A/N: I don't know if you noticed, but the last chapter was filled with grievous errors, which have now been fixed and hopefully will not occur again. I just got a great new beta, trollalalala, who had a very abrupt introduction to the madness that is my writing process, and even lived to tell the tale. Thank you so much for all your input.
I used recover from as a resource for this chapter, and if you know anyone who is suffering, I would highly recommend reading their article on the seven stages of grief. Understanding exactly what they're experiencing can only benefit the both of you in the long run.
Marcus
I thought after such a huge omission Jane would've stopped, or taken a breather… or something, but I was wrong. She just keeps plowing on, months of bottled up emotion pouring out of her in the space of a few sentences. She doesn't exactly sound overwhelmed by sorrow, like I'd imagine, and she's not crying, but her mannerisms remind me of someone who escaped a shipwreck.
"She had been feeling the symptoms for a while, but she tried to pass it off as just 'old age'" She stiffens and pauses for a moment, obviously remembering something painful. "Her type of cancer was incredibly rare, especially for someone of her age, and it was so far along."
The guilt is surfacing in her expressions. Even though Jane blaming herself for her mother's death is unreasonable, it's not surprising. I remember reading about there being seven stages to grief, and knowing Jane, he was guessing she had spent a long time stuck in the "denial" stage. Now, she seems to be flying through the other six stages in a matter of minutes. The pain seems to have already ebbed and died away, and she clearly has been coping by harboring a lot of the anger, most likely directing it at a certain guy who caused the first link in the painful chain of events. She may have been a naturally shy person, but he doesn't think her constant pushing him away is just a facet of her personality. From what he remembers, isolation was a big portion of the seven stages. Maybe I'm crazy for thinking I can psychoanalyze her, but I definitely feel like she makes more sense now.
I cautiously stand, and slide down next to her before attempting to pull her closer to me. I'm offering my figurative, and literal, shoulder, but Jane pushes me off. From this distance I can see that her eyes are shinier than usual, but she's definitely not crying. She starts talking again, and I watch as her posture relaxes a little bit, as if the story is a poison, and she's finally letting it get out of her system, drop by drop.
I'm not a silly little girl, I could've moved past breaking up with Zach, and, with some time, I might've been able to handle losing my mom." She pauses with that thought, as if she had never thought about her own ability to cope. "But everything was dropped in my lap at the same time. Do you know what happened after we found out how much time she had left?" She asks, her eyes blazing as she turns towards me. She only holds my gaze long enough to see my shake my head, before turning to stare out at the river, and pulling her knees into her chest.
"She told me I wasn't even her daughter." I have no idea what she means by that. How can she not be her mother's daughter? She turns back to me, catching my eyes and once again displaying no tears. "I was adopted Marcus." Jeez, talk about a rough week. "It wouldn't have changed much, of course I would've been upset that she hadn't told me, but I would've been fine with it." She pauses, and I hear her breath hitch slightly. "I just was so distraught, and I felt so lost. Everything that I defined myself as wasn't relevant anymore."
I start to try and reassure her, express sympathy, something other than sitting gaping at her like a fish, but she cuts me off.
"If you even attempt to say 'I'm sorry', I will personally castrate you."
I feel my eyes go wide and my nervousness is obvious when my voice jumps up an octave.
"Duly noted," I clear my throat, realizing that I haven't sounded that squeaking since my voice first started changing. Thankfully, I sound normal the next time I attempt talking, "If you don't mind my asking… where was your dad during all of this?" A rueful smile slips onto her face at that, and her eyes immediately appear sad.
"Which one?" She scoffs before going on to explain. "My biological father was never really in the picture; I don't even know if he was notified when my bio-mom's plane crashed." A sick feeling twistsin my gut, speaking of absentee fathers….
"My adopted Dad passed away a few years earlier, in a car crash."
"Wow, you guys are really bad at travel." The words pop out of my mouth before I can think, and I let my head thunk back onto the cement, amazed at my own insensitivity. To my surprise, Jane just laughs and shakes a piece of her hair out of her eyes.
"I guess you could say that." Her tone is light, and I glance at beside me, attempting to read her body language; she's slumped against the concrete, her back resting just below a cartoon dog's paw. Her knees are still bent and raised, but they aren't pulled close into her body like they were before.
"You know what?" She asks rhetorically, and when he looks back at her, there's a determination in her eyes. For some reason, she seems ten times more alive with that light in her eyes. "I'm done. I'm done feeling upset about all of this." She looks back out at the water, her expression hopeful. "That's okay right?" She turns to me for a minute, and when I nod, unsure of what I'm agreeing to she explains. "I'm going to miss my parents… and the adoption thing's gonna be a little weird… but I can't let it rule me anymore."
"Exactly," Finally having something intelligent to say, I agree, "It's your life." Did I say intelligent, because that sounds distinctly like something an inspirational speaker gone middle school principal would say. Jane doesn't seem to agree with my assessment, because she just nods and smiles.
Seeing her smile does funny things in the pit of my stomach, and I clear my throat reflexively to try to get a handle on the nerves. When she looks down and blushes, I feel a little bit more like I'm on solid ground. I have no idea why she's blushing, but she looks downright adorable when she does.
