Chapter Text
The baby monitor crackles. She holds her breath, bent over her psychology textbook, waiting for the piercing wail. Four heartbeats, five, but while there’s a rustle that means Nicky has turned over, he stays quiet. No cries, no screams, and Jessica lets out a slow exhale. She flips the highlighter over in her fingers, uses the butt end to rub at the headache between her eyebrows. Tomorrow’s midterm doesn’t care that Nicky has had the flu all week, that he’s been tossing and turning and barely managing to keep down the popsicles she coaxes into him.
Among the things Jessica learned today: the structural maturation of fibre tracts in the pre-adolescent brain, the implications of neuroplasticity on mental development, and that half a box of baking soda sprinkled over vomit dried it out so she could clean it up without gagging.
She leans back in her chair after finishing the chapter, stretching her arms up toward the ceiling and listening to her joints creak in protest. The clock reads eleven p.m.; Jessica promised herself she wouldn’t stay up after two, since after that the lack of sleep would negate all the studying she’d done. Or so said the internet, anyway, and at this point Jessi would take any excuse to catch a few hours of rest without the gnawing guilt that she could be doing something, anything, instead of wasting her time.
(“How could you get pregnant, Jessi! How could you throw away your entire life like that! I told you my dancing career was over when I had you. How could you make the same mistake?”)
Jessica forces herself out of her chair and into some stretches, bending over double and resting her forehead on her hands, palms flat on the floor. She couldn’t do that when Nicky first was born, and even before, when the curve of her belly grew too large for her to bend like she used to, the first scrabbling of panic had started in her chest. Now it’s better, Nicky sleeps through the night and he’s happy with Mrs. Carlisle in the next apartment over as a sitter when Jessica has to go to work, and she’s slowly getting control over her body back.
She’s lowering herself into a split when the monitor crackles again, and this time Nicky’s voice filters through, scratchy and tinny over the connection. “Mama?”
“Coming, baby,” Jessica calls out, and picks herself up and slips into the next room. Nicky is awake and standing, chubby fists gripping the rails of his crib. His face is pale in the darkness, his eyes wide, dark circles. “Aw, honey, are you feeling bad?” Jessica asks. She picks him up, and at two and a half he’s getting heavy but she cradles him against her neck anyway, rocking side to side as she stands.
“No sleep,” Nicky says, and it could be a complaint or a protest. He buries his face in her shoulder, one hand curled at the side of her neck.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Jessica says softly. She strokes a hand over his curls and hums a lullaby, guiding his hand to her throat so he can feel the vibrations. When he was younger it was the only thing that calmed him when he fussed. “You’ll be better soon. Do you want to come sleep in Mama’s bed while I study?”
Nicky shakes his head. “Mama dance?” he asked instead. He raised his head, looking up at her with his eyebrows furrowed. “Mama dance please?”
Pain spikes in the centre of Jessica’s chest as it always does whenever Nicky asked that question, whenever she thinks about the life she’d thought she’d have, years ago. It fades quickly, like stubbing her toe against the wall when trying to navigate the apartment at night, and Jessica smiles and strokes a finger down his cheek. “Of course, baby.”
She sets him back down in the crib, and Nicky rolls onto his side so he can watch her through the bars. Jessica steps back, balances herself on the edge of the dresser, then points her feet outward and curves her hands at her waist. First position, then legs and arms out into second; heels together, raise the arm into third. She moves through the basics and then into the demi-plié, all the way through. Nicky watches her, intent, and somewhere Jessica started humming a song she no longer remembers.
She hums and the music fills her head, and she moves through positions and basic moves in the tiny child’s bedroom, remembering floor to ceiling mirrored walls and skin-tight leotards and wrapping the ribbon around her ankles. Remembering the cramping feet and aching toes, the muscles in her thighs twitching when she tried to sleep after a late-night practice. Flying across the floor, leaping in the air, the moment of brief, terrifying and exhilarating weightlessness before landing in her partner’s arms, his hands strong and firm around her waist.
(“We’re not supposed to date other dancers. Monsieur said!”
