Chapter twenty four:
HYDE
My fingers are running freely through her hair, and I can hear her deep breaths. It's been 12 hours since her breakdown, and she's still asleep. Mrs. Forman said she would be asleep for a long time, considering she hadn't slept well since she found out about her father's death, so I'm here, watching her.
I barely slept. I took a few naps here and there, but I must have gotten two or three hours of sleep in total, tops. I just spent most of the night holding her and watching her, making sure she was okay, that she wasn't having any nightmares. Jackie used to have some nightmares after her father was arrested, so I was kind of expecting that now. She didn't have any tonight.
I raise my head and look at her resting face for what has to be the hundredth time in the last hour, she looks so peaceful, nothing like how she was when she fell asleep.
If I try hard enough, I can pretend that this is just a normal day, that things are good, that she's going to wake up giggling because the stubble on my face was tickling her neck, and that we're going to have passionate morning sex to start the day right, that after that, she's going to nag me to go shave my face because "the stupid beard covers your cute cleft chin Steven!", and I would complain, but I would oblige, because I've always loved the way she just randomly places her finger on my chin and gives me that cute little smile of hers.
But then I look at her bandaged arm and her bandaged knees and sigh. Things are not normal, and I have a feeling that they are going to stay like that for a while. My babydoll is broken and I don't know what to do.
All night, I kept hearing Mrs. Forman words in my mind, "depression", "illness", "sadness", "emptiness"... It scared the shit out of me.
What the fuck am I supposed to do if she's right? If Jackie gets sick? How the hell am I supposed to make things better for her now?
I glance at the alarm-clock on my bedside table, breakfast is probably ready by now and Kelso and Fez are probably arriving soon. I don't know what to tell them, hell, I'm not sure if Jackie will be comfortable with me telling them.
I know my doll, she's going to make a huge deal out of this thing. She won't want to face anyone, not after they all saw her at her weakest.
I lightly brush my finger through the bandage in her arm, what happened last night, that's something that's going to haunt me for the rest of my life. Seeing Jackie bleeding, on her knees in the middle of her destroyed room, surrounded by broken furniture and shards of glass… I've never felt so useless in my life.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who felt this way, Donna looked just as crushed as I did, as I do.
My fingers brush through her porcelain cheek, man, I love her. I love her more than I could ever love another human being, she's everything.
Jackie is so beautiful, delicate, and amazing. She's the best person I know, and she doesn't deserve all the crap that's been going on. She's my little warrior, she's been through so much at such a young age, she needs to get better.
I hear footsteps from the basement, and I sigh before getting off the bed. I change my clothes and I press a quick kiss on Jackie's forehead before leaving my room.
Kelso and Fez are here, so are Forman and Donna. They all look sad and extremely worried. Donna has dark circles under her eyes, Kelso keeps tapping his foot to the floor and Fez is clutching a gigantic bag of candy.
"How is she?" Donna asks when she notices my presence
"Asleep" I answer, going to the basement's bathroom to brush my teeth.
I look at myself in the mirror, and I look even worse than Donna. The dark circles under my eyes are very prominent, and I haven't shaved in almost a week. After I brush my teeth I take my razor and shave. It's not a beard, it's mostly just stubble, but I hope it'll cheer Jackie up, just a little. I highly doubt it will.
When I'm done everyone's still sitting in the basement, the only noises were of Kelso's feet tapping on the floor and Fez unwrapping his candy.
"Mom said we should all go have breakfast" Forman said after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence
"Yeah, alright" I say, and we all go upstairs. I just want to grab some food so I can go stay with Jackie again.
When we arrive at the kitchen, my eyes widen at the huge amount of food Mrs. Forman is preparing. Every once in a while, Red takes his eyes off the newspaper and looks worriedly at his wife, who can't stop pacing around the kitchen.
"You know how she likes to cook when she's stressed" Forman whispers to me, sitting on the table and dragging Donna with him.
"Good morning!" Mrs. Forman says in her usual cheerful tone when she notices our presence "I made breakfast!"
Normally, that sentence would've turned us into animals. Kelso, Fez, Forman and I would fight for the bigger piece of bacon, while Mrs. Forman watched with a smile and Donna looked at us with that 'boys are idiots' look, then Red would've lowered his newspaper and threatened to kill us, and we would all be forced to silence. Until he was gone, at least.
Well, this isn't a normal day. There probably won't be any normal days for a while.
"Steven, honey!" I hear Mrs. Forman's voice and suddenly her arms are around me in a very tight hug. "How is she? Is she still asleep?"
"Yeah" I answer uncomfortably "She's probably going to stay asleep for a while, right?"
