Chapter 6: Bestfriends

OKAY! Before anybody can track me down in China and brutally murder me, I just thought I'd kill the suspense. After all, I would have never forgiven anyone for keeping me in suspense for two weeks.

I love all your reviews, by the way You're a sweet bunch. And thanks for censoring your profanities, it really makes me feel a whole lot better.

I've to leave for the airport soon… so here. Presenting…. The much awaited scene!

The room filled with an angry pounding sound as Kate violently slammed Christian over and over. She had her thighs at both sides of his stomach, pinning him down on the floor. But what really drew my attention was the look of immense suffering that was scrawled over his face.

Certainly Kate was not that strong. Was she?

Then I saw it. She was striking him repeatedly against his chest. His chest. Crap. I sprinted to push Kate off Christian, memories of the agony anyone touching his chest haunting me. "DON'T HURT HIM!"

Elliott beat me to it, easily plucking her from her brother's chest as if she was a shallow weed. Christian remained on the floor, stunned at what had just occurred. I could imagine the torture he had been through. I was never allowed to caress that spot, but here was Kate beating against it!

I thought about slapping Kate, but she was otherwise preoccupied.

"I WILL BREAK YOU APART GREY." Kate thrashed against Elliott's hold, directing her provoking comment at both the Grey brothers.

Ethan stepped to my side and snaked his arm possessively around me. "Let her at it, Elliott. She'll need to get it out of her system either way."

"YEAH, LET ME AT IT!" Kate snapped, her legs coiling around Elliott as she tried to free herself.

Elliott shot him a look, "Let my girlfriend beat up my brother?"

Ethan shrugged, "Your girlfriend happens to beat up her brother all the time." Then he chimed a silly laughter that was way out of place in such a tense situation. "And man, she's brilliant at it."

"You're just weak." Elliott joked back, lifting Kate higher as she tried to stab an immobilized Christian with her toes.

Yet, through their playful jesting, I only had eyes for Christian. "Ethan," I muttered, pushing him away slightly as I took slow strolls towards Christian.

"DON'T YOU DARE, ANA." Kate snarled ferociously.

Before Ethan could grab me, I fell to my knees beside Christian and observed him from behind my front. His eyes flickered to me and I saw that same grey-eyed boy, helpless and defenseless.

Ana, don't. My inner goddess was furious, a mirror of Kate's current state.

I desperately hated myself, but I was not myself as my hands reached for the broken little boy lying in front of me. Despite all that had happened in the past few hours, my conscience would not let me bypass this all together. There was nothing within me capable of shutting out Christian and turning him a cold shoulder.

Despite everything, my feelings for Christian had not changed one bit. Even with Leila… My heart had been shattered, hammered into a million of pieces, but only because my love for him was so committed then when he failed to commit, it has broken me.

Like the mother he never had, I tugged him delicately into my chest and stroked his copper hair soothingly. I heard him let out a soft whimper, reminding me of a puppy with a broken leg.

"I'm here, Christian." I mutter against his hair, "Don't be afraid."

"ANASTASIA STEELE!" Kate and Ethan bellowed, like thunder and lightning intensifying my name.

I was grateful that neither came forward to pull us apart, Christian's fragility would not be able to take it. My altruistic mind chose this moment to put me in his shoes. I visualized being left in my apartment alone, left in the quiet darkness, abandoned by the love of my life. Certainly, I had not slept well that night and faced a mountain of work the next morning. Wincing, I realized that on top of such a torment, he had to handle me.

Christian must have sat at his desk all day staring at his phone, willing for someone to call. Anyone except business associates. Welch, Taylor or even Sawyer, someone with an update of my whereabouts. A deep dark part of him secretly wishing I would call him myself but knowing my phone was no longer on me.

My imaginations flew me to his search of my apartment, then my office at SIP and finally, a random man's apartment. It must have torn him apart as well. I grimaced at my ruthlessness. My anger had gotten a better of me. Christian Grey was having just as shitty a day as I had been.

"Ana." He mewled into the fabric of Ethan's shirt.

"Christian." I leaned down and kissed the back of his head.

