Young Writers Society

Julian didn't know what to feel. Guess that was his problem, he didn't know how to feel. Why did all this have to happen. Why did everything always have to be so complicated. When did everything so complicated happen? He wanted to punch something. He heard that fancy hotels like this also had bars. So, he made his way to it. The bar was a little full. The place smelled like fried food, must be a restaraunt and bar in one. Kinda like Red Robin.

"Great." He muttered. In his opinion he wanted to drown himself, alone, in his own self pity.

Naya sat outside the balcony and watched the cars and people go passed. She let the cold December afternoon breeze hit her face as she scanned the busy streets below her as people collected money for charity and got their last minute Christmas shopping done. She felt like she was in a completely different world to them, they all had families they would come home to and spend Christmas with, while she was alone in a hotel room hundreds of miles away from her family.
As she sat there and followed their movements in silence, the minutes began to turn to hours and Naya’s mood and resolve began to harden with every second that went by. Wrapping her arms around herself, she leaned her head against the side of the balcony railing.

She was determined not to mope around like some kind of love-sick teenager. The very idea was pathetic. She was tired of letting Julian make her feel like this, of letting him play with her emotions like a puppet on strings. She wasn’t going to be a bitch to him, or moan at him, but she wasn’t going to let it happen again either. From now on, until she was back home safe with her family, she was going to be the old Naya, the person she became after Jace had hurt her, the Naya that said little and kept her head down.

The Naya that only had love for her family and friends. And no one else.

It seemed only like mintues ago, Julian had ordered his drink. It had been seven hours ago. He wasn't drunk, in fact, he had only had two beers and no shots. He wanted to go back upstairs and try to talk to her. No! His head screamed at him. His body ached, he was stressed. He thought about heading back to the hot tub. He checked his watch. It was two o'clock in the morning. Was this honestly going to be the rest of his exsistance?

"Hey." A friendly voice spoke.

Julian looked up, he saw Maggie. She was dressed in tight jeans and a tighter red top. She must really like red. He met her smiling eyes. Yes, smiling.

"Hey yourself." He said. He wasn't going to bring her down just because his life wasn't working out.

"Where's your wife?" She asked, and looked around.

Julian looked into his bottle. "She's in the room. That would be my best guess. What are you doing here?"

Maggie grabbed a chair and sat across from him. "My night job."

"I thought you said you were a model."

She smiled, it made Julian feel warm. "I do. I just need to make some extra cash. Modeling only pays the rent. I don't want to bore you." She said. "Your wife is probably worried about you."

Julian shook his head. "Probably not."

Maggie touched Julian's hand. "You know, she probably is worried. If you were my husband, I wouldn't let you out of the house." She winked.

For the first time all day, Julian smiled.

Naya must have fallen asleep with her head on the balcony railing because when she opened her eyes, it was pitch black outside. Moving her head away, she felt a sharp pain where she’d leaned against the cold hard railing. She pulled herself up and headed back inside.

Julian was still gone because the hotel room was still empty. She walked up to the television and turned it on the news before heading into the kitchen to help herself to a glass of water. She was desperate to hear from some news from home, even if it was something little, and sure enough, as she came back and took a seat on the couch to hear the day’s news in brief, she her and Julian’s face plastered on the screen.

Her heart began to race.

“The spokesmen of the parents of kidnapped businessman Julian Anderson and socialite Naya du Maurier make a formal statement to the press on the morning of Miss du Maurier’s 24th birthday.”

The image quickly changed from the woman reading the headline to the image of her and Julian’s family spokesmen.

“It is with deep regret that we address you all today. Whilst the holidays are supposed to be a time of joy, our families have been rocked by the kidnapping of our two children Naya and Julian. While we are doing everything we can to return them home to us safe and sound, we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the help and kindness they have shown us during this difficult time. We only hope that your prayers and good wishes are answered and that our children are brought back to us as soon as possible. Thank you.”

Again, the image changed to her penthouse. Camera's and microphones surrounded Naya's parents as they grimly made their way into their limosenes.

Seeing their faces for the first time in what felt like forever, looking so sad, Naya could hardly hold herself together. Before she could even digest what she had just heard, their came a sudden knock at her door...

