I wrote this in my spare time after the idea came spontaneously. Takes place after book 5, in the spring. Enjoy!
Something was up with Jackson.
Heathcliff hadn’t known him for that long all things considered, at least not in a friendly sense, but he could still tell things were off. His normally jokey self had been toned down significantly; he hadn’t made a single wisecrack on their last mission and had been all business. Heathcliff had watched him zone out frequently in class, lost deep in thought. He was tense, almost sullen. He was easily irritated. It was like he was a completely different person.
Everyone else had also picked up on it. Julio had made jokes that would’ve normally had Jackson dying, but they had only elicited a small chuckle. Ruby’s allergies had been acting up around him, but she couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong exactly; he had ignored her attempts to figure out what was wrong. He hadn’t even bothered arguing with Matilda when she tried to playfully pick a fight, like they often did. Duncan had tried to ask Jackson what was wrong, but had only received an, “I’m fine, just a little tired,” in reply. Yeah, right.
He looked over at Jackson, who was completely zoned out, staring at his desk. He had dark circles under his eyes and was idly turning a pencil over in his hand. Normally he would pass notes to Heathcliff behind the teacher’s back, but he hadn’t done so today. Hm. He really was off, wasn’t he?
Frowning, Heathcliff tore a small piece of paper off his notebook, and quickly scribbled out a message to Jackson.
He folded it over a couple of times and tossed it onto Jackson’s desk. Jackson didn’t notice at first, still giving his desk a thousand-yard stare. Heathcliff waited for the teacher to turn back to the board to write something, and he leaned over and poked Jackson with the eraser end of his pencil. Jackson jumped in response to this, startled. He wildly looked around before his vacant gaze settled on Heathcliff. Heathcliff nodded his head in the direction of the note. Jackson moved his head, noticed it, and turned back around, opening it. He stared at it for a few moments, before writing something on it. Heathcliff turned his attention back to the board, pretending to not notice Jackson folding the note back up out of the corner of his eye.
The note landed back on Heathcliff’s desk, and he picked it up and discreetly unfolded it.
Yeah. Didn’t get much sleep last night haha.
Heathcliff frowned. Yeah, Jackson was definitely hiding something. He didn’t write another reply on the note, instead looking over at Jackson, who was staring blankly at the chalkboard. Heathcliff noticed Jackson hadn’t taken a single note or even sketched a single doodle on his notebook for the entire class. The class seemed to pass at an agonizing pace. It was early May, unusually warm, and their social studies classroom was stuffy. Heathcliff wanted to talk to Jackson and figure out what was wrong; he hated seeing someone normally so full of life so down in the dumps (and yeah, he was just as surprised he was thinking that about Jackson, of all people).
The bell finally rang, ending the school day. Everyone else in the room jumped out of their seats, chattering noisily and excitedly, ready for the weekend. Except for Jackson. Normally he was just as excited the weekend had arrived like anyone else. Not this time though. He slowly stood up and started putting away his things. Heathcliff watched him; it was like watching someone getting ready to leave for their execution rather than home for the weekend. When he turned and quickly headed out of the classroom without so much as a glance back, Heathcliff decided to take matters into his own hands.
Too late. Jackson was gone. Heathcliff quickly shoveled his own belongings into his bag and stood up, hurrying out of the classroom. He looked around the chaotic halls for a sign of gelled-up blonde hair, but didn’t see anything initially. He decided to try Jackson’s locker, and turned to head off in that direction, shoving his way through the crowds.
After about a minute of making his way against the flow of traffic, he managed to spot Jackson at his locker. He still had that vacant gaze about him. He looked exhausted.
Jackson turned to look at Heathcliff. “Oh. Hey Heath.”
“Dude, what’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird all week.” He hadn’t expected himself to just . . . jump right in, as it were. He was never really the type. This called for drastic measures, though. He had never seen Jackson so . . . off before. “You’ve been acting weird all week. What’s going on?”
Jackson offered the most half-hearted smile Heathcliff had ever seen in his life. “Oh, it’s nothing. I just haven’t been sleeping great. I think the stress of school and NERDS is getting to me, that’s all.”
Heathcliff tensed his brow. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“Hey, I said I was fine, Heath.”
God, it was like talking to a brick wall. “You don’t seem fine at all,” Heathcliff attempted to probe. Jackson sighed slowly, irritated.
Heathcliff flinched, and he noticed that Jackson did too. It was Brett Bealer, walking past in a massive pack of his dudebro friends. Heathcliff watched as they all slowed to a stop in front of the two of them. He glanced over at Jackson, who looked uncharacteristically upset at this development. He noticed Jackson’s jaw tighten.
