Chapter 77 – Paying the Piper
"Hello?" She asked. She knew somehow instinctively it was Dom. Letty looked at her curiously. "Dom." She mouthed even before the person on the other end had said anything to her.
"Torrie? You ok?" Dom's deep voice asked.
"I'm ok. How are you?"
"Worried. You took off without telling anyone where you went. I've been calling all day long."
"I did take off. I had to get away and I didn't want to talk to anyone so I took off. I am an adult. I can take off on my own every once in awhile."
"Why didn't you want to talk to anyone? You could have told Vince where you were going to go."
"Dom." Torrie sighed. "The whole point was I didn't want to talk to anyone. That especially meant Vince. I wanted to be alone."
"Why'd you take my car?"
"Cause they had me blocked in and part of not talking to them was not asking them to move their cars so I could take off. You weren't blocked in."
"Fair enough. Listen Torrie..." Dom started.
"Dom..." Torrie started to speak at the same time, than paused.
Dom continued on.
"I'm sorry. I just want you to know that."
"Oh Dom. I'm sorry too. I should have waited for you to tell me what was going on."
"And I should have made sure that you didn't find that. I know it must have hurt you to think what you must have."
"It did. But it must have hurt you when I didn't trust you enough to hear the story before I just jumped to conclusions."
"It did. But I can't really blame you."
"Maybe, maybe not but I still should have given you a chance to explain."
"And I should have told you about Karen right when she did that so you'd have been prepared at least."
"I guess we both messed up. Dom, I don't want to go into it in too much more depth over the phone ok?"
"Yeah, that's fine. We'll talk when I get back."
"Ok. That's soon anyway." Torrie sighed dejectedly.
"Sure it is. I love you Princess. I'd never do anything to hurt you on purpose."
"I know that now Dom. I love you too. Dom...I..."
"What baby?" Dom sounded worried at the sad tone in Torrie's voice all of a sudden.
"Nothing. Just..." She shook her head. She didn't want to go into it on the phone, she reminded herself. "I miss you." Torrie elaborated and fought tears. She was still upset about the whole Dom issue but it took second place to the fight she was about to have with Vince.
"You sure you don't want to tell me about this fight you had with Chris?" Dom seemed to sense the issue revolved around Chris and Vince.
"It was pretty horrible. Vince is going to want to fight it out and I don't know if I want to go into it twice." Torrie said.
"Yeah? Vince wouldn't tell me anything other then the two of you had a fight."
"Well, she called me a slut, told me I'm too pale and too skinny and a bitch and that was all the reason why you went away." Torrie sniffled.
"Baby, we been over this. We decided it was ok for me to do this for one month remember? I didn't want to leave you. Remember that? You didn't do anything that made me want to leave. I didn't want go remember?" Dom softly tried to reassure Torrie over the phone. "And as for you being any of the things she called you, you do tend to be too skinny but we all know that's because you don't take care of yourself when you get stressed baby girl. It's like you punish yourself for whatever is happening by not taking care of yourself."
"I don't think it has anything to do with that Dom. I just get preoccupied with worrying. I'm a bit of a worrier. And I know we discussed why you went away but it was just after I'd gotten home and it really made me think she was more like implying it was why things happened the way they did."
"Well, no need to worry about this baby. If this girl really said all that stuff to you then as soon as I get back V and I will be having a chat about how well she really fits into the house."
"Dominic?" Torrie asked in a soft, slightly worried voice. She didn't want Dom to tell Vince Chris had to go. It would just cause more problems between her and Vince. Plus she didn't know if it was really fair when both of them had acted badly. But she did want Dom to stand up for her in some capacity.
"What Tor?"
"I kinda had some stuff to say to Chris about what she said to me. I wasn't exactly nice to her either."
"I wouldn't expect you to be sweetheart. She called you all those names plus teased you on a point as sore as what happened between us. I think it was ok for you to be mad at her."
"Maybe, but I told her a lot of mean things and then I sort of slapped her before I ran out of the house." Torrie found it easier to talk to Dom about the situation because he was totally in her corner. Maybe that was because he was scared she was mad at him but he was still going to take her side and she needed that sort of reaction right now.
"You? You hit her?"
"Yeah. I'm so upset about it. I don't know what to do about it. You know, I'm not totally sorry about it but I was out of line too you know?"
"Well, just chock it up to a bad day and move on Princess." Dom's tone reflected the fact that he didn't really feel that way about what he'd been told, but he didn't want Torrie to worry. He really was floored that his Torrie had slapped someone. He couldn't imagine it.
"That ain't gonna happen. I mean, Vince is pissed at me about it too. Not to mention I'm upset with myself and when I went to talk to daddy about it today he said he was disappointed in me over it. I don't think I can just call this a bad day. And Mia's gonna be upset with me over it, not to mention when I was talking to Letty and Vince came looking for me and I hid and Leon told Vince where I was and I had to run away."
"Aw Tor. It wasn't the right thing to do ok? I know it first hand. It's never the right way to handle anger. It's not nice and you know now how bad you feel after you do it. But I also know sometimes you just follow your gut reaction and don't know till after it happens it was wrong, or you just don't think because of how upset you are, and then when you calm down and you do think about it you realize how bad you acted. You seem like you do know you were wrong, so that's something. Tell Vince I said to lay off till I get back. By then everyone will have calmed down some. And maybe V and I'll need to have a little chat about who's a team member and what that means."
