There was something so alluringly peaceful in that face, in the perfect curve of her mouth, her dark eye-lashes, her slightly paler than usual cheeks and her straight but delicate nose. And even though he couldn't see her eyes behind her closed eye-lids, he knew just what they looked like. He knew one look into them could make his heart melt like ice cream on a hot plate—or make it crumble like a piece of cookie under an elephant's foot.
Either way, it was the eyes that he loved most about Jane. Didn't they say the eyes were the windows to the soul? He wished more than ever that Jane would open the curtains and let him peek in. Just one look, so he could know just how he was going to fix everything between them.
He adjusted the blanket that he had draped over her when she had fallen asleep on his couch halfway through the movie, so that it would cover her torso. She stirred slightly and his hand grazed her shoulder through her cotton t-shirt. It made him feel electrified. How was it that a random movement could affect him this much?
Adam carefully moved his hand closer to her face, letting it linger just inches from touching her skin. He knew that he had lost the right to touch her that way, and that only made it harder. Because there was nothing that he wanted to do more badly at this moment than to touch her face, feel the soft skin of her forehead and brush away the stray strand of hair that had fallen there.
He slowly withdrew his hand and sighed. Would he ever earn the rights back that he once had? Joan had told him he had to show her that she could trust him again. That was going to be his one mission for the rest of his life, if that's what it took: show Jane that he could be trusted and would not mess up again. Never again. He had gotten burnt so badly, it still stung, and he was not going to let that happen again. The problem was that he wasn't sure he could trust himself.
On the couch, Joan stirred again and shifted her position, slowly opening her eyes. She looked straight into Adam's face, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, staring at her intently. Sleepily, she asked, "What are you doing?"
Without letting his gaze waver, he answered in a tone just above a whisper, "Watching you sleep."
An ironic grin formed on Joan's face as she rubbed her right eye with one hand. "Well, that has to be the most boring pastime in the universe."
But Adam dismissed her attempt at humor without the slightest indication that this situation was even remotely funny. "You look so peaceful when you sleep."
Joan didn't know what to reply to that. It may well have been the sweetest thing he had said to her in a long time, and back when they had still been that innocent, completely-in-love couple, she would have leaned forward and kissed him with every bit of her heart. But now she was at a loss, because kissing Adam was out of the question. But was it?
If she kissed him now, things would change, and she wasn't sure she wanted that just yet. Humor was usually her defense mechanism. Any tense situation could be defused by the right placement of a humorous comment or a sarcastic or ironic remark. Obviously not every situation, because Adam hadn't taken the bait, and Joan was at a loss, defenseless. If defense doesn't work, what do you do? You run.
Joan sat up, letting the blanket fall from her shoulders. She ran her hands quickly through her hair as she got up from the couch. "I should get home, my parents are gonna worry."
Adam rose from his sitting position on the floor, offering, "I'll drive you."
Joan put on her jacket, moving towards the door. "That's not necessary, I can take the bus. Or... or a taxi." She opened the front door and was greeted by a steady drizzle of rain.
Adam came up behind her, the car keys already in his hand. "Don't be stupid, Jane, I'll drive you. I'm not gonna let you go home like this on your own."
Joan looked up at the sky, feeling the cool raindrops on her face. Caving in, she said, "Okay, if you insist," shrugging her shoulders ever so slightly.
"I insi—" Adam started to reply, but stopped in mid-sentence when he saw a dark, slightly staggering figure nearing the doorstep. As the person came closer, he realized it was his father.
As Carl Rove walked up to Joan, who was still standing by the door, he put his hand importunately on her shoulder, more for support than in an affectionate gesture. He said with a slight slur in his voice, "Joan, so nice to see you here again." Then he looked at Adam for confirmation. "Hnh, son?"
When Joan directed her gaze at Adam, the expression on his face bore a mixture of embarrassment, resentment and anger. He looked like he wanted to hide in a mouse hole somewhere, and Joan felt exactly the same way.
She heard Adam say, "Dad, you better go inside. I'm taking Joan home."
"Leaving so soon?" Carl asked, looking at Joan. "Trouble in paradise?"
Adam was so ashamed. Not of himself for a change, but he wished he could be instead of being ashamed of his father. Just another stain on his already miserable life, and Joan had witnessed its full, ugly extent. There was indeed trouble, but not in paradise, because anything remotely like paradise had long gone from his life.
"No, Dad, everything's fine. It's late, Joan just wants to go home. I'll be back in twenty minutes," he told his father.
Everything's fine? Everything's fine? Like hell it isn't!
"Come on." Angrily, Adam took Joan by the upper arm and guided her perhaps a little too forcefully to the car.
"Ow! Adam, you're hurting me." Joan jerked away from his grip and walked to the passenger side of the car. Adam unlocked the doors and they both got in. Once Adam sat down in the driver's seat, he didn't make any attempt to start the car. Instead he gripped the steering wheel with both hands, leaned his head back against the head rest with closed eyes and inhaled deeply. The night couldn't have ended worse. You had to hand it to the Rove family to make a mess out of things going so well there for a moment.
Adam only lowered his head and opened his eyes when he felt Joan's hand touch his right forearm. "Are you okay?" she asked, her voice taking on a worried edge.
