How d'ya like them apples, XTakeMeToWanderlandX? That's right :P
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Johnny
Pent up anger issues occurs with everyone—not just the certain individuals who get court ordered anger management classes. It was the instantaneous and annoying bullshit, the agitated pet peeves, the ridicule, the hatred…
It was the presence of a conscience that separated angry people from “normal” people, and a conscience was something I most definitely had… Except for the moment that I saw the bitch sitting at my parents’ table, acting like she belonged there. She spoke as if she knew the innocent girl that stood next to me in a shocked state. My worst fears had come true just when I thought I’d had it under control.
I didn’t think.
Alana was just conveniently sitting in a chair before me, waiting to get what she had coming. As if my arms both had a mind of their own, the chair was pulled back in a rapid motion, but she knew better. With smirk of pure evil on her face, she stood on her feet and didn’t even give the chair a second look.
Before I knew it, my fist had connected with her nose. The cartilage went limp under the pressure of my knuckles. She fell back against the table, sliding to the floor with blood gurgling from her lips.
The crack to my hand didn’t hurt much with the adrenaline pumping rapidly through my body. Not once in my life had I ever acted on my impulses like that, but something needed to be done. I’d had enough. Alana would do no more damage without me getting even, whether that meant I had to punch her, or go to her husband myself. But losing Lola was not an option—not when we’d gotten this far.
Lola…
I raised my head only to meet her horrified gaze just before the kitchen door closed, creating a barrier between us. I ran towards it, only to be pushed back by my dad’s hand. I shot an enraged glance him, and then down at Alana, and not an ounce of my soul felt bad for her.
“What the hell is going on, son?” Dad demanded as he picked her up off the floor and sat her in an upright chair. She leaned her head back, trying to stop the blood from flowing.
When I didn’t answer him, he grabbed a towel out of the drawer and handed it to her.
I stormed past the both of them out to the patio, pacing back and forth. As I watched through the door, Dad bent down, saying something to Alana before he marched outside with a cherry red face. He vigorously grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side of the house.
“She says Lola is one of your students, Johnny,” he yelled under his breath.
I didn’t reply… What was I supposed to say? That she wasn’t exactly one of my students? That she was at least eighteen? The situation was exactly as it sounded.
“Oh dear God, what have you done?” Dad’s head fell in his hands as he tried to hide the look of agony.
After taking another begrudging look at the wretched woman inside, I glanced at my father with honest eyes. “Lola’s dad beats the shit out of her,” I growled. “She has no one but me.”
“And this is how you handle it?” He forced a laugh. “Don’t you realize that you are jeopardizing your whole career?”
“Just like you jeopardized yours for Mom?” I retorted.
Usually I didn’t like to throw my dad’s past in his face, but right then I needed him to understand.
Dad backed down at that moment. His stern face softened a bit as he leaned against the brick wall. “Okay,” he said. “What about that woman you just assaulted in there?”
I told him everything… How I’d called Alana out of loneliness, only to immediately regret it once she came. I explained how I’d gotten Lola in trouble and found out that her father hit her for it. I told him how I wanted to help her, but unexpectedly fell in love with her instead. The worst part was telling him about Alana blackmailing me just because she wasn’t getting enough attention from her husband. Dad didn’t like that at all.
“She’s married?” he spat, blinking twice to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. “You knew she was married before you called her?”
“Please,” I sighed. “I’ve lived by myself for a long time, Dad.”
“And what about Lola?” He lifted his torso from the wall to stand parallel to me. “What do you plan on doing with her?” The tone of his voice sounded accusing.
“Didn’t you listen to me?” I frantically shouted under my breath. “She is the one, Dad.”
Long, unbearable moments passed by as my breathing grew heavy, waiting for him to say something. What seemed like a glossy coat of tears had formed over his eyes. I wasn’t completely sure until he removed his glasses and rubbed the tears away with his thumb and forefinger. “Well, I never thought it would play out this way…”
“I would’ve never come here if I had known Alana would find us.”
“She’s crazy,” he admitted. “But you’ve put yourself in this situation, Jonathan.”
