Jackson Lowell (force_of_mind) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-02-18 21:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | #solo, 2009-07-04 |
A Bit Of Fatherly Advice
Who: Jackson and Michael (NPC)
Where: Casa De Lowell
When: Saturday, late morning
Two days. It had been two days since he and Annabelle had ended their relationship. More like a day and a half, really. The time didn’t matter. It was still fresh and new. And it still hurt. A lot. He didn’t blame her for choosing to leave him, but that hardly meant that he was okay with it. She was his first girlfriend. The first girl that he kissed. Someone who he cared a lot about. He wasn’t sure he was in love with her, but he knew that if he would have been given the time to let those feelings grow and evolve it ultimately would have ended in love. That was the point that he was trying to make when they were at Sarah’s that day. It didn’t mean that Annabelle had to wait. It would have been selfish of him to just expect her to do so. She made the choice that was best for herself. He understood that… didn’t make it suck any less.
On Friday, Jack had to work. It wasn’t a particularly good day at work. Actually, it wasn’t a particularly good day overall. After he got home (he basically just drove around for the rest of the night until he felt that he needed to go home), he tried to sleep. He even tried to talk to Blake, but his efforts, much as they had been for some time since the big reveal, were met with silence and hostility. Jackson knew that it was because of what he did, and he needed to deal with it, but that didn’t mean that he was particularly happy about everything that had happened. He felt that Annabelle was worth it… but now he didn’t even have that. So it was like he wasted everything for nothing. Reality dealt Jackson Lowell a cold, harsh slap in the face. And he wasn’t happy about it.
At work, Jackson was silent and sullen. He tried to put a fake smile on his face, tried to be as cordial as possible, but it just didn’t work out that way. It didn’t help that he was frequently finding himself looking at the café part of Lenore’s. The place where they had actually been formally introduced. Little reminders like that. As if he needed another negative emotion to attribute to revenge of the fallen… but now he had one.
Saturday was a different day, but that was about the only thing that was different about it. A date. He was still sad. He hadn’t cried, though. She cried. He hated that she cried. Did that mean that she cared more about him than he did about her? Possibly. Jackson didn’t like that, either. It was also a Holiday. He had the day off, and he was in the living room playing a video game. Super Smash Brothers Brawl, to be precise. The game that had long been an instrument of cathartic release for him.
Michael Lowell was not an empath like his wife Amelia. He was, however, a parent. And, in a way, parenthood carried with it some level of empathy… even if that empathy only happened because of how well he knew his children. Jack was always a bit of an enigma. Content to be his own person and to hell with anyone who would try and get in his way. Still, there were telling signs when Jack was feeling a little sad. Chief amongst them? Silence. Jack wasn’t a quiet person around his family. He would always vocalize some off the wall statement. And, in the last few days, Michael couldn’t even think of more than a dozen words he had heard the young man utter. A concerning fact, to be sure.
Michael walked down the stairs from his bedroom. Amelia and the other children were out. It was the 4th of July. Amelia had long set up a booth at the Liberty Inn, giving away her baked goods. It was something that was so important to the woman that she always took at least two days off before the holiday in order to get everything all ready for the booth. Blake and Myra accompanied her. Parker went to take care of something before he went. Michael didn’t expect any of his kids to still be at the house that morning. It shouldn’t have been surprising to have the one child be Jackson, but, given how Jack usually treated the holiday in question, it was just another red flag.
“Dammit!” Jackson cursed as he finished an online match. He was using Ike. A powerhouse character. Amongst his foes was the victor, a player using Sonic. This only irked Jackson more, because Sonic had no place in the Smash Brothers Universe.
“Isn’t that the Ultra Smasher Brothers game?” Michael asked. “I thought you were good at that one…”
He hadn’t heard his father come down the stairs, so the voice caught him by surprise. He wasn’t being very attentive lately, though. Not the best idea, given the demon infestation. “Super Smash Brothers, dad.” He put the controller down. “And I am good at it.” One of the best players, at least locally. Online he could hold his own against many players, but locally was where he had a name for himself. When Cosmic had their game nights and it was Smash, Jack usually took the top prize. “I’m just… having an off day.”
Michael had finished descending the stairs and took a seat next to his son. “You’re not at the Inn with everyone else?”
“I don’t think that I’m going to go this year,” Jack admitted. “I mean, I can’t help set up the booth, I’ll just end up breaking something, and it isn’t like they really want me around them right now anyway.” Plus, there was a chance that Annabelle could be there, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with that. Probably not. “I’ll just stay home. There’s stuff in the fridge, I can fend for myself.” So long as everything was prepared already.