There was a beat of silence. Heathcliff had braced himself for the inevitable conflict, when he noticed Brett smile. It was freaky, almost uncanny.
This elicited chuckles from the group, and they continued moving on to wherever they were going to. Heathcliff was baffled. Why was he being nice to them? And why “happy mother’s day” of all things? Yeah, that was this weekend. What about it? It wasn’t like they were mothers or anything.
He never finished his sentence. Jackson had a stricken look on his face that caused the words leaving Heathcliff’s mouth to die on his lips. It was the most upset he’d ever seen him. In the blink of an eye, Jackson turned and stormed off down the hall in the opposite direction, leaving his locker wide open.
“Jackson! Jackson, wait!” Heathcliff called hopelessly after him, but he was already gone. He shut Jackson’s locker and hurried after him, hopelessly trying to catch up. Man, Jackson was fast when he wanted to be. He lost sight of him very quickly, and had to guess where Jackson might have gone.
He turned around the corner and saw one of the doors leading out of the school closing slowly. Heathcliff jogged over to it and exited the building. He looked around and then saw Jackson. He was sitting on the curb near the now vacant bus drop-off zone, head buried in his arms. Heathcliff slowly made his way over to Jackson, a bad feeling in his stomach.
“Hey . . .” Heathcliff began cautiously. Jackson didn’t move or make any indication that he noticed Heathcliff.
He carefully sat down on the curb next to Jackson. Jackson lifted his head, looking Heathcliff in the eye. His expression was unreadable, but he was clearly upset.
“Look . . . it’s just Brett being stupid,” Heathcliff began, cautious. He looked away from Jackson and talked into the distance. “I mean . . . I don’t know what his deal is, but . . . it seemed like he was trying to be weirdly nice. I dunno. He probably just doesn’t know you’re having an off day. Though why he would bring up mother’s day, I don’t —”
He looked back over at Jackson, and was mildly horrified to see that Jackson’s expression had crumpled into one of anguish.
“He does know,” Jackson said, voice cracking. “He knows exactly why. He knows that I don’t have a mom anymore.”
Heathcliff felt his stomach drop. Jackson turned away and buried his face in his arms again.
I don’t have a mom anymore.
Suddenly, everything clicked. The acting strange, the loss of peppiness and humor, the dark circles, the spacing out, Brett and his dumb friends, “Happy Mother’s Day,” Jackson’s awful expression upon hearing that . . . it all hit Heathcliff like a ton of bricks.
“Jackson, that’s . . .” Heathcliff began, finding his voice. “God, that’s such an awful thing for him to do.”
“I . . . I’m so sorry, I had no idea,” Heathcliff said, voice quieter. “You . . . you never told us.”
Jackson lifted his head again. His eyes were red.
“I . . . I never felt comfortable talking about it,” he mumbled. Heathcliff nodded sympathetically.
“Do you want to talk about it now?” he asked.
Jackson was silent for a solid minute, staring out into the distance. It was surprisingly quiet, almost uncomfortably so. Heathcliff could hear the faint sound of kids yelling on the nearby elementary school playground, and the noise of cars on the road. Everything felt amplified in the silence.
“. . . My mom died when I was in the fourth grade,” he began, his voice quiet. He trailed off again, looking like he was trying to find the words to say.
“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Jackson sat up a little straighter. “She . . . she had ovarian cancer. It’s really hard to detect, since there’s almost no symptoms in the early stages. We found out later she had a gene mutation that made her risk go way up, but we didn’t know until after she had it. She didn’t have any warning signs for a really long time. By the time she went to the doctor to see what was wrong, it had already spread to her spine.”
He took in a shaky breath. “She started doing chemo and stuff, but it . . . it was too late. It was really aggressive. They gave her a year at most . . . she lived for eight months after. She lived in a care facility for the last few months, and . . .” He paused, his eyes glazing over again in the same fashion as before. “Dad hasn’t been the same since,” he finished in a whisper.
Heathcliff felt a pang in his chest looking at Jackson. He couldn’t have even begun to imagine that Jackson Jones, loud, flamboyant, cocky, arrogant, confident, energetic, happy Jackson Jones, could have had any type of baggage. Of course, saying that, it sounds incredibly stupid; of course he could have baggage. Everyone had baggage of some kind. But the thought had just seemed so far divorced from possible when looking at how he acted. You never would’ve guessed he had any problems whatsoever. Heathcliff remembered that month or so at the Playground, wanting to go home. Missing his mom. He couldn’t even begin to imagine not being able to ever see her again.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he told Jackson genuinely.
