Well, I'm sure glad you guys are enjoying this latest twist! I hope this one lives up to all the praise I received for the last one!
I thought I'd respond to the review from VisualIDentificationZeta:
While I do respect your opinion, I just want to remind you (along with everyone else in case they've forgotten) of something I said at the beginning of chapter 14: there is always another side to every story. It is hinted at in this chapter, and will be revealed in an upcoming chapter. I believe it's chapter 20, but that could very well change. And of course, this is a fiction story based upon a sci fi/fantasy movie. Forgive me if I use that to my advantage every once in a while. Please don't think I'm calling you out or discrediting the way you feel, because I greatly appreciate your review and I hope you will continue to read my story. I look forward to future reviews from you!
As always, enjoy the latest installment in my world of fantasy and please review!
Christian and Mikaela were sprawled out on Mikaela's bed studying for their Anatomy & Physiology test they had the next morning. At least, Christian was studying. Mikaela was doing a good job of acting like she was studying but in reality she couldn't stop thinking about the night before with Sam. They had made so many promises and now she knew there was a very real chance she would lose it all because of one big mistake. Why couldn't she ever tell him? If there was anyone who could have forgiven her, it would've been Sam. He was the best person she knew.
"Mik, have you even read a single word on that page?" Christian asked her friend.
"I read the page number," Mikaela replied trying to lighten the mood.
"Honey, you're not even on the right chapter."
"I'm not even quite sure what the right chapter is."
"What happened last night? Leo and I heard you yelling at each other, then it got quiet, and then you were running off to your bedroom and locking the door," Christian turned on her side so she was facing the other woman.
"I was helping him with his algebra, and it was all going fine until we accidentally touched. It was like that one touch just completely broke the dam. All of a sudden we're yelling back at forth over me cheating on him and he's pissed because I never told him. I don't blame him for that at all. I should have called him right after. At least he would have known I wasn't trying to hide it. Now, because I fucked up, he's questioning whether I ever really loved him."
"How could he seriously think you never loved him? I mean, you and Trent..." Christian suddenly paused and looked at Mikaela in disbelief. "You didn't tell him the whole story, did you?"
"Why would it even matter? It wouldn't change anything! I still cheated on him. I still hid it from him for like two years."
"Mikaela, it changes everything! How could you not tell him?"
"If I tell him, it looks like I'm trying to excuse what I did. I won't do that."
"You have to tell him!"
"No, Chris, it's too late," She sighed and sat up. "He found out a week ago. I tell him the rest of the story, and it looks like I'm playing games. I'm not. I love Sam with all my heart, and I would rather him never find out the truth than to tell him and hurt him worse because I know it would."
"I think you're making a mistake," Christian opened her mouth to say more but they were interrupted by Leo walking in the door.
"Hey, baby, you ready?" Leo asked his girlfriend. "Hey 'Kaela."
Mikaela smiled and waved at him as Christian put all her stuff back into her backpack.
"I'm sorry, I promised Leo I'd go out with him tonight," Christian squeezed Mikaela's shoulder. "You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just gonna go to bed."
Mikaela watched as her two friends left her bedroom and fell back on the bed. Had it really only been a week since Sam found out? It felt like it had been so much longer than that. Sleep didn't come easy anymore. It had been months at least since she'd had to sleep in her own bed knowing he wasn't going to come crawl in next to her at some point. Even over the summer before he left, she'd spent half the nights at his house. Well, to be fair, most of their senior year had gone the same way.
Clothed in a pair of his boxers and one of his old t-shirts she wore to bed to try to trick her mind into thinking Sam was there when he really wasn't, Mikaela laid down and cried herself to sleep for the seventh night in a row.
*************
Both of them quickly found ways to avoid being home at the same time whenever they could. Christian tried to spend as much time with Mikaela as she could, but Mikaela knew her friend wanted to be with her boyfriend and started hanging out with other friends to occupy her time. She made a point to avoid The Sideline whenever Sam was working. It was almost funny in a sad sort of way; they lived together, but neither had seen each other outside of class since Mikaela had helped him with his homework. They knew each other's schedules so well that rearranging theirs had been easy. Mikaela still had the same day off, but she'd gotten a job with Christian because she was tired of all the lewd and provocative comments she got from working as a mechanic. Instead of being with Sam on her day off like she used to, she now spent all of her free time at the library.
