Here's To The Night

Saturday, the 22nd of May, and Sunday the 23

Jason Morgan awoke the following morning to an empty house. His parents were still away on their trip, his grandparents were still in Cape Cod, and AJ was still at Chloe's, where he would be until Monday night. The bright afternoon sunlight invaded his dingy grotto in the basement, informing him that he had indeed managed to sleep through most of the day.

His mouth felt and tasted like an old gym sock, and each muscle in Jason's body groaned as he fought to lift himself up into a sitting position. Thankfully, his legs weren't that big of a problem anymore – it was his arm that was suddenly giving him trouble.

Jason rubbed the muscles surrounding his rotator cuff, wondering how in the world they got so sore. The alarm clock his mother had set on the end table for him told him that it was already two o'clock, but all Jason wanted to do was pull his sheets up over his head and go back to sleep.

Damn. What the hell had happened last night?

Shaking his head briskly, Jason looked longingly at the remote that sat perched on the edge of the coffee table. Such a long ways away… After squirming a bit he managed to grasp it and was soon flipping on the television. But as soon as the sound of the daytime soap blared into the room, the blinding headache that brought white flashes to Jason's eyes had him flipping it right back off again.

Damnation.

Man, he was messed up.

With a groan, Jason tossed the remote onto the floor and sank right back into bed, too tired and wounded to move. His body felt as if it had been run over by a truck, which had then reversed to do it all over again a couple hundred times more, and he couldn't for the life of him seem to remember what had caused it.

Jason spent the next hour in bed, alternating between a fuzzy consciousness and a vague slumber. Neither did him any good – when he was awake, he wanted to be asleep, and when he was asleep he kept waking up, especially since even the slightest rotation had the muscles in his arm screaming bloody murder.

He was just slipping into another fit of slumber when somewhere far, far away, the phone rang. Jason had successfully roused himself when it rang again, and this time it felt like a shrill siren exploding directly at his ear. It took him a long, excruciatingly painful moment to find his cell phone, and his voice was thick and groggy when he lifted the slim silver device to his ear and spoke.

"Morgan."

"Yo! Jase!"

He frowned. "Luke?"

"Yeah, it's me. How you feeling, buddy?"

Jason mustered up all of his strength and fought to keep his sudden nausea at bay as he pushed himself up on his elbow. He squinted at the digital clock on the end table, finally deciphering that it was indeed four o'clock in the afternoon. God damn. "What the hell happened last night?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "You mean you don't remember?"

"No."

"You don't remember anything?"

Jason scowled. "Not much."

"Really?"

"Spencer-"

"OK, OK," Luke repeated hastily. "What do you remember?"

Jason dragged a hand over his face, trying to shake himself out of the hazy stupor that had laid claim to his body. "Uh, I remember hanging out at Jake's with you guys last night…"

"Yeah," Luke replied encouragingly. "That's right – our post-AP party. There was a whole group of us – you, me, Tags, Michael Q, Brend-o, and a whole bunch of other guys. What else?"

Jason's head throbbed. "We were playing pool and…drinking."

"That's probably why you feel like shit," Luke chose to point out helpfully.

Shifting the phone to the other hand with a considerable amount of difficulty, Jason scowled at the television. He did feel like shit. Damn it, he was totally hung over, and even worse than the last time. Jesus Christ. "Yeah – but how come you sound fine?"

He could hear his friend and classmate chuckle. "Dude, I've got a system. Guaranteed to chase away hangovers. You, my friend, are a total newbie. That's what you are."

Jason snorted. Yeah, he was a newbie all right.

"But anyway, go on - what else do you remember?"

"I remember that…" Jason's voice trailed off as he thought hard, trying to recall the specifics of last night. The details remained hazy and ambiguous, but if he really concentrated, he could kind of piece it together. Damn it. He hated feeling like this – he hated not remembering what he had done the night before. It made him feel weak; like he had lost control and just gone completely insane. And in a sense, he supposed that he had. "Uh…weren't we playing pool or something?"

There was some crackling on Luke's end of the line. "Yeah – me and you were totally hussling Quartermaine's pocket money away from him. It was awesome."

But Jason wasn't listening. "I don't remember anything after that – just that I was fighting someone. What happened?"

