Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky (Jensen/Jared RPS) -- 39/? (WIP)
Title: Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / Luanne (OFC); Jared Padalecki/Pete (OMC); Jared/Eric Kripke/JDM; stated Jared/Sandy; stated Jared/Rebecca (OFC) and stated Jared/Ryan (OMC)
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help. Things go (rapidly) downhill from there... then fester... then get better?
Come on! Hop in the handbasket! There be room here for everyone!
Spoilers: Overall there’s really nothing to see here… there are a few very vague spoilers for “Bugs” and some minor spoilers for “Faith”, “Bloody Mary” and "Shadow".
-------------------------
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Dreaming in Color...
Rating: R, for horror and adult themes
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, but we’re still not there yet
Word Count: 2,609
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Dreaming in Color...
I don’t want to go home, and he knows it. I’m dressed to impress, complete with looks to kill. I’ve put some gel in my unruly hair, and convinced Jared to throw on clothing I consider at least presentable, as opposed to the usual pink paisley shirts and oversized boot-cut khakis he wears. He’s even in shoes, not flip-flops, for once. We look good, and there’s no reason not to flaunt it.
“We could go check out girls.” I waggle my eyebrows at him while tucking my shirt into my pants, reaching for a black belt with a silver buckle from the backseat of my car.
Jared’s in a white dress shirt, a navy blue and white argyle sweater on over it, with navy dress pants, and a pair of black cowboy boots that are new and relatively dressy compared to what he usually wears. His limp is there, but barely noticeable as yet, probably just a little tired from a day of filming. He’s not entirely up to full strength again after a week of being home with pneumonia. And I’d daresay he’s not 100% yet. He still coughs from time to time, though he hasn’t coughed anything up that I’ve seen-not recently. Then, I’ve been pretty oblivious thanks to my own troubles.
The lilting step also comes noticeable when he’s too stressed about something else to think about hiding it. He has to make a conscious effort to hide the limp, something he usually does as second-nature, but stress and sickness make it hard. I’ve also seen him limp after running long distances or putting in a particularly hard workout. Stress.
He sighs. “Where do you want to go, Jensen?” He’s standing by the drivers side door, staring at me over the hood of the car.
“St. Laurent’s?” I ask with a grin.
St. Laurent’s is a pub that’s maybe a five minute drive from the set. You could walk there from the set if you wanted to-it was about a mile up the road, if that. It’s a popular place with the locals, and somewhat of a tourist attraction. People from the city come out to St. Laurent’s and so do people from the towns.
There are two rooms for the patrons, separated by a wall about two feet high, with a two-foot railing-so four feet high total, and a large open section as a “door”. Each ‘room’ is ballroom sized-it’s as large establishment. One has two bars, one on either side of the room, both manned by two bartenders at all times. There’s a stage at one end and usually a live band playing cover songs. If there’s no live band, there’s a deejay spinning tunes. Tall bar tables with stools line the other wall, and there are a couple set off at the corners.
The other room is tables-sit-down tables and a few bar-style tables in the corners with bar stools. There’s an archway in the back of the establishment, accessible from both rooms that leads to men’s and ladies’ bathrooms, and the kitchen.
It’s a Tuesday night, so the place is bound to be relatively slow, though I know for a fact they have a live band tonight-an acoustic band playing soft rock, nothing anyone could really dance to. They’ll probably have fold-out tables set up on the dance floor.
Jared drives, and we park near the door. I was right-the place is pretty empty. There are only a couple other cars in the lot right now, and when we get in, the band’s only just setting up-they’re supposed to start their set at five, play through eleven or so. The place’ll pick up around six I figure.
Jared and I sit at the bar. We’re regulars here-or at least we’ve been here enough where we’re considered ‘regulars’ by a few of the bartenders. We know their names. Dalia, Shannon, and Burt. There are others who we don’t know. The only waitress we know is Carly. She only works Thursday and Friday nights, as well as weekends from noon until closing. She’s the owners’ daughter.
Dalia gets us free beers and menus that we don’t bother to look at before ordering a baked zucchini appetizer and BLT Sandwiches. Jared cuts me off after my free beer, and doesn’t drink any more himself other than a diet coke. He’s driving, he tells Dalia.
“What about him?” She smiles, while leaning across the bar and jerking a thumb in my direction. Her breasts are popping out of her top, and if it were any other woman I’d probably be staring, but its Dalia, and she’s made it obvious over past visits that Jared’s her choice of the two of us. I don’t know what it is. She’s always liked him more.
