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Trashed and Scattered

Chapter Seventy-One: Sullivan Street

Let it burn!” Peyton sang loudly, dumping another box of her mother’s creations onto their makeshift bonfire.
Jimmy smirked, sipping from his can as he admired his drunken friend’s moxie. He’d partly assumed her desire for arson would have died out throughout the evening, but as she pulled boxes from the attic out to the backyard and swiftly lit a match, it was evident the fuse was shorter than ever. It hadn’t taken long for Jimmy to rally and assist.
“What a lovely tune you’ve conjured there,” he teased.
She narrowed her eyes at him, giving the box a shake before unceremoniously tossing it to the side, “I could be a lyricist or something, right? Fuck art! Music here I come!”
“Stay in your lane, man,” Jimmy laughed, passing Peyton her beer back.
She shook the can with a frown, “It’s emptier than when I left it.”
“It is,” Jimmy concurred with a laugh.
“Did you drink it?”
He nodded.
“You have one,” she stated flatly.
He nodded again.
“But you drank mine,” she said slowly.
Jimmy's lips cracked into a devious smile.
Peyton gasped, “You’re a monster.”
He snickered, “Yours tasted better.”
“It didn’t,” she argued, groaning as she downed the little contents Jimmy had so kindly left for her.
As she fetched another can from the cooler, she let herself watch the blaze. The smoke bellowed up toward the heavens, cleansing the earth of the demonic creations stacked away neatly in the Winchester attic. The strangest sense of vindication washed over Peyton as the embers sparked out against the blackened sky.
Her eyes followed the trail of paper smoke, lingering against the stars as they danced alight just for her.
For her and for Jimmy.
“I’m going to miss the clear skies,” Peyton thought aloud wistfully.
Jimmy frowned subtly, “No stars in New York?”
She scoffed a laugh, “Yeah, not so much.”
“God damn light pollution,” he laughed.
“No doubt.”
"If it makes you feel any better," Jimmy smirked, "those stars have probably been dead for years."
Peyton stared blankly at him.
"I'm just saying," he laughed.
She shook her head, twirling her gaze around the infinite cosmos once more, "Dead or alive, we don't get them much in New York."
Jimmy hesitated, striking up the familiar routine of dancing around the elephant in the room. It had been an itch persisting throughout the entire day, her leaving. Every time he’d tried to have a meaningful conversation about it, though, Peyton had promptly shut him down. He wasn’t sure if it was because she held a sore spot over it…or if it was something far more disappointment. A particularly large part of Jimmy’s insecurity had to wonder if she didn’t want to talk about it because she was afraid of what he might say.
Perhaps she was afraid he might ask her to stay.
“What’s your life like in New York?” he tried instead, trying his best to broach the topic with a casual undertone.
Peyton shrugged, sipping at her beer as she considered every aspect, “It’s…busy, I guess. But also kind of monotonous. I don’t know. It’s a lot of the same old thing—but there’s always so much going on that it’s hard to get bored. Joanna keeps things interesting.”
“I want to meet her,” Jimmy smirked. “She sounds fun.”
“She is fun,” Peyton smiled fondly. “She’s the best. I’m starting to have withdrawals from her…This is the longest we’ve been apart since we met.”
Jimmy frowned, “It’s hard being away from a best friend.”
She looked at him knowingly, letting the sentiment sink salt deep into her wounds.
“Yeah…” was all she could bring herself to say.
“Lex,” he breathed then, knowing full well that she’d caught his accidental jab about the past. “You won’t, like, just leave…right?”
She tilted her head.
“You would never leave without saying goodbye, right?” he asked more clearly.
“No,” she replied slowly. “Why would you ask me that?”
He shrugged subtly, “Guess I’m still a bit nervous.”
There was an insatiable thirst stirring up within him. He longed to trust Peyton, the way he’d trusted Lexi. But with that trust, he knew, was the opportunity for her to let him down. She’d let him down once in the past—and then every day thereafter. Sometimes he would awaken in a panic, convinced that he’d missed his window and Peyton was already gone.
Sometimes he was sure she’d vanish into the night, leaving a note behind only if she’d felt so inclined by impulse.
“I wouldn’t do that,” she said softly. “Even if…”
