.:CHAPTER SEVEN – You're Worthless:.
"Alright, so I think we should go and try and find a new place to live for a while," Riley commented, biting her thumbnail, lowering her voice so her brothers, who were in the other room, wouldn't hear her.
"Ronan's place is definitely out," Rhuben conceded with a nod. "And it has to be close enough where we can sneak out and sneak back in before dad wakes up from his drunken stupor." She let out a bitter sigh and ran a hand over her face. She then turned her eyes back to her twin. "When do you think we should tell the boys?"
"We'll tell them eventually," Riley stated after a second.
"Right," Rhuben nodded again. "First comes their safety. It's my turn to go out for groceries," Rhuben reached a hand up and lightly touched the black eye she received from her father when she had asked what her chore was that day. "I'll go and start looking for things while I'm out. You guys try to stay away from Dad the best you can."
"What about when we go back home?" Riley brought up a good point.
Rhuben let out a curse as she turned away for a moment. The Jacksons were going to be going back to Australia in a couple of weeks. They would be staying there for about three months, and then be going back to LA to stay for another three months before going back to Australia. It was something that they did to make sure they kept their fans around the world, especially back in their home town, but now it was just becoming a nuisance. Due to the supercharged paparazzi back home as well as their ever hectic schedule, going back home where they were so recognized was probably not a good thing.
"We'll think of something," Rhuben replied finally. "Don't focus on the future, think of today, because we may not have tomorrow."
Rhuben sat down at a deserted table in the middle of the mall, to people-watch. It wasn't the most entertaining thing to do, but she was lacking the creative part of her brain that day. There was too much stuff to do, too much work to be done, and she needed a break. Besides, being at the mall by herself was somewhat of a bore, even though she enjoyed the time that she got to herself, since being around her brothers and sister all the time, she didn't get a lot of it. She loved being around them and had a sense of discomfort when they were apart for too long, but there was nothing like her independence from time to time.
The only things keeping her semi-entertained were her two-bars-away-from-death cell phone, her iPod, and the fact that the mall was so big there was always a store that she could discover. But, to put it bluntly, they got a little boring after two hours of constant attention.
Rhuben sighed and looked at her watch before stretching her feet out. I wonder if Dad's drunk yet. A bitter smirk slid onto her face. I wonder if I should go home and just get my beating now?
As Rhuben's blue orbs continued to slide around the mall, a voice from behind her startled her out of her reverie. "Hey," Rhuben whipped her head around, hearing her neck give an audible crack, and then looked up at James. "What are you doing here?" He then paused, his eyes shifting back and forth.
"You can sit down," she sighed, leaning back in her chair again. "It's not like I'm going to bite your head off for talking to me."
"I wasn't sure," James replied as he slowly lowered himself into the chair across from her. His upper lip twitched and he looked away for a second before crossing his arms on the table and leaning forward, keeping his eyes on her. "Since you guys don't want us around."
Rhuben sighed loudly, sitting up and slapping a hand onto the table top, causing a few passersby to whip their heads towards the source of the sound. When they spotted Rhuben, they just shook their heads and continued walking.
When Rhuben slapped her hand onto the table, James tried not to flinch. He didn't understand why she had the right to be angry, when it was him that was, in essence, losing his friends. When he had first gotten the news from a phone-call from Patrick he didn't believe it. But then the very next day Gustavo had told them that they wouldn't be working with BTR for a while and he knew that he was telling the truth. It had only been a few days, but it seemed like years, since the Jacksons were around. They were always teaching the boys something and things weren't nearly as fun when everyone wasn't together hanging out.
"It's not that we don't want you around," Rhuben said slowly, so James understood her perfectly. "And I'm sure you know that from the countless times Logan has called, I wouldn't be surprised if you guys were listening in the background" she added but then quickly went back to the subject at hand. "We're busy. We have things to do. We have to worry about ourselves in this industry sometimes."
She took a breath and when she spoke again; her voice had taken on a cool tone. "We need to focus on ourselves, because we have been spending every goddamn waking moment trying to help you guys and we never got anything in return for it."
"Are you serious?" James laughed.
"No, I'm not," Rhuben shook her head, her raven tresses flying into her face. "I've told Logan this too, and knowing you guys I'm probably going to have to tell Kendall and Carlos before you guys can take a hint."
"Well, sorry, we just don't believe-"
"It's not anything about believing what we're saying," This is how James could tell the difference between her and her sister. Rhuben didn't fly off the handle when she was angry; she just lowered her voice and was so cold, you could actually feel the chill down your back. Riley, on the other hand, ranted and screamed and raved until you were a quivering blob of jelly. "It's that you listen to what we're saying. We need space and we need to worry about ourselves." Her hands clenched into fists. "You don't know what's going on."
"What's going on," James leapt at the chance. "Maybe we can hel-"
"No one can help," Rhuben interrupted. "It's not anything that needs to be helped; we just need some time to ourselves. Got it?" She looked at her phone and then let out a deep breath of air, which sent her fringe off of her forehead.
"Alright," James just held his hands up defensively and then pulled himself out of his chair. "I'll leave then." He paused, waiting to see if she was going to say anything. But she still had her arms crossed over her chest, was looking away, and had her legs stretched out under the table. But he still didn't leave. "So, are you waiting for someone?"
