A/N: I meant to finish this chapter two days ago when I was on the plane flying back to school but it didn't happen and then I meant to finish it last night but that also didn't happen but it's now finally done! For some reason, this chapter was really hard to find inspiration for… probably because it's mostly set-up for the final five installments! After this chapter, there will be four more chapters plus an epilogue. Craziness :) And after I'm done with this story (plus a small little break from writing), I've already got another story planned and I'm SUPER excited for that one… So, happy reading! And keep your lovely comments coming!
Chapter 9 – Glad to be Unhappy
"Where the hell is my brother?"
Johnny couldn't help but to let out a semi-pleased chuckle at the sound of Claudia's very irate voice. He was rather skilled with being able to tell how pissed Claudia was by the sound of her voice and she was pretty peeved by the fact that her brother was being held at the PCPD. He sighed as the footsteps grew closer to the holding room and the door opened, revealing Claudia and one of the cops that had booked him the night before. Claudia growled at the cop to start his release papers and the cop, fully aware of who he was dealing with, obliged her wholeheartedly.
"Why didn't you call me last night when you got arrested? I had to hear it from Nikolas this morning!" Claudia cried.
"It's not a big deal, Claudia…" Johnny muttered as he rose to his feet.
"Of course it's a big deal! I'm your sister! I'm the one who you're supposed to come to!" she yelled, setting down her purse on the metal table.
"I'm not fifteen anymore… I don't need you to come down here to bail me out…" he said, folding his arms across his chest.
"Yeah… that's what Nikolas said… god, I don't even know who to be angrier at… you for beating up Nikolas last night or Nikolas for not telling me about it until this morning…" she growled.
"Be mad at me… I was just having a bad day and I took it out on your husband…" he sighed.
"Well you must've had one hell of a day because he came home sporting a swollen lip and a black eye…" she said in a slightly chastising tone but Johnny let out a small snicker.
"Sorry…" he said, trying to stifle a laugh, and Claudia shook her head.
"Obviously I didn't marry him because he could fight…" she began.
"Good thing…" he chuckled and Claudia threw a sharp glare in his direction.
"Do you want to tell me what happened that caused you to bloody up my husband's face?" she asked quietly.
"Lulu…" he sighed and Claudia rolled his eyes.
"Lulu… why am I not surprised? Why do you even bother with her, John? All she does is bring you pain and misery! You deserve so much better than that!" she cried.
"I just—I can't help myself, Claudia… I'm still in love with her…" he groaned as he put his head in his hands.
Claudia put her hands on his shoulders and sighed heavily. He needed to either get thicker skin or learn how to mask his emotions better from his sister because she felt his pain almost as if it were her own. He didn't like to be a burden on her or anyone else for that matter. She had her own life now. She had a husband who, despite his obvious misgivings and personality flaws, truly loved his sister with everything that he had. Johnny wanted to be fair to his sister, by letting her live her own life instead of fretting about his.
"John, what happened? You look even worse than before…" she whispered.
"Lulu came to me the night before last… she was upset… really upset. She told me that we couldn't see each other anymore and then we argued… and that's when I blurted the real reason why I left her…" he started.
"Which was?" she implored.
"Michael's shooting…" he sighed, running his hands through his cropped hair.
"John…" she whispered. Her tone was low and apologetic.
"And then I watched her break down in front of me… I—I can only imagine that's how she looked when I left her… and all I wanted to do was to explain… to tell her that it—it wasn't her fault that I left and that not a second went by without me thinking about her and I thought—I thought that she understood…" he lamented.
"What do you mean?" Claudia asked.
"We made love… and it was like we were never apart… everything just fell right back into place… I know—I know that she still loves me, Claudia!" he cried.
"But the next morning, she told you that she didn't love you, didn't she?" she asked and he nodded.
"She went on and on about how nothing had changed between us and that she was still going to marry Dillon… I tried to make her see that this was wrong but—" he started and Claudia groaned.
"This is so typical Lulu! I told her to stop sending you mixed messages… that was probably why she came to the house in the first place… and what does she do? She throws herself at you, John! You know what? After you get out of here, I'm going straight over to that apartment and—" she began fuming but Johnny vehemently shook his head.
"No! You can't, Claudia…" Johnny said firmly.
At that moment, a cop came into the holding room, the keys to Johnny's handcuffs in his fingers. Claudia flashed him a look so cold that it could freeze over hell and he quickly fumbled with the keys in order to release Johnny before making a quick but less than graceful exit from the room. As soon as the door closed behind the frazzled cop, Claudia whirled back around on her brother.