Jackson nodded in acknowledgement, before his face screwed up again, this time in anger.
“God! I never should have become friends with stupid Brett Bealer!” he shouted out into the parking lot. “I . . . I trusted him with telling him about it. I thought . . . I thought he cared . . . and even after we were done, I didn’t think he’d use it against me!”
His face fell again. He went silent, his lips trembling slightly. “My mom . . . she died on Mother’s Day. We went to the hospice place to visit her, and she was . . . really bad. I . . .”
A few tears finally escaped, and he hastily wiped them away with his wrist. “We were there for the last few hours of her life . . . all of us, Dad, Chaz, my grandparents . . . I . . .”
He looked over at Heathcliff, then turned away again. He choked out a sob, before finally beginning to cry fully, hanging his head. “I’ve never gotten it out of my head.”
Heathcliff wanted to comfort him, but wasn’t sure how to. He’d never found himself in this situation before, and felt a tad awkward. This was way beyond what he was expecting to have to manage today. Hopefully he wouldn’t mess it up.
He tentatively reached out and rested his hand on Jackson’s shoulder. Jackson flinched slightly on contact, but he relaxed afterward, continuing to cry quietly. After a few moments, Jackson sniffed loudly.
“I’m sorry . . .” he said slowly, voice still thick with tears. “I’ve never talked about this to anyone before.”
“It’s okay,” Heathcliff replied. “It really is.” Jackson wiped his eyes and offered a small, sad smile.
Heathcliff looked out into the distance again, giving Jackson some space to sniff and wipe his eyes.
“You know . . .” He turned back to Jackson. “You’re not the only one who’s lost a parent. If you need to talk to someone who understands better, you could always talk to Julio, I’m sure —”
He was cut off by Jackson aggressively shaking his head. “No. No way,” he said quietly. “I can’t possibly talk to him about this. Julio lost everything all at once . . . his mom, his dad, his brother . . . he wouldn’t want to listen to me and my problems, they’re insignificant compared to what he went through.” He sighed.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Heathcliff replied. “But, if you’re worried about him listening to you, all you have to do is bring him sugar. Seriously, if you bring him a Costco 50-pack of Oreos and a two-liter of cherry vanilla coke, you can talk about literally anything to him.” In spite of his tears, Jackson laughed in response to this, shaking his head in response.
“Really though,” Heathcliff continued, “Look, I know this is probably really hard to talk about, but . . . we’re your friends, and your teammates. You can, and probably should, talk to us about stuff like this.”
Jackson nodded silently. “I . . . I don’t even know where to begin. And, like, it’s so awkward and . . .”
“You don’t have to if you really don’t want to,” Heathcliff told him again. “But . . . we can all tell when you’re off.”
“You can?” he asked, surprised.
“You’re an open book. You have an awful poker face, and you’ve been acting weird for the past few days. Everyone’s noticed.”
Jackson blinked in surprise, then grimaced. “Ah, jeez. I didn’t mean to bother people.”
“I wouldn’t call them bothered. More ‘concerned’ than anything. It’s very out-of-character for you to go all silent.”
Jackson sighed in response to this. He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I just . . . I dunno. This was . . . a lot. I don’t know if I can do it again. Especially in front of . . . everyone.”
“Well, personally, I think you should, but only because it’s really not some horrible secret. No one’s gonna judge you for not having a mom, or for being sad about it. Besides, we care about you. Even Ruby’s taken a liking to you, and she hated your guts almost as much as I did. We’re all worried.”
Jackson turned this over silently. “I’ll think about it,” he said quietly.
They sat there on the curb for a few more minutes in silence. Heathcliff occasionally stole glances at Jackson, who was pondering everything, eyes still red. He sniffed occasionally. Finally, Jackson spoke up again.
“Thanks for coming to find me,” he said. “It felt good to get that all off my chest.”
“It’s no problem,” Heathcliff replied. “It was the least I could do.” Jackson gave Heathcliff a small smile in response.
“Man, I really should’ve become friends with you in the first place, not Brett. Even after all I did to you, you’re still more sympathetic than that jerk ever was.”
Heathcliff couldn’t help but smirk at this. “You, Mr. Football Star, friends with a nerd? Inconceivable.”
Jackson snorted. “Well, we’re here now, aren’t we?”
“You’re one of us now. The old you is long gone.”
Jackson paused, thinking about this. “You’re right. Well, sorta. Mostly. I’m less of a jerk, or, well, I’m not really a jerk anymore.” He paused again, reflecting. “I should’ve treated you guys better.”
