You Can't Fix Everything...

who: Jamie and Isaac
where: streets to her house
when: around noon

Okay, grocery shopping had been a bad idea. Jamie had woken up and felt worlds better compared to yesterday, enough to happily bounce around the house and clean for the first few hours of the morning. And then she'd noticed they were out of a few things (aspirin, bread, milk, ice cream) and had gone to the store. And then there had been a sale, and what was she supposed to do, ignore it? Bah!

Her energy had held up quite well, at least until she'd started off for home with the too-heavy bags. Now she was suddenly hit by a wave of lethargy and dizziness, only a few streets away from her house. Jamie sagged against a nearby lamppost, lowering a few bags to the ground. Her eyes slid closed and she took in a shaky breath. I'll just rest a minute... Just a minute, and I'll be back on my way.

Well, at least the day had started out well. He'd woken up out of an unclear, but very ... hot dream about Jamie and a smile on his face. Until reality kicked back in. After breakfast, Isaac had been by David Blair's house, and woken the bastard up. But Isaac had questions that weren't going to wait, about who had been there the night before and might've given Kaysen trouble. He got a few names, narrowed off a few more, and was on his way to the store. His mom had caught him on his way out and 'asked' him to pick up a few things for her. Which really meant that he should do it, or else, since he'd come home in the dead of night and woken her up. He owed her. So Isaac was ambling down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, a thoughtful frown on his face, when his gaze ticked up. His steps faltered as he recognized the brunette leaned against the pole. Isaac's cheeks flamed and he wasn't at all sure what to do for a moment.

So maybe it was going to take her longer than a minute. Her legs were suddenly wobbly, and Jamie slid down to take a seat, not really caring that it was concrete and not comfy and that someone might see, or worse, try to help. She rested her head on her knees, taking in deep, even breaths. Even breathing? Good. Steady. Grounding. Her hand reached out to rest on the nearby grass of it's own accord, and she dug in with her fingers to feel earth. That was so much better than concrete. I'm okay. I can do this. It's only a minute's walk from here, and then I'll just rest on the couch for the rest of the day. And ohh, Caleb was so not gonna hear about this, ever. He would be sooo mad!

She didn't look so good. In that she didn't look good at all. Should he go? Should he pretend he didn't see her and run? She didn't look like she'd spotted him ... but then he took in the whole mess of groceries she had with her. It seemed like it had been too much for her, or ... something. Wetting his lips and resisting the urge to start fixing his hair or something equally retarded, Isaac started to approach. He couldn't just leave her there, what if she was sick or something? "Hi," he said from a few feet away, sneakers stopping on the sidewalk.

His voice had her stomach dropping. Instantly her heart began to pound and her palms grew slick with sweat. She recognized that voice. Oh please let me be delirious again. Please. I don't think I can take it if that's who I think it is. Really, of all the people in Marquette, it wouldn't be him. Right? Jamie peered up at him then, her already sickly-pale face growing more pale at the sight of him. Isaac. Oh. Shit. And now her stomach was churning and twisting with sick guilt. Her face crumpled, but she wasn't crying. Nope, not her. She was holding it together, damnit! She had to! "Hi," she said, her voice small.

Oh. That hadn't quite been the reaction he'd been expecting. Not that he knew what to expect, like, at all. But definitely not her immediately looking like she was going to bawl. Part of him said that the smart thing to do would be apologize and walk away. It was a small town, surely somebody else would give her a hand. Isaac looked down at her with that troubled expression for a beat or two, then shifted his weight a little bit. "You don't look like you feel good," he pointed out, voice carefully neutral. "Can I help?"

Help!? He was offering her help!? Why?! Spit on me, damnit! Call me a worthless, frigid, bitch! What happened to anger, Isaac?! Jamie just stared at him for a moment with dark, sad eyes, and then she turned her gaze down to the concrete. Plain, boring concrete that didn't remind her of what horrible things she had said to him. "'mokay. Thank you for asking," she replied, her voice still small and sad.

She was officially really weirding him out. She should probably be curling her lip and asking what made him think she wanted his help. She didn't want anything from him, ever. Because that was what she did, made those sorts of permanent decisions. But she wasn't acting like that at all. She more looked like he'd been the one to dump her on her ass. Isaac crouched to try and catch her eyes again. His heart felt sick. "You don't look okay," he pointed out. "You bought a lot of shit. ... do you want me to leave?" He swore to himself that if she said yes, he would go.

"No." Cue wincing. Shit, she should have said something nasty. Like 'yes.' Well, really, nastier things came to mind, but there was just no way in Hell she could ever say them to Isaac. What she'd said Saturday had hurt her bad enough, and that wasn't even taking into account what it had done to him. Jamie met his eyes for a a fraction of a second before looking away again. It was hard; he was right there in front of her, but she just couldn't bear to look at him. She kept remembering the way his face had crumpled on Saturday... "'mokay, Isaac. I always buy too much," she said lightly, cracking a weary, self deprecating little smile. "There was a sale."

