Being on the phone with my mother wasn’t doing much to support my cause, she could read my feelings and couldn’t even see me. The people who I had to talk to were ten minutes away. Harlow had to know everything that was going through my head. Hopefully, an insight into the bigger picture and allowing Johnny to process the true revelations would help his understanding. He was my best friend and Harlow his sister, I could see why he would be hurt at the end of the day, but now I had to demonstrate this wasn’t a game. It was a commitment. Normally my mother would keep me tethered to the line as she hung on to every word I spoke, but today, she spun the call up faster to end.
“Go tell him how you feel.”
Warmth tingled inside me, as every sense of doubt evaporated away. I put on my shoes and placed my keys and phone in my hand and locked the door behind me. As I ran my way straight back to her, the house came into view and the nerves I expected to feel were bundled into a tight knot and gathered in the pit of my stomach. With a knock at the door, I didn’t want to just assume territorial markings and walk in, so I stood and waited. The door opened, to be met with Johnny's thunderous gaze.
“Can we talk?”
I didn’t want to overstep my mark, even though I just wanted to storm past him to my girl, but I would show him respect in his own home. The tick in his jaw was apparent and I could see him mulling over my words as he bore his eyes straight into my peripheral line. With a sharp, spite lapse of the tongue, his words relayed.
“No, I only answered as I thought it was pizza. We are way past talking, don’t you think, bro?”
The snark in his tone would seem that this wasn’t going to be an easy task to make things right between us straight away. I listened to Johnny, knowing I had to play to his softer nature and plead.
“I need you to understand how I feel about Harlow. I told my mother. To be honest she wasn’t in the least surprised, which confused me more than I had expected it to. Harlow is my everything and all I want is her to be happy.”
His face lacked emotion and even though the twitch in his eye was threatening to break through, I knew it wouldn’t. I knew whatever I did, nothing was going to crack past the tough exterior. With his fingers tapping on the door, I saw the bulging veins in his neck pulsing and throbbing away.
“Elijah let’s be honest. I don’t give a shit about your apparent feelings. I know you and Harlow, you’re just an infatuation. I hope you are proud of toying with her heart and destroying our friendship.”
The pizza man came up the drive and Johnny grabbed the boxes and said, “Thanks for these.”
With his hand on the door, I heard the creaking floorboard on the stairs but before my eyes could connect with hers, she walked past, not noticing me stood there. His eyes screamed at me, but I wasn’t intimidated at all, as he could see.
“Har…”
As the door slammed in my face, I knew that this wasn’t over by a long shot. I reached for my phone and sent a message to her, just to let her know I’d been to the house and to try and see it from Johnny’s side. Knowing Harlow, her feisty temper will have just been raised a notch, all thanks to her brother and his interfering ways. I didn’t envy being on the receiving end of that temper of hers. I tried to attempt to bide my time for now and contemplate my next move. This was just the first obstacle. Johnny hadn’t beat me yet and I knew he would realise that, too. I wasn’t a quitter, especially when it concerned the woman of my heart.
Forty-Seven
Harlow
If I hada mirror to hand, I knew the fire burning in my eyes would be vivid and exuberant with the heat travelling through my body. That warm caramel voice was able to melt every part of me, simple the flames, and Johnny had the fucking nerve to send him away. I understood he was hurting at that moment, but that didn’t give him the right to turn Elijah away, no matter what had happened. The suffocating feeling that he had created made me feel like I needed to escape the room and his presence before I said something I regretted later. The possibility of that happening was increasing by the second and once voiced, I knew they couldn’t be taken back.
Johnny attempted to hand me one of the boxes of pizza, as a gesture of good will, as he cautiously spoke. “Here’s yours.”
I didn’t reply back, biting my lip in an attempt to bide the minutes till escape, but Johnny wouldn’t just leave it alone.
“Harlow, I wasn’t having him here and I’m not apologising for it.”
I grabbed the box out of his hands and a bottle of wine from the fridge with a glass.
“Johnny, that’s not your decision to make!” I shouted running up the stairs and slamming my door.
Everything was put on the side before I just threw myself on the bed and sobbed tears of anger and frustration into my pillow. The flicker of the white light drew my eye to my phone, and I reached forward and noticed the message sat in my inbox. Noting even now how Elijah thought of me, instead of the prick downstairs.
Elijah – Harlow, I’m not giving up just remember it’s raw for him. I’m still here. Xxx.
Elijah was sweet and caring, but I knew this spat with Johnny could last a long time. Especially when my brother thought his opinions were the only ones that mattered. I knew it wasn’t his intention to force a choice, but I knew my heart would be broken as a result.
There was only so much pain and turmoil one person could manage, and my limits were fast approaching. Johnny would never physically ask me, but by keeping us apart, he was hurting himself in the process. I knew that whatever happened, it wasn’t going to be easy.
Johnny needed to avoid my company at that moment and take the hint. I couldn’t be the person to make this animosity grow bigger between the pair of them. If I went radio silent, then at least I knew I wouldn’t be classed as causing more issues. The rest then, was down to the pair of them. The wine helped loosen my feelings, letting me escape my worries even if for only a few hours. Otherwise, they would fester inside and eat away at me. I couldn’t let them build up like they had done in the past. At least one mistake I had overcome.
I just didn’t expect for the blackout to occur and fling me into pure darkness.
My heart rate increased, as the noises in my head intensified. The manic thoughts unable to escape, as they took over what was reality and my imagination. The shadows encased the walls as they reflected against various objects. My breathing began to increase and become laboured as I frantically flicked the switch for the light next to the bedside unit. I ran to the door and slid down to the floor, anything to escape the images, grabbing my phone as I went. I had promised myself radio silence from Elijah, but I couldn’t turn to Johnny. I was too angry for his comfort.
I pressed the button to find his number, but the empty battery icon flashed across the screen, and I threw it on the bed. A knock on the door made me jump out of my skin and Johnny’s worried voice echoed through the wood.