Chapter 2:
Chapter 2:
As soon as they pulled in the driveway, Jean jumped out of the car and ran upstairs to her room to change and to collect her thoughts. She locked the door behind her, and then began the slow, painful process of taking off her dress. She reached behind herself to undo the zipper, and hissed in pain as her ribs protested the movement. "Owwww," she whimpered as she tried to force the zipper all the way down. "Thank God," she said as she finally forced the zipper all the way down and shrugged out of the dress. She walked over to the mirror and looked at her stomach and grimaced at the sight. Her entire stomach and both sides of her ribs were a mass of black, blue, yellow, and green bruising from her belly button up to right below her bra, not to mention the perfectly bruised fingerprints on both her upper arms from where Frank had grabbed her and pulled her into the house on Saturday. "Don't I just look beautiful," she mocked herself, turning in the mirror to look.
*When am I going to learn to be quiet around Frank, especially when Frank's been drinking? He's bad enough when he's sober and you contradict him, because God knows – he has to be in charge in every situation, because otherwise his masculinity is being challenged, and he can't be beaten by a girl! Seriously Jean, you're smarter than that. I should know by now that every weekend when Mom's traveling for work, Frank's drunk, and when he's drunk, he's violent. I've been dealing with this for two years, you think I'd be able to figure it all out by now. And it's not like Mom would be any help even if she was here. The last time I tried to tell her what happened she slapped me and told me to shut up, that I was just trying to ruin her chance at happiness. She said that I'd hurt myself at gymnastics practice, and I was just using it as an excuse to try to ruin her marriage because she was paying more attention to Frank than to me. Hell, she said that if I lied to her again about Frank she'd kick me out, whether I'd finished school or not. Well, I've graduated now, but Lord only knows what's going to happen now. I'm not going to college because I can't afford it, and because Frank refuses to pay any of his money to put me, in his terms 'the stupid bitch that ain't my kid', through college. I guess I'll have to find a job, and just get the hell out of this house and away from him. If it hurts Mom, I'm sorry, but I can't deal with his shit anymore.*
*Knock Knock*
The knock on her door startled her and Jean jumped. "Who is it?" she asked nervously.
"It's Amy. Can I come in?"
"Umm, hold on just a minute – I have to finish changing," Jean said as she opened her dresser to pull out a change of clothes. She tried to bend down to put on her jeans, but the pain in her side lanced through her. "Owwww," she groaned as she grabbed her side.
"Are you okay Jean?" Amy asked, her concern evident even through the door.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm almost done," Jean called as she laid down on the floor to pull her jeans on. She unfolded the long-sleeved t-shirt and started to pull it over her head, only to have tears fill her eyes as she accidentally elbowed herself in the side in her rush. "Fuck, fuck fuck!" she chanted under her breath as she tried not to cry at the pain. As soon as she was sure that she could control her tears, she walked over to the door and opened it to let Amy in. "Hey girl," she said happily, smiling up at her.
"Hey sweetie," Amy said, hugging her tightly, trying to conceal her suspicions about what was going on, and having them confirmed when Jean flinched away from her touch. Amy pulled away from her and went and sat down on Jean's bed. "What's going on?" she asked calmly, looking Jean straight in the face.
"Nothing," Jean claimed. "I took a bad fall during practice earlier this week on the balance beam and I banged up my side pretty bad."
"Really?" Amy said doubtfully. "That would explain it if you only flinched when one side was touched, but you wince whenever someone touches either side of you."
"I-uh-um," Jean stammered, trying to avoid Amy's eyes.
"You can talk to me Jean, you know that. I'm not going to kick your ass or anything," Amy joked, trying to get Jean to smile, or at least to look at her.
"It's nothing Amy, I swear," Jean said, still not meeting Amy's eyes.
Amy sighed and shook her head. "Okay," she said, accepting that Jean wasn't going to tell her what was going on. "Just remember that I'm always here for you, no matter what hun. I just want to be sure that you're okay."
Jean nodded, and glanced up at her, "I'll be fine. Trust me." She leaned over and gave Amy a hug, although being careful not to hurt her sides.
