A/N: Happy New Year everybody! I hope that you guys had a good and memorable holiday season! So, here's the next installment of the story and it's the longest to date so this is my holiday present to all you readers out there :) I know that this is very overdue but I'm really glad that you're enjoying the story as much as I enjoy writing it! So, without further ado… onwards! Happy reading and don't forget to leave a comment!
Chapter 8 – Harder to Breathe
The morning sun poured in through the windows of Johnny's bedroom and he stretched his arms over his head as his eyes fluttered open. The sound of something being shuffled around roused him from his sleep and he turned over only to notice an empty space next to him in his bed. He sat up quickly and saw her stepping into the dress that she had worn the night before.
"Going somewhere?" he asked.
His voice must've startled her because she jumped slightly upon hearing his voice. She zipped up her dress and ran her fingers through her hair, all the while never looking him straight in the eye. He slid out of bed, quickly slipping back into his boxer shorts and put his hands on her shoulders as he pressed his lips to the top of her head. She quickly shrugged his hands off her and folded her arms across her chest.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I—I can't…" she whispered.
"You can't what?" he asked, chuckling slightly.
She turned around to face him and she wasn't smiling. Her eyes were red, like she had been crying for the majority of the morning, and he could feel his own smile fading. She couldn't do this to him, not after what happened the night before. He had finally gotten her back and everything that they had meant to each other back. She couldn't do this to him now.
"Johnny…" she started and he pressed his fingertips to his temple and sighed heavily, his exasperation reaching an all-time high.
"You can't be serious…" he muttered.
"I have to go…" she said.
She attempted to move to the door but he caught her arm in his hand to stop her. He could hear her breath catch in her throat at his touch and he turned around to face her. She wriggled her arm from his grip and immediately began nervously twisting her engagement around her finger. The sight of that atrociously gaudy ring on her finger made him nauseous. After spending last night making love to her and laying claim to every inch of her lovely body, that ring seemed to jolt him back into the unpleasant reality that she was still intended for someone else.
"To where? To Dillon? You're not still going to marry the guy, are you?" he asked.
"Y—Yes! I'm still going to marry him, Johnny!" she cried.
"How? How could you still want to marry him after last night?" he yelled.
"Because I love him! Because Dillon is good to me and I'm not going to throw it all away because of you!" she shrieked, accusingly point a finger at him.
"So, let me get this straight… you make love to me last night, spend the night here, and then you go back to your fiancé in the morning? What kind of sense does that make?" he asked.
"I don't know! Last night was—"she started.
"Last night was what?" he asked, drawing closer to her.
"A mistake! It was a huge mistake, Johnny… I'm still engaged to Dillon and he—he loves me…" she said.
She attempted to turn away from him but he caught her arm in his and kept her from doing so. After baring his soul and recapturing what they had, he wasn't going to go down without a fight. If she was going to do this to him, she was going to look him in the eye and tell him that she didn't want him. It would be the only way that he would ever believe her.
"Dillon loves you? Lulu, I love you! I am so in love with you… don't you see that? Don't you know how long I've waited and hoped and prayed to have you back?" he cried.
"Nothing's change between us…" she said softly, as if she was unsure of her own words, and he scoffed at her utterance.
"Nothing's changed? Lulu, everything's changed… you know how I feel about you and I know how you feel about me…" he said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, tearing her arm from his grasp.
"You love me… I know you do…" he whispered as he cupped her face in his hands.
Her eyes were closed and her bottom lip was trembling, silently begging him to kiss her. Her traitorous body was crying for him even though she spoke contrary to it. He knew that she wanted him and loved him. All she had to do was just say the words.
"I—I don't love you…" she stammered.
"Then how do you explain last night?" he asked, running his fingers over her lips.
"Closure…" she exhaled shakily.
"Closure? Really? That's the best you can do?" he asked.
He bent down to kiss her but she turned her head at the last minute and walked away from him. Those walls that he thought that he had torn down as he made love to her last night were going up mighty fast and he was finding himself on the other side. His eyes fell to her hands and he watched them tremble at her sides, clearly affected by his overtures in some sort of way despite her best efforts to shove him away.
"Look… if I said that last night wasn't amazing, I'd be lying but no matter how good you made me feel last night, this can't go any further…" she explained, folding her arms across her chest.
"You are such a horrible liar…" he said, shaking his head.
"Why would I lie?" Lulu asked.
"Because you're scared… and you have every right to be… I hurt you in the worst possible way and you don't trust me enough with your heart again right now… but I promise you that I will never hurt you again." Johnny said.