“It’s not dating, it’s just a fling. It’s not anything complicated, right, Jess? Nothing for Monsieur to disapprove of. Come on, all the other dancers say you’re a prude. Do you want to prove them right?”)
The memory crashes hard and she stumbles, barking her knee off the edge of the dresser. Jessica bites back a curse and lowers herself back onto flat feet, and across the room Nicky has drifted off again, chewing on his fist. She breathes a sigh of relief, traces two fingers across his forehead to brush back the sweaty strands of hair, and tiptoes back into her room to finish off the next hour of studying.
Five years ago, the beer in the cheap plastic cup was warm and definitely watered down, ugh Brian was such a cheapskate. Jessica sipped at it anyway and leaned against the wall, letting her gaze run over the partygoers. Not a bad crowd tonight, for your standard ‘hey my parents are out of town’ kegger, most of the cool kids from school and a few of the ones who weren’t but knew where to get booze or drugs and so made it on the list.
Scott had gone off somewhere, probably to make out with Miranda in a closet and come back later, lipstick on his palm where he’d tried to wipe it off his neck. Whatever. Jessica liked it better when he cheated, anyway; it meant he left her mostly alone. Dating Scott kept her place firmly sealed as queen of the school without Jessica having to make much of an effort, and this way she didn’t have to be the one to sleep with him.
The only good thing about tonight was the music; some of the punk kids with the dyed hair and sharpies colouring their fingernails black and the ever-present smell of weed on their clothes had brought some instruments. They’d spent the first hour squabbling with Taylor over whether or not they could unplug her dad’s sound system to set up their amps and stuff, but now they’d gotten it all ready and, okay, they sounded not bad. Not like MTV good or anything, but definitely good enough for a house full of teenagers drunk out of their minds off of cheap Molson.
Jessica watched them idly. The main singer kept doing this scratchy thing with his voice like he wanted to sound older and smoked twenty packs of cigarettes a day, and Jessica couldn’t decide if she liked it or not. The guitarist, though —
Okay, yeah, he was cute. Really cute, hair long enough to flop into his eyes but not so long that he looked girly, and he managed to work the dark eyeliner and nail polish and the line of piercings along his ears and make them look broody and mysterious and, well, hot. He also played the guitar better than anyone else in the band. Jessica didn’t know too much about punk music, but the way the chords screamed when he trailed his fingers up and down the neck of his guitar sent a shiver through her.
Something about the way his fingers curled around the guitar like a possessive lover, the way he leaned in close so his hair nearly brushed the strings — Jessica swallowed and wiped a hand across her face, suddenly feeling sweaty. Now and then he joined in harmony with the lead singer, and his voice was low and husky and just a little bit raw. A strange warmth started in Jessica’s stomach and spread outward, moving down with a weird tingling that brought the blood to her cheeks in a hot rush.
The song ended, and as the last note hung in the air in a wild twang, he looked up and happened to make eye contact with Jessica. Jessica jumped — he smiled, a slow smirk that took the warmth in her gut and pulled it sharp — she gasped and looked away. She waved at nobody across the room, pretending to see a friend, and fled before she could embarrass herself any further.
She felt his eyes on the back of her head long after she turned the corner. When Scott came back, reeking of perfume and spilled beer, Jessica pulled him close and kissed him hard and messy to chase away the thoughts of guitar-boy’s fingers tracing the pattern of the chords along her spine.
Jessica makes it through her midterm and Nicky gets over the flu, and everything settles back to normal. Work during the day, class in the evenings, and home at night with Nicky. It’s not the best for his sleep schedule, since he always insists on staying up until she’s home, but Jessica would rather see him, even fussy and needy because he’s tired, than have him straight to bed as soon as she’s back.
At least she gets one or two days off per week from work. She can’t always swing the weekends, but Nicky is too young to care about that and Mrs. Carlisle likes the company regardless. She usually saves some leftovers from dinner for Jessica when she comes back to pick up Nicky, and some nights Jess stays to eat and chat while Nicky dozes on her lap, but sometimes she’s tired and her brain aches and she just wants to go home. On those nights she eats out of Mrs. Carlisle’s tupperware container and listens to Nicky babble about his day.
