& 18

Chapter 17 (TW)

Sam watched as Anna sang and danced from the shower to her room, putting a finger in the book she was reading so she could appreciate the view without losing her place.

She still couldn't quite believe the voice on the brunette, yet she was hitting every note perfectly, and it made the punk smile wide, seeing her girlfriend so comfortable and happy with herself after the devastation of Saturday. Looking over her shoulder with a devilish smile, the green eyed siren flipped up the back of her towel as she wiggled her ass, giving Sam a full moon to appreciate, then laughed and bopped into her room while resuming her song.

"You, ma'am, are definitely in love," she said quietly to herself. "Especially with that ass... yum."

She was about to return to reading her book when her phone buzzed. Then buzzed again, and again a few seconds later. Picking it up off the coffee table, she frowned as she saw that there were messages from Maggie's number.

"Thought I had deleted that," she muttered to herself, but, curiosity tickling at her mind, she instead opened the messages, bracing for an assault of insults.

Hey, Sam. :(

I'm sorry I snapped at you last week. You were right, you

did

call me and told me about what had happened as soon as you could, and I appreciate that.

I am hoping that we could talk. I have more than a few issues going on in my life, and they snowballed when we last talked, and I don't want any potential last conversations being me calling you a cunt. That was wrong of me, and all I would like is to talk and explain everything so you can hopefully see that I am truly sorry I insulted and attacked you.

Please let me know if that is something we can do?

Anna walked out of her room in a harness bra and her PJ bottoms, absentmindedly brushing her still somewhat wet hair with her wire-pronged radial brush she kept on her nightstand. She was heading for the kitchen when she noticed Sam's furrowed brow, turning and padding over to the couch instead.

"What's wrong, love?" she asked as she sat on the edge of the couch by Sam's shoulders, still brushing and tugging a small knot out of her decently long hair.

"Maggie is back," Sam said, then held up her phone. "What do you make of this?"

Anna quickly read the message, then scrolled up and read it again.

"My gut says she's actually sad she snapped at you," the brunette said after a moment of thought. "I think that you should accept, b-but that's your ch-choice."

"You think she deserves a second chance? You didn't hear the tone of her voice on that call," Sam said quietly. She let Anna's hand turn her head so the woman could lean down and kiss her.

"I b-believe everyone is allowed one colossal, g-grade A fuck up in their life, and th-that everyone deserves a second chance."

Sam reached up and stroked Anna's cheek, the woman letting some of her weight rest in the palm of the punk's hand. She felt how ungodly smooth her skin was, stroking her thumb up and down her cheek just to feel it and the heat of her girl's body behind it.

"You are ever the optimist, and you are also so goddamned beautiful," she said, sighing, "but okay. You think she deserves another chance, let's go with your gut, since it's been right more times than wrong."

She focused on tapping in her response as Anna leaned down and kissed her forehead, then stood and continued to the kitchen. She filled up the kettle, flicking it on, then looked over her shoulder.

"You want any t-tea, hon?"

Sam smiled at the term of endearment, something she felt she was going to get used to quite quickly, then glanced up and over.

"Sure, why not. Let's see why you love that stuff so much," she winked.

"Be-because it tastes great, s-silly!" Anna retorted, but smiled and pulled down Sam's mug from its peg above the sink, alongside her smiley face one. She pulled out her box of teabags, dropping one into each mug as Sam turned back to her phone to read through her reply. It was succinct, direct, and very much had been influenced by her Domina side.

She pursed her lips, then sent it.

You sound like you're actually properly sorry for what you did and said, but I'm not entirely sure. I also don't want to have this "talk" over the phone or through text. I will give you the chance to explain yourself, but it has to be done face to face. You can at least have the decency to look me in the eye as you explain. Give me that level of respect, and I will listen and make my judgment about you then.

I would like to meet up here, on the campus, but not in the dorm and not at your diner. Neutral ground, so the small pond by the West entrance to the campus, the closest one to the diner. That work?

"Well," Sam said, glancing upwards again, "I invited her to the little pond with the fountain by the West entrance. Neutral ground. Face to face as well, so she can look me in the eye and I can see if she's being honest."

Anna walked back over, tugging the comb through the last bits of her hair, reading the message as Sam held her phone up.

