Crossroads

I woke up and realized I was gripping Zacky’s shirt with my left hand. I released it and straightened out my hand. I flexed it a few times trying to get the feeling back, I must have been gripping hard. When I looked at the wrinkles on his shirt, my thoughts were confirmed.

I looked around the room and saw everyone asleep, except one. Lucy was missing.

I jumped up and looked around frantically. “Lucy?!” I called. However, I didn’t get an answer.

Zacky must have felt me leave his side and sat up straight, “What’s wrong?!” he exclaimed, causing the others to wake up.

“Lucy, where is she?!” I said. I wasn’t expecting an answer; I just took off looking for her.

I ran to the kitchen, but she was nowhere to be seen. However something shiny caught my short attention span. I walked over to it and saw it was a little mirror with powder on it. I freaked out for a moment as I realized what it was. I twinkle-toed for a moment as I snatched it up and put it in the waistband of my pajamas.

“LUCY!” I called out again, still no answer. I decided to check the back deck. Sure enough, I found her.

She was sitting in a chair with her head hanging over the back of the chair. It scared me for a moment, if I didn’t know any better it almost looked like she was dead.

I slowly walked over to her and poked her in the shoulder. She shot up and made me scream. “What the fuck are you doing out here?! Are you crazy?!!” I yelled.

“Shh.” She said rubbing her temples and walked into the house.

I followed her in and noticed her looking around frantically, “Lookin for that mirror?” I asked putting my hands on my hips.

“Yeah, where is it?” she asked.

I pointed to my right hip where it was resting. “Did you fuckin snort those oxy’s Max gave you?”

“I couldn’t sleep! He said they would help, and my god, they knocked me right out.” She said with a small smile.

“Yeah, they knocked you out ON THE BACK PORCH!” I began. I watched the smile from her face. “Did you just happen to forget that fuckin psychopath is still out there?! Something could have happened to you.”

She just stared at me. I noticed her lips quivering and realized how I sounded like a parent. I smacked myself in the forehead as she began to laugh. I walked away before I started to laugh, “This isn’t over.” I said to her, “She’s in the kitchen!” I called out to the rest of the house before heading upstairs for a shower.

Before I got to the stairs I was stopped by Jimmy. “Hey, Lexi and I are gunna go over Brian’s parents for a bit. Do you wanna come? I know Zacky and Matt are.”

“What did Lucy say?” I asked.

“She said no. She’s not feeling up to it.” He replied.

I slowly shook my head, “Nah, she shouldn’t be alone.”

I gave him a hug before heading upstairs.

I walked into my room and grabbed some clothes and went into the bathroom. I went through my phone and put on Sober by Tool before stepping into the shower.

I started massaging the shampoo into my hair when I heard the door open and cool air rush in. I jumped in surprise before I poked my head out of the shower and saw Zacky standing in front of the toilet, obviously taking care of some business.

“You scared me.” I said looking at him.

He turned around and gave me a cheesy smile. “Sorry.”

“You better not shit in here or-“ I said as I felt the water turn boiling hot and hit my back.

I jumped out of the shower as I screamed. “OR FLUSH THE TOILET.”

He went into a fit of silent laughter, bending over and slapping his leg and such as I twinkle-toed and hopped around trying to get my back to stop burning. However, due to my luck, while I hopped a big blob of shampoo slid down my forehead and into my eye, which caused me to scream and curse so much it would make a sailor blush.

I felt his hand touch my back and felt how cool it was. I leaned into it before going over to the shower to feel if it was cooled off at all. Thankfully it was and I stepped back in. I tried to get the suds out of my eye when I felt him step in behind me; apparently this wasn’t turning into a shower I was taking alone.

Twenty minutes later we emerged from the bathroom, I was fully dressed in a Jack Daniels shirt, blue jeans and my gray, white and purple DC’s while Zacky walked to the bedroom in a towel.

“It’s about damn time!” Matt called down the hall. “When will you be ready to leave?”

“Five minutes.” He replied before shutting the door.

I walked back downstairs and sat down on the couch next to Lucy. She was wearing the Harry Potter shirt Aden had gotten her for her birthday, ripped skinny jeans and black and purple checkered vans. She leaned on my shoulder and mumbled something, though I didn’t quite catch it.

“What?” I whispered.

“You didn’t tell Matt, did you?” she asked.

“No. I’m not going to, that’s really none of my business. Although if I were you, and I decided to do it again, I’d do it someplace it was safe to fall asleep.”

She nodded and turned the TV on. We started to watch some documentary on the Holocaust with horrible reenactments. I was just about to comment on it when my phone started ringing, I looked at the ID and it said ‘Mabbitt’.

