Jessica
Jesica wanted to tell her whole family at once, minus Mackie and Zoe, of course. So she called a family meeting for that night after Walker cam home. Rachel and Adam had come with her for moral support.
"Okay," her eyes travelled over her big brothers, her sister, and her parents. "I suppose you all want to know why I asked you to meet me down here." She clamped her hand hard around Adam's. "You've all probably figured out that I've been keeping secrets from you all for a long time. I don't want to do that anymore. I just want to be me again, so, with the support of my friends, I'm going to tell you everything. First, I suppose you should know, that Owen is not the first person to abuse me."
Zac and Isaac
"Who's the bastard?" Zac demanded. "I'll pound him into dust!"
"Calm down Zac," Isaac began.
"Don't you tell me to calm down. You didn't spend the last week being sed-"
Jessica
"Zac, calm down," Rachel said. "What happens to them is Jessi's choice."
"Them?" Diana asked with fear in her eyes. Jess sighed.
"I suppose I should start at the beginning." she said, snuggling between Rachel and Adam for comfort. "Rachel, I need your help hear, it's a hard story to tell."
"Always, honeyu," Rachel said, squeezing her best friend's hand.
"Okay, so I guess I'll start at the beginning. My thirteenth birthday. You remember Jason? He was a year older than me, and we had only been dating a coupole of months. Anyways, he had planned this big romantic picnic. Candles, music, everything." Her voice began to shake with the memories. "Anyways, he talked me into sleeping with him. I changed my mind at the last minute, but he wouldn't stop." she gulped. "He forced me."
Zac and Isaac
"Is this the Jason I met? Because I'm gonna go kick his -" Zac began standing up.
Isaac used his telekinesis to force Zac back on his seat and hold his mouth shut.
"Jess is trying to tell us something," Isaac told him. "You should be curtious enough to listen."
Zac glared at him, but he couldn't say a word.
Jessica
Jessi looked down, feeling ashamed. "Zac. Don't Please. Owen and Jason, they're only two of six." Adam rached out and rubbed Jessi's back. "But that's only part of it. That's only the beginning, when all the lying started." Jessi felt the tears well up in her eyes. "'cause I got pregnant."
Diana
"Pregnant?" Diana gasped. "Oh honey... and you never told anyone?"
Diana was horrified.
Jessica and Adam
"I, I was so scared," she said. "And when I told Jason, he split. So I went and got really drunk." she smiled grimly. "And then a few days later I miscarried. Baby was half human, couldn't handle the erosene." She started crying. "I killed my baby." Adam pulled her into his arms and slowly rocked.
"Shh, baby, you didn't. Remember what the seer told you. It wasn't your fault."
Avery
Avery sat by Zac's feet, looking worried. She bit her lips to keep the tears from falling for her sister.
As she glanced around the room at her family, she felt pangs of sadness. They'd been through so much this year, why was everything so hard now? When she was little, all of this pain could've been fixed with one bandaid... but now, it'd take a million bandaids to even start making her feel ok again.
Taylor and Walker
Walker took Diana's hand and held it in his own, reassuringly.
Taylor was staring at the wall. He was glad that this was all finally coming out and he wouldn't have to go behind her back and tell their parents stuff... but he was off in his 'Taylor World' again.
Jessica
"Rachel," Jessi said, upset, I can't tell the next part, can you do it?" The blonde girl nodded.
"Of course, sweetie," she said, stroking Jessi's hair. "Jessi got really upse, so she started sneaking out and going to parties. Do you remember the time she disappeard for three days, about 4 months after her birthday?" she asked. THey nodded. "Well, she was ata party at Sarah's house. Sharah's alcoholic father beat her, raped her and locked her in the closet for three days."
Isaac and Zac
Zac let loose a muffled roar. Muffled, because Isaac was still using his telekinesis on him.ut
"Ow!" Isaac yelled suddenly. "Hey! That hurt Zac!"
Zac may hev been physiacally immobile, but his powers weren't and he had made things rather hot for Isaac. Isaac's sudden pain caused his grip on Zac to slip and Zac leapt up.
"I'm going to kill him!" Zac bellowed, making for the door.
Isaac grabbed him again with his mind.
"Burn me again Zac and I'll do more than just hold you," Isaac warned.
Jessica
Jessi tensed up and stared Zac right in the face. "Please, Tigger, calm down," she said. "You have to just calm down." She took a deep breath.
"That's when I ran away. Or I tried to. I went to the park. A homeless man was begging. I gave him five dollars and he snatched me. He beat me, raped me, and left me fore dead. Rachel found me, again, cleaned me up, again, and took care of me, again. That's why I went to New York, it had nothing to do with Mouse, or the wedding, I needed Rachel. When I get scared, and feel like panicking, I know that she's always there to take care of me." Rachel looked down. She was damaged goods, too, they just didn't see it. Jess took a deep breath.
"I had two boyfriends after than. Both of them were abusive. By then I had decided that I must deserve to be hurt, since everyone kept jurting me. But Adam and Rachel were always there for me. They took me to a healer after Brian broke my collar bone, or gave me black eyes. And then, in my third relationship, Adam took me to a healer after I was pushed out a window. I broke up with him, and he didn't like it." Jess looked grim.
"But then, there was adam," Jess smiled. "And he was my best friend through it all, except for Rachel. And I was starting to heal, and I was starting t o trust again. . . and then came Owen, and the rest is silence."