"I guess I could do that Dom. I just figure maybe it should all be settled too so that we can all put it behind us too. I was out of line. I know that. But she wasn't exactly acting like an adult either. I just almost think if I tell Vince that you said to tell him to lay off and that you'll deal with the whole issue he's gonna think it's a big cop out on my part. I think I'd rather talk to him about it now but I just don't want to do it. I know I should but I don't want to."
"I'm proud of you for that Princess. It'll all work out, and if things get out of hand just call me back and then I'll talk to Vince ok?"
"Ok. I can't wait till you come back Dom. I don't know how I'm gonna make it."
"You'll do ok. You've got Letty and it won't be long till I get to come back. But if you really want me to I'll find a way to come home early."
"You can't do that. You're right. I'll be ok and if things get really bad I'll go stay with Daddy for a while."
"See, you'll be fine."
"I sure hope so. Take care Dom."
"Ok. I'll call you tomorrow ok?"
"Sure Dom. Talk to you then. I do love you baby."
"I love you too Torrie. Keep that chin up." Dom hung up from his end.
Torrie hung up and turned around, fighting her tears and winning. For the moment at least. She turned around to see Letty standing beside her with a mutinous look on her face and Vince and Mia staring them down.
"So I guess you spoke to Dom then?" Vince asked.
Thank you captain obvious, Torrie thought but knew better then to say it out loud. She just nodded. However she wasn't going to just let it go that he listened in on her conversation either. Letty she didn't care about but Vince...Letty beat her to the smart mouth comment.
"Well duh Vince. Who'd it sound like she was talking to?"
"Don't even start with me Letty. You're not in my good books right now."
"Oh, I'm shaking in my boots." Letty snipped back. "What you gonna do about it V?"
"Guys! There has been enough of this around here lately with out you two starting." Torrie interjected. "Yes I was talking to Dominic. What did you do, stand there and listen to the whole thing? It was none of your business."
"I didn't listen in. Mia and I only got here for take care and talk to you later. So, where'd you get to today Torrie?" Vince asked, barely holding his anger in check.
"Here and there." Torrie answered.
"Where'd you go?" Vince growled, not happy with the answer he'd gotten.
"Why does it matter? I went to the garage then my father's store."
"Why did he tell me he hadn't seen you?"
"Because when you were there he hadn't seen me."
"Well, that didn't take you till now. Where'd you go after there?"
"Letty and I had dinner out." Torrie answered, getting a bit defensive at all the seemingly irrelevant questions.
"And went shopping by the look of it." Mia interjected snappishly.
"Yes, I went out and bought a new outfit. Letty didn't go with me." Torrie answered.
"I'm glad you had such a nice day driving around in Letty's car, talking to your dad, shopping and eating dinner out while we dealt with your mess and worried about where you were all day." Mia was clearly very mad.
"I had a horrible day, thanks for asking." Torrie snapped back and Letty shot her a look that managed to say both 'you go girl' and 'keep your cool'.
"Torrie, what got into you yesterday?" Vince asked, starting to loose his patience for watching Torrie and Letty defend themselves against him and Mia.
"What would you think Vince? I had a perfectly horrible afternoon running away from the love of my life, who I though was cheating on me. Then I make a plan to go blow off some steam and you decide to intrude on it. Then that girl shoots her mouth off at me. It was all pretty crappy as a matter of fact." Torrie started off snapping but finished on a sigh.
She knew being crabby with Vince wasn't going to help them work things out. But when he was acting like he was doing his level best to put her on her defensive it was hard for her to remember that.
"But you went too far!" Vince raised his voice.
"Yes I did." Torrie admitted honestly, looking Vince directly in the eye. "You're right. I reacted too strongly and said some things I regret."
Vince looked shocked to have heard Torrie admit that.
"However, I do not think that Chris had any right to say what she said either. So while I do understand that I had no right to hit her she also had no right to say things like she said to me. I am not a slut, nor am I ugly and I resent her saying those sort of things to me as if it were true. And she pasted a snap judgement on me the second she met me. It's not up to me to change that, but don't expect me to be all sweetness and light to her while she continues to act like I did something to her before when I hadn't."
Torrie delivered her speech in an honest and calm tone. She didn't want Vince to take her statement as an invitation to argue with her, or for him to think she was trying to get out of what she had done.
"I understand that Torrie but it's not the only thing you did last night that was out of line." Vince replied, trying to keep his calm and almost failing. He was mad about what she'd done and mad that she wasn't shouting at him or crying. She was acting so damn adult and Vince didn't like it one bit. He wanted to yell and swear at her but if he did so when she was acting all mature he was the one who'd look like a moron.
Her chin came up.
"No it's not. And for that I am sorry. It was an act born out of desperation and the very bad 24 hours that had lead up to it combined with far more liquor then I had any business drinking."
She wasn't going to fall onto her knees to beg forgiveness but she knew what she'd tried to do to Vince deserved a real explanation. It hadn't been fair. He hadn't done anything to her do deserve to be treated how she'd tried to treat him. He'd tried to keep her safe and watch over her and she'd repaid him with insults and childish behaviour.
"I just thought we were better friends then that Tor." Vince said, still ranting as he almost lost it.
"We are. I really am sorry and I know it was stupid. Thank you for taking the high road in the whole situation. I appreciate it more then you'll ever know."
Torrie was upset Vince had realized. She'd hoped he wouldn't have. She didn't know how to broach the subject of not telling Dom.
"What, you think it took some super human amount of control to resist what..." Vince trailed off, realizing he might have been about to say too much.
