Summer Rain

[19] Sweet Nothing

Dedicated to theb4ndit for letting me use her character. Thank you!<3 :)

Picutre of Freya on the side --->

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(Unedited)

You took my heart,

And you held it in your mouth,

And with a word,

All my love came rushing out.

And every whisper, it's the worst,

Emptied out by a single word.

~Sweet Nothing- Calvin Harris ft. Florence Welsh

I sincerely hope Xavier and his girlfriend aren't the kind of people to get mad at people if they're late.

'Cause I was late.

Like, seriously late.

By at least fifteen minutes.

Okay, so maybe I wasn't seriously late.

I had been ready on time, really, but as I was leaving, two guys came with a huge package that took up half the hallway. Just my luck, I know.

Or maybe it hadn't really been a coincidence, since it had been for Bells.

We had agreed to meet at a coffee shop. It was small enough that we probably wouldn't be recognized, or at least, that's what Xavier had said. The drive hadn't exactly been fun, though. The coffee shop was on the edge of downtown, but the opposite edge. Downtown was sort of like a long street, I lived on one end, and the coffee shop was on the other end. And since it was three in the afternoon, and summer, there had been people everywhere.

Driving with sunglasses isn't really fun for me.

Luckily, I made it in once piece, though. As soon as I walked into the shop, I spotted them. It was small, like Xavier had said, so even though they were sitting at the window booth farthest from the door, I found them.

"Did you see any paparazzi?" Xavier asked as soon as I sat down.

I glanced out the window, searching for the dark clothed figures. I hadn't seen any on the way here, but I hadn't really been paying attention. "No, are they here?"

"A couple found us," he replied with a shrug. "Raine, this is Freya, my girlfriend." He gestured to a girl sitting beside him with long, strawberry blonde hair and wide, light brown eyes.

"Hi, nice to meet you," I said, sticking out a hand. As she shook it, I got the chance to examine her closely. There was something about her that was familiar. I felt like I had seen her somewhere else. Especially her eyes, they were bothering me slightly because I felt like I had seen eyes like that recently, as creepy as that may sound.

For a bit we just talked about random stuff. I wasn't really listening, but I did learn that she was majoring in Art and that she and Xavier had been together for almost five years, since she was fifteen. How familiar she looked kept distracting me throughout the conversation, though. Where had I seen her before? And those eyes? Then, I caught a slight glimpse of my reflection on the napkin holder and it hit me.

Her eyes were the exact same colour as mine.

Whoa, I don't think I've ever met anyone- aside from my relatives- who has the same colour eyes as me. Which is kind of weird since brown was supposed to be the most common eye colour in the world.  It made sense, though, I guess. Almost a month ago, when I had first met Xavier, he had said 'you have pretty eyes'. It had been because they reminded him of Freya.

"Uh, Raine?" Xavier asked, looking amused. "You okay? You suddenly look kind of hyper."

I blinked. "What? It's nothing, I'm fine."

They stared at me.

"It's just- I noticed- This is going to sound really weird, but you have the same colour eyes as me."

Freya laughed. "Oh, well, at least I know I'm not weird for being the only one to notice that."

There was something else, though, something about her that was eerily familiar.

Then it hit me.

Oh my god.

She was the girl from the photo, Jared's photo. The one that showed the mother of his daughter.

I blinked.

I'm hallucinating. Please say I'm hallucinating.

I blinked again.

Nope, it's still her. Why? How? How was the world so small? There was, what? Seven billion people in the world?

Why did, of all people, Xavier's girlfriend, have to be the mom of Jared's kid?

"What?" Xavier asked, pulling me from my thoughts. Then I realized I had said the last bit out loud. Oh no. Xavier looked completely and utterly lost. Freya looked shocked, and a little sad, but surprisingly, she didn't look angry at what I had just blurted out. She didn't look confused, either, not like 'this-girl-is-insane-what-is-she-talking-about'. Which meant she knew what I was talking about. And judging by his look of immense confusion, Xavier hadn't known about Melissa. Lie, Raine, lie, you can't just go around destroying relationships. My mind screamed at me.

It took a couple seconds for my mouth to catch up. "Never mind. I thought she was someone el-" I cut myself off when Freya shook her head.