Lucy looked at me, “Who is that?”

“Sir Craig Mabbitt.” I replied answering it.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Hey, it’s Craig.” He replied.

“Phew, at least I now know that my caller ID doesn’t lie to me.” I said letting out a small laugh.

“True.” He said laughing along. “Max told me about that creeper you guys got. You alright?”

“Eh, we’re okay I guess. We’re chillin at the house right now. I think everyone is about to leave.”

“Actually Jo, I think they left.” Lucy said peeking out the window, “All the cars are gone except for mine, yours and Adens.”

“Okay I fibbed, we’re just chillin.” I said into the phone.

“Well, I’m in the area, wanna hang?” he asked.

I thought for a moment, “Sure. That sounds cool. I’ll text you our address.”

“Alright, sounds good.” He said before hanging up.

“He’s coming over?” Lucy asked.

“Yup.” I replied as I texted Craig our address.

“Shweet.” She said before we turned out attention back to the documentary.

About a half hour later we heard the doorbell ring. We both got up and walked over to the door and looked through the peep hole. Sure enough it was Craig; he was looking down at something, so I opened the door.

“Hey!” Lucy and I said greeting him.

“Nice flowers.” He said with a smirk.

“What?” Lucy and I both asked. We looked down in the direction he was looking and saw a bouquet of flowers by the door. I picked it up and brought it into the kitchen, Lucy and Craig followed.

“There’s a note on the side.” Craig pointed out.

Lucy picked up the note and began to read it. A moment later she screamed and threw the little note card away from her.

“What?!” I yelled in surprise.

“It’s from that psychotic asshole!” she yelled. We both screamed and ran out of the room like a couple of dumb teenage girls in a horror movie.

I went to turn around the doorway and run to the den but fell to the floor, Lucy tumbling after me, as I ran into someone. We screamed again until we realized who was it was we ran into.

“Max?” I asked.

“Well, hello to you too.” He replied with a smirk.

“Don’t give me my look Green!” I exclaimed at him. I heard Lucy giggle from behind me. According to Lucy, Max and I looked fairly similar, we had similar noses, eyes and full lips and we happened to make a lot of the same facial expressions.

He helped us up before giving us hugs. After the greetings were handled, we made our way back to the den to watch something. Seeing how the documentary had a little over an hour left, we decided we would not torture ourselves, or our guest, with the horrible acting and reenactments so we settled for The Hangover.
We were just at the part where Allen finds the tiger in the bathroom when my phone went off alerting me that I had a text.

From: Zee <3

Hey Jo. I’m on my way to Zina’s and thinking about staying the night so I can spend time with Gianna and Gavin, ok?

I laughed to myself as I texted him back.

To: Zee <3

Lol I’m not your mom, you don’t need my permission. Will you be coming home for anything?

From: Zee <3

Yeah, some clothes would be nice :]

To: Zee <3

Mchay, see you later <3

I waited for a reply back but didn’t get one, so I looked the screen and rested it on the arm rest just in time to see Allen saying “No, not at the table Carlos!” causing Lucy, Max, Craig and I to burst out laughing.

When the movie ended, we had no idea what to do. Max perked up and told us to wait a moment as he ran out to his car. When he came back in, he presented a small bag of weed.

Lucy looked at me, I told her she could and that I wasn’t her mother. I however wasn’t up for it with everything that had been going on. When Craig was asked, he too politely declined.

“Fine, more for us.” Max said with a smile as him and Lucy headed downstairs to the basement.

I looked over at Craig, he just gave me a goofy smile that I had no choice but to laugh at. “Why didn’t you go with them ‘Mr.Weed-should-be-legal’?”

He shrugged, “Eh, just not up for it. Plus you seem pretty down, like you could use an outside friend.”

I sighed and stretched my back and arms, “I could indeed use a friend.”

He patted my shoulder, “Here I is.” He said smiling.

I smiled back, “You thirsty?” I asked. He nodded. “Want a beer?” he nodded again with a huge smile, so I got up and went to the kitchen.

As I reached for the beers, I heard my phone ringing. I grabbed them and jogged back to the den. “It’s, Zina?” he said, not too sure on his pronunciation. I grabbed it and picked it up.

“Hey, is Zacky with you?” she asked.

“Uhm, no? he said he was going to your house almost an hour and a half ago.” I replied.

“Really? I had no idea he was coming over,” she paused for a moment, “I tried calling him but I didn’t get and answer.”

