Just Keep On Keeping On: Phone Calls and Ice Cream
As much as I don't want to do this, it's time to start making phone calls. Phone calls to the gang I've been so out of touch with since my first year in college. I don't know where they are, or what they've been doing, and I can only hope to God that their numbers remained the same. So, as Steven is sleeping, I go outside, grab my phone from my car and flip through my contacts until I come to Caterina Valentine.
Oh Cat.
She broke my heart in high school and I really didn't feel like talking to her, but her and Jade were so close, maybe she knows where Jade is right now. Hopefully. I can't just keep Steven around for forever. He needed his mom, terrible as she was.
"Robbie?" Cat picks up the phone. No hello. Just Robbie as if she's surprised that I would ever try to contact her. I couldn't blame her though. For the last month of senior year I avoided her and didn't return her texts or calls. I know, immature, but I didn't feel like dealing with her stupidity while she tried to apologize for just running away when I kissed her and a bunch of other things. She didn't mean it; she never would.
"C-Cat? Hey..." I start out, not entirely sure how to launch into this conversation.
"Hi?" she responds, sounding frazzled.
"Uh...So...um...What's been...new?" I question awkwardly, pausing in between words that should have formed a fluent sentence but was broken up by my incapability to talk right.
"I, uh...I...I work as an actress." She adds a nervous laugh at the end so that I know she's not telling the truth. She was never very good at fibbing. I try to contain the anger rising in me that she refuses to tell me what's really going on like I'm not good enough to know what's happening. Then again, I critically remind myself, I've also been out of her life for years on end. "What about you?"
"Just in college," I say.
"That's great...but...um...Robbie?...Why did you, uh, call?" she asks, confusion lacing her voice.
"I just...Um, it's about Jade," I finally concede and I hear something fumbling on the other end of the line.
"Jade?"
"Yeah...You wouldn't happen to know what's been going on with her lately, would you?"
"Um, no..." she begins to laugh, "Why would I know that?"
"Okay, so you don't have any idea of where she might be living right now? Because, um, she kinda left her kid with me and I, er, need to, um, return him...to her?" I try.
"She...she left you with St- her kid?" Cat asks quietly and I can't help but feel like she knows a lot more about this situation than what she's letting on. But why? Doesn't she want Jade to have her kid back to? Ugh, this is so frustrating. Jade can't just freakin' ditch me and then expect everyone to keep her location a secret.
"Yeah...I'm not exactly sure what to do with him...And Cat, if you are lying and you do know where Jade is, then you don't have to tell me. Just, can you, um, come pick Steven up and bring him to Jade...or something?" I request, but suddenly I hear a crinkling paper on the other line.
"Robbie...We're...breaking...up...Sorry...Going...Bye," the phone call is ended leaving me with two suspicions. One, either Cat is high which I highly doubt, or two, she's keeping some information about Jade.
I guess I'll just have to try the others.
So I call them, but each phone call is even less successful than Cat's. Tori's as well as Sinjin's phone numbers have been disconnected and the others had no clue of the whereabouts of Jade or what she had been doing with her life and were completely taken by shock when I told them that, yes, she did have a son that looked incredibly like Beck, and no, no one knew who the father was.
I walk back inside the apartment feeling more hopeless than ever. I suppose this meant I was stuck with Steven for a long time, or at least until Jade decided to pull her fucking act together and fucking come back for her fucking kid. Poor Steven. I wonder what it's like to know that your mother just abandoned you in favor of doing drugs or smoking pot or getting drunk or whatever the hell Jade was doing right now. I know the kid appears strong, but after tonight, I can see he's suffering.
I plop down on the couch in the first room, exhausted and filled with remorse. The poor, poor kid...Tomorrow, as much as a bad idea as it is, I'm going to skip class and we're going to go into the city. He deserves a day of real fun and not just the usual days where I leave him to fend for himself for half of it and then come back and do homework for the other.
I drowsily close my eyes and allow myself to start to drift off...
.
"Robbie...Robbie...Robbie! Robbie, you droolin'!" I'm awoken by a small hyperactive toddler's voice. "Come on, get up, get up!" he pleads when I roll the other way to get him to knock it off. "Pwease? I so bored," he complains and when I don't respond, he jumps on me. "Robbie wake up! I hungry!"
I let out a groan before pushing him off of me and to the side. "Fine," I relent and stand up.
"Make me bweakfast?" he begs and I know he knows how to say the word 'breakfast' correctly; he's just trying to manipulate me into doing what he wants.
"Ugh...Let me get changed first and shower...and then maybe we can go out to breakfast," I compromise, rubbing my eyes under my glasses. It's blasphemous how much control this child has over me.
He nods his head excitedly. "Yay! We gon' go out for food!" he cheers. "You and me Robbie?" he asks, just to check and I tiredly reply yes. "Yay! This is so great!" he yells, holding out the so. I cover my ears and stumble to the bathroom to get ready. Why was I such a good person? Still, his excitement to spend the morning with me brightens my day and lightens my mood. By the end of today he was going to be so happy.
We end up going out to a pancake house before driving up to the nearby city. There's tons of shopping places and Steven drags me into nearly every store that has the word 'toy' or 'play' in it. We walk around for hours, looking into every window and playing the 'don't step on the crack or you'll break your mother's back' game and he wins and I only grunt in reply. Later I call my mother out of the blue just to make sure she's okay and she is, so we continue on our little adventure until it's getting dark out. Steven suggests ice cream, ironically, breaking Jade's rules and even though I spent more money on him than I should have already, I agree, although not without a raised, questioning eyebrow at his sudden change of values.
"Yay! Ice cweam is the best!" he comments before dashing into the store at the fastest speed he can reach. I toddle after him, taking a deep breath and trying to stop myself from growing ever more tired before I enter the shop. Steven immediately latches on to me the second I enter. "Chocolate chip mint please?" he curiously asks.
