"There is a kind of crying I hope you have not experienced, and it is not just crying about something terrible that has happened, but a crying for all of the terrible things that have happened, not just to you but to everyone you know and to everyone you don't know and even the people you don't want to know, a crying that cannot be diluted by a brave deed or a kind word, but only by someone holding you as your shoulders shake and your tears run down your face." — Lemony Snicket, The End


Chapter 15: Break Even

I'm still alive, but I'm barely breathing
Just praying to a God that I don't believe in.


"This can't be good," James moans quietly in the lobby of the Palm Woods.

"What's wrong?" Camille asks, coming up behind him.

"That," he points to the front door where a pretty but intimidating-looking woman stands steadfastly ignoring the man next to her, though she throws him and the young woman beside him scathing looks every so often. "Please hide me." He tries to duck behind her but fails miserably, being nearly a foot taller and probably sixty pounds heavier.

"Your parents?"

"Both of them," James confirms. "And just to add to the fun, my dad brought Evelyn! Joy."

"What's the big deal?" Kendall asks, joining the conversation.

"They're here to take me home…"

"Why's that bad? You're done with therapy now."

"Sorry, I should be clearer," James rolls his eyes. "They're both here to take me home. The last time they were in the same room together… well let's just say it took my eardrums a while to recover. I'm surprised they're not shouting at each other already."

"Rough."

"Yeah. Can't wait to see how this goes."

"Good luck!" Kendall calls after him.

James reluctantly approaches the front desk, where the blond woman who works there is looking nervously back and forth between Mr. and Mrs. Diamond, unsure of what to do.

"I just need some paperwork signed," she begins.

Mr. Diamond reaches for the clipboard in her outstretched hand, but James' mother snatches it from the woman before he can take it. She scribbles her signature over the pages as they wait for James' therapist to join them. When he finally does and beckons them to his office, Mrs. Diamond puts her hand on James' shoulder and guides him down the hallway, turning her back on Mr. Diamond and his wife.

"Well, James, you must be pretty excited that this day has finally come," Dr. Powers says.

"Uh… sure, I guess," James mutters, glancing nervously at his parents. He wonders how long it'll take before they start screaming at each other.

"I'll keep this short, since I'm sure you're anxious to get out of here and celebrate with your family, but I just wanted to congratulate you on successfully completing your in-patient program. Because of the strides you've made, we no longer feel it's necessary for you to spend your entire weekends here. We encourage you to try to get back to normal and put into practical use the things you've learned during your stay here."

"Right. Thanks. Yeah."

"Of course, we'll still want to you come in an hour a week just to check in, see how things are going for you, but I imagine it'll be much less intrusive on your social life," he smiles knowingly. "Do you or your parents have any questions?"

"No, I don't—"

"Is there anything else we need to be doing at home?" Brooke Diamond asks, speaking over James.

"Oh, no," Dr. Powers replies. "James has learned and started to master most of the anger management techniques we've given him. As long as he remembers to employ them in high-stress situations, he should be fine. We've found that he's become much less aggressive than he was at the beginning of his treatment, and much more open to discussing his thoughts in rational manners."

"Excellent," James' father says. "It's about time he got his act together."

James' mother scoffs. "Because he has such a wonderful role model when it comes to dealing with aggression."

"You're one to talk, Brooke," he retorts nastily.

"Excuse me?" Mrs. Diamond questions, voice rising an octave.

"Oh, don't act so innocent. As if your aggression wasn't one of the reasons our marriage ended in the first place."

"Funny, I seem to remember it having something to do with a certain young secretary who worked in your office," Brooke says, throwing a glare at Evelyn, who looks stricken.

James is breathing. He's breathing and counting to ten and tuning out his parents' voices as they snipe at each other. He's calm. He's agitated, but he's in control. He won't snap. He won't snap. He won't snap.

"Give it a rest, will you?" He says out loud. His tone isn't angry or frustrated. Just tired. Because he's tired. Tired of his parents freaking out every time they have to be near each other, tired of feeling so irritated every time he has to spend time with them, tired of them airing their baggage to the whole world instead of making an effort to keep their issues private.

His parents both snap their mouths shut and turn toward him again. "James?"

"Can we just go now?"

"Of—of course."

Brooke stands and thanks Dr. Powers, as do Mr. Diamond and Evelyn, and James leads them back out of the room and towards the lobby, where Carlos is the only one still waiting for a parent to sign him out. James waves hopelessly at him, catching the sympathetic look from his roommate in return.

"Well," says Evelyn brightly as they step outside. "I think it would be nice if we all celebrated James completing his therapy!"

"You must be joking," James mumbles under his breath.

"It'll be so fun! A family dinner. Don't you think, David?"

"Well, if Brooke—"

"I'll pass," Mrs. Diamond says briskly.

"I'd actually like to pass on that too," James says. "I'm kind of tired. And I have some work to do before school tomorrow."

"Oh. Okay…" Evelyn's smile falters.

They've reached the parking lot and James stops short, looking back and forth between his mother and father. They seem to have realized the same thing as him.

"It's up to you, son," David tells him.

Fuck, James thinks to himself. They're really going to put him in the awkward situation of choosing which parent he goes home with? On the one hand, he gets pretty much left alone when at his dad's, which he enjoys. On the other hand, his mom's house doesn't have Evelyn.

Privacy wins, and James goes to hug his mother, telling her that he'll see her tomorrow before climbing into the backseat of his dad's SUV.

At home, Evelyn starts to say something but James cuts her off and heads up to his room, not seeing the hurt look on her face as he passes. After he puts away the bag containing his clothes from the weekend and a few pamphlets with reminders on how to deal with anger, he sneaks back down the stairs to steal some food from the kitchen so he can shut himself in his room for the rest of the night. He stops when he hears voices coming from the other room.

"—don't know what I'm doing wrong," Evelyn sighs. "He still hates me, even after all this time."

