Disclaimer: I do not own Camp Rock or Wizards of Waverly Place.
To a select few: Please stop telling me what to do. I don't tell you how to live your lives, don't tell me how to write my stories.
I love all of my readers, but this is upsetting me. What do you want me to do, make Mitchie jump Alex? She isn't even at terms with her feelings for her yet; that wouldn't make sense! I have it all planned out. Trust me, guys.
"What's on your mind?" Caitlyn asked Mitchie, who sat up abruptly at the question.
"What do you mean?" Mitchie asked, fidgeting under her best friend's stare.
"Mitchie, come on. I know you," Caitlyn said. "From the moment I walked in the door, I could tell something was going on up there." She tapped Mitchie's forehead with her index finger. "So what is it?"
Mitchie sighed. It never ceased to amaze her how Caitlyn could read her like a book. She loved that about her friend, though. It made bringing up the topic she wanted to talk about, but didn't know how to start saying, so much easier. Since Caitlyn had arrived, Mitchie had been working up the nerve to tell her. Whenever it seemed like a good time, Mitchie would get quiet, trying to stop the conversation long enough to get the first sentence out. But she would just chicken out and start talking again.
"I don't know how to tell you," Mitchie admitted, staring down at her lap. She and Caitlyn were currently both seated on Mitchie's bed cross-legged, facing each other. Mitchie couldn't stand to look Caitlyn in the eyes anymore. Her intense gaze made her even more nervous.
"You didn't know how to tell me about the Shane thing either, but somehow you did," Caitlyn said softly. She placed an encouraging hand on Mitchie's knee. "Look, you know that whatever it is, you can tell me. You know that I'm gonna love and support you no matter what. And you also know that I won't stop bugging you until you tell me, so you might as well spill."
Mitchie looked up to see Caitlyn smirking at her. She had to smile and shake her head at her friend's persistence.
"I don't know, Cay," she said. "This one's new. It's big. And it doesn't just involve me."
"Now what did you do this time?" Caitlyn exclaimed, partially joking.
"Nothing!" Mitchie defended. "Yet…"
"Yet?" Caitlyn raised her eyebrows.
Mitchie sighed. "Maybe I should start from the beginning."
"Yeah, maybe. Then I might actually have a chance of knowing what the hell you're talking about!"
Mitchie blushed a little at how silly she was being and bit down on her thumbnail. This was Caitlyn, for crying out loud! She could tell her anything. Why was it so hard to get this out?
"Does this have anything to do with Alex stopping by here this afternoon?" Caitlyn asked curiously.
She released her thumbnail. "You're getting warmer."
"Mitchie, I don't feel like guessing, just tell me!" Caitlyn whined.
Mitchie bit her lip and looked away again. Why couldn't she do this? She'd told her about sleeping with Shane, hadn't she? No…No, she hadn't. Caitlyn had guessed, and Mitchie had only confirmed. So that was why that had been so easy.
"Alex is a lesbian," Mitchie said suddenly, still not looking at Caitlyn. She figured that was the easiest thing to start with, since it wasn't about her.
"Whoa, really?" Caitlyn asked. Mitchie only nodded. "Alright. And that's what she wanted to tell you?" Caitlyn really couldn't see where Mitchie was going with this.
Mitchie gave another nod.
"And are you upset about that…?" Caitlyn seriously had no clue why Alex was telling her this. Unless she was leaving something out…
"No, not at all." Mitchie shook her head, finally looking at Caitlyn. "Actually, I'm kind of honored that she told me herself, made it a point to tell me, and didn't let me find out some other way. I feel like it brought us closer."
"That's cool and everything, Mitchie, but I'm going to be completely honest with you…I have no idea why this is so important that you've been freaking out over telling me all night."
Mitchie's stomach flipped. This was it. She had to say it. And once she did, it would become real. There was no taking it back. Once it was out in the open, she would have to start officially dealing with it.
"I think I have feelings for her, Cay…" She said it so quietly that the girl sitting not even a foot from her almost didn't hear her.
