Radiant Eclipse

We sat at a small table in the food court of the mall, Johnny chowing down on a large pizza and chugging an extra-large soft drink while I munched a chocolate chip cookie the size of my face and held onto a bottle of Aquafina water. I was picking at the full meal in front of me, a large order of orange chicken and shrimp-fried rice after putting the cookie down gently with a sigh. Johnny looked up at me as I avoided his stare by glancing around the food court wonderingly.

“What ch'ya thinkin?” he asked around a mouth full of half-chewed cheese pizza and a sip of Mountain Dew.

I looked at him directly as I shrugged. “I don't know,” I replied, taking a swig of my water as I slouched down and back against my seat. After swallowing the H-2-O, I continued, “I can't keep living like this.”

Johnny furrowed his brow and finally forced down the wad of food before asking, “Can't live like what? Can't live life on a tour bus?”

“No,” I answered impatiently, as I raised my bottle to sip, only to lower it so I could explain. “I can't keep living with some testosterone-crazed boy running around after me. I mean, it's not like you can follow me around forever, Johnny. In two months, when this tour is up and completed, we all go back home and do our own things. I'll go my way and you can go back to not having to deal with this crazy lady anymore.”

“Vick...” Johnny sighed, shaking his head as leaned forward, his voice lowering as he went on. “Vick...I...” he struggled to find the right words, and for some reason my heart stopped in its broken, winding tracks as I froze, water bottle half tipped, lips just barely pressed to the plastic neck of the container. Johnny's eyes were glued onto mine, and my spine started to tingle as he finally opened his mouth once more. “Never mind,” he said, sounding disappointed. Or at least I wanted him to sound that way, because for some reason that's how I felt.

“What?” I asked quickly, leaning forward as he sat back. “What were you going to say? Johnny? Don't just cut it off right there like that. I hate it when people do that. Makes me feel like I was reading a really interesting mystery novel only to find the last five pages of the book have been ripped out right when I was about to solve the case. What were you about to say?”

Johnny leaned forward and asked, “You have to be honest with me, Vickie? Okay? Totally, and brutally honest.”

I nodded. “Sure,” I said.

He watched me for any sign of recoil or wince, then went on with it. “Before this tour, I used to lie awake after my whole day, and I'd just stare at the ceiling. I felt, for some reason, incomplete, no matter what amazing thing I did that day, or which famous people I met. It didn't matter. Totally and utterly incomplete.”

What is he trying to say? What's going on? Why do I feel like I am about to win something? Why is my heart racing like this? What thehell is going on?!

“I saw you at that meet and greet before the tour, at the studios,” he continued, “and I felt like you were different from everyone else right away. I can't really tell you how it felt, all I thought was that you looked just as incomplete as I felt, and I was hoping you were. Which sounds wrong, I know. But I mean...I mean that I wanted us both to be able to maybe see if we had what the other needed.”

He paused to think, and I suddenly whispered, “Do we have what the other needs?”

Johnny looked at me intently, and replied, “All of it.”

I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean all of it?”

“I mean just that,” he said softly, trying to read my face deeply as I tried to hide the odd sensation of joy growing inside the pit of my stomach. “I need all of you, for some reason, and you need me, too. I don't know why I need you other than, when I lay my head down at night, I don't feel so incomplete anymore, Vickie. Just seeing you for a flicker of a second makes me feel alive, more than I ever really have.”

He paused again, and, hesitantly, took my left hand in both of his, his flesh warm and soft against the cold rough skin of my own. “This is where I want you to be brutally honest,” he confessed.

I gulped as I waited for it.

People buzzed around our table as I watched Johnny, my heart thudding while emotions and adrenaline pumped through my veins like tons and tons of water flowing through a water park, whisplashing around sudden turns and loops, taking down anything with it that might try to go against its current. I knew there was food all around us, but all I could smell was Johnny's cologne. There was music playing, but all I hear was him breathing heavily as he bit his lip. I knew that my back was aching from sitting so far forward in my chair, spine curved, but all I felt were the warm hands engulfing my frail left one, his pulse light against the back of my hand.

Johnny opened his mouth as I watched him, heart racing harder as I held my breath in anticipation. “Do you feel the same way, Vickie? Cause I need to know I'm not crazy.”

