Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. The fictional band Degenerate Matter, their albums Vagabondage, Ultrarelativistic, WIMPs and MACHOs, the song "Stargazer," and all the lyrics contained therein copyright to the author of this story (username: MistyMountainHop, maker of Those '70s Comics).

CHAPTER 61
MASSLESS PARTICLES

May 6, 1995

Chicago Heights, Illinois

26th Annual Gem and Mineral Show
…

The 26th Annual Gem and Mineral Show occupied Prairie State College's gymnasium. Rows of tables were laid out in long bands that stretched across the floor, and the place vibrated with chatter. People were buying and selling and explaining and showing off. Hyde had never seen rocks generate so much hubbub. Many were shiny and expensive, but some were just bizarre, like bismuth. It resembled a rainbow trapped in the innards of a computer.

Hyde lowered the bill of his Chicago Cubs cap. Many of the people here were simply mineral geeks, but plenty of college kids wandered the gym, too. That meant possible Degenerate Matter fans. He had to be careful not to be recognized. He'd worn a dress shirt to this event and made sure not to focus on one direction too long. With any luck, he'd blend in.

Ahead of him, Betsy and Kelso read over a list of minerals. She had an assignment for school, from a special two-week geology elective. She'd invited Hyde to come with her. Brooke, though, had turned it into an experiment. Her hypothesis: Kelso had accepted Hyde's place in Betsy's life and no longer viewed him as competition.

So far, Kelso wasn't proving that theory wrong. At Brooke's apartment this morning, his greeting had been friendly. But Hyde remained watchful of every tick in Kelso's damaged face, of any tonal shift in his voice.

"Oh, there's the amethyst!" Betsy said. She grasped Kelso's hand and pulled him to a table with giant amethyst geodes. Hyde chuckled, hardly believing the sight. Her comfort with Kelso was a new development. Kelso's jealousy actually might have faded.

"Are you going to explain this now?" Brooke said softly. She was pointing to the scab on Hyde's nose and the yellowing bruise on his cheek. "You've kept mum on it for two days. Betsy's worried, and so am I."

"Damn it." He should've known she'd spot his injuries. She always did. "Me and Ro got into it," he said and scanned the gymnasium for an easy getaway. Stones glittered under the bright ceiling lights. He stepped in their direction, but Brooke put gentle pressure on his arm and stopped him.

"What do you mean, 'got into it'?" Her voice was louder this time, but he shrugged. "Uh-uh, Steven. We don't do that to each other." She enclosed her hand around his stiff fingers and gave them a tender squeeze. "If you want to go outside for a smoke while we talk about this—"

"I shared somethin' with her she didn't like hearing." His stomach tensed at the memory. "And she walloped me for it."

Brooke's gaze hardened. "She punched you?"

"Her ring scratched my nose."

"Did you fight back?"

"Not physically."

"But you told her she could never do that again, right?"

His throat grew thick with the truth. "Can't say that I did."

"Steven—my God!" She dragged him to a less trafficked corner of the gymnasium. "This isn't the first time I've seen you with a bruise or some kind of scrape. And don't give me some nonsense that she's a 'rock star' and has a lot of energy. She's abusing you."

His fist went for his hair but knocked into the bill of his baseball cap. He brought his arm back down and rolled the tightness from his shoulders. The wounds she was talking about had come from sex. "Word's a little strong, Brooke."

"Oh? Years ago, before he was sober, Michael left bruises on my wrist." She'd lowered her voice, despite that Betsy and Kelso were nowhere nearby. "You called that abuse. How is what Ro did to you any different?"

"She wasn't drunk."

She glanced away from him, clearly unhappy with his response.

"Come on, man. Look at me."

She did. "Yes?"

"No, I mean, look at me. I'm five-foot-ten, over a hundred-and-sixty pounds." He flexed his left biceps to emphasize his point. "She's barely five-three, a hundred-and-fifteen pounds. How much damage can she do?"

"You're making excuses, rationalizing. And I am looking … and listening." She reached toward his temple. A lock hair of hair had slipped from his cap, and she pushed it back inside. "If you can accept this kind of treatment from her, then she's done enough damage to make me very, very scared for you."

