If You're Out There | Part Four | (5/8)
Master Post | Prologue | o1 | o2 | o3 | o4 | o5 | o6 | Epilogue
Part Four
I was looking for a song to sing, searched for a leader, but the leader was me. Put down the arms and raise your voice. We're joining hands today.
Sandy isn't as surprised as Jared thought she would be when he finally lets his tongue slide. He tells her about Jensen's fucked up family, how his dad beat him and called him names, how he would break Jensen over and over until Jared thought he wasn't going to make it through, only to be surprised by how strong Jensen was, how he kept himself going for Mackenzie's sake.
"I've seen some of the bruises on his arms," she says, falling quiet for a moment. "And the scars."
Jared nods, gaze downcast and saddened. "It was how he dealt with it sometimes. He tried to explain it to me once, said it was like the only pain in his life that he could control. Somehow it made it feel better."
Sandy lets out a long breath and picks at the light pink polish on her nails. "Okay," she says slowly. "So that explains a lot, but you still never said where he is, and why he's missing." A look of shock flashes across her face. "Oh God," she breathes, "His dad didn't kill him, did he? Shit Jared, tell me he's not dead."
Jared looks up at her, the terror in her face matching what he's been feeling ever since Jensen left. "I... Honestly, Sandy, I don't know. I don't know where he is or if Mackenzie is with him or anything."
"Oh God," she repeats quietly.
"I always knew he had planned on running, but we were just talking about it and I always thought he was going to wait until after graduation, until he was eighteen and had his own place so that Mackenzie could live with him. I was going to help. I was going to fucking help him." Jared realizes that he's rambling, but he's been holding everything inside for so long that he can't seem to help himself. "But he just left. His dad had left bruises all over his stomach. God, they were some of the worst I’d seen on him in a long time. I could tell he hadn't slept in days... That was the last time I saw him."
Sandy reaches out from where she sits on the opposite end of Jared's bed and places her hand on top of his. His fingers are intertwined, and he picks at the skin surrounding his nail with his thumb. "You know this isn't your fault," she says.
Jared gives a small nod, responds with a soft, "I know." He swallows thickly. "But I miss him so, so much, and it's scaring the shit out of me how much I think about him, how much I worry about him all the time."
"Jared..."
"I wasn't enough," he says, voice even softer than before.
“There’s no way you could have handled something like that by yourself, Jared. I’m sure Jensen knew that.” Sandy falls quiet again, and Jared stares at her through the messy bangs hanging over his eyes. "Have you... you know, talked to your parents about this, or come out to them?"
Jared shakes his head. "No. You're the only one I've told." He looks down for a long while, and Sandy can almost see the struggle going on inside him when he finally looks back up again. "What am I supposed to do, Sandy? My parents have already been looking at me like I'm a fucking disappointment lately. They're going to freak."
Sandy plays with the long sleeves of her sweatshirt as they rest over her hands. "Maybe they won't," she says, hoping her voice sounds convincing.
"Yeah, right," Jared scoffs. "I'm sure they'll be thrilled."
"Well, to be fair you have kind of been acting different than they're used to. They'll probably just need some time to... adjust to everything, you know?"
Jared sighs, rests his head back against the headboard of his bed. "I know." They both fall quiet for a long moment before Jared says under his breath, "It’s Jensen."
Sandy's brow crinkles, features set in a confused expression. "What?"
"It's Jensen," Jared says again, more clearly this time. "He's the one, I know it. Ever since he left, I've just felt like part of me is missing, and I kept trying to hide from what that meant but I don't think I can do it anymore. I'm tired of hiding."
Sandy doesn't say anything, just pushes herself up from the bed suddenly. She walks over to the window, pulls open the blinds, and its then that Jared finally notices the blue and red lights. "Oh wow," Sandy breathes after a moment.
"'Oh wow' what?" Jared asks, making his way over to look out the window as well. Two cop cars are parked at the end of the street, sirens silent but lights flashing brightly. He can vaguely make out four figures in the yard, two dressed in all black and the other two struggling against the restraints being placed on them.
It's Jensen's parents, and they're getting arrested.
"Fuck," Jared says softly.
Sandy turns to face him, places a warm hand gently on his arm for a moment before dropping it to her side, hooking her thumb in her pocket. "This is good, right? It means someone must have told them what's going on. The police know something."
Jared bites at his nail, and hopes to God she's right.
:::
"The police have been notified," Dr. Lawrence says to Jensen and Mackenzie as they sit in her office. Kristi is there too, standing off to the side while Dr. Lawrence delivers the news. She informs them of their parents' arrests, of what that means for both of them when it comes to charges and potential jail time. She tells them about where they go from here, what comes next for Jensen and Mackenzie. She tells them that it’s time to start building a new life, one that will likely not include their parents for a long time to come.
Mackenzie's crying by the time Dr. Lawrence finishes, and Jensen holds her hand protectively, rubbing the back of it with his thumb. She's always been close to their mom, and she doesn't understand why she's getting punished too when their dad was the one that was always yelling and hurting them.
