Days had gone by since Jasper and Charlotte had their talk and he still hadn't talked to Piper. He hated that he was leading her on and leaving her confused, but he was rather confused himself. He knew their relationship would be inappropriate, mainly because of their age difference and because she was Henry's sister. But he couldn't deny that he was attracted to her and he couldn't stop thinking about her. He did his best to avoid her but staying in her house and sleeping on the couch often led to them bumping into each other. He had to just take the leap and end things, it would be best for both of them.
So, Wednesday morning, when he finally had the courage to face her, he went up to her door and knocked. He went over the plan in his head. He'd ask her to go out with him to get something to eat, the food would likely placate her, he'd tell her that the sex was a mistake and they can't do anything like that ever again and hope that she didn't try to kill him right then and there. When her door opened, he looked at her with a small grin that faltered a little at the sight of her. She wore a white fuzzy sweater that hugged her frame snuggly, a black pleather mini skirt that stopped at her mid-thigh, with a belt that just accentuated her small waist. Her legs were covered with semi-sheer black tights that had a lace design on them. She looked gorgeous.
"Oh, perfect, I was just coming to get you!" she said as she grabbed his wrist. He blinked in confusion but had no choice but to follow her as he was yanked along, following her down the stairs.
"Where are we going?" he asked. She shushed him in response and handed him his jacket before pulling her own on. He slowly put on his own jacket and stumbled after her as she pulled him outside and to her car. She didn't say anything else as she unlocked it and climbed into the driver's seat. He finally decided to let his curiosity go and shrugged his shoulders before climbing into the passenger seat. He was always up for an adventure.
Meanwhile, Henry was still in bed, feeling completely miserable. Miserable would be the one word that would describe him best. It had been a few days since he spoke to Miss Bolton and he did exactly what she asked, he stayed away from her and worked on his…situationship with Tati. And he was just…miserable. He already knew she was different from Charlotte, that was something he thought he liked about her, but the more time they spent together the more he wondered whether he actually enjoyed the difference.
Charlotte was never really materialistic. Sure, she developed a love for fashion and designing clothes, but it was not a huge thing for her. She enjoyed nice things but also had no problem with dressing down and wearing simpler things. Tati was incredibly high maintenance. She complained so much about her designer clothes being destroyed that he offered to take her shopping for new things, and everything she wanted was only designer and name brand. Heels, fancy dresses, glitzy pieces, diamond jewelry, she wanted it all. Their briefcase money from the drug bust in Dystopia was running low and he was now considering finding work so he'd have money that'll last the rest of their time there.
Charlotte always took the time to listen to their problems and help them find a solution. Granted, she never really had a choice because they often ignored her and spoke over her, but she still listened and helped them out. With Tati, Henry wondered if she even listened to anything he had to say. If it wasn't about smoking, sex, or her, she didn't really care. He learned a lot about her but she didn't seem to care to learn about him. He wondered why she was even with him, she didn't seem that interested in him beyond the sex. And the sex was great, it was amazing, and he usually would be fine with a relationship that was made up of nothing but great sex and getting high together.
But he was bored. And he had quickly grown tired of her. He was tired of her vapidness, he was tired of her disinterest in him, he was tired of spending his days smoking and screwing. It was mundane and not the change he thought he wanted. It was like he reverted back to his life in Dystopia. Just empty and floating from one temporary joy to another, trying aimlessly to fill the void that Charlotte left. He didn't want Tati, he didn't want drugs, he wanted Charlotte back. He needed her back. As he lay there lost in his thoughts, Tati returned from the bathroom and climbed onto the bed to lay with him.
"We should go out and do something today," she said simply. "This town is boring as hell. What's there to do besides mess around?" He looked at her and chuckled a little. Her nose was still bandaged from Charlotte breaking it and the swelling around her eye had gone down, but it was still discolored and badly bruised. She had really done a number on her.
"Well, it's December first. We can help my parents with decorating for Christmas," he offered. She looked at him with a disinterested gaze and shrugged.
"I can help with the tree. I only like decorating the tree," she responded. He inhaled sharply before sighing a little.
