Chapter 8; Shopping and Confessions::
"So, let me get this straight." Clare crammed a whole cookie into her mouth.
"Mike came to Indiana to get you because of a book you wrote to him last month?" Jade nibbled on a cookie of her own for a moment and then shook her head.
"No, he didn't come to Indiana to GET me. He came to visit me. I just ended up coming back to California with him." She didn't particularly want to disclose the reasons why.
"But you truly did write the book?" Clare ate another cookie whole.
"Yeah. Are you sure you aren't pregnant?" Clare laughed suddenly, blowing cookie crumbs out in front of her, and then covered her mouth to stop them. Jade watched her oddly.
"No. I'm not pregnant. I just like to eat."
"Man, I wish I could eat like that and not gain an ounce." Jade looked at the floor in a feeble fashion. Clare blinked and then licked her lips after taking a bit of another Oreo. She watched Jade for a moment and then shifted where she sat.
"So, what was in the book?" Jade's heart sped up a bit. She hadn't wanted to explain that particular detail.
"Uhm, nothing of any really big importance." Clare chuckled.
"Well, obviously it was or he wouldn't have gone all the way to Indiana to single you out."
"I just...I guess I'm not ready to talk about it just yet." Clare swallowed and then nodded slowly.
"Okay. That's cool. I didn't mean to pry." Jade shook her head, taking a drink of milk.
"It's okay." Clare took a breath and decided to go another route.
"So, doesn't Mike's wife get frustrated that he's spending so much time with you?"
"I don't know. I've only ever met her once and she didn't stay long."
"Did they seem happy?" Jade shrugged, not particularly wanting to talk about Mike's love life.
"As happy as they could seem, I guess. They didn't seem UNhappy." Clare nodded. Jade took another drink of her milk as her phone began to scream the opening bars of "What I've Done" by Linkin Park. She swallowed her milk quickly.
"That's Mike." She grabbed the Razr, flipping it open. Her eyes flew across the screen, reading the text.
Where are you at? I'll pick you up. I need to get out of the house.
Jade looked at the message oddly and then quickly let her thumbs tick out a text back.
I'm at Clare's. I think she had plans anyway.
She closed the phone and looked at Clare.
"He wants to pick me up," she told Clare. Clare nodded.
"It's cool. I needed to go run some errands anyway." Jade nodded and read the reply from Mike.
Be there in 20.
~*~
Jade opened the door to Mike's Lexus, climbed in and buckled her seatbelt before looking over at Mike. He looked somewhat deflated. His left elbow was rested on the windowsill and his cheek leaned on his fist.
"Ready?" She nodded. He put the SUV into gear and started out of the apartment complex parking lot. Jade eyed him for a moment before opening her mouth to say something. He spoke before she could.
"I need to go to the mall. I need new jeans." She nodded, looking forward again, all thoughts of what she was going to say suppressed. Mike didn't utter another word throughout the ride to the store complex.
~*~
She trailed next to him, scooting along at a leisurely pace, as he walked toward American Eagle. He seemed like he was in a horrible mood. From experience, she didn't want to say anything that could cause him to round on her and let her have it. Mike pulled his hands out of his pockets and ran them over his face roughly before walking into the store and making a beeline to a table in the back. The store was relatively empty as it was a Wednesday afternoon. Mike picked up a pair of jeans, examining them. Jade sat down in a plush, blue armchair and watched him quietly. It wasn't until that moment, watching him twisting and turning the material of the pants in his hands, checking sizes, unfolding and refolding the garments, that she realized how truly good looking he was and just how amazingly odd it would be to normal people to see her sitting there waiting for him. She looked at her lap.
"You aren't talking much," Mike burst suddenly. She looked up quickly.
"Oh, err. You just didn't seem like you wanted to talk." Mike chuckled, picking up another pair of jeans, scrutinizing them, and then slinging them over his shoulder for safe-keeping.
"Sorry. Just haven't had a very good day." Jade blinked a few times and then caught herself saying something to him she never thought she would.
"You wanna talk about it?" Mike moved to a rack of black, pinstriped button-down shirts.
"Nothing really to talk about. Just a little fight with Anna. Nothing huge." Jade nodded and looked at the shirts he was leafing through.