"You don't get to tell me what I feel and what I don't! You have no idea what I feel for you or for my fiancé!" she cried.
But he did know. After the night before and rediscovering the physical and emotional connection that they both thought was gone, there was no way that she didn't love him. The way that she had whimpered his name over and over again as he made love to her was one of intense longing, as if she too had waited for those two years for him to come back to her. He neared her, putting his hands on her shoulders and letting them slide up the sides of her neck to cup and tilt her face towards his. Her eyes were closed but she did nothing to stop him. He could feel her soft and nervous breath on his face, feeling the conflict taking hold of her body.
"Tell me something then… when you're with Dillon, do you beg for him like you did for me? Does your body cry for him like it did for me?" he whispered and she let out a soft but painful cry, acknowledging that all that he said was true.
"Why are you doing this to me?" she sobbed.
"To show you something…" he said, pressing his forehead to hers.
"What?" she asked.
"That you don't feel for him in the same way that you feel for me…" he muttered.
As soon as the words rolled off his tongue, he pressed his lips to hers. Her hands clutched his as they held her face as she returned the kiss eagerly. He could feel the tears that were slipping from her eyes on his face as he claimed her with his lips. He felt her hands come to his face and she tore her lips from his, shaking her head.
"I can't… I can't love you, Johnny…" she gasped.
Johnny felt his heart freeze in his chest at her words. He felt her slip out of his arms and retreat towards the door. She shot him one last glance before closing the door behind her and he pressed his forehead against it, hearing her quiet sobs on the other side. He listened as her footsteps grew fainter and fainter as she made her way down the hall and then a few moments later when he heard the front door slam shut, which was when he slammed his own fist against the door.
He was such a fool.
He had hurt her so much that she couldn't come back from it. It was stupid of him to think that he could just say the words and all would be forgiven and healed. He cradled his hand, which was now throbbing with pain from the impact with the hard wooden door, as he made his way back to his bed. The sheets and blankets were still rumpled and warm, reminding him that she had been his not too long ago. He slid underneath the sheets and drew one of the pillows to his chest and he felt his own tears slip from his eyes as he inhaled the scent of her shampoo on her pillow.
Lulu shivered as she walked along the deserted road that connected Port Charles with the Zacchara estate at Crimson Pointe. She continuously wiped her eyes as she trudged along but her eyes just released new tears to replace the ones that she wiped away. The cold metal of her engagement ring pricked her skin and guilt of what she had just done was starting to weigh down on her. It was a strange feeling. She felt bad for betraying Dillon's love and trust. He adored her with all of his heart and she had just committed the largest offense against him but she was more distraught about how she had just left things with Johnny.
She felt guilty for not feeling guiltier about sleeping with Johnny.
Everything that he had said to her was true. Dillon didn't give her that same feeling that Johnny did when he touched her, kissed her or made love to her. She was content with her life with Dillon and with him but she wasn't happy. She swore under her breath as she found herself agreeing with Johnny and went into her purse to find her phone. She would never make it back into town by foot. Suddenly, a taxicab pulled up to her and the driver asked her if he could offer her a ride back into town. She thanked the man and climbed inside the warm car.
"Where am I taking you, ma'am?" the driver asked.
She couldn't go back to the apartment, not looking like this. Dillon would know that something had happened and truthfully, she didn't want to face him. She felt horrible as it was and to have him look at her with disapproving eyes would be too much for her to handle right now. She needed a safe place to go.
"657 Harbor View Road, please…" she told the cab driver.
Carly.
Carly would help her as she always did. Carly would be the voice of unbiased reason that she needed to hear. The cab began to speed towards the collection of buildings that formed downtown Port Charles. The car passed by the MetroCourt hotel and her thoughts went to her own wedding that was to take place in that very same hotel in a few months time. Could she still go through with marrying Dillon while knowing how much she loved Johnny? Could she pledge herself to one man while her heart belonged to another? She had been hurt so many times, the worst of all by Johnny, and she didn't think she had the strength to handle one more broken heart.
"Ma'am… we're here… that'll be twenty-two dollars…" the driver said.
Lulu snapped out of her daze and pulled out her wallet, paying the driver twenty-five dollars as she slid out of the vehicle. Carly was already at the door when she arrived. Carly took one look at her cousin's face and immediately ushered her inside of the house.
"You were right, Carly…" Lulu sighed and Carly smiled slightly as she returned from the kitchen with two steaming cups of tea.
