Something like betrayal
It’s Monday, the day of Jen’s audition and she doesn’t think she’s ever been this nervous, her stomach is in knots; although it could be the couple days old yogurt she ate yesterday at breakfast by accident. There’s no reason for her to be nervous, she knows the dance off by heart and can learn choreography in all of five minutes and execute it perfectly, Judy had said as much last night when Jen had invited her to the studio to watch her solo again. She’d added a few different turns and new steps just for extra pizazz and Judy thinks it’s even better than the first time, Jen actually thought so too, and the kiss Judy had given her after watching her first run through had affirmed it in a way. Jen didn’t expect it, but when she’d ran through her dance again she couldn’t wait for it to finish, for it to be better than the previous time so Judy would compliment her and maybe give her a kiss or two again, maybe.
Since the park last week something had changed between the two of them, they were more confident with each other, Judy especially who had started reaching for Jen in a different way to before, with her gentle hands and chaste kisses. What Jen enjoyed the most about this apparent change was that nothing had actually changed between them at all, it was still just the two of them navigating whatever was between them together. Judy was still a ball of constricted energy, like the sun, and more often than not now she’d release some of it when she’s with Jen, in the form of cheesy jokes or excitement at seeing that Starbucks now uses paper straws because it’s better for sea life. Jen loves that part of her the most, can tell when she’s holding herself back like she does the few times Jen’s sat with her at lunch at ‘Bella’s’ and Tessa and the others have been there. And Jen’s still the sarcastic, grouchy blonde with huge doc martens and perfect hair, perfect feet, perfect posture…only with Judy she’s relaxed, more open and quite soft. On the couple of sleepovers they’ve had, one on the day of the party and one on the weekend since, Judy finds herself unable to stop staring at Jen when she’s fully pure and natural, when her hair’s messed up in the bun from a nights sleep and her head is bundled up under the covers because she always gets cold in the morning. The only thing different was that they’d kiss now too sometimes, nothing extravagant, just light pecks every now and then whenever they wanted, that was something that had been a welcome change. It’s a silent mutual agreement to take whatever this is slow, for now they’re content in enjoying each other while still discovering more about one another.
Jen presses pause on her music, she’s running her solo for the last time before leaving with her dad to the station, he’s got the day off work to drive her halfway so she has time to shower before leaving, then she’ll get on the subway and then another bus (she thinks, she’ll check at the station) and she’ll be there. It takes around an hour altogether. Judy’s working today so hopefully she’ll see her on the way. She wipes the sweat from her brow and refills her water bottle, downing a few gulps before letting out a satisfied ‘ah’ sound and drying her mouth. Jen tries to forget about her solo while showering because there’s only so many times she can go over the same dance in her head and physically, but it’s no use and all she can think about it whether her costume will look good enough or whether she needs more leaps.
Her mind is working on overdrive and she doesn’t eat breakfast that morning until her mom forces an apple inside of her. Adrenaline alone is what Jen’s running on, only when she’s in the car waiting for her mom to say goodbye to her dad does she allow herself to breathe. She watches as her dad kisses her on the doorstep, bites her lip and takes a deep breath as he rounds the car to the drivers side.
“All set?” He asks strapping himself in.
“Yep.”
*
“You mess this up Judy and I mean it, we’re finished.”
“I won’t!”
Judy promises, taking her moms hand only to have it snatched away from her. The brunette steps backwards and frowns, the gym bag lies at her feet, taunting her. She thinks about not going, about saying she was mugged or she lost the bag on the way but Judy thinks it would make everything 10 times worse than it already is. Although that seems impossible.
“Here…” Eleanor puts the borrowed phone in Judy’s back pocket of her jeans. “Text the number ending ‘8779’ when you’ve done it, it’s already in the contacts list under ‘G’.”
