Dani walked with a slow, listless step down the street towards her house.  It was cold out, and all of the trees had lost their leaves, the sky was dark and full of angry clouds, if it had been raining out and windier  the weather almost would have mirrored the mood she was in.  Almost.    She hoped nothing mirrored what she was feeling right now.

    She was sick of feeling this way, so alone and without anything to hold on to, like the world was suffocating her and she just didn't know how to get away from it, but she couldn't shake it, no matter how much she tried.    Just when she'd think it was gone, that she didn't feel so bad it all came back, and everything would fall apart all over again.  She'd managed to distance herself from everyone so completely that she didn't have to talk to anyone anymore, at least at work.  At home was something else.  Brian and Joey just wouldn't let it go, if they weren't pressing her for answers they were like espionage spies whispering and skulking around the house, like she were the enemy, but maybe she was the enemy.  She wanted to just let it all out, what happened and why it was hurting so much, but that would be harder than living with it.

    Dani could see the house in the distance, she didn't think she'd be calling it home much longer.  She was ruining everyone's life by staying there.  She loved Brian and Joey and the longer she stayed the less they were going to want her as a friend, if they even considered her a friend now.    AJ seemed to be the only one she could even try to talk to, but he knew.  He knew how she was feeling, he knew about the hopelessness and about everything, he went through it all when Maria left.  God I hope he doesn't go through it with Chrissy too, she thought as she reached the house. Stupid bitch, AJ doesn't deserve people like that in his life, he needs someone good, someone who won't hurt him or use him, like they all seem to do.

Dani noticed that Brian's car was in the driveway.  Part of her wanted to go in and cry to him about why she was acting this way, she couldn't help how tore up she became over it, and another part just wished she could leave it all out here in the cold and go inside and be who she used to be.  Dani hugged her jacket tight to her body as she sat down on the cold cement steps of the house, setting down her bag and looking out across the small lawn into the dark trees across the street.  The sun set quickly in the almost winter night, blackness coming over her before she even realized it.
 
 

    It took a frozen face and numb fingers to make her finally want to go inside.  She took a deep breath of cold air before she got up off the steps, grabbing her bag and walking to the door.   She turned the doorknob with apprehension and walked inside, the warm air making her face and hands burn, as she took off her coat and set it on the couch. Brian looked up from the kitchen table when Dani walked in the door.  He looked like he had been sitting there for hours, still in his dressy work clothes, although they looked disheveled and wrinkled.  She  didn't say anything as she walked into the kitchen, setting the jug of orange juice she had bought on the counter.

    "Where's Joey?" She asked, pulling a glass from the cupboard, trying to not be what she had become, trying to be the old Dani.

    "He went out.  Where were you?" He asked like he was her father, questioning her after a date.

    "I went to the drug store."

    "What'd you go there for?"

    "Medicine."  She said like it was the obvious answer.  "I told you I was sick."

    "Is that all?"

    "I got juice too Mr. Curious.  Do you want to know how I paid for it, how I got there or who was working the counter too?"  Dani pulled out what she bought, cough syrup, cold pills and a big box of kleenex and tossed the plastic bag under the kitchen counter. Brian hadn't responded to her bitchy comment and just picked up the box of cold pills.

    "What are you doing?" She asked, snatching them from his hand, opening the package and popping two of the pills from the foil package.

    "Are you sure you should take those?" He asked as she swallowed them with a drink of orange juice.

    "Yes.  See..." She said pointing out the label.  "Nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, stuffy head medicine.  God Brian what is wrong with you?  Why are you drilling me about something so stupid." Dani turned back to the counter and began pouring more juice  in her glass.

    "Why didn't you just fess up to the whole Trevor thing?  Why keep lying about it?"

Dani slammed the orange juice down on the counter, splashing the juice all over the place.  "Why?  Why do you guys keep coming back to this?  I didn't sleep with Trevor.  never have, never will."

    "Joey told me you were pregnant Dani.  Is it true?" Dani's eyes grew wide and she sat down at the table before she even realized it.

