If Jonathan was honest, he was damn glad that Nate had been the one to pin Liam to the ground and scare the shit out of him, because if it had been Jon, he would have done a hell of a lot more than that. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the migraine and the memories that Liam’s stupid-ass tour had shaken loose.
Jonathan remembered more than anyone probably suspected. He kind of let on to everyone that he blocked everything from that day out of his mind, but it was always there. And revisiting the scene of the crime was worse than being there in the first place, because they had been coerced.
He wasn’t dumb. Jon knew they were all incredibly vulnerable, at least when it came to what happened to them in that room. It didn’t matter that the guy responsible was dead and couldn’t possibly hurt them again. It mattered that Liam had the balls to abuse his power as the leader of their damn Bible study to convince them that they had to re-enter the place where they had all been completely terrorized in order to get healed from it.
Jon considered himself a pretty straight-forward guy. He didn’t like bull-shitting, at least when it came to the important stuff. And right now, Jon could smell the stench of desecration. Liam had wanted to go inside that room for his own selfish desires, and not for any other reason. He needed them to go along so that one of them could narrate the events for him.
Liam had said so himself. He was healed now. He understood what had happened. It had never been about them. Jon scowled and clutched the steering wheel. He wondered if Bryan, Coby and Aaron would mind a fourth roommate. Jon couldn’t imagine how Nathaniel was going to survive under the same roof with Liam much longer. Now that he and Cary were dating, or whatever, Jon figured Nate wouldn’t take too long before he moved out of the current place and in with someone who actually cared about Nate as a person, and didn’t exploit what they had all been through for his own gain.
He parked in front of Grand Central - which hadn’t really been Grand Central for a while. They still had Monday Madness but it wasn’t the same. There was some weird tension going on between all of them. They had started out really looking after one another, but slowly had started turning their focus on themselves, or on trying to convince each other that they were fine.
Emily, for example, put forth a hell of a valiant effort to appear together. She was talkative and bubbly - almost as if nothing ever happened. But she had been a complete wreck when he, Aaron and Bryan had taken her outside after she started freaking out. She hadn’t been able to stop shaking, couldn’t catch her breath. Bryan and Aaron took her back with them, which was just as well.
He went inside the main doors and called up, only to have Christian buzz him in. That was the first indication that something was wrong.
Libby pulled open the apartment door, still looking shell-shocked. Her pretty blue eyes were wide and startled, and she moved tentatively, like she didn’t know what to expect, even from a trusted friend. “Hey, Jon,” she said, sounding shaken. She reached up to hug him.
“Hey,” he returned, hugging her gently. “How are you girls?”
“Not good,” she admitted. “Legend locked herself in the bathroom when Nate dropped her off. Emily’s trying to sleep it off in our room, but I think she’s still crying. And I barely restrained myself from knocking Liam’s head off on the way back here for being such a moron,” she admitted. “He doesn’t even know the damage he did. Even Jess is acting weird.”
“Weird, how?” Jon asked, praying that they had some kind of migraine medicine here. He had stopped carrying his in his pocket after the first month or so.
“Damn it,” Jess swore from the kitchen.
Jon heard the unmistakable sound of something small, like sand or pebbles, hitting the linoleum.
“Hey, you need help in here?” he asked, spotting Jess on her hands and knees, trying to compose herself and doing a crappy job.
“I’ll help, Mom,” Christian offered, picking up one red and white pill and putting it back in the bottle.
“CJ, don’t touch that! It’s medicine, and it’s dangerous!” she snapped.
“How come you take it if it’s dangerous?” he asked, bringing her the bottle now containing a single tablet.
“Whoa. What happened here?” Morgan asked, appearing in the kitchen from down the hall. “Jon, can you take these guys out of here? I’ll get this.”
“All right. Come on, kiddo,” Jonathan encouraged bending down so Christian could climb onto his back. He offered Jess a hand up.
“Thanks, Morgan,” she managed.
“Yeah, no problem. I got this,” she reassured, already dropping small handfuls of medicine back into the container.
“You got a headache, too, huh?” Jon guessed.
Jess moaned softly. “You have no idea. Liam and his little field trip made me a complete wreck and I have no idea why. I mean, obviously, I do, but I don’t remember any of that. So how could it stress me out?”