Almost two weeks since Christian's drunken statement had changed all four of their lives dramatically had gone by; a little over half a week since Mikaela and Sam's argument in the basement. Finals had kept them busy all week, and tonight they were going to celebrate the semester almost being over at the drive in. Christian and Leo had gotten the other two to promise to show up, and now they were just waiting for Sam to get home from the library so they could go.
How the night was supposed to be any fun for them Mikaela didn't know, but she was at least going to try to keep the peace. It was important to Christian that this not break them all apart especially since she still felt like it was all her fault. Time and time again, Mikaela tried to assure her best friend that the only person to blame was herself because she was too much of a chicken shit to tell the truth.
"Hey, Sam just called and told us to take Bee and meet him at the drive in," Leo said walking into the living room. "I guess the friend he was studying with lives right by it and offered to take him."
"Guess that means I'm driving then," Mikaela rolled her eyes and they followed her out to the driveway. "Damn stubborn car. Why does he have to be so anal about who drives? It's not like any of us could seriously wreck the car."
Being in the Camaro was hard enough for her to handle, and now she was being forced to sit in the one seat she didn't want to. The last time she had even been this close to the car had been the night Sam took off after he found out. Memories flooded back to her at such a rapid pace she could barely breathe before the next one started. There was their first kiss on the hood after they returned from the battle at Mission City. The night Sam had finally asked her to be his girlfriend. The hundreds of times they had snuck out of class to make out, or more, in the backseat. The way she'd curled up between the seat and his chest on their way back from California after Thanksgiving.
The memories finally stopped and she realized her knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so hard she had left an imprint in the steering wheel cover. With a deep breath, she backed the car out of the driveway and silently drove them to the theater. Thankfully they had had a fairly mild winter so far, and it wasn't too cold out even though it was so close to Christmas. Since they were frequent customers, Leo had gotten pretty friendly with the owner and had called him to make sure they would be open. The owner had decided to keep it open all week rather than just the weekends as they usually did through the winter as an outlet for all the college students who had been cramming for finals and needed a break, and also because they would be closing at the end of the week until sometime in early February because the weather generally got worse during those months.
They waited until the last possible moment before they got out of the car, thus losing the heater, and got situated. Mikaela was trying to decide where she was going to sit. She could lay out on the hood like she always did and risk the closeness to Sam, or she could play third wheel and sit in one of the fold out canvas chairs next to Christian and Leo. Her decision was made for her when Christian chose to give up her seat next to her boyfriend and crawl on the hood next to Mikaela so that Sam's only option was her recently vacated chair.
Mikaela was the first to notice when Sam and his friend, whom she realized with a start was a woman, pulled in next to them. Leo had led her and Christian to believe that Sam's friend was a guy. It had to be an accident, because he wouldn't have let Sam blindside her like this. She saw the nervous looks her two friends gave her, but her eyes were locked on the woman with Sam in the black Silverado Z-71. Whatever her name was, she was gorgeous and that fact was doubly reinforced when she slid out of the truck. Long legs were covered by tight black pants, and she wore a long sleeve polo shirt that clung to every curve imaginable on her torso. Blond hair hung in waves just below her shoulder blades and her striking green eyes could rival Mikaela's in brightness.
Her chest tightened when she saw the familiar ease between the two and the flirty smile that was aimed only at Sam. Fingers intertwined with hers and she looked to her left to see Christian looking at her apologetically. She tried to give her a reassuring smile, but didn't quite have the strength. It was rare that any of them brought someone else along and even Leo, for all his old ways, had never brought another woman with them. If Mikaela remembered correctly, the only other people that had ever come along were Andy and Balie a couple of times and Tyler and Colton once.
"Mik, we can leave if you want to. He shouldn't have brought another girl with him," Christian said softly.
"No, Chris, it's fine. If she makes him happy, we'll have to get used to it. He and I are obviously over, and we can't avoid all his future dates forever," She said determinedly.
"It hasn't even been a full two weeks."
"You think I don't know that? There's nothing we can do."
"Guys, this is Anna. We have government together," Sam introduced. "Anna, this is Leo, Christian, and...Mikaela."
"Oh, Mikaela, I've heard so much about you!" Anna squealed.