“He isn’t feeling so well.” I answer pointedly. When she looks at me, I ask for a water. She nods curtly.
The sandwiches are triple-decker and huge, with extra mayonnaise and juicy tomatoes. The bacon is crisp but not overcooked. Perfection. Jared chokes on a bite of his when Dalia wrinkles her nose and walks away to get my water and take the order of another couple who just walked in. “Dude, she was talking to me.”
“While I’m sitting right here. It’s rude!” I finish off the glass of water and swallow the last bite of my sandwich.
Jared takes the last of the baked zucchini, slurps the last of his diet coke through a straw and motions to Dalia for the check. She leaves it with her phone number, for what must be the eighth time now. You’d think she’d have gotten the message.
“Why does she keep leaving you her number, man?”
“Oh, I’ve called her once or twice.” Jared says casually, reaching into his wallet to pay. He waves me off when I go for mine. “Get dinner tomorrow or something.”
I tuck my wallet away, follow Jared from the establishment, blatantly checking out the new hires as we pass the front desk. There are two-one tall blonde with legs that have to be as long as Jared’s (okay, I exaggerate, but the girl had legs) and a waistline that might make Paris Hilton jealous. She’s cute, but too tall, too thin and too waifish for me. As far as I can tell, Jared doesn’t give her a second glance. The other is a shorter girl with cropped spiky red-red-hair and a couple extra piercings in her ears, as well as one in her belly-button. She’s bottom-heavy, hips and ass to make any black woman rightfully jealous, but she’s far from fat. She’s cute, but also not my type. Jared doesn’t seem to check her out at all.
“So you’ve called her a few times?” I ask as I walk out the front door. This must have been prior to Sandy breaking up with him, because it’s only been at most two weeks since that turn of events.
“Yeah.”
“So maybe I’m not the reason Sandy broke up with you.” I say jokingly.
Jared gives me a funny look. “No... she definitely did break up with me because of you.” His voice is somewhat matter-of-fact, and it’s also somewhat sad. I stay quiet the rest of the way back to my apartment complex.
When we get home, Jared’s no longer walking with that funny stilted lope, and he sits down on the couch, starts to read the paper. I sit next to him and pick up the book I started almost a week ago. We say nothing to each other until the phone rings at ten- thirty, waking Jared from a half-sleep. “Oh… wow… it’s late.” He says, rubbing at his eyes.
I’m already on the phone, talking to Eddie, who, as expected, tells me to get my ass to a hospital. I don’t know why I called in the first place. I knew what his advice would be.
“If you’re not going to admit yourself, at least take the sleeping pills, Jen. They will help.”
I let it go in one ear and out the other, hang up when I’ve had enough. I know he’s trying to help, but I don’t want to go to the hospital-can’t, really, because I can’t miss any more days of filming-and I don’t like taking the pills if I can help it. I barely take the Xanax as is, and I know I need it. Jared’s had to force feed it to me the last few times.
I don’t get many of the nasty side effects like difficulty speaking (My thoughts will get a little fuzzy and I’ll slur some words, but that’s minor-doesn’t fall into the ‘difficulty speaking’ category of side effect, or so Eddie tells me) or depression/confusion. I do get aches in my joints if I take it regularly for a week or more, Eddie says that’s one of the less severe side effects and not to worry too much about it so long as it doesn’t get particularly bad. Mostly though, it just does what it’s supposed to. It calms me. Makes me a little drowsy and very slightly dizzy for the first half hour or so after I take it, but from what Eddie tells me that’s part of the calming effect and nothing to worry about.
I go to bed after hanging up with Eddie. Jared’s already in the seclusion of his bedroom (formerly the guest room) either asleep or reading. Either way I’m sure he’s not staring up at the ceiling like I find myself doing at midnight.
I doze off to strange dreams of flying cows and wolves that live under the ocean at one.
At two, I’m wide awake, eating leftover Chinese from a couple nights ago, hoping it doesn’t give me heartburn. So much for regularly scheduled meals, and if anything will give you nightmares, it’s cold General Tso’s at two in the morning with beer to wash it all down.
Jared’s mother walks in on me, and sits down across from me at the table. I stab a piece of chicken and hold it out to her. “General Tso’s?” I mumble around a mouthful of it.
