Good Medicine Senior YearChapter 25 Confrontation
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My Shallow Regret, Chapter 9 - Confrontation free porn video
"What are you doing here?"
The woman sitting at my vanity with her back to me didn't turn around,
even as I started talking to her. I wasn't expecting anyone to be in my
room, and I didn't recognize this woman, so I was a bit confused.
"Excuse me," I said, forcefully but politely, "but you're in my room."
"No," she said, spinning around in my chair, "you're in my room."
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was me. Or rather, Alana, though
her hair was longer and redder. She was wearing a blue satin cocktail
dress with matching heels. She had dark eyeliner, heavy blue eye shadow
and dark red lips that matched her pristinely done - and significantly
longer - nails.
"Alana?" I asked, my jaw agape upon seeing, well, me sitting there.
"Please, call me Ali," she said. "Now, we need to have a serious talk
about what you've been up to."
"What?"
"I mean, first of all, that outfit," she said, as she stood up and ran
her finger up and down my body. "What is that?"
I was wearing a pair of light brown slacks and a polka dot blouse over a
black tank top, which I thought was reasonably stylish if a tad casual,
but apparently didn't live up to Alana's high standards.
"Let's fix this," she said. Then, in an instant, I was dressed and made
up exactly like she was, only with my mid-length black hair still in
place.
"What's happening?" I asked, as I ran my hands down the soft satin of my
new dress.
"What's happening," she said as she sprayed some sweet-smelling perfume
on both of us, "is that I'm taking back my life."
"But why?" I asked, still confused about what was happening - and how.
"Don't you get it," she said. "You had a chance at a new exciting life,
and instead you're doing the same old boring things you always did. Being
friends with Mark. Pining for Sara. Those are lame Andrew things. Ali is
fun and wild. She fucks her best friend's boyfriend behind her own
boyfriend's back and doesn't give a crap what anyone thinks about it. She
flies across the country to have hot beach sex with her actual boyfriend
and leaves him wanting more and feeling desperate for her from 3,000
miles away. She doesn't just tell her sister that a guy is interested in
her - she teaches him how to wrap him around her finger and make him her
willing slave.
"Basically," she continued as she walked around our room, "Ali is
everything you're not, and I'm sick of sitting back and watching you ruin
everything I've made her into."
"A person you can't even stand to be," I answered.
"What?" she asked, quickly snapping around and getting up in my face.
"You can't stand you," I said. "I felt it when I was with Aiden."
"That's not true," she said, as the confidence in her voice began to
waver.
"It is," I said. "I'm certain of it now. You didn't do the things you did
because they were fun. You did them to push people away. You hated
everything about your life. You hated Monica, you hated Bryce, and you
particularly hated dancing. You just stuck with it because you were good
at it, but you never wanted to be a dancer."
"Stop it," she said quietly, as she was on the verge of tears.
"That's why you left New York," I said. "You were running away from a
life you'd built for yourself that you didn't want to live. And you
didn't go with Aiden because he was a reminder of that life. It's all
coming into focus now."
"SHUT UP," she yelled. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, ruining her
pristine makeup job. "You think you can be a better Ali than me?"
"I don't want to be a better Ali," I said. "I want to be Alana, the woman
you could never be."
"Fine, see if you get any more help from me," she said.
"I don't need your help," I said. "I need your memories, to remind me
where I came from and where I can't go back."
"Going back," she said as she dried her tears. "That gives me an idea..."
Then a mischievous smile appeared on her face as she faded from view.
"Wait," I said, reaching out. But I couldn't touch her as she and the
room both got further and further away. "Don't go. Not yet."
But she was gone.
"Excuse me, miss," I heard a voice say coming from behind me.
"Miss," said the voice again. I opened my eyes to see that I was still
sitting on the plane for my flight back to Connecticut. "You need to push
your seat and tray table up."
"Sorry," I said, quietly, as I adjusted my seat and slowly started to
wake up, since I'd slept for most of the flight. I pushed my tray table
back into the upright position and shook off my dream.
But was it a dream?
I mean, I know I didn't physically meet Ali in my room - especially not
while I was in mid-air above Connecticut - but that whole thing felt like
way more than a random dream.
I closed my eyes again and tried to gather my thoughts, but out of
nowhere I remembered something - it was Ali, opening her acceptance
letter to grad school. She saw that she got in and put on a happy face
for her family, but inside she felt trapped.
While the symbolism certainly wasn't lost on me, what caught my attention
more was the fact that I remembered something about Ali's life without
slipping into "Ali mode." I started thinking more about her past, and
more things started coming to mind. I remembered her first day at
college, her first date, all the way back to her first dance recital.
