Heyyy!

Hope you don't feel like killing me after this chapter... I promise there's always a reason for every endless drama in this story! Lol.

Enjoy!

Chapter XI (Part iii - Final)

I don't know what had happened. I was confused and anxious. And kind of pissed off.

Somehow, on the morning after the party, I felt a sudden change on Mitch's behavior towards me. I just didn't understand why... Everything had been going wonderfully between us. My mind has been thinking over and over again everything I've said and done between the moment we left the party and the morning after, when it all started.

I couldn't think of anything.

During the next three days, I noticed how she avoided to spend time alone with me and barely corresponded to my intents to talk to her. At some point, I got the message and decided I'd stop bothering her. But then I began to feel very irritated. Seriously irritated. If something wrong was going on, why couldn't she simply come and talk to me? I thought by now we had developed that kind of relationship, in a way. We had come such a long way on this trip! I was having a really hard time trying to figure out what could possibly be happening.

Gladly, on the morning of our last day, we met the other group of people at the resort's restaurant during breakfast. Since the party, we had spent a lot of time with some of them, which made it even harder for me and Mitch to be alone and talk properly. But when Ben asked us if we wanted to visit a submersed den located on the east side of the island and Miley and Cait immediately agreed to it, I knew that if I wanted to finally have an opportunity to solve whatever problem was going on between me and Mitch, I had to refuse the invitation, no matter how much I'd love to go.

Since it was our last day, it was obvious that Mitchie being Mitchie would refuse to go anywhere too far from the resort. Our flight wouldn't leave until around 10:30pm, but she needed enough time to pack everything back, do some last minute shopping and rest a little before our flight. So when she politely turned down Ben's programme suggestion, I did the same.

"Lex, come on!" Miley immediately protested. "I understand Mitch being a neurotic bitch and not wanting to go, even though we will have more than enough time to pack everything and get ready to go to the airport when we come back, but why you?"

I looked down at my hot pink cup filled with steamy coffee before glancing at Mitch for a quick moment. She was looking directly at me after what felt like forever since the last time she had actually done it. Her brows were frowened and her jaw slightly tensioned.

I glared back down at my cup before looking up at Miley.

"I think I'm just gonna chill one last time at the pool or at the beach... Besides, I'm gonna keep Mitch some company."

I watched as she gulped discreetly.

"Alex, thanks, but that's not necessary. I don't mind being alone."

"I don't mind staying and I insist."

We locked eyes for a few seconds until she looked away and sighed.

"Well, it's up to you, girls." Ben said with a smile. "Miley and Cait, you better go upstairs to get changed, then. We're leaving in 45 minutes. We have to get there early because after a certain hour, the sunlight moves away from the den and it gets too dark to get in it."

"Are you sure you're not coming?" Cait asked one last time as she got up from the chair. Yet again Mitch and I exchanged a quick stare before looking at Cait and nodding at the same time. She sighed and shrugged as Mitch and her locked eyes for a couple of seconds. I frowened trying to figure out what was that about. "Fine, then. Ben, at what time do you think we'll be back?"

He glanced down at his watch. It was something around 9:30/10am.

"I guess at around 3 or 4pm. Don't worry, you'll have enough time to get everything ready before leaving."

"Let's hurry then!" Miley said. "I still have to find my GoPro. The pictures from that den are gonna be dope!"

Before walking away, Cait looked at Mitch once again.

"You didn't have to do that, you know." I heard Mitchie say after everybody was gone. She was staring down at her watermelon juice.

"I know. But I wanna talk to you." She finally looked up at me. "Not here, though. Are you planning on doing something now?"

She shook her head.

"Not really. I was just gonna pass by the souvenir shop to take a look, but I've seen a few others nearby that I suppose are cheaper than the one from here."

I finished my coffee and wiped my mouth with a napkin before nodding.

"Fine. Let's go there. Then we'll go upstairs and talk."

She cleared her throat and nodded as we both got up from the chairs.

As soon as we got back to the room, Mitch immediately went into the bathroom to take a shower. Meanwhile, I went into my room to start organizing everything.

I connected my phone to the dock station and Gary Clark Jr.'s started blasting his amazing guitar through the speakers with Don't Owe You A Thing. Who am I to say anything about this, but I swear this dude is our generation's Jimi Hendrix. I remember when I went to his concert when he played at a small ass city near Seattle. The mini road trip with my friends is to date one of the funniest memories I have from the few months I still had left before moving to New York.

I reached for my suitcase and put in on the bed. I looked around at the mess around the room and chuckled when I mentally compared it to Mitch and Cait's neat, tidy room. I think pretty much every piece of clothing Miley and I had worn during that week was thrown around somewhere, besides the thirty thousand bikinis hanging in the bathroom. We would let there for them to dry, but instead of using them again or putting it away, we would just wear a different pair.

