Tip of An Iceberg

 

Chapter Six

The movie started, but I didn’t pay much attention to it�"there was too much tension in the room to pretend I didn’t notice anything. Matt was still scowling in the general direction of the screen while Ethan’s face was too calm to be natural.

About fifteen minutes into the movie, Jess stood up suddenly. “Who wants more popcorn?” she asked, striding into the kitchen. I shook my head when she looked at me questioningly, noticing she looked a little more relaxed than she had earlier. Ethan was the only one to say anything, so she disappeared for a while as I finally turned my attention to the movie and settled in to enjoy it�"I’d only seen Scary Movie a couple of times, and loved their crass sense of humor. I glanced at Matt and saw he had relaxed a little, putting me more at ease.

Jess came back bearing a big bowl of popcorn and, instead of heading back over to the couch, sat down in front of the loveseat I was on, setting the bowl beside her and stretching out luxuriously, her back against the seat. Good thing I had my feet hanging off the side, then. Ethan moved to sit next to her, grabbing a handful of popcorn, and Matt visibly relaxed even more.

Relieved there was not going to be some sort of brawl, I sat back and watched the movie.

Near the end, I noticed odd movements out of the corner of my eye. I glanced down to see Ethan had moved the popcorn bowl and had his hand on Jess’ knee... Nothing out of the ordinary. I shrugged mentally and went back to watching the movie, thinking I was seeing things.

Something moved again in that direction, so I glanced down. Nothing had really changed�"Ethan had his hand on her knee still, maybe a little closer to her thigh than before, and Jess was staring at the screen. I kept looking, almost suspicious, but nothing happened.

Just as I thought about diverting my attention, Ethan moved. His hand slid slowly up to rest on her thigh, then a little higher and Jess pushed his hand away impatiently. Ethan whipped his head to glare at her, and gripped her thigh tightly. I was shocked to see Jess’ jaw tighten as Ethan’s knuckles briefly turned white, but she lowered her gaze and went back to staring at the screen with Ethan’s hand resting almost indecently high on her thigh. She crossed her arms slowly, giving off a defeated vibe. I heard knuckles cracking and looked over at Matt, who was still absorbed in the movie, cracking his knuckles absentmindedly.

What the hell happened to Jess, the chick I’d known to be a confident a*s-kicker? I stretched and swung my feet over, placing them deliberately between the odd couple and forcing the apart. “Sorry, my legs started cramping up,” I said, not managing to sound apologetic at all. Matt gave me a small smile and nod as the characters on the screen ran around screaming. Ethan shot me a mutinous look I barely caught in my peripheral vision while Jess remained silent, only moving over to give me a little more legroom.

I watched Ethan carefully out of the corner of my eye, and caught several glares in Jess’ direction that made me uneasy. I decided to have a little fun, stretching and shaking out my legs from time to time, making sure to “accidentally” hit Ethan a few times.

The movie ended and Matt and I stood up to stretch as Jess put away the empty popcorn bowl and pulled the DVD out of the player. Ethan’s eyes darted from us to a nearby clock, obviously counting the milliseconds until Matt and I left. He glared at Jess yet again as she came back from the kitchen with the fakest smile I’d ever seen plastered on her face.

“Thanks for coming over guys… My parents will be home in an hour and�"“

“Would they mind if you aren’t home? I need help on that biology assignment,” I interrupted, snagging her purse from beside the couch and handing it to her. “Come on�"I’ll drive.”

Surprised into silence, Jess followed us outside wordlessly after taking her purse from me.Ethan shot me a murderous look I almost missed just as I turned away, but stayed quiet. Matt didn’t say anything�"he just left. Ethan hung around, as if he was waiting for Jess to say she wasn’t going anywhere, but I opened the passenger door for her and everything so she didn’t really have a choice other than to get in.

I pulled out of the driveway and Jess stayed completely quiet. I glanced at her furtively but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She just stared out of the window, looking somewhat forlorn.

 I drove out to an old, mainly-abandoned park about ten minutes away from Brandon’s and parked the car.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or is this where I scream and run?”Jess asked, her voice monotone.

I debated how to ask her what was going on in my head, but each roundabout way I thought of sounded too vague. “How about you tell me exactly what’s going on with you and Ethan? Loving boyfriends don’t hurt their chicks for pushing a hand away,” I hazarded, fixing her with a pointed look.

Jess reeled back slightly, her face a frozen mask of surprise. “You�"you saw that? Did Matt?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so�"I know I don’t know him too well just yet, but I wouldn’t think he’d just sit there and ignore what was going on if he saw what I’d seen. Does Ethan do that a lot?”

“No! Of course not; he�"he loves me,” she said, her voice fading with every word. “I know he comes off as a mean guy, but he’s really sweet… I get a little jumpy about PDA, that’s all.”