"I always like to hear that…" Carly said triumphantly as she handed her cousin one of the mugs and Lulu immediately set it down on the coffee table in front of them
"I've really screwed up this time…" Lulu groaned, putting her head in her hands.
"What is it?" Carly asked.
"When we went shopping for wedding dresses… you told me that you thought that I was self-sabotaging myself like you had done… remember?" Lulu asked.
"Yeah…" Carly said in a way that was more like a question.
"I think that you may have been right…" Lulu whispered.
The tears in her eyes were heavy behind her eyelids. She couldn't remember the last time she had cried so much. Her mother had always told her that the ones that we love are always the ones who make us cry and she never understood the philosophy behind that message until that exact moment. Dillon had never made her cry like this. He had when she the thought that she was in love with him when she was practically a child but the amount of pain in her heart then was a mere fraction of what it was now.
"Well, I didn't want to be right about that... is it Johnny?" Carly asked and she nodded.
"I was with him last night… and we—we made love…" Lulu admitted, wiping her eyes.
Saying the words aloud proved to be far more difficult for her because even she couldn't wrap her mind around the events of the night before. She winced, bracing herself for one of Carly's lectures but it didn't come. Carly just looked on with pity as she continued to rid her cheeks of her tears. It was almost as if Carly already knew what had happened and what she was feeling.
"And where does that leave Dillon?" Carly asked and Lulu laughed bitterly.
"I don't know! Everything that I thought that I knew is completely gone, Carly…" Lulu cried and Carly grabbed her young cousin's trembling hands.
"Ok… then what do you know? What are you certain of right now?" Carly asked.
"I know that I love Johnny… and I never really stopped…" Lulu exhaled.
Carly squeezed Lulu's hands, knowing how hard it was for her to admit her true feelings. She reached over and ran her fingers gently through Lulu's golden curls, like a mother comforting a child. It was times like this she was grateful that she had someone like Carly in her life when her own parents, for one reason or another, couldn't be there.
"Ok, why don't you start from the beginning?" Carly asked and Lulu took a deep breath.
"I got into with Claudia earlier… she told me that I was being unfair to Johnny…" Lulu started and Carly rolled her eyes upon hearing Claudia's name. There was no love lost between the two women, especially since the truth about Michael's shooting came out.
"Don't listen to her, Lulu… she doesn't know what she's talking about…" Carly growled.
"But she was right! I had been unfair to Johnny… I was sending him mixed messages… kissing him one minute and then telling him that I didn't want him in the next minute… and then we—we almost made love on the night of Nikolas and Claudia's wedding… that's what really set her off, I guess…" Lulu said.
"So, you got into with Claudia… then you went over to Crimson Pointe?" Carly asked.
"Yeah, she told me that I needed to make a choice… Dillon or Johnny…" Lulu sighed.
"So, you went to Johnny's to tell him that you wanted to be with him?" Carly asked.
She had every intention of breaking things off with Johnny when she stepped into that car. She was going to be strong and firm when she told him that she wanted nothing to do with him anymore. Sometimes she thought that she wasn't truly a Spencer because of her lack of backbone. One little thing would just send her spiraling out of control and make her unravel at the seams. She put her head in her hands and sighed heavily.
"No… I went—I went to tell him that we couldn't see each other anymore…" Lulu said softly.
"And I take it that it didn't go as you thought it would…" Carly said, wincing.
"We argued first… and I admit that I just wanted to hurt him to push him away but then he—he told me the real reason why he left…" Lulu sighed.
"Which was?" Carly asked.
"Michael's shooting. He said that he was the one who ordered the hit on Sonny and he felt that if I found out that he was partially responsible that I would never forgive him…" Lulu said.
"Oh, Lulu…" Carly muttered.
"He said that he could live with me hating him for leaving but the thought of me hating him or regretting being married to him for what he had done—" Lulu started before her voice broke like Johnny's had.
Johnny's face as he bared his soul to her came to her mind. The immense sadness that racked his voice and his body made her eyes begin to water. She had never known anyone who loved her that much. The thought of her hating him was too unbearable for him. Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling the sob that was building in her chest, but even Carly could see what was going through her young cousin's mind. Her breath came in short spurts as her unwanted tears began to spill down her face.
"He—He never wanted to leave me… he wanted to stay… he wanted to marry me, Carly! He wanted me!" Lulu sobbed.
Carly put her arms around Lulu, her sobs now more vocal. All this time, she had just thought that he didn't want to be bound to her forever and that was why he fled. She thought that she wasn't enough for him, like she hadn't been enough for most of the people in her life. But now knowing the real truth was now more painful than thinking that he had just abandoned her simply because he didn't want her.
