Jackson Lowell (force_of_mind) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2009-11-28 09:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-06-24 |
Out in the Open
Who: Jackson, Amelia & Michael (NPCs)
Where: The Lowell household
When: Wednesday, before lunch
It was his day off. Everything had been planned accordingly. He had Wednesday off because he wanted to go see Revenge of the Fallen at midnight in Ann Arbor and it would have just been a pain in the ass to go and see it, get home, go to sleep, and wake up to let the whole cycle repeat itself all over again. Of course, that was before Jackson had seen the movie. As it stood, he would spend the rest of his life trying to wash that movie out of his mind. But it wouldn’t go away. There were some things that a person could never unsee. Revenge of the Fallen, sadly, was one of them.
Jackson’s intentions were to return home early Wednesday morning. That didn’t work out the way that he intended it, though. Because he worked the day of the movie, and ended up doing a whole lot of stocking that day in some sort of cruel irony, he was pretty wiped out. If Jack had been alone, he could have gone straight up Fantasia on the books, minus the sorcerer’s hat, just with telekinesis… but he wasn’t, and that meant that he needed to use non-supernatural manpower to get the job done. Jackson had difficulty taking naps unless he was utterly exhausted or sick. Plus, at the time, the realization of sheer fail had not yet seeped in, and he found himself rather taken in by the hype of the movie. Oh, to redo some of the last twenty-four hours… wouldn’t that be nice?
If he was more coherent earlier that morning (or late the evening prior, depending), he probably would have been a bit more nervous about sharing a bed with Annabelle. Basically, he just kicked off his shoes and fell face first onto her bed. It was a much more comfortable bed than his was, too. Not hard to believe. She had standards that he didn’t have, for example. When he awoke, he did freak out just a little bit. He knew nothing had happened, but he was still sharing a bed with a woman who was not related to him. Platonically or not, Jack was still Jack, and such things were not commonplace.
Jackson returned home shortly before lunch. Although nothing had happened, and his parents had no reason to suspect anything, he was still a little bit nervous about the whole thing. God willing, they would be gone and he could just go to his room, grab some fresh clothes, take a shower, and be ready to write the most scathing movie review that he had ever written in his life. It would only go on a forum, but if he managed to save a few people from seeing that trainwreck, he could at least hold his head up high.
The moment he stepped inside the house, he was greeted by a parent. Michael, to be exact.
“There you are.”
“Hi dad…” wasn’t his father supposed to be at work?
“Your brother told us that you weren’t in your bed when he woke up this morning. Where’d you go?”
“I… went to go see the movie last night, remember? Midnight showing? I told you about it.” He knew he did. “It was long. Painfully long. Unbearably long. Like watching a football game long. By the time we got back into town it was late, I was exhausted. I just crashed at my friend’s house.” There, not a lie. “I really want to take a shower, though.”
“Which friend?” Michael inquired.
“What?”
“Which friend’s house did you sleep at last night? It’s a simple question, son.”
“Oh… umm… Billy’s…” too many questions. Jackson started to walk up the stairs, hoping to end the conversation.
“Don’t lie to me, Jackson.”
Jack stopped in his tracks. Part of it was because he was being accused (accurately) of lying, but the bigger part was because his father called him by his full first name. That was the kind of thing that only happened when Michael was really mad at him. To his father, Jack was almost always Jack. “I…”
“You were with a girl last night, Jackson. I know you were.”
And just like that, the ruse was over. He’d never been very good at the whole poker face thing. “How did…” then there was a reason why his father would have found out. “Parker! I’m going to kill him…” Jack had asked him to keep his mouth shut. Last time he trusted his big brother with something important.
“Your brother has nothing to do with this.” Michael grabbed the paper from the coffee table and tossed it over to his son. Jackson wasn’t able to catch it. Really, if Michael wasn’t so upset, he would have realized that throwing something to his son was just a moronic practice to partake in. “Turn it to page four.”
Jackson did as he was instructed, looking at the page in question. Right there, in print, was a picture of him with Annabelle. If it was before or after the movie, he wasn’t sure. But they identified him by name with Miss Michigan. In that moment, he understood why George Clooney was so pissed off about paparazzi.
“How long?” Michael wondered. “How long have you been seeing that girl?”
Before Jackson could answer his father’s inquiry he saw someone walk out from the kitchen. It was his mother. “Mom…” but one look at Amelia showed that she wasn’t happy with him. His stomach knotted up just a little bit more. If he had just eaten, he probably would have puked.
“Answer your father, Jackson.”
“Can… can we just get everyone in here?” Jackson requested. “I’d like to get it done at once instead of needing to tell everyone more than once.”
Amelia shook her head. “Parker took your brother and sister for a drive. We told him that we would call him when we were done.”
“How long?” Michael repeated the question, refusing to let Jackson avoid the question at hand.
He paused. Jackson knew that he would be in some hot water when his parents found out about his relationship, or more importantly why he hadn’t told them anything about it up until that point. But even his belief on how hard it would be was severely lower than what it actually was. “Officially? A little over a week.”
“You… started dating a girl while we were worried about your sister?” The anger and disappointment in Michael’s eyes and voice were readily apparent. Jackson had irked his father before, but he had never done it in such a way.
