Water Ch. 140 - Crush

"Where the fuck have you been?" he screams at her, pacing their bedroom floor.

"Excuse me?  Who do you think you're talking to?  One of your friends?" She yells back, from the bed that she has been ordered to lay in for days.

"Beth you had no fucking reason to go into the city and see her.  You are on FULL bed rest."

She works herself up in the bed, so she can have a pissing match with him, in a comfortable position.  "You are not my fucking boss, Jon.  I can come and go as I please.  I wanted to go talk to her today, to get it over.  So SHE can get out and continue to fuck up our lives."  She's pissed that he's pissed, that he cant control her.

"You are under strict orders to stay in bed and away from stress and pressure, so you go to the looney bin.  Dumb ass move."

She pissed now, questioning her intelligence.  "Jon, it was NOT a dumb ass move.  I think it was very helpful for Stephanie."

"Stephanie?  What are you talking about?" He questions her about what she means by Stephanie being there.  His Italian animation stopped as soon as he heard her name.

Beth takes a drink of water and goes on to say, "Stephanie figured out I was there and came to get me. She was pissed I was there, too"

"She was with my mom?!"

"They called home when they were done shopping and Maria told her that I had called for a car and that you were gone. She put 2 and 2 together and showed up."  Setting her glass down, "It was good Jon.  Steph really let her have it."

Throwing his hands up in the air, he mumbles, "Great, now two of you can't follow orders."

"Orders? Jon, you need to realize something. You are not my boss.  You can try to tell me what to do, but I'm not one of the people that work for you that you can bark orders at.  The visit was fine."

"Neither one of you had any business going there Beth, either of you." He's getting louder with each word he delivers. "I insist that you don't do it again."

Beth laughs, " Have you not heard anything that I have fucking said to you Jon? Hhmm, have you?"  He can see that she's pissed off and that causes him wonder.

Looking out the window to the view of the river, he says, "Don't go back there.  Do not" and he leaves the room.

Beth lays in bed for a few minutes and stews about what just happened.  She's pissed and hurt, all at the same time.  How dare he talk to me like that? He's not my damn boss and I'm definitely not Dorothea! She flips back the covers, gets out of bed and heads of into the direction that Jon went.  She didn't make it very far, he's standing at the windows at the top of the stairs, looking out over the driveway.  Watching 3 girls take their picture at the end of the driveway.

"I want you to know that you have me more upset right now than I was at any given moment with Dot today.  Even when Stephanie showed up.  And about Stephanie, why are you blaming me for her being there? I was just as surprised as you were." He turns to look at her, and he does with the stink eye.  That infuriates her even more. "Ya know what Jon, fuck it.  You go take care of your ex wife and your kids; I'll just go lay in that bed day after day like you want me to, but WHEN Dot starts her shit again, it's all on you. I'm done trying to lighten your load and make our lives easier, hell, manageable would be nice."  With him staring at her the while time, as if he were looking through her, she adds, "I'm done." Throws her arms in the air and marches off back to bed. 

Jon follows her, unable to let her have the last word.  She's going to listen to what he has to say. 

"Goddamn it Beth, why do you think I tried to keep it from you? Why do you think I didn't want you fucking around with her? She's playing a game.  I TOLD you to trust me when it came to her...."

Beth sprung up with a laugh and said, "I did trust you when it came to her, until you went to see her and lied to me about it. I did trust you Jonny boy." She's left with a smirk on her face.

He sighs, because he knows that this is going nowhere fast, yet he needs her to know that he's serious; she is to not go see her again and she's on strict bed rest. "Don't go back to the hospital Beth, I mean it." He sits in the chair on his side of the bed. "Don't do it."

"Or what Jon, huh? Or what? Are you going to ground me? Are you going to spank me?" Beth is showing Jon a side he's not really seen before and he doesn't like it.

"Knock it the fuck off. You know that seeing her is a waste of time and she has a way with words and she'll get information out of you and you won't even see it coming."

"Oh, you mean like when she flat out asked me if I was pregnant? No word play there, Jon; she just fucking asked. Someone told her, and I assume its you!"