Isaac saw very clearly that trying to convince her wasn't going to work. But she'd said she didn't want him to go away. So. He did the thing he felt he should do, and started taking bags from her. He didn't touch her, but he snagged quite a few plastic handles away and started to gather them up in his hands. He was trying desperately not to think about the feeling in his gut that hadn't really gone away since Saturday. He'd do this, see her home, and then it would be over. Because part of him wanted her to see what she was missing. Where the fuck was her boyfriend when she was trying to carry all this? Oh right, not here. But he was.

She stared at him blankly for a moment, feeling... numb. And sick. Oh, so sick, but she didn't stop him. What choice did she have? A tiny little part of her was disgusted. She couldn't even carry her own damned groceries. What was wrong with her!? No, really, what? Jamie pushed herself up to her feet unsteadily, stubbornly keeping hold of some of the heavier bags. "Thank you," she murmured. "Home isn't far." And she wasn't about to say out loud that this? This right here? Just proved how insanely awesome of a guy Isaac was. She didn't want to rub any more salt in his wounds.

It was probably a wise choice on her part. Isaac didn't want to hear anything about himself at the moment. He made sure she was steady before he started walking in the general direction that he knew her house was. He frowned down at the sidewalk while his back was to her, keeping his pace slow for her sake. Something was more wrong than just a heavy load, because she looked ill, but he wasn't going to ask. He kind of didn't want to talk at all, in fact, jaw clenched a bit as he helped. But he couldn't just not do it.

With every step, she felt more sick to her stomach and miserable almost to the point of tears. God! Why wasn't he angry? She just couldn't understand it. Thankfully, he wasn't looking at her. She knew she'd burst into tears the next time his eyes met hers, and wasn't that just stupid? He was the one hurt here, not her. She didn't even have a right to cry over Saturday.

Jamie made a soft noise when they approached her house and sped up to pass him. She balanced the heavy bags awkwardly on her uninjured arm, reaching into her jeans pocket for the keys. Once the door was unlocked, she managed one step in the house before realizing her breakfast was not going to remain in her until Isaac left. She dropped the bags on the carpet and ran for the bathroom, immediately emptying her stomach. And then she started to cry. Damnit.

Isaac was surprised as she rushed past him. He hesitated some, climbing the stairs slowly and glancing around the empty living room. He heard the bathroom door slam and then ... puking. Okay, so she was sick. Isaac stood there for a minute or two, listening to her throw up and then cry. He felt awkward in her house, like he was an intruder now. He took the bags to the kitchen and set them down, frowning to himself the entire way. Now would be a fantastic time for her boyfriend to come over, wouldn't it? That'd be fun. Still, he didn't leave. He ran her a glass of ice water and stepped into the hallway, heart beating hard as he walked to rap his knuckles on the bathroom door. "You okay?" he asked, that age old stupid question.

Jamie hiccuped quietly, scrubbing at her eyes. No crying in front of Isaac, over Isaac! It wasn't allowed. It just wasn't! She flushed the toilet and splashed cold water on her face to clear away the signs of tears. And then he was knocking on the door and being nice again. Damnit. Her face crumpled again and she bit down harsly on her lower lip. Nocryingnocryingnocrying... She opened the door carefully, keeping her gaze focused on the tile floor and not on him. It was hard enough just looking down and seeing his sneakers, so talking? Not an option. She nodded her head yes instead.

... God he wanted to hug her. That was bad. She just looked so beaten and defeated, and he couldn't fathom why. It was all backwards. Wasn't he supposed to be the weepy one? Unless ... unless something else had happened that he didn't know about. Oh. Well fuck him, how selfish was he? He edged the glass of ice water into her field of vision and hoped she would take it. Even if she wasn't his girlfriend -- and never will be, his mind provided for him -- he didn't like seeing her so upset. "Did something happen, Jamie?" he asked hesitantly.

She kept repeating 'nocrying' in her head, but it just wasn't working. "N-No," Jamie whispered. Her face crumpled completely, and she brought her hands up to cover her face when tears started to fall. She wouldn't let him see them; it was the least she could do. "I'm sorry, Isaac. I'm so, so sorry for Saturday. For everything I said. I never wanted to hurt you at all. It was the last thing I wanted. I didn't want to hurt anybody. I didn't! I thought if I said those things you would hate me and it would all be okay because you'd move on faster and find a better girl, but you're here and you're being nice and 'mso sorry..." Her shoulders were starting to shake and her muscles were tensing. This wasn't going to end well for her at all.