"I really wasn't expecting any of this to happen tonight." She admits, peeking at him out of the corner of her eye as if I won't notice. I notice and smile a little bit. I like this version of her a lot more than the cool, closed off version of her.
The shy innocence is not only painfully endearing, but a bizarre feeling of protectiveness emerges when I see it. She shouldn't have to face any more turmoil, what she deserves is some nice peace and quiet.
I laugh. "Really, I planned this from the moment I woke up." There's no bite to my words, and I grin at her. She smiles back and rolls her eyes.
"You never know; you could always have a Disney villain buried somewhere in there." She winks at me saucily and he balks.
"Are you saying I'm some sort of evil stepmother?" I'm not sure I like that comparison, scratch that, I hate that metaphor. She just laughs and corrects me.
"Nah, you're not crazy enough. I was thinking somewhere in between the Grinch and that guy from Aladdin… Jafar, I think." She smirks at my face, which is probably fixed in a very amusing expression. Jane gets to her feet, turning her back to the cement displays as she sits right at the top of the slope.
I follow after her, watching as she carefully sits down and glances over her shoulder at me. Her hair falls in her eyes again, and as I sit down, I'm half tempted to reach out and brush it out of her way. She beats me to it, and the disappointment that follows is more than a little startling.
"I don't think I'm green or Arabian and I definitely don't have a long stringy beard." I compulsively run my fingers along my chin. I shaved this morning, so I don't have any idea what she's talking about. She laughs again, and even though she's laughing at me, it's still gratifying to hear. My efforts to get her out of her shell were clearly not in vain.
"I was just messing with you," She teases, lightly pushing my shoulder. I grin back her, and she almost immediately diverts her gaze to the opposite shore. I don't get it; we're having a good time, and then she pulls away. It's not as obvious as it was, but it's still there, just under the surface.
The moon shifts, slipping behind a cloud, and Jane shivers. I glance down at her bare arms and exposed skin. I'm only wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but Jane is wearing even less than I am. At the party, she was fine in a tank top, but a strong breeze billows across the water. Shaking off my hesitation, I wrap an arm around her and pull her into my side. She tenses for a moment before relaxing slightly. I'm not sure she's breathing, but on the plus side, she's stopped shivering. Jane closes her eyes for a few minutes, and I almost wonder if she's sleeping. I mentally shrug; personally I'm okay with whatever. There are worse situations for your arm to fall asleep in.
Only partially distracted by the girl sleeping on me, I start to notice something strange. Dark clouds pour over the horizon, spreading at a rate that is almost unnatural. The thick gray masses almost look like plumes of smoke, but they're too immense. The river isn't extremely wide, and if I squint, I can just make out the opposite bank. That is, I used to be able to, but now; the clouds completely mask the dim lights of the town. My eyes go wide; these kinds of storms aren't uncommon in Colorado, mostly because of the pocket effects of the mountains, but this is different.
"Jane?" I murmur. She doesn't move or even open her eyes. "Jane!" I try again, the storm has progressed about half way across the water now, and I can just make out patches of rain.
Her eyes open this time, and she looks up at me before catching my gaze and looking out across the water. All of the color drains from her face, and the gleam in her eyes fades. In a fraction of a second, she's on her feet and yanking me back to the ladder. She scrambles to climb it, her feet barely touching the rungs. I follow after her, climbing as quickly as I can. When she gets to the top, she's hurriedly shuffles along the precipice, moving way too quickly for comfort.
My guess is precisely right; immediately after I get both feet onto the upper level, I watch her slip and teeter precariously on the edge. I leap over to her, and help steady her in place. Her breath catches and she looks back at me, her eyes alight with fear.
"You're okay," I assure her, even as her eyes flick down toward the bottom of the pit. She clears her throat and steps away before glancing over my shoulder. At her appalled expression, I glance behind me. The ominous veil just beginning to obscure the bank below. Without another word, we rush off, darting around the corner before pushing through the dense branches of the trees.
We can't be more than two feet away from the opening when the rain crashes down. Moments after it starts, my hair is dripping in my eyes. Jane shakes her head, flinging droplets of water all around her. She grabs back on to my wrist, and we rush to the car. Now that we're drenched, I'm not sure what the point of hurrying is, but Jane is so frantic to argue with. She bounces in place anxiously as I yank my keys out of my pocket and shove the right one into the lock. The moment Jane can, she yanks her door open, falling into the seat.
I tumble in after her, quickly starting the ignition, and pull onto the long road. The whole way, I'm glancing at Jane out of the corner of my eye. She's shaking, and when she turns on the heat, she rests her hand on the blowers as if she can absorb the warm air that way.
"Are you okay?" I finally ask, and she lets out a deep breath before nodding. She shakes her head again, sprinkling me with water. I laugh, and she smiles, but there's still a slight edge to her expression. She's scared, but who wouldn't be? She almost plummeted twenty feet onto solid cement. The shock appears to be wearing off though, thankfully. "That was some storm, huh?"
"Yeah, some storm."