The Confrontation

Who: Dodge and Jessie
Where: The streets
When: afternoon

The dark cloud that seemed to be hanging over the street kids heads that day didn’t make an exception for Dodge. He was still up his normal tricks, lifting goodies off passerbys, but he couldn’t help the frown that had set itself on his features. News from Roach had circulated back to him, and at this point they were no closer to finding the guys who’d hurt Pepper than they were in the morning.

The ordeal of telling Maddy had drained Dodge, tugging at his heart strings and reminding him of why he earned part of the blame for what happened. He should have left someone to watch her. He’d wanted to do it in the first place, but she’d been against it. She hated when he did that. Bumping into a lady who passed him he apologized quickly while managing to swipe her watch. She’d smiled at him, considering him just another lost boy, but appreciating the bashful look he’d given her. Tucking the watch into a pocket he moved to quickly cross the street before she noticed it was missing.

Jessie had gotten a few more hours of sleep before she decided that getting out of the house was probably a good idea. She grabbed a jacket and wasted no time in heading for her favorite bakery, a good few minutes' walk from her apartment, because what was a better way to start turning a bad day around than with a freshly baked cinnamon roll? It took JJ very little time to get lost in the world of just her, walking, with a delicious cinnamon roll and she happily let herself stay there. She was much more content in the world that had just her and her go-to bad-day treat than to sit around in her bedroom, fuming about how angry she was with a certain boy. She paid little to no attention to the people around her, taking fairly quick steps to bring her home sooner without really noticing the pace.

Dodge was moving casually, so as not to draw attention, but still moving quickly though he didn’t look back at the woman he’d robbed. He was actually practically on top of Jessie before he noticed her, caught up in the mix of his own thoughts. The sight of her brought a smile to his lips, and he adjusted his pace to fall into step alongside her. “Smells good.”

The look she gave Dodge was anything but the smile he had on his own face. It was cold, much colder than she'd ever given him, and it was instinctive. She knew she'd been taking a chance going out to the bakery, a chance that she'd run into him, a chance that she'd been hoping she could miss for now. She didn't want think about him, didn't want to even look at him, and here he was, right there beside her. "You're not walking with me today, Dodge." She stated, plain and simple, as if she was stating the weather. Seeing him brought upon a mix of things in her. Half of her wanted to just be home right now, wanted her to have never left and gone to get the cinnamon roll in the first place because she was so sick and tired of thinking about Dodge. But the other half wanted to scream at him, yell at him, punch him, and make sure he knew that she knew now. And that part was winning.

That caught Dodge more off guard than he ever was. His face was one of confusion for a moment, slowing his steps so he fell behind her, but he didn’t quite leave her. “You okay?” he asked. His day had been horrible enough that it didn’t quite register that she might be upset with him, but rather he assumed she was just upset about something in general. Just like they all were. “Did you know Pepper too?” he asked, assuming that must be it. That was the black cloud hanging over everyone else’s day after all.

The look she gave him now was one of disbelief. What was he talking about? "No, I didn't know Pepper." It wasn't until she said it that she realized they were talking in the past tense, but not knowing Pepper meant not knowing who, or what, they were talking about. "And no, I'm not ok. I'm really fucking pissed at you so you should probably just go before I punch you right here, right now."

The frown of confusion deepened across Dodge’s features. He had no idea why Jessie would be mad at him. Things when he left her last had been fine between them, her hand in his, peace restored despite his outbrust about the less than glamorous aspects of his history. “Mad at me? What did I do?” He didn’t leave even if she had threatened him. He’d seen her punch and she had a decent swing, but he wasn’t worried. Beating up Mud who was her height was one thing, but Dodge was faster than Mud and had at least a head on Jessie.

Yes, things had been fine. Until she found out something that she hadn't wanted to believe. Something she hadn't thought he would do and something she thought she could trust him not to do. She was not willing or read to play games with Dodge so she turned on him, stopping her walk completely to stare him dead in the eye, her jaw set. "My aunt Dodge? Really?" Part of her wanted to fly completely off the handle and just scream at him, scream that he'd said he loved her aunt and had asked her on a date and when she wouldn't go with him, he started hanging out with her instead. But she kept that quiet for now, just glaring at him, mostly because causing a scene where she was putting what happened with her family right out in the open was not what she wanted to do. No one else needed to know what had happened.

