Chapter 16 - Don't Look Back, Let It Go

 



They start over the bridge on Oceanic Blvd  and Jon stops, dead in his tracks.  Beth, not paying very close attention runs right into him. 

 

She was looking at the boats on the water and was remembering older and more simpler times.  Times when she wasn't just a few feet behind the man that she loved with all of her heart, behind the man that's hurt her the most and behind the man that she knows has something on his mind. 

"Hey." she laughs, bouncing off of him.  He leans against the wall and takes his sun glasses off.  She can see the look on his face.  She's starting to get freaked out.  In the studio, when she was listening to his song, at first he was happy.  When she listened to it for the second time, she could see his mood change and that's when he went somber.  She's confused.  "Do you mind telling me what's going on?  What happened back there in the studio?"  She leans on the wall, next to him. 

He looks at her and asks, "How can you forgive me and act like nothing happened?"  She's shocked by his question and even more shocked that she doesn't have a go to response.  She doesn't know where this is coming from.

"What do you mean, how can I forgive you?  I love you, Jon." she replies, with a slight stutter.  She can't wrap her head around what's going on right now.  

"How can you forgive me about Melissa?  How can you move on and make like it never happened?"

"I love you, that's how I can do that.  Where is this coming from, Jon?" she stands in front of him, catching his gaze.  "What's going on?"

He turns his head, breaking eye contact with her, knowing that he can see her heart when he looks into her eyes, "How can you look at me and not get mad?"

"There are times that I can't look at you and get mad, but that's the passed.  It does neither one of us any good to hold onto it, it's just going to drowned us."  she takes his face and pulls it in her direction.  "You have to talk to me."

He puts his head down and starts with, "Last night you had the weight of the world on your shoulders and you flowed through it all with grace and dignity." Exhaling and kicking a rock that was at his foot, "I watch you and you amaze me how well you keep it all together.  I mean, fuck, look at everything you have been through in the last 2 years.  My biggest stress is touring and touring on top.  That's fucking nothing, that's self induced and yet you muddle through the tragedy and the chaos that's our everyday life."

 

"Our whole life isn't chaos and tragedy, babe.  There is much more good than there is bad."  she doesn't stop there, "How do you think I get through all of it?  It's because I have you at my side."

 

"And I'm a lot of help...." he starts to belittle himself. 

 

Now she's getting mad because she sees what's going on here, "I don't know where I would be without you.  Losing the twins had me on the edge."  He looks up at her  "Losing Brian and then them, I was convinced that I wasn't meant to have loved ones.  I thought I would be alone forever."

 

"Babe....." he starts, but she puts her hand up to stop him.  "When you got to me in California, when you sat on the hallway floor next to me outside the girls room, I knew then that we would get through it all and we would do it together.  Granted, it wasn't easy - but it was you and me."

 

"How did you do it?  I have to know, how did you keep it together knowing that they were gone?  How did you carry them for 4 days and not lose your mind?"

 

She takes a step back and looks at him.  He's taking her back to a place that she didn't want to go, but she knew that she had to do it, for him.  "I lost my mind the second that I found out they were gone."

 

"I'm serious."

 

"So, am I.  When the doctor left me to get dressed, that was it.  I broke down and I still haven't stopped crying inside.  I think about them everyday and it kills me not knowing what happened.  I feared everyday that we would get pregnant again, and that's why I could never let myself be intimate with Dalton."  she leans on the bridge wall next to him again, and looks across the street at the many people that were lounging on their boat decks.

 

Jon turns and faces her, "What do you mean feared?  You aren't worried about it now?"

 

Beth's gut started to turn and she suddenly started to feel sick.  She slipped up and he caught it.