"I like those." He looked back at her, holding one of them in his hand. He smirked a bit.
"Really? Not too dark?" Jade shrugged.
"Just don't wear it with dark jeans."
"Listen to you, Miss Fashion Queen." She let a small smile grace her lips as she looked down at her lap. Mike slammed the yellow fitting room door.
"So, you want to continue the story of Jade, or do you want to wait?" Jade looked at the door as if she were looking right at him.
"What else is there to know?" She heard him shuffling around, apparently pulling on the new jeans.
"Oh come on. There's got to be more to you than just some school bullying." She was quiet for a long while. The door opened slowly.
"Sorry. I didn't mean that the way it came out."
"No offense taken.".
"Stupid question, but do these look okay?" She looked up quickly and eyed his jeans.
"They look fine." He nodded and then tucked the pockets in, wiggling around in the pants, trying to get comfortable.
"If they don't feel good, why bother?"
"They feel fine as far as jeans go. New jeans just always feel a little weird to me." She nodded.
"But am I right?"
"About what?"
"That there is more to you."
"You know you are, so why bother asking?" She opened her mouth to stop him, but before she had time, he walked straight into the closed, yellow door. She pursed her lips and held back a giggle behind her hand. Mike stood there for a moment staring at the door, his hands hanging limply at his sides, before grabbing the knob and jerking the door open and disappearing inside.
"That was smooth.".
"Yeah, not everyone can be as awesome as me." They were quiet for a moment while Mike changed his shirt.
"So, since I am right. Are you going to tell me anything today?" She shrugged and then realized he couldn't see her.
"I don't know."
"You don't know what?"
"What to tell you. Like, what good is my telling you all the things you want to know?" Mike opened the door again and walked out in the black, pinstriped shirt.
"I just thought it might help you to talk about it. What ever IT is."
"That looks nice." She changed the subject.
"Thanks," He didn't say another word. She took a deep breath and rolled her eyes, throwing her hands to her legs in defeat.
"You know how, like, grandma's are supposed to be really awesome?" She heard a hanger banging around on the door.
"I guess."
"Well, my grandma is kind of crazy." He opened the door, walking back out carrying his new clothes.
"What do you mean 'crazy'?" She thought for a moment, standing up. She looked around as Mike walked toward the check-out desk.
"You want anything?" She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah, okay. Because fat people can wear the stuff in here." He stood there for a moment.
"You're not fat,"
"Do you want anything or not? While we're here." She shook her head. He threw his credit card onto the counter.
"So anyway. What about your grandma?" She furrowed her brow, shoving a pair of aviator sunglasses onto her face. He turned and looked at her and she heard him snort. She glared at him through the glasses.
"I've spent most of my life trying to avoid my grandma." She put the sunglasses back on their holder.
"Why?" He his bag from the clerk and walking toward the exit. She watched her feet, treading on each line she could find.
"You know they say if you step on a crack, you'll--"
"Break your mother's back? Well, at this point in time, I don't really care." Mike looked to the side, away from her. She took a deep breath.
"My grandma has blamed me for everything that has ever gone wrong in her life, for some reason." Mike looked down at her, walking along beside him.
"I never actually did anything to her. But she always treated me like I was some sort of disease. And I suppose that wouldn't have been such a bad thing if my mother had someone else to take care of me when I still too young to take care of myself while she was at work."
"What did she do to you?"
"What DIDN'T she do to me is the real question."
"She hit me a lot when I was little. Before I was old enough to get away or....fight back. I got into a fist fight with her when I was 15." He gaped at her.
"Don't worry. I didn't hurt her. She cut my head open."
"Well, I hope you stayed away from her after that."
"No one in my family can understand why I don't want to be around her." Mike blinked back a look of horror.
"Hey, she's my grandma. I'm supposed to love her to bits!" She gave him a feeble look of sarcasm and he rolled his eyes.
"I'd have walked away from my family right then.".
"They're all I had."
"Yeah, well, you have me now, so don't worry about it anymore." She smirked at the tiles below her and then walked through the door he held for her to head outside toward his SUV.
"If you want, we can do something later on."
"Whatever you want to do. I'm not going anywhere."
"I need to head back home for now."
