THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO - THE END

"This is the end, beautiful friend

This is the end, my only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end

Of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I'll never look into your eyes again"

THE DOORS (From the album "The Doors" (1967))

A week had passed since the day where Andie got the worst news of her life. A week where her friends had all been treading lightly around her, just to make sure that they didn't by accident say the wrong thing that would make her have a breakdown in front of everyone. Or at least, that was how it had felt to her and while being in a state of near implosion should have been where she was at by that point, instead she couldn't feel anything. Not sadness, not joy, not even any bit of excitement for the things that would usually get her excited. Just plain old nothing and the thought of it scared her as much, if not more, than her ending up just like her mom did, dead by her own hand and already buried in a six-foot-deep grave that would be her final resting place.

The funeral had been almost like an outer body experience, where she was there in person, but still filled with thoughts that it couldn't be real and that when they got home, they would be greeted by a smile from her mom. Only, when they did, the house was empty, like she felt inside. Perhaps it was the memories of how Tim's death had nearly brought her to complete self-destruction that was making her fight all of those lingering feelings, which were just dying to be let out, but the truth was that whenever anyone had offered their condolences for the loss of her mother, it didn't make her feel the slightest thing inside and every time it had happened, she'd replied with a short "Thanks" and steered the conversation onto something less depressing. It wasn't like they could say anything to make her situation better, so what was the point in telling them a bunch of stuff that wasn't their business anyway?

One thing that she'd been dreading nearly all week long was when the weekend came. She was thrilled for Jack that he'd finally managed to meet another gay guy and not just that, one that he'd instantly clicked with and when Jack had asked if it was okay that he travelled to Boston on Saturday to attend a college party that Ethan had invited him to, there was no way that she could have brought herself to refuse him. Especially considering how much he'd done for her over the years and selflessly put his own needs aside, if there was anything that she needed him for. He'd invited her to come along of course (since his invitation included a "Plus One"), but for one thing she'd never been drunk before (and considering that it was a college party, she could easily guess that drinking ample amounts of alcohol would be a vital part of the festivities!) and while she usually loved going to school dances and the like, it still felt too early for her to start partying, when they'd only just buried her mom a few days earlier. For Jack, it was different, and she was downright stoked on his behalf that he'd somehow managed to find a shining light in all of this darkness that seemed to envelop them constantly. As for herself though, it just wouldn't have felt right.

"You're absolutely, one hundred percent guaranteed certain that you'll be fine here on your own today?" Jack asked her for what had to have been the tenth time at least, just since they'd first talked that Saturday.

"Jack, I'm sixteen years old, not six! I'm sure that I can handle being home alone for a day" she reassured her brother once again.

"It's just with everything that's happened ... maybe, I shouldn't leave you here all alone. I'll call Ethan and tell him that I'll have to take a rain check".

"You'll do no such thing! Anyway, don't you think that Jen will be disappointed if she doesn't get to go to that wild hootenanny, you're going to?" she reminded her brother.

"She told me that she's only coming with me to be my moral compass, so I don't think she'd mind it too much. You're really sure? Maybe, I can convince dad to stay here today" Jack suggested, bringing up how their father would be driving down to Providence to finish up the sale of their former house and wouldn't be back until early the day after.

"You really don't need to worry about me, Jack. Now go, or you'll be late for your train!" she "ordered" her brother, who gave her a hug and said his goodbyes to their dad too, before he was out of the door. Their dad, who of course didn't know anything about Jack's real plans and thought that he was only spending the afternoon with Jen and would be back home in time for dinner.

"Why are you lying to him, Andie?" Tim, who had appeared right next to her, asked her.

"I don't want him to worry about me anymore. You were right when you told me that I'll always hold him back from doing what he wants to do, but I don't want it to be like that. I want him to have his own life and be free from all of those worries that come with being the twin to a nutcase like me" she answered "the ghost" that no one could see, except for her, and at a low enough volume that her dad couldn't overhear it.

"Jack wants to help you with all of his heart, so why won't you let him?"

"It's as you said. I've been ruining his life".