"All right. Cone or cup?"
"Cone!" he exclaims and I lift an eyebrow up at him in amusement.
"But you and I both know you'll end up spilling it. I suggest you get the cup," I advise him but he gives me a pouty look and a 'do I have ta?' and I can't force him to, so I agree to let him get the cone. Sure enough, within seven or so minutes of having it, the ice cream drops on the floor. He stares at it in horror and I only raise my eyebrow again. I've been doing a lot of that lately. Steven tells me I look like Jade when I do that. Silly kid.
"I told you that you were going to spill it."
"My ice cweam..."
"You're going to have to clean that up you know," I inform him, taking another bite of my vanilla ice cream that was conveniently in a cup.
"I know..." he replies sadly and then picks up the cone and some of the ice cream and tosses it in the nearby trash. Then he runs over to the utensils area and grabs a crap ton of napkins and wipes up the mess. It's not perfect, but it's good enough so when he goes to fetch more napkins, I shake my head.
"That's good. Thank you Steven," I thank him.
"Welcome," he says and slides next to me in the booth I was sitting in. He depravedly stares at the ground until I eventually give in and push my ice cream towards him.
"Here, have it," I sigh and he looks up at me, his face lighting up like I just told him he won the lottery.
"Really?" he asks.
"Yeah. Really," I reply and that's all it takes for him to dig in and devour my ice cream. I watch jealously, sad that I couldn't have the rest of my ice cream. He doesn't seem to notice though and just shoves it all down his throat like a barbarian.
"Hey Steven?"
"Yeppers?" Steven looks at me, vanilla face all over his face.
"Why the sudden change of heart? I thought Jade didn't want you to eat ice cream."
"Oh..." His face falls and he hesitates before answering. "I forgot," he lies.
Once he's done we take off for home and when we reach the apartment I have to lug all the bags of stuff I've bought into the house while he carries nothing. We go into the house and he gets ready for bed while I grab a gluten free beer from the fridge. I'm about to sit down when I realize if he comes out and sees me with this, he might think I'm becoming like his mom or something weird might happen. I decide not to risk it and put the beer back in.
If only.
I gaze at it dreamily until I can muster up the strength to turn away and grab a juice box instead.
"Hey Robbie?" a voice calls and I snap my head to look at Steven, dressed in his pajamas, holding a new stuffed animal that I had bought for him today. It was a friendly looking wolf and the minute he saw it, he fell in love with it. I couldn't say no to him, even when he tried to assure me that he didn't need it.
"What's up?" I ask, ripping the straw off of my juice box and stabbing it into the highlighted area.
He debates whether to say something before he runs forward and grabs me into a tight hug. At least, grabs my legs and his wolf drops to the floor. I bend down on my knees, pulling away from him for a second, then set my juice on the floor and return his hug. We don't say anything, just stay like that until finally I give him a pat on the head and he smiles up at me before taking off to the bedroom. What a kid.
.
A week or so goes by since our little escapade and I decide to take him out again, this time to the park. We have fun, throwing the frisbee, him playing on the playground, and petting dogs that happened to stroll by with their owners. It's another action packed day and he comes home extremely tired and sucking his thumb (which I reprimand him and warn him that doing that could mess his mouth up). In fact, he's so tired I have to carry him to bed and put him under the covers, not bothering to change his clothes.
I tuck him in and then he looks up at me, eyes blinking sleepily, a dopey smile on his face. "Tell me story Robbie?" And I do. A wonderful tale, if I do say so myself, that I made up myself about a handsome, charming father, and an amazing, talented boy. And as my story ends and I go to get up, he takes his little hand out from under the covers, ruining my tucking job, and grabs my wrist.
"Night Dadd...I mean...Robbie." He blushes a red crimson color before hurriedly withdrawing his hand and turning over so that he's facing away from me. I stare at him for a while, a stupid grin plastered on my face.
"Night...son," I try, even though it feels weird to be calling Jade's son my offspring. Still...if it makes him happy, then so be it.
.
I was wrong. Incredibly wrong. A month flies by and then one Tuesday, I hear a knock on my door. Now I haven't ordered take out and no one was supposed to come by, so this is extremely unusual.
"Who at the door?" Steven asks me inquisitively from his spot across from on the floor (we were playing a round of cards). "Should I get it?" He scrambles to his feet and normally I would let him open the door, but this was an unexpected visit and I had no clue who was going to be behind the mysterious door. It could have been a robber, or a crazy dude with a gun, or even a salesclerk.
"I got it," I smile at him and he nods before plopping back down on the floor. I get to my feet and as I'm waltzing towards the door, the person begins to knock continually. "All right already I'm coming!" I exclaim and jog over to the door before throwing it open. And look who it is. It's none other than Jade West here for a visit.
My mouth drops open in shock.
*IMPORTANT*
Author's Note: Yes, there is such a thing as gluten free beer :) And yeah, I jump time so much, but I'd rather not have this turn into a 50 chapter expedition! Plus it's already written and because it is, I'm just going to upload a new chapter every day until it's over. Then I might do one of two things. Either a) upload a pre written multi chapter story that I have that's, I don't know, maybe 20,000 words? (It's a Cade one that's kind of sloppy) or b) just leave this fandom. Because how many people are still here? I'm guessing definitely not as much as their used to be when it was still on air. Maybe I'll go to Glee or something since the fanfics there are probably better than the show now...
Also, on the last chapter in my Author's Note I asked if anyone saw this video, but FanFiction deleted what I said. Dan put up a new video on the slap and I just thought it was really cool :)
Any who, hope you enjoyed and if you did, drop a review, and if you didn't, then tell me what you would have liked to see!