"Probably going to have to talk my wife down about just going to the mall"
"What do you mean? What's wrong with going to the mall?"
"It's not so much the places I go as the company I'm in." He pulled onto the freeway.
"What do you mean? It was over me?" He shrugged.
"So you guys fought. Because of me." He looked at her, stopping at a traffic hold-up.
"Nothing is your fault. Alright?" She stared at her lap. He squeezed his eyes closed and dropped his chin to his chest for a moment.
"It's all me, okay? This isn't about you." She looked at him, an eyebrow raised.
"But it kind of is, isn't it? I mean, if I wasn't here, she wouldn't be frustrated." Mike groaned, putting his head back.
"It's not about that at all. It's about the fact that I'm gone even when I'm home."
"But you wouldn't be if I wasn't here."
"Yeah, I probably would be. And if I wasn't gone, I'd be in my studio, sitting on my Pro Tools rig. So, it's not about you at all."
"Did my name come up?" He hesitated. She nodded.
"So, it is about me this time." Mike gritted his teeth, pinching his eyes closed again and then ran a hand over his face.
"Spend some time with her tonight, okay?" He didn't say anything.
"I've had enough fucked up shit happen to me. I don't need to know that I'm a home-wrecker as well." He opened his mouth to protest.
"Just have dinner with her. Let her know she's appreciated."
"If that's what you want." She laughed, putting her head back.
"It's not about what I want." Traffic started to move again.
"So what other 'fucked up shit' has happened to you?" She was past any embarrassment in telling him about her life. He was going to pry and pry until she had given him every bit of her so she may as well start admitting things.
"I watched my mom get beat up by a guy when I was 16."
"Boy, I bet that was fun."
"Tons until I shoved him and then he came after me." Mike blinked a few times, pursing his lips, his nostrils flaring. She took a deep breath and looked at her lap. Maybe it was too much to joke about it all. She suddenly felt a pang of fear in telling him what she knew she needed to. She huffed, rubbing the middle of her right palm with her left thumb.
"Anything else?" He stopped at another traffic block and looked over at her.
"Jade?" At the sound of her name, her eyes filled to the brim with tears. She continued to caress her palm, refusing to look up.
"Talk to me."
"People have always ignored whatever I've told them about things that have happened to me." He looked at her, concerned.
"Well, we established that much yesterday." She shook her head, and looked back down at her lap, watching a tear drip from the end of her nose and seep into the material of her faded blue jeans.
"You don't understand. No one would EVER listen." She knew she wasn't making any sense and felt bad, but she was starting to feel like she was on the edge of hysteria.
"My brother..." She stopped herself, shaking her head, tears streaming from her eyes.
"Jade--"
"He fucking touched me in ways that no one should be touched without permission." Mike sat dumbfounded.
"And when I tried to tell my mom. She convinced herself that he was just a child." Mike shook his head, his mouth hanging open stupidly.
"He was just a child, so it was okay that he did it." She squeezed her eyes shut and let a sob escape.
"He was 16. And he didn't stop until he was almost 18. He wasn't just a child." Mike swallowed hard and then inched forward in traffic.
"But it's okay because I'm just baggage." Mike was suddenly so furious that his hands started to shake.
"You. Are not. Baggage." She found, suddenly, that she felt a bit better to have gotten the hardest part off her chest. Mike kept his mouth closed. She could tell that he was angry and thought it best not to cross him, even if it was because of what she had gone through that he was pissed. She squeezed the button on the side of her phone to check the time. 6:42. She sighed as they pulled up to her hotel.
"Do you want me to come up?"
"No. You are to go have dinner with your wife and that's the end of it." He nodded, licking his lips.
"I'll just talk to you in the morning."
"Okay." Jade's phone started to ring in her hand, playing the chorus to "The Red" by Chevelle. She looked at the caller display. Emily. She waved the phone at Mike and he nodded.
"See you." He gave her a small smirk. She nodded and walked off toward the hotel entrance. She flipped open her phone.
"Hello?"
"We need to talk, you little liar," Emily's voice grouched into her ear and Jade sighed. Her heart fell and she walked through the hotel doors to hide in the welcoming arms of her hotel room, where she could be chastised and cut-down to pain's content.