"What are you doing here?" he asks. Not unfriendly, with none of the usual confusion that came when she'd show up here. He was just resigned to having to do this again. Resigned and sad and she couldn't put her finger on when everything about him had started breaking her heart.
She opens her mouth, tries to speak but can't seem to find her voice. Just fights back the tears that have been plaguing her for days now and tries to find the strength to get through this.
"You shouldn't be in here," he says when he gets no reply. The same sadness in his voice but he never raises his eyes to look at her.
There is something about the site of Adam Rove sitting in his workshop surrounded by what anyone else would consider garbage that always made her feel like the world had the potential to come into focus one day. But it's different now, he's not working on creating something that is beautiful in a way she never would have guessed. He's staring blankly at all the things around him like they don't make sense to him anymore.
It puts her world even more off balance. She'd never realized the comfort she found in watching him doing something he knew—something he loved.
"I know," she replies finally. After a pause, "I always loved your art."
He snorts, shakes his head in disbelief and absolutely refuses to grace that with any other response.
"My mom told me that…" Joan cuts herself off when she realizes how many ways it's wrong to go there. There had been enough broken confidences and this wasn't a place to bring up mothers after she'd destroyed the thing that helped him remember his.
His knuckles are white with the grip he has on the edge of his table and even from the doorway she can see that he closes his eyes against her words. There is hurt written on his face and she'd give anything she could to erase it but nothing seems to be helping him at all.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, knowing the words are empty and won't make anything stop. But there is a huge gaping Adam shaped hole in her life now and she never would have thought that would make her feel so empty. "I know that I… That I have no right to be here. I know that apologizing isn't going to do anything, but I'm sorry. I… I'm sorry."
"Is that why you came here?" His eyes are angry when they finally meet hers, hard and desperate and she can see that this is hurting him even more. "Don't… Just stop it. Just stop saying you're sorry like it means something."
And his calm had always sort of amazed her, on the verge of tears with a million emotions swimming in his eyes and his voice never rises. It makes her want to scream now, throw things and get some response out of him that is different than this.
But she can't see through her tears anymore, her own knuckles were white from where they're holding onto the doorframe. She's not sure she can remain standing any other way. "I know that it doesn't… It doesn't mean anything to you. But I don't know how to fix what I did.
"I… I know that I screwed up, Adam. I know that I did something incredibly wrong and I hurt you. It's not like… I didn't know what else to do, Adam. I can't explain it, or give you any reasons that will ever make sense to you because I don't even know. Everyone thinks I'm crazy and, I don't know, maybe I am, because I'm not even sure why... I screwed up, and I hurt you and I'm so sor--" she breaks the sentence to take a trembling breath trying to find the words and the reasons that she's even here.
His eyes are back on the table though, he's back to refusing to acknowledge her.
"You have every right to be pissed off at me, Adam. I don't blame you at all. I don't know how to fix what I did though, and if you won't tell me then I'll never know how to…"
"To what?" he demands, seemingly seconds away from finally snapping. "To make it all better? I really don't think that you can. So, if you don't mind…"
"I know, I know. I know that I can't make it all better." She drops her head to try and hide his hurt and her tears behind the curtain of her hair. "I get that there isn't going to be an all better now. I just… I came here for a reason, and I need… I need you to listen to me even though I don't deserve it."
Her purpose came back, the strength that had carried her here forced her a step inside the door, then another. "What I did… It was stupid."
"You think?" he asks, eyes like fire still so far from her.
"It was stupid," she repeats, trying not to shrink away from his anger. Determined not to fall away into the ache that always comes with him now. "It was stupid, and I wish I could tell you why I did it and have you understand. I wish that I could explain it to you and I… I would do absolutely anything to take it back, but I can't. It's always going to be there and you're always going to hate me for it, but… Adam, it was beautiful."
"You destroyed it."
"I know." Joan tries to ignore the way her voice brakes on the phrase this time. "It was stupid and immature and… My mom was hurt in collage, and after that she stopped painting. And you made these things for your mother, and I did that and it hurt you and… I can't take it back, Adam. But it was beautiful. Everything that you make is beautiful and I don't think I ever told you that before."