Thursday night Jessica’s class is cancelled, and she picks Nicky up in the afternoon and has the rest of the evening to relax. They read stories and play games and watch movies together, and when it’s time to eat Jessica actually cooks. She sits Nicky on the counter and gives him a giant bowl with a handful of dough, and he plays with it and rolls it around and smears himself with flour while Jessica makes the actual pizzas. She lets him place the toppings, which makes for a very lopsided assortment with all the pineapple on one side, the mushrooms in odd clumps and the pepperoni making a happy face, but who cares, it’s just pizza. No one will be winning any points for style.
The girls from work will be out at the bars, probably, taking advantage of the ladies’ night specials. Jessica cuts Nicky’s pizza into small pieces and puts them in a bowl for them, then she joins him on the living room floor and turns on the TV. He likes music videos and concert footage; he might like watching Mama dance in the quiet of their home, but on television he likes the noise and the cacophony of instruments and the ecstatic fans screaming. It’s all about the spectacle with him, and he’s too young to understand the lyrics so Jessi isn’t going to kill herself trying to keep it appropriate.
Better MTV than idiotic children’s shows with the same lines repeated again and again. Nicky squirms in Jessica’s lap and claps at the screen, and his eyes shine with reflections of the coloured lights. Jessica laughs, nods in agreement to Nicky’s endless “Look, Mama, look!” and occasionally reminds him to put the pizza in his mouth rather than waving it around.
When a new act comes onscreen, Jessica is only half paying attention. She’s thinking about her homework, about the doctor’s appointment next week and who she should ask to swap shifts, about whether to tell Nicky to sit back because being too close to the TV will ruin his eyes even though she’s pretty sure that’s nonsense. The music starts and she registers it a little in the back of her mind because it’s catchy, good riffs on the guitar and a steady drumbeat.
And then he sings, and Jessica’s head snaps up because she knows that voice.
“Mama, look!” Nicky says, pointing, and Jessica swallows hard and her heart hammers in her chest and she has to stop herself from grabbing the remote and hitting the power button right there. It would upset Nicky, and she doesn’t want to deal with that, not when she’s just been plunged five years back in time. It feels like the time her brother dared her to jump off the dock at their cottage when the ice still rimmed the water in a thin layer; she’d come up gasping and fighting for breath, and the full impact of it hadn’t hit her until she’d already scrambled out.
It’s him. He’s older and taller and he’s filled out a little, but it’s the same hair flopping in his eyes and the same smirk on his lips and the same hands cupping his guitar like he’s making love to it. He was always talented, even back then, and now there’s a maturity that rounds out his singing. It still sends shivers down Jessica’s spine just like the first time — except not, not really.
“Look, Mama,” Nicky says. He picks up his toy guitar and jams with it, bending his dimpled knees and pulling his face into a scowl to try to match the singer’s punk-rage expression.
The song ends and Jessica hasn’t registered a word of it, though there’s an uneasy feeling sitting at the back of her mind when she tries to recall snatches of lyrics. Then the credits pop up at the bottom of the screen: TRAVIS RAYNE, BITCH YOU’RE TOO LATE.
“Mama?” Nicky says uncertainly. He drops the guitar and toddles over, patting Jessi’s knees and stroking her hands in increasing alarm. “Mama, okay?”
Jessica claps her hands over her face and laughs, the sound high and sliding. By now Nicky is staring at her wide-eyed, and she forces herself to swallow, to breathe, to calm down and remember that she is a mother not a sixteen-year-old girl and all of that is over. “Sorry, baby,” Jessi says. She reaches down and hauls Nicky up into her lap, and he curls himself into a tight ball as she turns off the TV. “Mama just remembered something, that’s all. Do you want to help me with the dishes?”
Helping with the dishes means sitting on the counter with a tub of sudsy water and a handful of plastic picnic dishes to splash around with, and Nicky brightens. “Yeah!” he says, scooting down to the floor. “Mama, let’s go!”
Jessica gives one last look at the television, then shakes herself and follows Nicky into the kitchen.
Five years ago, he watched her at school.
