Jenalyn: Crossing Lines (#4) [Complete]

Chapter 76: Evelyn

Three days later…
Thursday, 3:00  P.M. EST

“How do you know she’s still using?” I ask Rob as we stroll down the frozen food aisle at Redner’s looking for the TV dinners Dane told us to get for Jena.

He’s trying to rehabilitate her or something;  I don’t know. Suddenly he’s set on this chick from Jersey delivering the baby? 

I don’t know; Most of my information comes from the girls down at the housing unit when I get a chance to go over there with Rob. Dane doesn’t really loop me in on anything since I botched his infiltration a few weeks ago. 

Rob seems to know more though. I don’t know how, and I know he won’t trust me enough after what I did to tell me, but I ask anyway. 

“I just know,” is all he says, matching what I expected almost to a tee. 

He’s being careful about what he tells me because he thinks I’m going to run back and tell Dane. I keep trying to explain to him that it was a mistake. He has, for the most part, forgiven me. 

He’s just still a little guarded. 

“I’m not going to say anything!” I exclaim, grabbing a few Fettucini Alfredo with Chicken and Broccoli dinners from the freezer and turning to face him with a pleading look on my face. “I’m sorry about what I did, but I’m on your side now! The only way Jena will ever forgive me is if I save her baby!”

Rob rolls his eyes, doubling back to the freezer I just left a moment ago to grab about a dozen more of the stupid TV dinners. “She doesn’t even want the fucking baby,” he murmurs bitterly, tossing them in the cart as if it were the TV dinners he’s upset with. 

I know he’s upset with Jena... especially if it really is his baby like she was saying it was.. .

But I don’t think that’s what she really wants. I know her! All she ever used to talk about was how, one day, she was going to have a little baby that she could give a better life than we had. 

She’s just... in one of her Jenalyn ruts. She’ll get herself into a shit situation, play with different flames to see what she can do about setting it ablaze, and then run off until the next time things aren’t crazy enough for her, and her chaos-seeking mind gets bored. 

She’s only so down right now because the flames she chose to play with burned her…bad. Now she’s afraid to get back in it; She’d rather just get high.

I’ve been there. Pretty recently, actually. 

“She does, Rob!” I say after a couple moments, “She’s just... feeling hopeless right now! I’m sure if we presented her with a plan we could all be confident in, she’d jump on board without hesitation!”

Rob raises a brow at me as he pushes the cart in my direction and signals for me to grab it. “Oh yeah?” he asks sarcastically. “-and do you have a plan we know will work? Or are you just watching too much Dr. Phil?”

I’d usually get frustrated with his sarcasm, but can’t find it in myself to today. We don’t have the time to get into stupid arguments- Jena has been looking terrible. If we don’t think of something fast, it could be to late! Not only for the baby, but Jena too. 

“I mean- I’ve been thinking!” I say defensively despite not having come up with anything in all the thinking I’ve been doing. 

Rob raises a brow again, waiting for me to follow up with whatever plan “I’ve been thinking” about.

“And?” he asks, a brow raised in skepticism. 

I think on my feet, though I’m sure it’ll be a terrible idea and probably not even worth the effort. “Maybe we could trick Dane or something?” I offer, aware of how stupid I sound but continuing anyway. “We could like… convince him one of the days he’s away, that Jena really OD’d and died or something?”

Rob looks over to me with flattened brows as we make our way to the front of the store. “That’s stupid, Ev,” he says, flat toned. “How would that even help?”

I know it’s stupid. I knew it was going to be stupid before I said it, but it gets the wheels in my mind turning. 

“Well, if we could like... get her out first, then maybe the shock of the news would be enough for Dane not to go looking?” I say, brainstorming. “You know he gets weird about Jena... maybe it’d scare him straight or something?”

I can tell Rob is still unimpressed with my idea, but something in the back of my mind won’t let me leave it alone. 

Maybe I’m onto something? 

“There’d be no shock unless he physically saw her dead body and realized he caused it,” Rob says with a flat tone, though matter-of-factly. He tips his imaginary hat to the store manager and walks out of the store without paying. “And considering your brilliant idea to smuggle her out before he gets home, I don’t see that being a thing.”

I mean... he’s right. The plan is shoddy. 

I know my brother. And I know that if he were to have caused Jena’s death over this, even inadvertently? It’d be one of those mental breakdowns he has when he needs to regather himself, so he runs away and gets a bad case of the fuck-its. 

If we could make him believe that he did it and then get Jena back to California with the Golds before he had the chance to realize it was all a hoax? It’d at least give her enough time to get the baby safe before Dane went looking for her. 

I know that’s all she wants. 

But we’d never be able to get her to California fast enough. Dane would be home in a heartbeat if we told him Jenalyn was dead- even if he had to build a teleporter pad to do it. Without a body, he’d immediately get suspicious and go looking. How would we get her to the Golds anyway? I’m sure Dane took her phone a long time ago. Shit! They probably wouldn’t even take her back if we could get her there! 

“You’re right...” I agree with Rob, though my mind still can’t seem to leave the idea alone. I’ll revisit this conversation after I figure something out... and I will figure something out. For now, I change the subject. “So yeah- how do you know Jena’s still using? I promise, this is us information. I learned my lesson!”

Rob seems reluctant to drop the conversation about figuring out a way to save Jena, but I can tell by his face that he feels it’s the better thing to do. 

“Jena has a phone. Every once in a while, I get a text or two...” he sighs, glancing over at me as if to try to gauge a reaction on my face. I’m surprised, but not surprised. I mean, it’s Jena after all. Like I said, the girl likes to play with flames. “Just know Ev, she’s had it all along. If she gets caught now, after I said something to you? Well... we’ll know who snitched again.”

I deserve that. But I know the information will not go further than me; He’ll just have to see when I come out as a hero for saving his supposed bastard child. 

She has a phone... that intrigues the idea sitting in the back of my mind all over again. I know I can think of something…

“Mums the word,” I tell him confidently, opening the trunk to his truck to load in the three bags of TV dinners for Jena.