Mom's the Word
AJ didn't have the strength to go home and face her husband, so she stayed at her office until after dark, way after her normal home time. She couldn't stop thinking about Chris' face. How beaten and battered it was. She felt so guilty for it, and was terrified of the consequences she would face when her husband figured out that she was in fact sending letters to her ex, and had been blackmailed for the past four weeks by Kirin. It was all a mess and her head was spinning.
She knew she couldn't hide in her office forever, so she began to clear up her things when she heard footsteps outside her office, and then he came through her office door, envelope in hand as she looked at him with confusion.
"What are you… what are you doing here?" She shook her head, "Where are the kids."
"With Dean." Punk said, "Why'd you lie to me, April?" He asked, "Why did you stand in front of me and lie to my face?" He asked as AJ looked at the envelope, realising everything that had to be said were all in those letters.
"It was easier." AJ said quietly.
Not only did you lie to me about this." He held the envelope up, "But you lied to me about Kirin. Why didn't you come to me?" He asked.
"Because I didn't want you involved. She thinks you still love her and I was scared she was going to do something that would ruin our relationship." She said, "So I done what she asked."
"Something that would ruin our relationship? What about these?" He threw the envelope at her as she flinched.
"I'm not hiding anything from you, Punk. I haven't fooled around with him. I haven't even seen him. He wrote to me out of concern. He just wanted to see how I was doing. I wrote back and told him about you. I told him I was happily married, with children."
"You still went behind my back. I mean… how do I even know you're standing her telling me the truth?" He asked.
"I am." AJ said, "I would never cheat on you. I would never do that." She said truthfully, "Kirin… she got inside my head, she made me think that giving her money and keeping the letters a secret was the better option, but this morning I told her I was done, I told her there was no more money and I was going to tell you the turth… and then I see Chris today." She said, "It looks like his face was put through a shredder." She said with disgust.
"That's no one's fault but yours. You let me think it was him messing with us. That's why I done that to his face." He said, "That is all on you."
"Even if it was him, you shouldn't have done that to him."
"You're defending him?" Punk said.
"He can't see out of his left eye, Punk!" AJ shrieked, "For once, yes… I am defending him." She said, "Let's just… let's just talk this over." She shook her head, coming round from her desk and coming into closer contact with him, "We're letting all these other people get to us and we're forgetting that we're above all of them." She said.
"No. No, don't try and win me over with your bullshit. None of this, we're stronger than them, we're unbreakable, we can get through anything shit. You fucked up, and you need to own up to it."
"I have!" AJ shouted, "I have owned up to it. I know that lying to you was wrong, but I am not hiding anything. The letters have stopped, I sent him one a few weeks ago, asking him to not write anymore, that I am happily married with two beautiful children. Yes, he wanted to see if I wanted to meet up with him, but I said no. Didn't you read the letters? How much he was begging and asking if I was really happy? Yeah, that's because I kept telling him I wasn't interested." AJ said, "How… how did you even find out about these?" She asked curiously.
"Kirin paid me a visit." Punk said as AJ rolled her eyes.
"Kiss her again, did you?" She asked.
"Of course you'd bring that up." Punk smiled smugly.
"I have never wronged you. And I never will." AJ said firmly, "Don't make it out like I am some… unloyal, cheating whore." She spat, "I'm not her."
"Oh, you are." Punk said, "You are just like her. Just without the drugs and the alcohol. She said it herself." Punk said, "The lying, the constant need for attention-"
"Excuse me?" AJ shook her head.
"You're just like her. Maybe it's the reason I find myself so attracted to you." He shrugged.
"I am nothing like her!" AJ shouted, "She ran at the first chance she got. She left you with nothing. She never wanted anything with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to raise a family with you and have you love me until I die." She spat, "How dare you stand there and treat me like her. I stay at home with your children, loving them and caring for them whilst she's on the other side of town in a empty apartment surrounded by drugs and alcohol." She said, "And you stand there and tell me we're alike?"
"Don't use the kids against me." He shook his head.
"I have done nothing wrong. I own up to lying to you. That was wrong of me." She said, "But apart from that you shouldn't be here, shouting at me like this. I turned Jace away. I told him, in black ink, that I was happily married. Happily. With two children." She said, "You can't stand there and act innocent when you almost killed a man in this building last night!" She spat.
"Well maybe it's just the real me coming out." He said, "Maybe my father's evil traits are rubbing off on me." He said.
"What are you talking about?" AJ said. He'd yet to tell her about the conversation he had with his mother. They were clearly caught up in other things.