They both jumped as Jean's bedroom door suddenly swung open to reveal the large figure of Frank Jackson in the doorway. Frank looked at the two girls suspiciously and stared at Jean, but then tried to cover it quickly when he saw Amy staring at him. "Ah, just the girls I was looking for! You girls will be much more comfortable downstairs with everyone else. Let's go." His tone brooked no opposition as he stared at Jean, all but ordering her to do what he said.
Amy stared at the man that she had a feeling was the one who had hurt Jean. He was such an officious asshole, trying to tell them what to do when he really had no command over them. Amy's temper steamed as she decided where to start taking this man apart. Amy stood up and looked at him, and tried to stop herself from growling at him. "Excuse me, the last time I checked, this is Jean's room. Not yours. Usually that means that you're supposed to knock before you open the door. Secondly, I'm 26 years old, which would classify me as a woman, not a girl. And last, but definitely not least, I don't take orders from you. Don't try to tell me what to do. You may be married to Mary, but you're not the boss of me, or of Matt and Jeff, we're visitors, not servants," Amy said, trying her best to keep an even tone.
Jean quickly jumped in as she saw Frank's face flush red, and she could nearly see the steam blowing out of his ears. "Um, we'll be right down sir," she blurted out, as she tried to keep him from taking his temper out on Amy.
"EXCUSE ME?!!!" Frank screamed in Amy's face. "This is MY home, not YOURS. SO if you don't like the way I run things, then get the FUCK out of my house you stupid BITCH! I may have to deal with this little whore, but I don't have to deal with you, so get the hell out before I kick YOUR ass!"
Amy stared at him incredulously. She'd heard of men that couldn't deal with being in control of every relationship with a woman, but she never thought that Mary would tie herself down to one of them because she seemed so much smarter than that. She stared down her nose at Frank and rolled her eyes, which only aggravated him further, and she suddenly found herself flying across the room to land in a heap against the dresser after he'd grabbed her and thrown her into the dresser. Amy slowly stood up and stared at him in shock. She couldn't believe that he'd just thrown her into the dresser, but then her eyes narrowed further as she noticed Jean standing in between her stepfather and Amy.
"No, you're not touching her Frank. Just go downstairs and we'll be there shortly," Jean attempted to reason with the enraged man.
"Get out of my way you stupid bitch," Frank growled as he shoved Jean onto the bed on his way to Amy, who quickly kicked him in the groin and knocked him to his knees. "Oh you fucking whore!" he screamed as he grabbed at himself and curled himself in a ball on the floor.
"C'mon," Amy said, grabbing Jean's hand and pulling her out of the room, into the hallway, only to run into Matt and Jeff.
"What the hell happened???" Matt asked as he saw the shocked look on Amy's face and the terrified look on Jean's.
"Frank just threw me into the dresser when I stood up to him about talking down to us and coming in without knocking, and I also think that he's responsible for hurting Jean," Amy quickly explained as she kept moving down the hall, trying to get away before Frank could come after them.
"Is that true Jean?" Jeff asked, staring down at his cousin who seemed to be in shock that someone would actually help her.
"I-uh-um," Jean stammered, and then paled as she heard a bellow like an enraged bull moose coming from down the hallway. "Shit," she cursed nervously, looking at the three. "Let's get out of here," she decided quickly and ran for the front door, only to come face to face with her mother.
"What's going on here Jean? What did you do to Frank?" her mother said, glaring at Jean. "You know that you're not supposed to upset him while you live in his house!"
"What did Jean do to Frank?!" Amy exclaimed indignantly. "Try what did Frank do to us! Your husband just threw me into a dresser!"
"WHAT?!" Matt yelled at the top of his lungs. "Oh, I'm so kicking his ass!" he threatened.
"No, you're not," Amy said, turning to look at him, and then back at his aunt. "Not to mention that your husband has been beating up on Jean!"
"Oh God, she's not telling that lie again is she?" Mary asked, rolling her eyes. "She's just so damn clumsy at gymnastics practice that she hurts herself all the time. All she wants to do is ruin my chance at happiness because she's a selfish little bitch and she can't deal with the fact that I care more about someone else than her."