    "How did Joey come to the conclusion that I was pregnant?" She asked.

    "He heard you on the phone."

    "So what, you guys have resorted to listening to my phone conversations?"

    "So it's true?"

    "That is none of your business Brian."

    "Yes it is."

    "How do you figure?"

    "I'm your friend Dani.  Everything about you is my business."

    "God, how dare you.  How dare you and Joey pretend to be my friends when you don't believe anything I say and spend all your time spying on me and listening to my phone calls.  Don't call me a friend if that's how you're gonna treat me."

    "Dani you used to tell me everything, when did everything change?  I just wanted you to be honest with me about Trevor, did you know I was in the room Dani, I was in the bathroom."

    "What are you talking about Brian?  What bathroom?"

    "Dani, I found your key on the floor of our hotel room before I checked out, I know you were there and I know Trevor brought someone back to the room."

    "Did you ever think that it might have been Jody's key." She said defensively.

    "We both know it wasn't. Jody didn't lose her key, you did, because she let you in the next morning, and she hasn't been the one acting so weird since the wedding." he said so full of care, if he only knew how condescending the whole conversation was he'd shut up pretty quick, she thought. "He's an asshole Dani, what were you thinking."

    "I know bigger assholes than Trevor." She said under her breath.

    "Have you even talked to him since the wedding?"

    "Brian, what is it going to take for me to prove to you that I didn't do anything with Trevor?  Why don't you call him, ask him who he spent the night with because it certainly wasn't me!" She screamed pulling the phone from it's base and throwing it at him as she bolted towards the front door.  She knew he'd follow her, and she didn't really have anywhere to go, but she ran.  Ran away from her past and everything that had happened, she ran from what she wanted to tell Brian and what she wished hadn't happened; she ran from herself.
 
 

He caught up to her just before she came to the end of the darkened street they lived on, both of them breathing heavy, the breath coming out of their mouths in white puffs of air.

    "Dani what the hell is wrong with you?" He yelled, grabbing her arms tightly and spinning her to face him.  "Ever since the wedding you've turned into this pseudo-hermit bitch, and now you might be pregnant?"  Dani stayed silent, allowing the darkness of the cloud filled night sky to envelope her like a blanket.

    "Goddammit Dani what the hell is going on?................Does Trevor even know you might be having his baby?"

    "Brian, I DIDN'T SLEEP WITH TREVOR." She finally screamed, angry tears coming to her eyes. "Why won't you believe me?"

    "Because you make it hard Dani." She looked up at him and all she could see was disappointment in his face, a look that said 'you barely knew the guy, what were you thinking' and all she felt was anger and rage.  "We're sick of it, we're sick of the anger and the attitude, we're sick of everything, we just want it all to go back to how it was."

    "It can never go back to how it was."

    "Why?  What happened to you?  If it wasn't Trevor than what happened to change you like this, because we know it was something and we can't help you unless you tell us."

    "Why do you and Joey both assume I want or need help?" She said with a shake of her head, walking away from him and back to the house.  She needed to get away from everything.  She thought she could handle living with it, with him, but it was hard.  All the feelings she thought she could suppress wouldn't stay down this time and  it was more than she could take.  Dani expected Brian to stop her when she turned away from him, but he didn't.  He followed her a few steps behind, walking with the same dejected shuffle she walked with.

    "Do you need help?" He asked with more hurt in his voice than she had ever heard, just before she walked up the steps to the door of the house.  Dani didn't even know how to answer that question.

    "I don't know what I need anymore." She said bitterly.

    "Are you pregnant?" He said.

    "I thought you already knew that answer Brian?"

    "Okay then answer me something else.  You say it wasn't Trevor, then who was it?"

    "GODDAMMIT BRIAN YOU WERE THE PERSON I  SLEPT WITH OKAY...IT WAS YOU!"
 
 

Lyrics Taken From:
"Hangin' by a Thread" Jann Arden
Written by: Richards/Foster
© 1997 Polygram