Torrie's chin came up another fraction. So Vince was now out to try and make her act out, or was he just trying to hurt her? Besides that, did he think she didn't know how close he'd come to doing what she'd been almost asking for him to do? She'd known he was almost to the point of starting what she'd been asking him to with her. But she also knew that reminding him of that while he was already really upset was not the best idea. She decided to swallow the hurt and anger and be the one to take the high road this time.
"No. I'm sure it didn't take much effort at all. As such, since it was such a small thing and a mistake on my part I'm sure there will not be a reason for it to go any further then between the four of us." Torrie said in a tone of icy control. Her tone softened as she continued to hold Vince's gaze. "I'm very thankful you took care of me and stopped me from accomplishing the very foolish thing I set out to accomplish as well. Thanks again for that."
"Torrie, do you even know what you almost did?" Mia shrieked.
"I believe I've admitted to most of it and said I did understand how wrong it was." Torrie moved her point of focus from Vince's cold blue eyes to Mia's hot brown gaze. Torrie was almost literally biting her tongue not to yell and scream and flip out. She knew that she basically had it all coming for how she'd acted in the previous 24 hours. That didn't mean she had to like it.
"You should admit it. You ran away from it all day and had a great time while we were all dealing with what you did plus worrying about where in the hell you went." Mia was more mad then anyone had seen her in some time.
"I had a horrible day as I already said. I spent most of it admitting to what I'd done to my father who told me he was disappointed in me over it. Do you know how that feels? To someone who was Daddy's angel growing up and then thought her father was dead. To tell him what you did and have him tell you he was disappointed in you when you just got him back when you thought you'd never see him again? Well let me tell you, it feels like shit. But I did it. And if you think that was a great day you need to give it a try some time." Torrie stared Mia in the eye.
"But you went out shopping afterward." Mia continued in a more normal tone of voice.
"Yes I did. Because I'd already agreed to meet Letty for dinner at a place I could not go to in my sweat pants and tank top. I didn't want to come home before I'd had my chance to speak to Letty so I bought something to wear to dinner."
"Why'd you think you should get to go out to a nice meal before you came home anyway? Why'd you think it was ok to make us all wait to know you were ok and to sort all this stuff out?" Mia wasn't ready to give up her opinion that Torrie shouldn't have taken off and since she did she should have come right home.
"You know Dom said something to me on the phone just now and I didn't think he was even close but the more I think about it the more I realize he's right. When I get stressed out I worry more about the other people involved and how to solve the issues then I worry about myself. No matter what I did I need to take care of myself. And that means, among other things, remembering to eat so I don't start passing out again."
"I don't know where you all are taking this, but is there anything else you want to grill the poor girl on before you let her go sit down." Letty interjected.
"You want me to start on you?" Vince asked angrily as he turned to look at Letty.
"You got nothing to start in at me over Vince so bring it on." Letty was giving out enough hot anger and attitude for both of them, Torrie thought.
"How bout lying to me about Torrie? You said you hadn't seen her and she'd really just taken off in your car."
"I asked her to do that because I wasn't ready to speak to you. She was only doing what I asked her to do. But for the record she and I had already decided that the 8 needed the oil changed and I knew I wouldn't want to do it. She agreed to do it today and I was only meeting her for our appointment." Torrie broke in before Letty could answer. Letty shot her a thankful look.
"You expect me to buy that?" Vince snarled at Torrie.
"V, I've said I was sorry for what I did to you and explained I know how I reacted to Chris was out of line. As to what I did today, that didn't really effect anyone that much. All my taking off did today was postpone this fight till I was in a more receptive frame of mind and not feeling like death warmed over. I've explained it and I'm not going to take any more grief over it. In short I don't much care if you buy it or not. I have no call to lie about that. Why would I bother?"
"Just to save Letty from catching hell." Vince growled back.
"You can give as much hell to Lett as you want because I know she can give it back to you as good if not better then you give it out. Letty's a big girl, she can take care of herself. But she's a good friend too so I'm not going to let her take the blame for something I asked her to do."
"Why don't you just go to your room and I'll be up to talk to you alone in a few minutes then?" Vince asked snidely.
"Oh hell no!" Torrie lost it for a second but recovered her cool quickly. "Vince you can be as mad at me as you want but you sure as hell better not try to send me to my room like a child. Last time I checked this was Dom and Mia's house and I was living here with Dom. You are not my father and even my dad wouldn't dare talk to me like that. If you wish to speak to me alone you will ask me to speak to you alone, not try to send me to my room to await your presence. You treated me like a child all last night and it will not carry over into today or any other day."
"Look, while Dom's not around I'm just filling his role." Vince continued to reply in his growling tone. "I want this all settled and I'm going to get to the bottom of it. Just like Dom would."
"You are not the leader of this team Vince. It's a role you've said you have no desire for and you can't just walk into it when it feels good to you. Either you are the leader or you aren't. And you aren't. I don't take orders like go to your room from anyone, unless it's Dom and he has a...good...reason for telling me to meet him there."
"She's right Vince. You aren't Dom and this isn't your team. It's his." Letty sidled closer to Torrie as she made her announcement.
"Well, she sure as hell isn't running the place. She's been falling to pieces since she got back." Vince yelled.
"My god, would you say she didn't have a good reason to fall apart for a while?" Letty asked sarcastically. "It's not like I didn't under the same conditions so you'd think you'd be use to seeing it and knowing why it was going on."