"My ride home, yeah." Rhuben looked at her watch. She pulled her phone from her pocket again. Would you just leave so I can walk back home?
James opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to say something, but then closed his mouth and shook his head. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I guess I'll be seeing you around later then." Rhuben just rolled her eyes. James turned and started to walk away.
"You guys are still invited to our concert." Rhuben called after him.
"Cool." James called back.
"If that helps at all," Rhuben muttered under her breath, waiting until James was out of sight before getting up from her seat and walking out of the mall. Rhuben then walked to the grocery store and got two bags filled with groceries and then started the walk back home.
"Instead of being pathetic and wasting my space why don't you just hang out with your friends? Oh sorry, that's right…You don't have any! You're always going to find ways to push them away, plus you don't deserve friends. You don't deserve anything. Why do you even bother? My God, you are so pathetic. You're disgusting! You're such a loser. A pathetic, stupid, loser...Sometimes I don't know why I adopted you all; you're all so ungrateful anyway. You're just a waste of space. You're just worthless."
That was the only problem with being alone; you had too much time to think. Those thoughts that Rhuben tried to push out of her mind before she went out to get food came crashing back as soon as the first thought entered her mind.
She shook her head, her hands clenching into fists as she opened her stride and started to walk faster, as if trying to outrun the thoughts that plagued her mind.
…
..
.
Stepping inside her house, Rhuben noticed the smell pretty quickly. The air hung with the stale smell of beer and sweat. She looked around and crept into the house, noticing a second too late that it was too quiet. Before she could put the grocery bags down, there was a blow to her back and she stumbled forward, dropping the bags to the ground. She heard the sound of the eggs in the egg carton breaking as it hit the floor, cans of soup rolled away, tomatoes bounced along the ground.
Rhuben struggled for air, as soon as she was hit in the back, the wind was knocked out of her and she fell to her knees. She landed on her stomach and rolled onto her side, tears pricking the corners of her eyes as she looked up into Robert's face, still struggling to draw in air.
His hair was mangled, the smell of alcohol was on his breath, and the many empty bottles on the table next to him spoke for themselves. The dread in Rhuben's chest was rising now as she watched him tower over her.
Where are the others? Rhuben thought to herself, finally drawing in a breath of air in a loud, shuddery gasp. What did he do to them? I hope they're ok? I should have gotten back sooner to protect them.
Robert kneeled down and in a swift motion slapped her across the face. Rhuben rolled with the hit and moved away from Robert fast enough and with enough space to get to her feet. Then she darted towards the stairs, her father hot on her heels. She risked a glance over her shoulder, to see how close he was.
Big mistake.
She hit the second step and fell.
Hard.
Robert finally caught up to her at her place on the stairs and grabbed Rhuben by the hair. He pulled her from the stairs to a standing position, then, holding back her shoulders wall with one hand, he used the other to repeatedly hit her at any place he could reach above the shoulders.
Rhuben just glared at her father as he screamed at her, she didn't bother to fight back. She knew if she tried that he would still overpower her, and it may just cause even more pain to her brothers and sister in retaliation. Each hit came faster and harder than the one before it, and Robert executed the last one so hard that Rhuben sunk to the floor, hands over her face in a sort of shield.
Rhuben's face was raging with pain and seemed as if it had spread to the rest of her body. She felt lightheaded and weak and was stuck on the ground, leaning on the wall for support to keep her from passing out.
And just as fast as they had ended, the blows started again. Now they came from Robert's foot and were directed at her legs. She watched in horror as Robert sighed in frustration and gave her one last kick.
Then he undid his belt and held it above him like a sword…
A/N: I hope that this chapter didn't scare/scar you guys too much, but it needed to be shown. I felt that it explained a lot of what needed to be said from another one of the Jackson's point of view. Plus I didn't want to overkill you guys with the Kiley pairing so soon. I still have to show Carphanie, Lomille, and show what's going on with Jo. CHAPTERS AFTER THIS ONE ARE LONGER so I can put them all in there.
I've decided to make this a Jella story (as you can see from the little bit of it here) as I have finished numerous Lella stories as well as having finished Della story and I haven't done a completed Jella story. That being said, I've decided that Dak and WayneWayne are secondary characters to this story, really only appearing if needed. But Lizzie is a main character, as she really drives Katie's story plot along.
Next chapter gets back to the other guys, and then there's probably going to be a chapter that also focuses on Patrick, Noah, and Sydney, since I haven't done that in a while. I hope that you guys liked how this chapter was centered on Rhuben. I hope you enjoyed it in general and I'm still opened to ideas as to what you guys would like to see in this story.
Don't forget to listen to the song 'I'm With You' by Avril Lavigne if you want to get a hint to what the story is about. Really, the song perfectly describes my main plot point behind this whole story and I hope that you guys like it, plus its very dramatic and I think that if I didn't already have 2 BTR songs and 2 other songs for the Kiley pairing, it would be a good song for them. (I also think that the song Down would work for any Riley pairing, but that's just me.)
Anyways, I'll update again soon.
Cheers,
-Riles