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chapter twelve: going away together
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It's been two days since the entire school got put on leave.
Jamie sits curled up in her room, an open book in hand and a mug of hot chocolate resting on her bedside table. The day has just started to fade into nightfall and her father has given up on the tree house for today, running off to some hardware store for supplies, so her window is cracked open. She feels more peaceful than she has in a while, Adam and school far from her mind, and, even if she still has to drag herself to Cole's house for tutoring, she's actually enjoying her break so far.
She's at the point where Lennie accidentally kills the puppy and Curley's wife comes to comfort him when she's interrupted.
"JJ!"
At first she wonders if she's hearing things, but then a stone taps at her window.
"JJ!"
Jamie puts a bookmark to mark her place and crawls out of bed, pushing open her window.
"This is getting old."
He smiles a cheesy smile, squinting up at her. "Your dad's finally building the tree house?"
"Yeah, he is." She nods. "What's up?"
"Can you come down?"
With a sigh, she contemplates it.
On one hand, she could just tell him she's busy and go back to her cocoon of warmth and happiness, but on the other, she doesn't even really want to sob over the end of Of Mice and Men right now anyway.
"Uh, sure, give me a sec."
With the most caution she can muster, she crawls out of her window and across the thick branch. In fact, she does extremely well until it comes to climbing down the trunk of the tree.
One of the boards on the 'ladder' breaks under her foot.
"Shit-"
Jamie only falls for a few seconds. Effortlessly, he catches her, his arms around her waist; her stomach starts to do loops and she wishes the ground would just open up, swallow them both whole.
"You okay?"
"Yeah." She nods, already feeling her face getting hot just by how close they are. "I'm fine."
Adam nods too and puts her down on her feet.
"So... now that I've made a fool of myself... what is it you wanted to talk about?"
She brushes the dirt and dust off her pants so she doesn't have to look at him.
"Oh, uh, my parents are taking advantage of this break and are dragging me up to the lake house." He sighs softly. "Dad says you're invited."
Jamie glances up at him, surprised. "Oh."
"Please come. Please. I can't be stuck with them all alone with nowhere to go."
She thinks about it for a moment.
The last time she went to the lake house was a long, long time ago.
"Besides, it won't be the same without you or Jake there, and Jake's in California..."
"I'll talk to my parents about it." She says, even if she thinks that a few days on vacation with him might genuinely kill her. "No promises."
A big smile comes across Adam's features anyway.
"Thank you!"
He engulfs her in a hug and she eventually hugs back, trying not to freak out over the way his cologne completely engulfs her.
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"So..."
Family dinners are usually a quiet, tense affair. Her parents are so far removed from her life that it's hard to get any real conversation flowing unless there's a television or other stimuli for them to talk about. That's why, Jamie assumes, her mother looks so relieved by her awkward breaking of the silence.
"So what?" Lisa asks, scooping some salad onto her plate.
"The Banks family are going up to their lake house..."
She pokes at a piece of meat with her fork.
Her father, surprisingly, interjects. "And?"
"And I'm invited to go."
The silence is back, far tenser than it was before, and she slowly, but surely, looks up at them both. Her mother looks far happier than her father does.
"I'd be staying in Jake Banks' old room." Jamie stresses. "And it'll only be a few days."
Her father sits back as he contemplates it, clearing his throat a bit.
"Maybe it'll be good for me to get out of the house over these two weeks, and you guys can have some alone time..."
That seems to be enough to push her mother over the edge.
"Oh, that sounds wonderful. Doesn't it, Jim?"
Her father fidgets under his wife's gaze for a moment. "You promise that you'll be staying in Jake's room?"
Jamie will probably not stay in Jake's room the whole time. She and Adam always wound up sleeping in each other's rooms, she doesn't see how it's going to be different this time around.
Still, she lies effortlessly through her teeth. "I promise."
And, surprisingly, her father nods.
"Alright...you can go."
Jamie finds herself smiling. "Thanks, dad."
Her heart will eventually find a resting beat.
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Jamie paces around her room, a phone receiver tucked against her ear with her shoulder as she thinks of what to pack. After the third time of getting sent to voicemail, she huffs and puts the receiver down. Walking to her light switch, she shuts her eyes and starts to flick it on and off a few times.
The phone rings a few minutes later.
"Hey." She hums as she's answering it.
"Hey." Says Adam's slightly panicked voice. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You did the light signal."
"Oh. Well, I needed you to answer the phone."
There's a pause as Adam mulls over her words.
"That's for emergencies, JJ."
Oh. Yeah. She knew there was a meaning to it.
"Well, this is an emergency. What do I pack?"
He sighs shortly and starts to tell her what to pack.
"...and that should be it."
"Thank you." She hums, closing the suitcase on her bed. "So, how are you feeling about the trip now?"
"A little better now that you're going." He still sounds utterly dismayed but she'll appreciate that he's humoring her.
"Well, I'm glad I can be of service."
She tries to remember what it was like, the Banks' lake house, but she can't. Not really. She just knows that good things happened there, and that she's almost excited to go back.
أنت تقرأ
seven (adam banks)
قصص الهواة"the last time he climbed it, they were at least seven years old." · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · · stand-alone the mighty ducks: d3 adam banks x oc
