Naivete

Chapter 9
Crush


“I’m telling you, dude, it’s all about Bewitched! I mean, just look at her name: Samantha. Isn’t that sexy?”

Mike laughed and threw a chunk of toast at Sam. “Sure, sure, Sam, whatever you say. Yeah, Elizabeth Montgomery might be hot, but Barbara Eden had it going ON. Plus, the whole genie thing brings out much more of a sexy ‘servant-master’ quality than a witch does. Also, when you look at it, Samantha and Darrin’s relationship was based on a lie. It’s a miracle they lasted so long.”

“Yeah, but Samantha can do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. Jeannie doesn’t have any kind of freedom at all.”

“Exactly!” Mike said triumphantly, shoving a forkful of pancake into his mouth. Sam wrinkled her nose in mock disgust and began to pick at her fruit cup.

“Thanks for breakfast,” he said suddenly through a mouthful of food. His hat was pushed back on his head, and he appeared happier than she’d seen him in a long time. Truth be told, she was happier than she’d felt in a while too. The two had gotten up incredibly early to beat the crowds at the diner. The entire outing had been full of harmless ribbing, gentle teasing, and fierce arguments about Nick at Nite shows.

“Thanks for letting me stay over,” she responded with a smile. “I had a lot of fun.”

“Me too,” he said. “I guess if you keep buying breakfast, we can do it again sometime.”

Sam smiled again, shaking her head. She was about to ask him something unimportant, when she noticed the very unusual expression on his face. A fine mixture of panic and amusement painted his features as he looked past her toward the door.

“Oh boy,” he said. “This is going to be interesting.”

“What are you-“ Sam began, turning to look toward the front of the restaurant. Her stomach dropped to her feet and her heart leapt into her throat. “Shit,” she whispered.

Brent strode up to them, a hard look on his face. He approached their table and looked from one to the other for a moment.

“I see,” he said coldly. “Now, I see what happens when I take my friends’ advice and ‘give you some space.’ I see what happens when I force myself not to get upset and start jumping to conclusions when you don’t show up last night. I even see what happens when I force myself not to call you and make sure you’re okay. Of course you were okay,” he said, his voice remaining level and cool. “You were with jackass here.”

“Hey, now,” Mike interrupted, standing up suddenly. “How do you even know she was with me last night? Maybe we just met early for breakfast.”

Brent suddenly grabbed Mike by the collar and shoved him back. Sam leapt up and grabbed Brent’s arm gently.

“Let’s go talk somewhere, Brent,” she murmured reassuringly, shooting Mike a warning glance.

“No,” Brent said, shaking her off his arm. “We have nothing to talk about.” He gave her a final, cold stare before brushing past her and leaving the diner.

Sam shook her head slowly, eyes closed. “I can’t fucking believe this.”

“Hey, we don’t have anything to hide,” Mike said. “Nothing happened, he has no reason to be upset.”

“But he is upset, Mike,” Sam snapped, pulling away from him suddenly. “I have to go talk to him.”

With that she pulled a twenty out of her wallet, left it on the table, and rushed from the restaurant.

She reached the parking lot just as Brent was pulling out and speeding away. She sighed and dropped her arms to her sides as she watched him drive off toward his apartment.

“Fuck,” she whispered, wondering how on earth she could possibly fix this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Brent, please pick up,” she pleaded into the answering machine for what seemed like the fortieth time. “Come on, baby, I told you that nothing happened. You don’t have anything to worry about. Mike is a friend, and definitely nothing more. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that he and I were friends, but I didn’t want to upset you….” She sighed. “I know, I ended up upsetting you anyway, and that really kills me. Just, please…please let me see you. Please let me talk to you.”

She hung up again, cursing loudly, and flung herself onto her bed. It seemed she’d been calling Brent non-stop all day, but he hadn’t picked up once, not even to tell her to leave him alone. She sighed and looked at the clock. If he didn’t call back in an hour, she was going over there.

An hour came and went, with no word, and she left her dorm quickly. She made a quick stop on her way and soon found herself in front of his apartment door. She knocked rapidly and loudly, not stopping until she heard the door unlock from the inside. Brent flung it open and glared at her, but his expression softened when he saw the flowers in her hand.