"Brooke, you don't have to—"

He quit talking. She was already out of earshot. The fair's attendees were flowing from table to table like a river, and she'd dived into the water. Fear had driven her away., but the dynamics of his relationship with Ro were complex. Explaining them was impossible. He constantly grappled to understand them himself, to bring them into balance, but balance might be beyond his capabilities.

Shoes squeaked on the gymnasium floor as a stream of people rushed passed him. He merged with it, and the current carried him to a long table covered in all kinds of stones. They were individually priced and labeled in alphabetical order, with lengthy descriptions beneath their names.

None of the A-stones held his interest, but he swept his thumb over the flat surface of blue lace agate. The color reminded him of a pair of jeans Jackie used to wear, back when they first started dating. They'd hugged her butt in a way his body no longer responded to, but he smiled at the memory nonetheless.

"Hi, there!" The mineral dealer had spotted him. She was gray-haired, brightly dressed, and smelled of incense. "Are you interested in healing gems?" Her fingers traced over the chain of her necklace. It ended in a pendant made from an orange stone he couldn't identify.

"This is amber," she said, as if reading his thoughts. "It transforms negative energy into positive energy—psychic, emotional, physical. You name it."

"Uh-huh." She'd lost him at psychic. He moved to leave, but a stone caught his attention. It was a lump of indigo that twinkled with dozens of star-like particles

"Ah, you've been drawn to the purple goldstone." The dealer scooped up a similarly glittering lump, only this one was gold-colored. "This beauty is man-made, can you believe it? Copper creates its sparkle. Yours has manganese in it, if I'm not mistaken."

He picked up the purple goldstone. Its surface was cold and smooth, but its innards contained the night sky. "Got any more of these?"

"Give me just one moment." Several cardboard boxes were stacked behind her. She rummaged through them and eventually presented him with two plastic bags. One was full of misshapen spheres of purple goldstone. The other had strands of perfectly round beads and asymmetrical chips of the same. "Feel free to look through them," she said. "They're like snowflakes. No two are identical."

She poured the bigger purple goldstones into a basket. Some had the twinkling particles clustered in only one area, but most had them distributed more evenly. He chose one of the latter and the display lump he'd seen originally. They were only six dollars apiece.

"How much for the beads?" he said. She gave him the prices for the strands. Neither type was expensive. "I'll take five of each."

Her eyes glittered like the goldstone. "Fantastic! Are you a jewelry maker?"

"They're for a friend," but he'd be keeping one of the lumps for himself. "She's getting into jewelry design."

"She must be a good friend." She counted out the right amount of strands and wrapped them in tissue paper. "Though man-made, these have wonderful creative powers. They help clear out what's blocking us from wealth. I'm not talking just about money but a wealth of spirit."

He could've done without the gobbledygook, but her intentions seemed genuine. Once all his purple goldstone was in a paper shopping bag, she gave him the price total: $144.21.

He pulled a hundred and a fifty from his wallet. He'd planned on spending that cash on Betsy, but with Kelso here, his gift-buying had to be curtailed. Testing Kelso's limits was not on his agenda today. Or ever.

"Here ya go." He paid the dealer and took the shopping bag. "Keep the change."

"Thank you!" She held the cash against her heart. "May the goldstone bring you and your friend joy!"

He doubted a shiny rock could do that much, despite what Jackie used to say about diamonds. But maybe it would inspire her whenever clouds or city lights deprived her of the stars.

University brochures and course catalogs littered Jackie's living room. They were from schools all over the country that offered Masters of Fine Arts in jewelry design. Reading about the programs got Jackie's heart pounding, the way being tossed into the air during cheer routines used to. She was high enough to see over the crumbling walls of her present, to a possible future on the other side.

Her hand ached from the round-nose pliers she clutched. She was shaping copper wire for her latest jewelry project. Jewelry Maker Magazine's tutorial sat on her coffee table, and spread on her sofa were spools of copper wire, a plastic bowl of beads, and different kinds of pliers. Pearl Jam played from her sound system, a band Steven had recommended. Its music had the same level of emotional integrity as Degenerate Matter's, and playing it made her feel less alone.

