The Other Side

Part 2

Dedicated to Tomiksvoboda

Ryn

"The curiosity is killing me. I think we have taken a long enough break. Too much suspense isn't good for the soul." Nate decided to bring back our minds to the issue at hand.

" I think so too." I seconded him.

"Alright." Caleb answered as he swallowed his last piece of the delicious cookies. Courtesy of Maria.

" Like I said before, the frequent sexual escapades with Donna made me get attached. She gave me the relief while you on the other hand gave me a satisfaction I never thought possible. When I was with you, I would always question my motive. On several occasions, I even thought of abandoning the whole plan because you were so kind and loving towards me. Aside from my mother, you gave me the attention a lot of my mates envied. " Nate gave him a stink eye. That made me silently blush.

" I didn't need to be sexual with you to find serene peace and quiet. You were an epitome of all those without even trying despite the outward façade. I always thought there was more to you than meets the eye. Day by day you fascinated me and I couldn't have my fill of you. I did more personal research on you, not  the crap the media was feeding us. I saw how alone you felt, I felt it too and I sympathized with you. I witnessed how your parents, most especially your mother, took a liking to your older sister and how they always compared the two of you. It pissed you off. But your endurance is what got to me most, everyday you would forgive them and start a new page, I adored you for that. You had the strength of a supernatural being and the ferocity of a lion yet you were so tender and sweet it surprised me how you could manage. " I couldn't believe Caleb was saying those words to me. Despite the situation, I still held some respect for him.

" Whenever I got a chance, I would warn your mother about the way she was treating you. I threatened to spill the secret if she were ever to lay a hand on you."

"So she resorted to verbal abuse instead." I admitted bitterly.

"Yes, indeed. That is not what we'd agreed on anyway. When I realized I couldn't stand watching you getting hurt like that, it dawned on me that I was developing feelings for you. I started teaching you how to race, how to box, anything to keep you away from the stress and you were a brilliant learner. My best moments are when I was with you, racing, boxing, talking, anything as long as it was with you. The intensity of my feelings for you was crashing me, you started getting in the way of my plan. I couldn't have that. When you're parents came to me to ask me to stay away from you, your father had no idea what was happening, but I was aware it was Donna's manipulative way of getting me all to herself. Nonetheless, the situation gave me an escape. I was rather I broke your heart then than for you to find out later, at least you wouldn't have been all in. " He breathed a sigh of relief. As if a weight had been lifted of his shoulders.

" So.... breaking up with me was your way of shielding me from more pain?" I asked innocently.

"Yes."

"But I don't understand, you got back together with me one month ago and you're still seeing Donna. How do you explain that?" He sure was one confusing persona. You would think you understand him one minute, the next next he's twisting things around.

"Still impatient aren't you? Just like old times." That earned him a groan from Nate.

"You think you know her that much yet you still hurt her every minute." Nate grumbled to himself but everyone else heard.

"Son, the two of them clearly have a history. Let him finish whatever he's saying before you get to the judging. If at all you should." Maria chimed.

I loved  how Nate seemed to have a comeback to anything Caleb said. It was a battle of wills, but my emotions were all over the place.

"When I broke up with you, I had to force myself to see the bigger picture, otherwise I'd have ran back into your arms. A day felt like a lifetime, staying away from you was proving difficult by the minute, but Donna had to do for the moment. She was the remaining choice. As weeks passed by, I thought of you less and less. I stopped objectifying Donna as a sexual vessel and got to know her. Under all that disguise of bad personality, she made an exception only for me and I appreciated her more every day. She can be sweet when she wants to be, that I can assure you."

"You started developing feelings for her?" The twists and turns were infuriating me.

"Yes."

"Oh my God." This wasn't expected. I had thought he would say  he was only being with her to break our family.

"Oh my God indeed Ryn. I was in denial for months. I didn't want it to be true. I had intended to punish her for what they did to you. It just happened. So I  kept seeing Donna, but genuinely this time. Whenever I would bring you up in any of our conversations, she would shut me down. So I never did ever again."

His argument was fair, but that didn't make it any less wrong. Especially knowing that he was partly to blame for my family drama.

"When I saw you the other day, I was torn between telling you the truth and completing my plan. I saw how far the plan had come, so I was adamant to let it go. I knew taking you back in my life was the only way to quieten any suspicions thereof."

" So you decided to lie to me? Again. God Caleb! There are better ways to handle things. I don't care about your grudge with my mom but do you think revenge fixes anything? In fact, it ruins everything. It ruins you as a person. Look at all the damage you've left on your way. How many people do you think have suffered because of this? I know what my mother did was insufferable, unforgivable even, but who is to say whatever you did was any less different. It doesn't make you any less of a bad person. No matter your intention. " This is one of the many reasons why I was so easy to forgive. Vengeance is a powerful weapon of destruction, I knew better than to entertain it.

"I know that now. I'm sorry. I know sorry is just a word, it can't fix what I have done but its a start. I regret every single thing I did. I wish I had approached the matter differently. Its too late for that now. I also know that your relationship with Donna isn't very good, but I believe you two can fix things, since I want to officially ask her to be my girlfriend. This is terrible timing I know but I also know that you and Nate aren't just friends as you told me before." He had a way of turning everything around.

"Fair enough. I haven't forgiven you yet Caleb, I still need time to wrap my head around all this. These past few days have been completely brain draining for me and now this? And then I have been having this feeling like someone is following me around. I'm not sure its my imagination or reality. I am not a robot, I am a human being, a human being with feelings. I just...I can't do this right now."

I stood up and ran out of the house. Nate ran after me and begged me to stop but my feet had a mind of their own. I was so tired of being thrown every which way. When I finally stopped to see where I was, the oncoming truck had already hit me and I fell down with a thud. From the corner of  my eye I saw a frightened Nate  with Maria and Caleb in tow before I succumbed to an endless pit of darkness.

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Edited. Enjoy!