Love Lie ( COMPLETED)

8. Here Goes Nothing

     I start talking and before I know it the whole story just starts pouring out. I realize that I haven't really ever talked to anyone else about the full extent of what happened. I mean, my parents know bits and pieces, but God knows they never cared enough to actually sit down and ask for the full story. After all, they were so disgusted by what they thought they knew that they packed up and moved us 30 minutes away.

     Well here goes nothing. Surprisingly, I don't feel all that nervous to be telling Landon about what happened. "He's dating my ex-best friend. The one person that I trusted to not break my heart lied to me about everything and the person who was there to pick up the pieces was the last one I expected to have stabbed me in the back. They've been together for 9 months as of yesterday according to Jen's post. Want to know the messed-up thing about that? We were still together 8 months ago. He had been cheating on me with her and this is the first I am hearing of it."

      Landon's look of shock shifts to sadness and what looks like anger. "Do you want to tell me how you ended up with a jerk like that?" I have often asked myself the same question. "He didn't start out that way. We were really happy in the beginning." I think back to when Ethan and I first got together and how drastically our relationship changed.

     "Ethan and I met during freshman orientation at Summit High. We had gone to school together for a while but had never really been in the same friend circles, he was a football player and I was a book worm. We hit it off immediately and started dating shortly after school started. We basically did everything together. I became best friends with this girl Jen who was part of his group. Things were great between the two of us until towards the end of sophomore year." I take a few seconds to gauge his reaction so far. He seems to be listening intently and he gives me this look like he's giving me the okay to continue. 

     "Towards the end of sophomore year, he started to become a little... withdrawn. He partied a lot and we spent less and less time together and, a lot of the time we did spend together was spent arguing. Something had changed with him, but I cared about him so much that I convinced myself I was crazy. Things suddenly felt different when we were together. He had become very pushy and handsy to say the least. Looking back now I guess I probably should have seen what everyone else did. There was always talk around school about how Ethan was not the most loyal in our relationship, but I was just so consumed that I didn't see it. Seems pretty stupid now." Landon pipes in, "Hey, you don't seem stupid at all. Not to me, it seems like he was the stupid one." I smile, he is such a good guy of course he would say that.

     "Ethan and I went to a party the Friday after we came back from winter break with a bunch of people we knew from school. Things were going good, Jen and I were having a good time and the boys were being well, boys. Ethan had been drinking and he came over trying to dance with me. Something about him gave me the feeling that he was looking for a fight. He was all over me right in the middle of the party and I was getting uncomfortable. Everyone was looking at us, but I guess no one noticed that I was not liking what was happening. He must have picked up on it though because he started arguing with me. I suggested that we take the argument somewhere else, so we wouldn't be the talk of the school tomorrow. We started walking down the crowded hallways and found an empty office, so we walked in an closed the door. I tried talking to him to calm him down, but it wasn't working. He was determined that we were going to have this out. He started yelling at me about how I wouldn't ever put out for him and how offensive it was because he had all of these other girls throwing themselves at him and his own girlfriend didn't want him." I hadn't realized but Landon had taken my hand and I could feel him gently rubbing his thumb over my knuckles.

      "My heart shattered in that moment because he all but confirmed what everyone else had been whispering about. He had been cheating on me for quite some time. He had known from the beginning how I felt about this. I had never hidden the fact that I was not ready to sleep with him and I had made it clear that it was not going to happen in the near future. I always had this idea that my first time was going to be special and it would be with the right person. I think subconsciously, I knew that Ethan was not this person. We ended up arguing some more and finally I ended it. I told him that since he had all these girls throwing themselves at him that maybe he should just go be with one of them."

     Landon looked at me with all sincerity, "Good for you for not letting him treat you like that. I know you feel stupid that it took so long to realize but that's how it goes when you care about someone like that. You don't want to believe that they can be as vile as he clearly is." "Oh, you think that is vile?" We spend the rest of the evening talking as I fill him in on what happened after the party.

      I was a mess for the rest of that weekend. I couldn't believe that just like that 2 years had went down the drain. Monday morning, I was getting ready to head to school when I got a text from a number that I didn't recognize saying, 'Really, my dad's office of all places!?! UGH!' I was really confused but I figured maybe Ethan had started telling people that we had broken up. I had no clue what I was about to walk into at school that day.

      I was immediately greeted by pointing, staring, laughter and cat-calls as I walked to my locker. I made it through almost the whole day at school before I finally caught on to what everyone was going on about. Ethan had told the entire school that we slept together at that party and that it was so bad that he dumped me on the spot. I was humiliated! But most of all I was angry! I had not nor, did I have any plans on sleeping with him.

      I couldn't believe that he would do that to me. With tears pouring down my face I ran out of school and didn't come back until Friday. I lied and told my parents I was sick and basically stayed in bed until I was afraid they were catching on, so I went back to school. When I got back to school things seemed to have settled down a little bit, but I still could tell that people where talking about me. I hid out in the library as much as I could for the next month or so. 

     The only person that I talked to was Jen who thought that Ethan was a total jerk for what he was trying to pull. I had managed to avoid him all this time until one Thursday about a month after the breakup. I was sitting on a bench near the library when I saw him go walking by with a group of football buddies. As he got closer to me I could hear him giving them made up "details" of what happened at that party. I had finally had it so I marched right up to him and went off on him for making the whole thing up. I told him that if he didn't admit to making it all up he was going to pay. All he had to say is, 'Oh Sadie, I promise you don't want to make threats like that. I can make your life worse than you could ever possibly imagine'. I should have believed him. I really should have and just left it alone... 

     He broke me. Completely and utterly destroyed me. I try to put on a good front and I thought that maybe moving here would be good after all. I would have a fresh start and could forget about what he did. But somehow even in a different town, at a different school, he still finds a way to get in my head. 

     I couldn't believe that I had just let all of that out. I had almost forgotten that I was talking to Landon, but I looked down and our hands were still intertwined. He looked like he was at a loss for words. I'm feeling a little vulnerable after sharing all of that for the first time since it happened, " you must think I'm pathetic after hearing all that." He looks at me with sympathy in his eyes, "Sadie, I am so sorry that happened to you. What he did to you was sick and I can't imagine the kind of strength it took to keep going back to that school with all of that happening." 

     He reaches up and pushes a stray hair behind me ear and allows his hand to linger on my cheek. "Pathetic is not even close to word that I would use to describe you. Beautiful, Strong, Determined, A fighter... That is all I could think hearing what happened to you. I know I wouldn't have handled things as well as you did, that's for sure. Hell, I want to go track this guy down and punch him right now, but I know it wouldn't help."

     I was so worried that telling Landon was going to change the way he thought about me, that our new friendship couldn't handle something so heavy. I was worried that he would find me damaged and not worth wasting his time on. What I wasn't expecting was the kind and understanding response that he gave me. I wasn't expecting the electricity I felt shoot through me when his hand touched my cheek and I wasn't expecting the slight shift I felt as the strong friendship I had felt for him morphed into something more.