Falling for the Bully's Brother ✔

Chapter Six: A Misunderstanding

Sam had tried to shake off the blanket of guilt that clouded him but to no avail. He was in the middle of striking down a mutant with a high kick on the Xbox when his father came bounding into the room with a tray of food balanced on his arm. Getting ditracted and looking away from the screen, he saw that his Dad had brought up his dinner. "Aw, Dad... You don't have to be my waiter." Sam's avatar was punched down onto the ground where he couldn't recover and the screen exploded with 'boo's.

"Oh yes I do. I know the pain of being forced to pause live games, if being with your mother taught me one thing, it was that women have no mercy when it comes to pausing video games. You can't pause live games! Oh. And also that women are vicious."

Sam chuckled, his dad always knew how to cheer him up, "It wasn't actually a live game but thanks."

"Not a live game? Forget it. You can just come to the sofa and eat your dinner with your sad excuse of a father then." He sarcastically made for the door, taking Sam's food with him.

Jumping up, Sam grabbed his arm and he convinced his dad to stay so that they could eat dinner together in his room.

"How's Tori coping with hearing about her move?" His dad was talking about the decision to send her to boarding school.

Sam was sent back to that moment behind the bike shed and he remembered Ally's face streaked with tears. A wave of panic spread through him but he forced himself to think about Tori. "She hasn't told any of her friends about it yet, I think she is actually ashamed, for the first time in her life!"

Sam's dad rarely got to see Tori as he had earned Sam's custody only, after the divorce. His mum, as a woman, had automatically been placed with the responsibility for her daughter. Now that their mother was getting more and more occupied with her job and Tori had crossed too many lines, both parents agreed - the first agreement rather than compromise they had both had since deciding to get married - that it would be best if they sent her to boarding school.

**

After dinner, they stopped chatting and sat down to play Halo capture the flag. Sam and his dad kept winning alternately. They played into the early hours of the morning just to get an advantage so that they could decide who had truly won. In the end, Sam won two games in a row, marking himself out as the true winner of the series of rounds. But Sam's dad was just pleased to see his son so happy, he'd seemed a bit downcast lately.

Once Sam's dad had convinced him not to pull an all-nighter, he left the room and Sam dosed off after plunking himself down on his bed without changing his clothes.

**　　

Later that morning, Sam woke on the floor. Blinking the crust out of his dry and sealed shut eyes, he looked around, flashes of his dream coming back to him in pictures.

Someone running away from his base and carrying his flag.

Someone turning and falling as he had just shot them.

　　Finding out that the girl was Ally. Is Ally.

　　Sprinting towards her.

　　Holding her lifeless body in his arms as he cried out for forgiveness.

　　Sam shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the awful thoughts that dwelled inside. His back ached and he could feel a bruise forming on his side, clearly as a consequence of the fall that had landed him on the hard ground. His sub-concious screamed out for Ally and he could still feel the dry and crusted tears on his cheeks. He reached for his phone without thinking, but then dropped it immediately as he remembered what Ally had done and what it signified.