"It's going to be okay, sweetie," Dr. Lawrence assures. "I promise it's going to be okay."
Sniffing, Mackenzie nods slowly. When she stops crying a little while later, Kristi walks over and leads her out to the common rooms, hoping the distraction of her friends will do her some good. Jensen is still in Dr. Lawrence's office when Kristi returns a few minutes later, but he's no longer sitting silently in his chair. He's pacing, biting on his nails as he walks, and paying no attention at all to the others in the room.
"I told him about the foster care system," Dr. Lawrence tells Kristi. "He's heard about all the horror stories from kids that have fallen through the cracks of the system. He's scared. He doesn't want to put Mackenzie through something like that."
"It's too soon," Kristi says. She's been worried about this since Dr. Lawrence first brought up the idea a few days ago. "We just told him his parents got arrested, not just his dad but his mom too, and now we're dumping this on him? Not to mention all that he went through last week."
"It's now or never, Kristi. You know that if we don't get Mackenzie with the Morgans soon, they're going to place another child with them, and God only knows where she could end up then."
Kristi watches as Jensen wraps his arms protectively around himself, looking so impossibly young and vulnerable that it makes what she's about to say all the more difficult to force from her lips.
“It’s not permanent, Jensen,” she tries, moving closer. Jensen takes a step back from her, and she feels the knot in her stomach twist even more. His expression is an uneasy mix of confusion and betrayal, anger and regret, and she can tell he doesn’t understand what they're trying to tell him, that he doesn't understand that they don’t want to take Mackenzie away from him. They only want what's best for them both. “It’s just until you can get on your feet and give her the stable home she needs, like we talked about,” she continues before pausing, watching him closely. He’s let his face go brilliantly blank, a defense mechanism she’s seen him use a few times, though never with her before.
“The Morgans - they’re nice people, Jensen. I’ve known them for years,” Dr. Lawrence intervenes, but Jensen isn’t looking at her, seems to be looking right through both of them until he finally just pushes past, disappears through the doorway and leaves behind a heavy air thick with emotion.
“I should go talk to him,” Kristi says, but Dr. Lawrence stops her as she steps towards the door.
“No. Just let him cool off for a while. Give him some time.”
“He doesn’t have time! He’s a runaway for God’s sake, and you've seen his scars so you should know more than anyone what he's capable of." Her voice is low and angry, and she knows she's being unprofessional, knows she's directing her frustration towards the wrong person, but there's something about Jensen that makes her want to see him succeed more than anything, and right now she feels like she's failing him. "What makes you think he’s not in his room cutting, or packing up their things right now?”
“Because he’s got too much to lose,” Dr. Lawrence says, like it’s the answer to everything. “It may not always seem like it but he is getting better. The cuts are healing inside and out and he’s smart, Kristi. He would do anything for Mackenzie, and if that means letting her go for a while, then I have no doubt he’ll do it.”
“What makes you so sure?” Her voice is incredulous. “This could be what sends him over the edge. Without Mackenzie, he has nothing.”
"We've come too far to let him fall now. We're going to help him, but right now the best thing we can do is give him some time to process what's going on. Just give him some time.”
:::
Jared is sitting in Calculus listening to his teacher drone on about some concept he doesn't understand when he gets a note calling him down to the office. He takes it gratefully, gathering up his books and quickly making his way out of the room. Once out in the hall, he slows his pace. He is being called down to the office after all, and with his recent attendance record, he's pretty sure it's not going to be a happy visit.
There's a woman sitting behind the front desk, and he walks over to her. "Um, I have a note that says I'm supposed to see..." Jared looks down at the paper, "a Mrs. Crawford."
The woman doesn't stop typing as she directs him to a small room behind her. When he sees the title COUNSELOR labeling her office, frustration boils thick in his stomach, and he lets out a loud sigh before making his way inside.
:::
"I can't believe you made me go see the school counselor!" Jared shouts at his mother. "And she... she tells me you want me to go see a shrink? Are you serious?" Deep down he knows his mom was just doing what she thought was best for him, but it doesn't stop him from feeling impossibly angry and hurt, betrayed. There was nothing wrong with him. He wasn't crazy.
"It was your choice to start skipping class. You stay out at all hours of the night and we hardly even see you for dinner anymore. You're the one that won't talk to me or your father and tell us what's really going on. What the hell did you expect me to do Jared?" Sharon crosses her arms as she stares at her son. He might as well be a stranger, someone dropped off in her house. She feels like she doesn't even know who he is anymore, wonders if she ever did.
"You want to talk? Okay, let’s talk about how my best friend is missing and no one around here seems to even acknowledge that he’s gone, like he was nothing. Or hey, how about we talk about how I go to parties to forget about how fucked up my life has become. You want to hear about all the stuff I've done, Mom? How I drink until I can't see straight?"
"Jared..."
