8. SELF-CONTROL
Intelligence comes from many things, yet some people who aren't good in academics are called stupid. Some others would think that they would only be intelligent if they are good in academics, but some people would only be good in academics if they were intelligent.
Jayce looked at the CCTV footage clearly, she knew who that person was. Dave knew as well.
She couldn't say anymore words and she walked out of the police department with a heavy heart.
"Jayce, I don't know what you're going to use this information for but-"
"Deja vu, isn't it, dad?" she immediately said.
"Jayce," Dave put a straight face, "Don't you dare bring the past up just because of-"
"I hate cheaters in a relationship," she said and walked away, "I wouldn't give a damn on what had happened, she still came to the bar, married, and had the thought of getting drunk as well,"
"Not everyone was like your mother, Jayce," Dave said immediately, "I was also to blame, you don't have to take it all on your mother."
Jayce stopped walking and turned around, "Why? Because Kimberly was forced to marry Mikael and you and mom loved each other once?"
"Jayce Brooks," Dave yelled, "You need to stop acting like you're the only one impacted by her doings in her family, think about me, think about Amber," he said.
Jayce clenched her jaw, "You're scared I'd end up like mom, won't you?"
Dave stayed silent.
"I remind you of her when she was in high school, right?" she asked, "I look like her, talk like her, sound like her, and even had the same dreams as her,"
"Jayce, that's not-"
"I've been busy my whole life trying to escape from that," she said, "The only difference between me and her, is that I won't be a failure." She ignored the rest of her father's words and walked away, hopping on her bike and going away.
Dave sighed, he loved his daughters truly. But he wasn't so sure if he loved them equally.
While Jayce, she loved her dad truly, but she stopped loving her mom years ago, at least she thought so.
With a painful drop of the crooked thing she has always held behind, something that was called a tear, dropped. And she had known about the fact that she played numb for years and years, until she thought of the guilt she had when she hated the truth. She resented it. As a child, she understood nothing, but now that it was a memory flashback and she thought about it deeply, she finally understood everything that came to her mind.
That baby she resented who wasn't even born yet. If that baby was actually born, that baby would have had the same circumstance as Ashton. And even if it was born, Jayce damn knew that baby had no fault.
~~~
Brooks family, a history...
Nadia Brooks met Dave Brooks when they were in highschool, both known as the ultimate competitors. Nadia excelled greatly in literature, and Dave excelled greatly in the sciences, but Nadia wanted to go to med school and Dave wanted to go to police academy. They would continuously be switching first and second place, as if they were the only ones in that school.
Then someday, it hit them, they started to like each other, they understood each other, they felt comfort in each other. Dave did his school work for fun, to achieve his dreams of becoming a great detective, while Nadia had her father's pressure on her back, always talking crap about her.
As pretty and as perfect in academics she was, it was never enough for her father. Her life was like she was a puppet in control. When Nadia started dating Dave, it was highly unacceptable by her father. He had said that boys would distract her from her studies.
Nadia didn't care about it, she wanted to leave with Dave anyway. She made a deal with her father.
"If I get into med school you have to let me go," she said to her father.
Her father agreed, overall, the school she would be attending wouldn't be in that city. The day the results arrived, was the day Nadia and Dave had both waited for. They got into the schools they wanted in the same city they would be going to.
Nadia's father sent them both off with consent and by the age of 20, they got married and around the age of 23, Dave became a rookie detective and at age 25, Nadia became a doctor at the nearby hospital.
At 26, she gave birth to Jayce and Amber, a perfect little family. Everything went well with their little family. A good financial status, two pure little daughters and a loving couple as their parents. That was until the twins were 7 years old, and Dave was piled up with loads of work.
A serial murder had been going around that city and Dave was determined to find the murderer. He didn't come home for days and weeks, and Nadia was left in a hurricane.
In those weeks, Nadia's father got into an accident and died, and as a daughter, it was her duty to care for him. Dave wasn't there at his funeral, he wasn't there to comfort Nadia. He simply called and texted her messages that slowly started to get dry.
