Jane Bennett's Story

Jane should have gone. She should have gone with Mason on the trip and never cancelled. If she had tagged along, he might not be in the situation he’s in now. God, she didn't even know what situation that was in the first place. He was just... gone. All that they found was his abandoned car. She wouldn't even be able to make an educated guess as to where he was or what happened. The only thing nearly as worse as him being gone was not even having an inkling as to what happened. He could be fine. But he also could not be anything close to fine.

Jane and her Mother had both run over to the Bass house bare faced as soon as the call was made informing them that they’d need to talk to the detectives on Mason's case. The last Jane had heard from Mason was when he’d called her as he was leaving. She’d told him to ring her up if he started to have a panic attack, or even felt as if there was a slight chance of one. She’d also been sure to remind him that he could call her for anything and everything else he may need. Though she couldn’t be there with him at person, she knew she would stay on the line with him as long as he may need even if both of them were silent.

Upon their arrival at the Bass house, both Jane and her mother were quick to be questioned by the detectives on the case, barley having the time to wipe the tears from their eyes and greet the family. They'd known a day or two after they'd filed for Mason's disappearance of the situation at hand, but both the girls still were emotionally raw. They'd spent most of their time helping out their family with whatever they needed.

At first Barnega and Walker just asked general things; “What is your relationship with Mason Bass?”, “Do you have any idea of his whereabouts?”, “Has anything seemed suspicious leading up to the event of his disappearance?” They'd both answered honestly to everything. Mason was very close family, well loved, and neither had any idea or clue of what could have happened. Soon after, they'd dismissed her mother in order to talk to Jane alone. Her mother was apprehensive, but it only took a squeeze of her hand and a reassuring smile to let her know she was okay. She would tell them everything she knew, even the unimportant seeming things. Anything to get her best friend back.

Jane had seemed to finally get a better grip on her emotions. She was trying to breathe in and out slowly, moving past the lump in her throat that made it difficult to talk. Barnega leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and giving a bored scan around the room with his eyes. It was obvious that he wasn't particularly concerned with this case, at least not as much as Walker. Jane could also tell Summer noticed the semi-subtle carefree, brushing off. That wasn’t going to end well.

"So, I hear you were originally going to join Mason on his trip to Stanford," Barnega offered in more of a statement than a question. Jane nodded her head. "Yes, I had cancelled two days beforehand. Some family issues came up." Barnega sat up a little more in his chair, slightly engaged now in what he was doing. Walker on the other hand was listening intently, same as before. "Did these family issues revolve around Mason, per chance?" Bartega questioned, eyebrow quirked. Crap, Jane hadn't thought about what 'family issues' might sound like. Shaking her hands frantically in front of her to dispute the notion, she squeaked out, "no, no! Sorry, it had nothing at all to do with Mason." Jane was going to continue to tell them the actual family trouble, but that lump in her throat came right back.

"May we ask what it was about? We would only like to be able to paint a clear picture of the situation." Walker commented before Bartega could add anything else in. The female detective offered Jane a warm, encouraging smile.

Jane had known she would most likely be asked about the reasoning behind her last minute cancellation. Her father had left. She had felt awful leaving Mason by himself, but her mother could barley get off the couch and stop staring at the phone waiting for her father to call. Jane had to take care of her. Between that, Mason’s disappearance, and everything in between, Jane had barley had time to process the fact of her new family dynamic. She hadn’t even discussed the situation beyond the base facts to anyone other than a few choice people like the Bass family and Remy. Before finding out Mason was gone, Jane and her mother had essentially holed themselves up in their home.

Clearing her throat slightly, Jane looked down at her hands and fiddled with them a bit. “Well, two days before me and Mase were supposed to leave, my father came home from a work trip at his New York office. He’d told us that he’d been seeing another woman there for nearly two years and that she’d had his baby.” She cleared her throat again. “He said he wanted to start a new family with them, told my mom that he wanted a divorce, and left without saying much else.” Jane tried stating it out as blatantly as possible. There was no need to go into the finer details of just some of the things he had said.

Brining her legs up to her chest, perching herself on the chair, she rested her crossed arms on top of her knees. She watched distractedly as Barnega scratched stuff down in his notebook. “I’m sorry about that Jane,” Walker offered, giving her a sad smile. Jane gave her a weak smile back, shrugging her shoulders slightly. No reason for a simple stranger to be sorry about a situation she simply needed to hear to do what her job entailed. “Do you think your father would know anything about what’s going on? Any way we can contact him to ask him some questions?” Barnega grunted out. “I don’t think so, no. My father always liked Mason, but he was pretty clear in wanting to cut ties off with our family,” Jane stated quietly. “He hasn’t been answering my mom’s calls, but we’ll give you his cellphone number,” she offered. Walker nodded.

