Fateful Hindrance

4. The Juliet Effect

Chapter 4

The Juliet Effect

 

 

I’d never seen John Raymond look the way he was then.  He was looking rough.  Though his hair was always that just-got-out-of-bed messy, it was even more so.  Darkness ringed below his eyes and, by the hint of a beard he was sporting, it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days.  It seemed he hadn’t gotten a goodnight sleep in the past few days either, maybe even in the past two weeks.  That made two of us then. 

It must have been a solid minute that I stood there staring at him, the front door wide open, letting the cold in.  I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, not when he was there in the flesh, standing only a few feet away from me. 

“What are you doing here?” I finally whispered. 

“Well, right now, I’m standing out on your front steps in the freezing cold.”  John took a step forward, but not through the door.  “Can I come in, please?  I really need to talk to you.  Your…”

I shook my head quickly and began to close the door.  “No, you can’t.  I need you to go…”

He shook his head also, putting his hand on the door just as I was about to close it in his face.  “Don’t tell me to go, Emmy love.  You know I can’t.  I need to talk to you.”

“Please leave.  I don’t even know why…”

“Glad you could make it here so quickly, John.”

My head snapped up to the hallway leading to the kitchen, where my parents stood, dressed and ready for the party.  Dad was the one who spoke, looking at John with a slight smile.  My eyes continued to follow him as he walked up to John, taking his hand in his to shake it.  Mom looked worried, her eyes on me and the pained expression on my face.

“Of course.  When it comes to her, I’d do anything,” John said with a pained smile. 

“And that’s the reason I called you.”

I couldn’t make sense of any of it.  John was here because my dad had called him?  Why did he even call?

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking between the two of them. 

“I called him earlier this afternoon,” Dad explained.  “After what happened at lunch, I just…I couldn’t see you beat yourself up anymore.  So I called him and, apparently, he got the next flight here.”

“I was coming anyway, Em,” John said then.  “Because I need answers from you.  I need to know why you left as suddenly as you did.  Because it doesn’t make sense to me.  Like I said, two weeks was all the time I could take before I came back.”

“Well, I need more than two weeks,” I shot back.  The words came out more vicious than I wanted them to.  “I need months, years…”

“That’s what you think you need, sweetie,” Dad cut in.  “But guess what?  You didn’t need any time at all.  I knew you wanted to go back to him the day you came home.”

I shook my head.  “I…I can’t.”

Couldn’t they see?  I couldn’t go back, no matter how much I wanted to.  Dad knew that I was home for a reason, so why wouldn’t he just let me be without calling John?  Having him here…

“Emmy,” Mom said then, speaking for the first time.  “You need to talk to your dad for a moment alone.”  She turned to John then and smiled apologetically.  “Do you want to come into the living room with me for a little while, just so they…?”