Instead of giving me all the reasons why we didn't work out if you would've given me at least one reason why it would've worked out we still would have been together

**************

Van had driven her back home in the morning. She had bid Nathan's mom and his goodbye.

They had exchanged numbers and feelings in one night.

She had completely let herself loose and put herself in God's plan and this time there was going to be no meddling from her side.

She was going wherever the journey took her but right now the journey was taking her to Sam's house.

She was waiting inside her car outside his house as they were supposed to go to the interview together.

She saw Sam walking towards her car. She moved her face away from him instantly out of habit but she forced herself to look back. She was going to give him no reaction and that's how she was going to get over the sadness that surrounded her whenever he came near her.

She wasn't going to look away, she was going to be a big girl and face the elephant in the room.

Van's mood was dampened since the morning when he got to know that he had to drive Sam to work.

"Just calm down, Van," she mumbled.

"I just hate that guy. So arrogant," he gritted his teeth as he spoke.

Sam got inside the car and fastened his seat belt.

They drove in silence.

For her, the silence was good but for reasons only known to God, he wanted to talk to her.

"So how's life?" Sam started the conversation.

"Great, you tell," she replied.

"It's going good," he said.

"How's your dad?" She asked after a long pause.

"His treatment is on. Recovery from cancer is a long journey, so we aren't getting our hopes too high. He remains angry most of the time," he said.

"When is he not angry?" Kayden retorted.

Sam laughed at that. Looking over at him, she also started laughing.

"You know my life so well Kayden," Sam spoke honestly.

At that moment Van honked the horn too many times. When she looked at the road in front, it was empty. She got confused and looked at Van in the mirror. He was looking back at her and then she realized he didn't like what Sam said.

She felt a smile tug at her lips. She should be mad at Van for eavesdropping, but this was funny.

She ignored what Sam said. Sam had a habit of saying things like that when he couldn't decide what he wanted.

"How's Alexa?" She asked him.

Sam looked at her as she asked this question. He was shocked that she was even asking this question because he thought she was going to pretend to be oblivious of the fact that he was in a relationship with the girl that calls herself her best friend whenever she wants big roles in her favor or a gym buddy.

"She's great. We recently went on a vacation to the Maldives."

Now, why would he say that?

The Maldives was her favorite destination. She was a Cancerian and water made her calm. She had told him so many times to take time off from work so that they could go there together. But he was always busy and now he was taking her to the places he had promised to take Kayden.

His words had the effect that he wanted to have on Kayden because she became grim after that.

For the whole drive, she leaned her head on the window and looked outside at the busy streets and rainy roads.

It was not raining water, it was raining thoughts.

Inside her head.

It was flooding and the flood contained her emotions.

"We're here," Sam said.

They got out of the car and the paparazzi were already waiting for them. First, he posed for the cameras. Then she went and posed for the cameras. As they were about to walk inside, the paparazzi shouted, " couple photos."

They posed for the camera together. She felt him snake his fingers inside her hand as he walked in front of her. Kayden freed her hand politely not making a huge scene of that. He hugged her waist with one hand and with the other he made a half heart which was completed by Kayden's hand. They posed like that.

After that Kayden separated from him and walked inside the door leaving him alone while he kept on posing.

He joined her inside with a pissed-off look on his face, "You didn't have to be so rude outside."

"What? I was completely normal," she stood up for herself.

"You turned around and left me standing there alone," he said.

"I was done having my photographs clicked, I don't need them to make me a magazine of photographs," she rolled her eyes and she folded her arms and kept a smile on her face because photographers were still clicking their pictures.

"You always did this, that's why we never worked out," he said bitterly.

She turned towards him," Instead of giving me all the reasons why we didn't work out if you would've given me at least one reason why it would've worked out we still would have been together but now you have Alexa for that."

Her back was against the mirror on the wall and he placed his right hand on the wall by the side of her head. She folded her arms at her back and placed them between the mirror wall and her hips.

She looked into his eyes, her face turned upwards. He looked down at her, he got lost in her eyes, "we had a million reasons to be together Kay, but you chose the one which ruined us." He smiled a very nostalgic yet contained smile at her.

Paparazzi clicked their pictures. To everybody, it looked like a perfect moment for the ex-couple. The fans who still wanted them to get together were going to go crazy after this picture surfaced on the web.

She hated that she was so weak when it came to this man. She wished he would just let her be.

What was this toxic trait that this man possessed? Why could he never let her go?

For the whole relationship he kept on telling her something was missing but at the end of the day, he would tell her that he couldn't live without her. So she never left him. A fool who thought that the relationship was about both of them when in reality it was all about him.

"That's the problem, I always thought about your reasons, I never paid attention to my reality and since I started paying attention to my reality, everything became clear. Hard, but clear," she said and removed his arm cautiously from the wall by which he had trapped her and walked out of the limited space. She smiled at the cameras even though she felt in no way indebted to do that but for her fans who were waiting for her to get spotted, she smiled.

How was she going to explain this to Nathan?

If he knew her as well he claimed to, then her job would be easy.

Because she couldn't control Sam's actions but she could control hers.

The interview started with same questions, tell us about your film.

Why it took so long to shoot it?

What can fans expect?

How steamy is the romance?

Is there going to be bone-cracking intimacy that we expect when both of you come together in a film?

The host then started, "ask me anything" round with Sam first.

"I'm sure I can all answer all your questions. Bring it on," he said cockily and all the ladies in the crowded space went wild.

How could these girls like his cockiness? She wondered to herself.

Probably the way you liked it all those eight years when you were dangling with him, the voice at the back of her head replied to her.

She hated that voice. Her shadow self was honest and in a no-nonsense mood all the time.

"What does Sam mean when he says that the one thing that he'll miss after this film is Kayden?" The interviewer asked the first question.

