sooo thank you again for your nice reviews...

thekiller00: you're posting so nice reviews to every single chapter...sooo thank you veeeeeeeeeery much. i dedicate this chapter to you...for your regular reviews. you really have no idea how happy it makes me to see that people like my story and read every chapter...

Chapter 12 – or Tell The Truth!

Summer looked at the piece of paper in her hand. It contained the address of Marissa's dad. She prayed that she would find her there. But what if not? She thought about that question the whole flight long. What would happen if she wouldn't be in Tahiti? Where else could she be gone to?
'No, she has to be there…' she thought to herself. She had to…

---Meanwhile in Las Vegas---
Seth and Ryan sat in the lobby of the hotel.

"So what are you going to tell Liz, Ryan? The truth?" Seth asked curiously.

"I really don't know… Do you really think that telling her the truth would be good? I don't think so.." Ryan answered.

---back in Tahiti---
Summer stood in front of the house. She said a little prayer and knocked on the door. Jimmy Cooper opened her the door.

"Summer? Let me guess you are here because of Marissa…?" he said.

"Uhm… actually yeah. Is she here?"

"Yeah… I mean no…" he said. Summer looked at him confused.

"… she decided to go to the beach. Just follow that path." he finally said and pointed at a small path.

"Thank you" she gave him a last smile and walked down to the beach.
Summer recognized Marissa's slim figure from a distance.

Marissa sat huddled up in the warm sand, her knees tightly to her chest.
She sat there simply staring intently at the ocean, listening to the sound of the crashing waves and inhaling the salty scent of the water. She loved the salty scent and she loved it to sit at the beach. Especially when no one was around. She always felt sort of a "connection" to the sea. When Ryan was in Chino, she used to sit at the beach and think of him and about the two of them. Yeah she drank there sometimes, too. Her favourite time for sitting here in the sand was when the sun was already going down. Like it did right now.
The last night seemed so far away. She wanted to simply sit here for forever.
She sighed for what seems to be twentieth time in the last hour.

"Hey" a voice nearly whispered "Can I join you?"

Marissa looked at the person, for a minute surprised but her attention quickly went back to the ocean.
Summer followed her gaze over to the ocean. She understood that Marissa escaped to Tahiti. It was a beautiful place. Perfectly to forget things or to think things over.

"I'm so sorry, Marissa" Summer finally said with a voice full of sympathy. She lightly caressed Marissa's upper arm.

"You are not the one being sorry for something. You didn't call me a drunken whore. You didn't say that I just always want to be rescued. You don't have to be sorry, Summer." Marissa said her voice nearly cracking.

"You know that he didn't mean those things he said. He was drunk, Marissa"

"Yeah maybe, Sum… but maybe he just said the truth, that what he thinks that I am. You know people say that when you're drunk, you're telling the truth."

"Marissa you don't believe that really…don't you? You know that he doesn't think that way about you."

"Maybe you're right. But honestly I wouldn't blame him if he hates me. I mean after all what happened. But to hate me is one thing, to throw all those things at me is another."

Summer nodded and they both sat there silently for minutes, just watching the crashing waves.

"Did you really hook up with Jason?" Summer suddenly asked Marissa nearly inaudible.

Marissa gave her an unbelieving look.

"I….I…mean we never had the chance to talk about that… about what happened…" Summer said, trying to justify her question.'I never should have started with that topic...' Summer thought to herself.

Marissa didn't want to think about what happened. Why Summer had to bring up that topic right now? She didn't want to deal with those memories, too. She had to deal with enough emotions and memories at the moment. Plus she pushed these away for so long.

"Marissa I'm your best friend. You know you can tell me and I think you really should tell someone. I mean Marissa your mother lied, when she told us that there was something…didn't she?" Summer faced her and gave her a pleading look.

"There was something, Sum." Marissa said.

---Meanwhile in Las Vegas---
Ryan paid Liz a visit at their hotel room.

"Hey stranger" she said happily, lying in the bed.

"Hey" he said and tried to give her a smile

"It seems like I haven't seen you in ages, where have you been?" she asked.

"Uhm… you were sleeping, so I went to the hotel bar with Seth. You know having Seth/Ryan time, like Seth would say."

He watched Liz dragging herself up into a sitting position. She motioned him with her hands to sit down on the bed next to her. He sat down next to her.

"Ryan…"

"Huh?" he turned his head in the direction of hers and looked at her.

"You know, I have to stay in bed all day… sooo I thought maybe you stay in our room, too? I mean…you know… we could stay in bed all day… together?" she said seductively, trying to convince Ryan with a passionate kiss.