Zac
Zac attempted to calm down. It wasn't easy. Although the past week - over a week - had been mostly a blur, there were just some things you couldn't forget.
"Why... why didn't you ever tell us?" Diana asked, virtually in tears.
...
Jessica
"I COULDN'T," Jess said. "I. . . I dunno. I was ashamed. I thought I deserved it all. I thought you'd all hate me if you knew. I don't know what I was thinking, or if I even was thinking," she sighed.
Diana
"Oh, Jessi, we could never hate you," Diana said. "You never deserved any of that."
Jessica
Jessi sighed. They didn't get it. She was frustrated. She stood up. "I've got to go outside for a bit, I'll be back." She went out to the front porch and lit a cig. Adam followed.
"Adam, they don't get it. I knew they wouldn't."
"Jessi, baby, it'll be okay. Thery'll figure it all out, eventually.
--
Rachel looked at Diana and sighed. "You don't see, do you? Every man Jess has ever trusted, with the exception of Adam, has hurt her. Whether they meant to or not. The guys are always out touring, Mr. Hanson is always working, so he isn't home much. SO she turned to boyfriends. For the last two years, just about everybody she's trusted has done something to break that trust. SHe's lost her ability to trust. So how could she ever think that she could trust you with something big like this?" Rachel said, trying to make them understand.
Isaac and Diana
"No," Diana replied with a touch of ice in her tone. "No, I don't understand. And what I think I understand least of all is how I couldn't see what was going on. I'm empathic, for goodness sake. Of all of us I should have been able to feel her pain."
She stood up, tears of her own starting to drip down her cheeks.
"I know you kids can hide things from me. But this I should have felt."
She turned and left the room.
"So, what? You're saying this is our fault?" Isaac asked Rachel quietly, his grip on Zac starting to loosen.
Rachel
"No, that's not what I'm saying at all. It's the fault of the men that did this to her. And maybe, yes, maybe you should habve seen what was happening. I'm just saying that for whatever reasons, Jess no longer feels that she can trust anybody. The only reason she trusts me is because I was there. I was flying overhead the night Jason raped her. Tobias and I pecked the hell out of him until his got up. I was the one that picked her up from Sarah's house, cleaned her up and brought her home. Tobias and I were flying overhead when we saw her , we had been looking for her, in the park, after the homeless guy. ANd it was my window she'd crawl in when she was drunk and didn't want to come home. I'm not saying that I'm better than you, hell, I'm just as screwed up as Jess is. But for whatever reason, she has no faith in men. Adam is the first guy to get through to her, and the only reason she lowered her defenses for him, is because when she met him, she thought he wa gay." Rachel laughed. "Adam was dating Jason's brother at the time."
Isaac and Zac
Isaac was silent for a moment. He was so deep in though he didn't notice that his hold on Zac had diminshed and he had slipped outside.
"I don't know, though, that you have any idea what it's like to be told something like this is going on, and you had no idea," Isaac said softly.
Meanwhile, Zac located Jess.
"Jessi?" he asked worriedly.
Jessica
Rachel looked at Ike. "I think I can pretty much understand what you're feeling. she said, and she moved next to him and rubbed his back gently, as a comforting gesture. Meanwhile, Jessi was surprised to see Zac.
"Zac," she said, taking a drag of her cigarette. "Please don't do anything rash, Zac." she pleaded with him.
...
Zac
"I should really freeze them for that they've done to you," Zac said. "Or maybe boil their blood. That might be a bit more painful. They'd deserve it. And I don't think that's rash of me at all."
Then he sighed.
"Jessi... what... what happened? I mean... I... you've always been there for me. Why... why couldn't I have been there for you? We always... it used to... oh man..."
He sat down hard on the ground and held his head in his hands.
Jessica
Jessi took a deep drag of her cig. How was she going to explain this without hurting him? "Um, well, right after Brian, you started dating all those girls at the same time. And you'd talk about how they were sluts and they were probably cheating on you, so it didn't matter, THEY didn't matter." she shuddered atthe memory. "You kind of reminded me of him." she looked at her feet. Adam had realized that Zac and Jessi needed some alone time, so he went back inside.
Zac
Zac stared at her.
"Oh man... I... damn it!"
Zac ran his hand through his hair in frustration.
"Jessi, I'm so sorry. I really am. If it's any consolation to you though... I never, never, never pressured any one of them, I swear."
He slammed his fist on the ground.
"I'm really sorry, Jessi."
Jessica
"Zac, I know you would never hurt me, and you'd never hurt any of those girls, it's just. . . I have a lot of baggage. THere's a lolt of crap going through my head and not much of it makes sense. Like, at the mansion, it was silly. Logan came in, and he was mad at me for upsetting Nyx, and I freakedf out. THe way he walked, the way he talked, reminded me of Sarah's dad. And it's always the little things that freak me out. Like, loud voices, or closets, or warm milk." she made a face. "But I know you'd never hurt me, Tigger, I love you too much."
Zac
Zac sighed and a faint smile appeared in his lips.
"I just wish... I wish you had felt you could talk to me. I would have done something to stop it. I love ya too, y'know."
Jessica
Jess wrapped her arms around her big brother.
"WEll, from now on, we'll talk. No more secrets, promise, Tigger?" She asked, looking into his eyes.
Zac
Zac grinned at her.
"No more secrets, Roo," he agreed.
Jessica
Jess snuggled into her brother and flicked the cigarette butt onto the ground. She hadn't let anybody hold her, save for Adam, in a long time. She didn't want to go back into the house, not quite yet.