"Whoa, you don't waste time? You straightaway get into it," Sam winked at the crowd.

"That means I mean it. Kayden is the only thing that I'll miss after this film." The crowd cheered and applauded. She smiled, afraid she might show a lot on her face if she did anything else. So she just smiled a tight-lipped smile.

She was aware that all the cameras were on her.

"What does Sam mean when he says that it is very hard to convince Kayden sometimes?"

"Well I said this as a joke the other time but what I mean is that she doesn't put up with shit, but she did put up with me," he said and the audience laughed. He bent his head down and laughed. His self-defeating words made him come across as humble and a funny person but that was far from the truth.

"Well you're a special kinda shit then," the interviewer replied making the audience go crazy.

How does it feel when everybody is laughing at your expense and you can't even feel offended?

Note to self: live your life like a roast.

She didn't want to feel out of place so she clapped and laughed, just trying to get along. She didn't want to bring extra attention to herself by being the odd one. She did everything to fit in, even if it meant laughing at dumb jokes that were mean and not at all funny.

You're a woman in the entertainment industry, sometimes you have to do things that are below your IQ level, that annoying but honest-to-the-core voice spoke up.

"What does Sam mean when he says he loves pulling Kayden's leg?"

"It means that I actually wanna pull her hair but I settle with pulling her leg instead," he replied. The audience aww'd at that.

Where did they select this audience from? Have they paid people to be here?

"What does Sam mean when he says that he is Kayden encyclopedia?"

"It means that I know everything about her. I will never get tricked on any question about her because I know her so well," he said.

"He is an industry encyclopedia. He knows all the facts about everyone in the industry. So it has nothing to do with me," Kayden finally spoke up.

"Oh, cmon! You seriously think that I don't know you well?" He asked her in front of the Livestream.

This was being aired live on youtube.

"No, you don't know everything about me. You know me well but you're not my encyclopedia," she said.

He waved an arm at her and said, " there's a special place in hell reserved for people who lie," he said.

"Imagine who it was made for?" She rolled her eyes at him.

The audience laughed at that.

"Okay, guys enough with the tom and jerry chemistry. They already love you," the interviewer stepped in.

Kayden didn't know how this was looking cute to people. This was passive-aggressive fighting. He was so annoying. No matter how much Kayden wanted to remain civil, he just wouldn't let her get through one interview cordially.

This guy was seriously fucked in the head.

"So, what does Kayden mean when she says Sam is her favorite co-star, " hot asked her.

"First of all I've never actually said it and secondly you'll never really know the truth," she said nonchalantly.

She looked at Sam to see his lips in a flat line. Good.

"What does Kayden mean when she says that Sam doesn't care about a lot of things?"

"What I mean by that is, Sam has very different beliefs when it comes to certain things and it's no use fighting with him over that so whenever he says something, one should just nod their head and say yes. For example, if he says money grows on trees, don't question him, just say yes. If he says ostriches are purple, just say ye..."

"Okay, I think it's enough" Sam interjected in between.

"What?" She asks him.

"It's enough," he said it again and smiled.

She pulled her ears by her hands, " Sam said it's enough, so it's enough."

"Two examples were enough," he joked about it.

This interview was the worst kind of cringy.

"What does Kayden mean when she says that she had cried too many times in front of  Sam on set?"

"Oh yes, we were shooting for the last film that we did together before this one and he almost broke my nose. And in one film, our shoot was going on for sixteen hours and I was looking at him in my shot and I started crying because I was just so tired and he was very supportive. He was really sweet that day. He got me ice cream and steered me over some roller kind of thing until I was smiling," she smiled as she recollected the incident. Sam smiled at her words and looked over at her. It was a perfect moment for TRP's for their show. This was surely gonna get many million views. The interviewer was pleased with her response.

"What does Kayden mean when she says Sam is one of the most important people in her life?"

She thought back to the day when she sat on this same couch with the same man beside her and said these words. That day she had told him she was in love with him and promised him to spend all the days of her life to come with him.

She looked at Sam and his eyes told her that he was thinking the same thing.

Half of her heart wanted to lie but the heart wants what it wants right but sometimes you know better.

"It means exactly what it sounds like. I know we're in different places of our life today as compared to the time when I said that. But it's not just for the time being for me. He will always be very important to me because I've spent such an important time of my life with him. I've learned so many things from him. So yeah, as a respect for the time that we spent together and the immense respect that I have for him, that statement will hold this entire lifetime," she said out loud.

By the end of her words, she became emotional. One could hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes.

She derived her acting skills from her emotions and right now what she was feeling, no amount of talent could diminish it from showing on her face.

Sam also sucked in a sharp breath and he placed his fingers on the bridge of his nose and then at the corner of her eyes and looked at her as he opened his eyes and mouthed, "thank you," to her.

She smiled the first genuine smile to him in days and he nodded his head at her.

Sam knew he was a jerk and as much facade as he fit himself into, to show that he didn't care, it was her words, whenever she said something to him, he would always follow her around like a lost puppy.

He couldn't deal with the fact that she walked out on him, she picked up her stuff, packed up eight years like they were clothes and stuffed them into a suitcase, and took them along with her when she vacated the house. He hated that she didn't even once come back to him. She didn't beg to stay. She didn't beg him to take her back. How was it so easy for her to forget the life they once had.

He couldn't break her. He wanted to see her break if that was what it would take to make her show her emotions.

But she never did. She was strong as her resolve. Nobody was that strong so maybe it meant that she didn't care at all about him. She had never cared about him? But she promised all those things to him? He became so confused as he looked at her at the moment saying those things about him and then recalled the look on her face that day when she said she didn't want to be with him anymore.

How were those both the same women?