"Well, some guy came in, drunk off his butt, and starting messing with Brendan who was over by the bar and then you ran up to tell him to fuck off and then the guy honed in on you – and before we knew it, we had a huge barfight on our hands."

Jason listened carefully, trying to put his friend's words into a mental image. It didn't work. "Oh. See, I remember fighting with him, but I don't remember the reason. I beat him, right?"

"Yeah, we all got him out of there."

"But I was fighting again – I remember that much."

"Well, yeah, because one of his boyfriends started in on you and tried to get you all riled up."

"Oh." He frowned at a small spot on the wall in front of him. "Then what?"

There was a nervous pause, and Jason had a bad feeling about the next bit of information his friend was going to supply. "Um, you're not going to like this…"

"Tell me anyway."

Luke coughed nervously. "Well, Sonny had already been around but when the second guy started in on you, we couldn't do anything. So he, um, called Beth."

Jason's heart skipped a beat and plummeted into his stomach at Luke's hesitant admission. "What?"

"And, er, she came down and said she'd call the cops and the guy ran away. And then she chased the rest of us out."

Jason let his head slam down on the nearby end table. The pain felt well-deserved, so he did it again. "Fuck."

"Woah, don't kill yourself over there, Morgan."

"Damn it, Luke – I – what the hell was she doing there? There was no fucking need to call her!"

"Hey, look, it was a last resort. But it turned out to be a good idea because she cleaned everything up in about five minutes. She threatened the dude out and she guilted the rest of us into going home and then I'm assuming she and Sonny dropped you off at your place. Dude, by the way, how sweet is it that your parents aren't in town? You totally got away with everything!"

Despite the fact that his stomach was turning and his head was swimming, Jason wanted to ram his fist through something at that moment. Elizabeth. Damn it, even she had been involved in that mess. Damn it all to Hell. She had absolutely no business showing up at that seedy rat hole and cleaning up his messes for him – if something had happened to her…

There was some abrupt crackling on Luke's end and his friend's voice was soon back, though more hurried than before. "Listen, man, I've gotta jet, but I just wanted to call and make sure you were still alive. Take care, okay? I know you're pissed that Beth had to get involved, but, seriously, dude, it was okay. I mean, I'm not trying to get in your face about this or anything, but from what I remember, she was really worried about you. Like, she kept checking your bruises and your eye and stuff. She wasn't angry or anything, so I guess I figure that it's all good, you know? Anyway, don't beat yourself up over this, okay? I'll check up on you later, man. Over and out."

Jason clicked his cell phone off without saying goodbye and fairly collapsed back onto the bed. He felt sick. He felt broken. He felt entirely numb.

Elizabeth had showed up at that seedy little dive to bail him out of trouble. She had threatened some creep that was probably twice her height and three times her weight, and even then she had wanted to take care of him and what he presumed to be his numerous injuries. After everything he had done to her, she still came and bailed him out when he needed it. Whatever had happened last night, he was sure it could have gone down a lot worse. If a cop came into the joint and saw a bunch of obviously underage drinkers, he would have dragged them to the pokey first and asked questions later. And if that had happened, Elizabeth would have been dragged down with them. So many things could have happened – terrible things that could have really hurt her – and Jason felt weak as a wave of gratitude washed over him. Nothing had happened.

She hadn't been hurt.

The thought should have comforted him, it should have put him at ease. And he should have left it at that. But there was something at the back of his mind, some quiet but insistent nagging doubt, which forced him to stay on the issue. He didn't know what it was, he didn't know what it meant, but he did know that he didn't like it one bit.

The afternoon bled into the evening, but Jason still didn't have any answers. But by then he felt well enough to get out of bed, and so he did and spent the next half hour scrounging around for food. Finally slapping together a peanut butter and honey sandwich and grabbing a glass of milk along with a couple painkillers, Jason trudged back down to what had become his permanent grotto in the basement. Even though he had a perfectly nice bedroom upstairs with a firm mattress and all his clothes and books, he still found himself unable to leave the now slightly dingy basement. The dust had been gathering over the days, and the carpet hadn't been vacuumed. He usually kept the shades down, which plunged the semi-cluttered room into a musky dimness. It was unusually fitting – the state of the room seemed to resemble to Jason the state of his own life at the moment.