“Please, Brent. Just listen to me for five minutes, then if you want, I’ll never talk to you again.” She waited expectantly. After a moment, he took the flowers and stepped aside to let her in. Sitting on the dining room table was a very romantic table setting: candles, fresh linen napkins, beautiful plates, and an empty vase. He dropped the flowers in the vase unceremoniously and sat on the futon, gesturing to the spot next to him. She took the seat gratefully.

“Brent, I’m really sorry I lied to you about Mike. I knew you didn’t like him, and I just didn’t want to upset you. It was a horrible decision, and I regret not being completely honest with you upfront. It was stupid.”

She waited until he gave an acknowledging nod, then continued.

“Now, you have to believe me when I tell you that nothing…NOTHING…happened last night, or has ever happened, between me and Mike. We’re just friends. It’s all we’ve ever been, and it’s all we ever will be. I swear that to you, Brent.”

“Then why were you at his apartment all night last night?”

“I was exhausted,” she said. “We were just watching videos and I passed out. He let me crash on his couch.” She winced imperceptibly. She knew it wouldn’t sound very good if he knew that she and Mike had shared a bed, even if it was perfectly platonic. “Please, you have to trust me.”

“I don’t know if I can, Sam! You didn’t even call! I had this dinner prepared, I even called my mom and asked her for this recipe. You totally blew me off, and for him, of all people!”

The look on Brent’s face was heartbreaking, as was the romantic evening he’d planned. Tears welled up in Sam’s eyes as she met his gaze and saw how deeply he’d been hurt.

“How can I trust you, Sam?” he whispered, looking close to tears himself. “I mean, is there anything that you can say to convince me that I can?”

“I love you,” she said without hesitation. His eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head a little.

“Don’t pull that shit, that’s a guy’s trick, I’m all too familiar with it.”

“Brent,” she said firmly, looking directly into his eyes. “I love you. I haven’t known what this feeling for you was until now, until this,” she said, gesturing at the dinner on the table. “I love you so much.” She leaned in to kiss him, but he stopped her.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I think I need you to prove it.”

“How?” she pleaded. “How can I prove it to you?”

He paused a moment, thinking over what he was going to say. “I need you to stop seeing Mike.”

Sam’s jaw dropped at this request. “I…I can’t do that, Brent,” she stammered. “He’s the best friend I’ve made since I came here.”

“He’s poison, Sam!” Brent said sharply. “You may think he’s being your friend, but that’s just part of the mind-fuck. This is his little game.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam said, shaking her head.

“He finds women who are already taken by guys…guys who haven’t done shit to him…and he pretends to be all buddy-buddy with them, gets on their good side, becomes their confidante, makes them fall for him. He convinces them that their boyfriends are shitty, and they leave them so they can pursue a relationship with him. But then he just…drops them like a sack of bricks.”

Sam listened in disbelief, shaking her head over and over. “No, that can’t be right,” she said. “He’s my friend.”

“Has he been saying things about me, giving you unsolicited advice about our relationship?”

Sam nodded hesitantly.

“And has he been blowing hot and cold, trying to draw you in, acting really weird around you from time to time?”

Sam remembered the incident in the hallway outside her room and nodded again.

“Has he been trying to get you to break up with me?”

“Yeah, a little,” Sam answered meekly. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She didn’t know whether to feel confused, betrayed, injured, or relieved that the feelings she’d been having for Mike lately had been merely part of a plot. “But…I still can’t believe that he would do that.”

“He does it all the time, Sam,” Brent said softly, pulling her into an embrace. “It’s a sick fucking joke, what he’s doing, and it really hurts me that he’s doing it to you. You need to stay away from him. Promise me you won’t let him hurt us like that.”

Sam nodded numbly, still a little unsure what exactly she was being told.

One of the best friends she’s ever had…has just been fooling her? Something didn’t sit right with her, but she accepted Brent’s embrace, and she dully agreed to stay away from Mike.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Sam, this is Tom, Aaron, and Trevor. All three of these guys’ girlfriends left them for Mike, who dumped them right afterward.”

