MORE THAN THAT
Chapter Seven

Saturday, October 4, 2003

Jack woke up early in Christina's living room. Her parents had left for Texas on Wednesday. Fabrizio, Tommy, Hannah, and Jack had all slept over. He noticed that Christina and Tommy weren't in the living room. He figured that they must have slept in her room. Fabrizio and Hannah were cuddled next to each other on the couch. Jack had slept on the loveseat.

He heard a yawn behind him. He turned around to see Tommy walking down the stairs.

"Hey, Jack!" Tommy said.

"Hey, Tommy! Where's Christina?"

"She's still sleeping."

"What were you guys doing up there?" Jack teased. Tommy blushed.

"That's all behind closed doors," Tommy joked. Jack laughed. "You want anything to eat?"

"Sure. But shouldn't we wait for Christina?"

"I know every nook and cranny in this house. I always sleep over when her parents are away," Tommy answered. Jack followed him into the kitchen.

Tommy grabbed two bowls and placed them on the kitchen table. He took two spoons out of the drawer and tossed them Jack.

"So, what will it be? Frosted Flakes or Lucky Charms?" Tommy asked, holding the boxes up.

"Give me the Frosted Flakes!" Jack answered him. Tommy tossed him the box of cereal and sat down.

"Ha! You choose your Frosted Flakes! I'll stick to my Lucky Charms! Not exactly Irish cereal, but close enough!" Jack laughed. Christina came downstairs and sat on Tommy's lap, giving him a quick kiss.

"Good morning, boys!" Christina said. She took a spoonful of Tommy's cereal.

"Hey, Christina!" Jack said.

"Did you sleep good?" she asked, feeding Tommy.

"I slept quite all right," Jack answered, smiling at her.

"Those two are still sleeping!" Tommy said, referring to Fabrizio and Hannah.

Tommy and Jack finished their breakfasts. The three of them went into the living room. Tommy grabbed a pillow from the loveseat Jack had slept on and threw it at Fabrizio and Hannah. Fabrizio yawned, stretching his free arm out.

"Wake up, Fabri!" Tommy yelled.

"What?" Fabrizio mumbled. They laughed at him. Tommy went over to him and yelled in his ear.

"Good morning, Fabri!" Tommy yelled. Fabrizio was shaken up. He turned over, dropping Hannah on the floor.

"Ouch! Fabri, you idiot!" Hannah yelled, hitting Fabrizio. Jack, Christina, and Tommy couldn't stop laughing.

"Ah! Hannah, babe! I'm sorry!" Fabrizio said, pleading for her to stop hitting him. "It was Tommy's fault!"

"Don't point the blame at me, bud!" Tommy said. Fabrizio got off the couch, helping Hannah off the floor.

"Nice jammies, Fabri!" Jack joked about Fabrizio's rocket ship pajamas.

"Ha ha!" Fabrizio said sarcastically. "Very funny, Dawson!"

"Aw, Fabri! I like you PJ's," Christina teased.

"Well, thank you, Chris."

"Yeah, I'd like them if I were maybe--what? Five?" Christina laughed at Fabrizio, who rolled his eyes.

"I love them!" Hannah kissed Fabrizio.

"So, anyway! Off the subject of Fabrizio! We're all going to Michelle Schiffer's party, right?" Christina asked.

"Yes!" they all answered at the same time.

"Then all of you go home to get ready!" Christina demanded.

"You're kicking me out, babe?" Tommy asked.

"Yeah, I am! All of you--out!" Christina said. She laughed.

"I have to leave in my pajamas?" Fabrizio complained.

"God, Fabri! I'm kidding. All of you go change first," Christina said.

Jack went into the bathroom to change. Fabrizio and Hannah changed in the living room, and Tommy went to go change in Christina's room.

Jack knew Rose was gonna be at the party tonight. She was probably going to be there with Cal. Like he’d promised her, he'd leave her alone.

*****

Rose came to the party alone. Cal was in the Hamptons. She wished he would stay there until Monday. However, he was gonna come home early Sunday morning to celebrate her sixteenth birthday.

She spoke to a few people and drank a bit. She was happy that none of Cal's friends were there so that they could spy on her. She was able to speak to some people Cal had told her that she wasn't allowed to speak to.

"Hi, James," Rose said. She saw her old friend sitting on the couch. He turned to look at her.

"Oh…um…hi, Rose," James said, frightened to speak to her.

