"Inventing the Future"
"Chapter 9: Reconciled"
'This is silly,' thought Jaming as he closed the garage door behind him and strode over to his filing cabinet. 'I've been absolutely miserable all this time, and it seems she has as well. Why have I allowed this to happen?'
Fear. That was the answer, of course. His fear of rejection had won out over his common sense, and his walls had gone right back up. He wasn't giving Meredith enough credit, and he knew it. She probably wasn't interested in him. He found the thought rather laughable, to be honest. Donny was quite correct; women did not tend to find Jaming at all pleasing to look at. But if Meredith did find out the truth, it just wasn't in her to be cruel about it. Jaming had just seen proof of that.
Besides, depression tended to sap his creativity almost entirely, and there was no reason to stay depressed when the solution was so simple. Jaming had kept her at arm's length for weeks, and it had finally sunk in that his actions were having a negative effect on her. He had to talk to her.
Jaming rifled through the filing cabinet, earning himself a nice paper cut in the process, and retrieved the small Luna Stone. Into his pocket it went, and he set out to look for Meredith.
The sun had just dipped below the horizon, but the sky had not yet realized that it was nighttime. The others had all gone inside for the night, and Jaming offered up a silent thank-you to whatever god might be listening. He was not pleased with them at the moment, Donny in particular, and the last thing he wanted was an audience!
Jaming eventually found Meredith sitting on the beach, hugging her knees. He was taken aback by how melancholy she looked, and he wondered how much of it was because of him. She was something of a free spirit, and he had always seen her get over things rather quickly. She was usually the one to draw him out of it when he was obsessing over something, always ready with a distraction or a word of encouragement. How much of that had he done for her?
Meredith turned her head to see who was coming, and her expression brightened one minute then darkened the next before she looked out over the ocean again. Had he really been that horrible to her?
He sat down beside her, adopting her posture and resting his forearms on top of his knees. "Hello."
"Hey," she replied, mustering a smile. "Haven't seen much of you lately."
"Yes, well...I guess I had some thinking to do."
She nodded, continuing to stare straight ahead of her. "Yeah...same here."
Meredith fell silent, making no effort to keep the conversation going. Jaming couldn't find the words he wanted. He'd had a whole speech prepared, but it was long gone. He lowered his eyes, feeling the weight of the Luna Stone in his pocket. If those things were supposed to raise a person's intelligence, it must not apply to personal matters, because he didn't feel particularly smart at the moment.
"The heat wave finally seems to be letting up," Meredith remarked.
"So, now we've been reduced to commenting on the weather..." he buried his hand in the sand, letting the tiny grains, still warm from the sun, sift through his fingers. He had really been the one avoiding her; all of the awkwardness between them had been brought about by him.
"Well, the weather is usually a safe topic," She pointed out, and when Jaming didn't reply she asked in a warmer tone of voice, "How've you been?"
He sighed, still messing around with the sand. "I've...just had some things on my mind. Not the thing's you're probably thinking of, but it's nothing to worry about."
"Well, now you've got my interest piqued."
But Jaming shook his head, not quite ready to go down that path. "Don't worry about it."
Masking her hurt feelings, Meredith rested her chin on her arms. "Suit yourself."
'I've done it again...' Regret washed over him, and he wished, not for the first time, that he looked like everyone else. Maybe then he wouldn't be such a coward, and he wouldn't keep hurting her in his efforts to guard his own heart.
Why had she gone into those caves to get him a Luna Stone? Maybe she did pity him, and if this were the case...
No. He dismissed that thought immediately, because he had seen pity, and that wasn't what this had been. What, then?
Maybe it didn't matter. The results were the same, and their friendship was under a strain. It was obvious that she didn't want it to be this way anymore than he did, but what could be done?
He reached into his pocket and brought out the Luna Stone piece. It was about the size and color of a robin's egg, but oddly shaped, and in the semi-darkness it gave off a faint glow. He hadn't noticed that before.
Movement out of the corner of Meredith's eye caught her attention and she looked over, but she quickly averted her gaze when she saw what he was holding.
Jaming ran his finger down the smooth, cool surface of the stone. "They...really are pretty, aren't they?" he said, as if noticing this for the first time. "I never did thank you."
"You don't thank for that," her voice quivered a little.
Jaming curled his fingers around the stone, hiding it from view, and he could feel it taking on the warmth of his hand. "Why not? There are other things tied to this stone. Things I'm very thankful for."
"You just ended a sentence with a preposition."
"While I'm not thankful that you seem to have joined the grammar police," he smirked, "I'm very thankful that you're still here. I'm thankful that you cared for me enough to go looking for this, however ill-advised it might have been."
She stared incredulously at him before shaking her head. "Man, you're something else..."
He put the stone back into his pocket, more than a little disheartened. He had blown it. "Sorry..."
"No, I meant that as a compliment," she told him, "Listen, I'd love to put all this awkwardness behind us. What do you think?"