She hadn't left her house in days. She'd cut herself off from the Blonde Brigade, and her mom hadn't contacted her in months, since before Come On Magazine published Jackie's birth certificate. The frantic, accusatory phone call never came. Instead, she was gifted with tabloid stories about herself.

Looped diamonds of wire filled the peg board on her lap. Matching pieces blanketed the coffee table in piles. All she had to do now was combine the separate parts into a necklace, but Pearl Jam's Vs. had ended. She put down the peg board and went to her stereo system. On the shelf beneath it was Steven's demo "Point Place A". She put it in the tape deck, pressed play, and its chugging, confrontational riff held her in place like a fist.

"I'm just a rock," she whispered to no one, but her words found a place in the music. "I'm just a dull rock."

She pressed stop and snatched the cassette tape from the deck. She dashed upstairs to her office, put the tape into the stereo there. The notebook Steven had given her for Christmas was hidden on her desk, under a pile of astrology notes she should have shredded. She grabbed the notebook and a pen, listened to the song from the beginning. Stopped and rewound it repeatedly. Wrote.

She feared ruining the tape, but forty-five minutes later, full lyrics adorned the notebook's pages. The song played one last time. Her finger traced over the words, and she mouthed the lyrics silently. But during the second verse, her voice entered the melody.

"I'm one of a million lost fools," she sang, "who look to you to guide their ships to safety." Heat shot into her neck, but she was alone. No one could hear her. "I'm one of a million," she continued, "a stargazer, but the stars will never gaze down at me."

Betsy swung her small paper shopping bag as she and Hyde wove through the mineral fair. He'd bought her a sunset opal bracelet, not too pricey. If Kelso had a problem with it, they'd have the conversation Hyde had been avoiding for a decade: Betsy was his kid, too. Not legally or by blood but by choice and experience.

Fortunately, Brooke currently occupied Kelso's full attention. They were kissing and talking lovey-dovey crap a few tables away, and Hyde nudged Betsy's shoulder. "You got someone you speak to like that?"

Betsy glared at him, in a way that was all too familiar. She'd nabbed that combo of disgust and incredulity from him. "There's no one at school who, like, fits me. The boys, whether they're jocks or academic, are all hormone-crazy and so obnoxious. The girls, except for my friends, think I'm that 'weird grunge kid,' but grunge isn't even a thing. It was a joke-name made up by Megan Jasper to burn the media. Do some freakin' research, right? It's not that hard.

"And those girls aren't even into bands like Bikini Kill or Bratmobile. They're the weird ones, and I'm not gonna settle for someone lame."

He laughed. The kid had inherited her mom's common sense, at least where it really counted. "When you do start hooking up with someone—"

"Hooking up?" She shuddered like she'd swallowed a spider. "Since when do you say hooking up?"

"Since I got a kid in high school."

Her eyes widened then flicked in Kelso's direction. "I'm—you think of me like your daughter?"

"About fourteen years now, French fry."

"But you've told me, like a zillion times, that you're not my dad. You've stayed away."

He had stayed away. To protect her and himself. The truth was complex, but his need to escape it was shrinking. "Look," he said and led them toward a table of geodes, "'cause of circumstances, I've got to keep my distance more than I want. And Kelso's got to have a chance to prove he's your dad, too."

"He is, except when your name comes up—" She clamped her mouth shut, so tightly that her lips were no longer visible.

"Hey." He took her hand. "You can say it."

"Will you tell me what happened to you?"

"Has nothin' to do with you. What's Kelso up to?"

"What's in the bag? Did you get Ro a present?"

He glanced down at his shopping bag. She was trying to distract him, and he'd give her a one-minute detour. "Got myself somethin'."

"Are you getting Ro anything?"

"The only jewelry Ro gives a crap about is around my neck and on her finger."

"Can I see it?" she said, and he lifted his bag. "No, I mean what's around your neck."

"You've seen it before."