I couldn’t help it�"I stared at her in disbelief, and then reached over and pulled her light jacket off of her arms. If Ethan was… There was no way I’d allow something like that to happen under my nose again. Having to see Mom go through that once with a s**t-for-brains boyfriend was bad enough; I made it even worse, in my mind, by naïvely believing she was tripping and running into things so often.

“What the hell are you doing, Aiden?” she demanded, getting out of the car. I just breathed a sigh of relief�"her arms weren’t mottled with new or fading bruises.

I got out of the car, following her across the empty playground. “I’m�"I�"Jess, I had to be sure!”

She whipped around, glaring fiercely at me. “Be sure of what? That I was COLD?”

“THAT HE WASN’T BEATING YOU!” I bellowed at her.

Jess froze by the rusty swing set, and her shoulders slumped. I caught up with her but didn’t touch her, thinking she might lash out at me for what I said.

“He’s not beating me, Aiden,” she finally said. “He just… Sometimes, he wants more than I’m willing to give.” Jess looked up at me, and I was almost afraid to see the utter defeat in her eyes. “I’m not a girly-girl. I don’t like heels and dresses, I don’t want to be popular. Something tells me that’s what he wants me to be, and that for him, step one is getting used to PDA.”

I raised an eyebrow skeptically. PDA was one thing, but what Ethan had done was something almost exclusively for closed doors. “That’s not just PDA… I think what you aren’t willing to give is more than that. Be straight with me�"it’s not like I’m going to tell anyone.”

Jess shook her head. She looked like she was struggling with something, so I led her over to a weathered picnic table and sat down across from her.

“Would you rather talk to Matt? I’ll call him for you, if you want,” I offered, realizing that the new kid probably wasn’t who she wanted to bare her soul to.

“No, I can’t talk to Matt about this�"he’s already fought Ethan once; I’d rather not have that happen again,” she sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “That’s actually one reason why he hates Samantha so much�"she helped me pull them off of each other, and Sam spit in his face to get him off of Matt,”

Damn. Sam was a brave chick, all right. “What happened?” I asked.

Jess rolled her eyes. “Matt walked in on one of our conversations�"I used to just tie my hair back all the time because I couldn’t be bothered to do anything with it�"and he was convinced Ethan was trying to mold me into a different person. He just walked out and shoved Ethan, telling him to find a prep if that’s what he wanted, and they started throwing punches.” She turned her left hand up, showing me a thin pink scar on her palm under her thumb. “I tried to get in between them, and I got shoved into a metal filing cabinet with this really wicked edge poking out�"that’s when Sam came and helped me stop them.”

“Damn. Now what? Do you think Ethan’s trying to change you?” I asked.

“No way. He’s just trying to help me become a better person. A better version of me, I guess.” Jess didn’t look entirely convinced, and I certainly wasn’t either.

“Bullshit. That’s what he tells you. I’m asking what you think,” I scoffed. A better version of yourself? What, did Ethan think he was Dr. Phil or something?

“It’s really like that! I mean, he tries to help me meet the right people, he got me to wear makeup and I actually like it, he’s helping me get into the college he wants to go to�"“

“Dear God… Jess, does he tell you who you can talk to? How to wear your hair? How to do your makeup, what classes to take, what you should do in order to be what he wants? Matt was right, Ethan’s trying to mold you into something you’re not!” I sighed, rubbing my eyes. This was going to take a lot of patience�"if Matt had been right, and my suspicions were right, it might take a while for Jess to fully realize what Ethan was doing to her.

“Well�"I just… I look a lot better when I do what he says, dude. I come across as UT material,” she said. I took a better look at what she was wearing, and raised an eyebrow again.

“I think you look a lot better when you do what you want. I like the Jess that wears tank tops and ripped jeans, not this Jess that’s decked out in clothes you don’t look comfortable in. Weren’t you the one that said something about b*****s in Abercrombie?” I asked,remembering my conversation with her when I started school. “I think you looked a lot better in that giant hoodie than now�"no offense.”

She looked down at herself, wearing the very things she’d scorned when I arrived, and I couldn’t restrain a smile as she smirked and looked back up at me. “I guess I do look kind of ridiculous, don’t I? What does what I wear matter?” she asked rhetorically.

She started to get up, but I grabbed her hand before she left. “Promise you’ll talk to me about this stuff? Maybe Ethan really isn’t that bad, but I’d feel better if I knew you had someone to talk to.”

She smiled slightly. “Seeing as how Ethan scared all my other friends away, why not? Yeah, I’ll talk to you. Now take me home!” she mock-ordered, walking towards my car.

I couldn’t help but feel like I’d barely scratched the tip of an iceberg of problems as I drove her home, but at least she knew she could talk to me. It was a start.

 

Author's Note

No? Yes? Problems? Let me know.