His voice is cold when it comes back to her. "Are you finished now? I don't want you here, Joan."
There's a pressure on her chest, the entire weight of The Accession sitting there and refusing to allow her to breathe. Tears burning her eyes, her cheeks and it's impossible to her that there are still tears left after the past week and a half. The last two days were practically one long crying jag and she would have rather he'd slapped her than call her that the first time. The second time it just felt worse. A ball of dread in her stomach and the knowledge that she really did lose him. She's cried about this for two days already and couldn't even explain to anyone why. No one could understand why it broke her that he. Knew. Her. Name.
And she'd give anything, absolutely anything in the world to go back to before this all happened and when she'd thought he was just a little flaky. Because even before she'd known it was a nickname—a weird pet name that she didn't understand—she'd known that when he finally called her Joan it would mean something. She just never thought it would mean this and the truth of all she'd lost left her wanting to curl up and cry again.
She hadn't known him for long, but she'd thought she knew him. She'd mastered how to ask the question to get the right answer in AP Chem, she'd learned about his mother and seen how much pain he was always in. She had a cheerleader he made for her sitting on her nightstand and she assumed he knew that she loved it.
It was something of a shock to learn that she'd never known him at all.
All she wanted to do was go back to being Jane.
Joan didn't notice she was sobbing until he was in front of her. He reached out, then apparently realized what he was doing and stopped his hands just shy of touching her, paused only a second then dropped them back to his sides. She couldn't seem to stop crying and he was worried when he had no right to be because he was a better person than she'd ever hope to become herself. In the back of her mind she bid farewell to an almost dream of a friendship and a boy that thought anything she did was beautiful. "I-I'm never going to be her again am I?"
"I don't think so," he answers, his voice softer this time.
She nods, not bothering to try and figure out how he even understood her question. Just chokes back another sob and wipes her tears away with the back of her hand. "You should be pissed at me, Adam. I'm pissed at me too."
"I know."
"I'll go, and I'll leave you alone, I swear. Just… Don't stop making your sculptures, Adam, please. You can ignore me at school and only talk to me through Grace. Or maybe not since she's mad at me now too. You two should form a club, after that whole suspension thing there would probably be a lot of members. It can be the I Hate Joan Club and you guys can have buttons and member jackets and meetings in the school cafeteria, I'm sure considering the subject that Mr. Price would allow it.
"Anyway, I'll stop bugging you to forgive me because I know I'm being selfish and only pushing because I miss you. And I'm sorry that I got you suspended from school, that I got all those people suspended… I'm sorry that I keep screwing up, and I promise that I never, ever wanted to hurt you. But you can't stop making your sculptures, Adam.
"I just came by because… I need you to know that your sculptures—the things you create—they're beautiful to me. I don't think I ever told you so I just wanted to make it clear, I think everything you make is beautiful. Everything you've ever… I don't want to take this from you, Adam. Not from you or your mother because I screwed up and I hurt you. But everything you make is beautiful."
She can't see his expression through the tears in her eyes so she tries and fails to decipher his silence. Clutching her bag a little tighter at her side she takes an unsteady step backwards. Then another.
Turning and walking out, she doesn't expect a reply, or anything else from Adam, because even before he was giving her the silent treatment he wasn't exactly chatty.
"It wasn't supposed to be you. I knew there were a thousand reasons why I shouldn't put that in the show, I knew something would happen. But it wasn't supposed to be you. I thought… I thought you understood."
He meets her eyes when she turns around but she thinks he might not have meant for her to hear that. "For what it's worth," she whispers, "I wish I could be the girl you thought I was. I think I like her more."
Adam just shakes his head and looks at a half finished sculpture far to her left. "Goodbye, Joan."
She nods and tries to focus her attention on dragging in another breath. She wonders if it'll ever stop hurting to hear him call her by name, but she manages to get back on the street before the tears start to fall all over again.
And all I feel is black and white
And I'm wound up small and tight
And I don't know who I am"
-Sarah McLachlan 'Black and White'