She frowned, and her brows pushed together. She could be as manipulative as Jackie used to be, but he obliged her, pulling the guitar pendant from his shirt collar.

She rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger, and a vision wedged itself into his skull: Betsy with a bruised cheek and scratched nose. She'd already gotten a shiner last month for defending him. Because of her love for him.

"Listen—" he tucked the pewter pendant back inside his collar—"don't ever let anyone treat you like shit. No one should touch you in a way you don't like or that hurts."

"Or say things that hurt?"

"That's probably unavoidable, but if someone makes a habit of it? Yeah. It's easy to make excuses for the folks we care about 'cause we don't want to lose 'em, but you've got to put yourself first. Even if it means being alone for a while."

"I know. I grew up with enough scary-man experiences. I don't need any more." Her hand floated over a row of flat geode slices. They resembled cut-open melons with their pink and orange inner circles. "He's badmouthing you," she said. "He talks about the tabloid stories, and Mom thinks he's sympathizing with you, but I hear the digs. It's subtle, but I'm not stupid."

A sizable smoky quartz geode lay by his hand. He ran his fingertips over its sharp crystals. "Like what? I've got to know what I'm dealing with."

"Just..." She glanced up at him. "Talking about how terrible this all must be for you. How it's got to be putting your relationship with Ro under stress, that he hopes it won't break up the band. But he doesn't sound upset about it. He sounds happy."

"He probably is on some level."

"Why?"

"Me and your dad, we've got a lot of history between us. And that's fine, but it's got to stay between us." He gestured to a basket of unopened geodes. "You want one of those?"

"No." Her arms snared him in a hug. "Why can't I love both of you?"

He returned her embrace, but his bruised cheek slid against her temple, and he winced at the sting. That was the first time in years Betsy had indicated she loved Kelso. It was good news. It was progress, but the resentment inside Kelso was toxic and choking her.

"I'll take care of it," he said. His promise sounded empty after failing the first few times, but … "I got a better handle on it now. One way or the other, I'll take care of—"

"Take care of what?" Kelso said, and Betsy withdrew from Hyde's arms. Kelso and Brooke had come to the geode table, sneaking up like a pair of cats.

"College," Betsy said, and Hyde's neck grew stiff at the lie, but he didn't contradict her. "I don't want to fight over this anymore," she went on, looking at Brooke. "I know you and Dad will do the best you can for me, and I'm going to apply for scholarships. But, sorry, I won't let my education be limited by what we can afford." She grasped Hyde's hand and squeezed it. "Steven's got the money, and he's loves me."

Kelso's drooping left eyelid twitched. Betsy must've spotted it because she let go of Hyde and poked Kelso in the chest. "And if you love me, you'll let him help us."

She strode away from them all, her long hair slapping at her back. Brooke chased after her, but Kelso wound an arm around Hyde's shoulders. "You offered to pay for my kid's education?"

"Man, she's smart enough to get into Harvard or Princeton or wherever the hell she applies." Hyde had set up a college fund for Betsy years ago. He and Brooke never discussed it with Betsy—at Brooke's request—but the kid must've trusted he'd come through for her. "If she needs the cash to get there, she's got it."

"That's very generous of you, buddy-Hyde." With his arm still around Hyde's shoulders, Kelso guided him from the geode table. "I make decent money, but a lot of it's going into the wedding. Brooke said we could get married for cheap, by a justice of the peace, but I've been waiting fifteen years for this, you know?"

Every word seemed rife with hostility, but it was in the subtext. Kelso might be deaf to it. He was never good at reading between the lines, including his own, but Hyde's skin prickled as if a colony of ants had made his flesh home.

He shrugged Kelso's arm off himself and focused on Kelso's thick-rimmed glasses. They distracted from the asymmetry in Kelso's features, but his face was a piece of performance art on permanent display. Hyde's rage had created it.

"Speaking of weddings," Kelso said, "have you and Ro set a date yet?"

"Too busy workin' on the band's fourth album."

"Have you seen Jackie lately?"

