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

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
UNFOLDING THE TRUTH

Hyde carried a tray of deviled eggs up the stairs to Jackie's bedroom. The meal took him an hour to make, almost twice as long than it should have. The Burkharts' pantry was as big as the Formans' dining room. He'd spent twenty minutes searching for the right ingredients, but the effort would be worth it if it brought Jackie even a scrap of joy.

Her bedroom door wasn't quite closed. The sound of her small black-and-white TV came through, but she could've fallen asleep while he was gone. "Jackie," he said through the door crack.

"I'm awake," she said. "I don't have a headache, and I haven't thrown up." She was answering his questions before he could ask them. He entered her room with the tray, but she didn't look at him. She was sitting on the bed in her pink flannel pajamas, gaze focused on the TV. A soap opera played on the thirteen-incher, and she pointed at it. "I'm not dizzy either, though Sue being back from the dead is ridiculous."

He chuckled, mostly from relief. She was alert. Her speech wasn't slurred. She demonstrated none of the concussion symptoms he had to watch out for, and he brought the deviled eggs closer to the bed. "Would've finished 'em sooner," he said, "but the white vinegar was hidden better than my stash."

She turned toward the tray of food. Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth.

He backed away. "Crap, you gonna puke?"

"No!" She removed her hand from her mouth, revealing a smile. The sky outside had become gray, pushing murk through the windows, but the room brightened with her face. "You remembered."

"Might have." He set her up with the tray. Poured her a fresh glass of orange juice from the carton on her nightstand. Truth was most of what she'd said this summer had lodged in his skull.

"If someone ever cooked me those deviled eggs," she'd told him after an episode of Julia Child & Company, "I'd lose my mind."

"You did," she said now and bit into one of the egg-halves. A drop of yellow mustard fell onto her chin. She wiped it off, licked her finger, and her smile returned. It was the most freakin' adorable sight ever to grace his eyes, but the delight on her face gathered clouds in his chest. She hadn't seemed this happy in a long time, except maybe when he won her that pendant. He recognized the deepening sadness in what she'd call her soul. It was the same reflecting back at him every damn morning in the mirror.

Her meal became crumbs in no time. She had to be fueled by starvation, not just of the body. Of the heart. She ate every last egg, drank down a full glass of orange juice, and her delight didn't fade. "Oh, my God—you're a chef!"

"Why haven't you been eating?" he said.

She glanced across the room at her dresser. A jar sat on it, the same jar from the night he'd delivered her photos, and her posture wilted with a breath. Her hands fell into her lap, and his neck heated up. Asking that question was the same as performing the Heimlich, making her vomit any joy he'd managed to give her.

"I'm losing my parents," she said, staring at her hands. "I lost the first love of my life … and I sacrificed the chance to be with the boy I love now."

She shut off the TV. Her legs swung over the side of the bed, but she stayed seated. Her breathing became deliberate, like she was trying to avoid hyperventilating or puking. He dragged the mop bucket to her. He'd swiped it from the kitchen after getting her upstairs, but she waved it away.

"I understand why you don't believe me," she said, "how I feel about you." She looked up at him, and the thinness of her face struck him. She really hadn't eaten for days. "And even though I'm beautiful, talented, and a genius, the choices I've made have canceled that out for you. But you deserve someone who's as smart as me and as beautiful—" she inhaled a breath, and her words quickened, "though you won't find that because, come on, no one's more beautiful than I am—"

"Jackie—"

"But she won't have my history, our history. You'll be able to trust her in a way you'll never trust me." Her lips pinched together, like she was going to frown, but a laugh burst from her mouth. "My food-deprived brain led me to making the biggest mistake of my life. And now..."

The sadness in her eyes turned to anguish, as if a tornado had ripped apart her past, present, and future. He wanted cradle her face and kiss that anguish away. His own choices had piled into a mountain of mistakes. They were threatening to avalanche and take him—and anyone who stood by him—out, but he remained still. She needed him to listen, so he'd listen.

She jutted her chin at her bedroom door. "Go stand over there."

"Why?"

"Because once you hear what I'm gonna say, you'll want to leave."

He went to the door and leaned against it, but he wouldn't leave. Not unless she told him to. Even if what she said next tore up his insides, he'd stick to his word and watch over her. She wasn't going to die of a concussion because his heart quit beating.

"I have no doubts about my feelings for you," she began, and he ground his teeth together. All she needed to hear from him, all he needed to say, churned in his guts, but this was her time to speak. "But my..." She slid her hands over her legs and grasped her knees. "But Michael—I wasn't sure what was left. I didn't plan to go as far as I did, but I had to be sure."

Her toes scraped her carpet. "I pulled him into a classroom and had him go down on me. It hurt. The whole thing hurt, from the inside-out. Even when I … finished, it was awful. I felt sick."

Her confession ramped up his adrenaline. His body was ready to bolt, but instinct wouldn't rule him. "Then you fainted," he said.

"Then I told him I'm not in love with him," she said. "And I kicked him in the 'nads for being a selfish asshole. Because that's what he is. I started to realize it before the summer, but I didn't want to face it. And the last few months, I've been so angry at him for not being who I want. Furious at myself for accepting a lie as my first love."

She touched her throat, but her voice remained steady. "My parents keep lying to each other and to themselves. I learned from the best, but when Michael was..." she gestured to her body, "I couldn't deny how I felt any longer. All my rage and grief burned through me, and I tried to leave the classroom...

"That's when I passed out." Her gaze didn't falter, and out of respect he didn't lower his. "He will never touch me again, Steven. He can't break my heart anymore. Only you can, and I'm not saying that to guilt you into forgiving me. I'm just stating facts."

