Author's Note:
Okay, so no one's left a review yet although my FFN statistics page shows me that close to 40 people have accessed this story. I don't know if that means no one liked it or if people are just lazy or indifferent towards it. Maybe it's the summer time, maybe people haven't read Tote's story yet or don't want to. Maybe I'm just being too demanding. Never mind, I'm continuing it anyway. :o) Here's the next bit.

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The loud, hammering sound came in rapid succession as the construction worker, clad in a bright orange vest, used the jackhammer in practiced motions to break the tarmac into small, ragged pieces. Adam watched him as he passed the road works site and thought that it might as well have been his hopes instead of the tarmac that were being dismantled.

Arriving at home, he didn't feel like spending time in the shed. He had left everything there as it was, without cleaning up after finishing the sculpture for Joan. If he went back there, he would only be reminded of his most recent failure and end up wallowing in his own self-pity.

Post-Bonnie Adam would feel sorry for himself; he had gotten it down to an art so perfectly that it almost came naturally after another rebuff from Joan. But pre-Bonnie Adam—what would he have done? He probably would have gone to the shed and started welding again or painting or drawing. Anything to keep his mind occupied.

Adam unlocked the front door of their house and went into the kitchen where he found a note that his dad had gone to the pub to meet with the regulars. That was nothing new. Another burden to worry about: his father was spending a little too much time in the pub lately, and usually came home a little too drunk afterwards. He tried not to think about the amount of money his father was spending on that kind of booze—money that partly Adam was bringing home from his job at the paper. He made another mental note to confront his father about it, but he knew it wouldn't be pretty, so he had already put it off for way too long.

He sat down at the somewhat battered, round kitchen table and, for the first time in days, noticed the shabby stains on the tablecloth that covered it and the breadcrumbs scattered on it in places. The Girardi home always looked so neat and clean, and his house... it was anything but. 'Just another sign of a woman missing in the house,' he thought. He didn't mean it in any chauvinistic way, it was just that his mother had always been the one to keep things in place and tidy, and his dad and him just didn't care.

But for some reason, the mess and slight shabbiness disgusted him tonight, so he threw the dirty tablecloth in the laundry basket and put a new, clean one on the table. He put his chin on his hands after sitting down and his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall opposite him.

His first attempt at pre-Bonnie Adam hadn't worked out, it would be so easy to just give up. But then he saw the dark-haired girl from school in front of him again, telling him flat-out, "Self-pity isn't attractive on anyone, even you. Apologize to everyone you've hurt with this. Including Bonnie."

He didn't think he could face Bonnie in person, even if she was still at Arcadia High. She must have changed schools, or dropped out entirely, because Adam hadn't seen her for a long time. Even though he knew where she lived, he couldn't bring himself to go there again. That place held too many painful memories of what he'd done, how it had driven him into the mess he was in now in with Jane. He got up and got a lined writing pad and a pen and started to compose an apology to Bonnie. A bit old-fashioned maybe, nowadays in the age of internet and e-mail, but it would do. Maybe even more so than e-mail or chat message.

--...----...----...--

Careful not to stumble over any unexpected molehills or bumps in the earth, Joan made her way to Adam's shed in the dark, round the back of the house. She found it in darkness and silence and no answer greeted her as she knocked on the door. Weird. This was the place Adam spent most of his time at home in, the place he retreated to when things were bothering him.

An uneasy feeling of worry crept up her insides, mixed with a sudden emergence of guilt. Adam hadn't... done anything stupid, had he? Upon arrival, she had seen lights on in the house, so she thought she'd check there first. She could worry afterwards if he wasn't there.

Her legs still felt strangely wobbly and weak as she approached the Rove residence's front door. She told herself that it was from lying in bed for a few days, fighting off the fever and eating too little.

Adam's sculptures and wind chimes in the front garden made metallic and clanking glassy sounds as she passed them, the pale light of the streetlamps reflecting on some of the glass and mirror shards worked into them. She remembered the first time she had come here and admired these strange but unique works of art. Back then, things had been so innocent, so easy. She had believed the people at school, who were saying Adam was a stoner. She had believed he carried marijuana in the bag she was giving back to him, only to find out that his secret was something so much more amazing, so much deeper. That had been the day she had been ever so slightly pushed down the first little edge that had sent her falling for him.

Drawing in a breath, she rang the doorbell. Footsteps approached and a jolt of electricity shot through her as she heard Adam's voice, slightly annoyed, "Dad, have you forgotten your—" The door opened and Adam stopped in mid-sentence, completely taken aback at the person who was standing on his doorstep. After two seconds he needed to recover from slight shock, he uttered, "Jane."

"Yeah, I... I checked the shed and you weren't there, which was weird, and I thought you might be here instead," Joan said. God, she was babbling. How could she be babbling when she had so much more important things to say?

Adam looked at her patiently, expectantly, but also with reserve, as if to brace himself for another blow to the face. So much depended on what she would be saying next. She breathed in. "Adam, I'm sorry. What I said earlier, that was... unfair and out of place."

She watched him playing with the door latch, not looking at her. "Yeah, maybe. But you were right."

"Look, can I come in?" Joan asked since she wasn't sure Adam would invite her in. They needed to talk and she would prefer to do it somewhere other than on his front porch. An insecure look passed his face, Joan could see that he was fighting with the decision.