Oh, the refined art of being lazy... Only just a few restless minds can understand.

I started to sing along to my favorite song of modern day Hendrix, Soul, came on. Coincidently, it really reminded me of Mitchie.

"He's good." She said from the door. Her shoulder was leaning against it while she smiled softly looking at my suitcase on the bed.

I held in a breath not being able to avoid wondering if she was naked beneath the cotton robe. Her wet dark hair was still dripping a little... The fresh scent of fruity soap inebriated my thoughts.

"He's amazing." I said before going back to folding some clothes and just throwing others inside the open suitcase.

"Listen, Lex..." I heard Mitch's tender voice get closer behind me before she crawled on the bed and sitted on the middle of it, behind my suitcase. "I'm sorry for acting like an idiot for the past few days. I know that's what you want to talk to me about."

I sighed as I stopped what I was doing. I put the suitcase back on the floor and sit on the bed leaning against the headboarder. Mitch scooted to my side leaning against it too.

"I just wanna know what's going on, I mean... All of a sudden it's like we're back to the week before holiday break, but this time you're the one ignoring and I'm the one being ignored." She looked down at her hands laying on her lap and took a deep breath. "What's up, Mitch? Did I do something?"

"No!" She answered quickly placing a hand on my knee. "No, Alex." She sighed and squeezed her eyes shut for a second before looking away through the window on her left. "On the morning after the party, Cait and I talked. She had said the night before when we laid down that she wanted to ask me something, but it would lead us to a long conversation and we were too tired." I kept silent waiting for her to go on, though it took eternal seconds before she started talking again - this time looking at me. "One of Ben's friends, I think it was Josh, asked him about us. He had spotted us earlier that day at the cabana. Obviously, Ben didn't know anything, so he asked Cait on the night of the party... Like if we were a couple or something. They were confused since I had said the other night at the bar that I have a boyfriend."

I frowened.

"What does that have to do with you basically ignoring me for three days?"

"Alex, don't you see? I can't keep doing this, it's crazy! I have a boyfriend. It's wrong in so many levels! But mainly I feel like I'm betraying Nick's trust. I'm not that kinda girl. I know I'm not a saint, but I'm not the kind who cheats. I don't go behind people's back doing things they don't expect me to."

"Mitch, look... I understand. But remember our talk from the first day? We're only doing this here. We're not bringing whatever we have to New York if you don't want to."

"Then what's the point? Isn't that the exact definition of cheating? Taking advantage of the time away to do things you normally can't? This is screwed up, Alex. I don't know what I was thinking when I agreed to this." She grabbed her head with both hands before rubbing her eyes.

"So what now? We're gonna just ignore everything we went through during this trip? Everything we said to each other and every feeling we obviously have for each other? That's it?" She didn't answer me. She didn't even look at me. She just kept holding her face with a distressed expression. "What am I supposed to do now? Watch you go back to pretty boy and pretend you don't feel shit for me? Forget it, Mitchie. We've shared way too much on the past week for that to happen. If I had noticed that you didn't feel anything back, then fine. But I know you do. You're just, as always, putting other people before yourself. You're prioritizing him when you should be your own priority. If you don't take care of yourself, who's going to, Mitch? I wanna be able to do it, I wanna be the one to take care of you for once. But you gotta let me. I can't reach your heart if you're gonna put a pile of other people's hearts on it. Let it be on the top for a change. You're always looking out for everybody, you're always worrying about everyone. Nick with his college stuff, Cait with her freak relationship with Charlie, Miley with her crazy ways, Jen living in countries where thousands die everyday, Emma not wanting to move to London with Andrew, your dad's daily struggles being who he is and your mom worrying about him... What about you? When do you ever think about yourself?"

"Alex, you don't understand." She sounded angry. And it actually made me happy, because at least she was showing some emotion rather than not answering back so I wouldn't get hurt. Because she does that. "That's what makes me happy. Making others happy, helping people as much as I can. You're the first sick person to ever turn that into a bad thing!"

"I'm not turning it into a bad thing! Mitch, I admire you so much! I've never met someone so good and caring as you! You have the biggest heart on this planet. You're so given and so free of prejudices and preconceived ideas. You don't take anything for granted. People worship you! But you need to make yourself happy to. Eventually you'll see that making others happy might be good, but it's not enough. At some point you'll look around and wonder why everybody's so happy but you're feeling so empty."

"Alex." She moaned in silent desperation leaning her head back and closing her eyes. "I have to stay with Nick. What we're doing is wrong and unffair. He doesn't deserve this."

"You know what? Whatever. It's you're choice. But let me tell you something: if you really think you and Nick will stay together after he goes off to MIT and you stay in Princeton, you're tripping, dear. It's college, Mitchie. And you're both gonna be hundreds of miles away from each other!" I got up and went into the bathroom to pick up my bathing suits.

