Save Me from the Dark (A John Gage 'Emergency!' love story Fanfiction)

Chapter 53

"What just happened?" Dixie questioned, getting no reply from the moody girl. "Scarlett?"

"I don't wanna talk about it," Scarlett tightly replied, moving quickly in her anticipation of doing exactly what Roy said. She just wished she could do more than just leave his property. Leaving this entire nightmare would be far more preferable. "I wanna go home."

Wherever that was.

"No," Dixie stated firmly. "Tell me what happened."

"We just had a little disagreement."

"I think 'disagreement' is an understatement," Dixie said. "I've never seen Roy so angry before."

"Like I said, I don't wanna talk about it. Roy has his opinions and I have mine. It's fine," Scarlett replied, wishing Dixie would just drop it. Regardless, she knew the nurse would eventually find out what happened anyway. Either through Roy or the grapevine of onlookers they had accidentally attracted during the argument. "Ask Roy about it. I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you all about it."

"This is about what you overheard that day, isn't it?" Dixie pressed on. She wasn't going to let this go easily. "Oh, Scarlett, I told you he didn't mean-"

"No! That's not what this is about," By this point they were standing on the sidewalk, safely out of view from everyone and Scarlett really didn't care about raising her voice. "This is about everything else. This is about what he did to me, what he did to Johnny. Roy made every decision when it came to Johnny, every damn one, and I can't... I can't let that go."

Scarlett stiffened as she realized she'd inadvertently told Dixie everything. She had a way of doing that to people...

"Johnny had Roy down as his power of attorney, he had no choice - "

"Yeah, that's what he said too," She let a bitter laugh escape her. "But the thing is, you're both wrong. He had a choice. How hard was it to just ask me what my opinion was? Or to, I don't know, let me speak at the wake. But no, he never once cared to ask me what I thought, now Johnny's dead and - "

"You can't blame Roy for Johnny's death, he did all he could. We all did," Dixie cut in. "Johnny's death, as unfortunate as it is, was nobody's fault. Don't do this to yourself or to Roy."

Dixie didn't get it. Of course she didn't, she was Roy's friend, but Scarlett didn't want to argue her point with the older woman.

"Like I said, I want to go home," Scarlett stated. Under no circumstances did she want to continue this pointless conversation with Dixie.

Dixie sighed. "I think it'd be better if you stayed with me tonight."

"No! You're not going to tell me what to do, too. You and Roy aren't my parents, I don't need to be constantly watched over, or 'babysat', as Roy put it. Despite what you might think of me, I'm not a child and I can take care of myself!"

"I'm not telling you what to do," Dixie calmly replied. "After all that's happened, I just think it'd be better if you weren't alone tonight."

"I'll be fine. I just wanna go home." Scarlett could read the hesitancy on her face, it was clear as day. "You know what, I'll just walk. If you won't take me home, I'll take myself."

"You'll do no such thing!" Dixie said firmly. "I'll take you home. If you promise to call me tomorrow morning and let me know you're alright."

"Sure," Scarlett rolled her eyes at the woman. She was still acting like her mother, but she knew she had to at least pretend to comply with her wishes. "I promise."

It wasn't long before Scarlett approached the front door of the home she'd shared with Johnny. She nervously reached for the doorknob, and finding it unlocked, pulled it open and nervously stepped inside. It'd been awhile, about when she had gotten sick and almost died, since she'd been here.

Feeling butterflies dancing in her stomach, Scarlett quickly shut the door behind her and reached for the light switch. Then the thought hit her: she was here and he wasn't. He never would be again.

Feeling the breakdown she'd been holding in for so long finally rising to the surface, Scarlett made her way to the living room, intent on sprawling out on the couch and never moving again. Of course the bed upstairs, their bed, was the better option but she couldn't bear to face the empty bed right now. Or maybe ever again.

What Scarlett saw next surprised her. There, on the floor next to the overturned coffee table, were the remains of a shattered lamp, and what appeared to be the contents of the aforementioned coffee table. Feeling her heart race, she pondered what could've possibly happened. The thought of someone breaking in while the house had been unoccupied crossed her mind, but there were no other evidence of such a thing having occurred.

Scarlett sighed. It had to have been Johnny. Except he was always very clean and kept the house almost emaculate, but he'd been here the night before his accident...

Oh. Oh no. That was it. The night before his accident was was when they'd had that fight over getting married.

Now it made sense. He'd seemingly been so upset that he'd came home and smashed up some stuff, but that still didn't make sense. She couldn't imagine him being the type to smash things in anger. Except the mess in front of her remained, the proof that he had indeed done so.

Avoiding the broken glass of the lamp, Scarlett fell heavily onto the couch, no longer able to control her tears. Finally, she allowed herself to cry, to fully breakdown, after days of trying to hold herself together around everyone else.

Several minutes passed as the overwhelming emotions pooled out of her, until finally, against her own desires, she forced herself to pick up the shattered remains of the lamp.

She didn't care about the mess, not really, nor did she have the motivation, but Johnny wouldn't want it left there... And even if he was gone, it felt wrong for the shattered remains to stay where they were. As she picked up piece after piece, a part of her wanted to use some of the sharper ones to cut herself, to end her life. But she couldn't. Even if it allowed her to be with Johnny again, she couldn't just drag her child with her.

Eventually, all the immediate pieces in a pile, she decided to look under the couch for any stray pieces, only to find a small balled up paper. Grabbing it and carefully unbundling it to see what it was, she found something that made more tears fall from her eyes: a letter Johnny must have written and bundled in anger, only to throw it and it get lost under the couch. It was a letter she assumed he had written probably before their fight, but after she got sick, given the material in it, probably to go alongside his proposal, and detailed how he had always been in flings and never anything serious, always expecting never to have the change to settle down. That is until he met her. That she was a light to him, and made everything mean something, and he wanted to spend the rest of his days with her. That he wanted her to get better so they could become a family and live to grow old with one another.

Yet it would never happen now. Johnny was gone.