"So what are you going to do? You're just going to sit there and take it while she jerks you around? What about when she gets married, John?" she cried.
"You were right, Claudia… I need to fight for her… I need—I need to know where I stand with her because if there's the slightest chance that Lulu wants me… I need to take it…" he said.
Claudia wanted to accompany Johnny back to Crimson Pointe but Johnny insisted that he didn't want or need a babysitter. Although she wasn't about to listen to her younger brother, Claudia received a call from Nikolas and begrudgingly left to return to Wyndamere. He walked along the waterfront, watching the boats come and go from the harbor. He inhaled the salt air from the sea and exhaled deeply. His mind was racing, thinking about what his next move was. He knew that Lulu wanted to be with him but the question at hand was how to approach the situation. He didn't want to pursue her relentlessly to the point where she resented him but he knew that he couldn't just wait around and do nothing.
He couldn't watch her marry Dillon.
Johnny found himself standing in front of Kelly's and he pushed the door open into the small diner. It was predominately deserted since the morning breakfast rush had passed and the lunch crowd hadn't started to filter in yet. Mike greeted him with a fairly cordial hello before disappearing into the back to start on Johnny's order. He sat down at the counter and put his head in his hands, unable to figure out what he was supposed to do. This situation was too precarious and he didn't want to make a single mistake because one wrong move, he could lose Lulu forever.
"Well, well, well… look who it is… John Zacchara…"
Johnny rolled his eyes and turned around, coming face to face with the one person that he really didn't want to see. Dillon Quartermaine began approaching him, taking off his black leather gloves. His voice was taunting and smug, which made Johnny want to vomit or at least give him the same beating that he had given Nikolas the night before.
"Yeah… here I am… you got a problem with me being here?" Johnny drawled.
"Oh, I have so many problems with you that I don't know where to start…" Dillon growled and Johnny laughed bitterly.
"Like what? You don't even know me…" Johnny sighed.
"No… I don't really know you… but what I do know is what you did to Lulu and the fact that you want her but she doesn't want you… she never will after what you did to her… so why don't you just take a hint and stay away from my fiancée?" Dillon said.
As the words began to slip from Dillon's mouth, Johnny couldn't help but to smile. Dillon's hubris about the security of his relationship with Lulu was completely laughable, which was what Johnny broke into at the conclusion of Dillon's rant. The man had no idea that Johnny's name had been on Lulu's lips just two nights prior as they made passionate love or that he was the last thing on her mind as she kissed him, carrying the two of them into a dizzying sense of bliss. Johnny shook his head, trying to minimize the chuckle that was erupting in his chest.
"What's so funny?" Dillon asked.
"You and what you think you know… you have no idea what's going on through Lulu's mind right now…" Johnny said.
"Well, enlighten me then… what do you know that I don't?" Dillon challenged.
"Lulu doesn't love you… she never has and she never will…" Johnny blurted out.
A gasp, following the chime of the bell that sat atop of the door to Kelly's, made both Dillon and Johnny turn their attention towards the door. Lulu was standing there, with eyes wide open and face ashen white at Johnny's words.
Lulu held her breath as Dillon whirled around to face her, accusation and doubt filling his irises, as if deep down he knew the truth in Johnny's words. Her heart pounded as Dillon drew near to her, staring her down, waiting for her façade to crack. She prayed that she had enough strength and conviction to keep Dillon on their charted course of matrimony.
"Why does Johnny think that you're not in love with me?" Dillon asked. His voice was low and accusatory.
Lulu looked from her fiancé to the man that she was in love with and then back. Could he see right through her? Could he see the longing in her heart that was tearing her from within, begging to be in Johnny's arms? She quickly looked away from Dillon and approached Johnny swiftly as he sat at the counter. She tried to muster up some sort of emotion, any emotion, other than what she was feeling in order to push him as far away as her arms could reach.
"Don't do this…" she warned.
"I should be saying the same to you…" he hissed.
"Please, Johnny… I'm—I'm making a life with Dillon…" she said, averting his gaze and shifting uncomfortably in her stance.
"So everything that's happened is just supposed to mean nothing?" Johnny cried.
"Nothing happened!" she hissed but it was too late and Dillon had already heard Johnny's admission.
"What happened?" Dillon asked.