"We kind of have a tradition where we save the tree for last and we decorate it together on Christmas Eve." It wasn't always a tradition though. It started when he was twelve and his family was so busy that they didn't decorate their tree until the last minute. Charlotte and her family came over for a Christmas party and as soon as she saw the bare tree, she took it upon herself to start decorating and Henry joined her. Soon, everyone joined and it became a holiday tradition he cherished deeply and didn't want to lose. But it seemed like he was going to miss out on it this year, seeing as Charlotte was definitely not going to be coming by this year.
"Whatever," Tati sighed with an eye roll. "Let's go out. I'm tired of your sister giving me the stink eye. Get ready." She got up from the bed and started to get dressed but Henry didn't move from his spot. He knew she was going to take about an hour doing her makeup, so he had more than enough time. Enough time to mope in bed and regret all of his life decisions.
Meanwhile, Jasper sat in the passenger seat of Piper's car, refusing to believe what was clearly happening. The realization hit him when she took a couple of familiar turns but he didn't want to actually acknowledge it. He had settled on never really coming back here and when he talked to Piper about it, he figured she understood. He figured she would respect his boundaries and not push him to see her. It wasn't actually happening and she wouldn't seriously do this to him, right? He remained in denial until the car slowly came to a stop in front of a house that he never planned on seeing again.
"Jasper," Piper started, breaking the silence. He shook his head before she could continue, causing her to sigh and slump back against her seat. "Come on. Are you just going to ignore her existence the entire time you're here?"
"That was the plan," he answered without looking at her. She sighed heavily and ran her fingers through her hair.
"Jasper, it's the Christmas season. Holiday spirit and the time for healing and all that! I'm not saying you should go in and completely makeup with your mom instantly, just go and talk to her. Don't you miss her?" He sighed heavily and looked out the window.
"I really don't want to go in there, Piper," he quietly said.
"Just for a minute, say hi and Merry Christmas," she encouraged him. The more he thought about it, he knew it wouldn't end well but he also started to consider it. Even though she wasn't perfect and she hurt him a lot, she was his mother and he did miss her a little bit. Maybe Piper was right, maybe he should go in and talk to her just once. As she watched him think it over, she bit down on her lip and reached over to hold his hand.
"I'll come in with you," she offered. He looked at her and nodded a little before climbing out of the car.
His heart was pounding against his chest as he looked at the old white house that he grew up in. It was filthy with grime covering the once pristine white siding and the lower brick half was covered with the unwieldy overgrown grass and weeds. He was sure the house had gotten complaints and threats to clean it up but knowing his mother, they were all ignored. A part of him considered telling Piper to forget it and to take him back, but she took his hand in her own and rubbed the back with her thumb. It easily comforted him and he gave her a small smile before walking up to the front door with her. He knocked and took a deep breath as he waited for an answer.
Soon, the door opened and for the first time in five years, Irene and Jasper Dunlop were reunited. The young man couldn't help but inhale sharply at the sight of her. She seemed to have aged more than five years, with large heavy bags under her eyes, brown splotches on her face, her once luscious brown hair now thinning and graying at the roots and uneven at the end as she had clearly not cut her hair in hears, and she wore clothes that seemed to be too big for her. He almost expected her to be excited upon seeing him but she barely even reacted, simply taking a deep drag of her cigarette and blowing out the smoke slowly as she stared at the two of them.
"Jasper," she started with a rough and gravelly voice, a stark contrast from the soft melodic voice he grew up with, "you're alive." He licked his lips nervously and nodded, letting go of Piper's hand and stepping forward with his arms open for a hug.
"Yeah, hey mom," he greeted with a tight smile. She let out a disgusted scoff and stepped away from him, waving him off.
"Don't touch me. What are you doing here? Who is this? Your wife?" she questioned while gesturing to the young blonde. As Jasper's shoulders deflated, she quickly stepped forward and put on a smile.
"No, ma'am, I'm Piper Hart-"
"Hart? You're still friends with those obnoxious goody two shoes?" she sneered. Piper's smile faltered a little but she quickly recovered and maintained her sweet demeanor.
