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That's Enough For Me Chapter 11: Trading Pain~*~
Scars are souvenirs you never lose.
The past is never far.
Did you lose yourself somewhere out there?
Did you get to be a star
and don't it make you sad to know that life
is more than who we are?
~Goo Goo Dolls, "Name"
~*~
"Tell me something," Alec said with a grin as he dropped down onto the couch next to her. He handed her a glass with some fruit juice in it, while keeping another one with a more questionable liquid in it.
"Goat cheese tastes really good on toasted bread," Jondy squinted at him when he glared at her. "What? You have to be a little more specific."
"Tell me something about growing up…" he waved a hand at their surroundings vaguely, "out here. "Max and I don't really have heart to hearts and we never talk about it." He snorted, "the closest to one we've gotten is Max telling me that I could talk to her if I needed anything." His voice dropped to an almost whisper in the quiet of the apartment. "I've kind of always wanted to ask," Jondy smiled and let out a sigh as she stared at the wall.
"At the tender age of eleven I was addicted—"
"Addicted? To what? Heroine? Crack…were you an alcoholic?" Alec asked with an excited gleam in his eyes.
"At the tender age of eleven…" she glared at him, "I was addicted to ice cream."
"Ice cream," he couldn't stop the laugh.
"It was bad, man. I beat up the ice cream man; I couldn't get enough of that creamy goodness. Zack had to stage an intervention."
"How? Just, how?"
Jondy laughed. "It was about a half a year after the escape, I was moving from neighborhood to neighborhood lookin' for any easy score and there were these kids sitting in a park. They were laughing." She seemed to be seeing the scene again in her head, and Alec was struck by the flash of jealousy that made its way across her face. "They were so happy looking, kids waiting for the ice cream truck. When it came one of their mothers came up and bought them some. It smelled so good, I hadn't eaten in a couple days, I must have looked like I was dying or somethin' cause the lady saw me. She smiled and asked me what flavor I liked." Jondy laughed, "I'd never had ice cream before how the heck was I supposed to know? So she ordered something for me and paid for it and everything. She looked liked an angel, I mean absolutely beautiful, I just stared until she put the ice pop in my hand.
"I don't even remember what kind it was, but it was red, white, and blue and ridged and stuff and it was so very yummy." She looked at Alec, "possibly even better because a woman smiled as she gave it to me."
"So there are actually good Samaritans out there?" Alec asked with a grin.
"Not many." She scratched her head and turned a slight shade of pink and started mumbling. "Ilearnedaboutlove throughromancenovels."
"What?!" Alec was grinning, his face looking like it was about to split."
She let out a breath of air with a huff, "I learned about love through…romance novels."
"Heh. You're kidding right?"
"I wish."
"You learned about love through romance novels?"
"I've said that, like, three times now."
"I just wanted to make sure that I heard right," Alec was chuckling to himself and Jondy glared at him.
"Its not like I had someone to ask! You try talking to you're brother about stuff like that! I mean, as if it's not bad enough that we weren't trained to handle emotions…he was a boy." She waved her hands around in the air frantically. "Boys just don't get stuff like that. I mean, dear god, can you imagine trying to talk to your C.O. about a girl you like?"
"Not really…though it probably would have been funny."
"No, it wouldn't have been. It would have been sad and pathetic! So my options were slim and I liked to read; it seemed the most viable option. Porno's just didn't seem to have the right…you know…"
"No, I don't know."
"It just didn't seem right," the pink on her cheeks was slowly becoming red. "So it was romance novels. And I will tell you, it screwed my head up royally."
Alec looked like he was having trouble breathing. "How many porno's did you watch before you decided they weren't right for the job?"
"I don't like you anymore!" She whimpered and sniffed delicately. "You're an ass."
"I'm just curious!"
"Never mind! Moving on!"
"No, I wanna hear about the romance…or the plot driven smut, you're decision!"
"I will not!" She covered her face for a second before sitting up straighter and turning on him. "There was this one time with Zane, oh it was great." She made a thumb's up motion and stuck her tongue out. "We were…I was thirteen, I think, but we got into our heads that we wanted to," she giggled and scrunched up her face, "go on a road trip…un-Zack-sanctioned."