He had always been one of those kids that refused to get caught up in the moment, to make a mountain out of a molehill as so many of his peers had a habit of doing. Elizabeth would jokingly refer to him as one of the few surviving Pyrrhonian Stoics – he detached himself from the drama of everyday life and just took things as they came. That had been his philosophy for so long with so many things – school, friends, girls, life in general. While everyone else freaked out because they lost their first home game or because someone else was wearing the same exact dress at Homecoming, he always took everything in stride and refused to let melodramatics or self-pity overcome him.

It was funny how easily he slipped right back in.

And if he wasn't so busy moping, he would have laughed.

He was in a slump. Stuck in a rut. And if he knew how to get himself out of his current pathetic state of affairs, he would have snapped to it in an instant.

But deep inside, that same nagging voice from earlier reminded him that he did indeed know how to get out of the dingy grotto of his life. All he had to do was find Elizabeth and finally talk to her. All he had to do was get her to listen to him long enough to explain that he was wrong and had made a huge mistake and didn't want this to go on anymore. And if she still cared about him enough to stick up for him when he was in trouble, the odds were pretty good that she'd at least be willing to lend him an ear before demanding all-out groveling.

But the truth of the matter was that he just couldn't bring himself to do that.

Jason knew he was being stupid, knew it was the same stupidity that had landed him in this mess in the first place. But he just couldn't help himself.

Maybe it was pride, maybe it was embarrassment, maybe it was just his sheer inability to come to grips with all of the stupid things he had done that should have chased her away. Maybe it was one or all of those things that, for the first time, made him fearful to pick up the phone and talk to her.

Nighttime arrived with that same insecurity and embarrassment as its escort, and Jason stayed in his consigned location in the basement he had once liked, but that seemed more like a prison now. His mother called from Chicago and whiled away twenty minutes with idle chit chat, and even though Jason usually shied away from his parents' ministrations and doting attention, he found himself glad to hear her voice again.

The conversation lifted his spirits slightly. It was enough to make him pick up the phone and call their house in Massachusetts just to hear his grandmother's voice. The same profoundly unexplainable feeling of security that always accompanied his grandmother's voice washed over him the minute she picked up and asked warmly who it was. His grandparents often went away to the family's place on Cape Cod whenever they felt they needed a change of scenery, and Jason realized just then how much he really missed their presence in the suddenly all-too-large house.

Jason lost track of how long he was on the phone with his grandmother. They talked about everything and nothing at the same time. She wanted to know what he was doing, if he had eaten, how the weather was, how his legs were since he was almost completely well. He in turn listened as she spoke of how the weather was simply divine on the Cape, and how she had woken up with the sunset this morning and the radiant colors made her wish for the hundredth time that arthritis hadn't taken away her ability to paint. But the conversation was cut short by his grandfather who had apparently finished showering and was ready to take his wife out to dinner. After exchanging a few words with the old man, Jason let the two of them get on with their evening and resigned himself to sulking at the blaring television screen.

Despite the fact that he had done nothing all day that required any sort of expenditure of energy, Jason soon fell into a deep but fitful slumber. He slept throughout the entire night, but it was the type of sleep that really didn't do much good. Even though Jason was one of the rare people that really didn't dream, something kept him tossing and turning even in his slumber.

The night was a warm one and as the hours passed, Jason managed to first twist up the sheets around him in a tight and suffocating cocoon before practically falling off the bed in his attempt to extricate himself from the vice-like grip of the cotton. A thunderstorm erupted in the wee hours of the morning and a hazy, slimy mist invaded the dark basement through the windows that Jason had left open. The water dribbled in through the wire mesh screen and pooled on the windowsill before the surface tension broke and it dripped onto the carpet. The thunder rumbled, the lightning snaked a violent path across the already turbulent skies, and the wind raked over the shrubbery and trees, bending them according to its capricious will. Still, Jason slept on.

The storm worsened as the morning twilight chased away the thick and oppressive darkness. In the street, a few boughs had lost their fight against the wind and now lay helplessly on the pavement. Several of the plastic recycling containers his neighbors used had blown a few houses down and didn't show any signs of stopping their unplanned escape.