"Letty has a point Vince. It's not like you could expect Torrie to run around making decisions while she still thought Dom might have cheated on her." Mia was quite a bit calmer then she had been. She was happy that Torrie had admitted to her mistakes and apologized.
"It doesn't change the fact that we need to talk alone." Vince snarled in Torrie's general direction.
Torrie'd had enough. She'd said she was sorry a few dozen odd times it felt like and she was done. She decided that since she'd tried to make amends and tried to explain and said she was very sorry for everything that she'd done her duty and no matter how Vince and Mia felt about that, she was done. She'd done something childish and mean and she'd said she was sorry. Nothing she'd done gave them permission to yell at her ceaselessly for hours.
"Yeah, well, I'm about to tell you what Dom told me to tell you and I didn't think I would. I wanted this settled but it's clear you didn't. You started in on me spoiling to fight Vince and I just don't want to fight with you right now. Since you don't want to talk it out you want to roar and scream, lay off till Dominic comes home and he'll take care of the problems in his own way on his own team. And you and he will have a chat about who's actually on this team. And if you have an issue with that you can call him in his room."
"He said that to you?" Vince was livid. "He told you to tell me to lay off and let him deal with this all when he gets back?"
"Yes, and I told him I wanted to deal with what had happened right away instead of waiting for him to come and deal with it for me. I also explained to him that it wasn't like there was a blameless side in the whole situation and that I thought we should work things out right away. But when you just act like you want me to fight you and yell and cry over the whole thing I think I'm out of patience for it all. So if you have something you want to discuss we'll discuss it but I'm not going to mindlessly fight you about the whole situation ten times."
"Dom told you to tell him to lay off?" Letty asked in shock.
"Yeah. Granted I know he's trying to be my knight in shining armour so that I'll forgive him for what he did, even though I told him I understood he didn't do what I thought. But he did in fact tell me to say lay off and let it go till Dom comes home to deal with it."
"So you told Dom what happened then?" Vince asked, trying to imitate Letty with one eyebrow raised in his imitation of Letty's 'what?' face. "You told him everything?"
"I told him that I had been really upset, went to sneak out of the house to go clubbing with Lex, you caught me and insisted on coming and while you were getting ready Chris shot her mouth off, I responded in kind and we had a big fight, I hit another person for the first time in my life and ran away, you came with me and that I didn't want to talk to anyone today so I took off without telling any of you."
"Is that all you told him?"
"Yes it is all I told him. It's all that happened." Torrie emphasized all and stared at Vince with a mutinous look.
Vince went to open his mouth to reply to her statement.
"Let it go Vince. She's said she's sorry and that she knows what she did was totally out of line. What more do you want out of her?"
"Letty!" Vince growled. "You are butting into things that are none of your business."
"Your girl made it my business when she decided to lump me into the group of sluts who live in the house in her fight with Torrie. If you think Torrie reacted badly to being called a slut you don't wanna see how I'll react if I ever hear this girl said anything like that again. I don't know her, we don't have issues. Or at least we didn't till she shot her big ass mouth off last night. She dragged me into this fight with no cause. She better be glad she fought with Torrie and not me. If I'd been home to hear her say that stuff I'd have flipped out too and she'd have gotten worse then a slap across her loud ass mouth."
"I don't know just what was said in this fight ok, just what Torrie filled me in on. I didn't know you were involved." Vince sighed, running a hand through his hair.
"Yeah, she said Letty and I dress like whores." Torrie said in a very weary tone of voice.
"I don't know why she isn't here apologizing for what she said to Torrie. You sure made Torrie apologize for everything she said three or four times over. Why isn't Chris expected to own up to what she did?" Letty asked on a snarl.
"Because she's had a hard time lately and it doesn't seem fair to give her a hard time here." Mia answered.
"Oh, but it's fine for you to harass Torrie about what she did and Chris gets away with it because she had a hard time before she came to live here. Sound like a story anyone else heard before? Because it seems to me that I heard something similar a while ago about this other girl that lives here. Seems her mom died, then her dad, then she lost her car in a race, then she was almost assaulted by some asshole, found out her dad wasn't dead, had her boyfriend move to a new state for month, and throw in several fights with her boyfriend in between. But I guess now that we have a new person who had a hard time all the stuff that happened to the first girl doesn't count anymore. Is there some time frame that each event, each kind of hard time, gets you in time to act however you want till one day people just expect you to put it all behind you and wake up as Mary Sunshine? At least Torrie tried to be Miss Nice Girl till we all finally made her snap a few times. Chris has only lived here for like three weeks and she's already alienated Torrie and called me names. That's like some kinda record."
"You have a point. But we need to be careful how we approach it with Chris. I will mention it to her that she may want to think about offering you both an apology." Mia said, thinking what Letty had said was only the truth and only fair.
"But you don't have to be careful how you approach it with Torrie? You can just yell and scream at her even after she owes up to her responsibility on her own and says she's sorry and knows what she did was wrong."
Letty was actually getting angrier and Torrie hadn't thought it would have been possible. She didn't want anyone to fight about it anymore and in truth she was getting a headache.
"Listen, thank you for taking my side here Letty. I was in the wrong and like you said I do admit it. I'm sorry for everything I did that I should be sorry for. That said, I don't want you guys to fight over it anymore and if you do I can't watch it. I'm sorry but I have a terrible headache and I'm going to go lie down."
With that Torrie headed for the stairs and started slowly up them. She didn't feel good and she hoped she wasn't going to be sick again. She didn't know how she'd get by with everyone mad at her and no Dom to take care of her.
