Seduced by Lies (11 page)

Lewis xxx”

Sienna could feel her heart pumping in her throat as she considered her response. What should she tell him? She knew he deserved to be told the truth, and that if she wanted their relationship to continue in the same vein and to blossom then the truth really was the only option. But the whole truth simply would not do - she didn’t think that anybody, not even someone as kind and understanding as Lewis, would be impressed with the whole truth. She had, after all, had an affair with a married man, and while she felt no need to justify it to herself (love didn’t need to answer to anybody’s judgment as far as Sienna was concerned), the rest of the world had so far been somewhat less accommodating. And so, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Sienna prepared herself to tell the new man in her life about the old one, with a few choice facts omitted of course. Her fingers trembled as she typed the words, her emotions still raw whenever she thought about Jack, but these days even her darkest feelings held a silver line of happiness thanks to Lewis.

“You certainly aren’t being pushy - there is no harm in asking so please do not worry yourself. You have been open and honest with me, and have made my life a much
brighter place over these past few weeks, so you more than deserve the truth. But please understand - I have never spoken to anyone about this, and it is still very difficult and emotional for me, so please be patient.

             
Last year I was at a different College, far enough away from my current one that nobody here would know me. I enjoyed that College, partly because I was a different person back then - a person with friends and a family that loved me, a person who could laugh at all the menial things that now annoy me and seem so pointlessly trivial. But the main reason I enjoyed that College so much was thanks to my English tutor. He was very much like you really - kind, incredibly intelligent and wise to the ways of the world. He taught me everything I know, he was in fact the person that introduced me to Rainer Maria Rilke. But more than that - more than being an amazing English tutor, he was my lover.

             
Now, I know what you might be thinking - evil, cunning tutor luring in young girls, but it wasn’t like that, I promise you. I was the first student he’d ever done anything like that with, so it wasn’t as if he made a habit of it, we were simply, truly and deeply in love. And I mean real love - not the pathetic type of pre-pubescent love that you read about in angst teenage novels. He was my world and I was his, but of course nobody else would have seen it like that, and so we were forced to keep our love a secret.

We arranged secret meetings and late night escapes as often as we could for as long as we could. Those months were the most glorious of my life, but like all good things it was doomed to come to a crashing end. My mother found out, and in a marvelous display of disloyalty, she turned on me. By the next morning half the town knew, and my love was forced to leave - to vanish without a trace. I don’t blame him for it - his career would have been in tatters and I know he had no other choice, but that didn’t exactly make it easier. I lost everything that day - my lover, my mother, even my lifelong best friends turned on me and me and my mother were driven out of the town. All anybody could see was a middle aged man sleeping with one of his students, none of them seemed to understand the concept of true love, and because of that I have never been able to see my soul mate again. I have no idea where he is, whether he’s in this country or abroad, I can’t even be sure if he’s alive or dead.

              And so, if you can understand my perspective I’m sure you’ll understand that I had no choice but to grow up - maturity was forced on me, the harsh truths of the world served up to me all at once. How can that not change a person? How can that not force you to grow up before your time?              I truly pray that you do not judge me for this, and that you can see it from my perspective. I couldn’t bear to lose you over this as well - it’s only thanks to you that I’m starting to slowly recover from it. Please don’t hate me.

Sienna xxx”

She didn’t read over the message - she could already feel her nerves faltering and so clicked send as quickly as she could, before she simply deleted the entire thing. In the back of her mind she knew that Lewis would understand - he was after all, just like Jack, but that did nothing to extinguish her nerves. She sat stone still on her bed in anticipation of his response, watching the seconds ticking away on the clock, sure that each one stretched longer than the last.

CHAPTER 9
– CONFESSIONS

              Sam stared at the words on his screen in shock. He didn’t judge Sienna, not even for a moment - after all, how could he? It was thanks to Sienna that he’d recently come to learn firsthand that love follows nobodies rules, it just hadn’t been the reply he was expecting. Her words had struck close to home, reminding him of his father and bringing emotions to the surface that he tried so hard every day to keep hidden. The girl he loved had just taken on an entirely new angle, and somehow he loved her all the more for it. This was her pain - this was the answer he’d been looking for, and her honesty compelled him to make a confession of his own. Wiggling the life back into his shocked fingers, Sam hit the ‘reply’ button, and began typing up his own secrets.

