Nothing More Than Fiction

JADYN'S P.O.V. {The next day, October 22, 2006}

Everyone, being Zacky, Georgia, my brother, and Matt, was asleep when I grabbed my stash of money to pay for what I was about to do. I know I told Georgia that I was going to keep the baby, but I changed my mind. I just couldn't do it. I can't take care of a child.

With $300 clenched in my fist, the car keys in the other, I headed out to the nearest hospital, purse in tow of course. I wasn't about to have surgery. I'd take the medication. The "medical abortion".

I checked in with a gynecologist they had and asked for the shot. They had me ready soon and after an hour and a half, I was heading home with my first out of a series of two shots. I'd have to go back in a few days to get the other shot. The doctors even made my follow up appointment and everything.

It felt weird. I could feel the medication running through my veins and I knew that it was slowly killing the growing child in me. I felt like a murderer, but it was honestly for the best.

Being only 10:30 in the morning, I'm pretty sure everyone was still asleep. Georgia didn't have to go into work until 4:00 pm today anyway.

When I got home around 11:00, sure enough, everyone was still asleep.

Matt was still in my bed, Jimmy on the couch, Georgia and Zacky in her room. I went to the couch and cuddled up to Jimmy. He wasn't taking up a lot of room and I didn't want to be with Matt right now. I wanted to be with my brother.

A few silent tears fell and Jimmy woke up when I got comfortable.

"Jadyn?" He stared blankly at me and I just looked at him, my cheeks wet. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and I put my arms in front of me so I could keep a distance between us but still be next to him.

He fell back asleep almost immediately, and I wasn't gone much longer than him.

The next time I woke up, there was a flash in both me and Jimmy's faces and Jimmy jumped up, ready to kick someone's ass while Georgia, Matt, and Zacky were almost doubled over in laughter.

"I'm so sorry Jade, but you two looked too damn cute!" Georgia had to brace herself onto Zacky to keep from falling. But Zacky did fall and then it was Georgia who was surprised but kept him halfway off of the floor.

"Fuck you guys." I smiled and got up from the couch. It was a wonder how the both of us stayed on that couch, but we're both really thin. I can't help it. It runs in the family.

"It really was cute," Matt said to me as I walked by him to get to the kitchen and Jimmy was already in there. I didn't see him walk in.

"Well that was weird," he mumbled as he poured a bowl of Cookie Crisp for both me and him, I grabbed the milk.

"Just a little," I giggled and poured the milk into the bowls.

"Why were you with me on the couch? Crying no less?" He stopped and looked at me. I tore my eyes from my bowl of cereal and looked at him.

"I wanted to? I really didn't feel like cuddling up to Matt." I shrugged, the clock reading 2:41 pm behind him on the oven.

"Yeah. I don't like him sleeping in your bed." Jimmy turned brotherly on me.

"And you say this now?" I laughed and he chuckled.

"Shut up. It just occurred to me now." He nudged my shoulder and grabbed his bowl of cereal and I grabbed mine too, grabbing spoons on the way out of the kitchen. We decided to sit on the balcony to eat.

Matt and Zacky were watching TV as Jimmy and I walked by and I guess that Georgia was getting ready for work. The two knuckleheads didn't notice us pass by.

This was the closest I've ever been with my brother.

The wind howled as we sat by the door of our balcony and we watched whatever was happening at the apartment complex across the way. The cookie crisp was devoured in no time. I only got to eat half of it before Jimmy took my bowl and ate the rest.

"What the fuck! Eat your own!" I giggled and he stopped slurping up the milk.

"I did," he mumbled, his mouth full and milk dribbling down his chin. I laughed so hard, I got a stitch in my side.

"Well fine, finish eating mine then." I just pushed the bowl up onto his chin. His chin was now dipped in milk. It's what he got for holding it so close to his face.

"Hey that wasn't cool." And his mouth and chin were literally drenched in milk.

"I know." I smiled smugly and crossed my arms, pulling my feet up to my chest. I wasn't holding my self, I was just comfortable.