Caitlyn was silent, carefully looking at her friend. Finally, she asked, "You do?"
Mitchie nodded. "Yeah. And it's confusing the crap out of me."
"Did you just say crap?" Caitlyn smirked. Hearing Mitchie say anything you could get in trouble for in school was so odd to her.
"I tell you I have feelings for another girl and you're focused on me cursing?"
"That's not cursing." Caitlyn shook her head.
"Not the point, Caitlyn!" Mitchie threw her hands in the air in exasperation.
"Sorry!" She cleared her throat. "So why do you think you have these feelings for her?"
"Just the way she makes me feel," Mitchie said. How could she explain this in a way Caitlyn could understand? "I feel safe around her. Kind of like I do with you, but different. And she's constantly got me blushing and making my stomach fill with butterflies." She smiled just thinking about it. "She's so caring and loving. You wouldn't think she'd be after she almost burned down her school−"
"Oh yeah, I forgot she did that," Caitlyn interrupted.
"−but she is," Mitchie continued. "And not to mention the fact that she's totally gorgeous. I've seen her with no shirt, and her stomach…Gosh, I would kill for that toned stomach."
"Are you sure you aren't reacting this way to her because you found out she's gay?" Caitlyn asked. "'Cause you know, sometimes that happens. Girls find out their friends are lesbians, so they get curious and develop fake feelings for those friends."
"Did you get that from a Lifetime movie?" Mitchie asked. "Because, I hate to break it to you, not everything they play on Lifetime is real."
"No I didn't get it off Lifetime!" Caitlyn snapped. "I read it in a magazine!"
"Look, it doesn't matter where you got it because that's not what's going on!" Mitchie ran an agitated hand through her long brown hair. "She just came out to me today, and I've been having these feelings since the first day I met her."
"The first day?"
Mitchie nodded. "She made me so nervous I threw up."
"I think the baby may have had a little something to do with that," Caitlyn said.
"But she triggered it!" Mitchie pointed a finger at Caitlyn. "You weren't there. You don't know."
"Well I'm trying to figure it out, but you're making it so damn difficult, Mitchie!" Caitlyn sighed in exasperation. "My god, Chicka, this whole conversation is a jumbled mess. I'm barely following! All I've gotten so far is Alex is gay, and you think you like her, that you have since the first day you met her. Is that right?"
"Pretty much."
"Okay then, continue," Caitlyn waved her hand as if to signal Mitchie to go on. "Tell me everything. I want to understand."
"Well that's the hard part. I don't really know what's happening, either." Mitchie blew her bangs out of her eyes in frustration. I just feel this weird…pull−I think that's the right word−towards her. Like, when Justin described her, I just had to know her. And then when I met her, she had me blushing like a fool. I was terrified of her. Never before had I reacted that strongly to a person before. I just want to be around her and talk to her all the time. And Caitlyn, she gives the best hugs." Mitchie closed her eyes in ecstasy, remembering the feeling of Alex's arms around her. "She smells so good, too," she said, her eyes still closed.
"What does she smell like?" Caitlyn asked curiously.
"Like soap and vanilla." Mitchie opened her eyes, which were clouded over, her brain swimming with the memory of the smell of Alex.
"That's weird. Why do you know this?" Caitlyn blinked rapidly though keeping her eyes trained on Mitchie.
She had to blush at this. "Because she slept over here one night. I told her the story about how I got pregnant, and I cried and she held me until I stopped. Just like you did. And then I felt so vulnerable. I just wanted to feel that comfort I'd felt from earlier. So I asked her if she could hold me while we slept, and she did. I felt safe and at peace, like coming home after a trip, ya know?"
"Kind of…"
"Well, the next morning when I woke up, my face was buried in her neck. I took a big whiff," Mitchie demonstrated by fanning the air towards herself with her hands, "and this smell just hit me. It was wonderful…And it was Alex."