A thunderbolt hurled from the heavens was the first thing to jar Jason from his fitful sleep, and the crackling boom had him snapping out of bed, at first confused as to where he was and what was happening. The rain had changed direction at some point in the night and was no longer pouring onto the windowsill, but the cold, damp fog still stretched out in the room like a cloak.

Jason sighed and dropped back down onto the pillows, pulling the sheets he had kicked away in the night around him once more. The thunder grumbled somewhere in the distance, dark and dangerous and foreboding, yet still managing to lull Jason back into a soft, hazy doze. Lightning flashed, illuminating the room, and Jason's eyes flew open at the burst of silver.

And he remembered.

The memory of his actions the night before hit him like a ton of bricks, threatening to crush his chest until it became physically taxing for him to draw breath in the suddenly congested, damp basement grotto.

Holy shit.

What the fuck had he done?

Jason's arms trembled as he pushed himself up into a sitting position and the breath he drew in was weak and shaky. Jesus Christ. Images from last night in this same basement assaulted him mercilessly, playing over and over in his head. Holy Hell.

What the fuck had he done?

His forehead fell against his drawn up knees and the dull ache that reverberated upon contact echoed through his head. God damn. He had kissed her. Mauled her. Pushed her jacket to the floor and let his hands wantonly explore her soft, curvaceous body. He had tugged at the straps of her form-fitting black top, slid his fingers under the slender elastic straps of her bra. Fuck. He'd been all over her – he could literally see himself as the images kept repeating themselves, over and over and over again until he wanted to scream. Holy shit. He remembered her eyes pooling with silver tears, the heartbreaking way her lower lip trembled. He remembered how her footsteps had echoed up the stairs as she all but fled from him.

Motherfucker.

He'd never forgive himself if he had hurt her.

The thunder rumbled again, this time more forceful and demanding, but Jason didn't move. His body was even number, even more nauseous than it had been when he woke up the day before. Then, it was the lingering effects of the alcohol that made him sick. Now, it was the memory of his inability to control himself with her that made the bile rise in his throat.

And there it was. Any prayer he ever had of talking to her and finally opening up and hoping that she'd forgive him had just vanished faster than his self-control two nights ago. That's what he got for thinking with the small head.

With an angry, strangled sigh, Jason collapsed back onto the pillows and pulled the sheets up over his head. Damnation. He was royally fucked.

The morning passed slowly, and Jason couldn't even bring himself to get up out of bed to rustle up some breakfast. The sick, disgusted feeling in the pit of his stomach was enough to tide him over to lunch, which was when he decided that he probably should get up and find himself some food. Even perverted, reckless low-life pond scum horny bastards had to eat something.

During lunch, he resumed his game of calling himself every name in the book. After what he had done, Elizabeth probably wouldn't even want to talk to him again. He could just imagine what would happen on Monday – he'd show up at school and at the classes that they shared and she'd painstakingly avoid him. Sonny and Brenda would probably worm the whole story from her, and then Sonny would come after him again and really beat his head in. And this time, Jason reflected that he'd let him. The school year would pass painfully, since it would be impossible for them to avoid each other forever. They'd show up at the same games, the same senior meetings, the same class photos and gown fittings for graduation, and then they'd be graduating together. They'd attend the same graduation parties, the same summer bashes, the same going away parties. They'd mince around each other until they both left for school – she to Columbia, he to Boston University. And then they'd stop seeing each other altogether for the next ten years or so. And then they'd show up at class reunions and still try to avoid each other.

It was a very depressing thought, and Jason didn't even try to stop himself from sulking over it. He never sulked. He never thought ahead and dreamed up scenarios like this, just like he never thought about the past and wished he could have done things differently.

He never used to do those things – he never used to do a lot of things. But ever since this whole thing started…Elizabeth was the first person that made him look back on his actions and wish with all his might that he had the power to change what he had done. He should have talked to her the moment he got back from the doctors' office that day. He should have hung out with her after school that day instead of blowing her off. If she wanted to mother him and take care of him, then damn it, he should have let her. Anything was better than what was happening now. Anything was better than the scenario he had dreamed up for their future.

Jason stared down at his empty plate without really seeing it. He didn't want to go down to the basement. He didn't want to go down there and go back to bed or watch the TV in the dark. Damn it.