He had wanted her… and still did…
Carly's fingers threaded through Lulu's golden curls, calming her. As Lulu's sobs began to subside, she felt Carly's hands lift her face up gently to meet her, brushing the tears from her face. Her green eyes were gleaming with empathy, almost as she was feeling her cousin's distress.
"And what do you want? Do you want Johnny?" Carly asked.
"I love him, Carly… I do... but I—I can't do this again with him… when he left, it nearly destroyed me… and if he hurts me again, I don't think I'd ever recover…" Lulu said, shaking her head.
"But what do you want?" Carly reiterated, emphasizing the importance of what her cousin wanted.
"I want… I want stability… I want certainty… and I want to not be in love with Johnny because I know that I can't have that with him…" Lulu said.
"Listen to me, Lulu… love isn't always stable or certain… sometimes it's wild, passionate and fleeting but sometimes it's deep and lasting… you don't want to miss out on that just because you're scared… I don't want you to miss out on having something like that in your life…" Carly said.
Lulu felt a smile creep across her lips. She knew that there was a reason that she always kept coming back to Carly for advice, guidance or just for a laugh. Anybody else in Port Charles would've made her feel guilty for betraying Dillon but not Carly. Carly never judged, only listened. She was more concerned about Lulu, rather than her actions, and she loved her older cousin for that. Lulu squeezed Carly's hand tightly and sighed.
"Thank you, Carly… I know that you're worried… but I know what I can handle and what's best for me…" Lulu said.
"Do you?" Carly asked.
The question sent a chill through her heart because she honestly couldn't answer Carly. Everything had changed. A door that she thought had been closed forever was suddenly wide open and Johnny was standing there, arms outreached, begging her to come to him. But at the same time her foot was already in another with her hand being held by Dillon. She could look at Dillon and see exactly where she would be in fifty years. She knew that he would do everything to keep her happy with him and she would be complacently content with their life.
But not happy.
Not in the way that she knew that she could be with Johnny. When she was with him, the entire world fell away and she felt alive. That fire and that passion that Carly spoke of was what she had with Johnny. But passion was a double-edged sword, beautiful and exhilarating but dangerous and destructive at times. She and Johnny had blazed for a time and they had been burnt so badly that neither of them thought that they would ever recover. The scars that still remained were still raw and reminded her of all that Johnny could do if she gave him the chance. She couldn't let him do that to her again, no matter how much she loved him.
"Yes…" Lulu whispered and all Carly could do was just raise an eyebrow at the obvious uncertainty in her voice.
"Another one, please…"
The bartender at the MetroCourt shot Johnny a wary glance but obliged the young man's firm request and replenished his glass of scotch. He immediately downed the glass, wincing as it burned his throat on the way down. He sighed as he slammed the small glass back down on the countertop. His head was swimming, knowing that he was well on his way into inducing a drunken stupor, which was exactly his plan. Perhaps if he drank himself into oblivion, he could forget about the pain that was searing through his heart as he thought of losing Lulu once again.
"Drinking isn't going to solve your problems, you know…"
Johnny gritted his teeth upon recognizing who the smug comment came from. He looked back to see Nikolas standing behind him, arms folded and eyes narrowed. Johnny had about a million explicatives running through his mind that he wanted to hurl at his brother-in-law but he had to keep his cool.
"Leave me alone…" Johnny growled.
"Dillon called and told me that Lulu didn't come home last night… were you with her?" Nikolas asked, taking a seat on a barstool beside Johnny.
Johnny couldn't help but to laugh bitterly at Nikolas' question. The man had some nerve to question him about Lulu's whereabouts even if the answer pained Johnny to his very core. He closed his eyes as images of her wrapped around his body from the night before assaulted his eyes and he signaled to the bartender to pour him another drink. Being this close to the man who cost him his happiness was making his stomach turn. All he wanted to do was shove Nikolas and his smugness off that stupid barstool.
"If Lulu had been with me last night, I wouldn't be here, now would I?" Johnny drawled, trying to cover up his own hurt.
"It's not like her to drop out of sight… unless if she was ashamed to let people know where she was…" Nikolas said.