Jessica only noticed after the party, and maybe it only started then, who knew, but after that it was hard to shake him. He didn’t eat at the cafeteria at lunch; he ate with his friends, the smokers and the burnouts, under the tree just off school property so they couldn’t technically get in trouble. Jessica definitely did not ever eat there, but there was a bench behind the building, near the small garden the biology class tried growing their samples in, and she used to take her lunch out there sometimes. Some days the cafeteria was too loud, and Scott’s arm around her waist too possessive and entitled, and her friends’ laughter too sharp and mocking.
She noticed him then, sprawled out on the grass, leaning back with a cigarette dangling from his fingers. Jessica didn’t go for guys like that, okay, she went for the clean-cut type with the square jaw and the tight t-shirts like Scott, except Scott was also kind of a jerk and Jessica didn’t want to think about Scott right now. And right now was the boy from the party, dark and scruffy and a little bit unwashed, only when she glanced at him she jolted because he was already looking at her.
Jessica looked down at her lunch, but just like at the party she felt the heat of his gaze on her. Every time she glanced up there he was, watching, his eyes dark and intent and roving, and it sent a thrill through her that she didn’t understand and decided not to analyze too closely. Finally she packed up and headed back inside without eating anything, ducking into an empty classroom to sit on a desk and finish her sandwich without an audience.
Not just at lunch, either. He found her in the hallways, in the library, at study hall. He never spoke to her, never got near enough that anyone else noticed, but whenever Jessica felt that odd prickle at the back of her neck then there he was, that same low smile quirking his lips. Once he winked at her, a full on wink that turned his usual sly grin into something almost playful, and again Jessica’s cheeks burned hot and she buried her face in her book.
His name was Travis. She knew that, like she knew the name of everyone in her grade, only she’d never had a reason to care. Jessica did not write his name in her notebook like a lovestruck preteen, but she did whisper it once in the dark — half terrified, half thrilled, entirely shocked at herself — and the next day she couldn’t bear to look at him at all, convinced that somehow he would know.
After a month or so, she opened her locker and a folded sheet of paper fluttered to the floor.
She mentions the show to Candace the next day at work. “Did you see that concert last night? Travis Rayne, sort of punk.” The Travis she knew in high school would have bristled at ‘sort of punk’, but while Jessica wouldn’t call herself an expert, she also thought she remembered him scoffing at MTV as ‘selling out’.
“Are you kidding?” Candace opens her eyes wide. “Isn’t he great? I saw him last year, it was wild. I thought the crowd was going to jump onstage and eat him or something.”
Jessica laughs and picks up another shirt to fold. “Maybe don’t do that.”
Candace waves a hand. “Whatever, don’t judge me. Why, are you going tomorrow?”
This time Jessica stops, the shirt held between her hands, halfway through the second fold. “What?”
“He’s going to be in town tomorrow, a bunch of us have tickets. Did you want to come? I think they’re all sold out, but I’m sure you could find some on Craigslist or something.”
Jessica sets the shirt down on the top of the display and folds it horizontally, not trusting herself to avoid dropping it as her hands tremble. “No, I — I used to know him, that’s all. In high school.”
“What? Get out of town! What was he like?”
She looks down at her task, focusing on the movements. Fold in, flip, fold, fold, flip. “We didn’t really talk much. Not the same crowd, you know how it is. I saw the concert on TV last night, and it was kind of weird.”
Candace makes a noncommittal humming noise of agreement. “You should totally come tonight! I know you don’t have tickets, but even so, the security won’t be that crazy, you could totally slip in with the crowd. Tracy’s done it, you should ask her how.” Jessica gives her a skeptical look, and Candace shoves her shoulder. “You should! You’re always home or working or something else. It would be good to have an evening out.”
“Maybe.” Jessica finishes her pile and heads to the next display over, mind racing.
Candace rallies the other girls and gangs up on Jessica at break, and by the end of the day she agrees just so they’ll stop cajoling her. And so the next night, Jessica leaves Nicky with Mrs. Carlisle, spends an hour agonizing over her wardrobe before giving up and wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt because she’ll never actually fit in anyway, and gets a ride with Candace and the girls to the concert.