Jeff stared at his aunt in amazement. She'd never acted like this before, and he'd always thought of her as a good mother. "Aunt Mary, you should have just listened to what you said. Jean's a competitively trained gymnast, in the top 10 in the world, and you're claiming that she's hurt because she's clumsy? If that's what it was, then she wouldn't be doing that well now would she?"
"Guys, stop," Jean said, trying to stop the argument. "It's not a big deal, can we not discuss this right now?"
"No," Amy said emphatically. "That, that, THING, up there just threw me into a dresser because I stood up to him about something. That's not right. Not to mention the fact that you flinch every time someone touches your ribs. Better yet, why don't you show your mom, and the rest of us what your sides look like, and then see if she can blame that on your gymnastics practice!" Amy challenged.
Jean paled even more at the thought of showing off her bruises. "Uhh," she said, trying to stall for time, but as she realized that it wasn't going to happen, she slowly raised her shirt to show everyone the mass of bruises on her body.
"What the FUCK!!!!!" Matt and Jeff yelled in unison as they saw how bruised she was. They dealt with bruising every day with their work, but even then, they very rarely saw someone this damaged.
"Oh my God, Jean," Amy said as she saw how bad the bruising really was. "Holy crap, how can you live with that?"
Mary tossed her hair. "See, I told you it was just from gymnastics," she sniffed. "You're all making this out of nothing. Besides, I'm sure Frank didn't throw you into the dresser. You're probably just making this up because you want to make yourself look good. You just yelled at him and then he probably took a step towards you to apologize for making you mad and you backed up into the dresser," Mary said, refusing to believe that Frank could be in the wrong or that he was capable of the things that they were claiming.
Amy stared at the woman in shock. "What the hell is wrong with you lady?" she asked, unable to believe that the woman could be this far in denial.
"Don't you talk to me that way!" Mary said, giving Amy a dirty look. "You can just get the hell out of my house if you're going to disrespect me and my family that way."
"Oh, I'll go gladly," Amy said, giving her a dirty look, "but I'm taking Jean with us. I refuse to leave her here to deal with this shit." She glanced at Jeff and Matt quickly to get their support, to which they emphatically nodded, then she turned to Jean. "Do you want to go with us?"
Jean glanced nervously from her mother to her cousins and their girlfriend. She knew where she'd rather be, but she didn't want to cut all ties from her mother, whom she loved dearly, even though her mother was blinded by Frank's lies. "Um," she stalled for time.
"Jean, if you leave this house with them, you're never coming back to it," her mother threatened. "You know the rules, and you know you have to follow them."
Jean licked her lips nervously, and she was about to tell her mother that she was going to stay, when she heard an enraged scream and heavy footfalls coming down the hallway.
"You just wait until I get my hands on you, you little bitch!" Frank screamed when he saw the group of people standing by the front door.
Jean blanched, and her decision was made. "Let's go," she said, running out the door to the car with Amy in quick pursuit. "We'll take my car and leave Matt and Jeff the other one," she decided.
"Matt," Amy called through the door. "Grab some of Jean's stuff and bring it back to the hotel. We'll meet you there!"
"Okay," Matt agreed as the two women pulled out of the drive and peeled tires on their way out of there. Matt turned to look at his aunt and shook his head as he realized that she wasn't the woman he'd thought that she was. "We'll get her stuff, and then return her car tonight before we leave town. After this, consider all ties cut between us and you," he said softly, then headed down the hallway back to Jean's room.
"Don't worry about that," Mary said harshly. "After what she's done, she's not welcome here.
Matt and Jeff looked at each other, and then at their aunt and shook their heads and went to Jean's room. They grabbed the two suitcases out of her closet and quickly dumped all of her clothes in there, without worrying about folding anything.
"What about her pictures and the little knick-knack stuff?" Jeff asked, glancing around at the stuff on her desk and dresser.
"Um," Matt said, looking down at the suitcases. "These are both full, are there any bags around here?"
Jeff glanced under the bed, and pulled out three duffel bags. "Score!" he cheered as he laid them on the bed and the two men quickly filled them with the last of Jean's belongings. Jeff grabbed two of the duffel bags and suitcase, and left Matt to carry the other bag and suitcase and they headed out of the house without a word to either Mary or Frank.
