Anyone But Him // Jake Seresin

Chapter Twelve

Margot Mitchell
October

    Margot was cleared after her stay at the hospital, and was sore for a couple of days afterwards. She and Isla both went back to flying the following day, but it hurt like hell. They weren't docked on their score for the bird strike, and had finished as the only pilots to defeat Maverick. Though the latter half of the class had to go against Captain Parker, as her dad had rushed to check on her at the hospital. He got beat three times, but it showed there was improvement. The class was almost to the halfway mark so that was ideally what you wanted to see. She and Isla got quizzed a lot on how they beat Maverick, and honestly it boiled down to skill. Though one dick suggested Maverick let Margot win because she's his daughter. Yeah fucking right. Her dad had never wanted her to be given anything, earn it only.

    The hospital mix up had nearly given her a stroke. One, for the split second thinking she was being told she was pregnant. Two, had that been the case, she felt like her dad would have pieced it together with Jake there. She hadn't dared look at him and gave herself some credit for that. It took her a little while to calm back down after, and she felt aggravated that such a mix up could happen. But she guessed mistakes happened, but that was a pretty big one. After Jake left, her dad had awkwardly asked her if that could have been a possibility. Basically fishing to see if she was seeing anyone. Margot just cut it off by saying she wasn't discussing her love life after getting thrown out of a plane. Thankfully he dropped the subject. He was never really one to push, she had to give him that.

    It was a Friday night, she'd made it to the end of the week. She was relieved it was the weekend, she was still hurting from the incident at the beginning of the week. She was at the Kazansky's for dinner, Ice was grilling and had Margot, Maverick and Penny over. Margot' step-sister Amelia was at a friend's house. Jake had an overnight maintenance shift thanks to running away from the class. She was pretty sure her dad filed it, but it may have been Captain Parker.

    Jake had told her about the confrontation with Ryder. She was surprised by it, but appreciated his honesty in telling her. Ryder had been acting a little different since, but not in a bad way. He honestly felt more like he had prior to them ever dating, kind of like her friend was slowly emerging again. She was sitting next to him on one of the swings at his dad's house. They had a full swing set out there that had never been taken down.

    "Rooster coming?" Ryder asked, and Margot shook her head.

    "I invited him but he still is weird about my dad." Margot answered. "I don't know if that'll ever break or not." She hoped so, but that was to work out between them. "I heard about you confronting Jake the other day," She said after a moment. "I didn't realize you hadn't entirely moved on."

    Ryder shrugged. "I didn't feel like there was closure," He replied, "You said we were better as friends and that was it. I get it, we were young. I guess it's just kind of stuck there."

    "I was too comfortable with us. It felt like really good friends with benefits. I don't think I knew or understood really what love was. When I realized that, I didn't want to keep leading you on." Margot explained. "Not intentionally anyway. I'm sorry it felt abrupt. And I don't mean that we were boring it just.....I don't know. Didn't feel right." She paused. "I don't regret it, I don't want you to think that."

    "I appreciate the honestly." Ryder told her. "And I'm working on moving forward, but that helps. It did feel sort of abrupt, and I don't regret it either." He paused. "You don't have to answer but you and Seresin-"