Sneaking in is terrifying, with Jessica convinced the entire time that she’s going to get caught, but Tracy helps her sneak behind the barriers and Candace flirts with the young guy in charge of bracelets while Michelle nicks an extra one from the pile, and that’s that. While it’s not the first time she’s done something against the rules (“Come on, it’s just sex. Being attracted to each other is natural! Who are they to make rules against what’s natural?”), it’s more people and noise in one place than Jessica has seen in years.
Jessica stands in the crowd and tries her best not to look too out of place, but the good thing is everyone’s thrilled about the music so it’s not hard to avoid being noticed. Nobody pays attention to a twenty-two-year-old with her arms pulled in tight around her, and the music is really not Jessica’s scene but enthusiasm is infectious. By the time the opening bands are done she’s almost into it. They’re not wrong, is the thing; the world is messed up, and people are selfish, and things do need to change. Maybe tearing it all down and starting again isn’t the worst idea.
The music never had a chance to reach her back then; back then it was all about the boy with the guitar and the Sharpied fingernails, and Jessica had been trying so hard to shut out her thoughts about him that she hadn’t had time to let anything in. But here, surrounded by people screaming and shouting, with music that runs goosebumps up her arms and sets her heart pounding, Jessica uncoils a little. She doesn’t jump or dance or anything else, but she stops folding her arms and glancing around like she expects someone to bite her. When they announce the headlining act up next, a girl next to Jessica flashes her an excited grin. For a second they’re just two young women at a punk rock concert, and Jessica forgets herself and cheers along with everyone else.
Then Travis swaggers out onto the stage in tight black jeans and fierce eyeliner, and Jessica sucks in a hard breath. He’s every bit as handsome as she remembers, all of the looks with twice the presence, and the added tattoos and piercings since she last saw him only add to the appeal. He wears his guitar like a gunslinger’s rifle, and he wraps both hands around the microphone and croon-screeches Is everybody ready? and the crowd explodes.
Jessica presses a hand to her chest, digging her fingers in hard to remind herself to breathe. She’s still trying when he steps back, picks up his guitar, and starts to play.
“It’s a love song, I think,” Jessica said, five years ago. She and Michelle sprawled on her bed, the letter spread out on the ballet-pink comforter. “I know it’s a little hard to tell because it’s so intense.”
“That’s one word for it,” Michelle said. She flopped on her stomach with her chin resting on her hands and kicked her feet in the air behind her, frowning at the ballpoint scrawl on the lined notebook paper. “It reads a little bit creepy stalker to me. All this stuff about watching you, and pain, and barbed wire, it’s creepy.”
“But that could be sexy, right?” Jessica asked. Michelle raised an eyebrow, and okay, she was still dating Scott, but she and Michelle had known each other since sharing the cool purple and green eraser meant instant best friends. Jessica wasn’t going to lie to her.
Michelle sighed, and she rolled over onto her side and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Look, Jess, I get it, Scott is a dick but it would be worse to dump him right before Prom, but that doesn’t mean you go chasing after weirdos who stuff stalker letters in your locker. Okay? Try to have a little perspective here.” Jessica nodded, reluctant, and Michelle shot her a sharp look. “Do you know who it is?”
“I think so.” Jessica traced her fingers over the letters on the page, imagining him writing it, imagining him bent over his desk late at night, scribbling furiously while angry music blared in his headphones. Or maybe he’d written it at the skate park, balancing the paper against his knee and snatching sentences when his friends weren’t looking. Michelle makes a ‘well?’ gesture, swirling her finger in the air, and Jessica flushes. “Do you know Travis? He played at Brian’s party.”
Michelle thinks for a second, then gawks at Jessica and sits up. “Wait, the skater boy? Seriously? The kid who smokes at break and does all those stupid tricks off the back steps on his board with all his stoner friends? Jess, you’ve got to be kidding.”
Jessica bristled, and she snatched up the paper and folded it before hiding it in the drawer of her bedside table. “I didn’t say I was going to date him, okay, I just thought — well, he’s cute, isn’t he? And he plays guitar and writes love songs. I don’t think Scott could write a love haiku.”