Johnny's anger was starting to boil in the pit of his stomach but even he knew that Nikolas was right. He knew the woman that he loved well and he could tell that she was afraid, ashamed even, of what she was feeling. The bartender slid Johnny another glass of scotch and he swirled it around in his hand, not even looking up at Nikolas. If he said that he wasn't hurt by the fact that she was ashamed to still have feelings for him, he would be lying but it was his fault. He should've been stronger. He should've fought the man that was sitting beside him for the woman that he loved instead of rolling over in defeat. He barely even put up a fight for the love of his life. His self-loathing was starting to mix with the hatred directed at Nikolas that was coursing through his veins, creating a combustive combination that was on the brink of detonating.
"You should go… before you say something you'll regret." Johnny seethed.
"Or what?" Nikolas countered.
"I'd hate to break that face of yours… not because you don't deserve it but because I know it would upset my sister…" Johnny said.
"You just need to face the facts, Johnny… Lulu doesn't want you… and she never will…" Nikolas hissed.
As soon as the last syllable rolled off Nikolas' tongue, Johnny's hand curled up into a fist and smacked right into Nikolas' jaw. The impact from the punch sent Nikolas backwards off the stool and to the floor and Johnny hopped off his own barstool, letting his fury take control of his fists as they pounded into his brother-in-law. All he could think about was to make Nikolas feel the same pain that Johnny felt. He wanted Nikolas to know what his actions had caused. Nikolas, probably a sign of his pampered upbringing, was unsuccessful at defending himself or landing any blows on Johnny but he was quickly apprehended by hotel security. Two security guards had to pry Johnny off of the Russian aristocrat, who was now rubbing his swollen jaw.
"Are you alright, Mr. Cassadine?" the man who Johnny recognized as being head of security asked.
"Yes… I'm ok…" Nikolas said, straightening out his blazer as he stood up.
"The PCPD will be here momentarily to escort Mr. Zacchara downtown…" the man said, motioning to the security guards to take Johnny outside.
Johnny fought hard against the two men who held his hands behind his back but the kept a firm grip on him as they began to lead him to the door. He didn't care if Nikolas was Lulu's brother or his sister's husband. For too long, he had just wallowed in his own misery, never even lifting a finger to do anything to rectify the wrongs that had been committed to keep him and Lulu apart. He wanted to hurt Nikolas until he realized how much he and Lulu were both hurting because of his interference. Johnny could see the flashing lights of the police cars as they pulled into the valet of the MetroCourt and he tried to stop the guards from shoving him out of the hotel.
"You know that this is your fault, Nikolas! The reason why Lulu is spinning out of control is because of you!" Johnny screamed.
Much to Johnny's surprise, the look on Nikolas' face was not the same one of smug confidence as before but rather one of a worried recognition, as if Nikolas knew the truth of Johnny's words. Nikolas knew that Johnny was right. He knew that if he had just stayed out of the situation, Lulu wouldn't be agonizing over her commitment to Dillon while grappling with her feelings for Johnny. He knew that he was part of the cause of his sister's pain. Johnny felt his body being shoved into the squad car as Nikolas walked outside to watch Johnny be taken down to the PCPD. Johnny could see the fear in his eyes as he shrunk into the distance as the car pulled away from the hotel. Nikolas was standing in the middle of a huge wreckage that he had helped create and because he was the only one standing, he had everything to lose.
Lulu waved goodbye to Carly as she pulled away from the front of her apartment building. As she inhaled the cool and fresh morning air, she wished that it could clear her mind but it was still in a fog about what had happened and all that she had discovered the night before. She wished that she could just inhale and then expel her feelings for Johnny as she exhaled but life was never that easy. The climb up the three flights of stairs to the apartment that she shared with Dillon seemed unusually long. Her feet were heavy with the guilt and the pain that was racking her heart as she took each step. She fished her keys out of her purse but before she could even open the door, it swung right open, revealing her fiancé, worry and fear written across his face.
"My god, Lulu… I was so worried…" he whispered.
He pulled her to him roughly and put his arms around her. She could feel his heartbeat running madly through his chest. He wasn't exaggerating. She cleared her throat uncomfortably and he let her go but held her face in his hands.
"Would you like to tell me where the hell you've been?" he asked, his voice hoarse from his obvious fatigue.
"I was at—" she began.
Her voice failed her as she looked at him. She could see that he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before and her stomach churned as she thought of him pacing around their living room, waiting up for her, as she was in bed with Johnny. She was so disgusted with herself and her actions. How could she do that to Dillon, who had only loved her and cared for her? And how could she still desire another man with every fiber of her being when she had someone like Dillon? She swallowed hard, preparing herself to lie to him.
"You were where?" he prodded.
"Carly's…" she exhaled.