Caitlyn shook her head. "This doesn't make sense, Mitchie. I mean, you were with Shane…Sort of. You kissed him. You slept with him. You…You…You're having his baby! You were so heartbroken when he left. Now this one girl comes along and suddenly you're a lesbian?"
"She wasn't the only one, Cay!" Mitchie exclaimed, irritated near tears.
For once in her life, Caitlyn was at a loss for words.
"Geez, if I'd known you'd react this way, I wouldn't have told you anything at all," Mitchie said angrily. "What, because I'm interested in a girl now you're not going to treat me the same? Because you've always been understanding, except now!"
"Mitchie, I'm not trying to offend you or anything like that!" Caitlyn put her hands on Mitchie's shoulders. "I don't care if you're gay, bi, straight, questioning, whatever! I just didn't expect it because of the Shane thing! I didn't expect it at all! This is coming out of nowhere!"
"Yeah, because I've gotten used to hiding it over the years!"
"Over the years? What are you talking about?" Caitlyn removed her hands from Mitchie's shoulders and ran them part way through her curly hair and tugged at it. "Mitchie," she said more calmly, letting go of her hair, "when did this start? And go from the beginning, speaking slowly, please."
Mitchie took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling. "I was in second grade."
Eight-year-old Mitchie Torres sat at her desk, staring at a blank sheet of pink construction paper angrily. She had been staring at it for nearly twenty minutes. It was supposed to be a Valentine's Day card for her mother, but so far it was just a regular, old, ugly piece of paper.
She couldn't get inspiration from anywhere. She wanted to write a poem or a song for her mom or something,−she always loved doing that−but she couldn't come up with an idea.
She looked around the room, seeing all the other students working diligently on their cards. They were cutting, pasting, writing, and applying glitter. Mitchie wasn't a fan of glitter, but she would have done anything at that moment to be using the glitter, just so she could be doing something. She was wasting all her time.
Frustrated, the young girl folded her arms on her desk, put her head in them, and started to cry.
"I like your shoes," a soft voice to Mitchie's right said.
Mitchie lifted her head to see the girl that sat beside her, Blair Walker, was smiling at her.
"Huh?" Mitchie asked, wiping her tears away with her shirt sleeve.
"I said I like your shoes. They're cool," Blair said, smiling kindly. Mitchie liked the way her bright blue eyes seemed to shine when she smiled.
"Thanks," Mitchie said timidly, looking down at her white and baby blue shoes that had heels that lit up when she walked.
"Why are you crying?" Blair asked, tilting her head to the side in a cute way.
"Because I can't think of what to put on this card for my mom." Mitchie held up the pink construction paper sadly. "Right now it's just paper. It's supposed to be a pretty poem or song or something. But I can't think of anything!"
"I'm sure you'll think of something," Blair said, smiling at Mitchie again. "You're really good at that stuff. That poem you wrote about the cat was really neat!"
"You read that?" Mitchie asked, her cheeks turning pink. Sure, the entire class had written poems and taped them to the wall, but she didn't think anyone would read hers.
Blair nodded. "Yeah. I liked it a whole lot. If you write like that on your mom's card, she's gonna love it!"
Without another word, Blair tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder and continued on her card. Mitchie stared at her for a few more seconds before a huge, goofy grin spread across her face. Suddenly, it hit her: the perfect words for the card.
She picked up one of her crayons and set to work.
When the bell rang to go to recess, Mitchie raced to catch up with a certain blonde classmate of hers.
"Blair! Wait up!" She ran across the playground after her, trying to catch her before one of her 'cool' friends could get to her.
"Yeah?" Blair asked, turning to Mitchie.
"I have something for you," Mitchie said, taking the card, which she had been holding behind her back, out from its hiding spot and holding it out to the other girl.
The plain piece on construction paper was now folded in half, with Blair's name across the front in silver glitter, which Mitchie hated but knew Blair loved.
"What's this?"Blair asked, taking the card from Mitchie.
"I decided to make a card for you instead of my mom," she said. "Open it."
Blair shook her head. "Not here. Come on."