“First things first - I could never hate you, Sienna, especially when you’ve committed no crime other than falling in love. The world is a cruel place and the people in it are even crueler - they shun and fight against things they don’t understand. But you and I know better than that. I too experienced a great loss of love when I was younger, and in light of your honesty and openness with me, I would now like to share my story with you.

It happened when I was seventeen. Like you, I was in College and was loving every minute - I had great friends, good grades and a pretty happy home life most of the time. My father was my idol, my role model and my best friend. Much like your lost love, my father was an incredibly intelligent and accomplished English tutor - he taught me everything I know today, and me and my mother loved him very, very much. But despite all his wonderful qualities he was, at the end of the day, just a man, and like all men he had his weaknesses. My father had been having an affair. My mother never told me who it was with, but it was enough to make my father leave - to vanish without a trace and never contact his family again.

              I had been out with my friends that night and came home around 10 pm. I noticed that my father's car wasn’t in the drive, but that wasn’t unusual - he often stayed late at College to do extra work or to mark papers (or at least, that’s what he claimed he was doing). And so I had no reason to suspect anything as I walked in through the front door. But the second I stepped over the threshold I knew something was amiss - the house was deadly silent and the air was filled with a sickening dread. I remember hearing myself calling for my mother, wandering through the silent house feeling somehow detached from my own body, as if I were watching it all happen to someone else.

             
I eventually found her on my parents bedroom floor, an empty bottle of rum in one hand and an empty bottle of pills in the other. I have never felt so alone or helpless in my entire life. She was out cold, but I could still feel a pulse, and so I tried desperately shoving my fingers down her throat, to force her to throw up the poisoning contents of her stomach. No matter how hard I tried nothing would come out of her limp body - whatever she had swallowed didn’t want to come back out easily. From there on out that night is still a terrified, hopeless blur to me. I vaguely remember trying, again and again, to call my father, the tears in my eyes blurring the buttons on the phone so I could barely see them. But every time I dialed all I was met with a long, flat, beeping noise.

             
I somehow managed to drag my mother’s lifeless form down the stairs and must have phoned an ambulance, because fifteen minutes later I was sat in the back of an ambulance, sirens blaring in my ears, answering the medics questions in an inanimate monotone. They gave my mother a stomach pump, and it wasn’t until the next afternoon, when my mother groggily came around, that I actually found out what had happened. The moment my mother spoke the words, I knew that I would never see my father again.

             
I spent every day over the next few months with my mother, looking after her and making sure she didn’t try and end it all again. I did the best I could, but after all, I was only seventeen, and while I kept my mother alive, I could not stop her from slowly killing herself with alcohol. My days were spent wiping vomit from her chin, bathing her, cleaning the house and rocking her to sleep every night while she cried in my arms.

When I did eventually go back to College, it was as if nothing had changed - everyone else's lives seemed to be carrying on as normal - they laughed and joked, attended classes and played football just like they used to. But those concepts, along with all the other concepts of teenage life, were alien to me now. And so, to avoid the misery of my life from spreading it’s dark fingers any further, I began to pretend - My friends need not know the truth, and to be honest I wasn’t sure how many of them would stick around if they did. So I began practicing smiling in the mirror every morning, taught myself how to laugh again. But it was all fake - inside I was as empty and miserable as I had been the night I’d found my mother.

              And so that is my story. I have not told you this in the hopes of pity, or to make you feel sad for me. That was many years ago, and I’ve gradually learned to be happy again (which, I hope you don’t mind me saying, you have helped with enormously). I simply wished to tell you so that you would no longer feel alone - as hard and cruel as fate has been to us, we have each other now, so we no longer need to feel forsaken or abandoned. I hope my words have brought you comfort and hope. Know that I am always here for you Sienna.

Lewis xxx”

With tears in his eyes, a mixture of both pain at the relived memories and joy and finally making a breakthrough connection with the girl he loved, Sam hit the send button and his body instantly slumped, relieved but drained from the sheer effort and emotions of his admission.