And she needed the attention.
Nadia was born with a lack of attention on her mental health and a whole bunch of attention on her achievements and grades, and all she really needed was full-time attention to her mentality. And slowly lost that.
She would leave the twins in the evening after dinner to go to clubs and bars and she met a man. The man was married but he slowly felt his marriage crumbling down. His name was Ben, or that Nadia would call him that.
They found comfort in each other, and started an affair, not known by Dave, Jayce or Amber. And Nadia felt selfish for once. But if it was selfish, why did it feel so good? She barely had guilt in her.
One day, a huge cry was heard from the bathroom. Jayce was the sensitive child, prone to everything and every word, understood everything at such a young age. 7-year-old Jayce went to the bathroom and peeked from the door as she saw her mother having a mental breakdown. She was too young to realize but she looked extremely worn out.
In her hands was a stick and Jayce didn't know what that stick was.
Worried, she went to the telephone and called her father's office, "Dad, I don't think mom's feeling well," she said, "Can you come here?"
Dave heard and immediately took his car and went back to his house. He called from the living room, "Nadia, where are you?"
Jayce went to see her father, "She's in the bathroom, crying all morning," she said.
Nadia heard her husband in the living room and hid her pregnancy test pack. Yes. She was pregnant, and it wasn't Dave's child. It was Ben's.
She threw the pack in the trash bin and washed her face before she walked out.
"Nadia?" Dave approached the bathroom and was about to open the door as soon as Nadia opened it and looked at him with sore eyes.
He flustered.
"Are you okay?" Dave asked.
Jayce stood beside the couch as she saw her parents talk.
"Why act like you care?" Nadia asked, then walked away.
Dave pulled her hand, "What do you mean by that?" he asked.
She jerked his hand away, "Where were you when my dad died? Where were you when Amber fell sick? Where were you when I nearly killed a patient? Where the hell were you to comfort me? You were in your office, solving murders. You never went home for the past one month and a half," she trembled, "I risked everything to marry and date you and this is how you treat me now?"
"Nadia," Dave held her by the two shoulders, "I'm doing this for us. For the twins. For the safety of us and this city,"
"You should be thinking about our happiness instead of our safety," Nadia said.
"I can't feel happy if I can't feel safe," Dave said, "Especially when I feel you and the kids aren't safe,"
"I don't care," Nadia said, "Go to work, finish your job, I don't really care about it anymore," she walked away and saw Jayce.
Jayce frowned. She understood the words of their fight. Nadia carried Jayce in her arms and brought her to the second floor to let her sleep again. Dave sighed and kicked the wall, his phone rang, his partner calling for another clue and he had to leave at that moment.
Dave was about to leave when he saw Nadia in the stairwell with Jayce in her arms, "Leave," she said, "For our safety." she stated and continued to walk up the second floor.
Dave frowned and left the house.
~~~
Back in her bedroom, Nadia tucked Jayce into her bed.
"But I'm not sleepy anymore," Jayce said.
Nadia sat on the side of her bed, "You still need to sleep as much as you can," she said, "The older you get, the less sleep you get,"
"Really?" Jayce queried.
Nadia nodded and kissed her daughter's head, getting up and leaving.
"Mom," she said, "Are you and dad getting a divorce?"
Nadia flinched at the words, then turned around, "What do you mean, honey?"
"I understood you and dad's words earlier," Jayce said, "You both were angry,"
"No," Nadia stroked her daughter's hair, "No, we weren't angry,"
Jayce gave her a curious face.
"And also," Nadia said, "Divorce is a very mature word for a young lady like you," she gave a thin smile.
Jayce chuckled, "I'm not a young lady anymore,"
"You are and you will always be my little young lady," Nadia said, "Now sleep,"
She nodded and Nadia left the room.
Jayce wasn't a girl who could fall asleep that easily, and as someone who still didn't understand the circumstance of her family, she heard her mother making a phone call.
