For Sam, from Alex: "Unbelievable. I can't believe you right now"
It was Alex's tone that scared her the most. Sam knew well enough what went along with that tone--Alex's boiling anger and unforgiving rage, storming out of the room and into a bar while Sam stayed up all night with wet cheeks waiting for her to come back and fall into their bed. Sam was scared. Sam was always scared of being left alone and that tone told her she was one more step closer to being in that place.
"Alex, I'm sorry I just..." Sam looked away from her, tears already starting to well up in her eyes. She didn't want Alex to be angry with her, but this time Alex was just asking too much of her. She was asking her to cut off one of her best friends, the person who'd been with her since the beginning, and who she felt knew her better than anyone else in the world. In essence, Alex was asking her to cut out a piece of her heart, and Sam wasn't sure she could do that.
There was a place in the back of her mind where she knew that her girlfriend was right. She knew that something was wrong about this, but she didn't want to admit it. It couldn't have been that wrong--Simon took care of her and her sister for a long time, better than their parents had. But something told Sam that Alex wouldn't have been doing this if she didn't really believe it. She suddenly wished she hadn't told Alex about the nature of their relationship. She wished she had been able to control herself, and Alex wouldn't have needed to ask. If brought up too many bad feelings, feelings she had mistaken for a time for being good feelings.
Hardly ever did Sam feel guilty. Sometimes she did, but it was for little things, like not telling Alex she loved her before one of them left the house, or leaving her stuff laying around when Alex had asked her not to. Not about what she should have been feeling guilty about. And even less did she feel shame. Sam was happy, she was open, and she was innocent enough to feel like everyone would accept that; she was innocent enough to believe that no one would look down upon her. But she felt shame now, the rotten kind that ate away at her core. When Alex used that tone with her, when she looked down at her with such anger in her eyes, she knew she'd really fucked up now. It wasn't just that, though. Sam was feeling shame about what she'd told Alex; not that she'd told her, although she did wish that she hadn't, but the actions she'd told her about. She'd never felt like that was anything but natural before, but now repeating them made her feel sick to her stomach. Could this really have been so bad? she wondered. And then the sickening feeling went back to some of the things she'd done over the years, that mirrored the ones she was feeling more and more disgusted with herself about, and Sam felt a type of horror coming up through her body and into her throat. If Alex hadn't been so angry with her, she would have thrown up.
To say Sam understood now would have been a lie. She didn't quite understand and she never would completely. She ran on feelings, and when a feeling told her something was wrong, she let that feeling lead her. "Okay," she nodded her head in agreement, hands beginning to shake, feeling like she might collapse at any moment. "I won't see him again."