"Can we come in?" she asked. Irene stared at her for a moment then looked at Jasper before sighing.
"Fine, whatever," she said. She opened the door wider so they could enter. As they did, Piper inhaled sharply and Jasper sighed. The house was in absolute disarray as her hoarding had gotten worse. The walls were almost black with grime and cigarette smoke, with junk and broken furniture stacked up all over the house. There was one small narrow pathway to the living room where the filthy couch was the only thing that was clear save for a few pillows and blankets. Jasper figured that the second story of the house was completely cluttered so she could only sleep on the couch.
Piper tried to subtly cover her nose as she and Jasper followed his mother to the living room, the two of them hesitantly sitting on the couch. They watched as she carelessly tossed old magazines and boxes filled with junk onto the floor, clearing out a chair for her to sit down. She grabbed a half-empty glass of bourbon from one of the newspaper piles on the coffee table and downed it completely before taking another drag of the cigarette. A tense silence fell over them as she practically inhaled her cigarette while Jasper and Piper sat back silently. Uncomfortable with the silence and eager to move on, Jasper cleared his throat and finally spoke up.
"So, how have you been, mom?" he asked. Her icy blue eyes looked over them as she silently blew out her cigarette smoke then flicked the cigarette butt somewhere onto the floor.
"What are you doing here, Jasper?" she questioned. He took a deep breath and held it in for a moment before letting it go.
"I've been gone for a while and I figured while I was here, I should see you again. Christmas is coming up…" he trailed off. He could barely even look at her and felt like a little boy again under her cold gaze.
"Did I ask you to come to see me?" she snapped.
"Mom-"
"I didn't ask you to come here with your little hussy so I don't know what you want! Cut the shit and tell me what you're doing here!" Piper inhaled sharply and forced a tight smile on her face. She already dealt with an overbearing and horrible mother with Jackson, she wasn't going to do it again with Jasper's mother. She slapped her hands against her knees and stood up.
"I'm going to go to the kitchen, whenever it is," she mumbled before walking away. Irene ignored her as she stared her son down. The son who looked so familiar to her bastard of an ex. The son who ruined her life and made her so miserable. She used to be young and beautiful but then she met Ezekiel Dunlop and he ruined her. He was a useless son of a bitch that she married with a false sense of love and got trapped with the useless boy sitting before her. She wanted to love him, she tried, but how could she when he looked so much like the one man she hated more than anything?
"Mom, it's Christmas," he said with a sigh, "I've been here for a few weeks already and I decided that maybe I should come to see you."
"You want money? Because I don't fucking have any, your useless father doesn't pay me alimony," she grumbled as she grabbed her cigarettes and fished out a new one.
"I don't want money!"
"You know, I thought you were dead," she said suddenly. He sat back a little startled and stared at her as she lit her new cigarette and took a drag of it. "You would go hang out with that Hart loser and that little bitch Charlotte and one day you just vanished. I thought you finally died and I was free of you." He swallowed a heavy lump in his throat and looked away from her as he fought back tears. This wasn't anything new, she used to say awful things to him when he lived with her. It was why he found so much solace in being in the ManCave, the Hart house, or Charlotte's with her mother. He tried so hard not to hate his mother because he knew she couldn't help the way she behaved, but it was a difficult task when she treated him so poorly.
"Charlotte isn't a bitch," he managed to say with a tense jaw. "And Henry isn't a loser. They're my friends."
"You know her mother called child protective services on me twice? That frumpy old whore, who does she think she is?" she said with venom dripping from her voice. "I did my best with you, Jasper! It's hard being a single mother at 20 and raising such a pathetic little bastard! You were the worst! I mean, no one would want you anyway so you'd just waste away on foster care. At least I gave you a home!"
"I know mom," he sighed. Piper heard everything from the kitchen and felt her heart crumbling to pieces. She made a major mistake bringing him here. That old bat was an evil person who didn't deserve a good son like Jasper.
"Just big ugly and annoying!" the woman went on, "And that useless bitch has the nerve to call CPS on me?! Fuck her!"