"Hey, Ben," her mother said. She was calling near her bedroom, "Can we meet at the cafe now?"
There was a little silence.
Nadia then said, "Okay, see you there in half an hour,"
She went to take her bath and do all her preparations. When she was done with the bath, she went to her room to change her clothes and do her hair.
Jayce quietly went out of her room as her mother was in the main bedroom, and went to the bathroom. She started searching for the stick that her mother was holding. In between the closets and the shelves. And the trash bin, where she finally found it.
She didn't understand what the stick meant but when she heard her mother was nearly already putting away her makeup things, which Jayce knew the sound of.
She put away the stick and bolted back to her room, facing the wall and pretending to sleep.
Nadia left the house and went to meet Ben.
~~~
"It's your child,"
"Proof?"
"Ben-"
"If you don't have proof, I'm not being responsible,"
"Ben, what the hell?"
"Just say it's Dave's child,"
"Like hell he would believe that,"
"Your husband still loves you, my wife doesn't, and I don't care," he said, "We're done," he said and stood up.
"Ben!" Nadia called, he ignored her. She was doomed.
Nadia was a doctor, a pediatrician, someone who loved children. And there was no way she was aborting the baby. But she resented the fact it existed.
Nadia immediately went to the bar after that, and drank like there was no tomorrow. From that exact morning to that exact evening, she didn't think of the fact that Jayce and Amber were both eating cereal for lunch or that they wouldn't have any dinner.
"Where's mom?" Amber asked.
Jayce shrugged, "Not sure," she said, "Probably still having loads of work in the hospital?"
"I'm hungry, mom didn't leave us any food, she usually leaves us food to eat," Amber whined as she sat on the stairwell.
"You want pizza? I think she wouldn't mind if we used our piggy bank," Jayce asked.
Amber nodded.
Jayce went to the telephone and called on the pizza place, telling the address and the pizza. Around 20 minutes later, the pizza man came and the twins ate the pizza.
Around 8pm, Jayce tucked Amber into bed, since the next day was a school day. While Jayce stayed up, waiting for her mother.
Good news was that she came around midnight, bad news was that she was far from okay.
"Mom?" Jayce called her, Nadia was walking in a wobbly way. She was about to fall down when Jayce caught her, "Mom?"
Out of nowhere, Nadia pushed Jayce away that she hit the wall, "I don't have a child," she said drowsily, "Get out of my way,"
"Mom!" Jayce stood up again and Nadia was about to hit her again in her drunk state when she missed and hit the home telephone instead. It fell to the ground and broke. Jayce flustered and flinched, stepping back.
"Who the hell are you to do this?" Nadia yelled. She was crazy, out of her mind, nothing was okay with her.
Jayce gritted her teeth in fear and bolted up the stairs, and into her room, closing the door. She was scared to death, she had never seen her mother in this way.
Jayce heard the sound of objects falling and breaking in the house, and with her sister sound asleep, she didn't really know what to do but to ignore it.
Without a telephone to call her father and there was no way of getting her mother's handphone, it was all really hopeless. But Jayce also knew that her father was very busy, and she positively thought that her mother was just sick, so no one had to be involved.
In the midst of that noise, suddenly one noise came up. In the morning. Amber. Jayce didn't sleep all night and flinched when she heard Amber's door open.
She immediately opened her door and went to grab Amber before she went anywhere.
"Jayce!" Amber shrieked.
Jayce pulled her to her room, then gave her a shush signal, "Mom's not feeling alright, so we're going to go to school together okay? You stay here, get my clothes for your attire and I'll go down and make your lunch and breakfast to eat on the bus, okay? You need to understand me okay?"
Amber nodded slowly. Jayce stood up and gulped, went to the door and went to the kitchen. Nadia was asleep on the couch, and everything looked like a mess. She went to the kitchen and made a simple sandwich quietly for her and Amber, then went upstairs.
The two packed their bags and went down slowly.
"What happened here?" Amber asked softly.