"He doesn't hate you," comes Mr. Diamond's voice. "He's just getting used to you. He'll come around."

"I don't know," she replies doubtfully. "Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a step-mother. Or a real mother. What if the baby hates me as much as James does?"

"Don't say that. James' behavior has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with mine and Brooke's divorce and the toll it took on him. Everything's going to be fine with the baby."

"Have you thought about when you're going to tell him?"

"Well, tonight would have been the ideal timing, but I don't know. I guess I just didn't want to drop it on him tonight."

"It has to be soon, you know," Evelyn says. "We're going to have to start getting things ready. A nursery and everything."

James ducks back out of the hallway and sprints up the stairs silently to his room, trying not to hyperventilate. Evelyn's pregnant? He wonders. Evelyn's pregnant, he confirms. Oh, God. His dad's too old to have another kid! What are they thinking? Gross.

A nagging voice in the back of his head tells him that maybe he should try to start being nicer to his step mother. It won't kill you to have a conversation with her, it says. But, still. He's not quite gotten over the fact that he blames her for splitting up his parents' marriage. Sure, they were having problems way before she was in the picture, but he refuses to let go of the idea that they could have worked things out if his dad hadn't met her.

Doesn't change the fact that she's your stepmom now. And you're going to have a baby brother or sister now. Time to grow up, James.

Time to grow up.


"Lunch today?" Logan asks. "Er, just us, I mean."

Camille stands on her tip-toes to give him a quick peck. "I want to," she says apologetically. "But I kind of need to talk to Stephanie."

"Okay. Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, totally fine," she assures him. "It's about Carlos and Lucy."

"Gotcha. Okay, well I'll see you in English then." He leans down and kisses her again before heading off to his class.

When lunchtime rolls around, Camille scans the cafeteria for her friend, who's sitting at a table with some of her friends from the soccer team.

"We need to talk," she says in a low voice.

"Okay," Stephanie says, looking concerned. She grabs her lunch and follows Camille to an empty table. "What's up?"

"It's about Carlos," Camille starts. "About what happened at the party."

Stephanie grins but looks slightly embarrassed. "Oh my God. I don't know what I was thinking. I was drinking and I wanted to dance and things got a little bit out of hand...Did he say something about me? Did he ask you to talk to me?"

Camille bites her lip and looks away from the girl sitting across from her, not wanting to kill the sort of hopeful look on her face. She always did have a thing for bad boys. "Um, no, not exactly."

"Oh. Okay. Then… what?"

"It's, um… It's not… I don't think it's a good idea for you to get involved with Carlos."

"What? Why not?" Stephanie asks. "He's your friend, right?"

"Right. Look, I don't mean to be… It's just… I know him, okay? He's not… normal."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that he's not like other guys. He'll never be the guy you can take home to your parents, or make plans with, or go on cute dates with. It's not who he is."

"Wow," Stephanie laughs humorlessly. "You guys must be so close for you to go talking shit about him like this. But then again, how close can you really be to your drug dealer? What is your problem?"

"I don't have a problem! And I'm not talking shit. I'm trying to protect you, Steph. I don't want to see you get hurt, especially by him."

"Who said anything about getting hurt? We just hooked up once, it's not like we're getting engaged. It was just some party fun, Camille. Lighten up."

"You don't understand," Camille shakes her head. "It's not just about Carlos. There's this whole thing with Lucy, and kind of with James…"

"Oh my God, would you just spit out whatever it is you're trying to tell me?"

"Lucy's his girlfriend!" She snaps.

"His what?" Stephanie blinks, looking confused.

"Carlos has a girlfriend," Camille repeats.

"Oh… that's awkward."

"What?"

"It is," her friend shrugs.

"'That's awkward.' That's all you have to say?"

"Well… yeah. Pretty much. Look, I didn't know he was seeing someone, and he certainly didn't make it a point to tell me. I'm not gonna feel guilty about something that wasn't my fault."

"Stephanie."

"God, Camille. Look, I'm sorry I butted in to all your friends' lives by inviting them to a party. I didn't realize it was going to bring worlds crashing down."

"Steph, you have no idea what it's like for us. You don't know them and what they've been through. You don't know—" She cuts herself off before she can finish the sentence, but she doesn't need to. Stephanie can read her mind as easily as ever.

"I don't know what? Go ahead and say it." Camille looks away. "You were going to say 'you don't know me,' weren't you?" When Camille remains silent, Stephanie lets out an exasperated huff. "Whose fault is it that I don't know you anymore? And whose fault is it that I don't know your friends? You're the one that pushed me out of your life when you went into therapy. You're the one that replaced me with a bunch of strangers. And you're the one who makes damn sure to keep us as separate as possible, trying to preserve your little fantasy bubble and isolate yourselves from the real world."

"That's not—"

"Yes it is," Stephanie interrupts her. "It is what you do. Kendall doesn't talk to anyone on the hockey team anymore, and James isn't friends with anyone that he used to hang out with. Neither is Jo. You don't go to drama club anymore. And I bet if I ask you, you'll tell me that Logan doesn't hang out with any of his old genius honor-roll friends anymore. You guys all depend on each other—cling to each other like no one else can be there for you. And I get that you guys bonded or whatever, but it's not fair for you all to act like everyone else is just clueless, and like no one will ever understand you. I'm sorry if me hooking up with Carlos put a tear in the fragile web that holds you guys all together but I think it's time you started entering the real world again."

"It's not that simple!" Camille tells her. "And I don't mean to exclude you from my friends, but you have to understand that some point, all of us hit a rock bottom. And we were the only ones there for all of it. My only point here was to let you know that getting involved with Carlos might have bigger consequences than you think. It's not just a matter of him having some random girlfriend, okay? Lucy is my friend, but she needs some serious help. Help that I honestly don't think she's getting at the Palm Woods, but she's finding it somewhere with Carlos, and I would hate to see you get into something with him that is only going to cause a lot of people a lot of pain."