"Mom," Jasper sighed and looked at her, "have you been taking your meds?" He recognized this behavior all too well. She would often stop taking her medications and would go off the rails, and by the state of the house, he wondered if she had taken them since he left. She went silent at the question and her nose flared in anger. Her eyes widened slightly before she suddenly tossed the empty glass at him. He quickly ducked and it smashed against the walls, sending shards of glass flying everywhere. Piper ran out at the sound of the commotion and watched in horror.
"Fuck you!" Irene screamed as she stood up. "You think I'm crazy! I'm not fucking crazy!" He stood up straight and looked at the wall where the glass hit then to his irate mother.
"You are crazy! You've always been crazy!" he shouted back. "You've never been a mother to me, Miss Bolton is the closest thing to a mother I've ever had!"
"That bitch is not your mother! I pushed you out of me, I ruined my life with you, I'm your fucking mother!" she bellowed. Piper rushed over, carefully stepping over the junk scattered around the floor and grabbing his hand.
"We're leaving," she said sternly but he didn't budge. He had a lifetime of anger building up inside him that was finally coming out.
"You're not my mother," he said sharply. "You're a sick bitch who won't get the help she needs, you're an immature brat who never should've had a child, you're a nasty vile excuse for a human being. You're not my fucking mother!" Incensed, Irene reached forward and landed a hard slap across Jasper's face that caused him to stumble back a little.
Everything went still as everyone processed what had just happened, with Jasper's head turned from the force of the slap and his gaze settled on nothing in particular, Piper staring at him in shock, and Irene staring at her son then her own hand. She let out a shuddering gasp as realization hit her and she found herself out of the fog that she was often in. She often struggled with controlling her behavior and she operated in a constant fog, and the rare times she came out of it, she was sick to see what she had done. This was one of those moments that she so hated.
"Oh…oh, Jaspy…" she said with a wavering voice. She reached for him but the young blonde smacked her arm away. She had seen more than enough.
"We're leaving," she repeated softly but still as sternly. Taking hold of his hand again, she pulled him along through the narrow pathway and out of the house, ignoring Irene's pleas and whimpering apologies. She was never going to let Jasper go anywhere near that woman again.
They got into her car and remained silent as Piper drove. She fought back the urge to cry for him because she couldn't imagine what it was like to grow up with a mother like that. As much as he irritated her, her father was a kind and loving man who always took care of her no matter how mean she was to him. She was even closer to her mother and the two shared a good relationship, so the idea of either of them being anything like Jasper's mother was completely foreign to her. She made a mental note to hug them both when she saw them later. She glanced at Jasper who kept his head turned and looked out the window silently. She wanted to ask if he was okay and hug him, but she decided to take him to one of his favorite places.
She pulled into the parking lot of the National Cottage of Waffles, one of his favorite breakfast places and something she knew would make him feel better. It would also be a good place for her to apologize to him. After parking her car in an available space and turning it off, she hesitated for a moment before looking at him. He still looked out the window, seemingly refusing to look at her. She sighed softly and rubbed her hands over her knees gently.
"Let's head inside, I'll order you the massive waffle platter that you like. What's better than double chocolate chip waffles?" she offered with a small smile. He didn't respond as he took off his belt and climbed out of the car, slamming the door shut before making his way inside. She sighed and climbed out of the car, locking it and quickly jogging out of him to enter the diner.
The place was a little empty and she was grateful for that, figuring that he wouldn't want to be surrounded by a bunch of people. She got them a table in the back and sat across from him before ordering the massive platter for him and a simple stack of pancakes for herself. Throughout this all, he remained completely quiet and looked down at his nails or played with a straw wrapper. The silence was almost suffocating and it made her feel even more guilty. Even when their food arrived, he remained silent as he ate his waffles. She let out a breath and tapped her fork against her plate as she watched him.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't know your mom was…like that. I never should've taken you there."
"Why did you?" he asked without looking at her.
"Because you brought up how you hadn't seen her since you got back so I thought-"
"Did you even consider the fact that there was a reason I didn't go to see her?" he snapped. She slumped back against her seat and looked down for a moment before looking at him again.
