I Could Never Leave Your Bed (Mike Fuentes)

Chapter 5

“You should tell your boyfriend to back off.” Tony says behind me, and I let out a small groan.

It’s too early for this, I think to myself, and I drop my arms clutching to the camera in my hands to keep me from exploding at Tony, because I understand why he is mad but everyone knows not to interrupt me while I’m taking pictures with this camera. I turn around and give Tony an annoyed look.

“And who exactly do you think my boyfriend is?” I raise my eyebrow at him, and I can tell he wasn’t expecting this side of me, especially after the way I was acting last night, but my patience is running low and I needed this time to cool off.

“Jack?” he gives me a questioning glance and I can’t help but to give out a sigh.

“Jack is my friend,” I say dragging out the word friend before continuing, “and I know you’re not here to talk about my relationship status so what do you want Perry?” again he looks taken aback by my bluntness.

“I want you to stay away from Vic, he has a-“

“Girlfriend, yeah I know,” I cut him off before he can continue, “Trust me, I am not interested in Vic in that way, he’s like a brother to me.” Plus I’m in love with his brother I added in my head. I turned around and started walking away signaling that I was done with the conversation, but I could hear Tony’s footsteps behind me.

“Did you even apologize to him?” his words stopped me in my tracks, and I could feel the guilt creeping up.

“He didn’t give me the chance.” And suddenly I felt my stomach drop. He hadn’t given me the chance to apologize. What if he hadn’t actually forgiven me? What if he wasn’t ready to forgive me?

Another pair of footsteps approached us and I looked up to see Vic’s sad brown eyes looking at me. Instantly my lips pulled up to apologize so that he wouldn’t look at me with that sad face, so that I could know that I was forgiven, that we were alright.

“Don’t say you’re sorry, Sam.” He cut me off before the apology could leave my lips, and those words sent my world crumbling down.

“Why not?” I could hear my voice crack, and I could feel how suddenly dry my throat had gotten, “why can’t I apologize? I did exactly what she did to you, what he did to me, and you won’t let me apologize?” In my peripheral vision I could see Tony stiffen as this new information caught his attention. He thought he had it all figured out, yet there was still so much he didn’t know.

“I don’t want your apology, Sam.” He snapped at me, making me take a step back from the anger in his voice. I could feel the tears pricking at my eyes threatening to spill over and fall, and I found myself turning away from them, not wanting them to see me like this.

“That’s all you had to say Vic, you didn’t have to pretend like you were happy to see me, you could have pretended that you didn’t recognize me just like Mike did, you didn’t have to give me fake hope if you were just going to crush it. I know I fucked up but you didn’t have to do this.” Slowly the tears started to fall and I did all I could to keep more tears from falling.

“You talked to Mike?” He’s genuinely surprised, and I understand why. I don’t go seeking confrontation, and I would never seek Mike out.

“He came to me,” I let out a humorless laugh, “He didn’t even recognize me, he called me a band whore and to stay away from you of all people, can you imagine that? I guess he never really did care.”

I could hear Tony’s sharp intake of breathe and I could tell he was putting the pieces together, on why I had left, because yes what I did with Vic was something that should never have happened, but I couldn’t get the thought of my head of how hurt Mike would be, if he even ever cared at all, if he found out what had happened.

“Sammy, he does -”

“Don’t tell me that Vic.” I cut him off, “Don’t do that to me, please, I understand why you would want to hurt me, why you won’t accept my apology, but don’t do that.” I plead.

“That’s the thing Sam,” he snaps again, “I won’t accept an apology from you because I don’t blame you.” Those words make me turn to look at him confusion clearly written all over my face. “I don’t blame you for anything, it was all my fault, I don’t want you to apologize because I’m the only one who should be apologizing here.”I couldn’t help but to give Vic a sad smile.

“I can’t deny the fact that I feel guilty for what I did Vic, but I can’t blame you for what happened either, so let’s just agree to disagree and put this whole thing behind us, okay?” Vic nods and returns my sad smile before he quickly wipes away the tears that managed to fall and envelopes me in a hug.

“It’s good to have you back.” He whispers in my ear and gives me a tight squeeze.

“It’s good to have some of my family back.” I say without thinking and it only makes Vic hug me tighter.

“I’m really sorry Sam,” Tony’s voice breaks us apart, but Vic keeps his arm around my shoulders, “for how I treated you. I didn’t-“

“It’s okay, Tony.” I offer him a small smile, and in return he gives me an awkward smile, like he’s not sure he deserves to be forgiven so easily, but I do, and for some reason it makes him uncomfortable. I catch him off guard when I laugh, and Vic joins along with me, because he understands that I have this effect on people, and soon Tony joins along too, and all the bad things that were swirling in the air before are gone. It’s finally starting to feel like I have a family again.