“That’s where you went on Saturday, wasn’t it?” Amelia followed up. “To go and see her at the pageant.”
The boy gave a slight nod, “Yeah… it is. And yes, I started my relationship with Annabelle, she has a name, when Myra was missing. But you don’t get it… she helped me. She helped me so much when Myra was gone. I went to see her on Saturday and you know what? I had fun. I wasn’t worrying about my sister all day. I was just enjoying being around her. I needed that… I needed to get away from this place because all we were doing was moping and crying. I couldn’t deal with that. Annabelle… she helped me through all that in a way that nobody else could. I’m really sorry that I didn’t tell you guys about it… about her… but I’m not going to apologize for spending time with her. She’s… she’s important to me.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” This from Amelia. It was easier for her, since she could feel her son’s emotions. Guilt was there. A lot of guilt.
“Mostly because of Blake…” and maybe that was a good reason for his other siblings being out of the house at that moment. He would have said it anyway, but he didn’t have to deal with the immediate fallout… yet.
“What does your brother have to do with all of this?” Michael wasn’t buying it. Jackson was trying to make his little brother a scapegoat? He always thought his son was better than that.
“Neither of you were there. I’m the one who picked him up at the lake. And I’m glad that I did…” for obvious reasons. “That girl crushed him. I don’t buy for a second that she was going to be his soul mate… that they’d have this happily ever after relationship. I also don’t think that she’s worth any of the angst that he put himself through. But the point is that he went through it. He still is. Thankfully, he’s starting to get over her… but I don’t want to throw my relationship in his face, you know? It was just easier to keep it from all of you instead of just keeping it from him. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you… I probably should have… but I’d do it again if I had to. It wasn’t something that I wanted to do. It just… seemed like the best alternative at the time.”
“Amelia?” Michael looked to his wife. Having an empath in the family was like having a built in lie detector.
“He’s telling the truth, Michael. At least… I think he’s telling the truth. And Jackson’s always been a horrible liar.” She gave her son the faintest smile. Amelia wasn’t done processing everything at that moment, but she was starting to. The woman understood her son’s reasons for doing what he did. They probably weren’t the best methods, but the intentions were good. “Your brother is stronger than you give him credit for.”
“Now who is being the horrible liar, mom?” Jack quipped. “Besides… I knew if you found out that you’d stop focusing on Myra, too. She’s the one who needs your attention the most.”
“She needs you too, Jackson.” Amelia pointed out. “You’re her big brother. She needs all of us.”
Michael wasn’t so keen on the family moment. “You were with that girl last night. You weren’t with Billy. You were with her. Isn’t that right?”
“Annabelle, dad… her name is Annabelle.”
“Just answer the question.” He shot back.
Jackson sighed. “Yes. We went to go see the movie last night. Then we went to her place and I passed out in her bed. I was tired. She didn’t think I could make it home. She was probably right.”
“In the same bed…” again, from Michael.
The implication was easy enough to figure out. And entirely inaccurate. “Nothing happened, dad! I slept in these clothes. Only thing that came off was my shoes.” And his socks, but that was a habit of his… always kicking off his socks in the middle of the night. “I like Annabelle. I like her a lot. But… look, you always told us to wait until we were sure.” He wasn’t going to tell them that he had to wait until he was sure for an entirely different reason. They were trying to wrap their heads around Annabelle as they knew her. Tossing the werewolf thing in their face would probably make their heads explode. Which, although it would bring an immediate end to their awkward conversation, was not recommended. Not to mention messy. “I’m not going to just use her like that. I care about her too much to do that.”
“Baby…” Amelia called all her children baby from time to time. Blake was the baby. Blake was her baby, but still. “We’re just surprised.”
“Don’t think that I could end up getting a girlfriend? Especially one who happens to be a beauty queen?” He stated, just a tad bitterly.
“That isn’t it!” Amelia replied, slightly hurt. “You know I’ve always told you that you’re going to find yourself a nice girl at some point… and if you’re happy with Annabelle then I’m happy for you. Your father is, too. But you hid this from us.”
“I told you why I did it…”
“I know. It’s just…” she paused. “You don’t want to hear that your son has a girlfriend from the newspaper…”
Jackson lowered his eyes. Yeah… that part he hadn’t really thought through all the way. “I’m sorry you had to find out that way. I would have told you…” he didn’t know when he would have told them, but they didn’t need to know that. “Now that you know, I’m not going to keep anything from you, though.”
“Thank you.” Amelia said.
Jackson started to head up the stairs, ready for that shower to help wash off the guilt and probably some of the sweat that had built up during that conversation. Mostly the guilt.
“Hey, Jack…” Michael called up to his boy, “how was the movie?”
He looked down and smirked. “This conversation was more enjoyable than the movie, dad…”
Michael grinned. “That bad, huh?”
“Worse... so much worse.”
With Jackson out of sight, his parents just looked at each other. They were happy for Jackson if he had found someone who made him happy. Their son deserved that. But if relationships changed people, and they were bound to, then what if the changes had already started? What if they were losing their son in ways they weren’t even entirely able to comprehend yet?