coddle {Jade}

[Erik Stewart]

Erik met with Jade on a surprisingly mild winter day. To Jade, he'd probably look the same he always did, bitchface and all, mildly disheveled, and a little tired. His hair was getting too long and he was thinking about having it cut proper instead of taking a pair of scissors to it like he usually did.


It was still too cold to be outside, so he sat with her inside the shop, warming his hands on the cardboard coffee cup. He'd settled on something he wasn't used to - a mocha - instead of his usual frappuccino sugarbomb. It seemed more appropriate for the weather. He'd on a thick blue scarf and a cheap beanie which he wore everywhere now since he got it. It did wonders for his ears.

"Can I ask you a favor?" he said.

[Jade Parrish]

"You should let me cut your hair," Jade told Erik as they sat down at a table in the warm coffee house. It was merely a musing, but it made a smile play about her lips, as she doubted he'd trust her to do that. She cut her own hair from time to time. It wasn't hard. It was nice to not be at the evil empire, which was Starbucks. Independent coffee shops were always better in her opinion. And their coffee tasted better. So she savored the sip of her latte as it went down. Ah, the wonders of a traditional espresso machine.

She leaned forward on the table, hands wrapped around her coffee cup. "A favor?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "Whatever may that be?"

[Erik Stewart]

Erik reached up to touch the strands of hair as if on impulse, where they leaked out carelessly from underneath his beanie. "I was just thinkin' about that," he mused. It really didn't feel great to have it brush so close to his shoulders. He didn't like that west coast skater look. It didn't suit him. The hot mess look? That was fine. "I usually just chop it off."

He waved his hand. "That's not what I'm talkin' about though."

Erik didn't feel any anxiety talking to Jade about dropping out. The only reason he hadn't before was because it'd been a shadow of an afterthought then. Now it was a looming reality. He couldn't stay in the dorms a single day after the semester ended and, obviously, he had to ensure that he wouldn't just be let loose on the streets. "So, after this semester's done I'm gonna be droppin' out. I can't do it before then," he said, rolling his eyes. "For some reason. Anyway, once that's done, I was hopin' I could crash with you for a while 'til I find another job."

[Jade Parrish]

"I could give a telepath a run for their money," Jade said with a grin and then looked at him as if he was insane. "You cut your own hair?" Sure, she did it, but Erik cutting his own hair? How could that possibly work out? "Do you even know how?" But she let the subject drop eventually because it seemed that he had something serious to ask her.

She was shocked, even though she shouldn't be. Erik had expressed his distaste for school many times before, and while Jade was in no means a genuis or someone who thrived on academics, she did value college very highly, because you could do what you wanted rather than dealing with all the bullshit of high school. It was getting there that was the hard part. "Why are you dropping out?" She still had to ask. She could imagine that he'd been nervous to tell her and so she tried to not react totally badly. Although she hadn't answered his question.

[Erik Stewart]

Erik had thought that was pretty obvious. He turned his head and tilted one eyebrow. “Oh, well, if you must know,” he said, raising a hand, “Because I don’t go t’class.” He struck down one finger with his opposite. “Because I haven’t gotten anythin’ above a C since middle school. Because I’m so far behind it’d take me more’n another year t’graduate. Also, ‘cause I just suck at this, an’ because I can’t fuckin’ wait t’get outta here.”

He’d been floundering ever since they’d taken him up from Louisiana and dumped him here. The first few weeks he’d spent in a crippling state of anxiety from which he had never recovered, and beyond that, Erik had no real reason to excel. He gave up easily for a lack of positive reinforcement. He had no one to impress, his parents declining to answer his calls and even that of the school’s, and no one to care if he just gave up. And giving up was always easier than trying.

[Jade Parrish]

He didn't go to class? Didnt get anything above a C? Jade often thought that what Erik put out for others to see was just a facade, an appearance. She believed he was actually rather intelligent and dilligent, that he could be harworking and passionate about something and seeing him giving up and saying that he jut wanted to get out, that he sucked at it, really hurt Jade. It felt like she'd failed him in a way as his self-appointed older sister. "Are you kidding me, Stewart? You're smart. Grades aren't all that matters and sometimes you gotta work hard to get out of a place you don't like." She'd seen many students become superseniors. It was what happened when you were uprooted from home with a power you didn't know that you had, or that was possible and forced to go to a school in Vermont.

She remembered Erik when she first met him, his inevitable feeling of wanting to flee, to immediately run away. "Shit, Erik. Do you at least have a plan?" Jade wasn't one to judge, but she also believed everyone had potential and everyone could be passionate about something, if it was the right thing. "High school is a hell hole and we all know that, but you're not giving what's after even a chance."

[Erik Stewart]

Erik expected the ‘stay in school’ spiel from teachers and the like, but not from Jade. His expression souring, he slouched against the back of his seat. “Smart? Do you even know me?” he asked. It wasn’t like he ever showed Jade his grades - he never showed anyone them - but somehow he assumed people just knew. He’d failed out of enough classes, flunked enough tests to know that he wasn’t ‘smart’. And if he was, it wasn’t the sort that did well in school. “I have a job,” he protested, which was the plan in its entirety. “I said I’d find another.”

