Giving the image a murderous glare, Nick hefted a crystal frog BJ gave him for Christmas the previous year which she said reminded her of him, at the mirror, shattering the glass into a million shards. Clenching both hands into fists, Nick gave a bloodcurdling scream that reverberated through the entire house, chilling its occupants.
"Jane, I think you better..." Jane nodded at her husband and put down the plate she was drying.
"I'll go talk to him." She dried her hands on her apron before untying it and hanging it on its rightful place. As she mounted the stairs, all she could think of was her eldest son. About how wasted he's become. The day news of Jade's accident reached them, he turned utterly pale and had rushed upstairs to his room and closeted him there for more than an hour.
He had come out fighting mad and stormed through the front door, only to come back late at night, roaring drunk. Jane had been the one to tend to him. All the while, he was screaming about broken promises and a deceitful angel. He kept calling for Danny. Jane didn't know what is wrong with her son and she wants to. She doesn't want him to shut all of them out.
Jane didn't knock but directly enter the room. Her gaze found her son amost immediately in the chaos of the room. He looked defeated. Like he has no fighting spirit left. That scared her a little, her son was a fighter, not a person inclined to giving up. Looking at the slumped figure in the overstuffed chair who was staring blankly up at the ceiling, she strode to him angrily.
"Look at me, Nikolas!" She rapped out, her face directly above his, blocking his view of his plastered ceiling.
He had just noticed the hairline cracks in the ceiling. Nick gave his mother a blank stare. "The ceiling's crack, Mum." He told her.
Jane blinked and stared at her incoherent son. She shook her head; he has got it bad. "Nikolas! Pay attention!" Nick nodded stiffly after a minute. "Who the hell is Danny?" That shook him up. Jane smiled inwardly. At least she got a reaction out of him.
Nick turned his face away from his astute mother. "Nobody of consequence."
That brought up a blond brow as Jane studied him skeptically. "I suppose whenever you get drunk, you'll call out for this Danny person because she's not of consequence?" Jane had assumed that this Danny was a she and not a he. It just wasn't possible that her son would get that big a reaction over a guy. No, he would be more reasonable, only a girl could turn his brain to mush.
"That's right," he said stubbornly.
Jane tried a different tactic. "This melancholy of yours, it's has nothing to do with Jade's welfare, does it?"
Nick laughed bitterly. "It has every damned thing to do her welfare! Her welfare is the cause of my misery; the cause of her guilt and stupidity!"
Jane sat down on Nick's king-size bed and gently massaged her temples. All this was giving her a headache, all this guessing and reading between lines was getting tiring. "Tell me," she coaxed. "You used to tell me everything, Nick. Nothing has changed. You still can, I'm still here for you, I'm still your mother, Nick."
"I know," he said dully, his face still averted to hers. Jane's heart was breaking. Her baby was creating a chasm between them. It hurts so badly.
"Would you rather talk to Brian?" Nick's gaze snapped to his mother's face as he caught the hurt in her voice. He shook his head slowly.
"I don't love Jade," he told his mother slowly, watching her face for any signs of condemnation. There was none, only acceptance- and love, in his mother's trusting face. "I don't think I ever did and I know for a fact that she didn't love me either, I don't know why she stayed with me as long as she did, but I didn't want to deceive her. I wanted to break up with her a long time ago." Nick told his mother haltingly. Jane nodded her encouragement.
"Then why didn't you," she prodded gently.
"Because of Danny," he blurted. "Because I met Jade's best friend and fell in love with her. I didn't want to, Mum, but it just," Nick made a helpless gesture, "it just happened." His voice dropped to a whisper as his head fell forward into his hands. "This is all my fault!"
"And all this happened before you told Jade you wanted to break up with her?" Jane guessed.
Nick nodded without looking up. He hated himself and probably the entire world at this precise moment. "I didn't get the chance to broach the subject at all, Danny walked in on Jade and I kissing the next day. She thought me the biggest jerk alive." He raised his head slightly and gave her a mournful look. "She was right."
His mother didn't disagree. "So she hates you now," Jane considered that. "Has her hatred for you have anything to do with the fact that you stayed out the entire night your first day home?"
"I was with Danny," Nick confessed.
"If she hates you as much as you would have me believe, why would she spend an entire night with you?"
"She hates me, but she also has feelings for me. I convinced her it's all right to feel that way about me, that she's not betraying her best friend. She believed me, that's way she stayed. We would have confessed everything to Jade soon, but then she had that accident before we could do anything. Danny hates herself now. She doesn't want to see me; she's convinced that we're the cause of Jade's plight."
"That doesn't make sense to me." Jane muttered. "How has Jade's plight anything to do with you and Danny? It's not like she knew anything about you two."
Nick's hands clenched into fists in his hair, "I don't understand either," he gritted out. "She doesn't want to see me, doesn't want me anywhere near either of them. I know she's hurting, I know, but I can't get to her! This is so frustrating! Why doesn't she let me comfort her, damn it! She knows that she needs me now more than ever, but she's torturing both of us by keeping me away. She's punishing both of us and even though I know that, I can't do a damned thing about it! This is making me so mad, I can kill someone!" Nick jumped out of the couch and kicked it savagely. The couch obliging flew back a few feet and capsized.