"I shouldn't have said that. Jack loves you, more than he'll ever love anything in the world".

"I love him just as much back, which is why I have to set him free from constantly worrying about me and free from the pressure of always having to be the one, who has to stop our family from falling apart. I can learn to get by on my own, you'll see" she tried to convince "Tim", who'd vanished again, as soon as he'd appeared out of thin air.

Jen's reasons for agreeing to be Jack's "Plus One" for his trip to Boston were multiple and for as much as she'd come to love the best parts of Capeside, if there was one thing that she didn't mind at all, it was the prospect of spending a day out of it.

The biggest reason was what she'd in her mind named "The Henry Problem" and it was one that filled her mind most of the time. First of all, she hadn't grown the figurative balls to break up with him yet and what was worse was how it had been further complicated by recent events. With Pacey understandably enough having had to step down from his role in "Barefoot in the Park", they'd needed a replacement quickly and after she'd mentioned it in conversation with the boyfriend that she didn't want to have anymore, Henry had not only auditioned, but also blown his audition out of the park (no pun intended) and been hired instantly for the role of Paul. This of course complicated things to the max, when it came to what could happen after she'd broken up with him, meaning that she was basically caught between a rock and a hard place and she'd pretty much resigned herself to having to make the sacrifice of staying with him, until after their little show had finished its three-show run in December.

On top of that, she was really finding herself missing having Abby living with them, now that she'd become used to having her "Sister in Spirit" living right across the hallway from her. Even Grams had remarked a few times how the house felt emptier without Abby in it, a sentiment that Jen had no problem with admitting that she shared with her dear old grandmother. Finally, there was the shock of what had happened with Jack and Andie's mom and although Jen herself had only talked to her (beyond the usual pleasantries, whenever she'd come over to visit Jack) a small handful of times, she'd still been hit hard by the news and had immediately started thinking of ways that she, even if it was only in the smallest of ways, would be able to help them in their time of grief. For all of those reasons combined, when Jack had asked her if she wanted to take the train down to Boston with him to be by his side, when he had his first gay date, she'd jumped at the opportunity and instantly agreed to go with him. As they began their little trip though, she could see that he was acting nervous and thought that it would be the perfect time to offer him some reassurance.

"Relax, Jack. It's just a friend-date. If you end up kissing with Ethan, that's great and if you don't, it just means that you still have it to look forward to" she assured Jack, just as their train pulled up to yet another of the smalltown stops it had on it's way to its end destination.

"It isn't that. Andie has never been home alone before and I leave her alone, when she needs me the most. What kind of a brother am I to her?" Jack asked rhetorically, while she could see the feelings of guilt written across his face.

"The best brother that Andie could have asked for, if you ask me. I'm well aware that as an only child, or at least a girl who grew up thinking that she was one, I don't have any real experience on the subject, but I haven't met any brother and sister who are as close as you are" she tried telling Jack and at least, got a small smile out of him. "Plus, I know Andie and I know that she'd want you to have a great time tonight, so can you try to cheer up for her sake?"

"Yeah, I guess so" he conceded.

"No matter what happens, this is a big step for you. It's perfectly normal, if you're a little on the nervous side. Are you?" she asked her co-traveler, whose smile grew a little wider with anticipation.

"It's weird because I've been on plenty of dates before, it isn't that. With Ethan it's just ... I can't explain it, but it's different" Jack tried to explain to her.

"If you ask me, it's because you don't have you pretend to be someone that you aren't with him" she mused out loud, throwing in her own two cents on the subject.

"I still haven't told him about any of the heartbreaking stuff, that's been a part of my life for so long now that I can barely remember anymore, when it all began. Do you think that I should just come clean to him and see how he reacts to it?"

"Do you want to?"

"Not yet. I don't want to complicate things more than they already are" Jack answered her and for most of the rest of their train ride, they only spoke a little here and there, while small towns and farm landscapes whizzed by in the window as they got closer and closer to their final destination.