His mind and body were suddenly weary and exhausted and, unable to resist, Sam curled up into a ball at the bottom of his bed and sobbed quietly until his exhaustion overcame him and he fell into a deep sleep.

              Sienna was also crying on the foot of her bed. Never in her eighteen years of life had she heard a more horrifying or heart wrenching tale, but that was not the only thing that forced the streams of tears from her eyes. Stabbing, twisting, clawed fingers of guilt had gripped at her innards tightly as she had read of Lewis’s fathers affair, for that had been the one small fact she had excluded from her narration - the fact that her true love had been a married man. To hear such a detailed, graphic, harrowing account of it from the other side’s perspective tore Sienna apart - one half of her reeled and hated herself, picturing herself as the ‘other woman’ from Lewis’s childhood, while the other half of her refused to let go of her pride, insisting that in her and Jack’s case she had been in the right - their love had been in the right.

             
It took the best part of an hour for Sienna to quell her violent tears, arguing with herself in her head the whole way through until finally, exhausted and breathless, she managed to console herself with the fact that despite it all, Lewis had still said he could never hate her and that he would always be there for her. No matter what she had done, she still had Lewis, which (she realized as she gratefully fell into a restful sleep) was more than she could say for Jack.

CHAPTER 10 - YOU HAVE TO LOSE A FEW BATTLES TO WIN
THE WAR.

              Sam awoke the next morning at am, feeling uncharacteristically fresh for such an ungodly hour, and with an idea, an urge set firmly in his mind. For the first time in close to a month, Sam was going to go to College. The urge wasn’t born of any desire to see his ‘friends’, Sam now felt he had long outgrown that bunch of rowdy, crude, pitiful jocks and had come to realize that Sienna had been right - they were all just a group of clones, each one as bad as the last. When his rapidly progressing plan came to fruition and Sienna was finally his, he would make new friends, better friends, mature friends.

             
Nor was his desire due to worry of the project work that he was quickly falling behind in - again, once Sienna was his he could re-do the course (not that he needed to - he was already intelligent enough to gain a place at university even without any College grades). Once Sienna was his the world would be his oyster and there would be nothing that he could not achieve. But he actually needed to make Sienna his before any of that could even be considered an eventuality, and so everything else, even his mother, would have to take a back seat while he worked towards his goal.

             
What drove him out of bed that morning, and urged him towards the College he had shunned for the past four weeks, was the familiar and pleasant tug of those invisible fish hooks in his chest. They had been dormant for a while, but they were now back in full force, demanding Sam yield to them, to give in to his deep, resounding desire to see Sienna’s face again. He felt that, for some reason, now that he knew more about her - now that he knew the deepest, darkest parts of her, he would be able to see her more accurately - as if some new, stunning facet of herself would now be revealed to him and he could revel in it’s pure, true beauty.

             
Sam didn’t even try to argue with himself as he hurriedly shoved on his skater shoes and zipped up his Billabong hoodie. He knew it was far too early to be leaving for College, but it had been far too long since he’d laid eyes on the woman he loved, and he simply could not sit idle in the house when his mind and body screamed for action.

Still unsure of his plan Sam raced excitedly down the stairs, his face a mask of determination and drive. Somewhere in the back of his mind he noticed that his mother wasn’t stumbling and swaying around the house as she usually was at that time of the morning, and that she must have been upstairs actually sleeping for once. Sam's steps faltered as he realized how much he had been neglecting his fragile mother recently, a painful shard of guilt stabbing at his innards. But it was only a brief pang, the urgent voice in his head reminding him that everything could and would be fixed once Sienna was his - once he could fix himself. Sending a brief, whispered apology up the stairs to his mother, Sam dashed out of the front door, dived into his car and was pulling crunchily out of the gravel drive before he could give himself a chance to look back or think twice.

He had no idea how he was going to waste the next few hours before the College would open and he could sneak in once more through the libraries back door to wait for Sienna, but as his IPod kicked in and the opening chords of Dire Straits graced his ears, Sam found he didn’t care. He wound down the window, turning his face to the breeze and turning the speakers up, and began singing along, his voice carrying down the empty, early morning streets –

“A love struck Romeo sings the streets a serenade

Laying everybody low with a love song that he made

Finds a streetlight steps out of the shade

Says something like you and me babe how about it?”