Ryan pulled away. "Liz… I'm not in the mood for that. And besides that, I don't think that this is what the doctor meant with "staying in bed." he said while he stood up from the bed.

"Ryan what's going on? I mean I'm really sorry for what happened. But don't you think you're a bit too harsh with me?" she said.

"Liz, I'm not angry at you. It's… it's nothing."

"Yeah… like the reason why you and Marissa broke up… Nothing. You can tell that you're friends, but not you're girlfriend. Why are you shutting me out, Ryan?"

"Liz…" he said softly.

"No… don't start with that. What happened after I was in hospital, Ryan? I want to know!" she said with a demanding voice.

"You wanna know? You really want to know what happened?" he almost yelled at her. Why she couldn't let things be?
"I was worried; I couldn't explain myself why you drank so much, so I blamed it all on Marissa. I went to the hotel lobby and started to drink… and then I ended up in Marissa's room, yelling at her, saying things at her I never should have said. It ended with her leaving Las Vegas. And now Summer is going after her." He sat down on a chair. That outburst cost him power.

---Tahiti---
Summer couldn't believe what Marissa just said.
'Did she just say that there was something going on between them?' she thought to herself. Summer always thought that Julie lied, Marissa wouldn't do that to Ryan. But obviously Summer was wrong.

"Marissa how could you do that to Ryan?" Summer looked unbelieving at her friend.

"Summer… I didn't kiss him…" Marissa said.

"But you… you said something happened between you guys. I mean it doesn't matter who started the kiss…" Summer mentioned. She couldn't hide her disappointment.

"Summer… you don't understand…" Marissa said. It was hard for her to speak clearly. The memories of that day came back…

----------------Flashback---------------------
Marissa was at her mum's. At the Cooper-Nichol Mansion – or "the house on haunted hill", how Marissa it called.
Her mum was upstairs, she got dressed for shopping.

The doorbell rang.
Marissa walked through the large house to the front door. It was probably Summer. She opened up the door and was surprised by who she found standing in front of her.

It was Jason.

"Hey, I thought I pay you a visit. I mean I really have to visit the place the people call "the palace of Newport". That house is huge." he said really impressed.

"Uhm… ok. I can show you the house… but I give you a warning: we have many rooms, so this can take hours." she answered smiling at him.

The both walked through the house. Jason was astonished how large that house was. He knew now why the people call it "palace". They both reached one of the "lounge" rooms. The house got so many rooms that Julie didn't want just one living room. No she insisted on 3. One large living room and two smaller ones – the lounge rooms, how she called them.

They sat down and Marissa turned on the TV. This was definitely an awkward situation.

"Soo how was your day?" she asked just to say something at all.

"Uhm… good and now I'm here with you…so it's getting better and better." he said, looking straight into her eyes.

Marissa turned away, pretending not to have heard the last comment. She stared at the TV, zapping through the channels. 'Why there's never something good on TV when you need it' she thought to herself.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes. Marissa pretending to be very interested in TV and Jason sitting next to her, glancing at her every now and then.

"Marissa… I know you're with Ryan, but you…you can't ignore that tension between us." He turned to her, staring at her.

Marissa couldn't believe what he just had said. Ok that she couldn't just ignore. Her mind was racing. What should she say to something like that? Like he said, she is with Ryan. She loved Ryan.

---
Julie walked through the house, looking for Marissa. Maybe Marissa would like to come shopping with her. Marissa and her mother got along better. Ok they weren't the best friends, but for Julie "getting along better" meant: no fighting, yelling and swearing for once.

She walked to one of the lounge rooms, where she heard noise coming from.

---
"Uhm…what…what tension do you mean?" Marissa said innocently. She already knew the answer to that question, but she hoped that he would say something different.

"Oh... Marissa you know what I'm talking about. I mean this tension…"

Suddenly he leaned in and kissed her.

---
Julie heard voice coming from the lounge room and walked past that room to see who was in there.

"Oh… Marissa you know what I'm talking about. I mean this tension…" Jason said and kissed her.

'Good bye trailer trash kid from Chino…' Julie thought to herself with an evil and satisfied smile on her face. She quietly and quickly left the house. She wanted to give the new dream couple time for themselves.

---
What Julie didn't saw was Marissa's shocked facial expression.

Marissa broke apart from that kiss and stood up.

"What the hell are you doing? There was and there will be no "tension" between us. I'm with Ryan!" she yelled at him.

