hold me really tight (until the stars look big) - I

'It's going to be okay...' Tate says.
Mica nods, unbelieving, but willing to. It's a start. 'What about Jael?' she asks, then.
Tate freezes, shrugs. 'She fucked up. We can't... We can't keep treating her like a friend. She... she jeopardised your safety, our safety. We can't let that happen again. I'm sorry. I know you liked her.'
Mica nods. 'I understand. She's going to stay with us, though?'
'Yeah. She has to.'
Mica nods again. 'Do you think Denny was Kyle?' she asks.
Tate shakes his head. 'I think there's a Denny and a Kyle.'

Jael fights a wave of panic flowing through her body. She leans back on the side of the bed and pulls her legs to her body, hugs her knees. Polar snuggles his nose at her feet, trying to comfort her, but it doesn't help at all.
She's trembling. She fucked up. "God," she whispers, clenching her fists, powerless.

Tate knocks on Jael's door not much later, a bit hesitant about leaving Mica alone after her mental breakdown, but she said she was tired anyway. He promised he'd join her in bed after he was done.
'Jael?' he says, before realising he isn't supposed to be friendly, or giving her any space, or respect her boundaries. He opens the door. 'We need to talk.'

Jael nods a little and wipes away her tears. She doesn't say a word, though. She's scared. Her hands are shaking as she plays with them, absentmindedly.

'Talk,' Tate says. He sounds a lot stronger than he feels. 'I want to know everything about your relationship with Denny.'

A tear runs down Jael's face. She presses her lips together for a moment. "I met him at a party half a year after I got out of the hospital." Her voice doesn't sound real. "He was a sweetheart, and I think I fell in love really fast, but my parents didn't want me to get involved with him. They were still shocked about the whole Kyle thing. But they pushed me into that in the first place, so I didn't listen to them. I felt safe with him, even though he sometimes got really mad and hurt me." She doesn't want to talk about it, but the words keep coming. "He'd always beg me to forgive him when things had died down and I did. I love... I loved him." Her face crumples. "He was sweet... and he often took me in when I had fights with my parents. He told me he'd give the world for me, and I was willing to do the same. And then one time we weren't careful enough and I got pregnant—" She stops. Her breath hitches.

Tate nods. 'Go on...'

"He wanted me to carry out an abortion and I wanted to keep it." Jael is quiet for a moment, glances away from him. "He beat the baby out of me and made me sick for two weeks." She's pressing her nails in the palms of her hands. "That's when my parents told me to break up with him."

'I'm sorry,' Tate says, because he is, really. Then: 'Jael? You know the relationship you and Denny had was abusive, right?'

Jael looks at him, eyes full of doubt. "It wasn't...? I mean, yes, he hurt me, but we always made it up to each other." She shakes her head, fighting her tears. "I just challenged him too much, of course he got angry..."

Tate thinks about Macy, about how he read the signs all wrong. About the bruises, the broken arm, the I fell of the stairs's, the I'm so clumsy's.
Denny had said Jael was clumsy. He had never seen Jael do anything considered remotely clumsy. She didn't just fall, or slip. He shakes his head. 'The way he treated you today... Was that how it used to be? Being with him?'

Jael hesitates, then nods. 'Not always. Most of the time things were good…' She bites down on her lower lip.

'Jael, if you're honest, how many percent of your relationship did Denny spend being angry at you?' Tate asks. He doesn't know how to handle this. He should've let Mica do this. He isn't good at this.

Jael hesitates again, longer this time. Her gaze slips away from his. 'I think half of the time… Maybe more. I don't know… Sometimes I couldn't really point out the difference.' Her voice is unstable, thick with emotions.

Tate wants to take her hand. He reaches out for it, but pulls back halfway. He's not supposed to be the good guy. Not anymore. 'Those things he said, about you being worthless, did he say that often?'

Jael nods a little. 'Yes, he did…' Her voice breaks. She sobs, creeps away from him a little bit. She's scared, scared of opening up to him after what happened, scared of what he thinks of her now after what she did, to him, to Mica.

Tate sighs. 'That is mental abuse. The physical thing... that's abuse too, Jael. What he did to you, wasn't healthy. You didn't ask for that, and that is not how a normal relationship goes, you hear me? That's not how it goes.'

