Chapter 106 - How Much Pain Can Ya Take?

Monica follows Jon out the heavy door.  She's a little pissed off at the way that he just handled the pictures that he seen, he had no right to jump down her throat like that and embarrass her in front of everyone that mattered to both of them.  

But she knows the sensitivity that comes with them, she felt the same way when she added them, but they were part of Jon, they were a big part of Bon Jovi.  "Hey," she sits next to him, "That was bullshit what you did back in there?"

"How's that?" he asks, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, "I don't want those pictures in there."

"Jon, you gave me the creative go ahead and I did just that.  You only watched the first five minutes of it."

"I don't want my fans and the world to be in that part of our lives.  I told you that family times were off limits."  he reminds her, guzzling the Bud that he had in his hand.  "And that is a big family issue."

"Jon, that is a devastating time in our life and whether you want to believe it or not, it's made you what you are today.  Hell, it made me what I am today." she reaches for his hand and he pulls away.

With a deep breath he tells her, "They are too close to my heart and whether any one knows about it, I don't want them in there Monica."

"Why?  Give me one good reason why, other than they were from a bad time in our life?"

"Because in 20 years when I watch this, I don't want that reminder popping up and any future children we have do not need to see that."

Monica stands up, knowing that the conversation was hitting a dead end and she would rather see what everyone else thought of her work, "Well, I invited your parents here, you should come back in and watch the rest of it Jon."  She walks away, taking his empty beer can with her.

"Babe." he stops her, turning around to look at her.  "Those pictures are a colored reminder of what I almost lost and what we both lost.  Can we keep them for ourselves?"

Monica stops with the door pull in her hand, "Jon, those aren't my pictures.  I got them in the mail.  A fan took those.  They are out there, for the public to already to see."

Jon looks away, never giving thought to where she got them, he just assumed that she did it at some point.  "Will you take them out?"

"NO."

He starts to ignore her, so she goes back inside.  

As she enters that makeshift viewing area, she can hear the guys laughing.  She rounds the corners and sees that they are laughing at the shaving cream jokes that they played on Alec, the birthday cake in Richie's face and the keyboard that David was trying to use, the one that they had glued all of the keys together.  There was never a dull moment on the road.  

When they see Monica, David stops the film and asks Monica, "What pictures is he so yanked about?"

"Yeah, what has him so upset?"  Mr. Bongiovi asks.  "He's quite pissed."

"He is pissed, actually he's never been this pissed at me, but when I went out there, I realized that he's not pissed - it uncovered some raw emotions that he wasn't ready to deal with.  He thinks that those pictures should be kept private and out of the film."

"Are you going to take them out, dear?"  Mrs. Sambora asks her, with a shyness not really knowing what they are talking about.

"Let's wait and see the rest of it.  We can give Monica our lists of what we don't like and then she can decide what she wants to do."  Richie says, "We don't need to spend all of this time just on those few pictures."

"What are the pictures of?"  Tico asks her, having some idea but he wasn't sure.

Monica sits down and takes a deep breath and a big gulp of her beer.  "Those are pictures of our accident scene and of a memorial that fans made, to support Jon."

"That's where you guys were hit by that car in Vegas?"

She nods her head.  "Funny how I put them in with Only Lonely, huh."

"Did that piss him off?  asks Alec.

"I added them to that song simply because of what I seen in him on the stage, singing that song.  Intuition, maybe?"  Monica admits, not really knowing why she put them there, but she had a feeling.

"Well, you know dear, he was in a bad spot then.  Dealing with his own broken bones, bruises and scrapes - he also had to worry about you and when they told him about the baby - he went cold.  I have never seen him like that."  Jon's mother feels that she needs to add something, she can see that Monica is struggling.  

"Did he really have to act out like that?"  Monica asks her, "I mean really, he ran off pouting like a baby."

"Mon, you didn't see the Jon we seen back then."  Richie tells her, "He was devastated, he was lost."