"S-sounds fair to me," she said with a smile. "'R-respect shown gets respect in return' or something like that?"

Sam nodded, then jumped slightly as her phone buzzed.

"That was fast," she muttered, bringing it down in front of her face again.

I won't have time to meet before my shift, I'm on the afternoon today and it's my Friday, so I can meet up after. Could we meet there around 8:15 tonight? I truly am sorry T_T I have a reason for being nasty, but if you don't accept it, I at least appreciate that you're willing to meet and talk. I have to go now if I hope to catch the bus to get to work on time. I look forward to tonight.

Sam looked up at Anna, who had been reading it with her. She nodded.

"Guess that m-means our date is p-postponed, if you need to be ready by a bit after 8 to meet her," she said after a moment. "Ah well, I don't mind, we can go Thursday... unless y-you're busy then?"

"Thursday works," Sam reached up and pulled Anna down into an upside down kiss. "So... want to embarrass me in Mortal Kombat again while we wait?"

She tapped in her reply as the geeky girl grinned almost sadistically, picking up a controller as Sam sat upright. She sent the message, then picked up the other controller, leaning over to sneak a kiss in on Anna's cheek.

"Just... no fatalities this time?"

"No promises," Anna growled playfully.

-----------------

Watching the smoke dissolve away into the air, Sam sat on one of the benches that limned the West campus gate pond, a little oasis of calm for students coming and going. There was a small fountain, only about 6 or 8 feet worth of water shooting up into the air, but it did add just enough white noise that, along with the cigarette in her fingers, helped calm her mind.

It was just after 8 at night, and as she took another lungful of smoke, she turned and looked at the setting sun.

More correctly, the sun had already set, but the sky was still lit with oranges, reds, and yellows as it cast its last rays on the clouds above. It created a intricate tapestry of chaotic color that was both beautiful and fleeting. The moon was already rising, just having crept over the horizon, and it was a half moon, so there would still be plenty of light.

As she thought that, the lamps that lined the pathways nearby, as well as the few ground spotlights that lit the pond, all switched on in a rapid sequence. She had seen that they used light sensors that first night when walking out of the gate to find the diner, much like the sensors for automatic headlights in cars, to determine when it was dark enough. Taking one last drag on the smoke, exhaling it slowly, Sam was about to flick it down to crush before she remembered that she wasn't at the smoke pit, and instead stood.

Walking over to the little butt-bin, she crushed it against the front and then slid it into the little hole, where it tumbled down a narrow neck to the big bin at the bottom.

They really need to put these at the smoke pit, if they are

that

serious about keeping the campus clean

, she thought, then shrugged.

The moment she turned around to go back to the bench, she looked towards the gate and saw red hair in a mid-century ribbon-tied bun, a red polka dot dress from the 1950s, a light fall jacket and a backpack... and the freckled face of Maggie.

A moment later, the redhead caught sight of Sam as she headed for the pond, and even from this distance, the punk could tell that something was

definitely

off about her. Instead of the happy, bouncy server she had met a week ago, Maggie's head was down, eyes cast to the ground in front of her, and her face looked... not crestfallen, but just weary and sad. Despite the anger that still boiled in the base of her feelings, she pushed it down so she could give the woman a fair chance.

"Hey," Sam called out once Maggie was within about 20 feet, causing her to glance up.

"Hi," Maggie replied, quietly, coming over.

She sat down on the bench, although with a respectful space between the two of them, sitting at either end of the about 8 foot long slats of treated wood on two cement pedestals. She slid the backpack off slowly and placed it between her sneaker-shod feet.

Giving her the time she needed to gather her thoughts, Sam kept her mouth shut, despite wanting to ask a million and two questions about just what the fuck was going on. Instead, she waited, and about 20 seconds later, Maggie looked up and over at her, eyes brimming with emotion and welling up.

"I... am so sorry I treated you the way I did," she started, sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with her jacket sleeve. "It was wrong of me to blow up at you. You did do the best you could to let me know what was going on, and in a moment of fragility, I just... snapped..."

"Believe it or not," Sam said, "there's been a bit of that going around."

Granted

, Sam thought to herself,

at least she was over the phone and not withing slapping distance!