The next thing she did surprised me. She took a deep breath, then said, "No, don't. He needs the truth." She turned to Xavier, who still looked lost. "Xav. Four- Four years ago I ch- I cheated on you. And I got pr- pregnant," she told him, her voice catching several times as she forced the words out. Oh my god. A part of my admired her for straight out telling him the truth. Another part of me, the bigger part, was dumbfounded, still processing what she had said.

Xavier blinked several times and for a moment, it looked like he was about to faint. But he didn't. "What?" he demanded.

"Xav," Freya started reaching towards him.

He yanked his hand away. "Don't. How? Why? Why didn't you tell me earlier?" I picked at the edge of my napkin, feeling both awkward and guilty. I felt like an intruder. I shouldn't be here, this should've been a private part of their relationship. Plus, they wouldn't be talking about it had I not brought it up. I had just met Freya, so I wasn't sure if she had planned to hide that all her life, I didn't know if she was the type to do that. Still, it probably would've been better if Xavier had found out from her, when they were along.

"Xavier, please just-" Freya said, her tone a mix of wariness and desperation. I looked up to see Xavier standing at the end of the table, about to leave.

He shook his head. "I can't. I need to think." He didn't give either of us a chance to respond before he quickly walked away and exited the coffee shop.

"You're not going to go after him?" I asked Freya, watching her watch Xavier leave. She shook her head. Before she could explain, there was a loud yelling from outside that caused us, and most of the people in the shop to look out the window.

Xavier shoved aside a man dressed in dark clothes- a paparazzo, probably- then get in his Volvo and drive away. Second later, the door banged open and the man stepped in, taking pictures like his life depended on it. The baristas descended on him immediately, trying to stop him, but not before he got a couple shots of me and Freya.

"Well," she said with a somewhat bitter smile. "There's probably going to be some story about you cheating on Kaden with Xavier, then on Xavier with me."

I snorted and rolled my eyes. "Sounds like something they would spin." I glanced out the window to where the paparazzo was still lingering. "Did you come here with Xavier?" When she nodded, I pulled out the keys to Bells' car. "Come on, I can drive you back."

"You don't have to," Freya said, shaking her head.

"I should. Besides, I want to know your reasons," I told her honestly. She raised an eyebrow, but stood up when I did and followed me out of the coffee shop. We moved quickly, trying to avoid the paparazzo and didn't speak until we were out of the parking lot.

"So why didn't you go after Xavier?" I asked on e Freya has entered her hotel address into the GPS.

"It would've made things worse. I know from our fights that he usually needs time to think," she explained with a slight shrug.

"Oh," was all I could manage in return. We didn't speak again until we got to the hotel.

"You should probably come up," Freya said. "I don't know if it would be best to talk in the open." Whoa, how bad could everything be? She hadn't been threatened by Jared, right? Or some kind of person who was... Sold to do it? I had assumed that it has just been a simple moment of weakness thing, but by her tone of voice, it sounded like much more.

"Yeah, okay," I heard myself saying as I numbly followed her across the lobby, to a long hallway. She swiped a hotel card down the slot of the third door and the light clicked green. She pushed it open to reveal a room, not unlike the one I had seen Jared in. Then again, most hotel rooms resembled each other. "Did he... Force you?" I asked hesitantly

Freya shook her head. "No. I was willing, I guess. I mean, I hadn't wanted a kid, but he hadn't... Raped me."

"So what happened then?" I asked, letting out the slight breath of relief that I hadn't realized I had been holding. Okay, so after what had happened, he hadn't done it again. I think. Hopefully.

"Xavier and I started dating before he was discovered. The first couple of weeks were fine. And then, then everything kind of fell apart. Xavier's agent told him to start fake dating someone." That made sense, I remember Xavier saying a week or two ago that fake dating had almost ruined his relationship.

"And I knew it was fake, but it still hurt. Then my best friend at the time, Alicia... She changed. We had gotten a little attention since Xavier has been my boyfriend before he needed to started fake dating, and I guess she liked it or something, because next thing I knew, Alicia had ditched me and became a total bitch, trying to get popular." Oh my god. Dang, that must suck. I mean, your best friend ditching you for popularity? It had never really happened to me, the school I has gone to hadn't really had a popular group. I mean, I guess there were the jocks and the cheerleaders, but it hasn't been extreme. Our school had been small enough that everyone knew each other and just hung out in their own group of friends without trying to be cool. "Then Jared came, and I was assigned to show him around, and we came friends."

