A/N: Yes. I updated. What a strange phenomenon.
Sorry, I shouldn't be excusing such horrid acts, but I have to. I have school, I've been deathly sick, and I'm in the higher level classes. So. Much. Homework. (Even in summer!)
Also, I have a boyfriend! I have a life! But I still feel very guilty for not updating. I will be trying to update sooner, because I have more time. Although, I'll be reading real books more and stuff, so yeah.
Yeah, there's a bunch of head cannons in here. Jasper is dyslexic, Lux, Belgium, and Ned are born to different mothers (First off, this explains why they're all of different nationalities, and second, it's something in History is Now), and some others. It's to make it better, so don't get all butt-hurt. I'm sick of that on a bunch of my stories.
So, this is going to start in Jasper's (It's Johan..) POV, the day before we left off. He's at his house/job/bakery thing.
Enjoy!
"Dad. She had purple eyes! How can you not remember?" I was growing more and more frustrated at his blank expression. "You took her order! She was at my school today!"
He stared, his eyebrows furrowed. I could tell he was actually trying to remember. It took a few minutes for him to give up.
"We need security cameras." He said and turned back to the oven, which had a tray of cupcakes that were done. I sighed heavily and turned around to the cookies I was frosting. It was mind numbing, but better than the math homework I was supposed to do. It was nearly impossible because of my dyslexia, but Bella always helped.
Speaking of Bella, I heard her coughing from upstairs. She had been sick since the middle of September, but she had a strange mentality of "I have to go to school!" As a result, she had to stay upstairs and away from the bakery, so she wouldn't get the customers sick.
I heard her footsteps on the stairs and watched her walk from the staircase with a face mask on. I smiled at her just watching us. It was actually pretty funny.
Instead of staring at my sister, I turned to look outside. Henri was putting up a sign for our special tomorrow, but something was strange.
In a few seconds, a body came running across the sidewalk, crashing into Henri. I stared, seeing a sweaty, scared blonde girl frantically get up and try to get around him. She was wearing a red and white pullover hoodie and one of the uniform skirts from the school. The red and blue plaid was distinct to our school. Her gym bag was from the school too. It was a medium blue with red straps.
She was mumbling frantically, and trying to get her mind strait. Her hair was falling out of her pigtails, and a cold sweat tracked down her freckly cheeks. Her violet eyes darted everywhere until she started sprinting again.
Violet eyes.
I dropped the piping bag on the counter and bolted through the kitchen and front room to the outside. I pushed Henri aside and started running. Football made it so much easier to run for long periods of time. The entire game is literally running around and having a referee shout "goal" for five minutes once or twice in the game, if at all.
I ran for so long, and I tried screaming at her, but she had a huge lead on me, and damn, she could run.
My legs gave up and I watched her run out of my sight. I sighed and turned around, panting and seeing how far I ran. It was a ten minute walk. My legs wanted to give up, but I kept moving.
A car sped past me and I was coated in the disgusting sludge from the street. I shuddered and wiped it off my face and hair. I needed new gel, because I used all I had that morning.
I chuckled, thinking about using mud as gel, and a passing stranger stared at me. I rolled my eyes and got home fast.
I walked in through the back door, as not to bother the customers. Bella was wandering around the back room, and stared at my disheveled appearance, horrified.
"What the hell?!" She exclaimed. "You run out of the store for no reason, then you come back looking like this?!" Her voice was loud enough to carry to the front of the store and catch someone's attention.
Henri rushed in and stared at me, appalled.
"What the..?" He was thoroughly confused.
"I was chasing after that girl! I told you I saw her before!" I said, both of them looking worried instead of horrified at my appearance.
"There was no girl, Jasper." Bella said from behind her mask. She looked extremely worried over my metal health at this point. Henri had the same face.
"Jasper," He said, trying to cover up the worry in his voice, "Maybe you've been stressing over school too much. I think you need to relax, maybe take a nice long bath." I stared at him, frustrated and disbelieving. I saw her! How could they say she wasn't there?! She bumped into him!