"You wanna know why my mom put me in care?" Punk asked her, "She was fifteen, and she was raped. The result of all her pain and sadness was me." He spat.
"I-I didn't know." AJ shook her head, "I'm sorry." She said quietly. He'd caught her in a bad moment. If things were calm she would have wrapped her arms around him and kissed him to make sure he knew she loved him, but right now she wasn't feeling it.
"Yeah? Well sorry doesn't fix things." He spat.
"Well then I don't know what to say." She said, "I am sorry for lying to you. But this doesn't have to be like this. Kirin is getting inside your head, just like she always does. There is nothing going on that you need to be worried about. Kirin isn't looking for money anymore, the letters are over and done with, and Chris… well you can thank me for persuading him to not press charges." She said.
"Thank you?" Punk said, "If you hadn't lied to my face then all of this wouldn't be happening. You should have told me about the letters and you should have told me about Kirin." He said, "I told you I didn't like liars and you replied to me with, I know." He shook his head.
"I was always going to tell you the truth I just needed time." AJ said, walking towards him and taking his hands in hers, "C'mon, we don't have to fight like this." She shook her head, "We've both done wrong."
"What have I done?" Punk said, shaking her hands away from his.
"You nearly crippled Chris." AJ said, "Yes, I hate the man, but he didn't deserve his face to be rearranged." She spat.
"I only done that because you told me it was him who sent that letter through the door. You could have just told me it was Kirin, and that the letter was real and she was blackmailing you. It would have saved a whole lot of trouble and arguments." He said, "And it would have saved his face too."
"Well what do you want me to say, Punk?" AJ said, "I said I'm sorry. What do you want me to do?"
"Just… I don't know." Punk shook his head, "I just need space." He backed away slowly.
"We can work this out." AJ said, "C'mon, I'm being honest with you here. I have nothing to hide from you. The letters were just that… pointless letters." She said, "Let's just move on from this, baby. Please." She sighed, "Let's get home to the kids and forget about it all." She begged but he just shook his head and backed away, walking out of the office and closing the door behind him as she stood in the middle of the room, running her hand through her hair and sobbing. They'd never fought like this before. Sure they had little fights here and there, but ever since their marriage that hadn't had such a confrontation.
Punk headed out of AJ's work into the cold, not really knowing where to go from there. He couldn't face going home. That meant pretending everything was fine in front of the kids. He couldn't go to his friends. Seth was with Carmella no doubt, Enzo was working and Dean was keeping an eye on the kids for him.
For once in his life, his mind told him to go to someone he never thought he could say. Mom.
He remembered the address that was written down on the paper she gave him and he headed on the twenty minute walk to her small home in the more private area of Chicago. He climbed the steps to her house nervously and knocked his knuckles against the door, sliding his hands in his jean pockets and waiting as she swung open the door, a smile appearing on her face when she seen him.
"Hi." Punk pushed out a smile.
"Hi." Wendy replied, "Everything ok?" She asked.
"Can I come in?" Punk asked her.
"Of course you can." She said, opening the door as he walked in, "Here give me your jacket." She insisted as he took it off and handed it to her, "You look sad. What is wrong?" She asked him, noticing his eyes were tired and his body was slouched. He wasn't standing proud like he was when she seen him before.
"Me and April had a fight." He said, walking through to the kitchen with her as she just nodded.
"Big fight?" She asked him as Punk nodded, taking a seat at the kitchen table, "Can I get you a drink?" She asked, putting his jacket over the radiator.
"I'm ok." Punk said as she just nodded, "I didn't really know where else to go. I didn't think I'd ever have the choice to go to my mom's." He said, still in disbelief.
"I'm glad you came." Wendy smiled, "What did you fight about?" She asked curiously.
"She'd lied to me, and my ex had been harassing her, which she also lied to me about." He said, "It's all just a big mess." He sighed.
"How big was the lie?" Wendy asked.
"Big enough." Punk said, "I don't want to be mad with her. I look at her and I just want to kiss her and make up with her. But I'm not gonna be some pushover."
"That isn't a pushover. That's being a good husband." Wendy smiled, "So you just left her at a standstill?" She asked.
"She wanted to go home, work it out… but I'm just so tired. I can't be bothered arguing with her anymore." He admitted.
"Well maybe it's best you let it be for tonight. Maybe some space is what you need. And some sleep, by the looks of things." She said.
"Bradley is teething. He's been keeping us awake the past few nights." He said as Wendy smiled.
"Do you have any pictures of him?" She asked curiously as Punk nodded, digging into his pocket for his phone, going onto his photos and showing her a picture of Joni and Bradley, "They both look like you."
