note: if you live in chicago, shush, i know the public transit reference isn't right but google didn't want to work with me and kept trying to put me on a freight train.
(also, mentions of sexual pressuring/harassment)
JESSIE
I waited. There was too much, too often, too all over the place, too everything. I needed it to shut off. Emma said this would make it shut off. Evan said this would make it shut off. People say it's good, they say it calms your nerves, makes you feel nice. Everyone else had tried it. Why not me?
I waited through my classes and through my Mom until Friday night, until I walked out of the building and down a block, until the figure cloaked in a black denim jacket with ribs bleached into the back of it picked up his head to look at me, until those stunning eyes under heavy eyelashes rested on my body approaching him.
"Hi," I peeped.
"Hello," his voice was still melancholy soft, a touch of discomfort. "Are you okay?"
"Okay enough."
He breathed out, "is anyone going to be around while you do this? Emma?"
I shook my head, "she's got something to do."
"Are you planning on doing it tonight?"
I pulled in a breath, watching his legs shift ever so slightly, "my parents work late."
He pulled his lips between his teeth, thinking about it, then opened his mouth again, "lead the way."
"What?"
"You're not doing this alone. I'm coming with."
"W-why?"
"Just in case you have an adverse reaction, plus, without Emma you're probably not even going to be able to roll one right. I'm coming."
"Oh, I-"
"Unless you don't want me to but then I'm not giving it to you," he stepped away, both his hands slipping into his pockets. "I'm already not that comfortable selling to you."
"Why?"
"Because you're Jessica Kingston, why else?"
I pushed my hair back away from my face, fighting the urge to tug on it, I was sick of it. I was sick of being Jessica Kingston, goody two shoes, Jessica Kingston that let everyone push her around, Jessie this, Jessie that, Jessie Jessie Jessie.
"This way," I grumbled, leading him forward and toward the bus stop.
He followed like a scary dog behind me, hands in his pockets, maybe three or four feet back. For once, I wasn't entirely afraid of people looking at me because I knew I had a huge guy in all black behind me that would do a good job of keeping them quiet.
"You're making me go on the bus," it's more of a statement than anything else.
"I'm- I can cover it if you-"
He shook his head, "it's seventy five cents, Jess."
I zipped my lips, heart fluttering at his shortening of my name.
"I'm just surprised you don't have a car or something."
"My mom thinks it's dangerous."
"And public transportation is better?"
"I carry a knife."
He sighed, big and heavy and making his shoulders sag, "alright."
We were just in time for the bus I'm normally 15 minutes early for. I slid on, waving at the driver who I know by now. Jorgen filled the door behind me, flashing a student ID and slipping three quarters into the box.
"Now, hold on there," she cut him off, arm out to block the way. "Show me that ID again."
He reached into his back pocket and pulled it out again, quickly following it with a dinged up plastic card I recognized as his license.
"You're over eighteen."
"I got redshirted," he growled, low and level.
"Alright then," she let him through and he slipped both IDs into his wallet again, following me toward my usual seat three rows back. I sat down on my usual seat and he stayed standing, one hand up on the handle above my head, his back facing the rest of the full bus.
"Why are you standing?" I asked after a few seconds, trying not to let my eyes linger on his belt around his hips.
"I like it better."
"The seat next to me is open."
"And I have two working legs, I'll let someone who needs it sit there while I'm still young enough to stand."
I considered that, a red blush flaring in my cheeks, "I suppose I should stand in that ca-"
His hand landed on my shoulder, one gentle push and I was sitting again, "a lady shouldn't have to stand."
"But-"
"So where are we headed?"
I swallowed, "Western Springs."
His eyebrow quirked up, "huh."
"What?"
"Didn't pin you in the rich girl category."
"Oh, I'm not-"
"Shh," he cracked a tiny smile, ease on his lips. "S'fine. I didn't say it was bad."
I stared at him, his strong nose and puffy lips and the weird intense look behind his eyes. My mom would kill me if she knew I was bringing him into the house. Hell, I barely knew him and here I was practically teeming with excitement to have him anywhere near me.
"I love seeing couples like you two in real life," there was a chirp from the seat next to us, a younger girl with her phone in hand, earbuds half-in half-out.
"What?" I could barely get it out of my lips.
"Ya know," she gestured at the two of us. "Big scary street rat and cute schoolgirl. Makes the fiction seem less like fiction."
"I'm not that scary, right?" He was joking, his lip is turned up and he was joking. Not even denying anything. Flirting, if I dared.
She frowned, "you're wearing a shirt with ribs bleached into it and you've got a patch on your shoulder that just says RIOT. You're scary enough."
He smiled, full on. It was blinding, big and gorgeous and softening up every hard line on his face in a dazzling show, "then I guess you're right because I can't find an argument in the book for Jessie not being the cutest person in the city and if I'm a scary street rat then maybe it works."
The girl smiled back, "yeah, you two are cool."
I was practically bristling by the time our stop rolled around but when Jorgen hopped off behind me and the doors whistled shut, my mouth wasn't the first one that opened.