Jael stares at the floor, doesn't say anything. She thinks about her father, and how his wedding ring used to rip her skin a little when he hit her. She thinks about Denny who would take her in his arms after he beat her and how he would tell her he would forgive her if she'd forgive him. How he'd kiss the bruises and tell her she was 'his little girl' and that he would never hit her again, how he would break the promise, mostly within days.
'Maybe I deserved it.' Her voice sounds strangled.

'You didn't! You don't. I researched into it, once, before Macy... Well, before everything went to shit, to put it mildly. And the one thing all those victims say, is exactly that. Because Denny made you feel like what he did was for you, was to teach you something. Jael, I promise you right now, that what Denny did was not out of love, was not out of anything that isn't his sick fantasies and his inability to manage his own anger.' Tate is pissed. Not on Jael. On Denny. On every fucking dipshit who dares to hurt someone and make them feel like they deserve it. Like it's somehow their fault that their partner takes their anger out on them.

Jael's breath hitches. She stays silent, thinking about his words. She knows the truth in them, but she doesn't want to admit it. She feels weak, is weak. She absolutely hates herself for letting Denny do this to her, but she doesn't speak.

Tate sighs, thinks about the possibility that he's wrong, about the possibility that Denny loves Jael with all he's worth, that he's gone crazy because she fell of the face of the earth for a while before contacting him. He thinks about Macy, about the I love him's and the I swear, I fell, Tate, I just fell after she broke her arm. He'd punched Neil in the face.
'I'm sorry,' he says. 'It's just... You don't deserve this, okay? And I want you to know, that Macy and I are angry, and you jeopardised our safety and those of my family and even Vinnie's, even though I don't care about that son of a bitch. And we can't forgive you for that. But there hasn't been one second that any of us have thought about harming you in any way.'

Jael fights her tears and nods. 'I'm sorry,' she breathes. 'I swear, I swear on my life I didn't want--' She sobs. 'I didn't know Tim was his best friend, if I did I--I wouldn't have gone near him, I swear, I promise...'

Tate doesn't say anything, doesn't try and make her feel better. He knows he should, it's just. It's easier when she hates him.

Jael sees him not caring, not doing anything, and it scares the hell out of her. She falls silent, her cheeks wet with tears. Never in her entire life she felt heartbroken like this.
She knows trying isn't going to solve anything. She knows when someone takes their distance and that's what Tate is doing.

When two minutes have passed, Tate stands up and leaves. Before he closes the door, he says: 'We're leaving tomorrow. Be ready at nine.' He locks the door.

Jael hides her face in her pillow and cries. She cries like she has never done in her life, muffling the sobs. Her heartache is making her sick, the feeling of utter loneliness breaks her down completely.

When Tate walks into the master bedroom and discards himself of his clothes, he thinks about visiting Macy's grave before they leave. He makes a mental note to ask Mica about it when they wake up. She's warm against him when he crawls into the queensized bed, and he sighs.

Jael doesn't sleep. She forces herself to be awake, scared the nightmares will come back. She sits at the window staring outside for a while until the falling snow makes her mind go fuzzy. She watches the hours go past and eventually the alarm clock reads 6 AM and she allows herself to take a cold shower.
Her suitcases are packed. She folded Tate's shirt she's been sleeping in for the last few days and put it on his pillow for him to find. She has her ways of keeping herself busy entire night without much to occupy herself with.
Now she just sits and waits.

Tate is up at 6:30, when it's still dark out, and packs Mica's bags first. He stopped being grossed out at her underwear a long time ago, having dealt with panties all his life (Macy leaves—left— Macy left them everywhere. His father swore that even after she moved out, he still found them. He stopped making that joke. Tate misses it, sometimes.). Unsure about how long they're going to be gone (he guesses: long), he decides to just pack everything. He brings them to the living room with his bluetooth headset in, talking soft but clearly to a Jetsuite employee.

Jael paces the room, waiting for the clock to turn 9 AM. She looks messed up and tired, and even though she tried to fix her appearance in the bathroom, this is as good as it's going to get.
She's been wondering all night where Tate wants to go. She's relieved she can leave California, but then again, she'll have to miss her parents. She's 100% positive Tate wouldn't even want to listen to her asking if she can say goodbye, tell them she's leaving.