“And that’s it? You’re just going to lounge around the house all day?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Michael shook his head, “Jack… what’s bothering you?”
Jackson was silent. He turned his eyes away from his father. “Nothing’s wrong, dad.”
The boy was never a very convincing liar. And he couldn’t even look at his father, which didn’t help the believability factor in the least. “Jackson… come on, talk to me. Did… did something happen between you and Annabelle? Are you guys in a fight?”
“We’re not in a fight… we’re not…” he sighed. “We’re not anything anymore.”
“What?”
“Do I need to spell it out for you? We’re not together anymore. She broke up with me.”
It all made sense for Michael in that moment. He would even forgive Jackson’s attitude, because a breakup was not a fun thing. “What happened, son?”
“I don’t want to talk about it…”
Sometimes, when a child said that they didn’t want to talk about something, it was best to listen to them. Other times, it was best to pry. Really, it depended on the situation. Jackson had never dealt with a breakup before. Prying seemed the best way to go. “Jack…”
“She wanted more from me than I could give her.” That seemed to be the best way that he could describe it. “She wanted someone who would be able to put her first. She deserves that, too… but I can’t be that person, dad. Not right now.”
“Why not?” Seemed like a simple question.
“Because I’m… not dealing with the whole anti-Jack movement that’s going on in this house. Blake and Myra treat me like I’m some sort of leper, and I know that you and mom aren’t happy that I didn’t tell you about Annabelle when we first got together…”
“You shouldn’t have kept it a secret.” He knew that it wasn’t what his son wanted to hear, but it was something that Jackson needed to hear. And since he had said it, Michael did not feel the need to press it. His son was hurting, that was priority. “But if you think that I’m so upset with you that I’m not going to be there for you when you need it, you’re wrong. How are you doing?”
“It sucks.” Jack pointed out bluntly. “I’ve never been dumped before, and it really sucks. I shouldn’t be surprised, though…”
“Why not?”
“Because my love life is just supposed to be one of the great big failures of the world. Like New Coke, Ben Affleck’s career over the last ten years, and those CD-I Zelda games. I don’t know why I was fooling myself into thinking that it could be otherwise. It isn’t a mistake that I’m going to make again anytime soon. I’m going to die a virgin… which just means that I’m never going to watch the 40 year old virgin because it’ll just break me down.”
“I don’t think it’s that bad, Jackson.”
“Dad… she was like everything that I thought I would want. She’s gorgeous, she’s funny, she’s nice, and, most importantly, she likes Star Wars and doesn’t look like Jabba. Do you really think that I’m going to find someone like that again? I had someone like that, and I screwed it up. If I can’t build something up with a girl like that, I’m screwed. Plain and simple.”
“I felt the same way…” Michael stated.
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you really think that your mother is the first girl I ever fell in love with?” Michael shook her head. “I had a few girlfriends before her.”
“I really don’t want to hear about your relationship history before you and mom got together, dad… I don’t even really want to know about you and mom. That’s just… ew…” he shook his head. Bad images. Bad, bad images.
“Well you need to hear this, so deal with it.” Michael paused before he continued, “There were a few who I thought would be the one, too. It didn’t work out for one reason or another. And it was pretty hard for me to deal with it at the time. But I dealt with it, Jack. I got up every morning, I kept on living my life, and eventually I met Amelia and everything just clicked.” He reached over and touched Jackson’s shoulder, “There’s a woman out there for you somewhere, son. You just can’t give up because one time didn’t go the way that you wanted it to. I mean, are you going to stop playing that video game of yours just because someone beat you?”
“No…” he said hesitantly. He wasn’t. Jack was going to play again, and even if he won or lost he would play again. “But it’s different… it’s not a video game, dad. It’s my life.”
“Exactly. And you can’t just stop living it because of one thing. It hurts right now, Jack, I know it does, but it’ll get better. One day, you won’t even think about it anymore.” Michael gave a smile, hoping that his advice would be heeded. It came from a good place in the man’s heart. “I should get going, your mother is expecting me.”
“Dad…” Jackson paused for a second, “Do you think you could hold back for a little bit? Give me time to take a shower and get ready?”
“Sure, I can wait. Go get ready, kiddo.” Michael watched the boy head up the stairs, but realized the video game was still on. He picked up the controller and mused to himself, “How the hell do you play this thing?” Michael pressed a button, which just happened to be the button that got him into a match. Before long, he found himself without a clue as to what he was doing.