Johnny looked at her and she could feel his desire to throw their affair in Dillon's face. She knew that he wanted to let everything out of the bag so that when the dust settled, Dillon would be as far away as possible so that the only other option would be to be with him. Lulu shook her head slightly as Dillon's gaze bore into Johnny's, silently begging him not to say a word about what had transpired between the two of them.
"I kissed her… the night of Claudia and Nikolas' wedding…" Johnny said, never taking his eyes off Lulu.
Lulu winced as the words came out of Johnny's mouth, half relieved that he didn't disclose all of the sordid details about their encounter two days before, the true accounts about how they had almost made love on the night of Claudia and Nikolas' wedding and their kiss in the garden shed. However, the betrayal was still the same to Dillon and he lunged himself at Johnny, striking him across the face. Lulu shrieked and immediately pulled him off Johnny. He struggled in her grasp but she held him firm until he stopped trying to wriggle away with a final huff.
"And I immediately pushed him off me and told him that we were never going to get back together… no matter how much he wanted to… he lost the chance to be with me two years ago and he's never going to have me again…" she said, looking straight at Dillon.
She couldn't even bear to look at Johnny, let alone address him directly. The lies were just creeping up in her throat, threatening to choke her, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to say anything while her eyes were on Johnny. Truthfully, she couldn't even bear to look at him because she knew that all she would see would be pain.
Pain that she could prevent with three words.
She shook those thoughts from her mind and placed each of her hands on Dillon's cheeks, framing his slim face in her hands. She could feel her eyes begin to water as she stared up into Dillon's face, hoping that he thought that the tears in her eyes were for him and not for Johnny. He looked down at her and she saw his expression soften slightly as he exhaled deeply.
"I'll be in the car…" Dillon growled.
He gave Johnny a knowing look, making one more attempt to intimidate the man into staying away from Lulu before taking his leave from the restaurant. As soon as Dillon had disappeared around the corner, Lulu turned around and was met with those anguished eyes that she had feared. She knew that her assertion about her feelings for Dillon and how Johnny meant nothing to her would be a crushing blow but she had to do it in order to save her own sanity.
"My god, Johnny! What the hell were you thinking?" she cried, wiping her eyes.
"That you should stop lying to yourself and to him! You love me! Not him!" he roared.
"You can't blow up my life just because you don't like who I'm with! I would never do that to you!" she cried.
"That's because you're the only woman that I want to be with! I can't even so much as look at another woman without noticing that she's not you…" he said, letting his anguish seep into the words.
He turned away from her, a failed attempt to conceal his true anguish from her, and she bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. She really hated hurting him, even though it was all that she seemed to be capable of doing at that moment but she couldn't do this anymore. She had made one mistake and she needed to move on. She couldn't think about how much she loved him or how alive she felt when she was in her arms.
She wanted to take away all of his pain.
She reached out for him but stopped herself as her hand hovered near his arm. However, her hand recoiled back as if she had just touched something hot. She couldn't do it, no matter how much she wanted to. Even though the lie was painful to take, it was better than dealing with a broken heart later.
"I—I told you… I'm marrying Dillon… I—I lov—" she started but he scoffed.
"Yes, I've heard it before… I'm marrying Dillon… I love Dillon… god, you're starting to sound like a broken record, Lulu… is that what you have to say to yourself over and over again to make you feel something for that guy?" he asked bitterly.
"I don't have to explain myself to you… you lost the right to have a say in my life when you decided that you weren't good enough for me and left…" she said.
Her hands flew to her mouth, regretting the words that had just slipped out. Johnny closed his eyes slowly, as if he had just been struck across the face. She didn't mean to throw his feelings and all that he had admitted to her on the night that they had made love back in his face. She knew that was a low blow, even for her. Mike emerged from the back with a brown paper bag and a wary smile on his face. Johnny gave him a curt nod as he handed him the money for his order.
"Oh! Lulu… I have that order that you called in right in the back… I'll go and get it for you…" Mike said.
"Thank you, Mike…" she said graciously.
Johnny cleared his throat and picked up his bag as Lulu looked away trying to not show him the tears that she was crying for him. She couldn't let him know how much this was killing her as well because if he knew then he wouldn't give up on pursuing her and she didn't know how much strength she still possessed in order to push him away. She could feel him draw closer to her and his soft breath on her earlobe as he bent in to whisper something in her ear. Her heart was throbbing in her chest at how close he was. It was sheer torture to have him so close without being able to fall into his arms and to forget the world around them even existed.
"This is so wrong and you know it…" he whispered.