As soon as they pulled in the driveway, Jean jumped out of the car and ran upstairs to her room to change and to collect her thoughts. She locked the door behind her, and then began the slow, painful process of taking off her dress. She reached behind herself to undo the zipper, and hissed in pain as her ribs protested the movement. "Owwww," she whimpered as she tried to force the zipper all the way down. "Thank God," she said as she finally forced the zipper all the way down and shrugged out of the dress. She walked over to the mirror and looked at her stomach and grimaced at the sight. Her entire stomach and both sides of her ribs were a mass of black, blue, yellow, and green bruising from her belly button up to right below her bra, not to mention the perfectly bruised fingerprints on both her upper arms from where Frank had grabbed her and pulled her into the house on Saturday. "Don't I just look beautiful," she mocked herself, turning in the mirror to look.
*When am I going to learn to be quiet around Frank, especially when Frank's been drinking? He's bad enough when he's sober and you contradict him, because God knows – he has to be in charge in every situation, because otherwise his masculinity is being challenged, and he can't be beaten by a girl! Seriously Jean, you're smarter than that. I should know by now that every weekend when Mom's traveling for work, Frank's drunk, and when he's drunk, he's violent. I've been dealing with this for two years, you think I'd be able to figure it all out by now. And it's not like Mom would be any help even if she was here. The last time I tried to tell her what happened she slapped me and told me to shut up, that I was just trying to ruin her chance at happiness. She said that I'd hurt myself at gymnastics practice, and I was just using it as an excuse to try to ruin her marriage because she was paying more attention to Frank than to me. Hell, she said that if I lied to her again about Frank she'd kick me out, whether I'd finished school or not. Well, I've graduated now, but Lord only knows what's going to happen now. I'm not going to college because I can't afford it, and because Frank refuses to pay any of his money to put me, in his terms 'the stupid bitch that ain't my kid', through college. I guess I'll have to find a job, and just get the hell out of this house and away from him. If it hurts Mom, I'm sorry, but I can't deal with his shit anymore.*
*Knock Knock*
The knock on her door startled her and Jean jumped. "Who is it?" she asked nervously.
"It's Amy. Can I come in?"
"Umm, hold on just a minute – I have to finish changing," Jean said as she opened her dresser to pull out a change of clothes. She tried to bend down to put on her jeans, but the pain in her side lanced through her. "Owwww," she groaned as she grabbed her side.
"Are you okay Jean?" Amy asked, her concern evident even through the door.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm almost done," Jean called as she laid down on the floor to pull her jeans on. She unfolded the long-sleeved t-shirt and started to pull it over her head, only to have tears fill her eyes as she accidentally elbowed herself in the side in her rush. "Fuck, fuck fuck!" she chanted under her breath as she tried not to cry at the pain. As soon as she was sure that she could control her tears, she walked over to the door and opened it to let Amy in. "Hey girl," she said happily, smiling up at her.
"Hey sweetie," Amy said, hugging her tightly, trying to conceal her suspicions about what was going on, and having them confirmed when Jean flinched away from her touch. Amy pulled away from her and went and sat down on Jean's bed. "What's going on?" she asked calmly, looking Jean straight in the face.
"Nothing," Jean claimed. "I took a bad fall during practice earlier this week on the balance beam and I banged up my side pretty bad."
"Really?" Amy said doubtfully. "That would explain it if you only flinched when one side was touched, but you wince whenever someone touches either side of you."
"I-uh-um," Jean stammered, trying to avoid Amy's eyes.
"You can talk to me Jean, you know that. I'm not going to kick your ass or anything," Amy joked, trying to get Jean to smile, or at least to look at her.
"It's nothing Amy, I swear," Jean said, still not meeting Amy's eyes.
Amy sighed and shook her head. "Okay," she said, accepting that Jean wasn't going to tell her what was going on. "Just remember that I'm always here for you, no matter what hun. I just want to be sure that you're okay."
Jean nodded, and glanced up at her, "I'll be fine. Trust me." She leaned over and gave Amy a hug, although being careful not to hurt her sides.