In an instant, it was like this part of her mind that had been locked off
to me for the past week was now open. It was a bit overwhelming and kind
of confusing considering I remembered my whole life as Andrew as well -
and I wasn't sure which life I was supposed to be living. Not just
because of the additional set of memories, but because of the things I'd
experienced in the past week.
Unlike when I arrived in Los Angeles, when the plane landed back in
Connecticut, I lingered. I was the last person to get off the plane, and
didn't even head straight down to the taxi line. Instead I just wandered
around the terminal a bit, before heading to the bar. I so badly wanted a
drink but even if I wouldn't be the one having this baby - and yes, that
was still the plan - I didn't want to do anything that could hurt it
either. So I settled for having a Coke and sipping it slowly as I watched
travelers go to and from their destinations, and put off having to deal
with the realities of Alana's life.
I knew it wouldn't be long before I had to be honest about everything to
everyone, and I just had no idea where to start. If I told Monica the
truth about Alana and Bryce, then she'd have no reason to keep the
pregnancy secret and she might make that news public before I had the
chance to tell my family. If I told my family about the pregnancy first,
they'd inevitably assume the father was Aiden, and I'd have to tell them
about the breakup, and probably about Bryce as well, and I couldn't
imagine that conversation going smoothly.
Then there was the whole Sara wrench in all of this. She was the one
person I'd been as close to completely honest with about everything -
sans the whole "I'm actually Andrew" bit - but she also represented
probably the biggest complication in everything.
So, of course, I had to start there.
I called Sara and asked her to pick me up at the airport, then finally
went downstairs. After a few minutes of waiting outside, a car pulled up
right next to me, but it wasn't Sara.
It was Cash.
"Hi," I said to him as he rolled down the window. "What are you doing
here?"
"Sara was tied up at work, so she asked me to swing by and pick you up."
"Don't you have work?" I asked, while loading my bag into his trunk.
"I do," he said. "But I'm on break. Besides, I think Ron will understand
if I'm a little late getting back, considering the other option was
leaving his step-daughter stranded at the airport."
"I'm pretty sure someone would've come along to get me eventually," I
said.
"Like your boyfriend?" he asked.
"You know he's in L.A.," I said, as we got in the car and he pulled away
from the airport.
The first few minutes of the ride were nothing but awkward silence - he
didn't even turn the radio on - before I finally said something.
"We broke up."
"Who?" he asked in response.
"Me and my boyfriend," I said. "Well, ex-boyfriend now. That's why I flew
back early."
"So," he said, hesitantly. "You don't have a boyfriend."
"Not anymore," I said. "I think it's for the best. There was no way Aiden
and I were ever going to work out."
I could've sworn I heard him say something under his breath, but I wasn't
certain and when I asked, he said he didn't. Then he turned the radio on
and we listened to music the rest of the way back to my house, with
things somehow seeming more awkward than when we were sitting in silence.
Eventually he pulled into my driveway, and I got out and headed to the
trunk to get my bag. I pulled it out and set it down, and as I turned
around, Cash was standing right in front of me.
Then, out of nowhere, he kissed me.
I was so stunned by it that I let the kiss linger a couple of seconds
longer than I should have, but I finally came to my senses and pushed him
away.
"Dude," I said. "I am SO sorry if I sent the wrong signal there, but
that's not what I meant when I said I didn't have a boyfriend. Didn't
Sara talk to you?"
"What does Sara have to do with this?" he asked.
"We're... well, I don't know what we are exactly," I said. "But I think
I'm in love with her. And I'm pretty sure she feels the same way about
me."
"Sara?" Cash asked, confused. "My sister Sara? Red hair, about yay high,
has never in her life shown a single lesbian tendency Sara?"
"Well, after what happened between us Sunday night, I'm pretty sure that
last part isn't true," I said.
"Okay, I didn't need to hear that," he said.
"What," I said, playfully. "It's not like I told you about how I caressed
her..."
"LA LA LA NOT LISTENING," he said, putting his fingers in his ears.
"I'm kidding," I said. "But seriously, Sara didn't say anything to you at
all about us?"
"Well, she did say she met someone new," he said, "but I kind of assumed
that someone was, well... a someone who didn't have boobs."
"I barely have boobs," I said, playfully grabbing my undersized chest.
Cash laughed, which broke some of the weird tension between us. He gave
me a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Just be good to my sister," he said.