"No. You want me to talk, so I’m fucking talking. How about I tell you that you have a gay son? Did you hear that one, Mom? I'm a fucking homo. You think some psychologist is going to fix that?" The words come out before he can stop himself, and the look of shock that crosses his mother's face stops him dead in his tracks. Everything goes silent, and Jared watches as his mom places a tired hand over her mouth, blinks away tears.
"Mrs. Crawford says that this Dr. Robinson is a great therapist," she says quietly after a long while.
"You'd rather send me to a shrink than deal with me?" Jared asks, voice just as soft.
The answer he’s waiting for never comes.
"Yeah. That's awesome," he says, backing away as he hears the front door open and his dad enter, home from work. "I'm not going," he states finally, brushing past his father on his way out the door and slamming it loudly behind him.
:::
Jensen walks along the sidewalk for hours, cigarette dangling from his fingertips as he passes by the various shops and buildings, restaurants and apartment complexes. When the sun begins to set, he reluctantly makes his way back to the Center, sits down on the front steps while he finishes the rest of his cigarette. A few drags later it’s burned down to the end and he puts the butt out against the concrete. He stares out at the emptying street, a stray car or person passing by every so often, and with nothing left to distract him anymore, the full weight of what Dr. Lawrence had said to him earlier settles heavily on his shoulders.
:::
Sometime in the middle of the night Jensen finds himself no longer lying in his room at the Center, lost in a peaceful darkness, but transported into the middle of the ocean. He’s floating, the sea breeze light and cool as it tickles and dances across his skin. The sun is shining directly overhead, but it doesn’t burn, just fills him with a warm sensation as he stares at the sky. He lets his body rise and fall with each wave that passes underneath him, until all the birds disappear from the sky and its clear blue hue begins to drain of its color, the light of the sun going with it. The water starts to move at a swifter pace, his body lifting higher and dipping lower as the waves become choppier and choppier, until he’s being jarred so much it feels like someone is shaking him roughly and he fights to keep his head above the water.
When his eyes snap open, Mackenzie is staring down at him, her face dimly lit by the brightness of the moon shining through the small window. You okay? she mouths, then points at him and runs the index fingers of both hands down her cheeks like the trail of a tear, the sign for cry.
Jensen quickly runs a hand across his face to wipe away the wetness and rises a little. He points to himself and signs fine, bad dream.
Mackenzie nods, but doesn’t make any attempt to move back to her own bed and Jensen reaches out to smooth down her sleep styled hair.
“I can’t sleep,” he reads on her lips.
Jensen slides over and pats the area next to him, motioning for Mackenzie to climb in. The bed is small, and the fit is tight, but Jensen doesn’t mind. As she lays her head against his chest, he wonders if the other family, the Morgans, would let her sleep in their bed if she has a bad dream, or if they’ll turn her away and make her go back to her room by herself like their parents often did.
His thoughts shift back to home, to times when Mackenzie would be woken up by one of Mom and Dad’s arguments and would run down the hall to come sleep in his room. He remembers waking her up in the mornings after and carrying her to the bathroom because she was always so tired from getting little sleep the night before that she refused to move from his bed. He thinks of picking Mackenzie up from school every day and their walks home together, of the times when Jared came with them and somehow always convinced them to stop for ice cream along the way, paying for it without even a second thought.
Jensen smiles a little in the darkness as the image of Jared warms him, helping to push everything else away like he always seemed to be able to do when they were together back home. He feels the thud of Mackenzie’s heartbeat and waits for her breathing to slow before he closes his eyes again, losing himself in the darkness once again.
:::
Jensen holds Mackenzie's hand in his as they sit next to each other in the dark plastic chairs outside Dr. Lawrence's office. His thumb rubs back and forth gently against the soft skin of the back of her hand, the same way he’s done so many times before, and from the way her fingers twitch every so often Jensen can tell she's getting restless. He maneuvers her fingers so that her middle and ring fingers are pressed down against her palm, leaving the other three fully extended in the sign for I love you. Mackenzie smiles at him just as the door to Dr. Lawrence's office opens and she emerges from the room along with a man and a woman.
They look the same as they did in the photograph they’d been shown, the same wide smiles, and as they stare down at them Jensen feels sick to his stomach.
"Jensen, Mackenzie," Dr. Lawrence says, "This is Mr. and Mrs. Morgan. They're going to be taking care of you for a while, Mackenzie."
He knew it was going to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done, saying goodbye to his little sister, but somehow he’d been able to convince himself it wouldn’t hurt this much. It takes all he has to hold it together when Mackenzie looks at him, eyes young and innocent like she's asking permission to leave, like she needs to know that it's okay for her to go.
Jensen nods, signs stay brave before squeezing her hand one more time.
Mackenzie wraps her thin arms around him, and Jensen plants a light kiss on her head. See you soon, he signs. I promise.
When she leaves, Jensen stares down the empty hallway until he can't hold it in any longer, then he buries his face in his hands and cries long and hard, until he's too exhausted to feel anymore.
Part o5