It goes by in a rush. One moment, Mica was softly woken up by Tate, who had given her her yoga pants and an oversized dark red american football shirt with HALE on the back, above the number 14. She had claimed it after Tate had bought it for the blue Monday he actually spent playing the game. It was not like he actually had any use for it, after all.
Tate got them a private jet, and Mica knows she's been friends with him far too long to even be surprised by this shit anymore, but (contrary to popular beliefs) she wasn't friends with him for these privileges. She liked them, but she liked Tate more.
They leave from Chico airport, get in, and get out in New York. She slept through the entire flight. Tate doesn't look at Jael once, besides when they got in.
'I didn't tell Vinnie I left,' she says when they get picked up by a sleek black car. (Because of course Tate Hale doesn't do normal yellow cabs.)
'He'll notice. Or not.' Tate shrugs.
When they enter the apartment building, Mica is willing to bet all of her money that they have to go to the highest floor.

From the moment she got out of the guest room at Mica's apartment in California, up until now they enter the apartment building here in New York, Jael hasn't spoken any words besides a really hesitant 'good morning' to Tate and Mica at breakfast.
She's holding Polar's leash tightly to prevent her hands from shaking. The dog is whining every once in a while, noticing Jael is really upset.
One moment she wonders if Tate will let her keep the dog in her room, but she highly doubts it. She presses her lips together and pulls her suitcase into the elevator. Her heart is racing now she's close to Tate again. She can easily feel his anger towards her.

Tate knows it's irrational to feel this much resentment towards someone who barely made a mistake. He knows. But it's so much easier to blame Jael than to admit (to himself) that he fucked up. That he didn't look around good enough when he took Tina Reynolds, that he made bad decisions, that he was the one who took his hostage to his own home and befriended her when he should've known: She would never willingly stay.
His apartment is clean, and tidy, and fucking neat if you ask him. It's big, and made up entirely out of greyscales and a lot of white. And glass. Grey, white and glass. And lots of 90 degree angles. It's modern. It's calm. The luggage guy (Jeremy, Tate thinks, because he knew the former one retired, and he likes knowing the people who work in the building by name) drops their bags in the living room and looks at him expectantly and a little impressed (or, you know, incredibly impressed), but Tate shakes his head. 'Go,' he says. The boy leaves immediately.
'Your bedroom is there, third door at the right,' he says, and it's the first thing he's said to Jael since they woke up. He doesn't wait for an answer and turns to Mica, who shoots Jael a stare that's both apologetic and pleading.

Jael hesitates, then says: "What about Polar...?" Her voice mirrors exactly how utterly destroyed she feels. She's clenching the handle of her suitcase in her one hand, the leash in the other.

Tate shrugs. 'You won't be going out much. Can it handle that?' He doesn't look at her.
'If he can't... I can look after him, for a while... If you want that...' Mica supplies, softly.

Jael nods, quietly, and gives her the leash. "Just fill his bowl every morning... I think he'll be fine." She doesn't look Mica in the eye, just takes her suitcase and leaves them alone, closing the door behind her.

Mica nods, even though the girl's already left, and stares a bit lost at the dog in front of her. Tate raises his eyebrows. 'You wanna share, or sleep alone?'
She shrugs. 'Alone? I can... I can always just...' She doesn't finish, just looks at him, pleadingly. Like don't make me actually ask the question out loud.
Tate nods, curtly, but not harsh. 'Always.'
She carries her bags to her own room.

~ Sunday, February 15th, 8.30 AM ~

It's been fifteen days. It's hard to keep track of what day it is when you have lost your sleeping rhythm completely and just doze off whenever you're so tired you can't keep your eyes open anymore.
Jael's been up for five hours, after waking up because of the intense nightmares she's been having. At some point she just lost sense of who she is seeing in her dreams: Tate, Denny or Kyle. She keeps mixing them up, because her mind is so tired. She always wakes with a start, usually can't stop crying after. Sometimes the crying results in a panic attack, but she fights through them, thinking about Tate and the breathe with me's. Sometimes they get so bad she has to throw up. She throws up often, loses weight fast.
She misses Tate, but she doesn't have the courage to talk to him. When he comes leaving her food—which isn't often, mostly Mica does it—all she can do is fight to breathe. She gave up hoping for forgiveness a long time ago.

