i should be happy. fallen dancer is being released at the end of the month, i have the most amazing dance partner in the universe (and he’s pretty damn fine, if i dare say so myself), and i own a dance studio. life has never been better. so why do i feel like i stepped into a time machine and ended up in high school all over again?
She couldn’t help but chuckle at Marie’s statement of the obvious. She knew pain was part of life. She also knew that Marie knew – maybe moreso than her.
“Noel and Blake are both really great guys,” she said. She was more or less thinking out loud. Her thoughts were far away. She saw herself with Blake in high school. She remembered that night he had taken her to a bar when she had wanted to get away from her screaming parents. That had been the night she had realized she felt something more for him, that all that innocent flirting they had done had not been so innocent. She saw herself with Noel in New York, the first day she met him. Out of all the guys in the room, he had stood out to her the most. He had moved with such grace and he had been funny, intelligent, witty, and sweet. All the things she had wanted in a dance partner and now that she thought about it, all the things she was attracted to. “Neither one of them deserve to be hurt and I don’t want to hurt Blake anymore than I already have.”
Rie was right, though, Jael realized that. Someone was going to get hurt. It was inevitable and there was nothing she could do to stop it, so no use trying. She smiled, glad that Marie was still willing to support her even if she didn’t quite agree with her decision to go on this date. “That sounds good to me. Plus, I’m starving.”
When they got to her house, Marie’s mom quickly greeted the two before rushing off to her yoga meeting. At Jael’s puzzled look, Marie shrugged her shoulders. “It’s her thing now. She keeps trying to get me to do it but if I bend down with this belly, I might not get back up.” And that would not be a pleasant picture.
After grabbing a bag of chips (Marie made a mental note to take a picture of something healthy and send it to Cam later and tell him she was being a good girl) and slapping some sandwiches together, the two girls made their way up to Marie’s old room. Decorated just the way it was in high school; music posters lined the walls, her old photographs hung up on a tackboard with white Christmas lights strung up around it. It was like stepping back into a time warp. Even weirder was Mila’s room next door, untouched from the day she had moved out. Nobody in the family ever heard from her and Marie couldn’t bring herself to even open the door.
She sat down on the bed, gesturing towards her closet. “Everything in there is what I have from high school, so knock yourself out looking but don’t expect to find anything fashionable.” Marie had been a beanie-wearing, floral dress clad with leather boots girl in high school.
Jael barely managed to say ‘hi’ to Marie’s mom before the woman was out the door and on her way to yoga class. She looked at Marie and raised an eyebrow. Since when had yoga become a thing with Rie’s mom? She truly had missed a lot since she had left. She laughed slightly at Marie’s comment. “Yeah, I mean, you do have twins in there and all,” she joked. She still couldn’t believe Marie was having twins, but she was happy for her friend, she really was. She knew how it had killed Marie when she had lost Kennedy. Marie, more than anyone, deserved to be happy and have the life she had always longed for.
After stepping into Marie’s old bedroom, she felt like she had stepped out of a time machine. Everything looked the same. Not that she could tease Marie for that because her room at her mom’s house was still the same as well, hence the reason she generally slept on the couch. Her mom hated that, but seeing all those pictures and things in her room hurt too much. She looked at the pictures on the wall and felt a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Not everything from their pasts had been bad, and sometimes she forgot that, but it was nice to be reminded.
Jael walked over to Marie’s closet, eating her sandwich as she did so. She really had been starving. She looked through the clothes. She shook her head at some of the stuff in there. “Oh, please, I envied how you dressed, believe it or not.” It was true. Marie had always been more fashionable than Jael, whether she believed that or not. She pulled an outfit out of the closet and held it up to her. She twirled around and smiled at Marie. “What do you think? Could I pull of high school Marie clothing?” She chuckled.
She waited for Blake to sound upset about her talking to Ethan, for him to yell or scream or something, but the yelling never came and she instantly felt awful for thinking that it would. This was not high school anymore and she had changed, so maybe Blake had, too. She nodded. “Yeah, I did,” she replied. “But to be fair, a year had passed since I had seen him last and… he had time to get over it. He had time to heal and let go. Not everyone was like us Blake, so intent on holding grudges and never letting things go. He said he should have known better than to trust us popular kids. I felt bad when he said that, but he had been right, he should have known better and we should have known better than to treat him that way, but that’s the past, Blake and that’s where it should stay.” She had grown up a lot since leaving her hometown. She realized how ridiculous she had been her entire high school career, always craving attention, always chasing after the popularity and wanting people to like her. That had been insecurity. She had wanted people to be scared of her so that they wouldn’t treat her the way she thought she had deserved to be treated. She had been insecure in herself, but she wasn’t anymore. She was strong and confident and she liked her life now. She loved it. Sure, she had regrets, but everyone did.