After an hour conversation with Maggie, she had convinced him to get some sleep. Julian decided, that he had kept his promise, it was now three thirty in the morning. He had to get back some time. He got on the elevator punched in the 5th floor and within ten mintues he was knocked on the door, no one answered. Real mature. He had to find his card key and open the door. The top part was locked, he could only open it to see inside the room.

"Open the door, Naya." He said, calmly.

He could see her with her arms crossed and she was raising a hellll-NO look on her face. "Or else what?" she asked like a angry toddler.

"I'm not in the mood to agrue with you." He said.

She stomped toward the door and unlocked the top of it. She opened the door and stood in the doorway.

He tried to stare her down, but she made no effort to move. So, he decided he'd move her, himself. He gently bumped his shoulder into her stomach and threw her over his shoulder.

"Julian!" She yelled. "Put. Me. Down!"

He ignored her, and walked over to the bed. He threw her onto the bed. On her back. She sat up and was hissing at him. He stood over her, towering over her.

"Tell me what the hell it is you want from me." He growled.

"I don't want anything from you. In fact, I hate you." She said, he knew she didn't mean it.

"No you don't." He shook his head, his eyes were squinting. "Tell me, honestly... What do you want from me."

All her weight was on her arms, which were behind her. Her curly hair was falling into loose curls. She wore them well. Her legs were in front of her. Showing him, yes of course, she was going to fight him...

Naya said nothing for several seconds and simply glared up at him like she wanted to slap him across the face.

“I want you to get me back home to my family!” she snarled, pointing at the television screen before looking back up at him. “So you can get back to your life and I can get back to mine....so I don’t have to look at you every morning and feel pathetic for having feelings that I know will never be shown to me! That’s what I want from you!”

She was breathing heavily.

He felt a bit taken back. Then his eyes turned to slits. He wanted to yell at her, shake her, kiss her, or even argue with her. But none of those things would make anything better. Hell, even sex wouldn't make this any better! It would just confuse him more, and piss her off.

"See you say you have feelings. The only ones I see is pissed off," he started counting on his fingers. "Jealous, for good reasons, self-pity, pissed off, oh and did I forget to mention pissed off?" He said.

She glared at him.

"Amazing! She doesn't have anything left to say! It's a miracle!" He turned his back on her, and ran both of his hands through his hair, wanting to tear it out.

Naya wanted to kill him, truly, she was already imagining all the different ways she could do it. She leapt from the bed as if she’d just got an electric shock and charged towards him.

“D’you think I enjoy feeling like this?” she growled up at him. “D’you think I like being pissed off and pitying myself all the time? I mean, after everything that we’ve been through from this goddamn marriage to almost being kidnapped, can you honestly blame me for feeling this way?”

Julian looked irritated. “Everything that’s happened to you has happened to me, sweetheart, alright? You don’t see me pouting and moaning and sulking around feeling sorry for myself. Do you wanna know why? Because I know that it doesn’t help make the situation any better, it only makes things worse!”

“Oh, of course you haven’t been feeling sorry for yourself...” Naya was practically seething in anger. “That’s because you’ve been too busy being a complete insensitive asshole to me! How much help do you think all that’s been, hmm?”

He was ready to jump out the window. Just looking at her, even breathing the same air as she was bitterly painful. He looked at her. He put one hand on his hip and used the other one to motion the things he was saying.

"I knew it." he growled.

She shook her head, furiously and looked at him. "Knew what?!"

"I knew that this is what marriage would be like. My luck exactly, I'd end up wth a snobby, emotional, prude... Female." He was about to use another word for female dog in heat. He just decided not to. He wasn't that rude, not even when he was pissed off at a woman.

She gaped at him. "Snobby... emotional?" A long pause. "Prude?"

He nodded. "That's right. Prude. Do you want me to say it slower?" He asked.

She looked at him like she was going to kill him, and enjoy it. "This marriage is HELL!" she yelled.

Julian didn't want to apologize. In fact, he was sick of taking all her crap. She was moody and emotional and it bugged the shit out of him. "I knew that too. You know what else I knew? I knew that I shouldn't have come back up here. Even though, Maggie suggested that I should."