He sighed, sitting up straight. “I . . . definitely took a lot out on you guys. A lot of anger . . . at my mom being sick, my dad being stressed out, my brother taking some of his problems out on me . . . I was in a really dark place for a while. Getting those braces on really was for the best, but the loss of my friend group messed me up even more for a while.” He looked over at Heathcliff. “God, if I had stopped sooner, maybe you wouldn’t have face-heel turned into villainy.”
Heathcliff was not expecting Jackson to bring this up, and definitely not in the candid manner he had just done. He felt himself become warm with shame, and turned away.
“I mean . . . you didn’t really help things . . . but I was already moving down a dark path. I was already snowballing when you joined. It . . . well, if I hadn’t been stopped prior, it probably still would have happened, no matter what.”
He dared to glance back at Jackson, expecting a judgmental reaction, which, in his opinion, would have been completely justified. Instead, Jackson was giving him a comforting, almost understanding glance.
“Heh, I guess we’re more alike in that regard than I originally thought.”
Heathcliff couldn’t believe his ears. “You did not just compare you being a schoolyard bully to me attempting to take over the world,” he said, dumbfounded.
Jackson laughed in response to this. “Okay, but like . . . I’m not wrong.”
“I’m not. Think about it. We were both scorned by stuff in our personal lives, and we took it out on the people around us, sometimes violently.” He grinned, satisfied with his observation.
Heathcliff thought about this, feeling his face scrunch up. It was a bit of a reach, he thought, but he figured he’d allow the victory for Jackson; he seemed like he needed one today.
“Well, in that case, you could probably benefit from talking to a professional. Like me.”
It was Jackson’s turn to be surprised. “Oh? You’re seeing a therapist?”
“Yeah. Brand and Deprankova wanted me to talk to a therapist about . . . everything. They brought a psychologist into the Playground to work with me.”
“So . . . how’s that going?”
“It’s weird, talking to someone about everything. I never thought I’d tell anyone anything about how I’m feeling . . . or about what I did, especially not to a stranger.” He felt the corner of his mouth turn up slightly. “You’d probably be a pretty easy case, honestly, at least compared to me. I don’t think the therapist is supposed to say ‘wow’ that many times during their first session with a client, but . . . well, here we are.”
He was pleased to see Jackson laugh in response to this.
“Well, I’ll think about it. It might be a good idea, if you think it’s helping you,” Jackson said.
“Yeah, it is helpful, more than I thought it would be anyway.”
Jackson nodded in response. Then, he stood up.
“So . . . I was going to visit Mom’s grave today after school. Do you want to come with? If you’re comfortable doing so.”
Heathcliff thought for a moment, before shrugging. “Sure, if you want me there.”
Jackson grinned, sunlight flashing momentarily off his braces. “I do, actually. I think I’ll feel less lonely if you’re there.” He offered a hand to Heathcliff, and he accepted it, getting to his feet.
“Lead the way,” he told Jackson.
The two of them left the school, and began to walk in the direction of the cemetery, Jackson assuring Heathcliff it wasn’t too far away. It sort of was, but both of them were fairly active, so it wasn’t any big deal to walk for that long. Jackson had fallen silent, and Heathcliff allowed it to stay that way. If Jackson wanted to talk, he could, but he wasn’t going to force conversation. They remained silent for the nearly half hour-long walk to the cemetery.
“Here we are,” Jackson said, stopping momentarily in front of the entrance. The black steel gates to the cemetery were open, and the two of them set off down the paved road, walking on the edge in case of cars. The sun was still high in the sky, but the large trees shaded them as they made their way into the heart of the cemetery. It was quiet, with practically no cars anywhere. The only sound was the wind moving through the trees. Flowers were in bloom, and fresh flowers were everywhere, on the trees and next to graves and memorials.
Jackson turned suddenly, and Heathcliff followed him onto the grass. They walked for a while off the pavement, passing by headstones with various names engraved onto them. Heathcliff noticed a particularly large headstone, a family plot indicator with Jackson’s last name carved into it. It was dark gray, and had an engraved cross above the name.
“Looks like Chaz and Dad have already come by today.”
They came to a stop. In front of them was a light gray, slanted headstone. A small wreath of flowers was placed next to it, as was a small steel vase with a few more flowers.
Beloved wife, mother, aunt, athlete, and friend.
Forever in our hearts, until we meet again.
The headstone had engravings of garlands of flowers around the edges, and Heathcliff noted a volleyball carving underneath the writing on the stone.
“A volleyball?” he found himself asking.
Jackson nodded, a sad smile on his face. “She played volleyball pretty much all her life. She got a scholarship for a varsity college team and played all through college. She met Dad at a sports bar, and they started dating shortly after. And . . . the rest is history.”
