Chapter 2
On Monday morning Grace was waiting for Luke in the biology closet. She'd had a family thing over the weekend that she had previously been dreading, but after what happened Friday, she had been relieved that she could be away from everything for a couple of days. She looked up as the door opened and Luke entered, grim faced.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"I'd ask how your weekend went, but the look on your face is pretty telling."
"Yeah."
"How is she doing?"
"How would you expect? She spent the weekend locked in her room crying."
Grace said nothing in response. What was there to say?
"How was your cousin's bar mitzvah?"
"Eh. About like you'd expect. Bratty kids and bad music."
Both of them fell silent for a few moments before Luke spoke again.
"So, what are we going to do about physics?
"What do you mean?"
"Well, they sit next to each other. I somehow doubt that's going to work out too well."
"Not much we can do. They have to face each other and try to move on somehow."
"She might try to kill him."
The bell rang then as Grace replied, "Well, we're about to find out."
Adam was already in the classroom when they arrived with his head down on the desk. The weekend had been awful. He hadn't been able to sleep or stop thinking about Jane. His father had seen the split lip Luke had given him, and Adam didn't feel he much of a choice but to tell him what had happened. He would have noticed something was wrong anyway and it wouldn't have been too long until he'd realized that he wasn't seeing Jane anymore. Adam felt lower than he'd ever felt after his father had chastised him, ending with "That's not how your mother and I raised you." He looked up as Grace and Luke approached, but put his head back down after seeing the murderous glare Luke shot him and the carefully composed look on Grace's face.
Joan stood outside the classroom, trying to gather the courage to enter. She'd begged her mother to let her stay home today. She even tried saying she was sick. Although that wasn't far from the truth. She had a killer headache from all of her crying, and if she saw Bonnie today she thought she might puke. She could skip, but her mom was right. She couldn't hide from him forever, no matter how much she wanted to. She had to face him sometime, so she may as well get it over with.
Taking a deep breath, she walked into the room. The first thing she noticed was silence. The second was almost everyone's eyes on her. Pretty much everyone had heard rumors about what had happened already and they were waiting to see what would happen now. She hesitated, but continued on to her seat, moving her chair as close to Grace's as possible and trying not to look at Adam.
He looked up as she sat down and tried to talk to her. "Jane, I-"
She still didn't look at him as she interrupted, "Not interested. Save it for your girlfriend."
Glynis and Freidman were watching the exchange, and Joan gave them a look that had them turning around in a hurry. She was actually happy when Lischak launched into one of her crazy lectures. When class ended, Joan shot out of her chair and the classroom like a rocket, not giving Adam a chance to say anything to her. He sadly watched her go. He turned to find Grace looking at him. "Dude, you're going to have to give her some time to deal with this."
"I know, but - "
"But nothing. You squashed her heart like a bug. She's not gonna get over that in a weekend."
He knew she was right as he watched her and Luke exit the classroom.
Grace sat in English class uncomfortable and upset. The three people closest to her were all hurting or angry. Joan was next to her, staring vacantly out the window just as Adam had done all through Spanish. She hadn't spoken a word to Grace all day and had barely looked at her. Grace knew Joan was upset that she hadn't told her about Adam, and she really didn't blame her. She blamed Adam. "Thanks a bunch, Rove, for sticking me in the middle of this mess," she thought. The bell rang, and Grace saw that Joan didn't even appear to have noticed. Grace took a seat on the desk ahead of her and faced her.
"How long did you know something was going on?" Joan surprised her by asking.
"He told me the day before."
"You should have told me."
"Number one, Girardi, I don't get involved in stuff like this, and number two, it was Rove's responsibility to tell you. You needed to hear it from him, and I wasn't going to give him an out on that."
Joan nodded. She knew her friend was right. "Do you think he would have told me if Bonnie hadn't come up to us in the hall?"
"I don't know. The guilt may have gotten the better of him eventually."
"But what if I had slept with him?"
Grace didn't know how to respond to this, but wouldn't have had a chance anyway as Joan continued. "Would he have told me then? Or maybe he would have done this anyway. What if –"
"Dude! Enough with the 'what ifs'. Rove may not even have an answer for all of them, so don't expect yourself to."
"I can't help it. I just keep wondering why."
"Command Central for guys is three feet south of where it should be, that's why. C'mon, Girardi. It's creamed chicken day in the cafeteria. You don't want to miss out."
"You go." She put her head down on her arms on the desk. "I just wanna be by myself for awhile."
Grace knew the real reason was Joan didn't want to risk running into Adam or Bonnie, but she didn't call her on it and walked out of the classroom.
