Written in 59 minutes.

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Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Vista Point: Parking Lot

“I don’t—” Jason stopped, cleared his throat. “I never hated you for any of that—”

“Well, then you’re a better person than me.” Elizabeth leaned her head back against the seat, closed her eyes, rain still dripping from her hair, sliding down past her ears to the collar of her shirt. “Because I hated you for Courtney. For Sam. Not for long, but I won’t pretend I wasn’t jealous or that I didn’t wish you were a little unhappy because of it.” She sighed, a little unsteadily. “But I let it go. I moved past it. Yes, it hurt when you and Sam got back together, when you—” She pressed her lips together. “I wondered what was wrong with me—”

“Nothing—” Jason interrupted immediately and she smiled, looked at him, saw the worry in his eyes. She reached out, touched his cheek.

“I believe that now. I think we both made mistakes and made choices that hurt each other. Unthinkable choices, maybe, but they made sense when we made them, didn’t they? You try to stop, to explain them—” She furrowed her brow, looked out the windshield, letting her hand fall back to her lap. “And it’s like watching a horror movie, screaming at the stupid girl — don’t run up the steps, don’t look back, don’t open that door — but God, in the moment, she’s so afraid — she can’t think. She can’t do anything but feel and react to what’s in front of her.”  She looked at him again. “You don’t watch movies, but think about Carly making all her mistakes, doing everything you told her not to — and understanding that for her, it was the only way she knew how to live. And you accept that about her. You forgive her. You forgave me. Let me forgive you, Jason. Or this never works.”

“I—” Jason hesitated. There was an internal logic that appealed to him — because of course, he’d forgiven Carly so many sins over the years, hadn’t he? “I want to, but—I don’t know.”

“I stopped hating myself for Zander when Cameron was born, you know? I will always regret hurting you, and doubting that we were moving towards something, but if I don’t have that night with him then, then he and I don’t have a history where we create that perfect little boy. Imagine my life without Cameron —” Her smile came back again. “I forgave myself for lying to you about Jake after he came home. Because Lucky doesn’t bring him back if he doesn’t have some sense of paternal responsibility towards him.  I know there are problems with that logic — he never gets kidnapped if Helena doesn’t think Jake is a Spencer, and maybe — maybe Cameron’s your son if we don’t screw things up—”

“But I get it,” Jason said, and she looked at him. “I get it. If I don’t forgive Sam, there’s no Danny. Maybe you and I could have made it work, and we’d have more kids —”

“But they’d never be the boys we have now, would they? Imagine our lives without them? I don’t want to. So I have to forgive myself, Jason. And I have to forgive you. Because all those choices brought us here, didn’t they? You told me once that you didn’t believe in regrets. That you lived with the choices that you made and moved forward.” She reached for his hand, held it between both of hers. “You let yourself forget that, I think, when the choices piled up, and you didn’t like where you were. Let me forgive you,” she repeated, “and then forgive yourself. You did the best you could at the time, and second-guessing choices you made a life time ago is only going to make you—and me—unhappy. You don’t understand why I could love you then, but I did. And I love you now. For the man you are, the man you were, and the one you’re still trying to be. I love all those pieces of you, Jason.”

He looked at his hand, at her fingers curled around his palm, her skin as soft as ever but showing some light signs of age—just the faintest of wrinkles around her knuckles. The only evidence really that she’d changed from the girl he’d met in a bar all those years ago. “I am never going to stop regretting that we’d had more time,” he told her finally, lifting his gaze to hers. “Or wishing I spent more time with Jake and Danny. There are some regrets I can’t let go of. But you’re right. If we keep going around in circles, if I keep doubting that you could really love me, then I’m only going to have more of them. I came home and I knew that I wasn’t going back to the life I’d had before. That I’d left my sons for the last time, and that I’d spent the rest of my life making up for it if they’d let me.”

He brought one of her hands to his mouth, kissed her knuckles, then found the words to continue. “I came home,” he repeated, “and I didn’t know there’d be another chance for us. I thought I’d let go of that a long time ago. That I was okay with just being friends and parents. But you looked at me that first day, and I don’t know. I just remembered the way I felt with you when we first met, when I would run into you on the docks, and it was always the best part of my day. I started going to Kelly’s more just so I could see you,” he confessed, and Elizabeth bit her lip, trying to hide a smile. “I felt safe with you. Then. And now. Even before you dragged me out of the snow and forced me to keep living. I thought the best way to love you, to love our son, was to be away from you. To stop the world I’d chosen from touching you. I wanted to keep you smiling, and I didn’t think I could do that. I thought that it was enough for me that you were in the world, alive and safe. But it’s not.”

