Chapter 72 Making Hard Choices

John’s face fell as she spoke. Anna wanted to reassure him it would all be alright but she wasn’t sure it would be. She was so tired of fighting what now felt like fate. She just couldn’t figure out why she’d been given another chance if this is how it was going to end.
“Please stay a few days, at least let’s talk it through.” He begged, unashamed.
“Will it make a difference John?” Anna asked as she wiped tears from her eyes. “It’s as if the universe is conspiring against us.”
“ I never took you for the type to give up so easily.”
“Easy? Do you think this is easy? I feel like my insides are being torn out.”
“I know,” he said softly putting calming hands toward her “I just want you to fight for us.”
“I’ve been fighting for us since the day we met and I’m tired, John.”
“So you’re just going to get on a plane and disappear?”
“Are you going to grab me again if I try?
“If I have to.”
Anna smiled at that but sighed and turned fully toward him. “I guess I could give it a few days, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll stay.”
John made a move to take her bag but she shook her head. “I need to be alone right now.”
“Where are you going? Let me give you a ride.”
“No, I’ll call Bess.”
John felt the answer like a stab to the heart, She didn’t even want him to know where she would be. He closed his eyes for a minute but got ahold of himself. He was never going to convince her to stay by falling apart.
“Can I come to see you tomorrow?”
“I said we could talk and I meant it, I just need time to think.”
John nodded and stood by as she called Bess. He walked with her to Bess’s car and helped her in, holding onto her hand. He wanted to kiss her, hell he wanted to force her to come home but he knew she would only run again if he did.
“I love you, Anna, never forget that.”
Anna smiled and pulled her hand free. “I love you too John. I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.” She said with tears in her eyes as she pulled the door closed and drove away.
***
Anna curled under the blanket and sipped her coffee. Amaretto creamer coated her tongue as she tried to setter her racing mind. She hadn’t been able to sleep, her brain refused to shut down and let her. She’d been trying to reason it out and it seemed more unclear now than ever.
“Did you sleep at all?” Bess asked as she sat down beside Anna in her Star Wars pajamas.
“Not a bit. I just kept going around and around with all that has happened.”
“Any conclusions?”
“Just that I am so tired of all this drama and mayhem. It feels like the last two months have been years.”
“But,” Bess said with a sigh” you did live five years without him. That was a long time to be miserable.”
“It was.”
“And weren’t you so grateful when you realized you’d been given a second chance?”
“Yes, but these last few months have been so emotional with all the schemes that Melissa, May, and Isabel have cooked up and the simple abuse they have all put me through for years. I almost feel more tired now than I did then.”
“that’s really saying something.” Bess said rubbing her knee “ I think I would have been crazy by now.”
“Sometimes I feel like it.” Anna said with a yawn, “Nothing is what it seems, John is jealous, Melissa, May, and Isabel keep coming up with these schemes and I’m just tired. “
“The jealousy thing really bothers you huh?”
“yes because I lived through too many jealous rages before my mother died and I can’t go down that road again.”
“Your dad did a number on you both didn’t he? “
Anna shook her head, not really wanting to remember the fear and confusion that she had spent a lot of time trying to outrun.
“Plus the fact that Isabel, my own cousin, probably sent those men to kill me, but I really have no proof.”
Bess sat her mug down on the coffee table and looked at Anna. “Do you really think she did that?”
“I think she did. She wanted John so much, she was willing to do anything to get him.”
“Including killing you.”
“Apparently,” Anna said as she laid her head on the back of the couch. “I just don’t know if I can stay with Melissa, May, and Isabel lingering in the shadows.”
“Didn’t John tell them to get lost?”
“Yes, but where his mother and sister are concerned he’s always been soft-hearted, even though now I genuinely think he sees them for who they are.”
“What about Isabel?”
“For all I know she is sitting in my house right now.”
“Do you really think John would do that?”
“No I don’t but her audacity knows no bounds.”
“Surely she is not just sitting there with Melissa and May waiting for John,” Bess said in disbelief.
“I actually wouldn’t put it past them,” Anna said as she looked out the window toward the hills where her home rested. She wondered if she would ever see it again.
***
John walked into the living room looking for his keys and stopped dead. His mother, May and Isabel sat perched on the couch like three fat vultures waiting for their next meal. His mother smiled and motioned him inside.
“Come on in son, we have to talk.”