"Mom's not feeling well," Jayce said, "So we can't disturb her okay?"
Amber nodded and the two went to school.
~~~
After school, Jayce and Amber quietly entered the room, but their mother wasn't there.
Nadia had left in the afternoon, still drunk, to the bar, getting drunk again.
Jayce didn't really know how to react to it but she didn't know anything. She didn't know what was going on with her mother, she didn't know where she went, she didn't know the meaning of the stick she found.
Jayce told Amber to go to her room and Jayce went to take a nap. The two sisters now stayed in the same room, Jayce said that it was so that she could watch over Amber. They stayed in Jayce's room, and Jayce had moved a small couch to let her sleep in and Amber would sleep on her bed.
Jayce knew she wouldn't be getting much sleep with her mother arriving at midnight, drunk.
Drunk.
Abusive.
It happened every night.
Amber asleep. Jayce awake. Nadia coming home. Drunk. Abusive. Drunk. Abusive.
Nadia couldn't understand the fact that Jayce was her daughter, but Jayce, on the other hand, did not know anything. She loved her mother truly. She loved her and loved her. Even though she didn't understand what Nadia was doing was wrong, she loved her, she didn't know. She had to take care of her mother.
But Jayce soon became used to it. And it didn't mean good.
Nadia would sometimes beat her for no reason, unleashing her anger at her. And everytime Jayce would hear the sound of a bottle breaking, her heart would pound, knowing her mother was in a state of anger and madness.
Amber never knew. It had always happened when she was sound asleep.
Jayce hid her lack of sleep by sleeping at noon and on the bus, and she hid her scars and bruises with her mother's makeup. And at that age, she had not known how corrupted her mental state was.
~~~
Two weeks after the continuous attack, with nobody knowing, a call came from Nadia's hospital to Dave's office.
"Hello, this is Detective Brooks," Dave said.
"Hello, this is Dr Brooks' husband, right? This is the local hospital," a woman said.
"Yes, this is Dave Brooks," Dave was exhausted, but he didn't know what was going back home. What was going on with his wife and kids, "Is there a problem?"
"Dr Nadia Brooks has not attended the hospital for two weeks, and her cell at home and her phone cannot be called. Some of her doctor friends went to her house a few days earlier, the only person who answered was her daughter, saying her mother was unwell and that she would like to be left alone," the woman said, "But now we're getting more concerned,"
Dave flinched, "Oh I see, I'll update you as soon as I can, I need to check something," he hung up the phone and took his car keys, bolting back to his house.
~~~
He barged in the door and Jayce, who was sleeping in her noon, woke up, and Amber, who was shocked, opened the bedroom door.
Dave gasped at the sight of such a horror house with such a messy and shipwrecked place. Glasses broken, telephone smashed, curtains ripped and such a horrid smell that filled the air.
Jayce went out of her room and locked Amber in her room. She saw from her staircase, "Dad?"
Dave felt a little relieved with that voice, "Jayce?" he called.
Jayce thinly smiled and bolted down the staircase and went into his arms. She hugged him tightly.
Dave hugged her back, "Honey," he said, letting go of the hug, then seeing her face, and as a detective, he realized the faded bruises covered in makeup. He wiped off the makeup. He gasped and backed away, "Are you okay?"
Jayce pursed her lips and nodded, "Mom was sick, so I decided to take care of her. I didn't want to bother you,"
Dave's jaw clenched, "Where's your mother?"
"She usually leaves the house and comes back at midnight, and I have to take care of her, so I lack sleep," Jayce said.
"Your sister?"
"She's fine,"
"Did your mom- No, I mean, is she okay?" Dave asked.
"Amber's fine," Jayce said, "She doesn't really take care of mom but I understand. Night is for sleep," she smiled. She was innocent.