"Hello?" She asked. She knew somehow instinctively it was Dom. Letty looked at her curiously. "Dom." She mouthed even before the person on the other end had said anything to her.
"Torrie? You ok?" Dom's deep voice asked.
"I'm ok. How are you?"
"Worried. You took off without telling anyone where you went. I've been calling all day long."
"I did take off. I had to get away and I didn't want to talk to anyone so I took off. I am an adult. I can take off on my own every once in awhile."
"Why didn't you want to talk to anyone? You could have told Vince where you were going to go."
"Dom." Torrie sighed. "The whole point was I didn't want to talk to anyone. That especially meant Vince. I wanted to be alone."
"Why'd you take my car?"
"Cause they had me blocked in and part of not talking to them was not asking them to move their cars so I could take off. You weren't blocked in."
"Fair enough. Listen Torrie..." Dom started.
"Dom..." Torrie started to speak at the same time, than paused.
Dom continued on.
"I'm sorry. I just want you to know that."
"Oh Dom. I'm sorry too. I should have waited for you to tell me what was going on."
"And I should have made sure that you didn't find that. I know it must have hurt you to think what you must have."
"It did. But it must have hurt you when I didn't trust you enough to hear the story before I just jumped to conclusions."
"It did. But I can't really blame you."
"Maybe, maybe not but I still should have given you a chance to explain."
"And I should have told you about Karen right when she did that so you'd have been prepared at least."
"I guess we both messed up. Dom, I don't want to go into it in too much more depth over the phone ok?"
"Yeah, that's fine. We'll talk when I get back."
"Ok. That's soon anyway." Torrie sighed dejectedly.
"Sure it is. I love you Princess. I'd never do anything to hurt you on purpose."
"I know that now Dom. I love you too. Dom...I..."
"What baby?" Dom sounded worried at the sad tone in Torrie's voice all of a sudden.
"Nothing. Just..." She shook her head. She didn't want to go into it on the phone, she reminded herself. "I miss you." Torrie elaborated and fought tears. She was still upset about the whole Dom issue but it took second place to the fight she was about to have with Vince.
"You sure you don't want to tell me about this fight you had with Chris?" Dom seemed to sense the issue revolved around Chris and Vince.
"It was pretty horrible. Vince is going to want to fight it out and I don't know if I want to go into it twice." Torrie said.
"Yeah? Vince wouldn't tell me anything other then the two of you had a fight."
"Well, she called me a slut, told me I'm too pale and too skinny and a bitch and that was all the reason why you went away." Torrie sniffled.
"Baby, we been over this. We decided it was ok for me to do this for one month remember? I didn't want to leave you. Remember that? You didn't do anything that made me want to leave. I didn't want go remember?" Dom softly tried to reassure Torrie over the phone. "And as for you being any of the things she called you, you do tend to be too skinny but we all know that's because you don't take care of yourself when you get stressed baby girl. It's like you punish yourself for whatever is happening by not taking care of yourself."
"I don't think it has anything to do with that Dom. I just get preoccupied with worrying. I'm a bit of a worrier. And I know we discussed why you went away but it was just after I'd gotten home and it really made me think she was more like implying it was why things happened the way they did."
"Well, no need to worry about this baby. If this girl really said all that stuff to you then as soon as I get back V and I will be having a chat about how well she really fits into the house."
"Dominic?" Torrie asked in a soft, slightly worried voice. She didn't want Dom to tell Vince Chris had to go. It would just cause more problems between her and Vince. Plus she didn't know if it was really fair when both of them had acted badly. But she did want Dom to stand up for her in some capacity.
"What Tor?"
"I kinda had some stuff to say to Chris about what she said to me. I wasn't exactly nice to her either."
"I wouldn't expect you to be sweetheart. She called you all those names plus teased you on a point as sore as what happened between us. I think it was ok for you to be mad at her."
"Maybe, but I told her a lot of mean things and then I sort of slapped her before I ran out of the house." Torrie found it easier to talk to Dom about the situation because he was totally in her corner. Maybe that was because he was scared she was mad at him but he was still going to take her side and she needed that sort of reaction right now.
"You? You hit her?"
"Yeah. I'm so upset about it. I don't know what to do about it. You know, I'm not totally sorry about it but I was out of line too you know?"
"Well, just chock it up to a bad day and move on Princess." Dom's tone reflected the fact that he didn't really feel that way about what he'd been told, but he didn't want Torrie to worry. He really was floored that his Torrie had slapped someone. He couldn't imagine it.
"That ain't gonna happen. I mean, Vince is pissed at me about it too. Not to mention I'm upset with myself and when I went to talk to daddy about it today he said he was disappointed in me over it. I don't think I can just call this a bad day. And Mia's gonna be upset with me over it, not to mention when I was talking to Letty and Vince came looking for me and I hid and Leon told Vince where I was and I had to run away."
"Aw Tor. It wasn't the right thing to do ok? I know it first hand. It's never the right way to handle anger. It's not nice and you know now how bad you feel after you do it. But I also know sometimes you just follow your gut reaction and don't know till after it happens it was wrong, or you just don't think because of how upset you are, and then when you calm down and you do think about it you realize how bad you acted. You seem like you do know you were wrong, so that's something. Tell Vince I said to lay off till I get back. By then everyone will have calmed down some. And maybe V and I'll need to have a little chat about who's a team member and what that means."
