(Disclaimer: Lyrics do not belong to me, and neither does Lords of Dogtown. Only Jezebel, Bret, and the plot-points not covered in the film are my property!)

"It is the springtime of my loving;
the second season I am to know.
You are the sunlight in my growing;
so little warmth I've felt before.
It isn't hard to feel me glowing;
I watched the fire that grew so low.
It is the summer of my smiles;
flee from me, keepers of the gloom.
Speak to me only with your eyes;
it is to you, I give this tune.
Ain't so hard to recognize;
these things are clear to all, from time to time."

-Rain Song, Led Zeppelin

Chapter 4: Tattooed and Pierced

A thump emanated from elsewhere in the house, indicating Skip had either thrown something or banged on the wall in a signal to leave him the hell alone. She heard Bret stir in the living room, most likely since she'd just screamed at Skip to wake up, as was their usual routine. She yelled, then she knocked, and, if needed, barged in and ripped off the covers as a last resort. Luckily, that didn't happen often. Sometimes, she'd get lucky and the door would be locked, freeing her from responsibility; after all, if she couldn't get in, she couldn't get in. Soon, Bret dragged himself into the kitchen clad in just yesterday's jeans; it had been too hot that night to bother wearing a shirt, or to even use the sheet draped over the back of the couch. She turned to him and smiled, shifting the pan of bacon from her hand to the stove to redistribute the sizzling slices of meat.

"So... how come no one calls you 'Belle', or some other nickname like that? I mean, it seems to fit you," Bret questioned curiously in a crackly morning voice.

"When I was little, almost everyone called me 'Bella'... except Jay. He called me that every once in a while, but his favorite nickname was 'Jez'. After a while, I guess it just… stuck," she recounted. "Sometimes people wouldn't even bother to separate our names, we spent so much time together. They'd call us 'Jez-n-Jay', like we were a package deal. When we were all really young, Stacy, he's one of my best friends, would call me 'Belly'. It was hilarious."

"Hmm. I'm gonna call you Bella. I like it. What're you cooking? Need any help?" Bret was not at all focused on her answer as he sat at the kitchen table behind her.

He was more interested in her legs, which were shapely and just a tad bit long for her height. He noticed this as she turned around, a pan of sizzling bacon in her hand. She swiftly grabbed three plates out of a nearby cupboard and placed them on the table, putting one directly in front of him. She could imagine his sleepy, little brain working as she slid four slices of crispy, boiling-hot bacon onto his plate, one of which he immediately grabbed without thinking or looking, instantly dropping it again.

"Ahh, hot!" He whimpered, cradling his grease-burned fingers and thumb with his other hand.

"Well you dummy, if you were paying attention to the BOILING HOT BACON I just put on your plate and not my legs, you wouldn't be in this situation... and hey, don't glare at my poor bacon like that! It has feelings too, you know! Or at least, it did," she quipped playfully, giggling at him as he glared at the bacon with suspicion.

She ruffled his long hair, which was admittedly beginning to get a little greasy, before taking the cinnamon rolls out of the oven and setting them on the trivet on the table. "Don't touch the rolls until I get back, you wouldn't want to burn yourself again!" She shook her finger at him before she ran into the other room in her second attempt to wake Skip.

Her head popped into the room once more, just as Bret was reaching for a sticky, sweet roll, shouting "Don't touch!", and his hand immediately retracted.

How does she do that? He wondered.

Soon, he heard pounding on a door down the hall, and subsequently a loud thud as something, or rather someone, fell to the floor. He continued to listen as an incomprehensible shouting match broke out; Jezebel must've won, because minutes later Skip was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table in his underwear and a stained, white undershirt, barely awake. He shoveled bacon and rolls from his plate where his daughter had put them into his mouth almost methodically, as Jezebel wordlessly popped open a beer can and handed it to him. She didn't like it, but she was sure it was what he needed to begin the day as she placed another on-deck on the table. The girl sighed lightly, shaking her head. So, this was the cycle they were settling back into now. Oh well, nothing to be done, she thought with a clearing shake of her head.

"Gonna get my tattoo today, gonna be cool... oh, and my piercings, I guess," she sing-songed as she finished her last few bites of food and bounded off into her bedroom while the boy and the man sat silently together at the table, Skip beginning to drink his second beer and Bret still slowly eating.

Jezebel was having a particularly hard time trying to decide what to wear this morning. She didn't exactly understand why she wanted to look so spiffy, but for some strange reason she wanted to look her best.

