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“Enough!” I shouted, my voice booming against the walls.
All heads, including Taylor’s, spun my way and the silence was deafening. I felt sick. Above all, this was the one thing I told Jules I would protect her from and I’d failed miserably.
“Enough Taylor!” A sick glint of shimmer fluttered across her eyes when I said her name and the corners of her mouth twitched.
Apparently, she was a proponent of the theory that any attention was good attention.
I climbed over people to get to Jules and yanked her to my side.
“She speaks for everyone?” I asked the room.
I scanned their faces but they refused to make eye contact with me and I realized that Taylor was staring each down in silent threat. Leading the lemmings. I turned my attention back to Taylor. The date she had brought from a local community college took a shot of liquid courage and stood by her side, swaying slightly. Although the fool was tall and big, I was taller and bigger which told me he had to have been drunk when he eyed me like he was craving a fight. Little did I know his real motivation. I needed to get Julia out of there.
“Well Taylor, I can see that you’re also slightly inebriated so I’ll leave you to your date. I’m willing to drop this shit, for now. As for the rest of you,” I stared in seething anger at my boots, “I thought you were my friends. I guess I was mistaken. None of my friends would have allowed Julia to be ostracized like this, especially you Jesse.” I drug my heavy stare onto Jesse.
He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes. I grabbed Jules’ hand and began to squeeze my way to the door but when we walked past Taylor, her drunk date grabbed at Jules, catching one of her necklaces and dragging her backward. I caught her and straightened her up.
“What the hell is your problem?” I asked the jerk.
“I want to talk to that girl,” he slurred.
Ahhh, the truth to Taylor’s outburst.
“What are you doing Craig?” Taylor whispered. We both ignored her.
“Can’t. We’re leaving Craig.”
“I’ve been wanting to talk to her since she got here. She keeps ignoring me.”
He started leaning into Jules’ face, barely able to keep himself up.
“Well, obviously she didn’t care to talk with you,” I said, pressing his shoulder back and correcting his posture. “Take the hint.”
I couldn’t believe the direction this conversation had taken. The rest of the crowd stood dumbstruck, listening to drunk Craig hit on my Jules in front of Taylor. Craig was oblivious to what had been going on, too enamored with Jules to pay attention to the fight between her and Taylor or too drunk to care.
“See bro,” he continued, “you’re under the impression that I care how she feels.”
He practically begged for me to sock him in his weak chin. He’s drunk, I told myself, Just walk away.
“Listen, I’m not sure where you’re from but here we don’t treat or talk to ladies like that. So why don’t you just walk away now. As you can see, we’ve already got a foot out the door. Come on sweetheart,” I said, taking Jules’ waist.
“Nobody walks away from me, especially a four,” he said eyeing Jules.
“You’re a joke dude,” I scoffed.
We started to walk away again but this time he grabbed her so harshly around her shoulders it nearly knocked her to the ground. That’s when I snapped. I charged at him and wound my arm behind my head. It came crashing down with all the strength I had, punching the guy square in the jaw. I raised my fist again, preparing myself to block the return hit, but it never came. He went down with the one punch like a sack of potatoes. I thought it was over and straightened up but out of nowhere came three friends of his I didn’t know he had with him, waiting in the wings for just such an occasion to grace us with their presence.
Two immediately grabbed and held my arms while a third began punching me in the gut and face. Let me tell you, it was painful but not as painful as the fact that Jesse just stood and watched without so much as a twitching thumb in interest of helping me.
“What. the. hell?” I asked him, between punches.
I looked over at Jules mid punch and saw the terror on her face. She felt every single punch that landed and her face twisted in pain. I knew she felt the nausea. I felt that she had and it was the first time I hated our shared connection. She rose above it and started to grab at the one who was punching me and pleaded with tears in her eyes for Jesse to help me. No one listened. Taking matters into her own hands, she sprung her leg back and delivered a knee to my attacker’s groin.
This stopped him before he could hit again and gave Matthew Tanen enough time to come through the back door with James Cappelli to discover me getting beat. They grabbed the three goons and Craig on the floor and started hauling them toward the door.
“Get them the hell out of here Taylor!” Matthew said.
She ran out the front door and we heard them struggling to get to Taylor’s car.