Without any warning, she grabbed Mitchie's hand and started pulling her back across the playground to the slide. Not just any slide, but the old slide, the one no one used. The school had put in a new jungle gym with a twisty slide, and ever since, the plain metal slide in the corner of the playground got ignored.
Blair led them underneath the slide and took a seat, motioning for Mitchie to do the same, which she did. Mitchie usually felt the underneath of the slide was dark and spooky, but with Blair, she felt okay. She poked her head out to see that no one saw them. No one at all. Not even the teacher. This was like their secret hiding spot.
"Now I can read it," Blair said, opening the card.
'Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
But flowers are not
As pretty as you.'
Blair looked up at Mitchie, her eyes wide with shock. "This is for me?" she asked quietly.
Mitchie nodded. "Do you like it?"
"I love it," Blair said breathlessly. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Then, without warning, Blair leaned over and kissed Mitchie on the cheek. It was so quick and sweet, innocent even, and it was gone almost as quickly as it had come. Mitchie placed her hand to her now-blushing cheek in surprise. Blair smiled at her softly and she returned it. Then Blair stopped smiling and narrowed her eyes at the other girl.
"No one can know about that," Blair said. "Or this card." She held it up. "The other kids would think we're weird."
"I don't want that," Mitchie said quickly, even though she had no idea why anyone would think they were weird. She didn't see anything wrong with what they were doing.
"Good. So you won't tell anyone about any of this?"
"No one!" Mitchie shook her head.
"Okay." Blair nodded. "Because if you did, I couldn't be your friend anymore."
"We're friends?" Mitchie asked hopefully. She didn't have any friends. All of her second grade classmates thought she was too smart. For example, half of her class didn't know what a violet was, let alone could spell it. They couldn't even spell flower.
"Yeah, Mitchie. We're friends."Blair smiled a little. "But I have to go play with my other friends now."
"Okay." Mitchie nodded sadly. She knew better than to ask if she could play too. Blair's friends didn't let anyone play with them unless they all agreed, and once again, most people thought Mitchie was weird.
"See you later," Blair said, getting up to leave. She dusted the dirt off the back of her pink checkered dress and offered Mitchie a final smile.
"Wait!" Mitchie grabbed the other girl's arm. When Blair looked down at her expectantly with those pretty blue eyes, Mitchie almost forgot what she had to say. But then she remembered. "Can we meet here again some time?"
"Sure. I'll pass you a note when I want to meet, but I really have to go now before recess is over." Blair cast a quick glance over her shoulder at the playground. "Bye."
Mitchie watched her go, her long blonde hair swinging behind her as she ran to her other friends, her other life. She remained under the slide for the rest of recess, watching Blair sit in a circle with the rest of the cool group and play 'duck, duck, goose,' wishing things could be different, that Blair could still be sitting under that slide with her.
"Every day I hoped for a note, and every day I got disappointed," Mitchie said, sighing. "She didn't talk to me again. Not until middle school."
"What did she say?" Caitlyn asked. Somewhere in the story she'd positioned herself so that she was lying on her stomach, her elbows bent and her hands propping up her head. She'd been so engrossed in the story that she barely realized she'd been watching Mitchie intently as she spoke.
"Mean things," Mitchie said, her jaw tightening in anger.
"What? Why?" Caitlyn lifted herself up with her hands.
"One day her boyfriend was at her house and they were going through art projects and stuff she did in grade school. They came across my card." Mitchie balled bits of her comforter in her fists. "The next day at school during lunch period, we were all outside. They approached me, Blair and John−the boyfriend−and all the rest of the popular group. John started waving the card around, yelling about how I'd given it to Blair and how I'd had some weird lesbian crush on her. Then some of the girls chimed in and said how they noticed that I stared at her and even some of them when we were changing in gym class, which was so untrue." She shook her head, clearing her mind of the images of their stupid, pre-pubescent faces. "Apparently, Blair had told them about me giving the card to her, but left out the part where she sat with me under the slide and kissed me on the cheek."
