Ephram had long ago given up on finding out why Jig had come here. It's not that he didn't care, it just didn't matter anymore. Jig was there; Ephram had stopped caring why. Obviously Jig still cared, though. Obviously she needed to tell him, and obviously, it wasn't going to be a happy tale.
"No, no you didn't," he answered her even though she already knew she had never told him. Jig sighed and looked away from him, blinking tears out of her eyes. She turned back to him.
"I told you about my dad, how he died before I was born," she said and paused, "and I told you about my mom's family, except for Edna, abandoning us. I didn't tell you why. When I was five years old, after a series of asshole boyfriends who treated my mom like trash, she came to a realization. My mom realized no man would ever make her happy again. No man would. So, when I was five years old, my mother became a lesbian. It was cool with me, though, she was happy and I was, five. But when she told her family, her parents, they were disgusted. They were repulsed by the sight of her, by the sight of me. They completely cut off all money and sent my mom and I into poverty. That's when we moved into that apartment house. It was the nicest apartment house for blocks. My mom got a series of jobs. She worked really hard, really hard. She never did anything illegal though, she could have, but she never did. She never did anything I wouldn't be proud of. I was so proud of her Ephram," she said, tears now running down the sides of her face. "We did pretty well for ourselves. When I could I worked. Other tenants helped us out when we really needed it. Edna was there for us. We did well; we took care of each other. We were all each other had, you know? She had me, I had her. She was gone a lot, working, but I didn't mind. She was always home when I went to bed, and she'd always say the same thing. 'Good night my sweet Juliet.' She was the only person who called me Juliet, and she only did it then. Then, then about a month or so ago, Mom went out with this woman she had been seeing for awhile. She made Mom happy so I liked her. But, well, when they were coming back from the movies," Jig said, now fully in tears, "some guys, some men, came out of the shadows of an alley. They had been watching my mom, you know. They know who and what she was. They hated her. They hated her kind! They didn't even know her! First they went after my mom's date. Mom tried to fend them off, but, they, they beat my mom's date to death. Killed her with their fists. Then they came after my mom… She was in the army though, right, so she floored four of them! Knocked them right to the ground! But, but it was, the fifth one, the fifth guy, he, he had a gun. And he aimed it! He aimed it right at my mother's heart. And he fired. My mom was a tough woman, she was a hundred times strong then anyway, even Edna! But, the bullet, that, that she couldn't handle. She, she was dead. Dead! Killed by hate.
"It was late when the police came to my door. I remember getting out of bed, and checking through the peephole. I remember, seeing, seeing the badges, and feeling this vice, around my heart. Then I opened the door and, and suddenly, I went from having next to nothing, to, to just, nothing. She was gone. My mother was gone. Everything I had was gone! It had been taken from me. I remember just collapsing into a heap on the floor, crying and sobbing. My entire body hurt. Hell had come to life. She was gone. I was an orphan. An orphan! I had no one.
"A friend of mine paid for the funeral. I had no money. He, he paid for it. They gave her a military funeral. Those flags, do you remember those flags in my room? One for my father, and one for my mother. That's all I have left of them. Two damned flags folded neatly into damned triangles. I'd rather have my parents. I'd settle for just my mom back. I miss her smile. I miss her laugh. I miss her so much Ephram!" Jig said and collapsed to the ground. Ephram rushed down the steps to her and held her in his arms for the second time that day. He pressed her against him and let her cry. He placed his face onto the back of her head and felt his own tears falling. Never could he have imagined… How horrible… Jig was in Everwood because it was the only place in the world she could go. It was the only place in the world that would take her. No wonder she yelled at him for not realizing how lucky he was, no wonder she beat the crap out of Cory. Her mother was dead too. Murdered out of hate and ignorance. Jig wrapped her arms around Ephram's back, either for more support or more warmth for her hands. He didn't care. She could hold him so tight she'd break his ribs, and he still wouldn't care. He could feel the warm wetness of her tears soaking through his shirt and onto his skin. Ephram hadn't been able to operate normally for months after his mom died, but Jig, it had just been four or five weeks and he never would have guessed. Jig was an orphan. A painful, sorrowful, lamenting orphan. It didn't seem fair. It wasn't right. She had been too good to him, too nice, too caring for this sort of thing to happen to her. Jig didn't deserve to be an orphan. Jig deserved to have both of her parents to greet her in the morning, and call her Juliet at night.
Ephram wasn't sure how long they knelt there, crying to each other. By the time they stood up his fingers and toes were frozen and he imagined hers were much the same, except for her fingers, which had been warmed by him. He helped her into his house and sat her down on the couch. Her entire face was bright red with tears and he covered her in a blanket before going into the kitchen and warming up some water. He wasn't sure what type of tea they had there, but he knew if he put a lot of sugar in it she'd like it.