Hyde massaged the tingling knots in his shoulders and neck. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because she's getting dumped on by the tabloids, and I care." Kelso stopped at a table selling rose quartz jewelry. A rack of necklaces drew his attention, and his fingers plucked the silver chains like harp strings. "Brooke says you two are close again."

"We're friends."

"Best friends?"

Hyde put distance between himself and Kelso but not too much. He was both polarities of a magnet, simultaneously repelled by and pulled to the man he'd almost killed. Kelso's feelings for him had to be just as complicated, but if Kelso ever remembered the truth, those feelings would uncomplicate in a blink.

Hyde's instincts, though, shouted that Kelso already knew on some level. Maybe he had flashes or dreams about Hyde's fists pulverizing him.

"New policy between us," Hyde said. "Don't talk to me about Jackie. Don't ask me about her. Don't even think about us in the same thought." Because that might slim the chances of Kelso remembering, and buried shallowly in Hyde's guts was the need to scream, "You raped her, man! You fuckin' raped her and stole her life."

He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. The shopping bag was looped around his wrist and hit his leg. Sixteen years had transformed his anger but hadn't softened it. He'd given his life away because of what Kelso had done. Deprived himself of Jackie, deprived Jackie of himself. He wouldn't make that mistake again. "You heard me?"

Kelso ran his tongue over his front teeth. They needed some upkeep. The chipped one's bonding was crumbling, and the dead one was darker than the last time Hyde had seen it. "You still haven't forgiven me," Kelso said.

"I've stuck by your side. That's all you've got to know."

"Yeah, you have." He smiled that old, innocent smile of his, and patted Hyde's back. "Buddy-Hyde, looking out for my family."

Hyde nodded, hoping this would be the last of these conversations. "'Til death, but do me a favor."

"What?"

"Quit jawin' about the tabloids in front of Betsy. She doesn't like it."

Kelso blinked, but his drooping left eyelid didn't quite open. "Really? She's never said anything."

"'Cause she doesn't know how. She's still learning her way around you, same as you are with her."

"I'm her dad. She should be able to tell me anything." A shadow darkened Kelso's face. A storm was gathering in his skull, one Hyde needed to dissipate.

"And you'll get there, man. Same as me and my dad." Hyde pulled a beaded, rose quartz necklace from the rack. "My sis would dig this." It was twenty-two bucks, and he had just enough cash to cover it.

"You're buying jewelry for your sister?"

Hyde passed the dealer a twenty and a five. "What can I say? I've become a sap in my old age."

Kelso chuckled. "I can't believe you and Angie get along enough for you to buy her a necklace!"

"Times change," Hyde said. "Relationships change." His deflection had worked, but it was a temporary fix. The most obvious permanent solution involved his disappearance. It was an option he'd taken once and one he refused to repeat.

Jackie had typed up the lyrics to "Stargazer". The experience was emotionally freeing, but her house had become a prison, albeit one with classy, comfortable furniture. The living room was larger than any living room had a right to be. Pacing the length of it took almost three minutes, but she needed to step outside herself. To call someone. Steven was in Chicago, busy with Betsy and Brooke. Donna had to be eating dinner, considering the time difference between California and Wisconsin.

Jackie glanced at the front door. Patricia should've been back by now. Sending her out on errands had been a mistake. She'd been gone most of the day, and the isolation was acting like alcohol, suppressing Jackie's inhibitions.

She sat on the sofa and stared at the phone on her coffee table. Calling her mom was pointless. Wrangling a confession would never happen, even if her mom were the one feeding the tabloids stories.

Instead, Jackie grabbed the peg board. She pulled off the looped diamonds made from copper wire. Piles of them already surrounded the phone. She planned to assemble them into that advanced necklace design, but the front door clicked open. Patricia entered with several shopping bags.

"I had no problems today," Patricia said and produced Jackie's mail from one of the bags. "Even Sheila was surprised."

"That's a relief." Jackie had sent her bodyguard off with Patricia to protect her from the paparazzi. "Maybe my transformation into a hermit is working."

Patricia gave Jackie her mail. "You shouldn't pen yourself up in this house. The walls will fall in on you."

