By Ruby Trinity
She wasted no time, hurrying through corridors and down steps, traversing a pathway she had gone down so many times she could have done it in her sleep. Not even out of breath she opened the door to the SIM lab; use to its blinding white glare she didn’t even blink.
“Hey Jarod.” She called in greeting to the dark haired boy. He sat slumped at one of the desks; he didn’t even respond to her presence. “Jarod.” She called more forcefully, getting the slightest bit irritated. He was supposed to be happy to see her - he always was. His head lifted and his dark eyes looked into her clear blue ones.
“Hello Miss Parker.”
“You ok Jarod?” She said trying to hide any concern she may have. She saw him shake his head.
“I’m just fine.” There was something hard in his eyes that told her he was lying. She frowned, he had been so moody the last couple of weeks… but then she went to a school full of teenaged boys and she had found it happened to most of them around puberty. She just wished he would get over it already.
“Come on let’s go, the guard’s over near the infirmary, we can get past him easy.” Jarod stood up, not without some reluctance, and followed her out the lab.
She grabbed his hand to hurry him along, ignoring the strange tingle that ran up her arm at the contact. They stopped at the next corridor and she couldn’t help but look at him as they waited for the guard to turn his back. She hadn’t realised how much he had grown lately, he was a head taller than her already. His voice had gotten deeper months ago but now she saw his shoulders were beginning to broaden and he was losing some of the leanness of boyhood.
“He’s gone.” She started as Jarod’s whispered words broke her reverie. She saw him give her a strange look and her cheeks grew red as she realised he had caught her staring at him.
“Let’s go then.” She said hurriedly, pushing her way past him to take the lead.
* * * *
She couldn’t remember how it started, but by the time they were in the room that housed the vent that would take them to where the cameras couldn’t see they were in a heated argument.
She’d had too much to deal with her father lately; an argument with Jarod was all she needed to throw her over into seethingly mad. Jarod’s temper had been quick to appear lately, and needed no great push to send him over the edge with her.
When they discovered the vent was blocked they almost came to blows.
“Well, we’ll just have to talk here.” Jarod reasoned his arms folded defensively.
“There are cameras here.” She stated angrily. Why was nothing going her way lately?
“Maybe we can get Angelo to do something about them.” Jarod said his arms unfolding as his anger subsiding slightly.
“I haven’t seen him around lately.” She said quietly turning to slowly pace to the opposite side of the room.
“He doesn’t like to be around us when we fight.” Jarod replied his eyes clouded.
“Well whose fault is that?” Miss Parker replied vindictively. Jarod’s lips tightened.
“You’re the one who’s been getting so cold lately.” He replied, with more force than he had intended.
“You’re the one who’s been all moody and mopey and all the other seven dwarfs.” She ground out defensively.
“What do dwarfs have to do with anything?” Jarod asked angrily, aware she was making a cultural allusion she knew he wouldn’t understand.
“Ugh! Why do you have to be so difficult?! I only came here to say goodbye! Is that so hard for you to accept?” She froze, aware that the real reason behind their fighting was out in the open. She knew he had known, as soon as she walked into the lab, that that was her real reason for being there. She hadn’t pictured this as their goodbye however, any moment now sweepers would be intervening.
“I don’t give up on friends so easily.” Jarod replied, his voice low and hard.
“I’m your ONLY friend Jarod!” She cried angrily.
“Hey, I’m YOUR only friend!” He yelled back. Miss Parker’s shoulders slumped as her anger suddenly deflated. She sat down heavily on a bench that lined the far wall.
“You realise how pathetic that is, don’t you?” She said quietly her eyes beseeching his.
“I don’t have any contextual knowledge on the subject; I couldn’t say.” He replied softly, coming to sit next to her on the bench. Her lips twitched into a sad smile. She looked over at him, suddenly noticing the despondent look on his face. He pulled his long legs onto the bench, resting his arms on his knees.
“I thought you liked it here Jarod.” She said gently.
His voice, when he finally answered her was soft. He spoke slowly, carefully; as he talked of emotions he had let no one else see. “Being surrounded everyday by facts and figures and files. The only time I’m ever allowed to experience some actual emotion, it is to relive peoples most terrible moments. Their deaths, or failures, to…. feel their fear and desperation as they take their last breaths or watch loved ones take theirs… Sometimes when I’m so tired of trying to work out a solution to a problem I could never possibly fix, I… wish I was them. As horrid as their lives were in that moment that I simmed them, I’m sure at some point in their lives, they’ve experienced family, friendship… and love. And I wish that I could be them, and not here.” He turned his head slightly to look her in the eye, “You are the only good thing I have.”
