~O~

 

At the front of the line, Jack spread his legs with his hands clamped behind his head as the bouncer patted him down. Jen and Pacey had already been frisked and waited just inside the door under a black light.

Jen smiled at Pacey, glowing in his white wife beater. He raised his eyebrow at her and she looked away.

They stamped his hand and allowed Jack passage, and the three of them continued down the hallway to enter the Rave.

 

The music was so loud.

 

They could feel it in their chests.

 

Jen lead them through the crowd to the slushy bar, which sat half a level up higher than the dance floor. Across the room was the stage where some of the best DJ’s in the world spun trance, jungle, and trip hop in a dizzying cycle.

It was dark and hot, and the lights, lasers, and disco ball added to the delirium effect.

 

“So what do you think so far!” Jen shouted at them as she paid the guy at the counter $5.00 for a small cup of fruit punch flavored ice mixed with Ginseng and some other power herbs.

“I think you just paid too much for that slushy!” Pacey yelled back.

“You’ll be paying too much for one too!” She smiled as she took a big sip. She handed it to Pacey, who also took a sip, then handed it out to Jack. Jack wasn’t paying attention.

Jack stared at the dance floor with a grin the size of Florida plastered across his face. He looked in awe; like a kid taking his first trip to Disney World. The neon lights, the glow sticks that zigzagged through the air, the bumping music…bodies, bodies, bodies…he’d never seen anything like it.

“Let’s go!” He shouted reaching out for Jen’s hand.

“No…” She said, shaking her head. “I’m just going to sit here for a while! You guys go! Have fun! Do your thing!”

“Are you sure?”
Jen nodded her head yes.
”Aw! Lindley! Come on!” Pacey begged.

“Nah, Pace…” Jen said, looking around at her old element. “Go ahead, I’ll catch up to you later.”

Okay, he nodded, and then followed Jack off into the crowd.

Jen slumped down on a stool at the counter.

It’d had been a long time.

 

She leaned back against the edge of the counter, and winced. Her hand went to her back, and she found a large tender spot where a bruise had begun to form. She sighed, and turned back to her ice, and thought sadly about her mother, and how she lay passed out in an empty room in an empty house all alone with no one there to look out for her.

But it was just for one night, then Jack and Pacey would go back home, and things would go back to normal.

Jen frowned.

The “new” normal…
She didn’t want Pacey and Jack to leave…without her. She wished she could get up and go with them, and not look back. But she couldn’t leave her mother.

She just couldn’t.

 

That got her thinking all about Grams… and school…and the real family that she had so hastily left behind in Capeside. And now she was depressed, and lonely, and awkward, and she suddenly felt suffocated.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

 

So many things…

She’d overcome so many things.

 

She opened her eyes.

 

She shed her old rep…she’d become such a good girl. She stopped drinking and partying…oh what she wouldn’t do for a drink right now.

 

The air was thick with heat.

 

She swallowed the last of the slushy and looked down at her empty cup.

“Hey! Don’t you have anything stronger than this!” She screamed at the bartender.

“Sorry, no alcohol!” He screamed back over the thump of the music.

“Okay!” She said disappointedly.

 

God, her mother hit her. She beat her. She said terrible things, and she just put up with it. What was wrong with her? How could she fall into this cycle again? She was pathetic…her mom was right.

It hurt.

 

She leaned forward rubbing her temples and closing her eyes again.

THUMP THUMP THUMP

Jen felt like her chest was about to explode.

THUMP THUMP THUMP

And she couldn’t breath.

THUMP THUMP THUMP

And she opened her eyes and looked at the dance floor.

THUMP THUMP THUMP

And she was racked with anxiety. She thought she might faint.
The lights, the kids, the incestuous grove that resonated through every atom in her body…pounding, pounding, pounding…

 

Jen shoved her way through the crowd and finally reached the outside party. She burst through the door, and almost ran into another girl.

“HEY!”

“Sorry!”

Jen leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. The cool air was welcome.

 

Another DJ was spinning trip-hop, but out here in the open, the force of the music wasn’t as dense, and she was able to calm down a little bit.

A cute guy was taking out a cigarette.

“Can I have one of those!” She yelled.

“Sure!” He grinned. He was checking her out as he lit it for her, but she didn’t give a shit.

“Thanks,” She mumbled walking away. She found a large concrete planter and leaned against the edge of it sighing deeply.

It’d been three years since she left New York and headed to Capeside, and three years since she’d quit smoking at the ripe old age of fourteen. And now as Jen exhaled, feeling only slightly more relaxed than she had a few minutes before, Jen remembered why she’d started in the first place. Taking another hit, she’d remembered why she quit.

