Chapter 14 – Talking it out

"Oh God," Jackie moaned, as her head collapsed into her hands. "What have I done?"

"I was just about to ask you that," Hyde said. "Why didn't you tell him how I – you know – seized the moment?"

"Well, he'd tear you apart, for one thing," Jackie said grimly.

"Huh, if you think the hurt would all be on his side you've forgotten what I'm capable of," Hyde replied.

"I don't want hurt on either side," Jackie retorted. "But it's not just that. I remember how scared I was when Dex was about to – use me. I guess I owe you for saving me from that."

Hyde was silent for a moment. "So then what happened between us was not the same thing as if Tanner had done it to you." Jackie shook her head. "How come? I mean, I know I've been a complete asshole to you. Hell, you must hate me more than you do Tanner." Now Jackie remained silent. "Jackie?"

"I don't hate you, Steven," she sighed. She saw the hope in his eyes at her admission. "I don't know how I feel about you anymore. I mean, you break my heart over and over, and then come to me just when I've finally put my life back together. Things would be so much simpler if you'd just stayed in Point Place."

"Things would have been simpler if you'd stayed there, too," Hyde answered. "Not when Sam was there – before that, when you gave me your damned ultimatum that sent both our lives into a tailspin."

"Well, what was I supposed to do?" Jackie cried. "I was offered the career opportunity of a lifetime. How was I to decide what to do when I didn't even know how you felt about me?"

"That's crap," Hyde snorted. "You knew how I felt about you, even if I wasn't much good at putting it into words. Do you think I'd stay with a girl who drives me crazy on a daily basis if I wasn't in love with her?"

There was a stunned pause after Hyde's declaration, not unlike the first time he had told her he loved her. Hyde held his breath, half expecting the same response from her as that other time.

"I believed that once," Jackie finally said. "It's why I put the decision of my life in your hands – if I hadn't believed you loved me, I would never have taken such a chance of losing you, not after our last break-up."

"Just because I wasn't sure right away about marrying you, that doesn't mean I didn't love you. Just like my getting drunk didn't mean I didn't want to marry you. That had more to do with being let loose in a beer warehouse for the first time in my life. Hell, we all got drunk that day. Bad timing, I admit, but not the cause and effect you seem to see it as."

"You're pretty glib with the explanations now you've had a few months to think about them," Jackie scoffed. "How do you explain the stripper, Steven? We were on the point of getting back together, there's a knock on the door and the wife you were too drunk to remember marrying is standing there. Then the next time I see you, you're a happily married man and suddenly I'm your worst enemy. That's when my belief that you had ever loved me died. That's when I saw how little I meant to you." To Jackie's dismay, she felt her eyes burn with tears. She had to get away from Hyde before she broke down into a pathetic mess. Her intent was thwarted as he grabbed her hand, anchoring her to him.

"Don't say that, Jackie," he said fiercely. "Don't sell yourself short. You've always known your own worth better than anyone else – you should know it is impossible for a man to have you for a girlfriend and not be crazy in love with you." Jackie stopped fighting him but kept her face averted. "Sam was the worst mistake of my life. All I can say is I was never more hurt by anything than I was when I caught you and Kelso in that hotel room together. That time I was self-destructing in Vegas I had gotten to thinking of you as some evil addiction and I figured the best way to break your hold on me was to find another girl – any girl. When I came back to Point Place I thought I had finally cured myself of you but as soon as I saw you I could feel myself getting sucked in again and that scared me to hell because I never wanted to feel the way I had felt in that Chicago hotel – I didn't want to feel anything anymore. So then Sam came and I hung onto her like a lifeline to keep you away from me – I figured with her guarding me I'd be seeing a lot less of you. I thought that was what I wanted." The death grip he kept on her hand softened and his thumb smoothed circles on her palm as she stayed, held by his voice. How she loved his voice. "Then I got my wish with a vengeance – you moved right out of the state. Seems like you took all the colour in my life with you and turned it into an Orwell novel. I kept thinking you'd come back, that you needed me too much to stay away. I never faced the fact that I could lose you until I heard you had a new boyfriend."

"What, you thought I was too abrasive for another man to ever want me?" Jackie said, still not looking at Hyde.

"No, of course not. I had no doubt other guys would be hitting on you. I just never thought you'd be interested in any of them."

"You are not the most consistent person, Steven. You think me slutty enough to have sex with your friend a week after we broke up but too pure to date a new man two months later? You can't have it both ways."

"But that's just it. I realised from the shock of it that I do trust you, deep down, that I do believe you really love me. That's when I finally accepted that nothing did happen between you and Kelso that night – even if you had wanted to, you wouldn't be able to have sex with someone you didn't love, not when you were in love with me. Then Randy told me how you were having sex with this Nick and that scared me because that could only mean you didn't love me anymore. That's when it hit me that maybe this time I had really lost you."

"So why did you come to see me if you thought you had lost me?" Jackie asked, looking Hyde in the eyes for the first time. Hyde shrugged.

"I didn't want to spend my life asking "what if". I knew it was a long shot that you'd come back to me but I had backed away from putting myself out there too many times – I felt like I owed it to you to tell you how I felt about you. Of course, I screwed it up as usual and just ended up driving you further away."

"I wouldn't go that far," Jackie murmured, starting to feel a little flushed from the sensation of his thumb circling the fleshy pads of her palm. "I was so mad at you for coming back then, just when I thought I was over you. You created a "what if" for me by making your offer so that in my mind there was always this alternate universe – I'd think what if I had said yes to Steven, what would we be doing now, would I be happier? You have a talent for complicating my life, you know."

"I have many talents," Hyde answered, watching her eyes turn forest green as they did when she was aroused. "Last night, for example." He noted with satisfaction the slight quiver this reminder sent through her frame.

"You are completely amoral, you know that? How do you dare mention last night to me after the things you did to me?" Jackie's voice almost purred over the word "things."

"Well now, I never claimed to be an upright, salt of the earth kind of guy. Even so, I wouldn't have touched you if you hadn't given me the right."

"When did I give you this right?"

"May I enter Exhibit A into evidence," Hyde said, hitting rewind on the little tape recorder and hoping he had estimated the timing correctly. Sure enough, Jackie heard Steven's voice on the tape say, "Jackie, you're not yourself tonight. Lie down on the bed and go to sleep – I'll just be in the next room."

Then Jackie's voice came through clearly; "Steven, please don't leave me. I love you so much – I always have. Even when I told myself I hated you I loved you. Please stay with me tonight – I need you."

Hyde stopped the tape. "Of course, you were taking your clothes off as you were saying that which was also a key factor in my surrender. You need to put the audio and the visual together to appreciate the pressure I was under."

Jackie could not suppress a smile at this additional explanation. Hyde exploited the small chink in her defences and pulled her by the hand he still held captive onto his lap. The kiss began at a leisurely pace with all of eternity to explore the plump bow of her upper lip, the pearl-like smoothness of her teeth and the heat of her tongue. It was Jackie who quickened the pace with an involuntary mewing sound, a plaintive little cry that seemed to beg Hyde to get down to business fast. Then it became one of those kisses they had shared in that first hot summer together, when they would kiss like the oxygen they needed to survive was only available from each other's mouth. Who knows how long they would have continued if they had not been interrupted by the perky voice of the waitress.

"So, do we know what we want to order now or would we like to hear about the specials?"