bloodsingsblood 5.1 -- Heartbreak Warfare

Looking back to that night now, I guess I should have seen the signs and realized that we were screwed when it came to our relationship. Maybe I didn’t want to see them. I mean, I have no doubts that we loved each other very much. Just sometimes, love just isn’t enough. I used to hate that phrase and thought it was schlocky and a bunch of blame game bullshit.

But it’s true.

Sometimes, love just isn’t enough and even after eight or nine years, love wasn’t enough to keep Johnny and I together.

The fights between us about my job with the interspecies council and the Cortez Cabal just kept escalating in pitch and ferocity. He hated my job. Johnny didn’t like the risks I was taking and he he didn’t like the danger I was in. To him, there was no reason for it when I had him to take care of me and provide for me. I should focus on school and on my art. I shouldn’t be doing so much of the dangerous things I was doing and I should be staying at home where he could take care of me.

I didn’t want him to take care of me! I wasn’t cut out to be the overprotected wife of a superhero. It just wasn’t in my genes to stay back and let everyone else around me do all of the work. That wasn’t what I wanted at all. I wanted to be considered an equal in our relationship. I wanted a husband and a partner, not a bodyguard. Hell, if I wanted or needed a bodyguard, I had no less than four different family groups I could talk to about it.

I just wanted to be myself and I wanted Johnny to accept that this was the way I was. It wasn’t as if I had changed overnight. This had always been the type of person that I was.

That last fight we had was absolutely the worst fight I can ever remember us having -- and there were some really bad ones at times. Our tempers and personalities were too volatile for us not to. I had come home to our penthouse to talk to him about my latest job assignment. I knew he was going to be angry and worried, but I wasn’t prepared for the full depth of his emotions about it.

In hindsight, I could have avoided telling him who I was supposed to be investigating and why, but I tried to be honest in all things when it came to Johnny and I.

The fight went on for hours, even by our standards. I told him that I would be back in two days and we could make some decisions then. I could take leave from the Council and from the Cabal and we could go from there. We could make plans for how our future would go after I got back.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should have told him that I would quit outright after this assignment was over, but I didn’t. I share the blame for what happened next.

When I came back home two nights later, there were empty liquor bottles all over the penthouse. It was a sure sign that Johnny had gone on a serious bender while I was away. Something needed to change. It wasn’t the first time I had come home to find that Johnny had drunk himself into a stupor while I was out on assignment.

If my job was causing him this much worry and pain, then clearly something different needed to be done in the way we were living.

I made a pot of coffee and poured us each a cup. I figured we might need it and it might make him feel better so that we could have a serious talk. I didn’t want my job to continue to be a bone of contention between us.

I went into our bedroom with two cups of coffee intent on clearing the air and making my fiance and the love of my life feel better. Unfortunately for me, Johnny had found something -- no someone -- else to make him feel better.

At the same time that I felt everything shattering inside of me, I heard the sound of glass breaking. This was because I had hurled one of the cups of coffee at the wall above the bed. The other cup shattered in my hand from the spell I didn’t realize I had cast and the hot coffee burned my skin as it poured onto the floor.

Johnny -- my Johnny -- was passed out in our bed with some naked blond bimbo.

Pain.

Tearing, sharp pain was moving in a neverending cycle as I stared at them. Nothing had ever hurt as much as this did and I was certain as I stood there that it was going to kill me. I couldn’t seem to move or look away from the scene in front of me.

I watched Johnny wake up and saw the confusion on his face, and then it turned to horror as he focused on the woman in bed with him. I must have moved or made some kind of sound because his head whipped around and his eyes widened when he saw me.

“Savannah,” he whispered, and expressions of shame and guilt blended with his horror. “Baby...”

I could barely breathe, everything was just hurting so damn much at that moment. Looking into his eyes, I knew immediately that this had never happened before. I might have been able to forgive him for that, maybe. I don’t know. We’ll never know, because unfortunately for us both, I saw another truth in those eyes I had loved so much for so long. I knew without a doubt that if I hadn’t seen this, if I hadn’t caught him like this, then he would never have confessed to me what had happened. He would have kept it a secret from me for the rest of his life.