 

He stands up and walks at her fast, she sees a rage in his eyes and she's scared. He gets in her face and asks, "Did you tell her you are? Did you goddamnit?"

"I did."

"Jesus fucking Christ, do you have any idea what you just did? Any fucking idea at all?" He runs his fingers through his hair and is so stressed, he needs to hit something.  Without even thinking, he knocks the lamp off her bedside table and it shatters into a thousand pieces, "damn it Beth, we're fucked."

Beth decided she had had enough, she grabbed her robe and went downstairs.  Lupetta had already made dinner and the kids were all at the table eating, so she sat down with them thinking that they were 'safe', that Jon's rant would stop with them in the room - was she ever wrong.  Jon appeared in the doorway and kind of asked Beth, "Let's go for a walk."

Not even looking at him, "I'm on bed rest, I want to eat with the kids. Why don't you join us?" As she pushes out a chair with her foot. 

Stephanie looks over at her dad and says, "Yeah dad, take a break from yelling at her and eat with us."  Jon felt himself fall to about 2 feet high.  "Don't take it out on Beth that mom knows about the twins, she didn't tell her."

"Steph, stop.  Beth, let's go outside for a minute." He looks at her with sincerity, but she can still hear the lamp break and part of her heart break.

"Jon, I'd rather not."  And she reaches for the plate that Maria was handing her. Beth looks at her plate and makes a funny face at Romeo, "What is this?" And she laughs.  She knows that it's lamb chops, but she was after a distraction.  And Romeo did the trick.  But only for a minute.

"Come on Beth. Lets go outside."  He reaches over for her hand and she ignores it.

Jesse feeling the tension and says, "sit down dad, lets have dinner together."

Jon knows he's lost this one, specially since the kids are now involved.  He takes the seat that Beth pushed out for him.  

From the opposite end of the table Jon hears, "Do you want a plate, Jon?"  He acknowledges Lupetta.

"No thanks Pete, I'm not hungry." And he sits there and watches everyone eat.  Running through his head, "I'm never going to get divorced, never.  This is a nightmare."

When the kids are finished eating, Lupetta does what she does best - she manages the Bongiovi children when they need to be managed most.  She has been with the family long enough to know that Jon is pissed and she needs to take the kids away from the situation.  The Bongiovi children are very guarded and very protected and sometimes it's needed from their own parents.  Jon and Dorothea tried very hard to not argue in front of them, although there were times when it was unavoidable.  Jon has a tendency of flying off the handle when certain things piss him off as there wasn't any time or training to prepare anyone for it. It just happened.  Lupetta put the kids in her car and took them into town for ice cream, she knew that she needed to keep the kids out for a little while.  Lupetta has not seen Jon this upset in a very long time.

With the kids gone and the staff in the kitchen, Jon started in on Beth, again.  She was feeling like he was trying to bully her or make her feel bad and she wasn't going to let that happen, anymore.

She slides her hand across the table and teaches for Jon's, but like a baby he pulled his away. "Really, Jon?" And she gives him the look of disgust.

"Really Beth, this is bad.  You shouldn't have gone there, do you realize that?" He stands up and walk over to the bar and pours himself a glass of wine, then adding his ice cube.

"That didn't take long." Beth mumbles.

"What didn't?" He asks.

"You not drinking until I could."

He slams the glass down on the table and loses it, "This is what you fucking did today Beth, you yourself, by going against my wishes and visiting Dorothea. My divorce proceedings are done, null and void.  I have to start the process all over again.  From the beginning.  I have spent so much time and money trying to get away from her and you practically move her back in here." He stops to see if he can read her expression, which there is none.  "Do you understand what this means?"

Beth had no idea why her visit had anything to do with his divorce, so she admitted, "I have no idea what the hell you are talking about, Jon.  How can my visit affect your divorce in anyway?"

"It's what you said at the visit, not the visit itself. Admitting to her that you were pregnant stopped any and all legal action I had, plus it cost me 50 thousand more a year when I do divorce her."  He paces and paces.  The rest of the wine is calling his name and he's to the point where he needed the drink.  He needed the calm and he was just thirsty. 

 

Instead of using the glass that he cracked when he slammed it down, he just drank from the bottle.  He leans against the chair that he was sitting in and said, "This is bad.  I try so hard to keep my private life private and my business out of the news, but I have no control now.  She is going to use this to try to hurt me, this is all that she has.  She'll already get an ungodly amount of money, now she has power to smear me in the media.  Thank god her access is limited while she's in the hospital."  He stands there and shakes his head, he can't believe that Beth did that, to him and to them.

 

"Will you tell me what the hell I did by trying to help someone?  I am so lost right now, Jon.  Explain it to me or quit talking about it, okay.  Cause I am already over it."  She exhales heavily and stands up.  "I better get my bed ridden ass back up to bed, before the Bongiovi police find me."  And she leaves the dining room, with Jon and his bottle of wine behind her.  She exaggerates her walk up the stairs back into the master bedroom.  She just sits on the edge of the bed, because she sees that she needs to clean up the broken lamp.  She looks at the lamp, looks at Jon and rolls her eyes again.  He is leaning on the door frame, looking at her.  She can practically feel him burn a hole through her.  "What does staring at me do?  It doesn't undo what she knows and what I did."  And she air quotes I did.

 

Walking toward her, swigging the bottle of Pinot, he responds, "Why did you tell her that you were pregnant?  I can't make any scenario work.  That's the last thing you EVER needed to say to her.  So, tell me, how did it come up in conversation?"  She can't figure out where all this anger was coming from. 

 

"She asked me if I was pregnant.  And I told her the truth, Jon.  I wasn't going to lie."  She calmly tells him, but as she says the words it kind of hits her, "Why would I want to hide the fact that I'm pregnant anyway?  I am thrilled to be having babies and you are making me feel like I have committed the ultimate sin."  She gets up and starts to pick up the broken lamp.  He walks to her, grabs her wrist and helps her to stand.

 

"JON!  Stop it." she winces, he has her wrist pretty hard.

 

"Why did you have to tell her today?"

 

"Let go of my arm Jon." she tries to pull away, and he's not letting her go.

 

Pulling her to him, so they are now face to face, he repeats himself, "Why did you have to tell her today?"

 

Trying again to pull away, she says, "Because she asked me today.  Let me fucking go."  One last tug and she's free.  She can't move.  She is paralyzed by what just happened.  She has no idea what he'll do next.  She knows he's pissed and maybe he has every right to be; but to grab her and not let her go - that scared her.  She's seeing a side of Jon that she's heard about and one that she never wants to see again.

 

Jon realizes what he had just done and he could see the look on her face.  She was afraid, and he made her that way.  Setting the bottle down on the night stand,  he walks into her and wraps his arms around her.  "Baby, I am so sorry.  I am so sorry."  Kissing her forhead, he keeps saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

 

It was as if he had kissed his anger away and kissed it into her.  She puts her hands on his chest and pushes him back.  "Was it that easy for Dorothea to forgive you and accept you flying off the handle?"  She walks away from him, no place in mind - she just wanted to be away from him. 

 

He doesn't know how to handle her rejection, he starts to follow her, "Where are you going?"

 

Beth grabs a sweatshirt out of the closet and tells him, "I'm going to sit outside, please leave me be."  And she leaves the bedroom that they share.  He watches as she walks down the hallway and starts down the stairs.  He wants to follow her, her needs to make this right, but he knows that she wants to be alone.  He sits on the bed and waits for her.

 

Beth finds herself back on the riverside bench, alone with her thoughts.  She needs to wrap her head around the nightmare that she had gone through.  He's pissed at me becasue I went and seen Dot.  Why?  Why is it okay for him to scream and yell at her and break things?  Doesn't that fall under stressful and pressure situations?  Why did he scream at me like that.  What does Dot knowing I'm pregnant have to do with anything?  How can he treat me like that?  I'm pregnant with his babies...........She does what any pregnant woman would do, she starts to cry.