Helen approached her classroom before fifth period with dread. Assuming both had come to school today, she'd have to face Adam and Bonnie in class. She didn't know how she was going to maintain any semblance of professionalism when all she wanted to do was drown the two of them in a vat of paint. In her mind, she kept seeing her baby girl in pain and tears, asking her why this had happened. She'd had no answers for her. Even now that she'd had the weekend to process this, she still couldn't get her head around it. She loved Adam like one of her own kids, and it was inconceivable to her that he could have done something so thoughtless and hurtful. And yet he had. Deep down though, she knew she'd always love him, even as another image of his demise went through her mind. Praying for strength, she entered the classroom to begin the day's lesson.
The time seemed to crawl past. She noticed the class was exceptionally quiet today, probably wondering how she was going to react. Helen tried to avoid looking at Bonnie or Adam as much as possible, but it was difficult. She was sure she wasn't doing a good job in hiding her feelings when she saw Adam flinch when she looked over at him. Well, glared at him. She knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't help it. She'd never been more relieved to hear the bell ring to end the period so she didn't have to try not to look at either of them any more, although she did take some satisfaction in noticing that both looked absolutely miserable.
She sat at her desk and began to look over her notes for her next class, but she looked up when she heard someone approach.
"Mrs. G. –"
"Adam, unless this is directly related to class, I don't want to hear it. You should consider that a general rule from here on out."
"I'm so so sorry about all of this."
Helen sighed. She didn't want to talk to him, but there was no way she could avoid it forever. "Sorry's not going to cut it. You hurt her in a way that... I can't even begin to tell you how badly you hurt her."
"I'll do anything to make this up to her."
"No."
"No?"
"You can't. And I want you to stay away from her."
"But-"
"Leave her alone, Adam. You've hurt her enough." Helen couldn't look at him any longer without wanting to throttle him, so she got up and walked out of the room.
Luke had wondered why Grace had intercepted him in the hall after his last class and suggested that he walk Joan home until he saw his sister. She was pale and looked a bit dazed when he caught up with her outside of the school.
"Joan, are you ok?"
He didn't get a response. The approached the crosswalk and Luke stopped. Joan didn't. He quickly grabbed her arm to pull her back onto the curb with him. "Joan!"
She finally looked at him, and he saw tears in her eyes. "I saw them talking."
So that was it. "Ouch. I'm sorry."
She just looked away as they continued walking. He knew there was really nothing more he could say, so he stayed silent, mentally cursing Adam yet again for hurting his sister.
"Where's Grace? Aren't you two supposed to be making out in front of the frogs?"
"She, uh, had somewhere to be." He strongly suspected that somewhere was Adam's but decided not to say that. But Joan already suspected the same thing.
"I'll bet I know where."
"Don't be mad at her, Joan. She's really stuck in the middle here."
"I'm not, and I know. They've been friends forever and I'd never ask her choose between us. Don't you do that either."
"I won't."
They approached their house, and Joan turned to him on the porch. "Luke, promise me something."
"What?"
"Don't ever do anything like this to Grace. Break up with her if you ever want someone else, but just don't lie to her."
"I won't. I promise."
It was well past dinnertime when Will finally got home from the station. Karon's false confession had really caused a lot of extra work. And there was still the real killer to catch. Melissa Hoyt wasn't at the forefront of his mind right now though. His own little girl was. Going to school today and seeing Adam had to have been tough. Will headed upstairs as soon as he got in the house. He paused by Joan's room and was relieved that he didn't hear her crying as she'd been most of the weekend. He's wanted to confront that boy and pound some sense into him, but he suspected that's what Kevin and Luke had mysteriously disappeared to do on Friday night. He continued to his bedroom found Helen in bed, reading.
"How was school?"
Helen knew he what he really meant. "Will, are you sure there isn't some legal way we could kill him?
"What happened? Did Adam do something else? Is there more to this than we already knew?"
"No." Helen sighed deeply. "I just can't stand seeing her hurting like this."
Will nodded. It was killing him too.
"And it's not just that," Helen continued. "He's made her doubt herself, her decisions. This is going to affect every relationship she has from now on."
Will's jaw clenched in anger. What in the hell had Adam been thinking? He hadn't been, and that was the problem. Joan was so special. Why hadn't he been able to remember that?
Helen spoke again and pulled him from his thoughts. "He told me he was sorry and that he'd try to make it up to her. He wants her back."
"He better stay away from her after what he did. He's nowhere near good enough for her." Will wondered if there was anyone good enough for his daughter, but in his mind it certainly wasn't Adam Rove. Not anymore.
Joan lay in her bed, silent tears slipping down her cheeks and onto the pillow she held tightly to her chest. Despite what he'd done, she missed Adam so much it hurt. This hurt almost as much as losing Judith did. She just hoped it wouldn't take as long to get over. Five months have passed and she still missed Judith every day. Exhausted from her tears, and unwilling to think about the situation any more that night, she drifted off to sleep, hoping she'd find the strength to get through another day.
