Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
PUSHING BACK

Jackie parked her car in front of the Fotohut's drive-through window. She could've gone to a different place to get her film developed, but this one was the closest. Her date with Mark had left her exhausted, for several reasons, and she wanted to get this part over with.

No one met her at the window. The sun had set. The dirty old hippie was probably sleeping, and she honked her car horn. Nothing. Two more honks, though, brought Leo's dazed, smiling face to the window.

"Hyde's not here, man," he said after pushing the sliding glass aside. "Come by tomorrow."

She knew perfectly well that Steven didn't work the Friday-night shift. Otherwise, she would've driven farther, to the Fotohut in Kenosha.

"I'm not here for him." She reached through her open car window and passed Leo her roll of film. "How much to develop this?"

He told her, and she gave him the money. "It's too bad he's not here," he said, pulling out a form to fill in her information. "He's all mopey, man. Been a real drag, but seeing you would cheer him right up."

"I doubt that—and don't put down my name."

His pen paused on the customer information form. "I don't even know your name."

She scoffed. Of course he didn't. "Put down Jolie Fille."

"Okay." He began to write but stopped after the J. "How do you spell that?"

"Never mind. Just put John Brown."

He did as she said, and she pressed on the gas. Her car tore down the street, away from the Fotohut, but her heart seemed to fly out the window. Her pulse was beating so fast she couldn't feel it. Mark had exceeded her expectations in their pictures today, probably not just for her. The intimacy they'd acted out would definitely help his reputation at Ft. Anderson. It would also convince the cheer squad that she and Mark were a couple.

Mr. Davis, Mark's chess buddy, was kind enough to snap the photos. Some of the staged shots had him clearing his throat uncomfortably. If Steven got his hands on those pictures … but he wouldn't. They were listed under an alias, and she'd be sure to pick them up when he wasn't at work.

A new stack of photo packets arrived from the Fotohut's photo-processing lab. Hyde had hoped for a lazy Saturday afternoon. Some TV-watching on the thirteen-incher, a nap against the drive-through counter, but he had over two-dozen packets to get through.

He sat at the Fotohut's sorting counter, where he'd left his shades. The name Cindy Hickson was scrawled on the first packet, with the letter C next to it in parentheses. He and Leo still filed photo packets according to customer breast size, from big to small. That meant Hyde had to spread the packets on the counter and arrange them like a jigsaw puzzle. The easiest part of this process was putting the male customers' packets aside.

His eyes scanned the names, but the smell under his nose distracted him. Julie. Even after a shower, a night's sleep, another shower, and several face washings, her scent remained embedded in his beard. Or in his memory. Either way, if the smell didn't dissipate soon, he'd have to shave.

Scott Flannery, Raymond Abramo, Larry Collins,—Hyde put their packets in the male customer pile. He'd alphabetize them once the pile was complete. Willie Herbert, Marvin Goldman, John Brown, buthe looked at that last one closer. Something had been written beneath John's name in small letters: Loud Girl (TY).

Hyde pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and he slipped his thumb beneath the packet's top flap. Loud Girl … that was Leo's name for Jackie. John Brown. J.B. Jackie's initials. (TY) stood for Too Young to put down a breast size without feeling like a pervert.

Had to be her.

He pulled out the photos. They were of Jackie and Mark playing chess in Mt. Humphrey Park. One showed them pecking each other's lips over a concrete chess table. Another had Mark carrying her piggy-back style. In another, they were laughing in the grass of Pleasant Lawn.

The first dozen shots were similar: hand-holding, a kiss on the cheek, a dandelion behind Jackie's ear. But as Hyde got to the second dozen, blood burned in his chest like acid. Mark lay over Jackie's body in the grass, their legs intertwined. One of her hands had tunneled into his hair, and the other gripped the material of his shirt.

But the focus of the photos shifted to their faces. Their lips only brushed against each other at first. Then their mouths opened, wider and wider, until their tongues were visibly in contact. Melding together. Consuming the other.

It was a make-out session, and Hyde's stomach cramped. His lungs had trouble pushing out air, and he shoved the photos back into their packet. She'd gotten doubles of them. Freakin' doubles.

He raked his fingers through his hair, and sweat smeared his palm. She couldn't have become serious about this guy so fast. They'd met a week ago. Or maybe she was trying to goad Hyde into some kind of response. She'd done it before with that asshole Chip.

The pictures had to be a scam. She didn't have to bring her film to this Fotohut. Hyde's Fotohut, but she'd also used an alias.

The fact was he didn't have the facts.

His shift wouldn't end for a few more hours, and she knew it. She'd stay away until he was gone, but he dropped her packet into the pocket of his denim jacket. These were pictures he planned to deliver personally.

