Seduced by Lies (12 page)

“I Love You.” Sam insisted, refusing to back down. “And I know you could love me, and that we could help each other.”

“Fuck off!” Sienna screeched in his face, an almost blood curdling sound that echoed through the trees. “Every time I think I’m having a good day you come bumbling along and ruin it with your pitiful hopes and ridiculous ideas of fairytale love! Fairytales don’t exist and love rarely does, so you think I’m going to waste it on you?” She laughed cruelly.

“You love someone. I heard you say it. Who?” Sam asked, already knowing the answer, his voice softening as he gave up his grip on this battle and prepared to admit defeat.

“A man that you could never hope to be.” Sienna smiled cruelly before turning away once more and marching down the path without a second glance.

Sam let her go without argument, because what she didn’t know was that Sam had already won the war - she was in love with Lewis, ergo she was in love with Sam - she just needed some time to realize it.

He waited about ten minutes, giving her plenty of time to leave before he set back to his car. He made the journey home surprisingly unperturbed by the somewhat violent encounter, knowing that when he got back there would probably be a message from Sienna in his alter ego’s inbox, and that thought alone was enough to comfort him.

CHAPTER 11 -  REVELATIONS

             
Sienna’s anger carried her all the way home, making her already made up mind even more determined. She no longer cared how much time she did or didn’t need to get used to her plan - now was the time for action. She arrived home and stormed in through the front door, not caring whether her mother was at home or not (thankfully the house was empty), and headed straight for the fridge. As she had predicted, her mother had re-stocked the fridge with vodka, foolishly hiding it in the same place at the back of the vegetable drawer. Sienna gladly liberated the chilled bottle from the plastic compartment and headed straight up the stairs, eager to get back to her laptop that seemed to be silently calling to her from the foot of her bed. She impatiently waited for the screen to load up, twisting the top off the vodka and, not bothering with a glass, downed a quarter of the bottle in one, wincing as the liquid slid stingingly down her throat, but knowing that she needed to get tipsy, and fast. She eagerly clicked into her inbox and, not caring how bold or forward she was being, sent her beloved Lewis one, short message -

“Are you married?”

It took half an hour and another quarter of the bottle of vodka for Sienna’s little message icon to turn red, indicating a reply. Her whole body seemed to tremble in nervous anticipation as she hovered her cursor over the icon, needing another swig from the bottle before she could click on it. His message was just as short and to the point as hers had been -

“No, Sienna, I am not. Why do you ask? xxx”

Her heart soared, her face splitting with joy as her fingers quickly typed the words she had so carefully chosen that morning -

“Good, because I would never want to do to anyone what your father did to you, but I do want you to be mine, if you will have me. I hope I am not being too forward or inappropriate, but over these past few weeks I feel we have developed something truly special. You said yourself that I have helped return your happiness, and I have to say that you have done the same for me. I never thought there was a way out of the darkness I have been living in for so long, but you have shown me that there is a way, and I would love to continue re-discovering happiness with you. I think we should be together. xxx”

Without looking, Sienna clicked send, and quickly chugged a few more gulps of vodka. This was it now - the point of no return. It was make or break time and Sienna’s nervous heart pounded loudly in her tipsy head as the seconds and minutes ticked slowly by while she stared unblinkingly at her screen. The five minutes it took for Lewis to reply felt like five lifetimes, but Sienna would have waited for an eternity to read his words -

“Sienna, I have been waiting for you to say those words since day one. Nothing would make me happier than to continue my journey through life with you. You are the only good thing I’ve known for a long time, and while I’m not sure why such a brilliant, bright soul as you would want to settle for someone like me, I will not question it.

It is now my turn to be bold and forward and to say the words that have been on the tip of my tongue for weeks now - I Love You, Sienna.

Forever Yours, Lewis xxx”

Sienna thought her heart was going to explode within her. A balloon of elation was growing rapidly in her chest, pushing her organs to the sides and filling her up until she could hold it in no longer. Endless peals of boisterous, joyous laughter exploded violently from her mouth as she punched and kicked the air in victory. The shrouds of misery and hopelessness that she had been cloaked in simply fell from her shoulders, and her eyes, that had been cold and dark for so long, now began to tingle as the sparkle of life, love and euphoria entered them once more.

Sienna ran to the mirror, eager to see once more what true happiness looked like. She peered at her slightly blurry, tipsy reflection, looking past the thick eyeliner and short, rough hair to the girl underneath. What looked back at her was the girl she had been - the girl who had loved life and had been loved in return. Sienna felt weak with relief and thankfulness - she had her old self back, which was something she thought she would never see again.

Raising the bottle to her beaming reflection, she turned back to her laptop.

“I Love You too, Lewis. It feels so good to finally say it!...”
Sienna hesitated for a moment, before adding as a cheeky afterthought -
“Do you have a picture of yourself that you could send me? I’d like to know what the man I love looks like (so I know what to imagine when I’m touching myself). I’ll send one if you do.

Sienna xxx”

The vodka had combined with her overwhelming happiness to form a cocktail that went straight to Sienna’s head, which for some reason had suddenly made her overwhelmingly horny. She leaned back on her elbows on the bed, unbuttoning her skinny jeans and sliding one hand down into her pants - She figured she may as well get herself started while she waited for her lover to reply.

              Sam's elation quickly turned to dread that settled like cold sludge in the pit of his stomach as he read Sienna’s last message. He’d never expected her to ask for a picture - he hadn’t thought that far ahead. He tapped his fingers on his desk and ran them through his hair nervously, twitching his food agitatedly as he frantically searched for a solution.