It was one o'clock when he finally left the kitchen table and flung himself down on the couch in the living room. It was leather and it was cold, and he soon abandoned the idea of trying to get comfortable on it and left in search of better accommodations. Ambling down the hallway toward the den, Jason stopped when he reached the large staircase that led up to the second floor. The last time he had used those stairs was as he ran down from his room to get to school on the day he had fallen while asking Elizabeth to prom. He stood there for a long moment, just staring up at the carpeted stairs.

Finally, he grasped the railing with a clammy hand and trudged on up. The carpet was soft underneath his bare feet and the stairs didn't even creak from his weight. Reaching the top, Jason surveyed the area before bypassing his own room and going straight for his grandmother's drawing room.

It was her favorite room in the house – it was where she sat to read and write and listen to her old records. It was the room where she had taught him how to knit all those years ago when his parents had forced him to take Chloe to that summer camp. His grandmother was a big fan of music – instrumental, mostly – so Jason often played for her in the room. That was why his clarinet case stood leaning against the wall by the full-length mirror, no doubt collecting dust since band practice had long since ended.

He stood in the center of the room, gazing out of the bay windows at the neighborhood. The sky was still gray, but the rain had thankfully stopped and the storm had passed. The thick fog that had settled over the area was slowly but steadily dissipating and the wind had also died down.

With a sigh, Jason flung himself down on his grandmother's favorite rocking chair and reached for the cream-colored afghan she had knitted herself before her arthritis got really bad. The wool smelled of peppermint and his grandfather's pipe, and Jason draped it over his legs as he rocked slowly, still gazing out the window. If only his grandmother were here, instead of off in Massachusetts. He really wanted to talk to her. He would have called her up again, but she had mentioned the night before that she and his grandfather would be going to visit their old friends from the country club in Beacon Hill, and that they would be staying with them for two days more.

The minutes passed slowly, and Jason didn't even realize how drowsy he was as he fell into a soothing sleep for which the term "coma" seemed like a gross understatement. He woke up in a little more than two hours feeling refreshed and warm. It was nice where he sat, curled up on the rocking chair under his grandmother's blanket, and he didn't want to move.

So he didn't.

Instead, he just sat there and let his gaze wander lazily around the room. His grandmother was partial to flowers, all sorts of them, and fresh bouquets arrived at the Morgan house every week in the spring, summer and fall months. In the winter, she was satisfied with the aesthetic beauty of the artificial flowers his mother bought. There were red tulips in a tall, slim glass vase on the table where he sat, the most vivid splash of color in the elegantly decorated room in which he sat. The walls were a soft cream that matched the tan wood of the furniture and the light color of the carpet.

The same photographs had hung in this room ever since he was a little boy, and the only additions his grandmother made were pieces of the utmost significance. His framed certificate for being a National Merit Finalist was hung proudly next to a picture of him as a baby sitting in his grandfather's lap with his grandmother's hands on the old man's shoulders. Both of them looked so young then – their hair was darker, their eyes were brighter, their skin smoother.

There were several pictures – old and worn with time – of the two of them from their younger years. There was a picture from when his grandfather had taken his wife and young son to the circus, a picture of his grandmother with her League of Women Voters group. There was an old photo of his grandfather with the rest of the trustees at the bank, and a large picture of the two of them when ELM, standing of course for Edward and Lila Morgan, had been founded. There was a photo of them at his parents' wedding, and a photo of the four of them when his big sister Tracy was first born. Standing tall on his grandmother's ornate dresser was a family picture of all of them – his grandparents, his parents, little AJ missing his two front teeth, Tracy with her newly-done perm, and him with his baseball cap in his hands. The most recent photo was of Tracy and Edward and Lila when his big sister had graduated from high school many years ago. And he'd be willing to bet his Jeep that the next photo to go up on the wall would be one of him and his grandparents the day that he himself left the hallways of PC High behind him.

The room was a shrine to everything that Lila loved. And maybe that was why Jason felt so safe and loved himself whenever he joined her there. His grandmother had the richest life of anyone he knew – and he hoped that one day he'd be surrounded by as much love as she was.

