The Queen Of Hearts

Before: Chapter One

"I told you I'm sorry!" I shout again, my shaky hands clutching the mug I'm holding tightly as if it could provide me with some sort of safety. 

"Well, but I still don't believe you!" Juliet yells and slams her fist on the table.
"You keep screwing up, Andy!"
"I'm sorry, for god's sakes!" I reply loudly, but my voice is brittle.
I wish I could say that she's wrong, but she isn't.
It is my fault. I knew I shouldn't do it, but did it anyway and I should have known she'd get mad at me again.
She gets mad for the most ridiculous reasons.

"Why did you go then? Why did you see that slut again even though I fucking told you not to?"
Her eyes are dark now, like always when she's angry.
The emerald green glints with shadowy sparks of rage when she gets upset.
As soon as that happens, it's better to stay away from her and wait until she has calmed down, but if I left now, I'd make her furious.

"She's just a friend and she needed my help!" I defend myself even though I know there's no way out.
I wish I could just shrink in the chair I'm sitting on and disappear. 

"With what?" she bellows. "Her desperate attempts to get laid?"
"You know I'd never sleep with her!" I repeat myself again with a raised voice. "I never did!"
"What is it that makes her keep calling you then, Andy? Why does she always want to see you?"

How nice it would be if she could just focus on whatever she was doing on her laptop before I brought this up.
I thought about lying and keeping it from her that I went to see Alicia, but what if she'd found out?
Lying is the last thing I can do to her, so I had to tell the truth about where I'd been when I came home.
That she's mad now was to be expected.

"Maybe we're just good friends who help each other?" I suggest angrily with both my hands still gripping the mug of coffee I made before sitting down to confess how I spent today's afternoon.
"She has a band and so do I!"

"A band?" Juliet repeats in the most condescending tone possible.
"That's how you two call it? Her so-called band is bullshit and you know it! That bitch can't even play!"
"Why do you always have to be so fucking rude?" I shout at her as I put down the cup, and immediately regret it. That was a mistake.

"What did you just say?"
This is the sign. The low voice. The dangerous one.
"Nothing," I immediately mumble, but she shuts down her computer and gets up from the chair on the other side of the table to come to my side. This can't be good, but I stay where I am and try to stay as calm as possible to maybe make her calm down at least slightly too.
Or at least stop her from getting into a bigger fuss.

"Don't fucking lie to me." She's standing right next to me now and I'm paralyzed. 
"Look at me, you idiot," she demands and I do shakily.
She's so beautiful when she smiles, but her expressions are far from that right now. 

"You just said I'm, and I quote, fucking rude, didn't you?" Juliet asks in her threatening tone, but I can't react because I can neither deny, nor admit it because both will get me into more trouble than I'm already in. 

"I'm sorry," I hastily repeat myself because it's the only thing that comes to my mind.
She comes closer and bends down to be on the same level as I am, our faces only inches apart, but not in a romantic way. She terrifies me when she's like this. I love her, but her anger is unratable.

"Is that all you got?" When I don't respond, she adds: "You really are good for nothing."
I still don't answer.
"Fucking say something!" she claims then and I lick my dry lips before I do so.
"I just, um, think that it's not necessary to get so angry because of her."
"And why is that?" Juliet takes on and I wish she didn't. 
"Nothing ever happened between us," I promise quietly. 
"How can I be sure?" she wants to know and drives me crazy with her questions.

"You just have to fucking believe me for once because I never cheated!" I reply with my voice raised, but it just takes me a split second to realize that doing that was a big mistake.
She grabs me by the collar of my shirt and pulls me close.
Flinching, I try my hardest to stay still, but I feel close to throwing up. 

"Don't you ever talk to me like that again!" she screams right into my ears, the high-pitched sound painful to endure.
Before she can go any further than this, she lets go and storms out of the room, the door slammed shut.
She's just waiting for me to come after her and apologize, and we both know I will.
For her, I'd do anything, no matter how difficult she can get.
I'd rather admit to things I haven't done than see her distance herself from me again.