“I’ll try him. I’ll let you know if I have any luck.” We said our goodbyes and I dialed his number.

Craig had a confused expression on his face. I put my fingers to my head like a gun and pretended to shoot myself as it rang. He laughed and Zacky picked up.

“Shh! Hello?” he said.

“Hey, where are you?” I asked, wondering who he was telling to quiet down.

“Zina’s, like I told you.” He replied.

I froze for a moment. Was he really lying to me? I decided to play it off. “Oh okay, when will you be coming home for your stuff?”

“Probably like an hour.” He replied.

“Okay see you then.” I said before hanging up.

“Whoa. Joanna, why are you shaking?” Craig asked putting a hand on my knee. “What just happened?”

“That fuckin piece of shit. He’s lying to me!” I shouted, getting up off the couch.

“Huh?” he asked.

I dialed Zina’s number. She answered on the second ring.

“Zina, he’s lying to me.” I said with a shaky voice.

“He what?!”

“He said he’s with you. Right now. What is he doing?!” I said with a tear streaming down my face.

“I’m coming over. He is NOT doing this to you.” She said before hanging up.

My phone dropped from my hand and onto the floor. I saw Craig get up and come towards me to pull me into a hug, but my mind decided to go into psycho mode and I started screaming.

“WHO THE FUCK DOES HE THINK HE IS?!” I screamed.

“Joanna? What’s going on?” he asked.

I walked to the front door to go out for some fresh air. I opened it and saw our psychopath stalker on the other side. Normally I would have freaked out and ran but since I was so mad and enraged, I couldn’t bother feeling threatened by him.

He was sporting a very cocky smile. It made me that much worse. This man was at least two times my size, yet I still grabbed him and threw him to the floor. I heard the dogs start to bark and I called for them and they came running in, growling and in attack mode.

“Still like me you sick fuck?! YOU WANNA SEE HOW FUCKIN CRAZY I CAN GET?!” I yelled and I punched him dead in the face. “Do. Not. Fuck with me.” I said before turning to Craig, “Call the cops please.”

“No need.” He said with a stunned expression as we saw one of the cops patrolling the neighborhood run up the walkway.

I saw Lucy coming in through the kitchen and ran to her to tell her and Max to go back downstairs since I knew their condition. They did as instructed.

The sick, psycho fuck was removed from our house and I shut the door. I leaned against it and slid to the floor.

I noticed Craig standing by the couch in silence. “Craig, I’m sorry.”

He seemed to snap out of a daze, “For what?”

“So much shit in one day, someone like you doesn’t deser-“ I said but was cut off when I was smacked with the door.

“Ouch.” I said rubbing my shoulder where the doorknob hit.

“Are you okay?!” Lexi asked kneeling down next to me.

“We just saw the cop car going down the street with that asshole. Did anything happen?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, Joanna took him to the floor.” Craig said.

“Are you okay?” Matt asked again, helping me up off the floor.

“Where is Zacky?” I asked him with the most steady expression I could muster up.

“What? Oh. He went to Zina’s.” he replied.

I laughed with a sarcastic tone, “Great, he lied to you too.”

Zina showed up a short time later. I filled her in as the guys kept trying to get to the bottom of everything. Zina grew just as angry as I did, I believe she was a little more disappointed than anything. Craig stood by me the whole time, and oddly enough, I barely new this man but having him around comforted me.

When the door opened again almost a half hour later, all the calm I collected flew right back out the door.
I ran to the entry way and the look on his face let me know I was scary as fuck right now. “Where the fuck were you?!” I shouted.

“Where did I tell you? Zina’s. I was at my sister’s house.” He said defensively.

“Oh really?” I heard Zina say as she walked into the room.

He facial expression let me know that we had caught him in his lie. “Where. Were. You.”

He sighed, “Heathers.”

“Discussing a restraining order I hope.” I snapped.

“No. Joanna. Hank is my son.” He replied looking me dead in the face.

“What?” I said. He totally caught me off guard.

He smiled nervously, “Hank is actually my son.”

“Hank? What the fuck is he like a superhero?” I mumbled out loud. He gave me a nasty look. “How long have you known?”

“Since she came over that day.” He admitted.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!” I yelled.

“Are you on your period?” he asked.

His last comment sent me over the edge and I lost my fuckin mind. “Did you really just say that?”

“I wanna be there for her and Hank.” He said. Once again catching me off guard.

“You? Your breaking up with me?” I asked.

“Well, no I didn’t say that.” He replied.

I couldn’t believe this. I know I told him I’d be by his side through this even if it was his kid, but he went behind my back and lied to me. That was just something I couldn’t tolerate or handle. “Don’t worry about it. I’m done.” I said before walking over to the stairs to grab some stuff and leave.