"Camille, just be honest with me," Stephanie says. "It's not my feelings you're concerned about. "It's Lucy. I don't know what her deal is, and frankly, I'm not sure I care to know, but be real. You're not worried about how it'll affect me if I get with him. You're worried about how it will affect her. And that's fine, I get that she has issues, but stop acting so concerned for me."

"I'm not acting, Steph! This is so much more complicated than you realize!"

"Would you just stop and listen to yourself? This isn't a soap opera! This is real life, Camille. Things are only complicated because we make them that way."


"Come on," Carlos pouts, grazing his fingertips over Lucy's hipbone and pressing a kiss to her neck.

Her first instinct is to lie still, to not protest, because that's what she's been trained to do: don't fight it, and it'll be over soon. But another voice enters her mind, one that sounds suspiciously like James telling her nothing's wrong with saying no. Her eyes fly open, though she hadn't realized they were clenched tightly shut, and she covers Carlos' hand with her own, putting a stop to his attempts to push her shirt up.

"I don't want to," she says clearly. She bites her lip to keep it from trembling, half afraid that he'll ignore her, or hit her the way Jack does on those rare occasions when she tries to resist his advances.

Carlos simply lets out a small noise of frustration but otherwise doesn't badger her anymore about it, instead rolling off of her and onto his side, where he props himself up on his elbow and looks down at her troubled face.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she lies, looking away from him. "I should probably get going. My stepdad will want me home soon and I want to visit my grandmother before I go home anyway."

"Alright, alright. Well do you want me to come with you? We could hang out at your house for a change."

"No!" Lucy says a little too loudly and a little too quickly. "You can't."

"Why not?" Carlos is puzzled.

"Just… you can't. Jack doesn't—he's tired after work and he doesn't like visitors," she invents. "I'm sorry. I'll see you tomorrow." She slides off his bed, smoothing out her shirt and her hair and starts moving towards the door.

"Alright… Are you sure there's nothing else wrong? You've been weird all weekend. Don't think I haven't noticed."

Lucy pauses with her hand on the doorknob, turning to look back at Carlos, who is now sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed. "Did you sleep with Stephanie?"

"What?" Carlos frowns.

"From the party. I just want to know if you slept with her."

"Would it bother you if I did?" He asks.

"Yes," she replies honestly. "I know we haven't… talked about… us; I just think I deserve to know."

"Okay… Well, I didn't. Happy?"

"I guess," Lucy shrugs. "Well… no, not really. You still kissed her."

"Technically, she kissed me," Carlos grins, attempting to lighten the mood.

"You didn't do anything to stop her." Lucy is still deadly serious and Carlos' smile fades.

"It didn't mean anything, Luce. Is that why you've been distant all weekend? Because of her? Are you jealous?"

"No," she says automatically. When he raises his eyebrow at her, she rescinds. "Maybe. I don't know."

"Look, Luce, I'm sorry about that. But we never really… talked about what we are to each other. We've never been exclusive before."

The elephant in the room blares loudly at them and Lucy wonders how long they can really sustain this conversation without mentioning James. Because really, what this all comes down to, at least in her mind, is the triangle they've unintentionally created, which they all know exists but no one dares talk about for fear of disrupting the fragile peace they've all finally achieved. She's jealous of Stephanie, yes, but not exactly for the reasons Carlos thinks. No matter who Lucy chose, it would have been a sacrifice. It killed her to do that to James, just as it would have killed her to see the look on Carlos' face if she had gone home with his best friend that day at the hockey rink. And he didn't get that. He didn't understand that giving up James for him meant giving up a part of herself, and because he didn't get that, he went and hooked up with Stephanie at a party as if nothing was different. As if Lucy was still just his go-to fuck buddy that he called up when his other prospects fell through.

"Is that what you want?" Carlos questions when Lucy says nothing.

"I think it's only fair," she mutters. "I'm not hooking up with J—with anyone else anymore."

"With James, you mean… You slept with him, didn't you?"

"It was one night," Lucy admits. "Right after Lauren died. I was freaked out and I knew it was my fault, and my stepdad… James' mom was out of town, so we got fucked up. That was the only time."

Carlos rests his head in his hands, refusing to look at her anymore. "Sometimes even I can't believe how amazingly screwed up we all are. God. You really had sex with him? After you'd been sleeping with me? And my other best friend? Jesus."

"Oh, so you're allowed to go off and fuck anything that looks at you, but I'm not?"

"I didn't sleep with Stephanie!"

"I'm not talking about Stephanie! What about all those girls at your little parties in the woods? You think I don't know about them? You think they don't take it upon themselves to make sure I hear about it every single time you find a new girl to take behind the tree?"

"What are you talking about?" Carlos' angry tone has dissipated into genuine confusion. "Why would they tell you that?"

"Because they know it hurts me!" Lucy yells. "Because they don't like me for hooking up with guys they like, guys they know I don't care about. Because they know they one way to get to me is you! Just because we've never talked about being 'boyfriend and girlfriend' doesn't mean I don't care about you being with other girls! Just like I know you cared when I hooked up with Wayne. And you care about me being with James."

"I cared about you being with Wayne because he was my best friend. And yeah, I care about James because even though you're here with me, I know there's some part of you that wants to be with him."

"That's not true," she denies, though her heart skips a beat. "I'm with you. I chose you."

"Okay... Let's really do this, then. You and me. No one else. The whole nine yards. Dates, meeting the parents, everything."

"We both know that that's not you, Carlos. It's not us."

"But you'd do it with James."

"Leave James out of this."

"I can't! Don't you get it, Luce? There's no way to leave him out of this. No matter what we do, James is in this."