“No. Thank you.” She does have a beer of her own, and she leans across the table at me. Funny, she looks just like Jared, but with white hair, and she’s shorter and fatter-like if Jared kept the same weight but shrank by two feet. She has glasses. She takes them off, puts them on the table. “You think that because Jared told you about his past, that now you know him? That you’ll be good for him? That you can be what he needs?”
I never said that. I never thought that.
“You can’t. You can’t love him the way he needs. Because you’re scared. Because deep inside you’re just like those people who hurt him in high school.”
No. I’m not. I’d never do that to another human being. I’d never do that to Jared. A piece of chicken goes down wrong and I swallow half the beer, coughing all the while. I shake my head in denial.
“You are. You’re closed-minded and hateful. You say you won’t hurt him, but you will.”
I know I have to be dreaming, but I can’t wake myself up. “You’re not really here.” I tell the Jared with white hair in front of me. “This isn’t real…”
Inside my head she’s talking now. I can hear her voice but her lips aren’t moving. “You think this isn’t real? Pinch yourself, Jensen. Wake up. Then tell yourself how not real this is…” I do-pinch myself, that is-and I wake up, in my own bed, blankets and sheets wrapped around me.
When I get up to go to the kitchen, to make sure Jared isn’t there-short, stubby Jared with the wiry blue-white hair and spectacles-and to make sure there isn’t any left over General Tso’s, I see her, sitting in the kitchen. The half-eaten General Tso’s is in a bowl with chopsticks across from her, with an open beer.
“Real, Jensen. As real as it gets.” The voice echoes inside my head as I sit back down across from her, looking for signs that this isn’t real, but there aren’t any. I pinch myself again, but I’m not waking up in my bed anymore, and the dark blue outside the kitchen window is the same as it was before. The clock says it’s three-thirty in the morning. I should be sleeping. I have to be at work in the morning.
“I won’t hurt him.” I say suddenly, around a mouthful of beer and breaded and spicy chicken. “I won’t.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” Jared’s mom replies matter-of-factly, leaning back in her chair and sipping at her longneck bottle. “Keep telling yourself that until you believe it. But you never will. You know you’ll hurt him. Just like I know you’ll hurt him. Just like Sandy knows, just like everyone knows.”
“Nobody knows.”
“Everybody knows, Jensen. Do you really think Jeffrey can’t see that you’re together? Do you really think that Eric thinks you’re just sharing an apartment for the hell of it? To save money? Because Sandy kicked him out?”
Now that she mentions it, it all does seem somewhat suspect.
“Do you really think that your friends see you at the bar and think you’re there to check out women? Everyone knows you’re together, Jensen. Everyone.”
“And he’ll get hurt because of it. You’ll hurt him.”
“No…”
“Yes… even if you don’t partake yourself. He’ll get hurt because he’s with you. Because you’re together. It will be your fault. Your fault, Jensen.”
A horrible dawning is coming on me. She thinks I’ll hurt him like those people in high school hurt him. I would never…
“It doesn’t matter if you strike the first blow or not. Or if you’re there at all. It will still be on your head. Your fault. Your fault. Everyone will blame you. Jared will blame you...”
And her face changes then, morphs into Jared’s face, thinner and younger… the hair darkens and the glasses disappear. It’s Jared now, in front of me, and there’s blood streaming down his face, into his eyes, from his mouth and down his neck… The scar on his belly has opened up, he’s bleeding out on my floor.
Her voice echoes cold in my head. “…your fault… your fault… your fault…”
“Jared!?!” I cry his name and jump up, sending General Tso’s chicken flying all over the floor, the sauce mixing with his blood on the floor-it’s almost the same color in the dim and silvered moonlight.
He slumps in the chair, chin falling to his chest, hair flopping in his wide and unseeing eyes. He falls-tumbles, limply-onto the floor in a puddle of his own blood. There are bruises on his face, angry and purple, his eyes look black from the blood, and he can’t blink because he doesn’t have the strength. His arm is bent in a way no arm should ever be, cradled close to his chest with his other hand.
“Jared! Jared, what happened? Who did this to you?” I’m kneeling at his side, the phone in my hand, calling 9-1-1. It’s ringing and ringing and ringing and nobody’s answering. He’s not moving.
“Jared!!!”
I wake up, sitting stark upright in bed, breathing heavy, Jared’s name still a remnant scream on my lips and stomach churning. I barely make it to the bathroom before dinner comes up, sharp as glass.