Bret was having a hard time trying to decide what he thought of Jezebel as he sat at the kitchen table, his plate long-empty. All he could think about were her legs, those perfect, long legs of hers. Jezebel decided on a long, flowing black skirt, a pair of thick sandals with ankle straps she could skate in, and a relatively-nice (in other words, not completely destroyed) band tank top that fit her well. 'Allman Brothers', it read, and there was a cartoon drawing of a giant peach in the back of an old red truck bearing the band's name on the side. It was from their album Eat a Peach. The Allmans were one of Stacy's favorite bands, and he actually had a matching t-shirt he'd gotten at the last concert he attended.

Bret decided he was definitely beginning to feel attracted to Jezebel, and somewhat strongly. But what did she think of him? She hadn't known him long, but then again, she did pick him out of a crowd of thousands to talk to at a concert (or, rather, fate had when it pushed them into each other). He absently worried the back of his lip ring with his tongue; Skip snorted lightly, glanced at him over the rim of his can, and shook his head. Bret guzzled down the glass of orange juice Jezebel had poured to look preoccupied. He rinsed his dishes, put them in the sink, and went to find out where she'd gone, tossing his day-old shirt over his head as he went.

Jezebel sat in the bathroom perched atop the sink as always, since she was too short to get close enough to the mirror and see what she was doing at the same time without doing so. A tube of liquid eyeliner was poised in her hand, heading toward her already-lined left eye; she was just touching up the left cat-eye wing when Bret joined her in the bathroom. "Can I use some of that? It does wonders for dark circles," he asked, and she nodded.

Jezebel turned fully to face him. She put the liquid liner down and pulled a black kohl pencil from her makeup bag. "I'll use this one, so it's smudgy like you usually wear it," she answered as he settled in front of her and angled his eyes toward the ceiling. She drew a line of black around the top and bottom rim of each eye as gently as possible, and made him look in the mirror.

"You need very little, your eyes are beautiful," she commented, turning around to finish her own makeup; satisfied, she hopped down from the counter.

He stopped her as her feet hit the floor, leaning slightly into her personal space, pressing her lightly against the sink. The dark pools of his eyes were so sincere as she stared into them; they seemed to swallow her whole, entrancing her with their spell. "I want to ask you... I know we just met a few weeks ago, but, what do you think? I mean, do you think anything of me? I – I was just wondering."

"Bret, I do think about you. In fact, I think a lot about you. But right now, I just don't know. We've got to see where life takes us. If we're meant to be, we will be. Though, I can think of a number of people who might consider killing me for dating an outsider. But, it's a chance I'm willing to take! I hope that's okay." She leaned forward and hugged him lightly in a friendly manner, tugging at his hand as she side-stepped around him toward the bathroom door. "C'mon… we'll head to the shop, okay? It's almost noon."

She wordlessly handed him an elastic, motioning to his hair, and he tossed it up on top of his head in a messy bun, revealing the shaved sides of his head which were admittedly getting a little fuzzy.

Forty minutes later, a threesome consisting of Jay, Bret, and Jezebel convened in front of the little, red-brick tattoo and piercing studio, Jay having come last-minute at Jezebel's request for moral support (this mostly consisted of invading his bedroom twenty minutes earlier and hopping up and down on top of him in bed before he complied). She carried her skateboard in her hand, unsure whether she'd be able to use it when she left.

Jezebel sat in Marco's chair with an extreme case of the jitters as he reviewed the paperwork, tapping her foot against the floor and twitching her fingers as they rested on her knees. "This all looks kosher. Ok, let's get down to business," he affirmed, pulling out the tools he'd need and unwrapping them from their individual plastic packaging.

Ten minutes later, she held her throbbing lip gingerly in one hand, moving the piercing around with the opposite hand. She'd already gotten the cartilage of one ear pierced, opposite the side with the lobe piercing she'd already had for a couple of years; and while it did indeed hurt, the pain wasn't nearly as intense as her lip.

"Don't play with it," Marco scolded. "It's gonna take anywhere from six weeks to maybe three months to heal completely. Keep it clean; try not to touch it much. My boy Bret knows how to take care of piercings, so just ask him if you got any questions. You really shouldn't swap spit with anyone til it's healed, because it'll be more likely to get infected, or worse; I don't recommend smoking or drinking, and that means weed, too, unless you can clean it right away and put on lip balm. Stay away from sharp or crunchy food if you can help it for a week or two. Stay healthy and hydrated, and get extra sleep if you can spare it. Okay?"

