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

The pencil slips out of Jael's hand and falls on the ground. She wakes up at the sound of that, just to catch Tate having this smile on his face. Her breath hitches and she holds it, silently, watching him getting familiar with what 'her' room looks like.

Tate looks up when he hears the sound, eyes finding Jael's immediately. 'You...' He coughs. 'You wanted to talk.'

Jael nods a little and sits up straight. "I um—" She takes a deep breath and rubs her eyes. "I wanted to apologize. It's—I know you won't believe me when I tell you that I didn't try to run, but I'm—I really didn't..." She looks at him, hesitates, then silently says: "I don't know why you think I want to get away. I'm—I'm safer here than anywhere else."

Tate laughs humourlessly. 'Safe,' he mocks.

Jael clenches and unclenches her fists and grabs her sketchbook. It takes a while, but eventually she finds the drawing she was looking for. "This is him." She holds up a perfect portrait of Kyle—and everything he is and was to her. "This is Kyle." Her breath hitches.

Kyle looks... normal, for as far Tate can see. A bit of a pretentious ass, like he walks around in khakis and dress shirts and his father is a lawyer with a golf course in the backyard. He doesn't look like someone who'd be slitting wrists or beating his girlfriend up until she can no longer stand for the heck of it, but then again... neither did Denny.
Tate's fingers get behind the page, eyebrows raised in question.

Jael lets him, letting her hands fall back in her lap. Polar pushes his nose against them, but she doesn't even notice. "When he—when he cut me, when he cut open my stomach... he kept having that exact smile on his face." She points at the drawing that's showing a charmingly smiling Kyle. "He kept saying how he'd ruin me, how he'd ruin every chance of a normal love life for me, how I'd never be beautiful enough to be—to be loved again." Her breathing goes too fast, too easy. "It's like he cursed me when he did that—because when Denny saw it, he kept asking questions about it, eventually forced the story out of me. He changed after I told him everything. It was like he was an exact copy of Kyle, but I—I just—I didn't want to believe he was bad. I didn't want to see it." Her hands are trembling in her lap, her cheeks are wet with tears. She looks wrecked.

Tate breathes out raggedly, talk of knives reminding him about Macy, about slit throats and Tina Reynold's please don't please don't please don't I'm sorry I'm sorry please don't do it please don't do it I'm so sorry please don'ts on the filthy ground.
'I'm sorry,' he says. 'I'm sorry.' He turns the page on the sketchbook, a new picture.

Jael looks away, not wanting to see the picture that's branded into her memories, the drawing she worked on for weeks until it gave her nightmares from itself. It's another Kyle, but this time one half of his face looks like it's melted away. In her dreams she could often smell the rotten flesh.
"He has a huge network of friends and minions, people who sometimes sent me messages telling me I won't ever be safe out there, people who'd gladly find me and bring me to him so he can kill me. I know he wants to. I don't know why. He hates me." Her voice breaks. "So—yes, I'm safe, here. I might be a total wreck but at least I'm alive. There's only going back to my parents, my father who sure promised to go into therapy but that happened three times prior. And when I'm back with my parents, Denny will come for me. And Kyle will too."

Tate looks at her intently. 'After everything is over, when you go back—I will make sure you stay safe.' He doesn't elaborate, doesn't say when it will be, doesn't say how. He hopes it's enough.

Jael's eyes find his. "No," she breathes. "That's not what I'm trying to say, I don't want to go back, Tate. I don't—I want to stay. I want to stay here, with you, and with Mica, and her babies." She's frightened. "And I honestly don't care if it's Stockholm syndrome, or some defense mechanism my mind made up, or that I may be losing my mind. I just want to stay." She's desperate.

'I—I can't,' Tate breathes, pained, and it hurts, God it hurts. 'I need—I need something I can hold on to. I need to know it's real. I can't take ad—advantage of you, I need it to be real.'

"I love you, Tate," Jael whispers. She tries not to cry, but there are tears anyway. "It's stupid, and ironic, and so, so fucking stupid, but I love you, and it hurts, and I don't know—I don't know what to do."

'Don't—' Tate bites. 'Please don't. I can't—'

Jael feels like she's punched in the throat. Her shoulders drop and she looks down, at her hands trembling in her lap.

'I want to,' Tate says. 'Believe me, I want to. I just don't want to be the guy who takes advantage of the pretty girl. I am not known for my ability to make the right decisions, Jael.'

Jael smiles a little. "I'm never going to convince you that what I feel, is pretty damn real, am I?" She looks at him, eyes pleading.

Tate sighs. 'I don't know. I just hope—I just hope you're willing to try.'

Jael doesn't touch him, even though she wants to. "I am," she says, quietly.

Tate breathes, nods. 'Okay,' he says. 'Okay.'

Jael doesn't know what to do now. She doesn't know what changed. So she waits for Tate to make a move, to say something. Her breathing still goes too fast, her hands are still trembling, and she's still crying. She's wrecked.

