Escaping to Ireland

Vinessa

"Are you okay?" I asked Susan. I did not care that Shawn had made a crappy comment at me but to do that toward Susan two nights before their wedding was unnerving.

"I'm fine," Susan said, wiping another tear back. "You know how Shawn can be."

I wish I could agree, but I couldn't; I had never seen this, Shawn. "What do you mean, Susan?"

She looked around as if Shawn was listening in; there was something there that she wanted to tell me.

"You know what... "I said, bumping into her shoulder... "What if you came out tonight with Liam and I... I had one friend who had a baby, but she had the most bizarre cravings during her pregnancy. Any place you want to eat at. You have to be craving something other than Spaghetti...."

Liam jumped in, knowing where I was going with this. "I can call a car service." He walked over by the door, taking care of this task; he always liked to help out when he could.

As we both watched him, Susan said, "Could he be any better...."  I knew she was right, but this was how she should have been feeling about Shawn, not about some stranger she had just meant. "I understand why you couldn't take Shawn back if you had him...." Her words were full of lust, and it made me sad. Susan deserved the love of a man as I had of Liam's.

"Come on," I said, pulling her chair out, trying to avoid how much my boyfriend was apparently better than hers.

"I  need my coat, and we can go. It's better if I don't tell Shawn where I'm going." She hurried off to her room; Shawn had stormed out of the room in the opposite direction toward my old room.

She had picked a Chinese restaurant I had never been to. "I have been craving this place," she said to us as we picked out our own seats. "Shawn hates Chinese, so I haven't been here for a while." She seemed sad, not like the same Susan I knew.

I didn't want to broach the topic too soon; I wished that Susan could have alcohol at this moment. Once she got alcohol in her, I knew she would keep talking and talking. Our food was delivered before I brought it up.

"So, what's going on with Shawn?"

She took a bite of her sesame chicken, buying herself some time. She shrugged off my question again. "As I said, that's typical, Shawn..."

"That's not the Shawn I remember," I said before I could bite it back.

She rolled her eyes at me. "You didn't live with him twenty-four seven. You wouldn't understand...."

"Then make me understand," I said, having direct eye contact with her.

"He's moody... At first, I thought it was because he was just getting over you, and I was getting over...." She wouldn't say Cole's name. "And we were not serious; it was more of a "hook up" situation" she seemed embarrassed saying this in front of Liam. "And then, Opps, I got pregnant, and now we are getting married."

Liam interjected at this point. "You are getting married because you are pregnant? Not because you love each other?" This seemed to make him sad. 

"I can't be a single mother, and my parents will disown me... Shawn makes enough money to take care of us both" she hugged her stomach as she said this.

"But your child will grow up in a family of parents that don't love one another... "Liam said, talking before I could.

"There are worse things," Susan said, poking at her chicken in front of her again.

"How moody is he?" I asked her trying to change the direction of the conversation.

"Moody... I don't know. He gets mad when things are not scheduled properly likes knowing where I went. I kind of left tonight just to irk him." But then her face said it all when she thought about this, and I could see something in her eyes, that something was not right.

"Susan," I put my hand on top of hers, and I couldn't believe I was asking her this question about Shawn. The Shawn that I thought was my first love, the Shawn that seemed so sweet and innocent. "Has Shawn hit you?" 

Her eyes darted away from me, and from the pause, I knew instantly that he had.

"No..." I said to Susan. "You have to leave."

"I can't!" Susan said, throwing her hands up a couple from the table next to us, looking in our direction. "I have no one in Chicago; I have no one. You left... Cole died." And after she said his name, she broke down sobbing in a Chinese restaurant that she had been craving because her fiance was an abusive control freak, to top it off.

Liam stood and paid for the dinner as I shuffled Susan into the car service that was out front. Susan sat inside while Liam walked out. "What do I do?" I asked him, looking to him for an answer.

"We can not take her back to the apartment." His face was stone cold, and I could tell what he had just heard alongside me was troubling.

"And have her family arrive at an apartment that doesn't have a Susan?"

"Well, we cannot send her back to that apartment. Why is her family not here already?" Liam asked me before I opened the door.

"I don't know," I said, climbing in next to Susan.

She cried on the way to the hotel. She stopped as we pulled up to the valet. "I can't. I have to go home." She said, wiping at her nose.

"Just come up for a little bit," Liam said, taking my hand and then Susan's to help us out of the car. The hotel was nothing short of extraordinary.

"Is this where you stay when you come?" I asked him.

He smiled at me. "You should have come last time I asked you too." He knew deep down I wanted to, but Wanda had been feeling under the weather the week before, and I was too scared to leave her.

"Mr. Brennan, we have a package here for you." The check-in clerk said after Liam had given him his name. The man grabbed a manilla folder from a back room and brought it out to him. It couldn't be thicker than a few pages inside; Liam slipped it under his arm as he finished checking in.

Liam had purchased a two-room suite; after a long debate back and forth, we finally had Susan agree to stay the night.

"Goodnight," Liam said, looking at me. I walked out to the living room while Susan grabbed some pajamas. "I figured you would want to stay with her...."

"Oh, I am," I said, looking at him, regret showing in both of our eyes. This was supposed to be the fun getaway trip, and instead, it had turned into something so very serious. "I just..." And then I kissed him on his lips and turned to go into the bedroom. I could hear him murmuring as I left him standing in the living room alone.