"It's probably gonna be sore, tender, or red for a few days, maybe a few weeks. But you'll love it, I'm sure. Leave your ear alone, too, and if you decide in a few months you want to pierce your daith, you're more than welcome back. I also gave your boy Bret this cheat sheet in case you forget, and there's a couple more tips on there." He paused, then added, "d'you wanna go ahead with the tattoo now or reschedule?"

At this point, Jezebel wasn't sure she could handle getting a tattoo on top of multiple piercings, but decided to push through anyway. What was a little more pain? She nodded her head, afraid to speak. Better to get it all over with today than try to come back again. Jay fidgeted in the metal folding chair someone had brought him, drumming out a beat on the seat with his hands and scuffing his shoes on the floor restlessly. If he was supposed to be providing moral support, he wasn't doing a stellar job.

"Okay, as long as you're sure. I'll take frequent breaks." He threw the piercing needle into the sharps box, cleared the other piercing implements, and readied his tattoo supplies.

She motioned Bret over from browsing the tattoo sample book and grabbed his hand as Marco peeled the transfer paper off her wrist to reveal the design's outline, and before she knew it, the needle buzzed to life. Marco's design concept added a small, purple lotus below the symbol, and a series of green tendril-like vines woven around it. She tossed a glare at her so-called older brother and best friend, who was doing everything but helping her feel more comfortable with the current situation at-hand, and he stuck his tongue out in return.

After over an hour in the chair, Jezebel was escorted out of the tattoo parlor by Bret, who quite literally held her up by supporting her weight against him. They stopped after a while and he picked her up; she buried her head in his t-shirt and wrapped her arms around his neck. He could feel her bones, practically counting her ribs through her top. It was almost scary. He hadn't realized she had so little body mass when he'd suggested she get all her modifications at once – it was probably proving to be more of a shock than she expected. Jay skated wordlessly behind them on Jezebel's green board, carrying his own in his hand.

Once the trio returned to the house, Bret lay Jezebel carefully on the sofa in her living room. Jay walked into her bedroom and put her skateboard behind the door, where he knew she preferred to keep it for easy access when she needed to leave in a hurry. Glancing around, he realized how little time he'd actually spent in this bedroom; most of his memories revolved around either his own apartment, where she frequently visited, or the Cove where they surfed together. He rested on the bed for a while, taking in the names of the bands on all her posters plastered on every available inch of space on the walls. The room was painted dark-blue, and was messy as all hell. Items of clothing spilled out of dressers, and there were two alarmingly-large lumps of laundry piled high in the corner. The room didn't smell foul, so they were probably clean laundry, he decided.

As Jay stood and prepared to leave the room, he paused to snatch a photo from the pile atop her messy dresser and studied it. It was an old, black-and-white photo which Skip's co-worker Craig Stecyk, a photographer, had taken when Jay was twelve and Jez was ten. The kids had been skating at an elementary school playground, because it was surrounded by a low, concrete sloped-wall drainage ditch made for rain run-off. Jezebel was wearing some of Jay's old clothes, a helmet, and elbow pads; the two leaned together with arms slung across each other's shoulders. Jezebel's head was tossed back as she laughed hysterically with her face turned to look at Jay, who was making a funny, scrunched-up face at the camera, his tongue lolling out like a dog. He stuffed the photo into the back pocket of his jeans.

"See ya, Bret," Jay punched the other boy on the shoulder as he left, letting the front screen door slam behind him.

Skip was at Zephyr, and Jay's departure meant the two of them were now alone in the house. Bret sat in the armchair across from Jezebel, watching the girl sleep. She woke after about two hours; he sat the entire time, studying her. She was beautiful, he thought. She sat up slowly and looked at him, rubbing her eyes with her fists. She began to talk, confused as to how she'd gotten home and where Jay had gone, but after about a second gave up the effort as she realized her lip piercing was too swollen to speak easily.

