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Hephaestus – Chapter 13
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CHAPTER 13
Damage:
noun
An act, instance, or consequence of breaking: breakage, destruction, impairment, wreckage. See help/harm/harmless.
The action or result of inflicting loss or pain: detriment, harm, hurt, injury, mischief. See help/harm/harmless.
verb
To spoil the soundness or perfection of: blemish, detract from, disserve, flaw, harm, hurt, impair, injure, mar, prejudice, tarnish, vitiate. See better/worse, help/harm/harmless.
Los Angeles / West Hollywood – Two days later
Carmen stops her car in front of Jenny’s house.
On the passenger seat, Shane is staring absent-mindedly at her own hands.
She is clearly nervous, and she isn’t doing anything to hide it.
Carmen turns off the engine and turns on her seat. She rests her elbow on the steering wheel and ducks her head.
“Shane, I know that you’re feeling anxious and that you are scared. I know that you would like to turn back time and change what’s happened. But you can’t”.
Shane clenches her teeth, her head still lowered.
“I know I can’t. If our little journey to New York taught me something, it would be that you can’t change your fucking past”.
Carmen blinks slowly.
“But you can change your present. And you can do your best to have the future you want”. She sighs. “I know you are suffering about what’s happened between you and Jenny. And I know you’ll feel better if you fix things up. So the only thing you have to do is to get out of this car and knock at that door”.
Shane’s head lifts a little, enough to meet Carmen’s intense gaze.
“Can you please come with me?”.
Carmen sighs.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea”.
Shane’s eyes begging.
“Please, Carm…”.
Carmen gently squeezes her hand.
“Alright…”, she says, opening the door.
”We’re damaged people
Drawn together
By subtleties that we are not aware of
Disturbed souls
Playing out forever
These games that we once thought we would be scared of”
Shane stops in front of Jenny’s door. Carmen is just a couple of steps behind her.
She doesn’t know why, but that house suddenly feels so unfamiliar and foreign. She has the sensation that even the walls, the porch, the backyard, are refusing her.
Jenny’s sharpness, Jenny’s disappointment and sadness have drenched everything around her.
But Carmen is right. She has to do what she has to do.
Shane has delayed the unavoidable as long as humanly possible.
But keep on running, keep on hiding, is never the solution, and now she knows it.
So, she slowly raises her fist and knocks at the door.
She can hear Jenny’s tiny steps walking across the hall.
Every little sound seems amplified.
The wind, blowing outside and playing with her hair.
The cars on the street, passing by and rumbling.
The squeak sounds of the wood furniture inside the rooms.
The metallic “clack” of the doorknob as Jenny finally turns it.
And then, Jenny’s enormous and haunting eyes
– those hazel elfish eyes –
staring at her from a small section of the doorframe.
They are not really surprised.
They just look wounded, not very differently from that infamous night.
Shane tries hard to smile.
“Hi, Jen”.
Jenny moves a step aside and nods towards Carmen.
“Hey there Carmen”, she says, emphatically ignoring Shane.
Carmen just smiles understandingly in response.
“May I come in?”, Shane asks in a whisper.
Jenny looks at her, straight in the eyes. She’s never scared to do that, never.
For a second, it seems as if she’s pondering her words and trying to figure out if she should kick Shane’s ass or simply let her in.
Finally, she exhales slowly and, after opening the door, she heads towards the armchair and sits, resting her chin on her knees.
Body language clearly showing self-defense.
Shane and Carmen silently sit in front of her, side by side, on the couch.
Shane nervously rubs her sweated hands on her jeans.
“Jenny, I need to talk to you”, she murmurs shyly.
“I really hoped you were going to stay in New York forever”, Jenny immediately retorts.
Shane winces, like someone who’s just received a fist in her stomach.
Carmen doesn’t chime in.
She’s apparently relaxed, her back resting against the pillow shams, but she’s biting nervously her nails and that says it all.
Shane scratches her head.
“Well yes, we decided to come back home earlier than expected”.
“We?”, Jenny emphasizes.
“Uhm, yeah… We… Carmen and I are back together…”.
Jenny stares at Shane nodding slowly, her eyebrows furrowed.
“I see. You know what, Shane?”.
“What”, in a whisper.
“I really wonder why a girl like Carmen should waste her time with you”.
Shane eats the humble pie swallowing, her eyes starting to puff as she tries hard to hold back the tears.
“Jen…”, Carmen murmurs weakly.
“No, Carmen, no. Shane is here to talk to me, but that implies that she has to listen as well. She has to start dealing with the consequences of her shitty behavior, because wherever she goes, she leaves a trail of destruction behind her. She started treating you like a fuck buddy, then cheating on you, then leaving you at the altar…”, and she bends towards Shane, hissing, “… – And let me tell you, that was so vile, so vile, that I still feel ashamed for you -, then disappearing from your life for three fucking years without even a lame, decent excuse, then she basically suggested Alice to cheat on Tasha and finally, she betrayed her best friend’s trust going down on her girlfriend”.
A silence heavy as lead falls upon them.
Shane’s chin is touching her chest, at this point.
“I am sorry”, she just murmurs.
“Oh you are so fucking sorry…”, Jenny retorts, smiling joylessly.
“Then if you are so sorry, tell Carmen what you did to me. She deserves to know what kind of fucking toxic substance she’s handling”.
Shane licks her lips and closes her eyes. She is bleeding to death, inside.
“There was this party for Lez Girls… I decided not to go, thinking it was disloyal to Jenny, who was having a bad time on the set… I found Nikki, we were both upset, we –“.
“You were fucking on a railing”, Jenny cuts in, angrily.
Carmen swallows, staring at nothing.
“I found Shane with her head between Nikki’s legs”.
“I am sorry”, Shane repeats, not knowing what to say.
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How wonderfully written. The pain that thesewomen are experiencing is absolutely heartbreaking. Well done.