"I guess I could do that Dom. I just figure maybe it should all be settled too so that we can all put it behind us too. I was out of line. I know that. But she wasn't exactly acting like an adult either. I just almost think if I tell Vince that you said to tell him to lay off and that you'll deal with the whole issue he's gonna think it's a big cop out on my part. I think I'd rather talk to him about it now but I just don't want to do it. I know I should but I don't want to."
"I'm proud of you for that Princess. It'll all work out, and if things get out of hand just call me back and then I'll talk to Vince ok?"
"Ok. I can't wait till you come back Dom. I don't know how I'm gonna make it."
"You'll do ok. You've got Letty and it won't be long till I get to come back. But if you really want me to I'll find a way to come home early."
"You can't do that. You're right. I'll be ok and if things get really bad I'll go stay with Daddy for a while."
"See, you'll be fine."
"I sure hope so. Take care Dom."
"Ok. I'll call you tomorrow ok?"
"Sure Dom. Talk to you then. I do love you baby."
"I love you too Torrie. Keep that chin up." Dom hung up from his end.
Torrie hung up and turned around, fighting her tears and winning. For the moment at least. She turned around to see Letty standing beside her with a mutinous look on her face and Vince and Mia staring them down.
"So I guess you spoke to Dom then?" Vince asked.
Thank you captain obvious, Torrie thought but knew better then to say it out loud. She just nodded. However she wasn't going to just let it go that he listened in on her conversation either. Letty she didn't care about but Vince...Letty beat her to the smart mouth comment.
"Well duh Vince. Who'd it sound like she was talking to?"
"Don't even start with me Letty. You're not in my good books right now."
"Oh, I'm shaking in my boots." Letty snipped back. "What you gonna do about it V?"
"Guys! There has been enough of this around here lately with out you two starting." Torrie interjected. "Yes I was talking to Dominic. What did you do, stand there and listen to the whole thing? It was none of your business."
"I didn't listen in. Mia and I only got here for take care and talk to you later. So, where'd you get to today Torrie?" Vince asked, barely holding his anger in check.
"Here and there." Torrie answered.
"Where'd you go?" Vince growled, not happy with the answer he'd gotten.
"Why does it matter? I went to the garage then my father's store."
"Why did he tell me he hadn't seen you?"
"Because when you were there he hadn't seen me."
"Well, that didn't take you till now. Where'd you go after there?"
"Letty and I had dinner out." Torrie answered, getting a bit defensive at all the seemingly irrelevant questions.
"And went shopping by the look of it." Mia interjected snappishly.
"Yes, I went out and bought a new outfit. Letty didn't go with me." Torrie answered.
"I'm glad you had such a nice day driving around in Letty's car, talking to your dad, shopping and eating dinner out while we dealt with your mess and worried about where you were all day." Mia was clearly very mad.
"I had a horrible day, thanks for asking." Torrie snapped back and Letty shot her a look that managed to say both 'you go girl' and 'keep your cool'.
"Torrie, what got into you yesterday?" Vince asked, starting to loose his patience for watching Torrie and Letty defend themselves against him and Mia.
"What would you think Vince? I had a perfectly horrible afternoon running away from the love of my life, who I though was cheating on me. Then I make a plan to go blow off some steam and you decide to intrude on it. Then that girl shoots her mouth off at me. It was all pretty crappy as a matter of fact." Torrie started off snapping but finished on a sigh.
She knew being crabby with Vince wasn't going to help them work things out. But when he was acting like he was doing his level best to put her on her defensive it was hard for her to remember that.
"But you went too far!" Vince raised his voice.
"Yes I did." Torrie admitted honestly, looking Vince directly in the eye. "You're right. I reacted too strongly and said some things I regret."
Vince looked shocked to have heard Torrie admit that.
"However, I do not think that Chris had any right to say what she said either. So while I do understand that I had no right to hit her she also had no right to say things like she said to me. I am not a slut, nor am I ugly and I resent her saying those sort of things to me as if it were true. And she pasted a snap judgement on me the second she met me. It's not up to me to change that, but don't expect me to be all sweetness and light to her while she continues to act like I did something to her before when I hadn't."
Torrie delivered her speech in an honest and calm tone. She didn't want Vince to take her statement as an invitation to argue with her, or for him to think she was trying to get out of what she had done.
"I understand that Torrie but it's not the only thing you did last night that was out of line." Vince replied, trying to keep his calm and almost failing. He was mad about what she'd done and mad that she wasn't shouting at him or crying. She was acting so damn adult and Vince didn't like it one bit. He wanted to yell and swear at her but if he did so when she was acting all mature he was the one who'd look like a moron.
Her chin came up.
"No it's not. And for that I am sorry. It was an act born out of desperation and the very bad 24 hours that had lead up to it combined with far more liquor then I had any business drinking."
She wasn't going to fall onto her knees to beg forgiveness but she knew what she'd tried to do to Vince deserved a real explanation. It hadn't been fair. He hadn't done anything to her do deserve to be treated how she'd tried to treat him. He'd tried to keep her safe and watch over her and she'd repaid him with insults and childish behaviour.
"I just thought we were better friends then that Tor." Vince said, still ranting as he almost lost it.
"We are. I really am sorry and I know it was stupid. Thank you for taking the high road in the whole situation. I appreciate it more then you'll ever know."
Torrie was upset Vince had realized. She'd hoped he wouldn't have. She didn't know how to broach the subject of not telling Dom.
"What, you think it took some super human amount of control to resist what..." Vince trailed off, realizing he might have been about to say too much.