Her body was overcome with sobs as he walked away but she managed to not utter a sound. She heard the door open and shut as Johnny took his leave from Kelly's and she sniffed quite audibly and wiped her eyes as fresh tears rolled down her face.
"I know…" she sobbed.
Dillon, silent during the entire drive back to their apartment building, slammed the door behind him, making Lulu flinch from the sharp crack of the door snapping back into place. He practically ripped off his jacket and tossed onto their couch. His anger was so potent that she could feel it radiating off his skin. She followed him into the kitchen as he went into the fridge to get a beer. She gingerly set down their takeout order from Kelly's and sighed heavily.
"Why don't you just say what's on your mind rather than taking it out on the furniture…" Lulu said meekly.
"Should I just drop you off at Crimson Pointe? Just to get the inevitable out of the way?" Dillon asked bitterly.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"You know, just bypass the crap between now and when you're going to leave me for Johnny…" he said.
The floor seemed to disappear beneath her feet. Did he know? Could he see right through her into her heart to see that he wasn't there? Her heart broke upon that realization. This was an impossible situation. How could she even live with herself knowing what she had done to betray him when he had been nothing but good and decent to her? She didn't want to break his heart because he deserved better than that. She needed to be better for him.
"Dillon… how many times do I have to tell you that you're the man that I want to be with?" she cried.
"You know what the funny part about all of this is? Before she moved to Paris with Spinelli, Maxie told me that I was a fool for getting involved with you because of Johnny… she said that he was the 'great love of your life' and if he came back, you would go running back to him in a heartbeat… she said that I didn't have a chance if he came back…" he said.
"Dillon…" she started but he shook his head.
"So now… Johnny's magically back in Port Charles and I'm not blind, Lulu… I see the way you look at him and I even see the way you don't look at him… it's all clear as day, Lulu… you have feelings for him…" he said.
The truth always hit her like a ton of bricks. She hated herself for being so transparent. All of her so called attempt to hide her feelings for Johnny had failed miserably because he could see that she had feelings for Johnny. She walked over to him and put her hands on his shoulders, making him look at her.
"What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do to prove to you that you're the man that I want and not Johnny? Tell me what I can do to make you believe me when I say that I love you and I want to marry you!" she cried.
"Marry me tonight." Dillon said.
His request literally took her breath away and it took her a few moments to collect herself in order to form a coherent response.
"What?" she croaked, still in disbelief.
"We'll call off that fancy wedding at the MetroCourt and drive to a justice of the peace and get married tonight…" he said.
"You're—You're not serious, are you?" she asked.
"You asked the question and I gave you an answer… now what's your answer?" he asked, extending his hand out to her.
She closed her eyes, trying to silence the millions of conflicting voices in her head. They were all screaming at her, some saying to marry him so that she could finally have some semblance of normalcy and others saying to refuse because her heart belonged to someone else.
Regardless of what they said, none of them said anything about her being in love with Dillon.
She had just been pushing the inevitable away from herself, trying not to face the truth. She didn't love him. Not in the way that he loved her and certainly not in the way that made her giddy in anticipation to marry him. Her desire to marry Dillon wasn't out of love but out of fear and desperation. She didn't want to be looked at as the woman who Johnny Zacchara left behind all those years ago. The stigma of being burned so badly had been carried with her every single day after he left. She saw it in other people's eyes as they subtly pointed and whispered to their neighbors about how she used to be the fiancée of John Zacchara.
But no more…
She sighed and took Dillon's hand in hers. His hands were cold, smaller than Johnny's, but still smooth and soft. He was a good man and he loved her and would be good to her. Not many people even had that in their lifetime. She should've considered herself to be lucky that she had found a man that wanted to give her the world and more if he could.
She could do this.
She had to do this.
She would never wonder if Dillon would leave her or if he would hurt her because he didn't have the power to do so. He didn't have the power to hurt her because she was not in love with him. She could live with being married to someone who she was not in love with if she knew that he could never hurt her. She had been battered and bruised enough for one lifetime and as selfish as it was, she couldn't put herself through that again, no matter how it would hurt Johnny. With a sigh, she raised her head to look at him and nodded slowly.
"Ok… we'll get married tonight…" she said.
Dillon's face erupted into a large smile as he took her face in his hands and kissed her softly. She could feel the tears burning in her closed eyes and she shut them tightly so that they couldn't fall. Her lips slightly trembled against his and she hoped that he couldn't feel as her heart broke into a thousand tiny pieces.