They're eating dinner together tonight, which can go about in three ways: Jamie mostly talking with Girlie about random stuff, eating quietly while Girlie and Zack converse, or Zack talks to him and he responds out of obligation.
"Your hair is getting longer," Zack notes, motioning his fork at Jamie's head. Jamie brushes his bangs back but they fall back over his eyes. "You should let me cut it some time."
Long hair makes it easier to hide his face. Even though Alexandria always says it makes him look more feminine than her, and Jean says it makes Jamie look even more like a little kid.
"You didn't even ask him," Girlie says. "Do you want your hair cut, Jamie?"
Does it even matter? "I guess," Jamie finally croaks.
"I can do it tomorrow," Zack offers.
"I – I won't be here," Jamie blurts, focusing on the chicken barely half eaten on his plate. He'll be with Jean, or Alexandria, but not here.
"It's not gonna take long."
"Maybe next time." Then he tells them he's finished and rushes to his room, flopping onto his bed. He stares at the walls until he realizes he's never really felt safe in his own house, in his own room, like he does in Jean's or Alexandria's.
**********
"Jamie doesn't like me," Zack voices when he and Girlie are getting ready for bed. He's sitting on the edge of the bed, watching Girlie weave her hair into a tight braid so it'll be wavy in the morning. She always wants to look good. Maybe that's why Jamie cares so much about his appearance. He inherited it from her.
"That's not true," she says, and Zack almost says, "I'm not calling you vain it's just –" till he realizes she isn't talking about what he was thinking.
"He's mad or somethin'," he says instead.
"He's not mad," she stresses, and he wonders if it's directed toward him or herself. She stops braiding and her elbows close into her side, her posture becoming taunt. "He always gets like this. What reason would he have to be mad at you?"
Zack lays back, puts his hands behind his head. "You tell me."
"Whenever I try to talk to him I get nowhere. I feel like I'm talking to a stranger who wants me to go away."." He can't see her face, but he hears the way her words fall weakly and the sadness lining her voice.
"Come to bed, Girlie. It'll be fine."
He talks to her till she believes it, and waits for her to be misguided in her dreams before he gets up.
YOU ARE READING
Psyche
Teen FictionJamie's other name might as well have been Silent. He went to school, visited his therapist, daydreamed about Jean Paul, and tried to never be alone when his aunt's boyfriend was in the house. He kept to himself. He was fine with that pattern till A...