They both jumped as Jean's bedroom door suddenly swung open to reveal the large figure of Frank Jackson in the doorway. Frank looked at the two girls suspiciously and stared at Jean, but then tried to cover it quickly when he saw Amy staring at him. "Ah, just the girls I was looking for! You girls will be much more comfortable downstairs with everyone else. Let's go." His tone brooked no opposition as he stared at Jean, all but ordering her to do what he said.
Amy stared at the man that she had a feeling was the one who had hurt Jean. He was such an officious asshole, trying to tell them what to do when he really had no command over them. Amy's temper steamed as she decided where to start taking this man apart. Amy stood up and looked at him, and tried to stop herself from growling at him. "Excuse me, the last time I checked, this is Jean's room. Not yours. Usually that means that you're supposed to knock before you open the door. Secondly, I'm 26 years old, which would classify me as a woman, not a girl. And last, but definitely not least, I don't take orders from you. Don't try to tell me what to do. You may be married to Mary, but you're not the boss of me, or of Matt and Jeff, we're visitors, not servants," Amy said, trying her best to keep an even tone.
Jean quickly jumped in as she saw Frank's face flush red, and she could nearly see the steam blowing out of his ears. "Um, we'll be right down sir," she blurted out, as she tried to keep him from taking his temper out on Amy.
"EXCUSE ME?!!!" Frank screamed in Amy's face. "This is MY home, not YOURS. SO if you don't like the way I run things, then get the FUCK out of my house you stupid BITCH! I may have to deal with this little whore, but I don't have to deal with you, so get the hell out before I kick YOUR ass!"
Amy stared at him incredulously. She'd heard of men that couldn't deal with being in control of every relationship with a woman, but she never thought that Mary would tie herself down to one of them because she seemed so much smarter than that. She stared down her nose at Frank and rolled her eyes, which only aggravated him further, and she suddenly found herself flying across the room to land in a heap against the dresser after he'd grabbed her and thrown her into the dresser. Amy slowly stood up and stared at him in shock. She couldn't believe that he'd just thrown her into the dresser, but then her eyes narrowed further as she noticed Jean standing in between her stepfather and Amy.
"No, you're not touching her Frank. Just go downstairs and we'll be there shortly," Jean attempted to reason with the enraged man.
"Get out of my way you stupid bitch," Frank growled as he shoved Jean onto the bed on his way to Amy, who quickly kicked him in the groin and knocked him to his knees. "Oh you fucking whore!" he screamed as he grabbed at himself and curled himself in a ball on the floor.
"C'mon," Amy said, grabbing Jean's hand and pulling her out of the room, into the hallway, only to run into Matt and Jeff.
"What the hell happened???" Matt asked as he saw the shocked look on Amy's face and the terrified look on Jean's.
"Frank just threw me into the dresser when I stood up to him about talking down to us and coming in without knocking, and I also think that he's responsible for hurting Jean," Amy quickly explained as she kept moving down the hall, trying to get away before Frank could come after them.
"Is that true Jean?" Jeff asked, staring down at his cousin who seemed to be in shock that someone would actually help her.
"I-uh-um," Jean stammered, and then paled as she heard a bellow like an enraged bull moose coming from down the hallway. "Shit," she cursed nervously, looking at the three. "Let's get out of here," she decided quickly and ran for the front door, only to come face to face with her mother.
"What's going on here Jean? What did you do to Frank?" her mother said, glaring at Jean. "You know that you're not supposed to upset him while you live in his house!"
"What did Jean do to Frank?!" Amy exclaimed indignantly. "Try what did Frank do to us! Your husband just threw me into a dresser!"
"WHAT?!" Matt yelled at the top of his lungs. "Oh, I'm so kicking his ass!" he threatened.
"No, you're not," Amy said, turning to look at him, and then back at his aunt. "Not to mention that your husband has been beating up on Jean!"
"Oh God, she's not telling that lie again is she?" Mary asked, rolling her eyes. "She's just so damn clumsy at gymnastics practice that she hurts herself all the time. All she wants to do is ruin my chance at happiness because she's a selfish little bitch and she can't deal with the fact that I care more about someone else than her."