"Jayce," Dave bent down to look at her, "Your mother isn't sick, your mother is drunk, your mother did something horrible to you and I'm not asking you to forgive her,"
Jayce looked at her father with wide eyes, "I forgot to tell you," she said, ignoring his words, she went to the bathroom. She digged the trash and took out a stick, "Mom was crying over this stick, I don't know what it is,"
Dave flustered and took the stick, furrowing his brows at it. He realized. He knew. He knew that she had an affair. He knew this wasn't his child, "Jayce, I need you to wait here, I have something to do. My friends will come here and ask you some questions, I need you to tell them what exactly your mother did and what happened, okay? Can you do that?"
Jayce pursed her lips and nodded, "Yes, dad,"
"I'll be back soon, okay?" he kissed his daughter's forehead and went away.
~~~
That evening, Nadia Brooks was caught by the police under the crime of child abuse. Nadia was drunk, unsober, and she acted like a maniac. She had not remembered anyone in her life. She just wanted a drink. A drink. Drunk. Abusive.
Jayce told the story to the fellow police officers, and that day, everything changed for the Brooks family.
This case remained as a personal case, with no articles published and everything very secretive and closed.
When Nadia got sober, she had not remembered everything she did. And due to her drinking, and her stress, and her smoking, and her waste of power, she lost her baby. And her medical license as well.
Dave suited a divorce that Nadia immediately signed. And no one knew her guilt.
"I want to meet Jayce, one last time before I go into rehab," she begged in her soberness.
"No," Dave stated.
"But Dave-"
"Thanks to you, our daugh- No, my daughter, is in therapy, and she was unaware of how much mental and physical damage that you created towards her, because her feelings were covered by the fact you were her mother,"
"Dave, I'm sorry-"
"I played a part in all of this too. And I'll never forgive myself for letting you have an affair that led you to this. I look at Jayce, I feel guilt, I look at Amber, I feel pitiness," Dave said.
"Please tell Jayce and Amber I love them, I really do," Nadia said with tears in her eyes, Dave was about to walk out of the room, "You have to tell them I love them! Dave, please-"
Dave walked out of the room with a heavy heart, and all their troubles were meant to go away.
~~~
Jayce was in therapy for two years.
And when she was 14, Dave told her the entire story. Jayce, who was much older now, took in the story, let it go, but had extreme anger towards it. She now had her reasons on it, and she was now old enough to understand how much Nadia had mistreated her.
But Dave never told the story of Jayce's abuse to Amber, and Jayce had asked him not to because she didn't want to feel that she had guilt tripped Amber for it.
Dave married Izzie Brooks when Jayce and Amber were 12 years old. And they had still lived in that same house. The twins enjoyed being with Izzie, but Amber still had missed her mom for no reason.
Jayce loved Izzie more than anything else, completely admiring her. Amber saw nothing of her mother in Izzie, and without knowing the story, she had never truly liked her, at least except the fact she was a fashion designer.
~~~
So everything. Everything about the Brooks family was secrets and mysteries and lies. Nothing.
And Jayce did everything in her power to hide her past, to hide her pain in everything.
~~~
Jayce arrived at the dorm building and saw someone else wanting to enter it. Someone familiar. Kimberly Walker.
Jayce got off her bike and approached the woman, "Long time no see, Ms Walker,"
Kimberly turned around and flustered.
"Brown envelope?" Jayce asked.
"None of your business," Kimberly said.
"Student council has come up with a rule that no student will receive extra help from teachers if each other student don't receive that help as well," Jayce said, "And oops, mind to say, I'm the president," she slyly smiled, "And oh, Ashton's the vice president,"
"I am aware," Kimberly scowled.
"Better go home, Ms Walker,"
"No," Kimberly said, "Because this is highly any of your business,"
"It kinda is, Ms Walker,"
"This little-" Kimberly put up her hand beside her to slap Jayce when something pulled her back.
Jayce kept a poker face to see who it was. Ashton, which she wasn't quite surprised of.
"Sorry, mom. Don't make her die yet," Ashton said in a soft manner, holding his mother's hand, "I still need to give her the fund-raising list for student council," he grinned thinly, but obviously.