“Don’t remember what?” Christian asked over Jonathan’s shoulder and too close to his ear.
“Nothing, baby. Why don’t you get down and go play with Libby?”
“I wanna play with Jon!” Christian exclaimed, squeezing Jon’s neck until he was uncomfortable.
“I’ll tell you what,” Jon said, maneuvering so that he could flip Christian over one shoulder and set him on the ground. “You go play with Libby for a few minutes, and I promise, I’ll come find you and play in a little bit.”
“Can we play Diego’s Halloween Adventure?” he asked. “At your house?”
“I don’t think so. There’s a lot going on right now, buddy. But we’ll play something good, okay?”
“’Kay,” Christian pouted, dragging his feet on the way to the living room.
Jon pulled out a chair for Jess who sat down heavily, still wiping her eyes. “I wanna smack Liam so bad,” she admitted.
“Nate kinda took care of that already,” Jon admitted, glancing over her shoulder to see Morgan wiping her hands on her jeans and standing up to put the refilled bottle of pills away.
‘Nathaniel?” Jess repeated, shocked.
“Did you know you took out the Dilantin and not the Tylenol?” Morgan interrupted.
“Great. I’m getting senile,” Jess remarked sarcastically.
“They look pretty similar to me,” Jon observed. “It’s an easy mistake to make, especially after a day like today.”
“It’s nice of you to try and make me feel better, but it’s not necessary. The bottles are completely different I‘m just mental from Liam being an ass.”
“Ooh! What did he do?” Christian exclaimed rushing back in the kitchen. “I’ll go beat him up.”
“We don’t beat up anybody,” Jess admonished, but her heart wasn’t in it.
“Or!” Christian exclaimed, as if his original conversation with Jon had never been cut short, “We could play Oregon Trail! That’s a computer game Libby played. She said that one time robbers came and stoled all the clothes from her people. Not like the real kind of robbers just fake ones on the game. Anyway, they stoled all her people’s clothes. So then, they were naked!” he announced gleefully.
Jon had to admit that Christian was pretty cute, even if he could be damn annoying. He picked him up, just because he liked any excuse to hold him. “The more you keep interrupting, the longer it’s going to take me to get done talking to your mom and all the other girls.”
Christian sighed, and ran one finger down the scar on Jon’s face. It didn’t look as scary anymore, just like a pink line that was kind of bumpy. Christian told him once that he looked like a pirate, and even though Jon laughed, his mom told him not to say things like that. Even though Christian meant it in a nice way, because he liked pirates.
“You can almost not tell that bad guy hurt you,” Christian said thoughtfully. “Except for in your eyes.”
When he wiggled to be set down and took off to the other room, Jon let him go, and then turned to Jess and shook his head.
“You’ve got a smart kid,” he said to her honestly.
“Thanks,” Jess nodded.
--
Libby left Christian in front of an episode of Arthur, and went to check on Legend and Emily. She didn’t like the idea that both of them were by themselves. Emily didn’t sleep well alone, and Legend was usually the strong, silent type. Libby had rarely seen her cry, and certainly not like the breakdown she’d had today. Morgan was just really chill when she came back, almost like her old self. After helping Jess pick up the pills, she had gone out.
Libby was pretty sure her own emotional breakdown wasn’t too far off. She just couldn’t deal with it yet. If she was lucky she could put it off until her next appointment with her counselor, but Libby wasn’t sure how that would work. Maybe she would paint or something in the meantime, to help deal with some of the upheaval.
“Legend?” she asked, tapping on the bathroom door. There was no answer, so Libby set to work picking the lock with a wire hanger and easing the door open.
Libby found her sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, chin resting on her knees. Tears ran down her face.
“Are you okay?” Libby asked, crouching in front of her. She knew it was a stupid question, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking it.
“Why?” Legend asked, her voice deepened with emotion and raw from tears. She clearly wanted clarification for Liam’s actions, as she searched Libby’s eyes long and hard.
“I don’t know,” Libby admitted, feeling empty and guilty on her brother’s behalf.
“It’s like I’m numb,” she said, her voice a soft monotone. “Like it just happened. Except I can’t stop crying.”
“I think that’s normal,” Libby reassured, squeezing Legend’s shoulders. “You want to go in and lie down next to Em? She gets scared if she’s alone.”
