May, 2007
Jack McPhee looked out at the land around him, completely enraptured with the idea of grass and trees and sunlight. As his cab sped away from the airport, he tried to readjust his way of thinking about the world. He would have a hard time living here, he knew. At least Dallas wasn't so awful because it was a larger city, but it was still the south.
The cab driver tried to strike up a conversation with Jack. Disliking the over-friendly man from the beginning, Jack reluctantly spoke. Surprisingly, though, he started to enjoy the small talk. In the space of five minutes, Jack found himself telling the kindly older man why he was coming to Dallas, where he was from, and how long he planned to stay. Finally, the cab driver asked where Jack was heading.
"Let's see," he said, pulling out a slip of paper he had copied from his address book, " . . . 502 Beltline. The O'Connor Apartments, number seven."
The cab driver nodded his head, intent on the task of getting Jack to that location.
Jack sat back in his seat and began thinking. Throughout the entire plane ride, he'd pondered different things he might say to Jen when he arrived at her door. What if she didn't want him to live with her? What if she didn't want his companionship? What if she'd left Dallas already, herself?
He pushed these thoughts aside, determined to consider the more important problem. "Jen," he practiced, talking inside his head, "there are no words to tell you how sorry I am. Not only for Davis' death, but for taking so long to come and be with you in your time of need . . ." No, he thought, too greeting card-ey.
"Jen, even though I haven't been with you, I've thought about you every day . . ." No, exceedingly obvious.
"Jen, I don't know if I believe in God or not, but I know that if there *is* a God . . ." What the Hell?, he thought to himself. Jen doesn't believe in God at all. What kind of comfort could anything like that possibly provide her?
"Jen, I remember when Grams died and you and I . . ." Great, Jack, just great! Pile one sorrow on top of another. Sheesh . . . that would never help.
"Jen . . . I love you." No. Way too simple.
Where the hell is Dawson when you need him?
"Sir?" the taxi driver said, turning back to glance at Jack, who snapped out of his thoughts.
The driver motioned to the building in front of them. It stood less than three stories high. It didn't resemble anything even close apartment buildings as Jack knew them.
"Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Yes, sir. The O'Connor Apartments."
Jack nodded. "Okay. Thank you so much," he said, and handed the man a ten dollar bill.
"Have a nice stay in Texas."
Jack breathed in carefully. "I'll try." The car sped away, leaving Jack looking up at the third floor, where Jen's apartment was.
"Okay. Now or never," he said to himself under his breath.
Still not knowing what he would say when he saw her, he pushed floor three on the elevator panel. He pulled his suitcase behind him and slung his bags over his shoulders, stepping inside.
He began getting nervous. It had been more than six months since he'd last been in the same room with Jen Lindley. For almost eight years they hadn't gone a week without seeing each other. They went from living at Grams' house together to colleges less than thirty minutes apart. After that, though, things had become more muddled between them. They still felt the same love for each other, but it was harder to express that love when they were thousands of miles apart. He knew things would be awkward for the first few moments of seeing her again.
He stepped carefully off the elevator and into a long hall. The carpet was red with patterned white roses. Long vases on elegant glass pedestals lined the walls. Surveying the door signs, he looked for 502.
It was at the end of the hall, set slightly apart from the other apartments. Taking a procrastinating moment to admire the design of the building, he stepped back from the door for a moment. Finally, realizing he couldn't wait any longer, he took a long breath and lifted the golden knocker. He banged it three times, and waited.
On the other side of the door, Jen Lindley turned abruptly to the sound of persistent knocking. She was sitting alone in the dark, wearing her pajamas. She became immediately angry at the intrusion. Seriously considering not answering it, she finally relented and got up. Jen flipped on the light next to the door, arranged things around the room so it might look more cheerful, attempted to straighten her clothing, and pulled open the door.
She saw him, but at the same time she didn't believe her sight. She knew hallucinations were common when grief was concerned, and she blinked her eyes several times.
"Jen . . ." he started, then choked on the words he didn't have. Nothing came to mind. He had nothing to say. He had no words, and he felt the lack severely. He didn't even stutter; he just stood there dumbly.
"Jack." His name left her lips, and tears immediately came to her eyes.
He moved toward her quickly and she fell into his arms. It was then that he realized it wasn't his words she needed -- it was him. That it wouldn't have mattered what he said or how he said it or why. Suddenly, Jack knew that all that would ever matter to Jen was that he always came back to her when her her life made no sense and she was grasping with all her strength for assurances no one could give to her.