As she fell into silence, Jimmy’s curiosity was piqued.
“Even if?” he pressed.
She struggled to find her voice, settling on denial once more, “Nothing. I just…I wouldn’t do that. I swear.”
The truth of the matter was that Peyton was afraid to leave. She was terrified of the prospect of wishing her friend farewell once more. Moreover, she was aggressively unsure of how to proceed in her life after she’d crossed the state line. Would they have a telephone friendship? Would he come to visit her? Could she bring herself to come back here temporarily? Surely, she assumed, he’d call if ever Avenged passed through her city.
Was that good enough?
Peyton couldn’t help but feel like a bit of a vagabond. She’d pulled up her California roots only to plant them in New York soil. Perhaps designed as a temporary transplant, she couldn’t help but notice just how fully she’d bloomed beneath the Huntington sun. New York was eternally overcast.
But was sunshine a good enough reason to uproot her life? To even consider relocating on a more permanent basis? How realistic was that? What about her business? Joanna? Her apartment? What about the pillars she’d labored so endlessly to build for herself? Could she really push passed those things in an effort to convince herself she might belong somewhere else?
With someone else?
He hadn’t even asked her to stay. Sure, he’d offered up sweet bits about how fond he was of her and how much he cherished their rekindled friendship. He was sincerely reluctant to acknowledge her fast-approaching departure date. But nowhere in any of those qualms and hesitations did the words will you stay ever verbalize.
In a sense, though, she was glad for it.
At this point, Peyton had no idea what kind of response might spew from her lips.
“I’ll really miss you,” Jimmy confessed weakly.
Peyton forced a smile, swiftly embracing yet another confirmation that Jimmy had made some sort of peace with her leaving. And if he’d made peace with it, then she could only assume that he wasn’t overly concerned with her staying.
And that was, really, all she needed to know.
“I’ll miss you too,” she told him.
“We’ll talk though…right?” he asked slowly. “When you’re gone?”
Peyton’s features fell limp, “I’m never going to escape what happened, am I? You’re never really going to forgive me?”
Jimmy sighed, “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Then what would you say?” she asked impatiently. “That’s the second jab in two minutes. So, come on, Jimmy. Let’s just get it out in the open.”
The burning of her mother’s things added the perfect backdrop for her flaring temper. Every day spent pretending that nothing had changed from their youth, it seemed to her then, had been nothing but a façade. All this time, Jimmy’s feelings had still lingered beneath the surface. All those things he’d said to her at Big Bear, all the confessions he’d made. They were all true—and they were all persistent.
“Can you really blame me?” he snipped. “You disappeared once. It isn’t a far jump to conclude you’ll do it again.”
Peyton groaned, her grip crinkling the can into jagged points, “I was eleven.”
“And then twelve,” Jimmy nodded, his lips pursed, “and then thirteen, and then fourteen…Should I keep going?”
She blinked at him lifelessly.
“I get that it wasn’t your choice to leave,” Jimmy sighed. “I’m not a fucking idiot. But…it was your choice to stay gone every fucking day after, Peyton.”
The sound of her name rolling off his tongue was like a dagger straight to her heart.
“You never thought, at any point, hey, I wonder if my good friend Jimmy is still wandering around in California. Maybe I should go find him. No? You figured you'd just get a fuckin' coyote tattooed on your back and call it a day?
Peyton recoiled, "Don't be cruel."
"I'm not," Jimmy assured her half-halfheartedly. "I just...Can't believe it never occurred to you to come looking for me."
“And how would I have done that?” she challenged. “Just get on a plane and hope for the best?”
“I’m still fucking here, aren't I?” he shouted, arms thrown out to the side. “It wouldn’t have been that fucking hard, Peyton!”
Defensiveness ran thick through her blood, “And what about you, Jimmy? Did you come looking for me?”
“I didn’t know where you were,” he reminded her shallowly, the instant familiarity of dishonesty striking up a cord between the pair.
“Lauren seems to think you did,” she retorted. “Or was her 'finally tracked her down' comment totally off-base?”
