User blog:SodaCat/Muse - Chapter 13: Priorities

i am slowly but surely getting my shit together... also the song Jess is listening to is Please Remember Me by Tim McGraw.

You'll find better love

 Strong as it ever was

 Deep as the river runs

 Warm as the morning sun

 Please remember me

Please remember me﻿…

Jesse sighed as he lay on his bed in the dorm, staring down the pill bottle Duncan had given him. He was alone, the room void of life save for him and probably some rat that had managed to get in. Everybody else was out celebrating the New Year with friends, family, girlfriends…

But not Jesse. No, he felt sick to his stomach at the mere thought of going out to meet with the guys—he was sure Ted and Mandy were there, and the last thing he wanted was to have to sit across with a smile plastered on his face as he stared down the girl he loved with the wrong man’s arm around her shoulders.

There’s no better cure to heartache than victory.

But how the hell was one little bottle of pills gonna make him feel any better? Or winning a stupid game? He didn’t care about those things, not when the girl he loved was with someone else. Even worse, when that someone else was one of his best friends.

Why would she pick Ted over him? He just couldn’t understand it. Yeah, Ted was one of his best friends, but that just meant Jesse knew him better than most people. He knew how Ted had been hanging out with one of the girls on the cheer squad—some girl Casey had dated, Christine—in his free time without telling her. He knew Ted had scored third with some girl on Halloween at Jesse’s birthday party. He knew how Ted was talking about scoring with Lola Lombardi or Alexis Monroe the minute Johnny Vincent decided which one he wanted off the rebound. Yet he still had Mandy.

He could’ve told her all of that, he realized, but he didn’t regret not telling her. The last thing Jesse wanted was to hurt Mandy, especially on purpose. And if she was so willing to blindly choose Ted Thompson over him, she obviously would’ve been hurt by the information.

Or maybe it was just something against him. He sat up, considering this. Could it be something wrong with him? Maybe Christy had gotten angry and told her about all the times he’d been with her. Or maybe she thought his accent was weird. Was it?

“Howdy there,” he said aloud, listening closely to his voice. No, her thinking his accent was weird was impossible.

He dove his hand into the drawer of his nightstand, yanking out a small mirror Christy had once forgotten and he’d never summed up the will to go and get it back to her. He opened it and stared at his reflection, taking into account his messy chocolate brown hair and his tan skin. Nothing wrong there. He held the mirror closer, staring deep into his gray eyes. Nah, they were pretty nice, he thought, and retracted the mirror to stare at himself entirely. What was wrong with him?

Something in the reflection caught his eye, and he found himself staring down the orange pill bottle once again, the neon reflection of it distracting him from anything else in the room.

He wasn’t a winner.

Jesse felt as if someone had doused him with cold water. That was exactly the problem Mandy saw in him. Ted was captain of the football team, the proclaimed most popular guy in the school, and credited for taking the football team to the finals last year. Sure, Jesse had his fair share of wins on the field, and girls fell at his feet, but as head cheerleader, Mandy obviously wanted some guy who would add to her image.

If that was what she wanted, he’d do it for her in a heartbeat. He loved her.

Rolling onto his side, Jesse began reaching for the pill bottle when the dorm’s door slammed open and something was thrown at the opposite wall with a harsh crash, followed by the door slamming shut so hard the things on Jesse’s nightstand shook. He froze, looking to the door, finding himself staring at Casey who was wiping at his eyes.

“Fucking no-good, drunken asshole…”

Jesse didn’t know what else to do than just stare at Casey, a little surprised. He’d never seen Casey this upset, and the last thing he ever expected was for Casey to smash his phone on the wall. He called that thing the ‘Babe Hotline’. Not that it rang too often, of course. Jesse used to like to mock Casey and tell him the few times that thing rang, it was chicks calling to ask what Jesse’s number was.

Casey saw him at that moment and instantly pulled his hand from his face. “Oh,” he croaked, “sorry, dude.”

Jesse nodded as Casey made his way to the bunk, turning for a moment to grab the chair from the desk to pull it up to Jesse’s bottom bunk. As he did, Jesse grabbed the pill bottle and shoved it under his pillow, not ready to discuss it with Casey.

