My Heart Skips a Beat (completed)

Chapter 16: Roof Collapses

The next day, Jonathan called a Secret Ogner Sibling Meeting, or a SOSM. We met over in the middle of the Connector so he wasn’t seen from Vernon and I wasn’t seen from Foxfield. When we were kids, and up until the day I left for Foxfield sophomore year, a Secret Ogner Sibling Meeting was what Jonathan held for us two when he went on a panic mode. SOSM’s occurred just about every other day. Jonathan had a bad habit of worrying about things he had no control over. He was even worse than our mother. And Skip Burroughs’s father.

“Jonathan, what’s with today’s Ogner sibling meeting?” I asked. “We saw each other last night. What possibly could have happened in the sixteen hours we haven’t seen each other?”

“Claire, Ellen called me. This is a big deal,” he said nervously, stuffing his hands in his Vernon trouser pockets. “I know you know that she called me twice last night, but she called me a third time literally two minutes after you and the girls left the lounge. Yeah, the second time Fielding came up, it was a joke. But the time after you two left? It was one hundred percent real. Fielding was pissed that he had to run up and down the stairs three times, but it was a pretty interesting night of phone duty for him. Ellen wants me to meet her. And I’m gonna go to see her. And there’s nothing you can do to stop that, so don’t even try to object.”

I wasn’t mad at Ellen after I found out about her affair with my brother; I wasn’t mad at him, either. Sure, it made my stomach churn into butter from the fact that my brother was at one point in love with my boyfriend’s twin. I mean, how were they supposed to know who the other person was? I did cut them both a little slack and I respected Ellen for leaving after she found out who Jonathan was. It made the situation a little less disgusting knowing that.

“Well, what are you two gonna do? And why would you even go in the first place, Jonathan?”

He sighed. “Look, Claire. It hurt so bad when she left me, but I don’t blame her. I would have, too. But it sucked even worse getting over her. The first few weeks were the worst. It was hard, Claire, it was so hard, but I did it. I moved on from Ellen. It sucked more than anything else in my entire life, and after I got over her my life got so much better. I felt like a new part of Jonathan Ogner was born, but Ellen’s part of me rotted away. I just want to fix things with her. Get on good terms, you know?”

“And you think that going back to her after all those tears you wasted on her will help anything with you personally?” I asked, confused. He was making absolutely no sense.

“No. I’m just going there to talk to her. Talk. Speak. Communicate. Communicate with words, Claire,” he said robotically, as if his screwed up logic was the most obvious thing in the world. “We’re just gonna, sort this all out, I guess. Maybe fix things.”

“Jonathan, you’re literally shoving yourself between a rock and a hard place. No, make that a rock and a boulder. A motel room has a bed. You know what happens between a man and a woman when they are given a bed. Can’t you see that you two are gonna sleep together?”

“No! We won’t, Claire! You just have to trust me with this one!” barked Jonathan harshly.

“Then why wouldn’t you two just go to a coffee shop or something, like normal people?” I demanded. “And you better not tell Skip, because you know he’ll drag me there to the motel just to find you two screwing in the bed! You know he will do that, Jonathan! We both know that!”