Jimmy faltered, his jaw opening and closing like a hooked fish.
“Why is it all my fault?” Peyton hissed. "What about you?"
“You could have been anywhere in the world, Peyton!” he growled. “It was pretty fucking straight forward for you.”
Sensing dancing around in circles, hoping to lead Jimmy into the light, was proving to be fruitless, Peyton abandoned her defenses. She planted her feet into the soil and dared herself to be bold. To ask the question that dared to unravel everything they'd built.
“Did you look for me?” she asked flatly.
He rolled his blue eyes.
“Did you,” she repeated sternly, “look for me?”
"Peyton," he sighed. "Whatever I've done or not done, it doesn't matter."
"Yes it does," she replied quickly. "Tell me."
He shook his head, "Lauren shouldn't have said--"
"Did you fucking look for me?" Peyton asked one final time, impatience and frustration ringing clear.
A rapturous growl escaped his throat, “Yes, I fucking looked for you!”
Peyton took a step back, genuinely surprised and horrified all at once. Jimmy’s face immediately smoothed itself over, the revelation of truth shrinking his confidence down to a pea.
“When…?” Peyton asked quietly, afraid her voice might somehow shatter their friendship into tiny prismatic shards.
“A year ago,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Give or take.”
A thousand questions ran through her mind. Why? After so long apart, why then? Where did he start? How did he know where to go? Did he know where to go? Did he give up?
“Where?” she settled on first.
“New York,” he said callously. “I, uh, caught wind of your whereabouts.”
Peyton squinted, “From where?”
Jimmy shook his head.
“From where?” she repeated louder.
He bit at his lip, gyrating lightly on the spot. The truth gnawed at his bones until they were rusted and failing.
“You knew my mother knew about me?” Peyton asked breathlessly.
“I didn’t ask her,” he said quickly. “I swear to god I didn’t fucking seek her out.”
Peyton’s knees buckled. She tripped over her feet until she could collapse atop the white lid of the cooler. She sank her head between her knees, trying and failing to wrap her head around the deceit and wool that clouded around her life like moths to a flame.
"I kind of assumed she was full of shit," Jimmy told her quietly. "But...on the off chance that Allison actually knew something...I didn't know if you guys spoke or not..."
Peyton's eyes limped to meet her friend's, "If you didn't seek her out...I don't understand."
“It was Christmas,” Jimmy spoke, swallowing down his nerves as he crouched down before the brunette. “I came to my parents for dinner and I was running late…”
“You’re always late,” Peyton muttered.
He half-smiled, taking her hands into his, “Your mother was in a drunken stupor. She yelled to me from her doorway, asked me what I thought of all the lights…The whole thing was fucking weird.”
Peyton stared at him helplessly.
“And then she said Christmas always made her think about her baby,” Jimmy said with an awkward shrug. “Which I thought was weird because Halloween makes me think of you. You know, with your birthday being the day before and whatever.”
“The story, Jim,” Peyton sighed.
“Right,” he laughed. “Anyway, she looked at me and said you know she’s in New York, right?
Clearly Dan’s betrayal of Peyton’s privacy stemmed back further than she could have even imagined. She couldn’t help but wonder if her secrets had ever been safe with her father.
“I tried to look you up in the phone book and shit,” Jimmy smirked. “But…no luck.”
She frowned.
“So…I bought a ticket out there,” he told her casually. “And I wandered around fucking New York for two days. I didn’t know where to go or where you’d be…It’s a big fucking place.”
“It is,” she laughed dryly.
He frowned, “But I did try…And do you want to hear the fucking kicker, Lex?”
She nodded without any sense of certainty.
“I’m pretty sure I was in your fucking shop,” he told her, pain rippling through his oceanic eyes. “Just down from, uh, shit…Washington Square Park I think.”
Peyton’s heart thudded to a stop.
“I saw my last name,” he grinned. “So, I followed that.”
She pulled a deep breath into her lungs. If Jimmy had sauntered down Sullivan Street, then he’d absolutely set foot into her shop. When the location had come up available, she’d figured it fate and spared no expense locking it down.