Legend nodded, and Libby walked her into the room she shared with Emily who looked like she hadn’t moved since she laid down a half hour earlier. She pulled back the covers of her own bed and tucked Legend in, despite the fact that it wasn’t even four o’clock yet.
Libby pressed a kiss to her friend’s forehead. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, so quietly that it was barely a whisper.
“Hey,” Legend said, grasping Libby’s hand as she walked away. “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”
--
Jonathan was stirring a pot of sloppy Joe meat on the stove of Grand Central when he heard a knock at the door. He brightened as he heard Christian greeting Coby in the hall.
“Did you come to play with me?” the little boy was asking in a whisper. “We gotta be quiet because Emily and Legend and my mom are taking naps.”
“I sure did,” Coby agreed, though he had just needed an excuse to come over. He had a feeling that Aaron and Bryan might be arriving soon, too. “Sure smells good,” he said, breathing in. “Is Libby cooking or Morgantown?”
“Nope. Jon is. He’s making dinner, Morgan left and Libby’s painting in the living room. Come see it.”
“Hey, Jon,” Coby greeted, sticking his head in the kitchen.
“Hey,” Jon returned, glancing up from stirring the pot on the stove. “Come over for some grub?”
“Not necessarily, but if you’re offering. I think Aaron and Bryan might show up, too.”
Coby felt Christian pulling on his hand, and excused himself to find Libby in the living room, working on the darkest painting he had ever seen. It was made up of only black and red, in strange indefinable swirls. He knew without asking what she was painting.
She was at an easel and Christian had reclaimed his own spot, sprawled on his belly on the floor, the carpet covered in newspaper. He was working on a picture of a house - or what Coby guessed was a house - surrounded by little green blobs.
“That’s a nice house,” Coby complimented. “What are these green things here?”
“Aliens,” Christian told him matter-of-factly. He dipped his finger in the green again.
“Hm. Can I watch?” Coby asked.
“Sure,” Christian said importantly. “As long as you don’t distract me.”
Coby raised his eyebrows and glanced at Libby who was trying to hide her own smile as she bit her lip and blended the red into the black, and then added some blue, for sadness.
--
“Aaron, seriously. Why are we going over here? They probably don’t want company right now,” Bryan offered. “Did you forget how totally messed up Emily was?”
“No,” Aaron shook his head. “And that’s why we need to be there. We need to be together now. Not fighting our own battles.”
Both were surprised when Jon let them into Grand Central, advising them to keep their voices down, since three of the girls were apparently down for the count. Morgan had disappeared somewhere, and Libby was deeply involved in an art project.
Bryan joined Jonathan in the kitchen and set to work preparing a salad and getting the table set, while Aaron joined Coby and Christian on the other side of the living room setting up a racetrack for CJ’s matchbox cars, and then making them jump and crash into each other.
“Hey, where’s Nate?” Aaron asked, after he‘d counted people, and realized who was missing. “He should come over, too.”
Nathaniel had a talent for disappearing, especially when times got difficult. But Aaron knew if there was one place he didn’t need to be it was wherever Liam was. So he excused himself from the creation of their demolition derby and checked with Jon about Nate’s whereabouts.
“He’s at the apartment with Cary. He’s okay,” Jon reassured.
“Are you sure about that? And who’s Cary?” Aaron asked, confused.
“His boyfriend,” Jon supplied, tasting the sloppy Joes experimentally and nodding in approval.
“So, Nate’s at your place with this Cary and Liam, and you think he’s okay?” Aaron quizzed, skeptical.
“Yeah, I do. Nate beat Liam’s ass earlier.”
“Oh,” Aaron managed, surprised, as Bryan swore appreciatively.
“I’ll still call and invite them, though,” Jon decided. “There’s no food at our place anyway. Should I see about getting Morgan to come back, too?”
“Nah,” Bryan shook his head. “She’s always been kind of solitary. If she left it means she wants to be by herself. She’s okay.”
--
“This used to be a funhouse! But now it’s filled with evil clowns!” Cary’s phone sang from his bag.
“That better not be my ring tone,” Nate objected, swatting Cary with a pillow.
Cary dove off the bed and pawed through his army green shoulder bag until he unearthed his cell. “Nope. It’s Jon,” he said, picking it up and saying hello. He stayed on a few minutes before hanging up.
