bruises // heathers

four // growing pains

"Tell me about him." Giselle demanded, slamming down the Polaroids she found in the attic onto the coffee table angrily. The first of the pictures was the same as the one in the yearbook, where Veronica and Jason Dean were intertwined and laughing. There was another one where the two were kissing. One where they caught that their picture was being taken and then after that, there was one where they properly posed for the camera.

"Where did you find this?" Veronica asked, her nose stuffy and her eyes red rimmed and watery from crying.

"It was in the attic." Ashlee answered for Elle. "On my mom's cork board."

"Why were you up in the attic?" Heather Duke asked.

"We took her up there to help her figure out about her dad." Lindsay explained to their shocked, and slightly angry, mothers.

"I already know his name." Elle said confidently, sounding far older than she was. "Tell me more about him."

"I haven't seen these in so long." Veronica said, about to cry again as she held the Polaroids in her shaking hands. "I haven't seen him in so long." She sobbed a little bit. She lifted the Polaroid of her and Jason to be next to Elle's face in her line of sight. "You have hair like him. The curliness of it. And his eyes, he had blue eyes too."

"What do you mean had?" Elle asked, feeling a terrible pit in her stomach.

"Giselle, he's dead." Veronica said quietly, ashamed at this fact. She had looked back down at the Polaroids to kept her gaze away from Elle's.

"How did he die?" Elle swallowed the lump in her throat and questioned.

"He built a bomb. And he was holding it when it went off. It was suicide." Veronica choked out, the suicide of Jason Dean still hurt her. His death was like a giant hole in her heart, aching and scabbing over but never scarring. It hasn't healed, not even eight years after.

"Did he know about me?" Elle asked, sitting down next to her mother on the couch.

"No, Ellie, he didn't. I found out about two weeks later." Veronica answered, squeezing her little girl's hand tightly.

"Why?" Elle asked, and Veronica understood that she wanted to know why her father killed himself if he had a girlfriend, if he had a chance. She couldn't bring herself to explain that he never had a chance. Not after his mother died, in the same way he did.

"He was hurting." Was all Veronica said. "Just so you know, he never went by Jason. Everyone called him JD." Veronica smiled sadly at his insistence to not be called Jason, she found it fun to tease him with that.

"I want to see his grave."

"There isn't one."

"What do you mean?"

"There wasn't anything to bury, Giselle. He was blown to pieces." Veronica explained, sniffling a little bit. "We're done talking about this." She said quietly, before mumbling goodbyes to everyone and going outside to get in the car. Elle bent down and picked up the Polaroid photographs that her mother dropped.

"Here," Elle said, holding them out to Heather McNamara.

"Keep them." The yellow woman told her. "They're of your mom and dad. I hope we all see you again soon, Giselle." She smiled and Elle quickly hurried out of the house to see a man talking to her mother.

"I swear to god, get away from me! I never want to see you again!" Veronica yelled at the man, who was wearing a long black trench coat.

"Mom?" Elle asked, pulling her mother and the man's attention.