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“Oh, we made quite a mess. Babe.
It’s probably better off this way.
And I confess, babe.
In my dreams you’re touching my face.
And asking me if I wanna try again with you.
And I almost do.”
‘I Almost Do’, Taylor Swift
“What are you doing here, Jackie?”
She had expected the glass between them to distort his image. To alter those wild curls into some cropped prison-buzzcut, to take the wicked glint from his eyes. But Steven Hyde looked exactly as she remembered him – only in a fading orange jumpsuit, identification pinned to his chest and his handsome face marred by a few more rough years.
It was his voice, coming through the telephone, that was changed. Coarse, gruffer even.
Had it always been like that?
A forced, one note insincerity. Vocal fry. Too cool. Like he didn’t care. At least, on the surface.
‘Oh man, you’re crying.’ His fingers tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘It’s gonna be fine, you’re gonna be fine.’
His frustration with her sounded too sincere, too real now.
She couldn’t imagine those comforting words being spoken by the man who sat across from her, separated from her by the glass partition. Staring her down, daring her to answer him through the telephone she clutched, wire coiled around her pinkie finger.
Jackie had once been able to see the truth of him, so well hidden, through the cracks in his mask. Moments where he had slipped up, shown that he cared. About his friends, about the Formans, about her. He had shielded the best of himself. Soft, sweet, desperate for those he loved to stay.
From the way he sat frozen behind the glass, his lips a firm line, she knew that her Steven was gone. Buried so deep within that she could not reach him.
No chinks in his armour.
No white knight on his steed, waiting to sweep her into his arms.
He truly didn’t care.
Not anymore.
“Oh, don’t act like you’re not happy to see me.” Jackie forced a wide, glossy smile as she crossed and re-crossed her legs. The stool she sat on was actually rather comfortable – it was the atmosphere of the grey slate visiting room, windowless and cold, that set her on edge. And Steven. Of course, also Steven. “There can’t be much for eye candy around here, unless you’re sweet for big and beefy over there.”
On that particular sticky, sweating morning in Wisconsin's own Stanley Correctional Institution there was only one other woman visiting an inmate. From the way the scantily clad twenty-something kept pressing her hands, her cleavage, even her mouth to the glass partition, it was clear she would have preferred to have been alone.
The man she was visiting – he was indeed big, beefy, and adorned with tattoos that wound down the muscle of his arms and curled at his shining wedding band – was just as into the glass-parted makeout as his wife.
Jackie tried not to look at them, even as she spoke.
Steven didn’t have that problem. He was still staring her down, his eyes never wavering as he spoke into the phone.
“White?”
She ran an anxious hand across her outfit. A white pantsuit, trimmed in black. Classy, expensive, matching the diamonds she wore in her ears, on her wrists, at her throat.
Michael didn’t call them apology diamonds.
Her ‘sorry I cheated’ earrings.
The ‘I’ll never do it again’, necklace.
Her most recent gift. ‘This can work. I’ll make this work’, bound heavy at her wrist.
“We’re renewing our vows. Trying again.”
She had hoped it sounded confident, sure. Jackie held her head high, reminded herself that she was Jackie Burkart, for fucks sake. Jackie Burkart-Kelso, on a technicality.
“Right.” Was all Steven said in reply.
She wavered. “Right?”
“Cool, Burkart. Whatever. Is that why you’re here – to gloat?”
He cut to her core.
That’s just what he did.
Jackie jumped to her feet, small in stature but towering in her fury. She leant against the glass, palms flat and flushed – not because she wished to hold him, to kiss him, to whisper sweet nothings like the couple a few seats down. Of course not. If there had not been glass between them, Jackie would have thumped her fists into his chest. Some desperate plea to make his heart beat again.
For her.
Against her.
He would have caught her wrists, frowned as those damned shades slipped down his nose. Like it was 78’, like they were kids. ‘Seriously. You think you’re Ali or somethin’?’