"They already have." The mail contained a new university catalog, but the rest was envelopes. Jackie flipped through them: cable bill, magazine renewal notice, junk mail, but the last envelope had no return address. She checked the post office stamp, and her blood turned into steam, evaporating into nothing. Emblazoned in red ink was Oceanside, CA.

"Pa-Patricia?" She wasn't sure if Patricia had left the room. Her gaze was fixed on the stamped location that couldn't be. "Patricia!" she shouted when she got no response.

"I'm going to the kitchen, Ms. Burkhart," Patricia called back. "I have to put the—"

"I need you to come here. Please!"

Patricia was at her side in moments, and the shopping bags slapped the edge of the sofa. "What's the matter?" she said. "You look like you've been visited by Old Nick himself."

"This." Jackie placed her thumb beneath the post office stamp. "What does it say?"

"Oceanside, California."

A balloon of pressure swelled in Jackie's chest. She held her arms closer to her body and breathed shallow breaths. "Would you sit by me while I open this?"

"Of course." Patricia dropped the shopping bags, sat on the sofa, and offered Jackie her hand. Any other day, Jackie would've maintained professional distance, but she grasped Patricia's hand, and Patricia held onto her tightly. "I'm here. I won't go anywhere until you say."

Jackie met Patricia's blue eyes. They were full of years and experiences and dreams Jackie had never asked about. "Why?"

"Because I know what it's like to be afraid and alone."

Her throat grew tight. Despite that she paid Patricia a salary, her compassion was freely given, a gift Jackie had to return. "Is there anything you've ever wanted to do," she said, "anything at all, that you haven't been able to accomplish?"

"It's a long list," Patricia said, "What do you think is inside the envelope?"

"Hell." She withdrew her hand and ripped the top of the envelope. A folded piece of paper was inside. She unfolded it, revealing a xeroxed copy of a newspaper article. "I—"

The pressure in her chest expanded until her voice vanished. Tingles, like tiny explosions, detonated in her skin until it was numb. She blinked, and the article turned into an inky blur.

"Local Boy Makes Horrifying Debut," Patricia said, reading from the paper.

Don't, Jackie thought. Don't read it, but neither she nor Patricia obeyed.

"Ashland, Oregon," Patricia continued out loud, or maybe her voice was inside Jackie's mind, narrating the article. "Local high school student Dale Fischer presented his horror film, Blood Drops, to an audience of a hundreds on Friday. His senior-year project garnered Fischer an A and satisfying gasps from adults and teens alike—"

The words collapsed. Jackie had crushed the newspaper article to a tenth of its size. Someone was trying to scare her, but very few people knew this article could do that.

"Patricia, please go upstairs to my office," she said. The flatness of her voice was concerning, but feeling hadn't yet returned to her body. "On my desk, you'll find a scrap of paper with the name Anders on it. Bring it to me."

Patricia left and came back in a stretch of time Jackie couldn't quantify. "Thank you, Patricia. That will be all for now."

"Ms. Burkhart, you don't sound well—"

"I'm not well, but I will be." An emergency call to her therapist was imminent, but she had another call to make first. "I'll explain what I can to you later," she said, without looking at Patricia. Her stare was busy absorbing Anders's phone numbers. He wouldn't be at the office today but at his apartment. "I'm sorry if I'm scaring you."

"Don't you worry about me. If you need anything, I'll be in the kitchen."

Jackie thanked Patricia again, this time internally. Patricia had been through the ups and downs of Jackie's anxiety for years. She'd probably been anticipating another episode. It should've happened earlier, considering the tabloid mess, but public lies about herself she could tolerate. The past being used as a weapon to harm her, though, she wouldn't allow.

She picked up the phone. The dial tone droned in her ear, but it was soon replaced by ringing. Her stepfather's Swedish accent cut off the second ring.

"Anders," she said, and adrenaline set off more explosions. This time, however, the shrapnel brought feeling back to her body. "You know who this is, and I'm ready to meet." She paused, cradling the phone receiver between her cheek and shoulder. She scratched the itching, burning sparks from her arms. "Let's do lunch tomorrow … and discuss my mother."