"Um... I really should have had better control," Maggie said quietly, starting to wring her hands in her lap. "I really shouldn't have snapped..."

Sam waited, then gently prompted,

"What's going on? Are you okay?"

The redhead heaved a heavy sigh at that, looking squarely at her feet, hands now gripping each other with almost white knuckle force. The anger in Sam's emotions, already suppressed, started to fizzle out as she saw tears start streaming down Maggie's face. Despite the distance the woman had given her, she shuffled over just enough to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Do you need tim-"

"No," Maggie interjected gently. "It's just... I need to give you a bit of history to explain why I was a total bitch. If that's okay and you have the time?"

Sam nodded.

"I was in a pretty serious relationship up until about six months ago, with my boyfriend that I had been dating for nearly 3 years by then. You know the story, meet in high school, start dating, fall in love, imagine that it's the classic high school sweetheart story. Then, when you both graduate, move into a small apartment together, all that..."

The redhead took a stabilizing breath, then looked up at Sam, her greenish-brown eyes full of sorrow.

"Things were great for a while. I got my diner job so I could save up to pay for college, he started applying to universities and colleges and looking for scholarships. We were also... quite intimate with each other, quite a lot of the time. Being home started to mean that it was sex, sex, sex, all the time, and if not, then talking about it, making jokes about it... it started to get really tiring, really fast, a few months into living together."

Taking a much less stable breath, Maggie sighed heavily, closing her eyes as a few more tears fell.

"I started to... say no. I told him I can't keep up with just fucking all the time. I wanted an actual home life and a relationship, not just being his personal whore. After the fourth day in a row of telling him no, he... he..."

The way that her face scrunched up, the pain in her voice, gave Sam all the information she needed to complete the sentence.

"He lay hands on you?"

Maggie nodded.

Sam's heart took an express elevator directly to her feet, feeling slightly sick to her stomach at the bombshell the redhead had just dropped square in her lap.

"He... apologized after, saying he didn't know what came over him," Maggie continued, "so like a ditzy little dumb bitch I stayed. I thought it might be that he was frustrated by all the rejection letters that had been arriving all week from all the places he had applied to. Including here."

She gently slid off her jacket, then turned slightly away from Sam, sliding up the right short sleeve of the dress. Even in the dim light, the punk saw an angry looking scar near the top of her arm that continued on behind the shoulder under the dress.

"The next time he got... physical with me, he wrenched my arm behind my back, and pushed it up so hard, that it ripped my coraco-something ligament clean off the bone, and he tore three other ligaments. He didn't even know he'd done it, but... he had... other motives that night, and despite my screaming at him to stop and that I was hurt...he didn't care, he just wanted to... be... oh God, I don't know if I can talk about...he wanted to-"

Sam raised her hand gently to stop Maggie, feeling her shivering under her hand.

"You don't have to continue if you don't want to," Sam said softly. "I believe you, and after last week, I can tell it took a ton of courage to tell me. It's not at all your fault, this shouldn't have happened to someone like you. Believe it or not, I am here to listen and help in any way I can."

Maggie looked at her with eyes filled with tears, but a tiny smile flickered across her lips. She cleared her throat and then continued.

"I had to have shoulder surgery to reattach the ligament, and they also did some repairs to the torn ones," she said. Sam could feel her brace under her hand. "After he had... had his fill of me, he went to bed as if it was a normal day. I grabbed a few things as quietly as I could, then snuck out once he was asleep, went to the next apartment down, and banged until someone answered. The police came, he was arrested..."

She took a shuddering breath.

"... and the trial for assault, battery, and... and..."

Sam squeezed Maggie's shoulder, letting her know she didn't have to say the word.

"... it started the week before you came into the diner."

"

Fuck,

" Sam cursed under her breath.

"I was looking for anything to escape having to go through those memories again, they are still so deep and raw," the redhead wiped at her tears with her arm, then a smile flickered on her lips and stayed as she looked at Sam. "I'm solidly bisexual, so when you, this hot purple haired girl, walked in an hour before closing, staring at my ass with a sexy but not violent look, I actually felt... wanted, and after... everything... I wanted to get with a girl, even if it was going to be a one night fling. I'm... I think I'm done with guys... for a while, at least..."