Torrie's chin came up another fraction. So Vince was now out to try and make her act out, or was he just trying to hurt her? Besides that, did he think she didn't know how close he'd come to doing what she'd been almost asking for him to do? She'd known he was almost to the point of starting what she'd been asking him to with her. But she also knew that reminding him of that while he was already really upset was not the best idea. She decided to swallow the hurt and anger and be the one to take the high road this time.
"No. I'm sure it didn't take much effort at all. As such, since it was such a small thing and a mistake on my part I'm sure there will not be a reason for it to go any further then between the four of us." Torrie said in a tone of icy control. Her tone softened as she continued to hold Vince's gaze. "I'm very thankful you took care of me and stopped me from accomplishing the very foolish thing I set out to accomplish as well. Thanks again for that."
"Torrie, do you even know what you almost did?" Mia shrieked.
"I believe I've admitted to most of it and said I did understand how wrong it was." Torrie moved her point of focus from Vince's cold blue eyes to Mia's hot brown gaze. Torrie was almost literally biting her tongue not to yell and scream and flip out. She knew that she basically had it all coming for how she'd acted in the previous 24 hours. That didn't mean she had to like it.
"You should admit it. You ran away from it all day and had a great time while we were all dealing with what you did plus worrying about where in the hell you went." Mia was more mad then anyone had seen her in some time.
"I had a horrible day as I already said. I spent most of it admitting to what I'd done to my father who told me he was disappointed in me over it. Do you know how that feels? To someone who was Daddy's angel growing up and then thought her father was dead. To tell him what you did and have him tell you he was disappointed in you when you just got him back when you thought you'd never see him again? Well let me tell you, it feels like shit. But I did it. And if you think that was a great day you need to give it a try some time." Torrie stared Mia in the eye.
"But you went out shopping afterward." Mia continued in a more normal tone of voice.
"Yes I did. Because I'd already agreed to meet Letty for dinner at a place I could not go to in my sweat pants and tank top. I didn't want to come home before I'd had my chance to speak to Letty so I bought something to wear to dinner."
"Why'd you think you should get to go out to a nice meal before you came home anyway? Why'd you think it was ok to make us all wait to know you were ok and to sort all this stuff out?" Mia wasn't ready to give up her opinion that Torrie shouldn't have taken off and since she did she should have come right home.
"You know Dom said something to me on the phone just now and I didn't think he was even close but the more I think about it the more I realize he's right. When I get stressed out I worry more about the other people involved and how to solve the issues then I worry about myself. No matter what I did I need to take care of myself. And that means, among other things, remembering to eat so I don't start passing out again."
"I don't know where you all are taking this, but is there anything else you want to grill the poor girl on before you let her go sit down." Letty interjected.
"You want me to start on you?" Vince asked angrily as he turned to look at Letty.
"You got nothing to start in at me over Vince so bring it on." Letty was giving out enough hot anger and attitude for both of them, Torrie thought.
"How bout lying to me about Torrie? You said you hadn't seen her and she'd really just taken off in your car."
"I asked her to do that because I wasn't ready to speak to you. She was only doing what I asked her to do. But for the record she and I had already decided that the 8 needed the oil changed and I knew I wouldn't want to do it. She agreed to do it today and I was only meeting her for our appointment." Torrie broke in before Letty could answer. Letty shot her a thankful look.
"You expect me to buy that?" Vince snarled at Torrie.
"V, I've said I was sorry for what I did to you and explained I know how I reacted to Chris was out of line. As to what I did today, that didn't really effect anyone that much. All my taking off did today was postpone this fight till I was in a more receptive frame of mind and not feeling like death warmed over. I've explained it and I'm not going to take any more grief over it. In short I don't much care if you buy it or not. I have no call to lie about that. Why would I bother?"
"Just to save Letty from catching hell." Vince growled back.
"You can give as much hell to Lett as you want because I know she can give it back to you as good if not better then you give it out. Letty's a big girl, she can take care of herself. But she's a good friend too so I'm not going to let her take the blame for something I asked her to do."
"Why don't you just go to your room and I'll be up to talk to you alone in a few minutes then?" Vince asked snidely.
"Oh hell no!" Torrie lost it for a second but recovered her cool quickly. "Vince you can be as mad at me as you want but you sure as hell better not try to send me to my room like a child. Last time I checked this was Dom and Mia's house and I was living here with Dom. You are not my father and even my dad wouldn't dare talk to me like that. If you wish to speak to me alone you will ask me to speak to you alone, not try to send me to my room to await your presence. You treated me like a child all last night and it will not carry over into today or any other day."
"Look, while Dom's not around I'm just filling his role." Vince continued to reply in his growling tone. "I want this all settled and I'm going to get to the bottom of it. Just like Dom would."
"You are not the leader of this team Vince. It's a role you've said you have no desire for and you can't just walk into it when it feels good to you. Either you are the leader or you aren't. And you aren't. I don't take orders like go to your room from anyone, unless it's Dom and he has a...good...reason for telling me to meet him there."
"She's right Vince. You aren't Dom and this isn't your team. It's his." Letty sidled closer to Torrie as she made her announcement.
"Well, she sure as hell isn't running the place. She's been falling to pieces since she got back." Vince yelled.
"My god, would you say she didn't have a good reason to fall apart for a while?" Letty asked sarcastically. "It's not like I didn't under the same conditions so you'd think you'd be use to seeing it and knowing why it was going on."