Lucy wants to argue with him, to tell him that he's wrong. To tell him that James has no effect on the relationship between the two of them. But she doesn't have it in her. She loves Carlos… but she and James have a connection, too. One that won't be shaken easily.

"I really like you, you know," Carlos says softly. "And I know you like me. But I also know you care about him. And you're with me now… so I can be whatever you want—whatever you need me to be. If you want slacker Carlos with the drug dealing hobby, I can be that. It can be like it's always been with us—parked cars and parties and being wasted all the time. But you need to know that that's not all I am. It's not all we can be."

Something in his eyes gets her. She believes him. She thinks… maybe… the wall she's been working so hard to build and maintain… maybe she can let it down a little bit. Not completely—never completely—but she can give him some of what she'd given James, maybe start to let him in.

"I know it's not," she murmurs. "That's what scares me."

"I'm not gonna hurt you, Lucy."

A brief vision flashes through her head of Jack nearly seven years ago, saying those exact words. Those words that he repeated nearly every time he came to visit her, every time he touched her or led her to the bed. Be a good girl. I'm not going to hurt you.

"Those are just words," she says without thinking. "They don't mean anything."

"They mean something to me," he replies earnestly. "Just give me a chance to prove it."

She hesitates momentarily, unsure of what she's more scared of: that he'll hurt her, or that she'll hurt him. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah," Lucy nods.

Carlos cracks another grin, and she can see the relief on his face. "Should we like, shake on it or something?"

Lucy allows him a small smile and crosses the room quickly to cup his face in her hands and give him a sweet kiss on the lips.

"That works too."


"She's resting now, but you can go in. The medication makes her drowsy, so she probably won't wake up."

"Okay. Thank you."

Lucy tugs on her jacket sleeves, ensuring that her arms are completely covered before stepping quietly into her grandmother's room. The elderly woman lies sleeping on her hospital-style bed, a heart monitor beeping steadily as her chest rises and falls evenly. She wants badly to reach out and touch her hand, torn between letting her grandmother know she's there and letting her sleep undisturbed.

She's getting worse, Lucy thinks. She wishes they could bring her home to live with them, but Jack had already put his foot down. The nursing home can give her better care than we can, he said. Never mind the fact that Lucy's mother is a nurse. So Lucy's forced to visit her every so often, avoiding her penetrating gaze and laughing off the concerned questions. It's too much to burden the old lady with, to try to tell her about her emotional issues. And anyway, the root of it all, Lucy knows, is Jack. And that's a secret that she'll take her grave. She's sure of it.

"Please get better," Lucy begs. "I need you."

The frail woman doesn't stir, but continues sleeping, blissfully unaware of her granddaughter's turmoil.

"I'll stop doing it," she murmurs, pushing her sleeve up to reveal the pattern of scars, old and new, on her forearm. "I'll stop it completely. The drugs too. Anything. Just please, please, get better, okay?"

She's not sure who she's bargaining with. God, she guesses. But she hasn't really believed in God for a long time. She just couldn't reconcile the belief that God cared for his people with the fact that such terrible things happened in the world. So what is the point of making a deal with someone you're not even sure is there? In the end, she decides it doesn't matter if he exists or not. People are religious because they need to believe that life means something, that there's some ultimate purpose to our time here. It doesn't matter if he exists, Lucy thinks. It just matters that you have hope in something. If you exist… please just help her.

Lucy hastily swipes at the tears that have sprung to her eyes, not allowing them to fall. No. She'll be strong today. She grasps her grandmother's hand for a brief moment before standing up and letting herself out of the small room, taking several deep breaths as she makes her away through the lobby and back outside, praying for a miracle.


James is driving out of the senior parking lot, heading for his dad's house, when he sees Lucy on the sidewalk going home alone, hood up to protect her from the light rain that's been falling all day. He pulls up slowly beside her and rolls the window down.

"Hey. It's going to pour any second now. Do you want a ride?"

Lucy pauses and bites her lip. "I'll be fine. It's not that far."

"C'mon, Luce," James says exasperatedly. "It's not a big deal."

As soon as the words leave his mouth, a bolt of lightning flashes across the sky and a loud clap of thunder directly follows it. Lucy jumps, an involuntary shiver of fear running down her spine and she climbs up into his SUV, setting her bag down on the floor and slamming the door quickly behind her. By the time they hit the stop sign at the end of the street, the sky has darkened considerably and the rain has started falling faster, large drops splashing on the windshield.

Lucy pushes her hood off of her head and runs her fingers through her long, tangled, and damp hair. "Thanks," she says quietly. She's not sure James heard, though, as another loud clap of thunder sounds above them.

They ride in silence towards Lucy's house, and she avoids looking at him, almost afraid of what a conversation between them might bring. Instead she clasps her hands firmly in her lap and looks out her window, watching the raindrops race each other across the glass. Traffic moves slowly and the light is out at one of the main intersections, and they also pass what looks like a fender-bender before they've even made it halfway.

The car beside them suddenly skids, hydroplaning over a large puddle in the road, and swerves into James' lane. Lucy lets out a loud gasp, one hand flying to her mouth to cover it as her eyes widen. James slams on his brakes and jerks his steering wheel to avoid being hit, causing a car behind him to blast their horn at the sudden motion. It's a few split seconds that feel like an eternity, but James quickly regains control of the vehicle, exhaling loudly as he glances at Lucy.

"Are you okay?"

Lucy nods, her heart caught in her throat, beating wildly from the moment of panic. "Yeah."

The downpour continues as James pulls up to Lucy's driveway, which is devoid of cars. Empty house.

"See you later," James says, preparing to reverse.

She stops with her hand on the door handle. "You should come inside." She can tell that the statement catches him off guard.

"No, it's—"

"You can't drive out there right now," Lucy insists. "It's dangerous."

"I don't know if that's a good idea. It's not that far…" James weakly protests again.

Lucy looks into his eyes for the first time since she got in the car. "Please." She can instantly see him relent.

