Luckily for my mental state, my mom’s admission to the hospital was on Friday, so I had the weekend to go and visit her, and to get over the initial shock of it before having to go back to my classes.
It was a shock. A big one. I’d never seen my mom look so weak, so frail. She was released early on Saturday morning and came back home, immediately retiring to her bed to rest as per doctor’s orders.
I went to visit her fairly often, and by the end of the weekend she was already looking more like herself again; she was getting up, wandering around the house, refusing to be seen without her makeup done perfectly, that sort of thing.
When I saw Annie on Tuesday at our Art History class, I told her everything.
“Oh, I’m so glad your mom’s ok!” she told me.
“Me too.”
“What happened?” Oliver asked as he sat on the other side of me.
“Nothing. It’s pretty personal.”
“Well, nothing you can’t let me in on, I’m guessing.”
“Actually, I’m not telling you. Mind your own business.” I had been polite to him before, but that was just crossing a line. In fact, I wasn’t sure why he was still insisting on sitting next to me after I turned him down. There were plenty of other empty seats out there.
I heard him mutter “bitch” as he turned around, and I rolled my eyes at Annie, who gave me the ‘woah, what’s with that dude’ look as the professor walked in and began her lecture.
I realized halfway through class that I was completely and totally exhausted. Maybe the weekend had been harder on me than I thought. When the professor let us go, I begged off from going to the gym with Annie that afternoon.
“I just don’t have it in me today. I’m so tired, I think I’m just going to go grab a coffee, then go home.”
“Yeah, of course. Don’t worry Julianne, I get it. Go home, get some rest. Take care of yourself, ok? Say hi to your mom for me.”
“I will, thanks Annie.”
I shot her a grateful smile then went off the other way, taking out my phone to text Michael to come pick me up an hour early.
I headed towards my favourite coffee shop, a couple blocks off campus. As the next set of classes were getting started, the streets were pretty empty, but I decided to take a shortcut through a small alley anyway, just to get there faster.
Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me.
“Hey, Julianne!”
I turned to see Oliver coming towards me.
“What do you want?” I asked, instinctively pulling my jacket closer towards me.
“What the fuck do you think you were doing, disrespecting me like that?”
There was rage in his eyes, he came closer to me, and I started looking around to see if there was anybody around. Nope. I was alone in this alley with a guy that I had a bad feeling wasn’t here for a friendly visit.
“Disrespecting? You’re the one who decided to come in on a conversation you weren’t invited to.”
Tina’s warning resounded in my head. Her friend had been right, Oliver was a bad dude. I just hoped he was more bark than bite.
“It wasn’t enough that you had to turn me down, when I wanted to do something nice for you and take me out, you have to treat me like garbage, too? Do you even know who I am? I squash bugs like you, your poor American ass wouldn’t have a clue who I am.”
I didn’t have to take this from an asshole like this.
“I know exactly who you are. You’re a sad sack of shit who can’t take no as an answer from a woman.”
As soon as the words came out of my mouth I wondered if I hadn’t made a huge mistake. Was poking the bear really a good idea? Still, I’d said the words, and as much as I was starting to get scared for my safety, I was glad I said them. Someone had to.
Oliver took a threatening step towards me and I yelled out “HELP!” as loudly as I could.
“No one’s going to come and save you, you little bitch,” he growled as he cocked his fist. I knew what was coming. I shouldn’t have said what I did. Yes, I should have. No matter how badly this was going to hurt, I bet my words hurt him a lot more. I braced for the impact, but it never came.
Instead, when I opened my eyes, Jack was wrenching Oliver’s arm behind him.
“Ahh, shit!” Oliver cried out, and I heard a snap and then a scream. Jack let go of Oliver and shoved him into the brick wall of the alley, his right arm limp at his side, at a strange angle.
I couldn’t stop staring at Oliver’s arm, even as Jack grabbed him by the collar and punched him square in the face. Blood began spurting from his nose and he cried out in pain.
“See? Maybe if someone beats the shit out of you you’ll stop doing it to women,” Jack growled in his low, husky voice. “Not as fun when someone fights back, is it? You ever come close to my little sister again and I’ll make sure you come out of it with way worse than just a few broken bones,” he threatened before shoving him into the wall once more.
Then, without another word Jack took me by the arm and led me out of the alley.
When we were back in the street he looked me in the eye.
“Are you ok, Julianne?” There it was, my real name again. I nodded, mutely; I didn’t trust my voice. Had I seriously just seen what I thought I did? Jack had just beaten up the guy that was going to attack me.
“Holy shit,” I finally whispered.
“Come on, we’re going to get you a drink.”
“I was going to the coffee shop down the block.”
“You need something stronger than coffee, you’re so pale people will think you’re in the Chess club.”
I curved a corner of my mouth into the slightest sliver of a smile at Jack’s joke. He was right though. My legs felt like they were stuck in cement. I felt like I was going to puke. The last few minutes had been some of the craziest of my life.
Practically dragging me to a dive bar down the road, Jack put me in a booth.
“Hey, Rosa, two beers and two shots of whiskey, pronto! And a pack of ice.” he yelled out to the waitress behind the bar.
“Whatever you want Jackie-boy,” she replied with the hoarse voice of a woman who’d smoked way too much for way too many years.
“So,” Jack started, planting himself in the booth across from me. The light was harsh, but dim, like the owners had gone for the cheapest lighting possible, but not enough of it to save on bills. Still, I could make out his eyes glistening with energy, his chiselled cheekbones just lightly grazed with Oliver’s blood. I tried to resist. I really did. But there was no way. My heart rate rose, my breath caught in my throat when I looked at him, and I felt an electricity stopping me from breaking eye contact with my brother.
“What were you doing to get yourself caught up with Oliver Ryan?”
“Going to class. He sat down next to me, a few days later asked me out. I turned him down, today he was asking what I was talking about and I told him to fuck off, slightly more politely than that. Then I guess he followed me and wanted me to learn my lesson for disrespecting him. That’s seriously it.”
“I’m not surprised. The guy’s known to be a douchebag. I’m surprised he actually attacked you though. If just blowing him off was enough to set him off, he’s not going to last very long before getting himself arrested. Usually he’s going out with a girl for a while before getting punchy.”
It was strange, watching Jack talk about Oliver so casually. He obviously knew so much about the guy and I wondered about Jack’s weird bad-boy life.
“Well, he was just going at me about how awful I was, I might have told him he was a piece of shit that couldn’t take no as an answer.”
Jack grinned, and it was weird. He was actually smiling at me, like I was another human being!
“That would do it. Nice work, sis.”
There is was again. Sis. And yet somehow, this time it felt different. The way he said it, it was almost like he meant that we were a team. That was crazy though. We weren’t. We hated each other.
My thoughts were interrupted by the woman I assumed to be Rosa coming over, somehow managing to balance two glasses of beer, two shot glasses, and a third glass filled with ice, along with a tea towel.
“Anything else Jackie?” she asked him sweetly, also shooting me a smile. In her forties, at least, I imagined this was the owner, or at least someone who had worked here for years and years.
Jack pulled out his wallet and handed her a 100 pound note.
“That’s all, Rosa. Thanks. The ice is for the beer.”
“Of course it is, doll. What else?” she added with a wink, pocketing the note.
I watched this exchange in silence. I grew up in New York City, I had seen some shady stuff go down in my teenage years, but never this close to me. Never with someone who was going to be my brother, officially, in a few months.
She waddled off, and Jack turned back to me.
“Drink,” he ordered, motioning to the shots. I had never had a shot of whiskey before, but Jack was right. This was what I needed.
I took the glass, was careful not to check how clean it was, and knocked back the shot. It burned my throat. Bad. I thought I was going to puke, but instead grabbed the beer and gulped down as much as I could to dull the taste of the whiskey.
It did almost nothing. My throat was still completely on fire.
I looked across the booth at Jack, who had downed his drink like it was nothing, and was now staring at me with an amused expression on his face.
“First shot of whiskey?” he asked, and I nodded.
“It gets easier. You needed it though. And you don’t want to try the vodka here, it’s terrible.”
He was right about needing the alcohol, though. A couple minutes later I started to feel more like myself again.
“I haven’t thanked you for coming to save me.”
“No problem. I heard you call out, and when I saw Oliver I knew what was going to happen. About time someone put that guy in his place.”
“Why were you there in the first place?” I asked.
“Believe it or not, I actually do go to class, occasionally. I just happened to be late today.”
“Sorry. I don’t mean to be peppering you with questions.”
“That’s fine,” Jack replied, wrapping most of the ice from the glass in the tea towel and putting it on his swollen knuckles.
I downed the rest of my beer.
“Listen, I gotta go, ok? Michael’s going to be meeting me soon to take me home.”
“That’s fine. Try not to piss off any violent abusers on your way home, ok?”
“Ha-ha,” I replied as I got out of the booth and left. I walked back to where Michael was already sitting, waiting for me. The whole way I was wondering about Jack. He had saved me. Why? He hated me. It was obvious. Then when I told him what I told Oliver, he seemed happy about it. Was he impressed? No, it couldn’t be that. There was no way. The guy hated me, and I hated him.
So why did this feel so confusing?
“How’d the day go?” Michael asked as I approached the car.
“Well, it sure wasn’t what I expected when I left the house this morning,” I answered, sinking into the back seat. Little did I know it was far from over.