Written in 67 minutes. Wanted to get the ending right.

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Thursday, October 25, 2000

Jake’s: Bar

He almost missed her, sitting by herself at a table near the back of the bar, just before claustrophobic hallway leading to the two bathrooms, both of which were single stalls and had seen better decades. If not for the wait behind the bar while Jake handleda few customers who’d arrived just in front of him, he might have grabbed his beer and gone upstairs.

But he did have to wait, and stood at the bar, scanning the room more out of habit than any interest at what he might see. He wasn’t in the mood to be around people — which Jake’s was filled with this close to the weekend and after the second shift had finished at the warehouses that lined the docks.

And he saw her — sitting at the smallest table Jake’s had to offer, with a half-eaten order of fries pushed aside, and a half-drunk glass of what looked like soda, her arms folded on the table, leaning forward, looking at something he couldn’t see.

Different from the first time he’d met her at Jake’s — had it only been last year? She’d walked in the bar, and he’d seen her immediately of course, though it had taken a second look to recognize her as Emily’s best friend. His only interactions with her had been brief and she’d made so little eye contact, he couldn’t have said what color her eyes were.

That first night, she’d walked into Jake’s, looking for something, her restless energy radiating even as she went to the bar and ordered. Once Jason had noticed her, realized she was Emily’s friend, he’d watched her — he wouldn’t have cared if she’d been served alcohol, but he wouldn’t have let her drive home. He’d told himself just to keep an eye out on her, but he wasn’t going to ruin her night be drawing attention to himself. He’d linger over the game of pool or order another beer until she’d left.

He’d had no choice but to step in, but now, standing in nearly the same place over a year later, Jason let himself do something he rarely did — what would have happened if she’d never come that night or that asshole hadn’t tried to pick her up —

Would he have died that night in December?

He let the question unanswered in his head — after all, it wasn’t really useful to ask those kinds of questions. What was the point? Things happened the way they happened, and looking back — having regrets — it meant staying frozen in place. Never moving forward. You couldn’t change it, so why bother?

Jason took the beer Jake handed him, then wound through the light crowd towards her table. Any doubt that she’d come there to see him disappeared when she turned, and saw him. A smile spread across her features, a nervous one — one corner higher than the other.

“Hey.” He joined at her at the table, pulling out the chair that would put himself between her and the rest of the bar, but angled slightly so that he could still see someone coming towards them. “What’s up? Were you waiting long?” He frowned, tugged his cell phone from his pocket. “I didn’t miss a message, did I? Did something happen?”

“N-No.” Elizabeth pressed her lips together, then shook her head. “No,” she repeated. “But that being your first question kind of makes me feel like I was right to come here. The other night, when you met me in the parking lot, you said that you used to go to Kelly’s. That’s usually how we saw each other. Kelly’s. Or the docks. By accident.” She cleared her throat, dropped her gaze to the plate, then picked up a fry, swirling it in ketchup but never lifting it to her mouth. “Emily said something similar today. About how we had to actually plan to see each other because I don’t work at Kelly’s, and she’s in college. We…our paths don’t cross, you know? So, like, if we’re friends, we have to work at it.” She winced slightly. “It made more sense in my head. Because maybe it’s weird for me to hang out in a bar waiting for you. I should have called—”

“No.” He lifted his hand, palm up, to halt her anxious ramble, not wanting her to talk herself out of whatever she was trying to do. “I get…I get it. We’re friends,” he echoed.

Elizabeth’s lips twitched again and she dropped the fry, picked up her drink. “Plus, in two weeks, I’ll actually be legal to be here, so it won’t be as weird. Anyway. I had lunch with Emily today, and it just really got me thinking — she spent half of it trying to make me feel better. About Lucky, about this birth certificate thing—it’s not important,” she added when he frowned. “I mean, it is, but it’s not the point. You came to see me on Tuesday because you were worried about me. After Luke’s. And I didn’t really…I didn’t do the same for you. Even though I know you were angry that night.”

“You don’t have to—”

“No, I don’t have to,” she interrupted, and he stopped, looked at her. “But a friend would. And I know…I know I do okay in that department. Most of the time. At least where Emily is concerned. It’s just…” Elizabeth paused, squinting slightly. “I usually do better at checking in with my friends,” she continued. “But I’m not that great at with you. And I think it’s your fault.”

Jason lifted his brow. “My fault?”

“That—sounded hostile. And it’s not meant to be. Fault suggests you’re wrong, I guess, and you’re not wrong. You just…” She stopped again, shifted in her chair. “You talked to me. In the beginning,” she added when he tilted his head, a little confused. “About Michael, mostly. But your accident, too. I felt like…we were friends. I’d vent to you, and you’d talk to me. But we…we stopped doing that. And at some point, it was just me. You…started to get really…” Elizabeth bit down on her bottom lip. “I don’t know. Squirrelly.”

“Squirrely,” he repeated. “I—What?”

