Hellish Happiness (Anthony Padilla Fanfic)

Chapter 13: Can't Take It Back

Anthony's POV

"Since when is braiding your hair lazy? If you're calling me lazy then what does that make you, miss "I think I'm the shit because I am the face of a shitty skin care line"? Come talk to me when you have a book on the New York Times Bestsellers' list that took 2 years to write or have met the President of the United States for charity work. Yeah I might get lazy from time to time, everybody does it, but I am a successful person. Being lazy didn't get me to where I am. I didn't do any of that by being selfish. Why don't you come talk to me when you stop being an air-headed, selfish, corporate bitch that's full of herself. " Savannah says getting up from the table.

"Excuse me?" Is all Laura has time to say before Savannah walks out of the restaurant.

My jaw drops.

What the hell just happened?

My dad and mine's jaws just dropped to where they were almost sitting on the table.

I feel like all that I got out of that was my step mom calling Savannah lazy, and Savannah calling my stepmom an air-headed, selfish, corporate bitch that's full of herself. My ears don't even know what they just heard.

I cannot believe that my fiance just told my mom off. I cannot believe her. Yeah, I'm supposed to be on Savannah's side but she cannot go around calling people selfish, corporate bitches. You just can't do that.

"What the hell was that?" Is the first thing that anybody, my Dad, says.

"I don't really know." I say.

"That question wasn't for you, Anthony," my father says turning to face his wife, "Laura, why would you tell her she's lazy when you know she's not? And Porter isn't even your maiden name. It is your ex husband's last name that you kept after the divorce. Now go find her and apologize!"

"I have nothing to apologize for. She is the one that did the damage." Laura says still picking at her nail.

"She- SHE DID THE DAMAGE? YOU'RE THE ONE THAT STARTED ALL THIS BULLSHIT. YOU NEVER LIKE ANY OF THE GIRLS THAT ANTHONY BRINGS HOME AND YOU ALWAYS RUN THEM AWAY. I was starting to think that wasn't the case with Savannah, but now I'm not so sure." My father says getting up from the table.

"Dan, wait, I can explain." Laura says getting up to go after him.

I let out a deep breath that was trapped in my lungs. Thanks Laura, now I have to go clean up this mess that you made and am probably going to be in a fight with my fiance that I just got engaged to yesterday. Thank you so fucking much, Laura.

I get up from the table and go out of the restaurant looking for Savannah. I see her sitting in a bench about 100 feet down the busy sidewalk. I start to walk towards her but she looks away.

"I'm not doing this here. We're going home before you can yell at me." She says looking into the busy traffic.

"Okay then. Let's go. We have a lot to talk about." I say watching her get up.

My phone starts to ring and I see that it's my dad.

"Hey! Where'd you go? I went back to the table to talk to you and you were gone." He says.

"I went to find Savannah. I found her, but we have some stuff to talk about." I say eyeing Savannah, who is focused on not looking at me.

"Look Anthony, I'm really sorry about Laura. I don't know what got into her. She just started saying that stuff-" I cut him off mid sentence.

"You don't need to be apologizing to me for what SHE said," I say glancing back at Savannah, once again, "Laura has somebody else that she needs to apologize to and that owes her an apology."

"Okay. I have to go but I will call you later okay." He says.

"Okay; talk to you later dad. Bye." I say then hang up the phone.

"I told you already: I'm not doing this here in the streets of LA." Savannah says opening the door to our apartment building.

"I heard you." I say.

We go into the elevator and the air is so tense that I feel like that I feel like I could break it in half. We get to our floor and I unlock the apartment and open the door. Savannah follows and as soon as the door is closed, she goes off like a bat out of hell.

"WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU STOP HER FROM SAYING THAT?" She screams.

"I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT SHE WAS GOING TO SAY. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU SAY WHAT YOU SAID? YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T JUST GO AROUND CALLING PEOPLE AIR-HEADED BITCHES RIGHT? THIS ISN'T MISSOURI YOU KNOW!" I yell, instantly regretting it.

"What was that?" She says in a low tone. When she speaks in this tone, it scares me more than when she is yelling. It lets you know that she means business.

"What?" I ask sounding as innocent as I can in the moment.

"You heard me: What. Did. You. Say."

"I said this isn't Missouri, and that you can't go around calling people air-headed bitches. Yeah, that's what I said." I reply. I am so scared that I might pee myself.

"Really? Speaking of being a hypocrite, you know you can't just go around telling people that basically everything they say is based on where they grew up right?"

"That's not what I said." I reply.

"That's what you implied." She replied, the anger bubbling up inside of her even more than it already was.

"Yeah, but that's not what I meant"

"Okay so what did you mean? That since I live in California now I can't remember where I grew up? That I can't still act like I'm from the Midwest? I have lived in California for almost 10 years, Anthony, I think I know how things work here." She replies.

"What the hell do you mean by "know how things work here"? That you know how to fit in here? I started dating you because you were different, and that is one of the number one things that I liked about you and that attracted me to you. You are an individual that needs to stand out, and always wanted to stand out, and now you're saying that you know how to fit in and that you need to? You might as well go back home if you want to fit in with the crowd."

What the hell did I just say...

"You know, if it wasn't for you, then I probably wouldn't even be living here. I would have most likely moved back to the Midwest and blended in with the crowd there. That's exactly the reason that I wanted to go back: I could never stand standing out. I could be in my own little bubble in small-town Missouri, but then when I was done with college you begged me to stay because you had fallen in love with me. Do you still feel that way, Anthony? DO YOU? It doesn't really feel like it or sound like it does it."

I had no words. She took the words from my tongue.

"Know what; fuck this I'm going to bed. Come to bed when you're ready. I'm not going to be the air-headed, selfish, corporate bitch that you think I am. Just don't touch me when you go to sleep" She says walking away.

I come to bed a couple of hours later and see Savannah facing the closet asleep. So, I lay under the duvet facing the windows of the apartment and come upon a realization:

This is the first time that we have never said "I love you" before drifting off into sleep since we have lived together.