If there was one thing that Andie had to admit to having very little experience at, it was being home alone. Growing up, whenever she came home from school, she would always be greeted with a hug from her mom, whereafter they would spend a few minutes talking about how her day had gone and even after Tim's untimely death, it was still a tradition that they'd kept alive. One that Andie had secretly treasured far more than she ever could have imagined, now where she knew for sure that it would never happen again, and her mom's hugs and smiles would only be a part of her memories from then on. With her dad, even though she loved him, and he loved her back, there just wasn't that shared connection between them that she'd had with her mom, and while opening up to her mother had felt like the easiest thing in the world, with her father it had been the exact opposite every time that she'd tried it.

In any case, this was indeed the first day of Andie's life (from what she could remember) where she'd had a house entirely to herself for a whole day and what she quickly found out (after having done the tiny bit of homework, she had left to do for the weekend) was that without anyone there to talk to, it got kind of boring very quickly! Luckily for her, "Pretty in Pink" was being shown on one of the TV channels, but that only killed a few hours and with "Tim" constantly appearing and reappearing, it felt like she was losing her mind on top of it. She wasn't dumb and knew that he was just a figment of whatever mental disease, she suffered from, so she tried her best to just ignore him most of the time, hard as it was to. At the same time, she didn't know how to stop it from happening over and over again, or if it wouldn't just make everything far worse for herself, if she came clean about it to someone. If she did, then they were sure to lock her up in some psych ward somewhere, from which she could see all of her hopes and dreams fall by the wayside, as the years passed by.

After she'd eaten her dinner (at five-thirty, simply because she was bored senseless and needed something to do with her time!), her constantly analytical mind went to work on creating a plan for the evening. She could call up one of her friends of course, still that also meant having to deal with their sympathetic glances all evening long and for as much as she loved them, those sympathetic glances felt like the last thing that she wanted to subject herself to, after a few days at school where she'd already gotten her fill of it and then some. What she needed to find was someone to hang out with, who had no idea about how messed up her head was or just as importantly, about how royally screwed up beyond recognition that her recent family history had been! Where could she find someone like that in a small town like Capeside, however, that was the big question.

She did have a few "clues" to go by, from things that she'd overheard other students talking about at school. Apparently, just on the outskirts of town, a short walk up a forest path from the main road out of town, there was a well-known weekend party spot for the local high school students (mostly those of the junior and senior variety), where you could be sure that a raucous party would be taking place on most Friday or Saturday evenings. Or so she'd heard, since she'd never gone down there to check it out for herself, but seeing as it for one thing wasn't all that far from their house and it gave her something to do for an hour or so, even if her walk over there turned out to be a bust, she figured that there wasn't anything to lose by it.

When she approached the spot though, it wasn't loud music that she heard or lots of high school students getting aroused by the effects of alcohol and drugs that she saw, only one solitary boy that she instantly recognized as one of the seniors at their school, from his long auburn brown hair, ripped jeans, flannel shirt, Doc Martens boots and kind of cool looking black leather jacket that he'd worn every time that she'd seen him around, even during the hottest parts of the summer. She'd overheard someone calling him by his name at school a few times, but couldn't remember what it was exactly, yet he looked peaceful enough as he sat there by himself drinking a beer and smoking what looked like a homemade cigarette, so she quickly came to the conclusion that there was no harm in asking him what was going on and where everyone else was.

"If you're here for the party, you're late already. The cops shut it down before it could get going again, so I guess this party spot is dead for now" the guy calmly told her, before taking a drag from what she by the smell could already tell wasn't your everyday, grocery store cigarette.

"Why are you hanging out here, then?" she asked the guy, who took a sip of his beer before answering her.

"My buddy was supposed to stop by, but he's probably blown me off for some teenage temptress again. It wouldn't be entirely unlike him" the guy explained with a small smile, that she answered in turn. Now, where she finally got a chance to see him up close, she could also see how his rugged, yet masculine face actually had a very nice symmetry to it, that his long and flowing locks only accentuated. "I'm Andy. And you are?" he asked her and for some reason, it made her giggle a little.

