Jody curled her lip in disgust as she stared at the framed photo she'd shown Grant to prove that her mother was a liar. Seeing the photo this soon after the incident stung; it only reminded her of the hate-fuelled words her mother had flung her way right after Grant had left. So, this was what Luke thought of her. Just because the nine-year-old version of her had wanted them to be a family so bad, he thought that she'd want the crummy photo that he clearly had no interest in taking for himself. Well, he was wrong. She wanted the stupid thing even less than he did.
Picking the photo up, frame and all, she aimed for a bare spot on her wall and threw it as hard as she could. Since her door was open, a bunch of kids ran into the bedroom not seconds later, gasping and 'woah'ing as they marvelled at the photo and the smithereens of glass on the floor.
"Hey!" Taz exclaimed, peering up at Jody. "Is that really you? You look as small as me in that photo!"
"It was me," Jody corrected, bending down and picking the photo up. This photo couldn't be allowed to exist any longer, not when it tormented her with her foolish girlhood hopes.
Storming out of her room and hopping down the stairs two at a time, she passed Mike in the lobby. He asked her what on earth was going on upstairs but she didn't answer, heading straight to the kitchen and turning the cooker on.
"Jody?" May-Li called, walking into the kitchen and looking said girl up and down. Jody was aware that she must've looked a sight with her messy hair, rumpled PJs and a seven-year-old photo crumpled in her bloody fingers. She frowned, not having noticed when she'd started bleeding. "What are you doing? Your hand's bleeding!"
"I'm moving on!" Jody answered, ignoring her injury and pushing the photo into the fire. She watched the flames lick at the edge of the photograph, about to burn Kingsley like the fire he'd left her to burn in had almost devoured her, before May-Li pulled her away from the cooker and knocked the photo out of her hand.
As May-Li stamped the fire out, Tyler, who'd watched the entire event unfold from the kitchen doorway, ran up to Jody and started fussing over her.
"What was that about?!" he interrogated, grabbing her bleeding hand. She winced a little as he touched her glass grazed fingers, and pulled her hand out of his grasp. "You could've got hurt!"
"Whatever!" she responded stroppily, groaning when May Li rushed over to her with the first aid kit. "I'm fine!"
"You're not fine!" Tyler protested, an outraged expression on his face. Jody glared at him as May-Li cleaned up her cuts and plastered them. His face softened then and he crossed his arms, lowering his voice by a few notches. "You've hated everything fire related ever since what happened at Kingsley's flat. Why would you go and do something like this?"
She just stared at him, unable to give him an answer that would make even a semblance of sense. The truth was, even she wasn't sure why she'd gone to such extreme lengths. Tearing the photograph up and binning the fragments would've been enough but she'd, for some reason, felt the need to go the extra mile.
Just then, Mike rushed in, his eyes darting wildly between Jody, May-Li, and the discarded photograph. "Can someone please tell me what is going on here?!"
"Jody's following in her mother's footsteps," Ryan taunted, a sickening smirk on his face. "Arson today, who knows what tomorrow."
Jody's blood literally froze as she searched for words to defend herself but came up with none. In an effort to become less like the Jacksons, had she actually failed and turned into their matriarch instead?
"Oh, get lost, Ryan!" Tyler yelled just as Mike told Ryan off.
"What?" Ryan shrugged, seemingly unaffected by Mike's scolding. "I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking."
"Shut up!" Sasha shouted, lunging at Ryan but being held back by Mike.
Looking around the kitchen, Jody found that Ryan was right. The others, besides Sasha, who had gathered in the room at some point were all staring at her like she was some sort of monster. Unable to take it anymore, she ripped her hand out of May-Li's and ran to the patio door.
.:. QK .:.
Changing her name had done nothing. She could become Jane Smith for all anyone cared and she'd still be a Jackson on the inside, all rotten and evil and prone to anger and violence. She'd seen the look on all of their faces earlier just like she had that time she was made to sit in the living room in front of them all not too long ago. She was a stroppy, crazy bitch and that was never going to change, no matter how much boxing and heart-to-heart talking she engaged in.
The idyllic silence of the garden was interrupted by the heavy footfalls she'd recognise anywhere and she immediately turned away from the direction they were coming from.
"What do you want?" she asked, trying to force some venom into her voice but failing miserably. The lack of sleep last night was finally catching up with her.