-------------------------
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / Luanne (OFC); Jared Padalecki/Pete (OMC); Jared/Eric Kripke/JDM; stated Jared/Sandy; stated Jared/Rebecca (OFC) and stated Jared/Ryan (OMC)
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help. Things go (rapidly) downhill from there... then fester... then get better?
Come on! Hop in the handbasket! There be room here for everyone!
Spoilers: Overall there’s really nothing to see here… there are a few very vague spoilers for “Bugs” and some minor spoilers for “Faith”, “Bloody Mary” and "Shadow".
-------------------------
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Dreaming in Color...
Rating: R, for horror and adult themes
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, but we’re still not there yet
Word Count: 2,609
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Dreaming in Color...
I don’t want to go home, and he knows it. I’m dressed to impress, complete with looks to kill. I’ve put some gel in my unruly hair, and convinced Jared to throw on clothing I consider at least presentable, as opposed to the usual pink paisley shirts and oversized boot-cut khakis he wears. He’s even in shoes, not flip-flops, for once. We look good, and there’s no reason not to flaunt it.
“We could go check out girls.” I waggle my eyebrows at him while tucking my shirt into my pants, reaching for a black belt with a silver buckle from the backseat of my car.
Jared’s in a white dress shirt, a navy blue and white argyle sweater on over it, with navy dress pants, and a pair of black cowboy boots that are new and relatively dressy compared to what he usually wears. His limp is there, but barely noticeable as yet, probably just a little tired from a day of filming. He’s not entirely up to full strength again after a week of being home with pneumonia. And I’d daresay he’s not 100% yet. He still coughs from time to time, though he hasn’t coughed anything up that I’ve seen-not recently. Then, I’ve been pretty oblivious thanks to my own troubles.
The lilting step also comes noticeable when he’s too stressed about something else to think about hiding it. He has to make a conscious effort to hide the limp, something he usually does as second-nature, but stress and sickness make it hard. I’ve also seen him limp after running long distances or putting in a particularly hard workout. Stress.
He sighs. “Where do you want to go, Jensen?” He’s standing by the drivers side door, staring at me over the hood of the car.
“St. Laurent’s?” I ask with a grin.
St. Laurent’s is a pub that’s maybe a five minute drive from the set. You could walk there from the set if you wanted to-it was about a mile up the road, if that. It’s a popular place with the locals, and somewhat of a tourist attraction. People from the city come out to St. Laurent’s and so do people from the towns.
There are two rooms for the patrons, separated by a wall about two feet high, with a two-foot railing-so four feet high total, and a large open section as a “door”. Each ‘room’ is ballroom sized-it’s as large establishment. One has two bars, one on either side of the room, both manned by two bartenders at all times. There’s a stage at one end and usually a live band playing cover songs. If there’s no live band, there’s a deejay spinning tunes. Tall bar tables with stools line the other wall, and there are a couple set off at the corners.
The other room is tables-sit-down tables and a few bar-style tables in the corners with bar stools. There’s an archway in the back of the establishment, accessible from both rooms that leads to men’s and ladies’ bathrooms, and the kitchen.
It’s a Tuesday night, so the place is bound to be relatively slow, though I know for a fact they have a live band tonight-an acoustic band playing soft rock, nothing anyone could really dance to. They’ll probably have fold-out tables set up on the dance floor.
Jared drives, and we park near the door. I was right-the place is pretty empty. There are only a couple other cars in the lot right now, and when we get in, the band’s only just setting up-they’re supposed to start their set at five, play through eleven or so. The place’ll pick up around six I figure.
Jared and I sit at the bar. We’re regulars here-or at least we’ve been here enough where we’re considered ‘regulars’ by a few of the bartenders. We know their names. Dalia, Shannon, and Burt. There are others who we don’t know. The only waitress we know is Carly. She only works Thursday and Friday nights, as well as weekends from noon until closing. She’s the owners’ daughter.
Dalia gets us free beers and menus that we don’t bother to look at before ordering a baked zucchini appetizer and BLT Sandwiches. Jared cuts me off after my free beer, and doesn’t drink any more himself other than a diet coke. He’s driving, he tells Dalia.
“What about him?” She smiles, while leaning across the bar and jerking a thumb in my direction. Her breasts are popping out of her top, and if it were any other woman I’d probably be staring, but its Dalia, and she’s made it obvious over past visits that Jared’s her choice of the two of us. I don’t know what it is. She’s always liked him more.