"It's also Andie, but my full name is Andrea" she told him, before he invited her to sit down next to him on the fallen tree log, he had his jeans-clad behind parked on.

"Andy and Andie, out to paint the town red. You know, that wouldn't make for a half-bad movie title" he mused to himself, before offering her a drag of the "cigarette-like object", he was smoking.

"No thanks, I've never smoked tobacco and I have no intention of starting now" she told Andy, only it didn't seem to deter him.

"There isn't any tobacco in this, it's pure weed. You know, ganja, marihuana, Mary-Jane, "Wacky-Backy" or whatever you want to call it? You've never tried it before?" Andy asked her, and she quickly shook her head in reply. "You should try it sometime. It's the only thing that helps me to forget about the rotten BS in my life, that's for sure!"

Maybe it was the way that he'd said it, but suddenly the idea of trying to have a puff or two didn't seem as foreign to Andie, as it always had been up to then.

Jen had only been to Boston once, before her and Jack went on their little trip down there. Of course, back then she was only eight years old, so she couldn't remember a whole lot of it, except that her parents spent most of the time arguing with one another and she couldn't wait to come home again, where she could hide out from their constant arguments that would often spill over into verbal abuse against one another. Still, she wasn't sure if it wasn't a pleasant alternative to the college party that she was attending with Jack down there this time!

Even if she'd been quite the wild party girl back home in NYC, she hadn't actually gone to many college parties and the only ones that she'd been to, she could barely remember anything from thanks to having been so drunk and high at them that she probably couldn't keep up with much of anything going on around her. This time however, she was stone cold sober and whereas she would usually find drunk people entertaining, when she herself was drunk, all she could do now was shake her head at their inebriated behavior. Thankfully, Jack wasn't getting drunk either, instead sticking to drinking slowly from the beers that they'd been handed from the moment, they'd walked through the door. What she should have told herself though, was that from the second that Ethan wanted Jack's attention, she would quickly become old news and in truth, she'd been left alone for most of the evening and it made her wish that she'd simply stayed at home and hung out with some of her non-drinking friends that were sure to annoy her less than this drunken mob was!

She was just contemplating how long it would be until she could get out of there, when a guy came over to her to talk to her that she could easily guess was too young to be of college age. In fact, he looked more like he was her own age and as he asked if he could sit down next to her, she also had to admit that he was sort of a babe!

"These are the people, who will be ruling our country someday. If that isn't a scary thought, I don't know what is!" the guy darkly joked to her, while all she could do was nod along in silent agreement.

"Says the obvious gatecrasher, who's probably here to pick up a drunk college girl or two" she coldly answered him back, since she wasn't in any mood to be hit on by an obvious player like him. All it did was bring out a smile from him though, that she couldn't deny made her want to smile along with him.

"Well, you've got me there!" the guy admitted with a smile. "I'm Charlie. And you are?"

"Jen and I also have a boyfriend, so you'll just be wasting your time with me" she informed Charlie, who seemed like he took her instant rejection in stride. Probably because it wasn't the first time, he'd tried it.

"It doesn't seem like it's stopping any of the other girls here from doing what they want to. He must be quite a guy, your boyfriend, if he can make you swear off all of us other guys that easily" Charlie rhetorically stated, with a small wink of the eye to add to it.

"Just because the concept of fidelity is completely lost on guys like you, doesn't mean that the rest of us don't find some sort of logic in it".

"Do you always do this?"

"Do what?"

"Try to scare off anyone, who's just trying to start a conversation with you? Don't get me wrong, I love a challenge and with how easy it usually is to pick up girls at parties like these, I like that you stand out from them in your own way. I just can't imagine that it's the easiest way of making friends" Charlie said and seeing as he'd been distinctly not hitting on her, she figured that there was no harm in opening up herself a little to this guy that herself from a few years earlier would have allowed herself to be seduced by in no time.

The girl that he was dealing with this time though, knew exactly which buttons on a girl that guys like him tried to press, in order to get them to lower their defenses and it actually made for a fun way to pass the time, that she could basically check all of them off a list that only existed in her head.

Vaguely disguised compliments of her looks that kept flowing in a slow stream. Check.