A smile tugged at his lips, but he suppressed it. She was stronger than him, stronger than most.

"I must disgust you," she said and lifted her legs onto the bed. "I disgust myself." She hugged her knees to her chest. "I could have just kissed him, but I wanted no doubts. Sometimes a kiss isn't enough."

Her shoulders hunched, and her chin lowered to her knees. She was shrinking into herself, and he moved away from the bedroom door. He'd sworn weeks ago to be her safe place, but his insecurity had put her in danger. He'd felt less safe himself every time she showed any reaction to Kelso. But worrying about her screwing with him had confused her straight to Kelso's mouth.

"Should've been man enough to tell you the truth earlier," he said. "All of it." His fingers went to his temple, but his shades were in the Camino's glove box. Nothing to hide behind. He retreated to her dresser, by the jar of folded-up paper. Jackie had given him an escape route from the room, from their relationship. He had to give her the same. "Valerie accosted me by my locker yesterday."

She turned toward him on the bed. "Okay..."

"Chick's got some kind of vendetta against you, man. She's dating Kelso just to get back at you."

"I really don't care." Her shoulders stayed hunched, and her fingers played with the cuff of her pajama bottoms. "She can believe it hurts me, and she can have him if that's how she wants to waste her time."

His throat clogged when he tried to speak. He cleared it and rubbed his knuckles over his beard. "She also forced herself on me."

"What?" She jumped off the bed and dashed to him. She kept her arms at her sides but visually checked him over like he'd been in a knife fight. "What exactly did she do?"

"Dry-humped me against the lockers," he said. "Could've stopped her. But she undid my fly, grabbed my dick, and I let her give me a handy." His stomach burned with the memory. "Almost came … wanted to … so I'm not innocent here."

"All this happened in public?" She put up a hand, as if to dismiss her own question. "You didn't … finish?"

"Finished myself later, but I let her go too far. Plus, I went down on Julie while being in love with you, and I let you walk outta my room on Saturday. I—"

His throat clogged again, but this time he couldn't clear it fully. "I let you believe I think you're smeared in crap," he said raggedly, "when I'm the one who's covered in it. So I've got you beat." He gripped the edge of her dresser and pushed his back into it. "I fucked up way more than you, man. That stuff with Kelso today wouldn't have happened if I'd just told you the damn truth."

"Uh-uh, Steven. We're both guilty." She reached beside him and grabbed the jar. "I wrote all my grievances about the people I love, including you. I could've told you those things instead, but I didn't think you'd listen. I didn't give you a chance to." Her eyebrows rose, wrinkling her forehead. "People don't tend to hear me, not really, or consider what I feel to be important. But you..."

She unscrewed the jar but left on the cap. "You hear me better than I hear myself sometimes. You warned me to be careful about Michael, about the cheer squad. To protect myself." She tipped the jar, and its folded pieces of paper spilled onto the floor. "Pick one. Read them all if you want to know my soul and judge it."

"You don't gotta do this. Your thoughts are allowed to be private."

"You'll always believe I might go back to Michael because I went back to him before—and I went back to him today. I won't ever go back to him again, but you'll never stop waiting for it to happen."

He gripped the dresser's edge harder. It bit into his palms, but the physical pain was no match for the emotional. If he had a soul, it was disintegrating. His dad had messed around on his mom and left. His mom had messed around with everyone and left. Being deserted seemed inevitable, but Jackie wasn't either of his parents. And he wasn't hers.

"I fooled around with two of your teammates," he said. "You've got every right to think I'll cheat whenever I'm pissed at you. I won't, but how the hell are you supposed to believe it?"

The pieces of paper crackled as she stepped on them. She replaced the jar on the dresser and slid her hand over one of his. "So what do we do?"

His palms throbbed with the pressure he'd put on them. So did his whole body, but he opened his arms to her. "Not trustin' each other drove us into a ditch. How's about giving the opposite a spin?"

She cupped her cheek and stared at him. "What exactly are you saying?"

"You figured out what you had to about Kelso, and you let him go."

"You believe me?"

His arms grew tired from holding their position, but he forced them to stay up. "Believe, trust, love, want. My king's in check, Jackie, all right? You've won."

"It's a draw." She hugged his waist and nestled her head against his chest. Exhaustion hit him as he closed his arms around her, but he put no weight on her body. She'd been through enough. "I love you so much," she said. "I'm sorry, Steven. For making you feel used. For all of it."

"So am I … for every Goddamn second I made you think you're less than you are." He buried his face in her hair. Her apricot scent filled his nose, and gratitude saturated his blood. "And before you ask, you're worth a helluva lot more than you've gotten. From your parents. From Kelso. From me—and you've already given me more than I ever thought I'd get."

His guts seemed to be pushing against his stomach. Turning what was inside him into words was slightly less impossible than transmuting lead into gold, but he had to keep going. "You deserve to be freakin' happy, man, and if I get to be part of that—."

"Steven, you do. You are, and I'm … well, I'm starting to be." She tightened her arms around him. "Every second I'm with you now, I'm getting closer."

"Thanks for lettin' me try to do better."

She sighed, and he kissed her temple. He planned on kissing her a lot more, wherever she invited him to, but not today. Today was about recovery and recuperation, not sweat and friction.

Tomorrow, though, they were off to Quartz Falls. That meant four nights with a roomy tent to themselves, but they'd have to be sneaky. Otherwise, a bounty would be put on their relationship, ending it before it truly began.