Judy nods, shoving the phone in her pocket further. She swipes the bangs from her face and looks up at her mom, who stands over her as if she’s a kid ready to be reprimanded. She searches her face for any sign of gratitude or warmth or move towards her and comes up empty, there’s nothing, just eyes of stone, desperate for a next fix. Judy accepts that this is them now, she’ll do this and there’ll be no one storming the house at 2am to take a tv or oven or anything in payment. Until the next time.
Judy heaves the bag onto her shoulder and slips her vans on. She’s not working today, had called last night to fake an illness. She feels terrible about lying, she hates lying. Especially to work because they gave her a chance when no one else did.
“I’ll get going.” Judy moves to the door awkwardly around Eleanor’s harsh stance, she doesn’t step out of the way so their shoulders brush roughly.
“Don’t get caught.” Eleanor says from behind her, Judy faces the door and her voice sounds like a devil on her shoulder, overpowering and bitter. Then she adds “be careful baby, I love you for doing this” in a soft voice she hasn’t heard in a while and Judy’s all confused again because it sounds so much like the mom she was before, not the shell of a mother left behind that Judy’s so used to nowadays.
“I will.” She settles with, heading outside into the cold, head screaming ‘don’t get caught’ and ‘we’re finished’ back at her like colliding microphones. It’s deafening, despite the heaviness on her shoulder and a growing resentment she carries on walking to the subway, eyes looking elsewhere every second in paranoia.
*
Jen doesn’t see her straight away because the subway’s quite busy, she can’t remember whether she’s working mornings or evenings so she doesn’t check their spot as she gets on, there’s a guy sat it in anyways. She walks down into the next carriage and then the next, and as she’s about to get to the end of the train and accept she isn’t working until later, she sees a familiar peek of brown hair and bangs.
Waving proves useless because Judy’s got her head down, so she quickly makes her way over to her with a way too wide smile, she tones it down a little (tries to) before lifting the bag on the chair to sit down next to her.
“Hey.”
Judy practically jumps out of her seat and snatched the bag back with wide, panicked eyes.
“I was just moving it sorry, hey-“ Jen moves to sit crossed legged and puts her own bag on the floor in front, “what is in that thing it’s so heavy?”
Judy shakes her head, “nothing!” She’d forgotten it was Jen’s audition today with everything going on and that’s another thing for her to feel guilty about. “Hey! Good luck for you’re audition, are you ready for it?”
“Thanks, and yeah I think so, too late to turn back now…” Jen says, turning to her then with a concerned look, Judy has to avert her eyes quickly. “Are you okay though? You seem different.”
Judy nods quickly, too quickly for both of them, Jen’s going to know somethings wrong, so much for not getting caught. She counted on not seeing Jen today, she can’t lie to her. “I’m great!”
It’s not convincing. “You don’t have your work clothes on like usual, are you not working?”
“No? I mean yes…” Judy swallows. She can feel herself getting hotter and her fingers itch to tug her skin until it comes off and she disappears. Away from Jen’s concerning face and questions that Judy’s coming so close to just answering and let that be the end of it all.
“Jude?” Jen shifts in her seat so she’s facing her and puts a hand on her shoulder.
Judy feels herself being pushed closer to the edge, her eyes well up and she melts under Jen’s touch. The bag under her feet feels dirtier than ever, she feels dirty, and now she’s lying to her best friend, or whatever they are.
“Tell me please, you can tell me anything you know that…” Jen says softly, and the soft peck on her cheek is what does it.
She can’t do this, lie. “My mom’s making me do something and I’m scared..” she says in a hissed whisper, tears escape and cascade down her hot and clammy cheeks.
Jen leans forward so that she covers Judy’s frantic crying from onlookers, already a guy with massive front teeth and a huge beard is looking over at them and Jen feels like punching him. The train stopping to let more passengers on provides a distraction and Jen turns her attention back to Judy, who’s got her face covered with her hands and she’s practically clawing at herself as if that’ll stop the tears.
