Follow You Home

Val arrives promptly at noon with a laundry basket full of my clothes and a small duffel bag of toiletries and other essentials. I've known Val since high school. She's my same height and weight, her hair is a lot curlier and her mouth is even worse than mine.

"So, you gonna invite me in or do I have to stand out here all afternoon?" she asks, popping her gum.

"Get in here." I say, pulling her inside. She sets the laundry basket and duffel bag down on the floor than starts surveying the house.

"Not really what I imagined."

"What were you imagining?"

"I don't know. I've heard so many rumours about John over the years, I kind of thought he'd have some kind of trapeze or something."

"That's in the bedroom." I joke.

"Oh my eff, I need to see the bedroom, seriously. I can't leave John Kristaldi's house without seeing his bedroom." I roll my eyes.

"Where is it? In here?" she asks, striding over to the open door. I follow her into the bedroom and we both stand in the middle of the room, looking around. She gestures to the unmade bed.

"Is that where you have sex?"

"I guess." And the couch, the shower, the floor, the kitchen table once, the washing machine....

"So, how long have you guys been dating?" she asks as we walk out to the kitchen.

"We're not really dating..."

"Just living together and sleeping together?"

"The living situation is temporary. Very temporary." I say.

"Uh huh. So you don't love him?" Her question takes me off gaurd and I start stammering.

"We...don't...That's not really...I.." she shakes her head.

"That is just pathetic."

"What do you want from me? We don't really talk. I mean, we care about each other, but I don't know..." she looks down at the counter and I can tell she has something on her mind.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing...It's just something I heard."

"What?"

"It's nothing."

"Val." I say sharply.

"OK! Just don't kill the messenger, alright?"

"Just tell me." She sighs.

"Joey Kocur was telling me at the store the other day that he saw John driving Drita D'Angelo to the gas station a couple weeks ago and they looked... friendly."

"You know Joey is the biggest shit talker in this town."

"I know that, but... He's not the only one talking about it. I didn't want to to tell you. I mean, John's always been a dog, ya know?"

"I'm sure there's an explanation."

"Right, I'm sure you're right. I gotta go. Before I leave, I gotta ask though...Are you in trouble, is that why you're hiding out here?"

"It's complicated." I say, walking her to the door.

"Are the cops involved?"

"Yeah."

"Fuck. OK, I'll talk to you later, be safe." She gives me a hug and leaves. I lock the door behind her and walk into the living room and plunk down on the couch. I can't get what Val said about John and this Drita girl out of my head. I very vauguely remember Drita from high school, she was older than me, in John and Dom's class. From what I remember she married Nick D'Angelo straight out of high school. I glance across the room and see John's laptop sitting on the coffee table. Damn. I get up, grab it off the table and sit back down on the couch. I flip it open and turn it on. It takes me about five minutes to figure out his password, his daughter's name, than it opens to his desktop. It has a few semi-legal search engines, his internet browser and a small folder of pictures of his daughter. I scan through the computers memory for a few minutes before hitting the internet browser. His home page comes up, and I hit his internet history. Nothing interesting. I go into his bookmarked pages and find nothing of interest there either. I close out of the internet and hit one of the search engines. Out of plain curiousity, I type in John's name. A profile comes up complete with picture. I scan through it, knowing a lot of what is written. There is a complete arrest record, which is extensive, a record of every recorded job he's ever had and every official girlfriend he's had, which is also extensive. After ten minutes, I close John's profile and check out his search history on this program and am startled to find my name at the bottom of the list. I click my profile and almost pass out. It's so detailed, I'm surprised it doesn't have the date of my last gyno visit. The fact that John read all of this and literally knows every dirty detail of my life is mortifying. It accurs to me that I just did the same thing to him, but I knew most of that anyways. I close the search engine program and mess around on the computer some more, not finding anything of interest. I don't know what I was looking for, a big flashing sign that said "I'm banging another chick!", maybe.

I put the computer away and do my hourly check on the outside world through the windows. I flip the TV on and watch an old Boston Bruins game on the NHL network for a couple hours, than I get up and make a peanut butter and potato chip sandwich and eat it standing over the sink. My mind is still dwindling on John and Drita. Why would he be driving her around, acting chummy with her if they weren't together? God knows that we've been on and off constantly over the past year, he could have been with anyone in that space of time and I probably wouldn't have known. My stomach starts to feel sick and my head starts to feel depressed and moody. Damn him. I plop back down on the couch and take a nap, waking up when I hear John unlocking the door. I sit up and watch as he walks in.

"Hey." he says, gruffily as he strides into the kitchen.

"Hey yourself."

"Did your friend come over with your clothes?" he asks. I follow him into the kitchen.

"Yeah."

"I have to go back outside, I went to my moms and she sent me home with a cassarole." he says.