Jeff stared at his aunt in amazement. She'd never acted like this before, and he'd always thought of her as a good mother. "Aunt Mary, you should have just listened to what you said. Jean's a competitively trained gymnast, in the top 10 in the world, and you're claiming that she's hurt because she's clumsy? If that's what it was, then she wouldn't be doing that well now would she?"
"Guys, stop," Jean said, trying to stop the argument. "It's not a big deal, can we not discuss this right now?"
"No," Amy said emphatically. "That, that, THING, up there just threw me into a dresser because I stood up to him about something. That's not right. Not to mention the fact that you flinch every time someone touches your ribs. Better yet, why don't you show your mom, and the rest of us what your sides look like, and then see if she can blame that on your gymnastics practice!" Amy challenged.
Jean paled even more at the thought of showing off her bruises. "Uhh," she said, trying to stall for time, but as she realized that it wasn't going to happen, she slowly raised her shirt to show everyone the mass of bruises on her body.
"What the FUCK!!!!!" Matt and Jeff yelled in unison as they saw how bruised she was. They dealt with bruising every day with their work, but even then, they very rarely saw someone this damaged.
"Oh my God, Jean," Amy said as she saw how bad the bruising really was. "Holy crap, how can you live with that?"
Mary tossed her hair. "See, I told you it was just from gymnastics," she sniffed. "You're all making this out of nothing. Besides, I'm sure Frank didn't throw you into the dresser. You're probably just making this up because you want to make yourself look good. You just yelled at him and then he probably took a step towards you to apologize for making you mad and you backed up into the dresser," Mary said, refusing to believe that Frank could be in the wrong or that he was capable of the things that they were claiming.
Amy stared at the woman in shock. "What the hell is wrong with you lady?" she asked, unable to believe that the woman could be this far in denial.
"Don't you talk to me that way!" Mary said, giving Amy a dirty look. "You can just get the hell out of my house if you're going to disrespect me and my family that way."
"Oh, I'll go gladly," Amy said, giving her a dirty look, "but I'm taking Jean with us. I refuse to leave her here to deal with this shit." She glanced at Jeff and Matt quickly to get their support, to which they emphatically nodded, then she turned to Jean. "Do you want to go with us?"
Jean glanced nervously from her mother to her cousins and their girlfriend. She knew where she'd rather be, but she didn't want to cut all ties from her mother, whom she loved dearly, even though her mother was blinded by Frank's lies. "Um," she stalled for time.
"Jean, if you leave this house with them, you're never coming back to it," her mother threatened. "You know the rules, and you know you have to follow them."
Jean licked her lips nervously, and she was about to tell her mother that she was going to stay, when she heard an enraged scream and heavy footfalls coming down the hallway.
"You just wait until I get my hands on you, you little bitch!" Frank screamed when he saw the group of people standing by the front door.
Jean blanched, and her decision was made. "Let's go," she said, running out the door to the car with Amy in quick pursuit. "We'll take my car and leave Matt and Jeff the other one," she decided.
"Matt," Amy called through the door. "Grab some of Jean's stuff and bring it back to the hotel. We'll meet you there!"
"Okay," Matt agreed as the two women pulled out of the drive and peeled tires on their way out of there. Matt turned to look at his aunt and shook his head as he realized that she wasn't the woman he'd thought that she was. "We'll get her stuff, and then return her car tonight before we leave town. After this, consider all ties cut between us and you," he said softly, then headed down the hallway back to Jean's room.
"Don't worry about that," Mary said harshly. "After what she's done, she's not welcome here.
Matt and Jeff looked at each other, and then at their aunt and shook their heads and went to Jean's room. They grabbed the two suitcases out of her closet and quickly dumped all of her clothes in there, without worrying about folding anything.
"What about her pictures and the little knick-knack stuff?" Jeff asked, glancing around at the stuff on her desk and dresser.
"Um," Matt said, looking down at the suitcases. "These are both full, are there any bags around here?"
Jeff glanced under the bed, and pulled out three duffel bags. "Score!" he cheered as he laid them on the bed and the two men quickly filled them with the last of Jean's belongings. Jeff grabbed two of the duffel bags and suitcase, and left Matt to carry the other bag and suitcase and they headed out of the house without a word to either Mary or Frank.