It's actually quite simple.
1) Either one of the guests got so sick that guest fell on the table and knocked it over, so everyone went to the hospital and didn't even close the door
2) Either there was some sort of altercation between the guests and they got into a fight.
If we're talking about the second option, first, there should be some common negative event between all the guests that will make them fight regardless of the branch and the choices made ( restaurant/not restaurant).
Secondly, if we're talking about Bella's Christmas dinner with Tremolo and all his girlfriends, it's hard to imagine what kind of event would make Sage and Josy fight, for example. We're talking about a scene that's going to happen regardless of the choices made and the branches. That's why the second option seems unlikely to me.
And besides, this scene could refer to Bella's past, not the present. Bella and James' baby got sick or they had a fight at Christmas dinner. And the guest was, like, Vinnie.
Actually, I think it's a scene from Bella's past. With of course, James and with possibly the explanations to why he left.
Your thoughts are fine so far. But I rule out the hospital because then everyone would have left. But we see so that a person has not left. Unlikely in such a situation.
There could be an argument. But I don't think it was about the restaurant. DPC's intros actually always show the past. So something must have happened that has nothing to do with the present.
What's interesting about the animation is the number of chairs. There are 7 chairs. If James was still with Isabella at this point, they had 5 guests. Isabella could be in the locked room and James just comes out of the room. He may have comforted Isabella or he may have found out something about these 5 people and he is leaving Isabella at exactly that time.
The question that would then have to be answered is who the 5 other people were. Isabella's parents are deceased. Relatives of James? That could be true, of course, but they probably wouldn't give such a reason for James to leave Isabella. So friends and/or acquaintances of Isabella and James' parents. If it was meant to be for James to leave Isabella at this point, then James learned something about Isabella that Christmas that made James leave.
If this Christmas was a year ago, it couldn't have been Emma or Bret because Zoey was in San Diego with them. If it was 2 years ago then Emma and Bret could have been visiting. In one of my last posts, I pointed out that Isabella was probably friends with Emma and Bret in high school. The two of them could then also know James. James says yes in the flashback from EP8 if Isabella remembers what happened on the beach. We know so Emma doesn't have a problem with FFM. She also invites Zoey. What if Isabella had an FFM on the beach with Emma and James? This could have led to an awkward conversation if Bret didn't know about it.
But things could get worse. Emma said in Interlude to have a stranger teach her what home blindness was. Isabella was a student and had a fateful one-night stand with this stranger. She became pregnant but aborted the child. This in itself is nothing unusual. She later meets the stranger again and marries him. The stranger could have been James. But Isabella is keeping something from James. But this Christmas, James finds out about Emma so Isabella has aborted the child and can no longer have children.
Total shock for James.