Impatient, he let out a sharp sigh through his nose. “Look, a lot of people drop out an’ they’re fine,” he said. “Nobody cared what I was doin’ ’til I told ‘em I was gonna quit school. Now all th’ sudden it’s you can’t do this, you can’t do that. I was on th’ way out since I got here. Why’s it such a fuckin’ surprise?”

[Jade Parrish]

"Yes, I know you. You're the kid I found moping around wanting to go back home. I know you, Erik. And I know what smart is. It's not reading a text book and being able to regurgitate its contents, nor is it filling in the right bubble on a test. Having good grades doesn't mean you're smart, not always. Having good grades does not equal intelligence, just like having a thin body doesn't make you healthy." Fucking society, teaching people to doubt themselves because they couldn't do the school setting. Who wanted to sit in a chair all day staring at a white board and a teacher and take notes on something that they knew they needed to memorize to graduate? It was all bullshit. College was better at least and while Jade didn't agree with the education system, she also knew she needed to play the system's game to get where she wanted to be. "Aren't you passionate about something? Don't you want to learn everything there is to know about something? It doesn't have to be academic." She felt like a motivational speaker...a very angry one. "I get that you'll find a job, Erik. That's not why I'm telling you this. I'm not telling you to stay in school to please others. I'm telling you that the education system is flawed and that memorizing the process of photosynthesis doesn't make you smarter than anyone else, but sometimes we have to go through all the bullshit to get where we want to be. Where do you want to be? Do you need school to get there?" If he didn't, if he truly didn't have a passion or an aspiration, then she'd let him be. She knew people could make it without going to college or graduating, but she also knew that it was harder for them and that they often regretted it or doubted that they were smart enough to make it in the world.

"I cared what you were doing, mind you," she snapped. "I'm not telling you what to do, I'm trying to make you think about the decision you're making."

[Erik Stewart]

Erik combed his fingers through his hair, over and behind his ear. This was where he’d been heading all along since he got here, too fearful to come out of his room, at the age of fourteen. Maybe even before that. His acedemic track record had never exactly been stellar, and it’d just gotten worse with time. He had trouble cleaning his own room, maintaining himself and his belongings, keeping up any kind of routine, and sometimes just plain getting up in the morning - much less keep up an academic record. And with no one around to object, there didn’t seem a point to do it, either.

Twisting a lock through his fingers, he let out an impatient grunt. “What’s it matter what kind of smart I am? The school don’t care,” he said. “The teachers don’t care. Counselors don’t care. Ain’t nobody cares ‘less I get an A on some shit, which ain’t happenin’ an’ what’s never gonna happen. It makes sense t’me.”

Erik had always been a little short-sighted, and not at all able to take care of himself, much less make any right decisions. He was also stubborn right along with it. Erik had already made up his mind, and Jade might as well have been making wah wah noises instead of words. Erik turned his head, letting his hand down from his hair to cross it over his chest.

“No, I don’t wanna know somethin’ ‘bout anythin’,” he muttered - which wasn’t exactly true: there was his pursuit of music - but he didn’t feel like divulging anything right now.

[Jade Parrish]

"It should matter to you," Jade told him. "That's the only person it should matter to. I get that grades are all that matter to teachers and stuff, but I know you're smart, you know that you are. You just have to get through the bullshit." He'd already made it this far, he might as well go the rest of the way. Jade hadn't liked high school. Her grades weren't phenomenal, except for in journalism and english, but she got through it and now she could do what she wanted in college and she was damn good at it. She'd even be willing to help him. She was so good at bullshitting.

But she wasn't even sure he was listening, which annoyed her because he'd already made up his mind and didn't want to consider anything else, although he probably didn't expect anyone to care and Jade cared a lot. She didn't believe him. "I know you're passionate about something. I'm only friends with passionate people. You just act like you're not." She wasn't going to deny him a place to live, but she was going to try to get him to reconsider.

[Erik Stewart]

Erik rolled his eyes, blowing up a puff of air to lift some of his forelock off his head. “I’m - ” Really not, he thought, but he took a moment to compose himself. “It don’t matter what I’m passionate ‘bout ‘cause none of it’s worth anythin’ here. ‘Sides,” he said. “It’s kinda too late t’put up with th’ bullshit. I shouldn’t have t’put up with it any more if I don’t want to.”

He paused to sigh. His shoulders heaved downwards. He didn’t want to start yellin’ and fightin’ like he usually did - not with Jade. Otherwise there’d hardly be anyone left. Erik rubbed his arm, glancing down at his lap.

“Look, I don’t tell you what t’do. Can I stay with you or not?”

[Jade Parrish]

Jade knew she was pushing too hard. She knew that Erik wouldn't agree and most of all she knew that she couldn't make him do anything. Just like nobody could make her do anything. "You're right." She dropped her hands to her sides. She hated admitting it. "You don't tell me what to do." That's all she agreed with though. He didn't seem to think anything was worth it.

She wsn't going to cast him out because of his decision. "Of course you can," she told him, determined to always bed there for him, even when she was sure he was making a stupid decision.