Dodge slid to a stop when she turned on him, face shifting from confusion to betraying nothing, watching her eyes and the set of her jaw. Oh, that. “Your aunt? And what about her exactly?” Dodge had a guess, a really good guess, but he wanted to know what Jessie knew before he started talking. He wanted her end of the issue, to know where she got her information from, because that could affect everything.

Jessie could feel her fist clenching and her teeth gritting more. She could not believe he was acting this way. She knew he knew, and he should know that she knew too. I was obvious, unless there was something she was missing. Something else to add to the list of things that Dodge had done. "Don't play dumb with me, Dodge! You know what I'm talking about, or do you really want me to tell you? Did you forget you told my aunt you loved her and asked her out on a date just a week ago?"

Her body language wasn’t lost on Dodge; he could tell she was getting angrier with him as he drew the explanation out of her. It probably wasn’t helping but it would be worse for him to not know what she knew. The love part, that annoyed him. That meant Evelyn herself had talked to Jessie, and that she’d shrugged off what he said at the time he said it and then used it against him later. Crossing his arms across his chest Dodge watched Jessie closely. “I did ask her out, but she didn’t even consider it. Apparently she’s dating someone from work,” he said knowing that it was betraying a bit of Evelyn’s confidence telling her niece that Evelyn’s new boyfriend worked at the Drake. She’d already told him that Jesse hadn’t taken the news of her working there well. “As for the other part, I never said that. I told her I could, possibly, if given a chance to but I never said I did.” Dodge was calm, but serious.

Jessie couldn't believe what she was hearing. She'd expected to hear him deny something, at the very least to hear him not tell her he loved her aunt. And although she did hear him deny it, it wasn't what she'd been expecting. He denied that he said he loved her, but definitely said he could. And then when she denied him, he'd come to her and spent time with her and now, a week later, was telling her that he liked her. It was all too much. "She's my aunt, Dodge! And you're telling me that you told her a week ago that you could love her and she wouldn't go out with you. And then right after you start hanging out with me and telling me you like me? It's not right, Dodge! How can you think you can love someone one week and go straight to another person and tell them you like them the next?"

Dodge listened closely, noting that she was missing things, even with what he’d just said and she was putting together things that didn’t belong together. “I could, not that I did. One is specific, one is a possibility long down the road. Your aunt wants to date this rich guy who doesn’t understand her like I can. I was trying to explain that to her but she wouldn’t hear it. It’s a big difference,” Dodge explained, still calm and managing to keep a condescending tone out of his voice. “And I think telling you I like you is quite a bit different as well. I haven’t asked you out, haven’t done anything besides be your friend. And I told you I’m interested in being more, but I realize you’re against it.” He frowned a little. “What does hanging out with you have to do with something I said to Evie?” She had something twisted. She’d related two events that had almost nothing to do with each other to each other and Dodge wanted to know how and why.

Jessie physically felt her mouth open as she continued to stare at him, standing there with his arms over his chest, telling her that the possibility of him loving her aunt and him liking her didn't have anything to do with each other. In that instant, she felt like she was completely wasting her time here. Was he ever going to understand that telling someone you think you can love them and asking them out on a date then telling their niece you liked them a week later was somehow not the greatest of ideas? And she couldn't even begin to think about him saying he could understand her aunt more than the person she wanted to be dating... "I can't even talk to you about this..." She started on her way home again, but knew that if she left now, she'd want nothing more than to just scream at talk to him about this. So she ended up stopping just a few steps away and turning back to look at him, this time the anger in her eyes mixed with a heavy disappointment.

"Friends don't do this kind of shit, Dodge. You're telling me that you saying you could love my aunt and then when she rejected you, you turning to me and telling me you like me a week later...you're telling me that has nothing to do with each other? You have to like someone in order to think you could love them and if you can get over them in a week? You sure as hell didn't know what the fuck loving, or even liking, someone means."

Honestly he wasn’t sure why the two had to be related at all, but he didn’t lose his patience. He was glad she didn’t walk away or at least that she didn’t get to far. Once she’d stopped he’d close the distance between them, finding himself closer to her than he’d been before. “Jessie, I didn’t turn to you. I ran into you outside school remember? You talked to me first.” Reaching out he touched her cheek lightly and then pulled his hand away. “I didn’t expect to like you JJ. That surprised me, though I guess it shouldn’t have. You’re pretty, independent and an all around wonderful girl. It’s impossible not to like you. Can you really hate me for that?” Dodge asked, voice softer now, tinged with something deeper and sadder. He didn’t mention that he probably wasn’t over Evelyn, but in the past week he hadn’t let himself think about her much, it wasn’t getting over it, it was just moving on.