“Last year. When you got hurt, and I wanted to help you. You…you never told me what happened. I figured it out,” she added when he sighed, looked away. “I’m not an idiot. But you didn’t talk about it. You don’t talk about it. Unless I…I guess, I force you. Or guilt you. Like I did that night after you and Lucky got into it here, and you told me you were looking for a fight, and I had to practically throw a tantrum to get you to tell me why.” She sighed. “And that sounds like I think I’m entitled to know what’s going on in your head, and I don’t want it to sound that way. You get to not talk to me. Or anyone. This isn’t coming out right—”

“No, I follow it.” And it wasn’t the first time he’d heard the criticism. “I just don’t know what you want me to do about it.”

“Nothing, I guess. Because if I have to force stuff out of you, then we’re not really friends. And if I were like that, you’d start to avoid me. And I don’t want that,” she added. “I guess — Emily reminded me today that it’s really easy to be lazy with your friends. Especially the ones that matter. Because you and Emily — you’re the best friends I’ve ever had. I know that I can tell you anything, and that if I’m in trouble, you’ll both be there. I don’t take that for granted. I don’t take either of you for granted.” She bit her lip again, then continued. “So I guess I showed up here tonight because you waited for me on Tuesday, and I wanted to do the same, I think. To make sure you know how much I appreciate you. That it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about things or whatever, but that I’m here. For what it’s worth.”

He didn’t speak right away. Couldn’t. He dropped his gaze to the green bottle in his hands. He rolled it one way, then back the other. He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t the same — that it wasn’t a problem to hang out in a parking lot for ten minutes so he could talk to her. She was giving it weight that it just didn’t have or that he hadn’t meant to put there—

But maybe that was the point she was trying to make. It didn’t have any weight. And it shouldn’t have been that important. But it had been to her.

When he finally looked up, met her eyes again, Jason still couldn’t find the words to respond. To articulate what her gesture meant to him. It didn’t seem like much — she’d sat in a  bar and had some fries. But it wasn’t something that anyone did for him. “You’re right,” he said finally, and she frowned, tipped her head, her brows arched in question.

“Last year. I didn’t tell you,” he said. “Talking about Michael…that was hard,” he admitted. “But I could do it. Because you…could understand that. And I understood it,” he added. “But what happened—” He shook his head, took a long pull from the bottle, feeling the slight burn of alcohol as it moved down his throat. “I couldn’t. You…” He hadn’t wanted to even mention Carly’s name in front of her. How could he say that without sounding stupid? Everyone knew his history with Carly, didn’t they? Emily’s best friend would. “I was embarrassed,” he said finally, finally naming the swirl of heat and twinge in his gut, the mixture rolling through him again.

He knew she wouldn’t laugh at him, or even make a joke, but still the warmth in her eyes surprised him. “Because I can only imagine people had…God I hate this word,” she muttered. “But I guess people had warned you,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “About Carly. And Sonny.”

“Yes,” Jason said finally. “For years,” he continued. Robin. Brenda. Every single member of the Quartermaines. “I don’t believe in mistakes. Or regrets.” he continued. “You…you do what you think is right with what you know, and you live with the consequences. You learn from them, you don’t make them again.” He’d watched Carly and Sonny destroy the people around them over and over again, and had somehow felt outside of it, as if it would never happen to him. The arrogance to think that he, alone, was exempt from their brand of selfishness. Or that the people they’d hurt had somehow been stupid or deserving of the pain that had been inflicted. “So I didn’t say it. Or talk about it.” He looked at her again. “And I don’t really want to do it now.”

“So we won’t. I didn’t want to force you,” Elizabeth repeated. “Or make you feel guilty. You always made me feel safe enough to say whatever I was thinking, and I guess I…I just want to do the same thing. I don’t know how to do it obviously,” she said with a sigh. “But you know, I’ll keep trying.”

“You’re doing fine,” Jason told her, and was rewarded with a smile.

“Thanks. I won’t bring any of that up again,” she told him. “I just want to say…that I know what it’s like to put someone up on—what’s the saying? On a pedestal, you know? Like — they can’t do any wrong. I did that, with Lucky. I watched him cut out his parents, and be cruel to his mother. I watched him hurt Emily and Nikolas—and I even knew how he’d treated me before. I knew what he was capable of,” Elizabeth said, “but when he did it to me — it still felt like—like someone had dumped cold water on me. Frozen to the bone. I thought he loved me. That I was safe,” she said. “And I wasn’t. It’s…” She ran finger along the edge of her glass. “It’s not easy to accept that I was wrong. That I wasn’t special, that our love wasn’t this eternal, perfect thing that could protect me forever. I was just like everyone else in his life.”

Her eyes filled, and she looked away. Jason’s throat was tight. He straightened, opened his mouth to say something, but she looked back, forced herself to smile. “It would be easy to blame myself, and maybe I can. I should. But you’re right. There’s no point in having regrets. It was a lesson I needed to learn, and I can only hope I’ve learned it, you know? That I won’t put myself in a position for him to hurt me again.”

“Yeah.” Jason released a low, slow breath, one that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. He met her eyes. “You trusted him. More than anyone else,” he said. “You thought he understood who you were. But he didn’t. He never did. He just saw what he wanted to. Someone he could control.” He cleared his throat. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean.” She smiled again, a more genuine one. “I took the bus because my grandmother needed the car. Maybe I could get a ride home.”