That was the one thing he loved most about her – she was never too busy to talk to people. She had been that way since she was a little girl, his grandfather had told her. She was a champion speller and orator at her all-girls Catholic school, and was the president of several organizations at her all-girls college. And that day when Edward Morgan had seen Lila Moore at the garden party, he had instantly been taken with her confidence and charm. Lila had made many friends over the years, all of whom loved her. To this day, she still kept in touch with those of her former peers that were still alive, and she and Edward were often jetting out to spend the evening with good friends.

His grandmother had quite a legacy already, Jason reflected as his eyes swept over the ornate jewelry boxes that lined her dresser. Hordes of friends that demanded her and Edward's company, a loving family that doted on her.

Her picture was on the end table by the red tulips, smiling graciously out at him. Jason dropped his chin into his hand, gazing back. She looked happy.

Damn, how he wished she was here so that he could talk to her.

She could probably tell him what he should do. She always did give the best advice. But even as he sat there and wished she was around to guide him, he knew what she'd say. "Jason, my dear, you need to get off your bottom and go talk to that dear girl. And don't you show your face here until you have, do I make myself clear? There's a good boy. Get to it, my darling."

He smirked. Yeah, that was exactly what she'd say. But damn it, he just couldn't do that. He couldn't show his face to her again – not after what he had done to her. Jason leaned back in the chair, rocking once more, and wiggled his toes in the thick carpet. Damnation. Right back to square one.

Suddenly, he heard a beeping noise coming from somewhere in the room. Surprised, he strained his ears and tried to pinpoint its location. It didn't take long – AJ had left his Scooby Doo wristwatch on the dresser and now the alarm was going off. Why his brother had set the alarm for three-thirty in the afternoon, he had no clue. Reluctantly, he picked himself up from his comfortable seat in the rocker and lumbered over to the object that was emitting the offensive noise. He shut it off fairly easily and was about to set it down when he noticed something else that his grandmother had left lying on the dresser.

It was a silver necklace boasting a dazzling sapphire pendant that his grandfather had surprised her with on their fiftieth anniversary several years ago. The sapphire was a special gemstone for the two of them; blue had always been his grandfather's favorite color, and he would always say that it matched his wife's beautiful eyes – the same ones Jason had inherited – and it was the same color that she had been wearing at that garden party when he had first laid eyes on her.

Jason smiled and tentatively fingered the jewel. Its deep color instantly reminded him of another blue necklace – the one that Elizabeth told him was good luck as she cinched it behind his neck before the state track conferences.

The memory made him sick to his stomach once more. That necklace, that one simple hemp necklace, meant so much to him that day. He wondered if Elizabeth really knew how he felt when she said that she believed in him – didn't she know what it meant it to him? What she meant to him? And now, because he was such an inconceivable ass, they wouldn't get the chance to make any more memories together.

And that was how he returned to his previous state of depressed and sullen sulking. But his grandmother's face, smiling hopefully back at him, had him feeling guilty about his cowardice and he soon retired to the basement. No sooner had he folded the bed back into the sofa and fixed the cushions than his cell, which he had left lying on the floor, rang.

"Morgan."

"Dude. What's going on?"

Jason sighed and slumped back onto the fat throw cushions his mother kept on the dark green sofa. "Not much, Luke."

"How ya feeling?"

"Better."

"Good, good! So…Yeah. What's going on?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "Not much."

He heard his friend chuckle. "My, aren't we talkative?"

Jason snorted but didn't reply, and pretty soon Luke continued.

"You showing up at school tomorrow? Or are you thinking of just taking it easy?"

"I'll be there."

"Oh, ok. I'm not sure if I will – my old man has tickets for a ball game, and I'm thinking I'd rather take off with him than show up when I don't have to. I mean, it's not like we're going to be doing anything much tomorrow – we're done with our APs, after all."

"Yeah."

"Oh, wait, speaking of which – me, Johnny and Beth are supposed to rehearse again tomorrow for our bit in the talent show. If you see her, can you tell her that I might not be there?"

Jason scowled into the phone and reached for the remote. "I don't think I can help you there, Spencer."

"Why not?"

He could hear the confusion in Luke's voice and didn't understand it one bit. "After what happened Friday night? No way, man."

"Oh, please," Luke scoffed. "You didn't do anything that bad."