Pulling the chair over, Casey stopped suddenly and looked to Jesse. Something in him seemed to change his mind and he let go of the chair, instead making his way over to tower over Jesse’s sitting form. “Have you just been in here all day?”

His voice was cold, and it did not go unnoticed by Jesse. Swallowing, he nodded slowly, uncomfortable as Casey’s face grew more distorted with anger.

“You’ve just been in here all week, right? Is that why I never see you anywhere outside of class? And why I keep having to cover for you when Burton asks? ‘Cause dude, I assumed you had the runs or something but clearly you’ve just been laying in here listening to your hillbilly bullshit.”

That stung, and Jesse had no problem furrowing his eyebrows and glaring at Casey. “Tim McGraw ain’t no hillbilly bullshit, Harris,” he growled. Casey knew better than to start up with that anti-Texas crap. He knew Jesse hated it more than blue balls.

Casey shook his head, walking to the room’s window and looking out it. Something outside pissed him off, apparently, because a second later he kicked a stray football as if it hadn’t paid him back.

“Shut the fuck up. You’ve been in here all week just wallowing in this soap opera crap.”

He stared at Jesse with an intense anger that Jesse had never seen. He stared back blankly, unsure of how to proceed. He’d never had Casey this angry with him.

“So what if I have?” he replied, feeling dumb.

Shaking his head, Casey made his way back over to Jesse’s bed and slammed his hand down on the boombox, shutting off the music.

“What the hell’d you do that fo--”

“We went to see Martinez Thursday,” Casey cut him off, his eyes flaming by this point, “remember Martinez? Real nice guy, plays center? Injured his fucking spine last season? Can’t walk anymore?”

Jesse stared back at him, his jaw clenched tight. He had no idea that the guys had gone to see Gianfranco. It was a silent agreement—no, law—that whenever they went to see Martinez, they went as a team. Help him remember that they were all there for him.

Casey nodded, taking Jesse’s silence as a signal that he did remember Martinez. “Yeah. See, he didn’t say much, ‘cause they put him back on pain pills ‘cause he’s having a lot of trouble, right? So he was pretty clocked out. His little sister thought it was real funny, y’know, most toddlers don’t understand the concept of losing your whole ability to walk.”

Casey shook his head, heading to the opposite side of the room and placing a hand on the wall. “But it’s no worries, dude. I mean, Martinez doesn’t jump around in a goddamn cheerleading uniform so you’re not pent up on him, right? I mean, who cares if the guy needs his mom to put him on the toilet so he can take a shit? God forbid anyone think that compares to the heartbreak that Mandy fucking Wiles can cause.”

“That ain’t right, man,” Jesse snapped back, angry, “I’m allowed to feel rotten if I damn please. Ain’t my fault none of you popped in to tell me y’all were gonna go see him.”

“Oh, right!” Casey screamed back, his voice borderline hysterical. “We should definitely let you know when we’re gonna see him so you can fit it into your crying schedule! My mistake, sir! I know crying about a girl is real important to you.”

He sauntered up to Jesse, blue eyes close to Jesse’s gray ones. “There are worse things out there than one of your friend’s girlfriends not wanting you to bone her,” he hissed before turning on his heel and exiting the room with a furious slam of the door.

Jesse blinked a few times, surprised. He wanted to be angry at Casey, follow him out and call him a jackass, but something inside him agreed with Casey. Confused he stood, reaching under his pillow and enclosing his fist around the bottle. He stepped out into the hallway but it was empty; Casey must have already left. Feeling dazed, Jesse stumbled into the bathroom and made his way to a sink, turning the water on and throwing some of it onto his face.

He looked up to the mirror and jumped a little. The dorm’s dim light had done nothing to show him how he really looked, which was like a bum. His eyes were dull and blunt, accented by faint dark circles around his eyes.

The pills rattled in his left hand and he eyed them, before looking himself in the mirror as if consulting.

There’s no better cure to heartache than victory.

He made up his mind. Opening the bottle, Jesse held a pill in his left hand as he cupped his right to collect some water. Throwing both into his mouth he swallowed, and glared at himself in the mirror, waiting for it to take effect.