“No, like a verbal fight. His parents were always so uppity and pretentious, you know? I snuck out one night and went over to his place and he wanted me to do some things I wasn’t comfortable with. It started a fight. Things were said. I may or may not have slapped him across the face at least once. His parents woke up to the commotion and called the police because they thought they were being robbed or something, and by the time the police got there JoJo had a massive bruise from where my ring had caught him when I backhanded him.”
“Jesus, Mags. I never knew.”
“He tried to defend me, Becks. He literally stood in front of me and defended me to his parents. But his parents had me hauled off in handcuffs when they realized I had bruised their precious baby boy. That’s why I have a juvie record. They charged me with assault, and I got let off with a warning and probation charges. Mom and Dad spent a small fortune to get me a lawyer to dig me out of the trouble his parents sunk me into, and I’m not sure they’ll ever financially recover. Because of me.”
I shook my head. “Not because of you, but because of JoJo and his family.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
I scoffed. “You’re not the only one that’s hit JoJo across the face. Trust me, if you swung at him, you had reason to.”
She paused. “You hit him? When?”
I sighed. “At the family reunion. He showed up out of the blue and Mom wanted me to get him to go away, so when he didn’t leave after I asked him, I slapped him across the face. That got him to leave really quickly.”
“Holy shit. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I figured it would set you off, or something.”
She groaned. “I hate that Mom and Dad paint me as some sensitive little china doll. It fucking sucks.”
I hated lying to her, but I wasn’t sure what else to say. I didn’t want her to be alone in all of this, but I also didn’t want to admit what really happened between JoJo and I at the family reunion. So, I kept it to myself.
“Where is she!?”
I heard JoJo’s voice echo harshly down the hallway and I froze.
“I know she’s here. She clocked in. Where is Rebecca?!”
“Uh, Mags?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve got an emergency that I need to tend to. It’s nothing bad, just work shit. Is it okay if I call you tomorrow?”
She snickered. “Of course. Go be Wonder Woman. But don’t forget to call.”
“I could never forget you. I’ll call on my lunch break.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
And after saying our quick goodbyes, I dropped the phone back into the receiver on the desk the second JoJo burst into my office.
“We need to talk,” he said hotly.
I furrowed my brow. “About what? What’s going on?”
He raced toward my computer and shoved me out of the way. He pushed me so hard I almost fell on my ass and for the smallest of seconds I thought about throwing him out the window and watching him fall to his death. He logged me out and quickly logged himself into the system. He pulled up a little chat window within our company’s emailing system and I didn’t recognize the outside email.
“Whose email is that?” I asked.
He pointed to the screen. “Why don’t you read the messages and tell me what the fuck you think.”
I eyed him carefully before I slipped in front of him, and when I bent over to read the messages, my eyes bulged.
Unknown: I know what you’re doing to my sister. I know the hell you’re putting her through. Stop this shit now, or I’ll unleash everything you did when we were teenagers. We’ll see how you like being bullied.
Unknown: Leave her alone. I swear it, JoJo, I’ll take you down. You won’t fuck around with my family.