She closed her eyes briefly, not being able to take his intense gaze for long.
“You… do important work here Jarod…” She finally replied.
“I know.” He replied looking away from her finally.
Both stayed quiet, before Miss Parker came to gently rest her head against Jarod’s shoulder. He threw her a quick surreptitious look of surprise, but finding the contact pleasurable, soon relaxed again. He felt her sigh as she buried her face deeper into his shoulder.
“To Daddy I might as well be a ghost. You and Mama are the only ones that ever cared… now that Mama’s gone; you’re the only one I have left.” She whispered her voice barely audible. “I don’t want to go Jarod, it’s Daddy’s idea… I’ve tried talking him out of it; it was like talking to a wall.” Jarod’s head leant down to rest on hers. “I’m so sorry Jarod.” She whispered finally. He shook his head slightly against hers.
They fell into silence.
Footsteps approaching the room echoed about the walls; they separated quickly, coming to stand side by side… a distance already separating them. As if they knew, that very soon, a lot more than feet would separate them.
She looked over at him, for one last look.
“Goodbye Jarod.” She said.
“Goodbye Miss Parker.” He replied. Their eyes only tore from each other’s when the doors slammed open and three sweepers walked in.
* * * *
She flicked the DSA off as the screen went blank, plunging the room into darkness. She sat there at her desk, in the dark, swirling the amber liquid in her glass. The only sound the clinking of ice cubes. She leaned back in her chair her eyes closing as she remembered all the times that had passed. She had been so sure that would be the final and only goodbye to her childhood friend. How the past five years had proved her wrong! Yet still, they had never spoken those words to each other since.
It was true they had said their goodbyes twenty five ago, but didn’t he think that these past five years might warrant a word of any kind before he just disappeared? He had found his family, yes, he had had his resolution, fine, but here she was feeling everything but resolved.
He had been silent for six months; he had never left this much time between some sort of contact - if only to taunt her with his continued elusiveness. She had watched Sydney closely, she was sure Jarod had said something to him before his hiatus because there wasn’t a murmur of concern over Jarod’s absence.
Had Jarod told him he was breaking off? Finally going into hiding?
And why… if he had told Sydney… had he not told her? It didn’t make sense; their last conversation had been no different than any other before. He had been his usual, annoying, cryptic self.
And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that he had disappeared on purpose and didn’t intend on coming back. And somehow, thinking that… sent a surge of panic through her. The feeling, so very similar to the one she had in that DSA, the one of their goodbyes.
Her glass slammed down onto her desk, the crash shockingly loud. How could he do this to her, leaving her hanging like this? Knowing he had gone and yet with no proof, no word. The Centre didn’t believe her supposition that he wasn’t going to give them any further clues. They were adamant she keep doing her job and find him.
Of course the sad fact was, without his breadcrumbs, there was absolutely no way of finding him. Not even a trace. He might as well have never existed. And that pissed her off beyond bearing, because he had existed, he had carved this huge place in her life… and now that place was suddenly vacate and she couldn’t move forward.
Damn him, he wasn’t going to do this to her.
Her feet were under her and she was standing before she knew it. She grabbed her coat and leaving everything else she walked out of her office, the darkness no obstacle. If Jarod wanted to disappear, fine, but he was going to face her first.
Those goodbyes, twenty five years ago… they weren’t enough, she needed more.
Her stride lengthened. She was going to find Jarod and they were going to say everything they hadn’t said twenty five years ago and every moment since.
She would find Jarod; and she knew she would succeed, because this time she wasn’t doing it for the Centre…
She was doing it for her.
* * * *
He snapped his phone shut with a breath of frustration. He couldn’t do it. How many times had he picked up the phone to call her in the last six months, only to freeze over the talk button? He had never taken himself for a coward, and yet the fear that swept through him when he thought of saying goodbye was so reminiscent of that time when they were children and she had come to say farewell. The fear mixed with so much anger that he would be losing her. Only this time it was his choice, something that failed to ease the churning in his gut.
Maybe if he saw her, faced her, one last time…
His body moved almost without conscious thought as he collected his keys and jacket, hurrying to his car.
* * * *
Somewhere at the back of both their minds, buried by all the years of pain and loneliness, of confusion and contradictions, yet still there despite all the years… was the hope, the longing, that maybe…
Maybe… goodbyes wouldn’t be needed this time.
The End
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