“Please look at me,” Jen takes her hands gently to pull them away from her face, at first Judy resists and then finally something gives and her hands fall to her lap with Jen’s wrapped around them.
“What is she making you do?” Jen asks quietly, using one hand to quickly wipe away a few tears.
Judy shakes her head, “the bag…” she whispers, gesturing to the floor, “has drugs in it and she’s making me take it to this house…”
Jen’s eyes widen and flick back and forth between Judy and said bag, she bites her lip and struggles to find something to say, a way to fix this. She knows they’d get in serious trouble if they were caught, because it is ‘they’, there’s no way she’s letting Judy do this alone.
“You can’t Judy that’s dangerous.”
“I have to. I promised.” Judy says, drying her face now and pulling on the mask she wore when Jen had first seen her 5 minutes ago, It’s colder now, determined even.
“Judy.”
“Jen,” she turns to her, eyes softening as she looks into Jen’s worried ones, pleading with her to not go through with it. “I have to, you don’t understand…it’ll be better once this is done”.
“How?”
“I don’t know, it just will.”
“You can’t surely believe that.”
Deep down Judy doesn’t think she does, but she has nothing if she doesn’t try.
It’s one more stop until the square, where Jen has to change to catch the bus to her audition, honestly she feels like cancelling it all together.
“You can’t, Jen go to your audition, I want you to go.” Judy tells her, placing her hand on Jen’s forearm and squeezing to get her to look at her. Judy’s never been sure about much, but she’s sure about this. “You’re not missing your audition because of me.”
“I have to.”
“No.”
Jen sighs. “My audition’s important, but you’re way more.”
“Then you’ll go for me, please Jen I’m begging you to go…” Judy says, tilting her head desperately trying to get through to the blonde, stubborn as the day they met, kind and caring and amazing as the day they met too.
Jen goes silent and stands up without waiting for Judy and heads to the doors. When Judy catches up to her and the train slowly comes to a stop, she notices her hands gripping the hand rail and turning white at the knuckles. Judy places a hand over Jen’s one and pries it away from the railing, she doesn’t fight it surprisingly and the step off the train hand in hand when it stops. Everything’s a blur after that, they’re heading up the stairs one minute and then her hands empty and Jen turns around in time to see the back of Judy’s head as she runs through the people, she tries to follow but there’s too many passengers and it feels all stuffy and trapped and all she wants to do is get out of there. The cold air is welcomed when she steps out of the station and onto the square, her bus is already in its dock and she walks towards it like she’s on autopilot.
She barely remembers her audition, barely taking notice when she steps into a building with a large foyer and high ceilings. Jen goes into a world of her own, everything around her becomes a blur so much so that she almost misses her name being called by a man dressed in a suit and holding a clipboard. She jumps up quickly and composes herself when he turns his back to lead her into the audition room. Nailing the solo was the one thing she came here to do and she thinks she did okay, but finds it hard to pay attention to the feedback she gets from the three professors there watching, judging.
They take the audition-ees on a tour around the school, it’s got the best dance floors and mirrors Jen has ever seen and there are students practicing in some of the rooms already, it seems amazing but all Jen can think about is Judy. She worries so much that she misses a step later in the group choreography they learn in half an hour and when she gets home she tells her mom and dad that she’s basically flunked the audition and heads to her room to sling herself on her bed and burry her head in the pillow, wishing she could stay there forever.
*
Nails dig into the skin on Judy’s palm, leaving crescent moon shaped indents that are raw with anger, guilt and pain. Cars and neighbourhoods pass by through the window, the bus stopping every few minutes to let people inside. Thankfully there’s enough room on the bus that no one has to sit next to her, she’s right at the front so she can get off quickly when her stop arrives. A text comes through on the phone she’s carrying telling her to get off at Rovers Lane so she keeps checking through the window, squinting to see what road they’re at. She presses the bell quickly once she sees it in the short distance by and it jerks to a stop, almost missing it because Judy pressed it really late, she apologised to the driver once she walks past to get off.
