Bella James Morrison McConnell (bella_mcconnell) wrote in btvsal, @ 2010-09-14 20:24:00 |
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Current location: | Outside Damon's Apartment |
Current mood: | sad |
Entry tags: | bella mcconnell, place: la, ~john robertson-cooper |
After-Break Up Dinner
Who: Bella & John
Where: Outside of Damon's Apartment
When: Saturday evening, July 31st
After Bella left Damon's apartment, she walked down the stairs and out of the building, still holding her feelings inside of her. She managed to get down to the next building (she had walked there for some ungodly reason) before she burst into tears. She actually would have welcomed a mugger or a vampire right now. At least she would have had something to vent her anger upon right now. She wasn't really thinking straight.
John had stayed late at a friends house that evening and he'd ended up falling asleep while the two of them had watched a movie. Normally, the writer would've stayed over, but he'd forgotten to leave a note for his mom and as his unfortunate luck would have him...he'd forgotten his cell phone.
Making his apologies to his friend, he high-tailed it out of the apartment building. Just as he stepped onto the pavement, he was suddenly plowed into by another person. The klutz that he was, John toppled over, his messenger bag inadvertently knocking him in the head as he went down.
Bella was kind of shocked out of her daze when she ran into someone. She didn't fall over. Got to love that Slayer grace, but she had knocked the boy over. "Oh...I'm sorry," she said, offering a hand down to him to help him up off the ground. She really needed to call someone to pick her up before she walked out into traffic or something.
Sprawled on the pavement, John groaned just a tad when he struggled to sit up. His glasses sat askew on his face, but that really wasn't important at the moment as hand lifted to inspect for blood on his noggin. Fortunately, John's hand came away clean just as the girl's voice cut in and he noticed her hand.
John was about to let out a nasty retort when he looked up at her face. The look of utter anger and heartbreak on that gorgeous face made the writer eat his words and he took her offered hand, "Uh...it's okay." Getting to his feet with her help, John finally righted his glasses and added, "I guess both of us weren't watching where we were going."
"No, I guess not," she said as she watched the change on his face from anger to something akin to pity. Was what had just happened to her that obvious on her face? It must be, because, very briefly, it looked like that guy was going to insult the daylights out of her. "I'm just kind of distracted right now, obviously."
"Uh-huh." There was a pause before, "...You okay?" John asked out of both curiosity and politeness.
Bella actually thought for a second before answering that. "Well, not really, although I guess that's kind of obvious since I'm kind of plowing people down in the middle of the side walk." She sighed. "It's been a bad night."
"Mm-hm," John adjusted his glasses again, "Yeah...I was going to say that because, it looks like someone mowed down your dog and you want to tear their throat out with a wood chipper." Yes, John had a somewhat vivid imagination.
Bella arched her eyebrow at him. "That's...pretty accurate, actually. No one hit my dog, mainly because I don't have one, but I do kind of want to hurt the person who hurt me. Won't really do any good, though. I don't even think it'll make me feel all that better."
A shrug came from the writer and he agreed, "Yeah...I mean, it will for a little bit, but in the end there's just more hurt." John studied Bella a little more, "Let me guess...bad break-up?"
She chuckled. "Is it really written on my face that much?" she asked. Either this guy was a mind reader (which wasn't that out of the question, considering her life), or he could just read people really well. She almost wanted to bet on him being a mind reader, actually, which showed just how jaded she really was to this sort of thing by now.
No, John wasn't a mind reader, but he knew enough of the signs of the fallout of a break-up. A smile tugged at the one corner of his lips, "Let's just say I'm aware of the signs and I'm usually the shoulder that gets cried on."
Bella sighed. "Aren't you just lucky?" she asked. She was planning on sparring this poor kid of doing that to him. Actually, she didn't want to do that to ANYONE right now. She kind of wanted to be alone when she let that all out.
John shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and waited, letting her make the decision to either walk away or talk. The writer wasn't much of a talker and when he did, he usually had something significant to say, at least in the real world. Get him in the dream world...well, let's just say he was much more comfortable in his subconscious than when he was awake. The young man just shrugged in reply.
