Jackie went about her life, and though she tried to hold on to her time in Africa with Eric, it inexorably started to take on a dreamlike quality. She thought about him very often, and found him invading her thoughts at every turn. She continued to write him; but in the time that she was back, she never received a reply. It hurt her badly, but true to her nature, she never gave up and never stopped writing.

Her friendship with Donna was on the mend, and she couldn't even begin to put into words how much she missed her friend's company. Like she promised, Donna was putting in an immense amount of effort to rebuild bridges that had been crumbling between them.

Jackie treasured the effort, and took pains to make sure that it was reciprocated. She couldn't however, seem to recover the old, easy closeness that existed between them before, and despite her efforts, she couldn't get past the lie that she had told Donna about her and Eric.

She kept telling herself that it was over, and there were eight thousand miles between Eric and her, and it would serve no purpose to dredge up a piece of the past that would be better left buried and firmly entrenched where it was: in the past.

But her heart protested — her affair with Eric definitely didn't feel 'in the past' to her, and she tried to remind herself that it was what it was: simply an affair. They were lonely and hurting and they had turned to each other.

It didn't help matters that Eric had thrown up a wall and there was complete silence from his end.

She hurt, she ached. She couldn't get him out of her mind. And the nicer Donna was to her, the guiltier Jackie felt, and she doubled up her efforts to be the best friend she could ever be to Donna.

Jackie picked her way delicately through a mountain of empty beer cans and half empty bottles in Steven's basement room. The heel of her boot came down on something squishy and she grimaced.

The room smelled rank, and she wrinkled her nose. Crossing over to his cot, she spied a pair of neon purple crotchless panties half under it.

Definitely not hers, and she didn't want to know whose either. She kicked it out of sight.

"Steven," she whispered, bending down to shake his shoulder gently. "Steven."

Kitty had invited her over for Sunday lunch — as she had the weekend before, after Jackie got back from Africa.

Steven had come home when she was helping Kitty with the dishes, and they saw him stumbling across the driveway to the basement outside from the kitchen sink. She turned in time to see Kitty throw Red a worried look.

"Leave the boy be, Kitty," Red said from the kitchen table.

"But Red, I don't think he even eats!"

"He's a big boy. When he's hungry, he'll eat."

"That's just it, Red. I don't think so!"

Red sighed and put down his coffee. "Kitty, the boy made a choice. He's dealing with it — let him deal. Don't baby him. It won't shape character." He picked up his mug and walked to the sink. "Now put that tray down."

She shot him a beseeching look. "But, Red!"

He sighed again and took the tray from her. "He'll come up when he's hungry," he repeated, and put the tray down on the counter before walking out the door.

Kitty turned to Jackie.

She nodded. "I'll go check on him, Mrs. Forman," she said.

Which was just what she was doing now as she nudged him again.

"Steven."

He let out a groan and opened one blue eye behind his aviators. When he saw that it was her, both eyes flew open. Surprise came first, then he glared.

Jackie sighed, tired of such hostility barely halfway into the day. She gave him a glass of water. "Here, have some."

He tried to push himself up on his elbows, but his head swam. Jackie saw him turn green and reached for the wastebasket by the dresser to hand it to him. He turned and hurled into it.

She sat down next to him on the cot and rubbed his back. The acrid stench of vomit filled the air but she steadfastly ignored it. When he was done, she handed him some tissues and handed him the water. He rinsed his mouth and spat into the bin, then pushed it as far away from her as he could without getting out of bed.

"Better?" she asked quietly.

He ignored her and fell back into bed, closing his eyes.

Jackie drew in a breath, staring at him. "Steven," she asked him softly, "why're you doing this?"

Hyde tried to block out the sound of her voice, her scent, her presence. His tongue felt thick, his head hurt and it felt like there were needles behind his eyelids. And to add insult to injury, he was deeply embarrassed that she had been there to see him hurl his guts up. Maybe if he shut his eyes and pretended she wasn't there then she would disappear and he could pretend the whole thing never happened.

A minute passed. Then two. He felt her get up and rejoiced. A moment later she was back, and he felt her sweep his hair off his head and place a cool towel on top of it. His gut twisted.

"Go away," he growled.

"No. Not until you tell me why. Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"Why the fuck did you go to Africa?"

She was stunned. How could he not know?

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Looking down at him sprawled over the cot, she shut her eyes briefly and took a breath.

"Steven," she began evenly, "things were… hard for me here. I needed an out. When Eric asked me to go, I didn't really think, I just went."

"You're sayin' Forman asked you to Africa," Hyde said tonelessly.

"Yeah."

He was furious. He opened his eyes and yanked the towel off his head.

"That's a load of crap and you know it," he snapped and flung it across the room. "You two aren't even friends, man. Forman hates your guts." He glared at her. "Truth is, you left town to go bawlin' to Africa 'cos none of us wanted you here. Forman probably had no choice 'cos you wouldn't leave. Like a fuckin' cyst."

