My Pretend Fiancé

As Lenina pushed Danny away, completely shocked by his actions, Tori and Leonard were banging on the door outside, screaming for Danny to let them in. Danny saw the look on Lenina's face and wondered if he had just made a huge mistake. He did not regret kissing her, but he did want to show her that someone would be there for her... always.

"It's rude to not answer the door," Lenina whispered while she looked down at her cup of Starbucks wishing it was full again. Danny sighed and nodded his head, getting up to get the door. When he did, both Tori and Leonard came in lashing at him and Lenina.

"What the hell, Lenina? You can't just go running off in the middle of the night!" Tori was the first to yell at her.

"What the fuck were you doing with my fiancé?" Leonard screamed as Danny glared at both of them. Lenina was desperately sucking on the straw that was placed in the huge plastic container, hoping that her small cup of happiness would return.

"Oh, and what you did to her was okay?" Danny lashed back at him shocking Tori, who was at this moment perplexed.

"I thought you two got into a fight, Leonard, what the hell is he talking about?" She had some questions, but when she almost figured it out, Leonard took a deep breath and walked over to Lenina but Danny stopped him.

"Don't you touch her," he threatened.

"You know, my mom always said that fighting was bad, and when it gets loud that's when people start to not like each other, and I don't want anyone to stop liking anyone." Lenina blathered to try and keep herself calm and to try and tell everyone else to stop fighting.

"You know what! I'll admit it, I was going to do something with that woman Lenina caught me with, but I swear to you, Lenina-- nothing happened." Tori was appalled by what she had just heard from Leonard. She was pulled out of bed with Cindy for this?

"You're kidding me, right? You were that stupid! Shit, if I lose Cindy because of you Leonard, I swear..." That's when both Danny and Leonard looked at Tori questioningly. Cindy?

"Who's Cindy?" Danny asked but Tori was too upset to answer.

"Lenina, are you even listening? Lenina!" Lenina looked up at her, tears brimming her eyes. Tori kneeled in front of her, looking deep into Lenina's eyes and knew that even if she loved Lenina, it wasn't her job to take care of her anymore. "Lenina, I can't be here for you all the time. You need to learn how to handle things on your own, and you, too, mister!" Tori stood up and got close to Leonard's face. "You need to take care of her, because it's your job now, Leonard, I can't keep doing this. I can't keep leaving the first real girlfriend I ever had!" Tori yelled at both men and they were now in complete shock.

"You're a lesbian?" Leonard asked extremely confused, as Tori just rolled her eyes and nodded her head. Lenina looked up at Tori realizing that her coming to Danny's house caused a lot more trouble then she thought it would. She could see the pain on Tori's face and that was something that she could understand. Lenina didn't want Tori to be in pain and she knew that being here was causing her pain. Lenina placed the Starbucks cup down on the table and stood up. Everyone stopped arguing to look over at Lenina to see what she would do.

"I'm sorry, Tori. Please don't be sad!" Lenina hugged Tori tightly causing her to loose some of the anger that was built up within her.

"Lenina, it's not that easy. Now what you need to do, is go home and talk things over with Leonard, okay?" Lenina nodded her head and looked over at Leonard who had a stern face on.

"I won't let her go with hi-" Danny had begun to say something, but Tori sharply cut him in mid-sentence.

"You will, Danny," she said. "You can sort out your mess another day." Danny shut up and sat down on his couch, wondering how everything got to be like this and how his happy friendship with Lenina turned into some bad soap opera.

"Fine." Tori looked at Leonard who walked over to Lenina, holding out his hand. Hesitantly Lenina took it and then led her out the door. Danny was left on his couch to think about everything that had happened that night. He had caused quite a ruckus, but the only adrenalin left in his body was the strong tingling Lenina had roused within him from the kiss that he dared to steal.

"You going to be okay, Tori?" Leonard asked knowing it was the least he could do. He obviously realized that he also caused her trouble for being as egotistical as he is.

"As long as I get home, now." Leonard nodded his head and watched her run off to her car that was promptly parked in front of his house. Leonard, however, wanted more walking time, even though no one was home, to talk to Lenina. To make her understand that nothing happened and that...it would never happen again.

"Why did you do that? Did you not like kissing me?" Lenina asked sadly. Leonard looked at her shocked because he simply didn't expect a question like that to come out of her. He shook his head knowing that he enjoyed kissing Lenina very much because it was doing something more than his expectations, and he knew he would feel horribly guilty if he tried anything so reckless as earlier that night ever again.

"No, that's not why, Lenina," he said. "Understand, I'm a man and I sometimes have...needs. It was stupid of me to do that though, I should have never, ever done that to you." Lenina was still confused, why didn't Leonard tell her anything about his needs? Her mother always told her that the key to a good relationship was to have good communication. Without communication a relationship can't grow.

"But, why didn't you tell me anything? I'm your fiancé, you should be able to come to me with your problems," she said matter-of-factly. Lenina looked down on the floor as they got to the house. Leonard stood in front of her, knowing that she really didn't know what he was talking about but he knew that he would make it up to her, he would be loyal and do anything for her...well, maybe not everything.

"Because, Lenina...you're so innocent and...listen, just know that I don't want to hurt you again, ever." Lenina wasn't sure if she could believe that. She knew that it was important to give people a second chance, but what Leonard did had really hurt her. She didn't understand why it hurt her, why there was a pain in her heart, but ultimately she knew that she never wanted to go through it again.

"Do you think you could ever trust me?"

---

"Cindy? CINDY!" Tori ran into her apartment to find all the lights off. Tori's heart began to beat harder and walked into her bedroom to find the drawer she had put aside for Cindy left open and empty. Her bed was unkempt and no one was in it.

She didn't know what to do, she did the only thing she could do: scream, and cry, feeling the tears falling desperately from her eyes. She couldn't believe that after all her hard work, after everything they had been through, Cindy had just up and left. Her heart was screaming at her when she kicked her shoes off and ran her fingers through her hair. What she didn't expect was the post-it she found on her mirror with Cindy's hand writing. What was written on it broke Tori's heart even more. She realized then that the only thing she had ever regretted before in her life was leaving the apartment that night.

"I'm needy, too..."