Isaac's mind went into absolute flail mode. It didn't show on his face at all, though. If anything, outwardly he became even calmer. Okay, well ... he had to do something about this. Reaching past her a little, Isaac put the glass down on the bathroom counter to get it out of his way. Boyfriend be damned. He liked Jamie, and he still liked Jamie, and he hated seeing people he liked cry like this. Especially over him. Isaac took a breath and wrapped his arms around her in a hug, lightly putting his chin on top of her head so she knew he wasn't ... staring at her or intending to do anything but this or anything. "It's okay, Jamie," he said quietly. Even if it didn't feel okay, since she'd just stated she was blatantly trying to manipulate him. Despite her good intentions. Maybe. He rubbed her back lightly. She was incredibly tense. "You were just being honest with me, it's cool. Shhh. It's okay."

She stayed perfectly still, trying to stop crying. It wasn't okay. It was never okay, it would never be okay, and what she wanted more than anything in the world would be to go back in time to last Tuesday and bitchslap herself. She hadn't even wanted to go out with Chrissy that day. If she had just stayed home, she never would have met Caleb. Chrissy wouldn't have hit her; they'd still be friends. She wouldn't have met Thom in the park, she wouldn't have needed to go for a walk to clear her head, and Isaac wouldn't have overheard her singing. She would have saved a lot of people a lot of grief, all at once. She hated this, more than anything. Her goal in life was to not hurt good people. she wanted to take care of the good ones, and this? Yeah. She'd failed here. Horribly, completely, absolutely. Never. Again.

She wasn't answering, which was a bad sign. Part of him wanted to shake her, to demand why she was doing this to him. He wasn't supposed to feel bad, here. But he did. She was making him feel bad, like he'd caused this somehow. Why couldn't he have just been smart and listened to her when she said she didn't want to date? Why had he gotten all puppy overeager and wanted to fawn all over her like that? Sure, she'd ended up breaking her rule, but she had a right to do that. And she had a right to do it without him. He didn't say anything else, just held her a little awkwardly and stroked her back.

It took her another minute to stop crying, but she did manage it, slowly lowering her hands to her sides. Ow. Ow. Tense muscles, ow. And now, she wasn't sure what to say. At all. Apologizing seemed like a good idea, but Caleb's reaction to her apologies had been... bad. And sure, Isaac wasn't Caleb, but this? Still felt horribly wrong, and awkward. She just wanted everything to be better and stop hurting, for everyone involved, but especially the boys. This entire situation was completely out of her hands now when it came to fixing things, and she had the horrible sense that she'd never quite be able to figure out just what she'd done wrong the past week to lead to this.

As her hands started to move, Isaac let her go and took a step back. It wasn't his place to hang on to her any longer than was necessary. He was starting to feel kind of edgy about someone walking in anyway. Aaaand, she still wasn't talking. He stared at her for a minute or two, not sure at all what he should be saying or doing. Most of his ex-girlfriends (not that she was one), he was still on amiable terms with. He could hug them, but this ... felt different. Because he wanted to do more for her. "I should go," he murmured, breaking the silence again.

Jamie swallowed thickly, finally looking up at him. She didn't want him to go. Things weren't resolved. But, really, would things ever be resolved between them? Maybe she'd just have to learn that some things couldn't be fixed. "Thank you for helping me home," she murmured, reaching up (slowly) to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "I... I want you to know, Isaac, even after Saturday..." She bit her lip, thinking. What was she trying to say here, exactly? "...if you ever need anything, if you ever need to talk, you can call me." And I know I'm crazy and nothing I do makes sense. That's been pointed out to me a lot the past couple days, so you don't have to mention it, she added internally.

Isaac was fairly sure he wouldn't be doing that, even though he knew her offer was probably genuine. Still, she'd ... radically unsettled him in the past twenty minutes, and he was extremely uncomfortable. Because bits of him were starting to want to beg her to reconsider. To say that whatever it was about him that she didn't like, he could fix. If she was really that sorry, she could do something about it. But that wasn't somewhere that he needed to go at the moment. Or probably ever. "Thanks," he said instead of everything else stuck in his throat. "Take care. ... and don't forget to put the ice cream in the freezer." He lingered for another couple of heartbeats, then turned and started for the door, tucking his hands in his pockets again.

There were a lot of things running through her head that she could say, but in the end, she kept them to herself. There wasn't something magical she could say to make him stop hurting. Isaac had simply gotten unfairly shafted in all of this, and... there just wasn't anything she knew to do that wouldn't make things worse. "You take care of yourself, too! Be careful on your way home, Isaac," she called out after him. Please.

Isaac didn't respond verbally. He honest to God didn't know what to think. He felt more confused and unsettled than he had on Saturday when she'd emotionally stabbed him in face. Because she seemed genuinely torn up about it and that ... shouldn't be. Not when she was with somebody else that was obviously preferable to him. But he couldn't think about it here. He had to go, get outside, walk back to the store. Then maybe the world would make sense. Isaac walked out and closed the door quietly behind him.