Chapter Text
Hold them in, keep them close, shut them off.
Don’t look down, don’t look up, eyes away.
Watch out, for if you come too close the dark might make you stay.
-
Just three weeks to go before senior year ends and Jake is ready. He’s ready to leave his classmates behind and he’s ready to start his new, better life in college. To leave everything behind. To leave his childhood behind. About ten miles behind, because Jake is going to college in New York.
He just has to get through the next three weeks and graduation, and then he’ll be free as a bird to do whatever he pleases. On the grand timeline of his life three weeks is nothing, but on the close future timeline it’s a whole lot, especially if you’ve got to sit out three more weeks of classes from the worst teachers on earth, presumably.
He’s in the worst of all his classes right now; calculus with Miss Wood. None of his friends are in this class and the late hour combined with the horrors that are math, makes Jake want to test if his body could survive a fall from a three story window every single time.
“So, class, you should all be able to do this in your sleep by now, but, just to check, how do we calculate the area of a circle?”
Miss Wood asks the class in her sharp voice that slightly hurts Jake’s ears.
Some kids mumble what half sounds like the right answer, but most of the students just sit at their tables with their eyes on the horizon and their minds on zero. Jake being no exception.
“Miss Wood, I have a question about the homework.”
Brian Levan is easily the most eager kid in the class, seeing there’s no real competition, and he always asks a ton of questions.
“Not now, Brian.”
Judging from the sigh in Miss Wood’s voice, Jake almost thinks she’s human, too, and she hates teaching this class at this hour as much at the students hate taking it. And for a second Jake feels sympathy for the woman. Just a second. Then he falls back into the state of only half being and half sleeping he always falls into in calc.
“Now, can anyone tell me how to calculate the area of a circle?”
Jake lets his mind wander. He thinks about the groceries he shouldn’t forget to pick up for his mom and the ice cream he and Gina are planning on getting if this class ever ends. Oh he would kill for some ice cream right now.
Jake lets his mind wander wherever it wants to go, but there’s one dark corner of his mind that he never touches. He pushes it far, far away any time he even comes closes. He might have overstuffed the corner and thoughts might be flowing out from there every day, making it harder and harder to ignore, but he doesn’t think about it. He can’t let himself think about it, he just can’t.
So he doesn’t.
He doesn’t think about it, and whenever a thought escapes he swats it away like it’s a fly. He does not think about it. Instead he thinks about simpler things, things that makes sense and thing that he can deal with. Like ice cream and groceries for his mom.
The sounds of calculus class flow back in and Jake catches the last bit of a sentence Brian Levan says.
“... Miss Wood, I think you forgot the π there.”
Stupid, annoying Brian Levan with his beautiful eyes and sun tanned skin, and when stupid, annoying Brian Levan speaks he gets little dimples in his cheeks that Jake secretly wants to touch. And when stupid, annoying, meaningless Brian Levan smiles, it feels like the sun starts shining for the first time after a long dark winter, and the mole underneath stupid, annoying, meaningless Brian Levan’s right eye makes Jake not be able to help thinking about-
No.
Jake doesn’t think about it. He pushes stupid, meaningless, beautiful Brian Levan into the dark, overflowing corner of his mind and slams the door shut.
No.
Jake does not think about that.
Instead he tries to focus on calculus, the only thing there is to focus on that won’t lead him into that corner.
“How do you calculate the area of a circle?”
You square the radius and multiply it with π.
Jake doesn’t think about it.
-
And Jake’s still not thinking about it when the bell rings. He looks up in confusion, an hour goes by pretty fast if you actually work. He packs his books into his backpack and walks out of the classroom. Past Brian Levan’s desk. Jake speeds by and he doesn’t think about it.
When he exits he nearly walks into Gina.
“Shit sorry, oh, it’s just you.”
He mutters.
“Just me? Excuse me, Jake, you call the great Gina Linetti just someone?”
Gina puts her hand on her chest baffled.
Jake grins. He doesn’t have to think about it. He can think about easy things. Ice cream and the next good joke that will make Gina laugh. He can relax. He’s home.
Some people call their childhood house their home, but not for Jake. For Jake there’s two people, not places, that are home, Gina and his mom. Growing up with parents who constantly argued, doors slamming and no corner untouched by the cold rage springing of their voices, Jake doesn’t easily makes real connections with people, scared that they’ll leave, just like his dad did, but Gina is the exception. Gina was there through it all and she knows. She’s steady, weird, but good.
Jake doesn’t think about what it’ll be like when they’re both in college, at different schools.
“So.” Gina asks. “Ice cream?”
“Hell yes.”
They walk out of the school talking about some silly thing that happened during lunch, catching each other up on what happened in the classes they don’t have together. They make their way to Nana’s apartment on foot, it’s not too far from school.
When they arrive they quickly greet Nana, drop their bags and make their way out of the door again, walking over to the place where they always buy ice cream. It’s terrible, but that’s what makes it great.
“I can’t believe it’s three whole weeks more before we’re finally done with high school.”
Gina says, they’ve gotten their ice cream and they’re walking towards the playground they spent most of their childhood hours at.
“I know, I can’t believe it’ll be over. Suddenly we’ve gotta be all adult and what not. And I won’t see you every day, what if I forget who you are, Gina, I’m basically a goldfish!”
“How could you forget the immortal Gina Linetti?”
“Fair enough.”
They arrive at the playground and sit down on the swings. Jake’s grown too big to sit facing forward, so he sits across, a leg on either side of the small seat. Gina does the same, facing him.
“So has the immortal Gina Linetti decided on a major yet?”
“Yeah, a bunch of times, nothing seems perfect.”
There’s a comfortable silence in which they both eat their ice cream. It’s perfectly melted, still cold but a little droopy so you have to keep licking to stop it from melting away.
Jake’s not thinking about it.
He’s thinking how good the ice cream tastes and how perfect the weather is. Sunny and warm enough to not have to wear a jacket, but not hot and sticky. He’s thinking about all the good times they had on these swings and some bad ones, too. He can’t help but think about the inevitable, it’s all ending. He’s going to have to move on, he’s going to have to let go of his carefree youth.
“Have you decided on a major yet, though?” Gina breaks his stream of thoughts.
She’s so good. She’s home. And she’s leaving.
“No, of course not, you know me, indecisive up until the last minute. Or impulse decisions. There’s no in between.”
It comes out half as a laugh, half as something else, Jake’s heart isn’t in it.
“You okay?” Gina asks. “You seem a little distracted.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good, just a little worried about leaving and stuff ending.”
Jake wishes he could be less honest to Gina, or maybe all the way honest. But he’s not thinking about it, so he might as well think about this other big thing.
“Hey, dumbass, you know we’ll always stay friends right? No matter what.” Gina reaches out for his knee and shoves him a little.
He laughs and feels a tear break from his eye. He quickly pushes it away with his hand.
“Yeah I guess, I just hate change, I mean what if we change, and it’s not for the good?”
“Some things are meant to be, like you, a squealing mortal, and me, a flawless goddess, being friends. And we can always work on fate a little bit ourselves.”
Jake smiles. Gina is so good. She’s home. They’ll be okay.