"I will," I said, as pulled my suitcase on to my deck and watched him
pull away. I quickly fired off a text to Sara asking her to call me as
soon as she got off of work, and then headed inside, where I discovered
there was a welcoming committee waiting for me. My mom, dad, Alexis and
Ryan - the guy who I'd connected her with last week - were all standing
there in the kitchen, apparently waiting for me to arrive.
They just kind of looked at me, making it clear that it was on me to
start spilling.
"Hi dad," I said, trying to change the subject before they even brought
it up. "Surprised to see you here. Where's Ron?"
"So who's Sara?" my mom asked, not biting on my bait at all.
"Her new girlfriend," said Alexis, chiming in where I really didn't want
her to.
"Girlfriend?" my mom asked, very surprised. "What does the father of your
baby think of that?"
"Baby?!"
Gee, thanks mom. That's exactly how I wanted to break that news to
everyone here, including the guy I barely knew.
"Umm, Ryan, is it," I said to the tall teen with his arm around my
sister. "Could you maybe give us a moment? I need to talk to my family
about ... some ... things."
"Sure," he said. It seemed like he was just as interested as extracting
himself from this uncomfortable situation as I was in not having to go
through it at all. He gave Alexis a kiss on the cheek and said "I'll call
you tonight" as he left.
We all watched him walk out the door and I turned back around toward my
family, who were waiting for answers from me.
"So... LA was nice," I said, jokingly.
"You're having a BABY," Alexis asked again, with a hint of anger in her
voice.
"Yes, I'm pregnant," I said. "I didn't plan this, it just kind of
happened, but I'm gonna roll with it, because I don't really have another
choice."
"And what does Aiden think about this," my mom asked.
"It doesn't matter," I said, nervously. "It's... it's not his."
Everyone's eyes got really wide with that news.
"So..." my dad said, as he was the only one not shocked enough to
actually say something, "whose is it?"
"That doesn't matter," I said. "He's not part of my life, and I don't
want him to be. Besides, he wouldn't make much of a father."
"And this Sara," my mom asked, leaving it at that.
"She's someone I've known for a while, but it wasn't until recently that
we talked about our feelings."
"Does she know?"
"Know what?" I asked my mom, who was being very calm about all this,
while Alexis was seething. I wasn't quite sure what she was angry about,
but I could tell she was angry.
"Does Sara know about the baby?"
"She does."
"SHE DOES?!" Alexis yelled.
"Yes, Sara knows. So do Monica and Gwen. And Aiden now. But they're the
only people I told."
"You told Monica before you told me," Alexis said. "That's... I can't
believe I was the last to know."
"Lexi," I said, trying to comfort her, "I didn't plan on telling Monica,
it just sort of happened. I really didn't want to tell anyone before I
talked to Aiden, but I was always going to tell you as soon as I got
back, I swear."
"I thought we shared everything with each other," she said, still angry.
"I bet you wouldn't have even told me about Sara if I hadn't caught you
guys making out in your room the other night."
"Wait," my mom said, interrupting Lexi's line of thought. "You were doing
what?"
"Mom," I said, "I'm 25. I'm mature enough to have someone in my bedroom."
"Are you?" she asked. "I mean, you ended up pregnant by someone who isn't
your boyfriend - someone you won't even tell us about - and you don't
even have a job or a plan for where you're going to live. That doesn't
exactly scream mature to me."
"Mom, please," I said, "I'll work all that out. For now I just need to
know that you'll support any decision I do make."
"You know I will honey, but you've been acting kind of reckless lately.
Leaving New York, breaking up with Aiden, it just doesn't seem like you."
"Maybe it's not me," I said. "Maybe being me is what got me pregnant in
the first place and maybe I realized I needed to get away from New York
and make some big changes in my life, baby or not."
"Changes like keeping secrets from me," Lexi said.
"That's not what I meant," I said. "And I don't want there to be any more
secrets between us, I promise."
But even as I was saying it, I knew that was a promise I couldn't keep. I
mean, on the small scale, I wasn't planning on telling them about Bryce.
And way bigger than that, I wasn't planning on telling them about me
being Andrew. Like, ever. If I was stuck in this life, then I was just
going to accept it as my life, and there was no reason my family ever
needed to know that it was ever not the case. That's one secret that I'd
take with me to the grave.
I could tell that Alexis wasn't convinced by my half-hearted promise and
she started to walk out.
"Whatever," she said. "I'm gonna go catch up with Ryan. Call me when you
decide to be my sister again and not this bitch you turned into."
