tag you're it // heathers au

three // poor chloe

After Bella's death, Jesse started up his mandatory visits with his mother as per the social worker's demand. He was sitting in the room with Veronica, JD and Chloe while cameras watched and recorded their interaction. Chloe sat crisscross applesauce, playing with a Barbie doll she brought along and trying not to pay attention to the tension in the room.

"How has my son been?" Tara asked, walking into the room. Jesse turned to face his mother, seeing that she was wearing shorts with fishnets underneath and six inch heels to top it off. She wasn't wearing a shirt, just a red bra and a leopard print faux fur coat.

"Fine." Jesse replied, looking away from his mother. He felt heat creep up his neck as she gently touched his black curls.

"You aren't allowed to touch Jesse." Veronica reminded Tara.

"I'm his mother, not you." Tara hissed. "I can touch my son."

"Do you really get the title of mother when you let all those horrible things happen to him? You might have birthed him but I raised him." Veronica countered.

"And he hit that girl in the head because you sucked at that job." Tara accused.

"Or maybe, and hear me out here, he did that because he spent nearly all of the first three years of his life being abused." JD added to the conversation.

"I loved my son!" Tara argued.

"Yes because that's how you love a child, by beating them senseless and sodomizing them." JD responded.

"What's sodomizing?" Chloe asked innocently.

"That doesn't matter." Veronica and JD said at the same time. The social worker came in and started to get Chloe, JD and Veronica out of the room. They had to observe how Jesse and Tara interacted alone.

"I want to leave." Jesse mumbled as his family filed out of the room.

"I know, Jess, but you have to finish it out." Veronica told him. "We can't decide when it ends."

"You really hate me that much?" Tara asked after Veronica, JD, Chloe and the social worker left.

"I hate you more than I hate anything." Jesse said, finally looking up and looking into his mother's eyes.

"Well guess what kid, I feel the same way about you. You ruined my life." Tara spat.

"I didn't choose to be born." Jesse replied. "Do you have any idea what my life was like?"

"It was fine." Tara lied.

"No, it wasn't. My earliest memory is you letting some guy molest me for drug money. You know what my earliest good memory is?" Jesse asked.

"What?" Tara wondered.

"Getting to live with my mom and dad." Jesse said. "Everything before that sucked."

"She isn't your mom. I'm your mom!" Tara squealed in annoyance.

"A mom loves her children. They don't let people hurt them. Veronica is my mom. You're nothing but the woman who gave birth to me." Jesse hissed angrily, he was seething at this point and wanted to leave more than anything. Before Tara could reply, Chloe was in the doorway.

"They said you can leave, Jesse." She told him. He stood up, pushed past her and left the room. Chloe trailed behind him, keeping quiet for a moment before speaking up. "That lady is really mean to you."

"You don't even know." Jesse replied, walking right past JD and Veronica to go to the car.

Once they were home, Chloe went to play in the backyard while JD and Veronica watched TV. They left the back door open while Jesse kept an eye on Chloe. He was still angry. He watched Chloe pump her legs to propel her swing higher and higher. He watched her giggle and sing songs while she did that. He hated how happy she was.

He saw Chloe's orange cat, Pumpkin, walk out of the house. Chloe had her eyes closed as she swung higher and higher. Jesse took advantage of that and grabbed a croquet mallet, raising it up and hitting Pumpkin in the head. Pumpkin let out a howl and Chloe opened her eyes to witness her brother repeatedly crushing Pumpkin's skull in. She jumped off the swing and watched, unable to stop Jesse from the shock she was in.

Jesse dropped the mallet beside Pumpkin's bloody and lifeless body. He walked towards Chloe, noticing she was about to scream. He put his hand over he mouth so she bit him. She started to run inside but Jesse grabbed her by her hair and threw her to the ground via her blonde curls. Chloe screamed as Jesse went to grab the bloody mallet.

Veronica and JD ran outside and saw the cat's lifeless body, they saw Jesse with the croquet mallet and Chloe on the ground, sobbing and shrieking. "What the hell is the matter with you?" JD asked his son, yanking him away from Chloe as Veronica went to comfort her.

"I was angry." Jesse replied, as if anger was a justifiable reason to kill a small animal. And though while Veronica and JD tried to spend the rest of the night explaining this to him, he simply didn't get it. Chloe sat in her room crying for most of the night, she'd had Pumpkin since they were both very young, Chloe was four and Pumpkin was a kitten at the time when JD and Veronica got her. Even though Jesse never really liked Pumpkin, no one expected him to straight up murder the cat. All Jesse thought about while JD and Veronica lectured him was that Chloe was the victim again, which made him mad.