"I get that."  Monica snaps, rewinding the video all the way back to the beginning.  "Watch it and write down your edits please."  And she walks away.  

She didn't want to go outside where Jon was, she didn't want to make the scene bigger than he already did, but she was feeling attacked.  She takes her Tab and heads into the editing booth and starts to flip through some pictures that she has laying around.  Pictures of everything and everyone.  For a few moments, she gets lost in what she's doing and doesn't see Jon come back in.

Jon leans on the door frame and scares the hell out of her when he says, "Hey."

Monica looks up at him and smiles, "Hey."

He walks toward her, "I'm sorry for being such an asshole."

"I'm beginning to think that you can't help it."  she winks at him.

"I'm serious, I was a total ass.  I let my emotions get the best of me and I shouldn't have."

"I understand." she tells him, reaching for his hand, taking it and holding it tight.

He sits on the table and starts with, "This was your time to shine and I ruined that for you, I'm sorry."

"It's no big deal Jon, really."

"We are here to see what you have put together, you went through all of this trouble and I had to act like a spoiled brat."

"Well, you kind of are."

"I'm sorry.  I know that we gave you creative freedom and I had to act like Hitler."

"I'll take them out, don't worry."

Jon looks over his shoulder, out at the family that they have, watching her video.  "No, leave them in."

"No, Jon.  I'll take them out."  With a nod of her head, "They are out there writing down their edits too.  You should go join them."

"Babe...."

"Really, it's okay.  I'll take them out." she smiles, "Go watch it with them please."

"I don't need to watch it, because whatever is in there, is being released."  He stands at her side and slowly helps her out of the chair, "You are Bon Jovi management too and you have a say."

"I get why you want them out, I can take them out."

With his lips on her forehead, he mumbles, "I acted foolishly and didn't see the pictures for what they were to you."

"What they were to me?" she asks him, looking up, into his eyes, 

"What did those pictures say to you when you seen them?" his arms go around her neck, pulling her even closer.  

"They are of something that I don't remember, in reality.  But when I seen them, I could feel it.  I knew that was the place that it happened, and I had no idea when I first seen them."

"Where did you find them?" he wonders, "How did you not know what they were?"

"When they came in the mail a few weeks ago, I looked at the pictures before I read the article, and I could feel that was where it happened."

Jon looks at her, his feelings of uneasy are just getting worse, "How come you didn't share them with me?"

"I don't know."

"Why would you not?"

"I don't know, Jon.  I just didn't."

"When you read the article, what did you think then?" he can feel her breathing speed up.

"The scab was ripped off and I had a few days of being blue, but I don't remember it at all."

He holds her close and she can feel that he is now feeling blue about it and that makes her feel bad, "I'm sorry that I didn't share or prepare you for them.  I really didn't think you would react this way."

"Monica, that was the worst, most terrible time in my life."

"I know."

"I don't think that you do."  He releases his hold on her and takes a few steps away, "that was worse than any nightmare I could ever dream, and the fucked up part is I WAS LIVING IT." he gets increasingly louder as his Italian temper flares. 

"Jon............"

He stops dead in his tracks, holds up his hands and says, "Don't Jon me, Monica.  Do you know what happened to me, to us on that day that you want to glorify in a god damn documentary?"

Her eyes go wide and her mouth falls open, "Where in the hell is this coming from?" she is startled by his sudden outburst. 

"That was our wedding day."

"I know."

"And you remember none of it, but to pay homage to what we went through, you put accident scene pictures in the god damn video?"

"Two minutes ago you wanted me to leave them in, you said that I have creative freedom - where in the fuck is this coming from?"  she walks over to him and spins him around, "Why the sudden change?"

Jon stares at her, knowing what he wants to say, but feeling a little afraid to say it - and Monica can see that.

"Don't stop there Jon, let it all out.  Go ahead and tell me that I'm heartless because I don't grieve like you.  Tell me I don't fucking care because I can't remember anything - or was the accident somehow my fault and you just haven't told me yet?"