Jason fought to keep his temper in check, reminding himself that Luke didn't know what transpired after Elizabeth had dropped him off. No one did, for that matter, except him and Elizabeth. "What I did do was bad enough."

His friend sighed. "Look, she showed up, right? If that doesn't prove that she still cares about you, Morg, I don't know what to tell you."

"Don't tell me anything," Jason sighed. "Because it won't help the situation any."

"What do you mean?"

"I think we're over."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line, and Jason began to wonder if his friend was still there.

"Spence?"

"What does she think about this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Does she agree? Does she think you're over, too?"

"I-I haven't talked to her."

There was another pause and Jason waited with baited breath for Luke to speak, another action that suddenly struck him as odd – since when did he care what people thought of him? Since when did he care about their opinions?

"Talk to her, Morgan."

"Luke-"

"No. I'm not kidding on this one. Talk to her, Morgan. Don't just decide you're over and done with without talking to her."

"Look-"

"No, you look. What happened to you, man?"

Jason's brows furrowed. "What the hell are you talking about? Nothing happened to me."

"Yeah? What happened to the Jason Morgan I used to know? Dude, you were always so freaking open and honest that I used to hate you because you gave the rest of us guys a bad name. All the girls thought you were awesome – "Jason doesn't keep secrets", "Jason tells it like it is", "Jason's not domineering at all", blah blah blah. Do you know how bad I wanted to hurt you?"

"What does that have to do with-"

"So what happened to that, huh? Since when do you make decisions for other people? Do you remember how much I hassled you for it? How I used to tease you and say you had no backbone sometimes just because you wouldn't make decisions for other people – even the small, meaningless ones? Decisions, I mean – small, meaningless decisions, not people. Well, to be totally straight with you, man, I thought that was the coolest thing about you. Very…Zen. Does that make sense?"

"Zen?"

"Yeah. Everything just was with you. Lots of people thought you just didn't care, but we knew you better. You gave so much importance to what other people thought that you refused to make even the smallest decision for them. So here's my question: why is Beth any different? Doesn't she matter?"

"Look, Spencer-"

"Talk to her, Morgan. Let her decide how she feels about it."

"I can't do that."

"Wuss."

"What?"

"You heard me – you're too chickenshit to talk to her. Man, if that isn't somethin'. Who woulda thought, the Golden Boy being too afraid to talk to Wee Little Beth Web?"

Jason glowered at the wall. "I am not afraid."

"Bullshit."

"I'm not!"

"Prove it. Talk to her."

"I can't do that, Luke. Just drop it, would you?"

"Fine. But that sucks, man. I still think you're making a mistake."

"Later, Spence." Without waiting for an answer, Jason clicked off the phone and dropped it on the coffee table. Lazily, he reached for the remote and began flipping through the movie channels, hoping for something interesting enough to take his mind off of the soap opera that was his life.

"All right, now we gotta make-a sure that the gun's in place. I don't want my baby brother coming outta the bathroom with only his-a dick in his hands."

"You got it, Sonny. It'll be there."

Jason perked up at the familiar dialogue. The Godfather. He was just getting ready to settle into his favorite movie – after Part II, that is – when he remembered that the last time he had watched the movie was when Elizabeth was hanging out with him in the basement. His excitement effectively squashed, Jason flipped off the television and lay back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.

The rain had stopped many hours ago, but he could hear the gutters dripping fat droplets of water that pitter-pattered on the wet ground outside. Even that reminded him of something – that time that he had walked Elizabeth to her car under that big umbrella of hers and she kept being blown away by the wind until he wrapped one arm around her waist.

Damn.

Every little thing around him, no matter how seemingly innocuous, reminded him of her. He just couldn't escape from all the memories they had made together in the few short months that they had been together. The time he scooped her up off the ground when Johnny got a little too rough, the balloon she had given him, all their trips out for lunch, that wonderful road trip to Clover, even though they had been arrested, and everything since then. He had grown so used to her company, and now that she wasn't around it was as if he himself couldn't function right. Nothing seemed right anymore. He didn't just want her around – he needed her around.

