Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OCs. :)
A/N: So...school still sucks, and I'm still busy...but I got some writing done, yay me! Also, TS Hanna was here today...wasn't pretty, so I wasn't online because of the thunder/lightening for a bit. I have some review replies I still need to send from the last chapter, and some PMs from people, who probably have forgotten who I am by now, and I apologize. ANDDD, I think I have a double ear infection, because my ears keep popping and other gross stuff, and they hurt...so I have to go to the doctors today. :( Grr. Hopefully I'll get more writing down within the next couple days and get another update up for y'all. And again I ask: check out littlerascalash's stories! They deserve more credit. She writes like whoaaa. :) Anyway, enjoy. ;)
-Jeff's POV-
I'm sitting in the kitchen when she comes running in. The door slams shut, and she goes running up the stairs. I eye Beth, who is reading a magazine, and raise my eyebrows. "What was that about?" I ask.
Matt comes in, from being on his myspace (luckily, the power turned back on) and looks around. "Was that Charity?" he asks. Beth and I nod, puzzled expressions on our faces. "Okay, who's going up to see what's going on?" Matt sighs.
Beth stands up, but I put my arm on her. "Sit. I'm gonna go talk to her," I say confidently.
Beth smirks. "You? What do you know about comfort?" I hear Matt laugh from behind me.
"Oh yeah? We'll just see about that," I say with mock anger and head towards the stairs. Okay, so I'm not a girl and don't understand how many of those minds work, but I'm going to assume something happened at Shannon's and she's pissed at him. Beth's been pissed at me plenty of times, this should be a pinch.
Right? I hope so. The door is closed though, and I can hear her crying, when I finally make it up Matt's stairs and to the wooden door. To knock or to not knock: that is the question. Knock, dumbass.
My hand hitting the door makes a soft rasping sound, which stops her sobs for a split moment, but they continue seconds later like she didn't even hear the noise. Okay, maybe this would be harder than I thought. Beth is a full grown woman, Charity is a teenage girl who is in love with a man…how'd we let this happen? Matt and I need to talk about this. Shannon can't like her, this is causing too much trouble.
"Charity?" I ask slowly, hoping she'd stop crying. "It's Jeff. Can you unlock the door? I'd like to talk to you, please."
I press my ear against the door and listen for footsteps. The crying has stopped and it's silent inside the room. "Charity…I don't bite…I'm not Edward Cullen." Do not ask me why I know who Edward Cullen is. Let's just say that Beth fell in love with the books from a friend right after the fire…and since then, I've been hearing about how wonderful this character is. I've been replaced by a fictional vampire to a degree, how do you figure that?
The door opens seconds after the Edward Cullen comment, the teenage girl's eyebrows rising. "Why do you know who Edward Cullen is?" she mumbles, opening the door the rest of the way.
"Don't ask…Beth is obsessed," I mumble back, and sit on the guest bed. "Do you want to talk about what happened?" Best to go into this carefully so I don't seem forceful. "I have a good listening ear, believe it or not. I can probably relate somehow."
She looks at me, her gray eyes swollen and puffy, almost like a blinking sign that screams, 'I've been crying.' Her usual brown and red hair is shoved into a messy bun, the colors mixing. Okay…she needs to say something to me, even if it's no, because staring…though I'm far used to the shit is fucking creepy.
"I don't know," she answers finally, holding onto something I can't see in her hands.
Let's start with that. "What are you holding?" I reach forward to touch the object, but she pulls it back defensively. I can make out it's a photo from the change in angle, but not who is in the photo.
She looks from me, down to the photo, eyes glistening, threatening to spill over onto her jeans. Slowly, her hand shakily raises, and flips the photo, showcasing a slightly younger her, and similar in age guy, who has comparable features to her. I'm going to go with her brother, here for one hundred dollars.
"I miss him already," she admits. I look at her for a split second and then back down at the photo, noticing their identical smiles and noses, alike bone structure and happiness in their faces. Because her brother has hair on his head in the photo, I'm going to assume it was pre-cancer.
"He looked like you," I comment, and take the photo gently from her, careful not to do anything to distress it. "A lot like you."