Building his own sexual prowess and experience up to make her think that he would make for a good one-night stand. Check.

Seeking eye contact with her at all times. Check.

And so, she kept checking one after another off the list, until she couldn't be surer that this rather attractive guy, in spite of what he was claiming, was only trying to get her into bed with him.

"I've already done one thing that I'm not supposed to tonight, I don't need to add another to the list!" a by then very stoned Andie bluntly answered Andy, who was offering her one of the two beers, he had left.

"Who needs to know? I can keep a secret, if you can" Andy slyly said to her, and with the six puffs from two different joints that she'd had (two from the first and four from the second) rushing through her blood and weakening her usual strong resolve, she found herself accepting it without any further complaints on her own side.

"Anyway, you won't get drunk from just one beer, Andrea" Andy assured her, as they opened their cans simultaneously. After taking her first sip from the can, she could already agree with herself that it wasn't the most pleasant taste in the world, but far from the worst either. "You have my apologies that they're a little on the lukewarm side, but they'll have to do. Do you want to play a drinking game, of my own invention?"

"A drinking game that you invented?"

"I like to think of it as my legacy to this world, we live in" Andy dryly joked, bringing yet another small giggle out of her.

"What's it called?"

"It's called "Beat This". One of us asks the other a question and they have to answer it with the best story, they have. If the other player can beat that story, then the first player has to drink and if they can't ... well, you get the general idea of it, I'm sure. Are you game?" Andy asked her, and while the usual Andie (who would never have dared to even sit down and talk to this obviously very friendly guy in the first place) would have turned him down in a heartbeat, this version of her, who had been made far more daring than usual by the use of fine ganja, saw no harm in it.

"Okay, if I get to start" she offered and got a nod in return. "What's the most embarrassing thing, you've ever done?"

"Bringing out the tough questions first, I see. It would have to be when I was nine years old, and I got my butt completely handed to me by an eight-year-old girl in a schoolyard fight. In my own defense, I had no idea that she was some kind of wonderkid at karate!" Andy joked, and while she hadn't been able to laugh at anything for a week, suddenly she found herself laughing heartily again.

"I bet that you had to hear for that one for months afterwards!" she asked him through her laughter, with her getting a warm smile in return.

"Try years! What's yours?" Andy asked her, and she didn't need to think long about her answer.

"In grade two, I came to school wearing one green shoe and one blue shoe. I was so embarrassed that you wouldn't believe it!"

"No one mentioned it to you, before you left the house?"

"My brother Jack had noticed it instantly, he just thought that it would be funnier if he didn't mention it".

"I still say that mine was worst":

"Yeah, I agree with you!" she replied, before taking a small sip from her beer, as it was agreed beforehand.

"My turn. What's the freakiest thing, you've ever seen?"

Why Andie said what she said next, when she hadn't told anyone else about her visions of Tim, was something that even she couldn't explain afterwards. All she knew though, was that she quickly became glad that she did.

"I've seen a ghost. It was my older brother" she confessed to Andy, who had to raise an eyebrow at her response.

"A ghost? Like ... an actual ghost? Is he here with us now?" Andy asked, sounding far more intrigued than scared.

"I don't see him anywhere, so I guess not" she answered, like it was almost a natural reflex for her. "Do you think that I'm crazy now?"

"Not at all! You seem perfectly normal to me, anyway!" Andy assured her, bringing a small smile out of her. "Just because you see a ghost now and again doesn't make you crazy, at least not in my book".

"Everyone else would think so, if they found out. You really don't think that I'm out of my mind, huh?" she had to ask Andy, seeing as his answers had been about the farthest from what she'd imagined, they would be.

"Do you think that you are?" Andy asked her, posting a question that she'd asked herself a thousand times, at least.

"Sometimes, I think that I must be. My parents stuck me in a mental institution, because they thought that I was. Maybe, they were right".

"I don't know you yet, so I won't pretend to know everything about you. What I can tell you is that I've known more than my share of messed up girls, and you're not even playing the same game as them. What you're doing right now and who you're doing it with notwithstanding" Andy joked and before she knew it, she was suddenly holding hands with him.

