A string that pulled me
Out of all the wrong arms right into that dive bar
Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire
Chains around my demons, wool to brave the seasons
One single thread of gold tied me to you

---

August 2000

By the time Elizabeth pulled into the parking lot at Jake’s, switched off the ignition, and reached for her purse, the worst of her frustration and anger had burned off, leaving only the vague sensation that it wasn’t supposed to be this hard. The conviction that somewhere she’d taken a wrong turn and she couldn’t get back again.

She let her head fall back against the headrest, closing her eyes, wondering if maybe she should just go to the studio, lock the door, lay down on the studio—

A sharp knock on the window jerked her out of her thoughts and she looked out the window to see Jason. He had one arm braced along the top of the door, and was leaning over to peer into the car. Jason. Her port in the storm who had returned when she’d needed him the most. It was like he’d known somehow that she was drifting at sea and needed something—someone—to guide her back to safety.

Elizabeth removed her key from the ignition, dropped it in her purse, then reached for the door handle. Jason stepped back as she climbed out of the car, sliding his hands into the pockets of his blue jeans.

“You always sit in the parking lot of bars?” he asked, tipping his head, his expression amused.

“Only when I can’t decide if I have the energy to go in.” She flicked her eyes towards the building. Lights and sounds pulsed out every time the door to the bar opened. It would be packed inside. Loud and impossible to get your orders. You could get lost in there, she thought.

She wanted to get lost. To disappear.

Elizabeth leaned against her car, made a face. “You should go in. Don’t let me interrupt—um, whatever you were doing.” Maybe he’d come outside for some fresh air. Maybe he was meeting someone. Maybe there was someone inside—

“I was just going in, but I think I’d rather stay out here.” Jason surprised her by leaning against the car as well, his arms brushing against her. “You okay?”

“Yes. No. Yes.” She sighed. “What does it even mean to be okay? Like, can someone give me a definition? Sure. I’m fine. But I’m not. And somehow both are true, and neither are, and now you’re looking at me like I’m insane—”

Jason didn’t respond right away — that was his gift, she knew. He listened, and the comfort, the certainty that he wasn’t just pretending — that he absorbed every word she spoke gave her the courage to keep speaking, and inevitably she’d come to her own realizations.

She’d missed that.

“You know the definition of insanity right? When you do the same thing over and over and over again, expecting different results?”

“I’m familiar with it.”

“I think I’ve crossed into insanity. It’s the only explanation. A year. I threw away an entire year drowning in grief for someone who wasn’t even dead. Lucky comes home, and is he happy to see me? No. No, he tells me to move on, that he’s not in love with me anymore. Fine. Whatever. It was a year, wasn’t it? It’s not like I was the same girl who’d stood there watching the garage collapse in on itself, waiting for Taggert to give me any hope—” She squeezed her eyes closed, took a deep breath. “I could live with it if Lucky came home and told me it was over. It would hurt, but I already know how to live without him. I had to learn that.”

Absently she rubbed her arm, exhaled a long a shaky breath. “But he doesn’t do that. He tells me he doesn’t love me, then he looks at me like it used to be, and I think maybe he’s changing his mind, but then he doesn’t. And he tells me to be with Nikolas. I don’t want Nikolas, and everyone keeps saying just hang in there, you know? Just give him time. And I listen. I listen because it’s Lucky. And I got a miracle. It’s a miracle that he’s alive.” She bit her lip. “You’re not supposed to reject a miracle.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

It was Jason, so she knew it was safe to be honest. To speak the words she’d only thought deep down, at night, when she’d cried for the thousandth time. “They want me to give him time. But sometimes I think I’ve already given enough. A year to grieve. And, what, four months for him to adjust, to think about what he wants. Shouldn’t I just listen to what he’s saying? He’s telling me to give up. And today? Today I want to.”

“But you’re worried about tomorrow.”