She nods. "We could have been twins if he wasn't a year older. Penn and I practically were twins, actually." Her mouth almost twitches into a smile, but I think she held it back. Maybe she thought smiling would be bad.
It stays silent for a moment, just the sound of the gutter's emptying outside the window, the slight drip-drop clicking along.
"Do you miss your mom?" she asks suddenly.
"Everyday." I give her a sad smile. "Every day of my life. I look at Matt and see her in him sometimes, you know? He would never admit it, but he has her caring nature. We're both tough guys on the outside, but he really is just a big ol' Teddy Bear on the inside. My mother was like that, very caring and loving. I miss her a lot."
She smiles weakly. "I didn't think he'd die, I really didn't. He's beaten the leukemia before. You know, you just think that they can do it once more. I knew when he collapsed right after Christmas this year, something was different. He hid it well, but he knew too. I knew that the cancer was getting worse, I'd heard my parents talking about it late one night, but I ignored it and hoped for a miracle, you know? He knew too that he wasn't going to make it this time, and probably knew when I entered that he didn't have long left. He knew. He always wanted the best for me, and acted like an older brother should. He loved you and Matt just as much as I did. I was really hoping to be able to bring him home autographs, pictures, and videos and share the experience with him." Tears began to spill over her eyes. "He wasn't supposed to leave yet, Jeff. He had an entire life in front of him…"
I climb over to her and pull her close to me, and into a hug. "I know, I know. But, the thing is, and I know Matt told you this earlier: he'd want you happy. I mean, obviously you're not going to be happy overnight, it certainly isn't going to just go away. See, my father told us to get up and go on with our lives after my mother died, but it still hurt on the inside, I know what you're going through. But my father is right. You're going to move on, live the life Penn won't get to live, going to fall in love, get married and have babies. Live for two people." I smile at her.
She smiles back, timidly, as if she wasn't sure she should. "I didn't know that The Rainbow Haired Warrior could be so comforting," she whispers, a soft giggle escaping her lips.
I open my mouth in protest. "Why does everyone think I'm such an asshole for?" I mutter, rolling my eyes. "I can be a comfort dude sometimes." She raises her eyebrows. "Whatever the hell a comfort dude is…anyway," I finish. She smiles and pats my back. "Now, what happened at Shannon's…something went wrong, am I right?"
Her eyes cloud back over and new tears form. She looks down at the picture, chewing on her lip. "I don't want to talk about it."
Suddenly fear feels me. "Charity; did he hit you? Did he fucking hit you or something?" I'd never known Shannon to be violent, but I wasn't sure what it could be. She just looks so scared, though, I think most of that came from her brother.
"N-no," she whispers. "I don't want to talk about it. I misinterepted something, that's all. I thought…" she pauses. Why do woman say they don't want to talk about it and then talk about it? Woman can be so weird… "I just thought…maybe if I admitted I did like him, it would make something feel better. I mean," she pauses again. "I do like him, it's just…I don't know." Her sad face turns to me. "What do you think? He told me he couldn't be with me, that it was something about risk. Why would he tell me he liked me and then basically take it back?" she asks, eyes filling with tears.
I suddenly want to slap Shannon hard. For one, he screws with an emotionally unstable girl, totally played with her feelings, knowing that she was just a kid who doesn't know what love is. She's now even more unstable, and he decides he can't be with her? Oh, that reject is lucky he isn't anywhere near me right now, I'd sock him straight in the jaw so he'd be on the shelf for a year. Shannon just gave grown men a bad name. I think Matt and I need to talk about this.
But, what to tell Charity?
She is looking at me and waiting, after all. Sighing, I shake my head. "Honestly, Charity? I have no clue. I haven't the slightest idea what is going through that idiot's mind, at all. From what Matt and Beth have told me, he likes you…or did, or maybe," I stop, noticing each time I change my wording, the tears come faster. "Look – I just don't know. Let me talk to Matt and Beth, okay? Why don't you try and get some sleep, you will feel better after, okay?" I tell her, and help her lie down. Before I even leave the room, her eyes are closed and her breathing is becoming shallow.
So, we hold a contest to have our fans even closer to us. Something tells me we got a little more than we bargained for.
Thank you everyone. :D I love all the reviews so much. :3 Read and review my pretties, and update I shall. :D