It's been fifteen days since they've arrived in Manhattan. Fifteen days of just laying around in the penthouse, of watching sunsets and sunrises and throwing up in a toilet that Mica thinks is way too fancy to be thrown up in. She's scared to take a piss, even.
It's been fifteen days, and even though Tate is infuriatingly adamant when it comes to completely ignoring his birthday, Mica, for one, is not. So when he leaves for his morning run at 08:30 on the dot (because he's scary like that) (punctual, Mica, some people call that punctual) (scary), Mica slips out of bed and gets the party hats and other stuff from under the bed. It's going to be super awkward. And Tate is going to be thankful. Because she bought him something. A present.
Reluctantly, she knocks on Jael's door.

Jael sits up straight. Tate doesn't knock, so it's not him. It's Mica. Probably with breakfast...
"Come in," she says silently. She smoothes her clothes and tries to look decent, she tries to look not so utterly tired and fucked up as she feels.

'I know you probably hate him,' is the first thing Mica says when she walks in, party hat already on, 'but it's Tate's birthday and I want to surprise him and I ordered cute breakfast and cake and I have decorations? And I thought maybe you could help me set it up. It's just the two of us. He's out running.' She doesn't look at the girl.

Jael is silent for a moment, letting Mica's words sink in. She smiles a little, a bitter, sad smile. "Sure." She gets up, still weak in her knees. She has to grab the edge of the nightstand to prevent herself from collapsing. "I'll be there in a minute." She doesn't want Mica to see how she doesn't even have enough strenght to stand on her own two legs.

Mica nods, leaves, makes two sandwiches in a record amount of time because breakfast is coming at 9 and she's hungry, and Jael's too, probably.

Jael comes out quickly after Mica left and first spends a few minutes cuddling Polar, who obviously has missed her insanely much.
Then she silently grabs one of the bags with decorations. She assumes they have to get the job done before Tate comes back, not only because it's a surprise, but also because he probably doesn't want her out. So she takes the pins and turns towards the corner of the kitchen.

Decorating goes quickly, silently. Mica passes Jael a sandwich while she's at it, not saying a word but just looking. She's lost weight. A lot of weight. Mica feels like she gained all the weight Jael lost. And that's a lot. She thinks she gained seventeen thousand pounds in fifteen days. Jael sure seems to have lost as much.

Jael doesn't once look in Mica's direction and silently leaves to go back to her room as they are done. At the door she turns, clenching the door handle in her one hand. "Can you buy Tate a birthday present from me...?" Her voice sounds strangled. "He has my credit card somewhere. You—you probably know what he likes." She looks Mica in the eye, pleading.

Mica grins. 'Already got you one.' She gives Jael a moderate sized package. 'It's E. E. Cummings. The Complete Poems book. He's been talking about buying it for a while but never got to it. He'll love it.'

Jael gives Mica a thankful but hesitant smile. "Thank you." She bites her lower lip and then says: "I don't hate him," before slipping inside her room and closing the door behind her.

Tate arrives at 9:45 and tries not to sigh too audibly when he sees the breakfast laid out on the table.
'I know it's not much...' Mica says when she sees his face, mistaking it for disappointment.
'It's great,' he says, kissing her cheek.
They eat in silence, and Mica pretends like she doesn't see how Tate takes several croissants and sandwiches to the side and puts them on a third plate.
When she gives him a present (T.S. Elliot: Collected Poems, because Tate is lame and a sucker for poetry), he outright smiles.
She unsubtly leaves him alone in the living room so he can do what he wants to, falling face first on the bed. She's slept better, now the pillows don't smell like mica-and-vinnie, and now every turn doesn't remind her of him.
Tate unlocks Jael's door.

Jael is sitting at the armchair near the window, staring outside as she hears the door unlock. She straightens her back and takes a deep breath as he comes in. "Happy birthday," she manages with a really quiet voice. She takes the present off her lap.