed back into their lives and brought all of that back up."
"You can't blame yourself for any of that, Jade." Beck reaches over the PearPad and squeezes her shoulder reassuringly "Ron caused all of that pain, you're just as much a victim of it as anyone else. Honestly, even more so than everyone else."
"Yeah, don't remind me." She sighs, taking a sip of her wine
She hasn't really ever been much of a drinker, even once it became legal for her to do so. Thank goodness too, otherwise she might have used it as a crutch to numb some of the pain she had been feeling since she returned. She doesn't like to feel out of control of her own actions though, and being drunk would put her very much out of control. She wasn't about to start that now. The only time she ever really drank was on special occasions, and she considers her brother's graduation to be a special occasion. Just one glass though, she still has her son to take care of.
"Sorry." Beck apologizes "I shouldn't have-"
"This is him." Jade cuts him off, setting her glass down and repositioning the PearPad "Aiden, get over here."
"Is it his turn?" Aiden asks, running and jumping into Jade's lap
"Yup." Jade answers with a grunt as the sudden weight of her son on top of her pushes all of the air out of her diaphragm "He should be coming up pretty soon."
Pace...Paddock...Page...Palmer...Parish...Parker.
Beck and Jade both cheer and holler as the announcer reads off Tyler's name, and Aiden does the same. All three of them watch Jade's brother step onto the makeshift stage and shake hands with the principal before walking across the rest of the way and disappearing off of the screen.
"That was it?" Aiden asks, causing Beck and Jade to laugh
"Yeah, that was it." Jade chuckles, lifting Aiden off of her lap "Aren't you happy now that we didn't make you go?"
"Mhm." Aiden nods "That was a lot of waiting for not much to happen."
"You got to see Uncle Tyler though."
"Yeah." Aiden shrugs "But now I can go back to playing with my cars!"
"Not for long." Jade reminds him, looking at her phone to check the time "It's almost time for bath and bed for you."
"Don't I get to stay up until everyone else gets home?" Aiden whines
"Absolutely not." Jade laughs "It's going to be past my bedtime by the time they get home."
By the time the ceremony finishes, and Tyler takes pictures with all of his friends and teachers, and they sit through the parking lot traffic, and then through the Los Angeles Saturday night traffic, it will most likely be after ten o'clock by the time everyone gets home. Probably later. Of course Jade will wait up for them though, and Beck will wait with her.
"Is Beck going to help with bath and bedtime?" Aiden asks, although to neither adult in particular
Jade begins to tell her boyfriend that he doesn't have to, but he answers Aiden before she can get the first word out.
"Of course I will, buddy."
"Only if you ask him again, and ask him politely." Jade reprimands her son "Manners, Aiden Joshua. Remember your pleases and thank yous."
"Please, Beck?"
"Yes." Beck chuckles, standing up from the couch and extending his hand to the little boy "Thank you for using your manners."
He's really more of an observer than anything during bath time. Jade has a routine that she seems to have down pretty well, and it seems to work very well and run very smoothly. That still doesn't stop Aiden from trying to stall his bedtime though, showing off all of his bath toys to his mother's boyfriend and demonstrating how to blow bubbles in the water.
Eventually, Aiden is bathed and dressed in a fresh set of pajamas. He selects a story for them to read and takes it into Jade's bedroom with him, making himself more than comfortable in her bed. As he settles in, Jade climbs in next to him and takes the book, readying herself to read the story.
"C'mon, Beck." Aiden pats the bed next to him on the opposite side of Jade
"I'm coming." He chuckles, laying down beside the little boy "Okay, I'm here."
Beck lets his mind wander a bit as Jade reads 'The Story of Ferdinand the Bull' out loud to him and Aiden both. He glances around the room, looking at all of the old photographs from high school that Jade has left displayed. There's a lot of them and their friends at the beach or at concerts and a lot of her and Cat from when they were younger, long before he or any of the others had come into the picture. Beck notices that there's only a few of the two of them, but knows that he shouldn't take it personally. Most of those had probably gone with her when they moved in together. There's also some of them all at their own high school graduation, and he wants to bring that up later when Aiden isn't around.
Of course he also thinks about all the times he had laid in this bed before. When they were in high school, they usually chose his RV to hide away in when they wanted to have sex. There was no one around and their privacy was almost guaranteed. Every once and a while though she would sneak him into her bedroom when she was home alone, just for a change of scenery. He didn't just have memories of that though. She used to have a TV in here, and they were allowed to cuddle up in bed together and watch movies as long as they kept the door open wide. Other times they would sit on her bed and do homework together, or play cards, or just talk. Those times were much simpler, and he almost misses them even though they were younger and had less freedoms.
"The end!" Aiden cheers, pulling Beck back into reality
"The end." He smiles, offering Aiden a fist bump before standing up "G'night, dude."
"G'nite!" Aiden grins
Beck walks out into the hallway to allow Jade to say goodnight to her son privately, and to avoid distracting Aiden as she does so. A few moments later she appears out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her as she offers him a smile.
"Thanks for that." She tells him "You very well could have found something on TV to watch and stayed downstairs."
"Nah." He drapes an arm around her shoulders as they head for the staircase "I love that kid, I don't mind helping out."
"He loves you too." Jade admits "But seriously, thanks for helping."
It means a lot to her that her boyfriend and her son get along so well and think so highly of each other. With everything else that she has to worry about at the moment, it's nice to not have to worry about that.