Sam swallowed hard as she looked around at the three young men sitting on Brent’s futon. For a moment she wondered why he would do this, why he would put her on the spot like this. Then it occurred to her that maybe…maybe he was right about Mike, and these guys just wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again. Tom started first.

“Rachel and I were dating for, like, 7, 8 months. I know that doesn’t seem like it was very long, but I really liked her – a lot. All I wanted was just to be with her, no matter what we were doing, we always had fun. Looking back on it, I think I might have loved her. But anyway, she was friends with Mike. He and I had met a couple times, we got along okay. He seemed like a smart guy, and he seemed to be a good friend for Rachel. For a while, I thought he was gay, actually. Well, then she started to spend a lot more time with him, even more time than with me. At first I tried to let it go, but soon it got ridiculous. She was blowing off plans with me to spend time with him, and she was avoiding my phone calls when he was around. When I did get to talk to her, she lied about where she’d been. So I decided to confront him about it first. He told me that I shouldn’t be upset if my girlfriend liked another man better than me.”

Brent snorted loudly. Sam had sat down on a stool to listen, and was flabbergasted by the similarities between this relationship and her own. She had hoped for any differences, anything to indicate that her situation was different.

“Anyway, I tried to talk to Rachel about it, but she…denied everything. Said they were just really good ‘friends,’ and that he would never try anything with her. And then, it got even worse. About a week went by when I couldn’t get her on the phone, find her at home, or anything. Finally, I saw them sitting in his car in front of a bar, and there she was, crying about our relationship, and there he was, patting her on the back and looking all sympathetic and shit.”

Tom leaned back and exhaled sharply. “I didn’t do anything. I just went back home. Sure enough, two hours later, she called me and dumped me. Two weeks later, I ran into a friend of hers who said that she and Mike had been sleeping together for months, and that a few days earlier he’d just dropped her. She was fucking devastated.”

Sam shook her head here. “No, no…he said he’s a virgin.”

The four men looked at one another incredulously and began to laugh.

“You…you really think that a guy telling a girl that he’s a virgin is anything other than a tactic to get her into bed? It’s the oldest fucking trick in the book!” Trevor cried, giggling helplessly.

“Seriously, babe. If you believed that…then, Jesus, you’re more naïve than I thought,” Brent said teasingly. Sam’s eyes filled with tears that she desperately bit back. The last thing she needed to do was to cry in front of these guys. But she just couldn’t believe it was even possible for Mike to have lied to her about everything. And yet here were four guys all telling her the same thing: that he only wanted to get in her pants, then ditch her.

She listened carefully to Aaron and Trevor’s sad stories. They were alarmingly similar to Tom’s, and she was becoming more and more convinced by the second. Even Brent piped up with a story of his own – the most recent conquest of Mike’s had been Sherry, Brent’s old girlfriend. She was a waitress at the bar Brent worked at now, and had been the same young woman Sam had seen Mike yelling at the first night they’d met. This pushed Sam right over the edge. She sat in a corner, soundlessly staring at the wall, compiling all this new information, as the four guys played video games and chatted.

“Hey, babe, we’re going to go out for beers. You should come with us,” Brent said suddenly, snapping her out of her thoughtful state. She looked up to see all the guys looking at her expectantly. They were good guys, she thought. Guys she could see herself being friends with. And yet, the desire to start right away was pretty lean.

“I think I’m just going to go home and go to sleep. It’s been…a really long day.”

Brent nodded understandingly. “Well, then you should stay here,” he offered, bending down to help her up. “That way we can talk some more when I get back.”

Sam nodded dully. Frankly, she didn’t want to talk about this anymore. She’d heard all the talking she could stand. After the guys left, she curled up on the futon with the TV on and the volume muted. Tears she’d been holding back all day slipped over her cheeks without a sound. It was true. Mike had only been using her.

Still, she swore she could feel his arms around her as she drifted off to an uncomfortable sleep.


A/N: Pardon the twist. Thought it might make things interesting. What does everyone think? I want all opinions!