He was gentle and calm as he held her, patting her back and kissing her head. He didn't rush her out of his arms, and she didn't make any motions to leave for quite a long time. He gently brushed her hair back from her face and told her he loved her. Finally, she rubbed her eyes and looked up at him.
"I can't believe you're here."
"I told you I was putting my priorities straight. I told you that you would be my first priority. Didn't you believe me, baby?" he asked her.
She shook her head. "I didn't let myself hope." She put her head on his chest, burying her face in his clothing. "God, Jack . . . I've felt so alone with you all the way across the world." She let out three long sobs.
"You are not alone. Not anymore." He lifted her head so she could see his face. "Believe me. Please take this as the truth. I am not going anywhere."
Finally, she began to look relieved, and nodded. "Okay. I believe you. But next time, get here faster, for Christ's sake," she said, almost smiling.
She put her hand inside his and looked down at the link they had made, squeezing gently. She remembered a night long, long ago when he'd reached out and held her in the huge house on Windsor, telling her that the worst thing you could do was push away the people closest to you. Jen knew that he was thinking of that same moment buried in their past, but brought back to mind every time she felt the comfort of being next him after a long absence.
She remembered how she had felt that night, after fighting with Jack for the first time. Standing in his room after the fire, she had looked across at his face in the darkness, wanting to reach out to him but not knowing how. Before she had a chance to gather enough courage to tell him that he was all she had in the world, he broke the tension by telling her that she was the person closest to him. As they stood together that night, she realized that, in a totally coincidental and unexpected turn of events, she had found the best friend she's been searching for the past two years. As with most heartbreakingly wonderful moments in her life, she pretended to believe in God for the moment and thanked Him profusely.
Coming back from her daydream, she nodded her head again. "Okay," she said, mostly because there was nothing else to say, and pulled him into the apartment, grabbing his bags with her other hand.
Oddly uncomfortable with seeing each other again, they busied themselves with unimportant tasks.
"Let's take these to the bedroom, okay?" she told him.
He nodded.
She showed him through the apartment, pointing at various rooms, trying to be a good host. He watched her with intense interest. Paying little attention to the tour, he searched in the history of their friendship for a bit of data that would light his way through the rest of this reunion.
The bedroom that they finally reached looked very lived-in. Well, one side of it did, at least. What Jack assumed had been Davis' side was totally pristine. She'd cleared the entire room of her dead lover's belongings. She set Jack's bags down on the clean side of the room, absentmindedly dusting the night-table with her free hand.
"I hope you don't mind. There's only . . . one room." She looked down at the ground, then back up at her friend.
"Jen, we've been sleeping in the same bed since we were in high school," he said, laughing at the irony in the fact that the year Dawson and Joey had stopped sleeping in the same bed, he and Jen had begun doing exactly that. "But it is a bit small, I have to admit," he added, pointing to the bed trying to lighten the situation even further.
She ran her fingers over the comforter, her mind filled with memories. "It's been, you know, a while, since this bed has felt small to me."
Jack's head fell to his chest. Realizing the wrongness of his comment, he tried to correct it. "Jen, I didn't mean . . ."
She waved away his apology. "I know. It's too easy to make everything be about him. So easy that I do almost every day in every situation."
Knowing exactly what she was feeling, he opened his arms and pulled her into him once again. He stroked her hair as she continued to cry softly. She breathed unevenly and he concentrated on that, trying not to think about Paul.
"It's going to be okay," he whispered.
As he said this, tears broke in his own eyes and fell freely down his face.
She nodded, reassured by the fact that he was crying along with her. "I know, I know," she said. Then, smiling: "You're here now."
Jack smiled and sat down on the bed, pulling her into his lap. "I'm here now," he agreed.
"It's really strange . . . I thought I was over all this. Then, you come back and I'm a big mess, crying all over my shirt and clinging onto you like I'm a child."
"No worries, Jen. I understand. I would think it was strange if you didn't want me to hold you."
She smiled at him, by way of a thank you. Cocking her head toward the sliding doors at the back of the room, she asked him, "want to go out on the balcony?"
Not waiting for his response because she already knew it, she shoved her hands in the pockets of her flannel shirt, motioning for him to follow her out of the room.
The stagnant air choked him as he walked out onto a small balcony that looked over the courtyard below.
