Avoiding Responsibility (Avoiding 2)

"I really wanted to tell you Ramsey. I know what we've been through," Lexi said pausing to fully look him in the face. She needed to stand up for herself. She couldn't cower and hide behind her actions. She needed to take responsibility for what she had done. "No I just, I can't apologize for it happening…"

Ramsey's eyes narrowed. Out of the corner of her eye, Lexi could see Chyna's mouth drop open. She knew this was a do or die moment. The two people she cared about most were waiting for an answer that she just couldn't give them. She couldn't grovel and apologize for what she had done. She had been that person before, but she wasn't sorry about sleeping with John. It had been something she had done when she had been a single woman. It's not as if she had asked for a break, they had broken up. She had told Ramsey not to call her and he hadn't. She thought it was over. The fact that she was even in Atlanta with Ramsey was completely unanticipated.

But she didn't want him to get the wrong idea. She loved him, but she hated the lying. And she hadn't meant him to think that she was lying. She just hadn't gotten around to telling him yet. But now she needed to make him understand.

Lexi sighed before continuing. "No, I'm sorry that it hurts you. I really am, but I'm not sorry that I slept with someone else," Lexi said amazed that she could even get the words out. "I wasn't dating you at the time. We were two consenting adults. In fact, I hadn't anticipated getting back together with you. Things changed clearly since then, and it's not going to ever happen again, but it did happen. I can't change it.

"So either you have to accept that fact along with me or you don't. We're just at that point," Lexi said standing tall and fighting the urge to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. She was both more nervous about Ramsey's reaction than anything before this moment, and also completely confident in her decision to finally stand up for herself. Ramsey looked as if he wasn't sure exactly what he wanted to say.

Before he got the chance, Chyna butted in, "But you still slept with John knowing the kind of person he is. You still did it. Just because you say these things doesn't make it better. Think about what you did with him," Chyna said with a shudder. Adam reached out for her, but she didn't stop talking. "How can you even go on with your life? I'm sorry Adam, but you're brother is kind of disgusting," she said with an easy shrug.

"Can we really drop this line of conversation?" he said with a roll of his eyes. "I know how you feel about him, and it made us do stupid things once before. Let's just avoid it all together."

Chyna batted him away from her, and turned back towards Lexi. "I'm sorry I can't just ignore this fact. My best friend slept with your brother. Not to mention you knew about it and didn't tell me. You guys were keeping it secret together. Alexa has never kept a secret from me before and now this. How could you?" Chyna asked a hitch in her voice.

"Chyna…" Lexi stammered looking at her friend sympathetically. She honestly hadn't meant for it to be a secret for so long. Before that phone call from Ramsey, she had intended on telling Chyna…one day. She just hadn't been ready yet, and then afterwards she had wanted to forget it had happened. She never wanted Chyna to know.

"Do you really blame her for not telling you after how you're overreacting?" Adam asked attempting to talk some sense into her.

"Overreacting?" she squeaked. "You haven't seen overreacting!"

"And we don't want to," he said shaking his head at her.

"The fact that she slept with your brother doesn't bother you?"

"No," he stated simply with a shrug. "It really doesn't, and it shouldn't bother you. It's not like I think something happened between you and John. I certainly wouldn't be okay with that, but my brother isn't a bad guy. And as she said they are two consenting adults…"

"You're brother isn't a bad guy?" Chyna groaned rolling her eyes dramatically. "I wouldn't wish him on someone I like a lot less than Alexa."

"We've been through this," he grumbled clearly annoyed, "but you can't change it. All you can do is accept the fact that it happened and move on. She's your best friend after all. You two have been through a lot together…"

Chyna turned back to Lexi as if she were considering Adam's point, then shook her head. "That's exactly the reason that this doesn't make any sense. You've never been that person with me. Yet, you hid things from me…your best friend. I know you hide things from everyone else, but me? I thought you sleeping with Jack before their engagement was an all time low…but this…" Chyna stammered out in anger.

Lexi's hand went to her mouth instantly in shock. She couldn't believe that Chyna would blurt out the secret she had been trying to keep from revealing all along. You could have heard a pin drop in the room the silence was all encompassing.

When Lexi had thought that everything was out on the table after her confession about John, she hadn't actually anticipated everything being out on the table. She hadn't thought that Chyna would ever tell anyone, let alone a room full of people, that she had slept with Jack prior to his engagement to Bekah. She hadn't told anyone else so she hadn't been expecting anyone else to blurt out the news.

In all honestly, there was only one real reason why she hadn't told Bekah about her and Jack f**king during his birthday party a year ago. It certainly wasn't her regard for the woman. She despised Bekah. In fact, she couldn't think of a person she liked less. Yet, she had held back that one fact. She had held back the one thing that would have seriously turned Bekah away from Jack. It was what she had always wanted.

She didn't want Bekah and Jack to marry…that much she knew. But after all that, she still hadn't told her the terrible awful thing that they had done in the hallway. She couldn't bring herself to do it. Not only was it humiliating that she had been bitchy enough…and desperate enough to actually sleep with him, but he had been so cruel and cold to her afterwards. He had kept his distance as if the only thing he had been after was the sex, and once he had it he was through with her. She had never felt so low…so used. Her self-worth had plummeted that night, and she didn't want anyone other than Chyna to know that.

Even after that when she had finally begun to recover, she hadn't blurted the news to Bekah. When Bekah had pulled out that big honking diamond…Lexi's diamond, she still had kept quiet. After she even told Bekah that she was wearing a fake ring…for Christ's sake the woman was wearing a fake diamond ring. She was told she was planning to marry a guy who had given her a ring that was intended for someone else entirely, and yet she had still continued with the wedding. Even after all that, Lexi had still kept the truth from her.