Bret chuckled lightly. "Yeah… it's gonna take a while for that swelling to go down. Let me get you some ice…"

Two months later

It was July. School had been out for quite some time, and Jezebel had lost even more weight. It was partly due to her lip piercing, partly due to a wish to look good (even though Bret didn't care what she looked like, as long as she'd agree to go out with him), and partly because of her fluctuating emotions. She had, however, inexplicably become a much better surfer within the last few months, taking second-place in a recent competition in Los Angeles. The lighter she got, the higher it seemed she glided upon the waves. Bret would sometimes meet her at the beach, where Skip begrudgingly allowed him to hang out despite his inability to surf. He'd watch the others paddle out and catch waves, sometimes taking on odd beach-related jobs for the older crew. Jezebel's fifteenth birthday was tomorrow, which was why Bret was so anxious to tell her how he felt. He wanted it to be special, so they could look back on it and remember the day he'd asked her to be his girlfriend. They had come very close to kissing the other day, but stopped themselves when they realized people were staring. Both blushed profusely and kept walking.

Jay, usually excited for Jezebel no matter what, felt what once had been feelings of mild jealousy increase considerably. Having mistaken Jay's fondness as normal 'sibling' protection, she hadn't realized how she was putting him rather in the middle of a weird sort of 'love triangle'. Bret also talked to him a little now, though they didn't exactly consider each other 'friends'; they were more like friendly acquaintances.

While Bret worried about what he'd get Jezebel for her birthday, and how she felt about him, and whether she'd agree when he asked her out, Jezebel worried about how she felt for Bret. She felt they had the potential to become more than friends, it was just a matter of when to bring up the subject. She was, as usual, completely oblivious to the happenings already going on right under her nose.

Bret practically ran around downtown Santa Monica like a maniac, dragging Jay along behind him into every store he saw using the shirttail of the button-down Jay had knotted around his waist.

"You're her best friend, would she like this? How about this? No, this! What do you think of this?" He was practically frantic.

"Dude, you're totally asking the wrong 'best friend' about all this 'gift-giving' shit… that's Peggy's department," he said unhelpfully in a bored tone, examining his dirty fingernails.

In the few months they'd known each other, Bret usually presented as a relatively calm, relaxed, laid-back individual. This had quite surprised Jay, as it contrasted so vastly with Jezebel's vibrant, sometimes-frenetic attitude which seemed to match his own considerably more than it matched the other guy's. Apparently, now Jay was experiencing the other side to the complicated story that was Bret Daugherty. He rolled his eyes as he was dragged along yet again; he was actually kind of enjoying this escapade. He stood on his skateboard and Bret, acting as some sort of strange sled dog, basically pulled him along.

The same could not be said for the poor individual currently pulling him around. He was so frustrated, he almost passed a shop with the perfect gift displayed prominently in the window. Realizing his mistake so quickly forced Jay to stop quickly, which in turn sent the two tumbling to the ground together. Jay's skateboard shot out from under him, skidding into the side of the closest trash bin with a resounding 'BANG' and flying back in their direction. Bret jumped up and helped Jay to his feet, who needlessly dusted off his dirty jeans and stuck out his foot just in time to retrieve his board before it collided with Bret's shin. Some of the spray-paint from the back was scratched, he observed, ruining the design he'd painted there; he shrugged it off and rejoined Bret at the display window.

"I found it! Ah, she'll love it! That one, the tiger. And that tapestry," he pointed inside the shop at a giant, stuffed white tiger and a large, rainbow splatter-painted wall tapestry with a neon-yellow peace sign in the center. By the time they left, Jay was laden with the tiger, rolling along on his skateboard with the giant toy stretched across his shoulders, his arms over either end. Bret walked briskly next to him, carrying the tapestry and a black-and-white wood beaded door hanger he'd also grabbed on impulse, to replace her current beat-up number.

They arrived at Bret's recently-procured apartment near the beach, which was coincidentally within the same block as Jay's. Bret disappeared into the kitchen to call the pizza place where he worked as a delivery person, calling off for the next day. Tomorrow was going to be completely dedicated to Jezebel's birthday. He had it all planned: he'd go to her place around 10 AM; Skip would probably be at the shop by then. She'd still be asleep when he arrived, since it was a Sunday and also her birthday, and he would set up her gifts at the foot of her bed; then, he'd just hold her, and she'd wake up in his arms.

Nothing could faze him as he scampered around the apartment excitedly in a flash of hair, leather, and studs. Jay idly sat on Bret's small, green loveseat, fiddling with the tiger's ears as the other boy rambled, and he nodded as if he were actually paying attention, though it was actually on the television.

Ridiculous, right? Well, the next day was going to be WAY more insane than he'd originally suspected, and there was a pretty large wrench about to be thrown into the equation.