"I'm sorry." Piper felt so small and she wasn't used to feeling like that. She made others feel small and Jasper even used to be one of those people. But she just felt so awful and figured the least she could do is let him rant and let out all of his hurt. Except, he went quiet again and continued to eat his waffles. She bit down on the corner of her bottom lip and took a deep breath.
"I was just trying to help," she said. "I thought you mentioned her because you wanted to reconnect." He slammed his fork down and she quickly leaned back against her seat, blinking in surprise.
"I was high and just talking! You knew nothing about my mom so you had no right to push me to see her!" he exclaimed.
"I know but-"
"No, you don't know!" he interrupted. "I told you I didn't want to see her and you made me go in anyway and for what? So I can be reminded of how useless I am to her and fill the void with some fucking waffles?!" He shoved the plate and glass of orange juice away from him, knocking over the glass and breaking the plate with a loud noise that startled her. She looked around and saw the few people who were in there now had their eyes on them. Swallowing a lump in her throat, she grabbed some napkins and wiped up the spilled juice.
"I said I was sorry," she said with a wavering voice. "You don't have to take out your mommy issues on me." He chuckled dryly and shook his head.
"'Mommy issues', that's so fucking rich," he mumbled.
"What does that mean?" she questioned with a raised eyebrow. He finally looked at her and she could see how red his eyes were and the tears building up in them. But he still looked so angry.
"You grew up with two parents who loved you and cared for you despite what a fucking brat you were, and still are! You'll never understand what it's like to grow up with a mother like that so don't make light of my problems because you and your golden spoon don't fucking get it!" he ranted quickly. She scoffed in disbelief and tossed out the orange juice-soaked napkins.
"I was not a brat, you dick!" she shot back. "And maybe I would know more about your mom if you fucking talked to me! Ever since that night, you avoid me like the plague!"
"Oh my God, why do you want to talk about that night so badly?!" he inquired in exasperation. "We got high and fucked, that's it! It was just sex, it meant nothing, Piper! You're not my girlfriend, you're not my lover, you're not anything like that to me other than a one-night stand so excuse me for not wanting to share my family history with you! Get over it! God, you act like it was your first time or something." He folded his arms as he slumped back and looked anywhere but her.
Piper sat frozen in her seat as she stared at him. His words stung like a million little jellyfish all over her body, piercing her skin and hitting her heart directly. Her chest was tight and there was a slight stinging sensation in her nose as she could feel herself wanting to cry, but she took a few deep breaths to keep herself as calm as she possibly could. Ever since that night, she was left feeling unsure of where they stood and whether he had feelings for her too, but she finally got her answer. And it hurt more than she could ever imagine it would.
One breath came out shakily and caught Jasper's attention. He looked at her and could see her slowly breaking down, her eyes red and a few lone tears running down her cheeks. As he watched her, he slowly came to a realization and felt a pang of guilt in his stomach. He ran his fingers through his hair and sat up straight as he kept his eyes on her.
"Wait, was it your first time…?" he asked slowly. She looked away and sniffled, which was enough of an answer for him. He felt like a massive asshole. "Oh God, Piper…" She wiped away her tears and quickly grabbed her things. If he didn't want her, she wasn't going to waste her time with him. And she sure as hell wasn't going to cry in front of him.
"Piper, I'm sorry. I-" She stood up from the booth and grabbed her glass of iced tea, splashing it in his face and causing him to gasp in surprise and jump back as the cold beverage hit him.
"Fuck you, Jasper. Take a fucking Güber home," she said. She tried her best to stay strong but her voice broke anyway. She quickly turned away and stormed out of the restaurant, ignoring the nosy gazes from the other patrons. She quickly climbed into her car and pulled on her seatbelt, clumsily shoving her keys into the ignition as her vision blurred with oncoming tears and her hands shook.
Once she finally got her car on, she quickly pulled out of the space and onto the street, breathing heavily before finally breaking down into body trembling sobs. She often dealt with asshole boys and was hurt by them before, but something about being hurt by Jasper made it even worse. She thought he was different and maybe she found the right guy for her. But she was wrong. She was so incredibly wrong.
A/N: Thank you for reading and Happy New Year!