Chapter 32

Try Not to Die

Christmas passed with little fanfare and then came New Years, and the Wedding.

Which Willow wouldn't be attending,

And her Mother still hadn't spoken to her about it.

It was fine. Everything was fine.

She wasn't panicking at all.

She was sitting in Dr Florence's office – her therapist ordering her to have a session before the end of the year, instead of her letting the woman off for the rest of it. Willow hadn't exactly been able to get to therapy what with her leg and such.

'The crash was out of your control.' Dr Florence looked at her, where Willow had been fiddling with her scarf. 'It is by no fault of your own that you can't go, and it was against medical advice to go flying not only with a new cast on but also barely out of surgery a fortnight. Little victories, remember?'

Wordlessly Willow nodded, feeling sick to her stomach. She pulled off her multiple layers, a hot flush taking over and Dr Florence peered at her. 'Willow, what's going on in that head of yours?'

'She hasn't spoken to me.' Her fingers flexed and she wouldn't look her in the eye. 'And, and, and I know that it wasn't my fault, but Mother hasn't spoken to me since Thanksgiving and I think the not-being-at-the-Wedding is just another thing for her to be pissed at.'

'What did you two speak about last?'

There was a lump in her throat and her chest was tight. 'All I said was that I was looking at colleges in Canada and that I was thinking about going into botany or entomology, that was it. I stood up for myself and she took it the wrong way and,' her foot started to jiggle, and Willow felt like she was watching herself speak. 'she shouted that night, when I was getting ready for bed and she wasn't even subtle about it. Said she didn't want to see me for the rest of the weekend and that all she wanted for me was to be success.'

Sometimes Willow didn't know why she just kept going. Why she kept trying.

'I always feel so tired after dealing with them, you know.' She admitted after a while. 'I have to build up this vast amount of energy just to be able to be there, be on my best behaviour, not a single hair out of place and it's like they don't even know who I am. Jonathon showed up with the invitation back at the end of summer with his girlfriend, just completely out of blue and, and, I felt like I was back in New Hampshire. All over again.'

The exhaustion sparked in her chest and instead of being anxious, Willow felt her cheeks flush with heat and set her jaw. 'Mother wasn't even there in the summer until three days before I was to leave again. But if I showed up without warning, I would get it in the neck for months after. Months. But they both showed up and it was like I had to drop everything to cater to them. And Jonathon knew that.' She laughed and to Dr Florence, it sounded like broken glass. 'When I was dropping Jasper home, I think I had an attack.'

'Because Jonathon showed up unannounced or because you were overwhelmed?'

Willow gnawed on her finger, leg still jumping. 'Both, I guess. He's knocked me off centre since Spring Break, I think. It's like he's trying to make up for being so cold for years, almost like he's trying to make it seem to Rachael that we're really close and stuff. I don't know what he's going to say or how he's going to be and I don't like it. With Eve and Mother, I know how to tread carefully and how to keep things civil and I used to think I did with him and now, I feel lost.

Dr Florence leant back in her seat, spinning the pen. 'Do you want a relationship with him?'

Willow stared up at the ceiling, gnawing her cheek. '…I don't know anymore. If you had asked me a few years back, I probably would've said obviously but I feel like he's ignoring everything that has happened between us, about how he hadn't really spoken to Dad since the divorce. You know when I arrived at Spring Break, he gave me a hug and picked me up? Like he hadn't seen me in years.'

Dr Florence was watching her when Willow looked ahead. 'What do you want to do?'

'What do you think I should do?'

Dr Florence's long, dark hair fell over a scarlet covered shoulder. 'I know the reasons as to why you kept going back to New Hampshire, but Willow, in the eyes of the court, you're an adult now. You're no longer bound by the agreement settled between your parents for visitation. If you don't want to go back, then you don't have to. What I want you to do next time you start to prepare for New Hampshire is ask yourself a series of questions, okay? Do you get joy out of going and seeing, not just out from the others, your actual blood relations? What is best for you in the long run? And finally, I want to actually think about whether or not you want to be doing this and being forced to be a caricature of who you are? Because relationships are two-way streets, and it looks like to me, that you're the only one putting any effort into them. Now, how are we with driving?'

'You know what I should be doing right about now?' Willow threw into the air as she waited for Rosalie to finish reading the admission essay she had put together. 'Going to see a Broadway musical. Instead, I am stuck here, in Forks, with a bum ass leg, whilst my Dad is at the wedding of his eldest daughter with no back up for Mother and the Firing Squad.'

'You wouldn't even be able to see the show.' Edward laughed where he lay sprawled ever so elegantly across the love seat, some old novel in his grasp. 'You would be at the wedding of his eldest daughter alongside him.'