"JIMMY YOUR PHONE IS RINGING SOME SAPPY LOVE SONG! MAKE IT STOP!" Zacky's nasally voice rang through the balcony door and both me and Jimmy started to laugh.

"I guess Mel is calling." He set down my empty bowl into his empty bowl, wiped off his mouth, and walked inside.

"SHUT IT, ZACKY VAGINA!" I could hear Jimmy bellow before his voice got lower when he answered his phone. Zacky's protests to the screw up of his stage name weren't left unheard. Jimmy merely pushed him onto the balcony with me while he was still bitching.

"Oh hey Jade." He blushed as he looked down at me. He was still facing the door, so he turned around and sat down where Jimmy had been sitting.

I laughed at him and just stared out into the distance.

"Kay, well Mel needs me. Late." Jimmy chucked the deuce to me as he gave Zacky that man-shake and left my apartment.

"Matt still watching TV?" I asked Zacky and he shrugged. I laughed. "But you were just with him." And Zacky shrugged again. I laughed again and rolled my eyes as I stood up and went back inside.

Matt, indeed, was still watching TV. Georgia came out of her room all ready for work and it was about 3:15 pm anyway.

"Work?" I asked dumbly and she nodded, putting on a silver hoop earring.

"Bye Matt." She waved to him as she walked over to me and gave me a comforting hug and walked outside to lean down and give Zacky both a show and a kiss.

"Bye guys," she said again after she walked back inside and out the door.

"Damn, she's fine," Zacky said breathlessly as he walked back inside from the balcony.

"You haven't even had sex with her, you dumbass." I laughed and he shrugged.

"But I do wish," he said hopefully and plopped onto the couch with Matt, and I sat on the side of Matt that Zacky wasn't on. We just laughed at him.

The phone started ringing, and Matt jumped up to answer it.

"Jadyn, there's a Dr. Reeves on the phone for you?" Matt said, raising his eyebrows.

I sort of panicked and almost fell onto the floor in my attempt to get to the phone before Matt could ask any questions. The person on the phone was the gynecologist I saw earlier today, and I didn't want anyone knowing anything. Not yet. And especially not Matt.

"Thanks," I mumbled.

"Jadyn, it's Dr. Reeves. I was just calling to say that we changed your appointment for your next shot for the 25th instead of the 26th."

"Is it still at the same time?" I asked.

Matt just looked on with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's still the same time, just a day earlier. But I've got other patients waiting, so I'll see you on the 25th."

"Okay. Bye."

"Who's Dr. Reeves?" Zacky called from the couch.

"She's my gynecologist," which was half true. I did see her this morning, but she wasn't my actual doctor.

I walked back over to the couch and took the place I had been sitting in before.

"Yeah...I don't want to hear any more," Zacky said, flipping the channels.

"You're not pregnant, are you?" Matt chuckled from the kitchen.

I choked on the water I was drinking, and Zacky lightly slapped my back until I stopped. I could tell by Matt's voice that he was only kidding...but he had no idea.

"You okay?" Zacky asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "Just went down the wrong pipe."

Man, that was close.

"God, I'm bored," Zacky said some 15 minutes later.

"Well...Jimmy's off doing God-knows-what with Melanie, Georgia's at work, Mikey and Brian are out with his dad, and Johnny and Delia...well, I don't really know where those two are," I chuckled. "So I'm not really sure what the three of us could do."

It was silent as the guys contemplated the things they could do. I didn't really want to do anything right now other than sit in front of the Tv, but I knew that Zacky and Matt would eventually find something to entertain themselves that involved leaving the apartment, and I don't want to be stuck here by myself.

"We could go to the mall?" Zacky suggested.

If you didn't already know him, sometimes you'd swear he was a girl because of all the time he spends at the mall.

"Better than just sitting here with nothing else to do," Matt said.

I didn't want to go anywhere, but got up to get ready nonetheless. It was only the beginning of November, so school was still in session, and there wouldn't be as many people and kids there as there normally was. I mean, it's the norm for kids out here to skip school every day, but there were some that actually did stay at school.