He smiled then. "My thoughts exactly. And I apologize. It was..."
The words caught in his throat then, and he lost his nerve. She seemed to pick up on this, though, and put a light hand on his arm.
"What?"
And that quickly, his heart was beating so fast that he feared she could hear it. She deserved to know the truth, or at least some of it. "Well, it...it was due to...insecurities."
She blinked, then shook her head. "Ya lost me."
And at that, Jaming snorted. "I almost did; that's the problem. And it...made me realize a few things."
Meredith waited patiently for him to continue, and she was glad the darkening sky hid her blush. 'He really doesn't know, does he?'
But Jaming didn't continue, fearing he had said far too much. At least she wasn't laughing at him, but...
Turning so that she was facing him more fully, Meredith tried to search his face for anything that might tell her for sure what he was getting at, but he had turned his head so that he was looking away from her. "Look...if you want to tell me something, I promise I won't laugh at you. Something's been bugging you lately. Maybe I can help."
Jaming closed his eyes, voices from the past surfacing unbidden in his mind. Being cruelly rejected by his first crush, then getting the snot kicked out of him when her boyfriend, whom he didn't even know about, learned about it. The ridicule, the constant teasing. Always being put in his place for so much as daring to breathe. Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.
Meredith would not laugh at him. She had promised. He trusted her. "What would you say if I...told you...I...had feelings...for you? Feelings that...go beyond...simple friendship. Even though I've no right to..."
Meredith felt her heart beginning to break for him as she realized just how much he truly despised himself. "Ah, Jaming..."
"I know..." he nodded, wanting to escape once more, but he had frozen as if caught in the blinding beam of a spotlight. "You don't feel the same way. I understand."
"So, now you're telling me how I feel," she sounded a little amused, and she reached out and gently turned his head so that he was looking at her. Too shocked to resist, he let her. "You do have the right to your feelings."
"Maybe...but I didn't want you to know, because if you found out..." He swallowed hard, painfully aware that he couldn't completely close his mouth as he did so. His teeth...his damned teeth!
"What did you think would happen?" she whispered, her hand still resting on his cheek.
Why hadn't she taken her hand away?
"Just say it, and get it over with."
Lord, was he really that obtuse? She smiled, his apprehension giving her courage where previously she'd had none. "I have feelings for you, too."
"You...what?" His eyes widened so that his monocle fell off his face and bounced lightly off the back of her wrist.
"I wasn't going to tell you, either. The last time I did that, it didn't exactly go well...See, I was a bit of a dork when I was a kid. Big thick glasses, always tripping over my own feet..." She lowered her hand from his face and looked out over the soft ocean waves. "I didn't really have friends back then, except for one. I was...well, I guess I developed a bit of a crush on him. And eventually, I felt safe enough to tell him."
Jaming was completely gobsmacked by what he was hearing. There didn't seem to be anything physically wrong with her at all, and yet some of what she was saying mirrored things that had happened to him! "What happened?"
"Oh...he acted like I'd said the most disgusting thing imaginable. Next day the whole school knew, and I was down from one friend to zero." She spoke blithely, as if telling him this didn't bother her at all. "I sort of lost my nerve after that. But eventually, I traded in my specs for contacts. I finished my growth spurt, and stopped being so clumsy. Pretty much gave up on trying to join the dating scene, but it didn't bother me so much. And I guess I'm still a bit of a dork, even if I don't really look the part these days."
Jaming shook his head slowly. "I don't think you're a 'dork'. But...I really don't see how it'd work out. I mean..."
She cocked her head in that manner he found so charming, and asked, "What's to 'work out', exactly? Other than helping you get your self-confidence out of the toilet, I mean?"
He still couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. What if this was some elaborate, cruel joke she was playing on him? Such things had happened to him before. But deep down, he knew that wasn't true. Even so, he felt that she deserved better, and he hung his head, feeling an odd mixture of sadness and hope. "Meredith, just look at me! Look at what I've done! The blood on my hands will never be washed clean, I have nothing to offer you, and..."
Jaming gulped, and vaguely gestured to his mouth. "Meredith, I can't even kiss you...It's physically impossible."
Meredith's reply wasn't a verbal one. She leaned closer, pausing when her face was an inch away from his to gauge his reaction, and when he simply looked at her and didn't lean away from her she softly planted a peck at the corner of his mouth before whispering, "I can kiss you."
He lowered his eyes to hide the fact that they were beginning to fill up, and lightly brushed the back of her hand with his knuckles. She turned her hand so that the palm faced upward, and seizing his courage, he laced his fingers with hers. Turquoise against ivory. "Then...what happens now? This is well out of my area of expertise."
She giggled softly and leaned her head against his shoulder as they gazed up at the double moon. "Not a damn clue."
Note: So yeah, Meredith ended up having to hit Jaming with a 'clue-by-four'. Sorry if things have begun to drag a little. I think I might focus on humor for the next chapter or two.