"So," Sam said, her voice quiet but tinged with realization, "when I called you to break the date... I shattered that expected night of fun for you..."

Maggie nodded, then heaved a heavy breath, sniffling once more before rubbing at her eyes.

"And that," she said, smiling sadly, "is why I called you a cunt."

The redhead wiped her cheeks again with her sleeve, as her makeup was now running down her cheeks. She looked at the slightly smeared arm of her coat, frowning, then sighed and hung her head. She looked back up a moment later.

"I don't actually think you are, you're about the farthest person from a cunt I've ever met, but I... had given my testimony on Tuesday, and I was... reliving everything in my head all night. I barely slept and I just had a moment of fragilit-"

She stopped as Sam closed the distance and drew her into a tight, reassuring hug.

"For the second time in nearly as many days," Sam said, a tiny smile on her lips, "I am forgiving someone for something they didn't intend to do, Maggie. No hard feelings, no hatred, no anger. I'm here for you, whenever you need a friend and a shoulder to lean on."

She felt the redhead slowly return the hug, then bury her face against her shoulder, and hold on tight. She was shivering, but it wasn't from being cold as the night was still young and very warm.

"Listen," Sam said quietly, "did you want to come up to the dorm? Get some coffee or tea, have a safe place to wind down, and we can run your jacket down to the laundry so it doesn't stain?"

After a few moments, she felt the woman nod gently against her.

"Okay," she said, gently pulling back so Maggie could unravel herself from Sam. "Just let me call Anna, make sure she's dressed and ready for a guest, k?"

Maggie, sniffling and wiping at her eyes, nodded.

"You're going to be okay," Sam held her hand out to the redhead as she stood. "I'll... we'll help you through this."

Chapter 18

"... and that's why I was so emotional and out of control last week," Maggie finished explaining to Anna.

They were sat in the dorm's living room, with Sam and the redhead sharing the couch, and Anna in the armchair turned to face the couch. She was nursing a cup of tea, already mostly finished in the twenty-odd minutes they had been talking. She had her legs up and tucked under herself, which made the punk girl smile at how cute her girlfriend looked.

"That's a p-pretty rough deal," Anna said after a moment of thought. "Circumstances and timing w-working together to f-fuck you over."

Nodding, Maggie shrugged her shoulders. Of course, with her jacket off and currently down in the laundromat after Sam had run it there, the redhead's shoulder scar was fully visible. In the indoor light, it looked even angrier and nastier than it had outside. It was still 'new' in the sense that she had the surgery only half a year ago, so it hadn't even started to fade, if it ever would. Anna had skilfully managed to not ask directly about it, and had let the woman explain how she got it.

"I know it m-might seem a little odd," Anna continued after a moment, "but I understand exactly how you f-feel. I... recently went th-through a pretty nasty situation because of circumstances and fate c-combining to fuck me up the ass."

"Hey," Sam grinned, "I thought that was my job!"

Giving her a

Really??

look, Anna rolled her eyes, then smiled and winked.

"You guys always talk to each other like that?" Maggie asked, her lips shaped into an amused grin.

"Most of the time," Sam replied. "Besides, it's just a bit of banter. I mean, we've explored that avenue of pleasure-"

"Sam!" Anna exclaimed, blushing. "Unless you want to fucking invite her to join in! Jeez!"

The purple haired punk grinned, then blew a kiss to her geeky girlfriend, who just shook her head and blushed slightly redder.

"It's okay," Maggie said. "I promise, nothing said here will be shared with anyone. I didn't even expect to get invited up... I just wanted to explain myself, maybe get a hug, and then catch the bus home."

She heaved a sigh, then sat back into the couch a bit deeper.

"Instead, I get to spend time with two kick-ass women, don't have to take the bus looking like an emotional mess, and my jacket isn't going to get stained," the redhead continued, then paused for a moment. "You know, I really hate taking the bus, but with my car currently out of commission, I really don't have that much of a choice!"

"Well, you d-definitely got a couple of hugs already," Anna smiled, as she had given the redhead a massive hug the moment she had entered the door. "I'm surprised you d-didn't go for a kiss, too!"