She noticed his expression, and read his thoughts. "Yeah. Not the greatest weather, Texas."
"Apparently not. Is it really only May?"
"Surprisingly cool for May, actually," she said, provoking him.
He noticed her comment as the joke it was, and smiled sarcastically.
"So are you going to tell me about Paul or not?"
He turned outward, leaning on the railing. "You were right, you know? You didn't like him from the beginning and . . . you were right."
"Jack . . ." she said, her eyes melting sympathetically, "I didn't want to be right."
He bent his head toward the sun, thinking. "I know. And I didn't want you to be right even more that you didn't want you to be right."
She sat down in a lawn chair behind her, and he followed her lead. "Sometimes I think that we're only allowed one relationship in our lives that leaves us . . . full. And sometimes I think that, since I have you, I've met my quota."
She ran her tongue across her lips, considering his theory. "We both had Grams, Jack. And you had your mother. And I had . . . well, Davis . . . and Dawson, on his good days." She gave up the debate, turning her attention back to Jack.
"You haven't cried yet, have you, babe?"
He shook his head silently. "Um . . . no, not since the night we broke up," he said, shaking his head again, breathing loudly; she knew he was near the breaking point.
She pushed on. "Well, if you want my advice, and I'm not saying that you do, then, I would tell you that the sooner you cry, the better off you'll be later. If you wait . . . well, if you wait . . . it's just not good to wait."
She counted as he blinked several times. Almost without warning, she watched his eyes cloud and his face break. She had seen him cry less than five times in her life. Each of those times, she had been struck with the obvious knowledge of why he didn't cry very often. It took his whole body. His shoulders shook, his face crumpled into an almost unrecognizable picture of pain, and his knuckles went red as he rubbed his hands together violently, trying to stop himself.
He was sad, she knew. But there was something else in his eyes that she had rarely seen: anger. For his whole life, he had dealt with grief. That wasn't a new emotion at all; anger was. She watched him try to push his anger away, hoping simultaneously that he would and wouldn't accomplish his goal of denial.
As he began to calm down, she moved toward him, scooting across the space on her knees. She knelt in front of him, circling his waist with her arms. He cried in the crook of her neck for several more moments, panting with exhaustion when he finished.
Finally, he lifted his head.
"Feel better?"
He nodded. "Yes, actually."
Later, they stood in the center of the kitchen, making pasta and salad.
Jen looked up at Jack suddenly, realizing that she had been consumed with her own sadness. Besides encouraging him to cry, she'd done little to facilitate his healing.
"I'm sorry that bastard hurt you," she told him after debating what comment would be best.
He gave her a sad look. "Yeah, you know . . . I don't know why I even expect to meet someone wonderful and live happily after. It's obviously not going to happen."
"Don't say that."
He looked at her forlornly. "Why not? It's the truth."
She took his hand and gripped it tightly in hers. "It is going to happen. You'll fall in love, and it will be perfect. Because you deserve love more than anyone I know. And I realize it sounds like a terribly self-help-book thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway: you give so much love, Jack. You're bound to get some of that love in return."
"And what about you?"
She didn't answer.
"Jen?"
"I guess . . . I guess I never thought things would be like that for me," she replied suddenly. "I always thought you'd be the one with the wonderful husband and kids and a house in the suburbs." She paused. "And I would be the annoying, slightly neurotic single best friend who comes for holidays because she has no other family."
"No, no. You've got it all wrong, my friend. I'm the wacky, lonely guy with no family. I got cast in that role long ago."
Several moments of silence passed.
"You know what, Jack? If neither of us are ever happy, at least we can be miserable together."
His worry and distress showed as he laughed nervously. She could see that he'd given too much of his time to thinking about the possibility of being alone for the rest of his life. Her best friend was afraid, and she didn't know what to say because she felt the same feelings he did.
She grinned at him and looped her arm through his, leading him to the bedroom. "I don't want to cook. And God knows I don't want to eat anything even close to healthy tonight. Let's order pizza." With that, she threw the ladle into the sink and turned off the oven.
He nodded his head quickly. "Good idea."
Several seconds later, he turned to her. "We're not . . . avoiding . . . are we? Our deep-seated, psychological, possibly-damaging issues and problems, I mean?"
She stopped, thought for a moment, and replied. "Nope. We're not avoiding. We're just, we're just . . . ordering dinner." Gathering her strength around her, she pulled him out of the kitchen.