“No. Yes. No,” she said, but it sounded more firm. “No. I’m not worried about me tomorrow. I think I could be done. I just—” She looked down at the parking lot — the broken concrete and gravel that needed to be redone. It was littered with broken glass and other trash. She absently kicked at the bottom of a beer bottle. “I just wish he’d stop changing his mind. Or looking at me. You know? It makes it harder. And it feels…cruel.” Her voice broke. “It’s cruel for him to do that, to take me back to who I used to be, to make me think for a moment that we’re back there. And then just when I almost believe him, he snaps me back. And he shoves me so hard back into reality I almost can’t breathe.” Tears burned, clinging to her lashes. “And I don’t know how to be around all these people who just want me to give more. They keep asking for it. Time. Energy. Pieces of me. And if I don’t do it—” She stopped.

“What? What happens if you don’t give it?” he asked gently. She lifted her gaze to his, their eyes meeting, holding.

“I go back to being Lizzie Webber, the girl no one wanted. The Webber sister they tolerate. Do you know what it feels like to be tolerated? To know your entire existence is just an irritation and a burden?”

“You’re not a burden.” Jason shifted, his shoulder leaning against the passenger door, his voice low. “Elizabeth. You know that’s not true.”

She swiped at her cheeks. He didn’t get it, and it killed her to realize that. How could he? He’d never known her before that night at Jake’s. How could he understand what it felt like to know you were on the verge of losing your identity, that it was tied to this one person and now he was home, so—  “Right. Right. You’re right. I’m just feeling sorry for myself.” She straightened, forced a smile. “I think I’ll head home. I’m not really up—”

His brow creased, and he scowled. “Don’t do that. Don’t give me that fake smile and pretend you’re okay when you’re not. You don’t have to do that with me.”

“I’m not.” When he just looked at her, she exhaled in an irritated huff. “Well, then don’t say things like that, okay? If I knew it wasn’t true, I wouldn’t feel this way. The people in my life? They’re there because of Lucky. All of them. And you had a front row seat last Christmas at how people treat me when he’s not around. Look at what Nikolas did—and Emily—she was so pissed at me for not telling her about you.” Elizabeth shook her head, looked away. “And Luke and Laura? Barely looked at me. Bobbie. Bobbie, I think I could still count on. But Carly would just accuse me of trying to steal her mother like she accuses me of stealing everything else in her life,” she muttered.

“Carly thinks people only have a finite amount of attention to give,” Jason said, almost dryly. “Every ounce Bobbie or Sonny or me,” he added with a wince, “give anyone else is an ounce that doesn’t go to her.”

“You’re not kidding.” Elizabeth sighed. “Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m starting to resent them. For telling me to wait. To put my entire life on hold because Lucky might change his mind. It makes me feel like I don’t matter. Or like I’m selfish. I mean, Lucky was kidnapped for a whole year. That’s gotta take priority over everything else, right?”

“Why? He’s home. It’s safe. It’s over.” Jason shrugged. “If he doesn’t want to be with you, then you should take him at his word. He’s telling you what he wants. Why shouldn’t you believe him?”

She smiled faintly. “It sounds so simple when you say it like that. And it should be that simple.”

“And maybe things will be hard with Nikolas for a while. I’m not sure you’re losing anything of value,” he continued, and her smile broadened. No love lost there. “But Emily will come around. Especially if you tell her like you told me. And you know you have me.”

“Do I?” Elizabeth arched a brow. “You didn’t exactly keep in touch when you were gone.” When he just looked at her, she looked away, her cheeks heating. “Not that you needed to. I mean, I didn’t expect to—”

“I thought it was better for both of us if I made the break clean,” he said softly, and she looked back, startled. “I went, in part, to keep you safe. Sorel knew you mattered. And well—” he winced, looked out towards the edge of the parking lot, squinting. “I don’t know. I think maybe it would have been harder if I’d called or written.”

“Harder to do what?” she asked softly.

“To forget,” Jason admitted. “Leaving was easy. Forgetting why I had to go, why I had to stay gone? Almost impossible.”

Her pulse picked up, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat. “But you came back.”

“Yeah.”

“But you’re not staying.”