The bag weighs down her shoulder again as she heaves it up further, she’s sure it’ll leave a mark, a reminder of what she’s doing, the soreness a punishment for treating Jen like she did, running away and not saying goodbye. She’s all she can think about while walking, she hopes her auditions going okay. As she turns down another path she comes across a white feather in her path, she leans down and picks it up, twiddling the end between her fingers as she tries to locate the apartment. She feels it’s a sign almost, perhaps that everything will be okay. One day at least.
Judy sees the apartment without even looking at the number, it’s flooding with people and playing loud music and before she can knock a guy approached with two other woman that come to stand behind her. Judy lowers the bag from her shoulder and places it on the floor in front of them. Her eyes don’t meet the man’s and she stares at the floor as he bends down to look inside, grinning when he sees its contents.
She feels a scratchy finger underneath her chin, tilting it up into the face of the guy, he doesn’t introduce himself, just winks and nods his head, then takes the bag inside with the two women following. Then she just runs. Faster than she’s ever ran before and she doesn’t stop all the way until she reaches the alternate bus stop beside the one she stepped off at. Judy feels like crying, but she doesn’t. She manages to keep it in until she gets home and into her lumpy, cold bed. And then it’s like the floodgates open and she can’t stop.
*
“Jen?”
Another knock sounds on her door. Jen knows she can’t just stay in her room and not saying anything after coming in 10 minutes ago, storming upstairs and yelling to her parents that she messed the whole ‘shitty’ audition up. She’s calmer now, still thinking about Judy but she dries her eyes and sits up against the back of her head, shifting so a pillow supports her back.
“Come in.” Her voice is a little weary from crying and her mom must notice because she sits down beside her and pats her thigh gently.
“Honey…” Sam tuts, kicking off her slippers then so she can sit back on the bed fully, mirroring Jen’s position. “It can’t have gone that bad?”
Jen shakes her head. “It’s not…” she sighs, she doesn’t really know whether she wants to tell her mom what it’s really about. Judy would get in so much trouble, she knows Eleanor would probably be in more trouble and they’d get split up from each other and then who would Judy have? But another side of her, the sensible side wants to tell her mom because maybe she can help, she’s helped older kids like Judy before when she worked at the youth centre. Jen’s the only one that knows about Judy’s situation but she can’t do anything about it, she doesn’t even know where she’d start.
A hand on her shoulder squeezing reminds her that she could start by telling her mom what Judy’s mom made her do, because she’s out of her depth, lets face it. Judy can’t live that life forever, it’s dangerous and Jen’s worried about her. Scared that something might happen, something could have already happened and Jen wouldn’t even get to know about it. If only Judy had a goddammedfuckingphone .
“Jen?”
Deep breathes, she can do this. “It’s not about the audition.” She says, drying the corner of her eyes so she doesn’t start crying again, once in a day is already enough.
“Then what is it?” Sam asks softly, encouragingly.
So Jen tells her everything, about the trailer, Tyler (she goes mad at her for getting involved but she tells her it’s Judy what was I supposed to do), Judy’s mom forcing her to deal drugs today and maybe sometime before Jen doesn’t know. It’s not like they’ve been friends long even though it feels like forever, she has no idea what else Judy’s been through like this or how long she’s been living like she is. Her mom assures her she’ll help Judy, kisses her on the forehead and tells her that dinner will be ready in ten.
Jen feels like she’s just betrayed the one person in the world that she would never want to hurt. And now she completely hates herself for it, hates herself for hoping that Judy will thank her for it instead of being mad. She’s going to be mad, she told her not to tell anyone and here Jen is, spilling everything to her mom. For some reason she feels like something shifts, within the fucking world or whatever, it’s such a Judy thing to think and Jen wonders why she feels that way, there’s a stinging pain in her stomach throughout the night that she can’t describe.
All she can think about is Judy.