I was dying. I could feel myself dying right in front of him.

He must have seen something in my eyes because he reached a hand toward me. “Baby, don’t!”

I turned and ran.

I heard Johnny come after me, yelling my name and begging me to stop. I hit the elevator before he did and I heard him slam into the barely closed doors as the elevator started down. I knew I only had a few moments because he could fly and would be waiting for me outside the building. I couldn’t face him at that moment. All I could think of was running as far and as fast as I could. Instead of going out of the main doors, I went out the service entrance and started running as soon as I was out on the streets. I heard him yell my name and I knew he had taken to the air to better chase me down.

Everything hurt too much and I just wanted to die. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t find myself stepping out into the traffic of the busy streets that night. I knew I couldn’t go back to the Baxter building that night or maybe ever. Sue and Ben would be happy to shield me and put me up for a few days, and would be hurt that I didn’t immediately come to them since we were all family now. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t do it. I knew they would be angry at Johnny and I didn’t want either of them to feel that they needed to take sides. I didn’t want him hurt by their words or actions. This was between he and I.

I ducked into an alley and cast a blur spell on myself before I continued on. It was risky because Johnny had been with me enough to see me do the spell and could usually pinpoint where I was when the spell was active. However, he had never been able to find me from the air when we tested it. I was hoping that it continued to hold true.

I don’t remember much about those first two nights. I remember that Johnny called my cell phone a lot and sent me several text messages. I couldn’t respond to any of them.

At some point on the fourth day I was wandering around, a black car pulled up beside me. When the window rolled down, I think I might have been more relieved than I expected to be. It was Stavros, the personal bodyguard that Benicio had insisted on hiring for Sean and his wife, Annja.

“Get in the car, kiddo.”

Johnny must have called Sean and worried my brother over my disappearance. To this day I have never asked what he told him.

“I don’t want to see him right now, Stavros. I can’t.” My voice was firm on this subject. I think.

He shook his head. “My orders are to take you to your brother.”

I got into the car and I think I cried on Stavros all of the way to Sean’s house.

Over the next week or maybe it was two, I don’t know which, I did several things. One of those things was that I sold my studio. I couldn’t imagine ever drawing again and never there. Johnny had been relentless in encouraging me in my art and sometimes tried to get me to focus solely on that. He was my heart and my art came directly from my heart. I didn’t have a heart any longer.

I mailed my engagement ring to Johnny. Three days later, he showed up at Sean and Annja’s place. I stayed up in my room. I still couldn’t face him. Sean and Annja and Stavros presented an immovable wall between him and the stairs. I think I may have heard Annja pull her sword on him. Johnny made Sean take the ring back and he raised his voice so that it would be sure to carry to me.

“That ring is Savannah’s and it will always be Savannah’s. Just like Savannah is my girl and she will always be my girl. I fucked up, but I still love her more than anything.”

I knew then that I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t do this to Sean and Annja. I couldn’t ask them to deal with my problems because I was too broken to pull myself together and deal with them myself.

I slipped out two nights after Johnny’s visit. He was still watching the house, trying to catch a glimpse of me so that we could talk. I used a combination of spells and I walked right by him and his car. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going -- hell, I didn’t know the answer to that myself. I just had to go. I made Chris promise not to reveal my whereabouts to anyone on the condition that I kept in some kind of contact with him. I also made all of my family swear to leave Johnny alone. I didn’t want him hurt in any way or worse.

I just severed everything and ran. Luckily, I had the help of Benicio so that I could just disappear somewhere for awhile. I just had to promise that I wouldn’t stay away from those who loved me and were my family forever.

I wasn’t going to stay away forever, I just needed time. I just needed time to deal with everything and try to put some of the pieces of me back together in some kind of functioning order.

A year and some months passed, and my heart was about to be compromised again -- or so I thought. However, this time, I didn’t have to run because the person that found me had no intention of revealing my location to anyone until I was ready.

That’s just the first of many things that I owe him for.


Muse Savannah Levine
Fandom: Women of the Otherworld
Words: 2014