“He isn’t feeling so well.” I answer pointedly. When she looks at me, I ask for a water. She nods curtly.
The sandwiches are triple-decker and huge, with extra mayonnaise and juicy tomatoes. The bacon is crisp but not overcooked. Perfection. Jared chokes on a bite of his when Dalia wrinkles her nose and walks away to get my water and take the order of another couple who just walked in. “Dude, she was talking to me.”
“While I’m sitting right here. It’s rude!” I finish off the glass of water and swallow the last bite of my sandwich.
Jared takes the last of the baked zucchini, slurps the last of his diet coke through a straw and motions to Dalia for the check. She leaves it with her phone number, for what must be the eighth time now. You’d think she’d have gotten the message.
“Why does she keep leaving you her number, man?”
“Oh, I’ve called her once or twice.” Jared says casually, reaching into his wallet to pay. He waves me off when I go for mine. “Get dinner tomorrow or something.”
I tuck my wallet away, follow Jared from the establishment, blatantly checking out the new hires as we pass the front desk. There are two-one tall blonde with legs that have to be as long as Jared’s (okay, I exaggerate, but the girl had legs) and a waistline that might make Paris Hilton jealous. She’s cute, but too tall, too thin and too waifish for me. As far as I can tell, Jared doesn’t give her a second glance. The other is a shorter girl with cropped spiky red-red-hair and a couple extra piercings in her ears, as well as one in her belly-button. She’s bottom-heavy, hips and ass to make any black woman rightfully jealous, but she’s far from fat. She’s cute, but also not my type. Jared doesn’t seem to check her out at all.
“So you’ve called her a few times?” I ask as I walk out the front door. This must have been prior to Sandy breaking up with him, because it’s only been at most two weeks since that turn of events.
“Yeah.”
“So maybe I’m not the reason Sandy broke up with you.” I say jokingly.
Jared gives me a funny look. “No... she definitely did break up with me because of you.” His voice is somewhat matter-of-fact, and it’s also somewhat sad. I stay quiet the rest of the way back to my apartment complex.
When we get home, Jared’s no longer walking with that funny stilted lope, and he sits down on the couch, starts to read the paper. I sit next to him and pick up the book I started almost a week ago. We say nothing to each other until the phone rings at ten- thirty, waking Jared from a half-sleep. “Oh… wow… it’s late.” He says, rubbing at his eyes.
I’m already on the phone, talking to Eddie, who, as expected, tells me to get my ass to a hospital. I don’t know why I called in the first place. I knew what his advice would be.
“If you’re not going to admit yourself, at least take the sleeping pills, Jen. They will help.”
I let it go in one ear and out the other, hang up when I’ve had enough. I know he’s trying to help, but I don’t want to go to the hospital-can’t, really, because I can’t miss any more days of filming-and I don’t like taking the pills if I can help it. I barely take the Xanax as is, and I know I need it. Jared’s had to force feed it to me the last few times.
I don’t get many of the nasty side effects like difficulty speaking (My thoughts will get a little fuzzy and I’ll slur some words, but that’s minor-doesn’t fall into the ‘difficulty speaking’ category of side effect, or so Eddie tells me) or depression/confusion. I do get aches in my joints if I take it regularly for a week or more, Eddie says that’s one of the less severe side effects and not to worry too much about it so long as it doesn’t get particularly bad. Mostly though, it just does what it’s supposed to. It calms me. Makes me a little drowsy and very slightly dizzy for the first half hour or so after I take it, but from what Eddie tells me that’s part of the calming effect and nothing to worry about.
I go to bed after hanging up with Eddie. Jared’s already in the seclusion of his bedroom (formerly the guest room) either asleep or reading. Either way I’m sure he’s not staring up at the ceiling like I find myself doing at midnight.
I doze off to strange dreams of flying cows and wolves that live under the ocean at one.
At two, I’m wide awake, eating leftover Chinese from a couple nights ago, hoping it doesn’t give me heartburn. So much for regularly scheduled meals, and if anything will give you nightmares, it’s cold General Tso’s at two in the morning with beer to wash it all down.
Jared’s mother walks in on me, and sits down across from me at the table. I stab a piece of chicken and hold it out to her. “General Tso’s?” I mumble around a mouthful of it.
