After suffering from a severe case of WB, I'm back again! Woohoo! lol. This is the first part of a four chapter fic, set after Get Off My Boyfriend. Any title suggestions will be highly appreciated!
Disclaimer: I don't own T70S, or any of the characters. This plot is mine, however.
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It was, strangely enough, his mother's voice he heard as he stormed across the driveway towards the El Camino.
"People leave, Steven. That's what people do. They make you think they care, and then they leave."
Her exact words, spoken to him as his father walked out the door. He never knew if they were meant for him or his father, but now they were resurfacing, coming forth from out of the deepest recesses of his mind, to remind him.
He never did care much for his mother. Or maybe he did – maybe that's why, while he was letting the whole world know that he couldn't care less, he was actually being torn apart from the inside. She never was much of a mother, drinking and smoking and slapping him around whenever she felt like it – but she was his mother, and a parent's unconditional love was something that he, as every other child, had always expected to be there. He hadn't seen it often, but sometimes he thought he could catch a glimpse of it – when his elementary school teacher called with the suggestion of putting him in a 'special' class for gifted children, or when he came bursting through the door at the age of five, announcing that his team had won the little league game. He liked to believe that she cared, that there were times when she didn't think he was a complete failure, that she actually felt proud of him.
Her words were still ringing through his ears, and he knew that they'd been there, subconsciously, all along. It was her lesson to him, an advice he'd followed his whole life.
Leave, or be left. Hurt, or be hurt.
So he left, before anyone had a chance to leave him.. again. And maybe he hurt them in the process, but rather them than him, right? He had never had a girlfriend. What were the chances that a high school romance would last? One of them would eventually leave, and both of them would hurt. So, he left first, sparing himself the hurt, and hopefully, sparing her as well. He never looked back. It was the same with all the girls – leave before they hurt you.
His friends thought him something of a player, a guy who would nail a girl and then move on, no strings attached. They hadn't expected him and Jackie. They hadn't expected him to agree to a relationship, a commitment. But he had, and if she'd let him, he would have stayed by her side for as long as possible. Now, he was cursing himself. How could he have been stupid enough to think that she'd give up Kelso for him? He was nothing to her, he couldn't buy her stuff, his parents had vanished from the face of the earth.. If they, whose love for him was supposed to be unconditional, didn't want him, then who would?
The truth was, he'd been given an out. As soon as Eric and Donna had walked in on them, he had had an opportunity to get out, to leave. It had been a chance from God. But he had decided to stay. Why? He didn't know. Maybe it was because she'd told him she loved him? It didn't matter that it had been years ago, she had actually told him that she loved him. Maybe it was because he thought that he'd be able to milk the situation a little more – stupid as he was.
Things started to get messy. In a moment of stupidity, he had agreed to tell Kelso. He found himself unable to, partly because, even though his friends would disagree, he had a conscious. Partly because if he did, he would be admitting that this wouldn't be a simple thing. It would turn into something bigger, something badder, something.. emotional. And now, looking back, he wished he would have taken the out. As good as it felt to actually have someone who gave a damn, it killed him when it was time to call it off.
Leave, or be left. Hurt, or be hurt.
He had had his chance, and he hadn't taken it. Now she had left, and he had been hurt. Maybe it was karma, maybe 'you reap what you sow', but Steven Hyde knew one thing – he'd never let this happen to him again. And as he sat behind the wheel of his car, driving without knowing the destination, he thought back, and it briefly crossed his mind, the thought of if this was how his mother had felt, when her husband, the man who had promised her 'until death do us part', walked out the door.
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