Heathcliff nodded soberly in response to this. “Sports are a big thing for you guys then?”
“Yeah. Dad did football, Mom did volleyball. We watched football as a family, we played sports together, went to games. Chaz pretty much went through every sport in existence, and I settled on football pretty fast. We pretty much ate, breathed, lived sports. I mean, we still kind of do. But with Mom gone . . .”
He trailed off, silently looking at the gravestone. He took in a breath, slightly shaky.
“. . . With Mom gone, it feels harder to connect. And not being able to play football doesn’t help.”
“Do you really want to go back to that life? Playing football on a team, I mean,” Heathcliff found himself asking.
Jackson was silent for a moment. He moved to sit down on the grass, and Heathcliff joined him.
“I . . . I . . . I think it’s more about wanting to connect with Mom again, rather than wanting to be with a team again . . . with those guys again. I . . . I really do think this is the right path for me, though. Joining NERDS, becoming a spy . . . it just feels like this is what I was meant to do, more than football. Meeting you guys I think was the best thing that ever happened to me, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. I do miss the game, though. I don’re right.”
He sighed. “Sometimes, though, I wonder if Mom can see me from wherever she is. I wonder if she’s sad about how much our family has changed. Her two kids aren’t in sports anymore, and that was our life, you know?”
Heathcliff thought for a moment. “Well . . . I never met your mom. But, I mean, I dunno what mom wouldn’t be proud of her son saving the world on a weekly basis. We’re . . . you are doing a really important thing. And,” he looked over at Jackson, “She probably would be glad to see you’re not a bully anymore.”
Jackson smiled sadly again. “Yeah. I hope you’re right.”
“Don’t worry, I’m always right.”
This elicited a gentle punch to the upper arm from Jackson. “Yeah. Sure.”
“You know anyone else who’s built a time machine?”
“You don’t even remember doing it because of the continuity change!”
“Ruby told me I did it, and I believe her.”
“What, so . . . you building a time machine means that you’re never wrong?”
“Yeah, that’s how that works.”
Jackson snickered at the conversation. Heathcliff was glad to see him in better spirits.
Jackson looked back at the headstone. He sighed.
“I miss her a lot,” he said simply. “It’s been two years, and I still miss her like crazy.”
Heathcliff nodded. “I can’t even imagine not being able to see my mom ever again. You’re a lot stronger than me, that’s for sure.”
“Honestly? I’m not, not by much anyway,” Jackson told him.
He reached out and touched the gravestone. “I think Mom would’ve liked you.”
“Yeah. She let me be friends with Brett, but she definitely got annoyed with him a lot. He always made a mess whenever we hung out. He wasn’t exactly the politest kid. I think she’d like you, and how you’re not completely full of yourself and rude. She’d also probably lay off about me needing to read more if I got you to deflect all her ‘how was school?’ questions.” He sadly looked at the stone. His eyes had that glazed look again, but he seemed less distressed, less alone.
“I’m glad you think I’d get your mom’s approval.”
“I’m glad we’re friends,” Jackson said. “Seriously.”
He smiled at Heathcliff and stood up, brushing loose grass off his pants, Heathcliff following suit.
“Thanks for coming with me,” Jackson said. “I really do appreciate it.”
Heathcliff smiled easily at him. “Of course. I’m just glad to see you in better spirits.”
Jackson turned towards Heathcliff. “So . . . now what?”
“Well . . . what do you want to do?”
Jackson thought for a moment. “You wanna come over for dinner?”
Heathcliff thought for a moment. “I think I can do that, but only under one condition.”
Jackson raised his eyebrows. “Which is . . . ?”
“You gotta tell the team. I know what I said, and you don’t have to go into details, but . . . they’re concerned. They just want to know what’s wrong. We’re your friends, after all.”
Jackson pursed his lips, thinking.
“You know how you and Matilda banter all the time? And how Ruby has to tell you guys to stop every time? Mat tried picking a fight with you Wednesday, man. When you barely reacted, she was down for the rest of the day.”
“She was? I didn’t notice.”
Heathcliff nodded. “Like I said, we’re your friends. We, shock horror, get worried when you act weird. We need the jokester back, it’s lifeless in the Playground without him.”
Jackson stuck his hands in his pockets, tipped his head towards the sky, and sighed.
“Alright . . . I’ll tell them when I see them next. But only cause I want you to come over.”
Heathcliff smirked. “I’ll allow it.”
The two of them turned away from the grave, and made their way out of the cemetery towards Jackson’s house, the silence between them feeling less heavy than it had previously.
⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤ END ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤
