That Friend from College Pt. 03

"Just go," Kevin motioned to Pete with his hand. "He's just being an asshole. There's no need to stick around and indulge him in this."

"I'm being an asshole, huh? Not the chick who fucking cheated on me?" Murph hissed at his friend. Pete turned, giving Alli a nod in the direction of where their friends sat, though a couple of the guys had stood up and were watching the whole confrontation at half the distance between the bar and their table. He waited for her to get most of the way there, while Murph continued to curse under his breath, then gave Kevin and the other guy a quick salute in gratitude for defusing, and followed her to the table.

Leah already had Alli wrapped up in her arms as she sobbed into her friend's shoulder. He took over, pulling Alli to himself and stroking her hair. Someone had gone to get her a glass of water and they sat down, Pete pulling Alli into his lap and holding her there. Everyone was pretty quiet, the mood effectively ruined for the night. Shawn suggested they head back to his place and reboot for tomorrow, which sounded like a good idea.

They made up the pull-out sofa in Shawn's living room and Pete pulled Alli into his chest. Her arm draped across his midsection and they lay there quietly for a long while, knowing that neither of them was actually asleep.

"There was more to our break up than I ever told anyone before," Alli spoke softly into his chest. "There was a particular reason why Cameron got it into his head that I was cheating on him, it wasn't entirely random." She sighed and Pete rubbed her shoulder supportively.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," he told her. He didn't think that Alli could have possibly done anything that would legitimately constitute cheating.

"I want to tell you," she continued, "because I don't really want to keep secrets from you. And maybe it would... shed a bit of light on what happened tonight. But..." she sighed, "I know you never really cared for him much, but Cameron really wasn't a bad guy and we really had feelings for each other, those two years that we were both in college. Then afterward, when he started making the long drives out to see me, things kinda shifted." Pete listened, thinking back to that time, remembering that Alli didn't have a car then and couldn't drive out to see Murph herself. "So, we'd go a long stretch of time between seeing each other and then he'd come over and we'd arrange it that Dotty would either go see her boyfriend or she'd stay on the sofa or whatever, so we'd have some privacy, and then all Cameron wanted to do the entire weekend was... just... you know, stay in there and fuck."

"I'm familiar with that concept," he nodded. "I find that it's what I want to do when I finally see you on the weekend."

"Yeah, ok," Alli patted his chest, "but you know, we still do other things. We'll watch a movie or go out to dinner, or even hang out with your friends. We might get in what? Three or four rounds, but we do other things too. Anyway, that's not even really the point," she sounded a bit exasperated. "It wasn't just the amount of sex that he wanted to have, it was that..." she paused, thinking for a moment. "Well, with you, if I had told you 'You know what Pete, I'm tired right now, I can't go again,' you'd just back off and it would be fine, right?"

"Right," Pete wasn't sure where she was going with this.

"But it wasn't fine with Cameron. I would tell him that I didn't want to go again or I wasn't ready for it, or I was just not feeling it, you know, and he wouldn't take no for an answer. He'd say something like 'I didn't drive down 250 miles just to sit around and watch TV with you.'" Pete had anger rising up inside him that he needed to work on tamping down. "He'd try to persuade me and say all kinds of things like 'you don't even have to do anything, just lay there, I'll do all the work' and eventually it just happened anyway," she sighed. "He got his way whether I agreed to it or not."

"Alli, that's..." he started to say, but she interrupted him.

"Anyway, after a couple of visits like that, he got it into his head that I must not want as much sex as he does because I'm getting it from someone else. That I must be cheating on him and that's why I'm not as excited to see him anymore or that I tell him I am not in the mood right now. He became convinced that it was because of the other guy I'm supposedly screwing." There were so many things that he wanted to say to her right then.

"So when he saw us together tonight, he assumed that it had been me because we were friends back then too." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Right," she breathed out.

"Alli," he didn't know how to say this in a way that wouldn't hurt her, but his brain was screaming and he couldn't make the words stay in, inside his mouth. "He raped you."

"No," he felt her shake her head against his chest. "It was just... you know, we were together, it wasn't violent or anything, he wasn't actually hurting me."

"You didn't want to have sex with him, he did it anyway, despite you telling him no. It's called date rape. Whether it was violent or not is irrelevant." Pete wanted to scream, the anger boiling inside him, both at Cameron and the fact that Alli was defending him. He really wished now that he had punched the guy back at the bar. If he knew this ahead of time, he probably would have. "I can't believe..." he stopped. This was the wrong time to say anything that would make Alli feel at fault - for not reporting it, for not telling anyone, for staying with that bastard while he continued to treat her that way. No, he couldn't say anything like that to her. "I can't believe you had to go through that."

"Pete, I'm fine. I'm just telling you about this in respect to why he thought I was cheating on him," she explained in a calm and collected voice.

"Right," he tried to calm himself too. "That was a stupid fucking reason for him to suspect anything." It hurt to imagine what it must have been like for Alli. And how did none of them notice this? How did they, her friends, miss the fact that she was going through all this shit? He felt guilt for having been so oblivious to it back then. "I'm so sorry that happened to you."

"It's ok, I'm fine," she patted his chest, reassuring him.

"I feel like a dick just for having missed it. For being so completely unaware that this was happening," he admitted.

"You guys already disliked him and I didn't want to give anyone more ammunition to hate him back then," Alli's voice was soft. There was another stretch of silence.

"Don't hold back, please, I want to know anytime you're not into it or you're tired or whatever else might be happening. I never want to put you in a situation where it feels forced," he hoped that he hadn't already done that.

"I know. You'd never do that," her voice sounded as if she were smiling.

"Alli, I love you," he said the words that haven't made their way out of his head before, even though he'd thought them and felt them for some time now.

"I love you too," there was still that smile, he could hear it.