"Yeah. Okay."

"Ready to make a run for it?"

"Let's do this," James smiles, turning off the ignition and unbuckling his seatbelt.

They both steel themselves for a brief second before jumping out of the car and sprinting up the path to the cover of the front porch. Despite their best efforts, they're pretty much completely drenched by the time Lucy manages to unlock the front door to let them inside, just as another flash of lightning explodes across the sky.

"And you were going to walk home," James scoffs, grinning down at Lucy as she tries to shrug off her wet jacket.

"Yeah, yeah," she rolls her eyes. "James to the rescue once again. My hero."

She crosses the room and flicks on the lights in time to see James pushing his wet hair off his forehead. She has to resist the urge to reach out and smooth it for him.

"How long do you think it'll be until the storm passes?" James wonders.

"Who knows?"

Lucy looks around for the remote so she can turn on the weather report. As soon as she locates it and picks it up, the overhead lights zap off, leaving them in darkness again.

"Nooo," Lucy moans quietly.

"You really don't like storms, huh?" James asks.

"Hate them," she mutters.

"Why? It's just rain."

"I just don't," she snaps a little too forcefully to be natural, causing an awkward silence between them. She turns away from him, closing her eyes, trying to ward off the mental images of Jack in her bedroom, whispering in her ear that 'it's just rain' and there's nothing to be afraid of as his hands creep under her clothes and he tries to assure her that he'll keep her safe.

Another shiver of fear runs down her back, and James, misinterpreting it, says, "You should go change."

"What?"

"You're soaked. You must be freezing. You should put on something dry."

"I—oh. Yeah. What about you?"

"I've got gym clothes in my bag," he shrugs. "That should be fine."

"Okay. There's a bathroom around the corner," Lucy points out. "I'll be right back."

"Cool."

She steps into her room once James is out of sight and takes a few deep breaths to steady her nerves. It's weird having him here, in her house. She can't remember the last time she had a friend over, let alone a boyfriend. Boy friend. She's half terrified that Jack will come home and find her there with James… what he'll do to her when they're alone again if he even thinks she might have told someone what he does to her. She belongs to Jack, and Jack alone. But the rain continues to pound steadily, wind howling and thunder crashing, so she feels fairly confident that Jack will stay wherever he is until the storm passes.

It takes her a few minutes to peel off all her wet clothes and locate some dry ones in the dark, so when she steps back out into the living room, she finds James sitting on the couch, trying to check the weather from his phone.

"It's supposed to blow over by around seven o'clock," he tells her as she sits down gingerly beside him, careful to leave a respectable amount of space between them.

"Is this weird?" He asks after a minute. "Me being here, I mean."

"Um…"

"It is." He smiles ruefully. "Sorry."

"It's not your fault," Lucy says, pulling up her feet to sit cross-legged so she can face him. "I've never really been able to bring friends home for a visit…"

"Bet you'd rather be stuck here with Carlos than me, though." He makes an attempt at a joke but it falls a bit short. The regret isn't quite kept out of his voice, his tone not entirely light enough to be laughed off.

"That's not true," she murmurs, looking up at him. "You're still my friend, James. Aren't you?"

"Am I?" He asks. "Is that even possible?"

"You tell me."

"I don't know if it is," James says honestly. "I want nothing to be different, Lucy… But I can't help but feel that everything is. You and Carlos. You and Me. Me and Carlos. None of it's how it was before… well before—"

"Before I slept with you," Lucy finishes for him, acknowledging what they did for the first time since it happened. "Do you wish we hadn't done it?"

"In some ways... yes," he answers, wanting to be truthful but not wanting to hurt her feelings. "I feel like everything would be so much less complicated. We'd just be friends and you and Carlos would just be… whatever you guys were. But—and I know we were drunk or whatever—I don't feel like being with you that night was a mistake. I'd been trying to ignore my feelings for you for awhile before that ever happened. It felt right. Even if things didn't between us… didn't… turn out the way I wanted."

"I'm sorry…" Lucy closes her eyes. "I shouldn't have… I keep dragging you into my problems, my messes. All I end up doing is making bigger ones."

"I like being dragged into your messes," he says seriously. "Speaking of which… I heard about what happened at that party. With Carlos and Stephanie."

"Of course you did."

"Well…?"

"Well what?"

"Is everything okay?"

"You mean why am I still with him? You're not very subtle, James. It's not one of your strong suits. I know what you really want to ask, so why don't you just say it?"

"Because I don't want things to be weirder between us than they already are! You made your choice, and I get that, Lucy. I know you're with him now, and I don't want you to feel you can't talk to me anymore… But how can you just ignore the fact that he made out with another girl right in front of you? Like, a nanosecond after you chose him."

"It's not—"

"—That easy?" James interrupts. "Of course not. Nothing is. I don't want it to sound like I'm asking why him and not me…"

"But that is what you're asking."

"We… we'd have been good together. Don't you think?" He exhales slowly, unsure whether a yes or a no will be more surprising to hear.

Lucy shakes her head. "No," she answers.

"No?" James' heart drops and he swallows thickly. "You really don't think so? Because I know you, Luce. Probably as well as anyone else on earth, maybe more."

"We wouldn't be good together because I'd only break your heart. And you and I could never be friends again after that." She thinks of Jack as she says it and shudders, knowing that unless and until he is somehow removed from the picture, she can never give herself completely to someone else. And eventually that would drive James away. She couldn't handle that. She won't.

"Well maybe I'd break yours," he smiles slightly, offering her a chance to banter.

"No one breaks my heart," Lucy says matter-of-factly. "And besides, why would I want that?"

"So you picked him because he's the one more likely to be able to stay friends if you ever break up?"

"That's… not what I said."

"You didn't need to. You picked him because he's safer. Because you know you won't ever let him get too close. You don't trust yourself with me."

"I picked him because I love him."