"What did you do?" Caitlyn asked.
"What could I do?" Mitchie shrugged. "I started crying, got up, and ran to the bathroom, where I hid for the rest of recess."
"Blair didn't try to defend you at all?"
Mitchie shook her head. "The entire time, she just stood there looking uncomfortable. The more people that gathered around−and there were plenty−the more uncomfortable she looked. She tried to pull John away, but he just wouldn't give up. Every time I tried to catch her eye, she looked away." She sighed. "As I was about to leave the bathroom, though, she came in."
"Did you punch her?"
"No."
"I would have punched her."
"Well I'm not you, Caitlyn."
"You should try being me some time. I'm pretty awesome."
"That's not the point at all."
"Well get to it."
"You won't let me."
"Fine, go ahead."
"Thank you." Mitchie rolled her eyes. "Anyway… We just stared at each other for a few minutes. Finally she apologized about the way John had acted. And then she thanked me for not saying anything about the slide thing, and that it was probably best since 'who would believe me anyway.'"
"What a bitch!" Caitlyn exclaimed.
"Yeah, she was." Mitchie nodded. "And from then on, I was picked on. That was eighth grade. When we got to high school, they kept it up for about a week, then just kind of forgot about it. But they still avoided me like the plague. Except for Sierra, who had just moved there from Idaho and was so socially awkward that no one liked her either. So she and I became friends, even though we had nothing in common, because having a friend that you didn't like was better than having no friends at all." She frowned. "It's not like I'd had friends before the card incident, but at least I wasn't bullied. Once that happened, though, they were relentlessly calling me names. And not once did Blair even attempt to stop it. What I still don't get is if she was so ashamed of the whole thing, why did she keep that card until middle school?"
"I'm sorry, but you had horrible taste in girls when you were eight!" Caitlyn said.
"I still do, too, apparently."
"What do you mean by that?" Caitlyn asked confusedly. "From what I can tell, Alex is pretty decent."
"I didn't mean her, Cay," Mitchie said. "I meant Tess."
"Tess?" Caitlyn shrieked. "Okay, explain that one, please! Now!"
"Tess is gorgeous. Whether you hate her or not, you can't deny that," Mitchie pointed out.
"No, I can't," Caitlyn said bitterly. Even though they had somewhat made peace with Tess at Final Jam, Caitlyn still disliked Tess after Tess had tried to stop Caitlyn from being herself their first year at Camp Rock. If there was one thing Caitlyn hated, it was being oppressed.
"Well, to say I was attracted to her would be an understatement," Mitchie said. "When we pulled up to Camp Rock, I looked out the window of my mom's catering van, and the first thing I saw was Tess getting out of her limo with her golden hair blowing in the breeze. The only thing I could think was 'wow.' And I actually said it aloud." Mitchie sighed and shook her head. "From then on, I was determined to be her friend. Even after she was rude to me when I bumped into her, literally seconds before I met you."
"I remember that," Caitlyn said, smiling a little at the memory.
"Do you also remember that Tess was determined to make Shane her boyfriend?"
"Yes." Caitlyn nodded. Suddenly it dawned on her. Her eyes opened wide in surprise. "Oh!"
"Yeah, oh." Mitchie nodded as well. "I was so jealous of him. I wanted Tess to pay attention to me. So when Shane showed an interest in me, I jumped at the chance to get close to him, because I knew I would be getting Tess' attention, even if it was negative. That night at the party, I saw Tess flirting with Shane. He'd been trying to get me to drink the punch, but I hadn't wanted to. When I saw that, though, something inside me snapped. I wanted someone's acceptance. So I drank. It made Shane happy and kept him away from Tess."
"And now, here we are," Caitlyn said, motioning around her to mean the situation and physical place.
"And here we are."
"Well, now that you've explained it, it actually does make more sense," Caitlyn said. "This isn't anything new or out of the blue. You've always had feelings towards girls, just repressed them."
"Right," Mitchie said. "And now, I have feelings for Alex, but they are totally different."