Jason sighed at the ceiling and let his eyelids droop closed. He did. He needed her. It didn't matter that she didn't seem to need him – all he knew was that he loved her, had loved her for a long time, and he was at his best when she was around. She made him a better person, and he liked who he was when he was with her. None of the others in his string of female companions had made him feel this way, that was for sure. He knew that the minute she tied that balloon around her wrist on Valentine's Day.

None of the other girls made him nervous – in a good way – and none of the others made the butterflies in his stomach dance with anticipation whenever she came around. He never spent class time thinking about the others; he never daydreamed about them when he was running after school with the rest of his former teammates. With his former flings, he thought of them as just that – flings. He didn't want to get serious. After all, he was just in high school. He was young, handsome, intelligent, and an athlete; he had it all going for him. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him wanting to enjoy everything that entailed.

But when Elizabeth came along, when she stumbled – literally – into his world and for the first time made him sit up and notice, something told him that this was different. He couldn't put his finger on it, and had initially decided that it was just because she was different from the other girls he hung out with. She was short and sweet and admittedly nerdy, and she didn't hang exclusively with the teenagers, keep up with the latest trends, spend her free time shopping or gabbing on the phone, and because she wasn't hesitant to tell guys like him when they were full of shit.

As the weeks wore on and she let him get to know her, that changed. He still believed that, but it wasn't the secret to the power she had over him. He didn't know what exactly made him fall hard for her in the first place, except he loved the way she made him feel. With a few simple words or a soft smile or touch, she made him feel like the most incredible guy in the world, like there was nothing in the world he couldn't do. And the funniest part was that he believed it, too.

Somewhere along the line, he had let go of everything he used to think about women and dating. He didn't crave the excitement that came with dating three different tall, busty college girls every week; somehow, Elizabeth became his pinnacle. Something in his mind and in his heart told him that she was the ultimate woman, the one that he was meant to find his way to, and that was the instant he had fallen in love with her.

His brows furrowed into a deep V as he thought. He was in love with her. And yet he was the only one who knew that.

That didn't seem right.

Slowly, he lifted himself up onto his elbows. Maybe Luke was right. Boy, it felt strange even thinking that. But maybe he was. Was he really ready to give up everything he had ever felt about her, give up every single memory he had made with her, over something like this? Sure, it was something serious, but in any case he should hold out hope that they could work through it.

He was reaching for the phone before he could talk himself out of it. Her number was on speed-dial, the third button. His fingers shook slightly as he jabbed on the touchpad, and then the phone began to ring.

Steve Hardy was in the kitchen fixing himself an afternoon snack when the phone rang. Sighing, he set down the mustard and wiped his fingers on a dish towel as he walked over to the telephone.

"Hello?"

"Uh, hi…Mr. Hardy?"

"That's me. Who is this?"

"It's…it's Jason. Jason Morgan."

Steve's eyebrows flew up. "Jason! Jason, of course! How are you, boy?"

"Good, thank you, sir. Um, would Elizabeth happen to be around?"

Steve switched the phone to the other ear and poked his head out of the kitchen to holler for his granddaughter. She replied back from upstairs that she was coming, and he put his mouth to the speaker again. "She'll be right here."

"Thank you, Mr. Hardy." There was an awkward silence on Jason's part as Steve heard his granddaughter's footsteps echoing on the second floor, but before he could break it, the older man spoke up again.

"She's right here, Jason," he said calmly. "But before I give it to her, I just wanted to tell you something."

Jason frowned, swallowing loudly. "Y-Yes, sir?"

"Son, there are a lot of people who care about you. So if you ever – and I mean ever do something stupid like drinking before you're of age, I'm going to hunt you down myself and beat you with a shoe. Do I make myself clear, boy?"

Jason's mouth fell open at Mr. Hardy's words. "Um, yes, yes, sir, you do."

"Good boy," Steve beamed. "Here's Elizabeth." He handed the phone off to his granddaughter who had just walked into the room, and ignored her when she asked who it was before accepting.

Elizabeth frowned as her grandfather resumed making his sandwich, whistling some old Bing Crosby tune or another as he slathered the mustard on his turkey. "Hello?"

"Elizabeth?"

Her heart skipped a beat. "J-Jason?"

His voice was quiet when he spoke again. "We need to talk. I almost hate to ask, but…can you come over?"