“No. Thank you.” She does have a beer of her own, and she leans across the table at me. Funny, she looks just like Jared, but with white hair, and she’s shorter and fatter-like if Jared kept the same weight but shrank by two feet. She has glasses. She takes them off, puts them on the table. “You think that because Jared told you about his past, that now you know him? That you’ll be good for him? That you can be what he needs?”
I never said that. I never thought that.
“You can’t. You can’t love him the way he needs. Because you’re scared. Because deep inside you’re just like those people who hurt him in high school.”
No. I’m not. I’d never do that to another human being. I’d never do that to Jared. A piece of chicken goes down wrong and I swallow half the beer, coughing all the while. I shake my head in denial.
“You are. You’re closed-minded and hateful. You say you won’t hurt him, but you will.”
I know I have to be dreaming, but I can’t wake myself up. “You’re not really here.” I tell the Jared with white hair in front of me. “This isn’t real…”
Inside my head she’s talking now. I can hear her voice but her lips aren’t moving. “You think this isn’t real? Pinch yourself, Jensen. Wake up. Then tell yourself how not real this is…” I do-pinch myself, that is-and I wake up, in my own bed, blankets and sheets wrapped around me.
When I get up to go to the kitchen, to make sure Jared isn’t there-short, stubby Jared with the wiry blue-white hair and spectacles-and to make sure there isn’t any left over General Tso’s, I see her, sitting in the kitchen. The half-eaten General Tso’s is in a bowl with chopsticks across from her, with an open beer.
“Real, Jensen. As real as it gets.” The voice echoes inside my head as I sit back down across from her, looking for signs that this isn’t real, but there aren’t any. I pinch myself again, but I’m not waking up in my bed anymore, and the dark blue outside the kitchen window is the same as it was before. The clock says it’s three-thirty in the morning. I should be sleeping. I have to be at work in the morning.
“I won’t hurt him.” I say suddenly, around a mouthful of beer and breaded and spicy chicken. “I won’t.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” Jared’s mom replies matter-of-factly, leaning back in her chair and sipping at her longneck bottle. “Keep telling yourself that until you believe it. But you never will. You know you’ll hurt him. Just like I know you’ll hurt him. Just like Sandy knows, just like everyone knows.”
“Nobody knows.”
“Everybody knows, Jensen. Do you really think Jeffrey can’t see that you’re together? Do you really think that Eric thinks you’re just sharing an apartment for the hell of it? To save money? Because Sandy kicked him out?”
Now that she mentions it, it all does seem somewhat suspect.
“Do you really think that your friends see you at the bar and think you’re there to check out women? Everyone knows you’re together, Jensen. Everyone.”
“And he’ll get hurt because of it. You’ll hurt him.”
“No…”
“Yes… even if you don’t partake yourself. He’ll get hurt because he’s with you. Because you’re together. It will be your fault. Your fault, Jensen.”
A horrible dawning is coming on me. She thinks I’ll hurt him like those people in high school hurt him. I would never…
“It doesn’t matter if you strike the first blow or not. Or if you’re there at all. It will still be on your head. Your fault. Your fault. Everyone will blame you. Jared will blame you...”
And her face changes then, morphs into Jared’s face, thinner and younger… the hair darkens and the glasses disappear. It’s Jared now, in front of me, and there’s blood streaming down his face, into his eyes, from his mouth and down his neck… The scar on his belly has opened up, he’s bleeding out on my floor.
Her voice echoes cold in my head. “…your fault… your fault… your fault…”
“Jared!?!” I cry his name and jump up, sending General Tso’s chicken flying all over the floor, the sauce mixing with his blood on the floor-it’s almost the same color in the dim and silvered moonlight.
He slumps in the chair, chin falling to his chest, hair flopping in his wide and unseeing eyes. He falls-tumbles, limply-onto the floor in a puddle of his own blood. There are bruises on his face, angry and purple, his eyes look black from the blood, and he can’t blink because he doesn’t have the strength. His arm is bent in a way no arm should ever be, cradled close to his chest with his other hand.
“Jared! Jared, what happened? Who did this to you?” I’m kneeling at his side, the phone in my hand, calling 9-1-1. It’s ringing and ringing and ringing and nobody’s answering. He’s not moving.
“Jared!!!”
I wake up, sitting stark upright in bed, breathing heavy, Jared’s name still a remnant scream on my lips and stomach churning. I barely make it to the bathroom before dinner comes up, sharp as glass.
-------------------------