I was opening my mouth, ready to shout my reply if I wouldn't have looked like a fool, when I spotted someone a few yards behind Johnny, and I felt the thud of my heart stop as it fell to the floor in a million pieces. “No,” I whispered to myself, then got to my feet slowly.

Johnny looked depressed as he took my word as my response to him, and I quickly, said to him, “I wasn't saying no to you, Johnny. It's Michael! He's waiting for me over there!” I pointed to him as he smiled and waved at me, ready to start in my direction if I tried to run. Johnny got to his feet, throwing the chair to the ground as he almost growled at the menacing Michael. I looked from him to the horror of my past, and quickly turned my back on him so I could face Johnny.

“Listen to me, Johnny,” I said softly but sternly, eyes slitted as my own anger began to rise. With hands on Johnny's shoulders, hovering up above me, I said, “Whatever you do, please don't fight him. Please don't speak to him. Don't do anything, got it?”

“That mother fucker should die for what he did to you! For what he's doing to you!” Johnny shouted, as people froze to watch the scene that I was hoping wouldn't unfurl right in front of my eyes. He started to try and walk through me, but I held onto his arms as tight as I could and nudged him backwards just a few inches, catching his attention before a blood bath ensued.

I turned us around so Johnny couldn't look at Michael anymore, and I said, “Listen! If you touch him, he'll only kill you. Maybe not literally at first, but he's smart, Johnny. Smarter than anyone I have ever known. He'll play games with you and me until we either ruin each other, or until you leave so I am out in the open. Got it? He won't give you the time of day if you talk to him; he'll just tack your name onto the hit list that seems to be running through his head, right now.”

“What are we supposed to do, then, Vickie? Play make believe and act like he's not there for the rest of our lives? Because I love you too much to want to share you with some pervert!” Johnny snapped, voice rising as he shouted the last sentence over his massive shoulder.

To be safe, I peeked around Johnny and saw that Michael was gone. “Oh shit,” I said, as I watched a strange-looking man take the place where Michael had been. It was his best friend Kyle, a man roughly the size of a Marine with tattoos to boot. He had short black hair and wore black pants with a white tank as I glanced around me to find the rest of them.

“What oh shit? What's going on?” Johnny questioned, turning to find that Michael was obviously replaced by a larger man, who overshadowed Johnny by a few good inches. He turned back to face me, but I was busy playing Where's Waldo: The Crook Edition. I counted three other guys who were in the food court, all of them smiling at me like this was a game.

“That son of a bitch,” Johnny snarled, as I looked up to find him running at Michael, hanging out near the far end of the food court as I screamed and braced myself for their plan to unfurl. Johnny looked back at me as I tried to run back towards the way we'd come, and all I kept thinking was, How come no one was doing anything?! People were just watching this like a movie on television late at night. Damn it! Someone call the cops! Call the mall security! Anything to interrupt Micheal's attempt this time!

I heard Johnny shout my name, but I kept running, legs moving faster than I was breathing or thinking. I saw Kyle moving towards me and I clenched my jaw as I just motioned on. Come get me, you son of a bitch! was all I was thinking, when all two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle slammed into me, picking me up as my breath blasted out all at once. I screamed as Kyle carried me over his massive shoulder. I didn't feel scared so much as I was pissed. I was tired of being the mouse as Michael chased after me like a smug fat cat. I wanted this to be over with. Whatever it took, I wanted to end it.

As Kyle was turning away from the food court and it was finally registering in people's minds that something was really, really wrong, I spotted Johnny trying to follow after me, all of Michael's group surrounding him like lions on a weakened prey. My arm reached for him, no matter how far away he was from my grasp, and I yelled, “Johnny! Johnny!” cause that was all I could yell. What else would I have said? That I was scared? That I wish we'd just staid on the tour bus and had kept it to ourselves?

That I might just love him?

I struggled against Kyle unsuccessfully, pounding my hands and feet into him as he ran down the stairwells rather than wait for the elevator, and all I could see before I forced myself to look away, was Michael smiling slyly at Johnny, then throwing a hard punch straight at his nose. I knew there had to have been blood, but all I did was cover my head with my hands and allow Kyle to run off in whatever direction he wanted with me.