Twenty minutes later, we pulled into a parking spot on the Huntington Mall, and spent 10 minutes looking for a parking spot. We ended up having to park in one of the very back rows of spots.

"God, I'm not looking forward to this walk," Zacky said as we made the trek up to the building.

"I'll race you to the door Zacky." Matt smirked.

"Yeah, okay, because I'm stupid enough to take that bet," he said with a sarcastic tone.

He ended up racing with Matt anyways, and lost miserably. I just walked. I wasn't about to run.

When they reached the door, Matt triumphantly declared his victory, then ran back to get me, me jumping onto his back while he ran with me up to the door. Zacky just stayed on the bench and lit up a cigarette while waiting for us to come back.

"You know, if you'd stop smoking those, you might not run out of breath so fast," Matt said pointedly as he set me back on the ground.

Zacky just flipped Matt off and blew a large cloud of smoke into his face. He hurriedly finished his Marlboro, then the three of us walked inside.

"Man, I haven't been here in for-fucking-ever," I exclaimed as we stepped through the air-conditioned section of double doors.

"We're here all the time," Matt laughed, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

We walked down the halls of the mall, occasionally walking into a store if we saw something interesting, but none of us ever bought anything.

"I think this is the first time I've ever gone and spent this much time in a mall without buying anything," I said with a laugh as we walked into the music store. None of us had bought anything yet, and we had been there for almost two hours already.

"I'll probably buy something in here though," Zacky said as he started flipping through the nearest rack of CD's. "But as soon as we leave here, we have to get something to eat, 1ecause I'm starving," he said, rubbing his stomach.

"Zacky, you're always hungry," I said.

At the end of half an hour, we left the store, Matt and I empty-handed, Zacky with some CD's of bands who's names I had never heard of before. We sat around the food court and ate our Chinese food, then walked back to the other side of the mall to get back to the car.

"'K, I'm still bored," Zacky said as he pulled the car out of the parking lot.

"The only other option we have is to go to the place we work," I said, shrugging my shoulders.

"Nah I don't feel like going to bar just yet. It's too early in the day." Zacky turned in the direction of the apartment.

"Alright." I muttered and Matt leaned up from the back seat and placed a kiss on my cheek.

"Okay, let's go to the bar." Zacky turned down another road to the bar and Matt and I laughed at him. We knew it was because he wanted to see Georgia.

I should've planned on this. I knew that we would end up at the bar at one point or another during the night.

GEORGIA'S P.O.V.

"Cheers," I said.

I clinked my shot glass with the guy that had bought me a shot of tequila, then drained it, and chased it with a beer. Although I didn't really chase it with a beer. See, when you work at a bar, you have to get used to guys buying you shots. To keep myself from getting plastered while I was working, I quickly learned that pretending to chase the liquor with beer, and actually spitting in into the bottle, that no one else is the wiser, and I get to keep from losing it. You just gotta make sure that someone doesn't pick up your beer and serve it by mistake, or take a drink of it themselves. I did that once to one of the bouncer's once. Huge drama.

"Hey sexy. How 'bout you pour me a shot of Jack and then pour one for your pretty little self?"

My back was to whoever was talking to me, and I just rolled my eyes as I pulled two shot glasses and a bottle of Jack out from under the bar then turned around to make them. I almost dropped everything in my hands when I noticed Zacky, Jadyn, and Matt standing in front of me, Zacky with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"God that scared me," I said, stating the obvious.

Zacky leaned across the bar to give me a kiss, then the three of them sat on bar stools and I put everything else back under the bar.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Zacky laughed at me. "I was serious when I said I wanted you to pour me a shot of Jack and take one with me."

I laughed and rolled my eyes as I took everything back out from under the bar, plus two more shot glasses as Matt and Jadyn decided to take shots too. We clinked our glasses, drained our shots, and I did my fake chaser while everyone except Zacky and myself shuddered.

"How can you chase that with a beer?" Matt asked.

"She doesn't really chase it," Jadyn laughed.

We all laughed at Matt's perplexed look as Zacky slapped the money for the four shots down on the counter top and Jadyn began to explain to Matt about my "chaser".