"You are tripping, Alex! Nick and I aren't like most couples! We're not going to college to get crazy drunk and fuck random people! We actually want to study and become successful professionals! We're not playing around like everybody else. Besides, Boston is less than five hours from New Jersey. We can easily visit each other on weekends."

I put the suitcase back on the bed and started shoving everything in it.

"That might work for the first few weeks. Months, if you will. But it won't last, Mitchie. You're both used to seeing each other every single day, being together almost 24/7. Then, all of a sudden, you'll only be able to meet on weekends. With time, though, even the weekends will be full of things to do. And you won't be in the mood to drive miles and miles back and forth every week, anyway. You'll grow apart. Eventually, you will barely know each other because you won't have enough time for each other. And then the arguments will start, the lies, ignored texts and calls... Until, maybe, worse things. And then you will hate each other's guts because the relationship that used to be rainbows and butterflies, became pure pain and sorrow. Your friends will be devastated because you were the perfect couple! I mean, everybody hopes you two get married. And that's why you'll both try for so long - to correspond to people's expectations. Not because you actually see a point in it anymore. You're both too smart to believe it'll truly last after it all becomes a burden. But if everyone has so much faith in you as a couple, why can't you? I'll tell you why. Because you will be the only ones who will really know the struggles. And how much effort something that used to be so natural started to require. Finally, you'll yell at each other and say things you don't mean. After all, you still care about him. He cares about you too. But the two of you are too blinded by your previous mistakes to see that. Neither will admit that it stopped working way too long ago, but you had to keep going just because that's how it's supposed to be. And then, Mitchie... That's the exact moment when you'll look around and wonder why you're so unhappy. Why you don't feel anything anymore. Why you're alone at an apartment you share with two other girls. You realize, at last, that you were so busy trying to balance your studies and your long failed relationship, that you didn't make yourself available for any of the new people you met recently. Sure, you talk to all of them, as you've done all your life. But this time, your interest is shallow, not as genuine as before. And again it hits you: you're so unhappy. You never imagined your college life to be like that. And then you'll think of this exact moment and every word that came out of my mouth for the past two minutes. And then you'll think of me. Regret pushing me away when all I wanted was to avoid everything you've gone through for the past year or so. You'll cry thinking how you had the chance to spare yourself from all that hell if only you had listened to me when I begged you to be happy... And think how absurd and pathetic it is that someone had to literally beg you to put yourself first. To take care of you."

Of course she was crying. And sobbing. And for an instant I felt bad for yelling at her and saying so many harsh things, but I was desperate. I needed to make her see the atmospherically huge mistake she was doing by choosing Nick.

"And how would it be different with us, Alex? You're going to Berkeley. That's even worse! You're gonna be on the opposite side of the country! I wouldn't have you even on weekends!" Her voice cracked and she was silent for a second trying to pull it together as best as she could. "I can't stand being alone, Alex." She admitted a little more calm. "I can't risk my relationship with Nick. You know me better than to think I would give up on something as solid as that for just... Whatever with you."

I chuckled humorless and very hurt at her last sentence.

"Whatever with me..." I gave her a said smile as I watched the tears fall down her face... Some slipped from her chin to her neck, some just dripped from her chin to the cleavage of the robe. Usually I would think that was sexy... But not then. "Yeah, whatever." I threw a pair of jeans in the suitcase and shut it before looking at her. "I got my letter from NYU last week. I got in. I'm not going to Berkeley. But why does it matter now, right? I mean... I'm just whatever. I'm most likely seducing you with sweet words so I can get into your pants. I bet Caitlyn might have said something like that when you two talked... I wouldn't be surprised. I know she loves me and Miley, but it doesn't stop her from thinking we're both whores playing with people's feelings. And I also don't think you told her about everything that's really going on between us. And you know what's worse? That doesn't surprise me either." We stared at each other for a while... I pressed my lips together holding back my urge to cry.

Oh, I was so not going to cry in front of her.

I took a deep breath and turned around walking out the bedroom door. I heard Mitchie's steps being me instantly.

"Where are you going?" She asked just as I reached for my keycard. "Alex, wait." She grabbed my wrist but I immediately pulled it out of her grip. I went back into the room and took my phone from the dock station. It was now playing Billie Holiday and I almost laughed at the irony... Perfect soundtrack for every broken heart. I grabbed my cross shoulder purse and made my way to the door, but Mitch rushed and shut it when I had barely opened it. "Alex, don't. You misunderstood my words. They didn't come out right."