"People are people and they think things all the time. What's the harm in playing along if it means you'll better their day?" He slowed his stride to stay beside me.
"It's lying!"
"It's bending the truth," he glanced over at me, the worry hitting his features again. "Enough about that."
I stayed quiet.
"What makes you want to do this?"
I stayed quiet.
"Jess."
He tried to get in my line of sight but I kept my eyes on the sidewalk.
"Jessie."
"It's nothing."
"It has to be something, I just got on a bus and went halfway across the city to smoke with some girl that would've never put a toe out of line for even God himself less than a year ago. So something is wrong."
"Nothing is wrong, Jorgen, I'm just..."
"Just?"
"Tired, I don't know, please, don't ask."
He pulled in a long breath from next to me, following me around a corner and off the main road, down the street that leads to my street.
"Okay, here's the deal," he broke the silence. "I don't feel comfortable giving you anything until you tell me at least some of what's going on."
"Why?"
"Because it's dangerous and I don't want you either getting a dependency or going into some sort of paranoia. Is that alright with you?"
I chewed my bottom lip, not looking over at him, instead, ducking through a path in the woods to get to my house the next street over. We popped out in my backyard.
He stayed behind me, observing, looking at the back of my house, taking in the tiny overgrown and dead garden, the lack of foliage in the trees because of the season, the chill in the air, the frozen water in the potted plant by the door.
I pushed open the door, wiggling the keys out and letting him in. He stopped at that entrance point, bending over and untying his boots.
I kicked off mine and pulled off my coat, watching his long fingers work at the laces.
"So, ah, what have... you been doing recently?"
He looked up at me, a sort of discomfort crossing his features in response to that, "I'm not important. You. Sit." He pointed at the living room. "Talk."
"I-"
"I'm a dead end, Jess, I don't talk to anyone at St. B's anymore. Everything you tell me stops with me and won't make it back around," he stood up, boots off, socks on my floor. In one motion he shucked the denim jacket down off his shoulders and revealed a light t-shirt that hugged his body, startling me with how tall he got but also the way I could see his ribs for just a moment as he stretched to the side.
"You're too skinny," I blurted it out by accident.
"I'm fine."
"No, Jorgen, you're-" his fingers picked up my chin, tilting my head away from his body where I was looking and back up toward his face.
"Talk."
I clenched and unclenched my fists, fighting the urge to just spill everything right there and then and praying he could sort it out and make some sense of it.
"I don't want to go to college," I let it drop out of my mouth knowing he was smart when he went to St. B's and would probably think I'm a loser for saying that.
He nodded.
"Or, at least, that college. My-my Mom made me commit already and I don't- I hate it there. I wanted to go to this, this school, it's in Maine, I wanted to go there instead and get away and now I'm going to Milwaukee and I just- I don't..."
The way his eyes rested on me was comforting in a stupid way, in a way I knew I was going to reget.
"And I'm tired," I coughed slightly over the knot in my throat. "Tired of being all perfect all the time I just want to not have to live up to it."
He let go of my chin and put his hands on my shoulders instead, pushing me backward gently and sitting me down on one of the living room couches. He sat across from me on the ottoman looking too-thin and a little frail but understanding. Like he got it.
"And Evan keeps trying to get me to do things I don't want to do and I keep saying no and he keeps making it seem like he's going to make me and I just, and everyone else is moving on and I feel like I'm still a seventh grader just stuck in high school and people are doing things and-"
He pressed his fingers to my lips, soft and freezing cold. "You want to do something that will catch you up to them, to make you feel like you've experienced anything, to break the perfect expectations of you."
I nodded.
"Are you sure you think this is the right way to do this?"
I nodded again.
"I'm going to tell you three things, okay?"
I nodded a third time.
"One, break it off with Evan."
"Jorgen, I don't want advice, I just want-"
"Break it off," his voice cut through mine, hard and unyielding. "I don't care if you don't want my advice. I'm not advising, I'm telling. End that. If he's asking repetedly to have sex with you, which is what you made it sound like, and he sounds like he's going to stop caring about your no soon, break it the hell off."
"It's not a no, it's just a not... him? Not now?"
"That's a no. No is a complete sentence. Remember that."
I dropped my head.
"Eyes on me," he tipped up my chin again. "Two, cut off people that make you feel like you have to try this shit. Alright? That includes Emma. She's a fucking mess when you get into it."
I shut my eyes.
"Three, do something that isn't perfect, anything. Fail something if you want, cut your hair, dye it some fun color. Get your nose pierced. Anything that isn't perfect and makes you feel like you've broken that."
I kept them shut.
"I don't want you fucking around with drugs unless you're stable enough to handle them."
"But, Jorgen, you're-"
"I fucking get that," his voice ran cold. "I get it. That's why. That's why I'm not getting you into it. I'm staying until you figure out number three and then I'm going home. Okay?"
I nodded, biting down tears, knowing he's right.
***
anyway
i couldn't get into the "my stories" part of wattpad for whatever reason tonight
-rabid