Don't cry don't cry don't cry.

"It's not like that," she said quietly, amazed at the amount of hurt his words could still cause her.

"Whatever."

He swung his legs off the bed and pushed past Jackie. He was a little unsteady as he staggered to the bathroom, but he made sure he took the trash can of vomit along with him.

She was back in Steven's bedroom two days later, going through his usual hiding places for his stash and throwing them out.

Donna was standing by the doorway, watching as Jackie meticulously scoured the room, with an amused expression on her face.

"Aren't you afraid that he's gonna kill you?"

Jackie shrugged, and with some difficulty, managed to lift the corner of his mattress up. Before she could take a peek under though, she lost her grip and it flopped back down into place. She huffed and planted her hands on her hips, shooting Donna and irritated glare.

"Jeez. Don't just stand there, help me get this up."

Donna made her way over, and with a lot less effort, lifted it up for Jackie to stick her head under and emerge triumphantly with a brown bag.

She shook her hair back and crowed, "There. That makes three and I know for a fact that Steven never keeps more than three separate bags around at each time. Something about keeping it fresh or whatever."

"Hyde's gonna be so pissed when he can't find them and he wants to get high."

A mutinous look came over Jackie's face and she set her jaw. "Well, that's just too bad. I'm not gonna sit back and watch him turn into a dope head as well as a drunk."

She threw the brown bag into a black trash bag where the other two bags that she had previously dug up were taking residence.

"He's got so much potential. It's not going to waste. Not on my watch," she muttered.

She gave a last glance around Steven's room, the room where she had spent so many happy memories together with him, and was surprised that she wasn't assailed with that same crippling pain that used to cut her in two. She found Donna watching her contemplatively.

"What?" she asked, almost defensively.

Donna lifted her shoulders in a brief shrug. "Nothing. I was just thinking. Well, you must really love him. Hyde, I mean," she clarified.

"Well, yeah, Donna. Of course I do." She turned to march out of his room.

"Now if he would only get off his ass and do something with that potential," she grumbled, stopping to pick up a pack of cigarettes and tossing it into the trash bag to join Steven's other favorite brown-bagged vices.

For the most part, her efforts to clean up Steven's act seemed to be working somewhat, for when he couldn't find any of his brown baggies and his store of cigarettes seemed to be dwindling somehow, he ended up in the Camino heading straight for Grooves, where he always kept spares handy. Grooves, however, being the only record store in Point Place, would always be teeming with customers, and he would find it hard to light up or toke up when there were so many people clamoring for his time and attention. So Jackie's weekly raids on his bedroom and the basement were a secret source of satisfaction to her.

On his part, he seemed to be taking the loss of his precious possessions remarkably well, or as well as can be expected anyway, albeit with much cursing and stomping about the basement, and promising to rain retribution down with a vengeance on whoever the thief was.

Jackie's efforts with Steven himself, on the other hand, seemed to be at a stalemate, for try as she did, Steven never did ease up on his hostility toward her. She didn't understand it, and she knew she was fast approaching the point where she just simply couldn't do it with Steven anymore. This thing she had with him was like a racket game: He was the racquet and she the ball. He controlled everything; sending her in every direction just to see if she would for him, and was gratified she always seemed to bounce right back to him.

Africa had given her a new take on life; and because she couldn't control the thing with Steven, she decided to roll with it, and though it still hurt her when he was cruel or snide, she told herself to be less bothered by his attitude towards her. She just wanted him to ease off on the dope, the alcohol, and the smokes anyway, and find some direction in his life, and she definitely was making headway on most of those counts.

She had been back a month before she got the letter that added a much-needed boost to the relative bareness of her existence.

Her first instinct was to call Eric to blurt out the good news, but her previous calls to him had all been rerouted.

She was sick with worry and had called his sponsorship program looking for answers, and learnt that he had asked for a sabbatical.

A sabbatical?

For how long, she had asked.

He didn't say, came the reply.

Why didn't he tell me? She wondered and worried some more.

A call to Mrs. Forman had allayed her worries some, for Eric had called to tell her that he was going off the grid for a while, to 'get himself sorted'. Whatever that means, a hahahaha! It had sent her mood straight down the toilet for days after that — that he had called his mother but not her.

She shook off the memory and pulled out her letter pad instead, determined that he be the first person she told the news to even if he wouldn't be reading about it for awhile.

Dear Eric,

I got offered a job at the Wisconsin News Network! I just wanted you to be the first person that I shared the news with. You've believed so much in me and it was because of what you said that got me applying for the job in the first place. Can you believe that it's been more than a year and a half since we first started writing each other? I cannot put into words how much it means to me.

I hope that wherever you are, you're finding whatever it is that you need to find.

I hope you write a reply to this one. Or just call me, Eric, okay?

I really miss the sound of your voice.

Her pen hovered over the paper for several moments, before she finally heaved a sigh. She signed it off as usual with a:

Yours,

Jackie