Jagged Edge

"Roxie, I don't know how to tell you this..." Jag admitted sheepishly. He was looking down at his hands instead of at me, who was sitting next to him on the couch.

"Did something happen? Are you okay?" I asked. I wondered if someone in his family had passed away. I felt horrible for being a bitch, if that happened.

"I..." he hesitated. "I told my parents about you."

My heart sank. Of course that's why he's so sad. They want him to break up with me. I knew I wasn't exactly girlfriend material, but still. They should want their son to be happy. I mean, if he truly was happy.

"What did they say?" I wondered quietly.

"They said they'd love to meet you, but they also are coming home for quite a while soon, so..." Jag trailed off.

"Do they know that I'm living here?"

"Yes, and that's the problem. They want us to move. All of us," he explained.

"All of us?! Where?!" I almost yelled.

"I mean me and you. They wanna get us a house together. It wouldn't be that far away, but it would be somewhere more private. I looked up the house that they were talking about. It's not that far from Abbie's," Jag clarified.

"Oh..." I sighed, not really sure if I should be happy or sad. I wondered what it would be like to not have Donny right next door to us. Then I wondered what it would be like to live in a house close to Abbie's. Abbie lived in a woodsy area and her closest neighbors were down the street quite a ways. I'd never lived in the woods, but it was something that always intrigued me.

"Are...Are you okay with that?" Jag asked, tipping my chin up so that I was looking at him.

"Yeah...I am," I sighed. "When are we moving?"

"I dunno yet. Whenever they get back from wherever they are. They want us to start packing up stuff that we don't need though, and go over to fix up the house," Jag explained.

"That's...so we have the whole house to ourselveS?" I asked. He nodded.

"It's gonna kinda be like it is now, except we have to come and visit Mom and Dad and stuff," he said. "They said they'll buy us some furniture and stuff, too. Since if they're living here and we're living there, we can't take it all."

"Makes sense," I nodded. The more I thought about it, the more exciting it seemed to me. I know we were moving, but the whole thing seemed kind of cool. I mean, Jag and I were going to be moving within the same town. Still, I was gonna miss living next to Donny... He was basically my best guy-friend.

"So...?" Jag asked.

"When did you find out about this?" I asked.

"Well, when you were in the hospital, but nothing was being done about it, so I didn't wanna worry you with it until my parents bought the house," Jag said. "They called again this morning while I was dying my hair and told me that they were buying the house and coming home around the end of the month."

"Ahh, I see," I said, nodding and thinking.

I must've looked very determined, because Jag felt the need to ask me what I was thinking about.

"There's a lot I don't know about you, Jag," I said, probably for the hundredth time.

"I know, Roxie. All in due time," he sighed. I took his hand in mine.

"Let's change the subject," I suggested.

"And what do you think we should change it to?" he asked, amused.

"Oh hell...Did you know that when Veronica and I were little, we used to be friends with Brandy?" I asked.

"Shit! You serious?"Jag sounded incredulous as he looked down at me.

"Seriously. When we were in like...fourth grade we used to play this game called The Rare Idiot at recess. Brandy or Valerie was always the rare idiot because Veronica and I thought we were too cool to be the idiot," I giggled.

"How the hell do you play that?" Jag asked.

"Well, someone is the rare idiot, and you give them time to go hide in their habitat. Usually, they act like they're sleeping. Then the rare idiot hunters - that was me and Veronica - would come up and pounce on them. Basically, it's just like tag except you beat the shit outta the person hiding."

"You guys sounded...violent," Jag pointed out.

"If you think that's bad, don't even get me started on sixth grade!" I exclaimed.

"What was sixth grade?" Jag asked.

"Oh wow...what wasn't in sixth grade? We used to slam each others heads into lockers as a greeting and stuff. We were mega-obsessed with Naruto and My Chemical Romance. I once threw Veronica down on the pavement so hard that she had memory problems now," I described.

"Holy fuck!" Jag exclaimed.

"Yeah. She didn't get up for a minute. I was just waiting for blood to start pouring out of her head. When she got up I don't think I've run faster in my life. When recess was over, she repeatedly slammed my head into my locker so much that I had vision problems," I said.

"Why were you guys like that?" Jag asked.

"Well, we didn't know how weird it was. We never really communicated with anyone outside of our group, so we didn't know how to act. People thought we were vampires because we were so pale and we never ate at lunch. Whenever we came down the hall, people would part so that we could walk by. And we thought that was normal," I shrugged. "I like to think of it as a way to deal with the pain we couldn't face. It was like mutual self-harm. I'd hurt someone, they'd hurt me. I didn't need to cut then because of it. That's why things fell apart in seventh grade."

"How so?"

"Well, we agreed to stop hurting each other. That kinda meant that we had no one to take our anger out on, so we resorted to talking about each other behind our backs. It was the emotional pain that ripped everything apart. Bruises and cuts go away. Words don't."

"What about eighth grade?" Jag asked in a whisper.

"Things got way worse. Every day of my life was a struggle. I was always thinking about suicide or hurting myself. Or I was worrying. I couldn't enjoy anything and I was always worried and stressed out. I wondered what everyone was saying about me behind my backs, or why Zoe didn't make eye contact in the hall. So I started cutting all the time. And drinking. And smoking and taking pills." I was choking up now.

"What was fifth grade like? Since we skipped over it."

"There was this boy I liked then from the first day of school. His name was Andrew Davis. That's what I think of when I think of fifth grade. Along with Veronica, Zoe, and Christmas," I laughed.

"Why all of those things?" Jag asked. He was sounding a lot like a therapist.

"Well, Andrew because I liked him, obviously. Veronica because she was my best friend and I remember this time when she was sick and she couldn't open a Gatorade bottle. She smashed it into her forehead and it left a big bruise. Zoe because we always fought over Andrew. And Christmas because I got a hot cocoa set from Veronica and I gave her a monkey," I said. "Those were probably the main highlights of that year."

"I'm sorry," Jag whispered, his voice choked with emotion.

"Why? What is there to be sorry for?" I demanded.

"In fouth grade, you seemed innocent, oblivious. By fifth, you were maturing, but still had innocence. Something went wrong by sixth grade, and you began taking it out on your friends and they returned the favor. In seventh, you didn't know how to cope with anything and became depressed. And then, in eighth grade you completely lost anything that you deemed important," Jag explained. By now, I was sobbing.

"You know everything so well and you weren't even there. You don't even know all of the things that happened!" I cried.

"I know. I love you. If you ever need to talk about it, I'm always, always, always here for you," Jag said.

"I need YouTube," I sniffled once I had calmed down. Jag burst out laughing, but took my hand and helped me upstairs. I plopped in front of the computer and loaded a bunch of random LiveLavaLive videos to watch with Jag. Mitchell Davis always seemed to cheer me up.

"Mitchell Davis is amazing," Jag stated as we watched the recycling video.

"Not as amazing as you," I said quickly. Jag's cheeks turned red and he looked down.

"Oh, well..." he trailed off, trying to hide his face.

"Don't even try to be all humble about it. I love you." I kissed Jag on the cheek. His face turned even brighter.

"I love you, too, Roxie," he whispered. I smiled. Whenever I was with Jag, things were perfect.