Every single day as she jogged from her place on Third and rounded the corner onto Sullivan, a part of her mind was put to rest. She’d never expected to have to confess her testament to the man himself.
She was almost embarrassed.
“And you found a tattoo shop,” she said lamely.
He shrugged, “I didn’t know it was yours. I didn’t know you were a fucking tattoo artist. I just needed directions. Some gruff blonde basically tried to sell me her soul just for a consult.”
Peyton snickered, “That’s Hannah. No doubt.”
“So it was?” he asked, shocked. “It was your shop? I looked you up after you got here…But I couldn’t be totally fucking sure that’s where I was.”
“I’m the only tattoo shop on Sullivan,” she nodded solemnly.
Jimmy muttered, his gaze falling to the ground, “Shit.”
Peyton collected herself, “This was last Christmas?”
He nodded, “I was there just after New Years…Like the second week of January or some shit. Pretty sure.”
Peyton decided then that maybe Jimmy and her weren’t fate after all. Perhaps destiny had actually been swindled by her return—perhaps they were never meant to reunite at all.
“I go to Connecticut for the first two weeks of January every year,” Peyton said weakly.
Jimmy shrugged his shoulders theatrically, “Well…mystery fucking solved then.”
“I can’t believe you came looking for me,” Peyton thought aloud, bewildered by the heavy realization.
He nodded, tightening his grip on her hands, “We’ve spent too many years apart. Too much has fucking happened. I’ve been missing you all my god damn life, Lexi…I just…I wanted you back.”
Kiss him. Jimmy's eyes sauntered back and forth between the emeralds in her eyes and the perfection in her lips. Peyton's throat ran dry as an entirely new sensation crept over her and bled her out until her veins had rusted over. She'd kissed Jimmy prior and it had never felt like an urgency needed to be called upon. But there, under the full moon with it's blanket of stars, Peyton felt romance burning up in the back of her chest. Something inside of her shifted as all of the years of separation unveiled itself as lies. She leaned forward, letting the air between them thicken as she glanced down to his plump lips.
“Well,” she mustered, “I’m back now…”
“I can’t lose you again,” he frowned, his eyes beating against hers.
She smiled, giving his hands a quick squeeze, “You won’t. I’d never let that happen.”
He decided then, despite the nagging sting of the past, to believe her.
“Okay,” he smiled, nodding his head at her strangely before straightening himself out once more. “Your fire needs attention.”
She laughed inwardly, quickly allowing the moment to pass by. She supposed then that Jimmy had resigned to friendship at all costs. Friendship...Peyton could do friendship.
With an aching in her soul that she prayed would relent, she quickly got to attending to the flames with another box of her mother’s artwork. For a second, she felt almost guilty. Her mind wandered to her mother’s questionable longing for her…Her volunteered information to the man she knew as James—the man she knew to be Peyton’s lifeblood.
Had she done it on purpose? Had she known it might ignite some sort of rekindling?
Or was she drunk and rambling and desperate for human contact and nothing more?
As she dumped another load onto the flames, Peyton made peace with never knowing.
“So…” Jimmy breathed, tossing his emptied can to the side and replacing it with a new one. “Sullivan Street, huh?”
Peyton smirked, “I was hoping we might slide passed that.”
“It’s like you missed me or something,” he grinned. “Sullivan Street.”
Peyton smiled, letting her cheeks beat rosy, “Jimmy, I’ve been missing you all my life too.”
Just like the endless mass of paper falling neatly against the extinction, Jimmy found his resentment curling up into itself. And as her green gaze reassured him with its flicker of pure adoration, all at once, Jimmy let go.

Notes

Oh, Pellivan.

Jimmy <33333

xx

Comments

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RamonaFoREVer RamonaFoREVer
6/18/19

@fyction
It is one of my favourite things. I melt every time!!

kiss my sas kiss my sas
6/11/19

@kiss my sas
I know! Isn’t it sweet?! Guh. Pellivan <3

fyction fyction
6/11/19

@fyction
BUT PELLIVAN IS TRUE LOVE!!!
I still get giddy when Peyton says 'I love you' to Jimmy... urgh! Such a long time coming!

kiss my sas kiss my sas
6/11/19

@kiss my sas
I mean.... Breyton could be revived... never say never ;)

fyction fyction
6/11/19