"I want you to tell me what's going on," Tyler said, sitting down next to her. She chose not to respond but didn't get up to leave either. She didn't know if he knew this but sometimes she just liked to sit in companionable silence with him. Unfortunately, he wasn't in the mood for silence. "After what happened with that Grant guy, you promised me that you wouldn't shut me out. Why are you going back on that promise?"
"It wasn't a promise," she pointed out, unable to recall using the specific word 'promise'.
"It was as good as, Jodes," he countered. She looked down at her plastered fingers, hoping he'd either shut his mouth or leave her alone. Preferably the former. "Are you going to stay out here in your jammies all day?"
"I'll go up in a bit," she said, suddenly feeling self-conscious and wondering if she stank. She bit her lip, remembering how much she'd stunk on her first day at Elm Tree House. It was one of her many embarrassing memories, and one of many that Tyler was unfortunately privy to.
"Aren't you hungry?"
"No," she answered, blushing as her stomach rumbled just seconds later. She could just tell that he was smiling and had to hide her face in her hands out of embarrassment, even though she still had her back to him.
"Ryan's an idiot. You shouldn't let what he says get to you."
She dropped her hands, looking straight ahead at the flowerbed across the garden. "He's right, though. I'm always angry, just like her. I'm violent too, just like her. I went into care in the first place because she and her sons all assaulted our neighbours, remember?"
"Yeah, I know, but you're alright most of the time. And who doesn't get angry? I know I do." She scoffed. In all the time she'd known him, he'd never once been violent. He was just grasping at straws now. "No, really. Remember that time I shoved Bailey because he thought I was showing off?"
She chuckled despite herself, remembering the amazing bedroom he'd bragged about and what it'd actually turned out to be. "Tyler, you were showing off."
"Yeah, well, that's not the point, is it?" he dismissed, sounding (mock) affronted. "What I'm trying to say is that we all snap. You've got to stop being so hard on yourself."
"It's just... it feels like the dance competition all over again," she confessed, remembering how low she'd felt at that time. Kingsley, Denise, and, on occasion, Luke had kicked her self esteem to the dogs in the years she'd lived with them before being put in care. These days, it felt like Denise was always in her head, forcing her to be the worst possible version of herself that she could be. "She's just stuck in my head and I can't shake her off, even though I pretty much forgot about her after I changed my name back."
"Maybe she's still in your head because you haven't said goodbye properly," he suggested, and she could hear him shuffling closer to her. She resisted the urge to inch away out of self-consciousness over how bad she probably smelt. "That's what funerals are for."
She frowned, momentarily forgetting her insecurities. "Why should I go? She was an awful mum."
"Because you need to get her out of your head for good. Do it for yourself, not for her, or Luke, or Kingsley." For herself. She'd never thought of it like that. To her, the funeral had represented a Jackson family occasion she ought not to take part in owing to the fact that she was now an ex-member. "I should get back to cramming soon. That science paper is going to be a nightmare."
Oh. Amidst all the chaos, she'd forgotten about the mocks.
"I'm leaving this here," he stated, slipping something on the gravel next to her. "You can rip it up and bin it but please don't go around trying to set it on fire again. As it is, I think you're banned from using kitchen appliances for the rest of the month."
"What?" she exclaimed, throwing her self consciousness out of the window as she finally turned to face him. "How am I supposed to have breakfast?!"
"That's what you've got me for," he replied with a grin. She felt the corners of her lips twitch as he stood up. "I'll see you inside."
She nodded, watching him go before picking up the dog-eared, partially burnt photo he'd left next to her. She wrinkled her nose at the image of her naively happy nine-year-old face, placing her thumbs and index fingers at the top of the photo, ready to tear it straight down the middle...
.:. QK .:.
Jody let loose on the punching bag in front of her, imagining Ryan's face on it. She just hated him sometimes, especially when he tried to upset her for no reason. She wished she could punch the real guy himself but then she'd just be proving him right; she'd be assaulting him just like her mother assaulted their former neighbours. Still, she could do whatever she wanted to this Ryan.
Recalling the chilling evil he'd displayed when he sent her mother the letter, Jody swung at the punching bag so hard that it looked like it was going to fly to the other side of the gym. Shortly after, she heard a loud thud on the floor in front of her and ducked out of the way when the punching bag rebounded, spotting a boy around her age lying flat on his back on the floor, blood running down his nose.
"Wow," he said breathlessly as some other gym members helped him sit up.
"I'm so sorry," she apologised, her eyes widening as May-Li ran over to them. Oh no.
"Jody! What happened?!" May-Li exclaimed, kneeling next to the boy and telling him to lean forward. She turned back to Jody, peering up at her.