"Fine." I grumbled and started to walk up the winding stairs. "Henri, can you finish the cookies I was working on?" I asked. I didn't care for his answer, as I was already upstairs.
I quickly got to my room and stripped my dirty clothes off.
I walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. It took a long time to wash off all the grime and the water to run clear down the drain. It was freezing cold on my skin by the time I got out. I dried off my frozen skin and got dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt.
The math homework sat on my bed, and I simply stared at it. I hated that class. I couldn't do the math to save my life.
I sat down on the bed anyway and pulled out the notebook I used for scratch paper. It had scribbles and markings on every inch of the page.
Four hours later, I stuffed all of my homework into my bag. I was done. It was painful how the teachers schemed to assign all the homework at the same time, with the same due date. Then they did the assessments on the same day too. It was hell for my brain.
I laid down in bed and heard my father cleaning up shop downstairs. He was counting out the money from the register and wrote it down for the end of the week.
I pulled my blanket from the base of my bed to my shoulders. The warmth cradled me to sleep.
My eyes blearily opened to the moon. It was well past midnight. I rolled off my bed and stumbled around my room. I had to be awake for a reason, I don't know why, but I had to. I slipped my shirt on and walked slowly down the stairs. I stopped at the bottom as I saw something that gave me a small heart attack.
I saw a teenage girl straiten up from looking down at the cakes in the window. She was wearing a hoodie with a Canadian flag on it. It was cute. She looked up and stared strait at me. I backed into the corner quickly, and she turned and walked away. I was confused.
Why would someone be up this late and walking around town? All the shops are closed.
I moved from the shadows, not bothering to put on shoes. The girl was too fascinating to ignore. My feet hit the frozen sidewalk and I looked down the street. She was a long way down for how little time I spent getting out of the shop.
I moved quickly after her, but she seemed to be faster. She was walking to the bridge. I was confused as I walked, but still followed.
Fear started to overcome me when I saw her walk onto the bridge. She lifted herself onto the fence. I started running, as I was too far behind to get to her walking. She stared at the sky for a moment before looking away. I was close enough to see tears streaming down her face.
"Hey!" I shouted, but she gave no response. "Hey you!" I was still to far away to help. "Girl! What are you doing?!" I was on the bridge, and she was getting ready to jump. "Get down from there! You could fall!" I said it too late, she was already trying to jump off. "STOP!" I screamed just as I got there. I pushed my arm through the chain link fence. It tore into my skin, but I didn't care. My hand brushed on the side of her sleeve, as I missed grabbing it.
I yelled in anger as she fell, but something happened. She opened her eyes and stared up at me. Her eyes were a vivid shade of lavender that pierced my soul. She kept eye contact with me until she hit the water below her. She was most definitely knocked out, if not killed. Her body washed away quickly in the water.
I shot up from my bed in terror. My heat was racing and my entire body was shaking.
Those nightmares would always plague my mind. I just felt so scared and powerless. That girl dove off a bridge in front of me.
The police filed a report and searched everywhere for a missing girl, or a body. Nothing turned up. It was eerie how she was just invisible. I had to talk to a psychologist for a month, and my family was thinking about sending me back for how I've been acting.
I looked over at the time, trying to shake the feeling of that nightmare. It was nearly five. I would have had to wake up around now anyway.
I ran my hands through my hair before slowly standing up. I walked to the bathroom and brushed my hair and teeth. I pulled out the pill bottles from the cupboard that one of the many doctors had prescribed to me. I hated them, and my family only teased me about it. Apparently I was furthering my national stereotype. The first time they said it, I wanted to dump all of the pills down the toilet. I didn't do it out of good sense.
"Jazzy!" Bella practically yelled as she burst through the door to my room.
"No." I muttered and searched around for an extra can of hair gel. It bothered me that I had to go the school with my hair down. "Get out." I said strictly as she pushed open the door to my bathroom too.