"Joni doesn't." Punk said, "Besides the eyes. She looks like her mom." He said as Wendy handed him the phone back.
"I assume you don't talk to her mother." She said.
"She isn't worth even mentioning." Punk said, not even in the mood to think about Kirin, "April is her mom." He said as Wendy nodded.
"I'm not… I'm not all that great with giving advice but… it's very clear you love your wife, and despite whatever it is she lied to you about, it doesn't seem like something you both can't work through." She said, "Cool down and then when you're ready, go talk to her and work things out. Life is far too short to be fighting with those you love." She said as Punk just nodded. She was right.
"So you never got married or anything? Never had any other kids? Didn't you get bored?" He asked curiously, hoping it wasn't too forward. He needed something to take his mind off of his fight with AJ.
"No, it wasn't something I wanted. I felt like it would have been disrespectful towards you, and anyway, I developed a lot of trust issues, as you can imagine." She said.
"But you're… you're old now." He said as she laughed a little, she could always imagine him to be a handful as a little boy, "Don't you regret not having anyone around?"
"Sometimes." She nodded, "I used to dream of what it would have been like if I kept you. What you would have looked like. How we would have got on." She said, "And I thought if maybe I did keep you, I would have found someone else, and you could have had the chance of having a good father figure." She shrugged, "But that was all just dreams. Giving you away seemed like the right thing to do, at the time." She said, "You don't judge me for it, do you?"
"You done what you had to." He said, "How could you even look at me and not be reminded of what happened to you?" He said, "I was just the outcome of a nightmare for you. Keeping me would have been crazy." He said.
"It wasn't like that." She said, "I loved you. It hurt saying goodbye to you, even if I was a child who had no idea what I was doing."
"Bet your parents were happy." He said.
"Well they were, but they never forced a decision on me. They told me they would support me, and you if I was to keep you and take you home, but they did tell me that giving you into care would be best. They told me you'd have a better chance."
"Boy were they wrong." Punk laughed.
"Why was it so bad?" She asked sadly, "If I knew I wouldn't have put you in. But I was told that it was a good care centre."
"Well of course they'd tell you that." Punk said, "It wasn't that it was bad, it was just… when you get to that age where you realise you're in there because you're unwanted, you grow this wall that sits around you, and you don't let anyone in." He said, "All the people that took care of us would just tell us our parents couldn't look after us. We never got individual stories." He said, "So I just assumed that whoever my mom and dad were, they just didn't want me." He shrugged as Wendy sighed.
"But you met friends?" She said with ease as he nodded with a smile.
"Probably the only good thing that came out of it all." He said, "They're awesome. I mean, one of them… the one who I considered my brother, he got me put in prison and shot my daughter, but he's rotting away in prison now." He shrugged.
"Why were you homeless, Phil?" She asked.
"We left care when we were fourteen. Couldn't bare it any longer." He said, "We slept on the streets, stole food, mugged people on the streets." He said, "It was either that or we starved or died from hypothermia." He shrugged, "Then we found the skate park." He said, "The manager, Al, he noticed that we spent the full day there, and when he locked up, he would watch us find a spot somewhere in the street." He said, "He took us in. Gave us a place to call home. Cooked warm food for us and turned his living room into a sleeping den for us." He said, "Gave us jobs at the skate park."
"He seems like a wonderful man." Wendy smiled.
"He is. He's like a father to all of us." He said, "And then after that, Joey found his sister and me and her got it on pretty quickly. The rest just falls into place and brings me to here." He said.
"You're not still hooked on this girl? This ex of yours?" She asked, "She doesn't seem very nice from what I've heard." She said.
"I'm over her. Have been since the moment I met AJ." He said, "Kirin is just misunderstood. She is sweet when she isn't drunk or high. She does have a heart. She just… doesn't know how to use it." He said, "But it's April I love her. And I'm sitting here thinking of how I treated her tonight, and I feel awful. I shouldn't have shouted at her." He said.
"You were obviously both just caught in a moment, I'm sure she was tough enough to shout back at you." She said as Punk smiled and nodded.
"Probably the only person I know that can stand up to me. As small and delicate as she may be." He said, "What do I do?" He asked. He'd never had this type of relationship before. This was his mom, and he knew it was going to take him possibly months to get used to this, but he always wanted this secretly. He wanted to hit up his mom and ask for advice, and to think he could now do that was incredible.
"You go back home to her and to those beautiful kids and you forget about everyone else. All the lies and the rumours. And you talk it out with her, and you forget it even happened." She said, "That's what you do."
A/N: Let me know what you think! Thanks for the reviews. Keep them coming, they are greatly appreciated.