"OK." I say, looking down at the floor. He walks around the counter and gently lifts my chin so I'm looking up at him.

"Hey, why are you so quiet?" he asks.

"Nothing." I say, turning my head and blinking back tears.

"Izzy, talk to me. What happened?" his concerned tone does nothing but piss me off and I back away from him.

"I guess if I had known we were in an open relationship, I would have started screwing other guys too."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I know about Drita D'Angelo, John. Cut the bullshit."

"What do you know about Drita?"

"That you're fucking her behind my back." he scoffs.

"Did your friend tell you that?"

"It doesn't matter who told me."

"It does, because their lying to you. There's nothing going on between Drita and me."

"Than why were you driving her around?"

"Oh Jesus Christ. She's a friend of my sisters, she needed help moving out of her ex husbands house, my sister asked if I would help out because I have the truck."

"You were helping her move? I'm supposed to believe that?"

"I don't give a fuck what you believe, Isabelle," he says, using my real name, "You're just going to believe all the shit talkers in town, anyways."

"I know the only reason you hang around me is because I have danger in my life, and that's what's really missing from your life isn't it, John? You miss that danger in your life. I'm fucking over you using me. If you want Drita or some other girl, have her."

"You think that's what I want? Honey, I could get fucking drama from any chick in this town. The reason I hang around you is because you fucking need me to take care of you."

"I don't need you to take care of me. I've been doing just fine on my own."

"That's why you have a stalker right now who is set on killing you and making you suffer." He stomps past me and out the door.

I stomp into the living room and sit back down on the couch with my arms crossed over my chest. I know I really have no proof of him being with Drita, but I also know John's history and no one would put it past him to cheat on me. He comes back in with a glass baking dish covered in aluminum foil.

"Are you hungry?" he asks.

"No."

"You know, Izzy, I thought we had a good relationship where we trusted each other. When I told you that I wasn't going to sleep around, I meant it."

"Nothing about this relationship is good." I snap.

"You're right about that. In more ways than one."

We sit there and ponder those biting words while he eats his food.

"You have to see where I'm coming from." I say.

"I do. I haven't been the most standup guy, but I'm not lying to you. I wouldn't fuck with Drita or any other girl unless you said it was over between us. I'm not looking to fuck up what we have, whatever that may be." he says.

"I think we both have a lot of thinking to do about whatever it is, because right now we're floundering and I'm sick of it." I say, standing up and walking into the bedroom.

I get undressed and put on sweats and a camisole and put my hair in a bun on top of my head. When I'm dressed, I go into the bathroom and wash my makeup off and brush my teeth. Then I turn the lights off and crawl into bed even though it's so early the sun is just setting. I can hear John moving around the living room, taking his boots off, cracking open a beer, watching the news. I lay in bed awake for hours, before the door opens and John comes in with my phone.

"Dom's on the phone, I thought you'd want to talk to him." he says, handing me my phone. I quickly take it from him.

"Hello?"

"Hey, hows it going?" Dom says.

"Where the hell are you? I've been calling you for days."

"Yeah, I got your messages. What are you doing at John's?"

"I'm living here for the moment."

"Jesus, what for?"

"You know the asshole who painted my door? He threw a rock through my window and shot me down with a tranquilizer dart." He's silent for a moment.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"Jesus fuck. Is Frank working the case."

"He can't, he's in homicide now."

"Shit, do they know who it is?"

"No, they were working on a lead, but I don't know what's happening with it."

"Who's the lead?"

"Lee."

"The cop? Fuck. He's mental, Izzy. He shouldn't be walking the streets."

"Dom, calm down. I don't think it's him anyways. If Lee wanted me dead, he'd ring my doorbell and shoot me. I don't think he'd toy with me like this."

"This conversation is making my guts churn." he says.

"Welcome to my fucking world."

"I'm coming home in a few days, that is if I don't get delayed again. This job has been such bullshit."

"Sorry about that."

"Yeah, well, I'll be around within the next week. I'll call you."

"OK, be careful."

"You too." he says and hangs up. I set my phone down on the bedside table and think about my conversation with Dominic. It's unnerving that conversations like this have become almost normal for me. My stomach isn't turning, my palms aren't clammy, my heart isn't beating rapidly. The past year has made me accustomed to drama, danger and fear.

At about eleven thirty, I'm still awake. John comes in the bedroom and shuts the door. He doesn't turn on any lights as he gets undressed and crawls into bed next to me. He pulls the covers over his shoulder and turns so he's facing me. I can't really see him, but I can feel his warm breath on my face. He's not touching me, but I still feel protected and safe next to him. We've been through more than two people should have to go through together, and he's still protecting me. I can almost feel my heartstrings pulling, even though I haven't even admitted my feelings to myself. I roll over and pull the sheet up over my ear and close my eyes. I hate feeling sappy about John.