#Author's Note# Thank you to all the people who've
reviewed me so far. I will follow your advice and correct the spelling of Caitie's name the next time she is mentioned ("well,
isn't she mentioned in this chapter?" you might wonder. Read on and find out
evil laughter). I've tried to make the story longer in this chapter.
The other was merely the beginning. Thanks.
Disclaimer:
Do you really think I own In A Heartbeat? Nope, I don't either. Drifting
off to la-la land Though I wouldn't mind owning Chris…jerked back to
the harsh reality that I don't own Jamie or his actor counter-part But, anyway,
I don't own the show, just the words. I'm not making any money so please don't
sue.
Jamie slowly
dragged himself up the stairs of his three-story home towards his room, his
haven. Only his labored breathing penetrated the absolute silence, and his occasional
groan of displeasure as his beaten body protested its movement. "Almost there…almost,"
he breathed as he made his way to his sanctuary, his handsome face a mask of
misery. As he reached the second-floor area before his door, he fairly
collapsed across the threshold. He somehow managed to get inside, lock the
door, and fall into bed, but these tasks only served to sap him of his last
remaining energy. He quickly fell into a deep, unsettled sleep. Visions of
crimson splatters and raging beasts with his father's face plagued him.
-------------------------Several Hours Later--------------------------
Jamie awoke
with a start. He'd been awoken by his nightmares, and was bathed in a light
sheen of sweat. He slowly craned his head towards his alarm clock. The big red
numbers read 12:35. 'Great' thought Jamie. 'It'll take me at least an hour to
fall back asleep now.' He knew this from many nights of experience. This wasn't
the first time his father had beaten him up, after all. 'Okay, just lay still,
man. Concentrate on stillness…concentrate' he coached himself. 'Think about
good things…don't think about the pain.' Memories of himself at his tenth
birthday party flashed across his mind. 'Things were so good then' he thought. 'Mom
was alive…Dad wasn't abusive…things were so perfect then, and I hadn't even
known it' his internal ramblings continued. 'But then it went downhill. Six
months later, Mom was hit and killed by a drunk driver…Dad started beating
Peter and I…things became what they are now. Miserable. Completely, totally,
utterly hopeless. At least Peter got to go away to college the next year' he
thought bitterly. He recalled how the beatings on his got worse then. It was
like his father blamed him for the departure of Mrs. Waite and Peter. 'Yeah,
like beating me to a pulp solves anything' Jamie mentally scoffed. Mr. Waite's
latest visit "home" to his mansion in Kingsport was unexpected, to say the
least. He'd been away for months, and Jamie had been on the verge of living something
resembling a normal life. 'Damn. Why couldn't he be off making more freaking
money at his damn multi-million corporation in New York?' he thought angrily. Jamie
knew that none of his friends knew that he was rich. He'd made sure of that. He
never talked about his family much, never hinted at his so-called "prestige." He'd
even made sure that his confidential EMS records only held his mother's name. No
one made the connection between Jamie Waite and the millionaire Simon Waite
from New York. Hell, no one even suspected that he was physically abused. He was
very good at hiding the signs. He'd had six years of practice, after all. 'No,
come on man, think of something else' he mentally chastised himself. Memories of
times at the EMS station flashed across his mind's eye, breezing by like so
many images in a motion picture movie. His thoughts led him to the brightest
thing in his life…*her.* In his memory, her lovely face smiled at him in that
remarkable way she that had, he felt remarkably better. Her image stayed with
him, and he smiled, though it was a bit painful because of his bruised right side
of his face. Already a big purple bruise had formed, marring an area a bit to
the side of his full lips. He hardly noticed. He was thinking of her.
All other things were secondary, even his own comfort. She was the reason he
woke up in the morning; she was the reason he went to bed at night. He adored
her, but he would never tell her his feelings. If she rejected him, he was afraid
that his last real tie to the world would be severed. She was the physical
embodiment of goodness to him. She was hope; she was love; she was the promise
of better things to come. Without her in his life, he knew he would have committed
suicide or run away long ago. He was sure that no one could tell the kind of
thoughts that ran through his head all the time just by looking at the way he
acted, the things he said. After all, he'd been tightly controlling his
emotions for six years now. Acting like a rebel all those years was a very nice
way to push away the majority of the crowd, and therefore he had only had to
act for a more limited audience. That meant that there was less of a chance of
his secret being discovered. Oh, yes, Jamie had things all planned out. No one
would ever know about his home life situation. It had worked so far, hadn't it?
Jamie finally drifted off to sleep. "Val…" he murmured as he drifted towards unconsciousness.
---------------------------------Meanwhile---------------------------------
Val Lanier
awoke violently. She sat up quickly in her bed, her medium-length shiny gold
locks plastered to her face and neck in damp strands. "Oh, God," she murmured quietly
to herself as she absentmindedly brushed her fingers through her mane, removing
the strands that were plastered to her. She noticed that her hands were shaking
as she did so. "Oh, God," she repeated, cradling her head in her hands. "Val?" questioned
the sleepy, inquisitive voice of her younger sister Brooke. "Val? Are you all
right?" asked the twelve-year-old. "It's," There was a slight pause as she
checked the clock. "twelve-thirty-five in the morning." There was no answer. "Val?"
repeated her sister. "Ev-everything's
f-fine Brook. Go back to bed," was Val's shaky, slightly muffled response. "I
just had a bad dream, that's all," she continued, lifting her face from her
hands and lying back down. "Okay…" said Brook. 'Good God' thought Val. 'That
was the scariest nightmare I've ever had.' She tried to piece together the
fragments of the dream that she remembered. She remembered first seeing Jamie. He
was in a large, elaborately furnished room, in front of a large set of stairs, near
what appeared to be the front door. He looked like he was just returning from
his EMS shift. He had bags under his eyes, and the room appeared to be illuminated
softly by the surrounding lights, so it was probably nighttime. He was talking
to a man that slightly resembled him, but Val remembered that the man's
features were squarer, older, less sculpted, and definitely less handsome that
Jamie's. She recalled seeing the man attack Jamie with a half-empty
beer-bottle. She shuddered as she recalled how the man had beaten Jamie in a
murderous, drunken rage. She'd seen her friend go down, saw how he was pummeled
with the glass bottle, kicked, and punched. And she was frozen there, in her
dream. For some reason, she could not intervene. She'd ordered her body to *go,
go now, help Jamie,* but it has not obeyed. She could merely observe in silent
horror. The event she most clearly recalled in the horrible scene was when the
man had punched Jamie in the face, near his mouth, and he'd been knocked out
cold. The man had merely sneered down at Jamie's unconscious form and walked
away. Jamie had shortly come to, and painstakingly made his way up the stairs,
and out of Val's line of sight. "Oh, God, oh, Jamie, Jamie," whispered Val in
an agonized voice, thick with emotions. Tears streamed down her face. "It was
only a nightmare…right?" she continued. She was answered only by the silence of
the dark room.
#Yet another author's note# Hehehe! So, did you spot the two surprises I planted in here? Good, I knew you would. If you found more, good for you, but it was an unintentional addition on my part.