Jackie's first Saturday cheer practice was not going well. She done her toe-touches expertly, jumping high enough to impress Valerie. She'd successfully balanced at the top of the cheer pyramid beside Julie and Leslie, but before Jackie could perform her stunts, Julie lost her balance. All three flyers tumbled, but the back spotters caught them. No twisted ankles or bleeding skulls were on the field—yet.

That fall had been Julie's third major mistake today. The Vikings' rowdy practice might have set her off. The football team had a game against Ft. Anderson next Friday, and preparing for a battle against the Snapping Turtles tended to stoke the team's aggression.

"We're taking a five-minute break," Valerie said, and most of the cheer squad scattered to the bleachers.
Jackie started to follow, but Valerie kept Julie on the sidelines of the field. If an interrogation was going to happen, Jackie couldn't miss it. Gossip was power in her social circle, and she needed as much of it as she could get after last week. .

She stayed within listening distance and began a stretching routine. It was the perfect cover, and Valerie didn't shoo her off the field.

In fact, Valerie didn't seem to notice Jackie at all. Her attention was entirely on Julie. "Your rhythm's completely off," she said. "Is it Homecoming that's got your panties twisted? Because you'll have your chance to be queen next year when I'm gone."

Julie glanced back at the Vikings. "No."

"The trip to Quartz Falls, then. Just have your parents buy you one of those pre-assembled tents. They can afford it."

"No! It has nothing to do with that." Julie's eyes flicked to Jackie, and Jackie cursed. She'd been spotted. "Jackie!" Julie charged toward her, grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her to Valerie. "She was right," she said and nodded at Jackie. "Steven Hyde is a low-class, good-for-nothing dickhead."

Jackie crossed her arms over her chest and took a wider stance on the field. "What are you talking about? What did he do?"

"It's what he didn't do." Julie kicked the grass. "Fucking jerk. I should've listened to you."

"Well?" Valerie said. "Our squad's only as strong as it's weakest member, and right now that's you. So out with it."

Julie pulled Jackie and Valerie into a private huddle. "All I can say," she whispered, "is that he's a good tit-sucker, an amazing clit-sucker, and a total cocksucker."

"And?" Valerie whispered.

"I can't. It's mortifying."

Valerie huffed out a breath, but Jackie had trouble breathing at all. Steven and Julie … they'd been together. But he hadn't met Julie's expectations, whatever they were. Did she want something more than physical from him, like a promise of love and fidelity? Or maybe she'd hoped he'd agree to her every sexual whim, go down on her whenever she asked, the self-entitled bitch.

"Jackie, don't you give me trouble, too." Valerie snapped her fingers in front of Jackie's face, and Jackie flinched. "I haven't even gone out with your ex yet."

"What?" Jackie said. The huddle had broken, and the rest of the cheer squad was returning from the bleachers.

Valerie's brow furrowed. "Weren't you listening? I said if Michael Kelso disappoints me tonight, I won't bring it to the field tomorrow. And Julie needs to do the same thing now."

"If you'd been in my position last night, you'd understand," Julie said, "but whatever. I'll get over it."

"Get over what?" Jackie itched to say, but she stayed quiet. Steven's was free to date—or suck—whoever he liked. But for the rest of cheer practice she imagined punching his stupid face.

Hyde rang the doorbell of the Burkhart Mansion. He had no guarantee Jackie would be home on a Saturday night, especially after what he'd seen in her pictures. But with Kelso out with the cheer squad captain and Donna out with Forman, it was a decent bet.

Martina, the Burkharts' housekeeper, opened the front door swiftly. "Yes?"

"Is Jackie around?" he said. "Name's Hyde."

"One moment. I have to see if she's taking visitors."

She closed the door, and he peered back at the gravel driveway. Stone pedestals lined it at even intervals, giving off an eerie, ghostly glow. In all the time he'd spent with Jackie over the summer, he'd only dropped her off here. He'd never gone inside the house. She hadn't invited him to.

He used to think she was afraid of exposing her parents to him. Being friends with Edna and Bud Hyde's burnout son wouldn't get her another credit card. But after she confided some of her parents' secrets, he got the truth, that she'd been protecting him from them.

So many damn assumptions on his end. Guessing games that led him to dangerous territory rather than from it.

He rubbed the nape of his neck and made sure his shades were on his face. The Burkharts' property was strangely quiet. No cricket chirps. No buzzing moths. The place seemed gutted of life. If Jackie had found some joy with someone, he wouldn't take it from her. He just needed to find out what was going on.

The front door opened again after several minutes. "Mr. Hyde," Martina said. "Miss Burkhart will see you."

He followed her into the house, and the strum of an acoustic guitar haunted the foyer. It was some morose song he vaguely recognized, but the volume lowered once Martina led him to the parlor. Candles lit the room, not lamps. Their flames flickered in glass candle holders, casting shades of red, pink, and purple onto the walls. They lit Jackie's face the same way, but the rest of her resembled shadow.