"You left." His tone was tortured, voice wavering.

The one thing I had promised him I would not do, I had done. But what had he expect my reaction to be after he told me he cheated on me? Did he expect me to still agree to marry him? Did he expect me to congratulate him? What were the right actions under such a crime?

"You cheated." I accused.

With exaggerated slowness, Christian climbed up from my hold and turned to face me. His eyes were scorching grey, filled with too many emotions for me to absolutely grasp. The words were momentarily knocked out of my system.

"Elliott," I heard Ethan try to whisper.

"Don't go there, Ethan." Elliott hissed

"No, no." Ethan defended himself. "We should go."

Christian and I remained staring at each other, our eyes fixated into the other's, unwilling to break contact with each other. The door closed mutedly, barely heard by either of us.

"Ana," My name on his tongue again called for an involuntary wince. In return, his eyes tightened with sorrow. "Ana."

Daggers stabbed themselves into my heart repeatedly, attacking the breath out of me. Even with my profound and complex vocabulary that I had built reading all that publishing material, I could not find any words. None at all.

"Listen, baby." He cooed. I was appreciative of his call, no words would come to me. He sat back against his legs and put both hands on my shoulders, as if trying to steady me to receive the explanation he had been planning.

"She was so broken." He started and I felt my soul detach from my own body, watching him wordlessly and emotionlessly as he continued. "Staring at her, so filthy and so shattered, I just… thought that you could fix her."

Christian ran a hand through his hair, scraping through it with dramatic regret as he recalled his actions. "Ana, you fixed me… you thought me how to make love…"

My heart sank and I knew where he was going with this.

"I felt like I owed it to her, that if I did the same… Leila would begin a healing process like me." The tie to my soul was pulling once again, ready to snap when I realized where he was going with this.

" Something in me just rationalized it." He growled as if he hated himself for even thinking it. "So I bathed her, to get her clean..."

I closed my eyes and my head fell as I readied myself to receive my death sentence. Many a times, Christian had taken me to my edge and pushed me off into the abyss of ecstasy. This time, it was not going to be pleasure. This was going to be far worse than any red room of pain could deliver.

The grim reaper loomed over me, it stunk of death and its bony hands scratched me, alerting me to its presence. It was waiting for the deathblow; it was ready to take me with it.

"Then I made love to her." His voice was a whisper.

He made love to her?

Betrayal tinted every inch of my body, "In my bed?"

"HELL NO, ANA." He was urgent and alarmed that I would think of him in such a way.

Needless did he know, I already did. But still, I heaved a sigh of relief.

His hands moved down to my arms and I flinched, how could he have done such a thing? I was shocked at the way my body reacted to Christian. It once had been filled with warmth at his touch, now, it brimmed with chills.

"Christian," I fought off the tears. "You made love to her."

He was silent, still.

"How could you think that would be any better than f***ing her?" I controlled my speech, trying to keep it neutral and unscathed by the explosions occurring in my body. "You made love to me." I told him, "Only me."

I could feel his hands tense around my shoulders in realization.

"Until Leila." My voice sealed it and without giving him any notice, I rose to my feet.

All along I had thought Christian had merely satisfied his sadistic self by banging Leila in all his kinky ways, blowing her up with pain. Never would it have crossed my mind that he had made love to her, sweet love. Such intimacy was only to be shared between two that loved each other.

Christian's confession had not made me feel better. Not one bit. It only meant he could feel the same way about Leila as he did about me. I was not anybody special to him anymore, just the start of the growing line for people he would make love to.

"Ethan." I croaked, my composure slipping by the second.

Immediately, my front door opened and in stepped my confidante. His eyes were worried, judgmental, uncertain if leaving me alone with Christian had been the right decision. Residing in my newfound taciturn nature, I crushed myself gently against his warm pads, clutching him tightly to me as I broke down.

"CHRISTIAN." I heard Kate's bloodthirsty spit as she made a straight line for the man that had officially shattered my heart and burnt it into ashes, scattering me into oblivion.

My world darkened.

Have a safe week everyone Do read Fifty Shades Abandoned, I thought it was lovely!