Leaps and landings

24

"I'm pretty sure he knows I'm still in touch with Logan," Odette stated, her voice slightly panicky, later that evening, as they were getting ready for bed. It had taken her almost an entire evening to process the news, most of which during the long run she'd taken together with Jess, where they hardly spoke. Jess didn't mind, he just wanted to be there in case she needed him. He really hadn't been sure how she was feeling.

"Logan is the 'partner in crime' so it would be a logical assumption that he knows something," Jess added, trying to look at the situation from an outsider's perspective, as he was tossing the throw pillows Odette kept on her bed onto the bed bench two at the time.

"Yeah, but Logan said Henri was pretty insistent. Like he KNEW," she explained, worriedly, putting toothpaste onto her electric toothbrush.

"Did he say anything else? Did he just want you to know or does he expect something from you," Jess asked, still missing a lot of the details.

"He just told him the funeral location and time, so I assume he wants me to show," Odette exclaimed. She couldn't believe the cockyness of her brother, as if he was just requesting her audience and she was supposed to obey. Henri seemed to be stepping into the role of their father in more aspects than just in his business. Angrily she turned her toothbrush on - her teeth were definitely getting very clean tonight.

"Are you thinking about going?" Jess asked after a few minutes, when Odette had finished brushing her teeth.

"I know it would be the right thing to do. But honestly - I don't think it's worth it, you know. It'd be too easy to set a trail on me, if they wanted to, too easy to get sucked back into that web of relations. And sure, they wouldn't know who Celeste Martin is, if I don't tell them. But it feels like playing with fire," Odette explained, as she brushed her hair, clearly slightly agitatedly. "I know I'm supposed to feel all sad and compassionate, but I don't know, I just don't feel anything other than some minor sense obligation. I'm not even sure that's what I feel or what I am used to feeling towards him," she said, speaking quickly, with a sigh in the end, realizing that she must've sounded cold and harsh. Having cut her ties from her family, she really hadn't thought much about them, nor missed them. Then again most of that anger had been towards her father, not so much about the others who'd been mostly carrying out his agenda.

"I guess that makes sense," he reflected. Jess had once been an expert in keeping his feelings locked up, and while he had something of a minimal relationship with his own biological father these days, he wasn't sure he'd feel much different if he were to die for some reason, than she did right now. It was as if he was just a person he'd once known, no-one significant.

"But if you do decide you want to go, I'm coming with you," he added firmly, pulling his t-shirt off.

"No... no," she replied, shaking her head. "Don't even go there," she added seriously. It would've been an inherently terrible idea if she went, and she certainly didn't want to subject Jess to any of it if she could help it. The way she felt about Jess exceeded anything she'd ever experienced before, and the way her soul had been shattered after she'd been forced to break up with her ex years ago still resonated in her mind. She wouldn't survive if anything like that happened with Jess. She wasn't willing to risk it.

Odette had trouble falling asleep that night, twisting and turning, it wasn't until Jess wrapped his firm grip around her, spooning her, when she finally settled - as if needing someone stronger to hold her brain and body still. He kissed her shoulder blade once, just before drifting off to sleep himself.

Jess woke with his arm around Odette's waist, his legs tucked into hers, having hardly moved the entire night. Briefly he wondered whether she was in fact as okay as she'd seemed last night, as distanced, as emotionless towards the recent news. This time she genuinely seemed it, she hadn't been hiding it behind laughter or continued through the motions as she often did when she was really upset. Maybe there had even been some relief for her in the news? She was upset, but rather by Henri reaching out than the news itself. But it seemed there was little she could do about that part either way.