“What do you want, a love haiku or a boyfriend who’s hot and popular and will get you crowned Prom Queen?” Michelle asked. “Look, okay, he’s cute. Okay, he’s a bad boy and he writes creepy love songs and he plays guitar. But do you really think he’d be a good boyfriend?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Jessica folded her arms, hating herself for the part of her that wanted Michelle to be right. To talk her out of it, give her a reason not to take the chance.
“Has he ever talked to you?” Michelle asked. Jessica shook her head. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Does he know anything about you at all, like, you really? Or is it just that you’re hot and popular? Because if that’s all it is, good job having eyes. All the weird intense love letters won’t change the fact that he doesn’t know who you are, and anyone who gets that obsessed without knowing you is not going to make for a good boyfriend.”
Jessica chewed on her lower lip. “He might? If he likes me this much just watching me, then if he got to know me —”
“Then he’d only be disappointed when you’re a real person and not some weird fantasy inside his head,” Michelle said ruthlessly. “It happens all the time, Jess. Guys like that want a perfect imaginary girlfriend and they freak out when the girl they want isn’t real. To him you’re not a person, you’re a status symbol. You’re something he can’t have, and that’s why he wants you.”
Half a dozen arguments came to mind but sank back down before Jessica could voice them. She pulled up her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, leaning back against the headboard. “It’s not like Scott really loves me, though.”
“Maybe not,” Michelle said, but she moved over and slid an arm around Jessica’s shoulders. “But he’s popular, and so are you. If you date some skater kid who only gets invited to parties because he plays guitar, you’ll get nothing. He’s baggy clothes and a skateboard and social suicide. Do you really want to throw away everything you have because you’re bored and curious?”
Jessica couldn’t help looking at the dresser, the note hidden inside, but she sighed and turned away, leaning her head on Michelle’s shoulder. “Why are you so logical? Couldn’t you support me through my bad boy phase?”
Michelle snorted and stroked a hand over Jessica’s hair. “Jess, I love you too much for that. High school can be hell and I’m not letting my best friend go through it for some boy, okay? But I will use my dad’s card to order us some pizza, and I’ll offer the driver twenty bucks if he’ll pick up a tub of ice cream on the way.”
She swore for a moment she felt the boy’s eyes on her, burning and disappointed, but she chased the sensation away. “Sounds good.”
It’s actually okay, once he starts singing. The shock of seeing him there on stage fades, the pounding in her heart settles to match the beat, and Jessica remembers how to breathe. The songs themselves are angry, hard slamming chords on the bass, the guitar wailing and screeching as Travis chases his fingers up the neck, all the lyrics about being young and angry and showing the haters where they can stick it.
Travis is well out of high school now, with his own band and a show that plays concerts and actually makes it on MTV; Jessica can’t help wonder what he possibly has to be angry at. She’s not proud of herself for the thought, or how it curls deep inside her and prickles outward, as ridiculous and effective as a hedgehog in her stomach.
Jessica has tried being angry before, and it’s not like she has no reason to be, but she never found it sustained her very long. It felt good for an hour, maybe, but never any longer than that, and afterward she’d plummet right back to sad with an extra layer of guilt and exhaustion. She may as well have slammed her head into the wall over and over again with the argument that it stopped her thinking about a sore foot, and so she left it behind.
She exhales and lets the music and the cheering carry away the sound of her sigh. Travis looks good, handsome and well-fed and less strung out than he was in high school, and with any luck he won’t turn up on the news face-down in some crummy motel with his stomach full of pills and track marks up his arm at the age of 27, like Jess sees online so often nowadays. He’s got a good thing going for him now, at any rate, and in all likelihood he hasn’t thought about Jessica since graduation.
Near the end of the show, he stops to chug a bottle of water, crumples it up and chucks it into the crowd. “This last song is an extra-special one,” Travis says. His hair is soaked with sweat, sticking to his forehead, and he tosses it out of his eyes with a flick of his head. “So to help me, I’m gonna ask someone special to come out here and sing it with me. Everyone, this is Harley, and she helped me write this song.”
She’s pretty, the girl who comes onstage in ripped jeans, wife-beater and a men’s necktie, even with the way-too-thick smoky eye makeup that from here makes it look a little bit like she has twin black eyes. She grabs a microphone from the bassist and flashes a toothy grin at the audience; Travis hooks an arm around her waist, fingers digging into her hip, and Jessica flinches but the girl only smiles wider.
They raise their mics and square off, feet planted widely as the drummer kicks off with a raucous beat. Their voices actually sound pretty good together, her husky rasp complementing Travis’ raw, screaming whine, but the sound of it flies past Jessica because this time it’s the words that grab her.
They’re singing about her. In the song Travis is a punk kid turned down by the school princess, a stuck-up bitch who couldn’t see what was in front of her; the song theorizes that she’ll be a knocked-up nobody one day, so to all the punks in high school turned down by the Prom Queen, just hold tight. The universe knows what’s up, and everyone gets what they deserve in the end.
Jessica actually stumbles — the guy next to her catches her, steadies her and even gives her a brief, encouraging smile before Jess waves him off — and just like that, the memories hit.
Five years ago Travis caught Jessica by the lockers. He leaned his whole side against hers, blocking her from getting to the combination lock, and gave her a low, sliding grin that despite Michelle’s warnings still made Jessica’s stomach flutter. “Hey,” he said. “I see you watching me.”
His tone got under her skin a little, like noticing her noticing him meant she owed him something. “It’s a free country,” Jessica snapped. It came out defensive and probably a little snotty, but too late now.
“Sure is,” Travis said, and raised his eyebrows like he just won a point. Jessica pressed her lips together to stop the annoyed sigh; why did boys turn every conversation into a competition? “So, free country, you wanna go out with me?”
Jessica’s stupid stomach did that stupid flip again, but she imagined Michelle’s face in the back of her mind. “I’m seeing somebody, but thanks,” she reminded him. She reached past him for the lock he blocked with his arm, hoping he took the hint.
Travis’ cocky expression slid into a scowl, and he still didn’t move out of the way. “What, Chad?”
“His name is Scott,” Jessica said, a little icily this time.
He dismissed the correction with a gesture. “He looks like a Chad. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because he’s an asshole, everybody knows it. You’re a nice girl, why are you even with him?”
For a hundred reasons and maybe none very good — because he’s cute and popular, because my parents like him and don’t ask questions, because he doesn’t pressure me to have sex if he can cheat on me with someone else — but Jessica bridled at the question. Michelle told her once that guys tried to turn any ‘no’ into a negotiation, so don’t give them the opening.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jessica said, opting for a more neutral version of ‘none of your business’. “I’ve got a boyfriend, but thanks anyway. And now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to my locker.”
Travis stared at her for several seconds, eyebrows pulled together, before moving away from her locker — not backward, giving Jessica room, but forward, into her space, so she had to take a quick step behind or he would have been right in her face. “You know what, whatever,” he snapped. The last of the flirtatious lilt disappeared from his voice, nothing left but a harsh growl, and he grabbed her arm and twisted hard. Jessica froze as his fingers dug into her bicep. “I would have been an awesome boyfriend, okay, I would be the best boyfriend, I’d treat you and let you come to all my shows and all that. And you know what, one day your stupid asshole boyfriend is going to hit you or knock you up or break your heart, and you’re going to wonder where all the nice guys are. Well guess what, they’re going to be with a girl who appreciates them and you’re going to be alone and sad and it’ll be too late.”
Jessica’s heart hammered in her throat. Her eyes had widened, and her breaths came short and ragged and every part of her screamed at her to run away but nothing else moved. “Travis,” she said, forcing her mouth to work even if everything else had gone on lockdown. “Let go and get out of my way. I need to get to my locker before the bell rings.”
Travis tightened his grip for a second — Jessica refused to react, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from crying out — then dropped his hand and stepped back. “Fine,” he said, and threw up a hand. “Fine, whatever. You’re a bitch and I don’t need you.”
The bell rang and Jessica hadn’t moved from her locker — still hadn’t even opened it. She stayed there, shaking and furious, until a passing teacher stopped to ask if anything was wrong. Jessica opened her mouth to say everything was fine — nearly burst into tears instead — and finally, with a calmness that surprised her, said, “I’m not feeling great. I think I need to go home.”
The song ends as the final chord hangs in the air and the crowd applauds. Onstage Travis slides his guitar around behind him, grabs his girlfriend and pulls her in for an elaborate, showy kiss. The fans cheer, his bandmates roll their eyes — the drummer threatens to chuck a drumstick in their direction — and Jessica unfreezes as a laugh tears itself loose. It’s wild and high and hysterical, and after the first few people in the crowd turn to stare at her, Jessica claps both hands over her mouth and swallows the rest of it.
Travis grabs for the mic and the spell breaks. Jessica snaps free and pushes her way back through the crowd, elbowing and shouldering anyone who doesn’t move fast enough. The guy at the door tells her she can’t come back in if she leaves, probably a legal disclaimer so they can say they did their utmost to curb on-site drug use, but Jessica only barks out another laugh.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m out of here.”
Jessica makes it halfway home before remembering she ditched the girls, and she dashes off a quick apology text about feeling under the weather while the subway picks up passengers at a station. She sits with her forehead resting against the window, closes her eyes and lets the anger wash over her as the train rattles around her.
Mrs. Carlisle has put Nicky to bed by the time Jessica makes it back. He’s sprawled out on his back like a starfish, one hand clutching the leg of his toy octopus, and for a minute Jessica stands by the bed and watches him sleep. The orange-gold glow from the nightlight paints him like a distant sunrise, and Jessica sits gently on the edge of the bed and brushes her hand over his forehead.
“Hey, little man,” Jessica says softly. Nicky stirs and chews on the inside of his lip like he’s searching for an imaginary soother, then settles back down. The lyrics to the song — incredibly catchy, for a punk song, isn’t that disdained as a pop thing, shouldn’t he be ashamed or something — stick in her head, rolling over and over as Travis and his girlfriend and an entire stadium of people and thousands of fans at home sang about Jessica’s son as a living punishment for her stuck-up whore ways.
It’s the same thing Mom said when Jessica decided to keep the baby instead of terminating, when she dropped out of dance and enrolled in school instead. It’s what her friends didn’t have to say when Jessica kept turning down offers and cancelling plans, when they all said “let us know if you need any help” but never followed through or made an offer when Jessica, too exhausted to know what she needed, sat alone in her apartment and cried right along with Nicky. It’s what Jessica thought to herself some nights, many nights, when she tried to study for a midterm with Nicky wailing in the crook of one arm, steadying the bottle with her chin and turning the pages and making notes with her other hand.
Jessica isn’t the perfect mother and Nicky isn’t the perfect son, but as she sits on the bed and watches him sleep, as she looks around at the scribbled drawings taped to the walls and the stuffed animals still scattered from the massive battle that would be continued in the morning —
As she thinks about Travis, sneering on stage and slamming his hand against the lockers and grabbing his arm and kissing his girlfriend, a man in his twenties still hung up on a girl he never dated five years ago — writing a nasty song that turns the most important thing in Jessica’s life into a punchline —
Jessica leans down and kisses Nicky on the forehead. “I love you, little man,” she says, fierce and proud and angry, and she glares out the window as though Travis were there to see it. A thousand nights of lost sleep, of headaches and red eyes and googling “two-year-old runny nose and cough” in a middle of the night panic, of bleary mornings and stifling yawns behind the counter — all of that is nothing next to Nicky and all the ways he surprises her every day. She’d rather all of this, the mess and tears and hugs and joy, than being a trophy girlfriend for Travis to grope on stage.
Let Travis have his song, Jessica decides. Let anyone from high school who hears it on the radio wonder if they know who it’s about; none of that matters. She didn’t let Travis make her decisions for her in high school, and she won’t let him shame her now.
She feels a brief flash of self-righteous pity for the girl, but no, no. She won’t fall into the same trap of mocking someone else’s choices just because she disagrees. Just like the anger, all that would do is suck up her energy and spit her out with nothing back. Jessica exhales, then stands up and heads to bed.