“I believe you.” She almost couldn’t believe her own ears. Blake had just said that he believed her. The thought made her happier than it should have. She forced herself to not let that go to her head, to not a big deal out of it. She was being careful because she was starting to realize that being near Blake brought all those feelings to the surface, the feelings she had been fighting so hard to forget. Her expression softened as she listened to him explain the very real dream he’d had. No wonder he had crashed that night. God, he shouldn’t have been driving and she almost wanted to go out and turn back into bitchy Jael for a few minutes and give the guys that had let him drive that night a piece of her mind. “It was just a nightmare, Blake. It wasn’t reality. I still have Aaron’s number, if you ever want to talk to Ethan… if you think you can.” She didn’t know if he would, she didn’t think he would, but she was offering anyway because he deserved to know that she knew of ways to contact Ethan. She wasn’t going to hide anything from. Not anymore. That had been part of their problem, too much lying and too much hiding.
She felt herself shiver slightly as he intertwined their fingers. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt like this. She hadn’t been with a man in so long, in any way. No dates. No sex. The only kissing she had done was on the screen or on the stage when she was dancing huge numbers that involved a lot of theatricality. She fought not to roll her eyes when he mentioned all those tabloid rumors. She absolutely loathed the tabloids. Yeah, she would love to be married to Johnny Depp, but it wasn’t like it was actually true, for crying out loud. And why did Blake care, anyway? He’d let her go. If he hadn’t, he would have come after her or tried to find her or something. But that had never happened. Not that she had ever made an effort to reach him so maybe she had no room to talk. Didn’t mean it still didn’t hurt though. “Most of it, yeah,” she said, pointing at her stomach for show. “I mean, does it look like I have a baby in there?” she joked. “My figure is fantastic.” She laughed, a smile forming on her face afterwards. Her smile quickly faded, though, when Blake started to get all squirmy. She wasn’t used to him being so… squirmish, not that that was even a word.
She was silent for a long time after that. It was an awkward silence. She hated it. Her breath came out shakily as he spoke, telling her they didn’t have to go back there. But him mentioning it, explaining what had happened, all the pushing away and fighting, that was going back, whether he knew it or not. Then again, she had been going back there in her mind since she had stepped foot in this hospital room. She swallowed hard when he said that he should have come after her, even after saying that they didn’t have to go there. “You’re going there,” she said, but the words sounded choked, nervous. She was nervous.
She managed a small smile at his smug tone. “Yeah, well, maybe you are different, but not totally – still smug, I see,” she teased him, squeezing his fingers lightly, absentmindedly. “I’m sorry, Blake,” she whispered after another beat of silence. “I know you said we don’t have to go there, but… we made a lot of mistakes, both of us, and I feel I should apologize for my part in what happened between us. I was wrong to always yell at you for not being open. I was a hypocrite. I just… I have missed you and I would really like to try and be friends.” She paused briefly before continuing. She could feel tears again and she tried to fight them. “I know we said we couldn’t be friends before, but that was five years and who knows how many months ago. I’m different. You’re different. Do you think we could try?”He was going there - right when he had said he didn’t want to. The past needed to stay where it was in the past. But it was as if it was coming back even if they didn’t want to. Maybe it was the tough of her fingers against his, or maybe just because was here, right here next to him. Whatever it was, it was making the past come and it felt really suffocating. “I don’t want to go there, I don’t even know why I am, what is it honestly going to do for us Jael? It only brings up us, and how much we messed up..” he looked down then, before allowing his head to fall backwards, and lay back on his pillow. This was all overwhelming, or maybe because he was so worn our and sore, it made it feel like it.
He groaned quietly then, his breath hot on his lips. The pain never subsided, “I need to get out of here..” he finally blurts out, bypassing everything they were suddenly feeling in his room - he knew that he had so much more to say, but he couldn’t say here anymore. Maybe just maybe she could help him get out. “They wont release me, till I have a nurse available. and I can’t even find a good one..” he complains. He then closed his eyes for a moment, “I .. just changed the subject..” His meds where messing with him or something. He reopened his eyes, moving his gaze to meet hers, “Don’t..” he finally says, shaking his head. They were going back there and it was making him feel - to overwhelmed by it all. He had said they shouldn’t go there but they were, and he didn’t.. he didn’t think he was ready to face it, as much as he was holding it together, from the moment she walked in the room, he didn’t think he could.
