— line drawn
pairing: jessie fleming x reader
synopsis: your teenage daughter is in love for the first time but her boyfriend is a bad influence on her. when the two of you get into an argument and she says something especially hurtful, jessie snaps
warnings: a lil angst, arguing, past toxic relationship, past abusive relationship, language, talks of past and present drug use
a/n: pls pay attention to the warnings, this was heavier than i originally planned
୧ ‧₊˚ 🪻 ⋅ ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆。˚
“he’s a good guy!” your seventeen year old daughter madison shouts at you “you haven’t even tried to get to know him!”
you pinch the bridge of your nose and squeeze your eyes “maybe we’d want to if he didn’t sneak in through your window and and decide that our house was a perfect place to smoke weed. you know the rules”
madison rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, her face settling into a scowl that reminds you all too well of your wife “that was one time”
“the weed or sneaking through the window?” you ask sarcastically, your voice now raising to match hers.
“the weed!”
“and getting high at school, was that one time too?”
a few weeks ago you and jessie had gone up to the school after madison was caught smoking a joint on the grounds. the two of you almost couldn’t believe what you were hearing when her principal told you what had happened.
as far as you knew madison had never deliberately done anything that would get her in trouble. all through her life her teachers had sung praises about how easy of a kid she was to teach, how well-behaved and respectful she was to everybody around her. that had been the truth until she started seeing her boyfriend nick.
nick had been expelled from his previous school and had even had a bit of trouble with the law, minor offences at best, but it was something that you and jessie had kept in the back of your minds when you heard through the grape vine that him and madison had begun seeing eachother.
“mum get over it, it’s not like you didn’t do it when you were my age” your daughter shoots back as she plants her hands on the kitchen table in front of her “if anything you were worse! i can’t believe you’re acting all high and mighty after the shit you and your highschool boyfriend got up to”
your eyes go wide and your grip on the top of the wooden dining chair you’re holding tightens “yeah, and you know where that got me”
“nick loves me” she tells you sternly “he wouldn’t treat me like that, and i wouldn’t let him push me around the way you did”
“excuse me?” you seethe “you have no idea what you’re talking about madison”
“you let him hit you! what more is there to kno—”
“your room. now” jessie raises her voice from where she stands at the sink behind you.
madison’s words die in her throat at the sound of jessie’s voice, the colour draining from her face as your wife turns around. “madison” she seethes, her eyes ice cold “i don’t want to see you. get out of my sight”
jessie’s calm but furious words send a chill through your daughter “mum—”
“don’t make me ask you again”
the two of them stare at eachother, jessie’s stern expression never faltering as her eyes bore into your seventeen year old. the tension in the kitchen is so thick that you feel like your throat is closing up and suffocating you. you rub a hand over the base of your neck and collarbones before madison turns and stomps up the stairs to her room, slamming the door to try to make a point.
you don’t dare look at your wife as you sit at the kitchen table, your head falling into your hands as your shoulders slump. jessie sits down in the chair next to you, abandoning the few dishes she was washing when the fight started, and lightly grips your forearm.
she gently pries your hands away from your face and holds them in her own. she runs her thumbs over your knuckles like she would when the two of you were much younger, her back and forth movement soothing your aching heart.
“i didn’t let him hit me” you say quietly “i didn’t lie down and take it”
“i know” jessie assures you, bringing your hands to her mouth and kissing your knuckles “but even if you did, it doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t your fault”
you began dating luke in highschool and stayed with him through your first year and a half at college. the two of you were in the same english class during your junior year, and your teacher had assigned you as partners for a project. you had groaned and moaned about it to your friends at first, claiming that you wouldn’t be able to work with a guy who couldn’t even spell the word orange, but had quickly gotten over it when you saw how charming he was.
luke’s reputaion, much like nick’s, wasn’t the greatest. he had been dealing drugs and would occasionally sell to your friends whenever they wanted to get high, even on school grounds where he ended up getting caught more than once. he didn’t often go to school but if he did, he was always in trouble. starting fights, talking back, skipping class, whatever you could get in trouble for, he did.
over time that didn’t matter to you though. you got caught up in who luke could be, not who he was. you had gotten stern with him after he’d made you do all the work for your project, telling him that you were going to be informing your teacher that you had done the whole project whilst he refused to even turn up to do it. he had brushed you off and claimed that it wasn’t anything new and then spent weeks asking you to go out with him, claiming that although he had made a bad first impression he would be able to prove you wrong if you went out with him.
luke spent weeks asking you out and made promises about how he’ll take you on a real date and how he’ll get his act together if you gave him a real chance to prove himself.
you were young, naive and struggling with your sexuality and eventually, he had worn you down. you told him that if he was serious then he actually had to try and get his act together, not just make empty promises. luke had agreed and taken you out for pizza and a movie, paying for the date and doing all the cliche gentlemanly things.
he walked up to your door instead of just honking at you when he picked you up, introduced himself to your parents, opened your car door, complimented you and kept his hands to himself the whole night. he even settled for a kiss on the cheek when he dropped you off, wearing your lipgloss as a badge of honour as he bounded back to his car and pulled out of your driveway.