“We just got invited to Grand Central for dinner happening in five minutes,” Cary explained slowly. “When I asked if it was a prank, he just laughed.”
Nate smiled. “Not the real Grand Central. It’s a nickname for an apartment where a bunch of our girl friends live. Friends who are girls,” he amended, seeing Cary’s eyebrows go together. “It’s less than five minutes in the car. Wanna go? It‘s where you dropped Legend off earlier,” Nate remembered. “You know where that is.”
“Oh yeah. Sure, let‘s go. Are you ready for that, though?” Cary asked, staring intently into Nate’s eyes.
“Yeah, I’m ready. As long as Liam doesn’t come along…” he trailed off.
“I was specifically told that Liam wouldn’t be there and wasn’t invited,” Cary explained, quietly grinning.
“All right. Well let’s get going. I can introduce you to everybody else,” Nate said stretching. Cary had managed to turn a completely horrendous day into something almost good. And Nate was grateful.
In no time, Cary and Nate had arrived and Cary found himself surrounded by warm smells and embraces. Though the grief here was so thick you could cut it with a knife, Cary followed their lead, and talked of safe things, asking them all what their plans were for spring break, surprised when he learned that all of them planned to stay put.
But then he watched them interact with one another, saw the way Coby encouraged little Christian to eat salad so he would grow big and strong. How when Libby - who was the biggest sweetheart of the bunch and was nothing at all like Liam - flinched when a bird hit the window, Jess reached out to lay a calming hand on her shoulder. That’s when it all made sense. They needed each other. Of course they would stay together.
--
Morgan sat in her car, staring at the rows and rows of windows of the local hospital where she had been taken after everything, examined, treated for possible conception and tested for every possible STD. The thought of returning here in two months to get retested for HIV caused a shiver to run down her back.
She leaned over and shook out a cigarette from the pack that was almost empty. Lighting up, Morgan waited and cursed as the nicotine did nothing to calm her nerves. She had a fleeting urge to call home.
They had been there for her when she went home for winter break. It had been hell, but her family had rallied around her to give her support and space when she needed it. Morgan’s dad had been more attentive than she ever remembered, always asking if she needed something, had enough to eat, or was comfortable. Her mother crawled in bed with her after her dad fell asleep, and kept her nightmares away.
She had flashed back and remembered horrible things, hearing the same Dave Matthews song on the radio that she had been listening to when Buddy first walked in, without anyone noticing. He proceeded to ruin her, and take everything from her and all of her friends, including their sense of safety and peace of mind. Her twin brother, Pete, had gotten in her face and told her that she was okay, repeating it until she stopped fighting and screaming. Her 13-year-old brother, Jason had given her the longest hug, and just cried with her. Even her sisters, Kate who would be lucky to graduate high school because she got in so much trouble, and Alyssa, who was ten and maturing way too fast, already thinking of boys and how to impress them, were there. Kate brought water and Alyssa gave Morgan her favorite blanket.
But in true Davis family form, they had slowly all put her trauma behind them. Both Pete and Kate had moved out, and currently her parents, Jason and Alyssa were vacationing in Mexico.
Her mom suddenly knew how to text and was sending ones in Spanish that said stuff like “Hola. Como esta?” and “It is nice here. Miss u.”
It was too weird.
And it was nice to know that they could all go on with their lives. Morgan was stuck in the past, with an idiot boyfriend who thought it was a great idea to bring her back to the room where she had been raped and nearly killed.
He couldn’t know that every time she left for some time alone, she always found herself parked in the lot outside the hospital. She stared at it for hours, remembering being there after all the testing. How she had to force herself to eat something, force herself not to panic every time a new face came to her door. How she fought and screamed when the doctors came in to examine her before she got released. How she had stood outside in this snow covered lot and waited for over an hour for one of her friends to come and pick her up, but every single one of them were so busy with their own injuries that she had been forgotten about completely.
It was a feeling Morgan hated. She couldn’t stand being here, but she couldn’t stay away, either.
She stayed until dark, and then Morgan turned around and drove home, feeling like she could handle it now.
It didn’t hurt so much now that she was numb.