He walked back into the living room and sat next to her, wrapping his arms around her again. She kicked her shoes off and tucked her feet under her legs. She leaned into Ephram not to cry, but just liking the feeling of being held. For a brief moment she imagined it was her mother holding her lovingly again. She might have deepened further into the fantasy if Ephram didn't smell like he did. Her mother smelled like strawberries, but Ephram smelled like butterscotch and leather. Ephram also gripped her differently then her mother did. Her mother would put her arms around her and hugged her more with her neck and shoulders, while Ephram put his arms around her and pressed her torso to his. She had never been really held before by masculine hands, except for Isaac, but he was different. Jig started to cry a little again, but it wasn't as violently as before. It was just a soft cry accompanied by some laughter that Ephram didn't question her about. She was laughing at the utter foolishness of it all. Orphaning a child because who her mother was on a date with. The idea was laughable. Sadly laughable.
The whistle on the kettle sounded so Ephram reluctantly let her go, and went to turn off the heat. He pulled a mug out of the cupboard and placed a tea bag inside of it. He poured in some water about one centimeter from the brim of the mug. He stirred it with a spoon so the clear water became the brownish color of the tea. He walked over to a cupboard and took the sugar out of it. He turned back around to the mug to find Jig standing there holding the blanket around her, and silently mixing the tea. He walked back over to her and poured a good amount of sugar into it. He took the spoon from her and started mixing the sugar in. The spoon stopped when Jig leaned up and kissed his neck, her being too short, and him being too tall, for her to reach his cheek. His eyes grew wide as he looked down at her, a rush of red advancing upon his cheeks. She smiled sweetly and walked back toward the living room.
"Amy doesn't know how lucky she is to have you," she told him casually. Ephram heard the spoon quickly hitting the side of the ceramic mug and he looked down to see his hand trembling. He released the spoon and calmed his hand.
"Yea, Amy," he muttered quietly to himself. He cleared his throat, grabbed the mug by the handle with his now steady hand, and carried it over to her. Jig was sitting on the couch again and she took the mug from him there. She stirred it a few more times and then blew onto a spoonful of tea before swallowing it. Ephram sat down again on the couch next to her, this time not wrapping his arms around her in comfort.
Somehow, Jig's moods of sadness or anger, never lasted more than ten minutes or so. Ephram and Jig had fought a few times throughout the course of their friendship, but they lasted only a few minutes and were then forgotten. It was like Jig couldn't stand being anything but happy. Then again, maybe she was always sad, only she didn't show it. Ephram tended to wear his depression right on his sleeve, but Jig, who had more reason to be depressed than him, never really showed it. Ephram sighed as Jig leaned forward and placed the mug on a coaster on the table in front of them.
"Are you happy, Jig?" he asked her. She turned to him and smiled slightly.
"Sometimes," she answered.
"But, overall, day to day, are you generally happy?" he elaborated.
"I will be," she said forcing the smile now. Ephram looked over her face with his eyes. He had never seen anything in her face of any notable, physical, attractiveness, but there was something that came out of her eyes that made her pleasant to look at.
"I wish I could make you happy," he told her. Now her smile was real.
"You have enough trouble making yourself happy, Ephram," she told him and he smiled. He sighed and looked around them.
"Doesn't this remind you of when we got snowed in?" he asked her. She replied in the affirmative.
"Only this time I'm healthy enough to enjoy it," she added, leaning forward and picking up the mug.
"You know, I was supposed to go out tonight," Ephram told her. She turned to him.
"Not with Amy?" she asked him. That threw him off a little.
"No, no not with Amy. Dad, Delia and I were supposed to go have dinner with my aunt and Orrie, and, Cory," he said realizing the mentioning of Cory might remind Jig of her outburst and then of her mother.
"Orrie?" she said grinning and taking a long sip from her mug. It was like she didn't hear the name of the guy she had previously assaulted.
"Yea, Orrie…" Ephram said not understanding the grin.
"He's a nice guy, isn't he?" she asked him.
"Yea. He knows more about anime than I do. Maybe even more than you do," Ephram answered, indicating it was quite the accomplishment on either account.
"Yea, but, anime aside, he's a nice guy, right?" Jig repeated. Ephram looked at her confused.
" 'Anime aside?' Jig I don't get it," he said. Jig smiled and laughed a little. It was almost a giggle. She shrugged her shoulders.
"Well, Orrie's, well, he's kind of cute, that's all," she said. His eyes widened in surprise.
"Wait, you have a crush on my cousin?" he asked her to make sure of his suspicions.
"Why not? You have a crush on mine."
"Yea, well, that's different," he said.
"How?"
"I'm not related to her," Ephram said and Jig laughed. She set her mug down and patted him on the shoulder as she stood.
"I better get going Ephram," she said finding her shoes and putting them on. Ephram ushered her to the front door and just as she opened it he grabbed her arm.
"Are you okay?" he asked her. She smiled sweetly, and left.