"Isn't it a little early for bar-hopping?" I asked Zacky as I welcomed the absence of drink orders for the moment.

"Yeah, but we were at the mall cause we got bored earlier. I was still bored when we left, so we decided to come here."

He winked at me, and I smiled as I rolled me eyes and went off to make some drinks for other customers that had wandered up to the bar, the other two bartenders that I was working with deciding they were gonna disappear for their break an hour ago and not come back.

"Where are the other girls?" my boss asked, coming up to the counter. My boss, "Ryan the Mighty Asshole."

"They went on break about an hour ago, and haven't come back, obviously," I said as I set on making another order. My boss just stalked off to find his missing bartenders and, hopefully, chew their asses out.

I groaned as a large crowd of people walked through the door, knowing that I would probably have to make all their drinks by myself. I don't mind working the bar by myself if it's unavoidable. But when my co-workers just up and fucking leave me to fend for myself during a rush because they're being lazy sons-of-bitches, that's when I get mad.

"Georgie, you want some help with them?" Jadyn gestured towards the group of people that I noticed walk through the door.

"Of course I'd like some," I snarled. "But as you can see, Tanya and Katy are nowhere to bee seen, so help isn't gonna fucking be possible."

"I meant help from me, dumbass," she laughed. So did Zacky and Matt.

"I'm sorry, George, but that was a little 'Special Ed,'" Matt said, doubled over his stool from laughter.

"Fuck you, Matthew," I laughed.

That shut him up, and Jadyn jumped over the bar to help me with that large crowd that had just sauntered up to the counter...each order a different Goddamned drink.

Serving 62 beers...eh no biggie. Serving 62 different different drinks? Totally sucks ass.

Does anyone have any idea how long it takes to make 62 special hand-crafted drinks? A long-fucking time. And even having someone help you doesn't cut the time down by much. It still took Jadyn and I almost 45 minutes to make all the drinks.

"I swear to God, I'm gonna kill Tanya and Katy when they come back," I said, wiping my brow with the back of my hand.

"You mean, 'if' they come back," Jadyn chuckled.

And my boss stormed back over to the bar at that moment, looking even more pissed off than he was when he left to go find my missing co-workers.

"I swear, I'm gonna fucking fire them if they leave in the middle of their fucking shift one more fucking time," he seethed, rolling up his sleeves and stalking over to help Jadyn and I stock the bar.

"That's what you said last time, man." I laughed at the 'I'm-gonna-kill-you' look that he gave me, and went back to combining liquor from half-empty bottles.

"I'm fucking serious this time," he retorted. "As soon as I find replacements, they're fucking gone."

This was one of the rare times when I didn't think Ryan was all that bad. Because Tanya and Katy liked to disappear on me all the time, and it pissed me the fuck off. And this time, he actually wasn't lying. As soon as everything at the bar had settled down, he went to the back, grabbed the stack of applications, and made some phone calls. An hour after he retreated to the back, he came back out and stopped at the bar next to Zacky.

"Tanya and Katy's cars are gone, so I don't think they're coming back tonight," he snapped. "Jadyn, will you stay tonight and help Georgia?"

She arched an eyebrow at him. I knew that she hadn't quickly forgotten the way he treated her when she was gone for four days with the guys.

"Jadyn, please stay and help me tonight." I stuck out my bottom lip and pouted.

"Fine, Georgie." She rolled her eyes. "I'll stay and help you."

My boss just narrowed his eyes at Jadyn who'd smirked at him, then stalked off, no doubt to leave.

At about 1:00 in the morning, we were able to leave, Jadyn and Matt taking my car back, Zacky and I riding back to my apartment in his car.

"I love watching you mix alcohol," he said with a laugh.

"That was totally random, Zacky,"

He grabbed my left hand with his right, driving one-handed with his left hand, intertwined our fingers, and kissed the back of my hand.

"Don't forget," he said as we turned onto Jadyn's and my street. "We're going up to LA for a week tomorrow morning,"

"I didn't even know you were leaving." I turned to him. "When did this happen?"