“I—” Jason hesitated. “No,” he said finally, and all the air rushed out.  “I can’t. I come back now, and I go back to the way things were. I don’t want that.”

“I get it. You fall into old patterns, old habits. That’s all I’m doing with Lucky. I can tell you tonight that I’m done. That I don’t want to keep waiting and hoping, but tomorrow, I’ll have to actually live it, and I don’t know.” She winkled her nose. “Maybe you’ve got the right idea. Just pick up and go until you’re strong enough to stand up and stop making the same mistakes.”

“So why don’t you do that?” Jason asked. “Pick up and go?” he clarified when she frowned at him. “Your art. You could do that anywhere.”

“I could. If I afford it. I should have gone to art school,” Elizabeth said, almost wistfully. “I got in, you know. But I threw the letter away. I couldn’t think of going to New York without Lucky. That was supposed to be our dream.” She closed her eyes. “But I’d go to Europe. Paris. Or maybe Provence. Van Gogh painted there. And Italy. They say the light in Italy is like no other place in the world.”

“Then let’s go.”

“What?” Her lips parted and Elizabeth straightened, afraid to look away from him. Her pulse skittered as reality crashed down again, and she slumped against the car. “What do you mean, let’s go?”

“Europe.”

“I can’t just…go to Europe. I—I don’t have a passport. Or money.” When he just lifted his brows, she made a face. “And I’m not letting you pay for it.” And what did he even mean saying let’s go like that—did he mean with him? What would that even look like? “You…you should go though, um, and you can tell me about it the next time you’re home.”

“Or,” Jason said. “You could go. With me.”

“With…you.” Elizabeth hesitated. “I don’t—what does that mean?”

“We’re friends, right?” he asked, dipping his head a bit, lowering his voice. “Friends can travel together.”

“Sure, I mean, yes, they can. But—” Not if one of them was Jason and one of them was Elizabeth, and now that the image was in her head, she thought of sharing hotel rooms and trains and cars and maybe a gondola in Venice— She cleared her throat. “I can’t afford it. And I wouldn’t feel right letting you…I mean, it’d be taking advantage of you. You having money it’s not why we’re friends.”

He looked like he wanted to argue the point again, but she continued.  “But it’s nice of you—I mean, thank you. Europe, right now it’s just a dream. But you know, just for a minute, I was tempted, that says everything doesn’t it?”

“What does it say?”

“I don’t want to wait for my life to begin anymore. I want to…I want to see the world. Somehow. But first—Emily—” She flicked her eyes at him. “Emily still needs me. And you know what? The only reason we didn’t tell you the second you came home was because Lucky didn’t want us to. But I don’t care what he says anymore.”

Jason winced. “This isn’t like the the time she was being blackmailed, was it? Because she promised me she’d come to me if—oh, it’s worse. I can—” He gestured at her expression. “You have a terrible poker face.” He took a deep breath. “Okay. Tell me what happened so I can fix it, and then we’ll talk about Europe.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “What?”

“You didn’t think I was giving up, did you?” His lips curved in a half smile, and there was a glint in his eyes she almost couldn’t believe was aimed at her.

Elizabeth bit her lip, looked away, but smiled, because oh, man, she wanted to say yes. And maybe…well, it wasn’t like he’d able to able to fix Emily’s problem in one day. “Let’s just focus on Emily. And we might need to go, uh, go somewhere people can’t hear us.” She glanced around the parking lot.

“How many laws did you break?”

“Me?” Elizabeth flattened her hand against her chest, opened her eyes wide. “None. Personally. But I might be an accessory after the fact. Or an accomplice. You’d know better than me.”

“Accomplice,” Jason repeated. He took her elbow, gestured towards the bar. “Okay, let’s go upstairs to my room and you can tell me exactly how much trouble you’re in.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, letting him steer her towards the front door. “You act like we plan these things. I promise you, Emily did not intend to wake up next to—” She paused. “And we didn’t want to need a freezer that big, but you know, sometimes things just happen.”

Jason held the door open for her. “A freezer?” he echoed. “Yeah, start from the top. And don’t leave anything out.”

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