"You've been at Carly's since you bailed on me at Wyndamere last night?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes… I just needed some breathing room… Claudia said some things that got me upset…" she said, walking over to their couch.
"Why didn't you come to me? I'm your fiancé, Lulu… you're supposed to come to me when you're upset…" he said.
"I didn't want to see you! Ok? I just needed to clear my head and talking to Carly helps…" she cried.
"You needed to talk to her about Johnny, didn't you?" he asked flatly.
He wasn't oblivious. Things hadn't been the same since Johnny began to reestablish his presence in her life and he noticed it. She just wanted to forget him all together. She didn't want to hear his name or speak it for that matter. She wanted him to just go away so that she wouldn't have to think about how much she wanted to be with him even though she knew that it would never happen.
"Not everything is about Johnny!" she shrieked.
"Lulu, the man left you at the altar… you told me that you cried yourself to sleep for three months and couldn't even say his name after six months… and now he's back in your life… and I know you Lulu… I know how you act when things start to get difficult… you get really defensive like you are now… I need you to be honest with me… do you have feelings for Johnny?" he asked.
He didn't miss a beat. He recalled what she had told him on the night of Claudia and Nikolas' rehearsal dinner. She remembered going to the Zacchara mansion the morning after the wedding to see guards carrying out multiple suitcases, saying that Mr. Zacchara left the country the night before and they had no idea where he was headed. She remembered crying herself to sleep, wondering what she did so wrong to drive him away. She couldn't do that again, no matter how much her heart yearned for him. This vicious cycle had to end.
"No." Lulu said flatly and she swallowed hard, hoping that he believed the lie.
"You didn't go see him last night?" he asked.
"I was at Carly's last night… she let me crash in her guest room… call her yourself and ask if you don't believe me…" she said.
She knew that Carly would back up her story if Dillon chose to check out her story but she watched Dillon's face soften as he accepted her story about staying at Carly's house the night before. She heard him exhale a deep breath, as if he had been holding it in for the entire conversation, and he put his hands on her shoulders. She couldn't even bear to look at him, knowing the situation she was condemning the two of them to. She knew it was selfish to use him as a way to defend herself but she had no choice and she had worked too hard to put herself back together after Johnny had broke her. Lulu felt Dillon's snake around her waist and she flinched at the gesture. She knew that he was trying to comfort her but that was the last thing that she needed or deserved. She gently withdrew from his arms, shaking her head.
"Now if this interrogation is over, I'd like to take a shower…" she said quietly.
She knew that she didn't have the right to snap at him when he had done nothing wrong. She turned from him and quickly ducked into the bathroom. She stepped out of her shoes, letting her bare feet enjoy the cool tile beneath, and walked towards the shower. Perhaps she would find some much needed clarity in the confines of her bathroom but all she could find were the tears rushing back to her eyes as she turned on the shower. How did she allow things to spin so far out of control? She had a life with Dillon that most people would've protected to the very end and she allowed Johnny to waltz back in and pull her away from it, like it never mattered to her in the first place. She sighed, wiping the tears from her eyes, as she pressed her forehead to the glass door. The sound of the water hitting the floor was loud enough to mask any sounds coming from the bathroom, even if Dillon had pressed his ear against the bathroom door. She slowly peeled off the layers of clothes that she had put on last night and stepped inside of the shower. The water was hot against her skin and slightly stung as she stood directly underneath the showerhead, letting the water soak her hair. Her hands trembled as she reached for the sponge and the soap.
When you're with Dillon, do you beg for him like you did for me?
She gasped as Johnny's voice came back to her, soft but powerful. She put her hand over her heart, waiting for both its beat and her breath to slow. She could feel his hands all over her from the night before, marking her and making her his for the rest of their lives. She quickly squeezed a sizeable amount of soap onto her sponge and began scrubbing her skin. She wanted to scrub away the feeling of his hands on her body. She wanted to wash him out of her system. She had to, for her own sanity.
Does your body cry for him like it did for me?
Inside she was screaming the word no and she hated herself for it. She didn't want to want him or to love him or to crave him like she did. Her hands worked faster as they pressed the sponge down harder onto her skin until she let out a sharp cry and flung it away from her. This had to be her punishment for what she had done, to be hopelessly in love with a man that had the power to break her. Her sobs took over her body as she sunk down to the floor. The water hit her face over and over again, mixing in with her own tears, as Johnny's words came back to haunt her.
You love me… I know you do…
"I do… I do love you, Johnny…" she sobbed.