I warned you guys there was a bit of drama coming up, didn't I? This one is definitely a little more emotional, but I hope y'all like it! It's pretty dialogue heavy, but that's just the way some chapters go.

Please review!!!

Sam had spent the past two hours working on his algebra homework. So far all he had done was half of the first problem. None of it made a lick of sense to him, and he was fighting with himself because he knew what he was going to have to did and he didn't like it. There was only one other person he knew of that was taking the same class.

That's how Sam found himself standing at the door of the one person he really didn't want to see at the moment. He hesitated trying to decide if he should knock or just walk in, and finally took a deep breath and turned the door knob. By the time it dawned on him it would have been a wise idea to at least call out her name to alert her to his presence, it was already too late and he had opened the door to see her walking out of the adjoining bathroom wearing nothing but a towel on her head.

"Fuck, I should've knocked," Sam croaked and immediately turned his back to her. "I'll just wait in the hall."

"Just stay there for a second and let me grab my clothes and go back to the bathroom," The tension between them had just skyrocketed considerably but he stood with his hand gripping the door knob until he heard the bathroom door click shut. With a sigh, his forehead fell against the door and he mentally cursed himself for being so horrible at algebra. Before her revelation, the sight of her naked body would usually have ended with them tangled up in the sheets. Or he would've been in the shower with her. Now seeing her naked had him wondering just how much Trent had touched. Had it been slow and sensual? Or fast and rough?

Mikaela tried to take a deep breath on the other side of the bathroom door to calm her racing hearts, but it wasn't working. Her hands were shaking visibly when she looked in the mirror, and as much as she didn't want to go back out there she knew she couldn't hide in the bathroom all night. Seeing him standing awkwardly next to the door made her heart ache; any other time he had ever been in her room he had made himself right at home on her bed or the chair at her desk. Steeling herself for whatever he'd come to say, she spoke up to let him know it was okay to turn back around.

"What's up?" Her words didn't come out as nonchalant as she had hoped.

"I can't figure out my algebra homework. You're the only other person taking the same class," Sam's eyes bored holes in her carpet.

"What are you working on?"

"Complex numbers. The whole "i" thing confuses the hell out of me," Sam shrugged his shoulders as if it was no big deal, but Mikaela knew him well enough to know that he couldn't stand not being able to understand something.

"I know. You used to show up at my house at 10 o'clock every night wanting my help..." She trailed off as she remembered how those innocent study times always seemed to be cut short because they couldn't keep their hands off each other. "Um, anyway, where is your...uh...your book and stuff?"

"In my room. I wasn't sure if you were here or if you would be able to help me," The trip down memory lane had made everything that much more awkward.

"Do you want to go down there, or come back here, or what?"

"Might as well go down there. I'm too lazy to carry that big ass book anywhere if I don't have to," There was a ghost of a smile on his face but it was gone as soon as it appeared.

Mikaela wordlessly followed Sam to his room and waited for him to get a folding chair from his closet before taking a seat next to him at the desk. The first thing she had noticed while he was getting the chair was that every picture he had of him and her had been turned around backwards. Seeing firsthand the depth of the pain she'd caused made her rethink his decision to study in his room and not somewhere neutral like the kitchen or living room.

Determined to keep their interaction as casually platonic as she could, Mikaela forced her eyes away from the picture frames and looked to see exactly what he was working on. At least his homework was over something that she understood easily, which meant they would only have to be in each other's presence long enough for her to explain it and make sure he did the remaining problems correctly.

The longer Sam sat so close to her, the less he could focus on his homework. He didn't want to be affected by the smell of her shampoo or how soft her skin looked. Her nearness was driving him crazy because he still loved this woman with all his heart and he wanted to touch her, kiss her, and he couldn't do either. It pissed him off the way she seemed so blasé about what they had come to. What about Thanksgiving and the way she'd poured her heart out to him in front of his mom, grandma, and aunts? What about the way she'd said she would say yes whenever he asked her to marry him? Had that all been a lie too? Was he just a game to her? See how far she could take him, and then break his heart?

"I need to go to the bathroom," He stood up abruptly and hastily made his way across his room where he shut the door behind him. Hands tightly gripping the countertop, he squeezed his eyes shut and took several deep breaths trying to dispel the thoughts running through his head. It was too important for him to keep his grades up to let their issues distract him from the help she was giving him. Luckily, they were close to halfway done. If he had made it this far, he could stand it for a little while longer. Never before had he been so glad Mikaela was so good at algebra.

Sam gave her a shaky smile as he sat back down in his chair, subtly moving it a couple inches away from her. If she noticed, she didn't say anything and he was glad for that. He got back to work on his homework, only speaking when he got stuck or wanted her to check his answer on problems he completed. Of course, it didn't help that his professor routinely assigned 50 or more problems for homework but once he got the hang of it, he started to fly through the remainder of the assignment. The last fifteen or so were more complex so she had to help him through the first problem and explain a little bit more. As he started to work out the rest, she started to interrupt him if he got lost rather than wait for him to try to finish it before she corrected him the way she had with all the rest of them. It became obvious that she was just as anxious for him to finish as he was so they could go their separate ways. Sam was working on the second to last problem when he got stuck halfway through. Not sure if he could trust his voice enough to ask for her help, he studied the pages in his textbook, willing the words to magically make sense in his head so he could finish it. At this point, he almost wished he'd just fumbled through it all himself rather than ask her for help and torturing himself by being in her presence. So focused on the textbook, he didn't see Mikaela reaching for his pencil to erase what he'd done wrong and froze when her fingers grazed his hand. They had done so well so far to not touch each other, and he had to clench his fists both to calm his nerves and to fight the electric shock that passed through his body from the simple touch.