"I—I don't know!" Jody spluttered, closing her eyes as she prepared to be grounded forever for causing two nosebleeds within the space of two weeks. Although, to be fair, that boy had appeared out of f***ing nowhere! Her eyes snapped open. She was not going to take the complete blame for this one.
The boy beat her to it. "Uhh, it's my fault," he declared as someone dabbed at his nose. "I wanted to introduce myself to... Jody... but I approached from the wrong side."
May-Li smiled at the boy but didn't look convinced. "Jody, why don't you go and get this young man some water?"
Jody sighed but didn't dare refuse, just in case she got grounded for showing attitude again. She legged it to the water cooler, hastily filling a plastic cup up with ice cold water before carefully but hurriedly walking back to her latest nosebleed victim. She handed the cup to May-Li.
"Here you go, Brandon," May-Li almost cooed, giving the cup to said (?) boy. He thanked her, taking a generous gulp.
Mere minutes later, Jody found herself sitting next to Brandon on a bench owing to May-Li nagging her to make more friends. 'Wouldn't hurt to widen your friend's circle' she'd said. Jody had scoffed. She had Tyler, (some of) the DG lot, and her school friends. She hadn't come to the gym to socialise.
"So," Brandon began, seemingly unfazed by Jody's hostility, "how did you hit that punching bag so hard? Were you imagining someone's face?"
She turned to him, narrowing her eyes at him. "How did you know?"
"I've done the same thing before," he admitted, smiling somewhat shyly.
"You?" she scoffed, sounding nasty without really meaning to. He just looked so harmless that she found that hard to believe.
"Yeah," he responded, still smiling.
"Yeah, well, I was angry at this guy," she confessed, gritting her teeth at the thought of Ryan. "He said something about me and my mother."
"Her?" he questioned, tipping his head towards May-Li. Huh! If only. May-Li's kids were lucky to have a mum like her.
"Nah," she answered, frowning. "She just looks after me. My mother's dead."
"Oh, I'm sorry... So, she's your guardian?"
"She's my carer. I live in a children's home," she elaborated, waiting for Brandon get up and run for the hills. She'd learnt the hard way that most people saw care kids as the scourge of society, the lowest of the low.
However, to her surprise, Brandon remained seated, still smiling. She wondered if the guy ever stopped. He obviously got into boxing because he thought it looked interesting; there was no way this guy had any anger issues.
"My friend's cousin was in one of those for a bit," he stated. "His aunt—my friend's nan—was ill for a few days so he had to stay at the home but she picked him up as soon as she got better. He and his brothers all live with her now."
"Lucky kid," she commented sadly. "Some of us stay in care until we're too old for the system." She was one hundred per cent sure that she was going to end up joining that club.
"What school do you go to? I don't think I've seen you around before."
Jody wondered how much she ought to say to this guy but answered anyway. She'd probably run into him in the gym a lot from now on and there wasn't really any reason to remain distant from him now that she knew he (probably) wouldn't judge her on her background. Besides, he seemed nice.
.:. QK .:.
After a long day of studying and boxing, Jody trudged into her room to find that the photo frame she'd chucked at the wall was still on the floor where she'd left it. Unceremoniously throwing her gym bag aside, she knelt on the carpet next to the frame and gingerly picked up the shards of glass littering the floor. Following a quick run down the stairs to throw the glass in the glass waste bin, she returned to her bedroom and picked the frame up.
Sitting down on her bed, she surveyed the frame, noting that it was dented at the point of impact and had some purple paint transfer on it. She sighed, realising that one section of the wall would have to be repainted. As for the frame, she didn't know what to do with it. Upcycle it? Give it to charity? Sell it in a car boot sale?
Taking a gander at her room, she realised something for the first time; there were photos plastered all over the walls and framed photos on several pieces of furniture but none of them were of Denise, Luke or Kingsley. For a girl who'd spent almost half her life hoping to reunite with her family, it didn't make much sense. Maybe, just maybe, she'd subconsciously given up on the idea of a forever family a long time ago, way before the Grant fiasco had even occurred. If so, her subconscious was way smarter than she would ever be.
Looking at a picture of her eight-year-old self (taken when she'd first been placed into care) on her bedside, she wondered if she'd ever be a part of a proper family or if she was destined to be the loner Jody Gray formerly Jackson née Gray forever.
A/N: Not too proud of this one but it is what it is. Thanks to yourfire for the follow and favourite.