Mason Park - Chapter Twelve
This is it, we're in his driveway, in the car, in our seats, and my hands are shaking, thank god I didn't drive.
Ashley looks over at me and rubs my arm. "You don't have to do this, we can come back some other time, I mean, we're not going anywhere." Just her smile is enough to give me the courage I need to walk up to that door.
"No, we're here, I'm doing this, now." I smile back at her and get out of the car, as does she. I take a deep, wavering breath and procced to the door.
His house is huge, just like mine, and they're actually not that far apart. I think it took about five minutes to get here, but that was because of all the stop signs and what not.
Behind these walls, Joey stands.
My hands shake and my nerves jump with every step I take towards the door. Why am I so scared? It's Joey.
I reach the front door but my hand refuses to move up. I step back and take a few deep breaths. I force my finger up to the button and press it.
Not ten seconds later, I can hear the lock on the door and see the knob twist. The only way I can describe what I'm feeling right now is comparing it to baseball. It's like the few seconds after somebody hits the ball, when it's just flying through the air and nobody knows what's going to happen. Is he going to catch it? Am I going to have a stroke? ....Why'd I pick baseball? I never watch baseball.
The door opens and Joey stands on the otherside with what must be a look of shock, anger, happiness? I can't tell, and I'm not sure I want to.
He doesn't look much different. His hair is longer, he's tan, he looks more fit, but still stocky. He's wearing jeans and a gray long sleeve shirt.
He rubs his hand over his mouth and shakes his head a little. "What..um, what are you doing here?" He asks me and I wonder if my heart is still beating at all. I'm certainly not breathing, or moving, or blinking. What the hell am I so scared of? I've never been scared of Joey in my life.
I gasp for air and look down at the ground. "I...I'm not exactly sure. But I really, really need to talk to you."
"I'm not sure that's such--"
"Joey, please! We really need to talk!" Ok, I've gone from scared nut to raging phsyco in a matter of seconds, and who says only women have mood swings?
"Ok, ok, calm down." He waves his hands in front of him and backs up. "Come in."
"Um, hold on. I just have to tell Ashley that she can head back home."
"Oh, she can come in if she wants."
"Well, I just kinda wanted to have a private talk."
"No, she can talk with my wife, Katie." Appereanly I've missed a lot.
"Your wife? You got married?"
"Um...yea? You knew about th--" Nope, sorry, don't remember hearing about anybody brave enough to settle you down.
An awkwards silence follows and I blankly look around before steping back to the car to retrieve Ashely.
"Hey Ash?" I ask, leaning around the side of the house. She's out of the car and leaning up against it.
"Yea?" She looks up from the ground and unfolds her arms.
"You wanna come in?" She seems to not understand my question, it wasn't that complex was it?
"Sure." She leans over the side of the car and grabs her purse before running up to me. I take her hand when she reaches me and we walk up to the house where Joey is waiting at the door.
He opens the door wider for us and we walk past him quickly. He shuts the door and turns to face us. He tells Ashley that Katie is upstairs in the kids' room and she takes off towards the stairs.
Joey awkwardly turns to me and slaps his hands together in front of him. "You want something to drink?"
I snap my head up and look at him like he just offered me a million dollars. "No, thanks." He turns me toward the living room before running to the kitchen to get himself something.
I take a minute to look around the room before he gets back and I notice how oddly comforting it is. On one wall, there's a giant picutre of the New York skyline, on an adjacent wall is a fireplace, and on the wall across from that are lots of pictures of people, events, and other such things. There's a few of him with other celebrities, some of him and a woman and two children that I can only assume are his wife and kids, and then on the far end of the wall are pictures of the gang back home, I'm even in some.
I realise, as I'm looking at these pictures, that as great as California is, I'm homesick, already. I miss Ross, Phoebe, Rachel, and Monica, I miss my apartment, I miss Monica's cooking, I miss Central Perk, hell, I even miss Gunther.
