Love; The Drug -Johnny Lawrence-

Part 17: Confession

Johnny walks towards me slowly, almost cautiously. I watch him with ice in my eyes, warding him away from me, but he just advances.

No one seems to notice what's happening with me, as Ali is still wailing like a Banshee. I don't take my eyes off of his bright blue ones as he kneels down in front of me.

He looks away briefly to pull out a pocket knife from his back pocket, he flips it open and leans around behind me.

His breath is cool on my bare shoulder, and his soft hair brushes against my neck. I shiver slightly, and as soon as my hands are loose from the tape I reach up and slap him. He shoots backwards, and lifts his hand to his cheek.

"What was that for?" He asks, and it's so genuine that new anger fills my head.

"Are you shitting me!?" I shout, now the attention is on me. "Johnny, you've been the biggest asshole to me since I got here!"

He looks away and runs a hand through his hair. "I don't-"

"You don't know what I mean? You don't know what to say? You just don't know? Ya, that sounds about right. God I can't believe you've gone this far."

I shove him, and he just stumbles back. "I'm so done." I say coldly,

Ali sniffs and Rick just pats her awkwardly on the back. I storm up the stairs, I feel ice and fire roaring around me and I just grumble angrily, cursing out everyone around me in Italian.

"Josie wait." Johnny says, I hear him coming up the stairs behind me. "Do not follow me." I snap whipping my head around to see him running towards me.

I reach the top of the steps and sharply turn the corner, heading to the back door and out into the open air. Ali's backyard has a pathway down to a small stream in a small forest that leads to the beach. Barefoot and shivering I make my way down there, goosebumps rise on my arms but my anger makes me extremely hot.

"Please, I can explain everything." Johnny says, catching up to be beside me.

"Go away. I don't want to hear it." I swat him away but he grabs my arm. By now the coldness has turned into precipitation and rain slowly starts coming down around us.

My hair is immediately drenched and when he grabs my forearm to turn me towards him I notice that he is also already very wet. "Please." He says in a pleading whisper.

"Johnny, you have done nothing for me! You've ruined my life here, you've made everything I love awful. I can't go to school, or Karate without the anxiety of you being there!" My gestures are animated and big, so that I can exaggerate my feelings.

"Josie I never wanted it to go like this, I just wanted you to notice me, to be around me."

"Why!?" I yell. "Why would you want me around if you hate me so much!"

"I don't hate you Jo." He breaks eye contact to look at the ground.

"Then what is this. Why did you punch me, yell at me, kidnap me, make me so uncomfortable to just be with you?" 

"It's not what you think it is." Stupid replies to my questions, just building my rage.

"Explain then Johnny! God, why can't you just give it to me straight. Stop dancing around what you really mean-" I'm cut off by him grabbing my shoulders.

"Josephine I'm so unattainably, irretrievably in love with you, so much that it physically hurts me when I see you. You haunt me. I couldn't understand it at first; why you were always on my mind, and why I would get so nervous around you, but now I know."

He sighs, I stay quiet and he goes on. "You're beautiful. In every way. I've never met someone so sure of themselves, and so smart and funny and kind. You just care about everyone, and you're the total opposite of me, so it made me so confused."

My mouth hangs open, in slight shock. His eyes are wide and pleading, searching for something in my own grey ones.

"Please say something Josephine."

I don't say anything. Instead I take his face in my now cold hands, and pull him close to me. My lips crash onto his desperately, and I kiss him.

I was in love with Johnny Lawrence.

He slowly wraps his hands around my waist, pulling me in closer. The rain pours around us, but it feels like we're the only people in the world. 

At the first touch, it felt like everything made sense. The feeling of hatred melted into violent affection and I just wanted to be with him. In that moment I saw my whole future, my whole life with Johnny.

We were one in the same, and I knew it from the start. I tried to push it down for so long that when he pulled me in, happiness just exploded in my chest.

He pulls away slightly and smiles. his eyes lighting up, and exhaling a single breath.

"What's wrong?" I say, alarmed.

"I never thought that would happen" He whispers.

My heart flutters, and I laugh against his mouth. "Me neither."

The rain clears, as if sensing the aggression has passed. I realize that the sun is just beginning to peak over the trees, it was sunrise already.

I turn back towards Johnny, he pushes a strand of raven hair behind my ear and brushes another kiss to my forehead. 

As we walk back to Ali's house, we hold hands. A cheesy ending to a not so romantic story, but I decided that I liked this. Whatever it was, I wanted it to last.

I wasn't scared for the future anymore, actually I was excited for what was to come with Johnny Lawrence. I no longer felt loathe for another person, but instead likeness. Something that didn't weigh on me like a pound of bricks, it was light like a drug.

Love, was my new drug.