The name Maggie, set off a spark inside Naya's brain. Julian could see it, she was about to roast one of them. Alive...

Naya couldn’t believe her ears. First, when he’d called her all those horrible things, and then when he’d said Maggie’s name. It dawned on her at that particular moment that that was where he’d been all this time...with that blonde... She felt anger and hurt build up in her eyes but she fought herself not to show him. Is that really what Julian thought of her? Did he really hate her that much, that he’d leave her alone in their hotel room all this time, after she practically wore her heart on her sleeve for him, to be with some stranger?

“Maggie told you to?” she sneered up at him. “That’s why you came back...it wasn’t because you were worried about me, or because you wanted to sort things out but because some total stranger told you to?” She still couldn’t believe it, or perhaps she didn’t want to believe it.

For a while they just stood there in silence, Julian glaring down at her. Naya wanted to hurt him in a way that would make him feel the pain she was now experiencing inside of her. She hadn’t ever felt so angry and hurt in her life, not even with Jace.

“You know what, I don’t need you or your charity, I was fine without you!” she yelled, her every word was filled with venom. “So why don’t you just run along back to Maggie if that's who you'd rather be with? Maybe in a few hours time she’ll start seeing you for what you really are; a cruel, selfish, insensitive, heartless scum-bag! In fact...how about I just leave? Then you can just bring her up here yourself!”

"Don't even." He growled. "You blame people because you're too immature to take responsiblity for what you do." He wasn't yelling, but he sure wanted to. She was making him go crazy. Some parts of Julian thought she enjoyed it.

She stopped and just stared at him. Not saying anything. He knew she hurt, that's why he had tried to show her, hurt means weakness, weakness means pain. Show no emotion, feel no pain. The words echoed endlessly in Julian's brain.

Naya was just about ready to leap at him. Her head was spinning and a part of her just wanted to run out of the hotel room, away from him, away from their marriage, away from everything.

“What the hell am I supposed to have done exactly, Julian?” she asked him, her voice eminating hurt even though she didn't want it to. “What the hell am I supposed to have done for me to take any kind of responsibility for?”

Julian looked at her, just stared. No glaring, no yelling, no whispering. He was done. Nothing good was coming out of this marriage. Sure he was 50% of the problem, but so was she. He wasn't going to put up with all of this, that's why he didn't want to get married in the first place.

"I'm done fighting you. Do you ever just get tired of being angry." It was a question he didn't need her answer to.

She craned her neck to stare at him. "Oh, of course you would. I'm the bad guy right?" she asked, still hurt visible in her words.

"Only if you want to be." Julian said, gently he walked onto the balcony and lit a cigarette. He was so done. If she wanted to go on arguing that was fine by him. He'd learned how to block voices out a long time ago. They were going in circles, and they just weren't getting anywhere.

Naya watched Julian walk out onto the balcony and light a cigarette. She turned away from him in anger and fought with every fibre of her being not to yell at him any further. He was done fighting? Well, so was she. Fighting Julian was like fighting a brick wall. Useless and disappointing.

Wiping away with her sleeves the tears that she hadn’t realised had formed in her eyes, she headed for the bathroom and locked the door behind her. It was what she remembered doing whenever things used to get too difficult to bare with Jace. He’d be yelling, shouting, turning their hotel room upside down, and when Naya couldn’t take it any longer she’d just lock herself up in the bathroom and wait.

She slid down from the bathroom wall to the floor and buried her face in her hands. Tears poured down her cheeks. She hated herself for crying, she hated herself for feeling so hurt...but most of all she hated the fact that she ever had feelings for Julian.

Julian realized at this point in time, he missed Jennifer. She would know what to do, she was a woman. He was just so lost on what to do to Naya. What to say to her. It seemed like he was driving on a straight road, he just wasn't going anywhere. He heard the bathroom door slame and he heard the lock turn.

He smoked the cigarette until he wanted to have another. He decided it would be best not to. He walked into the hotel room. Wondering if he should leave or stay. If he left, it wouldn't help any so he choose to stay...