'Can you let me live in that fantasy where I would be seeing a musical? Please?' Willow whined, pouting at him. 'Why must you see the negative side to everything, Eeyore?'

Emmett's laughter boomed throughout the house as he came in from the forest with Jasper and Esme. 'Now, that's an image I didn't know I needed.'

'Oi,' Rosalie caught her attention by nearly pegging her in the head with the tv remote, 'feedback time.'

Someone run her over with the Jeep, please? Anything but having to get criticism.

Jasper caught the remote with one hand as he leant over the side of the sofa where Willow lay, cast propped up, probably feeling a little sorry for herself. Oh, what was she kidding, this time last year she was skipping through Times Square, bubbly with glee at the fact that she was seeing Wicked that had gotten such good reviews from critics; flashforward twelve months, she was still getting the silent treatment from her Mother, her leg was going to be in a cast for the next five weeks and with rehab, she would be cutting it close to being able to walk across the stage at graduation without an aide.

'It's your best work so far.'

Wait, what?

'Heh?' that just made her sound like a goose who'd smoked sixty-packs a day.

'You hit the question without sounding too sorry for yourself or too up your own ass. I say send it.'

'You do it!' Willow swiped at her, 'Because I would most likely overthink everything and maybe throw up. Whichever my body and brain decide to do—'

'Done.'

'Oh fuck.'

'Breath.' Emmett threw a pillow at her head when Willow went grey. Jasper sent him a deadpan state.

'Oh yes,' the blond drawled as he lifted Willow into his lap with ease, 'because that is so helpful.'

Ripping off the hoodie she had on, feeling flushed, her heart boomed in her ears, almost making it feel like her brain was going to start rattling around her head like a bowling ball. Her chest was on fire too and there was a stone in her throat.

Within a second of the panic attack, Jasper had her hand on his chest and was kneeling between her knees, hand on her jaw, making her look at him. 'Hey, Willow. Focus on me. Five things you can see.'

'Hoodie…blankie…em…t-table, you, sofa.'

'Four you can touch…'

'Blankie, sofa, hoodie, you.'

'Good…three you can hear.'

'TV, the fire, my toes on the carpet.'

'Two you can smell.'

Two she could smell, focusing more on the other things around rather than the fact that her heart wanted to do a Face Sucker and launch out of her chest, Willow took a shaky breath in. 'Fire and, and something baking?'

'What can you taste?'

'Esme's hot chocolate.'

The adrenalin slowed throughout her system and Willow just sagged against Jasper, focusing on the slow rasp of his hand on her back. Jasper just caught her gently as her head went into his neck and he kissed her temple. 'Easy…'

There was a tension in the air that he eased less she picked up on it and Carlisle came in with a blood pressure cuff. 'Can you offer Carlisle your arm?'

Not moving from her spot, Willow held out the appendage and just let Jasper's scent ground her a little more to the present as the others went back to whatever they were doing before then. The cuff was a little cold on her skin and more than a little uncomfortable when it tightened but Willow knew what it was there for.

'A little higher than we'd all like but it should fall in a little while as your heart settles.'

'Great.' The word heaved from her chest and Jasper moved the two of them to sit on the sofa again. The energy had been drained from her and Willow just curled as best she could with her stupid cast against Jasper's frame as he began to play with her hair. Her shoulders ached something fierce too, like they'd tried to get into her ears during the entire attack.

'The fuck was that?' Emmett blurted.

Willow puffed a laugh. 'That was a panic attack. Because my brain is completely fucked.'

'Your heart just went at the speed of light.'

'The fucker does that.' She sighed, 'And it was no one's fault by the way.'

'What set it off?'

That had come from the telepath?

'Fat load of good, you are. Edward, if I knew what set off my attacks then I'd avoid that shit like a plague but I don't so they surprise me.'

And now she wanted to sleep. Sighing softly against Jasper's throat, Willow pulled the blanket back up over them both and let herself relax against his chest.

There was nothing like a good old panic attack to spice up an afternoon.

Curled up in her bed, Willow had her fairy lights on, the last of her holiday homework in front of her as she worked through it, laptop open beside her as she waited for Richard to pick up on the Skype call. The wedding was that afternoon at five.

'Hey, kiddo.'

She smiled at her father, who had his tie slung loosely around his neck, shirt on but jacket over the back of her vanity seat. Apparently, Mother had put him in her room. 'Hey, Dad. How's everyone?'

'Oh you know, no blood has been spilt so far but it's only three-thirty so we have some time. How about you? Everything going okay?'