***

Sienna awoke, as usual, way before her alarm clock chimed, with an idea in her head that had formed during her dreams. It was an unexpected idea that both scared and excited her, and she knew it was an idea that required a lot of thought. She could no longer deny her feelings for Lewis - last night they had shared something truly special, they had shared they darkest truths with each other and now her heart urged her to take the next, terrifying step with him, but first Sienna needed to figure out just how to do that.

              She immediately knew that, for a change, she wasn’t going into College that day, not even to waste away the day in the library. She couldn’t let anything distract her from her thoughts today, and she was worried that if she let herself near her laptop, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from messaging Lewis before she was actually ready. And so, after donning her faithful Doc Martens and leather jacket (the relentless sun and heat had finally begun to die down, replaced with chilly autumn breezes), Sienna marched out of her bedroom without a backwards glance, taking her bag with her but leaving her laptop firmly behind, her mind too full of thoughts to even remember to stomp loudly down the stairs as she left the house.

             
She jangled the change in her pocket as she absentmindedly wandered down the quiet, empty street. She had just enough to pay for the service bus, which was always virtually empty at this time of morning, rather than have to catch the bustling, noisy, free bus to College. Her mind, full of scrambling thoughts and emotions, needed peace and quiet if it was going to be able to make this huge decision that Sienna was embarking on, and so peace and quiet is exactly what she would give it.

             
The service bus dropped her off at the bottom end of the bypass, as near to her peaceful, secret spot next to the river as it could get without actually driving into the undergrowth. A chill breeze slapped at Sienna’s face as she stepped off the bus, and she hugged her leather jacket tightly to herself, hurrying off the pavement and down the dirt pathway into the trees, whose branches and leaves offered some respite from the encroaching autumn chills. A few minutes further on down the path and she came once more her isolated little spot, a fallen tree providing a perfect seat and the smooth, hypnotizing babble of the river and whisper of wind in the treetops serving as the perfect soundtrack to Sienna’s day of contemplation. She sighed as she flopped down onto the horizontal, dead tree, allowing the music of Mother Nature to wash over her cluttered mind and slowly smooth out her thoughts.

             
Sam had been driving on autopilot, letting his feet and hands do the driving - taking him automatically along the curving, swooping roads along the top of the valley, down the narrow, tree lined lanes that ran down the side of the mountain and eventually brought him out at the very top end of the town - while his mind drifted elsewhere, lingering on memories of Sienna’s pale, creamy skin, her fierce, passionate eyes and the way her bright red lips would sometimes curl into just the hint of a fraudulent smile. It wasn’t until the final chord of his Dire Straits playlist rang in his ears and then faded out to silence, that Sam realized he’d been driving for nearly an hour and a half, completely oblivious to the passage of time.

             
“Shit!” He exclaimed, realizing that in 45 minutes students and lecturers alike would be flooding into College, and he needed to be there in plenty of time before that happened. Physically slapping himself out of his reverie and pressing down on the accelerator, figuring that the quickest route would be to cut through the centre of town and head down the bypass. The roads were starting to fill with the beginnings of rush hour traffic, and Sam cursed himself for his absent mindedness, forcing himself to duck and weave as best he could through the traffic and nearly running a few red lights. But despite his worry, he managed to reach the bypass in just under five minutes, just in time to see a small, blonde woman step off a service bus on the other side of the road. It took Sam a few short seconds to recognize the choppy, bleach blonde hair and black and white checkered backpack as belonging to the woman he loved, but as soon as he did his feet automatically slammed down on the breaks and he swerved violently into a small lay by, his heart suddenly pounding.

             
Swiveling around in his seat, Sam watched the bus slowly pull away to reveal Sienna’s beautiful, blonde head bobbing away into the trees and undergrowth. He waited until his love was just out of sight before hurriedly tugging his seatbelt off and practically tumbling out of the car. Without looking or thinking he dashed across the two lanes of the bypass, slowing his footsteps as they went from tarmac pavement to dirt path, being as quiet and inconspicuous as he could while he followed Sienna’s leather clad back into the trees.