'Can I come in?' Was he dreaming? Jane was asking if she could come in. 'What are you waiting for, Rove?' he heard a little voice inside his head. Post-Bonnie Adam would have hesitated, maybe sent her away. Pre-Bonnie Adam would most definitely have let her in right away, without second thought. That was all he needed to know.

"Yeah, sure," he said and stepped away so Joan could enter. Joan stopped in the hall, waiting for Adam to close the door behind him. They both went into the kitchen, when Adam suddenly remembered the letter to Bonnie. There was no way Joan could see it, he remembered how irrationally jealous she had been over Mary Jane. If she knew he was writing a letter to Bonnie, she would most definitely freak again.

He quickly went over to the table and closed the writing pad, putting it away as if it was something totally unimportant. He stood at the table, his hands hanging limply at his sides. He studied Joan's face, her standing opposite him, equally as nervous.

Adam interrupted the awkward silence, although he had no clue as to what he should be saying. "So..." He lifted his hands in a gesture that seemed to want to ask why Joan was here.

"So..." she answered, echoing Adam. "I... I wanted to talk to you." She pulled a chair away from the table and sat down on it. Adam did the same, looking at her with careful but rapt attention now. Joan bent down to pull something from her bag. It was Adam's Get-Well sculpture.

She put it on the table in front of them, and Adam's face fell slightly. She had come to give it back to him, hadn't she? To tell him he shouldn't bother giving her anymore gifts, devote any more of his attention to her.

But Joan looked at it with something akin to awe and admiration. Adam couldn't believe the words that came out of her mouth. "Adam, this is really beautiful. You always make these amazing things out of nothing, and you give them a whole new meaning. I... I should have thanked you for it instead of saying something really mean."

She swallowed and played with the base of the sculpture, so that it moved slightly as she went on, "I wanted you to know that this means a lot to me."

He still couldn't believe his ears. He felt his eyes starting to brim with tears. How could she say all these nice things when she had been so bitter and angry with him just half an hour ago? What could he possibly reply to that? 'It means a lot to me too?' Or 'I made it especially for you?' Or maybe 'Only you can make me falter at your feet by being so cruel one second and so loving the next?'

So he said nothing, for fear he would ruin this magic moment. He had always been really good at that, so he had learned to keep quiet.

Joan took his silence as a sign to go on. "And it wasn't a mistake to come to our house. Look, I'm not mad at you for talking to my mom. I know you like her a lot, and I know why you do, and I should get past this completely absurd jealousy thing. There is so much I should be doing, because I really want to fix this... fix us. I can't stand it being like this between us."

"No," Adam interrupted softly. A little more forcefully, he went on, "If there's anyone who should be doing something, who should be changing, then it's me. I have done these incredibly stupid and hurtful things to you, I have started this mess and I should be the one taking the responsibility."

He looked at Joan's fingers fumbling on the tabletop as he continued, "I know I have apologized to you God knows how often, but this time I need you to know that I mean it." He placed his hands on either of hers and looked her in the eyes as he said, "Jane, I'm so sorry. For sleeping with Bonnie, for not being patient, for disrespecting you, for everything I ever did to hurt you."

Tears were now silently flowing down his cheeks and Joan's mind suddenly flashed back to mock trial, when he had apologized to her for the first time after the Bonnie incident. Back then she had been angry, betrayed, hurt and disappointed. She had wanted to ram a pointed stick into Adam's heart and twist it. But she was past that now, way past that.

The boy she saw sitting opposite her seemed genuinely sorry, eaten away by guilt and shame and his own anger. Desperation spilled out of his voice like wildfire. "I want to fix things between us too. And I know that what I did will never go away, and maybe it doesn't have to. I... I know that I can't expect you to ever trust me again. So, if you don't think you can, then please tell me now and I'll leave it alone. Just say it, and I'll stay out of your way."

He released his breath, like this had been the biggest sacrifice of his life. And maybe it had. Because he had handed her the fully loaded gun and her finger was on the trigger.

She turned her palms upward with her hands still underneath Adam's and closed her fingers around his in a slight squeeze, careful not to touch the jagged cut on his knuckles. "Oh, Adam, I want to trust you again," she almost whispered. "It's just that... you need to show me that I can."

He moved his glance up, so his eyes locked with hers without him moving his head. The relief that flooded through him was almost tangible and more tears of alleviation spilled down his cheeks. He slowly nodded and said, "I will."

Adam drew in a breath through his nose; the tension that had been crackling in the air seemed oddly relieved now. He removed his hands from her grip and wiped them over his face to get rid of the tears lingering there. If they dried on their own, his skin would only feel caked and sticky later.

Not knowing what to do or say next, he got up, awkwardly offering, "Um... Do you want anything to drink? Soda, coffee, tea?"

"Soda would be great," Joan answered, smiling slightly. Adam went over to the refrigerator and got out two cans of Sprite. He handed one to Joan and suddenly there was something completely and utterly irrational coming over him when he asked her, "Hey, uh... Do you wanna watch a video? Like 'Dumb and Dumber' or... um... 'Wayne's World'?"

It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and he regretted it the moment it came out of his mouth. But he was rewarded by a full smile from Joan as she said, "'Wayne's World'? God, I haven't watched that in ages. Let's go for it."