'Oh yeah.' She nodded, chucking The Crucible down onto the bed, 'I submitted one of my essays – to Princeton – and then had a panic attack because I didn't let my brain freak out. So that was fun. I have UBC's questions already written out, I just need to fill in the profile they want. And I'm a bit confused on what exactly U of T needs of me – I can't quite figure out what botany and entomology fall under in terms of their environmental studies considering they've got like...fifteen different overruling subject topic so a little help would be good on that. I have till the fifteenth which isn't so bad but I just have the application to fill out, I have the essay done so.'

'Breath, sapling, you've got this. What about the other ones?'

Willow glanced over to her desk where various other essay drafts sat ready to be read through and sighed. 'Getting there. I need to send Mother a copy of each and the question they wanted to be answered. Why does applying for further education have to be so god-damn complicated?'

'Try med school,' Richard laughed, teeth bright through his dark stubble, 'then we'll talk. Have you been eating?'

'I just had some pasta so I'm all good. Esme hasn't been letting me go hungry either. How are you enjoying Danielle's cooking, by the way?'

'Oh my god.' He mouthed and Willow laughed. 'We had roast beef last night and it was amazing.'

'You got beef? Mother hardly ever lets her cook that when I'm there. Rude.'

Richard's head fell back as he laughed. 'Ha. Also, Amelia and the others have been asking after you – Sarah said something about a care package that should be arriving soon.'

'Sarah.' Willow growled, pouting, 'I did not need a care package, I am fine.' She sighed heavily, 'Thank them for me. You met Robert yet?'

'I thought Carpenter was bad but god damn, he pushes the boat out.' Richard scrubbed his face and Willow noticed he seemed to age a decade.

'If it's any consolation,' she offered with a close-lipped smile, 'He treats her really well? Genuinely seems to love her too.'

'That does, more than you'd think.' He drawled, 'Matthew is a piece of work though.'

Willow grimaced. 'Again, he treats Mother well so I can get past the fact that he has the personality of a piece of wet cardboard.' Richard barked a laugh again. 'What? It's true.'

He giggled a little, wiping his mouth. 'A little too much. What else you got planned?'

Willow blew a raspberry. 'Homework, maybe a little tv, maybe a bath, I haven't decided yet and then bed. I know, exactly the raves you thought I would throw.'

'Oh yeah, totally.' Richard drawled; eyes bright through the screen. 'Don't stay up too late and I'll be home late tomorrow.'

'I know.' It had been circled on a post-it to put on her dry-erase board. 'Have fun tonight.'

'Hey, open bar.'

'Look at you go!' she grinned before her attention was taken away from the screen as her phone pinged with a text from Lucy.

'That Jasper?'

Her brows furrowed as she picked it up – 911, can I come over? – 'No, Lu. She's coming over, got a problem or something urgent.'

Yeah, I'll have the door unlocked.

'Well, I'll let you go before the others catch me on talking to you. I'll let you know how tonight goes. Love you, sapling.'

'Have fun and I love you too, Dad.'

He hung up as she waved, and Willow shoved her laptop away as Lucy knocked on the front door. 'Woah, woah, woah, what happened?'

Lucy Kennedy was not one for tears off stage, preferring to take her emotions under the spotlight. But when the tears fell, the girl was not a pretty crier. Her eyes were red, making the blues pop and that was about it on the looks front. Otherwise, she looked a bit like a raspberry as her cheeks and eyes swelled and her nose did a rendition of Rudolph.

'Jillian broke up with me.'

Jillian Xavier had been the girl that Lucy had been dating since she had returned from Berkley that summer. She was a nice girl, from what Lucy had admitted to the lot of them, as they all clambered in Willow's room for one of their sleepovers, showing them a picture of a stout girl, with rosy cheeks, a soft bob of blue-dyed hair and bright eyes. The Kennedys knew that Lucy was out, but they all kept it quiet because you never knew how small towns reacted. Jillian, however, wasn't. And it was a process, Willow knew, that could take someone years to come to terms with, feel confident enough in themselves and their identity to let people know. Jillian would have her time. Her people.

Willow's heart went to her stomach. 'Oh Lu…'

'She said she wasn't ready to come out, but I wasn't pushing at all, you know, it takes time. Not everyone can have my parents but fuck, I really liked her, Willow.'

'Come in.' she waved the girl in and Lucy followed her to the sofa. 'Tell me everything.'

'So, we were Skyping, like we always do on Fridays, it's like our little date night thing. And I knew, I knew,' her voice cracked, her eyes filling again, 'when I saw her face that something had gone on, you know. She said something about how her mum wanted her to spend the rest of the year focusing on finals and college and shit like that, and that even the barest whisper of a boyfriend, let alone a girlfriend, would mean she'd be grounded. And so, she broke up with me. I really liked her, like really.'