             
Somehow, Sienna’s little haven, her personal clearing in amongst the flora and fauna, had managed to cling on to the last dregs of summer. She allowed herself to be serenaded by the mellow gurgling of the river at her feet, while she watched iridescent patterns of gold and green dance along it’s smooth, liquid surface.

With nothing to distract her - no real life people or problems to steal her attention, Sienna quickly realized that she had actually already made her decision, she had just
needed some silent alone time to get used to it. Of course she was going to ask Lewis to take the next step with her, how could she not? Aside from all the obvious reasons - him being an accomplished, intelligent academic, not to mention patient, understanding and kind - Sienna had never been one to deny her own heart, and now her heart screamed for Lewis.

             
She set her mind to deciding the specific words she would use to ask him, ruffling her hair nervously and blushing with girlish excitement as she did so. “I Love You.” She whispered tentatively to the empty glade, the words that had been left unused for so long tasted refreshing and moreish on her tongue, and Sienna was unable to suppress a nervous but thrilled giggle. She repeated those three magic words over and over, growing louder and louder and more and more thrilled with each outburst, until suddenly the harsh crack of a loudly snapping twig echoed out from the trees to her left.

             
Sienna’s mouth snapped shut mid declaration and her walls instantly shot straight back up as her head turned sharply in the direction of the offending noise. Whatever she had been preparing herself for, she was not expecting or ready for what her eyes found - Leaning with one hand against a tree just outside the clearing, his stupid brown hair flopping into his stupid grinning face, was none other than Sam - the persistent pesterer that Sienna had thought she was long rid of.

They were both, for a moment, silent with shock as they gazed at each other, before Sienna found her voice and, her vision suddenly red, yelled -

“Seriously?! What the fuck?!” She stared him down with her stone cold eyes, turning him into the gibbering mess that he usually was around her.

“I’m sorry...I...I didn’t mean to startle you.” He yammered as he stumbled further into the clearing, much to Sienna’s displeasure.

“I thought I’d gotten rid of you.” She spat in reply. The anger that flowed through her was partly from embarrassment and partly because of the hatred should couldn’t help but feel for the bumbling oaf in front of her.

“Well...” He chuckled, clearly attempting to lighten the mood, “They don’t call me ‘Boomerang’ for nothing!” His attempt was half hearted, and Sienna realized that there was no hope of getting any sort of sensible reply from the jock.

“I was just leaving.” She said coldly, hopping down from her branch, swiping up her bag and storming out the way she had come in, jarring Sam with the brunt of her shoulder as she passed him.

“Sienna, wait!” He cried in desperation, realizing that the wonderful day he’d been looking forward to was quickly slipping from his grasp. He watched his love stop dead for a second in the middle of the path, before turning slowly and purposefully on the spot, her eyes suspicious and icier than Sam had ever seen them.

“I never told you my name.” Sienna stated in an eerily calm voice.

“Look...Don’t go.” Sam pleaded nervously, silently cursing himself for his fraudulent slip.

“How do you know my name?”

“I...It...Just...Can we please just talk?” He finished pathetically.

The sheer hopelessness of the sympathy seeking College jock in front of her piqued Sienna’s anger, and she could take no more.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.” She said flatly, before turning on the spot once more and marching more determinedly away.

Sam couldn’t bear to watch her walk away, not after being alone with her for so little time.

“We should be together!” He called out to her impulsively, suddenly not caring how reckless he was as he knew he would always have Lewis Stowell to fall back on. Sienna laughed harshly, just once, before shouting over her shoulder -

“You want to be with me? You don’t even know me!” Sam boldly walked the few steps up the path towards her, causing her to turn around in alarm.

“I know you better than you think.” He whispered softly as he stared lovingly into her deep, endless eyes, wishing that he could simply admit it all to her there and then, but knowing that would probably ruin everything for both him and Lewis Stowell. His words changed something in her, and Sam’s stomach dropped as he watched her eyes glaze over with that same fury she had displayed in the smoking area.

“You know nothing.” She seethed, her barely audible words dripping with venom. “You are nothing. Nothing but a pathetic, lowly College boy who...God, I don’t know...who thinks he’s
in love
. Well I’ll tell you now - You know nothing of love.”