“We understand you are aware of Mason’s anxiety? Do you believe that it could have anything to do with his disappearance?” Walker asked. Jane let out a shaky sigh, rubbing one of her cheeks as if to distract herself. “I’ve helped him through a few panic attacks, it’s one of the main reason’s why I was going to go on the trip with him,” She affirmed as she made eye contact with the female detective. “I have no idea if it has anything to do with his disappearance, I-“ Jane was getting worked up again, Wiping a stray tear the fell down her cheek, she continued a little shakily, “I don’t think any of this was intentional on Mason’s part. He… he’s not the type of guy to leave those who love and care about him to worry. He’s one of the kindest people I know. He’s loved.”

Walker listened and Botega kept jotting down notes. “Alright, that’ll be all for right now,” the man stated, barley glancing up from the pad as he spoke. Jane murmured a quiet, “thank you.” as she slipped off the chair. She briefly stopped in the bathroom a moment to splash her face with cold water.

Walking into the kitchen, she spotted her mother and her Uncle, head bent and talking lowly to themselves. Jane’s mother looked up briefly to give her a small smile before engaging back in conversation. Walking up to her Aunt Jocelyn, Jane rested a hand on her arm and asked, “would you like me to do anything? I can make something for everyone to eat, or-“ “Jane, Honey,” she softly cut her off, “just rest a little while with Remy and Summer in the living room. I’ll be sure to let you know if I need help,” Jane reluctantly nodded, pulling her aunt into a quick hug and kissing her on the cheek.

Quickly going to the fridge to get a snack of blueberries, Jane set out afterwards towards the living room in which her baby cousin Summer sat with their childhood friend Remy. Walking behind the couch of the two curled up friends, Jane bent down to instinctively kiss Summer lightly on top of her head, before moving fully around and setting the bowl of the really more purple than blue berries between the two. Sitting down cross-legged on the ground, she rested her back against the couch, closing her eyes.

She wanted to tell them both everything would be okay. To reassure them, take away the sadness they all felt. But Jane had no idea if it would be okay. It sure as hell didn’t feel okay. She wouldn’t lie to the two. Opening her eyes back up, she let them wander around the familiar living room space, every inch of it reminding her of Mason. The photographs he was in, the corner he’d always hid in during hide and seek. Everything in the room had a memory attached. She’d never ever expected anything like this to happen. Things just change so fast.

Wiping another stray tear, Jane quietly said to the two, “I love you guys,” while staring blankly at the TV ahead. If one thing came out of this situation, it would be the awareness of how easily things could be taken away. It was best to say what how you felt before it was too late, and she’d be sure she let every single on of her friends know just how much she cared for them

Jo sighed impatiently. Her part-time job at Barnes and Noble really wasn't the busiest, but usually, it was consistent. Most of the time, Jo had something to do. Currently, everybody in bookstore was either reading by the benches, totally absorbed in their books, or wandering around, doing nothing productive of any sort. It was utterly boring.

Jo's shift would be over in precisely eleven minutes, though. To be honest, she wasn't exactly popular with the customers. She couldn't quite be described as rude, but Jo supposed she had always been a bit...insensitive. Blunt. Oblivious to people's feelings. This led to her coming off as harsh. Of course, Jo didn't purposely act cruel. She was just...brutally honest. Yeah.

But at the same time, the customers liked her. Not quite as a bookstore clerk, but more likely as a book recommendations specialist. Sure, it wasn't exactly her job, but by analyzing the each person's unique preferences and budget range, along with using her rather extensive memory on book plots, etc., Jo could find the perfect books for each and every customer. Well, most of the time. Everybody makes mistakes.

Fortunately for Jo, the eleven minutes passed by quickly enough. The redhead traded places with the Hikari, the Japanese girl with dyed blonde hair who was operating the next shift and headed out of the bookstore. She - along with the rest of Los Angeles Neighbors' Club, or LANC for short - was supposed to go to the Bass residence to be interviewed by a couple of detectives on the subject of Mason's recent disappearance. The police wanted to gather some information. Although Jo and Mason weren't as close as the latter was to Summer or Jane, the redhead did feel some concern when Mason didn't turn up at his school of choice. She just...wasn't the best at displaying that concern. Jo never had been good with emotions in general. It just wasn't her thing.