And it's not a lie. But it's not entirely the truth, either.


As Jo sits in class, steadfastly ignoring the mean smirks and glances being tossed her way by friends of Jett and Mercedes, she feels none of the old anxiety or tension that she's been harboring ever since winter break. It's funny how now, near the end of the semester, what happened between her and Jett feels simultaneously like it was ages ago and like it was just yesterday.

But either way, it's over.

Jett's been staying away from her, whether out of guilt or something else, she doesn't know or care. But as she goes over notes on her desk, mentally preparing for the oral presentation she's about to give, she finds that everything that was stressing her out just days ago no longer matters. The whispering behind her back, being stared at everywhere she goes… it's all just stupid. What matters, she realizes now, is that she knows the truth. She knows it, her family knows it, and her friends know it. And, no matter the outcome of the trial… Jett knows it too. And that's enough for her. She's done worrying about it.

So when her name is called and she stands up to move to the front of the room, and she hears a few sniggers from the girls at the back of the room, all she does is inhale calmly and give her presentation exactly as she'd practiced it, her voice not shaking once, and her eyes not betraying an ounce of fear or insecurity.

At lunchtime, she walks right past the table where Jett and his rich-boy douchebag posse sit with their stuck-up cheerleader girlfriends, laughing raucously about who knows what, and doesn't spare them a glance. Instead she sits at what has become her usual table with Kendall and Camille and everyone else, giving Kendall a peck on the lips and linking arms with Camille.

After school, Jo finds herself alone in the girls' room, washing her hands and preparing to leave when the door opens and Mercedes Griffin walks in, stopping short when she catches sight of the girl at the sink.

"Oh. Um, hi," Mercedes says.

"Hi…" Jo answers warily, tossing her paper towel in the trash can and slinging her backpack over her shoulder.

"How—how are you?"

Jo knits her eyebrows together. "Do you actually care?"

"I—well… yeah, I do," Mercedes blushes. "I know everything's been… all fucked between us… I understand if you don't want to talk to me."

"I haven't wanted to talk to anyone until recently," Jo comments. "And even then, it didn't really turn out so great."

"Do you think… If I ask you what really happened that night, would you tell me?"

"You know what happened."

"I know what people are saying. I know what Jett is saying. I want to know what you say."

Jo shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. "I don't know, Mercedes. It's all just kind of… I want to put it behind me. There's no point in dragging it all out again."

"Come on. Please? I can give you a ride home or whatever."

"Okay," she gives in, seeing the look of sincerity on her former best friend's face.

When they get home, Mercedes kicks off her shoes and tosses her bag on the empty armchair, just as she used to do before she and Jo had had their falling out, forgetting momentarily that the girl in front of her was no longer her best friend; was, in fact, almost a stranger. Far from the shy girl from North Carolina, embarrassed when the other girls talked openly about their sex lives, who winced every time someone said the f-word, who was soft spoken to the point of docility. No, there's definitely something different about her now, Mercedes thinks. She's still quiet, but she's stronger somehow.

"So, about that night," Mercedes starts.

And so, Jo talks. She speaks clearly, methodically, almost as if she doesn't even hear what she's saying. But at this point she's told the story so many times to so many people—James, Kendall, her father, her therapist, her lawyers, the judge—she could probably say it in her sleep.

But she starts from the beginning, from hanging out with Mercedes at first, then going to the party and drinking, asking Jett to go upstairs… She swallows and glances at the girl with her jaw clenched shut, not wanting to scare her or be too graphic, since this is the girl's current boyfriend and all. But this is her friend… or, she used to be, anyway, and well, she asked for it.

"And then he… I didn't want to—but he didn't stop even when I said no, and then next thing I know I'm crying and he's getting off me and I'm alone and half naked and fully drunk…and I just… didn't quite understand what had happened, just that it hurt and I needed help…"

She talks about being the one to call the cops on the party to have it busted up, about it taking a couple of days to sink in what had happened, and not being able to tell anyone because she was too ashamed, afraid that people would just call her a slut and say it was her fault for getting drunk to the point that that was she started believing herself. Plus the guilt she felt from lying to her father and also for breaking her purity vow all just built up inside her.

"When you stopped speaking…" Mercedes says quietly. "No one… we were all scared at first. We didn't understand why you'd gone all—"

"Crazy."

"Well…"

"Thinking about it was torture… but talking about it felt like it would be even worse. I thought that if I didn't speak, I wouldn't think…It was stupid logic. Anyway so finally my dad didn't know what else to do, I was just… in this like, catatonic state, so he decided to put me in therapy at the Palm Woods and at first it was pretty stupid, like, I would sit in this room and not speak to my doctor, and then I would sit in another room just to not speak to my group session and it was this endless cycle of people trying to help me and me refusing to be helped."

"So what changed?"

"I don't know exactly," Jo frowns. "But I think…"

"Yeah?"

"You know Logan Mitchell?"

"That kid who slit his wrists and almost died?" Mercedes asks bluntly.

Jo nods, cringing slightly. "Well he got put in my group and it's like… I don't know, once he got there, things started changing for everyone. Maybe I'm just putting too much into it because of the timing. It could just be coincidence, but I don't think it is. He… It was like, up until he got there, we were all just… just there, and we didn't really care about or want to talk about our feelings and be shrinked by a bunch of psychiatrists. We were just there because we had to be. But for some reason… Logan changed that. We became real friends after he got there."

"God… Jo, I'm really sorry… for kicking you off cheerleading and for not ever asking you what was wrong and just… being such a complete and total shit friend. I was so concerned about being captain and then Jett asked me out…"

"It's okay," Jo hears herself say, surprised to find that she actually means it.

"It's not," Mercedes says. "I'd heard about… And I just didn't want to believe you because it was just easier if you were lying… But then, I don't know. The way he's been like, bragging about how they had to let him off because your case had no proof. And like, just the way he was talking about it, it didn't sound like someone who was innocent, you know? It sounded like someone who got away with something, and that scares me."