He was right. I was in a shit situation that I didn’t know how to get out of. And worst of all, Lola was probably deathly afraid of me. I couldn’t even fathom the thought of that.
“I fucked up,” I blurted, not caring if my dad witnessed my potty mouth.
“Yes, I know. And now I think you should take Lola home.”
“What are you going to do about Alana?”
“Let me worry about that.” He started to direct me towards the front of the house so I wouldn’t have to go back into the kitchen and be reminded of what I’d just done. “Get your car started, and I’ll tell Lola to grab your things from the bedroom, okay?”
He was about to turn towards the sidewalk but paused, opening his mouth to say something. “She better be worth it, son.”
“She is.”
“I really hope so,” he sighed. “Just take care of her, don’t get her in any more trouble, and I’m going to do what I can to get you out of trouble.”
I nodded my head, unsure of what he meant, and shuffled quickly to the car. After turning it on and waiting a few minutes, I grew impatient and gripped onto the steering wheel. The more I started to think about it, the more remorse I felt. The only thing I worried about was how Lola felt now that she had a p. I wasn’t so sure that she’d forgive me.
The clank of my back door opening forced my head back. Lola was piling our bags into the seats, not even glancing my way. After slamming the door closed, she quickly got in the passenger seat, throwing a shirt at me, and then wrapped a towel around herself. She kept her focus in front of her, not even casting a glance my way.
I sat there staring at her for what seemed like a long time, holding onto the steering wheel with one hand and not knowing what to do with the other. I wanted to say something, but what was there to say? I punched my psycho ex girlfriend in the face for your sake, Lola.
Right.
Without another thought, I turned the key and started driving back to where we came from, which didn’t make me feel any better. It made me feel worse.
After a few miles down the main highway, the tension built up so thick that I could’ve cut it with a knife. None of it had come from me. Lola was angry, upset, and scared. I didn’t even have to look at her to know.
She’d witnessed my mistake—a mistake that could alienate her from me forever. She didn’t want to be with a guy who hits people. She didn’t want someone who couldn’t control himself when he got upset. She’d dealt with it enough, so why put up with me?
What are you doing, Johnny? I asked myself over and over again as the vehicles on the other side of the road whizzed by. Nothing I did made any sense anymore. One after the other, I was a just a bag full of bad ideas.
“Will you tell me what the hell just happened?” She finally snapped, breaking me from the distraction I was in.
My eyes didn’t move away from the road. “Alana,” I started to say, after clearing my throat.
“You’ve mentioned that name before,” Lola reminded me. “Is she the secret you’ve been keeping?”
“She’s my ex girlfriend,” I finally admitted. My lip almost went numb from being so stiff. I hated talking about this with her, but I knew it wasn’t just going to slide as if nothing had happened.
“Before you and I ever got involved,” I continued with a gulp, “I invited her over with the intentions to sleep with her.” I paused and waited for Lola to blow up in my face, but she sat quietly and patiently for me to keep going.
“When she showed up, I completely regretted it and made her leave, which she did. But she’s paying close attention, and once she found out about you…”
“She’s been threatening you, hasn’t she?” she interjected.
“Yes.”
After I got everything out, she didn’t speak or even look my way. I sat in anticipation as I wondered what she was thinking about. I wouldn’t blame her if she thought me an abuser like her father, but that hadn’t been the case. I’d wanted to punch Alana from the moment she walked back into my life. There was something deeply wrong with her, and I intended to find out exactly what that was.
Driving didn’t help ease my nerves. I pulled over to the side of the road, putting it in park, but left it running. I turned my head towards Lola, and slowly lifted my hand to her cheek. She didn’t flinch when I touched it, like I had expected. Instead, she closed her eyes and exhaled a deep sigh.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked, trying to search her face for it.
“I should be,” she answered blankly. “Earlier, I was so sure that you’d never hurt me—that you’d never hurt anyone.”
“I would never hurt you.”
She lowered her head to gaze at her own fiddling thumbs. My hand fell to her side, afraid to touch her again.