"You know, I haven't even asked you, how long can you stay?" Jen asked, as she reached across the bed for another piece of pizza.
Jack sat up slowly, chewing deliberately, thinking of the right way to break it to her. "Um . . . I'm not going back to New York."
Shocked, she turned to him. "What?"
He shook his head. "I'm not going back. I gave up my job, my apartment, everything. You're stuck with me. That is, if you want me."
"My God . . ."
Gazing at her with all the intensity he could muster after a long day of traveling and overwhelming emotion, he said, "I want us to be together again, Jen. I don't care if it's not healthy. I don't care if it means we'll never find romance. I just want to live with you again. The times in my life when we lived together were the best, maybe the only, times that I can remember being happy."
She set her pizza down and turned toward him. As she kissed his cheek, she whispered "let's unpack your things."
"Jack, this shirt is the worst looking thing I've ever seen," she told him, giggling as she organized his closet.
He looked at her and pointed his finger mock-accusingly. "This is why I didn't want you unpacking my things. My taste is never good enough for you."
"Jack, your taste is non-existent," she said, poking him in the ribs.
"I guess you'll just have to bring me up on the latest Dallas fashions," he said sarcastically.
"Well . . . since you mention it . . ."
"Whoa, now. I refuse to wear anything that even slightly resembles a ten gallon hat or those leather pants with the ass cut out of them."
"They're called chaps," she told him mock-authoritatively. "And no one here actually wears them unless they're just trying to scare off the tourists. I was thinking more on the lines of a, of a, sweater vest, maybe. Or some khaki pants." She began surveying his belongings, trying to discern if he owned anything like the clothing she had suggested.
"Uh, Jen?"
She looked up at him innocently.
He grabbed her ear and pulled her into her side of the room. "Stay over there, you nosy little weirdo!"
She giggled again. Several moments passed in a comfortable silence, both of them intent on their task of folding, hanging, and ironing.
Finally, Jen spoke. "Jack, are you really going to hate living here?" She studied him, her forehead wrinkled in worry.
He looked back at her over his shoulder, saw her face, and moved toward the bed. "No, Jen. I'm not going to hate living here. Not even close. How could you possibly think that?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. It just seems like you're feeling some kind of, I don't know, duty?"
He shook his head vehemently. "God, no. No. I mean, yes, it's my duty; but, no, that's not the reason I'm here."
She wasn't convinced.
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't think it was the best thing for both of us. Me included."
She nodded slowly, obviously still not convinced.
He grabbed her shoulder and squeezed. "For God's sake, has it been so long since we've seen each other that you can't tell when I'm telling the truth?"
"I'm sorry," she said, running her fingers through her medium length blonde hair. "It's a weird and unexpected feeling, but I'm just very uncomfortable with certainties right now."
"Okay. I can understand that. God, can I ever understand that," he tapped his hand on his thigh, thinking. "How about this?," he said, getting an idea, "I am going to stay here with you for as long as we both get up in the morning, see each other, and feel like the last months of our lives are erased away by the other person's face."
She looked down at her lap, thinking.
"Okay. Okay."
He nodded, thinking he had settled the issue.
"But Jack?"
He turned.
"If the day ever comes that you don't want to live here anymore . . ."
She paused, he waited.
"Will you take me with you, wherever you go?"
Slumping down on the bed, he put her hand inside hers. "Jen . . . yes. The house that you're in, that's where I'll want to be. The kitchen that you don't know how to use, that's where I'll want to cook. The laundry room where you wash your clothes, that's where I'll want my clothes to be washed. The living room where you put on your angry feminist music, read your thousand-page novels, type on your computer, and try to plan your classes . . . well, Jen, that's the living room of my soul. And I will always, always live there."
She relaxed against him and he against her. They smiled at each other, breathing in and out in unison.
THE END
The Living Room of My Soul by Beth
Chapter Notes
Author's Note: As usual, I have quite a few people to thank. Daizy, Liz, Courtney, Brandi, Angie, Tara, Kathy, and A.J. Whether you gave me encouragement, constructive criticism, or taught by example, I appreciate all of you. My fic is what it is because of you guys. :)
Chapter end notes
Yes, yes. You read correctly. This is the end of this fic. I knew when I started that it would end here, but somehow now that I've written it, it feels more like a beginning. There's a big possibility of a sequel for this one. And yes; I'll beg once again. Please send me your comments at jackandjenfanfic@yahoo.com. Thanks!