Nausea hit her like a ton of bricks.

She put it out just as Pacey caught up to her.

“What are you doing?” He asked inquisitively.

“I was trying to start again,” Jen laughed uneasily. “But I think I just quit for good!”

Jen suddenly had a terrible taste in her mouth, and she turned around and started spitting in the planter. For a second there, she thought she might throw up.

“Are you okay?” Pacey asked, stroking her back as she coughed the last part out.

“Fine,” She said bitterly, wiping her mouth. “Just peachy… Where’s Jack?” She spit one more time.

“I lost him-”

“Right here!”

Pacey gave Jack a serious look as he approached, and Jack’s grin faded. Jen was clutching her stomach and head with a disgusted look on her face.

Pacey dug into his pocket, and pulled out a five.

“Jack, would you go get Jen another slushy?”

“Sure…” Jack took the five and disappeared.

Jen took a couple of long deep breaths and sighed, letting her hand drop from her head.

“You feeling better yet?”

“A little…”

“What’s that on your face?” Pacey scowled, taking her chin in his hand and turning her head to the side.

“What?” Jen asked, alarmed.

“Jen! You’ve got scratches all over your face!”

Jen’s mouth dropped as she reached up and touched her cheek. She could feel her makeup slipping off with her sweat.

“No I don’t!” She lied.

“Yes you do!” He said, disregarding her dispute. “I didn’t notice it inside…but out here, under the parking lot lights I can see them.”

She pushed his hand away, and turned her face to hide the marks.

“Must’ve been the cat.”

“The cat?” He asked incredulously.

“Here!” Jack bound up with an orange slushy and handed it to Jen. She grabbed it, tossing the straw to the side and took a long, hard gulp.

“Thanks!” She said when she was through and handed it back to him.

He took a sip and handed it to Pacey, who also took a sip, crunching on the ice. He wiped his forehead and suddenly realized how hot he was.

A new set of trip-hop came on and Jen stood, feeling better, and more alert.

“You ready to dance now!” She yelled.

Pacey watched her, following as she and Jack launched out into the crowd.

 

~O~

 

A couple of girls kept surrounding Jack.

Smiling flirtatiously, they closed in on him seductively, and Jack smiled, obviously having a good time.

 

“Now what does he got that I don’t?” Pacey shouted over Jen’s shoulder into her ear. They were closer to the stage now and the music was bumping loud. She grinned.

“Gay guys are hot, Pacey! Get gay and get the girls!”

“It just doesn’t seem right!” Pacey exclaimed. “It’s not fair!”

“Aww! POOR BABY!” Jen laughed.

 

Pacey didn’t worry about a having a bunch of strange, dosed up, though highly attractive, girls fawning all over him. The only one he worried about was the one right in front of him, finally smiling, and dancing with her back up against him.

Jen grabbed Pacey’s hand, which had been wrapped around her waist, and pointed at Jack.

Pacey couldn’t believe his eyes:

These totally hot raver chicks were hand feeding Jack their slushy.

 

“That’s sooo not right!” Pacey sighed.

 

Jack was wearing a cheesy grin as one of them; this cute, short, little girl wearing a baby doll Tee with little knots in her hair; was offering him a handful of ice, which was dripping down her arm in the heat.

He opened his mouth and she shoved it in, letting him lick his fingers as she pulled away. Jack licked his lips and smiled as another one slipped yet another glow necklace around his neck.

 

“That is SOOOO not right!”

“That means they like him!” Jen shouted explaining the necklaces.

“That’s obvious! …WOW.”

 

After another moment of playful groping, the little girl held a pill up in front of him.

Jack looked worriedly at Jen, who shrugged indifferently as if to say ‘Go ahead’. Jack looked back to the girl, and cautiously opened his mouth, letting her pop the pill inside.

Jack swallowed.

The girl grinned happily, wrapping her arms around his neck, while another girl caressed the back of his head.

 

“Is that safe?” Pacey yelled, pressing his cheek to Jen’s ear as he looked over her shoulder at them.

“Probably!”

“Well…what’s the worst that could happen?”

“The worst that could happen?” Jen called back. Pacey nodded. “He could end up in the ER getting his stomach pumped!”

“And the second worst?”

“He could get really high, have a great time, and end up in the ER tomorrow with stomach cramps, diarrhea, and a pounding headache!”

Pacey looked shocked.

“The high is worth it!” She laughed. “And the sex would be too if he were straight!”

“Maybe we should get us some of that!”

Jen laughed again and spun around to face him.