He could just barely keep his voice from shaking with bottled up anger. "Sorry for that."
"Sorry for what? Adam, it's not your fault." Despite the darkness, Adam saw a flicker of something in her eyes he couldn't quite identify. Pity? Sympathy? Compassion?
"Yeah," he just said and started the motor. This was something he didn't want to discuss with Joan—or anyone else. Not before he had had that talk with his father.
The drive to the Girardi house was silent, too silent. Unspoken words hung heavily in the air, but neither Joan nor Adam dared say them. When Adam braked in front of the front porch of Joan's home to stop the car, Joan unbuckled her seatbelt, turned to him and started, "Look, Adam..."
But he interrupted her with an intense glare in his eyes as he looked at her. "Don't. Just... don't. I'll handle it."
Joan wanted to say so much to him. That she wanted to help him, that he didn't have to deal with it alone—whatever it was, that it was going to be all right. But what she saw in his eyes almost frightened her. It was not the soft-spoken, sensitive, retreated-into-his-shell Adam Rove she had gotten to know when she had come to Arcadia. It was not the Adam Rove she wanted to gather up in her arms and comfort. All she could say to the Adam Rove she saw in front of her was, "Thanks for driving me home. I'll... I'll see you in school, right? Good night."
"Good night, Jane," he replied tonelessly as Joan got out of the car.
He watched her walk up the stairs, fumble with her keys and then enter the house. 'So much for Pre-Bonnie Adam,' he thought. With a sigh, he released the handbrake and drove back home, dreading the shambles of his life that awaited him there.
--...----...----...--
If ever there was a time for Linkin Park, it was tonight.
This was usually not his kind of music, but he remembered Grace having given him the CD a couple of years ago. He could vaguely recall how she had stumbled in on him one afternoon in the shed, when he had been uncharacteristically pounding holes into an innocent object with a screwdriver in frustration at something he couldn't remember. She had handed him the CD a few days later with the words, "Here. Next time you feel the need to smash something, listen to this instead of taking the sledgehammer."
Adam went over to his shelf and rummaged around in one of the drawers. The CD had to be here somewhere. In the back, he found the case with the grey and red cover, buried underneath pieces of scrap paper and old audio tapes. He needed something to be screaming in his ears, something that could channel the anger that was bubbling inside of him. So he put on the discman headphones as he lay down on his bed, still fully dressed, and turned up the volume so that Chester Bennington's penetrating voice rose to an almost unbearable level.
Cause I can't hold on when I'm stretched so thin, I make the right moves, but I'm lost within. I put on my daily façade, but then I just end up getting hurt again. By myself. I ask why, but in my mind I find I can't rely on myself.
He had returned home straight after he had dropped Joan off at home, to find his father had gone to bed. A peek into the bedroom revealed his father passed out and snoring and Adam had had to suppress the urge to pound him awake with his fists to scream at him how he could ruin everything, ruin that one encounter with Joan that he had put all his hopes in. Before his father had turned up, he had genuinely felt that there was some tiny ray of hope still flickering between him and Joan that would be worth holding onto.
I can't hold on to what I want when I'm stretched so thin. It's all too much to take in. I can't hold on to anything, watching everything spin with thoughts of failure sinking in.
But now the hope was fading to the point of vanishing, and Adam wanted to cry at the injustice of it. He didn't cry, however, not this time. Instead he took some small comfort in the aggressive voices and sounds blaring into his ears, trying not to think about how much of a low-life loser he must seem to Joan. He had been so intent on changing that, on becoming the pre-Bonnie Adam she had fallen in love with. But how could he, if he was trying as hard as he could, but still wasn't succeeding?
How do you think I've lost so much? I'm so afraid, I'm out of touch. How do you expect I will know what to do, when all I know is what you tell me to? Don't you know? I can't tell you how to make it go. No matter what I do, how hard I try, I can't seem to convince myself why I'm stuck on the outside.
'Stuck on the outside. How true,' Adam mused. 'But how to get back on the inside? It's just so hard to try and try and take another setback through unforeseen circumstances that can't be controlled. Maybe it's too hard to keep trying.'
Adam had been too lost in thought to notice another song had come on. The lyrics of this particular song suddenly registered with him.
I wanna run away. Never say goodbye. I wanna know the truth instead of wondering why. I wanna know the answers, no more lies. I wanna shut the door and open up my mind.
Yes, that didn't sound so bad. Just take your stuff and go, leave all the mess and chaos behind. That would be so easy, wouldn't it? But that would also be cowardly, not to say irresponsible. What would become of his dad if he didn't have Adam to (not only) financially support him? Yes, what would happen then? Maybe he'd realize that blowing the little money they had on drinks in the pub wasn't the thing to do. Maybe his dad needed that kind of eye-opener.
But deep down inside, Adam knew he couldn't just bolt without at least giving his father a chance. He would talk to him tomorrow, maybe they could work this out. Because it was time he got his life under control if he wanted to go back to pre-Bonnie Adam. He needed to start somewhere.
Suddenly fed up with the aggressive shouting and the monotonous hip-hop elements pounding his eardrums, he switched off the discman and got up. It was going to be another endlessly long school day tomorrow. If he wanted to be halfway awake and aware, he should try to get some sleep. Not that he really cared all that much about grades and academic achievement right now.