Beneath The Mask

105. You're A Bad Betty!

I would like to dedicate this week's chapter toNattie_28 HonoriaMacCarthy user29408369
elissse22

Enjoy the chapter!
                         **************

Daniel's POV:

"What are you thinking about?" Sam took a sip from the steaming hot yellow mug on her hand. I shook my head, and looked into my own mug. Somehow, sitting in Blake's kitchen, and drinking a cup of coffee didn't feel okay; pretending to be normal didn't feel okay.

"Nothing and everything."

"I didn't major in philosophy." She raised her eyebrows. Of course she wouldn't understand.

"It's just.." I sighed, and ran a hand through my hair. "...about Cath. She is acting all distant, and weird. I don't know what to do to make her feel comfortable enough to rely on me again. To show her that I would be there for her, but she is not ready to accept that."

"It's okay." She smiled, and placed her hand over mine. "You'll get there. She just has to realise that she could trust you."

"After all that we've been through?" I leant back on the chair. "That's ridiculous."

"Nathan did some things to her that are not easy to forget. It's just she thought of him in ways that he didn't." Her lips pressed into a thin line.

"Who's Nathan?" I frowned, and took a sip of my drink.

"The bastard who she misplaced her trust on." I was glad that I wasn't him right now. I could vividly imagine Sam spitting the coffee on my face with the fierce force of a dragon spitting fire.

I literally shuddered before her words clicked in. It reminded me of the exact same words that Harry said. Maybe Cath wasn't lying after all? "What exactly happened? I mean before it all went wrong."

"You know that we were all friends back then." A faint smile made way to her face. "Me, James, Cath, Brian. We lived in the same neighbourhood. Then came Nathan one year. He studied college with Brian. That's how we knew him."

She looked away like people in movies do, like they could actually envision the very moment they were describing. "But they were not really friends, acquaintances maybe. But we hit it off really great. Me, Nathan and Cath. We were the three musketeers." She smiled at that.

"But things were not really great between Brian and Nathan. With James too sometimes. We didn't really know why. Nathan wouldn't tell us. It's like they had some secret feud between them that we weren't supposed to know of. But he was nice to us. More than nice sometimes. He protected us and took care of us when Brian went abroad for work."

"It just made things worse between James and Nathan. I thought it was cause James was jealous of Nathan being close to Cath. Then the wedding was arranged. Brian came back and.. I don't know. It was all bizarre. Nathan wanted Cath to call off the wedding. She said no, and he began keeping his distance from us. He wouldn't tell why."

"Then he... you know what happened with Cath." She pushed away the cup away from her. "He used to be really good with her, with both of us. He took care of her like you do sometimes and it's..."

"It's?"

"Just unbelievable that he would do something like that to her."

I nodded, but there were still some doubts within me that I couldn't clear myself of. "You sure it was him?"