"Hey, that's no way to talk to your sister," my dad said in the most
"dad" way possible, practically ignoring all the drama that had just
transpired to fixate on my language. But Alexis just waved him off and
walked out the door.
"She's right," I said. "If I'd been a good sister, she would've been the
first person I told. Having a baby should be happy news, but I turned it
into this whole big mess."
"Do you want me to talk to her," my mom asked.
"No, I said. "I'll talk to her when she calms down. But are we okay?"
"You know I'll always love you no matter what you do," my mom said. "But
at some point we need to have a serious talk about your future. You need
to have a plan."
"I know," I said, "and I will. But first I need to unpack, unwind, and
maybe go for a walk."
"Let me help you with that," my dad said, taking my suitcase from me.
"I'm fine," I said, taking it right back. "I'm not even showing, so I'm
pretty sure I can take my own suitcase upstairs."
He backed off and I headed up to my room to get changed into more
workout-friendly clothes. I wasn't going to let this pregnancy give me an
excuse to get fat again, and getting outside to clear my head seemed like
a really good idea right now.
*****
"Oh shit."
I was about two miles into my run, when I felt the raindrops start to
come down. I knew I'd have to cut things short and head back home if I
didn't want to get completely soaked. As it was, cutting things short
didn't seem like such a bad idea, because going on a run to clear my head
hadn't worked at all. I wanted to just let myself drift and feel free,
but instead I kept fixating on Alexis and making things right with her.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she was far
from the only one I needed to have an honest conversation with. Monica,
Mark, Bryce ... even Sara. We hadn't really talked about what we were,
what we meant to each other, and it seemed too early to have that talk,
but at the same time my being pregnant was kind of accelerating the
timetable.
All these thoughts swirling in my head made this run completely
unenjoyable, which was actually a familiar feeling for me. Back when I'd
been a football player, I'd hated running. I was easily the slowest guy
on our team - even slower than the 350-pound nose tackle who barely got
off the bench - and I constantly argued with the coaches about the need
to do distance running. I mean, my job as an offensive lineman was
basically to stand in people's way. Running was something I only did when
Mark threw an interception, and to solve that I basically told Mark
"don't throw interceptions."
What? It was a valid strategy.
But my ingrained distaste for running aside, I'd actually been enjoying
it in my short time as Alana. It certainly helped that I didn't get
winded 10 steps into a run like I used to, but being Alana had made me
embrace the therapeutic benefits of running. Only today's run hadn't been
therapeutic at all. In fact, it'd just made me feel worse, both mentally
and physically. And then, as sky opened up with a total downpour, it
happened again.
I threw up, right on the side of the road.
Well, vomiting during a run was nothing new either, but this was probably
a combination of jetlag and morning sickness, not being too fat to run a
mile.
Rather than stand out in the rain and make myself more sick, I ducked
into a nearby store to wait out the passing storm. However, already being
wet, and wearing nothing more than a pink sports bra and black booty
shorts was drawing a bit more attention than I wanted. So I pulled out my
phone to call someone to pick me up. But before I could even scroll to my
contacts list, someone called me.
It was Mark.
"Hello?" I asked as I answered the phone, trying to act like I didn't
immediately recognize his number.
"Hey Ali, it's Mark," he said. "I was wondering if we could talk. I
wanted to make sure everything was all right after the other day."
I'm not sure Mark would've been the person I chose to start the "Alana
Makes Things Right" tour with, but with fate seemingly intervening, I
figured it was as good a place as any.
"Yeah," I said. "We should definitely talk. Would you mind picking me up?
I went out for a run and kinda don't want to get drenched on the way
back."
"Sure thing," he said. "I'll be right there.
A few minutes later, I saw Mark pull up and ran out to his car, trying my
best to not get soaked.
"Wow, it's really coming down," I said.
"Here," he said, handing me a towel from the back seat. "I figured you
might need this."
"Thanks," I said as I got to work on drying off my hair. The more time I
spent as Alana, the more I realized how inconvenient having long hair
was. It took forever to dry in the morning, and people expected it to be
styled, and I mostly didn't care about any of that.
I continued to dry myself off as Mark started driving.
"So," he said, hesitantly, "I thought you were going to be in L.A. for a
few days."
"I was," I said, rubbing the towel on my face, getting rid of what little
makeup I had been wearing. "But it didn't make sense to stick around
after I broke things off with Aiden."
"You what?" he asked, caught completely off guard. "What happened?"
"Well, let's see," I said, as I began to tick off the reasons I left
Aiden. "I kinda cheated on him when we were together. A lot. I'm kinda in
love with someone else. And I'm kinda pregnant with a baby that isn't
his."