"Oh, they did. They came out perfectly right. I just can't believe that everything I've said to you and done for you, after humiliating myself multiple times in front of you, all that could just be called 'whatever'. I've never done this for anyone in my life, Mitchie. And the fact that you'd rather stay with Nick just because it's safe instead of being with me, even though you're in love with me... Don't." I said as soon as I noticed she was going to protest against what she had just heard. "Don't deny it. I see it in your eyes everyday I look at you. And my hopes were sky high that you would be brave enough to admit it to yourself, then to me and then to everyone else by the end of this week. Or maybe as soon as we got back to NY. But as every other legitimate emotion you have, you're just shoving it down your heart and to the back of your mind, because you don't wanna disappoint anyone. Well, guess what? You disappointed me."

"Alex, stop it!" She yelled when I tried to open the door again and she leaned her body against it. "You're not leaving until we talk this through."

"Are you even serious?! Talk what through? You just said you're gonna be with Nick. What's there left to talk about? I'm not gonna keep going with this conversation 'til we hug away our conflicts just so you can have some peace of mind. I know you can't bare the idea of having someone mad at you or disappointed. But I don't give a shit. You'll have to learn to live with it. You gotta understand you can't please everybody, for fuck's sake! It might have worked so far, but that's gonna fuck you up, Mitchie. Because throughout your life you'll find out that some people can't be pleased, no matter what you do. And you'll feel lost. So consider this my contribution to make you a stronger person when somebody kicks your face someday. Now move."

"Alex." She sobbed and I gently pushed her away from the door. "Please, Alex. Don't do this."

I stopped mid-way from leaving the from and looked at her.

"No. You don't." I sighed trying not to feel moved by the amount of tears streaming down her face. "You broke my heart."

I got back to the room some time past 7pm. I had spent the rest of the morning walking around the resort and eventually left to take a look around the places nearby. I found a cute little restaurant with typical Central American food a few blocks away and decided to have lunch there. When I was finished I took a walk on the beach and then sat on the sand for hours, finally crying my eyes out. I had never felt so hurt in my whole life. I had never had my heart broken because I never really fell in love... Until Mitchie. I felt like screaming and yelling at someone. I just couldn't understand why it had to be so fucking difficult with her. I know she wants to be with me. Why can't she stop playing safe just this once?

I guess it was just too hard to accept that she didn't think I was worth it.

"Dude, where have you been?" Miley asked as soon as I shut the door. She was sitting on the couch doing her nails. "Holy shit, you look like crap! What happened to you?"

Mitch immediately appeared at the door of her room. Her eyes were widened with worry.

"My God, Alex, I've been calling you all day long!" I knew that. She started calling me at around 1pm, but after the 13th call I decided to turn off my phone. "I was so worried! I looked for you everywhere!" She hesitantly walked towards me, but I gave her a warning look to not come too close. I would just shut her off. I went into my room with her following me. She closed the door as I collapsed on the bed. "Alex, please, let's not do this again. Don't push me away."

I closed my eyes trying to make her go away. I didn't want to be near her, I didn't want to even hear her voice.

"Leave, please."

"No, I'm not leaving." Her voice was weak and I knew she was about to burst into tears again. I felt the bed move and figured she was sitting next to me. "I'm so sorry for the things I said. I don't even know why I said them. I was being stupid and trying to make up excuses. I didn't wanna hurt you, Alex. Please, believe me. Please." And then she started to cry. For long minutes, all we could hear were her sobbings. At some point, I felt as she laid down next to me and our shoulders touched. She reached for my hand resting on the space between our bodies and entwined our fingers. My eyes were glued to the ceiling. "I can't be in love with you." She said in a barely audible tone. I felt like crying again. "I'm in love with Nick." It sounded like she was trying to convince herself of that.

And if that's what she wanted, there was just so much I could do...

"You can't be in love with two people at once." I said in a cold tone before letting go of her hand and getting off of the bed. I went into the bathroom and locked the door without looking back at her.

DON'T FREAK OUT! I promise things between Alex and Mitchie will be back in place in no time.

Before replying to your reviews, I wanted to say I'm really sorry about what happened at the Boston Marathon on Monday. I don't know if there are any readers from Boston, but I know many of you are from the United States and things like that always affect a country as a nation. I have no doubts the responsibles for this attrocity will be found sooner than we all think. I have way, way, waaay more trust in the United States' public and State security organs than in mine, lmao. I've added the families and friends affected in my night prayers... Hope y'all have done it too :)

And if I have any Venezuelan readers... I'm sorry for your new president. The Chávez era should've gone to the grave with him. Some really tough six years are ahead of you...

In completely unrelated news, I BOUGHT MORE PILLS. So don't count on my insomnia to update this anymore, LOL. But things are better now, so I might update more often.

Sorry, guys, I wanted to reply to your reviews as I usually do, but I can't. I have to leave 'cause I have to visit this apartment and it's kinda far from my house and the traffic is a fuckng joke. But thank you ALL for always reviewing and reading the story! I hope you're not too pissed about this chapter, though :PPP