"Martina," she said, "please don't disturb us."

"Yes, Miss Burkhart."

Martina disappeared into the hallway, and he removed his shades. The parlor was too dimly lit for sunglasses. Without them on, the furniture and Jackie's body gained substance. She was standing by the piano and wore a long-sleeved black shirt. Its hem reached just above her knees, and black sweatpants covered her legs.

He gestured to the candles spread throughout the parlor. "Your parents approve of you performing ritual sacrifice?"

"They're not home to approve or disapprove."

He glanced at the Burkharts' hi-fi. A few candles lit the transparent phonograph cover, and he identified the song playing: "Diary" by Bread. It was on the album Baby I'm-a Want You. He shouldn't have known it, but the record was part of Forman's collection. The music and lyrics fit the melancholy of the room, of Jackie's oversized clothes. Whatever bleak spirit she was trying to conjure, she'd succeeded.

"Where are they?" he said quietly.

Her hand rested on top of the piano. Her fingernail tapped against a glass candleholder, and the flame revealed a streak of ink on her skin. "Why did you come here?"

Her packet of photos weighed down his jacket pocket. It had for hours, and he placed it on the piano. "So … you and Mark."

She snatched the packet and opened it. "That dirty old hippie told me my film had gotten lost!" She flipped through the photos but stopped after a few. "You had no right to look at these."

Her body dissolved into shadow again, and a floor lamp clicked on. The room became significantly brighter and stung his eyes, but he didn't put on his shades.

"How did you even know they were mine?" she said.

"Check the front of the packet."

She did, and her mouth grew slack. "Your boss is an idiot. I told him to put down an alias purposely."

"No, he's a stoner. Wouldn't be doin' his job if he didn't give himself a way of identifying you."

"Whatever." She resumed studying the photos. "I can't believe you saw these. Isn't that against Fotohut policy? I could report you."

"To my stoner boss."

"Damn."

She turned her back on him, and he spotted a hole in her shirt sleeve. It was near her elbow. Wearing drab, oversized clothes wasn't her style. Candles were, but the ones in the parlor gave off no romantic vibes. Maybe his joke about ritual sacrifice had some accuracy, after all.

A clear jar was on the coffee table, but blood didn't fill it. Folded-up pieces of paper were crammed inside. A pen and notebook lay on the couch, and the truth began to solidify. She was hurting. A lot. And she was trying to find her way out of it.

An ache scraped his throat. He couldn't swallow it down, and his skin grew cold beneath his clothes. Wherever he found a blank space about her, he scrawled in his own info. Most of it was completely wrong, but he kept on doing it. Had done it since they first met.

A hiss issued from Jackie's general direction, but it came from the hi-fi speakers. Side A of Baby I'm-a Want You had ended. She hurried to the hi-fi , shut if off, and tossed the photo packet onto the phonograph cover. "So, you and Julie."

He scratched his fingers through his beard. "Figured she'd tell you."

"She didn't. Not the whole thing. Do you respect me enough to tell me the truth?"

The ache in his throat became sharper and snagged his voice. "I kicked her out of the car two-thirds to her destination."

Her eyes narrowed like she didn't understand. Like she needed more.

"Went down on her and quit before she could come." He cupped his mouth and dug his fingers into his cheek. What he'd done to Julie wasn't his proudest moment. Confessing it to Jackie twisted his guts, but watching her stagger to the couch spilled adrenaline into his blood. He surged toward her, but she dropped onto the cushions and put up a hand. The gesture had enough power to nail his feet to the floor.
"It's cruel," she said. "Teasing her like that, giving her only so much then leaving."

His arms fell to his sides, dead weight. "You're right," he said, and his fingers twitched at the hoarseness of his voice. "It was a nasty—bad-nasty. Didn't intend to leave her like that, but..."

"But what? Why did you?"

His gaze lowered to the coffee table and locked onto a candle. Its orange flame shifted directions randomly. "People change their minds, man. Even in the middle of giving head. Or screwing. Or kissing. People freakin' change their minds."

Her fingernail rubbed against the pages of her notebook. "Did she taste disgusting or something?"

A smile fought gravity and lifted his lips. Jackie had never been shy talking about sex. "Nope. Two-thirds in, she just wasn't doing it for me."

"I see."

"Yeah … you probably don't." Some life returned to his arms, and he hooked his thumbs into his jeans pockets. "Probably don't want to, either."

"Because you think I'm fragile."

He forced up his gaze and looked at her face. She'd used that word on Monday, fragile. But telling her it was the wrong word wouldn't prove shit to her. He had to show her what he thought, by trusting her with what he hadn't shared with anyone. .