"Probably" She says nervously, letting me go and placing plates filled with food on the table "Those pills are quite strong, and the poor girl was tired"
"Wait, what pills?" Kelso asks, sitting on the bench near the counter and looking at us with a concerned look on his face "Is Jackie sick?"
"She took some pills to help her fall asleep" Donna answers "She was having trouble sleeping"
"Oh, okay" Kelso says, looking more relaxed
We all eat in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. Normally, Mrs. Forman would be the one who'd break the silences, but she looks very distraught, she wasn't like that yesterday. Did something else happen while I was with Jackie?
"Okay, I can't take it anymore"Fez burts and I sigh, it was a matter of time "Where is my goddess, dammit?" Fez asked, and I sigh
"We already told you that she's asleep man" I say impatiently
"You know what I mean… You are all acting weird and why do I feel like something happened?" Fez asks, eyeing the room suspiciously, I send a pleading look at Donna. I'm not telling them.
"Here's the thing, guys" Donna starts aprehensively "Jackie had… an episode last night"
"What?" Fez asked. Both he and Kelso look confused.
"You know when you're like, really angry or really sad, and you just want to scream and cry and break stuff?" Donna says, and Kelso and Fez nodded "Well, Jackie kind of did that last night"
"Because of what happened with her dad?" Kelso asks
"Among some other things" Donna explains "It was bad, guys"
"How is she?" Fez asks, looking worried
"She was a wreck last night, and that's one of the reasons why we're letting her rest" I say, emphasizing the last part of the sentence. I know that Fez and Kelso care about Jackie, but I'll be damned if I let them wake her up.
"Let's go to the living room, and I'll explain everything to you guys" Donna says
Donna guides Kelso and Fez out of the kitchen, Forman follows them and I breathe relieved. I don't want to explain what happened to them, it was the scariest moment of my life and reliving it would make me even more fucked up than I already am.
"Steven" I hear Red's voice and right at this second I know it's not good news. Crap. "Sit"
"What happened?" I ask, looking at the two people I consider to be my parents. Red looks pissed and Mrs. Forma looks like she's about to cry. I knew there was something wrong.
"Here's your car keys" Red says, handing me the keys to my Camino "The car is clean"
"Is that it?" I ask, but the look on Mrs. Forman says that's definitely not it.
"Jackie's mom called" Mrs. Forman says, ont being able to hide her distaste.
I take a deep breath, in a failed attempt to try and calm myself. I swear to God that if that woman shows up here I will not be held responsible for my actions, she fucking broke Jackie yesterday, and if it's up to me she'll never see her daughter again. Never.
"What did she say?" I ask, trying not to show my anger, and failing miserably at it.
"She wanted to talk to Jackie" Mrs. Forman says with a scowl "So I told her to screw herself and Red took the phone off my hands"
"And I told her to get this crap over it and say what she wanted to say, because maybe then we would pass out the message to Jackie" Red said "She said that Jackie forgot to sign some papers yesterday and said she would mail them for her"
"That's it?" I ask incredulously, Jackie's room was a bloody mess, and Pam hadn't even asked if her daughter was okay? Bitch.
"Yes" Red says, sounding clearly pissed "She said that she'll stay in town for a couple weeks, so Jackie can call there if she wants"
"The hell she will" I mutter to myself "I'll go be with her, she'll probably wake up in a bit"
I leave the kitchen promptly. Hearing about Pam's insensibility is just pissing me off, and at the moment I need to keep my shit together for Jackie.
Donna's still with Kelso, Forman and Fez in the living room, and I doubt she'll be leaving there anytime soon. Kelso and Fez are probably going to bombard her with questions that she's probably not going to be able to answer.
I enter my room carefully, and Jackie's still sound asleep on my bed. I just hope she'll talk to me once she wakes up.
Her bandaged arm in dangling off the bed, her other arm is wrapped around my pillow. I don't want to accidentally wake her up so I decide I'll just sit on the chair and read something while I wait for her to wake up.
I was almost finishing reading the new Rolling Stone magazine when I saw Jackie rubbing her eyes.
"Good morning, doll" I say, putting my magazine aside and sitting next to her in bed
"Morning" She mumbles sleepily, and I start stroke her hair
"Feeling better?" I ask
"Kind of" She says with a hoarse voice "I'm not okay, but I'm not like I was yesterday"
"That's a good thing, doll" I reply "Let's go upstairs, eat something" I say gently, but she shakes her head
"No" She answers promptly "I'm not hungry, and I don't really wanna see everyone"
"You're eating whether you're hungry or not, Jackie" I say impassively "And why don't you want to see everyone? They're all worried about you"
"Exactly" She says, sitting next to me and grabbing my hand "What happened yesterday… God Steven, I acted like a crazy person, and everyone saw me. It was humiliating"
"Jackie…"
"I don't want to go upstairs so they can all look at me with those sad eyes, and ask me if I'm okay, because I'm not" She says honestly, tearing up "I don't want to be pitied, I don't want to be treated differently, I… I just want to stay in bed all day, please" She begs me, with tears running down her cheeks.