He shook his head. “It’s not. The last few weeks — living with you, actually getting to have that dream we’d only talked about, it’s everything. Tonight, I remembered all the reasons I didn’t think you could love me forever, and I almost let it ruin it. I want to promise that I won’t let it happen again, but I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. But I promise that I will love you for the rest of our lives, if you’ll let me.”

“We’re okay,” she murmured. She leaned forward, brushed her mouth against his,  and he held her close, deepening the embrace. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Webber House: Danny’s Room

Jake twisted the paperclip into the lock, then released a breath of relief when he heard the tumbler in the lock click and the knob twisted easily. Never fails, he thought, opening the door to find his brother stretched out on the bed.

“Go away,” Danny said dully, but didn’t stop staring at the ceiling or move an inch.

Jake slid the paperclip in his pocket, then went to lay next to Danny, folding his hands beneath his head and staring up at the same ceiling. “I’ll say my piece, and then if you want me to go, I’ll give you the paperclip and tell you how to block it next time.”

“Fine. Get it over with.”

“I was pissed at you,” Jake said. “For making today about you. For making what my mother’s going through about you.” His stomach rolled. “I’m still sort of ticked off about it, but I’ve calmed down.”

“Great. Go away.”

“I used to be jealous of you because you got to live with Dad every day for a while when he and your mom were together. That you got to have that, even for a few months. I hated him and you for it.” Jake hesitated. “You and I had different relationships with Dad, and then he was gone. And we were finally in the same place. I felt guilty. I thought maybe it was my fault somehow, because I’d wanted you to have less time with him.”

“That’s stupid.”

Jake decided to take it as a sign of encouragement that he didn’t get told to get out again. “Yeah, well, I was your age at the time, and you know how dumb you are. Anyway. We got him back, and I hated you again for not hating him for leaving us—”

“Is there a point to this or are you just gonna keep telling me how much you  hate me?”

“I was jealous of how much time you got to be with Dad, and I thought it was because he loved you more,” Jake admitted, feeling his muscles tense from the confession. He felt the bed shift as Danny sat up.

“That’s stupid,” Danny repeated. “Dad doesn’t love me more. He hates my mom, he probably wishes I’d never been born. It’s so obvious, dickhead. He loves your mom, and you’re the one he wanted—”

“If Dad didn’t want you, you wouldn’t be here right now,” Jake said, sitting up. “Do you think taking on a custody battle while my mom is being accused of murdering an FBI agent is something he wants to do?”

“No—”

“Anyway. My point to all this was Dad’s screwed up with both of us, and we’ve both had reasons to be disappointed in him, so we’ve got that going for us. But I don’t think Dad did any of this to hurt us. You know? Leaving the way he did. He’s an idiot for that, but I think he thought we’d be okay without him. And my mom — she’s been an idiot, too. About a lot of things. Dating stupid men, making dumbass decisions to help my uncle Nikolas — but nothing she’s ever done was to hurt me. So when I get mad at you for how you acted to day, I forgot what we were talking about. What your mom did.”

Danny’s eyes glittered and he looked away. “So what?”

“It sucks that she went after my mom like this, and that she used you to do it. I’m sorry. I’ve never liked her for a lot of reasons, but screwing with you like this — it sucks. You don’t have to talk about it, because she’s still your mom, so I know it’s weird and complicated. But I just—I don’t know. I wanted you to know you’re not alone. That even if you pissed me off today, you’re my brother, and I love you.”

Danny exhaled slowly, then looked at his brother. “I love my mother,” he said slowly. “But I think I hate her, too. Is this how you felt with Dad last summer?”

“Yeah. A little, I guess.”

Danny scrubbed his hands through his hair. “But you’re right to be pissed about me making this about me. I want to fix it. I want to help make sure my mom can’t get what she wants — that I’m not the reason your mom’s bail gets revoked. I just don’t know what to do.”

“And that’s why I’m here. Come on. Let’s go talk to Cam. We’ve got some ideas.”

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