Chapter Inspiration: Love's Not A Competition (But I'm Winning) – Paramore


"A FIGHT JASEY?" My father screamed as I sat on the couch rolling my eyes, "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!?"

"She wasn't..." Rian chimed in as I shot him a glare.

"Clearly!" My father ran a hand over his face, "do you know how much trouble you will be in!"

"I don't care!" I snapped back as his eyes dug into mine.

"Well you better start caring, you will never have a spot on the soccer team if you act like this you do realize that!" For a moment I stared at him. My eyes hard and ridged. He didn't understand, he didn't get the whole story. He didn't know she came up to us, he didn't know she started it, and mostly, he didn't know she mentioned my birth mother.

For if he did, that conversation would have played out much differently than it had. And it sure as hell wouldn’t have ended with me storming from the house and heading towards the park near the center of town. I wasn’t going to sit there and be picked apart over what I had done, so what, I pulled her hair, BOO WHO! She’ll get over it. It wasn’t like I was just going to sit there and take the brunt of the backfire, what happened, happened, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Did I feel sorry for Tammy for doing it, no. did I regret doing it, no! Was I going to apologize for doing it, hell no! And was I going to sit there and listen to my father drone on about it, not in a million new moons!

There was one person I knew I could confine in that wouldn’t just think I was being rash and hot headed, and I knew just where to find him.

I knew Marc would be at the water tower. I didn't need to call him, I didn't need to ask, I only needed the confirmation of seeing him when I pulled myself up onto that ledge like I did. For a second I froze as he just stared at me. The two of us looking one another over before he chuckled lightly and hung his head.

"Your one crazy bitch you know that!" He joked as I smiled and took it as an okay for me to join him.

"Really?" I smiled sliding down the metal side of the tower to sit next to the older boy, "I thought that went really well!"

Marc just laughed as he shook his head before looking to his left out and over the park, his eyes squinting at the brightness of the sun beating on the fresh snow, "I thought you were going to kill her!"

"Believe me if I could..." I rolled my eyes looking over the park as well.

"Well I figured after that you'd want to come here and clear your head," he smiled over at me as the cold breeze washed over the tree tops, "but I have to ask... What did she even say that got you so mad?" The question causing my eyes to widen as I sat. Marc turning his head so it snapped back to looking at me after I stayed silent for a moment or two.

"It’s nothing important now..." I pushed out trying to keep everything as monotone and emotionless as I could.

"Well it's clearly not nothing..." He started turning to me. It wasn't. It was everything. It was why I left and why everything went to shit in the first place, and it was why I hated her. "Is it about Alex?" Marc broke into my mental relapse.

"No" I answered sharply.

"Is it about Rian?" He tried again.

"No"

"Is it about a person?"

"Yes" I answered before I could stop the word from leaving my mouth. My eyes snapping wide at the realization of what I had just done. Why did I tell him that, now I had let him in and I knew already I was going to have to explain, everything.

"Is it about one of our friends?" He asked as I looked out at the tree tops not wanting to meet his warm eyes.

"No, and can we just drop this, it’s not important."

"Yes it is, if it makes you this upset you can't bottle it up, it will ruin you, now..." he adjusted his position so he was facing my side as he sat Indian style, "is it a family member?" Ha! If you could even call her that I thought. My eyes falling to my lap trying to find a way to avoid the whole conversation.

"Is it about your dad?" Marc asked and I silently shook my head. My teeth digging into the flesh of my lower lip knowing what was to come next.

"Is it about your mom?" My eyes began to blur as much as I resented the tears that clustered they did as I wished and refused to fall. My head nodding lightly. "But Julie seems so nice..." Marc spoke in a soft voice as he placed a hand to my back.

"That’s the thing..." I choked covering my mouth with the back of my wrist to stop a gasp from escaping as my sobs built up in my chest, "It’s not Julie" for a while Marc was silent, just sitting there and lightly running a hand on my spine, his brows pushed together in confusion.

"What do- what do you mean?" He finally shook his head as he asked the question.

"I mean I have no issues with Julie, because she’s not my real mother..." I choked out looking up at the park, "though she has been more of a mom then my real mom ever was."

"What do you- what happened with your real mom, where is she?" He asked clearly flustered as I took a shallow breath.

"Dead" I answered coldly as he stiffened beside me.

"I’m so sorry..." He whispered, "I never knew..."