It was a damn good thing he pulled his hand away because she was just one second away from slapping it off her. Or punching him. Or both. Between that and his words, Jessie's anger was only growing. "Stop it, Dodge! Just stop! Stop saying I'm pretty, stop touching my cheek like I'm ok with it. You push people, Dodge, and not everyone wants to be pushed. But something everyone does want is to be able to trust their friends. They want friends who they can trust not to run off whenever they feel the whim to! Friends who they can trust to still be their friend even after you reject them." He'd hurt her aunt and while she wouldn't say it out loud in those terms, she couldn't stop thinking about it. How he'd been Evie's friend before he'd been her friend, how he had told her he could love her which meant that he must have liked her, and now how he was telling her much the same as he'd told her aunt. "Friends don't put their friends through this kind of shit, Dodge."

He pulled his hands further away, palms up in surrender. “When have I ever run off on you JJ? When have I ever given you a reason to think that I wouldn’t be your friend after you rejected me? I only get the one shot?” he asked motioning towards the direction they came in. “You rejected me last time I saw you, I found out a friend probably died today and I did my damnedst to be myself when I saw you, hoping maybe you could cheer me up a little, like you usually do. I hardly think that’s me not being your friend after a pretty solid rejection.” Dodge tucked his hands in his pockets, stepping backwards from her a little.

Jessie couldn't help but calm a little at that. Yelling at Dodge was one thing and she certainly wasn't done yet, but finding out that he had lost a friend...She tried hard not to let herself be swayed but all her father's voice repeating the word 'manipulation' over and over in her head wouldn't cease. And it was a good reminder. She could sympathize with his loss of a friend but that didn't mean she had to give up on how she felt right now.

Not to mention that him saying he was hoping to be 'himself', or the himself that she thought she'd known, because he'd wanted her to cheer him up. None of this was sitting well with her. "I didn't say it was about me, Dodge. It's one thing for you to say you like me, but it's another to say you do a week after you said the same thing to my aunt. She's my aunt, Dodge, you don't screw with that. You were supposedly her friend too."

So this whole thing was about Evelyn? Dodge couldn’t help but be confused about that, and already he was considering he might have to visit Evelyn about this once he got the current situation straightened out. “I’m still her friend JJ, or at least I think so. It’s not like she’s bothered to even be around since we last talked.” Dodge couldn’t help but look a little hurt at that. Sure he hadn’t gone to find Evelyn since their last talk, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t walked across town to find him either. “I wasn’t trying to come between you and your aunt. She has nothing to do with our friendship JJ. That’s you and me. Just us.”

"You're not coming between me and my aunt." She said in a much more serious voice than before. No way in hell was some boy who had played both her and her aunt going to come in between them. No one was coming in between her and her family, period. But she caught the hurt look on his face and it only added to the disbelief she felt there. Was he really standing here, talking to her about how her aunt had hurt him? "I don't want a friend who's gonna do this shit to me and my family, Dodge. You should think about that when you start making friends, about how you treat them and the people they care about. You get what you give and you're giving people a run-around like you are here and not respecting their boundaries and hopping from one person to the next and thinking it's okay to do that...it's not. It's just not..."

Dodge could almost hear the words coming Jesse instead of his daughter. It sounded like something a parent would say, especially an angry one. “Jessie, you’re making this out to be like I planned something. Evie and I, the last time we talked didn’t go well. She sent me home, hat in hand and I gave her space. I ran into you at school and we had fun, remember JJ? It was fun. There was no jummping from person to person. There was no plan to hurt your or Evie.” If he’d planned it sure as hell would have gone a lot smoother that was for sure.

"Yes, we had fun, but that doesn't change what happened, Dodge! That doesn't change that you said those things to my aunt and asked her out on a date and when she wouldn't take you, you just...stopped feeling that way. It doesn't work that way!" Not that she would know, she had no real extensive knowledge with feelings like that, but that just...wasn't how it was supposed to work. Jessie was a realist, definitely, but she'd seen people throw around words and feelings and then leave. And she'd seen the aftermath. It had happened with her dad and was now happening with her aunt and she wasn't going to let it happen anymore. And it wasn't as if her aunt wanted to be romantically involved with Dodge, but it didn't change the fact that he'd still told her that and had just...dropped the feelings he had for her in a week. "If you like someone enough to tell them you could love them, it's not something you get over in a week. And definitely not something you get over with because of their niece."

