If You Knew What I Knew by Claudia ([email protected]) Chapter 20 - Reclaim My Place Karen still had no idea this was going on... I felt so bad... I felt like the bastard Claudia had said I was and the sweet smile on Karen's face when she saw me walking into the room cut right through my, already severely bleeding, soul. "Kar' we need to talk..." I sat down beside her and she said that she had to talk to me first... I was roaming the streets of Arnhem, crying my eyes out not knowing where to go. I wished I had never met him again, missing him had hurt me a lot but this hurt me even more... How could he do this to me?! My friend Vivian who I had told about him always said that she thought he was an ugly self-centered freak of nature and I had always stood up for him, but now I knew she had been right... I looked at her and the expression on her face was best described as blank... I didn't say anything, I just nodded and told her that she was right to accuse me of not being the 'old' A.J. she had fallen in love with. I told her about the time I had been trapped in the debris, thinking I was alone and that no one was ever going to find me... that I was going to die alone. I told her about the voice that wasn't too far away that had been my savior, I was sure that I would've snapped if she hadn't been there. I told her everything and all she did was listen, she never interrupted me and when I finally had told her everything she got up and walked towards the window that was facing the garden. "Kar'? Talk to me please..." I couldn't take the silence anymore, she had been quiet for over 15 minutes now and was still staring at the garden. "I can't force you into loving me again... I'm just thinking about how gullible I am... I should've seen it... I should've noticed there was something going on... But I believed you when you said that when you were on the phone so much that it was strictly business... but it wasn't... was it?" She turned around and I saw the sadness in her eyes. I got up and held her in my arms softly stroking her long soft hair. "I'm sorry Kar'... I'm so sorry... I wish I had been honest with you from the start... but I just couldn't hurt you..." We both were crying now... Vivian sat on the floor in her room and watched me cry through a whole packet of Kleenex. She told me that he didn't deserve me anyway and that I had said and done the right things to him. She had just kicked her boyfriend James out of the house so we could have a 'men are pigs' discussion over a nice big scoop of "Ben & Jerry's: Chunky Monkey" She told me that James and her had broken up a couple of times over several stupid things and they had gotten back together because they never had given up on eachother. She hoped that I was still going to talk to A.J. after the hurt was gone. I never expected to hear these words from her, she always told me that she hated his guts! She smiled when I expressed how surprised I was by her words and said that she didn't love him but that I clearly did and that she was sure his feelings for me were the real thing as well... On the bus home the words from our conversation still kept on playing through my mind and I decided to let it rest for a while... Karen was packing her stuff now, I told her that she was still welcome to stay but she told me it hurt too much to see me like this, she couldn't help me now and she couldn't hold me to ease my pain anymore without feeling hurt herself. She needed some time alone, and soon she was gone... out of my house and out of my life... Before she went she wished me luck with getting Claudia back... Ellen called me that night. A.J. had told Bri' and Brian had of course told her the news... And she can be very persuasive... Next: Chapter 21 -FanFics -Home