“Maybe it is.” Jackie snapped at him, looking for any sort of reaction. He didn’t have the luxury of hiding behind sunglasses whilst in prison. Knowing her game, he lowered his gaze. “You know, at least Michael is there for me. At least he cares about our son, he cares enough to- to try. To not get himself put in-”
What did she really have to say for Michael Kelso?
That all that separated him from Steven Hyde was a slightly better upbringing and sheer dumb luck.
That one moment of recklessness had led to a pregnancy that had forever given him an in to her life, a reason for her to give him a second, third, going on fifth chance.
That he was not currently in prison for a crime he had not commit, but had rather been saddled with. Guilty until proven innocent. The judge had not looked favourably on Steven, not with his record.
Michael was Michael.
He was familiar.
Sometimes he was even sweet.
He was… he was nothing like Steven.
“But deep down you know he’s just the same old Kelso.” Steven folded his arms. Upon meeting her eye, a fire burned in his gaze. “And he’ll mess it up. Always has, always will.”
And what have we done?
Were we really that much better, just because you really loved me and I…I…
“Whatever.” Jackie crossed her arms, rolled her eyes.
He said nothing for a moment too long. She tried to look up into the flickering lights of the visitor room, to the far wall. Hell, even to the still frantically glass-smouching couple. Anything to save catching a glimpse of her reflection in the glass partition, in Steven’s eyes.
Tears burned in her vision.
One even dared to spill down her flushed cheek.
Traitor!
She wanted to stamp her foot in protest, to give a pout. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care that he doesn’t care.
“Don’t do that.” Hyde leant forwards, line between his brows. “I taught you that.”
“Whatever.” She repeated, lowering the phone and getting to her feet, smoothing down her suit jacket. Something deeply, deeply petty within her wanted him to get a good look at her, at the diamonds she wore. “I need to be at the courthouse for two. We’re registered at Bloomingdale’s, if you’re thinking of sending a gift.”
But she couldn’t bring herself to turn from him. Not just yet.
As if when she left him this time, it really would be for good. No last chance. No final hurrah. Just her and Michael, remarried again. Steven behind her, behind bars.
“Jackie… why did you come here?”
There was a croak to his voice.
Like it hurt to ask.
“I wanted to remind myself that we made the right decision.”
“Did this help?”
But she could hear what he was really asking.
‘Did we?’
Jackie had a better question. One that she asked herself each night.
Does it really matter?
Nothing could change the past.
Not even someone as determined as Jackie Burkhart.
So she lied.
“Absolutely. I could hardly have been your prison-girlfriend, smuggling lucky stars in my stockings.” She shot a glance at the couple a few booths down, knowing very well that would never have been her life. Hyde knew that. “Besides, I can’t bare to see you in orange. It’s so not your colour.”
“Uh huh.” He nodded, tongue poking in his cheek as he looked away and dropped the phone from his chin. “Right.”
She caught it.
The way he ran his thumb beneath his eye.
Steven…
Say something, anything to me. Make me stay.
The phone was still in her hands, even as she moved to step towards the door. An officer would nod his cap to her as she walked out into the sunlight. Point Place and a court wedding waited for her. Michael Kelso.
“For what its worth, Jackie-”
She turned back, heart in her throat.
“I hope this time he makes you happy.”
Her chest felt unbearably tight, and the tears fell freely.
It was as if, for a moment, he forgot there was a partition between them. His hands pressed to the glass – reaching for her. To take her hand, to tuck that ever loose curl behind her ear as he assured her, soft and sweet.
“It’s gonna be fine, you’re gonna be fine.”
And seeing him like that – exactly as he was, as she knew he could be again – only made her hurt more. Only made Jackie more certain that if she did not rush to marry Michael Kelso that afternoon, she would find herself back in that prison every visiting day.
Her lip quivered as she smiled. “Thank you, puddin pop.”
“No trouble, doll. I’m here. Anytime.”