The Divine Zero

Chapter 2: Jessica In Rough Waters

When Jessica was younger, she took swim classes with some of the other local kids her age. The kids mainly just splashed through the water wearing life jackets, rebelling against the teens that were paid way too little to deal with many six yearolds.

Besides playing their make believe mermaid games in the pool, they were taught how to float, that being Jessica's favorite part.
Floating through the water easily on her back as the other kids splashed and flailed around with difficulty, envious of Jessica's ability.

But Jessica wasn't aware, she paid no attention to anyone else while in the water, it was distracting in the best way possible. She stared up at the grimy public pool's ceiling as she drifted through the small waves. To her, there was peace to it, being carried so easily.

Jessica's balance with water soon lead her to the love of competing in swim relays for sport at her school, and club swimming. Her coaches always described her as a fish speedily swimming through the water, she had grace and passion with every stroke. It was something her parents loved watching and something that was a part of their every day lives. They even had a bumper sticker on the back window on their family vehicle, "Jessica, Swim Team."

In Oakville Washington, her new home, she didn't start swimming again.

Jessica didn't do much the summer that followed after her mother's tragic death. Jessica tried her best to pretend it never happened. That she never lived in Riverside and Clara was just a memory from a past life. Her mom was off in Europe climbing mountains or maybe in the canals of Italy. Clara St. Clair had never died in Jessica's mind.

But her father handled things differently and thought about his wife in different ways than his daughter did.

The former family man and kind hearted gentleman had taken a change for the worst after the loss of his wife.
He was filled with anger, regret, guilt, and most nights, alcohol.

Why didn't I notice in time?

Why didn't I save her?

Always running through his mind, taunting him. Not even the alcohol that drowned his body could drown the hole that Clara had left.

He kept two jobs in construction of office buildings and homes the city was building. He worked almost everyday of the week, besides Fridays and Sundays. On those days, though, he kept himself busy at the bar. Or unfortunately, he'd bring the bar atmosphere to their home. He stopped caring if Jessica saw him drink or witnessed his drunken behavior. That mainly included, yelling or babbling to himself and breaking furniture in their home. He was ultimately unpredictable.

When Jessica started high school as a freshman that year at her new school, he drove her in the mornings. Though, he was able to pick her up after school because he didn't work then, he let Jessica walk home. His excuse was that she needed to get out of the house more but everyday when she got home from school she was greeted by a drunk, passed out father who was sprawled out in his recliner. Jessica hated it of course and was worried dearly about her father, but the new Dave St. Clair terrified her. She didn't have the chutzpa to say anything to him about it.

The lack of a ride home didn't matter much to Jessica because her freshmen year went by as quickly as it had come and she had her drivers license on her 16th birthday, which was a little ways into her sophomore year.

Her dad had bought her a car to use to get to school and back and honestly, she could have drove it anywhere and he wouldn't have cared.

Or noticed she was gone.

Jessica practically took care of her father, falling quickly out of childhood into the place of her mother, the place she had left behind. From cooking dinner every night for her father, cleaning and tidying the house, grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, and what her mom never had to do, be a cab for her seemingly always intoxicated dad and the friends he brought along. Jessica put up with his behavior and bad choices because she was terrified that she'd lose her dad as easily as she had lost her mom if she didn't take care of him.

Plus, it kept her busy.

After the summer of pain, Jessica decided that was the only grieving she'd allow herself over her mother; she'd be someone new here in high school. Not the girl everyone pitied because she lost a parent. Not the weird, quiet girl who'd rather have her face planted in a book than to be hanging out with friends.

Jessica went from the girl in school who had a couple of good friends to the ideal popular cheerleader. She tried out for the team the beginning of freshman year. After a year of showing off her skills (and maybe kissing up to the former captains a little) she became a cheer captain herself. Everyone on the team looked up to her, in friendly ways and also in more envious ways.

Jessica St. Clair's name went through the halls of the school often, people admiring the blonde hair blue eyed beauty from sunny California. To them, she was practically foreign.

Constantly, eyes would follow her when she walked by, no matter where she went. People would be staring down her tall, slender body. Though her smile breath taking, that did not distract the boys from her curves. Not that she was interested in dating or boys in the slightest; but to her dismay, she attracted them anyways.

Though Jessica was always in the spotlight, unintentionally or not, she knew who her real friends were. Stephanie Joe and Katherine Peters, her fellow cheer captains were who she talked to most. And maybe the rest of the cheer squad. Possibly most of the people in her grade, or higher also.

Okay, whatever, so Jessica had a lot of people she talked to.

But that was another way Jessica kept herself busy. Jessica lived and based her life off of distractions from what was really bothering her and haunting her mind from time to time. Jessica was not as happy as she reflected herself to be to everyone. But she didn't care or want to acknowledge it.

The construction of her new life here in Washington had been a rough start of course, but she was who she wanted to be now. Or who she thought she wanted to be.

Everything she had done for herself had brought her to where the story really begins; Junior year in high school.

That's when she met them.