"I get off when I'm getting a chick off," he said. His voice was still strained, but he kept talking. "The way she sounds, how she moves, it's totally hot. But Julie … I didn't feel anything."

Jackie pushed her knuckle to to her lips. "You couldn't just finish?"

"Could you? Givin' Kelso a blowjob—"

"I never did that!"

"Okay, then him going down on you, and you losing the mood halfway through."

She stiffened on the couch. "He never did that."

"Shit." He went to an armchair, and she didn't object when he sat down, probably because the coffee table stood between him them. "Sex," he said. "You ever want to quit in the middle of it?"

She grasped her pen, clicked it, and the inky tip came out. "Why do you think I'm weak?"

"Where are you getting this crap from?"

"The Dating Game. Everything you've ever done for me."

"Not weak, man. Vulnerable." He dragged in a breath through his nose, and the smell of wax shot into his nostrils. He coughed again but spoke through it. "Did you wanna go to jail?"

"No—"

"How's about being nailed by some asshole who called you a bitch? You want that, either?"

She pressed her fingers to her cheeks and pulled down the skin. Her lower eyelids stretched, transforming her face into a ghoulish version of itself.

"I see you, all right?" He laced his fingers over his stomach. "Not all of you ... but maybe enough. You're the one who doesn't. That's why you make the choices you make."

"I understand myself perfectly," she said and let go of her face. Her skin was red where she'd pushed into it. "And my choices."

"Like settling for Kelso 'cause you're afraid of being alone? Chasing after me for the same damn reason?"

Her mouth clenched shut. She grabbed her notebook, wrote in it, and passed it to him. "YOU PITY ME!" stained the page in giant, smeared letters.

"That's why you went out with me on Veterans Day," she said. "Why you spent the summer with me. Why you're here now."

"Pity?" He laughed, hard enough that his stomach bounced against her notebook, and the ache in his throat weakened. "That ain't any part of the equation."

"The equation that I'm incapable of making my own choices? That I'm so stupid I need you to set me up with a boy who's better than you and Michael?"

He got out of the armchair and chucked her notebook onto it. "I didn't force you to go out with him. And by the looks of those pictures, your date went just fine. But from what you did to this place," he pointed at her, "and what you've put on yourself…"

He curled his fingers into into a fist. Talking was useless. She'd already made up her mind about him.

"Finish your sentence," she said.

"Why the hell should I? You're gonna call it pity mo matter what I say or do, so what's the point?"

"Because!" She jumped off the couch and maneuvered around the coffee table. "Because, Steven!" She grabbed hold of his jacket pocket. She was tugging on it, and her eyes grew wet, same as her voice "If you actually care about me, then you'll deal with my confusion. You'll stay, even if it hurts, until we figure this out."

"Figure what out?"

Her grip moved to the front of his jacket. She pulled him closer and pressed the top of her head against his chest. "I only went out with Mark to get those pictures," she said. "The cheer squad … Valerie threatened to kick me out unless I proved I had a boyfriend."

His shoulders tensed, and pain spread into his neck. "Holy hell..."

"Mark has popularity problems, too, so we made a business arrangement. I get one set of the photos, and he gets the other."

"So you Frenched him because—"

She pushed her head harder against his chest. "They demanded I show tongue, Steven. Tongue, and I caved. Just like you said I would."

"Jackie..." His hand drifted to her hair. His fingers began to stroke it, but he stopped and splayed his hand on her back. "That's..."

"Pathetic, I know. I'm pathetic!" Her arms glided around his waist but didn't quite hug him. "And that's how your Dating Game made me feel. If that's what you really think of me—"

"I don't."

Her head rose from his chest, and she rested her cheek against him properly. "You don't understand how important your opinion is to me," she said, holding him closer, "how much I respect it. And now you have something to use against me."

"Wouldn't do that." But he understood her fear, all too well. He slid his cheek alongside her temple and breathed in the apricot scent of her hair. "I might be a dick, but I'm a dick in a way that's entirely my own."

She laughed, and her knuckles pressed into his back, as if she were clinging to him. His instinct was hug her tighter, but his arms held onto her loosely. He had no right to that kind of comfort, not from her.

Kelso still laid claim to her, even though Kelso himself was chasing tail non-stop. The guy was a the definition of hypocrite, but Hyde had been acting just as entitled.

Like he'd told Jackie tonight, people changed their minds. And over a year ago she'd changed hers about wanting him. That didn't make her selfish. It didn't make her delusional, either. She was human, just like him. Resenting her for that, for leaving him with feelings she didn't reciprocate … "I fucked up," he said. "But if you wanna try this friends thing again, I'm good for it."

"Friends." She sniffled and withdrew from him. She blotted her eyes with her wrist, but fresh tears rose in them. "I'm sorry. I just..." Her hand landed on his chest, as if to push him back. "Us being friends doesn't work for me anymore."