things were good for a while. he kept out of trouble and kept his promises to you, always showing you respect and allowing you to take the lead on many things. you lost your virginity to him two months in and he didn’t even boast about it to his friends, even after they called you a prude for not putting out right away.
the false sense of security changed you quickly after that. you got looser and started to smoke and drink with him even outside of parties your peers would throw. he’d sneak you out in the dead of night so the two of you could get high and have sex in the backseat of his beat up car, he would convince you to skip class. you had started dismissing your parents and ditching your friends for him after he got it in your head that the two of you only needed eachother.
luke also started getting more controlling. he wanted to know where you were, who you were with and what you were doing at all times. he’d start fights with boys he thought were hitting on you and then come crawling back when he realised he’s fucked up. he would apologise, promise that it wouldn’t happen again and then bring you small gifts to try to show you that he meant what he was saying.
during your senior year everything only amplified ten times more. you had lost all your friends, your grades were slipping and you and your parents were constantly fighting, it was a miracle you had even gotten into college the way you were behaving and your parents and teachers reminded you of such. it was a relief to you when you found out you got accepted and had quickly informed your boyfriend. he was happy for you at first, telling you that he’ll come visit when he can and that he’s facetime you every night.
the separation bliss only lasted for a little while before luke’s controlling nature came out again. he had the passwords to all your social media and had your location so he knew where you were. you weren’t allowed to follow any boys and he had to know all of your friends.
the first time he put his hands on you was after a party. he’d come to visit for a few days and you took him to some dirty frat that was notorious for having wild parties, you thought that maybe if you got him to loosen up a bit it would give him some peace of mind.
you were, unfortunately, very wrong.
a guy from your social studies class had made a move on you and even though you told him that you had a boyfriend, luke’s rage still overtook him. he drunkenly dragged you back to your dorm yelling and degrading you, calling you horrible names and saying how he knew he couldn’t trust you. when you actually got into your room you told him to shut up and he slapped you across the face, the stinging sensation lingered as the two of you stared at eachother before you silently got ready for bed.
he whispered apologies in your ear as you fell asleep, promising to never lay a hand on you again.
he continued to hit you when he was intoxicated and you learnt to hit him back. the first time you did it you broke his nose and he lied straight through his teeth when you took him to the hospital an hour later.
you lied for him too, even when the nurse pulled you aside and asked if you were safe.
it continued like that for months until your highschool best friend sent you a photo of luke and another girl naked in bed together. you broke up with him over the phone and told him to never contact you again. he cried and cried, pleading and begging you to stay with him until you hung up and blocked him on everything. he tried contacting you for weeks until finally giving up. only when you went back home for the summer did you find out that he had gotten the girl pregnant and that he actually ended up in jail. to this day you still think you’ve never breathed a deeper sigh of relief.
tears fall down your face as jessie takes the time to individually kiss each of your knuckles, the tender act of love fighting the violent memories that swirl in your head.
“you told her about him in confidence, as a way to warn her and keep her safe. she has no right to ever throw it back in your face” the canadian murmurs against your hand “what he did to you was not your fault”
“it was mutually abusive” you mumble as you shake your head “i was in the wrong too”
“he was high off his head most of the time. he could’ve killed you” jessie stresses as she looks into your eyes “you were protecting yourself”
you shut your eyes “jess”
“i know, sorry” she apologises quickly “do you want a cup of tea?”
you nod gratefully and jessie stands and kisses your forehead as you stare at the stairs. the part of you that was a mother longed to go up to your daughter’s room and just talk to her, but the other part of you, the part that kept you going in your hardest times, told you that you needed to stand your ground and not give in. that part was hurt. so, so hurt. you had never imagined that your own daughter could say that to you, angry or not. it was like she had taken the most vulnerable part of you and ripped it out, the feeling of betrayal stinging.
after your cup of tea, you and jessie begin to get ready for bed. she checks in on your younger daughter alex and bids her goodnight before coming back into your bedroom. she swaps out her sleep shirt for a jumper and slides under the covers next to you, pulling you into her and holding you tightly.
she kisses you shoulder lightly and tells you over and over how much she loves you, how much she absolutely adores you, lulling you to sleep with her gentle words and tight hold.
——
the next morning you and jessie rise with the sun. she goes for her morning run as you shower and get ready for work, packing lunches and making breakfast as alex bounds down the stairs. she talks your ear off about what she’s got planned for her day and what she’s planning to do this weekend with her friends. she eats happily and chooses to ignore the solum mood that’s rolling off her older sister as she walks into the kitchen.
madison is quiet as she makes her own coffee and makes herself a plate of bacon and fruit. the two of you share the same space without speaking, the tension from the night before has bled dry and been replaced with an awkward energy that hangs over your head heavily.
you can’t look at her. you can’t look at her because you know can’t tell if you’ll start crying or yelling. it pains you to feel like that towards your own daughter, your first born, the child who made you a mother.
it was even harder because the freckles that dusted her cheeks were all too similar to the ones you had traced a million times over. she was a spitting image of jessie, the two of them looking so similar that there had been times where people had asked you if she was actually yours. her expressions, her mannerisms, everything down the the way she walked was jessie and at times like this, it killed you.
