Water Ch. 57 - Shot Through The Heart

It wasn't easy getting through LAX in the middle of the night for some reason.  She just wanted to get to baggage claim, get her bag and get her ass home.  She has been on the whirlwind romance of her life and right at the end it blows up in her face.  She wanted to get home and wash the remnants of the weekend down the drain..  Where is my damn bag?

Standing there, she gets her cell phone out of her purse to see if she had missed any communications and she hadn't.  Her battery is dead.  Crap.  The alarm goes off and she watches bags drop off the conveyor and onto the round about.  She drops her phone back in her purse and grabs her bag off the round about, lugging it out of the terminal, to the taxi waiting area.  She gets in a cab and is finally heading home.  The 2 hour layover in Chicago pissed her off like no other flight has before.  All she wanted to do was get home, so she could repack and go to the Bahama's.  A working vacation sounded like the best medicine for what ailed her, a splintered heart. 

Walking in the door of her condo broke her heart more than she had anticipated.  There were more remnants of a man she wanted to know, a man that swooped in, stole her heart - a married man.  Why was this so hard, so painful.  Why was she not on the phone calling him? 

Grabbing her big suitcase from the spare bedroom and throwing it up on her bed, all she wanted to do was climb into her bed, not pack all night long.  Looking through her closets at her clothes and shoes, she had no idea how she should pack.  She can't think straight.  Deciding that a nice hot shower would relax her a little bit, she would do that and then maybe she could pack.

Ring. Ring. Ring. startles her as she's grabbing her bathrobe out of her closet and clean panties from her drawer.  She looks over at her land line telephone and thinks to herself, that has to be Jon. Needing to hear his voice, she had no option other than to answer it.

"Hello" she softly says. 

"You had me scared to death." was all he could say.  It went quite.

"I'm sorry, my cell phone died and I literally walked in the door 10 minutes ago.  What are you up to?" she asks, pretending that she's not dying inside.

"I have been pacing the floor for about the last half hour, wondering why you haven't called.  I was really getting worried." he admits he was almost in a panic.  There isn't much worse than wanting to contact someone and you can't. 

"What did you think happened?  Where did you think I was?' politely asking him why he was in such a panic. 

"I figured you would have been home hours ago, I just wanted to be sure you got home okay."

"I would have been home hours ago if I hadn't been laid over in Chicago for 2 damn hours." pissing herself off again, thinking about it.  She sits on the edge of her bed, she can tell this won't be a 2 minute conversation. 

"Sorry you had a delay, I'm glad you're home - SAFE" with his emphasis on the word safe.  "What time do you leave tomorrow?"  He wants to change the subject, he doesn't want to dwell on the fact that he worried about her for hours.

"We leave L.A. at 11:00.  So, not looking forward to it."  She admits, although her earlier thought of a working vacation was a good one, 

He would rather she be in New York, but if she were going anywhere, the Bahama's is a nice place for her to go, "Try to have some fun while you're there, for me.  You deserve it and need it." 

"These things can be fun, I'll try.  I promise." she tries to pull the wool over his eyes, but it's not working.

Not wanting to pressure her or come on too strong, but he has to ask, "Are we okay?  Are you okay?"

"What do you mean, are we okay?  What is we?  I'm fine, Jon.  How are you?" she replies in the way that his question made her feel.  Flippant, for lack of a better word.

"We left things in the middle of the sidewalk, where are we going from here?"  flat out, he asks.

She answers him honestly, as honest as she could at that moment, "Jon, you have some things you need to take care of before we can have THIS discussion."  with her emphasis on the word, this. 

Without hesitation, he replies with, "All that shit is being taken care of.  While you were 30,000 feet in the air, I sent Peter all the information that he could possibly need.  Don't let this get in our way, Beth.  I'm getting the divorce, it will be a done deal - I just don't know how long it's going to take."

She wants to believe him, she wants to believe with all her heart that he is telling her the truth.  She doesn't think he's fibbing, she just doesn't know how he can be so sure.  "How can you be so sure, Jon?  This contesting was a shock to you, what else could pop up?"

Jon is pacing the floors of his Navesink River house, the emptiness feeling quite heavy now.  He's shaking his head, trying to figure out a way to make her understand.  "All I can tell you is this; I want to be with YOU.  Nobody, but you.  Does that count for anything?" he hold his breath.