"I don't… I never meant… to break you guys up or anything, I just—you should know what he's capable of—"

"Don't even," Mercedes interrupts, wiping away a tear from her eye and pulling Jo into a tight hug that the other girl returns just as tightly. "He and I are so over."


Jo jumps nearly a foot in the air when her locker door is suddenly slammed shut. She resists the instinct to cower in fear at the stocky boy in front of her, instead keeping her head up and not letting her eyes show the anxiety she always feels whenever he gets too close.

"What is your problem, Taylor?" Jett asks, an angry look on his face.

"Excuse me?" She replies calmly.

"It's not enough for you to drag this whole fucking thing out," he snarls, leaning in closer to her face. She takes a step backward. "You have to go and tell all your little fucked-up friends, and do this whole court thing and practically ruin my life! And then you go and get my girlfriend to dump me! And for what? What is the goddamn point?"

"The point?" Jo hisses. "You raped me."

"God, fine! I did. Are you happy?" He bangs his fist into the shut locker with a loud clang.

Jo's jaw nearly drops in surprise. "What? You admit it?"

"Well I figure I must have done something to make you hate me, since you keep fucking punishing me for it."

A rage such as Jo has never felt bubbles up inside her, a fury so powerful that it makes her nauseous. "You did this," she says slowly, her voice shaking with suppressed anger. "Don't you dare try to hold me responsible for your pathetic life. You do not get to blame me for whatever shit you've gotten."

She steps back and turns away from him, fully wishing that she'll never have to deal with him again. However, he grabs her arm and yanks her back around to face him. "This conversation is not over," he spits.

"It is," Jo snaps, wrenching her arm from his grasp, surprising him with the amount of force she's able to muster up.

"You listen here," Jett says, stepping into her personal space again. "I don't know what you told her, but you'd better—"

"She told the truth," comes another voice from a few feet away. Jo turns to find Mercedes approaching the scene. She marches right up to the pair and puts herself between Jett and Jo, glaring up at her now ex-boyfriend. "You're done here."

"Mercedes, you can't seriously—"

"You're done here," she repeats scathingly, crossing her arms as if daring him to argue.

Jett turns, muttering "fucking bitches" under his breath.

"Oh and Jett?" He turns. "One more thing." Mercedes knees him in the groin, eliciting a grunt of pain as the boy falls to his knees.

This time Jo's jaw really does drop as she looks from the boy writhing in pain on the ground to the girl beside her calmly surveying her nails as if she has no matters more pressing than her chipped manicure. "You didn't have to do that."

"What the hell is this?"

Jo and Mercedes turn in unison to find Kendall and James coming around the corner, their backpacks slung over their shoulders and bags of hockey gear in tow.

"Just helping Jo here take care of a little trash," Mercedes answers with a smirk. "See you around."

"I'll explain later," Jo smiles, taking Kendall's hand and linking her other arm through James', walking between them down the hallway without a backward glance at Jett.


When Lucy walks up to her house, she can tell right away that something is amiss. Both her mother's and her stepfather's cars are in the driveway, meaning they're both at home this early on a workday. That never happens. They're rarely home at the same time anymore, both working odd and long hours to make ends meet.

She steps inside apprehensively, wondering if she's somehow in trouble. Did the school call again about her skipping class? Or her detentions for smoking on campus? But when she shuts the door behind her, she can hear Jack's low voice coming from the kitchen, accompanied by the sound of her mother sniffling. Lucy's heart lurches.

"Mom?"

"Lucy." Her mother stands and rushes toward her, pulling her into a tight embrace that she can't even find the strength to return. She looks toward Jack for some kind of answer, not daring to hope that he could be of any comfort to her.

"W-what's going on?"

Mrs. Stone only continues to cry and so Jack says, finally, "It's your grandmother."

"What about her?" No, she thinks. It's not what you think, it can't be what you think. It's as if her worst fears are coming true.

"Lucy. She had a stroke," her mother tells her, holding onto her shoulders and then hugging her again.

Lucy's brain refuses to process it. "What? What are we doing here? We have to go to her, we have to see her! Why is she there all alone?" Her limbs are starting to tremble with a mixture of panic and disbelief. "We have to go," she repeats. Why does no one get it? Why aren't they moving?

"There was nothing they could do, Lucy," Jack says gravely, looking into her eyes not with sympathy but with nothing but a cold emptiness. But she would expect nothing less from him.

"Nothing… no…" She's dizzy. It's not true. It can't be true. This is a dream. It's a nightmare she'll wake up from and she'll be able to visit the nursing home and this time she won't just watch her sleep, she'll make sure she's awake so she can tell her she loves her. "No," she says again.

"I'm sorry," Jack sighs, placing a hand back on her mother's shoulder as she dissolves into tears again and sinks back down onto the chair she was previously occupying.

They don't stop her as she turns and flees to her room, don't come to check on her when her door slams shut. She feels sick, lightheaded, seeing spots in the air that aren't really there. No no no no…. "NO!" It becomes a mantra in her head, the only thing she can think or focus on as she wrenches her dresser drawer open and pulls out the small box that she hasn't used in ages, the one she hadn't quite worked up to getting rid of completely. "You were supposed to help her," she cries out loud, speaking to no one or to God or to herself. "She was supposed to get better." Lucy blindly reaches for the smooth piece of metal, furious at everyone and everything and she pulls her sleeve back, not caring that her parents are only a room away, that she doesn't even have any bandages nearby, that she promised James she wouldn't do it anymore.

James.