"How could you?" Sam hated the pathetic way his voice sounded so damned strangled.

"Sam..." Mikaela whispered pleadingly. They both sat there rigidly, still staring at his homework.

"How could you do this? After everything we've been through? Did I really mean so fucking little to you, Mikaela? Have you been laughing at the way you've had me in the palm of your hand since the day you first got in my car?" He turned to look at her and for the first time, she saw the brokenness in his eyes that reflected back at her.

"Sam, no, it's not like that. It's never been like that!"

"Well then what the fuck was it?" He had been holding in his emotions since she'd admitted what happened, and he had a feeling there was no way to stop now that his walls had cracked.

"It was an accident, Sam! I shouldn't have even gone, but I did and I'm paying for it! Do you know what it was like for me to have you look at me every single day and tell me you love me and know that I was too much of a coward to admit what I had done?"

"Obviously I don't know since you hid it from me for damn near two years!" Sam pushed his chair back and stood up to put more distance between them.

"It's not like I'm the only one who hid something! How come you never once said anything about the girl at the wedding party?" Mikaela had a feeling this was going to be bad. Either way, they would both get everything they were feeling out in the open.

"Because I didn't do anything with her! Because even drunk off my ass, I still cared way too damn much about you to even think of hooking up with her!" Betrayal rolled off Sam in waves, and the magnitude of the emotion made Mikaela want to hurl.

"Oh, so because I made one mistake, everything we had suddenly means nothing? Everything we've been through, everything we've planned, it's all bullshit now?"

"Well, if the shoe fits," He spit out angrily.

"Have you even wondered why I never said anything?" Mikaela shot back. "Or did you just automatically assume I was just some lying, cheating whore?"

"That's all I think about. I never, ever gave you a reason not to trust me. I've never given you a reason to be scared to talk to me," They hadn't been arguing very long, but Sam was already drained. He was still angry, but his dominant emotion these days was heartbreak. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't escape it for very long. "But how do I know it's the truth? How do I know you're not trying to reel me back in to fuck with my head some more?"

"Aside from this, have I ever once given you a reason to doubt that I love you with all my heart?" She asked softly. "Did you ever once wonder if I was lying when I said I loved you? When I told your grandma that I would marry you tomorrow, did you think that was a lie?"

"No," His voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Then how can one mistake erase two and a half years? I get it, Sam. I hurt you in the worst way, but I've never lied to you about the way I feel," She stepped towards him and reached out to touch him but he backed out of her reach. "I will always love you. No matter what happens now, there's never going to be anyone else for me. There isn't a man in this world who could compare to you."

"Why didn't you tell me?" He had to know.

"I never was good enough for you, Sam. A part of me has been waiting all this time for you to realize that and leave me behind," Her lips curved into a sad smile. "You've always told me that's not true, but I proved that I'm not good enough. The right woman would never have even thought about doing that to you."

"Nobody can say you're not good enough for me, Mikaela. It's up to you and me," He paused and looked at her curiously. "Have I ever made you feel like that?"

"God, no, Sam never," Mikaela wrapped her arms around her waist and fought the tears that wanted to fall. The anger and yelling she could handle, but the heart breaking soft sound of his voice was causing her to lose it.

"Then why?"

"I'm used to not being good enough. My mom, my dad, my friends, every guy I've ever dated...I wasn't ever enough."

"I'm not any of them, Mikaela. I'm just the guy who has loved you with all my heart since the day we met," Without realizing exactly what he was doing, Sam stepped closer to her and tenderly touched her cheek. Her hand flew up to wrap her fingers around his forearm but other than that she stood unmoving staring into his eyes.

"You're the last person I ever wanted to hurt," A few tears fell from her eyes and she watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "You know me, Sam, inside and out. Better than anyone else ever has or ever will. Do you really think everything I've said or done the whole time we've been together has been a lie? Do you really think I don't love you so much it hurts to be away from you like this?"

Try as he might, he couldn't look in her eyes without imagining Trent kissing her and she kissing him. His eyes fell closed as he tried to force away the vision and he had to put some more space between them.

"Mikaela, I love you and I always will," Sam couldn't help the choked tone of his voice or the way his tears fell freely. "But I don't know if I can love you anymore and that breaks my heart. I can't look at you and not see him kissing you. I look in your eyes and I see you kissing him, and it kills me."

The finality of his words were like knives to her heart and she had to clinch her teeth to suppress the anguished moan that wanted to rip out of her body. She closed the distance between them and kissed him like she never had before. One hand held his cheek and the other was balled in a fist at her side. Her arms itched to wrap around his neck, but that would've been too much contact for either of them.

"I made a mistake. One I've regretted every day since. Don't ever think for a second that one drunken night erases every other day we've ever had, every night we've spent together. If this is it, then I'll respect your decision. I've done this to us, and I'll live with that the rest of my life. But I love you with everything I have and I want to grow old with you. You and nobody else, forever."

Mikaela turned to leave his room. She wished he would call out her name and stop her, but she knew he wouldn't. There was nothing left for him to say. Time would tell if he could forgive her and they could find a way back to each other.