"I infected dad." She said, almost joyously. I groaned audibly, knowing the implications. "You're going to be staying up late to clean up and clean up the registers." She said, a bit muffled from the face mask she was wearing to try to prevent people from getting sick. Ironic.
"Great. I would love to do all the extra work, on top of my schoolwork and working in the bakery. It would make me so happy." I said. I looked at her condescendingly after I was done talking.
"Okay!" She said and practically skipped off.
My sarcasm was completely wasted on her...
I walked to my room and changed into my school uniform before walking downstairs to don my apron and do the morning baking. We had to prepare many things in the shop before we opened. We worked for more than an hour before finishing.
I walked to the front to put up a sign on the door that said "Sorry! We're not open!" In huge letters at the top and smaller letters below saying "We have had an unexpected halt in our production. We will be open at 16:00."
At 6:40 all three of us started walking to the high school. I had no idea why it had to start at such an absurdly early time. We all complained about it starting at 7:15, because then we had to wake up at an even more absurdly early time to work.
"Johan!" I heard a familiar voice cry from a car. I looked up at Matthias in his huge truck. He waved us to him as he waited at a stoplight. "You guy need a ride?" He asked. I looked at my siblings who had already turned away and started walking. They tried to ride with him once. They were traumatized for life because he was rear-ended.
I opened the door anyway and climbed in.
"Why did they run away?" He asked as he drove away from the light.
"They don't know that you're not a half bad driver. They think it's your fault that you got in a crash." I said and watched kids walking to school.
"Not my fault!" He said loudly. I rolled my eyes and looked over at him. He was shaking and it looked like sweat was running down his face. He was gripping the steering wheel far tighter than needed. It shocked me to say the least. His voice was so happy and energetic. Although, he had a talent of changing his voice.
"Dude, the wheel isn't your father's throat." I said in a joking manner. His grip only tightened. I could tell I made a mistake. "Pull over." I said, but it only flew over his head. "Matt. Pull over."
Instead of doing that he looked over at me. He had a scared look on his face. I didn't expect any of this when I got in the car.
"Am I crazy?" He asked. He was trying to keep that happy voice, but it cracked.
My brain tried to understand what was going on. He looked like he was traumatized. He slowed down while he was driving, which made me panic a bit less.
"No. You are one of the most sane people I will ever meet." I said without a falter in my voice. He looked back at the road and pulled over into a parking lot. "But, dude, what's wrong?"
It took him a while to unstick his hands from the steering wheel. He looked at me with what seemed like a desperate expression.
He was a lot more lanky than he seemed. When he let his shoulders drop, it was apparent how skinny he actually was. He didn't spike his hair today and he was wearing dirty clothing. He looked really truly pathetic. He obviously hadn't slept that night, or barely slept at all. I knew he had a horrible home situation, but I had only seen him this bad once in the past.
"My dad." He said and stared at his hands. I looked too and saw his fingernails were bitten to stubs. Some were bleeding. "He got drunk." That was all the explanation he needed to give.
His father was abusive when he got drunk, and Matt took the brunt of it. His little sister, Kiista, was only 6 or 7, so he wanted to keep her safe. He was more of a father than the actual man of the house.
"Do you need to stay over?" I asked, very concerned for my friend. "Your sister can stay too." I added. He looked up at me and smiled. I knew that was a yes.
It took him a few minutes to recuperate, but we managed to drive away.
I had actually never seen him this much out of character. He looked horrible. He had probably slept in his truck last night, and that would explain the tiredness, the dirty clothes, and the hair.
We arrived at school at around 6:55, because we pulled over for almost ten minutes.
Matthias rummaged around in his car. He was looking for hair gel. I popped open the glove compartment, and sorted through the napkins to find the small canister. I handed it him so he could at least look like he was a little bit put together. I also handed him the tie in the backseat so he wouldn't get yelled at by a teacher for being out of uniform.
I waited for him to scrounge up papers from the back which looked like homework. He looked at me for a second.
"Thanks man." He said, but I could tell he was doing horrible inside.
It didn't take long for the bell to ring for the start of school and for us to rush inside.