"That counts for alot, it really does.  But, can you see where I'm skeptical?   Can you see where I'm weary?  We had a fabulous time in Las Vegas, here at my house, in NY and in Massachusetts and then we're blind sided by Dorothea.  Maybe, we moved too fast?"  Again, who is she trying to convince?  She knows what she's saying sounds good and she should ask questions, but are the answers what her heart really needs?  Or does she just need to walk away? 

"You can't walk away now.  You can't give up before we even try." he tells her.  Knowing she's 3000 miles away drove him crazy. "This bullshit that Dot is pulling, that will go away, it may take sometime babe, but it all will end.  I can promise you that."  He believes himself. 

She's sitting on her bed, with her legs crossed flipping through the latest edition of Vogue.  She sees what's on the page but she isn't paying any attention to what's on them.  She doesn't want to interrupt him, she wants him to tell her more candy coated bullshit.  She wants to believe.  She wants to believe with all of her heart. 

"Why don't we see how things are when I get back from St. Bart's.  That will give us both time to think and see how we feel.  I think that is the best thing to do."

She's now started to knot her hair, another thing she does when she's nervous.  Twisting and twisting until it hurts.  She just told the sexiest man on earth that they basically needed some time.  Time to figure out what they should do??  She should be in New York with him, getting ready to go to Washington D.C., but instead she's in L.A. getting ready to go to the Bahama's without him.  There is something very wrong with this pictures, she says to herself.

Jon doesn't know what to do, his pacing came to a screeching halt.  He was shocked at the why don't we see how things are when she gets back that has his heart racing and his stomach flipping.  Running his fingers through his hair many times, he doesn't know what to say, except, "Please don't do this!" 

"Hey, it's only 5 days, that's not long at all.  We'll get through that and see how we feel.  I think that's reasonable, don't you?" she thought it was the dumbest thing she ever said, but she knows she needs to protect herself, first and foremost.  And then as a woman that swore to Dorothea, she would never hurt her children, so Beth had the welfare of the Bongiovi children in mind too.  She knows that she met them way to fast. 

Beginning with his pacing again, this time his strides are bigger and he seems to have a bit more energy. "What is 5 days going to do, Beth?  Make me miss you and want you more.  That's all 5 days will do."

"Take the time, Jon, to get your affairs in order.  Let's get as much behind us as we can." Beth tells him, but she's trying to tell him get rid of Dorothea and we should be fine.  "A relationship that starts out with chaos like this, typically doesn't last very long and they end bad.  I do not want that to happen.  Do you?" she getting up from her bed and trying to pack at this point.  She just starts throwing things in her suitcase, paying no attention to what she's grabbing off the hangers.

 

Jon suddenly feeling very concerned about the next week, asks her, "Will we be able to talk while you're gone?"  he wants to stay connected, even if it's just through phone calls.  He needs that line of communications, he wants it.

 

Not wanting to be a hard as, or come off like she doesn't care because that is quite the opposite, she just needs him to know that she means business.  She doesn't want to be drug into the middle of a divorce, have her name slandered in the paper - once everyone figures out who she is.  She wants it to at the very least - start better than it's been.

 

"Yes, Jon we can talk.  Althoughhhhhh, this is supposed to be an unplugged week, but I promise, I'll call.  I can't promise when, but I promise I will." she promises him and she will follow through.  "What's your schedule like this week?"

 

He heads back towards his office to get his date book, so he can give her dates and locations.  He wants her to have all the information she might need.  "Do you want me to email it to you, or do you have something to write with?" he asks, not sure how she wants the information.

 

"Um, can you tell me and email it to me?  That would be great." she replies.

 

"Tomorrow it's D.C. then Wednesday and Thursday we're at Giants Stadium.  And on Sunday we're in Philly.  That's all I have penciled in for now.  Shows are all at the same time, 8:00.  Run about 3 hours and then I'm free.  I know the kids will be with me at Giants both nights, except Romeo." giving her all the information she could possibly need.

 

"How about I call you tomorrow night?  Will that work?  I really have to get packing and get some sleep.  I should have stayed their one more night and flown to St. Bart's from New York.  Now I have to get up super early to fly all the way back across the country." she hates to admit that, but it's the truth.  She could have had Tammy bring what she needed from home.  There was just something inside her that told her to go home.

 

Not wanting to hang up, but he knew he needed to, he sullenly said, "I'll talk to you tomorrow.  Have a good night and a great flight.  Until next time."

He took her breath away, she forgot about that.  All she could say was, "I love you."  And the phone went dead.  She stood at the side of her bed with the receiver of her phone in her hand long enough that it made that crazy beeping sound. Jon stood in New Jersey in shock.  She told me she loves me.  He smiles and goes up to bed.