Jagged Edge

I watched myself in the mirror, it seemed almost like it was a timeline. I never moved, but my clothes were changing and my hair was growing longer. My stomach was bloating outward with every passing second. Finally, time suddenly halted and I was aware of my surroundings.

The full length mirror was not only reflecting me, but the backdrop behind it. The house looked oddly familiar, like walking into a memory that was a little fuzzy. I was wearing one of my favorite formal tops, a black and white striped baby-doll one that was always way too big. Now, it seemed to fit perfectly due to my protruding stomach.

I heard someone walking over to me but I couldn't turn my head. I had too keep looking in the mirror. I waited patiently for the person to come over, but my eyes shut tightly just before they arrived. They wrapped their arms around my waist, their hands resting on my stomach and their chin on my shoulder.

"Only a few more days now, then we'll have our bouncing baby boy," Adam whispered. My eyes flew open and he kissed me on the cheek. I looked at the mirror in horror, finally noticing the details coming together. On my left ring finger sat a gold band with a big, fat diamond in the center of it. On Adam's left ring finger was a thin gold band.

Married. We were married.

"Ah, our little Marcus Lucien," Adam sighed happily, caressing my stomach. I wanted to tear his hands off, to make him get away from me. But I was frozen.

The corner of the mirror went our of focus, looking mystic and foggy. Jag's face appeared in the midst of the smeared glass, a little out of focus. His eyes were hurt and his forehead was creased with lines of worry.

"Roxie..." His voice was thick with pain. Adam seemed completely oblivious to this. A hand reached out of the glass and grabbed my leg. "Roxie!"

"Roxie!" Jag whispered. I gasped awake, slapping him away and trying to scramble to somwhere he wasn't.

"N-No!" I gasped for air and clutched at my stomach. It wasn't large and I was with Jag in his bed.

"Roxie? Are you okay? Did you have a nightmare?" Jag asked, reaching out to touch my cheek, but recoiling as soon as he remembered that I slapped him away. I grabbed his fingers and held them in my hand.

"Yeah, it was a nightmare, that's all," I giggled nervously at myself.

"If you wanna talk about it.."

"No, no! That's okay, trust me!" I said quickly. Jag smiled at me, looking like he didn't really know what to feel. He leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips.

"You want a pancake?" he asked as soon as our lips had slightly parted. I burst out laughing at the way it sounded; so husky and sexy, yet so not!

"I would love a pancake," I said once my giggles had subsided to a reasonable level. Jag climbed off the bed and took my hand, helping me down. I was wearing a pair of my old Bobby Jack monkey capri pajama pants that I'd had since I was 8 years old and my too-big Hardy Boyz t-shirt. I always felt awkward in pajamas for some reason, I was always more comfortable in a pair of unwashed skinny jeans. I left them on today, just for the sake that Jag seemed in a hurry to make me pancakes.

"Sit," Jag instructed, pulling a chair out for me. I sat down and spun myself around so that I could watch him in the kitchen. He opened the freezer and pulled out a box of store bought frozen pancakes.

"What the hell?!" I asked incredulously. Jag dropped the box and looked at me in surprise. "Store bought? I thought I was getting some grade-A Jag pancakes!"

Jag's look of surprise contorted into one of amusement. A smirk slid onto his face. "If you want grade-A Jag pancakes, I can always turn around for you." At this, he turned around, showing me his ass, and smirked at me of his shoulder.

"Oh you fucker! That's not what I meant!" I exclaimed with a disbelieving look on my face.

"Okay, okay! I'll make you some pancakes," he sighed. "But you can always watch me as I work."

I ignored him with a tight smile but really did watch him work. It still blew my mind about how gorgeous he was. Even in his dorky Batman pajamas, he looked hot. His had his lip ring in and his hair was jet black, obviously dyed but still hot.

"Did you dye your hair? You don't have your little..." I motioned in front of me, "blonde streak! That's what it is!"

"I dyed it this morning. Looks pretty amazing, huh?" he asked, fluffing his hair with a hand that held a spoon. A bunch of pancake mix slid off and splattered onto the floor.

"Oh, you motherfucker!" Jag exclaimed at the mess on the floor. I giggled. He always seemed to make me giddy. Whenever I was around him, my heart fluttered and I felt excited. Even during our most boring times, I felt this connection to him that would be unexplained, had I not loved him.

"Here, my very special grade-A Jag pancakes," Jag smirked, setting the plate down in front of me. The pancakes looked and smelled delicious, so I dug my fork in and started eating.