“babe, did you see the morrisons are moving?” jessie asks loudly as she walks in the front door. you hear her take off her shoes and put them on the rack by the door “i wonder if it’s because he got that job in boston”
madison turns at the sound of her mother’s voice, almost expecting to be scolded. jessie merely spares her a glance before continuing “good for them, starting a family and all. hope it goes well”
“so concerned about another family when you’re ignoring your own” madison mumbles under her breath.
your wife pauses and you shut your eyes tightly “madison” you mumble tiredly. you had stupidly thought that maybe she’d sleep the argument off and wake up in a better mood, one that means the four of you start your days civilly.
“what? she didn’t even say hi to me as she walked in!”
alex rolls her eyes “stop being dramatic. she didn’t say hi to me either”
“shut up alex” your oldest hisses “this isn’t about you”
“no, you’re right. it’s about you and your dropkick boyfriend!” alex exclaims, standing and grabbing her plate before walking to the sink “maybe if you pulled your head out of his ass and realised you’re being a bitch to mum, you’d know that!”
you unintentionally slam your coffee cup down onto the counter “alexandra” you say calmly, shaking off the coffee that spilt onto your hand “enough, please. go get ready for school”
jessie, who has been surprisingly quiet, leans against the entry way to the kitchen and watches alex walk out and up to her room. she huffs “you gonna cut the attitude of what” she asks “because i’m sick of your shit. the disrespect isn’t gonna fly in this house and you know it”
madi leans against the counter and kicks her socked feet against the floor. she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at either of you, but she stays. jessie takes it as a sign to continue.
“you owe your mother an apology, a genuine apology. you don’t know the full story and you have no right throwing it back in her face the way you did last night” jessie continues, coming off the wall to lean over the kitchen table “maybe if you gave us a reason to like nick we would, but so far all you’ve done is break our rules and disrespect our house. the sneaking out, the drugs, getting into trouble at school — it stops now. all of it.”
your daughter stands there with her hands tucked in between her back and the counter just looking at jessie as she gets an earful, her expressionless face never once faltering under jessie’s hard gaze.
“you won’t know what to do in a situation like that unless you get yourself in that position, and for you to outright say that your mum let that happen to her is appalling, madison, truely” jessie shakes her head “you don’t have the right”
the silence sits heavily over the room, the suffocating feeling from last night once again returning. all you want to do is walk out of the room and go to work so you can distract yourself from the feeling of betrayal that has settled heavily on your heart.
your wife remains unmoving like stone. her face is neutral but her eyes betray her, her own hurt and anger swirling in her brown irises like whirlpools. the image reminds you of when she was still playing football, the determined look she’d get before an important game now moulding onto her face seventeen years later.
madi turns to you, tears welling in her eyes “i’m sorry mum, i’m so sorry” she apologises, still glued to her spot “i regretted it as soon as i thought about it. i should’ve never said it and me being angry isn’t an excuse for bringing it up”
all you can do is meekly nod as you allow her to get out her apology, knowing that if she doesn’t the feelings will sit with her for the rest of the day.
“i was angry, and i thought you guys weren’t hearing me out, and i snapped. i crossed a line that i shouldn’t have even gotten close too and all i did was hurt you” she says breathily as she plays with the hem of her sleep shirt “you didn’t deserve that. i’m sorry”
“i can’t tell you i forgive you right now because i don’t, but i hope you know that all we’re doing is trying to look out for you. we want you to be safe, and i want you to learn from my past mistakes” you explain gently, moving next to her to put a hand on her shoulder “you need to reign the attitude in though. no more of the bullshit. it stops now”
she nods quickly “it will, i swear”
“you can’t see nick for now” jessie pipes up again, quickly putting her hand up when madison goes to protest “no, i don’t want to hear it. you crossed a line and you’ll be punished for it”
madison refrains from huffing as her hands fall to her sides “okay” she says quietly
“the trust has to be earned back and when it is then we’ll discuss where we go from there” you reason in a softer tone “you need to pull yourself back into line”
“i will. i promise”
you and jessie share a long, wordless look before you wave madison off. she takes her plate and ducks her head as she passes jessie, going back up the stairs to her room.
jessie let’s a breath go before walking over to you. her arms loop around your waist and yours fall over her shoulders “that’s a step” she whispers into your temple “i still don’t like him”
“neither do i” you whisper “all we can do is hope that she feels safe enough to come to us if she needs to”
“she’s got a good head on her shoulders”
“my parents said the same thing about me” you whisper whilst pulling away “i just hope we’ve done enough”
jessie tilts her head before kissing you on the lips “i think you’re forgetting that we’re still learning how to be parents” she murmurs against you “you need to take a load off”
one of your hands comes up to hold her jaw delicately “we share the load”
she brushes hair out of your face and tucks it behind your ear before holding the side of your head securely “i love you” she says “and i am so proud of you”
you kiss her again “i love you more”.
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