Beneath the Sharps & Flats

♫Chapter 29- Truth or Dare? Which One do you Choose?♫

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The rest of the days leading up to New Year's Eve were spent playing around on my new phone, binging on Skittles, and watching Sci-fi movies on Netflix. I had taken a new liking to the genre; appreciating all of the horrible effects but amazing acting, and enjoying the gore and other weird scientific mutations occurring in humans or aliens. I rarely left my house considering the inches of snow on the ground and the bone-chilling weather outside. Wes and Gen did come over once to watch a movie with me and officially declared me crazy for actually enjoying this "crap." Jace was able to make it to my house twice this week without getting caught, only to find that I was binging on candy and hauled up in my room wasting away my brain cells on television.

"Technically, I'm learning some new scientific terms and possible outcomes for the mutation of genetics in humans. Also, if aliens do exist, they could threaten to devour all life on Earth," I had pointed out the first time he visited.

He had just settled with a large sigh and a kiss on my forehead before he settled down with me and watched Slither. After the movie was over and my stomach was churning with the amount of Skittles I had shoved down my esophagus, Jace had untangled himself from my comforter and prepared to leave again. I had questioned him about his odd Christmas and the return of his father, but he just shook his head and shot me a small smile of sadness.

"I'll show you next time," he had said before leaving.

I frowned after him for a while but then shrugged and followed after him to walk him out. If Jace really thought it was important enough to tell me, then he would tell me. For that, I was sure and I wasn't going to waste time arguing with him over whether or not he trusted me.

Jace trusts me, right?

It didn't matter two days later when he visited again, interrupting X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

I had paused my movie to glance up at him with a smile and scoot over on my bed to give him room to sit. He crawled under my comforter and I made a bold move and decided to inch my way onto his lap slowly so he wouldn't notice.

"Rainbow, if you wanted to snuggle, you just could've said so," he raised a brow, but there still seemed to be something bothering him. I was concerned, but decided that maybe a little bit of horrible Sci-fi effects and buckets of gore would cheer him up.

When that failed, I crawled off of his lap at the end of the movie and closed my laptop so I could focus solely on whatever he had to say.

"Jace," I sighed, "If you want me to help, I need to know everything. You can trust me."

His eyes softened when he saw how concerned I was, "I do trust you. I just wanted to spend some time with you without my darkness and depressing life corrupting that."

As he reached to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, I responded, "When you're dark and depressed, it affects my mood too. You have to get this off of your chest so I can help you, we can move past it, and we can be the happy, farting unicorns and rainbows couple everyone dreams of being. Besides, you are speaking to the Queen of Darkness here. We both have suckish lives."

Jace cracked a smile at that one and cupped my face with one hand, "That's true. We do both have terrible lives."

I laughed out loud and removed his hand from my face gently, "Okay shoot."

"Like I explained over the phone on Christmas, my dad surprised us all by showing up at our front door that morning. He had already told us that he wasn't going to be in town for Christmas so it was all very unexpected. Of course, Cara was overjoyed that Dad was home, but Mom and I were skeptical and cautious about Dad's arrival. We both had assumed that he'd be home for a couple of hours before he had to leave again and then we could resume our Christmas. The first hour with him back in our house went surprisingly well, but due to the fact that my parents have been separated for so long, it caused tension between all of us and eventually my Mom snapped. She blew up on him about him always worrying about his job more than his family which led to screaming about how he supposedly supports this whole family, and that led to the crying of Cara and the throwing of many expensive and fragile objects around the room."