Bella wasn't really sure what to do, either. She briefly thought about just walking away, but that just felt weird, like she was leaving a conversation half finished. "Look, let me buy you a cup of coffee or something for plowing into you like a mack truck at least," she said finally.
"Yeah," she said, pulling her cell phone out. Her family was nice enough to pay for her to have one now, even though she had been such a bitch to them for most of the time that she had been here before.
Looking at it a moment, John's brown gaze met Bella's, "Can I use it to make a quick call?" That smile tugged at his lips again, "My mom'll worry if I'm not home by midnight."
"Sure," she said, handing it over to him. "Wouldn't want your parents to get worried just because some girl wanted to make up for running you over by taking you out for coffee."
John chuckled as he pulled a hand out of a pocket to take the phone, producing the other to introduce himself to Bella, "I'm John, by the way."
She shook his free hand. "Bella," she said to him. "Nice to meet you, even though I nearly hurt you in the process." Hopefully a cup of coffee would make up for that in a little bit.
One shoulder lifted in a shrug that seemd to say, Eh, but what can ya do? while he started dialing his house. As the phone rang, John glanced at Bella before taking a few steps away and turning his back on her. A moment later, his mother picked up the phone, "...John?"
"Yeah, Ma."
"Are you still at Tierce's?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna be a couple more hours so don't wait up."
"Okay, dear. Make sure he gives you a ride home, okay? Love you!"
"Uh," John glanced over his shoulder in Bella's direction and muttered into the phone, "Love ya, too, Ma. Bye."
John ended the call and handed the phone back to Bella, "Thanks again."
She smiled at him when he handed the phone back to her. She had actually been able to hear the entirety of the conversation due to her enhanced hearing, but didn't say anything about it, because people tended to find it weird when they found out she could hear that well. "So...coffee?"
"Coffee," John replied, returning Bella's smile. Pointing down the street, the young man made a suggestion, "You know there's a diner at the end of the block that's open 24 hours. The coffee isn't bad and the pie is pretty much to die for."
She smiled when he gave her an idea for where to go. "Sounds as good a place as any," she said to him. She started to head in the direction that he indicated. She was kind of craving something sweet at this point anyway. Start the post-break up pig out a little early.
Picking up his messenger bag from the sidewalk, John lifted it over his head and settled the strap on the opposite shoulder. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his jeans again as he walked beside Bella in silence.
Soon enough they reached the diner, and Bella walked inside, picking out the table in a corner of the room and sitting down. When the waitress came over to them, Bella ordered a cup of coffee and then started to look over the menu. Might as well see if something caught her interest.
John already knew what he wanted and ordered a coffee, black, and a slice of apple pie. He smiled up at the waitress, "Thanks, Linda." The waitress winked at him and left to bring the two of the their coffee. The teenager turned his attention to Bella and explained, "The building I came out of," He said, gesturing back the way they came, "My friend, Tierce, lives there. We hang out here a lot on the weekends when his girlfriend isn't over."
She nodded. She realized that she would have to call both Gwen and Chloe in the morning and tell them what happened with Damon. He might get lucky and not be staked by either one of him. Lucky for him that Gwen was moving. That actually reminded her that she had a way out of here, too, so that she would never have to see Damon again, if she so wanted. "Tierce...that name sounds familiar." It was such a weird name that she couldn't be making it up in her head.
Linda returned with two mugs of coffee just before John offered, "Uh...his last name is Japhrimel if that helps." The writer took a sip of his coffee and then gingerly tested his head again, just to make sure he hadn't hit it too hard. The spot was tender, but John was fairly sure that he didn't have a concussion or anything serious. I guess he could call Tierce when he got home to wake him up every hour. It was strange, Tierce hardly ever needed a lot of sleep...But, whatever. Everyone had their secrets.
"Actually, I think I know his girlfriend," she admitted after thinking about it for a second. "Her name's Sin, right?" Sin was a girl that, when you met her once, you never really forgot her. She also knew that Sin's boyfriend was a dragon, which made things very interesting.
Spearing some of the apple pie on the end of his fork, said fork hovered in front of his mouth, which was comically open to receive said piece of pie. The utensil was set down on the plate with a clatter and John's open mouth gaped in apparently surprise. His mouth quickly curved into a smile as he said, "Wow, really? Guess that Disney ride is right," The writer picked up the fork again, consuming that forkful of apple pie goodness and added, "It's a small world, after all."
She smiled when he pointed out what a small world LA really seemed to be sometimes. No matter what they did, it seemed like they all knew each other in some weird 'Six Degrees of the Supernatural' game that seemed to be going on. "Yeah, it kind of is a small word," she agreed. "Seems like everyone under the age of twenty-five in LA seems to know each other, or knows someone that knows everyone." It was kind of weird, actually.
"Hm...yeah, I can see how it would seem that way," John nodded in agreement, his hands doing a little gesture as he said, "High School is like this little microcosm and everyone knows everyone. Honestly, one could almost say that traversing the perils of High School is it's own world." A smile tugged at one corner of his lips a moment as he looked back at Bella, but then grew serious after a moment of watching her, "...You wanna talk about what happened?" He offered to the Slayer.
She listened to him as he talked, remembering the fact that she DIDN'T remember high school at all. There had to be some way of getting her memories back. There wasn't a future that she could mess up with them now, was there? The future had changed. So maybe there was some way of getting her memories back finally.
She looked at him for a moment when he asked her if she wanted to talk about what happened. "It's actually kind of simple," she said to him. "I had to leave for a while. It wasn't my choice at all. At some point, I think my boyfriend started seeing someone else, like he had given up on me returning. When I came back, he forgot her existence, which I think made her angry, and apparently made him realize that he was obsessed with me, which is apparently bad, so he broke up with me." There is was in a nutshell folks.
A bark of dry laughter came from John unintentionally. He shook his head, "When it comes to relationships, nothing is ever that simple." The writer shrugged, "Okay...you've told me his version of the story. What about yours? What do you feel about what he said?" John then pushed his plate of apple pie toward Bella in a silent invitation to have as much as she wanted. Everyone had their thing they used or did to make themselves feel better and a lot of the time, in the case of women, it was some sort of comfort food. Well, it had been John's limited experience that showed him this, of course. This was not necessarily true of all women, but it was something he saw a lot at school.
She sighed. "If only things were simple," she said. She picked up her fork and snagged a bite of apple pie. She wasn't really sure what to say next about 'her side' of things. How much could she say without seemingly like a fruit loop? Not too much, honestly. "How do I feel? Like it's a bunch of crap, honestly," she admitted to him. "I'm really not sure what he went through while I was gone. I can't imagine. It's not like I left of my own free will, though. I didn't exactly have a choice. It feels like I'm being punished for something that isn't even my fault."
"You should tell him that. That you feel it's some sort of punishment for something you didn't do. He's the bad guy in this, not you." John said vehemently. He then sat back in the booth and then shrugged a little, "Of course, the choice to do that is yours. You can either except what he's said and try to move on, or you can fight it and try to get him back."
"I could fight for him," Bella said. "What good would it do, though? He seems to have made up his mind about this. Maybe it is for the best." She wasn't too sure if she believed that, but she couldn't trust herself to be around him right now. She might smack him in the face with a cross or something, just to try and make him feel as hurt as she was right now.
"Okay..." John said, sitting up and leaning forward a little to rest a forearm on the table, "Given what you just said," The writer tapped the surface of the table with his other index finger, "Two weeks from now, ask yourself if you feel the same way. 'Do I still want to fight for this guy who's made me feel like complete crap? Or do I think it's time to move on?'"
"That's actually not too bad of advice," Bella admitted after thinking about it for a moment. "Most high schoolers aren't nearly this wise. How'd you get to be so?" She couldn't help but be curious. Most of the adults that she knew weren't half this good at giving advice, after all.
John sat back, suddenly shy at the question presented him. A modest smile curved his lips and he shrugged, "I don't know, my mom always says that to me, too." John turned his gaze to the window overlooking the street outside. He couldn't very well say that he got the inspiration from walking through people's subconscious minds now could he? No, 'cause that would just be crazy talk.
"My parents got divorced when I was just entering middle school and it was tough seeing my mom go through the whole ordeal." John looked back at Bella and shrugged again, "I guess...that whole thing wised me up real quick. It made me realize how hard life can be on everyone, whether or you're happy or sad."
She watched as his attitude changed a little. Didn't seem like he wanted to talk about himself so much. If it were any other night, Bella wouldn't want to talk much about herself, either. Tonight she had been ripped kind of raw, though, and wasn't thinking as clearly as she normally did. Then again, talking about this felt good, and it helped her put her thoughts into place. So, maybe talking helped. Who knew?
"My parents aren't together anymore, either," she said. "It does kind of make you wise up. Well, it can do that or you can go stupid for a while like I did. I think you went the better route."
The writer kind of gave Bella a look that was a mixture of disbelief and perplexity, "Stupid? I'm sorry, I don't think I understand."
Bella shook her head. "When my parents separated, I kind of held it against one of them. I didn't really get at the time that you shouldn't try to force people together for your own benefit. They weren't meant to be, and them staying together just would have made things a lot worse than they ended up being, which, trust me, they got pretty bad."
John nodded silently, taking a sip of his coffee while Bella spoke. Setting his mug back on the table, the teenager spoke up when she'd finished, "I get it. You get angry and there's always the excuse to blame someone. For a while, I was pretty angry at my dad. He was really nasty to my mom during the whole situation but really, he was just scared because she was different."
"Yeah, I think that was a lot of it," Bella admitted. "Plus one of my parents was devastated by what had happened which didn't exactly endear me to the other either." The last part caught her attention, but didn't say anything about it. She didn't exactly know this kid, after all.
The writer nodded again in agreement and then asked, "Did you ever forgive that person?"
"Eventually yeah, but it kind of took me seeing them in a new light to do so," Bella admitted. "Not everyone gets that opportunity though. I was just kind of lucky I guess."
John had finished his mug of coffee and pushed it aside on the table. Dropping his chin into his hand, he looked at Bella silently for a moment while he thought over what she'd said and finally asked, "Do you think you can eventually forgive this guy for breaking up with you?" It was potentially a question asked too soon, but John felt the need to help Bella in whatever way he could. If she wanted his help in getting over her boyfriend, he'd do whatever was necessary.
Bella nodded. "I think it can happen someday," she said truthfully. "I know for sure that I don't want to be carrying around the feelings that I've got inside me right now forever. Still, it's probably not going to happen any time soon." She was just being honest, there. Even though she KNEW that she wanted to eventually forgive Damon for her own sake (and not his), she just didn't see it happening any time soon.
John shrugged, "Things like that take time. Emotional injury and pain takes a lot longer to heal than the physical stuff." The teenager offered a small smile to Bella.
"I'm not expecting it to happen tomorrow," she said. "I'm not even sure I *want* it to happen tomorrow. I just know that I wouldn't want to be bitter forever, and part of fixing that is forgiveness." Even if right now she sort of wished that he'd forget to close his curtains before going to bed tonight.
"Honestly? It wouldn't be practical of you to think that it could happen tomorrow." John shifted in his seat, pressing a hand to his chest where his heart was, "When it comes to matters of the heart, there isn't a quick-fix." Again, John smiled, "But I think you're smart enough to know that."
She nodded, giving him a slight smile. "Thanks," she said. She wasn't sure if anyone had called her smart before. If they had, it had at least been quite a long time. "Stuff like that doesn't happen overnight, unfortunately." Then again, love wouldn't be worth it if it were so easy to get over.
John just shrugged, that small smile still on his lips as he replied, "You're welcome."