Chapter Six

I'm on mandatory rest, which is most frustrating. I remember a conversation I had with Aden some while ago now. We were talking about how we're both doers and it's the thinking side of life that always gets us into trouble. It's so true. I hate having to just lie here and reassess my screwed up life, over and over again.

It was thinking that got me into so much trouble with Joey in the first place. If I'd have just ploughed ahead and given in to everything I felt, if I had just enjoyed being with her and stopped analysing what people would think and how my life might change, I might have saved myself a lot of heartbreak.

But I do know that I need this time. I need to think in order to build myself back up and go after what I really want. It's important.

My rests are usually spent snuggling down with the extra blanket Ruby brought in for me and watching some of the DVDs on my laptop. I really like But I'm a Cheerleader. It was just so funny. And If These Walls Could Talk 2 has very quickly become one of my favourite movies. I wonder what the first one was about…

Anyway, I've been reading a lot and very much enjoying my visits from Ruby. We squabbled a little about Christmas. I can hardly believe that it's only a few days away. And I could kick myself for not thinking ahead and buying my gifts. I'm in no position to buy anything now. But anyway, she wants to come and visit on Christmas Day but I don't want to ruin it for her. Of course I would like to see her but she's been invited to dinner with Leah, VJ and their family and I don't want to spoil that. We left the discussion unresolved.

I had a fairly unpleasant confrontation with Brax yesterday. I still get a knot in my stomach every time I think about it. He scared me. While I always knew he was capable of such things, I've never seen that side of him up close and personal. It was frightening.

He'd been visited by the police and they had charged him with theft. I spoke to Watson afterwards and she said that we're both likely to just get a slap on the wrist but he was furious with me for dropping him in it. I tried to explain my side of things but he was too angry. He made me nervous when he started to pace the room in the same agitated fashion he had the other day. He yelled at me for telling the police the truth about what happened and for not warning him that that's what I was going to do.

He has a point there. I probably should have been more considerate. It's just that I knew he wouldn't have any hesitation in screwing me over if he could. The more time you give someone like Brax to work out an escape plan, the better the plan becomes. Nobody could accuse the guy of being stupid. He's the master of deception, really.

Anyway, once he'd finished screaming at me about everything, he accused me of having been messing him around all this time and not having had any inclination to start the life we'd planned.

"Of course I did!" I replied.

I know we don't belong together now but I was very, very serious about him before I got shot.

"Then how can you change your mind so damn quickly?" he demanded.

"It was quick but it was significant," I replied, my voice shaking a little. "In case you hadn't noticed, I nearly died. That's enough to make you reassess your life, don't you think?"

He leant closer and I don't think I have ever seen so much bitterness in someone's eyes before. Not even when Joey found out about Hugo and hissed at me not to touch her, did she look like that.

"You know what?" he snarled. "I wish you had died. Then at least I could have mourned the memory of the person I thought you were. Right now, all I can do is hate you."

It stung. I won't lie and pretend it didn't. It almost physically hurt to be hated like that. But this is yet another of the roads I have to go down to end up in the right place. He was never going to take it well, was he?

The second worst bit came when he caught sight of the DVDs and books on my bedside table. He snatched them up and demanded to know why I was suddenly 'interested in queers'. I didn't really know what to say so I just stayed quiet.

"What?" he said. "Your heart stopped and you came back as a lesbian or something?"

"I'm bisexual," I told him calmly.

"Ah, well that's okay then!" he snapped sarcastically.

I jumped when he threw the whole stack across the room. Some of the discs have shattered so I will have to pay for them. You can't exactly send broken discs back to the rental store, can you?

His rant was cut short when security came in and dragged him out of the room, threatening to call the police. He snapped that I'd really like to see him arrested again and that he should have known better to have ever fallen in love with a 'dirty cop'.

I feel so sad about it all and I hate to see him in pain. But at the same him, his violent outbursts are only proving that he is not the person I should be spending my life with.

What would have happened any time I did something to displease him? I spent a year being undervalued by Angelo. I don't want to go through that again. I want to be with someone I can relax with, someone I can have fun with, have a genuine connection with… I want to be with Joey.

Next time… Charlie gets a release date and finds out her fate at work…