Bringing his laughter under control he asked, "bad plan?"
"Bad plan. So bad." She cringed, "so bad. So yeah, we needed a ride. Easy stuff…or so we thought."
"You were thirteen…"
"And I looked thirteen, driving a car…or trying to." He lifted an eyebrow. "I didn't know it was a stick!"
"You stole a stick shift, oh that's great," he laughed.
"Oh come on, who drives a stick these days? Only the really cool cars are sticks!" She waved her hands in the air, "this was a freakin' Nissan!" He laughed some more and she smacked his arm. "I've never seen so many freakishly tall hills in my life."
"You stalled some?"
"Zane didn't help with all the screaming, and I mean high pitched girlie screams, he was doing when we had to start on hills with people behind us…what is the deal with the tailgaters? Do they just not like their cars?"
"It wasn't always like that," he said it like he was stating a fact.
"Hell, no, most of the time it was…kinda painful," she shrugged. "I figured you wanted some of the fun stories."
"I do, but I just…was it hard out here?"
"Yeah."
"Harder then Manticore?" He wouldn't look at her just stared down at his hands rolling his glass.
"Some of it," she said softly, just watching his hands. The fingers long and tapered, elegant like an artist's, she had to shake her head to clear the image of tan skin sliding along creamy white. "You wouldn't believe the foster homes…"she let out a shaky breath and shrugged.
"If it was harder then why—?"
"We were dying, Alec."
"Manticore wasn't killing you!" his eyes were wide and wild and she touched his arm lightly.
"Yes, it was. Bit by bit it was eating at our souls and taking away who we were, that's death of the living variety." She slid her hand down his arm to grip his wrist. "And they were going to hurt Max that night." She watched his Adam's apple bob slowly as he swallowed and shook his head. "Alec, she had the shakes…we all did, but she fell out of line in front of Lydecker. We watched Jack do the same and he never came back."
"So you ran because of Max?"
"We ran because Zack told us to. But Max was the cause of the order."
Alec stared at the wall and ran a hand down his face, "she never told me that." He snorted. "Why am I surprised?"
"Cause your good like that?" Jondy smiled sweetly at him.
He turned toward her but she had the feeling that he wasn't really looking at her but something that played itself out behind his eyes. "They switched our units around sometimes…" he smiled. "We could've—" She tilted her head as she looked up at him and her brow pulled together. "We could've known each other if you'd stayed."
"We could've." She agreed but smiled sadly. "I think that our way was still best."
"I don't like admitting it, but you're probably right."
"What was it like?"
"What?" His eyes focused on her then, the color of jade in sunlight and she found it hard to breath for a second.
"Uh…oh yeah," she smiled, "Manticore. What was it like growing up there?"
"Hard," he said simply. "It was hard."
"Do I wanna know what they did to you?"
He shook his head, biting his lip gently. "You got to learn about love through books, bad books, but still better then how I learned about it."
"Who was she?"
"Her name was Rachel," he whispered and looked down into his drink. "She was…a mission." Jondy didn't say anything. "I killed her. Not intentionally, I tried to stop it but I didn't fight back hard enough. She—"
"She what, Alec?"
"She died this year after being in a coma all that time." He dragged in a shuddering breath through his teeth. "I was her piano teacher…she loved me."
"Alec," Jondy breathed the name and touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. He turned into the touch his lips brushing against the palm of her hand and she suddenly realized just how close they were sitting. They'd moved towards each other as he talked, as though they could soothe the pain away with body heat alone.
He leaned closer. His lips were so close to hers she could feel the heat coming from them, the barest hint of silky skin against her own. "Jondy," he whispered, the words brushing against her lips so that she shivered and closed her eyes. His body tensed to move even closer and suddenly a high annoying ring filled the quiet of the apartment. They flew apart, eyes wide and searching the room before they both looked down at Alec's pocket.
"You're ringing," she told him softly.
"Yeah. I see that." He looked at her for a long moment before he answered it. "Yeah, what can I do you for?"