I nod dejectedly, I understand her better than anyone on that, being pitied sucks. But she's not skipping any meals because of that.
"Can I stay here with you, then?" I ask "I'll bring some food, and we can stay in bed all day, just the two of us, is that okay?"
She nods and I open my arms in a silent invitation. She sat on my lap and I held her tight, leaning my chin on top of her head and running my hand up and down her back. I feel some more wetness on my shirt and my heart aches. Jackie's tears are my personal kryptonite, every single time she cries, it's like someone's punching me on the guts. I should've gotten used to them by now, considering what happened, but I don't think I ever will. If my doll's in pain then I'm in pain, it has always been like this, even before we got together.
"Thank you for everything, Steven" She mumbles against my chest, and I kiss her forehead tenderly "I love you"
"Love you too, doll. More than anything" I say before pecking her in the lips and getting off the bed to get her some breakfast "Mrs. Forman made a whole ass meal for breakfast, any requests?"
"I'm not really that hungry" She says, and I send her a scolding look, she knows I'm not letting her skip any meals, and she sighed "But I guess I can have a yogurt or something"
"Or something it is" I say "I'm bringing you pancakes"
I look at her, silently daring her to say she doesn't want pancakes, but she just nods and I leave the room.
The empty plate is now sitting on top of my dresser, Jackie managed to eat the whole thing, thank God. She hasn't said much about her parents, we've been just hanging out in my room, talking about nothing in particular and holding each other.
I know I'm supposed to tell her about her mom and ask what papers she was talking about, but I don't want to break our little bubble right now.
But I know I'll have to eventually, so why avoid the unavoidable?
"Jackie" I say, and she raises her head from my chest so she can look me in the eye. "Your mom called earlier today"
I can see her face losing all the color and her eyes tearing up. Shit, I should've kept my stupid mouth shut.
"What did she say?" She asks, her voice breaking a little.
"She said you forgot to sign some papers and she'll mail them to you" I continue "Can you tell me what papers are those, doll?"
"She wants to sell the house" Jackie explains, her face pained "She wants to sell the house so she can take half the money and move in with her new fiance in Paris"
"She wants to sell the house?" I ask "Already?"
Jackie nods and a few tears escape her eyes "She needs my signature, since half the house is mine, but I'm not signing it Steven, I can't"
"Why not?"
"Because that's daddy's dream house" She chokes on her tears and I quickly bring her head down to my chest again, wrapping my arms around her "And I don't…"
She starts to sob, never finishing her sentence.
I whisper comforting words in her ear while she sobs on my arms, I shouldn't have asked man, not now, I'm so fucking stupid.
"It's okay doll, I get it" I say, rubbing her back while her sobs subsided.
To be honest, I get why Jackie doesn't want to sell the house. I really do. But when she's better emotionally… I think she should give it some thought.
I'm not telling her that, not right now, not with her like this. But she's not moving back to Point Place, and the house is just going to be abandoned just like it was since Jack was arrested. Also, selling the house would be getting rid of the last thing that connects her to Pam, and Jackie could cut her off her life for good after that, God knows that would be a really good thing.
I'll talk to her about that later, like, way later, but I will eventually. In order for Jackie to get better, she needs to get rid of Pam. That woman adds absolutely nothing to her life other than pain and misery, and she needs to butt the hell off Jackie's life and go the fuck away.
But for now, I'll just hold my doll and help her in every possible way, like she needs me too. She would do the same for me.
A/N: Okay, so this was a very complicated chapter for me to write. I know it sounds like nothing happened, and it probably was kind of boring, and hella small, considering that the previous chapters were bigger and had a lot of action, but believe me, this chapter is important.
I'm struggling a lot with personal problems lately, and I'm not updating as often as I'd like to, I'm really sorry about that. I am updating Rock You Like a Hurricane this week though, so be ready for that.
Oh, and watch out, there might be a new story coming soon…
I'm pretty active on tumblr these days, and I often give progress updates on my fics, so if you're interested, the user is zeepellinandunicorns with a hyphen in between the words (I still have no idea why I can't insert links on this site).
The next chapter will be up soon.
Thanks a lot for reading and for being so supportive, I hope everyone has a great week!