“Excuse me?” he said, “Weren’t you the one who said you’d be there for me no matter what?” he was trying to outsmart me.

“Yeah, that was before you lied to me. Behind my back and to my face. I’m not going to get hurt by you again.” That being said, I went upstairs.

I grabbed my purple and zebra print duffle bag and stuffed some clothes into it along with my charger, tooth brush, hair brush, laptop and whatever else I could get my hands on. I went back down stairs, grabbed my jacket and keys off of the counter and walked outside.

I walked to the garage and called for Dribblez, who trotted over and climbed into the car. I threw my stuff in the backseat and got in. I threw it in reverse and took off down the street towards the one place I could clear my head; the beach.

I parked my car by the pier and put Dribblez on the leash. We walked for a while until we found a log to sit on. “What are we going to do Dribblebutt? I’m so lost right now.” I said petting his head. He licked my face and I hugged him.

I felt my phone vibrate and I pulled it out to see it was Craig calling. I honestly didn’t want to talk to anyone but I felt like I should answer. So I did.

“Hey.” I said. I realized my voice was still kind of shaky.

“Hey where are you?” he asked.

“The beach.” I replied.

“Where are you going after that?”

“I honestly have no idea. I didn’t really think all of that through.” I said feeling completely idiotic.

“Why don’t you crash at the beach house Max and I rented for the week? We wouldn’t mind.” He said.

“Oh, oh no I couldn’t.” I said politely.

“Why not?” he asked.

“That’s way too much to ask of you.”

“Oh please.” He started, “What are friends for?” I smiled, “I won’t take any if’s, and’s, or but’s. I’ll text you an address this time.”

“Ugh, fine. Can my dog come too?” I asked giving in.

“Of course! I’m texting you the address now.”

Once I got the address I put it in my GPS and made my way over with Dribblez.

It was a good twenty minute drive. I saw Craig standing outside when I pulled up. I opened up my door and got out, letting Dribblez out first before grabbing my stuff. I made my way up the steps and he greeted me with a hug. He was wearing a black tank top with gray sweatpants and socks.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked.

“Nah, I’m a warm person.” He relied with a smile. “Come on I’ll show you around. I think Max is in the kitchen right now.”

The first room we walked into was the living room where there was a 72” flat screen with an XBOX 360 they were playing with two large sofa’s that could be put into a giant ‘L’ couch but was spread out instead. Next was the kitchen where, just as predicted, Max was spending some time. He happened to be wearing an HK Army shirt and some basketball shorts with white socks.

“Oh hey Joanna. Wanna Lunchable?!” he asked rather excitedly.

I laughed, “No thanks Max.” I turned to Craig, “I kinda have to pee, where’s that room located?”

He laughed as he led me down the hall and to the bathroom that sat between the two bedrooms. I took care of my business and decided to change into a black tank top and Christmas themed pajama bottoms with skeleton socks. When I came back to the living room Max and Craig were saying goodnight.

They both argued over who would spare their bed for me but I refused to take one and said I would take the couch. After much argument they finally gave in and I took my post on the couch with Dribblez lying next to me.

I tossed and turned for hours. I couldn’t get comfortable, my temperature kept changing, and I just could not get used to not having someone sleeping next to me.

I looked over at the clock that read 3:21. I sighed as I once again tried to get comfortable. I failed miserably so I got up to get a drink. I settled for some black cherry soda. I even washed my cup, followed by the other dishes in the sink. I was so desperate to sleep at this point I did something I never thought I would.

I walked back to the living room. I kissed Dribblez on the head and grabbed my pillow and blanket as I walked down the hall. I cracked the door open and saw Craig sound asleep on his bed. I squeezed through the door frame and closed the door as silently as I could. Somehow he still woke up.

“You okay?” he asked groggily.

“Uhm, I can’t sleep.” I admitted.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

“Can I sleep with you?” I asked. The way the light was hitting his face from the window showed me that he raised an eyebrow. “I’m not used to sleeping alone.”

He smirked. “Yeah, sure.” He said moving over making room for me. I put down my pillow and climbed in throwing my blanket over me.

“Your cold.” He pointed out as we laid there.

“Yeah, a smidge.” I said with a small laugh.

“Don’t be creeped out.” He said. I had no idea what he was talking about until a moment later I felt him lying against me. The way he held me let me know his intentions weren’t at all sexual or anything remotely close, it was just comforting and I was grateful for that. And sure enough, I soon drifted to sleep.