“Dumbass.” He mumbled, scolding himself for his lack of planning and forward thinking. After all - where was he supposed to get a believable photo of a good looking, middle aged English tutor?

And that’s when it clicked - his father. While his father had been no George Clooney, he hadn’t been unattractive either (people had always said Sam took after his father in both looks and brains), and he would certainly be enough for a horny teenage girl to get her rocks off to. Sam shuffled through the piles of photos he had taken from the attic when he’d first made Lewis Stowell’s profile, and picked out a particularly nice, artistic close up of his father's face.

Impatiently waiting for the picture to scan and upload, Sam tried his best not to think of the woman he loved touching herself to a picture of his absent father. What choice did he have? He was too far down this road, and had achieved too much to turn back now - it was just a little grievance that he would have to suffer while he consoled himself with the fact that, technically, Sienna had just told him she loved him. He smiled smugly to himself as he read over her loving, slightly dirty message, imagining the day when it would finally be more than kinky messages that they shared.

              Sienna, her hand still firmly down her trousers, was just getting in to it when she heard the little ‘bleep’ of a new message arriving in her inbox. She hastily removed her hand and quickly clicked on the picture attachment in the message, keen to increase her stimulation by finally seeing the face of her love. Her laptop whirred and purred and Sienna rapped her fingers impatiently while the picture slowly loaded. Nothing could have prepared her for what she then saw on her computer screen.

The picture Lewis had sent her was beautifully composed and very well framed, but that wasn’t what caused Sienna’s breath to catch in her throat and her heart to drum a dis-jointed, quivering beat in her chest. Sienna gazed at the wild, chocolate brown hair, handsome five o'clock shadow and distinguished crow's feet of the man in the picture, her half drunk mind whirling and her eyes brimming with sudden tears.

“Jack?” She whispered tearfully to her screen, longingly stroking the face in the picture, her fingers trembling with shock. “Is it really you?” Could the man she had recently fallen for really be the man she had loved all along? And if so, did he know it was Sienna -
his
Sienna that he had been talking to this whole time?

             
As much as she hated to tear her gaze away from the picture, her heart demanded answers. Could she really have been talking to her beloved Jack for the past month without even realizing it? It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility - After all, she had fallen for Lewis for all the same reasons she had fallen for Jack. But why would he hide himself from her?

It took her nearly an entire ten minutes to compose her reply - her nervous, thrilled, shaking fingers kept hitting the wrong buttons, causing her to make spelling mistake after mistake. Finally, she hit send, her mind blank as it struggled to cope with all the raging emotions and questions that now flowed through it.

“Jack?! Is that really you? Is this some kind of trick? Please, tell me it’s you, Jack.”

Sam's mind reeled with confusion. How could Sienna possibly know his father? And why was she so eager for it to be him? No matter how little he understood the situation, Sam couldn’t ignore the desperation in Sienna’s message, and, just like always, he would not deny the woman he loved anything. Numb with confusion, his mind unable to comprehend the effect that it would have on the outcome of his plan, Sam automatically typed up a short reply -

“Yes Sienna - it is me. It’s Jack.”

He sent the message, praying he would receive a reply that would deliver some answers. Awash with confusion, his mind sent a million different tangents, Sam sat utterly still at his computer, trying to ride out this unexpected turn of events on the rollercoaster that was his and Sienna’s relationship.

“What the hell is going on here?” He mumbled exasperatedly, closing his suddenly weary eyes and resting his head in his hands, where he stayed until, finally, a reply came through from Sienna.

              Her message was nearly an entire page long, and was made up of emotional, disjointed sentences that didn’t seem to flow or form any kind of sensible pattern. But it was enough for Sam to get the gist - to get the answers he’d been looking for, but not the ones he wanted to hear. As he got further and further into her message, Sam’s world, not for the first time, began falling and crumbling around him once more.

While Sienna had meant for her message to be a touching, heartwarming reminder of nostalgic memories and hope for the future, to Sam it read as a series of confessions - like reading someone’s diary and discovering truths that make you promptly wish you’d never picked the damn book up. About halfway through the message his jumbled, confused thoughts all came together, clicking in to place and forcing him to face the truth, to discover what had been hidden from him for so long - Sienna, the woman he loved, was the very same mystery girl his father had had an affair with.

Sam’s innards turned to lead, and an invisible fist punched him full force in the stomach, taking the breath from him and forcing him to run quickly to the bathroom, where he promptly and violently threw up several times. As he clung to the porcelain rim of the toilet, shaking, sweating and crying, he recalled the very last line of Sienna’s message -

“I miss you every second of every day - I need to see you. Can you meet me tonight?

All my love, forever and always.

Your Sienna xxxxx”

His entire life, emotions and thoughts in tatters around him, Sam knew he was in no state of mind to be making any kind of decisions. But for all that he thought or felt - even at this point, the lowest point of his life, he still could not deny his love for Sienna, even though in the back of his mind he knew it was partly thanks to her that his life had been ruined in the first place. But no, despite what she had done or whatever she may do in the future, he would always love her, would always forgive her, and would always do whatever she asked of him.

             
And so he decided he would meet her that night, under the guise of being his father. He would reply to her message and drive wherever she asked him to go - that was as far as his plan went. Whatever happened from there on out would be in the hands of fate and of the Gods, but somehow Sam could feel in his gut that, whatever the outcome, it would all end tonight.