My first period was to be an office assistant. That really meant hanging out with one of the cooler counselors, Ms. Jenny, and occasionally running around to hand out schedule changes or notes for students to go to the health office, or a certain classroom.
It was halfway through the period when I had to run to a math class to give someone called Lilly Heller a pass.
I walked through the familiar halls to the math class. I could hear the loud voices of children from down the hall. I shuddered and entered the classroom, heading strait to the teacher. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a Hispanic boy staring at the floor.
I quickly handed the purple slip of paper before turning to leave. As I was walking, I was distracted by that kid I had just seen, he was looking worried towards the ground. I walked up to him to see a person on the ground. It was a girl, and she had her hands clapped over her ears. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was shaking.
"Maddie.." The Hispanic guy said, obviously scared. He reached out to touch her shoulder. He said a few more things, but I wasn't paying attention. I was looking at the girl on the floor with the utmost amazement.
Her blonde hair looked like it had a slight silver tint, most likely from stress. I could see that she was small under her hoodie. She looked like she was abnormally thin, but still athletic. She also looked strangely clean. He hair was brushed strangely perfectly, and her face didn't have a blemish.
It was strange of all things when she finally stopped shaking and opened her eyes.
Something clicked in my brain, and I could only stare at her in disbelief.
"I saw you-" I started saying before a hand on my shoulder cut me off.
"Jasper, shouldn't you be going back to the office?" Hartwell said forcefully. I nodded as I stared at the girl. I walked out quickly without speaking.
It was her...
ΞΞΞTIMESKIPΞΞΞ
"It was her!" I said desperately, but Matthias shook his head with a faint smile. He was looking a lot better than this morning. "She was there! In this classroom! A kid was even talking to her!"
"Dude, stop." He said. "You're stressing yourself out."
"He called her Maddie." I said seriously. A faint light of recognition flashed through his eyes, but it quickly faded. He took his head in his hand, like he had a headache.
"Blonde hair, lavender eyes and her name is Maddie..." He said slowly, as if he was trying to jog his memory. I sat there, hoping he would remember something, because I knew I wasn't crazy. "It's like déjà vu, trying to think about her. It's like you remembered something in a dream, but you don't remember when you wake up, until you try to remember that thing in real life."
I sat, confused.
"Um, what?" I asked, confused. We were at my house, it was around 21:00, and the shop was closed. I was supposed to clean up, but it could wait.
"Nothing." He said and looked at his little sister, sleeping on a cot on the side of the room. She fell asleep quickly, and by now, she wouldn't wake up. "You need to go downstairs and clean up." He said. "I'm going to take a shower."
I nodded and walked downstairs.
The lights were turned off in the front room, but one light in the kitchen was on. It was always on. I looked out of the front windows and out of nowhere, I got this horrible, crippling headache.
My entire body went numb and I had to hold my head to stop the spinning. I was so confused, what was happening?
Eventually, I was able to open my eyes to find I was on the floor. I hadn't felt myself fall, and my arms and legs were numb. It tool a while, but I finally was able to get up.
I stumbled the the cash register and the computer. I started the math about the expenses and the money and everything.
It took less time than I thought it would. I walked to the hallway behind the kitchen to check on my father and brother in their rooms.
My dad was sleeping soundly, wrapped up in his blanket, and my brother was at his desk, working on schoolwork.
I walked back out and to the stairs, and finally to my room. I didn't bother to check on Bella, she was probably on her computer.
I walked into my room to find it still empty. I thought I heard the shower stop a while before, so I was confused at why Matt was still in there. His bag was also gone from the room, so I felt I needed to investigate.
I peeked in the bathroom door to see him sitting on the counter, with pants on. I was thankful about that, but something was off. He was wrapping up his wrist in bandages, and there were cotton balls on the sink, varying from a light pink, to what looked like a few soaked with blood.
"Matt." I said sternly, as I was concerned, and watched him jump off the counter and press himself against the back wall. He looked terrified.
