“I’m mostly like that, too. I’ve always been around people, for my whole life.” Jackson only had his own room for a few years, and he could barely recall what it was like to not have Blake in that top bunk. “But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t moments when I like to be by myself. Sometimes I need that. I thought that was what I was going to need, which is why I decided to live on campus when I went to school… ended up that I needed my family way more than I thought.” Still, the distance was something that he had kept. He was slowly weaning himself off of having them as his crutch. It was a lengthy progress, clearly. “I don’t think that you’re hyper, I think it’s more exhaustion that’s just making your mind go a little bit batty. I’ve been there.” When Brawl came out? He was there. And yet he kept on playing. Personally, Jack blamed Nintendo for delaying that game four times, each time taking a piece of his soul with them. “All you need is some good sleep.”
“My mom’s this weird mom. I mean, not weird in a bad way. Weird in a good way. She’s a nurse, she works all the time, and yet she’s still around to make sure that we have our food and everything. I never had things that my parents had to go to. Like, I was never the carrot in the school play or whatever… but she was always around when I needed her. Still is. It’s like… she’s set herself to be that mom, and when she isn’t she doesn’t feel all that comfortable with it. At least not a first. Eventually, she gets used to it. That’s good that it’s one thing that you have in common with my mom…” he really wanted Annabelle and Amelia to get along.
Jackson listened to her explanation. “It’s just… I’m used to being the one who has unrequited feelings for someone, you know?” He wasn’t like Blake with his supposed all encompassing love for Bunny. Jackson had been interested in girls before, they just never reciprocated. “But you reciprocate them. I’m not complaining… still, there’s a part of me that was ready to just accept being alone. So it’s weird…”
He laughed at Annabelle’s plan. “That’s so complicated that it could work. But I’m going to need you to help me practice the sign a few times before I meet your mother. You know, so I don’t end up doing something that would end up confusing both of us and making your mom think that I’m some sort of tweaker.” The comic book fan in him wanted to know which version of Supergirl. More often than not it was Kara. It was never Cir-El. Hopefully, Infinite Crisis wiped that whole thing out of continuity.
“I’ll be at the parade,” he said with a nod, even though she couldn’t see it. “You think that I wouldn’t be there? I went across the state to see you… this is in my backyard. Trust me, I’ll be there somewhere. I just hope that you can notice me while you’re doing your thing…”
So, she had history with Miss Kalamazoo? “You’re the one with the crown, Annabelle. She can’t compare.” Few could compare to Annabelle, though, at least in his mind.