She hesitates for the slightest of seconds, but no, he's not here, and he's not enough to stop her this time, so with a choked sob the presses the sharp blade to her forearm, making a deep downward cut. It's deeper than she anticipated, stings more than she remembers. Because it's been so long? Or because she's usually high when she does it? Either way, her mind starts coming back into focus as she watches the blood drip, staining her sheets. Physical pain she can deal with. Physical pain she can control. But this? This is too much. She makes another long cut and regrets it instantly, this one hurting more than the first.

Dropping the blade back into the box she stumbles her way to the bathroom, wetting a towel and pressing it to her arm to try and stem the flow of blood. It works, kind of, so she rolls her sleeve back down over it and looks in the mirror at her tangled hair, her runny mascara and eyeliner, her red nose. Despite the stinging in her arm, she already wants to do it again, unable to fathom that any pain she inflicts on herself will ever match what she's feeling inside.

With shaky hands, she controls her urge and closes the box, zipping it inside her backpack and throwing it over her uninjured arm. She opens the door to her room and leaves the house, her parents still sitting in the kitchen, unaware of her actions or the fact that she's leaving again. Lucy grabs the bicycle sitting just inside the garage, knocking the helmet over and leaving it on the ground as she slings her leg over the bar.

As much as she wants to pretend that she doesn't know where she's going, that she's just blindly riding around to get away from her house, she knows it isn't true. She knows exactly what she's doing. Who she needs to see.

His car is parked in the driveway when she gets there, along with another one that must belong to his mother, and she thinks briefly about abandoning this idea and going to see Carlos, like she probably should have—he's her boyfriend, after all—but then she just thinks, fuck it, who cares if his mother's home, who cares about anything anymore? She's gone and she's never coming back and Lucy never got to say goodbye, never got to show her that she was trying to get better, never got to tell her she loved her, and so really, what does it matter in the grand scheme of things if Mrs. Diamond is home when she needs to see James?

She lets the bike fall the ground, leaving it in the front yard as she goes up to the porch, ringing the doorbell and not even attempting to make herself look more presentable, instead letting the tears fall as they come, not realizing that her cut up arm is still bleeding, crimson patches spreading out over the sleeve of her light blue shirt.

"I got it, Mom!"

Lucy hears James shout a second before the door opens.

"Lucy? What the-?" He's surprised to see her but then her appearance registers, first her tear-stained face and then her arm hanging limply by her side.

She can't even say anything as he pulls her inside the house, practically dragging her to the kitchen so he can grab the first-aid kit his mother keeps handy, thanking God that she's busy with a conference call. James inhales sharply when he pulls up her sleeve, the two long slices she made in her skin appearing read and angry, and he's surprised she hasn't passed out yet, what with how much blood she must have lost by now. He's no doctor—hell, he's no Logan—but he doesn't think her arm needs stitches, so he cleans it up and sprays some antibiotic on it so it won't get infected, murmuring that it's going to sting, wondering whether he should be impressed or worried that she doesn't even flinch.

With bandages wrapped firmly around her arms, Lucy finally looks like she's starting to snap out of her stupor, glancing between her arm and James' concerned face.

"Lucy—"

"She's gone." Her voice cracks as finally speaks the truth she's been trying to suppress ever since she walked into her house. "She's gone."

"Who are you-?"

"My grandmother. She had a stroke."

"Oh my God," James says. He doesn't know much about Lucy's family. Nothing at all, really, except that she hates her stepdad and that her grandmother pays for her therapy. "I'm sorry."

Lucy doesn't think she's ever cried this much in her whole life, but she can't seem to stop now that she's started, and she wonders if it's somehow possible to just run out of tears. James pulls her to his side, cradling her gently, letting her soak his shirt as he wraps his arms around her, heart breaking for her as she trembles with the force of her sobs.

"I should have been there," she says, her voice muffled as she speaks into his chest. "I should have been there with her! She was all alone!"

"Shh, it's okay," he tries to tell her soothingly. "There was nothing you could have done."

"I could have been with her! This wasn't supposed to happen! She was supposed to get better." Lucy wipes her face with her clean sleeve. "Why didn't she get better?"

"I don't know," James breathes.

"I need her," she cries. "I didn't even get to say goodbye."

The pressure inside her chest starts to build up, the feeling that she needs to release some of the chaos inside her and she pulls away from James and reaches for her bag, pulling out the small box and handing it to James. "Take this."

Frowning with curiosity, he opens it and peers inside. "Are these-?"

"I never got rid of them," Lucy says with a sniff. "In case of an emergency," she adds sardonically.

"Lucy, you can't—"

"I know I can't! That's why you need to take them. Because I don't know what I'll do if I keep them!"

"Okay. Okay."

She's a wreck, and she knows it. But all she can do is give in to her emotions as she thinks about her grandmother (the one person she ever felt truly, truly connected to), which leads her to thinking about how she was the reason Lucy agreed to go into therapy, which leads her to succumbing to the images of Jack flashing through her brain—Jack creeping into her bedroom when her mother was working the late shift, Jack pinning her down to her own bed, ignoring her protests, hitting her, forcing himself inside her, threatening to kill her if she ever told.

And so she cries, not just for her grandmother, but for herself, for the red-headed girl from therapy, for everything that's ever gone wrong in her life, as if years of trying to numb her pain with drugs and razorblades have come back suddenly to bite her with a vengeance, forcing her once and for all to face her emotions rather than attempt not to feel them. She cries and cries and she's grateful for James just letting her be there, for him not saying any cliché things like 'everything happens for a reason,' because that's all just bullshit anyway. Sometimes bad things just happen, and there is no reason, and there's no greater purpose or lesson to be gained.

And when James kisses her forehead and looks down at her and she hears him say, "I love you," she cries for that, too, because he's perfect and she loves him back but it can never be the way he wants it, and it's a shame, really, that she'll never, ever be able to give him what he wants.


Whew. Sorry that took so long to get up. Three weeks I think? I hope the length made up for it, though. Love you guys. Don't forget to review and/or hit me up on my tumblr at xo-wintershine!