"How so?"
"I don't know, Cay. It's hard to explain." Mitchie ran a hand down her face. "I just like the way she makes me feel, like everything's going to be okay as long as she's there with me. I'm drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She's got a smile that could stop my heart like I don't even know what. I get all jittery and excited when I know I'm going to be around her. And I'm not going out of my way to impress her, but I still manage to make myself look like a fool sometimes. But that's okay around her. Part of me thinks she likes it. We got in a fight when I was at her house, too. I tried to leave, but I couldn't get more than twenty feet from her house before I stopped and sat on a bench because I couldn't leave. I knew she would come after me. I wanted her to. And she did. And we made up, and we said we loved each other−in a friendly way, though. And then she kissed my forehead. It was sweet."
"What did you get in a fight over?" Caitlyn asked.
"That's not important." Mitchie shifted her gaze, praying Caitlyn would drop it. She couldn't tell her that Alex was a wizard, after all.
"When she came out to you, did she say anything about having feelings for you?"
Mitchie breathed a sigh of relief when Caitlyn let her previous question go unanswered. "She said that I had nothing to worry about, that she wouldn't cross any line."
"And how did that make you feel?" Caitlyn asked.
Mitchie's face turned sad. "My heart hurt."
"You've got it bad for her, don't you?" She titled her head to the side slightly, examining her friend.
"Yes!" Mitchie lay back on her bed. "What am I going to do? These feelings aren't just going to go away, I know it. But I can't act on them. Maybe if the situation was different, but not like this."
"Why not?" Caitlyn asked, lying so that she was beside Mitchie, looking at her.
"I'm having a baby, Caitlyn," she said. "Getting involved with someone with a kid means taking on responsibility, whether you want it or not, especially if the child hasn't been born yet. It's like I would be asking Alex to be a parent, and I'm not going to do that. She's not mature enough to be the kind of girlfriend I would need her to be."
"I don't know," Caitlyn said. "So far I've heard good things about her. She could make it work."
"I doubt she would want to. She hates responsibility."
"Well do you even know if she actually likes you as more than a friend?"
"I have no clue," Mitchie admitted.
"Well there you go. You could be getting worked up over nothing," Caitlyn said. "But I don't think you're giving her enough credit."
"You don't even know her, Caitlyn!" Mitchie looked at her friend.
"Maybe not." She shrugged. "But I've got a good feeling about the whole thing. If she walked all the way over here just to tell you she's a lesbian because she thought you deserved to know, then she obviously cares about you. I think there could be a chance that she could be really good for you…And the baby."
"No, stop it!" Mitchie sat up as abruptly as she could. "Don't you put that idea in my head!"
Caitlyn sat up as well. "Why not? What if it could work? What if she's the love of your life, but you're letting her slip through your fingers because you don't realize the potential she has?"
"Stop it!"
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to get hurt again, okay?" Mitchie wiped at a tear that was threatening to fall. "Shane fucked me up! Even if I was using him to get to Tess, I still got emotionally attached to him. I trusted him as a friend not to hurt me or screw me over, and he did! And Tess just didn't give a shit about me at all. I'm not going to put my heart out there for more hurt!"
"Mitchie, I understand that you're scared to be abandoned again, but not everyone you care about is going to do that to you, like Blair, Tess, or Shane! I haven't!" Caitlyn tried to catch Mitchie's eye, to no avail. "I have a good feeling about this, Mitch. I really don't think Alex would see it as a bad thing. I think she might surprise you, and be just what you need."
"Well, I think you're wrong." Mitchie sniffed.
Caitlyn shook her head. "I'm never wrong."
I really didn't like this chapter when I first wrote it, but after reading it over, I love it!
I has new twitter bff :) aussiegurl0009. We talk all the time, and she gets inside info about new chapters. Talk to me on twitter, and you could too! I'm really nice and I love talking, so hit me up! I'd love to be friends with all of you. (xxMusicxSpazzxx)
Please review. Give me some real feedback :)