"Nickolas Carter, calm down this instance, I would not have my son behaving like an uncivilized caveman." Jane commanded and stared down her son even though she was sitting and Nick was towering over her.
"I can't help myself, Mum, I just can't calm down, not until I see her." Nick was resisting the urge to destroy his entire room. His hands were trembling with the effort he was exerting over himself. Jane was proud of his self-control, though she was sure that if she wasn't sitting right smack in the middle of his room, he would have proceeded with his plan.
"All right, what do you intend to do then?" Jane asked calmly, as if she was inquiring about the weather. Nick stared at her, his rage forgotten. His mother had gone daft, she was asking him a insensible question about his plans for the future. Jane correctly interpret her son's expression.
Plunking her hands on her hips, she faced him and gave him her sternest look. "You think that by telling me your problem, I can analyze the problem for you and hand you the answer to all your problems. Well, son, I've got news for you. I can't do that."
Nick started spluttering, "Then why on earth did you ask me to tell you about my problems?"
"Beacuse I'm your mother, Nick. I want you to know that no matter what you do, me, and the rest of the family will always be there behind you, supporting your every decision, even if it isn't a particularly wise one. You're twenty years old now, an adult. You can't expect me to solve your problems for you your entire life. You have to live your life for yourself and that means solving your own problems.
"No one can get you out of this mess you've created. You only have yourself. If you don't want this to end a greek tragedy, use your brain before you act. Plan your battle strategy carefully. You're fighting for the girl you love, use your head and your heart. You won't go wrong then. You've always been a fighter, don't give up now, especially not now, when there's a damsel waiting for you to go and save her from herself." Jane smiled then, a telling action that told Nick that the lecture's over. She walked over and tousled her son's hair. "Want some chocolate cookies? You haven't eaten much these few days," she patted Nick's flat stomach, "you've gotten so thin that even your slight paunch's gone."
Nick slung a hand over his mother's shoulders and growled good-naturedly at her. "I do not have a paunch."
Jane laughed, "Whatever you say."
"Danny," Valeria Cassady gently shook Danny awake. "Danny."
Danny moaned softly as she opened her eyes and gazed up into Jade's mother's hazel eyes. The exact same shade as her daughter's. Memory engulfed her and she felt a gut-wrenching pain start in her stomach, the pain that had bothered her since the moment she found out about Jade's condidtion. Since she found out that there's the distinct possiblility that Jade, her vibrant friend, the same friend who could never sit still, might never wake up. That would be the cruelest punishment ever mete out to a person like Jade.
"Val," Danny said, as she struggled to get up from the makeshift bed the nurses had supplied her on the second night she stayed to watch over her friend. "She woke up?" She asked hopefully.
Valeria shook her head. Danny thought she looked terrible. She had aged decades since the day news reached her of her daughter's condition. She no longer looked like the well-groomed and elegant hostess everyone was used to. Her thick black hair was threaded liberally with gray hairs that wasn't there before Jade's accident. Danny felt her heart constrict at the sight of the brave proud woman who was currenting fighting so valiantly for her daughter's survival.
Danny looked towards the bed, at the delicate sight all bandaged up like a Mummy. Jade has to wake up, she has to, with so many people fighting so hard alongside with her. Danny clam her eyes shut together to dam the tears threatening to erupt. If only she was the one involved in the accident. Everything would be all right now.
Valeria would be all right and most importantly, she would be the one lying there like a dead person, not Jade. She was the one who deserved to have this happen to her, not Jade. Not Jade who everyone adored. No one would even mourned Danny's death, well, maybe except Baxter and Darrell. And perhaps Nic- no! She wouldn't think about him, not now, not ever. It was the vow she had given God if He would just make Jade wake up.
"Are you all right, Danny?" Valeria's soft, worried voice reached Danny and Danny swallowed her emotions before opening her eyes. She shouldn't make Valeria worry now, especially not now, she had enough on her mind.
"Yes, I am."
Valeria looked towards the door, "There's a guy outside. He wants to see you."
Danny's heart froze. It was Nick. She knew it was him, he had been pestering Baxter for several days now. Danny had staunchly refused to see him and had played a bizarre game of hide and seek with him. Danny knew it wasn't fair of her to do this to him, to avoid him like plague without giving her any reason. But Danny couldn't see him, she knew she couldn't. If she even so much as catch a glimpse of his profile, all her promises would be for naught. A glimpse would weaken the defenses she had built against him. After all this, her resources were depleted, her defenses wouldn't be as strong as usual, she knew.
"It's AJ." Valeria offered when she saw Danny's face turned whiter the the bandages used to bandage up Jade. The girl was exhausted, she realized. She should have sent her home to rest several days ago, but she really didn't want to stay here alone. Valeria made up her mind to make her go home and rest after she saw AJ.
Danny expelled her breath in a rush. Anxiety, relief and disappointment ran through her. She hated herself for feeling so disappointed. She had no right feeling disappointed, she told herself, no right at all. She stood up awkwardly, "I'll go see what he wants."
Valeria nodded and returned her attention to Jade.
Without a care about her appearance, Danny hurried outside to see what AJ wants from her.
Chapter Eleven
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