When they return to the living room, Kaitlyn's PearPad is still sitting open on the couch, although it appears that the graduation stream has ended and the device has gone to sleep. Jade picks it up and closes the cover, then places it on end end table next to the couch before sitting down beside Beck again.
"Do you remember when we graduated high school?" He asks her
"Of course I do." She smirks "I had to wear that disgusting orange gown, how could I forget?"
"They weren't that bad." Beck laughs
"Easy for you to say, you didn't have to wear it."
The school colors at Hollywood Arts had been orange and light blue, and that was reflected in the graduation gowns the seniors wore during the ceremony. Girls wore orange gowns, and boys wore blue. Tori, Jade, and Cat all seemed to have complaints about the shade of orange and that the boys had gotten the better end of the deal, and neither Beck, Andre, or Robbie felt that they could argue.
"Well for what it's worth, you still looked hot." Beck tells her "I was for sure the luckiest guy in the auditorium that night, because I got to walk out of there with you on my arm."
"Thanks for that." Jade smiles, looking down at her hands in her lap "Beck?"
"Hm?"
"What was college graduation like?"
This was something they had yet to talk about. It had never really felt important or relevant enough to bring up. Beck thinks for a moment, choosing his words carefully. He could tell her that the gowns were black instead of orange and blue, but she already knew that. They had gone to pick them up from the bookstore together just days before she disappeared. Her cap and gown had been among the various items in the cardboard box he returned to her when she first came home.
"It was awful." Beck admits "Honestly. For starters, it was long..."
"Well, we were expecting that." Jade smirks
Hollywood Arts was a small, private school and only had about 250 students total. Their graduating class had consisted of 63 students and their ceremony had only lasted about an hour. But UCLA had so many students they had to have multiple ceremonies, dividing up the different majors. Beck's ceremony as a Drama major, the one that he would have shared with Jade as an English major, lasted over two hours.
"I barely remember anything else. I was distracted the entire time..." Beck confesses "I was so worried about you when you didn't show up...I couldn't think straight."
"Fuck, I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Beck assures her "It wasn't your fault."
"I still wish there was something I could do to change it though."
"Everyone does." Beck sighs "But we can't. We can only focus on the future moving forward."
He hopes this will open up an opportunity to talk about what she wants for her future, and how he's involved with it. But instead she shifts the conversation back to him and what made him decide to become a teacher instead of an actor. He tells her the truth, that with everything that had happened, he had a hard time and didn't really have the motivation anymore. But he had a degree and thought that maybe he could help someone else develop the motivation instead. So he became a teacher.
"I think it's more rewarding than being an actor could have ever been." He admits "I get the touch the lives of so many kids and help them develop a passion for acting...help them build their skills and maybe help them towards an acting career of their own. I honestly really love it."
"That's great, Beck." Jade smiles
And she means it too. Although she can't help but feel guilty that it was the events surrounding her disappearance that made him spiral away from acting, she's genuinely happy for him that he found something fulfilling to replace it that makes him happy as well.
"Not to mention I'm not really sure I'm up for everything that comes with the lifestyle." Beck adds "I mean don't get me wrong, it looks glamorous from the outside. But whenever we try to go anywhere with Cat...people are just insane. They'll do anything to get her attention, I don't know how she does it."
Jade is quiet. She doesn't know what it's like to be Cat, no one ever really will. But she knows what it's like to be the center of unwanted attention.
She doesn't have time to respond before she hears the door to the garage open, and her family's voices fill the room.
"There he is." Beck grins, standing up from the couch to offer Tyler a high-five "Congrats, dude."
"Thanks." Tyler grins, hugging him briefly before walking over to his sister
"Congratulations." Jade smiles, hugging her brother tightly "I'm so proud of you."
"Thanks, Jade."
"Who wants cake?" Chris offers, walking into the kitchen to retrieve the cake Kaitlyn had picked up earlier
"Shhh..." Jade laughs "Aiden is asleep but if he wakes up and hears 'cake', I'll never get him back upstairs."
"Sorry." Chris apologizes, earning more laughter from everyone else in the room
After they cut and eat the cake, it's approaching midnight. Beck begins saying his goodbyes and moves to make his exit.
"Will we see you before we leave tomorrow?" Judy asks him as Jade begins to walk him towards the door
"Aren't you leaving for the airport at like, eight in the morning?" Jade asks her
"Yes."
"Probably not then." Beck chuckles "Sorry."
"Oh it's alright." Judy stands up to hug him "It was good seeing you again, Beck. You take care."
"Yes ma'am." He smiles "You too, and you Mr. Brewer."
"How many times do I have to say it? Call me Steve."
"You two will have to come out and visit us in Charleston sometime." Judy offers "With Aiden. He'll love it there. We're not that far from the beach."
"I remember, Grandma." Jade laughs
"Nice and quiet little neighborhood too." Judy adds "Beck, it's not really in the city, but just outside of it. All the benefits of being close to downtown but none of the hassle. It's so nice."
"I might just have to take you up on that sometime." Beck smiles as he turns to leave "Goodnight, everyone."
Jade accompanies him to the door and kisses him goodnight and tells him that she loves him before he leaves. She tries to focus on him as he watches him walk out to his car, but her grandmother's words about visiting them ring through her head even still. It sounded so nice, the idea of getting away. It's an offer she might just have to take her grandparents up on when the timing is right.