"You're dyslexic. It's hard for you to do math. How did you get done so quickly?" He asked in a cool voice, completely opposite of his body language.
"Does that really matter?!" I exclaimed, but I was quickly shushed by Matt. I remembered his sister sleeping, and clenched my jaw out of frustration.
"I can explain." He said, still in a calm voice. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I opened them to see him slightly peeled off the wall, standing stiffly. He exhaled, and I saw him shake visibly, looking down at his wrists. "You know exactly what I'm doing." I nodded, because I had talked to him about injuring himself before. "I just... I can't do this anymore. I can't take care of Kiista, go to school, go to hockey practice, and stay sane. It started hurting when I couldn't stop her from crying, and I just needed something to distract me from the pain."
I listened to what he had to say, trying to keep a cool head. I had slowly closed the door while he talked, and was leaning on it by the end. He was staring at his hands, watching them shake.
"Matt," I said, trying not to sound angry or anything, "I know you do this for your own reasons, and nosing around in them is none of my business. It is my job to take care of my friends, and you are one of the few. This is bad for you, and I understand what you're going through-"
"No. You don't understand." He said, cutting off my sentence, starting to look angry.
"-I understand what you're going through is rough, Matt." I said, also with a certain tone of anger in my voice. "But you and I both know this is bad for you."
He sighed, looking as though he was forcing rage down. I wanted to help, but he wasn't going to let me.
"I know, Jasper," He said, putting the same emphasis on my name, as I did on his. "But you don't know how hard it is to stop!"
"Maybe I don't know how difficult it is because I have some self control!" I said, not caring about the malice in my voice anymore. I watched his eyes narrow. He was fuming because of the jab I had just made about him hurting himself again.
"Self control?! You want to see what self control is?!" He asked, and I saw the rage in his eyes. He ripped off his over shirt and stared at me expectantly. "Self control is getting these and not hitting back, and I sure as hell know that you would beat a man dead if he did this."
I saw several dark bruises peaking out from below his undershirt, as well as several sickly yellow patches, that were obviously at least a few days old. There were a few small circular scars in his arm, one was a scab. I wanted to look away, but was fixated on the scars on his chest and arms. I managed to pull my eyes to the ground.
I swallowed, looking back at his face. It held a tone of sorrow in the sickeningly furious expression. He pulled his shirt off the ground and buttoned it.
"Don't tell me I don't have self control." He muttered, pushing the blood stained cotton balls into the trash. I took a breath and opened my mouth to say something, but he spoke again quickly. "Kiista will go into foster care if I told the police. It'll only be two more years until I'm out of there, and I can fill out the forms to take her with me. I don't care what happens to my body, as long as I keep her safe."
A silence fell over us as he wrapped the bandages on his wrists. When he was done he washed the sink from the blood and rolled down his sleeves. He looked at his reflection when he was done, obviously collecting his thoughts.
"I know know why you change in the bathrooms for gym now." I said with a chuckle, and watched him smile. It was a small smile, but real. There was a small pause.
"Will you ignore this?"
"No." My voice was stoic again, a bit frustrated with his request. He nodded, understanding why I was doing it. He stood up strait, pulling his bag off the floor. "Now, you need to sleep. And probably take tomorrow off from school. You can have some money for gas so you can drive your sister to school, and also pick her up the costume she wanted for Halloween."
I opened the door and walked into the cold room, looking around for my wallet.
"Johan, don't worry about it. I have money, and I'll be fine." He said, walking out after me. Both of our voices got much quieter, being careful to not wake the sleeping girl.
"Take it." I said and shoved 30 dollars into his hand. He sighed and nodded.
We both got comfortable, him in my bed, and myself on the floor. I had homework, but I honestly didn't care. I was emotionally and physically drained from that day, and as soon as my head hit the pillow, I feel asleep.
A/N2: So, uh, yeah. Kiista is Greenland, just so everyone is clear. I just want to say how sorry I am for not updating. This was a very dark chapter, and I'm sorry. I just couldn't help it.
Uh... don't hold your breath for the next chapter?
Love me please.