'I know you did.' Willow murmured, pulling her head down into the pillow in her lap. 'I know. You want me to hunt her down and threaten her with my crutches?'

Through the sobs came a laugh before Lucy gave into her heartbreak as Willow smoothed her hair. The two lay there as Lucy cried heaving sobs; Willow beginning to run a hand up and down her side.

It wasn't fair.

She worked so hard. Tried so hard to thrive at whatever life threw her way, whether that be her studies, her theatre, her dancing, her singing or her friendships; Lucy Kennedy strove to be the best of the best, and yet the one thing that she had yet to experience in a true, heartfelt manner was love, romantic love that is, not the platonic or familial love that she had for her friends and family. But a love that made her shine, that would be there for every opening and closing night, every audition, every rejection where all she wanted was to curl up and sob and give up.

Willow wet her lips. 'I know you liked her, Lucy, I know and if I were able to walk further than to the door without an aide, I'd hunt down her folks and maybe even beat them with the crutches. But you'll find that person, maybe it will be like Katherine and Jack, maybe sometime down the line, before your first Tony and Emmy, maybe you'll run into each other and things will fall into place. You will find that love, someday, one day, you will. I promise you. But right now, we're going to cry and get snot everywhere and watch some Sound of Music because I know how much Julie makes you smile and maybe we'll do that tomorrow too, and that's alright. You'll wake up someday and it won't be hurting anymore, the pain she made you feel.'

Red rimmed blue eyes peered up at her as she clutched a pillow to her chest. 'Promise?'

Willow held out her finger, encouraging Lucy with a wiggle of the digit. They wrapped together. 'Promise.'

Lucy went home to curl up with her mother an hour or so after the film which left Willow to potter about by herself until Jasper came back from a hunt. She had Mulan on as background noise, watercolour sketchpad in front of her as she doodled various ideas out onto it, using the Christmas present from Edward as she bopped her head along to Shang trying to make men out the recruits.

Awareness trickled into her mind and she looked up as Jasper came in through the back of the house, toeing his boots off at the door, padding in to meet her in the living room. 'Hey, you.'

'Hey, hon.'

Willow tilted her head back for a kiss and Jasper settled behind her on the sofa as she worked at the coffee table, cast resting on a pillow. 'What'cha doing?'

'Dunno yet, how was hunting?'

'Quiet. Just Alice and I. Thought you would be watching the ball drop.'

She made a noise in the back of her throat, 'It's the same thing every year basically and Lu was over so we had Sound of Music on before.'

Jasper's face furrowed in concern. 'Is she okay?'

'No, not really.' Willow admitted, quiet, 'She got broken up with.'

'Jillian broke up with her, why?'

'Homophobic parents.' Willow grimaced, 'Which sucks for her because we all knew how much she liked her, you know. And with it being New Year's Eve and everything, hopefully, next year is better for her, I hope.'

'She'll be out of Forks and making names for herself in no time.'

The two were quiet as Jasper took in the film. 'You know I've never seen this.'

Wait, what?

'Gimme the remote.' She made grabby hands and he handed it to her with a puff of laughter. Grunting, Willow eased herself out from under the coffee table and Jasper welcomed her into his embrace as she went back to the start. 'This is like, the peak of my childhood right here. So, we are going to rewatch this and you will appreciate the songs. One of them makes me think of you, not gonna lie.'

'If you say so.'

'I do,' she looked at him, barely inches separating them, and she kissed him quickly, 'I do say so.'

As the movie went back to the start, Jasper began to play with her head before speaking up. 'Any resolutions for the next year?'

'Try not to die, actually.' Willow thought on it as the opening thing for Disney came on, 'One life or death scenario is enough for a good few years, maybe the next one can be near my college graduation…'

Jasper laughed into her neck, kissing her shoulder. 'I mean, I'd appreciate it. So, it sounds like a feasible thing, a solid goal.'

'Thanks, I thought really hard on it.'

The two settled in for the movie, wrapped up in a few blankets on the well-worn chocolate brown leather sofa, just as the rain began to patter down on the roof outside.

Mulan had just finished singing about wanting to bring honour to her family when her neighbours, on her left rather than the right, began to yell the count down and with noses brushing, the couple echoed the sentiment before sealing it with a kiss, hopeful for the new year.

Neither of them knew of the drama that 2004 would bring.

And thus, chapter 32.

Thank you for the birthday wishes, they were greatly appreciated. It was a quiet birthday, like I said last chapter, but I have plans with my friends to do something when we're all off from Uni, so we'll make up time for it later.

Fun fact, we're going to be in Twilight next chapter so brace yourselves, ladies, theydies, and gentlemen for the Drama will be hitting our loves like that logger truck did at Christmas.

Let me know what you all think,

Enjoy,

K x