“You looked so...furious,” she said.
Furious wasn’t the word I’d necessarily use. Hell-bent was more like it.
“But I’m not angry with you.”
Confusion came over me as I replayed her forgiving voice again in my head. “What?”
“Look,” she sighed, “I’ve spent my life forgiving my dad for the same thing. Who am I if I can’t forgive you, too?”
“What?” I repeated.
“You just have to swear to me that it’ll never happen again, no matter what. Show me that you’re nothing like him.”
I forced a smile and traced my thumb on her soft, bottom lip. “I do…I promise.”
She leaned her head against the headrest without breaking away from my gaze. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Without another word, I pulled back onto the highway, still feeling a bit uneasy. Lola didn’t say much else unless she was hungry, or needed to use the rest room. I was left to worry about Alana going to the cops, where I’d be sent to prison on the spot, no trial needed. All the evidence was perfectly in place.
“You know Alana is going to the police, right?”
She blatantly shook her head. “Your mom said not to worry about that.”
That got me quiet. I hated that my mother had to see everything, too. And it seemed that my parents were turning out to be completely different than I thought. Why would they take care of my mess?
***
It was getting past sundown once we finally made it back to our little town. It was dark just as we’d left it, but something about the place was different, actually. It was unsettling, and the fearful look in Lola’s eyes didn’t help the fact. I could tell she was afraid that she’d run into her father.
But I knew better, and so did he.
When I pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex, I started to exit the car but Lola grabbed my wrist to stop me. I sat back against the seat, turning towards her.
“What do we do now, Johnny?” she asked, with an unsure look in her eyes.
“I hadn’t really thought of that,” I said. “Will you stay with me until we figure all of this out?”
She nodded her head before jumping out of the car and grabbing her bags. I watched as she trotted up the stairs, looking for the spare key under the matt.
“It’s not here,” she called as she put her things down and leaned over the railing.
“What do you mean?” I stepped out of the car, disregarding my own bags and ran up the steps.
“The key,” she answered. “It’s just gone.”
I flipped the matt over only to find a clean, rectangular spot that had been protected from dirt and dust, but there was no key. I fished for the regular one out of my pocket to unlock the door that somehow wasn’t locked in the first place.
Before I even went inside, I knew it was Alana who had been in my apartment. But the dirty shoeprints on the crème colored carpet were too big to be a woman’s foot.
“They might still be here,” I said aloud without meaning to.
“What?” Lola panicked at my side.
I left her at the door and tiptoed to the hall closet to grab the baseball bat from behind all the coats and jackets. After quietly closing it back, I slid my feet across the floor and into the bedroom, which was completely empty. The only place left to hide was my bathroom, so I quickly ran to the open door to find nothing—not even an intruder hiding behind the shower curtain.
“No one’s here,” I called behind me, uncertain if Lola was close enough to hear me.
Hands slid over my shoulders, making jump out of my skin. I turned my head to see Lola holding a towel and the bag full of all her bathroom stuff.
“You should change the locks and stop leaving a spare key out,” she teased as she slid past me to turn the shower on. With her back towards me, she slipped the wrinkled shirt from her body and shot a glance at me over her shoulder. “So I guess we’re going to school tomorrow.”
I nodded my head as I watched her take the rest of her clothing off, stepping into the hot, steamy shower.
I was about to join her when the cell phone in my pocket began to ring an unfamiliar tune. As I stepped out of the bathroom and shut the door to a crack, I flipped the phone open and raised it to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Johnny Casey?” a man’s voice on the other end cackled through the bad service.
“Speaking. May I ask who’s calling?”
“I’ve had my eye on you for a while now, Johnny,” he stated in a matter-of-fact tone. Anxiety spawned itself inside of me as I listened to the heavy breathing on the other end.
“W-what do you mean?”
A few seconds of silence went by before I got a reply. “I have a proposition for you.”
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(O.O) How do you think Lola really feels about Mr. Casey decking that ho in the face?
and...
who was on the phone with Mr. Casey?
vote and comment!