“That’s not it at all. I still care about Evie, quite a bit. But she’s got some boyfriend now. She told me point blank that barring a major catastrophe she’d keep seeing him, that it’d be a long term thing. Would you rather I keep pestering her, trying to win her over when she’s obviously happier with someone else?” Dodge wasn’t yelling, but his voice had jumped a notch. “How is that the right thing to do?” He’d bowed out, gracefully even. Part of him had hoped that things would fall apart with the new guy and he’d find Evelyn on his street again, but she never showed up, and he’d pushed it aside. “And I’m not over it because of you. How I feel about you has nothing to do with the fact that you’re related to Evie. It has to do with you. Who you are. Though I’m apparently the type of guy who’d lie about that too.” It was getting harder and harder to not walk away. His friendship with Jessie was important to Dodge, but it felt like she was just looking for a reason to hate him. That or Evelyn had found a way to hurt him through her.

Jessie was feeling an intense need to turn and leave as well, but she stuck it out for a bit longer. She didn't know why, maybe she wanted to see Dodge realize that what he'd done, that what had happened, was not acceptable. It just wasn't. But the more he talked, the more she thought he wasn't going to understand. And the less she wanted to stay here, yelling at him in the streets. She'd said everything she had to say to him and he still wasn't showing any sort of recognition that what she was saying hit home to him. "You need to start thinking of other people, Dodge. Not everything in the world revolves around you, you have to actually think about how you make people feel with the things you do." She said, itching to just let that be it. To just turn around and leave him with that, even though part of her thought it wouldn't matter if she had said anything at all.

Dodge was getting just as frustrated as she was. For all her talk she wasn’t even listening to what he was saying. “Jessie, I’m sorry,” he said giving in and apologizing despite the fact that he didn’t think he needed to be apologizing for what she wanted him to apologize for. “But hear me when I tell you, none of what you’ve accused me of I did on purpose. I’m not sure how I feel about you thinking that I’m that kind of person though. That you’d just assume the worst without even talking to me first. Makes me wonder about what kind of friend you are.”

Oh no, he did not just say that. There were only two things keeping her from hauling off and punching him straight in the face right now. The distance between them and the fact that she had cinammon-roll sticky hands. "I'm the kind of friend who's not gonna put up with this shit from the people I surround myself with. If you can go from one person to the next in a week, then that makes me wonder what kind of friend you are." She didn't have to sit here and take this. She definitely wasn't going to if he was going to act like that. She didn't even want to be around him right now in the first place. So she turned, nearly running into the trashcan by the streetlight. Frustrated, she threw her cinnamon roll in it, knowing that her appetite was dead and gone for now.

As much as he hated it he could see Maddy’s face, smirking at him evilly and telling him he was jealous. It took everything in him to not repeat that same moment for Jessie, with just as evil a smile. There was no place for that reaction here though. Taking a deep breath he pushed the angry thoughts away, stepping back towards her, standing behind her without touching her. Any kid who’s survived longer than a year on the streets knew there were fights that could be won and those that were best to just give up the ground on. Dodge rarely back down, rarely gave in, but he wasn’t winning this one, that much was obvious. “I’m sorry Jessie, I really am,” he said, voice softer because was closer and even though he wasn’t entirely sure he meant it, it sure as hell sounded like he did. “I want to fix it. I don’t want you to be mad at me. Tell me what I can do to fix it.”

Jessie had been bracing herself for some sort of Dodge's charms and here they were, but she was not about to let herself get swayed. She kept thinking of her dad and her aunt, and possibly all the other people that Dodge had swayed with his sad looks and his apologies. But apologies didn't mean that he wouldn't do it again. And Jessie didn't believe that Dodge even accepted he'd done anything wrong, despite how sorry he sounded. "I don't think there is anything you can do to fix it, Dodge...I'm going home, don't follow me." She said as she took a few more steps away from him. When she stopped, she didn't really turn around this time, but angled herself so that her words would travel to him and not get lost infront of her. "But for your sake, I really hope you take a step back and a good look at yourself."

Just because she said it didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try, but for now he was willing to let her walk away. There would be other times to work on solving what had happened. Again he bit back the snappy comment about how he always seemed to think he looked quite well, and merely nodded even though she couldn’t see him. “I’ll consider it,” he told her before turning and heading back the way he came. He’d fix this later, he was certain of that much. For now though he had a boarding house he hadn’t called on in a week to visit.