"Shit, babe, I totally forgot that you didn't already know," he said, a look of pure regret on his face. "We cancelled the tour early with our last show in Vegas so we could go into the studio and start recording the new album early."

I just nodded and turned my attention back to the road, where he was now turning into the parking lot for the apartment.

"Please don't be mad. I really did forget. Jadyn knew. I know Matt told her. I don't know why she didn't say anything to you."

"Zacky, I'm not mad," I assured him as he walked with me to the door. Jadyn and Matt were just pulling in next to Zacky's car. "You're gonna be gone for a week. In L.A. to set up recording stuff. I can handle that."

The four of us said our goodbye's at the door, then the two of them left in Zacky's car as Jadyn and I stepped inside our apartment.

"How come you never told me that Zacky and the guys were gonna be in L.A. for a week, and that they were leaving tomorrow?" I asked once we had locked the door.

"Fuck," she muttered. "Georgie, you know I had other things on my mind. No offense, but telling you that the guys were leaving tomorrow wasn't a top priority with everything that's happened over the past couple days."

"I guess I deserve that," I said. "I forgot too, I guess."

"Lucky you," she mumbled.

I felt slightly ashamed of myself as Jadyn walked back to her room and shut the door. What kind of a friend was I for forgetting something that huge that happened to my best friend?

JADYN'S P.O.V. {Three Days Later, October 25, 2006}

My alarm screamed at me for me to wake up at 9:30 in the morning, and I just didn't want to. I had to for the second shot I had to receive for this abortion.

I dressed in a pair of sweats and a loose shirt before putting on my tennis shoes and heading out of the door to go to Dr. Reeves' office.

The guys have only been gone for three days, and it was almost lonely without Matt. I'm still not entirely sure how Jimmy is honestly feeling about the two of us.

"Jade, where are you going?" Georgia opened her door, her hair disheveled and her eyes squinting to see me.

"I've got an early pap smear appointment," I quickly lied and she just nodded as she shut her door and went back to bed.

I let out a breath and headed out to my car. I drove off quickly to make my appointment. The quicker, the better.

The lobby wasn't empty, nor was it full when I checked in for my appointment. With an early arrival, I should get in earlier and out earlier. It would be convenient. Dee, Mike, and Mel were supposed to come over since the guys were out of town for the week.

The doctor called me in after twenty minutes of waiting and she gave me the dosage of my second shot and some pills to help out the process. She told me I was going to experience pain and bleeding.

I told her I was thrilled.

Not really, but come on. Who would seriously be thrilled to have an abortion? Definitely not me.

I could already feel what more medication was being added to my body, and I went home and took the first pill in the bathroom. Luckily I had to pee, or I wouldn't have noticed the bleeding that started until it had ruined my clothes.

I wasn't sure how I was supposed to stop to bleeding, or how long it would take to stop, but I locked myself in the bathroom until it finished.

Bad thing was, it didn't stop for 6 hours. The pain from the cramping hurt so much, but sometimes it didn't.

I think some of my screams freaked out Georgia, and she would bang on the bathroom door trying to get me out, or figure out what was going on. I wouldn't tell her, but she did delay the girls coming over for a while.

It was about 7 o'clock when the pain and the bleeding stopped and I cleaned myself up, flushing the toilet for the hundredth time already, and taking a shower because it was there. I felt dirty really.

Crawling back into the clothes that I had on before, I finally came out of the bathroom to see Georgia sitting on the floor, against the wall from the bathroom door.

"What the fuck was going on Jadyn?" she growled as she stood up.

"Nothing, alright. Where is everyone?" I desperately tried to change the subject.

"I called them when I heard the shower turn on, so they should be here any minute. Now tell me what the fuck was going on in our bathroom for six and a half hours," she demanded.

"Do you really want to know!?" I screamed.

I didn't hear the door open when Mike, Dee, and Mel let themselves in because Georgia had told them to.

"Three days ago I went to the hospital for the abortion pill! What just happened for six hours was me losing the baby inside of me!" I screamed and turned around to go into the living room but met the three girls of whom had no idea what had happened to lead to my previous pregnancy in the first place.