Gettysburg: Untold Stories

"I don't want to talk." I raised my voice so he could hear me through the door.

"I have a key to your room. I was knocking just to make sure you were decently dressed. Not
that I'd have a problem with walking in on you indecently dressed. Open the door, Bambi."
Leave it to Zak to creep around and get a key to my room. Leave. It. To. Him.

"Shit," I muttered to myself and opened the door to let him in. Technically, if you were my dad, I was dressed indecently in pajama shorts and a cami. But I didn't really care, considering I was unattractive anyway. "What do you want, Zak?..." I mumbled (boy, was I grumpy today) as he sauntered in. He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor as if he were nervous. Now this threw me for a trip. Zak had never been nervous in his life, I mean, unless you kind of count the anxiety he had, but he had well defeated that. Anyway, I took a few steps toward him and tried to look him in the eyes. He was being evasive, though, so I huffed and threw myself down on the bed, putting my arms over my head and sighing loudly.

After a long silence that comprised of Zak keeping his back to me, and myself slightly stretching out, I sat up on the edge of the bed. "Are you going to talk to me?" He was in leg's reach, so I stuck out my foot and pushed the back of his knee to get his attention.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah..." Why was he even in here if he wasn't going to talk? I scrunched my
eyebrows and leaned my head to the side as he turned around to face me. "What happened
yesterday? On the uh..elevator..." I sighed and put my head in my hands. I really didn't feel like explaining it to him, but knowing Zak, he wouldn't give up until he knew.

"I panicked. I'm slightly claustrophobic, I guess, so when those doors closed I...freaked out."
Taking my head out of my hands, I looked him in the eyes as he seemed to be thinking about
my answer.

"But you were just fine the other day when you came down with your equipment."

"I wasn't under duress then," I mumbled, and he apparently didn't hear me, because he said
"What?"

"I said, 'I wasn't under duress then.'" I emphasized every word, but not too harshly, and he
raised his eyebrows in question. "Our little...spat...stressed me out." He snickered at my
response, and I swung at his knee but missed, which made him laugh even harder. "Well, if you think it's so fucking funny, go have a panic attack and like it, " I spat at him, and he shut up. After a few awkward moments, he spoke again, this time in a nicer tone.

"I'm sorry. I knew a few people like that, and it's not funny." What a coincidence that mine aren't that bad though. Yeeeah. After thinking, he added "yours aren't either. I guess I just didn't take it as seriously because you always seem so strong." I scoffed at that. Me? Bambi Connor? Strong? No sir.

"C'mon, Zak, you cant possibly think I'm strong. You're macho man and you think I'm strong?
Buddy, you have a lot to learn." I shook my head and smiled while I looked in his eyes. He just looked confused and scrunched his eyebrows together. <i>Aw, cute,</i> I thought. <i>Wait...no, I did not just think that. Ugh.</i>

Zak sat down on the bed next to me and ran a hand through his hair. He hadn't styled it yet, and it just kinda flopped back on his forehead in a mess. I snorted quietly and he turned to look at me with a confused look again.

"Bambi, just because I'm tall or can lift something heavy doesn't mean I'm strong. I've seen you go through so much shit and you don't even flinch. It's amazing, and I almost..." he paused and thought about it like his next words would pain him to admit. Sighing, he continued, "envy you for it." No wonder it pained him; Zak had never admitted to envying anyone. It wasn't like he would lose an arm saying it, but he just never felt jealousy. Zak was very...self-confident, in a good way, a way I wished I could be, and I knew it was a big deal for him to envy someone (strange that that someone was me).

I pat his back and put my hand back in my lap. "It's okay, buddy. You'll find your strength
somewhere in those massive muscles of yours." My small Georgian accent came out when I
said that, but I ignored it. The boys knew I had a little accent and had long grown out of making fun of me for it.

Before I could say anything else, Zak wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I almost looked up at him with a puzzled look on my face, but he didn't exactly hand out affection often; if this was my only chance, I was going to take it. Not that I wanted anything romantic from this, but it seemed that he was only trying to comfort me as a friend. I put my head on his shoulder and took a deep breath. After a few moments of silence, he pulled his arm back and stood up.

"Well, thanks for the talk," I threw into the awkward silence. The look on his face was completely blank, and I knew he was thinking about something and concentrating on it hard. Zak didn't make that face often, but when he did he was making some kind of big decision. Aaron made this face all the time when we asked him if he wanted to eat at McDonald's or Burger King. Anyway.