"Marissa… come on. I see it in your eyes. I know you don't want to hurt Ryan." he said with a soothing voice, standing up too and touching her upper arm.

"What are you talking about…? I'm in love with Ryan. Accept that!" she glared at him and took some steps backwards.
Rage was building up inside of her. Her mind was racing again. Did she ever give/send him wrong signals? Did she ever say something to him that he could misinterpret?

"Marissa it's ok…you can't control your feelings. Don't deny your love…our love. We can hide that from Ryan, till you're ready to tell him." He whispered to her while he pushed her against the wall and started to kiss her passionately.

She recognized that she could say what she wanted, he wouldn't believe her.
She started to panic; this situation was getting out of control. But what should she do?

"Noooo Jason! Let me go!" she yelled at him under hysterical sobs.

Jason's kisses got harder and demanding. His hands began to slide up her shirt. She tried to break free, to get him off of her, but it was no use. He pinned her up against the wall using every ounce of strength of his body to keep her there.
She felt his breath on her skin, his touches on her body, it all felt so disgusting to her. Her face stained from the tears that were running down her face; her shirt partly torn apart through his hands. She just wished that Ryan would come and save her.

She turned her head to the side. She saw a paperweight on the bookshelf next to her on the wall. She knew that this was her last chance.

She tried to reach the paperweight with one hand and with the last strength that was in her… which wasn't very much, additionally she had to fight against him…his affords to get hold of her by holding her at her wrists.

She could reach the paperweight and hit Jason with it.
Jason let out a scream full of pain, put his hands to his head and let go of her.

Marissa stood there scared to death for a second, and then she ran to the couch-table, took the next best thing she could find – an empty glass vase - and tried to scare him off with that.

Maybe it was the fact that Jason recognized that Marissa was going to use her "weapon" against him, maybe it was the fact that he just realised what he did or was trying to do… or maybe it was both, he finally ran out of the room, frantically searching for the right way out of the house.

With him escaping through the door, Marissa felt weak. All the power she had just one moment ago had been gone by now. Her legs suddenly felt like jelly, she put down the vase and collapsed to her knees, clutching her head and letting the tears flow down her mascara stained face.

After what seemed to be hours Marissa stood up. She felt filthily and she wanted to get rid of that feeling and her clothes. She went upstairs to her room and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She looked at this broken girl with smudged mascara and tear-stained cheeks.

'Why something like that has always happen to me?' was her only thought.

She stripped off her clothes and got a shower. The warm water felt good on her skin.
She knew that she couldn't tell anyone what happened. Who would believe her that this "nice guy" would do that?
How could she have been so blind not to see what was going on? Was that the reason why Ryan was so distant the last time? Did she send Jason the wrong signals? All these questions were burning in her head. She let flow the water over her body, washing away her thoughts.

The shower took her one hour. Over and over again she let flow the water over her body till she thought that this filthy feeling was gone.
She wrapped herself up in her bathrobe and sat quietly on her bed. Hoping that she would wake up and that all just had been once more a nightmare.

---
Marissa avoided Jason whenever possible the next days. Jason tried to call her many times, he wanted to apologize to her, but she didn't want to hear his voice or see him neither. No he couldn't just come and say "sorry" that wasn't enough. He could do nothing to undo this, no matter how badly he wanted that.

But the worst thing was that Ryan misinterpreted her reactions. He recognized that she behaved weird around Jason. He could sense that there was something wrong.
But when he asked her if they hooked up, Marissa couldn't believe it. But somehow she could convince Ryan that nothing had happened…

Till the day Julie made that announcement. (See chapter 5)
-----------End Flashback---------------------

"Oh my god...Marissa..." Summer had tears in her eyes and hugged her friend. She felt guilty for thinking that Marissa could have hooked up with Jason. And she felt miserable. Marissa kept this secret for so long.

Marissa sat there broken. Her face was once more tear stained. She couldn't believe how real it suddenly felt. Not only these memories came back... with them the emotions came back as well. She thought that she could feel Jason's breath on her skin. She sat there silently for the next minutes. She felt like the day it happened...weak, her legs like jelly and exhausted.

"Marissa... you have to tell Ryan" Summer said quietly.

"Summer... what would it change? Nothing... he moved on." Marissa replied sadly.

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So that was Chapter 12… I really hope you liked it and I hope I get many reviews…I tried to describe the situations more detailed and put more emotions into it sooo I really put a lot of energy in that post… and i know it sorta reminds us of the Trey thing...but that's intended...

luv you all

KiT