AN: Okay, I couldn't help myself. I had to post something of this story on here! Even though I'm not done with Anything For You Doll, I just had to post this. I've had a real big creative spurt this past weekend. Hopefully I can keep up with the two stories evenly. Anyways. I have 4 chapters of this story already written but I'm not going to post the rest of the chapters until I get good feedback on each. So I guess I'll let this story sit here for about a week. Then update... so on, and so on.
Summary: Twenty years is a long time to stay gone...
I know most people don't enjoy stories too far in the future about the gang's kids, but I have a feeling that this one might be an exception. Just give it a chance. I have a feeling you guys will enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. This isn't just a story about Jackie and Hyde finding each other again. Its also about a very important person who indirectly was affected by them losing each other.
Read and Review!
Prologue: So Lost
Cryptopsy's "Faceless Unknown" blasted through his stereo speakers. The pounding bass drums and fast electric guitar seemed perfect for tonight. He would be feeling the jet lag right now if it wasn't for disappointment eating away at his gut. No, tonight wasn't the night to catch up on sleep from the flight from Vegas… tonight was the night to change.
Zach Hyde pulled his pocket knife out of his jeans while he scrounged around for the trash bag he hid underneath his bed earlier that day. He carefully cut the plastic open and laid it out on his floor, just below the only mirror in his room. If he was going to do this right, he had to make the least amount of mess as possible.
Why did I ever insist on seeing her? He silently questioned to himself with a long, drawn out sigh. He hated to admit it but his dad was right all along, and he really hated it when his dad was right. That was just another thing to add to the laundry list of things he and his father had in common, always wanting to be right and too stubborn to believe otherwise. But maybe things like that would change for good after what he was about to do.
Zach walked to his desk and pulled a pair of scissors from the top drawer. He set them on his night stand, preparing his instruments neatly. He turned the volume up on the stereo just a little louder to make sure his dad didn't hear a thing. Used to, when he first started listening to death metal, his dad would come into his room and lecture him about when he was a teenager and rock music was actually good. Now he would let Zach listen to his music as loud as he wanted just as long it didn't drown his own out.
Zach stood on the lain out trash bag and stripped down to his boxers. He looked at himself in the mirror erected before him and studied his reflection. Long, light brown, curly hair sat on top of a scowled face with defining features, some that looked just like his dad's, others that were different he now could tell came from her.
So long he had wondered who his second part really was. He never expected her to be a poor, drunken whore, no matter how many of the closest people in his life told him differently. He really had to see for himself. His Aunt Donna was kind enough to accompany him since his dad refused to see Zach's mother ever again. "She abandoned both you and me, Zach." He had said.
She was such a wreck. Her face told a story of a hard life, but the lack of clothes on her body and her passed out client in the room allowed for no sympathy. She was very surprised that he came to see her, wanted to find her, and wanted to speak with her. However that surprised voice didn't hide her urgency for him to leave just as fast as he arrived. What kind of woman didn't contain an ounce of love for her son?
According to Aunt Donna, his father's mom didn't either, and that's really why she thought his father resented his mother so much. She left her son just like his mother left him, and he never wanted his kids to ever feel that kind of pain. It made Zach feel a little more connected to his father, but that connection had been there for a very long time. He was looking for a connection to someone else… to find his the other half of his identity.
As the memories flooded his mind, he just wanted to forget the journey of finding his mother. With a new strength he picked up the scissors and started cutting away.
Locks of hair feel all around him. When he was done his hair was a patchy mess and needed some trimming up. He picked up the electric clippers from the nightstand and removed the guard. The buzzing of metal dancing against metal seemed to flow perfectly with the strumming electric notes in the background. He pushed the blades as close to his scalp as possible and ran the vibrating machine clear across the top of his head, rubbing his head with his hand in its wake. Stroke by stroke, what remained of the family fro as his dad loved to call it with a hint of pride in his voice, slowly disappeared with only a short military style of stubble remaining.
Once he was finished, Zach stared back at his reflection. He looked so different and felt so different. He wasn't even recognizable to himself, but he took that as a good thing. The purpose of his trip to Vegas was to find himself and figure something out about his past that no one liked to talk about. Instead it caused him to be even more lost than before. No longer did he want to have anything to do with that whore that he would only refer to as Sam with just as much malice in his voice as his dad did.
And for reasons unknown to him, he couldn't help but feel anger toward his dad. Granted his dad did try to warn him, but maybe if the jerk would actually talk about his past more often it would make him less curious. All he said was to trust him. Trust him? You don't trust a man with so many secrets.
Zach's ice blue eyes starred back into one another, but he didn't find in them what he hoped he would. How could someone be so lost at just seventeen?
She rolled over to check on her husband with deadness in her drooping eyes. The clock read 4:07 AM and the last time she checked the empty space next to her it was 2:00Am. It looked like it would be another lonely night for Jackie Beulah Krueger. The family photo next to the alarm clock hauntingly starred back at her, reminding her that those empty smiles were not just a temporary thing. She had lived the worst part of the last 10 years of her life just like this, each day stabbing her heart away more and more.
Twenty years ago, in 1981, she left the only place she could truly call home in search for her heart again. She landed face first in the arms of a soon to be attorney with a wedding ring on her finger faster than it took to find him. It was so tempting, so comforting, and so free of emotion that she fell right into her life long trap. The first few years were wonderful; shopping for her dream house, raising her precious son, and the thought of her husband cheating was something only in her worst nightmares. Now she was living in her nightmare, her son completely ignored her, and her dream house was missing the one thing that made it a dream: a family.
She left Point Place, Wisconsin to dilute herself. She was too emotional of a person to watch the love of her life destroy his life and deny every emotion he had inside, watch her only best friend drift farther and farther away, jump from one guy to the next just to feel pretty again, and fail at her dream of being a tv star. Leaving was the only option at that point and for the longest time she didn't regret the decision whatsoever. But now, in the suffocating darkness of her master bedroom in her huge house, that girl inside that she had beat down a long time ago was raging to get out. That girl hated this life, hated all of the fake happiness that consumed every part of her waking day. That girl knew that it was all just a façade, the same front her family had put up and made her secretly despise all the riches in the world. That girl realized all of this long ago where her life began in a dirty basement with the people she would love the most in this entire world.
Maybe it was that this was the millionth time (or at least it felt that way) that she had spent her sleepless nights thinking these same thoughts and feeling these same emotions, but Jackie felt her lifeless body being carried to the closet of her bedroom. Her robotic hands packed as much clothes as she thought she would need and grabbed for her bathroom essentials. Her throbbing heart took over her brain and caused her to change out of her pajamas and put on some casual clothes. As she walked through her overbearing and towering house, she didn't need the pain anymore to will herself to run again. This time she was running back to the only place she knew true happiness; she was running home.