She drew in a shaky breath. "It got worse. Xavier's agent started screening his calls. She told me he would call me back, but he never did, and it felt like another part of my life was slipping away from me, and Jared was there, so I turned to him." Did Jared know any of this? What Freya had gone through? I know he didn't think much of her, which made me feel kind of sorry for her. But then again, I wasn't really sure if Jared meant a lot to her. I mean, he had been there for her, but it might've just been that.

"I found out a month and a half later that the reason Xavier hasn't returned my calls had been because his agent told him I wanted to end it. I don't know why she had said that, maybe to try and get Xavier to fall for the girl he was fake dating." Wow, it's like the universe was against them. And what Xavier's agent did, that's just mean. I hope he's with someone else now. He must be, right? He had referred to his agent as a guy when he had told me his agent specialized in 'no-fake-dating' contracts. "But by the time I found out, it was too late. I was already..." She didn't finish, but she didn't need to.

"We didn't get a lot of time to talk during the whole thing, I had skipped from freshman to junior, so I was a little behind and he had been busy with the movie and fake dating and everything. It has just mostly been texting, and I didn't want to tell him over text." Okay, that was understandable. I mean, telling your boyfriend you cheated on him and had a kid wasn't exactly the best thing to say over text. "The longer I kept it from him, the harder it got to say something. I just kept thinking, we're so happy now, I don't want to ruin it, I can just tell him later," she said.

"We'll, it isn't exactly something you can just bring up," I told her, speaking for the first time since she had started her story. She didn't seem to hear me, though.

"I never did until today," she finished, a tear sliding down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away and blew out a breath, trying to compose herself.

"Why did you leave Melissa with Jared, though?" I asked softly. I didn't want to upset her even more, but the question bothered me, because Freya didn't seem like the type to abandon her child.

She sighed. "My mother was threatening to throw me and her out. I didn't know what to do. I was barely eighteen and everything I had came from her. I didn't have a job, you could say I was pretty spoiled. If my mom did throw me out, I wouldn't have been able to survive and raise her, so when Jared came back... I just left her with him."

And cue silence since I'm that stunned.

What mother would do that to her daughter and granddaughter? I mean, my parents had been a bit unsteady, but I knew if I were to approach with something like this, they wouldn't have done what Freya's mom did. Talk about bad luck. I mean, losing your best friend, believing you lost your boyfriend, and losing your daughter. I wasn't sure exactly what to think of Freya, but she definitely wasn't a bad person. Maybe she had made a couple had choices based on misunderstandings, but she wasn't the witch I had expected the mom of Jared's daughter to be.

"So how did you know Jared?" Freya asked, changing the subject and pulling me out of my thoughts.

I shrugged. "Ex-boyfriend," I replied simply. I had a feeling telling her about what had happened wouldn't help. Besides, he was better now. "You could find him, you know, visit your daughter." Jared would tell Melissa eventually that Hayley wasn't her real mother. Freya could be there for it.

She shook her head. "I can't. This may sound creepy, but I had a private detective check on them every now and then. I know he and Melissa are both happy. I can't ruin that."

"I'm sure it wouldn't be like that."

She shook her head again and was silent for a moment, seeming to think something over. "Thanks, though, for the suggestion. And for listening. You're a nice person, Raine, I see why Xavier talks about you so much." She paused again and looked at me. I squirmed slightly under her eyes. Where was she going with this? Nothing was going on with me and Xavier. I had only met him a little over a month ago. But that wasn't where she was going. "And if things don't work out... I hope he ends up with someone like you."

I blinked once.

Twice.

Three times.

Holy- Did she just give me permission to go after her boyfriend or something?

"Why?" was all I managed to choke out. Luckily, she understood what I meant, instead of assuming I was asking something like why she wanted Xavier to end up with someone 'nice' like 'me'.

A small, sad smile crept onto her face. "Because, sometimes," she said. "You have to do what's best for everyone else and hope that in the end, it'll be what's best for you, too."