Something on the machine next to him, started to go off and he wasn’t sure what was going on. Was he having a heart attack? He wasn’t even sure what that felt like. But his chest was tight, and it only caused pain in his lower body. “Jael..” he says now, his breathing heavy. But before he could even say anything, a nurse came in. “Blake..” she says now, moving quickly to his side, “what’s going on hunny?” she asks now. It was his regular nurse that visited him everyday. The only one he could actually stand, “Hunny, you need to calm down..” “How the fuck can I calm down, if my chest..is so tight?” he complained, “Hunny, your not having a heart attack..” she says quietly, before looking at Jael, “What happened?” she asks now, before trying to sooth Blake down, handing him some water, “Your having a panic attack.. “she says quietly. “Bullshit.. “he breathed out hard, before closing his eyes in pain, trying to fight the pain.. how the fuck had that even happened? “Hunny, you need to just calm down, I’ll get you some ice chips..” she looked at Jael, “Maybe sure he breaths calmer..” she says now, “Nothing to do, but wait for it to pass..” Blake rolled his eyes, forcing himself to breath.. slower.
He wanted till the nurse to leave, closing his eyes again. He waited till the pain to subside even more, before looking at Jael, “Guess you took my breath away..” but by the look on her face, he knew that it wasn’t time for a joke. But it was the only thing he could do - to make this okay.
“Don’t..” he starts to say, shaking his head slowly, before grabbing the water off the tray by his bed that the nurse had given him, “I just.. this is a lot.. and the whole.. friend thing - lets just say deja vu.. ” he wasn’t trying to blame her, but this was a lot. It had been five years since they seen each other, half of it was his fault, and she was sitting there so close.. their hands where just together and it.. Blake didn’t know what had happened. He felt foolish then, his cheeks turning slightly red.
And then he finally spoke again - knowing this had to be hard for her, just as it was for him, obviously. “How do we even get back there?”
“People mess up every day, Blake.. I am through living in the past. I am not the girl who ran away, who drowned her problems in alcohol, and hid within a group of people who didn’t even like her anymore,” she said, her words coming out quickly – she found she could hardly breathe. She breathed in deeply and exhaled shakily. She needed to calm down. All the emotion was overwhelming her. Maybe visiting him in the hospital had been a bad idea, but she had made a promise to Marie that she would see Blake and try to get closure. She just hadn’t expected for it to happen this way, with him in the hospital, and she hadn’t expected it to be so hard.
She opened her mouth to say something, but quite literally in the blink of an eye, Blake seemed to go from calm to not so calm. Her breath caught in her throat and she tried to keep herself from freaking out because Blake was already freaking out and she knew what was happening even before the nurse appeared and told him he wasn’t having a heart attack, but he was having a panic attack. She had seen plenty before, from her mom and from Marie. She looked at the nurse and nodded her head. “Okay,” she managed to say, her breathing more even than it had been a few moments earlier.
“Guess you took my breath away,” she heard him say, but she couldn’t bring herself to laugh at that. She simply sighed and she was aware of how pained it sounded, how heavy it was. Everything from her past was coming down on her now. She shouldn’t have come. She shouldn’t be here, holding his hand and thinking of the past and her mistakes. It wasn’t good for her and clearly, it was not good for Blake in the state he was in. She had caused him to have a panic attack. She had caused that. She wasn’t going to voice her guilt aloud, because he didn’t need to know she was thinking it was her fault, but she knew, deep down, it was the truth. The stress of their past… it was too much, making him freak out.
“Don’t tell me not to go there. You went there first,” she snapped. She hadn’t meant to snap, but… it was happening all over again. She felt, for the first time in so long, that she was that Jael again, the one that ran from her feelings. All that came back to Blake. “Yeah, déjà vu,” she laughed slightly, but it sounded forced – it was forced.
She let go of his hand and stood up, taking a few steps back. Being close to him, touching him, it was making this harder – for both of them and she should have known better. God, how could she have been so stupid? “I don’t know, Blake, I really don’t, but can’t we try? Is that really so wrong for me to think it could actually work? It would have been too hard five years ago because the feelings had been too raw, but so much time has passed…” She shook her head, knowing that time didn’t really make a difference. Time did not heal all wounds and clearly, it had not healed his. It had healed some of hers, but not in reference to Blake. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I just know that I miss you and when I saw that you were hurt, I had to see you. I told Rie I would see you soon anyway because I need closure and we never really got that because I left without saying goodbye. That’s on me, not you and I’m sorry for always blaming everything that went wrong on you. It was on me, too.” It is on her, too.
“I’ll understand if you can’t be my friend, Blake.” It would hurt, but she would get through it, somehow. “Rie’s right. Someone is going to get hurt and I can’t stop it.” She hadn’t meant to say that – she had been more or less thinking aloud, but it was too late to take the words back. And she knew if Blake asked her to explain what she meant… she wasn’t sure she’d be able to.
