Thirty-One

“I’m almost there. I’m going to hang up now but I want you to just try to stay calm.” I tell him that I will and we hang up. About five minutes later he comes running up to me and he sees the waitress standing a few feet away holding her nose with a towel that one of the employees gave her. When I look over I see her glaring at me and I glare right back. Obviously a broken nose has done nothing to change her attitude. He stands next to me and wraps his arm around my shoulder pulling me in close and I lean into him. Ten minutes later, the cops finally show up with an ambulance. Really, she needs an ambulance? She could have taken herself to the damn hospital. I try to ignore her since she isn’t my problem at the moment, the possibility of going to jail is and I wait for the officer to come to me after talking to her. Apparently she’s the victim in this scenario. Yeah right. If she’s a victim I’m a platinum recording artist.
Finally the officer comes over to me and asks me to tell him my side. I tell him everything that happened from the time I came into the store until my encounter with her that led to me hitting her.
“Officer, I know that what I did was wrong and if you have to take me in I understand, but can my friend here get the information of where you’ll be taking me so he can tell my boyfriend? He’s at work and I don’t want him to get home and I’m not there because he’ll panic especially if he calls or texts and I don’t answer. He’s been overprotective since all of this happened.” I realize that I’m babbling and stop talking. Before the officer can speak, Daniel starts to talk.
“Officer I’ve known this woman for almost a year now, and as angry as we’ve all made her in that time she has never raised her hand to any of us, so for her to hit someone I believe something bad had to have happened. I wasn’t here for what happened but this isn’t the first time that woman has harassed her. The first time was the first week she was in town when she was on vacation and the second time was three months ago in this same store. I’m sure they have it on the surveillance tapes.”
“Thank you for your statements. I’m going to talk to the store manager and I’ll be back.”
The officer wrote down everything we said and then told us not to move and that he’d be right back. There was another officer there watching us, not that we were going to run. It feels like it took forever for him to come back and when he did he went to her first and talked to her for about five minutes before I saw her being loaded into the ambulance and taken away. Then he talked to the other officers and came over to me. I looked up at Daniel and he looked back at me but he didn’t look worried. I’m glad one of us is okay because I’m terrified. I’ve never been in trouble with the law in my life and now this is happening. What else bad is going to happen to me this year? I must be cursed.
“Okay ma’am here’s the deal. I’m going to let you off with a warning given that you have no record. I’ve watched the tapes and they corroborate your story. When we ran her name we found that she has a history of this kind of behavior. I convinced her to not press charges because to be honest, she wouldn’t win the case.” I sighed in relief that I wasn’t going to jail and listened as he told me that we would both be getting fined for disturbing the peace. I didn’t care though. I’d go to the clerk’s office in the morning and pay the fine then try to forget this whole thing happened.
“Thank you so much officer. I’ll go pay the ticket in the morning. I think I’m going to start shopping somewhere else just in case she comes back here. I want to do my shopping in peace. I don’t like all this drama in my life. I’ve been through enough and I’m tired.”
I start to cry again and Daniel moves me behind him and starts to explain to the officer what is going on with me and he looks at me with pity. Suddenly there is someone pulling me into their arms and I can tell by the size of them that it’s Alicia. She hugs me and as I hug her back I see Micah and Ethan walking into the store. They each give me a hug and I hug them back. Daniel must have left them in the car, but I thought that Micah was going to the jail. Oh well, I really don’t care too much anymore because I am not going to jail.
“Alicia I want to go home now. Can you ride with me?”
“Sure Renee. Do you want to pay for your groceries or leave them?”
“I’ll leave them. The surprise I had for him tonight is ruined. I just want to take a shower and go to bed.”
“Okay sweetie. Guys, we’re going to go. We’ll see you back at their house.”
They all say okay and the cops start to disburse as well as the other customers and store workers. She leads me outside and I unlock the car and get in on the passenger side. Once she gets in and starts the car we are on our way to my home. When we get there, we go into the house and she walks me to the bathroom making sure I’m okay before telling me she’ll wait for me in the living room. I strip and get into the shower and wash myself with my lavender body wash, then get out and put on my pajamas and robe and sit on the bed for a little while. I needed a minute before going in there. What makes females so evil sometimes? There has to be more going on here. How can she be this upset about a man that she’s never had? Am I missing something? I need to talk to Jameson because something isn’t adding up.

Alicia, Daniel, Micah,and Ethan’s Conversation

I get off of the sofa when I hear a car pull into the driveway and look out of the window to see who was here. It was too early for Jameson to be home, so I figured that the guys finally made it here. When I open the door for them, they all walk into the house and each of them are carrying bags of groceries. I close the door behind them and follow them to the kitchen. They start to put up the groceries and I sit at the kitchen table.
“So, this is what took you guys so long to get here? I was wondering since she doesn’t live that far from the grocery store and we’ve been here a while now.” said Alicia.
“Where is she?” said Daniel.
“She went to take a shower but it has been a while. Maybe she fell asleep. I don’t want to wake her if she did, but I’ll check on her in a little while. What’s with the groceries?” said Alicia.
“We saw her shopping list and decided to finish getting her food for her. I know she said to leave it but we just couldn’t.” said Ethan.
“I get it Ethan. She was so quiet on the way back here. She still hasn’t said anything. I hope she’ll be alright. Daniel, can you please tell us what the hell happened tonight?” said Alicia.
They all sit at the table as Daniel tells them what happened.
“I’ve never seen her so shaken up, at least not since the day she lost the baby. I’m telling you guys she was full of fury one minute then broke down crying the next. Do we tell Jameson or let her do it?”
“Daniel, I don’t know if it’s our place to tell him or not but he does need to know.” says Alicia.
“I agree with Alicia. He needs to know just in case this isn’t an isolated incident. Someone else could piss her off and this happens again. We may not be so lucky next time and she’ll end up in jail.” says Micah.
“Why don’t we leave telling him up to her but if she doesn’t tell him within, lets say, a week then one of us will.” says Ethan.
“Okay. We’ll leave it up to her for now. Guys has anyone talked to Jameson? You know, to see how he’s been handling things.” says Daniel.
“I tried talking to him but he won’t talk about the baby. I think that he may still blame himself for what happened.” says Ethan.
“He does blame himself for what happened and before you all look at me like I know more than you all, let me tell you that I don’t. That’s all he would say, then he told me to drop the subject. I left it alone. You know him, he’ll talk when he’s ready. What I do know is that he has been playing his online games a lot more often.” says Micah.