Joey returns with a bottle of beer in one hand and a bowl of chips in the other, not surprising. He sets the bowl down on the coffee table and we both take a seat on two of the four comfy couches that surrounds it. He clears his throat and takes a deep breath. "So, what did you want to talk to me about?"
"A lot of things, everything. I don't know where to start. It's like watching you in a play, wondering which line comes first." We both give an easy laugh and settle back into our seats. So I've successfully broken the ice, I hope.
"Joe, I know you're mad at me about that Janine thing, and I don't know what I did, but if I did sleep with her, or kiss her, or even touch her, I'm so sorry. It just doesn't seem like it's something that I would do, but then why was she just in her underwear? God, I wish I knew what I did, I wish I knew the answer, but I don't."
Joey sighs and picks at the label of his beer bottle. "I'm not mad at you for that anymore, I actually don't really know where I stand. I want to be mad at you, but I don't know if I have reason to be."
I can feel it, the tension is rising again, I hate these situations. It's just a rollercoaster conversation and although I love rollercoasters, I don't like the emotional ones.
"I want to be mad at me too. I can't believe I would do that to you again, so that's why I don't think I did it. I mean, you mean more to me than any other one of my friends, you're my brother, and brothers don't do that too each other. But about all this other stuff, like not talking to each other for a really long time, me losing my memory, growing apart, I don't know what to say about that. You have no idea what it's like to not remember anything that happened in the past four years, I can't stand it."
Joey pauses and just stares at me with a look that I can't judge. "Four years, huh? That's a long time. You don't remember anything?" He sets his bottle down and leans forward on his elbows.
"Well, I have gotten a few memories back, which oddly, nobody has asked me about. But other than that, I don't remember anything."
"Well..what have you remembered?"
"The fight between you and me, a night with Ashley, me trying to convince you to stay when you were packing, the crash--"
"What crash?"
"The one I was in a few weeks ago, when I lost my memory...you didn't know about it? I thought somebody called you?"
"Well yea, they called me, but I was just not in a mood to talk about you so we just skipped how it happened to what had happened because of it. I didn't know you were in a crash."
A thick silence falls over the room and I don't know what to say. It's like imagining the last conversation you'll ever have, what do you talk about?
"I don't remember much of it, I didn't want anybody to tell me anything about what I can't remember, I want to do this on my own. I don't know why though, I'm not a very independent person."
Joey starts laughing lightly, most likely remembering the countless memories between us that the word 'independent' triggers. It's been a while since I've heard that laugh, and it couldn't make me happier.
"Hey, why don't we all go out to dinner tonight?"
Did he just ask me that? He actually wants to go out in public with me? When I imagined our conversation together, it always ended with him beating the hell out of me or lighting me on fire. Going out to dinner never crossed my mind.
"Who's we all?" I ask, I haven't met his kids or his wife and I think that could make for quite an awkward situation.
"You, Ashley, Katie, the twins, and Me." He counts off on his fingers and finishes with pointing to himself.
"You've got twins?"
"Yea, they're both boys, six years old, and the cutest kids to ever walk the earth." He gets the biggest smile on his face from just talking about them and I realise that he's made the transition from ladies man to family man without a fault.
I smile back at him and stand up. "Well, I think I'd like to meet your family." He shoots out of his chair and races upstairs like a kid on christmas. He may be a family man, but he's still just a kid inside.
to be continued...
I'm so sorry that I'm updating this once again, but this site just refuses to post my notes. sigh
So I'm done with the story! All you gotta do is review and I'll post the next chapter! I understand that some people may be confused and not understand the story, so if you have any questions, put them in a review or email me and after I finish posting the story, I'll put up some story notes and what not.
I've been debating whether I should do an epilouge or not, what do you guys think? Do you want one? I'm not sure what I would put in it.
Also, what story do you think I should continue after I'm done with this? Or should I just start another new one? I've got lots of ideas brewing in my head and they're just waiting for an opportunity to get out!
Anyway, thanks for reading, please review!