"Uh...Aren't you gonna put anything on them? We've got syrup and butter..." Jag said, pushing the syrup and butter toward me.

"I don't put anything on mine," I shrugged. I neglected to tell him the part where I'd had a bad experience with syrup when I was little and sick. And butter somehow didn't appeal to me.

"I've never tried that," Jag said. Of course, he still grabbed the syrup. I didn't expect him to try it. "What do they taste like without it?"

"Kinda like...bland cake," I said, trying my best to fit that in words.

"Hm...Interesting," Jag said, smiling at me. He began pouring the syrup on his pancakes like he was dousing a fire. I poked at my pancakes, slowly eating them. There was a lot on my mind.

"What's on your mind?" Jag asked, swiping up some syrup he spilled on the table and sticking his finger in his mouth before resuming pouring the syrup on his pancakes.

"Have you ever thought of having a kid?" I asked suddenly. Jag seemed to almost choke, squeezing the bottle so hard that syrup squirted out and ricocheted off the plate.

"W-What?" Jag asked in a high-pitched voice.

"Um, the syrup is spilling over," I said, pointing at the syrup that had overflowed from the confines of the plate.

"Shit!" Jag exclaimed, smacking the bottle down on the table and trying to wipe the syrup up with his napkin. I waited for him to finish. "Um...go on...?"

"Well, I don't want a kid. I was just asking."

"For any particular reason?"

"Well, every time I'm asleep, it seems like my dreams are about being pregnant. It kinda hurts, y'know? Since Warped, I've felt kinda...empty," I admitted, popping a piece of pancake in my mouth.

"I've never seriously thought about it. I know that it would be hard like hell to have a kid. I mean, it might be fun at first, but...Have you ever seen that show where they give a teen couple a kid to take care of? They never last. And I couldn't really imagine it," Jag said, cutting up his pancakes. It looked more like soup now.

"I know that. I was just wondering," I said. There was a few minutes of silence while we both pondered and ate.

Finally, Jag turned to me, "This might be embarrassing, but I don't want you to get mad. I mean no offense. Did you and Adam use protection?"

My face automatically flushed and I could feel my cheeks burning. I stretched my memory back to those few, lustful days.

"N-No. We didn't," I confessed.

"Again, I don't mean this offensively. Were you trying to get pregnant?" he questioned. He looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

"No! God no! The first time was kinda...spur of the moment. Nobody really brings a condom to an intervention."

"Wh...Why did you do it?" Jag asked, looking pained.

"I was jealous of Zoe. She got an intervention when I never did. She could leave and everyone would take her back and I never got that. She could be a complete bitch and hurt everyone and everyone overlooks it. I just wanted to have something that she did, just for a little while. That, unfortunately, turned out to be Adam." My fingers were trembling. I hated serious conversations.

"I...didn't have those reasons for Zoe. I just needed...something. I'm sure you can guess what. And she offered it to me, so I took it. I regret it," Jag whispered.

"I'm sorry."

"Why? You had a reason."

"I'm sorry because I can't say I regret it."

Jag turned and looked at me, his eyes wide. Then he looked down at his plate.

"Why?" That single word held more emotion than I can even express.

"Because I finally triumphed over Zoe. It wasn't him as a person that gave me satisfaction. Not mentally, anyway. It was just the fact that I finally was on top. I came out the winner, not Zoe," I explained.

"I thought you guys were best friends. It seems like you hate her."

"I don't hate her. I just get tired of always being on the bottom. I wanna be a rockstar, a singer, a guitarist. I'm not any of that. Zoe's the best singer, Zoe's the best guitarist. She beats me at my own game all the time."

"Then why don't you bring this up to her? Why can't you say something so that you can fix it?" Jag always asked the questions to make me think.

"Because there's this...protectiveness. I used to like her back in sixth grade, and I developed this feeling that I had to protect her. She was always in so much pain yet held this...grace. I wanted to preserve that. The only reason it's not like that now is because she's changed. She's not innocent anymore. She's not oblivious."

"There's a lot I don't know about you, Roxie."

"I can say the same."

"I still love you."

"I can still say the same."

Jag smiled and placed a gentle kiss on my lips that made me giggle.

"That sounded so damn cool!" I exclaimed. Jag burst out laughing and we finished our pancakes. Jag took my plate and his syrup-drenched one to the sink and placed them in.

"Come on, let's go sit down on the couch. There's something important I've been meaning to tell you but I just keep putting it off." The way Jag's voice changed from light-hearted to grim could not be a good thing.