Mark slammed on the breaks, nearly sending me flying into the dashboard.
"You're WHAT?!"
"Yeah," I said, bashfully, as I adjusted the now too-tight seatbelt that
was digging into my breasts. "I'm gonna have a baby."
Mark pulled over, so he wasn't at a complete stop in the middle of the
road.
"Wow," he said, very much in shock. "That's huge."
"Is that a fat joke," I said, very much joking to try and lighten the
mood a bit.
"No... I just... I mean ... you're."
"I'm kidding, Mark. Calm down."
"Wow," he said, shaking his head as he put the car into park and rubbed
his face with his hands.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"I guess a part of me always thought that if you were gonna have a kid,
it'd be with me," he said. That hit me kind of hard - especially because
I knew from her memories that Alana really did love Mark and at one point
saw herself having a family with him. But to me, Mark would always be my
best friend, and that's what I wanted back, whether in this life or my
own.
"Mark," I said, unsure of what to say to comfort him. "I... I never
really thought about having a family. This just kind of ... happened."
"So, this guy you're in love with," he said, bringing up the third reason
I broke up with Aiden, "is he the father."
"I never said it was a guy," I said.
"Well, it kind of has to be."
"The father? Yeah, that's definitely a guy," I said, as I started to
nervously fidget in my seat. "But the person I'm in love with. She's
not."
"She?" he asked, caught completely off guard.
"Yeah, she," I said. "Her name is Sara. And she makes me happier than I
ever thought I could be.
"Wow," he said. "So I guess that rules out a future for us."
"I hope not," I said. "I want us to be friends. I want you to be part of
my life."
I paused and looked down at my stomach.
"Of our lives."
"Friends?" he asked.
"Yeah, friends."
"How would we even do that?"
"Just like any other friends. We'd talk about our lives. Things we like
and dislike. We'd hang out with other friends."
"We have a lot of history, Alana. I don't know if I can just forget
that."
"I don't want you to," I said. "That history ... the good parts of it ...
that's what's going to let us to be such great friends. I know it."
But I didn't know it. I hoped it. If I was going to be stuck as Alana, I
had to have Mark in my life, but I didn't know if he'd want to be part of
mine. He let out a big sigh, and then finally said something.
"Ok... friend ... see any good movies lately?"
I chuckled a bit at his attempt to break the friend ice, especially him
awkwardly addressing me as "friend."
"Well, 'friend,'" I said, emphasizing the word friend to point out his
own awkwardness to him. "I saw 'The Amazing Spider-Man' last week."
"Bullshit," he said. "You did not."
"I did," I said. "I swear. I even kinda liked it."
"You, Alana Carlysle, Miss 'Comic Books are the Dumbest Thing Ever',
liked 'Amazing Spider-Man?" he asked, incredulously.
"I did," I said. "I thought Garfield was a pretty decent Spidey, Emma
Stone was super cute as Gwen, and they had really good chemistry."
"You know," he said. "I always thought you'd make a good Gwen. I mean,
obviously not with that black hair. But put a blonde wig on and you could
pull it off."
"That's not a bad idea," I said. "Maybe if I go back to NYCC this year,
I'll go as Gwen."
"Wait," he said. "Go back? When did you go in the first place?"
"Last year," I said, getting excited that Mark and I were having a
conversation about something we'd always talked about. "Wait, you gotta
see the pictures."
I pulled out my phone and opened up Facebook and quickly scrolled to the
NYCC album with the photos of me as Phoenix and handed it to him. He
scrolled through them, his eyes getting wider with each swipe.
"This is you?" he asked, his eyes still on the phone.
"It is," I said. "I got hired by some company to model for their booth,
and I really enjoyed it and started getting into the whole scene. I'm
thinking of going back this year with my own costumes."
Then I looked down at my stomach again, realizing that soon it'd be in no
shape for spandex.
"Or, at least, I was," I said. "Before, well, you know."
"You could always go as like a pregnant Sue Storm or something. Or
Jessica Jones, if you wanted to keep the black hair."
I chuckled again and a huge smile came over my face, as I broke into a
full laugh.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said. "I just ... I realized we're having a conversation as
friends. Like real, honest-to-god friends, and I'm so happy. This... this
is exactly what I wanted."
"Well," he said, "I'd be lying if I said it was exactly what I wanted,
but I think I can roll with it."
"I'm glad," I said.
We both looked at each other, smiling, as the rain slowly stopped and the
sun shined through.
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