Circa ten minutes later, when they began kissing, she could finally forget about everything that had gone wrong in her life up to then. That a part of it was thanks to what she'd always been told was a "Gateway Drug" couldn't have mattered less to her.

When eleven o'clock hit in Boston, it also meant that Jen and Jack would have to bid their farewells to Ethan and the party, if they were going to catch the last train of the day back home to Capeside. Not that Jen minded it too much, since it meant that she had an excuse to leave the constantly flirting Charlie in her dust, but to Jack, it was clear that the evening couldn't have gone much better.

"So, did you and Ethan kiss?" she asked Jack, while they were waiting for the bus that would take them down to the train station to arrive.

"No, we just talked a lot. I had a feeling that he wanted to; he just didn't want to do it where his classmates could have seen us. I really think that I'm falling for him, Jen. In a big way too" Jack confided in her, and while there was still some lingering feelings of rejection inside of her from when they'd broken up a few months earlier, she also found it impossible not to be happy for her friend, who'd obviously been making great strides when it comes to personal growth, while she'd allowed herself to be entertained by Charlie and his not so subtle pick-up lines.

"I'm glad for you" was all that she could think of replying at that moment, still it wasn't the worst answer that she could have given, since it brought a wide smile out of her travel partner.

"By the way, I'm sorry that I brought you all the way down here, only to leave you by yourself for the entire evening. Did you have any fun at all?"

"A little, I guess. More than anything, it made me realize a really scary thing! I'm becoming an adult, Jack and there's no denying it anymore!" she "confided" to Jack, who had to let out a small laugh in return.

"You can't tell me that you weren't prepared for it eventually happening" Jack dryly quipped in return.

"I was, I just wasn't planning on it happening this soon. It used to be that parties like the one we've been to would be the highlight of my week and now, I don't really find them all that fun anymore. There was a guy who hit on me tonight and he was attractive enough, it wasn't like that, but whereas in the old days, I would have been thrilled that a guy like him would find me interesting, tonight it just did nothing for me. It's probably your fault, you know?"

"How do you figure that?"

"Before I dated you, I'd never tried what it feels like to have a boyfriend, who's also my best friend. Getting involved with someone who isn't, just seems kind of pointless to me now, I guess".

"Jen, you can't expect that to happen instantly, whenever you meet a new prospective boyfriend. It takes time and patience to build up a relationship like ours" Jack reminded her, just before they got on the bus that would take them on the first part of their journey towards the place that they called home.

It would be almost one o'clock until Jen was home in bed, which was also why it was almost ten o'clock in the morning, until she got out of bed. As she stood out under the shower and tried to catch her bearings, thoughts of what to do about the Henry situation kept flashing through her mind and it quickly brought her to the conclusion that it would be better if she broke up with him as quickly as possible. If they hadn't been forced to act opposite one another in the school play, it's probably what she would have done too, but the prospects of having to spend hours in rehearsal with a guy who couldn't stand her anymore wasn't an appealing one either, making it a catch twenty-two that she found herself caught up in once again.

Seeing as she'd skipped breakfast altogether, she'd eaten a big lunch instead and she was lying on Grams' couch and trying to digest it all, when there was an unexpected knock on their door. With Grams being busy out in her beloved garden, there was only one person in their house to answer it and even if she had to let out a small groan of annoyance, she still did.

What she wasn't expecting though, was to see Dawson standing there, looking sort of flustered.

"Jen, I need your help" he said, while the worry was written all over his face.

"With what?" she asked him, seeing as she couldn't think of anything that she could help him with, off the top of her head.

"It's that Mandy girl. She keeps sending me text messages and I'm pretty sure that she's fallen for me. I'm really hoping that you can help me, because I'm at a complete loss here!" Dawson admitted and suddenly, an idea popped into Jen's head that had popped in there a time or two before this.

That maybe, just maybe, they could kill two birds with one stone and get rid of both her own problem and Dawson's at the same time.

END OF CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO