juli doesn't like having to be the responsible one (monkeydo) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-01-27 21:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log, julieta jimenez, sadie thompson |
WHO: Julieta Jimenez [SPAIN] and Sadie Thompson [USA]
WHAT: Juli finds out a seeeeeecret about Sadie
WHEN: Tuesday, January 22 [BACKDATED]
WHERE: Girls' tower, 4d
WARNINGS: none
STATUS: completed log
Hello, Sadie, it’s Trish Hearne. Your mother said you had some concerns about Robbie staying with us for the week, so I just wanted to let you know that you have nothing to worry about. He is our grandson, after all! Really, I’m not sure why we didn’t do this sooner, your poor mother could use the break, what with you all the way on the other side of the world learning how to control those powers you have. Anyway, give me a call back at 207-555-1234 and I can reassure you that your baby boy is perfectly safe and happy. You take care now. When Juli heard the message on the voicemail in their room, she was only half listening. Robbie was Sadie’s cousin or something - she hadn’t really paid attention to the specifics when Sadie had mentioned it originally - and while she didn’t know why someone was calling Sadie about babysitting her cousin, she also didn’t particularly care. In fact, she was just about to go when she heard the phrase “your baby boy.” So then she listened to it again, and suddenly, it clicked why the name Hearne sounded familiar. It was John’s last name. So if this was John’s mother.... and John was Sadie’s ex... and Robbie was her grandson... and she was calling Robbie Sadie’s baby boy... It took listening to the message for a third time for it to completely click, and the full weight of the message left on their voicemail made sense to her. Sadie had a son. Robbie wasn’t her cousin, it was her child. Sadie was a mother. I’m definitely not taking birth control advice from Sadie was the first coherent thought Juli had after her realization. The second was a bit of hurt that Sadie hadn’t trusted Juli enough to tell her. And then she faintly thought about what it must have been like for Sadie to be so separated from her son - but just for a moment, before she went back to thinking about how knowing this about Sadie affected Juli herself. Oblivious, Sadie was thinking to herself as she stepped out of the elevator onto the fourth floor, how glad she was to have freed herself from the ball and chain that was John. Or rather, the idea of having a nuclear family for Robbie. Fighting on and off with a jerk of a boyfriend who lived thousands of miles away sucked. Finding time after class to 'hang out' with Seth? Didn't suck. Not in the slightest. So she, was smiling to herself, and running a hand through her shortened hair as she slid her key card through the door and came into the room she shared with Julieta. "Hey," she said happily, kicking off her sandals as the door clicked behind her. "What's...” “Why didn’t you tell me Robbie was your son,” Juli asked the moment her roommate entered the room, cutting off whatever she was going to say. “Some Trish Hearne lady left a message on our voicemail. You’re a mom? And you didn’t tell me? I thought I was your friend!” If Julieta had suddenly punched Sadie in the stomach, she couldn't have looked more shocked. All the color drained from her face, then rushed back all at once, bright pink as she stood there, gaping. Her face was hot, but her blood felt like it was running cold; there was a roiling in her stomach that threatened to take over. You're a mom? She felt ill, she felt hurt, she was confused, she was scared. In desperation, she reached out for the rage that had been sustaining her over the past month, but there was nothing. "I..." she started, looking around for something other than Juli's face to look at. Her gaze landed on the door. Maybe she could just leave? "How..." Some Trish Hearne lady left a message on our voicemail. Finally, there it was. A spark of anger to shore her up, to give her the strength to close her mouth and narrow her eyes. Why the hell had her mother given her number to Johnny's mom? "And what was I supposed to say?" she said finally, crossing her arms and bringing her eyes to Julieta's at last. "'Oh, hi, you're from Barcelona? I'm from bumfuck Maine! You were going to the Olympics? Well I just had a baby and I miss him real bad!'" All the bitterness of her secret poured out into an exaggerated backwater Maine accent. "It doesn't exactly come up in casual conversation." “Well, maybe not at first,” Juli said, rolling her eyes a little. “But it’s been six months! You couldn’t have dropped it into conversation since then? Instead of telling me he was your cousin?” It was the lying, Juli thought, that bothered her the most. It was like Sadie didn’t trust her. “It’s not like I was going to tell anybody,” she continued, though as soon as the words left her mouth she knew that it wasn’t necessarily true. Now she wouldn’t, of course - she knew Sadie and considered her the closest friend she had here. Her closest friend even outside of here, really, considering how quickly she’d grown away from her friends at the gym once she stopped gymnastics, and she’d never really made friends at the school she’d started back at. But when she’d first arrived here? She might have, if she thought that little bit of gossip might have gotten her somewhere. But still, it wasn’t like she would have now. Or even a month or two ago. So she thought the point was a valid one. “Do you not trust me?” "I didn't trust you, no," Sadie said, still defensive; unconciously she'd backed up against the wall, seeking its support. "I didn't trust anyone, and I still don't, okay, it's one thing to be a Vol, but we're all Vols here. But barely sixteen and pregnant? Does that even happen in your world?" And that was the crux of it, really: Julieta came from such a different universe, one of affluence and gold medals, the pride of a whole country. The fall she'd taken, the humiliation she'd endured, was a world apart from the one Sadie lived in, one of high school dropouts and families that hadn't left the county in generations, simultaneously protected by the intimacy and familiarity and shut out by its more insidious betrayals. Sadie bit her lip and looked away. Maybe it just hadn't hit Julieta yet, all those ramifications. Surely it was only a matter of moments before she stopped feeling hurt about Sadie's lies - lie, just the one, and it felt unavoidable at the time - and started seeing her differently. Not as her friend, but just some trainwreck redneck from America. “Yes, teenagers in Spain get pregnant,” Juli said, rolling her eyes a little. “But, whatever. Feel free to not tell me anything anymore. I mean, it’s not like we’re friends or anything. Just people forced together by IVI.” She flung herself on the bed dramatically and looked over at her roommate - no, the person she was forced to share a room with. “I didn’t mean Spain, jerk,” Sadie retorted, rolling her eyes at Julieta’s eye-roll. The dramatic flinging, however, meant that she didn’t feel as cornered; she started moving towards her bed as well, preparing some remark to hurl back at her roommate when she piped up again. “Did you tell Seth? Since, you know, you like him better than me and you’re sleeping with him or whatever.” And just like that, Sadie went from cornered to corner-er. “Oh my god, are you crazy?!” she cried, suddenly beside Juli on the bed, grabbing her shoulder, trying to make eye contact. “You cannot tell him, okay, you really, really can’t, of course I haven’t told him!!” As an afterthought she tacked on, “And of course I don’t like him better than you!” Juli squinted in her roommate’s direction, slightly mollified by that information. At least she wasn’t the last to know. Though really, if Karim had found out, everyone else would know. Okay, second to last. “So who else knows? I mean, Sam, obviously. But who else did you tell before you told me?” “Promise me Seth isn’t going to find out, Juli!” Sadie gave her shoulder a shake, ignoring the question until she had her assurance. “I’m not going to go tell him, Sadie!” Juli said, a little irritated again that she wasn’t trusted to keep it to herself. “I mean, you’re my friend. I’m not going to go be some gossip about your private stuff or anything.” Satisfied, the other girl leaned back into the wall, knees up to her chest. “Yael knows,” she said after a moment, rubbing at her temples with the heels of her hands. “Sam told her, though. I didn’t tell anyone else, except really recently. I told Valya because of his power.” She paused for a moment, resting her elbows on her knees and peering at Juli through the window the crook of her arm made. “Listen, it’s not about you, okay? You’re a good friend, my best friend, it’s just...” The problem was, it wasn’t ’just’ anything. It was many things, many confusing, conflicting things that Sadie didn’t know how to put into words. So she trailed off, tensing for another irritated retort. “And if you wrote about it at all on the network that techo-whatever girl knows,” Juli pointed out, “Also, the telepath probably does too.” But she still felt better - it wasn’t like Sadie had told a lot of people, and at least she’d found out from her and not from someone else, right? Well, she hadn’t actually found out from Sadie - just from her mother-in-law-type person. Or whoever she was. “Do you think you would have gone forever without telling me?” she asked, sounding a little timid. “No, I’ve been careful. With both. I think. I mean, I dunno what the telepath can hear, but I try to stay away from him?” Sadie brought one hand down from her temple to her mouth, where she began to nibble absent-mindedly on the corner of her thumb. In truth, she wasn’t really sure if she’d been that careful on the network - she thought she had, but Daisy had been away for a while, and she’d never really spoken to her, so maybe it wasn’t even something she had to worry about? Her gaze shifted back to Juli. “No, not forever,” she said, attempting a small smile. “That’d be kind of hard. Especially if they finally let me go home, or bring him here...” Again she trailed off, that knot of anxiety in her stomach stealing her words once more. “You want to bring him here?” Juli asked, not even thinking to hide her surprise. This seemed like the worst place to bring a child - with people being crazy and powers going off all over the place and where would he stay? In the room with them? That would be such a pain in the ass, Juli was glad they hadn’t let her. Why? Juli was about to ask, but then she caught herself. “Do you,” she started, and then switched to a statement rather than a question instead. “I guess you probably miss him?” The look Sadie gave Julieta this time was one that clearly signified she wasn't going to dignify that question with an answer. Did she miss him, honestly. Instead, she addressed the first. "I don't really want to bring Robbie here, but if it's a choice between another fucking six months away or bringing him here, then yeah. I'd do that. Plus, it'd be safer, for him. Especially since the kidnappings..." This time, Sadie punctuated her unfinished sentence with a kick against the mattress that shook the bed frame. "But they aren't fucking going to do either of those things, so. Guess I'll just miss the first five years of my kid's life, that's fine." “It won’t be that long,” Juli said, suddenly not sure of what to say. Obviously this was a big deal to Sadie, but she really had no context for understanding how big of a deal it was. If Juli’d had a kid, how would she have felt? Part of her thought that maybe she’d be glad for a little bit of freedom, the chance to be a kid again, after having to be a mother. Being a mother must be so difficult, so time consuming, did she not like having a little bit of a break? “And, I mean, he’s being taken care of, right? Your mother did a good job raising you, so she must be doing well with him, too, right?” Sadie didn't bother giving Juli another scathing look. It was obvious the Spanish girl wouldn't get it, and she didn't really know how to convey how it felt. Still, she tried, while her posture grew defensive again, fingers clutching at her temples, eyes burning a hole in the comforter. "It's not the same, knowing he's okay, okay? It's not... it just isn't okay, to leave behind a baby still learning how to crawl and come home and you've missed his first steps and he's learning how to say 'grandma' and 'daddy' but not 'mommy'." Her voice was growing dangerously shaky, goddammit, she didn't want to cry. "And I dunno, Juli, you tell me: how good of a job is my mother doing if she lets the woman who hates me and thinks I'm a menace to humanity take care of my son for a week?" It was easier to deal with this if she found something to be angry at and focus on that instead. “I’m sorry, Sadie, you’re right,” Juli said a little helplessly. She wasn’t good when people got emotional, and her roommate seemed dangerously close to crying or something equally awkward. “I mean, I’ve never had a kid... I don’t know, really. But it’s not fair, and it sucks, and I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure how to make it better, or that she even could - it seemed like it was totally out of everyone’s hands. “Have you asked about bringing him here? Like, what if I said it was okay? We could take turns babysitting or something? Classes are stupid anyways.” "Yeah, of course I've asked!" Sadie snapped, and immediately regretted it. It wasn't Juli's fault that the Dean and whoever else made these decisions wouldn't budge. It wasn't Juli's fault that her stupid mother had given her stupid number to her stupid... was there a word for son's father's mother? Mother-not-in-law? Whatever, it wasn't Juli's fault, and Sadie sighed and brought her attention back to her roommate. "Sorry. It'd be great if you could babysit, honestly. I mean, it's not like IVI in general hasn't had enough practice with Kody," she snorted. "You'd think since we have him we could handle an actual toddler, but no, it's 'too dangerous, Sadie. Don't you want Robbie to grow up at home, Sadie?'" Again, she sighed, leaning her head back against the wall. "Actually, I lied," she said after a moment of thought, a shadow of a smile flickering across her face. "You would totally suck as a babysitter, I wouldn't leave you alone with him for a second." “Hey!” Juli said, genuinely offended. But then she thought about it for a moment and made a bit of a face, shrugging. “Actually, no, you’re right. I don’t know how to do the diapers or the bottle or anything.” Would he even still be on a bottle? Juli didn’t know how long babies did that. Or if he wasn’t a baby anymore, if he was a toddler. Could you be both? How big were toddlers? Parenting stuff was confusing. “I’m sorry they’re assholes. I mean, we knew that already, but I’m sorry they were to you this time. Is there anything I can do?” Before Juli even finished her question, Sadie was shaking her head. "Not really, sorry." She hesitated for a moment, unsure whether she should crack a joke ('help me hide Karim's body in the event he finds out?'), or offer an olive branch. After chewing on her thumb for a moment, she decided on the latter. "We have Skype dates, sometimes. Do you want to meet him next time? It won't be for a while because he's at Johnny's, but if you want, you can stay?" “Yeah?” Juli asked tentatively. She wasn’t particularly good with kids - babies - toddlers - whatever - close up, but maybe she’d be better over Skype. And it’d be interesting to see Sadie as something completely different than she was used to - a mother. “Yeah, sure. That’d be fun.” "Okay," Sadie said, giving a smile just as tentative as Juli's tone. She nodded, mostly to herself, getting accustomed to the idea that her roommate knew the secret she'd tried to keep for her for so long. It wasn't so long ago that she'd told Valya - only a few days - and having the knowledge slowly come more and more into the open sat uneasy on her shoulders. She tried to shake away the feeling, though; it wasn't as if Valya or Julieta would betray her trust, after all. And it would be nice to have more people who knew what she was coping with. Right? "Okay," she said again, pushing herself off Juli's bed and going to sit on her own, facing the other girl. "So... we're good?" “Yeah, sure, we’re good,” Juli said, nodding. She still didn’t understand all of it - and she wasn’t entirely sure she would, really. But Sadie was her best friend, really, and Sadie had said that Juli was hers, so she couldn’t really hold a grudge against her for that. Also, it had made her more convinced than ever that she definitely needed to find out more about birth control. |