"Don't be," I brushed looking over at him, "she was never a mother to Rian and I, left us when we we're young, she was always a smoker and an alcoholic though we never knew it, at one point she just got too sick and would lash out to the point that our dad couldn’t fight her anymore, and one day she left. The divorce papers came in the mail and that was it." I started as I let Marc's sorrowful eyes set on me even though I didn't want his pity, that’s why I never told him to start, "that was until before the 8th grade she showed up again, she had gotten worse, she had some odd terminal cancer and was never going to survive, her skin was gray and her eyes were yellow. She would find me and demand that I forgive her and love her, but I could never do it, so she would beat me. Tell me I had no right to live if I couldn’t forgive the person who gave me life."

"Jasey I’m so sorry..." Marc rubbed as I shook my head.

"One day my dad couldn't take her showing up at the house and demanding to see me anymore and took her to the hospital, her mental state was so rapidly disappearing by the end of the week she was nothing but a pruned shell, and after school my dad took me to the hospital. He explained to me that she couldn't fight anymore, that there was simply nothing left to even fight, and that they were going to pull the plug. And if that wasn't a big enough pill for a 8th grader to swallow, what haunts me now was that her last dying wish was that I watched them pull the plug. That I sit and witness her last breath and have the image of her dying in my head, because it was my fault she told me, it was my fault she had given up, because she could never love me because I never loved her."

"Jasey..."

"Somehow Tammy had found out about it, told the whole school my mother killed herself to get away from me, that I was some nutcase. And everyone believed her. They were so cruel and harsh. I couldn't take it. And one day I snapped. I begged and begged my dad to send me away, to get me out of this town. And he did. He sent me to Washington for almost three years, that was the deal I made with him. But what I didn't know when I left was that on the last day of the 8th grade, someone was Julie hug Rian and I goodbye. Someone saw and assumed that like any normal kid, I had one mom; no one knew my dad re-married years before my birth mother resurfaced. The word that the Dawson twins mother was not dead spread like wildfire just days after I left, no one believed Tammy after that. Not even when she said Julie wasn't my mom, so everyone forgot about it. But her. Now I guess it’s just something she’s using against me, to hold over my head so I will do as she says."

"Like that worked well for her..." Marc rolled his eyes causing me to smile.

"I'll never let her win." I muttered, "Not this time."

"What if she tries to bring it up again, like tell people, and the whole version of her story?" He questioned almost sounding scared, "Would you leave again?"

"Over her dead body would I leave." I chuckled lightly. "She wouldn’t do it, not after the humiliation she must have suffered the first time, she’s just trying to scare me."

"Why?"

"Who the hell knows..." I shrugged, "she's never liked me, and from what started today, I’m guessing me being friends with the boys has something to do with it!"

"You think it has to do with the kiss she had with drunk Alex at the beginning of the year?" He questioned as I bit my lip.

"No" I shook my head in denial, "her beef is with me, no way would she stoop a low as to drag them into it, and why Alex, why not my brother, she was his mom to?"

"Who knows..." He shrugged in though "You don't think she'd bring back your past again though?" He questioned as I shook my head again.

"Wouldn't put any money on it..." I shrugged.

"Well I got your back no matter what kid, you go down I’m coming with ya..." He patted my shoulder as I shook my head and looked over at him.

"We go together or we don't go down at all?" I smirked.

"A true pact..." He smiled holding out his pinky as I locked my smaller one to his.

"By blood or by choice!" I smiled, "you’re stuck with me now!"

Notes

AHHHH WHAT ABOUT THAT CHEESY LOVE LIKE WAR REFERENCE.. sorry i tried to fight it but i couldnt! i really couldnt!

also i never planned for this chapter.. but i feel like i was kinda having Marc with-drawls cause hes always kind of been that voice of reason in this story and i also dont think i ever straight up said what the deal with her mom was, i think i only gave bit and pieces, but honestly EVEN I DONT KNOW! i only went as far as to know she was a bitch to Jasey and Rian and just kinda a nutball!!


WELL TELL ME WHAT YOU GUYS ARE THINKING WITH THE LAST FEW UPDATES!
IM LOVING THE CRAZY AMOUNT OF COMMENTS!


and as for this early update.. i got a cheer thing in South Carolina all weekend so you wont be hearing from me for a wee bit :(

-Sarah
AND 20,000 VIEWS YOU GUYS ARE NUTS I NEVER THOUGHT ANYONE WOULD ACTUALLY LIKE ANYTHING I PUT UP!