John Francis

Jon was proud of himself.

He’d waited until his parents had gone, the door closed and locked behind them, before he turned and smashed his coffee cup against the stone fireplace with one strike-out strength throw.

Richie sighed, re-adjusting the ice pack he’d applied to his swollen lower lip.

“How much you gonna trash?”

Jon turned at Richie’s wearied tone.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t fucking tell me.”

Raised eyebrows and a near sneer met that statement.

“Oh really? You can’t believe it? When did you get stupid?”

“Fuck you, Sambora.”

“No, fuck you. What was I supposed to tell you?” Richie’s voice rose as his own frustration overflowed.

“Was I supposed to tell you that your mother threw Amanda out, that she set it up so Amanda would look like she was a fraud? Is that what I was supposed to tell you?”

Jon didn’t answer as everything he had learned whirled inside him. He flew between one extreme and the other, first so angry that words almost wouldn’t come and then overwhelmed with the loss he had been denying for days.

“Shit -- no, I guess not. Jesus, Rich--how the hell could she do that?” Anger rolled through Jon again, along with impotent rage that the person who had hurt him the most was his mother.

Richie looked at Jon as he stood there, bits of broken glass sparkling in the light. He took a breath and shook his head.

“Bro’…it’s wasn’t all her.”

Jon’s head snapped up as his eyes locked onto Richie’s.

“You helped by allowing her to say what she wanted. She put Amanda down and you barely said a thing…” Richie held up his hand as Jon pursed his lips to speak.

“Just listen for a minute.”

Jon signed, the anger spilling away a drop at a time.

“You’ve always defended your mom, always. Not to mention you would take the head off anyone, including me, who said something bad about her. Hell, I would too. But this time she was wrong. And she knows she was wrong.”

“So you’re saying this is my fault?” Jon asked incredulously.

Richie shot him a look.

“How long did you look for her?”

“What?”

“Admit it. You came home. Read that note. Called her for a few days and that’s it.”

Jon’s jaw was set stubbornly as he tried to think of a way to deny Richie’s accusations.

“Your goddam ego was bruised. Wasn’t it?” Richie moved closer to Jon as he spoke, his own frustration bubbling over into his words.

“How dare she? Wasn’t that part of it, Jon?”

The two men stood there for a moment as Jon’s hands opened and closed at his sides, the knuckles whitening as his fists clenched.

“Yeah, dammit, that was part of it. Why didn’t she trust me? She’s always talking about me letting her in and then she shuts me out and fucking leaves?”

“Okay, hold it right there. Just hold it. Listen to what you’re saying. She should have come to you…riiiight.”

Jon blinked at the sarcasm in his friend’s tone.

“She did come to you. The concert -- Remember?” Richie waited for Jon to speak, but when silence met silence, he asked the question he’d wanted an answer to for days.

“What the hell happened that night at the hotel?” Richie asked.

“The hotel -- awwww, fuck …“ The words escaped Jon’s throat in a whisper. “I…we…” He made a sweeping motion with his hand that was meant to summarize the encounter with Amanda, but he stilled as a sense of shame again welled.

“We spent the night together -- and then I left.”

“That’s it?” Richie raised rather dubious eyes, remembering Jon’s voice the next day and his accusations.

“I left her a note, okay?”

Richie continued to look at him, knowing there was more.

“A note? What did you say?”

Jon winced, recalling what he had done.

“It wasn’t really a note -- I -- left my autograph.”

“Oh fuck, man! Were you trying to hurt her?”

It seemed Jon wasn’t going to answer, until a sigh was heard and a voice filled with self-disgust spoke.

“Yeah --I was.”

~~~

Amanda was up again at 3:00 AM, the sheets sticking to her sweat-soaked body. She had been dreaming, a nightmare. Jeremy was walking down the street with a little boy’s hand in his and his arm around a heavily pregnant woman. He and his family moved in her direction and as she stood on the sidewalk, tensing to confront him, they had walked right through her, as if she wasn’t even there. She had called his name, but he had never turned to look at her.

She had watched them move down the street until they were out of sight and all she could see was a single figure walking towards her. Sunlight flashed off his hair as he approached and his eyes were so blue, so alive.

Until he saw her.

Then those eyes stopped being alive.

And as he walked past her, she realized he could no longer see her. Would no longer see her.

She finally escaped from that nightmare.

Until she woke.

And realized it was real.

~~~

Jon and Richie talked late into the night and dawn was just breaking on the horizon when Richie returned again to the timeline of what had happened.

”…so after I found those papers I thought the same thing you did. Except it just didn’t fit. She’s a really lousy liar and she had no clue what I was talking about when I demanded your stuff back. No idea. So after I got home I read the papers again and realized the photographer was her husband. Well, ex-husband. The next day I went there and he told me everything. He seemed glad to do it. To let me know she didn’t know anything about it.”

Jon had re-read the report from the investigator after Richie had started telling him about meeting Amanda in California. It was sometime during the middle of it that he began to realize what she had done for him, because of him.

“She refused to tell you about your mom, Jon. And I mean absolutely refused. We sat there trying to come up with a way to tell you, without telling you, and there was nothing. No explanation except the truth, and --well...”

Jon stood up, his entire body itching to move, to do something.

“Have you been talking to her? Where is she?”

Shaking his head, Richie gave a mildly disgusted sigh.

“She sent me a text saying she was fine, but that’s been it. No phone calls. Nothing.”

Richie watched Jon move from one end of the room to the other, raking a hand over and over again through his hair. He stopped to pull his cell out, looked at it, then his hand slowly sunk down.

“How the hell am I gonna get her back, Richie?”

Richie cocked an eyebrow at Jon, then shook his head as he spoke.

“How the hell are you gonna find her?”