I stood up to walk Zak out of the door, because it seemed like he was getting ready to leave and all, but he didn't move an inch. Our bodies were so close we were almost touching, and I felt a weird feeling standing this close to him, face to face, probably because we had never been like this before. Yes, I had hugged him a few times prior to this, but never had we just stood like this, me waiting for him to move toward the door and him just...standing there. Not exactly staring at me, but looking in my direction, contemplating...something.

"Uh...Are you--" I was going to ask him if he was alright, but turns out he had different plans.
Stopping me in the middle of my sentence, he leaned down and kissed me.
Zak Bagans. Kissed me. Not only that, but he put his hand on my cheek and pulled me closer to him. As he...kissed me. I was confused for a moment, but then I realized it just felt rather...fitting.

Before I knew what I was doing, I kissed him back, and there we were, standing between my
bed and the TV, kissing each other.

To be honest, I didn't really mind it. His lips were soft, and though he seemed a bit demanding, I wasn't complaining. Okay, Zak was hot, I'll admit it, and nothing stopped me from running my fingers up his arms and lacing my fingers in his hair. When I was finally starting to really get into it, he pulled away and walked out of the room without looking me in the eye once. For a few minutes, I just stood in the spot where he had left me, arms hanging at my sides limply, staring at the strangely wallpapered walls and trying to figure out what had just happened.

When I finally got back my senses, I dug through my bag and found a sweatshirt, roughly pulled it over my head, and stomped down the hall, not even bothering to wonder if the door locked behind me. I found Nick's room 5 doors down and knocked (rather loudly) on the door. As I waited for him to answer, I tapped my foot in frustration, which I normally never did unless I was extremely angry. He finally opened the door, and I stormed in, stopping halfway down the hall to the living room and spinning around to face him.

"Do you know what he did to me?" I demanded an answer from Nick, but didn't give him time to answer. "He came in my room, kissed me, and then left. Who in the hell does that?" my voice broke rather pathetically and obviously throughout my sentences, but I didn't care at this point.

Telling from the look on Nick's face, he was a bit surprised by how angry I was, and I almost
broke down and hugged him before I noticed some kind of awkward silence in the whole room.

The buzzing noise from the TV had stopped; that's what I had noticed. How did Nick do that
from way over there...? I thought as I turned around toward the living room.

<i>Oh shit,</i> was exactly what I thought when I saw Zak and Aaron sitting on the couch. They had obviously been watching Tron, but now the volume was muted and Aaron was staring at me with his mouth wide open, while Zak just looked at the walls and was shaking his head curtly, but definitely with a furious look on his face. I almost covered my mouth with my hands, as if that could put the words back into my mouth, but that wasn't going to happen, so I just stood there for a second. What now?

"Uh...Okay." Zak got up from the couch and pushed past me, knocking my shoulder with his on the way out. That really pissed me off, and I followed him out into the hall. When I got out of the door and heard it click behind me, I caught up with him and grabbed his arm. Before he could react, I turned him around and reached up to slap him with all the force I had. The look on his face was honestly priceless, but I forgot about that when I felt a sting on my hand and saw the handprint that now stained his cheek in red. No, I really hadn't thought about what I did before I did it, and I really didn't think about what the consequences might be, but Zak deserved it. I just decided to wait for what he would do next, hoping that it wouldn't be to slap me back.

Instead, he just brought his hand up to his cheek and looked me dead in the face. The way that he looked at me wasn't full of rage, though; it reminded me of Benjamin, whoever that guy was.

And the feelings that I had toward the man standing in front of me weren't my own; my head
was reeling for a second before I realized that I was letting something else control me. I couldn't really do anything, and trust me, I tried. Whoever this was holding Bambi down was not about to let go, because there was something she wanted to say, but couldn't find the words to.

"I..uh...I..." I stuttered, trying to place the words that I wanted to say to him. "I'm alright," was one thing that kept popping up in my head, but somehow I knew those weren't my words and vaguely sensed that Zak didn't want to hear them. Somehow in my mind, I found and broke down that wall that was built up against my control of what was going on, and I finally turned around and walked straight back to my room, not wanting to face what was in that hallway right behind me. I was too scared of Zak...too scared of Benjamin. But somehow I knew that I feared both of them for completely different reasons.