'I will bring dinner in later, if you're hungry,' Tate says. 'It's not good to go to sleep, though, you should wait until at least 8PM. Otherwise you're entire sleep rhythm will get fucked up.'

Jael nods slowly. "You should—you should take Polar with you. He's hungry. I can't—I can't keep him in here. That would be unfair." She slips off the bed  and quickly picks up the pencil from the floor and grabs one of her bags, to give Tate Polar's bowls and his blanket.

Tate nods, arms stuffed. 'Sure. We'll take care of him.' He looks at the wall behind her, unable to make eye contact. 'Also, Mica said I should play nice. Which means—' He sighs, then throws the words out like they're burning his tongue: 'You are allowed to spend thirty minutes outside of your room each day.'

Jael smiles, a genuine, soft smile. "Thank you..." She sounds relieved. "Thank you." She wipes her cheeks, makes a weird gesture towards Polar. "Tell Mica I'm grateful she's taking care of him. He likes her—a lot." She's still not really calming down. Somehow she can't seem to stop crying, even though—or maybe because—she feels like a weight dropped from her shoulders.

Tate nods. 'I'll pass it on,' he says, unsure if he has to comfort her or leave her alone.

Jael clenches and unclenches her fists. She hesitates, opens her mouth to say something, but decides against it and shakes her head a little. Again she wipes her cheeks, but it's only getting worse. She's breaking down, it's too much.

Tate looks at the sketchbook in his hand, looks at Jael, and shuts down. 'I'll get someone to bring you dinner around six.'
He flees.

Jael stares at the closed door, too overwhelmed to say something, to call back to him. She stays on the bed, deafened by the sudden silence. Her ears are ringing, her cheeks wet with tears. So stupid. So stupid. So stupid. 
He still has her sketchbook. She realizes it when she looks at the pencil in her hands. Her heartbeat goes faster, faster, faster. What if he looks through it? It's like her diary, he'll see things that she doesn't want anyone to see. Drawings she still regrets, moments she wants to forget. Emotions she doesn't want to feel. Tate in more intimate scenes than she'll ever see him, probably.
She hates herself for telling him she loves him. I love you, Tate. He probably thinks she's fucking crazy. 

Julie and Alec are still in the kitchen working on the tacos. More accurately, Alec is working on the tacos and Julie is sitting at the bar, her chin resting on her fists as she rests her elbows on the counter. Just like Alec predicted would happen. They're silent, but there's very clear eyefucking. Julie is still wearing nothing more than her bikinis and a white see-through blouse hanging open, something Alec obviously doesn't mind at all. She smiles when he lets his eyes trail towards her again.

Tate doesn't go downstairs, resists following the scent of Alec's delicious meal, and makes his way to the master bedroom instead. The sketchbook is heavy in his hands, a burning against his palm.

Jael slips off the bed and stumbles towards her bags. It takes her some time before she finds the stuff she needs; toilet bag, lingerie, pj's. She can't stop shaking, even when eventually the warm water runs over her tense shoulders.

Mica wakes up sick, the smell of tacos penetrating the hot Hawaiian air. Fucking twins, she thinks, heaving above the toilet seat.
Tate opens the sketchbook.

Julie hears Mica throwing up and jumps off the barstool, ignoring Alec's pathetic protests as she walks towards the downstairs bedroom. She knocks on the door. "Hey, you need a glass of water?" she asks, loud enough for Mica to hear.

Jael's sick of crying. She presses both hands against the bathroom wall and leans into it, breathing in and out carefully and slowly, surpressing her tears.

'No, it's fine!' Mica croaks.

Tate's fingers shake when he turns the pages, eyes scanning the drawings carefully, branding them into his brain.

Julie shrugs. 'Dinner's ready in a few minutes. Are you up for it?' She presses her hand against the door.
Alec makes protesting noises. 'Of course she is. It's tacos, hello!'

Jael turns off the shower and towels her hair dry quickly, puts on her lingerie and walks into her room again. She doesn't dress herself yet, but opens the balcony doors to get some fresh air.

'I'm throwing up in here!' Mica yells. 'Please do not talk about food.'

Tate stops at a drawing of him. He's clothed; the thumbhole sweater drawn in flowing, easy lines wrapped around his torso, long legs clad in jeans—He looks relaxed, body tilted a bit to the right, shadow cutting his jaw, lashes long. He's never seen himself like this, out of someone else's eyes, how someone looks at him, and suddenly he feels like this—like this book is way more private than he thought. These are not the drawings of someone who does it for fun—this book is like Macy's diary, like Mica's songs, like his mother's paintings.
Fuck, he thinks while his fingers bring him back to the drawings of him naked. Oh fuck.

Julie snorts. 'I'm sorry, I don't have much experience living with pregnant ladies. You sure you don't need anything?' She doesn't come in, though, but gives Mica the space she needs.