As more and more of the Los Angeles Neighbours Club, which Jane really just referred to as a long winded term for her family, she somehow felt stronger yet still so sad. She could barley handle the looking at their faces. First was Jem and Mackenzie, coming in with pizza, bless their hearts. She couldn’t help but have a corner of her mouth twitch when Jem took seat beside her cousin Summer. It was only a matter of time before what Jane believed the inevitable to happen. Right now she was just overjoyed that Summer really had people who loved her around her. She had to be happy with at least that.

Next was Jo, one of the members of sub group ginger. Jane could almost imagine how she would have reacted to Officer Barnega. She most likely said something that nearly all of them would have wanted to say. Jane admired the girl in all reality.

After Jo was Matt. She nodded her head back to his comment about Barnega, and gave a tiny sad smile at her cousin’s retort back. She knew one day. Summer would eventually tell the cop that he could “shove it.” Directly to his face. She was surprised it hadn’t happened yet.

Then came the twins. Jane barley had a second to process coming face to face with Jasper after what happened before he walked out of sight with the detectives to be interviewed along with Rosie. Turning around to look at Summer, she said softly, “Summer, we’ll do something if they don’t, I promise.” Giving her a sincere smile, she felt the tears begin to well again as she continued “I’m with you one hundred percent. Whatever you want to do, I’ll do it.” This could be a dangerous promise, but Jane meant it fully. She would do absolutely anything for Summer or Mason. She would do anything just so Summer could have some peace of mind.

Turning back to look as the twins entered back in the room, Jane swiped her watery eyes again (thankful she wasn’t wearing mascara). As soon as she made eye contact with Jasper, immediately she went tense and averted her eyes to her hands that rested on her lap. God, why did she do such a stupid thing?

A couple days before Mason left, Jane had been at a party and had a little too many shots, mostly thanks to Rosie egging her on. And like most nights that happened, Jasper came to pick her up and drop her off at home safely. Except this time, Jane had to go and screw it all up. They had been sitting in the car in front of her house just talking about life and all the changes that were coming. Jane was rambling on and on, still very drunk, as she made a comment about how she was scared that these changes were going to effect their friendship and how she was scared they would grow distant. One second she was telling him how much she loved him and appreciated him and how he was her best friend, and in the next second she’d just leaned over and kissed him.

Now, it wasn’t exactly their first kiss, They’d had a fake wedding as young kids and had a funny peck then, but this was the first kiss the Jane had with him after realizing her feelings for him. She’d harboured a pretty big crush on him for over a year (truthfully, probably longer than that). Jane quickly had broken off the kiss and crawled out of his car with a rushed sorry and goodbye before running back into her house. She’d internally freaked out and called Remy, leaving a hysterical voicemail on his phone about what she’d done. After that, she’d gone to bed, and woke up the next morning to her father leaving them.

She hadn’t seen or really talked to Jasper since. It wasn’t even because she was avoiding him, she’d simply been so preoccupied with her dad leaving and then Mason disappearing that she hadn’t seen anyone outside of Summer and Remy. She’d realized soon after that she needed to talk to Jasper about it, to finally fess up possibly. She sure as hell didn’t want to lose him. If this whole Mason fiasco has taught her anything, it was that she couldn’t bear to lose the ones she cared about.

Taking in a deep breath as Jasper sat on one side and Rosie on the other, Jane bent her head instinctively to rest on Rosie’s shoulder. It took a second more for Jane to build up the courage that she wouldn’t have had to work up before in order to clasp Jasper’s hand softly.

Lifting her head back up as Misty walked in, Jane gave the girl a small smile before Misty spoke to the detectives. As soon as she sat down, the detectives were about to run out before Jane’s mom scurried out of the kitchen, thrusting a business card their way. Delilah softly stated, “If you can reach him anywhere, it would probably be this number.” Ah, her dad. Jane didn’t think he would be much help. Barnega nodded and went out the door a second later without a another word to anyone. Walker at least looked over at them and offered a final “We’ll let you know the second we find anything out” before slipping out to follow her partner. A five second beat passed before Jane muttered to the group, “I don’t think Barnega is a very nice man.”

Jane’s mother rolled her eyes at the comment, before planting her hands on her hips. “Alright,, I’m running out to pick up Hugo from the airport. If you want anything while I’m out, you know how to reach me,” With that, Delilah left. Jane could tell her mother was trying to be strong. Her slightly wavering voice and the clearly tired circles under her eyes proved that she was struggling.

Slipping her hand from Jaspers as she stood up, Jane clasped her hands front of her, saying weakly, “I’ll take drink orders, does anyone want anything?” Jane just had to do something. Looking at Jo, she said “I know you won’t want coffee, but how about some peppermint tea?”