"How have you been?" she asked.

"I've b-been g-good," he stuttered. He looked around to see if Cal was around. "Where's your boyfriend?"

"He's in the Hamptons." He was too nervous to talk her, too scared to even look at her.

"Well, I see Elizabeth over there! Talk to you later!" He rushed up from the couch to go talk to his girlfriend.

Oh, great. He thinks I'm some kind of poison! Rose thought. Cal was ruining things for her. She wanted to break up with him, but she just stuck to him like glue. Every time he said that he loved her, she couldn't turn away.

She had come to the party completely covered up to hide the bruises. She felt kind of hot, but she didn't want to be exposed, or people would start looking at her funny.

Then she saw Jack sitting outside talking to some people from school. Her heart began to cringe. She walked over to him.

*****

Jack arrived at the party. The minute the five friends got there, Fabrizio and Hannah were already making out. Tommy and Christina immediately started to dance. Even though it was a fast song, they were slow dancing really close to each other, giving each other a peck every now and then.

Jack stayed outside, talking to some people from his art class, Frank Russo and Ben Edwards.

"See, Monet knew how to captivate people with his paintings." Jack spoke about his favorite artist.

"How? All he did was paint landscapes," Ben said.

"He made you feel like you were in the painting with his use of color," Jack explained.

"I personally feel that Salvador Dali was the greatest," Frank commented.

"I agree," Ben added in.

"Dali, I admit, was an absolutely magnificent artist," Jack agreed.

"Did you see his painting Metamorphism of Narcissus?" Frank asked, taking a sip of his beer.

"That was absolutely amazing!" Ben answered.

"The hand on the right holding an egg with a flower growing out of it was genius!" Frank said.

"You know where he got his inspiration for that, don't you?" Jack asked them. They shook their heads, curious to find out.

"His inspiration for this painting came from a conversation he overheard between two fishermen discussing a local man who would stare at himself in the mirror for hours." Ben and Frank were interested to know more. Jack continued with the story.

"One of them described the man as having a bulb in his head; a colloquium meaning that he was mentally ill." Ben and Frank were deeply interested. "Dali combined this image with the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection and was transformed into the flower that bore his name after his death."

"The hand on the right that holds an egg, out of which a narcissus flower grows, echoes the configuration of Narcissus and his reflection in the lake. The same configuration occurs again at the top of the mountains that are directly above the figure of Narcissus, who stands on a dais admiring his body. The familiar sight of ants and a scavenging dog both appear around the hand, symbolizing the death and decay that has taken place."

Ben and Frank were amazed by the story, amazed by Jack's knowledge of the artist's inspiration to painting the portrait.

"Hello, Jack." Jack heard a sweet, familiar voice. He recognized the beautiful sound, seeing Rose.

Ben and Frank left to go inside the house.

"Hi."

"I heard your story. It was interesting," Rose said.

"Oh, yeah. Thanks. Rose, with all due respect, why are you talking to me? Where's your boyfriend?" Jack asked, looking over her shoulder to see if Cal was there.

"He's not here," Rose said quietly.

"Oh, well. Just because he's not here, you think you could just talk to me? If you're not gonna bother talking to me when he's not around, don't bother talking to me at all," Jack said. He felt kind of bad for his harshness, but he wasn't going to talk to Rose whenever she felt like it.

He walked away from her, wishing he could turn back, but he knew it was for the best. He walked into the house, where he scouted out his friends all talking to each other. They saw him talking to Rose and quickly turned their heads when he turned away from her.

"So, anyway, do you guys really wanna go to junior prom?" Fabrizio asked, out of nowhere. He turned his head to see Jack. "Oh, hi."

"Hey, guys. I know you guys saw me talking to Rose. Don't try to pretend that you didn't see us," Jack said.

"Okay, good! So what happened?" Hannah asked.

"Yeah! We wanna know!" Christina said, in excitement.

"Did she act all bitchy to you, man?" Tommy asked. His friends were curious to know.

"No. I just told her to not bother talking me at all if she doesn't talk to me when Cal is there. Why talk to her at all? Just because he's not around doesn't mean anything's changed."

"Good boy. Now, would you let go of all this Rose shit?" Tommy asked.

"Yeah. I don't see why not," Jack lied. He wanted to help Rose in any way he could, but he couldn't do that if she pushed him away.

Chapter Eight
Stories