--
Morgan still wasn’t home, when Libby, Legend, Emily and Jess decided to have a sleepover on the floor in the living room.
Ever since they tried it at Emily’s after she moved out, and they went to visit her, the girls had kept it up on particularly stressful nights and it seemed to bring them all some degree of comfort and reassurance.
Before Jon, Coby, Aaron, Bryan, Nate and Cary left, they were recruited to haul mattresses and sleeping bags.
“You guys can stay for the Full House marathon if you want,” Emily volunteered. “The popcorn is mine, though.”
“Woman, didn’t you get enough to eat earlier tonight?” Jon teased.
“There is no limit to how much food I eat, especially when there’s junk food.” Emily explained, smiling happily and tossing Christian onto the pile of mattresses when he asked.
“I get to sleep out here, too, right?” he asked, looking breathless and adorable.
“Of course! It’s family bed, and you’re family. So go get your pajamas on so we don’t miss anything good,” Jess told him.
“Oh, hey, Jess?” Bryan asked, taking her off to the side gently. He wasn’t sure how receptive to this idea she was going to be.
“What’s up?” she asked, yawning.
“I’ve got this big project I need to do over break. This interview and testing kind of thing for Speech Pathology, and I was wondering if you would mind being my subject?”
“I guess not,” Jess admitted, a little surprised. “What would I have to do?”
“A lot of the same kind of stuff you probably did in rehab and the hospital. Stuff like you’re still working on. I’d give you these tasks to complete, and then afterward you can evaluate me and let me know how you think I did.”
Jess blinked. “So, you just want me to do speech therapy stuff with you instead of with my real therapist over break?” she asked, trying to keep it straight.
“Right. Unless you’re not comfortable with it,” he added, keeping a hand on her arm as she swayed a little.
“No, that’d be fine. Just keep mentioning it so I don’t totally forget or something.”
“All right. Oh, and would you be okay with it if I recorded it? Not on video, just audio, so I have something to refer to when I’m writing my paper. You’d be anonymous.”
Jess smiled ruefully. “Sure. Whatever you need. I’m there. You know that.”
“Okay! I’m ready for the camp out!” Christian called, running out and doing a big jump on their mattress bed on the floor. “Where’s the popcorn? Did Emily eat it all?”
“I heard that,” Emily bellowed in her best Giant voice from Jack and the Beanstalk, sending Christian into a fit of giggles.
“So, I don’t guess Friday nights are always like this around here?” Cary asked, intrigued as Emily wrestled with Christian until he was hysterical, and Jess was reprimanding her for getting him too wound up.
He was in the kitchen with Legend, Libby, Nate and the rest of the guys trying to get everything cleaned up.
“No, they pretty much are just like this,” Legend objected, pulling out the chairs to sweep around the table. “Except we don’t always sleep in the living room.”
He laughed, as Nathaniel studied their already full fridge, determined to find a place to put the leftovers.
“So, what was Liam doing tonight?” Libby asked darkly, as she wiped off the counters.
“Taking personal time,” Nate returned, shoving the pot and the bowl on the bottom shelf. “Did you want him to come?” he asked, sounding tentative.
“Only so I could scream at him,” she admitted, rubbing furiously at a spot on the table that had been there ever since Emily got the brilliant idea to put Mentos in a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew in the kitchen. It had been six months and they were still finding spots from it.
“I hate him for what he made me do,” she managed, biting her lip. She wouldn’t get upset now. Even though she knew better, and knew that she probably should let herself get emotional, she just couldn’t let herself go there for some reason.
“I think I’m going to go,” Cary told her, nodding to let Libby know that he was giving her and the rest of them the privacy they needed tonight. “I can come back for you, Nate. Just give me a call.”
“No, I think I’m gonna head out, too. Leave you girls to your shows,” he said, but stopped by the counter to give Libby a fierce hug before he left.
“Or do you need me to stay? I can stay if you need me to stay?” he asked softly.
“No, I’ll be fine with the girls. Can you get Jon and everybody else to leave, too?”
“Sure,” he agreed, kissing her on the forehead. “Call if you need something,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders and leading her to the living room where he deposited her with Jess.
“All right, guys,” Nate called. “Let’s head out and let these ladies and little guy get some rest,” he said, feeling satisfied when he and Cary left and the rest followed behind him.
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