They were very close, both grinning from ear to ear as the music racked through them. Pacey raised Jen’s wrist to his mouth and he took a bite out of her candy bracelet.

“Good, huh?” She smiled.

“Mmm, yeah!”

 

Five hours later, they were mopping Jack off the floor.

 

“Time to go!” Jen yelled as she and Pacey took one arm each and tried to lift him from his little pow-wow with his ‘friends’. Jack giggled happily; sweat rolling off his forehead and chest, his shirt tucked in his back pocket.

“Come on, man!” Pacey yelled trying to lift him to his feet. “Help us out here!”

Jack giggled again, but tried to oblige.

The party was still going strong even at three o’clock in the morning, and the girls in the lush pile; dosed up on Ecstasy, Special K, and whatever else they’d been taking; whined as the two of them dragged Jack away.

“Bye, bye!” He laughed.

“Bye, Jack!” They yelled. The short girl jumped to her feet.

“Call me?” She yelled desperately. He just smiled and waived.

 

“Good God, Jack!” Pacey said, flustered. “Didn’t you tell them you were gay???”

“I did!” He giggled. “They said they could convert me!”

“Figures,” Jen huffed as they dragged him past the bouncers and out to the street. “Let’s get a cab.” Jen yanked Jack’s shirt from his back pocket and tried to get him to put it on.

Pacey stepped to the curb and tried to hail a cab, but it passed him by.

“FUCK!”

Jen finally got Jack’s shirt up his arms and around his shoulder’s…though buttoning it up was out of the question.

Pacey attempted to hail another one.

“DOUBLE FUCK!”

 

Jen sighed, and propped Jack against the wall with one hand. She raised her other fingers to her mouth and let out a shrill whistle. Magically a cab appeared at the curb.

“How’d you do that!” Pacey asked baffled.

“Years of practice…” Jen sighed as she shoved Jack inside.

She climbed in after him, and then Pacey followed; and the cab was off, flying through the city streets.

 

Jen barked out a couple of cross streets, and the cabbie turned in that direction.

“That’s not where the motel is,” Pacey whispered.

“It’s just up the block though,” She explained. “And if we actually had him drop us out front, we’d be going in all directions, following one way streets…this way is faster, and cheaper.”

“Oh…”
Jack let out another giggle as he leaned forward and almost toppled off the seat. Jen grabbed him.

“Maybe he should sit in the middle,” She said.

“Yeah…” Pacey agreed.

 

Jen climbed over Jack as Pacey pulled him by the arms into her place, beside him. Jen settled down in the seat next to the door, taking Jack’s hand, and holding him steady.

“You wanna hold my hand too?” Jack asked Pacey. He reached out for Pacey’s hand, which had been resting on his own thigh, but Jack almost grabbed something else.

“WHOA COWBOY!” Pacey laughed, as he jumped in his seat. “That’s not my hand there,”

Jen burst into a fit of laughter.

“Oh…” Jack smiled, staring at Jen before he started laughing too. Pacey took Jack’s hand in his, and patted it with his other, blushing slightly the whole time.

“That better?” Jack asked playfully.

“Yeah…that’s better.”

Pacey shook his head and laughed despite himself.

 

The trip lasted about fifteen minutes.

They climbed out at the corner; Pacey supporting Jack as he staggered along, while Jen paid the driver. Then the cab sped off and the three of them started down the street towards their motel.

 

It was more peaceful on this street; not so much traffic; and the air was cool as the breeze tousled their hair.

“I—I think I can walk now,” Jack said. Jen and Pacey paused, smiling at each other silently as they let Jack stand on his own two jelly filled legs. Surprisingly, Jack did all right.

 

He grinned as he took two successful steps before they started following him again.

 

Pacey got as close as possible to Jen, walking shoulder-to-shoulder, their hands brushing as they followed silently behind Jack. Pacey watched Jen for a moment, and when she noticed, she smiled sheepishly.

“OH MY GOD!” Jack suddenly blurted out as he paused to look up at the sky.

“What!” Pacey jumped.

“LOOK AT THE STARS! LOOK! …THEY’RE SO…SO…BRIGHT!”

He started forward again, his head turned up at the velvety black sky framed by the tall city skyscrapers, as he stared in amazement at the twinkling wonders overhead.

Pacey looked at Jen questioningly, and she smiled, shaking her head. They both let out a giggle.

 

“They’re so bright!” Jack whispered aloud. “It’s so…so beautiful…”

 

When they reached their motel, Jen helped Pacey carry Jack up the fight of stairs to their room.

 

~O~

 

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