"Letty has a point Vince. It's not like you could expect Torrie to run around making decisions while she still thought Dom might have cheated on her." Mia was quite a bit calmer then she had been. She was happy that Torrie had admitted to her mistakes and apologized.
"It doesn't change the fact that we need to talk alone." Vince snarled in Torrie's general direction.
Torrie'd had enough. She'd said she was sorry a few dozen odd times it felt like and she was done. She decided that since she'd tried to make amends and tried to explain and said she was very sorry for everything that she'd done her duty and no matter how Vince and Mia felt about that, she was done. She'd done something childish and mean and she'd said she was sorry. Nothing she'd done gave them permission to yell at her ceaselessly for hours.
"Yeah, well, I'm about to tell you what Dom told me to tell you and I didn't think I would. I wanted this settled but it's clear you didn't. You started in on me spoiling to fight Vince and I just don't want to fight with you right now. Since you don't want to talk it out you want to roar and scream, lay off till Dominic comes home and he'll take care of the problems in his own way on his own team. And you and he will have a chat about who's actually on this team. And if you have an issue with that you can call him in his room."
"He said that to you?" Vince was livid. "He told you to tell me to lay off and let him deal with this all when he gets back?"
"Yes, and I told him I wanted to deal with what had happened right away instead of waiting for him to come and deal with it for me. I also explained to him that it wasn't like there was a blameless side in the whole situation and that I thought we should work things out right away. But when you just act like you want me to fight you and yell and cry over the whole thing I think I'm out of patience for it all. So if you have something you want to discuss we'll discuss it but I'm not going to mindlessly fight you about the whole situation ten times."
"Dom told you to tell him to lay off?" Letty asked in shock.
"Yeah. Granted I know he's trying to be my knight in shining armour so that I'll forgive him for what he did, even though I told him I understood he didn't do what I thought. But he did in fact tell me to say lay off and let it go till Dom comes home to deal with it."
"So you told Dom what happened then?" Vince asked, trying to imitate Letty with one eyebrow raised in his imitation of Letty's 'what?' face. "You told him everything?"
"I told him that I had been really upset, went to sneak out of the house to go clubbing with Lex, you caught me and insisted on coming and while you were getting ready Chris shot her mouth off, I responded in kind and we had a big fight, I hit another person for the first time in my life and ran away, you came with me and that I didn't want to talk to anyone today so I took off without telling any of you."
"Is that all you told him?"
"Yes it is all I told him. It's all that happened." Torrie emphasized all and stared at Vince with a mutinous look.
Vince went to open his mouth to reply to her statement.
"Let it go Vince. She's said she's sorry and that she knows what she did was totally out of line. What more do you want out of her?"
"Letty!" Vince growled. "You are butting into things that are none of your business."
"Your girl made it my business when she decided to lump me into the group of sluts who live in the house in her fight with Torrie. If you think Torrie reacted badly to being called a slut you don't wanna see how I'll react if I ever hear this girl said anything like that again. I don't know her, we don't have issues. Or at least we didn't till she shot her big ass mouth off last night. She dragged me into this fight with no cause. She better be glad she fought with Torrie and not me. If I'd been home to hear her say that stuff I'd have flipped out too and she'd have gotten worse then a slap across her loud ass mouth."
"I don't know just what was said in this fight ok, just what Torrie filled me in on. I didn't know you were involved." Vince sighed, running a hand through his hair.
"Yeah, she said Letty and I dress like whores." Torrie said in a very weary tone of voice.
"I don't know why she isn't here apologizing for what she said to Torrie. You sure made Torrie apologize for everything she said three or four times over. Why isn't Chris expected to own up to what she did?" Letty asked on a snarl.
"Because she's had a hard time lately and it doesn't seem fair to give her a hard time here." Mia answered.
"Oh, but it's fine for you to harass Torrie about what she did and Chris gets away with it because she had a hard time before she came to live here. Sound like a story anyone else heard before? Because it seems to me that I heard something similar a while ago about this other girl that lives here. Seems her mom died, then her dad, then she lost her car in a race, then she was almost assaulted by some asshole, found out her dad wasn't dead, had her boyfriend move to a new state for month, and throw in several fights with her boyfriend in between. But I guess now that we have a new person who had a hard time all the stuff that happened to the first girl doesn't count anymore. Is there some time frame that each event, each kind of hard time, gets you in time to act however you want till one day people just expect you to put it all behind you and wake up as Mary Sunshine? At least Torrie tried to be Miss Nice Girl till we all finally made her snap a few times. Chris has only lived here for like three weeks and she's already alienated Torrie and called me names. That's like some kinda record."
"You have a point. But we need to be careful how we approach it with Chris. I will mention it to her that she may want to think about offering you both an apology." Mia said, thinking what Letty had said was only the truth and only fair.
"But you don't have to be careful how you approach it with Torrie? You can just yell and scream at her even after she owes up to her responsibility on her own and says she's sorry and knows what she did was wrong."
Letty was actually getting angrier and Torrie hadn't thought it would have been possible. She didn't want anyone to fight about it anymore and in truth she was getting a headache.
"Listen, thank you for taking my side here Letty. I was in the wrong and like you said I do admit it. I'm sorry for everything I did that I should be sorry for. That said, I don't want you guys to fight over it anymore and if you do I can't watch it. I'm sorry but I have a terrible headache and I'm going to go lie down."
With that Torrie headed for the stairs and started slowly up them. She didn't feel good and she hoped she wasn't going to be sick again. She didn't know how she'd get by with everyone mad at her and no Dom to take care of her.