Jael lets herself fall into one of the chairs and puts her feet on the other one. The sun is already behind the house here, but it's still warm, and she enjoys the soft breeze against her bare skin.
Her hands trail a bit over the scar on her stomach. It's badly healed, as the doctors predicted: the skin uneven and raw, it still looks like it's ripped.
Sometimes in her dreams she can still feel what it was like when Kyle used the knife on her, and whenever that happens she wakes up screaming.

When Jeremy was born, Mica's father had told her that her mother had been in a lot of pain and that she would rest a lot. She had been thirteen, stubborn, had hated the little thing swaddled in blue blankets. Now she's about to have two of those... tiny humans. And they're going to come out of her own body, of the body she threw around recklessly, the same body that convulsed and betrayed her in high school.
'No,' she says, voice clear. The nausea has passed. She washed her face in front of the mirror and looks at her red cheeks. 'No, I don't need anything.'
She smiles.

Julie pushes away from the door, looking back to Alec who just turns off the cooker hood. "Dinner's ready in a few minutes," she tells Mica through the closed door, then she turns on her heels and goes find Marcus and Tate.

Jael sleeps.

It doesn't take long for Mica to freshen up and get dressed again. She chose her little black dress, which she had to buy because her stomach was getting way too big to fit in her original little black dress. She put her hair in a ponytail, happy to have it out of her neck, the heat getting to her more than it should.
Marcus gets down first, smiles at Mica politely and asks: 'Is there anything I can help you with?'
She wants to say no, wants to tell him that she's pregnant, not invalid, but her back hurts and she doesn't know where they keep their (her, jesus, this house, this island is hers) cups and glasses, so she nods. 'Yeah. Do you—Can you get me a glass of water? I need to take the vitamins but I—yeah. I have no idea where everything is and my body is—'
'Sure thing,' he says, cutting her rambles short with a small smile and a hand on her shoulder. She exhales, relieved.
Tate has hidden the book somewhere no one will ever look for it and is lounging on the bed when he hears footsteps coming nearer.

Julie knocks on Tate's door before carefully opening it. She finds him on the bed and smiles. 'Dinner's ready.' She leans against the door frame with her shoulder, casually eyeing him. 'The other girl, Jael, should I fetch her or will you?' She tilts her head a little, sensing something is off about him, but she can't say what.

Downstairs, Alec sits down at the table with a deep sigh. 'So…' He looks at Mica, somewhat curious. 'How many weeks are you pregnant?' He leans forward to grab his glass of water and empties it in one go.

Tate looks like he's been hit. 'Jael doesn't eat with us,' he says. 'Marcus or I will bring the tacos to her later.'

Downstairs, Mica frowns. 'Twenty weeks,' she says. 'So... just passed halfway. If everything goes alright, I'll deliver these two in eighteen to twenty weeks.' She smiles thankfully at Marcus who places a full glass of water and three pills in front of her.

Julie frowns. "You okay?" she asks, carefully, noticing the look on his face, the tone in his voice. 

Alec smiles face wide. "Twins, huh? That's pretty awesome." He puts his glass back on the table. "I didn't know you were together with Tate, by the way. He never mentioned something like that and now you're pregnant." He tilts his head a bit to the left.

Tate smiles, nods. 'Yeah, I'm fine,' he says while getting off the bed. 'Let's go eat.'

Mica chokes on the water she just tried to get down her throat, eyes big and watery as she coughs. 'Oh, hell no,' she says when she's ready to talk again, voice a bit rough. 'Tate did not get his dinglywhops anywhere near this'—she gestures at her body—'without clothes on.'

Julie nods. "Sure." She turns on her heels and goes ahead of Tate, rushing down the stairs, to catch Mica saying those words and Alec blushing all over his face, even his ears.
"Oh," he says. "Oh." He laughs awkwardly. "Hey, he could have, right?" He shrugs, laughs again.

Marucs' laugh is silent, Mica observes. He has dimples that he hides by throwing his head back, or turning away. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head at Alec. 'I guess.'
'What's the fuss?' Tate says, amused, as he comes down.

Alec shrugs. "I kind of sort of thought that you and Mica were going to be parents," he admits, still having a grin on his face. "I was ready to congratulate you." His hand slips into Julie's as she sits down next to him. Even though they aren't 'together' anymore, they act like they are, all the time, sometimes only to confuse the ones around them.

Tate laughs loudly. 'Oh, no,' he says. 'Did she punch you in the face when you said it? She's known to do that.'

"No, she didn't," Alec says, "but I'll be cautious." He winks at Mica and rubs his thumb over Julie's hand once, twice, then lets go. "By all means, please eat, I didn't stand in the kitchen for an hour being observed by Julie for nothing."
Julie punches him in his arm. "You kept providing me with unwanted commentary on everything I did. Don't judge me."

Tate smiles, happy that his friends are here and content. 'Sure thing.'