"Oh, well isn't that nice?" Mikaela retorted in the same tone of voice. She caught Sam's eye for a second before she had to make herself look away. Those eyes she'd grown to love so much were now the eyes of a stranger.
Leo sat next to Christian on the hood to give Anna the other chair. The three of them were crowded together, but it at least help keep away the chill when the wind would pick up. Mikaela forced herself to keep her eyes on the screen and not look off to the right at her boyfriend, or ex boyfriend as it now seemed, and the girl he'd brought with him. Every ten seconds Anna would laugh at something Sam said as they talked throughout the movie. The same way they used to, back before everything had fallen apart.
The more she tried to tone out the annoying laughter and the low sounds of his voice, the more she wasn't able to focus on anything else. After a while, she gave up on trying to forget and allowed herself to be masochistic. She couldn't look away from Anna's head resting on his shoulder or the way his hand was on the back of her chair. She couldn't look away when she would periodically lift her head and whisper something into his ear. Anna's hand moved to his back where she slowly rubbed circles around his shoulder blades. Mikaela stared at them so long, she didn't miss the bored and annoyed look on Sam's face when Anna tried to get closer to him. Her breaking point was the other woman took Sam's face in her hands and kissed him.
"Okay, that's it," Mikaela spat and jumped off the hood to Christian and Leo's surprise.
"What is your problem?!" Anna hissed when she yanked her out of the chair and away from Sam.
"Let me be extremely clear here," She was standing right in the other girl's face. "Sam is not into you. You need to leave, and you need to stay the fuck away from him."
"Honey, don't be jealous because he obviously wants me more than he wants you," A small part of Mikaela respected Anna for standing her ground.
"No, see that's where you're wrong. I know how he acts when he wants you. He touches you constantly. His hand is either on your back or your hip or wrapped around your waist. When he wants you, he has this amazing smile that he gives you and you know it's not meant for anyone else. He'll whisper in your ear for hours just to be that close to you. Depending on his mood, he'll kiss you in random places. The forehead when he's happy. The temple when he's feeling romantic or possessive. The neck when you've turned him on. The eyelids when you're upset and he doesn't want you to cry. The lips when he wants you to know just how much he loves you. I know how he acts when he's into you. I was with him for two years," Mikaela's eyes blazed with hatred for the other woman not because of anything personally but because Sam had used her to get payback and it had worked. "You? You're just a pawn in his game."
"It's not my fault he asked me out," Anna backed up a little as she started to realize what she was getting into.
"The only reason you're even here right now is because he wants me to know how it feels. I fucked up and I hurt him and he's making me pay for it."
"That's bullshit, right Sam?" She looked over at Sam for confirmation, but he gave her a sheepish grin and shrugged his shoulders. Mikaela had nailed his intentions exactly.
"See what I mean? You mean nothing to him. So just crawl up in your truck and get the fuck out of here. Stay away from him. If there's one thing in this world I will fight for, it's him. Don't waste your time trying to fight me. You won't win, I guarantee you that," Mikaela watched as the other woman huffed and stomped off to the driver's side of the truck in anger and humiliation and peeled away from them sending dirt flying right at them. Once the truck was gone, she moved until she was standing eye to eye with Sam. "You fucking asshole. Yeah, I fucked up, but at least I didn't flaunt it in front of you."
"Oh, no baby, you decided to hide it from me," Sam said harshly.
"Well I'm sorry I would rather have hated myself for the rest of my life than hurt you," She paused until he was looking her in the eye. "I'm sorry I love you that fucking much."
"If love is cheating and then lying for two years, then you can keep it. I don't want it."
"Fuck you!" Mikaela slapped Sam across the cheek so hard her hand instantly went numb. "Forgive me, not all of us can be perfect like you."
With one last look at him holding his cheek in disbelief, she spun around and walked out of the drive in ignoring Christian as she called out to her. It was a twenty minute drive from the drive in to their house, but that was on the highway. Mikaela knew it could possibly be hours before she made it home, but there was no way she was going back. Right now she was so furious at Sam her hands were shaking uncontrollably, but she knew by the time she got home the anger would have melted away and be replaced by pain so acute it would take her breath away.
There was no escaping it now. She and Sam were finished. Everything they had was gone. There would be no going back.